A wedding, a Tesla, and almost poking my eye out! Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday friends!

Starting off serious and ending silly!

I'm writing this on October 12th, eleven months since Mom died. Sometimes it seems slightly easier but this last month, since her birthday in September, it's often much harder. It's weird. I would think that the grief would slowly become easier to bear. But no. They say that grief isn't linear and this last month is proving that out. Ugh.

I was talking to my coach Sara at Discovery Horse about how it feels like I have a hole in my body. Sara said, "A Mom sized hole." I immediately saw this in my head:

That's about right. Some days I feel like I'm just edges held together by duct tape and bubble gum. A good gust of wind and I might blow apart.

Can I be done now?

Some days it feels very much like none of my coping mechanisms work and I need to just go to bed and pull the covers over my head. I wonder how much longer it can last like this...

She loved (LOVES!) my ManChild:

And yes, yes, she really is with me and is easily accessed, lucky me! But gawwwwwwd, it's not the same is it?

In really cool news though, I was talking with my Sara about Mom and a Bluejay flew overhead. Sounds like no big deal but! I have a friend who can speak to the other side too and she did a session with Mom and me last month. At the end she asked if I would like to have another sign (besides cardinals which Mom said she'd send and does) and I said Bluejays because I never see them here. Weird because I see them in other areas locally but not at my farm. I was sitting in my driveway in my new-to-me Tesla (the whole roof is glass) which is a great place to have a therapy session when there are people in the house. I was telling Sara how Mom makes herself known to me and, I kid you not, that Bluejay flew right over my head!

OMG! I told Sara the story and as we continued to talk, the Bluejay, or maybe more than one who knows, went back and forth over my head 3 times! The last time it was carrying an entire peanut in the shell like a cigarette, in it's beak LOL

Since my next errand was the feed store, I bought a 25 lb bag of peanuts in the shell!

Speaking of peanuts 😂:

And speaking of Teslas! B-Rad has had a Tesla Model 3 for five years now and being an engineer, he is a zealot about them. When we were in Colorado and getting ready to move to North Carolina, I decided to sell Sunny, my Jeep Wrangler to pay for all the indoor and outdoor painting we had done to prep for showing. We had the F150 as our farm truck so it became our second car. Who needs 3 cars?

Fast forward to North Carolina. B-Rad and I have done just fine sharing the Model 3 and the rule is, s/he who is going the furthest away, gets to drive the electric car. The cost of charging it is about 1/3 of the price of gas. But the truck...is slowly beginning to do weird things. Like stranding me on the side of the road. Typical that it never happened to B-Rad. We had it fixed. Then the weird transmission sound started happening again, a huge thump, like something fell out of the bottom of the truck and it keeps rolling along like nothing happened. Uhhhh...WTH. Yikes. The mechanic said, "At some point it will do that, die, and then you'll need a new transmission. Great. Which means I can't drive it to Pittsburgh to visit my brother and B-Rad's Tesla only gets about 240 miles on a charge.

So, I thought it was time to look at hybrids, best of both worlds right? I dove into the research because that's a bunch of fun for me (seriously, it really is!) and decided to look at the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid (40mpg) and the Prius Hybrid (56mpg). Over the weeks I was doing that, I was also seeing the big pros of the Tesla and realizing that I would miss driving it. I told that to B-Rad and he redoubled his efforts to figure out a way that I could have a dual motor Model Y (the SUV that goes 330 miles on a charge) instead 😂  I did mention he's a Tesla zealot right?!

Then his car needed a battery replacement—no, not that battery, the 12 volt kind that all cars have—so we headed off to Tesla in Raleigh to get it. While we were there, well, we might as well test drive a Model Y right?

Whoops.

Did you know that I like fast cars?

Did you know the Model Y does 0-60 in 4.4 seconds?

I looked like this:

And then I looked like this:

And then B-Rad looked like this:

😂

And on the way home we stopped and test drove a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid.

And both of our faces looked like this:

That's when we both got busy, looking for used Model Ys because obviously one cannot go around looking like that 👆🏽 all the time.

Found one at a dealership in Virginia, 15k miles, 2021 which meant it was still under warranty but didn't have that God-awful new car smell that makes me physically sick. And like B-Rad's, it came with the full self drive package!

ManChild was so happy we weren't buying from an individual at their house:

Gawd, this kid! Made me laugh out loud!

We drove to Virginia Beach and back on Saturday. He charged twice and I charged once. Yay!

Meet, the Little Blue Bean:

The best thing about her is that she insists on getting off the farm at least once a day. She's already good for me :-)

Funny how I didn't even realize that only having one car that was trustworthy was a stress on me. Having to say, "Hey, I'm going to______ can I take your car?" felt icky. And I always felt a little bad taking his car when I was going further. I mean, he looooooooves that car.

Loves it like it's a person.

Which it kind of is lol

And now, I have my own, and I see more and more why he's so in love. I bet you'll be hearing more about the joy of the Tesla, whether you want to or not 😂 Also, super happy the used car market is back up and running again!

And in my first episode of I LOVE MY TESLA:

We have discussed that I'm a 12 year old boy at heart right?

THE RANCH:

Fairy Ring:

"Treats? Treats? Treats?" I always carry them in my pockets :-)

I love this Kissing Tree in the forest so much:

The spiders are working overtime right now! Two different, huge webs and about a dozen I didn't take pics of:

The Polar Bear had to go to the vet for her 6 month ear infection visit. In dry Colorado, nada. Here, like clockwork, every 6 months. They keep giving me stuff to put in her ears but nothing has worked so far. She's such a good girl at the vet though. She never bites them even though she kinda wants to (she's never bitten anyone) and she begrudgingly lets them cut her nails while she's there.

I accidentally slammed my cheekbone into this pan handle which was inexplicably left sticking out into the pantry:

As I was yelling and thrashing around on the ground, trying not to cry, I was somehow able to gasp, "ICE!" and then, "Helichrysum!" (and essential oil that stops bleeding) No, I wasn't bleeding externally but I was certainly going to have a raging black eye if I didn't do something about it immediately.

B-Rad brought both right away and now 3 days later, I'm no longer having to take Advil for the pain and only have a small bruise under my eye. Jeez. Josh and Jamie's wedding is this weekend here at the ranch and that's all I need, a huge shiner 🙄

Josh is B-Rad's older son from his first marriage and they asked to have the ceremony here :-) So, we are prepping! Like my mowing get-up?

It always makes me happy to see it mid mow. The dark stuff is some sort of red seed heads in the grass:

They are getting married, barring rain, at that arch between the Pampas Grass.

And B-Rad has been painting the front doors, yay!

That yellow is BRIGHT! But it looks nice with the grey house. I bought some yellow Pansies to tie in.

Cobweb dusting is ridiculous when you live in the forest:

This morning when we went out to do chores we found this:

 I immediately assumed big boy Wynter until I caught sight of Raynie girl's butt:

Busted!

Thursday morning started with me making ManChild breakfast and cracking an egg on the counter like I always do but it cracked all the way open before I could even move it to the pan!

As we were headed out to chores we found this pretty creature, it was about 2.5 inches long. Apparently it's in its land dwelling, juvenile stage:

And then with the unexpected rain, the Polar Bear was a muddy, stinky mess and had to have a bath before coming in:

But the sun is back out, I'm just about done with this newsletter and then I'll head out to mow and plant Pansies on this glorious, breezy, 74º afternoon. All the doors and windows have been thrown wide open to let the fresh air in. Fall is fabulous here!

THE MEMES:

I'm such a "1" on this scale that I had no idea that 2-5 existed! You?

I saw this and specifically posted it for my Aunt Katy who was a nurse in a hospital for a thousand years and is still recovering:

I am facebook friends with this woman and her post made me laugh and laugh, "mouth full of people teeth!" Zoom in!

And the one that made me laugh the hardest, to the point that B-Rad, who was laughing with me said, "That's a little frightening that you find it so funny..." 😂 Which made me laugh even harder: