The Fruits of my Labor

I'm sitting here eating breakfast. Toast with cherry jam I made last summer. I'd never made cherry jam. Heck. I've never eaten cherry jam. But oh boy. This stuff is good!

My plan for this summer as far as "jamming" is to pick blueberries in mid June. I'll probably freeze most of them whole and make syrup with the rest. Blueberry jelly isn't something I've tried before, so I think I'll stick to what I know there. Then after we get back from our trip to GA and NC, I'll put up blackberry and cherry jam.

And if I can find a good source for green beans, I'll can green beans, too.

Yummy. I love summer!

Dancing With Daddy

Mike is listening to some funky music that he got from my dad. (Imagine that: my dad likes funky music!)

So a song got into Mike's soul, I suppose, and he got up to start dancing (I call it flailing.)

And when he did, he happened to step on a pile of coins that Kira had piled on the floor and they made a nice clinking noise that she really liked. After a few minutes of watching Mike and sort of dancing, she got up, walked over to the pile of coins and starting dancing like crazy. :) It is just too cute to watch her mimicking Mike's movement: jumping, swinging her arms, bobbing her head. It's really cute. Who knew adding clinking coins would encourage a baby to dance? :)

I'll just have to make sure these dance lessons don't go on for too long. Her chances of normalcy are decreased if she thinks flailing is a proper form of dancing...

Just look at her dad.

Hurt Me, Rhonda

Last week I went to our local massage school for a massage. I have been having a lot of back/shoulder/neck pain recently that I know has been caused by large knots in my muscles.

The massage school has interns ($30/hr), advanced students ($40/hr), and instructors ($50/hr). I got an intern. A few times during her massage, it almost tickled. I will admit that she did relax me, but it did NOTHING for my back issues. So as I was leaving, I said to the woman who runs the school (and works the front desk), "Yeah, that was okay, but I need someone who will dig into my back." She said, "Come see Gabrielle next week." So yesterday I saw Gabrielle. She's also an intern, but oh my. She put a world of hurt on me. And those knots in my back/neck/shoulders? They are huge and plentiful. And extremely painful. The biggest ones are under my shoulder blades right in the middle.

I actually was brought to tears during the massage. It hurt so bad. But I knew it needed to.

I'm going back next week, too. These knots are going to take a while to work out. I hate spending the money on it, but it's at the point where it's causing me not to sleep well and I'm uncomfortable most days. And a few days ago I had pain shooting down my right arm. I wasn't sure what that was from, but during the massage, she hit a spot on my largest knot (which is at the right shoulder blade) and a huge shot of pain ran down my right arm. So at least I know it's all related.

I'm going to ask her to take it just a tad bit easier on me next week. I'm so sore from the massage that I can hardly sit here and type. My head has been pounding since the massage, too. And my nose is running. They say toxins from your muscles get released during a massage and I now believe that fully. I feel like crap.

But it's a good thing.