What I call Kangaroodling because my thoughts bounce all over.

*It is so frustrating when you kid wakes up with a cough.  There isn't a whole lot a person can do about a cough.  Rest, cough syrup of some sort, and a humidifier with eucalyptus oil.  That's about it.  Poor kid.  No other symptoms at this point.  Just a raspy cough.

*We've got the cold weather again for a few days too.  Nothing like the -12 degrees F we had about a month ago but still cold.  Getting close to single digits at night.  At least with that cold front we had some snow and rain move in too.  Good thing because we sure need the moisture.  We didn't get enough to end the drought but every little bit helps.

*I'm trying to get organized.  Ha!  It is only kind of working.  I keep getting rid of stuff that should have been gotten rid of when we moved.  When you have movers do everything they pack everything.  They don't get rid of stuff.  Not that they can but that is one of the benefits to moving.  You get rid of things.  So, I'm trying to do that now.  It isn't exactly easy with lots of my stuff still being in boxes.  Someday we'll get a place that isn't a rental and then we can truly unpack.  That will be wonderful.  I'm very excited to get rid of the cardboard.  I'm even more excited to see my books again.  We have quite the collection and I miss them.  I'll also be interested to see how we are doing for book shelves.  We got rid of two big ones before we moved out here.  I don't know if we'll have enough to hold all the books now.  Let's hope so.

*In between kids, house hunting, Tom working, trying to organize, and who knows what else I've been trying to keep up on baking and cooking.  I've been doing alright on some things and not-so-much on others.  Such as life.

*One of these nicer days I'll dig out my seed starting stuff and get that going.  Today is not it.

*I'm going to try to clean and organize my office area today.  Yikes!

Potty Training

Ahhh yes, we are in the midst of potty training.  I forgot the joys of potty training.  Ya know?  Poopy pants, wet pants, just a mess in general.  And now something that I didn't have to factor in last time, is the big brother factor.  The, "Ewwww! That's gross."  Or, "Mom! Mia needs new pants.  She's stinky!"  I love siblings.

It is funny that I was sitting down to write this post about potty training.  I ended up having to take about a 20 minute break to change pants and throw laundry in the machine.  All for potty training sake.  At least I know it won't take that long and then the diapers will be gone.  They may stick around for quite awhile at night but it will reduce that bill drastically.  That will be fantastic.  I am very ready to stop buying diapers.

Exciting life I'm leading right?  Actually it isn't very boring.  There are days for sure but overall it really is pretty exciting.  We never know where we'll end up.  We travel a fair amount for a young family on a budget.  We do crazy things like up and move to Nebraska after getting established in Montana.  I'm hoping we'll stay put for awhile and maybe get a little bit more boring.  Fat chance.

We are trying to buy a house, I am starting a hand spun yarn business, Tom is teaching and changing things at his new position and he's taking classes, and the kids always keep us on our toes.  So see, maybe not so boring.  Oh, and I'm going to use a plot at the community garden.

I know none of the stuff is hiking crazy places or skydiving or some other crazy adventure.  For the most part we are okay with that.  Neither of us is too excited about most so called adventures.  Right now as silly as it seems we are very excited about the prospect of going out to dinner and going to the home improvements store without the kids.  Grandma and Grandpa are coming to visit and these are our big plans. :)  Funny how your prospective changes over the years.

Kids

I thought I'd update on the kiddos finally. 

Bear:  Growing like a weed still and eating me out of house and home.  I think I need to invest in some bricks for his head.  I found out he is the youngest in his class and yet is one of the tallest.  Most of his clothes now have to be size 6 or 7.  We are officially out of the Toddler section and into the Boys section at the stores.  I'm not sure about that.  For the most part he is a very good kid.  A bit on the hyper side but pretty good.  I have a hard time with him being hyper but I know he's just excited about something.  I try not to discourage the activity.  I want him to be an active kid.  The hard part is teaching him when and where that is okay.  He has become my snuggler too.  Despite being the baby that didn't like being held and snuggled he is the first to want to come curl up on my lap now.  Not that he stays long but he does give great hugs.

Mia:  Turning into quite the character.  She loves books.  She would be happy to sit and let you read every last book in her room to her.  The only problem with that is that when Mom and Dad's voices are tired she doesn't want to stop so she cries.  Certain books have certain homes too.  A couple stay in bed with her, one goes on the bed post, and there are several on the floor next to her.  Don't you dare move any of them into the wrong spot.  Same with her toys.  Only certain ones get to be in bed with her.  Those ones have to be in their certain spot on the bed.  She is very particular about her blanket and pillow too.  Oh, to be 2 years old.

I'm loving getting to be at home with my kiddos.  Of course we have good days and bad days but overall we have more good than bad.  Bear's hitting has pretty much become a non-issue with the use of a sticker chart and his getting used to be in school.

Oh!  How did I forget to mention this first thing?!  Mia actually used the potty and has started the potty training process.  Yippee!!  The light at the end of the tunnel is tiny but at least it is there.  We don't force the potty training.  Bear pretty much taught himself and now Mia is doing the same.  We pay attention to the kids.  When they want to wear undies instead of diapers we let them.  If they want to go back and forth between diapers and undies, great.  Mia is now getting to the point where she can manipulate her own pants so that helps a bunch.  She flushes and knows what needs to happen but we need to work on timing.  No biggie.  I just have to pay attention and get my motivation in gear.  Hers is there.

She is asleep for her nap and my house looks like a hurricane hit it so I'd better do something about that.  I don't want to but I'd like to be able to enjoy being in my own home.

Notes about life

Well, it happened again.  Third time we've had an offer in and it was turned down.  Unfortunately this was the place we really wanted.  This is the one we've been looking at since the first house we put an offer in on and thought it was the perfect place.  *sigh*  Such as life I suppose.

So now we get to figure out what we are doing next.  We think we are going to take a break from house hunting.  Too frustrating at the moment.  We'll be comparing everything to this house we just lost out on.  Plus, we need to get our act together and sort a bunch of our stuff out.  We still haven't unpacked a lot of stuff.  Now I'd like to sort through that stuff.  There is some stuff we've been missing having out but a lot of it we haven't missed and it just needs to go away.

It really is amazing the amount of stuff one accumulates over the years.  When we first moved into this rental and our moving truck took another 10 days to get here it made us realize how much stuff we had.  Even more it made us realize how little we needed all that stuff.  We have gotten rid of a lot of it but still not all. 

I still have boxes of stuff from my childhood.  Who knows what is in there?  There for awhile every time I saw my folks they brought me another truckload.  I think they were tickled to be getting it out of their house.  I can't blame them, but I need to sort it and get rid of things.

So besides our crazy house hunting escapades and needing to sort out and get rid of things...  I'm working with a gal in town that is opening up a shop.  I'm going to start selling my hand spun yarn!  I'm pretty excited.  I've wanted to start this endeavor but haven't been sure about the who, where, what, why, etc. about it.  Now I'm going to consign my yarn.  I'll probably help her get the building ready too.  She is operating out of the old opera house in town.  Such a cool old building!  I'm a sucker for old buildings and antiques. 

In doing all of this I need to figure out a name, a logo, build my inventory, figure out state regulations that may or may not apply to a crafter, and I'm not even sure what else.  I'm working on a business plan.  Little by little I add to that.  I've at least written one of those before.  With a whole lot more regulation behind it.  In some ways that may have made it easier.  Things were pretty cut and dried as to what needed to happen.  It may not be so cut and dried with this.  That is okay though.  I'm excited.  I look at this as more of a market test than anything.  I don't have the building overhead to worry about.

One thing that I keep running into though.  I want to carry vintage/antique knitting needles as well.  Do you think I can find knitting needles at any of the second hand shops around here?  Maybe I need to hit some of the online places?  Travel?  Anybody have good ideas?  I'll keep looking.  There are many more little second hand stores around here to look at.  I'll just keep an eye out as I toodle around doing things.

Frustrated with Your Housing

Anybody else feel this way?  I'm going a bit bonkers waiting to hear things.  Waiting to find the right property.  It seems as though we are always waiting.  And those few times we've been put out of our misery of waiting?  Deals fell through.  Argh!!

I know, I know. I need to be patience.  I need to not get so antsy about it.  But dang!  I'm sick of cardboard boxes and my stuff being stacked around me.

So, we do little things to occupy our time.  I'm trying to sort and purge our pile of stuff.  We realized when we first moved and the moving truck took 10 days to get here we don't need nearly as much stuff as we have.  So, little by little I'm trying to get rid of things.  We've gotten rid of lots of our baby stuff.  There is still more to go.  I need to sort through some of the boxes my folks brought me 4 years ago and oust lots of my stuff from my childhood.  I haven't seen most of it in 15-20 years and most of it just needs to go away.  I'm not even sure why they kept some of it other than it was mine and left in my room when I moved out.

We have random old camping gear that may or may not be good.  We have kitchen stuff enough to outfit close to 2 kitchens.  I have tons of random miscellaneous things that who knows why I'm keeping them.  So, each box gets a little attention here and there.  Each corner gets cleaned out eventually.  I'm just hoping I can have most of the purging done before we move.  At the rate things are going that shouldn't be a problem.

*Rant alert*

So I've been reading blogs and articles along with becoming a stay-at-home mom.  With that staying at home job I've been working on cutting our budget and looking to blogs and articles to help out.  That isn't what my rant is about but I read a couple of blogs this morning that posted pictures of their pantries and it brought up thoughts and frustrations again about our American food supply at grocery stores.  Now, I will not make any claims about being totally organic or that all people should eat one way or another.  Wouldn't that be boring?  But, I'm getting very frustrated at the lack of ingredients in a store versus the processed, boxed, prepared foods.  Look at your store sale flyer.  What is on sale?  Ours has a very small meat, produce, and dairy section and a very large canned and snack food section.

Canned foods are great for stocking up.  Snacks are yummy.  I get that.  But my word!  How are you supposed to eat anything real or homemade when the ingredients either aren't there or cost a rather lot of money?  A couple of years ago we visited Austria (which we need to do again) and I loved the grocery stores there.  You know the middle aisles we have in our stores here?  The row after row of ready-to-eat cereals, canned goods, potato chips, boxed meals that you just add water to, or the microwave meals?  Those don't really exist over there.  While we were there we didn't really think about it.  The stores were nice, fun to shop in, and had a great meat section along with a wonderful bakery.  And then we got home and went grocery shopping.  Bakery?  Not really.  A small deli with lots of donuts and fried foods.  Butcher? Kinda.  Certainly not the whole back half of the store dedicated to it.  Soda pop aisle?  Oh ya baby!  Snack foods?  Yep!  Boxed and frozen dinners?  Yep again.  Produce section?  Yes, but kinda small.  Organic foods?  A few.

All of that and I just keep shaking my head when I hear the reports about how obese our world is becoming.  I say world because it isn't just America any more.  And you know the worst thing about all of it?  People that need the good wholesome food the most are the ones that generally can't afford it.  Compare the box of mac and cheese to the price of a pound of beef and some produce.

And to continue the rant... No one has time, the desire, or the know-how to cook.  Okay, so not no one.  A few do, but certainly not like years past.  As a general overview people don't cook anymore.  They warm stuff up but they don't cook.  It used to be that a fast meal in the home was under an hour to prepare.  Now?  People want under 30 minutes.  Don't get me wrong.  I understand that desire.  When you've just gotten home from being at work all day and things need done around the house and you have to get up and go to work early again in the morning, you don't want to spend the evening cooking.  You want to eat to fill the void and be done with it.  Just because I understand it though doesn't mean that I think it is a good idea.

I think the microwave has been a huge driving force behind a lot of this type of eating.  As has the television.  But even more so I think it is just human nature to always be looking for the easier route to accomplish a task, hence the Industrial Revolution.  We all like things that make our lives easier.  It doesn't mean that it is necessarily better for us, just that we like it and we'll use it.

I don't have solutions for it all.  Certainly not for the whole country or world.  But I think if we all try to remember to slow down when we can, eat real food when we can, and don't always take the easy way out maybe we can be a healthier person all around.  So I'm going to try a few things myself.  In addition to baking our own bread once a week I'm going to try to reduce the number of hours in front of the computer and t.v. and try to get walking around more often.  I want to use more dry beans in our meals, use more fruits and vegetables, and get more active.  I dislike how sedentary I've become so I'm going to try to change that.

Mia Funny

Mia has taken to telling a knock-knock joke.

Mia: Knock-knock
Me: Who's there?
Mia: 'trupting cow. (Interrupting cow)
Me: Interrupting cow who?
Mia: Moo!

Now that last moo is supposed to come mid-way through my question but she almost never makes it.  She is too polite and waits for me to be done with what I'm saying.  It makes me giggle.  I don't know if I should be proud of her for being polite or just get a kick out of the lack of timing on the joke.  Once in awhile if her brother coaches her she gets the timing correct.  I'm not in too big a hurry to correct her right now.  She'll figure it out soon enough.  For now I'm enjoying her attempts at humor.

Birthday Girl

It has been two years since Tom and  I drove the 45 miles to the hospital on a set of snowy January roads to the hospital to give birth to a baby girl.  My brother came up from Nevada to watch Bear for a few days for us so Tom didn't have to run back and forth from the hospital to home with a little boy that was only 2 and a half.  I still can't thank my brother enough for this.  He and Bear got along famously and my brother cleaned my house. :)  He's a bit of a neat freak and I'm not so my house drove him crazy.  We left and he started to clean.

At any rate about 4:30 this afternoon my baby girl turns 2.  My how these two years have flown.  Bear is 4 and half and Mia is 2.  We've finished school, moved, started school, and begun a new chapter in our life.  Amazing the changes in our lives and in our daughter.  She went from being the brand new baby to an amazing little girl.  She loves to color with markers, crayons, paint, chalk, pencils and pens.  It really doesn't matter what medium or what she is coloring on she loves to do it.  That and imitating her big brother.  She likes anything he likes.  That includes cars, Transformers, robots, and whatever else his fancy takes.  Despite wanting to be just like her brother she seems to have her own very strong personality.  She doesn't let him or anyone else bully her into doing stuff.  She'll scream bloody murder if he wants to make her do something she doesn't want to do.

I've been very proud of my girl lately.  She has become very polite and very helpful about taking her dishes to the kitchen sink after a meal.  Mia loves animals too.  She has always been very gentle with Buddy, our Border Collie.  Because of it they have a special bond.  Usually if we can't find Buddy we just look in Mia's room.  He's usually laying right next to her bed.  If he cuddles up to a kid it is Mia.  She seems to love all animals and has no fear of dogs.  This is good and bad of course.

Well, it is off to listen to my girl play the piano and hang out with the birthday girl.  Happy birthday Amelia!  We love you.

Good supper...

...if I do say so myself.  I made pork chops with an apple red wine reduction and Brussels sprouts.  The reduction was red wine, apple butter, pomegranate juice, and a couple of cloves of garlic.  I deglazed my pan with the red wine after searing my chops.  Delicious.  The sprouts were our standard of bacon, butter, a little broth, a touch of garlic, and saute until tender.  I do slice these so they cook in less time.  I like whole ones too but they take so much longer to cook that I usually don't get them.

Just thought I'd better write it down before I forget.  I used a pork tenderloin roast and sliced my chops from that.  They turned out much more tender than if I had bought chops.

Sundays

I love Sundays.  It is my day to sleep in.  Tom gets Saturday.  Well, sleeping in is a rather generous description.  We do get to sleep in a bit, but even better is the person who gets up that day is the one that makes the coffee, gets the kids' breakfasts, lets the dog out, builds the fire, and changes that first diaper.  It is so nice to not do that stuff one day a week.  I really don't think either of us really mind doing any of it other than the actual crawling out of bed.  It just makes it really nice to not have to do it one day.  It makes that day a special treat.

Then after I've slept in we lounge around.  This morning was spent drinking coffee, catching up on blogs and forums I enjoy, and best of all was sitting on my bed with my kiddos reading seed catalogs and talking about what we are going to put in our theoretical garden.  Theoretical because we don't have the property yet.  Bear has quite the list of stuff he wants to grow.  So do I for that matter.  He wants to be able to make vegetable soup and have pumpkins for pies and to carve for Halloween.  Mia of course wants everything her brother does.  She also learned how to say zucchini while looking at the catalogs.  I love the fact that they learn to identify different plants while they are looking at the flowers and vegetables.

And now?  Tom and the kids are out at a park flying a little model airplane while I fix lunch.  They got the little plane for Christmas and were going to fly yesterday but it was too windy.  So despite it only being about 10 degrees they are out flying planes.  And it sounds like they just pulled in so I'd better go slice the bread to go with the soup for lunch.

Morning thoughts

Barely light out and I'm up with a cup of coffee in my hand.  My son seems to think that 6 a.m. is a good time to be up.  I make him wait until it is a lot lighter to come out of his room.  I don't like getting up at 6 a.m.  I don't mind being up but it is the getting up part I don't like.  So I'm listening to the kids watch their morning t.v.  Yep, they watch t.v.  I can't really tell them no when I like to watch the stuff too.  We just try to limit the amount.  Sometimes we are successful and sometimes not so much.

But that isn't what I wanted to write about.  I've been shopping my seed catalogs.  It is the time of year for them.  I love this time of year.  This year is different though since we don't have any property yet.  I didn't think house hunting would be as stressful as it has been.  I thought our place in Montana was tough to find.  And you would think that your first house purchase would be a lot more difficult than your second.  Not us.  We seem to have a knack for finding the crazy/stubborn sellers.  I'm not sure how we're doing it.

I'm sure that some folks (our realtor in particular) are thinking that we are being picky, and we are.  We have a down payment, we have a place to live, and we have certain things we really like and dislike about houses.  This next place is a house we'd like to be in for quite awhile.  So, we are being picky.  There is no reason to settle for a tiny house in town that we don't really like.  We are holding out for that chunk of property out of town where we can have an orchard, garden, and hopefully a couple of critters.

Talking about that reminds me.  I was talking with another parent from Bear's school (her son and mine are friends) and I mentioned a side lot being good for a garden or an orchard.  She commented on what a Montana thing that was.  Yes, ma'am I am proud to be from Montana.  I'm finding that ideas like this indeed do appear to be somewhat unique to Montana.  At least compared to Nebraska.  There sure are some stark differences between the two places.  Not really good or bad but stark.  I like both places.  I miss Montana since I lived there for almost 10 years, but I also miss things about living in Washington and Idaho.  I didn't really live in Wyoming long enough to become really attached and it was a long time ago.  Still, there are things I really liked about it.

I find it funny how different places you live become a part of you.  I love the wide open farm country of Idaho and Washington, the mountains and "green" lifestyle of our area in Montana, the wild emptiness of Wyoming, and the open farm country here with a few interesting hills and bluffs thrown in to make it interesting.

I'm just hoping now that we can find our little chunk of paradise so we can carve out a life here.  Of course who knows what life has in store for us?  Despite hoping that we are here for a long time I know that things could change and we may end up moving a long distance again.  We shall see.  I do like that feeling of waiting to see what life has in store for us.  The new year, a new area, and hopefully soon a new house.

2013

Happy New Year!

A few goals for this year.  I've decided I like some other folks ideas of using goals instead of resolutions as they can be more flexible.


Find our place to buy and move in.

Develop that place into our miniature farm.  Goals to that end will come later.

Work on getting our budget tightened up.

Get a garden.  Whether that be at our own property or a community garden Bear and I need a garden.

When we get a place start developing an orchard.

Spin more yarn and work on getting it more consistent. 

I want longer lengths to my skeins too.

Continue learning to knit.  This includes working on learning more stitches.

Possibly start a Farmgirl Chapter.

Get us all our check-ups from doctors, dentists, and for Buddy, the vet.

Simplify our lives by getting rid of lots of our stuff.

Get our household organized to the point where everyone knows where the mail goes and where the keys get hung up.  That is surprisingly hard to do in a rental that you plan on moving out of any day. :)

These goals will all change and develop over the year as we find a place to be more permanently.  We have some sorting and moving to do.  We have a job to keep up on for Tom and I might get a part time job for some supplemental income for our savings.  Bear will finish up pre-school this spring and start kindergarten in the fall.  Mia turns two in a short while.  Tom has a birthday tomorrow.  Bear and I get to see if there is anywhere open today so Bear can go get his dad a birthday present.

If we get a bit of acreage we'll be adding a whole lot of tasks to this list I'm sure.  It always happens with owning a home and even more so if you want fruit trees, a garden, and animals.  This year will be animal prep.  We don't want to own any this year since we have some travelling to do.

I love the promise a new year holds for one's life.