No, I haven’t given up blogging. These last several months have simply been filled with a combination of no motivation to blog (I am one of those finicky “I have to be in the mood” kind of people”) and just plain busy-ness.

And change. Lots of change.

Several people have written to ask me what exactly is going on, but unfortunately I have neither the time nor available bandwidth to respond to everyone individually (sorry), so hopefully this will suffice.

The short story: we’re moving to Tennessee!

The long story:

When Rob and I met back in 1990, we were both living in East Tennessee (he in Knoxville, me in nearby Louisville/Alcoa). Rob got a job in Huntsville, Alabama and moved. We broke up. We got back together before the end of the year. I moved to Huntsville. In 1991 we got married and started a family, but have ALWAYS wanted to be back in Tennessee “someday”.

Our adventure in Alabama lasted over 14 years, before life took us to Florida. After 5+ years in Florida (which I LOVE), we visited with my best friend from high school (who lives in east Tennessee) and decided (again) that “someday SOON” we’d like to settle there.

Long story somewhat shorter (but no less complicated), oil spill = air pollution + asthmatic child + no job tying us down = good time to move to Tennessee!

(Still following me?)

We have moved here in stages, starting the day after Independence Day (me and the kids — Rob has continued to work on a contract in Pennsylvania, unable to find work in Tampa).

The idea was to come here and “try it out” to see if it was “home”. The idea was also that Rob would find a contract that he could work from “home”, so he could re-locate to be with the rest of the family.

Well, we love it! The children are all fitting in well and enjoying meeting new people and participating in youth group and Smoky Mountain Christian Camp activities. I have enjoyed spending time with my best friend from childhood and watching her children and my children become friends. It is most definitely where, Lord-willing, we will settle down for the rest of our lives. I have even picked out a home site and a houseplan.

God, however, either has a sense of humor or a sense of timing that I don’t quite understand. NOW, after the children and I are getting settled into our new home, Rob has gotten a job offer back in Tampa (and found out that working from home through VPN is not a possibility with the satellite internet — the only internet service available up here in the mountains – due to bandwidth limitations). Yes, a job in Tampa NOW! Tough decisions are to be made…and children will not be pleased. On the one hand, it would be easier for us (the kids and I) to stay here and continue on; to not uproot everyone again. On the OTHER hand, Rob has now been given the opportunity to be a part of his own family again (after being away for nearly a year); and he wants to take that opportunity.

So…if you are still following this:

• We no longer live in Florida. We live in East Tennessee.
• Rob will be starting work in Tampa again the day after Labor Day.
• The children and I will be coming back to join him sometime in the near future.
• We only plan to be back in Tampa temporarily — until Rob can find employment up here or until we can get a house built up here (whichever comes first).

Life as a LeFebvre is never boring. I feel like I’m torn between two worlds. A part of me is questioning God (I know, not a wise thing to do, but human nature nonetheless), wondering why He brought us here just to turn us back around…but I am trying to re-focus and see the good in it. The good that has come out of this adventure is that it has enabled us to see that we can make it here (yes, even without cell phone service and Publix); that the children will adapt and fit in. It has shown us that it is the right decision for us. 

So…prayers appreciated for a smooth transition, and for God’s timing and will in getting us back up here.

It’s that time of year again! Free (or really cheap) Summer movies!!! I have already added all the movies we haven’t seen yet to my summer calendar. What a great, low cost way to entertain a large family!

Here the participating theaters in the Tampa Bay area:

AMC Summer Movie Camp – $1 movies for charity, Tuesdays at 10AM from June 15 – Aug 10

• AMC Veterans 24 – 9302 Anderson Rd., Tampa
• AMC Woodlands Square 20 – 3128 Tampa Rd., Oldsmar
• AMC Regency 20 – 2496 W. Brandon Blvd., Regency Square Mall, Brandon
• AMC Westshore 14 – 210 Westshore Plaza, Tampa

Cobb Theatres – Free Movies – every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

• Grove 16 – 6333 Wesley Grove Blvd., Wesley Chapel
• Lakeside 18 – 1650 Town Center Dr., Lakeland

Georgia Theatre Company -
Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10AM from June 8 through July 29. Admission is $1, kids soda and popcorn available for $1.50 each.

• Beacon Stadium Cinemas 10 – 12961 Cortez Blvd., Brooksville

Regal Cinemas Free Family Film Festival – Select G & PG movies start at 10AM each Tuesday and Wednesday during the festival. Admission is free. You can check the movies as well as a list of locations, dates, and times by clicking through and selecting your state. (Florida Showtimes Here)

• Largo 8 – 10500 Ulmerton Rd. E., Largo
• Park Place Stadium 16 – 7200 US Hwy 19 N., Pinellas Park
• Hollywood 18 – 6701 Cinema Dr., Port Richey
• Citrus Stadium 20 – 7999 Citrus Park Town Center Mall, Tampa

United Artists – Participating in Regal Cinemas Free Family Film Festival (link leads to Regal announcement).

Edwards Cinemas – Participating in Regal Cinemas Free Family Film Festival (link leads to Regal announcement).

Muvico Free Family Film Festival – Free movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from June 15 to Aug. 3.

• BayWalk 20 and IMAX, 151 Second Ave. N, St. Petersburg
• Palm Harbor 10, 37912 U.S. 19 N, Palm Harbor
• Starlight 20, 18002 Highwood Preserve Parkway, Tampa

The lazy woman’s post; the slideshow. Hey, if a picture’s worth a thousand words, what are 62 pictures worth?

I flew solo this year for Easter, as Rob moved to Pennsylvania for work. With a potential stomach bug circulating through the house and low energy on my part, we sat out church, skipped our traditional Easter photos, and hung out around the neighborhood — first visiting out next door neighbors for their traditional Easter egg hunt and brunch, then later going down to the neighborhood clubhouse for their annual Easter festivities.

As you can see from the photos, DeeDee *really* enjoyed the surprises inside those little plastic eggs (she’s already a candy-aholic), Rey made quite a mess with his chocolate, and Boo wasn’t feeling all that great by the end of the day.

From our strawberry bounty came this:

Southern Strawberry Shortcake

Time to Prep and Bake: 35 Minutes
Servings: 10

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 quarts fresh strawberries, sliced
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 1/2 cups self-rising flour*
• 1 egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• Whipped cream

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine the strawberries and sugar; set aside. In a large bowl, cut shortening into flour until crumbly. In a small bowl, beat egg; add buttermilk. Stir into flour mixture just until moistened. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead three to four times. Roll out to 1/2-in. thickness; cut with a 3-in. round biscuit cutter. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned; cool slightly.
2. Split biscuits lengthwise; place the bottom halves on serving plates. Top with about 1/3 cup strawberries and whipped cream. Replace biscuit tops; spoon about 1/3 cup strawberries and more whipped cream on top. Serve immediately.

I haven’t made a secret of it — the fact that I LOVE strawberries. And one of the great privileges of living in Florida is the ability to go out every year and pick the freshest of the fresh strawberries.

That, along with the fact that my husband has been unemployed for the past two months (and we have struggled to get by, even selling possessions on Craigslist to be able to buy food) fueled great ANGER for me when I read this local news story.

Strawberry farmers in Florida are facing such a sharp collapse in prices for their berries that many are deciding to simply leave huge tracts of the berries to rot in the fields.

Seriously. Bad economy. Families struggling. People hungry. And farmers are allowing thousands of strawberries just to sit and rot. Not even willing to allow others to come in and pick…except for this farm.

U-pick fields make strawberries available to public – tbo.com

Linked from the article that stirred so much ire in me, was the above article, which restored my faith in mankind.

On Saturday, Wishnatzki Farms in Plant City will open part of a 40-acre strawberry field to food banks and the public for a day of free picking. The farm will provide visitors with containers for the berries.

“The berries are big and they are plentiful, said Sheila Young, a receptionist at Wishnatzki.

The farm is doing a one-day “cleanout” to get ready for planting other produce.

Farm president Gary Wishnatzki is asking visitors for a minimum $1 donation to Redlands Christian Migrant Association, a non-profit organization that provides child care and early education for rural, low-income working families.

Kudos, Gary Wishnatzki!

It seems he accepts his losses, but cares enough about people to share, before planting the next, hopefully more profitable crop.

After reading about this generous effort last Saturday morning, I sent Rob with several of the kids (I had to stay behind to take Rey to his tee-ball game) to pick some berries.

Wow! They came back with lots and lots of berries! (Rob guesstimates about 150 lbs.) The boys spent the rest of the day washing, de-stemming, and bagging berries for the freezer. There were enough to even share with some neighbors, puree into food for Baby Dee, and have several servings of delicious strawberry shortcake. Our freezer is stocked. And I am thankful.

Although not an “easy” hydroponic farm (to which we have grown accustomed), our family of 12 will be firm supporters of Wishnatzki Farms, turning to them for any future strawberry purchases.

Our many thanks, Mr. Wishnatzki. Thanks for caring about your community.

According to the Wishnatzki blog, the farm’s event on Saturday raised nearly $6500 for the Redland’s Christian Migrant’s Association.

Spring at last! But that first trip to the pool, left us in stitches…

As I have griped about mentioned before, this last winter was a terrible one for Floridians like us. Accustomed to being pampered with 70-degree temps and suntans throughout the winter, we suffered along with the rest of the country this year, with cabin fever and frozen landscapes.

So, with the beginning of spring, we jumped at the chance to get back to the pool – at last! (first pool visit since…October?)

It was perfect. The weather was perfect. The birds were chirping. I was following Baby Dee around with a smile on my face, just imagining that this is what heaven must feel like. No complaints at all…

…until there was a bit of a mishap. Warning, if you’re the queasy type, stop reading here; gruesome photo to follow. (I warned you).

A minor accident cut our pool visit short. Curly-Top attempted to descend the pool deck stairs while wrapped in a towel, tripped over the towel, and came down on her chin, splitting it wide open.  How can a chin bleed so much?! I have never seen so much blood in my life!!!

Thankfully we managed to calm the hysterical Curly Top down, while our trusty clubhouse activities director got the wound temporarily bandaged up.

Curly Top, still in blood-stained bathing suit, works a
puzzle while waiting to go to the clinic to be stitched up.

The next day – 6 stitches. Ewww.

6 stitches. And Curly Top was so brave! She didn’t make a peep when they were stitching her back up. And I am so proud of her! – she left the clinic with 4 “prizes”, and gave three of them away to siblings.

Stitches are due out tomorrow…then maybe we’ll try again to soak up some rays at the pool. Maybe I should wrap the kids up in bubble wrap this time, to keep them safe…

Rey – Midget T-ball, 2010

It had been waaaay too long. We hadn’t visited our “hometown*” or all of our friends from there since we moved away 5 years ago. So we found the wedding of a family friend the perfect excuse for a trip up “north” – to Alabama and Tennessee.

The trip was entirely too short. We didn’t have enough time to catch up with everyone we wanted to, but for those we did visit, it was a delight! I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful friends, even if a great distance separates us geographically. (You can always tell who your “real” friends are. Those are the ones you can pick right back up with, as if nothing had ever changed, after having not seen them in many years.)

The only bad thing about our trip (beside it being too short) was that, even though we visited with and dined with several “old” friends (Dawn & Robby, Marti & Clyde, Christie & Satch, Sarah & Chad, Bonnie & Dave, Rachel & Scott, Kim & Chuck….) , on some occasions staying up into the wee hours of the morning chatting, I failed to get many pictures (bad Janne, baaaad!) — and I always had my camera with me!

Sharing the few moments I did manage to capture:

A Visit with the Harveys

To those of you inclined to count: my 10 + their 6 = 16 kids

Ellen’s Wedding

Above: Our Family Before the Wedding

They don’t clean up half bad, huh?
The sun didn’t shine the whole 3 1/2 days we were in Alabama, except for the few
minutes that we took to shoot this photo — just enough to blind the children!

Below: During the Reception

Wondering, are we the only family that takes up two whole tables at a wedding reception?

I don’t know who coordinated this thing, but they were brilliant!
They offered play-doh and tiny bags to fill up with candy in order to
keep the children occupied until the food was served.

My little princess!

Ellen, all grown up and married!
She and Audrey used to play dolls together when they were toddlers - I feel so old!

A Visit with the Williams Family

Again, I didn’t get enough pictures when we visited my childhood “bff”! (Shameful).

Just an embarrassing photo of a minor bread faux pas (below).  Sorry, Rachel. I told you you’d laugh about it someday (are you laughing yet?) It’s the only picture I took of you! (To my readers, she really isn’t a bad cook; she was simply not accustomed to cooking for so many people, so she used the bottom rack of the oven. I, on the other hand, really am a bad cook.)

Below: Three of my girls, spudding out to iCarly,
seem completely oblivious to the war being waged around them

Even the youngest member of the crew got in on the action…

The Cabin

During the two days that we visited with the Williams family, we stayed in one of the cabins situated on the grounds of the Christian camp that their family runs. The accommodations were great! – 1 one room cabin with two small bathrooms, a kitchenette, and sleeping for 12.

The bunks got Gator brainstorming. “We can do that!” he said, as he took photos of the beds. He’s thinking if we can put suspended beds in the boys’ room at home, it will leave all that floorspace open during the day when they aren’t in use.

Only one little mishap during our stay: Dinky Tumblina (far left in the photo below) woke up once during the night thinking she was at home. (Watch out for that first step; it’s a big one!) She stepped off the top bunk and crashed to the floor, splitting open her chin. Thankfully super glue fixed her back up.

* Huntsville, Alabama is not officially our hometown, but we refer to it that way because it feels that way. I lived my entire adult life there (until we moved to Florida 5 years ago), and eight of my children were born there.

Remember last February when we re-landscaped the front yard?

The previous summer we moved into the *ugliest* house in an otherwise very nice neighborhood. It wasn’t a bad house. In fact it was a brand new house; we got it for a great price — bank owned. But talk about ugly.

BEFORE WE MOVED IN:
The day we looked at the house: May 18, 2008

I’m all about “curb appeal”, and this house was definitely lacking in it. There’s nothing we could do about the boring architecture or the drab gray color (without forking out a bunch of money to the ridiculous power-hungry home owner’s association), but I figured that with a little bit of planning and elbow grease, we could at least tackle that landscaping.  What little “landscaping” our little gray house had was completely dead from 3 years of neglect (as the house set vacant after having been constructed). The only thing that had survived was the jasmine, which (as you can see from the photo above) just kind of went wild.

We consulted a local landscaping place to discuss which plants would be the hardiest (and quick-growing), and went to work.

RE-LANDSCAPED
February 23, 2009

By summertime, our new plants had finally started growing and looking nice.  We added a few yellow flowers to brighten things up, and voila!  Not “Better Homes and Gardens” by any means, but I was happy. It looked sooo much better than what we had started with.

SUMMER SEMI-MATURED LANDSCAPING
May 4, 2009

And by autumn the alyssum had seen its prime so we replaced it with another annual, and added some mums for fall color. I was quite pleased with the way the lantana had matured. The crotons hadn’t grown much, but had beautiful color, and the original pentas were now the size of bushes!

AUTUMN SEMI-MATURED LANDSCAPING
October 15, 2009

And then it happened.  The Florida deep freeze.  A type of freeze that southwest Florida hadn’t seen in over two decades. It was a brutal, horrible winter for Florida. Lots of rain, extremely cold temperatures, frost…and yes, even a bit of snow. These weren’t occasional weather conditions; they lasted all winter. In January we suffered a “deep freeze” which kept plants frozen for nearly two weeks.

At first it appeared that all was lost. Everything was wilted. So I waited until March to survey the damage; to see if anything was able to produce new growth. Here are the results:

Yeah.

Depressing.

It looks terrible. Back to square one — almost.  The schefflera (bushes in the back) miraculously pulled through (they were quite wilted at first).

The pygmy date palm suffered, but I think it will make it. There is still some green underneath all that brown. (Time will tell).

The queen palms, the most expensive single items in our landscaping seem to have weathered the harsh winter. There is a lot of brown, but more green than brown. Hooray!

Pepper plants and bird-of-paradise plants – took a beating, but I think they will recover:

My previously lush, thick lantana all died, but is not lost. Some may be gone (I’ll have to watch). But others have new green growth:

And of all things, my fall mums survived. This is the *one* plant that the landscaping guy warned me about. He told me that they wouldn’t survive because they prefer “cooler climates”.  Hmmmm…

So, maybe it isn’t as bad as I feared. There is hope anyway.

Total losses; plants for which no glimmer of hope remains:

Pentas.  They’re all goners. $60 worth of pentas.

Croton Mammy – all 13 of them. Cash loss of $260.  :(

Chances are, we won’t have another winter like this in Florida — not for a very long time anyway. But, I’ve never been a gambler. I’m not real keen on the idea of replacing these plants with the same thing…just in case.

Anyone have any ideas of replacements I could use that are similar in size, and both cold tolerant and heat/drought tolerant? I am looking for ideas!

Busch Gardens of Tampa has something new in store. Opening on March 27, 2010 is Sesame Street’s Safari of Fun! Geared toward younger children, the Safari of Fun will offer “kid-size rides, cool water fun and plenty of memorable adventures”.

Fly through the desert with Grover. Climb in Elmo’s Tree House. Splash in Bert and Ernie’s watering hole. You can even dine with your child’s furry friends. It’s Sesame Street Safari of Fun, where imaginations run wild and there’s fun for everyone.

Here’s the best part! To celebrate this new endeavor, Busch Gardens is offering a Free Commemorative Busch Gardens Preschool Annual Pass for Florida residents ages 5 and younger! It’s all they need to explore the wonders of Busch Gardens and the all-new Sesame Street Safari of Fun…for the whole year!