Are We There Yet?

Family Ties

2010-02-10T10:22:00.002-06:00

No, not the classic 80s sitcom, although that was a good show. I'm talking about the actual ties to my family, my kids specifically.

I was one of those fortunate women that was able to spend as much time as humanly possible with my children for most of their lives. Of course, now I question whether that much influence from me, someone who realizes just how much she doesn't have figured out, was such a good thing. But that thought will take more than a blog post.

My oldest daughter moved out almost two years ago. Now, when I say 'moved out', I'm using that term very loosely. Sometimes I think she is at home more than her apartment, but technically, she has her own address. I love it when she is at our house and our family feels complete, I guess. When she is gone, it does seem like there is a hole in the atmosphere. Of course, there are times when she comes for the weekend and before you know it, it's Wednesday and she's still there - dirtying dishes, leaving her wet towels on the floor and eating the last of the cream cheese - and I start to ask myself, "doesn't she need to be getting home?" But inevitably, when she does finally leave, I miss her.

It always amazes me when my kids seem to want to hang out with me. When they are away from me and they genuinely miss being around me, this surprises me. I usually assume that hanging out with your parents when you are 13, 16 and 20, is not what you want to be doing, but my kids really do gravitate toward home and toward me. It is the ultimate compliment as a mom, I guess, but I always find myself being surprised.

We have friends that comment when they are around all of us, about how lucky we are and how nice it is to see how close we are, almost to the point of being 'clannish', as one friend put it. Clannish? I never thought of that. Although I will say, if you cross one of us, you cross us all, so maybe that's where that comes from.

Being the person that I am, good or bad, there's always been an assumption on my part that I was flying by the seat of my pants in the parenting department. Even though I had very strong ideas about parenting, it never seemed like I ever had a plan, so to speak.

So, to end up in this place where I am, with 3 healthy, fairly well-adjusted, able to conduct themselves in public and hold a fairly intelligent conversation, strong, caring women, who like me for the most part and enjoy being around me, I'm perplexed at how it happened, but also very thankful.

For someone who grew up with basically no family ties and the few there were would send any normal person running and/or screaming, it feels nice to have a family that actually wants to be together.

'Tied', in a different way

2010-02-04T09:12:00.002-06:00

This is a huge leap of subject today......I'm literally 'tied' to my desk. The organization I work for puts on the largest organic farming conference in the country every February.

The fact that a small office of 8 people pull this off every year is a miracle onto itself, but now that I'm in the office instead of observing from afar, I see just how much work goes into this thing.

I'm continually amazed at the people that I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by and what they get accomplished in one day. Every week we have a staff meeting and often this thought comes over me: "How did I land this gig?" It is an amazing feeling to be a part of an organization that its whole focus is to 'do the right thing' and do everything we can to help other people learn how to do the right thing, in terms of agriculture.

This job is such a bright light in my life and the fact that these people pay me to come be a part of this incredible team everyday, continues to amaze me. One more reason to be grateful for this life of mine.

Untying

2010-02-03T09:07:00.004-06:00

As you can see, not that much has changed, I still can't make it through this damn NaBloPoMo to save my life! Ok, so I'm out after only one day, oh well.

My title is untying, today. When you go through major upheavals in your life, there seems to be a lot of untying (that is a strange word, I had to look it up to make sure I was spelling it correctly) you have to do. You realize there are things in your life that you have tied yourself to and now that you are 'awake' you start to wonder why?

Discovering that you need to untie is only the first step. The actual untying process is a whole other situation. Of course, there always ends up being hurt feelings and confusion on the part of the people/things you decide to untie from. They wonder what the hell is wrong with you and why are you acting so strangely? Why don't you call me anymore? Why are you distancing yourself from me?

It's a painful process that takes a lot of time and honest communication, which is never easy. But I'm realizing that once you truly awaken and set your mind to what you really want out of life and stay really clear with yourself, it all falls into place. Then, for me, it's this huge sense of relief. It makes your life so much less work when you aren't trying to stay tied to something or someone that didn't really fit.

So, here's to you having the strength to 'untie' yourself from some things that have never just felt like they fit for you. Strength is what you will need, but it's inside of you somewhere and you'll know when the time is right. Free yourself.

Sheeeeees Baaaaaack.

2010-02-01T18:49:00.002-06:00

After receiving an email about the February theme for NoBloPoMo - ties - I thought, it's time for me to come back to blogging.

My last post was May, 2009. It's funny when I sit here and think back to May 2009 and all that has happened in my life since then.

You see ladies, (not sure there are any gentlemen out there reading) I needed to take a little time off for a few things. What few things, you might ask? Well, I wish I could say it was a 9 month sabbatical or a trip backpacking through Europe, but I can't. Truth? I've been smack-dab in the middle of a year long mid-life crises, or freak-out, or awakening, whatever term fits - maybe all of them. Not sure I'm even through it yet, to be honest. If any of you that used to be regular readers of my blog are still around, you know I was an organic farming, homeschooling, animal-raising, non-stop-energizer-bunny, married mom of 3 daughters.

Well, the daughters are still around, but most everything else looks pretty different around here. I'm taking a break from farming due mostly to the fact that I'm now working full-time at a non-profit, organic education service - a dream job that I feel very fortunate to have. My husband and I are trying to 'work out the kinks' so to speak and concentrating on finishing up our youngest daughter's last year of homeschooling before she heads off to high school.

It's been a challenging year. It's been quite a learning year. When you wake up one day, look around and think, "wait a minute. how did all this happen to me and am I sure this is what I want my life to be?" - after you've spent 20 years building that very kind of life you thought you wanted - it's a shock to the system, to say the least.

My heart is still in farming and raising animals, but economics require I can support myself with more than the farm can provide. So, I've decided to let some interns work my farm. This way, I can sit back, help with the knowledge I've accumulated over the years, watch these young kids who love farming be able to afford to do what they love, still get to eat great, organic food and embark on a whole new aspect of my life that I never thought was possible.

Gee, when I think of it that way, maybe the last year will be worth it after all!

How does all this tie in with the 'Ties' theme? As strange as it may seem and with all the changes in my life, I still feel 'tied' to this blogging community. I've lurked on many of your sites just to keep up with what's new and the happenings in your lives.

I'm anxious to get back in the saddle again. Ready to be 'tied' to all you great women again. So, here's to February blogging. It feels good to be back.

Cheese anyone?

2009-05-18T07:09:00.002-05:00

Who has time to blog when they are milking goats and pouring over carpet samples? Okay, no excuse, but a short update. We are moving back into our house this weekend. Just in time to leave for 10 days. Maddie has a clogging competition in Ohio, then off to Illinois for a graduation and art show. Not exactly the best time to be gone with the fields being taken over by weeds and a greenhouse full of transplants that need to get into the ground, not to mention MOVING our entire house!

On to the fun stuff: GOATS! If you have the chance to be around or own goats - do it. I know, I know, goats have a bad wrap a lot of the time, but I'm telling you, I am completely in love. We are getting a gallon of milk a day! Hence, the title of this post. Anyone have any good recipes for goat cheese? I'm particularly interested in feta. We are having a ball with the babies, they are a constant source of entertainment. Many, many pictures to post, but hell, I can't even find the time to blog so the pics will take a bit.

Enjoy!

Presenting......Edward, Bella and Rosalee

2009-04-08T22:04:00.005-05:00

These are our babies.....2 girls and a boy. Unfortunately, we lost our 2nd little boy - he was stillborn. It was sad and hard for Brenna, but it's hard to be sad for long with these little fuzzy faces.

There's nothing that says Spring like baby lambs.....other than baby chicks - which are arriving next week:)

Where the Hell has this girl gone now??

2009-04-05T12:50:00.002-05:00

Where, you ask? I'm up to may ass in paint chips, carpet samples, light fixtures and oh yeah....baby lambs. Of course, the latter being waaaaaay more fun than the former.

I've taken literally 5 gazillion pictures of these adorable little devils - 2 girls and a boy, btw - however, the paint chips and carpet samples and light fixtures are taking up so much of my time.......okay, that was bull.....every spare moment I have is being spent watching the hours upon hours of TV/movies I have recorded on our new DVR. Why hadn't anyone told me these things existed? I feel like such a dinosaur.

You can actually pause live TV? Who the hell knew that? You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. I wish I was, because since making this discovery? Much.wasted.time. As soon as I come out of this TV coma? I'll get right on posting the pictures of the baby lambs, but I'm warning you, get ready to melt like a stick of butter on a 100 degree day - nothing cuter in the entire world, not even my own babies:)

Smokey the Bear says, "Never Play with Fire"

2009-03-24T18:22:00.008-05:00

Here are a few pictures of our house as it is being completely gutted and rebuilt. Although in these pictures the insulation hasn't been removed yet, so it got worse before it got better. It's funny, we just moved into this house 5 years ago after spending 1 year building it ourselves. Now, here we are, picking out light fixtures, ceiling fans, new paint colors, carpet, kitchen cupboards, and boy, are we having a huge case of deja vu!

On the bright side, why not change a few things that you wish you would have done differently five years ago? A new light here, a phone jack there and some new carpet in the kids' room (who in their right mind puts off-white carpet in a kids room?)

At first blush, this seems like it might be fun to change things up a bit, unless you are me. Anyone that knows me, knows that shopping is my least favorite thing to do and making decisions about design, color and style is my second least favorite. Don't get me wrong, I love design, color and style, but I'm one of those people that likes to 'chew' on things for awhile, someone who needs to 'live' in a space for awhile before I can decide if I like the room arrangement. So, when you have a contractor who tells you that you have exactly 2 days to make 3 major decisions, that's not fun for me, that is stressful and pisses me off.

But in the spirit of being a team player, I hauled my ass to the lighting store, the tile shop and IKEA all in one day and made all 3 of those damn decisions - so there!

Come to think of it, this is kind of fun:)

3 months in bullet points

2009-03-16T09:28:00.006-05:00

There have been quite a few happenings around our place during my 3 month hiatus, most of which are depressing and one in particular was beyond tragic, so I will give a quick synopsis and get it out of the way so we can move on to happier things.

- John and I separated and were living in different residences
- my grandmother was in a car accident - broke both wrists and shattered her ankle and is still recovering in a rehabilitation center
- my dad had a mild heart attack that required me to go to Branson, Missouri and be with him (no, having to stay in Branson is not the tragic part:)
- my friend that I golf with in the summer - her son who was 18 years old and friends with my oldest daughter - hung himself. We are still reeling from this, as you can imagine.
- Kino (remember Kino? My 85 year old Japanese buddy?) also went into the hospital with chest pain and a suspected heart attack - which turned out not to be - so some good news.
- the same day Kino got out of the hospital - our house caught on fire with a chimney fire.
- we are currently displaced to a rental farm house while the gutting and rebuilding of our home is being done which will take roughly 10-12 weeks.
- John and I are now living in the same house again because he moved into the house I was renting while we were separated. We figured this would be best for the kids as they were already having a tough time with the separation and now their house burning - how much can they take at once, right?

There. Now in case some of you are afraid to even come to my blog for fear that my bad luck might jump through the screen and 'get' you, have no fear. Don't they say bad luck comes in 3's? Yeah, about that - I should be good for at least 2 years, right? So, you're safe.....I hope.

Now on a happier note, we feel we are coming through it all and we are all still standing. We are also realizing we are fairly resilient and helping the kids to understand that no matter how bleak things look, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Having Winter on its way out and Spring on her way in is very helpful. Aside from the melting snow and the mud & muck, there are some sure signs of Spring. We are currently planting seeds in the greenhouse; lettuce & onions in the hoophouse and are anxiously awaiting baby lambs and baby chicks. All signs of new life and hope.

What's that saying people are always saying when they are trying to be helpful? "What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger?" I feel like the fucking Incredible Hulk.

Back in the Saddle Again

2009-03-14T09:43:00.002-05:00

Yes, it has been 3 months since my last post (feel like I'm in BA, Bloggers Anonymous). First, I need to thank all you people who for reasons unknown to me, have stuck around and been so supportive it makes me tear up:)

My life has been hectic and like a roller-coaster to say the least, don't worry, I won't bore you with all the details quite yet, but things seem to be on the upswing and in honor of me getting back into the arena, I'm going to have a complete blog redesign. Those girls over at Trendy Mommy are going to help me out since they did such a bang-up job last time:)

Today, I plan on spending the day getting caught up with all of you great women who I have missed more than you know. I'm looking forward to staying in touch on a regular basis.

I've got my coffee, my recliner and my laptop and I'm ready to roll. Thanks again for all the kind words over the last 3 months - I appreciate it more than you know.

Home Birth

2008-12-11T17:31:00.003-06:00

Not sure how many of you read or get the New York Times, but I caught this article a while ago and thought I would pass it on.

As someone who is a doula and has worked with many midwives, this makes perfect sense to me and I think it is the best way to have a baby. I've attended a few home births and they were some of the most memorable births I've ever seen.

There is just something about being in the comfort of your own home, something mentally that calms you down and makes your experience seem more natural, at least at the births I attended.

I'd love to hear any home birth stories, good or bad, and also any opinions on the subject. Also, how many of you saw the movie The Business of Birth? Great film about what has happened to birth in this country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/garden/13birth.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Enjoy the article and drop me a comment on what you think, will you?

She's a genius

2008-12-04T23:31:00.003-06:00

It's 11:30 p.m., I'm exhausted and life is kicking my ass and I have to get up early and guess what I'm doing?

Downloading music to put on my ipod. When that alarm goes off at 6:00? I will not be happy with this decision.

The blog topics are a little tapped out for now. Things are at a serious low point around here and I'm digging my way back up to the surface. Instead of depressing all you great women (& men, if there are any that read this blog - if so, make yourself known!) out there, I'll be back when the clouds clear.

The entire weekend is ahead of me and I'm heading out of town by myself - plenty of time to get caught up on blogs and come up with something to talk about.

Until then, hope all is well in your blog-worlds.

Also, a reminder to all you Wisconsin/Minnesota bloggers - or anyone that wants to join in, we'd love to have you no matter where you live - get your RSVP to Minnesota Matron by the 7th so she can make reservations for our get-together! Can't wait!

Stay Tuned....

2008-12-02T22:25:00.000-06:00

I'm taking a small bloggy break to sort out some stuff.....be back tomorrow!

Carry on, ladies.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T07:52:00.002-06:00

For most of my life we have spent our holidays with my mom's side of the family. She comes from a large family and I'm very close with my grandmother, so it just make sense. My dad's parents died when he was young and he was raised by an uptight Aunt, so not much fun on holidays.

Fun, however, might be pushing it when describing our holidays. You see, my mother's side of the family might be big which could potentially mean fun, but mostly it means dysfunction. All of her siblings are great, friendly, funny people, easy to be around, relaxed, none of that stuffy-have-to-mind-your-manners types. But something about putting all the siblings and spouses in a room all together and it starts to resemble a late night episode of Jerry Springer.

No, their lives were not easy growing up. They were poor, there were a few different fathers involved, okay 4 to be exact for 6 kids, my grandma was always working 2 or 3 jobs due to the fact that she married 4 losers, and the kids were pretty much on their own with my mom being the oldest and trying to herd the other six. As you can imagine, this lends itself to some anger, resentment and general bad feelings.

Your first clue when you walk in the room and are trying to gauge the environment is how thick the tension is. If you get there early, it's not too bad, but if you make the mistake of coming later, bring a knife - you'll need it to get through the room. I always try to arrive early, go straight to the kitchen with grandma and busy myself doing something useful - like buttering rolls or mashing potatoes. The key is to stay busy and don't make the mistake of getting in the middle of any conversation. Small talk is fine, but when the decibel level starts to rise? Maybe it's time to walk the dog!

There are many old wounds that have never been healed and when they all get in the room at the same time, the shit usually starts flying. It starts with snarky remarks and usually ends with someone leaving early.

You might ask yourself, 'why would you even go?' That is a good question, one that I have aksed myself many times over the years, but when it's all you've got - there aren't many options. But then about 9 years ago, my world changed and other options opened to me! The key is, you move 7+ hours away from your family and have some great excuses as to why that drive just isn't going to work for you this year.

As time went on, I got really smart and picked the relatives I enjoyed and invited them to MY house. Like I said, one on one they are great - just not together.

So in honor of this tradition I have started, I am looking forward to my grandmother and my uncle coming to our house for Thanksgiving this year. We all three love to cook, we love to play games, we all get along with no hang-ups and enjoy being together. It's the perfect solution.

How are your holidays? Are you one of the lucky people that have a normal family that just likes to have a good time or can you relate to my 'divide and conquer' strategy?

Either way, I'm hoping you all have a wonderful holiday full of lots of food, drink and fun.

Deer Opener

2008-11-22T19:31:00.002-06:00

This weekend, every November, is known as Deer Opener. We live in Northern Wisconsin, remember? Everyone deer hunts. Literally, every truck, van or car you pass has some form of Blaze Orange clothing or a deer carcass on top or in a trailer they are pulling behind.

This year is Maddie's first year hunting with her dad. Most kids that turn 12, take Hunter Safety over the summer so they are ready to roll for the Opener.

God bless her, it was 20-some degrees here this morning and she got up at 5:30 a.m., bundled up in 300 layers of clothing, trounced her ass out in the woods, climbed to the top of a tree and sat in a deer stand for 4 hours. That's dedication.

Unfortunately, not only did she not get a chance to shoot anything, she didn't even SEE anything that looked like a deer. That didn't stop her from heading back out there tonight to give it another go. Still nothing.

Believe it or not, she is heading BACK out there tomorrow morning. She's either dedicated or completely nuts. I'm voting for nuts.

All the crazyness aside, it's a great time for her and her dad to spend some quality time that doesn't include T.V., iPods, computers or cell phones......instead they have actual conversations. How novel.

The cool thing is when she gets home, her cell phone starts blowing up and its all her friends checking in with each other to see how their hunt went and seeing if anyone got lucky. Boys AND girls - and that's pretty cool.

Sex Talk

2008-11-19T21:18:00.002-06:00

There have been many times when I have asked myself the question, "How in the hell did God think I could handle raising 3 daughters?" Usually, this question comes about when one of them, or all 3 of them at one time, are going through some drama that overtakes our family.

Tonights subject? "Hey, mom, did you know they make a female condom now? How does that work?" Ummm, ummm. What would any homeschooling mother do? You go to the Internet, right? We found out all kinds of things about female condoms that I had NO idea about! I've been out of the game for awhile, you know. Being married to someone for 15 years that has a vasectomy will do that to you. So, we found all kinds of answers.

Then the next question: "How does a condom work anyway? How do you put it on?" Holy shit. Okay....the banana test.....explain it like if you were putting it on a banana. That always works.

Then the final 'heart-attack' question: "What is a good age to have sex and why do people do it?" Holy shit #2. Ummm, ummmm. A good age? NEVER in high school, but college is a good time to give it a whirl, with all the standard stipulations....with the right person, with the right protection, blah, blah, blah....Why do people do it?? This is the answer I gave, right or wrong: "Well, as much as you two can't believe this, when it is the right situation? It is really great, a lot of fun....IN THE RIGHT SITUATION AND WHEN YOU ARE READY!!!!!

Okay ladies, give me your opinion, good or bad, blast me for my honesty or not, I really want to hear what you have to say about the subject and how you would deal with this if you were in my shoes!

BTW, my oldest daughter, Alyson, who is away at college and surely having sex with her boyfriend of 4 years who is at the same college, was on the cell phone and 'tempering' me b/c in her words, "mom, you can be a little TOO honest sometimes" - helping me out:)

C'mon, let's talk about sex!

An Award! Can you believe you can go for 17 days without posting and still win an AWARD?

2008-11-16T21:39:00.007-06:00

God, this blog-world is great. Kat over at Just Kat Stuff is a dear, isn't she? While I was off in la-la land, she gave me the Kreative Blogger Award. The rules are that I'm supposed to list 6 things that make me happy and then nominate 6 more bloggers who deserve this award.

6 Things that make me happy:

1. My daughters and the relationship we have. Not always perfect, but very close-knit and loving, although sometimes, too honest. They give me details that I could usually do without:)

2. My farm. There is nothing I would rather be doing than digging in the dirt, feeding local people with good healthy food. It is my life.

3. Great friends. I have been blessed with both real-world friends and blog-world friends. How great is it to have support from strong, smart, successful women whether it's over a cup of coffee or over the internet.

4. Our new kitten. Yes, the last thing we needed around here was another animal, but Brenna begged and won and we are all enjoying her very much. You forget how playful and sweet they are.

5. Photography. I don't go anywhere without the camera. There is no better way to relax and feel happy than taking pictures. Too bad I suck at uploading them to Flickr or my blog. Someday.

6. Yellow Tail Shiraz. Wine is my friend - it makes me happy - sue me.

Now, the tough part - naming 6 other bloggers who deserve this award. Of course, there isn't one woman listed in my blogroll that doesn't deserve it - they are all creative and inspiring, but damn it, they limit us to SIX! So, here goes:

1. Madeline at Barn-Raising.....yes, I know, I always pick her, but she is my red-headed, internet, farming, photography, unschooling sister! Her pictures she took while in Europe are amazing - you need to go to her site and check them out.

2. Melanie at Bean Paste.....did you happen to see those Halloween costumes she made? Holy shit - this girl is talented. Not to mention her photography and ability to design blogs! Amazing.

3. Jodi at So Not Cool.....another photography sister, although she puts me to shame with her shots. Go check them out.

4. Marti at Standing Still......have you seen this girls pottery? She is incredibly talented and if you live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area you can find her at the Farmers Market!

5. Denise at Mom in Madison.....a fellow homeschooling mom that comes up with the coolest projects for her boys to do. She's a mother, artist, gardener, photographer....one very cool lady.

6. Laurie at Three Dog Blog.....I'm envious because she is an author which is what I want to be when I grow up:) Go check out the pictures of her 3 adorable dogs and her new office!

Yes, I could have listed another 15 or so blogs, but then I would be breaking the rules. You know me, no breaking the rules.....yeah, right.

Thanks again, Kat, I'm not worthy!

Coming Clean

2008-11-16T10:41:00.003-06:00

You know how it is when you have gone a long time without posting and then it almost becomes impossible to start again? Well folks, that's where I'm at.

Also, as the title says, it's about coming clean too. I've eluded to the fact there are some things going on my life and without going into detail, I'll just say it is my marriage. We are currently 'trying it apart' for awhile and seeing what happens. In 15+ years of marriage, there are bumps and we are in the middle of a pothole - if you live in Wisconsin or Minnesota, you know how big those can be! Why would I disclose this to the Internet? When I write on this blog, it is a real look into my life and trying to compose posts and pretend this is not happening seemed pointless to me and if you can't be authentic, why bother?

So, even though I'm 16 days behind, I'm jumping on the NaBloPoMo wagon to get back in the swing of things and plan on doing the same for December. High goals through the holidays, I know, but it's all about the focus on a task, you know?

Now, I'm off to attempt to catch up and comment on all of your blogs that I have been missing so much.

Slacker, I know.

2008-10-31T13:33:00.005-05:00

Ok. I'm trying to get all the photos from the trip up on Flickr, but as the title says.............

Here are a few more from my final show. Thanks for the interest in the pics - that feels great.

My life is upside-down right now, but I'm holding my own. What else can you ask for.

I can't wait to catch up with all of you.

Looks like Minnesota Matron is going to try to rally all us Wisconsin/Minnesota bloggers together for a 'meet & greet' - that would be awesome! If you are interested, leave her a comment.

No, she was not trampled by a moose or eaten by a bear.....

2008-10-25T22:32:00.005-05:00

So, I leave on this 5 day photography trip to Grand Marais and then fall off the face of the blogging world, wtf?

Well, we are dealing with some personal, heavy shit around these parts. When things aren't so raw? I'll share, but for now, let's talk about Photography!

Well, to sum up the trip up North in a few words? or maybe one word? WOW. The people, the scenery, the instructor.....all amazing. Five days of driving around with cool people, talking, getting to know each other and making stops at beautiful places to spend the day taking cool pictures. What else is there in life?

I'll share a few photos from my final show. That was the gig, after the 5 days, we had to come up with 10 pictures that told a story of our trip as a final show. Nerve racking, to say the least. But if you've taken 1500 pictures? You can certainly find at least 10, right? Well, you would hope so, but it still wasn't easy. I mean, you have a National Geographic photographer being the judge here, so it's a little intimidating. In the end, all the shows were great and everyone had a different perspective of the trip even though we were all together taking pictures in the same area - so that was cool.

So do you want to take a guess on what the next adventure is going to be? This same guy that taught this workshop, teaches another one in the winter, January to be exact. The workshop is 5 days of mushing your own dog sledding team up North and taking pictures. How frickin' cool does that sound? As of right now, I'm on the waiting list for this coming January - me and two other people from this trip - we want to do it together. Layne (pro-photog guy) showed us pictures from the dog sledding trip last year and it looks amazing. One of those once in a lifetime things, you know?

Well, there will be more to tell about this trip, but for now, here are a few of the shots from my final show. Hope some of you are still out there after my long absence. I can't wait to get caught up on what's going on in your lives.

Heading up North

2008-10-06T14:13:00.004-05:00

If you were reading this blog back in April of this year, you might remember my trip to Grand Marais, Minnesota to The North House Folk School to learn how to build a cabin.

It was an incredible experience and so much so, that I'm heading back up there again. No, not to re-learn how to build a cabin because I didn't take good enough notes, but to spend 5 days hiking around the north shore and learning how to take great photographs. It shouldn't be hard even for a rube like me with little photography experience, considering the scenery, to get a few good shots.

Layne Kennedy, a professional photographer, that I probably should have heard of, but haven't, is going to be teaching the class. He is based out of Minneapolis and if you go to his site, he does take some damn beautiful pictures. He just got back from a photography trip to Ireland - how frickin' cool would that have been?

I'll be heading out on Wednesday so today is being spent making a pile of stuff I want to remember to take, like my camera. It would be just like me to pack all kinds of clothes in anticipation of the very unpredictable weather and forget the camera, so it was the first thing I stuck in the bag. Here is proof of my packing process. Unconventional, yes, but it works for me....sometimes, but usually I still manage to forget something important.

Yes, that is one big-ass camouflage bag. Otherwise, I end up bringing 15 small bags, this way, it all fits in one bag, I just can't lift it. As you can see, I have the most important thing in the pile - the beginning of my wine stash - I say beginning, because there will be at least 3 bottles added to that before I leave. I know how to travel, folks.

According to weather.com, the weather is supposed to be a little less than ideal, as in, rain, rain and more rain. The other class participants had no idea they were taking a class with the unluckiest person in the world when it comes to weather. Sorry, dudes.

Weather or not, 5 days alone in the cutest little cabin you have ever seen in your life that overlooks the north shore, doesn't sound so awful to me.

Lucky for me, I paid for this class way back in April while I was still on the high from the cabin building expedition, because of course now all hell is breaking loose financially in the world and taking a 5 day photography trip during this time is not the best thing to do with your money - or what little you have left. So, I'm trying not to feel guilty about that and look at it as a way NOT to throw away the money I already paid for the class. See how I do that? Twist that around to make sense? I'm good like that.

I'm hoping I will have lots of good photos to share and that I won't be laughed out of the class for what a beginner I am. In the meantime, I feel like I'm back in college, cramming for a test. I've been pouring over my Nikon book that came with my camera from two years ago to try and figure out all the settings and what the hell they do! This camera is cooler than I thought. It's amazing what you can find out by reading the directions, but don't you dare tell my husband I said that. I'm even going so far as to make a cheat-sheet so when someone asks me something I can just look down at the paper taped to the inside of my arm and come up with an intelligent answer.

Many embarrassing stories to follow, I'm sure.

DON'T VOTE!

2008-10-03T13:58:00.002-05:00

*By the way, you have to pause my music below, so you can hear:)

Hard Freeze

2008-10-03T10:45:00.003-05:00

We've had touches of light frost on Tuesday and Wednesday night, but last night was a whopper. Our first hard frost put the final sleeper hold on the garden. We covered the stuff we really wanted to hang on to, but it got zapped even through the covering, so not much we can do about that.

Lucky for us, we still have the hoophouse which includes a few more tomato plants, our beloved basil, swiss chard, carrots, kale, beets and a few volunteer pea plants that are blooming!

It's always hard to let go and remember those long hot days in August when we were dreaming of the first frost to take us out of our misery.

We scramble around trying to put anything we can in a jar or in the freezer to savor the flavors over winter and remember what a great season it was.

For our family, salsa is a staple like flour is for some families. We literally eat it by the quart full. Last week, I made 12 quarts of hot salsa. Alyson came home from college last weekend, ate 1 quart by herself and the family managed to finish off 2 more quarts, then before she went back to school, she packed up 5 quarts to take back with her. See what I mean?

So, yesterday was spent replenishing the salsa stash with 10 more quarts, pictured below. The other jars you see is the juice we strain off the salsa before we can it. We use this juice for bloody marys, it is spicy, tomatoey and wonderful, plus by draining it off, that makes our salsa nice and chunky and not soupy.

There are still 3 five gallon buckets full of tomatoes in my kitchen waiting to become something, either stewed tomatoes, more salsa or spaghetti sauce. Stewed tomatoes are the easiest, however, salsa is probably a better idea.

Why is it that just as we are taking a sigh of relief that we now have some 'down' time, our minds immediately go to next spring. What will we do differently? What varieties will we keep and which ones will be dump? How soon will we start our seeds? We will vow to keep better records, which we do every year and somehow it always gets lost in the shuffle of planting, weeding, watering and harvesting.

This way of life gets in your blood. You live your life by the first and last frost dates and by amounts of rainfall. Your spring, summer and fall days are consumed by weather forecasts and high/low temperatures. There are times when it is exhausting and you question yourself as to why the hell you continue to do this? A regular 8 hour a day job would seem like a vacation. Your to-do list never ends and priorities are decided by what you should have gotten done last week.

But for some reason, when you plant those seeds in the ground and see those little green sprouts poking through, no matter how many times you've seen it, it's amazing. To think you can feed yourself and others this way year after year, is amazing. It makes you forget about the hard work ahead for the next few months. Then, when you are harvesting buckets full and carts full of food, it makes it all worth it. Even in December when the snow is falling and it's cold as hell, you open one of those jars of tomatoes and it brings you back to summer and gets you excited for the possibilities of the year to come.

Check this out!

2008-09-29T13:26:00.003-05:00

Okay, don't worry, this is not going to become some damn fitness blog, soon we'll be back to the regular programming of growing food, canning tomatoes, feeding pigs and occasionally homeschooling some kids, but in the meantime, there is a local guy from Madison, Wisconsin named Dustin Maher, doing some great things to help moms get a good workout.

He gives local free classes in Madison, maybe some of you have heard of him, but he also just started a blog with tips and short videos showing us moms some easy ways to get exercise in at home with minimal equipment.

Check it out and let me know what you think. Every little bit counts, right?

Here's the site:

http://mamatone.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!

Now, I am literally off to do something with 4-5 gallon buckets full of tomatoes!

I survived.

2008-09-28T14:59:00.003-05:00

Whew. One 5K down. Here is a picture of me finishing, yes, I survived.

Actually, the race course was quite a bit easier than my training course. The road I've trained on has two major hills that kick my ass three times a week and the race course was basically flat. Thank God.

Two of our friends did the whole enchilada, as in the Duathalon, they both did great. Another friend of mine split the duathalon with her 13 year old daughter, which I think is really cool.

All in all, the day was great, the weather could have been better, but for my first
5K, I'm pretty happy.

Turns out I got first in my age division - give a big 'hell yeah' for the old gals!! Truth be told? I was the only one in the 40-44 age division:), not hard to get first. But, in my defense, my time was actually better than the 35-39 group, so that made me feel better.

Of course, all this does? It makes me want to run a 10K or possibly train this winter and be ready for the Duathalon next year!

Alyson made the trip home from college and came to the race with her friends, very sweet considering they were up until 2 a.m. the night before:) All three of my kids even got inspired and decided they want to train to run 5K's next year.

So, for all you women out there who are considering trying something like this? I'm the LAST person you would ever think would accomplish something like this, so if you have the urge? In the words of Nike, JUST DO IT! It's fun and makes you feel great.

Thanks for all the support - you ladies are the best!!

D-Day, so to speak.

2008-09-27T16:40:00.002-05:00

After all my rambling on about the Couch to 5K program, then the back injury, the recuperation, the recovery, the return to exercise......dun, dun, dun......tomorrow is my first 5K.

The town next to us is holding a Duathalon and the 5K is part of the Duathalon. Of course, those crazy people will be running 3 miles, biking 22 miles and then running another mile, as in, after they get off the bike, as in, after biking 22 miles. Completely insane. Anyway, us 5K'ers take off for our portion after the crazy people get started.

Nervous? No. Not nervous. I'm pretty sure I can do it. I've been running 3.5 miles 3 times a week for some time now, minus the 2 1/2 weeks of recovery time, so finishing is not a worry and since I run at such a sloooowww pace, time is definitely not a worry b/c my time will be, um, slow. I'm running the race just so I can say I've run a 5K and that's it. So, actually, I'm pretty excited.

So, barring any complications, this time tomorrow will be time for celebration by throwing back a few of those homemade beers:)

Wish me luck!

Beer Making 101

2008-09-23T13:57:00.016-05:00

For Christmas 2006, my sister-in-law gave John a gift certificate to brew his own beer at a brewery in St. Paul. Said gift certificate sat in the junk drawer for almost 2 years. After cleaning out the drawer and finding it, I encouraged John to give them a call and see if he could still use it, you never know, right?

Lucky for him, the guys that own the brewery said, 'no problem, c'mon in.'

My brother was coming to town that weekend, so we scheduled it for when he was here and could go check it out too.

We had no idea what to expect, but it was really cool. The guy walks you through the process. You pick out what beer you want to brew from an incredibly long list. Next to the selections they had comparisons to beers you've probably had before so you had some idea what the hell you were making.

Horny Toad. This is the beer John chose. Let's just say we all agreed that was pretty appropriate.

The process is all about the timing. The hops go in at a certain time, you wait, the yeast goes in at a certain time, you wait, the stuff that makes it ferment, can't remember the name, goes in at a certain time, you wait. There is a bar next door where you do your waiting, so convenient.

After your brew gets a brewin', you leave it to do its thing for two weeks. After that two weeks you come back and bottle it up and take it home to enjoy.

Since my brother couldn't hang around for two weeks for the bottling, John and I handled that detail by ourselves. Again, the process was slick and idiot-proof. About an hour and a half later, we were loading up the van with 6-12 packs of Horny Toad Pale Ale. The bottles are 22 ouncers - they are huge - two regular beers in one of these babies - so really you are getting about 6 cases of beer. That might even be hard for John to drink in the short 4 months that they say it stays good and fresh, but probably not.

If you ever get the chance to do this, and you are a real beer lover, you should. It was a great experience, a lot of fun and awesome beer. I've got my eyes on their wine making class. You come home with 30 bottles of wine!!

Here are a few pics of the fun:

My brother and his incredibly cute girlfriend.

Me and John.

John and Aaron getting all the details.

Pouring something into the pitcher to add to the beer - sorry, I didn't take notes:)

Aaron looking very serious about his beer additives.

Adding something to the mix in the brew kettle.

Waiting.

More adding of stuff. Can you tell I wasn't big into science?

More waiting.....and looking at how damn cute Jennifer is:)

John tasting already instead of holding up his end of the bottling bargain. Surprise. We were like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory.

Filling the bottles from our keg.

Clamping the caps on the bottles.

The finished stash.

Isn't that pretty? Man, does it taste good too.

She lives - Part II

2008-09-21T09:39:00.002-05:00

To answer so many of you sweet women's questions - no, I did not get to run my 5K due to the pain-in-the-ass, or actually, pain-in-the-back, that is slowly but surely healing.

There is no better lesson in humility than having your body tell you exactly what you are and are not going to do, no matter what you might think you are going to do. You see, when bodies are attached to women who think they know better than to pay attention to that little 'twinge' she feels in her lower back, that dull ache that she is sure will go away after a few more yoga sessions, but in the meantime, let's harvest vegetables, haul feed bags, lift groceries, continue to run through the pain and put up eleventy-billion quarts of tomatoes and salsa. When you are a body attached to that kind of woman? You have to take matters into your own hands. You do this by making it impossible for this woman to walk, crawl or even get out of bed. There, maybe she will get what you are trying to tell her now, huh? Yeah, she got it alright.

Needless to say two weeks of not being able to do much besides bathe myself and go to the bathroom, usually by crawling on hands and knees down the hallway and needing help to get upright and sit on the toilet. Humility, I'm telling you, I got the message loud and clear.

I've been up off the couch for about 5 days now and actually am feeling pretty good, although I whisper that to myself just in case my body is listening and thinking I'm getting cocky.

Being without the exercise routine I was on was the biggest killer. I went from running 3.5 miles, 3 times a week to nothing, nada, zilch. Daily thoughts of never being able to run again were just some of the things I worried about. Some of the others highlights were, the weeds that I could hear growing, the laundry that was threatening to take over, the rotting tomatoes that weren't getting picked, and the CSA deliveries. They were good times.

Yesterday, I walked my 3.5 mile course, just to get out and get my body moving again and man, did it feel good. My doctor is saying with continued strength workouts, I could be running again soon. I have my eyes on a 5K in a week, but that might definitely be considered being cocky.

I've missed all your blogs terribly and thank you for all the sweet notes of encouragement. You ladies really are the best. As for past posts in the feed reader? Probably won't make it through all of those, but I'll be back to regular reading/commenting tomorrow. And what's with this 'followers' thing on my dashboard? It scared the hell out of me thinking I was being monitored or something! Glad to see some of you have taken the time to 'follow' me though:)

She lives!

2008-09-09T11:52:00.002-05:00

No, I haven't been kicked in the head by a goat, eaten by the pig or buried alive by the pile of tomatoes that is in my kitchen waiting to have something (anything) done with them.

I am however, down with a pinched nerve in my back and not in a very good mood.

There is so much to tell and so many pictures to share, but right now I'm just into sitting around feeling sorry for myself because I have been training for this thing called a 5K for about 5 months now? Yeah, I'm running 3.5 miles 3 times a week and signed up for the 5K this weekend at the Amery Fall Festival? Yeah, and now the back thing.......not happy, is what I am.

So, while I sit here and play the 'poor me' card game, I'll try to organize my pictures, come up wtih something to say that is not bitchy and attempt to get caught up on my feed reader, although those huge numbers behind all your great blog names is very intimidating.

Hey, at least I'm not crying about Alyson leaving for college anymore - that's one positive, right?

Recuperating

2008-09-01T11:28:00.002-05:00

We sent our first little bird out of the nest yesterday, off to college and her new life. I maintained very well throughout the move-in process, the saying good-bye and the drive home. Then inexplicably, I go downstairs to go to the bathroom and there hanging on the hook is her robe. There I sit bawling my fool head off while sitting on the toilet.

Today, I'm preparing for my brother to come visit, which will be a wonderful distraction. He will be here for 6 days and we have quite a few activites planned, which will be helpful to my state of mind.

My other children are showing their sadness about their sister leaving by being little monsters. They are fighting, going out of their way to be annoying and complaining about everything possible. Perhaps they are trying to make it easier on me when it's their time? At this point, I could easily ship them off as well.

I'm missing my blog-sistas - I've been so absent and miss reading/commenting on all your blogs. I'll try to catch up some today/tomorrow, but the posts will be few and far between, which is not really anything new. Besides, if I wait awhile and let the fog clear, the posts won't be as depressing.

Have a wonderful Labor Day, ladies.

A little something for the ladies......

2008-08-26T09:20:00.002-05:00

Because my brain is pretty tapped out this week, okay, every week, but especially this week with Alyson leaving for college and all that entails.

Here is something that came through email from a friend - some of you probably had this passed around - but it's a goodie. I've removed the 'pass this on to 5 people or you will burn in hell' part - that shit drives me crazy.

So, here is a tribute to us gals that are 40+ - no disrespect to you younger girls - but maybe this will give you something to look forward to:) C'mon, you don't have wrinkles, graying hair, sagging body parts and empty-nest syndrome, you have to give us something, right?

This is from 60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney.

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting.

Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize for all those men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?', here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

Where the hell does the time go??

2008-08-21T16:19:00.012-05:00

Jesus. Has it really been a week? Literally, my days are swimming into each other.

What has been going on around here? Well, last weekend was our Fun Days Festival in our little township, complete with frog jumping contests, turtle races, sack races, egg tossing/water ballon tossing contests and endless softball tournaments. The weather was beautiful and we all had a good time - another weekend of summer gone.

The vegetable fields are overflowing, of course, so that is taking up a lot of time. We harvested for CSA and market today and because I'm a genius, I didn't have my camera, but it was pretty incredible. The CSA members better be hungry this week b/c their baskets were overflowing.

We leave tomorrow afternoon for the 'adult weekend' at our friends cabin. Over the 4th of July we include the kids, but the 3rd or 4th weekend of August is all for the adults. No worries about who is hungry, who can't find their swimsuit bottoms, who hasn't had a turn on the jet ski......well, I guess the husbands are still going, so we will have some of that, but you get what I mean. 3 days of sun/fun, alcohol and no responsibilities for little ones. In other words....great.

We are slowly but surely packing things up for Alyson to be on her way out to adulthood. We are not only hoping she survives but decides to actually go to class once in awhile and not totally lose her mind. One more shopping trip next week to wrap up the supplies and she is good to go. I discovered today that Maddie (middle child) is pilfering some of Alyson's clothes. She will casually ask if she can wear something, Alyson will say yes, then that thing disappears into the abyss of Maddie's room. She is hoping that Alyson has so many clothes that she won't miss the few items she is 'borrowing'. Truth is, Alyson will not miss them b/c the amount of clothing this child has is beyond belief. But, she's been buying her own clothes for quite some time now, so not my problem.

I'm off to can some tomatoes before we leave for the weekend. If I leave them on the counter the house will be taken over by fruit flies, so even though I would rather not be doing that, I have no choice.

I didn't update on the '08 Ass Project yesterday, but it's still going. 2.75 miles yesterday with no walking. The 3 mile mark is within my sight and even though I've been afraid to utter the words so I don't jinx myself, I think I'm going to be able to do it. Pretend you didn't hear me say that though, okay?

Now, here are a few pics to go with my update........someday when things slow down a bit around here, I might actually come up with an original thought instead of regurgitating my daily happenings.....maybe.

After spending weeks catching frogs and trying to determine which one was a winner, the one Brenna picked? Not bad, but not good enough for the win - he jumped 82" - the winner jumped 102". *They let the frog jump 3 times, then measure the distance.

Brenna trying to win some of those homemade goodies made by the old ladies at the Lutheran Church. See those two women on the left? They were beyond cute. They had an old record player and they were playing old 45's for the Cake Walk. Only in a small town.

Brenna and her bud, Sadie, digging for quarters in the sawdust.

Maddie lining up for the egg toss & water balloon toss with her friend, Jerrica.

Maddie looking unsure about this whole egg shit. What if it messes up her outfit?!

Brenna, getting ready to catch the egg from Sadie. **As a side note, see that cute boy right there on the right in the white t-shirt? Yeah, he scares me. He has the hots for Maddie and I'm afraid the feeling might be mutual. Yikes. Go ahead, click on that picture and get a close-up - he looks like a mini Keanu Reeves for Christ's sake. Ugh.

Even though Brenna and Sadie were one of the last two pairs.....yeah, they didn't win, obviously.

My ass is still sore from all the softball we watched in two days.

These are the days you are thankful you live in a small town in middle America.

'08 Ass Project Update

2008-08-15T12:44:00.004-05:00

Where the hell did Wednesday go? Okay, so I'm two days late with the update, but today was a running day - so here goes.

Today was the last day of the 6th week of training. My instructions were to run for 25 minutes (or 2 1/4 miles) with no walking. This is my first day of no walking for that long of a run, so I was already laying the ground work of self-doubt.

But without trying to think about it too much, I went through the morning routine - wait, did I tell my morning routine? Not that any one will be interested in the details, but you never know. You see, I'm a big routine person. If I have a routine, it makes exercising much easier for me - who knows why.

My routine is: waking up somewhere around 7:00 a.m., depending on how late I stayed up watching the Olympics or reading my book.

Start the tea water, let the dogs out, turn on CNN, make my tea, check my email, then start yoga. I do my yoga while catching up on the latest depressing news that CNN has to offer.

**Warning - too much information coming your way, skip ahead if you would rather not know about my bathroom habits**

The reason the tea is so important here is, it helps me take care of my morning business, if you will. I've had to turn around many times from my walk/run b/c the morning ritual did not happen and the exercise effects my body in that way. Okay, moving on.

After yoga, I get my running clothes/shoes on, find my iPod and hope it's charged, fill my small water bottle, call the dogs back into the house (they will follow me, if I leave them out), and head down the driveway and on to my walk/run.

After I return from my run, I take my shoes off on the front porch, let the dogs back out and then come in and do yoga again. This much yoga might seem excessive, but it has done wonders for me as far as not getting sore, not having trouble with my knees and a general cool-down.

Literally, I have not been sore to the point of discomfort one day of this training. This is crazy to me as usually any exercise I would do in the past would render me useless for at least 2 days - a lot of hobbling around, moaning and groaning. Not one day have I been sore. The only reason I can think of is the yoga.

For the rest of this Couch to 5K training, which is 2 more weeks, I will have no more walking. This intimidates me a little and believe me when I say, I cannot believe what I've accomplished so far. Truly, as I said before, I am not and have never been a runner, so the fact that I am running for 25 minutes straight (2 miles) without stopping is simply amazing to me. But remember, my pace is sloooooooow. In the end, you are supposed to be able to run a 5K in 30 minutes. Not me. Mine will be more like 40-45 minutes. I'm doing this for accomplishment, not speed.

One thing I'm realizing is how mental, running is. There are so many times when my self-talk or how I look at that day mentally effects the run. Small things like, not looking up at how far I have to go, just keeping my head down. Concentrating on my iPod music or what I need to do that day and basically 'ignoring' the fact that I'm running - seems insane, I know, but it's true.

Either way, I've managed to accomplish 6 weeks and we will see how the next goes - one week at a time - with no expectations.

I hope the training is going well for the rest of you. If any of you ever have any questions about a certain part of the training that I have already finished, don't hesitate to comment or email me - not that I'm an expert - but sometimes any little suggestion can help.

How is it going for you?

Hey! Another Honor!

2008-08-13T13:11:00.002-05:00

Wow. Yesterday an award, today a guest-post over at Extra Ordinary. Erikka is taking Nova Scotia by storm and has asked me (and many others!) to guest post in her absence. If you don't already read Erikka's blog - you should - she was one of the amazing women I linked to yesterday. The subject she gave us is: Taboos or Guilty Pleasures......oooohhhh, interesting. I chose Guilty Pleasures, so if you're curious, go check it out.

Holy Shit! I leave town for a few days and come back to an AWARD!

2008-08-12T17:01:00.004-05:00

Can you believe this?

These wonderful ladies over at Nowhere, IL, not only added me, little ole' me, to their blogroll, but they gave me an award! I didn't even know they were readers, for Christ's sake. How cute are they?!

Now, since this is my first time getting this honor, I really don't want to screw it up, so here's how it works:

It's called the Arte Y Pico Award - so click on that link and check out the origin. Now, it is necessary for me to pass this award on to 5 bloggers who:

"...inspire others with their creativity and their talents, and for contributing to the blogging world in whatever medium."

Of course, I copied that directly from their blog, b/c who could say it better than that? The only problem that I can see is, 5?? Only 5?? Shit, now I have to choose from all the women who fit that description.

Here goes:

1. Derfwad Manor - this needs no explanation - Mrs. G inspires us to do insane things like post pictures of our ass on the internet, which I haven't done yet, but will.

2. Minnesota Matron - because she is in my 'neighborhood' and if you want a good laugh or be inspired to get off your ass, quit making excuses and finish that novel already, go read.

3. Barn-Raising - she is a fellow organic farmer, (well, her husband is, BUT she helps!) and unschooling mom, who is also following her dreams and finding time to make it happen in her hectic life with 2 adorable boys.

4. Lemon Basil - because I accidently came across her blog, made a comment about looking for a lemon basil bread recipe and within 3 days, she had made.one.up. and posted it! Now that is not only inspiring, but impressive and you should see her photography of my favorite things......vegetables and food! (and just because she has such a cute name, doesn't it sound like the author of a cookbook?? hint.hint:)

5. She's a Rebel, She's a Saint - she is fighting the fight of not only raising two daughters in this crazy world, making the hard decisions, dealing with a limited budget, like all of us, but she has managed to do the unthinkable of losing over 100 pounds, in the process. She inspires me to 'quit bitching' and just keep running.

Truly, there are at least 10 more women out there that I read on a regular basis that deserved this award and just because I can't bear to leave them out, I'm posting links to their blogs just in case you weren't inspired enough by the 5 Award Winners!

Thanks again to Nowhere, IL - what an honor - and now I have one more Daily Read to be inspired by! Thanks, ladies.

Now, go read these other inspiring blogs - truly, you will not be disappointed.

Bean Paste - not that she needs my help, she has such loyal readers, but you will laugh your ass off and be in awe of her photography skills, as I am.

Extra Ordinary - if you are looking to read the latest/greatest books and want a heads-up? She's your girl. Also, if you just want a look into a 20-somethings view on life, love and the environment - Erikka's inspiring.

Green Girl in Wisconsin - she's a fellow cheesehead - 'nuf said - but she also survives while living with 3 men - yes, 2 of them are small - but still....men!

Jen on the Edge - not only is she raising 2 adorable daughters, she writes on a couple of different blogs, manages to post at least once a day, if not twice and did I mention she and her hubby are building a new house? How, Jen? How?

Just Kat Stuff - she's adjusting to life in California as a transplant from Florida and most importantly, she has a son that will make 'chubby baby thighs', your new favorite snack.

Lovin', Laughin' & Livin' - Cece and I couldn't be any more opposite, she lives in the hood (as she calls it) in L.A. and I'm on a farm in Wisconsin, but I came across her blog and have been reading, laughing and loving her ever since.

Mom in Madison - also a fellow cheesehead and mom of two adorable little boys. She makes me want to give up this farming gig and move to Madison with all the cool things that city has to offer.

Sarcastic Mom - looking for someone who is 'keeping it real', seriously funny and an incredible photographer all while raising one of the cutest little turds on the internet? Check out Lotus!

So Not Cool - she claims she's not cool, but I disagree. She is raising 2 great kids, has a photography blog AND a video blog in addition to her regular blog - where do you find the time, Jodi? Her photography is amazing. Go buy some of her prints:)

Standing Still - Marti's is a new blog for me. She is an 'across the pond' neighbor, as in Minnesota. She is an amazing woman who makes pottery and jewelry and is a mother to the boy teen/child in her house. Did I happen to mention she rides a motorcycle?

Three Dog Blog - Laurie is also an inspiring woman from Minnesota (is it in the water over there?), who is an author and has 3 of the most adorable dogs you've ever seen.

Touch of Earth Farm - When you are talking inspiration? You're talking, Danielle. This woman not only is an organic farmer and CSA owner, she raises a myriad of animals, milks her own cow and in her spare time, makes her own cheese and butter! You have to read it to believe it.

Okay, so there were 12 more must-read blogs instead of 10, sue me.

'08 Ass Project

2008-08-06T10:08:00.003-05:00

As most of you know, Mrs. G, has started the '08 Ass Project and Wednesdays are the days we are to update or if you are really brave, to post pictures of your ass and face, kind of 'before' pictures.

Well, this is my first update and a little 'back' story, so to speak.

Back in March of this year, I turned 40. As a gift to myself every year, I also get my annual exam on my birthday - I like to give BIG - as you can see. At that appointment, during the weighing process, it came to my attention that my weight was the highest it has ever been in my life, except for when I was pregnant. My weight was 145. Now, I am not a tall person, I barely make the 5'3" that I claim on my drivers license.

Shortly after this doctor visit and subsequent depression about said doctor visit, I went to Illinois to visit family. With no disrespect do I say that the women in my family have ample rear ends and bellies. My dear, dear grandmother and great grandmother, god love them, love to cook and eat and they cook and eat with a lot of love and butter. Think: Paula Deen, from the Food Network.

My mother, on the other hand, does not cook. She actually hates all things domestic and avoids it like the plague. As a true women's liberation, self-proclaimed, man-hater, she sees cooking as a way for men to keep us down. Yeah, that's a whole other post, folks. But through genetics or bad food choices, she too has the rear and belly.

What I'm trying to say is, on my visit to see my family, I noticed these things and had that number from the scale at the doctor's office floating around in my head. There was also the fact that most of my clothes were size 10 and getting a little tight.

Let me say, that I am not and have never been someone who had to worry about her weight. I love food, have always eaten whatever I wanted and a lot of it, and never really had to worry about gaining weight. Also, exercise is something that didn't happen in my life. Running has never been my thing and exercise in general was something I tended to avoid.

Have you heard people say, "Just wait until you are 40, your metabolism will basically come to a screeching halt!" Well, I'm here to tell you that for me, that was true.

The proverbial light bulb went on above my head. Whether I liked it or not, getting off my ass and cutting what and how much I ate was going to have to be a top priority unless I wanted to continue the unhealthy ways of my family.

My main question was, "how can I find a type of exercise that I will stick to and not get sick of?" Personally, if I'm not constantly challenged, boredom starts to set in and it doesn't take long to start making excuses for not continuing. The boredom of a treadmill is almost unbearable to me.

After some research, I came across a link to the Prevention website (prevention.com) and their plan to train for a walking 1/2 marathon. This seemed interesting. Off I went 3 times a week toward being able to walk, a pretty fast-paced walk, 13 miles. It was a 3 day a week training, which worked well for me, and on the off days, I was doing some very simple yoga that only took about 15 minutes, but did a lot in helping my flexibility. After the 15 minutes of yoga, I lifted some small weights (5lbs.) to try and tone up my arms as the bat-wings were starting to settle in. Ugh. All of this seemed 'doable' to me and didn't stress me out and wear me out - it actually made me feel pretty good.

As far as my eating, I didn't change much, didn't go on a diet - we hate that word in our house full of 3 daughters, 1 of which has battled an eating disorder, so we don't use that word. Plus, diets don't work, we all know that. My key was my portions. Since we live on an organic vegetable farm and purchase probably 75% organic from the store, we already eat fairly healthy with an occasional pizza thrown in and sometimes ice cream. For me, it was eating good food, but eating A LOT of good food.

The key to my portion control was my plate size. I went from a dinner plate to a salad plate. When finished eating, getting up from the table and walking away to do something else also helped.

Now, I understand that all people are created differently and we all react differently to exercise and eating right, but I have to say that fortunately for me, sticking with this routine really started showing results quickly.

When on my 4th week of 1/2 Marathon training, I kept getting the urge to jog a little. Never being a runner, this seemed crazy to me, but I started just jogging slowly until I got tired and then went back to walking. After about 2 weeks of this, the idea for 5K training started creeping in. A thought that was completely insane considering I've NEVER been a runner. Back to the internet I went, and came across the Couch to 5K training program - the same one Mrs. G is talking about. After reading through the training and thinking it didn't sound so crazy, I started. I'm in the middle of the 5th week of training on that program and believe it or not, I'm doing it! No one is more amazed than me when I'm able to finish a day of training and actually was able to do it.

That's not to say that I don't wake up and think, "Ugh. I really don't feel like doing this today." But I force myself by getting down on the floor, with my morning cup of tea and doing my yoga, while watching CNN. After yoga, I put my running clothes on and head out right away before I have a chance to think about how much I don't want to do this. After my 5 minute warm-up walk, and the start of the running phase, I'm so happy I forced myself to 'get out there!' The feeling of accomplishment when I get back home is always really great.

So far, between the walking training I started and now the 5K training, I think I've lost 15 pounds, maybe more. I say, I 'think', because we don't own a scale. However, about 3 weeks ago, I had to take my youngest to the doctor and when she left the room, I jumped up on the scale out of curiosity and it read 130, but mostly I base where I'm at by how my clothes fit. My size 10's went to an 8. Now the 8's are starting to feel baggy, but I'm not feeling ready to try on a 6. Let me be clear, I am NOT trying to be a certain size or a certain weight - I just want to feel good and strong, which I do. Truthfully, a size 8 is comfortable for me and I'm not sure I want to be any smaller than that.

As I say this, I have no plans on signing up for a 5K just yet. Who knows, this could all go out the window tomorrow, but I want to finish the training, be comfortable with my pace (which is SLOW) and not feel pressured to run on a certain date. It looks like I should be ready by the end of this month, and there is a 5K in September in a town near us, but as I said, no sign-ups until I feel ready.

What I hope will happen with this 5K Ass Project is that through humor, friends and support, we can all get to a place of feeling good and really talk about our ups and downs to keep it real for everyone. This is not a competition, it is a great way for all of us to be human and give each other a hand. We could all use that, right?

Because I'm so far into the training, I'm not posting a picture of my ass unless I can find an old one to show just how my ass looked before I started walking, because I wouldn't feel right posting a 'before' picture, when it's actually a 'almost there' picture:)

If you are participating in this gig - how is it going and how are you feeling about it?

It's Crunch Time

2008-08-04T11:04:00.003-05:00

The beginning of August is also known as Crunch Time pertaining to our fields and greenhouses. It's the time to get all the old stuff pulled out of the ground and the new plants and seeds planted for our fall and winter crops.

We completely clean out our hoophouse and plant everything we are going to want for our family to eat through the month of December. Yes, even in Northern Wisconsin, you can grow things into December without heat in the greenhouse, as long as there are enough sunny days.

August seems to be the time of year when everything is going wild. The weeds are truly unbelievable. No matter how much time I spend pulling, they are coming up as I work my way down the row, behind me. The tomatoes are finally ripening, the beans are hanging off the vines and we are trying to understand why we always grow so much zucchini and what the hell can we do with it tonight?

This is also when we stop participating in the farmers market. This might seem crazy at the peak of vegetable season, but it's time for me to start concentrating on filling up our freezer and canning closet. We like to go in to the winter fully stocked and with food prices as they are, we have that feeling more than ever this year. The money we will save by not going to the grocery store, will be more than the money we make when everyone has pretty much the same things to sell. Our best times for market are early spring and late fall. That's when everyone else either is not ready or has been taken out by a freeze, then we can get premium prices for our healthy veggies grown in the hoophouse.

The only downfall to this plan is that by this time of the year, I'm kind of sick of the garden. The bugs, snakes and did I mention endless weeds (?), has me tired out and not very enthusiastic about heading out into it.

But, this is our life and before we know it, the snow will be falling, the fireplace will be going and we will be covering and babying the last of the veggies trying to hold on to that one last ripe tomato and pepper, while trying to experiment with just how long we can keep things from freezing off in the hoophouse.

It's a sad day around here when we pick the last of the salad and spinach in early December and have to do without until early March.

As much as I count the days until spring all winter long, fall and winter have their advantages too and we are usually ready for a few months of being cuddled up by the fireplace with soup cooking on the stove, reading books and pouring over seed catalogs with dreams of what we will try next year.

No matter how hard it is during the crazy season, a few months of downtime and you are ready to go again in the spring. So is the life of a farmer.

I hate it when my kids are smarter than me, which is most of the time

2008-08-01T00:43:00.016-05:00

So, after my kids had listened to me bitch for the eleventy-millionth time about how they lost my frickin card reader, Maddie (that damn middle child, over-achiever), says, "mom, you know you don't need a card reader, you have a slot in the front of your computer that you can just slide your SD card into."

Me: "No I don't! That is NOT what that slot is for."

Maddie: 'walking over to my camera, taking out the SD card, walking over to my computer and sliding it into the slot' - "There, your pictures are uploading to Picasa."

Me: "Well. How would you know that if you weren't messing with my computer? You KNOW you're not supposed to be messing with my.......blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah, and.....thanks."

Maddie: "No problem, mom." 'as she walks away, looks at her sisters and they all roll their eyes.'

Shit. I hate that. Anyway, to make an already long story a bit shorter, here are the fair pictures.

Loading up with shavings for the sheep pens.

Decorating the pens. Our theme this year was "Barn to be Wild" - hence the guitars.

Unloading our tubby little girl from the trailer....Casey, not Brenna:)

Helping Casey get acquainted with the neighbors.

All dressed and ready to show.

Off we go!

C'mon, dude - pleeeaaase be good.

Listening intently to the judge and still begging Casey to behave. (Please ignore that child next to her, since I did not have my permission slips handy authorizing me to put other people's children on the Internet.)

Back in the pen, clothes changed, and still loving Casey even though she took last place due to her tubby little tummy:)

These sheep shows are hilarious. Watching these kids wrestle these animals without lead ropes (they are only allowed to use their bare hands) while the judge takes his sweet time making a decision, is priceless.

Here are just a few more random shots. Enjoy.

*Notice how I cleverly stuck my business card into the vegetable box? The kid gets a blue ribbon and maybe I get some business! No shame, I know, no shame.

The County Fair and Child Torture

2008-07-30T09:40:00.006-05:00

Of course, I have a camera full of pictures to show you from our lovely* weekend at the Fair.

(*using this term loosely)

However, Alyson (now 18 and ruling the world, by the way), "borrowed" my card reader and "just knows she put it back on the table where she got it" and a few months ago, Brenna (11 years old and also ruling the world - is there a theme here?) "borrowed" my camera cord and "has no idea why it doesn't work now, it worked fine for her".

So, here I am with all kinds of pictures and no way to download them.

As an aside, does anyone else feel like they wish they had a lock box to store all their things? Or possibly a room of their own with a lock on the door for say, your clothes, your bobby pins, your ipod charger, your ipod headphones, your socks, your card reader/camera cord and even your tampons?? Or maybe it's just me with this house full of teenage girls.

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, the Fair. Well, it was fantastic weather - I'll say that much. Usually the Fair rolls into town and the mercury immediately goes off the charts - but this year - the weather couldn't have been better.

Brenna's sheep performed fairy well, although when we first unloaded her from the trailer and into her pen, it became glaringly obvious that we love our animals by feeding them. She was....well, let's say.....loved. This is probably the reason she got last place in the Conformation of the Animal class. Awww, she was so cute though with her round little belly. She did make up for it, or better yet, Brenna made up for it, in the Showmanship class, which is how well Brenna shows/handles her sheep. Since Casey is basically like a dog and follows Brenna around (hoping for food:)), this was pretty easy. Out of a class with 15 kids, Brenna got 5th - so she was happy.

Lucky for us, Brenna truly does not get upset about where she places. She just is happy if Casey behaves herself and doesn't take off running out of the ring. Unlike our middle child, Maddie, who MUST win every single thing she attempts or the world stops spinning and we all fall off.

After the sheep shows were done, we spent the rest of the time watching all our friends' kids show their animals - everything from cows, pigs, chickens, goats to rabbits. This is my favorite part of the Fair.

Brenna also got 4 blue ribbons on her photography projects, a blue for her vegetable box and a red for her wood project. The wood project that she and her father started two days before the Fair, so what do you expect, right? Procrastination seems to not only be my problem around here.

It took me two days to recover, not only from the endless drain of the Fair, but from my mother's visit. That woman makes me nuts. It's strange, sometimes when she visits, it goes very smoothly and other times? Not so much. This was one of those times.

Now, on to August and from the look of the calendar, it will be non-stop as much as July. Three of the four weekends already have something planned and we are trying to squeeze in a short family vacation with Alyson before she takes off for college on the 31st. Which is a whole other post in itself.

There are two things I want to call attention to before I stop blabbering. First, Mrs. G has brought back the 5K Ass Project and even though I'm into my 4th week of training - I'm jumping on the band wagon - want to give it a try? C'mon, it will be fun! Okay, not fun, but.....you know, fun to be part of the group. Yeah, that's it.

Second, if you live in our general vicinity, or not if you don't mind traveling, Marti is throwing together a little 'upper midwest blogging get-together' that I'm sure will include some very cool people and a little alcohol, possibly. Check it out and leave her a comment if you want to join in!

As soon as I'm finished water-boarding my children until one of them coughs up my card reader, or until I cave and buy a new one, I'll have County Fair pictures.

Fridge Shot

2008-07-23T10:06:00.003-05:00

I truly cannot believe I'm doing this - but when I saw the challenge over at Minnesota Matron's place awhile ago - I made a mental note to 'just do it'.

So, here is my (dirty) fridge shot. Remember how much I talk about his being my busy season? Yeah - well cleaning the refrigerator is not high on the priority list. Just keeping it full of food is enough of a challenge around here with children that eat like an invasion of locusts.

Thank god she didn't ask us to give a freezer shot - I wouldn't be able to open the door quick enough for the picture without an avalance of shit falling on me.

Did any of you participate? If you did, leave me a comment so I can snoop through your fridge!

Free Books

2008-07-22T09:09:00.005-05:00

While digging through my purse looking for an insurance card, I discovered two Borders Books gift cards and a Walmart gift card.

Now, I am one of those non-Walmart people, I have not been inside a Walmart for quite some time - months, possibly a year. In an emergency only, is my relationship with Walmart, but my sister-in-laws always give me a gift card to Walmart for either birthdays or Mothers Day, and it sits in my wallet.

But Borders, now that is a different story - I love those huge bookstores. Some people might see Borders, Barnes & Noble and the like as kind of a book-Walmart, I know. We should be shopping at the small, local bookstores (and I do) instead of the box stores. We've all seen "You've Got Mail" - one of my favorites. Call it rationalization, but I don't see it as quite the same, plus I can go to Borders and head in one direction, send my kids in another direction, and get lost for hours surrounded by my favorite thing in the world - books while drinking good coffee and eating fattening yummy stuff. Yep, that's definitely rationalization.

So, here I am digging for the insurance card, which I never found, and come up with free money instead.

In my daily readings, I'm always coming across books that people suggest or book titles that grab my attention and that I don't want to forget, so I have a running list on my computer of books I'd like to read in the off-season. As this is definitely NOT my off-season, the list is getting quite large.

To remedy that, as soon as I found the gift cards, I immediately went to my computer to look up the list and see if there was a chance I had enough in gift cards to cover all my 'wanted' books. After adding it all up, I would only need to contribute $6.12, mostly due to the outrageous shipping costs.

Yesterday, I received 2 different shipments, one from Borders and one from Wallie-world. Today, I have this stack of 8 brand new (or lightly used) books that are all calling my name and pulling me away from my very busy world.

Weeds upon weeds need to be pulled, animals need to be fed, laundry needs to be done, lawn needs to be mowed, Fair projects need to be finished, vegetables need to be harvested and did I mention my mom is coming in tomorrow?

But here I sit, writing a blog post and knowing damn well when this post is done, I'm going to crack open Undiscovered, by Debra Winger and will pay the price of my procrastination tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

Wannigan Days

2008-07-19T11:10:00.002-05:00

We spent yesterday, will be spending today and tomorrow, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Wannigan Days. What the hell is a Wannigan, you ask?

Well, here is the definition from Wiktionary:

Noun: Singular wannigan
Plural wannigans

wannigan (plural wannigans)

A box used to store food on canoe or sledding trips. Usually made of wood.

You see, we live on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix River. Back in the day, this river was used for logging and the Wannigan was the boat that carried the cook and all their food.

The town has a 3-day festival full of sidewalk sales, farmers markets, DNR demonstrations, baseball games, carnival, cake-walks and at night, all the bars have different bands. This is small-town fun, folks and we are going to join in.

John and the kids headed in early this morning, while I'm taking some time to myself and will join them later. The plan is to work on some photography and capture the small town feel of the weekend - we'll see how it goes.

Next week? The Polk County Fair - now, there is an opportunity for photography! Talk about a human zoo!

Enjoy your weekend.

You're Worth It!

2008-07-16T11:45:00.003-05:00

Flowers, one of my favorite things. I'm not talking big bouquets of roses, no thanks. I'm talking bouquets just like this - good old country flowers with huge color.

Lucky for me, I sell at a Farmers Market with a local farm that makes these beautiful bouquets. How self-indulgent of me to buy myself a huge bouquet every week, right? They cost $15.00. $15.00! Can you believe that? Who CAN'T afford to do that?

Go find a Farmers Market near you and indulge yourself! Trust me, you're worth it.

Adult time

2008-07-13T10:06:00.003-05:00

Back in March, for my 40th birthday, my dad bought John and I tickets to the Mark Knopfler concert. Do you remember him? He was in the band Dire Straits? Anyway, I grew up on that music, they were my dad's favorite band and I have many memories of the music being so loud in our home, the windows would rattle.

Mark has gone out on his own now and his and Dire Straits are some of my favorite music to have playing in the house.

The concert was at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis - a great small venue for a concert like this - and we had a great time.

In spite of the fact there were large signs all over stating how it was illegal to bring in cameras or video equipment, I'm sort of a rebel and not only brought in a camera, but a large camera with a telephoto lens:) No one seemed to mind.

It was great to get out with John and eat, drink and talk without interruption and be able to see a great concert.

I'm going to add one of my Dire Straits favorites to my music on the blog - it's called Romeo and Juliet - check it out.

It's Pickle Time, folks!!

2008-07-10T10:56:00.012-05:00

I'm sure many of you capable women (& men, equal opportunity blog, here) know how to make pickles and probably have pickle recipes handed down through generations of your own family, but just in case, here is ours.

Some background: I have a grandmother that lived through the depression. This woman literally wastes NOTHING. It really gets annoying, to be quite honest. If she's around, we are all on our toes, making sure not to throw anything away that could be made into something....anything. One time we were having family over for some occasion, birthday, first communion, who knows, but we made a roast. After we took the roast out of the oven and started carving it, my husband, a novice at this 'save every scrap' thing, dared to start to dump the juice from the roast down the drain. And then the world stopped spinning.

From the sounds of my grandma's screams, I half expected to turn around and see him murdering one of his own children. He was literally frozen in place, afraid to move a muscle. After a 20 minute lecture on all the things you can do to turn that juice into 25 different meals, we were able to salvage the remaining juice and John was allowed to live, barely, and not without learning a valuable lesson.

So, to make an already long story, shorter, I'm trying to say that if you need to know how to can, preserve, freeze, smoke or dry any type of food? Grandma Addie is your gal.

So, I present Grandma Addie's Dill Pickles or as she says, ("They're just like the store-bought ones, you know those Vlasic kind? They taste just the same!")

Ingredients:
Pickle size cucumbers, vinegar (not apple cider, plain white), peppercorns, kosher or pickling salt, alum, dill (preferrably fresh, but if that is not possible, you can use dill seed, only if you are desperate) and lots & lots of garlic.

First step: Have 4 or 5 clean canning jars with lids and rings. If you've never canned before? The rings are the round things that screw over the lid. Don't laugh! There was a point when I would have to be told that. Make sure you either run your jars through a dishwasher cycle or boil water and pour it over them to sterilize them. The dishwasher is the easiest, in my opinion.

On the stove in a pretty good sized pot, put 12 cups of water, 2 cups of vinegar and 1/2 cup of pickling or kosher salt. Bring this to a boil.

Then take a small sauce pan with a couple inches of water in it and put your lids (rubber side up) in and bring to a boil. This sterilizes the lids and makes sure you get a good seal on your pickles.

While you're waiting for your liquid to boil, cut the head off your fresh dill and put it in the bottom of the jar along with at least 2 heads of garlic, peeled but not chopped, just whole. I personally use at least 3 - but we love garlic around these parts. Sprinkle some peppercorns in the bottom of the jar too, like so:

Now it's time to cut your cucumbers. If you are using good pickle size cucumbers that will easily fit into the jar, you don't need to cut them. We do cut the cucumbers because my spoiled kids like pickle spears better than whole pickles. It is all about them after all, right? Although you never seem to see them around when it's pickle making time, do you? That's another post.

After you have your cucumbers cut (or not), now it's time to stuff them in the jars. Grandma likes to stuff the pickles in tight to get as many as you can in each jar. Just go with your gut, whatever looks good.

Next put about a teaspoon of alum in the jar. Just sprinkle it right down over top of the cucumbers. This is to make the pickles cripsy, because who likes a floppy, mushy pickle? Wow, that almost sounded dirty.....anyway, moving on.

If you have enough dill, cut another head and put it right on top. You might have to mush it down a little or poke it down in the cukes.

By now, you liquid should be boiling. Using a kitchen funnel that fits into the top of the jars is really handy here and much safer than scalding yourself with boiling liquid as you try to eye-ball it and pour it in free-hand. Not that I've ever done that or anything. Put in enough liquid to fill the jar to just under the top rim. Put your lid on and screw on your ring tightly.

Hey, you just made your first quart of homemade dill pickles!

Let the pickles sit out on the counter until you here all the little lids go "pop". This means they have successfully sealed down and are ready to go into the fridge. I recommend letting them sit in the fridge for 24 hours to get good and cold and crispy. Then, open up that jar and enjoy. You know, she's right again, they do taste just like the store-bought kind!

Another Independence Day in the bag.....

2008-07-06T18:45:00.010-05:00

Three days of sun, fun and friends, that's how we celebrated our 2008 Fourth of July. We just got back today from our long weekend and for the 4th year in a row, we had a fantastic time. Unbelievably, for the past 4 years, the weather has been perfect. No rain, not too hot, but with nice cool nights that require sweatshirts, jeans and bonfires, which of course, requires smores!

The women all have large blow-up chairs that sit in the water and this is pretty much where our butts stay for the entire 3 days. But who takes care of our kids, you ask? Our husbands, of course. The husbands take care of the kids, give them rides on the pontoon, pull them in the tubes and on water skiis behind the ski boat and even bring us a new drink every now and then. Yes, we do realize how spoiled we are and we appreciate it. Here's a glimpse of our luxury:

The guys standing around just waiting to serve us:)

The kids getting ready to tube for the eleventy-millionth time.

Possibly the cutest baby on earth - but since she isn't mine, I can't show her face. Just picture angels flying around with an opera playing in the background. That's her.

The days end with the kids all sitting around the fire, playing ghost in the graveyard, flashlight tag and hide-and-seek before heading off to the tents, and the parents end up staying up all night playing cards and laughing ourselves sick.

We come home Sunday, sunburned (no matter how much sunscreen we've bathed in), tired and needing a day to recover - even the kids!

Memories we will all have for a lifetime.

Hope you all had a safe, fun and memory-making holiday. Now, I need to go take another nap.

Moving Day

2008-06-30T09:15:00.008-05:00

Not long ago, we got two pigs. This was just one more step in our desire to be able to provide our own food and remove ourselves from the grocery store a bit.

Last year we raised one pig and were so happy with the results, we decided to try two this year.

Pigs are amazing animals, really. People automatically think they are gross, stinky, and disgusting. Now don't get me wrong on the stinky part, you wouldn't want to cuddle up to them at night, but they are great animals. They are the least amount of work of any animals we have ever raised. We choose to raise ours on pasture with very little grain, especially with the price of organic grains right now. We have a kitchen compost bin where we put all of our food scraps (everything except meat) and the pigs are over the moon for these scraps. Not to mention all the vegetation that comes out of the gardens that would normally go into the compost pile, now goes over the fence for the pigs.

We are constantly amazed at how fast these pigs can root up an area of ground. We rotate them every two weeks onto a new patch of pasture and they don't waste any time getting started on rooting up and eating all the grass and underground roots. They are like little rototillers only better; they poop out fertilizer the whole time they are rototilling!

If you live in the country and like pork, you might want to consider giving this a try. Last year we computed our costs and after it was all said and done, we had 200 pounds of organic, grass-fed pork for about $1.25/lb., which made raising a few pigs a no-brainer for our family.

Yesterday was moving day and I snapped a few pictures of the process. Maddie jumped in to help us and in no time we had them in their new happy home.

The Loft

2008-06-28T10:36:00.004-05:00

Okay. I've had a few commenters wanting to see the loft. So, here it is. See that chair over in the corner of the second picture? The one with all the clothes on it? Yeah, that's my dresser. I know, I know, there is a dresser in the room too, but who has time to fold and open drawers and neatly stack shit in there? Not me. It's so much easier to just grab whatever doesn't stink or look too wrinkled off the chair and throw it on.

The loft has become the 'catch-all' for all the stuff we aren't sure what to do with. We have storage closets along the sides behind the walls - talk about a death trap!

If you look close, you can see the piles of crap next to the dresser, some of my husband's tools, who knows what else.

I did pick up my husband's undies off the floor - I do have SOME pride left, but not enough to make the bed.

Thanks for all the great comments.

House Tour

2008-06-27T09:55:00.011-05:00

I'm jumping on the Mrs. G bandwagon and sharing our home. The fact that I'm doing this BEFORE I clean, goes toward proving my insanity. But we're all friends, right? If you were my friend that lived down the street instead of my friend that lives across the country, you still wouldn't mind pushing aside the piles of crap on my table so we could have a cup of coffee together, right? Yeah, that's what I thought.

So, here we go.

This really isn't a room INSIDE our house, but it's an area we find ourselves in a lot. The front porch is where we spend a lot of time. That is, until the mosquitoes, which are the state bird of Wisconsin, you know, make their way to our party and then we have to escape inside.

The true heart of our home has to be the kitchen, dining, living room combo. Truly, this is where you will find us most of the time. My position is usually in the kitchen, standing at the counter. This is where I eat most of my meals while the kids sit at the island. Once in a blue moon, we are all together at the same time and we actually sit at the dining room table and have a meal like a real family. You people with little kids? Enjoy all your family dinners because as soon as they hit the tweens and teens, this ritual is tough to keep.

This is our office/school book room. When you homeschool, there are books on every flat surface of your home. We have about 5 large built-in bookshelves in this place and there are still books everywhere. I have a problem when it comes to books. I never give, throw or sort through books. Eventually, I will be one of those women who only has a small path through my house due to all the stacks of books.

Even though I've posted pictures of my un-clean house? I'm only giving you a peek, into the loft, which is our bedroom. I do have some pride and the state of this room is, well, unstately. We'll just leave it at that. My husband likes to affectionately call this room, the Workroom. Although with him working nights, there isn't much 'work' getting done in there!

The basement is basically the kids' family room. My husband and I spend so little time down there that when we dare to venture down, the kids look at us like, "what do you two want?" I did lay on the couch last night with the kids and watch Toy Story. Remember that movie? We LOVE that movie. It must be a good one for me to be able to wrangle an 11 and 13 year old into sitting still long enough to watch it. You never outgrow Toy Story.

Finally, a picture of my 18-year-old daughter's room. Remember that pride I was talking about? Well, it's out the window on this one.

She's leaving for college in August. Maybe I should forward this to her dorm-mate as a warning? Probably not. She'll find out soon enough.

Still recovering.......remember, I'm old!

2008-06-24T23:06:00.005-05:00

(click on it and I think you can see a bigger/up close version)

Yes, readers, this is who you think it is. Jack Johnson, himself. Because the stars were perfectly lined up and it was the day after the Summer Solstice, I got lucky. Well, not lucky, but lucky....anyway, what I'm trying to say is, "Hey look! I got this great picture of Jack Johnson at the concert Sunday night!"

As my friend Julie and her sister Jana and I were walking in through the gates, we heard someone who sounded strangely like Jack Johnson singing in this small tent next to the beer line. Since that is where we were headed anyway, we thought we better check it out. All of a sudden, we find ourselves next to Jack Johnson, doing a little impromptu 'unplugged' session. Unfortunately, we got there just as he was singing his last song, but fortunately, we were right next to the fence where his fancy golf get-away cart was waiting for him to jump in. Hence, the picture.

Cool, huh?

The concert was beyond great, the weekend was a lot of fun, we drank too much beer and ate too much food, but made a lot of great memories and now we are recovering and trying to get back into this pesky routine of working, kids, animals and paying the bills. Don't you hate it when real life ruins all your fun?!

The weeds have overtaken us in just two days since we've been gone, so please excuse my absence for a bit while I battle large amounts of quack grass and thistle and prepare for this weeks market.

But before you go, tell me how your weekend was, will you?

Opening Day at the Farmers Market

2008-06-19T22:27:00.004-05:00

With the late spring we had this season, I'm surprised anyone showed up at the market today. It's been cold, wet and just a weird spring, in general.

Since we have the hoophouse, we are able to start our things relatively early and have some good crops. This always works in our favor in the spring and results in some pretty good sales.

For some unknown cosmic reason, our weather has been, dare I say, perfect, for the last several days and the forecast is saying more of the same through the weekend. Mind boggling.

Now that the stress of the first market day is behind us, we will be heading off for an adult weekend of camping, drinking, tubing and an outdoor Jack Johnson concert. We are like a couple of kids the night before Christmas. There will be 4 of our closest married-couple friends going with us and it should be a good time.

On another note, I was just looking through my photos and realized there are quite a few that I haven't posted yet. So much to say/do, so little time. So, one I just HAVE to share is this one:

Our newest addition to Dr. Doolittle's farm.....Larry and Lenny. Yes, they are here only to be fattened up and then, well, you know. Believe me, with the life they are leading? They already think they died and went to heaven, so they will never know the difference.

**I'm still working on the 'second chance' question - like Mrs. G said, I'm not sure I can even let my mind wander down that road......but still thinking.

Just a thought.....

2008-06-18T09:28:00.001-05:00

This question was just posed to me:

"What would you change if you had a second chance?"

It really got me thinking. I don't even have an answer yet.

How about you?

Aaron

2008-06-17T22:56:00.005-05:00

Aaron is my brother. He is 5 1/2 years younger than me. As most of you can surmise from past posts, our childhood was not idyllic. No need to go into the details, but let's just say Aaron often thought of me as his mother instead of his sister.

As you can imagine the affect this would have on a girl from age 10 to basically 18, I resented the hell out of him and was too stupid to realize it wasn't his fault he had shitty parents. Often I took it out on him and wasn't very nice. I always made sure he had food, clean clothes, walked him to school and made sure he was safe, but also made it clear that he was to leave me the hell alone after that.

As I got older and realized how messed up the situation was and how it was affecting him too - the guilt set in. The hours I've spent feeling guilty about how I treated that kid, you can't imagine.

Fast forward to today. We couldn't be closer. Over the last 18 years or so, our relationship has solidified. He has lived with us a few times, calls when he needs advice, is always there for me if I need someone to listen and has turned in to one hell of a great guy and awesome brother. His views on life are so level-headed and common sense. He is the first person I think of to call when I need a cool head that will tell me the way it is and not just what I want to hear. We've had many heart-to-hearts and hashed out our childhood. I've apologized for what I saw as bad treatment, only to find out there were no hard feelings, only gratitude for the things I happened to get right.

We don't get to see each other as often as we'd like due to the distance between where we live, but we talk at least 1-2 times every week, if not more.

Now we commiserate as adults about our parents and stand together with our boundaries firmly in place.

He came in town 3 days early for Alyson's graduation which gave us a chance to hang out and do some fun things before all the other family showed up. His favorite baseball team is the Minnesota Twins so I bought tickets to a game to surprise him. We also went kayaking on the Namekagon River, played golf twice and spent hours playing the Wii with the kids and John. We had a great time although it made me realize how much I miss being around him. He is the best uncle to my kids and they love him to death. He and John are great friends and love nothing more than to gang up on me!

Tough times can either bring siblings together or pull them apart. Lucky for me, it bonded my brother and I forever.

What to do when the bees swarm

2008-06-15T21:21:00.014-05:00

John and I were working in the greenhouse when Maddie and Alyson start yelling out the window, "Mom! Your bees are freaking out!" This could mean any number of things, but we both ran up to the front yard to see what was happening. The entire front yard was one big swarm of bees.

I'm not sure if you can see it in this picture, but if you look closely, you can see bees everywhere. Possibly, if you click on the picture you will get a closer look at it.

The first thing I can think of is to call Kino. It didn't take him long to show up with all his bee gear.

By this time, the swarm had collected on a pine tree branch about 12 feet high. Our first hurdle was the ladder we had was only 8 feet tall. Kino did not see this as a hurdle. He was determined to get that swarm and didn't care that he was going to have to stand on top of an 8 foot ladder and reach up to the large bundle of hanging bees. John and I were eyeing each other, thinking, "how in the hell are we going to tell him we can't let him do this?" The man is in his 80's and having him fall off an 8 foot ladder was not my idea of a good time. It didn't take long for us to realize there was no talking Kino out of this - he was going up the ladder whether we liked it or not.

Here are a few photos of the process with a few cute ones of me in my bee hat thrown in just for fun. John thinks the bee suit is hot, so he always takes pictures of me in it. Yes, his definition of 'hot' is not quite the same as the rest of us.

The first step was to spray down the swarm with water. Kino told us, this makes the swarm think it is raining and keeps them from flying around due to the fact they are trying to keep the queen from getting wet. Their main mission is to protect the queen at all costs......kind of like with me at our house, uh-huh, right.

While he was spraying down the bees, we were instructed to paint the inside of the cardboard box with sugar syrup. This would attract the bees and hopefully make them want to stay inside the box. Kino heads up on the ladder and we all stand below and hold our breath not having any idea what to expect. Everyone had an escape route already scoped out, just in case.

More pictures of Kino doing the prep work.

Kino needed some kind of hook to pull down the branch the bees were on so he could give the branch a good shake and knock the bees into the cardboard box. Yes, I agree, this is insane, but he knows what he's doing, I guess, so we all just followed along like sheep in a herd. We didn't have a hook, but my trusty husband came up with a ski pole. Better than nothing, I guess and Kino didn't seem to mind using it. So, here we go.

There are no actual pictures of him shaking the swarm into the box, mainly because we were all freaking out and not thinking of taking pictures, just mostly thinking about how we weren't going to get stung.

In the last picture, hopefully you can see all the bees flying through the air, desperately looking for their beloved queen that we had trapped in a cardboard box.

You'll have to forgive the video quality. There is a lot of shaking around and again, due to the excitement, the actual shaking of the swarm caused us to jump around and not get a very good shot of it, but you will be able to tell that's what's going on and will be able to hear all the bees buzzing around us - so you'll get the idea.

Please forgive my big mouth in the video. I talk loudly, especially in high stress situations like my 80+ year old friend standing on top of an 8 foot ladder shaking a bee swarm into a cardboard box.

Bee Swarm from Angie on Vimeo.

The happy ending to the story is we saved the swarm and now we have 2 healthy bee hives happily making lots and lots of honey for us. What we learned from Kino through this whole process was worth every minute of the fear of getting stung. Doesn't everyone need someone like Kino in their lives? He is awesome.

**UPDATE - I neglected to say why the bees swarmed in the first place! When hives are healthy and do a great job of reproducing, they get too big for their hive. This is what happened to mine. Once the bees start to feel crowded, they start making a second queen. Once that new queen emerges, she will take off in search of a new hive and half the colony will follow her.

This was a beekeeping mistake on my part. I did not pay close enough attention to the hive to see they were getting crowded. If I had, I could have added a new deep hive body to the top of the hive and given them more space to move up in to.

Learning things the hard way seems to be the only way I know and this is just one more example!

Thanks for the comments and interest in our bees.

Graduation 2008

2008-06-13T10:54:00.003-05:00

Credits earned, fees paid, locker cleaned out, family arrivals, graduation party, family departures. We survived.

The last of the company left yesterday. Two weeks of family coming and going leaves its mark.

Getting back into a routine is the hardest of all.

Alyson is officially done with high school and is now spending her summer working two jobs in order to save money for school. After a visit to her college campus on Tuesday for orientation, she is very excited and so are we.

Believe it or not, I did not spend the entire graduation ceremony in tears. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but so far, there is no sadness, just excited for her upcoming journey. When her car is packed and she is pulling out of the driveway, that might be another story.

After two weeks of non-stop running and entertaining of out of town family, I'm finding myself completely alone in the house this week. Alyson is working every day, the two younger girls are in a community ed summer camp and John is back working days. I've found myself sitting around wondering what the hell to do with myself even though there is a very large garden and greenhouse that needs my undivided attention. Procrastination, I am a master.

I'm looking forward to getting back to my posting, my exercising, my quiet time. First? The final touches on the Bee Swarm story with pictures.....right after I surf a few more of your wonderful blogs and have at least one more cup of tea.

I'm working on it......really, I am.

2008-06-06T14:37:00.002-05:00

There have been a couple of comments on wanting to see/hear the bee swarm post and like the title says, I'm working on it, I swear.

My family is coming in town by the droves and the weather has decided to turn to shit, not to mention the list of things I've procrastinated on for the graduation that are now biting me in the ass.

However, when I need an escape, which is pretty much every ten minutes, I do go to my computer and upload a few more bee photos or quickly type out a few lines of the post.

I figure by Monday morning, the party will be over, the family will be gone and I will have earned a good long sit-down with my computer to finish things up. Either that or I may be in my bed, sucking my thumb, curled up in the fetal position and moaning. Either scenario is equally possible. If it turns out to be the former? There will be a bee post on Monday. Thanks for understanding. Have a great weekend.

Quite a Day

2008-06-02T21:17:00.002-05:00

Without going into the dirty details, I survived my mother's visit and even without getting blind drunk! Progress.

Not much time to post anything too lengthy, but this was quite a day of accomplishments, so here is the rundown of what happened around here:

1. did yoga; walked 2 miles (did I mention I was training for a 1/2 marathon walk? In my spare time? Yeah. Nuts.)
2. did animal chores - fed/watered sheep, fed/watered chickens, opened the baby chicken coop (new chicks) and fed/watered them.
3. opened both greenhouses, turned on the fans and watered
4. ate breakfast (did I mention I'm on a 1500 calorie a day routine? Part of the training and just to lose a little bit of my large ass - 10 lbs. so far)
5. cleaned up the kitchen and did 1 load of laundry (laundry really suffers around here during the farming season - it's every girl for herself and my husband is completely on his own)
6. started planting the rest of the plants - today I planted approximately 125 plants - tomatoes, peppers, parsley, celery, thyme, basil, cauliflower, eggplant and cucumbers. This leaves approximately 100 left to do tomorrow.
7. weeded 4 garden rows
8. planted 4 rows of beans
9. harvested 3 different varieties of lettuce, pak choi, spinach, radishes, beets, snap peas and rapini for the CSA deliveries tomorrow morning
10. ordered the cake for Alyson's graduation party
11. hunted for punch recipes for the party (hey - any suggestions??)
12. came in to take a looong hot shower and on my way into the house, noticed some commotion over by the bee hive. My hive was swarming, which means the colony had broken in two and one of the halves were taking off to find a new hive. Great. Details of this to follow.
13. took a long hot shower.
14. cleaned the kitchen (again), loaded the dishwasher.
15. made stir fry with asian noodles.
16. started laundry load #2
17. said good-bye to my husband as he is working 3rd shift for a couple of weeks (yeah! sleep with no one snoring.)
18. wrote this post.

How's that for trying to stuff a lot of shit into one day?? Yeah, my body is feeling it too.

I'm working on the post about the bee swarm with accompanying video. Unreal.

With that, folks, I'm on my way to beddie-bye and will probably not move until tomorrow morning.

Have a great night!

Oh Yeah! I have a blog!

2008-05-31T22:53:00.003-05:00

Did I happen to mention that I have a daughter graduating from High School? Actually, the graduation ceremony took place last night and the party is next weekend, so........little busy. Did I also happen to mention a time or two that we have an organic farm? Yeah, we do and spring is probably the most insane time for us.....on top of having a graduation.

One last little detail. Did I happen to mention my mother was coming into town to 'help'? Yeah......'nuf said.

I will try to come back soon and compose a sentence after I'm through pulling all of my hair out.

Our Newest Project

2008-05-23T07:09:00.006-05:00

First, thank you for all the support on the last post. Knowing there are other awesome women out there who have struggled and moved through the hard times, gives my journey hope! Thanks.

Now, just a quick warning. Get ready to oooohhhhh and ahhhhh. This could possibly be the cutest little thing you've ever seen, except for our own little babies, of course, but this little guy even gives them a run for their money!

Introducing...........Albert.

Albert from Angie on Vimeo.

I know, I know. I've already watched it a hundred times and I'm the one feeding the little sucker at 6 a.m. every morning. Albert is just a visitor at our farm. Our friends who raise sheep took a long overdue vacation to Oregon and asked us if we would watch over their newest bottle lamb. For the past week, we literally haven't gotten shit done around here because we are too busy playing with this lamb.

The first couple of nights it was just way too cold for him to sleep outside with the other sheep, despite that thing he has called a wool coat? So, he had to sleep in our mudroom with the dogs, literally, with the dogs, in their beds. I'm pretty sure he thinks he is a dog. We work in the yard or go about doing chores and he just follows us around the yard, crying, if we get too far away and he can't see us but as soon as we call him he comes running.

Well, today, Albert has to go home and I'm not sure how any of us are going to react to that. Yes, actually I do know how we are all going to react to that - there will be tears.

But have no fear. When one exciting animal leaves the place? You can be sure there is something else exciting right around the corner. Look what I went to see about buying on Wednesday!

Yes, we are moving into the Dairy Goat world, folks. It should be interesting and because you are so lucky, you will have a front seat to adventure.

We are off to Ashland, Wisconsin for the Memorial Day weekend. Camping, biking, hiking, canoeing and kayaking for 3 whole days! Have a great safe holiday weekend.

Guilty Pleasures

2008-05-21T08:29:00.001-05:00

At the risk of you all thinking I’ve gone off the deep end…..I’m going to share a secret.

Frequently, I consult Soul Cards. Okay there, I said it. Sue me. Commit me. Whatever. It's a guilty pleasure of mine and my friend, Chris.

It seems like when I’m really struggling with something, a nugget of life that just keeps nagging me and I can’t figure out why or how to just ‘get over it’ already, I turn to these cards. I’m constantly amazed at how right on they are. Not in some fortune teller sort of way, I’m not into that, but in a way that makes me dig a little deeper to find out why the hell this is bugging me. We know it's corny, but we giggle like a couple of little girls while we're reading them and the conversations that have come out of it are so healing. Theses cards have been getting a work out this week.

As I alluded to weeks ago, things are a little……bumpy in the marriage department. Now, let me clarify. I have no desire to leave or divorce my husband. I love him very much and he loves me. I’m the luckiest woman on the face of the earth to be able to have the situation I have, but, that doesn’t mean there aren’t bumps along the way that we have to navigate our way through. We are in that spot.

I’m feeling the need to spread my wings a bit, so to speak. Feeling a little suffocated and needing some independence from my family. Ever since I turned 40, there are just things I want to accomplish. Not in some “life is short” sort of way, just some things that have been put on the back burner, waiting for the day when it felt right. Well, it seems that time has come.

These are not life-altering changes, just a few things I want to put on the top of my priority list and carve out the time to make happen on a daily basis. Anyone that knows me knows that when I decide I’m going to do something, talking me out of it or trying to convince me otherwise, doesn’t usually go over very well. Pretty much, when I say I’m going to do something, I do it and usually with a touch of obsession, just a touch.

Change is hard for others to accept. When others see you making changes in your thoughts and actions, they feel threatened. Feeling threatened can bring about many ugly emotions that are hard to deal with. Sometimes people don’t see that the changes have nothing to do at all with them, and everything to do with the person making the changes. There are no hidden meanings, no ulterior motives, no deception, just the need for some space to sort out your thoughts.

Humans are complex individuals. When life presents itself, it’s tough to deal with the issue at hand and not drag along all 40 years of your baggage with you to the negotiations. The key is to know how to swim through all the baggage and get to the ‘nuts’ of the problem. If you can stay in the fight and dig through the dirt together, you will come out stronger on the other end. That’s the difference between working hard at something you love and giving up.

These are the things they don’t talk about when you are about to start sharing your life with another person. They don’t dare tell you how much you have to give of yourself, the patience you have to have, the negotiations you will have to navigate, the compassion you will have to have, the understanding you will have to give and the pieces of yourself you will have to stand up for and fight for.

If you’re lucky like me, you will find yourself with someone who is equally willing to fight the fight while still feeling love. Someone who fights fair and who understands this won’t be fixed overnight and is still willing to face it tomorrow and possibly the next day, without throwing in the towel.

Sex with one leg still in your pants.

2008-05-19T11:00:00.001-05:00

This explains how the deed is done most of the time in our house. With a house full of preteens and teens, there is no more disturbing thought than being caught by your kids, in the act.

Now, before you start feeling too sorry for my husband and his boring sex life, don’t feel too sorry for him. Often enough, we throw caution to the wind and have the time of our lives, so no need for sympathy.

I’m talking about the week to week, day to day process of ‘reconnecting’, as we like to call it. How many of you ‘reconnect’ with one ear open for the sound of footsteps of the child who, “can’t sleep” or “forgot to tell you one more thing before they go to sleep.” You know, the part where you freeze and say, “listen!”, just to make sure you don’t have an audience?

Our kids can barely stomach it when we hug and kiss in front of them. “Could you two please stop that or get a room?” is the constant refrain. They appreciate the fact, I’m sure, that we love each other and care enough to show affection, they would just prefer we do it out of eyesight of their weak stomachs.

When they are babies, it’s not about fear of being caught, more of the hassle of being interrupted, but when they reach a certain age, fear of being caught and having to explain just what the hell was going on, is limiting, to say the least.

We have many stories of being caught when they were young toddlers and being able to skirt out of the embarrassment with a short explanation, but those days are gone. If we happen to get caught now, we would have some ‘splaining to do as to how we could do something like that in the same universe in which they live!!

There are so many varying opinions on how to deal with this in families. Some people just make it known they are going to have ‘quiet’ time as a couple and everyone knows what that means! ‘giggle, giggle’. Others keep it completely secret and don’t even show affection around their kids – this seems strange to me. We fall somewhere in between, I guess. But the day we can actually undress and not have to leave one leg still in our pants will be……let’s see……liberating!

If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Dysfunction Junction

2008-05-15T18:45:00.004-05:00

Remember that song from School House Rock? "Conjunction, junction, what's your function?" I loved those songs and actually remembered them a time or two when pondering on a grammar question.

Well, as the title suggests, I've been visiting Dysfunction Junction - otherwise known as my family in Illinois.

Without going into too much detail, but giving you enough information to understand why I made the trip, here goes. My uncle (mom's brother) died of cancer. Not a sudden death, a relieved death after a year of suffering. My grandmother (uncle's mother), who I am very close with is left to deal with all the details as my uncle was not married and left everything to my grandma, even though he had a son. The son is ill-equipped to be inheriting any money, let's just leave it at that.

This tragedy has required my grandma to be in Houston, Texas, where my uncle lived, for the last 9 months.

Now, my grandmother and I are close. If it weren't for my grandmother, I would not know diddly about the things that are so important to my life, like, gardening, canning, cooking, sewing and life in general. Without going into futher detail, my mother was ill-equipped at being a mother and therefore gave up and left to live her life. Only to return, 7 years later, with the thought we could all just act like nothing ever happened.

Needless to say, to my grandma, getting her garden in is a very important part of her spring. She tolerates winter only because she knows soon she will be bent over in the garden picking green beans. The other part of spring that is a long-standing tradition to my grandma and her mother and her mother, is hunting Morel mushrooms. I have a very clear memory of my great-great grandmother holding my hand and walking the timber looking for mushrooms when I was only about 4 years old.

Last week, I got a call from my grandma indicating she was very stressed out about her gardens. Her flower and vegetable garden were in terrible shape from her absence and "they're saying this is a great year for Morels!" Taking the hint, since she would never come right out and ask for help, I put the two youngest in the car and in a split second decision, jumped in and took off to Illinois.

We arrived with 3 flats of plants from my greenhouse and all the garden tools. In a matter of 3 days, we had all the flower beds, which are beyond huge, and the vegetable garden, weeded, tilled, planted and mulched. We even had time to go mushrooming 2 different afternoons and got a good 'mess' of mushrooms, as she calls it.

We also got to see my brother, my uncle and my grandmother on my dad's side. Great to see all of them. Oh, yeah, we also saw my mother and younger sister and her new baby.

Now, we all have dysfunction, I know. But where my mom and sister are concerned? Jerry Springer has nothing on us. Never would we believe that our mother abandoning my brother and I as a good thing, but our sister is living proof that having my mother stick around and raise you, is far worse. That's all I've got to say about that (said in my best Forest Gump voice).

So a week without a post, but for a good cause. It's the one thing I hate about being so far up North - too many miles between me and my grandma.

My grandma, my girls and my uncle in the timber looking for Morels.

My awesome brother, Aaron and my grandma.

Spring is finally here.....

2008-05-07T13:42:00.013-05:00

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Nothing like new baby chicks to symbolize spring, right? Our new batch arrived this morning, all soft, warm and peeping like crazy. I didn't have to do much, the girls have seen it done enough they know exactly what to do and like doing it. They jumped right in and started dipping the beaks in the water and counting how many we had.

Keeping the theme of 'doing less' this year, we cut our usual chick numbers in half and are only doing 50 this spring with the possibility of doing 50 more in the fall. I can't believe how easy 50 seems!

The girls are hanging out in the chicken coop all day loving on the babies. In a few days, they will just be stinky chickens and not as much fun to play with. All, literally, ALL they do is poop, so it doesn't take long to get stinky.

We have a pond behind our house and every year at least one pair of Canadian Geese make a nest and end up with a few babies. It never fails that some critter gets a few of their eggs, but they usually manage to fight off the animals enough to get at least 2 babies. This process starts early in the spring and usually involves some serious territory disputes. One couple will take control of the pond, make their nest and be paddling around happy and lo and behold, here comes another pair in for a landing. They saw this great pond from the sky and thought, "hey, there we go!" Only when they land, they are immediately attacked by the pair that is already established.

You can see the 'already established' couple standing their ground against the female of the other couple......and there is the male of the invading couple just paddling around, making a lot of noise, but not really helping out much....just leaving his mate to do the dirty work!

Every once in awhile he would give a supporting 'honk' in his mate's direction. As John and I watched, he looked at me and said, "He's a lover, not a fighter, just like me."

Caution: Feeling Sorry for Myself.....

2008-05-04T20:49:00.002-05:00

Let's just be honest right out of the gate here, okay? I'm having a really hard time getting back into family life.

Have any of you ever taken a chunk of time for yourself, allowed yourself to dream about only having to think about yourself, been able to just.....THINK without being interrrupted?

Could this be considered Burn Out? Do I even need to say the usual, "Of course, I love my family....blah, blah, blah?" We all know that, but I am really struggling with finding the routine again.

It's possible that I'm just overwhelmed. Spring has a way of doing that to me, you know. Never enough hours, even with the extra few hours of daylight we have now.

Our weather is finally cooperating, although the temps are still cool, the sun has been out quite a bit. Today, my husband found me just lying in the backyard in the sun. Eyes closed, half asleep with both dogs lying next to me, in the sun.

Besides my avoiding the routine and all it entails, the crabbiness has been around too. Short temper, no patience, no tolerance.....that's pretty much been the deal. Do you think this is subconscious? If I'm bitchy enough - they will send me away again!

Nope. No subconscious, no psychological reason, just struggling to get back to the mom/wife role.

Still, the weekend was not a total wash, I did manage to transplant 150 tomato plants, plant lettuce, radishes, pak choi, beets and broccoli in the hoophouse, laid down 4 rows of landscape fabric (of course, all of these jobs are done ALONE) and helped my husband load 3 trailers full of horse poop and spread it on the field. We didn't even kill each other while working together. He's a very patient man, even with snippy women.

Snapping out of this soon might be a good idea though, he's patient.....but that won't last forever.

Can anyone relate? Even though we are all good, loving wives and mothers, once you get the taste of freedom, is it hard to come back and be responsible for everyone again? Most people say they can't wait to get back home. I didn't have that really. Maybe the trip wasn't long enough? Maybe it was too long? Not sure.

As usual, anyone with any advice, I'm all ears.

When You Play, You Pay

2008-05-01T10:24:00.002-05:00

Nothing like being snatched from your high of a great experience and back into reality with a sinus infection. Ugh. I'm on my third day of feeling like dog shit and this time of year - there is just no time for this. There are seeds to be planted, fields to be tilled, plants to transplant.....the list goes on and on.

About 3 weeks ago, I had my annual exam at the Funhouse, otherwise known as the Gyno. Everything came back fine as far as the "ole girl" was concerned, and even the blood tests to check my cholesteral were great, overall cholesteral 177 and my good cholesteral was 166, which she said was excellent. All good news. However, my thyroid levels are off. Looks like I have a little hypothyroidism going on, which explains a few things.

Back in 1996, we were having a bit of trouble getting pregnant with our youngest, Brenna. While I was in for my annual exam, my doctor asked me how long I had had that lump on my thyroid? "Lump?" I had no idea I even had a lump. That led to more tests which came back inconclusive, then biopsies which also came back inconclusive and finally to surgery. The idea was that they would operate and once in surgery, would send the lump in question to pathology while I stayed under and anesthesia if the lump came back cancerous, they would remove that half of my thyroid. Fun times. Well, to make a long story short, they ended up taking that half of my thyroid. They never called it the big "C" word, but said it was suspicious enough to warrant removal. They prescribed Synthroid, to help my thyroid keep up and off I went. Two months later, I was pregnant. I never knew how powerful that little thyroid was.

That was 11 years ago and about 1 year after the surgery, I stopped taking the Synthroid, partly because I am a terrible pill taker and partly because I didn't feel any different. For the last 10 years, every year we check my thyroid levels as part of my annual exam and I've always been right on the 'normal' numbers.

Well, you turn 40 and it all goes to hell. For the first time, the numbers are off and indicating hypothyroidism. I'm actually relieved by this diagnosis. It finally explains why I'm always so freaking tired, why I've been so sick for the last year - more so than any other time in my life - and possibly why I've gained about 10-15 pounds. At least that's what I'm going to blame it on. So, starting today, we will go back on the thyroid hormone and see what happens. I'm envisioning myself as the Tasmanian Devil - just a whirlwind of activity - so much so that I magically drop the extra 15 I've been carrying around. Don't burst my bubble - just let me believe this for a little while, okay? Thanks.

Of course, I dread taking a pill daily. You wouldn't think something like that would be such a big deal, but I really hate it. I'm one of those annoying people that doesn't take Advil/Tylenol when I have a headache or feel sick, I just wait it out. Although this sinus infection was kicking my ass so badly yesterday, I broke down and took a Sudafed......ahhhhh, so this is what they mean when they say "temporary relief of pain". Ingenious.

Now, off to crank up the iPod and furiously plant some seeds in the greenhouse. It's a little early in the day for wine, but like my husband always says, "Hey - it's noon somewhere!"

The Final Product

2008-04-29T10:22:00.003-05:00

We survived, are home and recuperating.

I think I can honestly say, that was one of the best experiences of my life. Does anyone believe in fate? Well, I do and believe that group was fated to come together for this project. The relationships we made with total strangers in just 5 days was amazing. It was hard for any of us to leave. When the cabin was finished, we all just stood around and tried to find things to do so we wouldn't have to say goodbye. Of course, we all exchanged information and there are at least 6 of us that are making plans to get together and help each other build their cabins.

Two of the women were from Minneapolis, so that works perfect for us. We also just so happen to be members of WEI - Women's Environmental Institute located in Almelund, Minnesota, which is close to me. WEI asked Maria and Eileen if they would build a cabin on WEI's property for them to use as a retreat cabin. Now, Julie and I will be helping with that build.

Our instructor, Randy, was the perfect person to teach this class. His patience and laid-back good nature was such a gift. He was the perfect fit for our group.

Ok, enough slobbering all over the keyboard about how awesome it was. Below is the link to all the pictures. Some are just of the basic construction so I would remember it and others show the whole group.

While I was there and reading their new catalog, another class caught my eye: Superior/Gunflint Photography - the Fall Equinox Session. The class runs from October 8-12th. Grand Marais in the Fall is something I can't imagine, but guess what? I'll be there. I signed up and paid in full before I ever left the place, otherwise, I would have talked myself out of it. "It's too much money", "that's Maddie's birthday week", "we'll still be harvesting vegetables" - all the excuses ran through my head as I handed over my credit card and charged the entire tuition and then the excuses just faded away.

I talked to Randy about places to camp up there, which of course, there are many. Since I'll be going by myself, I won't bother getting a hotel and am really looking forward to the solitude of camping alone. Hopefully, I'll have pictures of my own Thoreau Cabin to show Randy when I return in the Fall.

Enjoy the pictures and ladies, if you are even considering something like this - do it. Find somewhere to go and just go. Do whatever you can to silence the 'excuse train' and pay your money - then you won't back out.

The Final Product

Day Two.

2008-04-24T17:13:00.002-05:00

Lucky for us, we really enjoyed the sunny weather yesterday. Today we were met with typical April weather in Northern Minnesota - cold, windy and wet. Not that we are complaining! We are still loving it!

We are starting to get to know the people in our group and everyone is truly great. It's not often you get a group of 13 strangers together and have everyone be able to get along, especially under stressful conditions. We all process the information we are learning differently. Some of us take detailed notes, some of us (me) videotape certain aspects and others need to just 'do it' and can't visualize without actually doing it hands-on, but everyone is respectful of each other's ways.

I won't post a 'how-to' video today only because they are VERY lengthy. If any of you are interested, I would be happy to email it to you.

We learned about the rafters today - very complex for my pea brain to absorb. Thank God for the video camera.

Tomorrow we finish the rafters and start the sheeting. Whew. Let's hope for a short break in the rain.

The local high school is putting on Hamlet - so we are off to go see the local talented teens. Here's a short video of me (beautiful again, dripping wet) telling you basically everything I just told you! How repetitive.

Untitled from Angie Sullivan on Vimeo.

Day One!!

2008-04-23T19:23:00.002-05:00

Wow. wow. wow. This could possibly be one of the best experiences in my life. Awesome school, beautiful weather, cool people and an overload of information.

Literally, this school is on the shore of Lake Superior. Next to us is a group of people building boats, another group are baking pizzas & bread in an outdoor clay oven - just such cool things going on all around us.

Our instructor, Randy, is great. He is so patient and just stands back and lets us do the building. If he sees us starting to screw something up, he just gently walks over and says, "how about this?"

The group of people we are with are a perfect mix. There are 6 men and 6 women - all like-minded and so fun to work with.

The short video is just a snippet of Randi teaching us how to lay down the sheeting and make sure your structure is square. Since my video camera only tapes for one hour - I have to pick and choose what to videotape in an 8-hour class. I've been taking copius notes and when something seems really important, I video. I'll post a couple of videos just to show you how cool the process is and after I decipher the notes, I'll give you guys a run-down of how it all gets done.

I know that some of you women have said you wanted to do something like this and all I can say is, just do it. If anyone is serious and is interested in this particular school, let me know and I'll definitely come up again for any one of the classes they offer. It is truly awesome.

We of course, are exhausted, sore feet, a little sunburned but so happy. We tried to soak up the sun today, because it looks like the rain and cooler weather is headed our way. By Friday, it is supposed to be raining and high of 40. Brrrr.

Now I'm off to take a hot shower and probably be asleep by 8:00 p.m., I haven't done that since the 3rd grade!

Untitled from Angie Sullivan on Vimeo.

Grand Marais

2008-04-23T08:01:00.003-05:00

We made it. The drive up was full of chatter - venting about our husbands, worries about our kids, our dreams and how as we age, those dreams change. 4 hours of non-stop talkinng. Wonderful.

We are off in about 20 minutes to our first day of construction. We have no idea what to expect, but the weather could not be more perfect. The sun rose over Lake Superior this morning and the temps are supposed to hit 60 degrees. Although, the end of the week looks a little dicey - rain, cold and possibly snow. But for today, we are going to soak up the sun and enjoy.

Here is the first video installment - please forgive the 7 a.m. hairdo and morning breath!

Have a great day.

Untitled from Angie Sullivan on Vimeo.

Spring on the Farm and my upcoming trip

2008-04-21T14:23:00.011-05:00

This weekend brought a lot of spring-time weather to us long-suffering Wisconsinites. Even today, I believe the temp is hovering right around 70. Of course, we are not completely out of the woods yet. Last year we had a late freeze on....get this.....May 20th! Yikes. But we took full advantage of the weekend and had a great mix of work & play. Here are a few random photos to share.

The back of our house from the other side of the pond.

Bird nest in a tree next to the pond.

Baby lambs and chickens - they are buddies.

Transplants.

Me. Trying not to get stung while changing the sugar-syrup.

Rugby, trying to figure out the concept of 'pet' rabbit and how that relates to the kind he eats daily.

The family on our bike ride. Bet you didn't know we had our very own Paris Hilton!

Me. Planting onions. We usually plant around 1000 onion plants. 250 down, 750 to go.

Onions.

If any of you remember this post, there seemed to be some like-minded sentiment about women/moms having a space they could call their own. Not because we don't love you family, but because we would love you better if we could give ourselves a 'time-out' now and then to our own corner of the world.

Well, tomorrow I'm leaving on a trip to Grand Marais, Minnesota (5 1/2 hours North of me, if you can believe that) to take a class called Build Thoreau's Cabin, based on Henry David Thoreau's Walden cabin & book. The link to the class is here. For 5 whole days, my friend Julie and I will be learning how to build a 10 x 14 cabin with a loft. There are 11 people in the class and supposedly we will be able to walk away from this class with the ability to come home and build our own cabins. Julie and I are going to start at my house, build my cabin and then off to her house to build hers.

Since there are so many women who have indicated they would like to do something similar to this, I am going to attempt to do kind of a video diary of sorts about our experience. I won't be able to video tape the entire class obviously, but will keep in touch through photos and videos to let you know how it's going.

I broke down and bought the kids a Flip. This thing is pretty awesome and I'm stealing it back from them to take on my trip. We'll see if I figure out how to use the damn thing correctly. Actually, it's the easiest thing in the world - you just push one button and you're good to go.

So, as any of you with kids know, trying to prepare for a trip for 5+ days is no small feat, which is why I must stop blogging long enough to get my bags packed, all my electronic gear ready and sufficiently drive my girls nuts by hugging and kissing them to death to get me by for 5 days without. Of course, all they see is that mom will be gone for 5 days and that means, all the TV they want to watch, no chores and basic anarchy, when dad is left in charge.

Got Bees?

2008-04-17T21:25:00.013-05:00

As some of you may know, there is somewhat of a crisis in the bee world. They, meaning the experts, call it CCD or Colony Collapse Disorder. It seems the bees are not making it back to their hives, getting disoriented and dying. There are any number of reasons they think this is happening. New pesticides, toxic waterways, cell phone towers, no one is really sure, but obviously something is happening.

The thing most people don't get is this: without bees, there is no food production. Everything that grows gets pollinated and most of the time, bees are the most important part of the pollinating equation. Something needs to be figured out and fast or we could all be in real trouble, if for no other reason than our food prices going into the stratosphere.

Personally, I didn't know the first thing about bees. Like so many other things, Kino used to raise bees and taught me everything he knew. Last year, we ordered just one hive to get started and one 3lb. package of bees. The whole process was really interesting and fun, so much so that this year, we ordered 2 hives and two 4 lb. packages of bees. We got about 30 lbs. of honey from our one hive last year, so I'm looking forward to doubling that this year and being able to sell some at the Farmers Market. You see, the idea is to leave enough honey in the hive so the bees will be able to use it for food while they overwinter. Unfortunately, like so many other beekeepers, our hive did not survive the winter and we had to start out fresh this spring. No one really knows why the hives aren't making it through the winter, whether it is CCD and too many bees never made it back or if they just couldn't take the cold.

Last Saturday, Kino and I spent the afternoon building our bee hives. You order the hives from a catalog, they show up in pieces and you have to put them together and attach the beeswax to the frames in preparation for your bees. It was a great day with just the two of us, hanging out, drinking a beer or two, listening to music and building hives.

Sunday, we headed to Hudson, Wisconsin to pick up our bees. We order from a guy that goes to California and brings back a semi-truck with all the bees. Now, I have never gone to get the bees before, so I had no idea what to expect. In my mind I thought, just me and Kino show up at this guy's house, pick up our few packages and we are on our way. Was I wrong. The letter he sent us said to get there anytime after 2:00 p.m. This worked out fine because Brenna had a basketball party, so we took off after that was over and got there about 3:00. Holy shit. There were at least 50 people in line waiting to pick up their bees. There were guys/girls in bee suits in the garage, handing out packages of bees left and right. People were wheeling out up to 10 packages of bees on dollies!

We took our place in line and after about 35 minutes, stepped up, paid and walked out with our 2 packages of bees. Because it is still pretty cold here, you have to make sure the bees stay warm and fed. First we had to spray them down with a squirt bottle full of bee syrup, which is just sugar and water. Next, Kino had a box with towels, gallon jugs of hot water and a blanket. We put the bee packages in the box, surrounded them with the warm jugs and towels and covered the box with the blanket. This would keep them nice and toasty on the hour ride home.

Once we got home, it was time to empty the bees into the waiting hives. This part is a little tricky and scary. You literally tip the package upside down and shake the bees out onto the top of the frames inside the hive. You would think they would come out stinging like crazy, but I didn't get stung once and I didn't even whimp out and wear the bee suit Kino bought for me. I'm no pansy. Okay, I did freak a little when they were flying around my face and crawling on my hands. Kino took over then. The key is to not make sudden movements. Easy to say when they are flying all over you and in your face! Kino just handles them like they are ladybugs. They are crawling all over his hands, all over his clothes - he never even flinches. Even when he gets stung occasionally, he just calmly says, "ouch, he got me."

Our main concern was keeping them warm. It was going to be cool and windy here for a couple of days after we picked them up. We placed the hive on the front porch instead of out by the trees in the spot we usually keep them. This way they were protected somewhat from the wind. We wrapped the hive with a blanket and sat it on top of a heating pad. Then we filled the feeder (filled with sugar syrup) and placed it in the opening of the hive.

The next few days, there wasn't much movement coming and going out of the hive - too cold and windy. But yesterday, the wind had died down and the sun was out in full force and they were all over the place. They were flying in and out of the hive, feeding on the syrup and foraging around looking for real food, in the form of pollen, which is in short supply around here right now. Nothing is blooming yet and that's why the sugar syrup is so important. But in no time at all, our crabapple trees will be blooming like crazy. We have 55 flowering crabapple trees on our property and the bees just cover them. When you walk under the trees all you hear is one continuous hummmmmmmm - all the bees buzzing overhead collecting pollen.

It's amazing how soon you aren't afraid of bees anymore after you work with them for awhile. You learn they aren't out to sting you and are really just busy working, so as long as you stay out of their way, you don't have to worry.

My kids aren't even afraid anymore. Kino taught the kids how to identify the drones. Drones do not have stingers and the kids can spot them and reach down and just pick them up. They haven't been wrong yet - but I'm sure that day will come!

If you have any interest at all, you should get just one bee hive. You don't have to live in the country, the hives are small enough you could even have one in town. You won't believe how good the honey tastes and think of all the good you'll be doing by keeping bees.

All Choked Up

2008-04-16T10:20:00.003-05:00

This post was going to be about the new bee hives we picked up this weekend, but then I was cruising through my feeds, checking up on my favorite blogs and there is my name over at Erikka's blog. That sweet girl nominated me for a Blog of Distinction Award that started over at Jenn's blog.

I'm honored. Thank you, Erikka. I can always count on you leave a comment on whatever drivel is being spewed here.

All these great women out there and I'm lucky enough to be a part of it through blogging. Amazing. I often think if I would have been aware of this outlet when my kids were small, it would have made life much easier. There were many days when just being able to vent and get some positive feedback would have made all the difference in the world in those days of diapers and snotty noses.

I'll still get around to that bee post later on today - but just wanted to stop and thank Erikka properly. Head over and check out her blog - you won't be disappointed.

Also, did everyone notice that I successfully 'linked' to both of those blogs? Wow. How I'm evolving. Thanks to J for the birthday present of teaching me how not to be an idiot!

Wisconsin weather, it's a good thing?

2008-04-15T09:51:00.010-05:00

Trying to post everyday during the month of April? Yeah, we'll just write that off to temporary insanity and move on.

There are so many things happening around this joint, I'm not sure where to start. Spring is always an insane time on a farm, but add in 3 kids, a husband working overtime and me leaving town for 5 days and you have a level of craziness that is hard to top.

I'm going to go back about a week and start with our beautiful weather we had on April 5th. We took advantage of the sunshine and got the compost into the beds in the hoophouse, tilled them and even planted seeds. The pleasure this gave me is pretty indescribable.

Of course, everything is always done under the watchful eye of Rugby.

and Kino.

If you are someone who likes to have their hands in the soil, winter is a pretty long season and coming back to it in the spring is kind of like Christmas!

Did I dare to say Christmas? Could we call that a jinx? How else would we explain what happened about 5 days after those pictures were taken?

Six inches of snow fell on April 10th and stayed around with howling winds and rain/snow mix for about 4 days. The weather is something I frequently bitch about, but this is ridiculous.

Since then, things have improved slightly. The snow is finally gone except for the large piles in the woods that are still hanging on, but there is an end in sight. Of course what shows up after the snow is the muck. High rubber boots are the shoe of choice from now until things dry up about May 15th, depending on the rainfall.

The transplants are all snug in the small greenhouse. Paying for the propane to keep that little greenhouse warm is not much fun, but it's all in your priorities, right? And let's face it, tomatoes are a priority!

April Letter - #11

2008-04-13T01:35:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I'm 1 hour and 35 minutes past the deadline, so? Here's the letter:

Dear Seasonal Friend:

Thank you for dinner tonight. We have a hard time connecting and can never figure out the other ones schedule, but we finally made it work.

We had a fantastic dinner and got to catch up on what is going on in each other's lives. It's funny, we play golf league together, we are great friends, but we literally can go all winter and not speak and in the spring, when we know golf season is right around the corner, we can pick up where we left off and act like no time has expired at all. Amazing.

We had food, drink (maybe too much), and talked for hours. You finished your basement and it's gorgeous, we got new furniture, our daughters are heading off to college in the fall, can you believe it??

We have connected and are ready to start seeing each other every Tuesday for Ladies League Golf. Our team has won the last 3 years in a row and this is our connection. We ride every week in a cart together and talk, talk, talk.

I love your friendship even though we are very different types of parents. It's great that we can look past our differences and still be such good friends.

Seasonal friends. Meaning we are close and then can go for months and not see each other and pick right up where we left off. Is there such a thing as seasonal friends? If so, you are the best one I could ask for.

Looking forward to seeing you at the 1st tee. Here's to a fun season.

Love, Ang

April Letter - 10

2008-04-11T21:58:00.003-05:00

Dear Husband

Thank you for forcing me to go out and have dinner and a beer (or two) with you tonight. As usual, you know what's best for me, in spite of the fact that I'm quite damn sure I know what's best and usually don't have a clue.

After this incredibly long week, with multiple 'girl' crisis after crisis and dealing with my unbelievably dysfunctional family, a burger and a few beers is exactly what I needed.

There you sat across the table from me and let me vent about the weeks happenings and just nodded your head and let me know you were listening w/o having to say a word.

You have married a neurotic woman with a crazy family and you see past all the shit and still think neuroses is sexy. You are weird. Thank God for that.

Our house is full of our daughters and their friends tonight (10 kids in all) and because you knew I needed to unload in order to keep my sanity, I don't even want to kill any of them, despite the fact that something very large just crashed in the basement.

All I hear is giggles and laughs and will worry about what broke in the morning.

Thank you to the person who knows me better than I know myself.

Love, Your Wife.

Heeeeeeere's the New Design!

2008-04-10T08:38:00.002-05:00

What do you think?? Didn't Jen do a great job? If you have even a distant thought of doing anything new to your blog, it will be worth your while to send Jen an email. She is great, easy to work with, open to suggestion and change (I gave more than my share, I'm sure) and quick.

I couldn't be happier with the result. Speaking of happy, isn't it great to see a happy post instead of the bitchy letters I've been posting? I'm going to have to scrounge around in my files and find some nice ones before this place needs some Xanax.

Trendy Mommy Blog Design, ladies, I tell you they are the way to go if you have no idea what the hell you're doing and need someone to hold your hand and not act like you're an idiot. And believe me in the world of stupid questions, I'm over my quota. C'mon Jen, admit it!

April Letter - #9

2008-04-09T23:24:00.003-05:00

**As long as I'm on a roll here, let's just keep tossing out the bitchy letters I've sent to people that pissed me off. To answer questions, I never had to call animal control on the neighbors b/c we never had a problem after the letter was sent.

And now, the next installment:

June 11, 2006

Dear Neighborhood Automotive Repair Place

This letter is in reference to the bill dated 4/6/06, sale #1183 and bill dated 4/1/06, sale #1162.

For clarification, below there is a recap of what has transpired with the repairs of this van.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006, the van was brought to (Neighborhood Repair Place) because it had backfired, decelerated and had no heat. On dropping the van, (Husband) stated to “call and let us know if it is anything major” so we could decide how to proceed.

Thursday, March 30, 2006, Angie called the garage to check on status of van. (Neighborhood Repair Man) stated, “it wasn’t much, we changed the plugs, gave it a tune up and fixed a hose to back heater.” (Husband) went to pick the van up expecting the repairs to be minimal, only to find out it was $450.00 in repairs. To us, this would qualify as “major” and would have liked to been notified. We felt the charges were exorbitant considering the repairs, such as $50.00 in spark plugs, 3 hours to do a tune-up for $148.50 and 1 ½ hours to change a hose for $75.00. Although we felt this was high, we paid it and took the van home.

Friday, March 31, 2006, (Husband) took the van to work at 5:30 a.m. and called Angie from (local gas station) stating that “the van was running like crap, misfiring, losing power and had no heat”. He stated he was going to leave the van at (local gas station) and get a ride to work from there. After work, Angie met (husband) at (local gas station) to follow him home with the van in case it broke down. The van was dropped off at (Neighborhood Repair Place) and (Husband) told (local repair man) what the problem was and stated he would need the car back by Monday to be able to get to work. (Local Repair Man) told (Husband) he would come in over the weekend to get the van fixed.

Sunday, April 2, 2006 – (Husband) picked up the van Sunday evening and found a bill in the seat dated 4/1/06, sale #1162 for $81.64. Copy of this bill is attached. (Husband) had a conversation with (local repair man) about this bill. (Husband) inquired at to why he would be billed for the coil on top of being billed originally for the spark plugs, tune up and wires, when it was the coil all along. (Husband) felt the original problem had been misdiagnosed. (Local repair man) stated to (Husband) that he would check with (local repair man #2) about the bill. On Monday morning when (Husband) drove the van to work, he discovered that the van was running better, but still had no heat.

Monday, April 3, 2006, (Husband) was on the way to (Town near where we live) with our kids for soccer and play practice when just outside of (Town we live in), the van lost power and the temperature gauge tapped out. He turned around, barely making it back to (Neighborhood Repair Place). (Local guy from town) was in the garage and gave (Husband) and the kids a ride home. (Husband) stated what happened and (local repair man #2) looked under the hood and stated “the serpentine belt was busted. We must have nicked it when we were putting in the spark plugs.” (Husband) also mentioned at this time that there was still no heat in the van.

Tuesday, April 4, 2006, (Husband) and Angie picked up the van. The belt was fixed, but there is still no heat in the van – which was the original problem that we brought the van to (Neighborhood Repair Place) for repair.

Thursday, April 6, 2006, Angie received a bill in the mail dated 4/6/06, sale #1183 for $107.75. This was the same bill referred to above for $81.64 that (Husband) had discussed with (local repair man #2) and never heard a response. However, for some reason, now the labor changed from $24.75 to $49.50 making the total $107.75 instead of $81.64.

After all the above, the original problem of no heat in the van has still not been repaired. To receive a bill for $107.75 is an insult considering what we have been through with this van and on top of it all, to not have the original problem even repaired. We would like to know how the bill mysteriously went from $81.64 to $107.75.

We are obviously hesitant to bring the van back into this garage for the heat to be fixed due to all the problems we have encountered.

If we were to pay the $107.75 bill, we will have paid $557.69 for repairs and still would not have repaired the original problem. Does this seem fair?

Considering the trouble and inconvenience all the above has caused and the fact that we still have a van that has no heat, the $107.75 bill (and the mysterious extra ½ hour added on for labor) seem ridiculous.

Since moving to (Small town), we have always attempted to keep as much of our business in town to support the local economy instead of taking our business to (small town next to us) or the Twin Cities. We obviously would like to continue to do that but also would like to be treated fairly in return.

We will wait to hear from you on how you would like to proceed and bring this to a fair conclusion.

Sincerely,

The Bitchy People with the crappy van

April Letter - #8

2008-04-08T23:05:00.002-05:00

Dear Internet:

This is going to have to be short and sweet and cryptic....but there could possibly be a certain blog in this neighborhood that is in need of a facelift.

This certain blog has served well for the last few years and for as limited as its keeper is, it can be proud, I think.

Well, as a reward for hanging in there through all the learning curves, mistakes and dumb decisions (like posting your neighbor's address on the world wide web), it is involving people with talent to help itself out.

These people have great ideas and creative juices, not to mention magical powers!

When this will happen, the blog can't say, but soon, very soon.

Sincerely,

Angie

April Letters - #7

2008-04-07T10:53:00.004-05:00

**Where is #6, you ask? #6 fell asleep at 8:00 last night and she didn't raise her pretty little head until the morning of #7, so let's just leave it at that.

November 27, 2006

Dear Neighbors:

This letter is in reference to your dogs. We are hoping we can come to an amicable agreement as to how to handle this situation.

As you know, we have had trouble in the past (early last winter) with your son’s dog coming onto our property and harming our chickens. At that time, I came to your house and mentioned it to you and you stated that you would try to keep him home or that I should just yell at him to ‘go home’.

Since then, we have noticed that there are now several loose dogs on your property, we have seen as many as 6 at one time. This poses many problems. We are continually, at least 5 times a week, having to chase these dogs off of our property. They run together as a ‘pack’ and chase anything in their sight. We have had to stop them from chasing our chickens, our dog and our children. Before you decided to build across the road, our children frequently used the road in front of our house to ride our 4-wheeler and their bikes, this cannot happen anymore as they are continually chased by this pack of dogs. I myself rode the 4-wheeler up the road to check on some trees on our property and an entire pack of 5 dogs chased me clear onto my property. If they are not up by our house, they are continually in our woods where our children play. As a result, the children are scared to play there in fear of the dogs. We cannot even get our mail or take garbage out to the dumpster without them seeing us and running onto OUR property and barking at us. About 2 weeks ago, we had friends over and our kids were riding 4-wheelers. As the kids were riding through our woods, they came out on a path and onto the road. As soon as they did, your dogs saw them and chased them back into our woods and clear up into our yard. It just so happens the girl that was visiting is scared of dogs and came into the house crying and that was the end of them riding 4-wheelers.

We would like to try to resolve this problem before something major happens as a result of these dogs being loose. They have shown that they will chase and possibly hurt anything that comes their way. One on one, I believe the dogs are friendly, however, as with any type of dog, when they pack up together it can be a different story.

As I stated last winter, we raise free-range chickens. We sell the chickens for meat and the eggs to local stores for extra income. We cannot afford to take the chance on them being killed or hurt. Just today, my children had to chase your dogs out of our pasture because there were 4 of them chasing our chickens. When we are home, we can keep an eye on them, but does it seem fair that we should have to be around to make sure that your dogs are not on our property harming our animals?

We also have extensive gardens as we run an organic CSA. There have been numerous times when I have had to chase at least 3-4 dogs at a time out of these gardens. Needless to say, dogs are not very careful about what they are stepping on and we have had to replace plants as a result.

As you know, we have a Beagle that is loose. I asked you in February if our dog was causing any problems at your place and you stated to me that he wasn’t and that you rarely even saw him. As far as we can tell, Riley steers clear of your property and pretty much sticks to his home ground. If this is not the case and he is causing harm to anything on your property, we would obviously want to know so we can correct the situation.

We definitely do not want to have hard feelings among neighbors and are happy to see other families in the area. We are looking forward to hearing from you on this matter.

Thank you.

John and Angie "Whats-their-names" - last name removed to protect the bitchy.

**Holy Shit, I just published my neighbors address for all to see. What an idiot. Any stalkers out there? Please disregard. Thank you.

April Letters - #5

2008-04-05T21:34:00.002-05:00

Dear Mother Nature:

Remember back a few months ago when I wrote you that nasty letter? Please understand it had been a long, long winter and you were kind of dragging things out a bit, don't you think?

Anyway, enough about that, it's water under the bridge between pals, right?

The purpose of this letter is to give you praise and Thank You for the wonderful spring day we had today. You would not believe what a sunny, warm (60!) day will do for a woman who had a day from hell the day before. The minute I woke up this morning and saw the sunshine, I had a whole new perspective on life. I was even civil to my kids after they tortured me!

The feeling must have been contagious, because both daughters that had really pissed me off, came up to me and gave me big hugs this morning. No "I'm sorrys" or anything, that would be a little too much like admitting you were wrong. But no worries, the hug was just fine.

There is also nothing like sunshine and warmth to motivate a farmer! The things we got accomplished today was amazing. We even tilled inside the hoophouse and got seeds planted! An amazing feat for a farmer in Wisconsin on April 5th.

After my hot shower, a little chicken with rice and broccoli and a few beers, it was the perfect finish to a perfect day. Now hubby and I are going to snuggle in for a movie, of which we will probably see about 10 mintues of due to how tired we are.

So, in closing, please forgive my prior correspondence. We'll just write it off to a little cabin fever......or until you make it snow here, which according to the forecast could possibly be tomorrow. Is that even possible? Never mind, don't answer that.

Sincerely,

Angie

April Letter - #4

2008-04-04T22:12:00.002-05:00

Dear Internet:

Please understand that tonight there was no letters in me to produce. I've had arguments with every single one of my daughters today/tonight and feel beat up. Do you ever feel like every word that comes out of your mouth from, "please brush your teeth" to "you need to be home by 10:00" is met with an argument? Do you ever feel like no one gives a shit what you think/feel and only care about getting what they want? Do you ever wonder where the hell you went wrong? I do.

The only thing I need is bed, so that's where I'm heading.

Tomorrow is a new day and a new letter. Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Angie

April Letters - #3

2008-04-03T20:45:00.005-05:00

Dear Rugby, our newest beagle:

It is your one year birthday, Ruggers. We love you so much. You have turned Riley into a puppy again and your personality fits perfectly with his. Even though you irritate the living shit out of him, he is more playful than he has been in years.

Your face is irrisistable, especially when you look up at us with those big brown eyes and turn your head to the side, like, "who me?"

Your relationship with Brenna, the youngest of the girls, is the most precious thing in the world. The minute you hear her voice, you start freaking out, wagging your tail and looking around to see where your best buddy is. It is a mutual admiration society, believe me. She will play hours with you, either throwing you the tennis ball, chasing you around the house (a game I love, by the way), or making you be her guard that sits outside of her fort and keeps an eye out for pirates. She loves just laying on the floor with you, something none of the rest of us can stomach, which brings me to the not so great part you have brought to our lives.....your smell.

Oh, how you love your surroundings out here in the country. You love it so much, you try to show your love by rolling yourself in every last dead, smelly thing on our entire 10 acres. Whether it be dead deer, rabbits, a pile of crap from any animal, dead fish from the pond, rotten garbage, you name it, you love everything so much, you just have to rub all over it to show your affection. This causes quite a stir when you decide it's time to come back into the house to go to bed. Our mudroom, your bedroom, is almost unbearable to even walk through this time of year because everything that died over the winter? You are reacquainting yourself with them as a final show of affection. You stink to high heaven.

We bathe you every other day and wash all your doggie beds and blankets, but to no avail. It's almost like you prefer the smell of rotting carcass to the lovely smell of the coconut-mango puppy shampoo. After your bath, we love you and hug you and kiss all over you and sniff in the final goodness out of your coat, knowing that as soon as that door opens, it's back to dead-ville.

Last night we realized it is true love between you and Brenna. As we came downstairs to tuck her in and say goodnight, there you were, under her covers with your head on her pillow right next to hers. We could smell you from the door, but she just laid there next to you with her arm around your neck, not a care in the world and as we walked in, you looked up at us, turned your head sideways with those big brown eyes as if to say, "Who me? I don't smell anything."

April Letters - #2

2008-04-02T20:46:00.002-05:00

Dear IKEA store of Minneapolis:

The Nobel Prize is the least they could do for the incredible geniuses that designed you and all of your contents. Your store is a work of art, a masterpiece of ingenuity.

The endless ideas we get from your perfect displays of assembled rooms. Literally, hours go by without a care in the world, just wandering from display to display, contemplating which child we will sell to afford this beauty.

Copious notes are scribbled with the little pencils you provide, measurements are jotted down with your paper tape measures, not to mention the wish lists we create on the space provided on the back of the map.

The map! What would we do without the map? If there is one little, minor thing I could find to complain about, it would be the necessity of the map. Without it, you start to feel like a rat in a maze searching for the ever allusive cheese. Personally, I don't mind the wandering through the maze because at every turn there is another thing to take note of, something to add to the wishlist, however, my husband needs the map like a crack addict needs the rock. Without the map, he starts to twitch and shake due to the feeling of having no idea where he is or where he is supposed to go.

In the last week, we have wandered your glorious floors for a total of 13 hours. This was accomplished on two different days, but 13 hours no less. Tomorrow we will venture to your big blue and yellow store again and make our final purchases to complete the furniture in our newly carpeted basement.

After a month of walking through regular furniture stores and not being able to find that perfect combination to fit our strangely configured basement, let alone be able to afford anything we thought was a possibility, we made the hour long trip to you and low and behold, there it was. The furniture we thought didn't exist and at a price half as much as the inferior stores. Of course, considering the size of my wishlist, it might have been cheaper to just buy the other stuff and be done.

I see many more trips to your store in our future, just as soon as I start my 900 Sexline business so as to afford the extensive wants.

In my quest to make a smaller footprint on this world and to reduce the amount of 'things' we accumulate, you've ruined me. I want one of everything that you have and if that makes me a bad person? The shoe fits.

I'm anxiously awaiting our time together tomorrow and am saddened that it will have to be a quick, in and out trip. My husband has learned to limit my wandering and has threatened to put blinders on me, like a horse. I've promised to walk in, get what I've come for and walk back out. But don't worry, I'll be back. We still need lamps and that oh, so cool framed print of the spring forsythia bush, that will be lovingly placed above my fireplace, come hell or high water.

Sincerely,
Angie

April Letters - #1

2008-04-01T20:10:00.005-05:00

Dear Self:

You have officially gone off the deep end? You have added this task for the entire month of April to your already insane schedule.

Did you remember that April is the month that your greenhouse explodes in seed planting activity? Or that April is also the month that you will be planting early crops into the hoophouse? Or that you are going on your cabin-building trip to Grand Marais for 5 days? Have you checked to see if you will have access to the Internet there? Yeah, I thought so.

In case you didn't know, it's more than just having the time to write a letter, there should be some thought put into the process, maybe some humor, now and then.

Who in the hell are you going to write letters to for 30 days?? Hey, wait a minute, can I post ACTUAL letters that I have written to people? Granted, most of them are complaint letters to people who have pissed me off about something, but they are letters! That will take care of about 6 of them, only 24 to go. No problem.

Bring it on, April, I'm ready for you. If you want letters, letters it will be.

Until tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Angie

a post full of questions

2008-03-31T18:48:00.005-05:00

Question #1:
Does this look like March 31/April 1st to anyone?

Answer: In Alaska, maybe.

Question #2:
How long is a reasonable time to be under construction from a septic back up that happened on January 23rd?

Answer: Insurance sucks.

Question #3:
Would you tolerate your husband starting new construction projects on top of the original construction?

Answer: Not if you wanted to stay married.

Question #4:
Would it be smart of your 13 year old daughter to cop an attitude with her mother over washing pans in the sink, when said mother was suicidal over the weather and also ready to divorce said daughter's father over all the construction?

Answer: Not if you would like to have a social life sometime in the next month.

Question #5:
What is the etiquette on how long after a holiday you can still post pictures from said holiday?

Answer: Not sure. Let me know if this is in violation on holiday posting etiquette.

Question #6:
If you have an old blue leather couch, chair and ottoman, from 1994 that doesn't match your new carpet, and you live in a small town with no thrift stores to donate it to and you've asked every person you can think of if they know of anyone who could use said furniture and all have said, 'no', is it environmentally unfriendly to allow your husband to burn said couch? Or would it be more environmentally unfriendly to drive an hour to the Twin Cities in a large truck to bring it to a thrift store?

Answer: Your multiple choice - A or B

Question #7:
Have you ever been to IKEA?

Answer: If yes, don't you love every single Swedish centimeter of it, as I do? See #6 for the reason why I've been spending so much time there.
If no, what is wrong with you? Get to one!

and finally,
Question #8:
Would you think I had totally lost my mind if I signed on for the month of April festivities over at NaBloPoMo and attempted to post for 30 days straight?

Answer: Yes. Considering how sporadic things have been around here for quite some time, you would be right to assume my mind has left me. However, I did and I am and we will see how it all turns out. If any of you would like to join me, the theme for April is letters - as in writing letters to yourself, someone you are mad at, someone you love, your kids or your husband - to beg him to stop the madness and put your tools away already before I leave you with these 3 daughters that WILL kill you. You need me, don't mess it up.

Sorry, I'm so anxious to write that letter.........

Ode to 7 days

2008-03-27T13:40:00.004-05:00

7 days of blogger silence.

Life is raining down on us from all directions, some good, some not so good.

Septic systems and insurance companies are taking up many precious hours that should be spent with other things.

The promise of spring time is present, although it comes with howling winds and cold, cold temperatures - going out like a lion.

Mud, ice, puddles and general slop is the way of our world outside.

Seedlings are sprouting and piles of compost were delivered to be spread in the hoophouse where cabbage, lettuce and spinach will soon be planted.

Kids have spring fever and are at each other's throats and driving me to spend a lot of time in the greenhouse with my wine bottle.

The house is under construction in about 3 different ways, all cluttered, dusty and awful. The husband is trying to 'wrap up' all sorts of projects before the weather breaks. It's driving me crazy.

New carpet is coming tomorrow and there is an entire basement of furnishings that need to be moved somewhere in the next 12 hours. Not sure where.

Selling it all and buying a condo in downtown St. Paul is becoming more and more alluring.

I'll leave you with a funny picture. Funny because of the name, but not funny in that it's the 3rd time he's been here trying to fix our problem.

Busted

2008-03-19T11:47:00.007-05:00

So, I'm in the greenhouse, hands in the soil, seeds flying everywhere, ipod cranked up......really enjoying the warmth and dreams of days to come.

Over the music blaring, I hear my cell phone ringing. "Hello?" "Getting a lot accomplished?", my husband says. "Where are you?", I ask. "Sitting in the driveway, I just got home.", he said. "How did you know I was in here?" "Well, besides the fact the whole county can hear your music, you left your calling card outside the door."

Oops, busted. Is this the sign of a problem?

One bottle of wine and a little damaged hearing later, look what I got accomplished!

No Explanation Necessary

2008-03-18T09:00:00.010-05:00

Mood? Not great. Sickness? Better, but still weighed down by 25 pounds of snot above my shoulders. Reason for foul mood? Pictures below - need I say more? Wait, what is the date today? March 18th? Isn't that supposed to be spring? Yeah, not so much.

I'm hiding in the greenhouse all day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2008-03-16T10:43:00.005-05:00

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you know that today is our family's most cherished holiday. Let's just say our last name is extremely Irish and my husband's great grandparents came over directly from Ireland and started many wonderful traditions.

In the town where my in-laws live, they have a parade that the whole town turns out to watch, no matter what the weather, and believe me, we have been out there in some shit weather. This year brings a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and temperatures that will be very comfortable, which is important as our family has a float in the parade. My in-laws were the Grand Marshalls last year, which was a very proud moment for us all.

We start at my in-laws home and eat way too much traditional food, which serves two purposes - one, we love to eat, especially when cornbeef is involved and two, it gives us a good base for the rest of the days activities. Let's just say the regular Irish stereotypes are not lost on this family.

With the holiday landing on a Sunday this year, it is really going to cramp the style of quite a few Irishmen. The word of the day at work on Monday will be - hangover - get the picture? Although, most people celebrated yesterday with the awesome parade in St. Paul.

We have two rubbermaid tubs full of various pieces of green clothing that we have collected over the years. It's always fun to pull all the clothes out and find the tiny outfits the kids have worn over the years and the memories that go along with each piece.

My husband and kids and yes, even the dogs, all just smothered themselves in green layers, hats, necklaces, earrings, even socks and shoes. Beagles in little green 'kiss me I'm Irish' t-shirts on shamrock leashes are pretty damn cute and a parade favorite. The one thing they are missing this year? Me, in my traditional 'Show Me Your Shamrocks' t-shirt, that my Catholic MIL just loves. I'll have to sit out this year as it is finally my turn to catch the 'creeping crud' that has been circling around for weeks.

There's no shortage of green for me, only mine is in the form of snot and stuff that I'm coughing up out of my lungs. Sorry if I just made you throw up in your mouth a little - but you should see the color of this goop. Sorry again.

I'll miss the fun, although not the headache tomorrow. If they know what's good for them, they will return home with plates full of food or I might just have to use their toothbrushes and give them what they deserve!

They were instructed to take many photos and my youngest says she will videotape the parade so I won't miss it, awwww how sweet.

Hope you have a fun St. Patty's Day where you are and drink a green beer for me!

(my favorite picture from a few years ago :)

Idiot

2008-03-13T12:02:00.003-05:00

No time for a real post, but I just wanted to ask.....you guys are my friends, right? We share stories both personal and humiliating, which in turn, means we 'got each others back', right?

Well, if that's all true? Why the hell didn't someone point out to me that I misspelled the word SURPRISE?? Not only did I spell it wrong once, but TWICE! Not sure what I was smoking on either of those posts, but spelling things wrong is my pet-peeve. "No excuse" is what I say to my kids over that stuff.

Just so we are all clear? I'm never offended by someone pointing this out to me, so in the future? Point away.

Oh, wait, just don't point out all my improper grammar and overuse of commas and quotes, if I stop doing that, I might never write anything again.

Back to Life

2008-03-10T13:42:00.004-05:00

The 40th year came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. Appropriate, I guess considering the time of year.

We had a great time, awesome food & drink, great friends and a night in a hotel where the birthday girl was allowed to sleep in and was served breakfast in bed. What else could you ask for?

Remember the suprise?? Behold...................

He did well. He even took the time to add certain upgrades that he thought I would need. I cannot believe my kids were able to keep this quiet. Needless to say, I love it and have been playing with it ever since, which means my family has not had a meal cooked or any laundry done since my birthday. My bad.

Today is the beginning of firing up the greenhouse, the seeds arrived as planned and there will be seeds planted tonight. I'm a little behind the ball, but better late than never.

Now, I need to go back to trying to figure out this Windows Vista operating system. It has some pretty cool features, but you know the saying about 'old dogs' and after Friday, I guess I qualify!

Off to who knows where.....

2008-03-07T12:50:00.002-06:00

Well, after my 2nd visit to the chiro today, I'm feeling even a little better - one more trip on Monday and I should be good.

As for today, my husband has many suprises in store for the ole' gal on her 40th birthday - all of which I know nothing of - scary.

Parts I've scraped together? Hotel, dinner w/friends, suprise presents.....that's about it.

For someone who doesn't particularly like suprises I'm doing pretty well at holding down my 'inner bitch' (okay, it's usually not so 'inner' but pretty 'outer') and going with the flow......my new motto in my new decade.

How long do you think this will last??

Have a great weekend, all.

p.s. Opening night of Charlotte's Web was fantastic - we are so proud of our little Templeton the Rat - she was great.

thank god in heaven for chiropractors......

2008-03-05T21:50:00.002-06:00

I'm back in the land of the living with just a little stiffness that should be long gone after my 2nd appt. on Friday.

Maddie's opening night for Charlotte's Web is tomorrow night and then off to the big 4-0 celebration on Friday/Saturday.

Full details without pictures (damn, camera) to follow..........

Have a great weekend!

grumble, grumble

2008-03-04T14:55:00.002-06:00

Warning - complaints and grumbles.

I've spent the last 48 hours on the couch laying on a heating pad. Sunday night, around 2 a.m., as I tried to roll over and punch my husband for snoring so loudly, I suddenly could not move. Not a muscle. Hmmmm, I thought I recognized that feeling in my neck yesterday. My back and neck were out. I'm not usually someone with back problems, but when my neck/back decide to go? They go. Of course, the first thought should be Chiropractor! But for some insane reason, I had it in my head that she was closed on Monday. Today, I call to get an appointment and her recording informs me that she is closed on Tuesday, not Monday. Back to the heating pad until tomorrow. It's times like these that I realize the things I take for granted, like being able to move.

On another grumbly note, the 40th birthday thing is starting to become.....well, a thing. Exactly what I didn't want it to do. Originally, we were going out to a concert and dinner with friends, my friend that I share this birthday with, however the concert is sold out and yahda, yahda. So, the friends have come up with other plans that I necessarily don't want to do, so now what? God, I sound like a whiney baby, don't I? Indulge me, friends. Truly, I just want to go out to eat with a bunch of friends, have a few drinks, hang, talk.....nothing special....but feel badly that we wouldn't be spending it with my friend. Selfish? Who knows. In the end it might be a milestone reached on the couch with some movies and Chinese take-out which is sounding better and better all the time. We'll see.

The 40 thing isn't bothering me too much - haven't really channeled that yet. Maybe avoidance? The dear, Madeline, from Barn-Raising left me such a wonderful comment on my last post (I think), it really made me feel happy and in a good place about it. Thanks, Madeline - you are a sweetheart! On my list for things I want to do when I turn 40? Learn how to properly 'link' to people on my blog. Cece told me how to do it, but I've been too lazy to dig through the archives and find it. Pathetic.

The only other grumble I'll leave you with is about what else? The weather. Spring has to rear it's ugly head - either lion or lamb, I don't give a shit at this point -soon or I might hurt someone. We are back into cold temps and wind and crap and I'm at the end, folks. The greenhouse is firing up tomorrow and I just might move a cot in there and stay until things shape up on the outside.

Okay, enough with the pissing and moaning. I'm downing two more Advil, turning up the heating pad, picking up my book and working on my attitude! Happier subjects are around the corner, please return.

Oh, wait - I forgot one more! The biggest grumble of all - my digital camera is dead. Well, not totally dead, but seriously messed up. Some shutter thing.....ugh. The bright side? I do have the extended warranty that covers everything - but the time to fix it is 6-8 weeks. I didn't think anything in this world took that long to fix anymore - isn't there a way to fix it remotely online? Surely someone is working on this. Either way, looks like I'll be back to the old film camera in the meantime. So, if I recycle pictures for awhile - no grumbling - that's my department.

Something sneaky is going on around here.

2008-03-01T08:37:00.004-06:00

As some of you know, there will be a 40th birthday in our house next week and it's not my kids or my husband, so you can figure it out.

Suprises are not my thing. Someone who is a control freak and likes to have all her 'ducks in a row' so to speak, doesn't enjoy suprises.

For the past two days, some strange man has been calling our house and asking for my husband. When my husband answers the phone, he goes into the office or upstairs or downstairs and closes the door to whatever room he is in. hmmm.

So yesterday, I say to him. "What the hell is going on? You know I hate suprises." He replies with, "I know."

"So tell me what's going on" I say. "No". He says.

So this morning, when the phone rings at 8:30 (on a Saturday morning!) and it is the same strange dude, and again my husband goes into the office and closes the door, I corner my youngest daughter. "What is dad up to and does it have anything to do with my birthday?" A large grin comes across her face and says, "I have no idea what you are talking about." Shit-head.

Then I go to the big mouth of the family, the oldest daughter who also hates
suprises so therefore will sympathize with me. After she chews my ass for waking her up at 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday, I explain the issue and she says, "What a psycho -I have no idea what he's doing - I'll try to find out." Good girl.

Turns out the middle daughter has no clue either. He's smart, he is, don't tell the two blabber-mouths, only tell the youngest who has a mouth like a steel trap! She loves being part of a secret.

Two reasons I hate suprises. One - what if he goes to all this trouble and I don't like whatever the hell it is he is getting? Then I get to feel bad on my birthday - no thank you. Two - I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!! Control is a serious issue with me, can you tell?

My options? Bribe the youngest child. She loves candy and her mean mother doesn't allow it very often.......there's an idea. Put gas in Alyson's car - a teenager will find out anything in exchange for a full gas tank. Get Maddie a cell phone, she would sell ME to the highest bidder for one of those.

I'm desperate and a child, I know.

How do you ladies feel about suprises? Love them? Hate them? What was your best/worst suprise?

I'm lazy today - here's a meme I stole from Jules......

2008-02-28T18:40:00.003-06:00

Due to the fact that I'm not talking/thinking about it, I can't tell you that I'm starting to feel like I might be getting the creeping crud my husband had last weekend. So, since I can't tell you about it, you'll just have to understand that I'm not feeling creative today and therefore, leaving you with this meme. (thanks jules and debra)

Your best friend tells you she is pregnant. What is your reaction?
Hurray! Congratulations! (in my mind? better her than me.)

When is the last time you wanted to punch someone in their face?
When my insurance agent said they don't cover septic back-up. "Sorry"

What is the last thing you spent money on?
Two bottles of salad dressing, two lemons and some potatoes at the Co-op.

Do you think you gained or lost weight this past month?
Stayed about the same, I think.

Crunchy or Puffy Cheetos?
Definitely, Crunchy.

Congratulations! You just had a son. What’s his name?
A son? We don't know how to make those! Okay, I guess we always said it would be Connor.

Congratulations! You just had a daughter. What’s her name?
A fourth daughter? God, help us. Ummmmm, what name did we not use? Oh! I always loved Darby. My girls say they would have killed me - I love it.

What are you craving right now?
Chocolate ice cream and lucky for me, we still have some left over from Brenna's birthday.

What was the last thing you cried about?
How nice that it's been that long since I cried that I can't remember.......

When you buy something and your change is 2 cents, do you keep it or tell the cashier to keep it?
I tell her to keep it or put it in that 'take one' tray. I 'take one' a lot, so I guess I should contribute.

What color is your tissue box?
Currently, we don't have any and are using toilet paper. Classy place we have here.

Do you have a ceiling fan in your room, and if so, is there dust on that fan?
Yes, we actually have double ceiling fans and yes, they are dusty, wanna make something of it?

Scariest thing you’ve experienced in the last year?
My youngest daughter, Brenna colliding with another girl in basketball, falling on the ground and not getting up for what seemed like a lifetime, but in reality was only about 3 minutes.

Do you wear a name tag at work?
No, I work at home, for myself, but come to think of it, the way my memory is going, it might not be a bad idea.

Have you ever had a garage sale?
Yes. I priced everything a quarter, and I mean everything and made $400.00. Does that give you an idea of how much shit I had to get rid of??

What color is your iPod?
Black with a black leather case.

What is the last alcoholic beverage you had?
Yellow Tail Shiraz.

Are you happy right now?
Yes, for the most part.

Who came over last?
My cousin and our friend Kino for Brenna's birthday dinner. She turned 11 on Monday.

Do you drink beer?
Yes, love it, especially on a scalding hot summer day after working in the field. There's nothing like sitting on our front porch in the evening with an ice cold beer. Yum, yum.

Have your brothers or sisters ever told you that you were adopted?
No, but I used to torture my brother by telling him he was. He used to cry. I was awful.

What is your favorite key on your key chain?
I don't have a key chain. We have one key for each car that stays in the ignition and no house keys. We have one single house key that we keep in the drawer. Can you tell we live in Hooterville?? No need for locks.

What was the last movie you watched at home?
Chocolat - oh, Mrs. G - your secret boyfriend is HOT! Sorry, but he is.

What is in your pocket?
7 cents and a barrette for my hair that needs to be cut.

Where do you hurt?
Right between my shoulder blades in the back and my lower back. Too much lifting heavy book boxes and too much time slumped over the damn computer.

What’s something fun you did today?
Sat in the barn this morning playing with the baby lambs. Otherwise, it was a day of paperwork and conference wrap-up. Not fun.

What is your favorite aisle at Wal-Mart?
There is no such thing. I despise Walmart.

When is your birthday?
March 7th. Yes, I'll be the big 4-0 next week, kids.

Is there anything hanging from your rear view mirror?
No.

What kind of milk do you drink?
Organic 2%, in glass bottles that are delivered to my door by our local organic dairy - how lucky am I? But we got about 6 cases of organic whole milk from the conference, so we are drinking it!

What is something you need to go shopping for?
New furniture for the basement. But, considering I just paid all the bills, that won't be happening any time soon.

Whew. That took all my energy. If you're feeling uncreative today - borrow this - it's fun to read everyone's answers.

Ahhhhhhh........

2008-02-27T11:27:00.004-06:00

My house is completely quiet right now. My cousin who was visiting, left early this morning. Maddie is babysitting. Brenna is still asleep (11:30 a.m.) - she is coming down with something, so I'm letting her sleep. God, how I love not being tied to a school calendar and having this freedom.

The sun is shining in my living room window and I just spent the last 3 hours, literally, catching up on all your wonderful blogs. Can I just say, "I love you guys." Am I just lucky to have stumbled across the most varied, wonderful, smart, funny blogs out there or what? Are there this many and more still out there that I haven't discovered and if so, how can I arrange my life around reading them?

Ordering seeds is on the agenda today. This is something I usually have done in early February and already have some of them planted and sprouting in the greenhouse. However, for whatever reason, well, actually for many reasons, I haven't even cleaned out the greenhouse from last year or attempted to start up the heater. For some reason, I'm not feeling overly panicked about this - which is suprising, so I'm just kind of 'going with it'. Odd for me.

The repercussions of a long and busy February are settling in and I'm feeling the need to do a lot of nothing. So, still in my p.j.'s, with slippers on, I'm starting a pot of Broccoli/Cheese soup, making homemade bread, drinking coffee and enjoying the seed catalogs spread all over my dining room table. Taking my time to peruse through all the new varieties and draw maps of my fields and dream of spring.

I think I've earned it and truthfully, don't care if I haven't. Enjoy your day, ladies.

Digging out from Under...........

2008-02-25T09:38:00.003-06:00

Conferences, vacations, even long weekends, all end the same way. Mountains of laundry, boxes of stuff you brought back and piles of crap, in general.

One of the perks of this conference is the food. The staff of the conference get to split and take home the leftover food. Now, when you have a conference of 2500 people, where they serve 3 meals a day to that many people, they always over buy which means there is a lot of leftover food. If any of you buy organic food, you know how much it costs. So, cases of milk, cheese, butter, garlic, olive oil, yogurt and pasta can add up quick. The main problem is, where do you put it all?? Lucky for us, we live in an area where we can use the porch as a refrigerator/freezer. Our indoor fridge and freezer are packed and the front porch is doing its share. Now all we need is a couch, a recliner and an old car in the front yard and we'll be in Redneck Heaven.

We had record number attendance at the conference and sold a record number of books. People spend serious money on books, folks. Every year, I'm amazed at the amount of money that flows through the bookstore. The books help the conference raise money and allow it to get bigger and better every year, something I am proud of.

Influenza had made it's way through our house, our town and our state in record numbers also. The schools are almost empty and there are people testing positive every day. It decided to take over my husband the day before we left for LaCrosse. You can only imagine what this did to our conference plan. He is my Number 1 - right-hand-man. My only other option? My kids. Now, this could go either way - good or bad. Lucky for me, my kids pulled through and we could not have accomplished what we did without them. John finally was able to leave the hotel bed on Friday morning and was able to help with the big job of packing everything up and closing shop Saturday. My kids might drive me to drink now and then, but they come through when I need them and I guess that's what's important.

Today brings laundry, laundry and more laundry, getting ready for Brenna's 11th birthday dinner tonight and my cousin is coming in town and will be staying with us for a couple days - not great timing.

What I should be doing? Ordering seeds, starting up a greenhouse and getting ready for the growing season. This will have to be put off for another week, I'm afraid.

Now, I'm going to ignore my to-do list a little longer and head over to your blogs and see what the heck you've been up to!

Hello? Is anyone still out there?

2008-02-24T22:03:00.003-06:00

Whew. Just back from a grueling weekend. The conference was a success - we sold record numbers of books and now we just want some sleep.

There will be a short memorial service for my feed reader - wow you guys post a lot -it has officially been crushed with the weight of the numbers that have tallied over the last week.

Regular posting will resume after a brief nap. Thank you.

Happy Valentine's Day, Bloggers

2008-02-14T09:28:00.002-06:00

The daughters all received their customary boxes of chocolate and cards from my husband. Since their mother is a control freak about healthy food, they look forward to this day all year. I think they all had 4 pieces before 8:30 this morning. Nice.

Me? There's one thing about me, I'm not a romantic. I certainly don't want a box of chocolate for the sole reason that I will eat the entire thing. Today. Obviously I love flowers, it's a large part of our farm, but a bouquet of the typical roses seems like a waste of $$ to me. Yes, this makes my husband's job so easy. What the hell does he get me? Well, I get the same thing every year and I love it. Actually, it's the same thing I get for my birthday and Mother's Day. They get me a gift certificate to a local greenhouse and nursery. This is not your typical greenhouse, they only sell uncommon and completely gorgeous perennials. I love this place. The trick is, patience. Since my world is insane from May-September, I wait until the first week of October when the greenhouse has 2 days where they have their plants 75% off. I gather up my 3 gift certificates and spend an entire morning/afternoon picking out perennials for my garden. It's the best gift they could give a flower farmer. I didn't have to seed it, grow it, water it, transplant it or worry about it. I just get to go pick them out. Wonderful.

Unfortunately for Alyson, she is having 'boy trouble' on this Valentine's Day, but will be heading to the Snowball Winter Formal with her best friend, Tommy this weekend. She'll have much more fun with him than with a pain-in-the-ass boyfriend.

Maddie has a crush on a boy in her grade and was happy to hear, through the grapevine (the only means of hearing when you are a homeschooler!), that he is giving her chocolates when they all go skiing tomorrow night. Sweet.

Brenna is only 11, but she also has a best friend named Tommy and he was sweet and made her a card while he was making Valentines for his class. Also sweet.

Now, for a woman that hates 'sappiness', let's move on, can we?

Just on a side note, we received more lovely winter last night in the form of about 4inches more of snow. Just what we needed. And it looks like we are heading back into the deep freeze this weekend with the high being about 3 degrees. Is Spring anywhere on the horizon? It looks doubtful.

What did you lovely, deserving ladies get for this sappy holiday and are you a romantic? Do you LOVE this holiday or could it just pass you by?