exhale... and write it down

I might be starting to breathe again...

7 of the past 9 weeks, I've been on my own as my other half travels for work. That's a long time. 

So what's been happening? 

• I got a new car!! Well, I got a new-to-me car. I can officially haul children, pets, and all of their stuff without being smooshed. No more "he's touching me!" Yay for small victories!! 
• Beebo turned 8. He's such a funny, great kid. He has the strongest personality of all of my kids and makes me laugh (and scream and tear my hair) like none other. 
• Both boys started and finished football season. 
• Beebo did his 3rd and final year of flag football. 
• Wy did his 6th and final year of JFL. He finished his season with 4 awards, including the Presidential award which was a 3 ft. tall trophy for maintaining straight A's while playing football for 6 consecutive years. Can you even believe in less than a year, he'll be playing high school football?!?
• Sis tried out for the basketball team and made it! She's not very experienced, so she's not a starter and we had some bullying drama at the beginning, but she's settled in and is doing well when she gets on the floor. 
• Beebo tried out for a traveling baseball team and made that too! Next summer we'll be on the road again for ball (nice to just replace one traveling team with another since Sis decided not to do fastpitch travel ball next summer, just local - whew!)
• All 3 kids made straight A's again for the first grading period, with Wy pulling out a 99.7% in freshman Algebra!
• Beebo broke his arm jumping out of a golf cart. That's right, my kid broke his arm golfing. He gets his cast off one week from today and not a day too soon since you can smell it from across the room! Ugh.
• 3 of my 5 chickens are laying eggs! The youngest should be starting any day. We're averaging about 15 eggs a week right now. While I love having them and I love winter... I do NOT love chicken care in the cold. Lugging a 5 gallon bucket of water to the back of the property every 3 days because the water pump is shut off for the winter and cleaning out the coop and run isn't great fun. 
• Halloween came this year and one of my kids is officially too old to dress up. Although I will say that Beebo's costume ROCKED (completely his choice) and made up for the lack of spirit in my oldest! 
• Sis joined the speech team and had her first competition last week. She did a 5 minute humorous interpretation monologue. Of the 13 kids from her school, she's the only one to do a solo performance, obviously the only one who is deaf, and the only one to take a FIRST place!! She amazes me... truly. The people in the room had no idea she was deaf. What a testament to her hard work and fighting spirit!
• We've added another medical issue to our list. Beebo was diagnosed last week. I'll do a post later focusing on it as I'm still in absorption mode and reading everything I can. As dang cute as they are, both Sis & Beebo's birth defects came in the first 30-45 days of development... kinda my job to create a good environment for that to happen. Fail.
• Christmas is 41 days away... shopping is halfway complete!

Wordless Wednesday

Firsts and lasts and now

Firsts are always bittersweet for parents, I think, because they also mean last days. When your child experiencing something for the first time, it often closes the door on something else. It hit me yesterday when I realized, the kids will never (well, barring some really unexpected school year, lol!) be a 7th grader, 6th grader, and 1st grader again. They are growing and changing so rapidly it's hard to wrap my mind around it. This is such a savory season of life for me (albiet sometimes exhausting and frustrating) and I can't really picture what my life looks like outside of where I am and have been for the past 14 years. Can I let you in on a secret? I don't like to think about the kids growing up and out and on. I don't want to get there. I don't know who I will be or what I will do...

Better living!

I'm really trying these past few years to be a better steward of what I've been given in life. Some of this stems from being frugal with finances, some from living cleaner, healthier, and simpler. I'm not doing everything right, but for several years, I've been making our own laundry soap - it's both much cheaper and chemical free - growing a garden, and drying laundry outside when I can. Now, I'm making our own household cleaners (not all, mind you, I can't live without my Magic Erasers... those little buggers really are magical!) and fabric softener. We're growing our own eggs and we've eaten some of our own free-range chickens (we'll be growing a flock of chickens just for this purpose next year, but that's another post to come!) I changed our diet in February - eating minimal processed foods, less red meat - mostly lean proteins and veggies, minimal dairy. Combining this with exercise has helped me to lose 10 pounds and feel more energized. Moreover, I love seeing the kids enjoying foods they never knew they loved - like kale, tofu, and brussel sprouts!!

I'm always looking for more ways I can work more toward this. So, to that end, I HAVE to share my latest find with you! It's an all natural face mask that I love! I've only been using it for 2 weeks, but I notice a difference in my skin already. There's nothing like having to battle wrinkles with zits right in the middle of them! Since using this, my skin is clearer and more even. I can't wait to see if it gets even better.

Now, I don't know what it's really called, but I call it The Mask of Fire, because trust me, it burns. The heat dissipates after the first few minutes, but it will be hot at first. It's SO easy to make and you probably already have the ingredients right in your kitchen! You probably only want to use it 3 times a week or so.

Refining Mask of Fire 

Ingredients:

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. honey

1 tsp. lemon juice

Mix all of the ingredients into a thin paste

Apply to your face

*don't rub it in because the spices are like an exfoliant and the lemon juice will burn!

It will be hot - hang in there... it will get better, I promise.

Leave it on for 30 minutes and rinse off with plain water. 

Voila! Smooth, soft, even skin!

Try it and let me know what you think...

a free day

So, I'd like to blame my lack of follow up around here on my schedule, and it has been somewhat influential this past month, but I glanced backward over this year and I've only been posting twice a month on average anyway. I keep meaning to post, and then I realize I don't really have anything to say. Imagine that - me without an opinion, at least one that is healthy for me to share. 

Therefore, today's the day to write something. Partially because tonight's double header softball game was cancelled due to the heat!! We've had one day off of baseball and/or softball (June 20th) this entire month, so today makes two!! Yay! Well, that's not completely accurate as we did skip a weekend to take a quick trip to the Wisconsin Dells, but that doesn't mean games weren't scheduled! We celebrated Sis's 12th birthday there... inadvertently creating a family tradition. You see, we went to Minnesota for Wy's 12th birthday, taking him to a Vikings game. Now, Beebs, wants to know where HE gets to go for his 12th birthday. Thankfully I have over 4 years to plan that one! Right now he's really pushing for an RV vacation to see the Grand Canyon next year. I'm all for it!

What I really feel like writing down are things that have happened this year that remind me of how blessed I am and other things that just generally make me happy:

• 3 healthy kids who have needed no serious medical intervention (those who know us, know that this is rarity in our household) 
• 3 kids who are all maintaining straight A's and a love of books
• chickens - I love this new adventure, although I don't love all the work! :)
• spending some time with my brother while he was in Illinois for several weeks - this hasn't happened since he enlisted and left the state over 5 years ago
• a husband who showed major dedication and commitment, completing his MBA
• a fun, albiet sometimes stressful, job that granted me a promotion a year after I started
• becoming a Mac convert
• a green wall in my family room and an orange kitchen/dining area
• new bedroom furniture
• being physically able to exercise and make a dietary lifestyle change for my family - I've lost 13 lbs. as a by-product of this!
• living close to my parents - never thought I'd say this, but both Todd and I are thoroughly enjoying and taking comfort in this
• donating my hair for a 3rd time - especially when we know two families currently in the throes of childhood cancer 

Now, that feels better.
What are you blessed by and happy about this year?

Chicken Math

I've always liked math. I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus... pretty much everything except the accounting classes I had to take in college were all okay with me. Chicken math, however, is an entirely different thing and it has apparently taken over at my house. 

I had read during my incessant research that they were kind of like potato chips - you can't have just one... or in our case, just 4. We started in March with 4 black Australorps. When they were just days old, I was hooked and ordered more eggs. This time I ordered Lemon Cuckoo Orpingtons! Orpingtons had been my second choice for breeds when I was starting this venture so I decided to split the flock.

When they arrived, they had been badly damaged by the postal carrier. The farmer packed them well, but the box had been through the ringer. Only 3 of 8 eggs were intact and knowing that they had obviously been sloshed around pretty hard, I wasn't very positive that any would hatch. I set the 3 eggs anyway, cause you never know, right? I contacted the shipper, just to let her know about the issue. She felt terrible and said she'd send more eggs at no cost to me. I mean, really, how could I refuse?!?

Fast forward 20 days and we had another hatch on April 25! One of the 3 sloshed eggs actually formed and hatched! We named the chick Uno. It was lonely and cheeped a lot, so I gave it a stuffed chick to hang out with. 

Two days after that hatch, the 5 free eggs arrived. So, we went right back to incubating! May 19th, 4 of the 5 set eggs hatched. This clutch included two Lemon Cuckoos and two Lavender Orpingtons. So, chicken math has caused me to double my flock in an 8 week time frame! I have 8 chickens!

I'm nearly certain that we have 2 males in our original 4, but the littles are still too young to tell males from females. Welcome to chicken raising... the only animal that you can't really know 100% for certain the gender until they crow or lay an egg, around 20 weeks old! That's waiting another 11 weeks or so! Ay yi yi! 

Since we're not keeping the males, we may only end up with a handful of chickens out of this first go round, but the intermediate problem is that my coop houses 4-6 chickens. Uh oh. Time for a bigger coop, no? So we've spent our "free time" over the past 3 days building a 6x6 coop with a 14 foot run that will house up to 16 chickens. Yay! 

Remind me some time to fill you in on the chicken sanity line I crossed within the first 6 weeks of owning these dang birds... it involved an injury, wound care, hand feeding, and a chicken who's now completely content to sit on my lap and watch tv with me...

Chicken Chronicles - Part 3

Hatch day arrives... 2 days earlier than anticipated. 

First pips happen on March 26th in the morning.

It takes about 30 hours for #1 to make his/her appearance to the world.

It is completely exhausting to work your way out of that shell!

#1 sits and patiently waits for brothers and sisters to join. 

#2 is showing progress...

And #2 arrives late at night on March 26th

During the day on March 27th, #3 & #4 arrive within an hour of each other.

We call them "the twins" :)

The Chicken Chronicles - Part 2

So, we're down to the last few days before the babies start coming, so I stocked up with starter food and pine bedding. 

This is our brooder. Nala generously shared one of her dog luxury items because, of course, it's not hot enough for a girl to be poolside quite yet. 

Yellow partitions made slightly higher sides.

Feeder and waterer set.

Warmer ready to go.

Paper towel over the bedding for the first few days to discourage filling up on pine shavings. Chickens are worse than goats... they'll eat just about anything.

Our little coop is done. 

They won't live here until about 6-8 weeks old.

The Chicken Chronicles... part 1

We've decided to venture into backyard chicken keeping... my next few posts will chronicle these adventures. I've done so much research and studying to make sure I'm doing it all right, that I'm just now getting to a point of enjoying this! Ahhh... such is my nature, though...


March 5th - our eggs arrive! (yes, I bought them through a farmer out of Kansas I found on Ebay!)

We ready the incubator, adjusting humidity and temperature to 37.5*C exactly. It takes about 2 hours to stabilize before we can add the eggs.

We set 7 Black Australorp eggs... 21 days to hatch.

At 10 days of incubation (March 15th), I candled the eggs to see if all were developing.Two were not, so I disposed of them so that they would not burst and infect the "good eggs." In this picture, you can clearly see the air cell at the bottom... that is a space outside of the internal membrane that the chick will pierce and draw in the air while readying itself to break through it's shell.

Look closely... you can see the veins inside the egg. The darker area on the left side of the egg is developing chick. 11 more days to go!

Wordless Wednesday

Catching up

I seem to find myself catching up more than keeping up around here since the year started. I've noticed any free time I have is spent one of three ways: reading :), working out, or pinning! So, let's see:

• We've been consistently attending a new church for about 4 months now and the kids love it there. Score! 
• Wy Guy took his placement test for the accelerated math program at PCHS and scored high enough to get into the program! So proud of that kid - he starts algebra class at the high school during first hour in the fall, then will be bussed back to school to finish his 8th grade classes. 
• Speaking of smarty pants - both Wy Guy & Sis made the Scholastic Bowl team and competitions start next week. Definitely taking after their momma ;)
• However, Todd is only 2 classes from finishing his Master's degree - a long time in the making and he's so close to the end! I'm proud of him for sticking it out considering he pretty much hates it, but he's teaching the kids (and himself) perseverance & dedication!
• Basketball season has ended and Lil Lettes is in full swing, with the boys' house baseball leagues on the near horizon. Both boys are taking painting classes too - Wy Guy is working on an incredible portrait of John Lennon and I can't wait to see how it turns out! 
• Just bought a new bed and am SO excited to be moving up to a more modern look and a full bedroom set! Now to find my ideal bedding... 
• Our eggs will be here within the next 2 days and I plan to blog our progress - success or failure - in hatching our own chicks. After more research, I did decide to go with Australorps instead of Rhode Island Reds and am really just about to explode waiting for them to arrive! If you are interested in farm fresh eggs starting around October, hit me up! 
• I've lost 8.5 pounds in the last 5 weeks working with a new diet plan and trainer. Woo hoo!
• Oh, yeah, we took a little trip... to Disney World! I'm working on collecting the photos into an album and hope to have them posted soon. It was a great surprise and we loved it, but we enjoy trying new things, so I think it will be a one-time trip for us. 

Wordless Wednesday

What would YOU do?

We had a fun discussion around the dinner table last night - Where would we go if there was a Zombie Apocalypse. I know, I know, we have the best table talk!


Todd's first suggestion was to hole up in the woods behind our house, because he doesn't think zombies can climb trees! Oh, ye of little understanding! Duh - they can't climb trees, but they can make their own zombie pyramid and climb each other! 


The next suggestion was Walmart. Food, ammo, clothes - all the necessities for a decent amount of time in one place. However, realistically, even during a zombie apocalypse, I don't know if I can actually spend that much time inside of a Walmart store. I might just rather be undead.


Okay, how about Bass Pro? 


Oh, I know, the middle of the lake! 


Obviously Wy Guy and I are the most prepared, both being waist deep in reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. We know that zombies freeze, so you can buy yourself some time by heading north. Hey! This could be the perfect excuse to go visit our missionary friends, the Emerys! We finally agreed say you keep moving somewhere mountainous and colder, stopping for supplies as often as you can. Well, 4 out of the 5 of us agreed that was a good plan. 


So, if the zombies do attack, I guess I'll be checking up on my husband's survival at The People of Walmart!

Welcome 2012

Golly was 2011 a year! Ok, I realize they are all technically years, however, 2011 was another one of those years that ran in full on Simpson-style. We had 3 surgeries, a house sold, another house purchased and 2 new jobs. I'm really shooting for 2012 to be a down year... yes, uneventful would be perfect! 

My personal goal for 2012 is better relationship maintenance. This is not a strength of mine. I just cannot balance it appropriately. I'd often rather be alone, but then I struggle with being lonely. Usually I'm too tired or feel too guilty for leaving my family to make time for others, but just as often, I crave having someone to talk to, hang out with. I'm just not very good at making and keeping friends. I have had many close relationships that seem to fall apart faster than they came together. They never end badly, they just end. Then the next thing you know, I'm only keeping up with this person via Facebook. I'm making 2012 the year I figure out how to do this better. I have no clue where to start, but Imma gonna!

2012 is also destined to be the year of the chicken around here. The boys are currently building our coop and in March, we'll be incubating our first clutch of Rhode Island Reds. No plans to hang on to any roosters, so if you'd like one, we'll be happy to share those pesky boys. Mmmm... I can't wait for farm fresh eggs with my garden crops this summer! 

Besides the chicks that are coming, we've also added a couple new pets to the house for the coming year. Both Sis and Beebs saved up their money and purchased their own pet(s) and supplies. Now in addition to Wy's frogs, Beebs has Bruce and Tweety, the hermit crabs and Sis has Hazel, the hamster. Small and low maintenance - perfect for when I end up taking care of all of them as the novelty wears off, which we all know is just a matter of time.

 

Sis has her new cochlear implant and is doing very well. Her little brother did give her a good knock to the head yesterday and split her incision a bit. Yep, no coddling of kids around here - we just shove 'em right back into the mix! :) I'll keep you updated on activation and progress...