Is there such thing as a string of bad luck? A Curse? A Jinx? I am beginning to think there is. I have gone my whole life feeling pretty blessed. Things usually go my way. I have good intuition and I listen to my gut to let me know if I am making the right decisions in life. I have only had a few major mess ups that made me question that gut feeling. But is intuition the same as bad luck? Could I just have been lucky my whole life?

Well this past year I can honestly say that I have had a string of bad luck. Bad Luck health wise. In the last year (August to August) I have had the strangest of strange things happen to me. At first I blamed it on stress. Business is good which means I am very busy.... and that can cause stress right? But in the last couple of months I have had nothing but bad luck. It started in June, I felt bad, really bad, so I went to the emergency room. I had a blood clot in my lung. Reason? No one knows... I am young, sort of, in decent health, no reason at all to have a blood clot. One week after I get out of the hospital I wear a new pair of shoes to my 20 year high school reunion. The next day my foot hurts. A new pair of shoes can hurt your feet, right? But for a couple of weeks? I keep thinking it will get better, but no, it gets worse. I finally go to the doctor and I find out that I have a bone spur. Not a normal bone spur but one that is right in the middle of the bone right under a tendon. Why is it there? Because I had a stress fracture from those darn new shoes. So what can be done about it? Surgery.

After wearing a big unfashionable boot for almost two months I have the surgery. Let me tell you how tired I was of that boot....You can probably guess so I won't waist time writing about it. I had big plans when I threw that boot away. One of them was being able to wear two of my cool flip flops instead of just one. So yesterday I go to get the stitches removed and everything looks great! I am able to walk without pain AND I could wear two matching shoes. I was so happy!! I left the waiting area with a smile on my face and the receptionist waved at me like I was the queen of the homecoming parade.

Then I go home and after letting the dogs in I am walking up the steps and it happens.... I trip. Not just stumble, but trip, hard on my hurt toe, on my hurt foot. I scream. I cry and my foot swells. It swells so much I don't mean to be graphic here but my healed incision starts to open. So after spending the night with an ice pack and a very worried husband, I go back to the doctor. He comes in shakes his head and said " Wendy you must have the worse luck of any person I know" My foot is badly sprained and is in worse shape than it was before the surgery. I have to wear the big ugly boot for 4 more weeks. The receptionist and other office women look at me all sad. "I am sorry" they say. I tell them I have just had bad luck lately. And as I walk out of the waiting room feeling like a big looser , I open the door and the door knob of the big doctor office door falls off. Just falls off. Everyone in the waiting room and the receptionist just looks at me and I turn around and say to everyone "Just my Luck!" Everyone started laughing and so did I. I mean what else can I do at this point but laugh.

So do I believe in bad luck? Did an old woman put a curse on me? Am I jinxed for some reason? Maybe. I guess I could look at all of this and be thankful that I have a foot at all . My two beautiful kids are healthy, my husband is still here (some might have walked out by now) Business is good, I have a house to live in. So all and all I have nothing to complain about. So I have to wear the ugly old boot for four more weeks. It will all be over soon and everything will be just fine.... I am just sure of it....Now where is that wood I need to be knocking on?....

“The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.” ~Channing Pollock

Way too long since my last post. So this will be an update on the Monarchs. So since my last post almost a month ago.... (again Wow!) I have collected and I am raising about 50 caterpillars. All of which I found on my milkweed plants.

You may be thinking who in their right mind would have that many caterpillars at one time. I may have been told one or two times in my life that I wasn't in my right mind... Any who Monarchs are very interesting and they need our help with their migration. So I have become a volunteer for The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project (MLMP) so I have a good excuse to have so many caterpillars. :) If you are interested in learning more go to the website or go to this one.
Monarch Watch

Camille has been my little helper. She helps me feed them and clean out the cages. She is learning a lot seeing them hatch out of the eggs and grow .

Right now we have 16 Chrysalis. Brian built me a butterfly box so the Chrysalis could be at the top and not be disturbed when I added new caterpillars on the bottom.

Last week I took all the caterpillars to Camille's 1st grade class and taught a little lesson on Monarchs and everyone got to see all the stages and learn why Monarchs are important . That was fun and I got to get back in the classroom for a short time. I left them with 10 caterpillars to grow in the classroom.

This a male Monarch visiting my milkweed.

Last year I only found 13 caterpillars and I thought that was a lot. This year if the females keep laying eggs I am going to have to find milkweed someplace else because I didn't grow enough. I will have to grow a lot more next year.