Allergy season.....UGHHHHH!

Well, it's official....I am miserable! My allergies this season have been terrible. I went to the doctor last week begging for some relief. Unfortunately, all he gave me was stuff to help me tolerate the pollen. I want a magic wand to wave over my face and make me feel like myself again. My teeth even hurt!!! I finally called the doctor back yesterday and he started me on antibiotics. At first, they wanted me to come in.....kept asking questions about how I felt. I think they thought I had the swine flu. It's more like the Chattanooga air!!!

I did wonder why my arms kept breaking out in a rash after carrying all that fire wood Ken was cutting last week. Well, turns out, as of my last allergy test, I am allergic to Oak and Hickory, among many many other things. Guess what? That's what we were cutting down. Oh well, at least I am starting to feel better.

As for yesterday, well, that's a different story. I know that we have all heard the horror stories of things that kids do. Well, Kevin yesterday surprised me. While I was driving down Apison Pike doing about 45 mph, he decides that it would be fun to open his car door. Since he is in a booster seat now, he loves that he has more freedom to move around. After the initial shock of hearing him screaming because his door was wide open, and getting control of the car as it started swerving, I was able to pull over and shut it. Of course, he got his behind busted and was grounded to his room the rest of the night. Plus, word of advice, use the child safety lock on your car. Now, there is no way to have a repeat performance of yesterday. Of course, after last night, I doubt Kevin will ever be able to open a car door without having some kind of traumatic experience.

All in all, pollen = BAD.....child safety locks = GOOD

Tomorrow I will be posting my allergy free recipe for Sugar Cookies. Great to bake or freeze uncooked dough if you just want a few.

Here we go...Recipe #A1 Banana Citrus Sorbet

This is a recipe that I came across in my Taste of Home cookbook. Ken and Kevin absolutely love this dessert, and I love it served along side some sugar cookies (I'll share the sugar cookie recipe next week).

Banana Citrus Sorbet

1/2 cup lemon juice
3 medium ripe bananas, cut into chunks
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups cold water
1 1/2 cups orange juice

Pour lemon juice and bananas in blender,; cover and process until smooth. Add sugar; cover and process until blended. Pour in water and orange juice and blend slowly. If there is not enough room in your blender for all the OJ, transfer to a large bowl and stir in the rest.

Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer two-thirds full; freeze according to manufacturer's directions. Refrigerate remaining mixture until ready to freeze. Transfer to a freezer container; freeze for 2-4 hours before serving. May be frozen for up to 1 month.

Yield: 2 1/2 quarts

With the weather getting warmer, I hope you will enjoy this wonderful cool treat.

Mom's Birthday...

Yesterday was my mother's birthday....so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM/MAMAW!!!!



Kevin had specific orders for the cake I was to make for her. He wanted it to be a caterpillar cake. They love to spend time together playing outside, and she always finds some kind of critter to show him. So, now, anything to do with his mamaw revolves around nature. So, I made the cake....although it did end up looking like something for a 1 year old. But, she loved it and that's all that mattered.



Today, we drove up to Sweetwater and picked strawberries. We have been waiting all winter to go do this again. This was our 3rd year going up to Strawberry Knob Farms. They have the best strawberries, and it is so much fun spending the day with your family picking fruit. Of course, I think Kevin ate more than he put in the bucket....Ken too. We plan to go up there one more time before the season is up. We usually try to go the week before our beach trip. That way we have a huge bucket of them to eat on our drive to Florida. Good plan huh?



Also, I may be making a few minor changes to the blog. Lately, I have been receiving lots of emails and requests for allergy free recipes. As many of you know, I have been working on a Milk free / Egg free / Nut free cookbook for some time now. Since it takes money to publish a book and market it....I have decided that for the time being, I will put a new recipe on this blog each week. These are not only for allergy sufferers, but for anyone looking to eat healthier and cut back on fat and cholesterol. To make it easier to find the new recipes, I will include "Recipe # XX" in the subject line. I hope this will help those looking for the recipes, instead of having to read through all the family stuff.



Well, I am off to tend to my garden. I already have a ton of squash and some tomatoes growing. Plus, the carrots are going wild. I think next year, I will cut back on how many seeds I sow.....maybe (<:

What a week!!!

Well, we finally got the tree cut up and stacked. We ended up having to cut 2 more trees down and another topped due to the large oak falling on them. The dogs have been going stir crazy being cooped up in their tiny kennel. They've been fighting and Max will just stand in the middle and bark at the sky. Ken was able to put the fence up and open their kennel back, so they're happy.

Poor Ken got to chop all the wood up and I stacked it. We both are hurting from the top of your head to our feet. Talk about manual labor!!! We have some people coming over to pick up the wood, so that will be good to get it out of here. Being around all that saw dust and pollen, no one in the house can hardly breath. Everyone is coughing and has sore throats with runny noses. I'm actually glad that it's raining today. It's a good excuse to lay around and relax, plus the rain should help wash away some pollen.

My next project this week will be working on planting some new beds and a ground cover walkway next to our house. It's a very shady area and it has a draining ditch and stream running next to it. When we get heavy rains, it washes some of the bank away and we are losing our property. Ken built a retaining wall which looks very nice and I am planting bamboo and ground covers to spread out and create a mat. Hopefully it will look nice while it is saving our property. I will try to post some photos tomorrow if the rain stops long enough to get some.

Had a great Easter...and the tree finally fell...YEAH!

Well, yesterday was great! We started this wonderful Easter attending church with mom, Lowell and Lowell's daddy at Shields Baptist. Kevin did wonderful in church and sat very good. He loves to sing the hymnals. After church, we headed home for lunch and to get Kevin's Easter basket. The Easter bunny was very good to him. He had his basket torn apart, taking inventory of everything the bunny brought him. He was very concerned on why the bunny brought him jelly beans and peeps since he doesn't like them. You'd think the Easter bunny would know that, but oh well....I guess mommy and daddy get some candy!!!

We headed over to mom's for an Easter egg hunt and dinner. Well, the hunt turned into 3. The first one was for Kevin (mom and I hid the eggs and we still couldn't find all of them....I guess it's old age). The second hunt was Kevin and Grandaddy hiding them for mom and I (boy is she competitive. She about knocked me down to get to the eggs first..he-he-he). The third was Kevin, mom and I hiding them for Grandaddy and Ken (the photos of 2 grown men running thru the yard swinging their baskets is priceless).

Afterwards, we had a great dinner. Mom cooked a ham, and we had tons of great vegetables. We always fix too much. But that's the fun part, stuff ourselves, then sit back and groan. Of course, the whole meal was made without milk or eggs. Then we followed with an allergy free carrot cake.....YUM!!!

It was a great day, but the day turned scary thru the night. The storm last night scared me so bad. I am terrified now since the tree fell. I was up at 4:30am moving Kevin into our room since there is a huge pine tree next to the house. I stayed up to keep watch, and noticed around 5:30am that the huge oak that fell in the back yard, fell the rest of the way. The dogs were safe, but it scared them. So, in the garage they went. But, at least the tree is down. When it fell, however, it did take several trees with it. So now, instead of 1 tree, we have to finish cutting down 3 more. It ripped most the limbs off of 2 other trees, but I think they will make it. Now is the clean up. Unfortunately, when it fell, it did block our neighbor's driveway that cuts up behind our house. He must have been prepared since we noticed that he had to cut several limbs to get through. The storm also knocked several pieces of metal wall art I had on the house, plus flipped over a sago and busted the pot, plus knocking our power out for over 7 1/2 hours. Thankfully, the power is back on and every one is ok. Now....NO MORE STORMS!!!

Hope everyone had a great Easter.

What a storm...

Man, talk about some high winds. Kevin and I were playing Wii and Ken was taking a nap....we never even heard the tree fall. Yes, I said tree fall!!! Our large oak tree in the back yard fell over. But thank the Good Lord it fell the way it did. If it had fallen to the left, my greenhouse would be dust. If it had fallen to the right, the dogs would be gone. If it had fallen backwards, the kitchen and dining room would be gone. Not only did it fall in a good place, 2 other trees caught it and saved our kennel fence. God really did protect us. Just one more example how God can bless you!!!

Surgery is over and all is good!!!

First things first, I want to wish my Aunt Gayle a very happy birthday. I hope it was a great day for her...even though I gave her a hard time about her age! Nothing but love though!!

Yesterday was a crazy day between running to the hospital and then taking Kevin home. But everything worked out great!!! I think it was harder on me than it was on Kevin!! After all the med's they gave him, he was feeling really good. As they wheeled him to surgery, he was sitting up flirting with all the nurses. I was the one crying my eyes out. But, after about an hour & a half, the doc came into our room to tell us that everything looked great. There was no tethering, no scar tissue, the urethra looked great and he had a good straight solid stream of urine. The only thing they did find, which wasn't a big deal, was a little pocket of something in the urethra. It was from the sutchers from his previous surgery, but it was only 1 mm long and she removed it with no problem. Also, since they thought it was going to be more intensive, they gave him a caudle (sp?) in his back to numb him from the waist down. But that wore off before 3pm. So, thankfully, this chapter of his life is closed. There should be no need for any more surgeries! What a relief!!! After the doctor left, I felt like I could have ran a marathon and climbed the highest mountain. Then, once home, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was exhausted. Lack of sleep the night before (I think I got a total of 3 hours) and all the worrying and waiting....boy will that take it out of you. So once we got home and Mamaw & Grandaddy (Mom and Lowell) left, I ran around town getting whatever Kevin requested. Thankfully the kid has my taste and he wanted steak and potatoes for dinner with cookies for dessert. Good boy!!! I was able to pick me up something too....a new orchid for my collection. It is almost as tall as Kevin....how beautiful. By the way, this was Kevin 5 hours after the hospital....doesn't he look great!!!


So now, we will be able to celebrate Easter with the family. We plan on going to church with Mamaw and Grandaddy, hunting easter eggs and a big dinner. And since Saturday is supposed to be nice, maybe we'll go hiking or something. Whatever little Boo Boo wants!

From our family to yours.....Happy Easter!

Prayers are welcomed and needed!!!

Well, Erlanger called this morning to inform me that Kevin's surgery would be moved up to 11:15am. So, we have to be down there around 9:45am. I think it is sinking in more and more. I could barely sleep last night. My stomach has been so upset trying to deal with all this. I think Ken and I are handling this worse than Kevin. We have explained a little to him and he says he's fine with it. He is so grown up.....maybe too grown up. The poor little kid hasn't had a "normal" childhood by any means. But, it's normal to him, so that's all that matters. I am just praying that everything will go as planned tomorrow and he will be fine, bounce back and never remember any of this. Prayers are welcomed and needed. Thank you to all who have kept us in your thoughts and also sent words of encouragement.


On a brighter note, Ken and I were up till almost midnight covering all the plants and I think we have won the fight over the frost last night. Hopefully this will be the last frost till Spring. I have so many vegetables coming up and my apple trees are in bloom. Try covering a 10 ft tall apple tree with garbage bags!!! Our neighbors probably thought we were some strange prowlers last night. But the blooms still look great and hopefully won't fall off. All our neighbors say that we need to set Kevin up a vegetable stand in the drive way this summer. He actually wants to do that. So much for lemonade stands....


The palms did great also. I am afraid that one of my Windmills may have died over the winter, so we will have to wait and see. I would hate to imagine how much it would cost to replace it with a similarly sized one. I moved the rest of the plants into the greenhouse and they look very happy. Looks like we should have plenty of lemons and limes this year....I hope. Kevin wants to try growing soy beans so that we can make his soy milk and various other products here. I don't think we are going to try that. It's much easier to run to WalMart and buy that stuff.


Well, that's all for today. Of course, I will post Kevin's results as soon as I get the chance tomorrow. Hopefully there will not be much to report. And again, thanks for the prayers, we still need them.

Welcome to my first blog!!! Over the past months, so much has happened in my life and my family's life that I have decided to put it all down for family and friends. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with this daily, but I am praying that there will not be enough drama to report...only good things.

Today, I want to express my concerns over our son Kevin and his upcoming surgery Thursday April 9th. This will also be my aunt Gayle's 60th birthday, so this will be a day to celebrate and a day to worry. Hopefully the worry will not last too long and we can celebrate both events.

For those that do not know, our son Kevin is a wild 5 year old boy that has over come many challenges in his life. He was born 10 weeks early and survived 35 days in the NICU. He has bounced back from 3 surgeries and survived 2 anaphylactic reactions to food allergies. His food allergies have grown to milk (the worst), eggs, peanuts, treenuts, and coconuts. He has a ton of environmental allergies....too many to mention. But this has yet to stop this child. He loves life and is always happy. He is a blessing in more ways than one, and continues to show us that his many limitations will never stop him, just push him to jump over them. He has taught us more about patience, life and love than I could ever imagine.

Now, we are facing new wonderful challenges, all of which Kevin is helping his parents through. The first is our adventure into home schooling. Due to his increased food allergies, the thought of taking him to school to just bite my nails all day in hopes that he would not lose his battle to food allergies was too much for us. Of course, home schooling was a new chapter for us all. I was so scared into thinking how I was going to be responsible for teaching my child...it was very nerve racking. But, as this year has progressed, we are having more fun and I am amazed at how easy a child can learn, or how much they want to learn. Instead of dreading school work, we both look forward to spending time together and seeing the light come on when he gets something. That is the best feeling in the world!!

The second adventure has been with our garden. I was recently able to buy a small greenhouse for the back yard. Kevin and I have had a blast this past winter growing seeds. I have been growing vegetables and citrus, while Kevin has been focusing on flowers. He has grown Sunflowers, Marigolds, Zinnias, Daisies and Poppies. Now if the weather would just stay warm!!!

The third adventure is going to be little league baseball. Kevin has decided that he will play baseball this year. He will be playing in Collegedale, TN for the Baltimore Orioles. He is so excited. We will be going next week to pick out his pants, cleats and helmet...all of which I will report on. Ken has been working with him and he is getting really good. At his first game, I think we will need to reserve a whole section of the stands. From neighbors, to family, to friends, they all want to be there. It will be a great day!!


Some bad news....a few weeks ago our beloved cat Kitty of almost 13 years passed away. We are still mourning the loss. Many friends have tried to encourage us with new cats....but we are just not ready. At this time, I don't think that another cat could fill Kitty's paws. He was a wonderful part of our family and will be greatly missed.


So, for now, you are pretty much up to date. Until tomorrow........