After reaching the end of the modern medicine road and still being in a lot of pain, tons of side effects, new muscle spasms and nerve pain, I decided to try natural medicine. My neighbor told me about this herbal specialist in Portland that helped a friend of hers who had severe liver problems and was given only two months to live. She is doing fine now. The guy is a little bit "far out there", but I have an open mind and am willing to try whatever to get well. It has been one week without any pills and I am doing pretty well, not perfect, but a lot better. I am taking 8 different herbal remedies and bee pollen as well as not consuming any red meat, milk, cheese, peanuts or soy. My stomach feels great, I have more energy, I seem to be losing weight, no headaches and the pain levels have gone down. I hope this continues....I will let you know.

Where can I turn for peas, where is my solace.....
It is nice to finally by enjoying vegetables from my own garden! The lettuce is amazing right now, too, but today is the start of a heatwave and I had to harvest all of it in the last few days. The tomatoes are starting to get blossoms, so maybe it won't be long until they have fruit. This has been the easiest vegetable garden I ever had with the best results. I will definitely be doing this again!

What creates more fun and family unity than a game of Scrabble, right? Not when you have two highly competitive sore losers. Cheri came down for the weekend last week when she couldn't take the lack of sunshine in Tacoma anymore. Cheri used a questionable word and ended up winning. Brian refused to accept her win, saying without the word in question she would have less points and he would have won. So, when I was taking pictures of them at the end of the game, Brian stole the scoresheet from Cheri before I could take a picture of her with it and then he ate it with a big smile on his face.