Finally! A Captive Audience

Damn Teenagers!

2012-01-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

It may be unfair to blame teenagers, but I figure they're the most likely culprit.

When J left for work at 6:40am, all was well at our house.

At 8:15 when a friend of M's got to our house to get a ride to school, we discovered the back window to my car had been shot out. I imagine it was probably teenagers driving by.

I called the police, and they were out within 5 minutes to take a report (wow, gotta love living in a small, relatively crime free town!). The officer told me that I was the 5th report in 2.5 hours. I wouldn't be surprised if more reports trickle in as people leave for the day.

Not only are the destructive vandals, but they don't have particularly good aim. They missed their first shot, so I have a paint chip/slight dent a little bigger than a pencil eraser.

I go in a couple hours to have the damage fixed. The glass place quoted around $200 for the glass. I'm annoyed about that, don't get me wrong. I'm also mad because my two race stickers are ruined, and of course won't be on the new glass.

My dirty dash sticker (which my friend has offered to replace. He had the contract to make the stickers in the first place, so he can easily make another one).

My Undead Race sticker.

Updated to add: When J got home from work, he got a better look at our truck, and saw that they'd tried to shoot out the windshield on it as well. We found at least six shots had been taken at it, so I'll have to get that repaired. When I called the police to amend my report, they told me that in Clinton and Roy alone, there had been 30 reports of similar vandalism.

Bed Switching

2012-01-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

I am the worst mother in the universe. Why? Because my 6.5 and 4.5 year olds are still in toddler beds. Well, they were. S started complaining that her head AND her feet were touching the ends of her bed (whoops). I had been putting it off because I am still madly in love with Z's race car bed, but I finally admitted it was time.

Many moons ago, we bought a set of bunk beds for K & M. They were sometimes used together, sometimes apart. We recently decided to bring the beds together again, and have S & Z sleep in them instead.

S & Z's "new" bunk bed.

K's daybed

So, we bought a beautiful daybed for K off of KSL. I am really quite tickled with it.

M's new loft bed

Next, we built M a loft bed. Space is so tight in his room that we felt this would be a good use of space. J and his dad designed and built the bed. I did a good bit of the finish work.

Everyone seems to be pretty thrilled with the new sleeping arrangements except for S, who initially said it was ok to let Z have top bunk for the month of January, but found the actual practice to be quite contrary to her wishes.

Chicken Blog

2012-01-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

I know that I got incredibly boring to just about everyone (yeah, all two of you) who read my blog when all I posted about was my chickens. I decided to start an entirely new blog where I can talk about them as much as I want.

If you happen to be at all interested in my chicken ramblings, you'll see a link to it on my "links" column.

I want peacocks now, but J says I can't- he'll have my committed if I try. Funsucker.

I *DO* have some golden laced wyandotte eggs in my incubator, and it looks like I have 7 healthy chicks developing. They should be hatching on Saturday. Woot!

Sugar Free January

2012-01-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

I decided to do something rather drastic for January after discovering a few days ago that I had regained almost half the weight I lost in 2011. Yikes!! I have decided to go sugar free for the month of January.

Now, I'm not that meticulous, so I'm not being completely crazy about it. I know that sugar is added to many foods in surprising ways. I'm not too worried about sugar found in whole wheat bread, bbq sauce, peanut butter, or taco seasoning (?! Yep, there's sugar in there), etc.

I'm simply avoiding the obvious sugar foods- I am not eating any cakes, cookies, candy, soda (sob!) or ice cream.

Today marks the beginning of day three. I was kind of overloaded on sweets in December (hence my decision to do it for January), so I haven't missed that sort of thing at all yet. I DO miss my Mountain Dew though.

Foot Surgery

2011-12-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

When J was a kid, he broke his right big toe while jumping on a trampoline (a trampoline injury you say? INCONCEIVABLE!!!). Fast forward 30 or so years, and he's taken up running. That toe has always bothered him a little, but it has gotten much worse since the running thing.

He saw a podiatrist a couple weeks ago, who did some x-rays and said that it looked like there was a minor bone spur. He said J could try orthotics or have a cheilectomy done. J felt like he'd like a more permanent solution, so he opted for the surgery. A cheilectomy is basically just shaving the sharp part off of the joint. The doctor felt like J's case was fairly mild, and didn't see any other complications. We scheduled the surgery for today. Since he'd already planned to take all week off work anyway, it was very convenient. After scheduling the surgery, J noticed a sharp decline in his toe, and was feeling a lot more pain. I noticed he was favoring the foot more. I'm not sure why it suddenly got worse- maybe it was mentally accepting there was something wrong and not blocking the pain as much?

He had the surgery done today. He opted to have the deeper sedation so that he wouldn't wake up partway through the procedure. The doctor said it would take about 45 minutes. It ended up taking a bit longer. It turns out things weren't quite as simple as the x-rays showed. I will now explain in laymen's terms what they found and what they did. I'm totally doing this because all of my many readers (ha ha) would prefer it that way, and NOT because I can't remember the technical terms.

They found he had a flap of cartilage loose, and flapping around. This would cause some trouble. They ended up cutting it off, and drilling around the bone to encourage growth of new cartilage/scar tissue. There was also a minor bunion repair, and the bone spur was significantly larger than originally thought. He also saw some signs of arthritis. The doctor stressed that this wasn't a permanent fix, but it should make for a dramatic improvement for a good long time.

They have a pain pump somehow inserted into the wound (maybe as an IV or something? His foot is all bandaged up, and I've been instructed not to unwrap it, dangit). The pump gives a continuous flow of a local numbing anesthetic. If he starts to feel pain, he can press a button and get a bollus (or extra boost) of the numbing medicine. A home health care nurse will be coming by Friday to remove it.

So far, his recovery has been great. He's just hung out in our room, watching tv. He's threatened to get a bell so he can ring the bell to get my attention/annoy me. He's been a great patient so far, willing to stay down. I guess this means he's in more pain than he's letting on, as inactivity drives him right up the wall. I'm thinking that by Thursday or Friday I'll be having to bungee cord him down.

Dear ShopVac

2011-12-11T07:51:00.001-08:00

My Dear Shopvac,

I just wanted to write you a letter of appreciation for all of your hard work. I know that I haven't always given you proper appreciation. I know I wasn't happy with you when we discovered that it was you who helped my toddler hide my keys. Having that open hole was just too much temptation for a 2 year old, and she crammed the car keys in there, and you remained silent on the issue.

However, you really, really helped me out on Friday. Friday morning, I jumped in the shower first thing in the morning, and noticed that we ran out of hot water much sooner than I would have expected. I wondered if the kids had messed with the temperature dial (this happens at least once a month), and made a mental note to go check on it. Unfortunately, the morning was crazy, as we had an extra kid in the house, and I had a 8:45 meeting to get to after I got S dropped off at school.

I went to my meeting, got Z dropped off at Grandma's, and went to a Realtor Christmas lunch. There, I won a month of MLS dues paid for. Yay! I got the kids picked up from school, and got home around 2, about 7 hours after I'd left for the morning.

M goes downstairs because he's starting to go through video game withdrawals, and hollers up that there's water downstairs.

Crap.

I get down there, and sure enough, there's an inch or so of water pooled by the basement steps. It's only gotten about a foot of the way into K's room. I open the door to the utility storage room. I discover that the pressure relief valve/pipe is POURING water. Fast.

Crap crap crap.

I hurry and turn off water to the house to end it quickly. I call J, upset. Unfortunately, he's now in a carpool at work, so he can't just take off and leave work early anymore.

I grabbed you, dear shopvac, out of the shed. Empty all the crud out into the garbage can, and then haul you downstairs and get to work.

I had to empty you of water at least 10 times. I lost count after that. I was feeling lucky that it seemed that only the utility room seemed to be flooded, except that tiny part at the bottom of the stairs. I'm also feeling lucky that J and I had mostly gotten that room cleaned out around Thanksgiving, so there wasn't much on the floor. I begin to realize that water keeps coming out from under the wall that separates the utility room from the freezer storage room.

Uh oh.

That storage room has NOT been sorted through in a while, and things were getting very bad and out of control there. There was tons and tons of stuff on the floor. I was afraid to go in there, but I eventually got up the courage.

Hooboy. This is where most of the water went. About 3/4 of the room has water on the floor. Luckily the area around the freezer was totally dry. I got the kids to help me take all of the cardboard boxes out, and I continued to suck up water.

By the time J got home from work, the floors were mainly dry, and I was trying to empty out the cardboard boxes. He looked at the water heater, and declared it to be an easy fix. He ran to the hardware store, and had the water heater fixed within 10 minutes.

We'll lose a lot of books and some papers. There's also some lost photos, but nothing too valuable or important. A lot of our outgrown kids clothes got slightly damp, but I've sent them through the wash.

Yesterday, J built me a new set of shelves to go in the freezer storage room. I plan to sort through everything and throw away and/or donate a lot of stuff. Anything that will be on the floor will be in a rubbermaid tote so that it'll be safe it we ever have another water incident.

I feel very lucky because we didn't lose anything important or valuable. Plus, we've been married 16.5 years, and this is the first time we've ever had any kind of water/fire/sewer/wind disaster.

Christmas Stockings

2011-12-10T17:36:00.001-08:00

This is our mantle and our Christmas stockings. I made mine, M's and K's completely from scratch. I had some help with the other three.

I think my very favorite is K's. She thinks it's unfair that hers is soooooo much better than the others.

Persimmon Bread

2011-12-06T19:43:00.001-08:00

Because fall/winter has officially set in, and I no longer have fresh fruits and veggies coming from my garden, I decided to order a Bountiful Basket this week. They also had a great deal on gingerbread house kits, so I was excited to pick up my order.

In my order, there were quite a few fuyu persimmons. I'll admit that I'm not too familiar with the fruit. I saw them growing all over the place in Japan, but I never actually ate one there. I have a friend here with a persimmon tree, and she gives me a couple fruits each year, but we just eat them and move on. I got so many in the basket that I knew I was going to have to do something different with them.

I found a recipe for Persimmon Bread, and I decided to tweak it a little bit. I was quite happy with how it tasted- it tasted like a sweet/quick bread with a nice spicy undertaste.

Persimmon Bread

1 c. persimmon pulp (I just cut the stem looking thing off the top and put it in my food processor)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. applesauce
2 eggs
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. finely chopped walnuts

Mix all ingredients together except for walnuts. Pour into a well greased bread pan. This is prone to stick, so putting some parchment paper in the bottom wouldn't be a bad idea. Sprinkle the walnuts on top.

Bake at 350 for 45 min-1 hour, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I used walnuts from my tree for this recipe, and so I had to shell them before I could use them. I also made the bread after the kids went to bed, so I had to shell them myself. What a pain! No wonder I usually make them do it! I did notice if you crack them a certain way, the walnuts make a cute heart shape. It wasn't enough to completely win me over, but it did make me a little less annoyed.

Failure to hatch

2011-11-26T18:46:00.001-08:00

Well, the eggs I set that were my chickens' final eggs were due to hatch on Thursday.

When they were a day overdue, I candled them again, and I could tell that they were not viable. Since I'm curious, I sealed them in a ziploc bag, and opened them all up.

1 egg stopped developing around day 13-14.

3 eggs stopped developing around day 10.

1 egg stopped developing around day 7

1 egg stopped around day 3-4.

I'll admit that I'm pretty upset about it. I had an emotional attachment to the idea of hatching MY chickens' eggs. It would've been nice to have a legacy. I didn't cry when I found my chickens dead and had to bury them, though I wanted to. I did cry a little when I realized the eggs weren't going to hatch. I think that it was also for the loss of the hens as well- I'd pinned my hopes on these eggs. Also, to see that they had started developing and died for some reason was difficult. I wonder if I'd done something wrong, and if it could have been prevented.

I mailed my incubator back to Brinsea today. The autoturn feature on it was broken, and they'd given me a return authorization so I could get it repaired. When the chicken tragedy struck, I wanted to try to hatch before I sent it back. Hopefully I'll get it back in a month or so and I can try again.

Once it comes back, I will do a test incubation at home to make sure it's turning the eggs ok and will hatch successfully. Then, I'll do a couple incubations at my kids' schools. I mentioned it in casual conversation, and I have three teachers at three schools who are really excited at the idea of hatching chicks in class.

I'm embarrassed to admit I'm so broken up over some birds.

Conversations with Z

2011-11-22T20:25:00.001-08:00

Conversation with Z today:

Z: Mommy, do you know why motorcycle riders wear black?

Me (sitting back and waiting for an awesome story): No, why?

Z: Because if they wear black, it will hide all the dirt they get on them that they get from driving all over the place. It protects their skin from the dirt. And when bugs squish on them, it hides that too.

Me: Oh. Interesting. Why do motorcycle guys wear helmets?

Z: Because motorcycles are really loud and it helps keep the sound out. And the bugs from getting in their face.

Me: I thought it was to protect their heads in case they ever tipped over?

Z: No. If they are careful and they ride fast enough, they can't tip over (he then laughs hysterically at the idea of someone tipping over on a motorcycle)

Tonight:

Z: Mommy, I think I really am a superhero. This (pointing to the green bridge piece he's been carrying around for a couple days) is my special super hero weapon.

(for reasons unknown to me, S wanted to hide behind him)

The Great Chicken Tragedy

2011-11-13T15:06:00.001-08:00

I've been working to get all caught up on my blog, and I have to admit this was a post that I was dreading.

On Thursday, November 3, my neighbor's daughter came over to my house, deeply upset. She is a senior in high school, and had just arrived home from school. She was going to collect eggs and discovered that 12 of their 18 chickens were dead, and 2-3 more were injured. She wanted to call her mother and share the news. She left her a voicemail. I said I'd come outside and help her.

As we walked outside, I thought I should check on my birds, just in case. I wasn't too worried, as our coop is totally enclosed. Then, I remembered, it's not. When we extended our run, we ran out of the wire fencing we were using over the top. There was a spot at the end on top, about 18" wide that didn't get covered. We'd tossed a big board over the top, but it had been a couple months. It was entirely possible that the board had fallen off.

As I got to my coop, I realized the worst had happened- seven of my hens were dead. The only survivor in the coop was Bow, my gift chicken from the neighbor. We hadn't had her very long, and I still hadn't quite thought of her as "ours". There was no sign of Sue. Then, I heard him crow. But, he wasn't in our yard- he was at a neighbor's, two doors down. As it turned out, he had a minor injury on his neck/throat area, but he was doing pretty well, other than being emotionally traumatized.

I went to the neighbor's house and saw 12 of their hens laying in their coop, mutilated. The most upsetting thing about finding them dead was that they just looked played with- they were pretty much intact, just dead. If it had been a starving animal who had eaten them, while upsetting, it would've been at least somewhat understandable. But these were just toyed with. She had a few remaining chickens who had survived, some injured, others ok. To get into her chicken run, the critter would have had to jump a 6' fence to get into her backyard proper, then jump another 6' fence to get into the chicken run. Given our somewhat-secure chicken runs, we knew this wasn't the work of a dog.

Our other neighbor, Dan, came over, and helped us bury all of the birds. He asked around, and a family of raccoons has been spotted in the area. We feel this is probably the culprit.

Jennie was very upset about the loss of her chickens. While she does love her chickens more than I do (I know, seems hard to believe, but it's absolutely true), they were also a money source to her- the money she made from selling eggs was paying for her horse AND chicken feed. I gave her back Bow. I rehomed Sue to a family who has 13 hens. I got an update from the new owner this morning, saying that he is very gentle with his new girls, as well as the owner, and seems to be a very happy rooster.

So, at this point, I have no chickens.

Back in September, I hatched four chicks and gave them to my sister in law and her family. They have had so much fun with their new babies and have really gotten attached to them (at least, that's how it's appeared from the outside looking in). However, when they heard that I'd lost all of mine, they offered to give the chicks back. I was so touched by the gesture that I nearly cried.

The same day of the incident, while I was steeling myself to go clean up the carnage, I took my final dozen eggs out of the fridge.

I picked out the 7 that I thought were the prettiest, and set them to incubate.

After a few days, I decided to candle them. I realized that egg #3 had a small crack in it, and realized it probably wouldn't be able to hatch the chick, so I threw it out and put another egg in its' place. I've since heard success stories of hatching cracked eggs, so I worry that I made a mistake. However, Egg #3.1 is developing great.

At day 5, I candled again. Here's one of the eggs on day 5:

At this point, it is day 10 in the incubation. It appears that six of the eggs are developing nicely. Egg #5 seems to be a quitter- I think it quit about 2-3 days into it. Eggs #1 and #2 are so dark that it's tough to tell, but I'm pretty sure I saw some veining.

This is egg #7 at day 10 of incubation:

Halloween 2011

2011-11-13T14:02:00.001-08:00

I was a terrible mother this year- I was not good about getting a picture of K in her main Halloween costume. She was supposed to have a role in the "doll room" of the spook alley at her school. We found a wedding dress, veil, and petticoat at a second hand store that fit her perfectly. We applied pale makeup to her skin and then put red lipstick and false eyelashes on. Scary! (especially the 13 year old in the wedding dress part!) However, wearing a wedding dress around isn't particularly comfortable- it's quite cumbersome, so she opted to just borrow a costume I had for a couple of the parties that we went to. S was a princess. I wanted to make her a beautiful dress, but she found that one in a store, and just had to have it. I twitched a little but agreed. Z was "Dark Mater".

After seeing my zombie makeup for the run, M really wanted to be a zombie as well. I made his wounds with liquid latex and toilet paper. This picture is actually my first attempt (I got to do the whole ensemble three times), and was the worst attempt, but I didn't get pictures of the best. So, use your imagination.

As for us, J was a missionary, and I was his constant companion, so long as he behaved. Can you guess who I was? My robe had holes all over it, so I was "hole-y". Got it? I was the Holy Ghost. ha ha ha

We went to a couple halloween parties, and I had fun with the food. I made an eyeball cake using red velvet cake and cherry pie filling. I thought it looked pretty awesome.

Japan Part II

2011-11-10T11:59:00.001-08:00

On Thursday, J took off to go work. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. He was going to finish before it was too late, and we had plans to meet with a bunch of his associates to have Yaki Niku for dinner. So, I didn't want to do anything that required hours and hours of train rides.

I finally decided to go to Mino-h or Minoh, which is located in the Osaka prefecture. The train going there was not part of the JR line, so I had to buy my train ticket. The JR ticket machines have a lovely button in the one corner that says "English". When you push it, everything is in English. This other train company had no English button.

After attempting to look lost and confused (wasn't a big challenge), nobody came to my aid. Weird. Having a bewildered look on my face had always prompted strangers stepping in to ask if I needed help in the past. Oh well. I found some schoolboys and asked them to help me buy my ticket. I watched what they did and was able to buy my ticket home without incident. I *think* I did it correctly- the little doors at the ticket station didn't slam shut, so I considered that good news. This was foreshadowing for the day though. Minoh is definitely not geared to the international tourist. Everything was extremely well marked. If you read Japanese. So, I found myself being pretty much illiterate the entire day.

Minoh, Osaka, Japan is known for being a small town with a beautiful wilderness area. The area has thousands of Japanese maple trees along a mountainous walk area. There's a couple little shrines along the way, as well as a small cemetery.Oh, and guess what else is there? MONKEYS! Wild monkeys! I only saw one, and unfortunately, it dashed off before I got a photo. There were warnings everywhere, telling us not to feed the monkeys. Words to live by, man.

I think I was there about 3 weeks too early to get the full effect of how gorgeous this place can be. I saw a couple of trees that were starting to turn red, but I bet that early November is an incredible time to go with all of those trees appearing to be on fire.

At the end of the trail, there was a beautiful waterfall. There was quite a few benches for people to sit down and admire the view.

One of the things that Minoh is known for is their fried maple leaves. I had no idea they were edible, but since it wasn't fishy, I was game to try it. I was pleasantly surprised at the fact that it was pretty good. Admittedly, I couldn't actually taste the leaf. It just tasted like crispy, sweet, fried dough with a slight sesame taste.

That night, we went out to dinner with a bunch of people from the ISO group. J and I had gone on and on about how wonderful yaki niku is. When you go to a yakiniku restaurant, they bring you a plate of marinated meat that has been thinly sliced. You cook it at a little grill that is set into your table. It's really, really good. J got recommendations from the hotel. Unfortunately, it turned out to be bad advice (in my opinion). I found the restaurant to be overpriced and not good. The plate we ordered had rib bones with it. What?! It was a little embarrassing to have all those people with us, and it ended up being the worst yakiniku experience either of us ever had.

The next day, we checked out of our hotel, and took a train to Yokohama. We went to lunch at the Ramen Museum, which was quite close to the hotel. There was an entrance fee, but the ramen was quite discounted, and available in smaller bowls so that you could try a couple different styles. I knew I liked some ramen more than others, but here I learned that the kind I really liked was called shoyu. The area was set up to mimic a portion of Tokyo in 1958. Why 1958? Because that's the year instant ramen was invented and package. There were lots of air raid sirens going off, which confused me a little- I thought it was a fairly peaceful time in Japanese history. I need to research this out.

That evening, we went out for (really excellent) yakiniku with one of my close friends- Tsubasa and her husband, Jun.

Saturday found J at a convention for prosthetics, and Tsubasa's husband giving a presentation. I also realized I had procrastinated enough, and I really HAD to pick up some souvineers. Tsubasa had thoroughly spoiled our children and bought them a ton of candy and treats, so that did take some pressure off. She and I did a bit of shopping and girl talk, and generally had a wonderful time. I really wish I could see her more often.

Saturday night, J and I took the train to go meet an old friend of mine from school. His wife had a baby a couple days earlier, and I was dying to meet the newborn, as well as their toddler. We had a lovely evening visiting with their family.

Sunday we took our time getting to the airport. We had a final Japanese lunch at the airport, and I had an awesome bowl of shoyu ramen along with some gyoza (potstickers). It was so good, and I already miss it terribly.

It was a wonderful week. I had an amazing time, even if I was going through iPhone withdrawals. We didn't want to pay for international calling or web browsing, so we only had access to our phones in wifi hotspots (which I never did find any) or at our hotel, where we did have wifi. We were able to call home from our hotel using TextFree, our free texting app. They have a phone calling section, and it was a wonderful, very cheap way of calling home.

Trip To Japan

2011-11-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

J and I had the opportunity to go to Japan a couple weeks ago. Quite a few people from several companies in several countries have been working to establish some international standards with testing and prosthetics for a while, and they meet occasionally to work on that. The latest meeting was scheduled to be in Osaka, Japan. When I heard that, I was thrilled. I've been saving airline miles, hoping for an opportunity to return to Japan. I wasn't sure if I'd ever go back, and I have to admit I got a little teary when I got there.

We traveled there with Lonnie from OH and Mike from MI. They were both a LOT of fun, and I was glad for extra company. They flew into Salt Lake on Friday, Oct 14. We all went out to dinner that evening. Saturday I did the zombie run, while they all slaved away at the lab (this became a common theme for the trip... well, them working, me playing. The zombie thing not so much).

Sunday morning, we got to the airport before it was even light. The flight over was very uneventful. The plane we were on had on demand movies, music and games for free, which was really, really nice. I'd been concerned I'd be bored on the plane, and I was thoroughly entertained.

We arrived in Japan in the late afternoon on Monday. (whoooa) We got everyone through customs and luggage claimed, then picked up our JR Rail Passes. If you are going to be traveling to Japan, I can't recommend these high enough. Because we flew into Narita, Osaka was a good 3 hours away by bullet train, and we didn't want to do that long of a train ride when we were that tired, so we just took the train to Ueno, where we had hotel reservations waiting for us at the Sutton Place Hotel. It was very small, but clean. Poor Lonnie had some sort of mistake made by hotels.com, and they'd reserved 4 rooms for him instead of one. Not exactly the kind of issue you want to work out when you're bone tired and the other participant in the conversation speaks almost no English.

The next morning, J and the guys all hopped on a bullet train to Osaka so they could work. I headed north to Tsukuba, the town where we lived. I was going to meet my friend Shaney. Shaney is the principal at Tsukuba International School. TIS has grown SO much since K attended school there. When she went there, they had grades 1-6 and there was 18 students total. When I visited, they'd moved to a larger, nicer location, and have expanded significantly. They have a preschool program for ages 3-5, and then their school has grades 1-9. 85+ students now, but class sizes were very small. WOW!!

Our hotel in Osaka was a good 10-15 minute walk from the train station, and J was worried about me finding my way to the hotel in the dark. I told him which train I'd be on, and he said he'd find me. I had never been to the Osaka station, so I wasn't sure if this was reasonable or not. I suspected it wasn't. As it turns out, the Osaka station is the third largest train station IN THE WORLD. Yeah, super easy to find someone "at the train station". After looking for him for a half hour or so (dragging my luggage, incidentally), I gave up and walked to the ANA Crowne Plaza, which was MUCH easier to find! This is the view out our hotel window:

The next day, the guys all hopped on a train to go work all day. I got on a train and went to Kyoto. Kyoto is an absolutely amazing, beautiful city. I spent one day there with J, but that was almost 10 years ago. I didn't have any particular plans there, other than to see the Golden Pavilion (aka Kinkakuji). I got a map from the tourist booth at the train station. Unfortunately, they didn't mention there is an awesome deal on a day pass for the bus. I really could've used that, so I would highly recommend that to other people. So, I left the train station and walked to Kinkakuji (which is approximately 3-4 miles). I stopped a couple times at other shrines along the way, and had a lovely time looking at them.

Kinkakuji was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It was stunningly beautiful, and didn't even look real.

The upper two levels are actually covered in gold leaf. It was amazing to look at.

After that visual feast, I decided that I MUST go see the Ginkakuji (Silver Pavilion). It was all the way across the city. I got a couple miles in and was really tired. I finally started paying attention to the buses, and hopped a bus for a couple hundred yen. Boy, did I feel incredibly foolish! A very nice lady who spoke no English at all told me a couple temples I should definitely go see. She actually felt they were better to see than my planned destination. Nobody bothered telling me that The Silver Pavilion wasn't ACTUALLY covered in silver, like the golden pavilion. I'm sure Mrs. Nice Japanese lady was trying to tell me that, but oh well. It was still really beautiful to see, and the designs they made with sand were really pretty.

I explored the city a bit more, but I was pretty tired, and I was planning to meet up with the ISO standards group for dinner, so I got back on a bullet train and went back to Osaka.

That night, we had an extremely fancy, extremely traditional Japanese meal. It was served in a Tatami room, and had so many courses that I lost track. Here is just one:

(to be continued)

The Dirty Dash

2011-11-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Another fun race I recently did was The Dirty Dash. It was a 10k through lots of mud and water, and included a lot of obstacles. Costumes are encouraged. I can honestly say that it was one of the funnest Saturdays that I have ever spent.

Here's a picture of our group BEFORE.

And, our group after:

I am not sure what our finish time was. Frankly, I don't care. We had to cross some railroad tracks before and after going through about a quarter mile of waist deep water. Well, on the way back, there was a train stopped on the tracks, and it stayed there for a good 15 minutes. We had to wait until it moved on before we could go on.

Then, the very end of the race with this enormous inflatable slip and slide. By that time, our group had kind of separated into 2-3 groups. Those of us who were a little faster decided to go back and find the rest of the group. The up side to that was that we got to go down the slide again. Woohoo!!

We had an absolute ball with this "race". There will be another one in the Spring of 2012, as well as fall of 2012. I plan to do both. If you want to join me, be sure to let me know.

Zombie Run

2011-11-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

When I first heard about Night of the Running Dead, I was immediately intrigued. While I still hate running, I have noticed that it's a lot more palatable if there's a fun twist, like playing in mud, dressing in costume, etc. etc. Even better, the run benefited the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

I asked around, hoping to get a lot of friends to run with me. J had associates in town because we were leaving the next day for Japan, and they were traveling with us. He was busy in the lab doing some tests with them, so he wasn't available. My friend Alia was the only one available and willing. She was one of my very top picks, as she's an AMAZING makeup artist, and I knew I could hire her to do my zombie makeup. She absolutely lived up to all expectations I had of her- I thought my makeup looked INCREDIBLE.

We decided it would be fun to do a doctor/patient theme. I wore a hospital johnny, and she wore scrubs. We ended up placing in the top five for the costume contest that the race producers hosted.

We had agreed ahead of time that we didn't have to run with the other, so that way, if one of us was faster, we wouldn't hold the other person back. Imagine my shock when *I* was the quick one! Well, not QUICK, but not horribly slow.

Here's a video of me finishing the race.

When the official results came in, I finished the 5k in 30.11. I was a little disappointed; my goal was to finish in under 30 minutes. But, it was a big improvement from the race I did over Memorial Day weekend.

I do plan to do it next year, so if you want to join in the fun, let me know.

A conversation with Z

2011-10-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

Z has been so much fun lately. He is getting to be very articulate, and it's very interesting to have conversations with him. He's also a very affectionate four year old, and is constantly hugging and kissing me and telling me I'm beautiful.

Yesterday, we were in the car, and he asked why I turned the radio down. Not being in the mood to explain I thought it was too loud, because that would extend the questions even further, I replied, "Because I'm weird."

"Yes. That's why I love you. Because you're weird."

My grandma was in the car with us, and we both about passed out from trying to not laugh out loud.

My minivan aversion

2011-09-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

The official car of motherhood is the minivan. It's obvious to see why- they get great fuel economy, fit tons of people, aren't very big, have lots of storage, and the back doors slide open, preventing kids from making door dings, and they have great safety records. It totally makes sense to drive one. All (ok, most) of my friends drive minivans.

But I don't. I can't help it. I see a minivan, and I think matronly and old. Ironically, I don't see my minivan driving moms as anything but hip. I still can't bring myself to bite the bullet and get the minivan. J thinks I'm out of my mind.

So, I drive this huge behemoth, getting 33% or more less fuel efficiency than I would if I would just be sensible. I just can't. I can't do it. I'm generally really sensible, but I refuse to grow up in this part of my life. When my kids move out, I'll probably get a zippy little sports car, but for now, I really like my huge urban assault vehicle.

It can be handy- I've been able to fit five kids AND two enormous bass violins. The owner of one of the basses was in awe about my car, and actually told her parents, "You have to go see K's mom's car. It fit FIVE kids, two basses AND her mom. It is so cool!!"

And, it has a dvd player. I love it.

Hatching Chicks

2011-09-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

My daughter has been teasing me that all I ever blog about is chickens, and could I POSSIBLY be any more boring? So, I've been thinking about making an effort not to post so much about them. However, I did have something exciting happen this week, and I've had several people express interest in this post, so here goes.

I had my hen go broody a few weeks ago, but the first batch of eggs didn't hatch. My SIL wanted chickens, and I thought I'd try to hatch eggs one more time for her. I put a total of 7 eggs under Lucy. All were fathered by my Black Copper Marans cockerel. 6 were from my Easter Egger hens, and the 7th was from my white leghorn.

I candled at 8 days along, and found that the white leghorn egg was not developing at all, so I threw it out. Two of the eggs were too dark too see anything, but I was pretty sure I was seeing something in the remaining four.

I tried to not obsess too much, and only candle every few days. Considering how busy we were, this wasn't too hard.

On Saturday, I noticed the broody hen was out and about in the coop, which had me very worried. She stayed out for several hours, so I got the incubator going, just in case. Since it was so hot outside, I figured the eggs were probably ok.

On Sunday, I went to check on the eggs, and found that one had pipped! For those who don't know, a "pip" is when the chick manages to break a tiny hole in the egg. Since I wanted to properly watch everything, and I didn't trust the hen to stay in place since she'd been getting a bit fidgety. Plus, I was worried that the other chickens would kill a chick. So, I brought five of the eggs inside. The one I left outside was another one that I was pretty sure hadn't developed.

Here's a picture of my incubator with the pipped egg:

I was just sure that it was going to hatch any second, and was glued to the incubator. In a couple hours, it looked like this:

I could actually see a tiny chicken beak, and see a tiny chick breathing. Wow!! I managed to talk myself into going to bed around 11pm, after watching pretty consistently for 4 hours. I have to confess I got up several times in the night to check on it, but other than the hole getting a tiny bit bigger, nothing. During the middle of this, a second egg pipped. Wahoo! TWO chicks trying to hatch!

So, the next morning about 7:30, I check again. The hole is a bit bigger now, maybe as long as a dime. I texted my SIL to tell her that the hole was bigger (she'd come over the evening before to check it out). Then, the chick really goes to work. After I finished texting her, I look up and see the hole is twice as big:
(this was around 7:34)

Then, at 7:36:

7:37:

I'm sending her these pictures, and she's freaking out, trying to hurry and get her girls ready for school so they can stop by and see.

Then, at 7:39:

She got there a couple minutes later, and we oooh'd and ahhh'd over the baby. Meanwhile, the other egg, not wanting to be outdone starting doing the same thing. By 7:55 am, a second chick was hatched, and my nieces and younger kids got to watch.

Within an hour of those two hatching, two more eggs pipped. That evening, my SIL, BIL and their kids came over. The third chick hatched obligingly for them. Still nothing from the last egg.

The fourth chick hatched around 5:30am. I know it was at 5:30 because about that time, I was woken from a deep sleep to "CHEEEEEP CHEEEEEP CHEEEEP CHEEEEP" and I was just sure one of the existing three chicks (whom we'd moved to a brooder box) was in deep trouble. I stagger out to see what's going on, and it registers that the cheeping is coming from the wrong direction. Yep- we've got a fourth chick!

I let the final two eggs incubate for another day, but then decided they were duds. I sealed each in a ziploc bag (just in case they were really smelly or exploded) and cracked them open. The egg under the hen had never developed, like I thought. The one in the incubator had started to develop, but died around day 10 or so.

Here's two of the chicks:

That evening, SIL and BIL took their babies home. I went over to their house last night, when they were 2-3 days old, and took a picture of J holding all four.

Anniversary Trip

2011-08-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

This year, J and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. Since we almost never do anything special to celebrate beyond a dinner out, we decided it would be fun to do a little mini vacation.

Something on my bucket list is to hike the Narrows at Zion National Park. Since the entire length is 16 miles, and most of that is in shin-armpit deep water, it's not a very child friendly hike. We decided to visit Zion as our little get away.

Initially, we thought we'd camp, and we'd tent it and everything. However, we found it was difficult to find a place nearby that either didn't demand reservations or actually had openings. As we got talking further, we realized we were too old and lazy to tent it. So, we got a hotel in St George so we'd have full amenities.

We got there around dinnertime on the evening of our anniversary. Our first full day there, we did the Zion hike. We knew we wouldn't be able to do the full 16 miles- most people will backpack in and spend the night out on the trail. That didn't sound fun to us, so we decided we'd hike until we wanted to turn around. We bought Keen sandals for the hike, as we'd heard that open toed sandals were 1- going to break and 2- not protect ones' toes from the rocks. Several people reported losing multiple toenails on the hike, and that sounded extremely unpleasant.

The scenery on the hike was amazing. The Narrows rightly deserved its' place on my bucket list.

We hiked for about four hours, and decided we were getting tired. Hiking in the water on large, hard to see rocks was really quite exhausting. We turned around and came back, spending about 7 hours total on the hike, and going a little over 12 miles round trip. I'd love to see it again.

We staggered into town, and went to D.U.B's BBQ, arriving just before they closed for the night. The mac & cheese wasn't fabulous, but the rest of the food was AMAZING.

The next day, we were both pretty sore and tired, and decided we wouldn't go *AS* crazy with hiking. We ended up doing the Emerald Pools hike, as well as the Canyon Overlook trail.

A view from the Canyon Overlook.

The Lower Emerald Pools.

That evening, we went to dinner at a place called Buffalo Trails, which is a little outside the park in a little hole in the wall. They raise their own bison for bison burgers, and they were very yummy.

Unfortunately, the next morning brought us to the time that we knew we needed to start heading home. We'd heard good things about the Kannarraville Canyon and decided to check it out. It's not in Zion, it's a few miles outside of it, and it was on our way home. We were NOT impressed with the town. Signs everywhere, not permitting ANY on street parking, which didn't seem very hospitable. Then, at the actual (dirt) parking lot, there were some rather rude signs, demanding $10 to park, or else you'd be booted or towed away. You could park at the city hall for free, but it was a fair bit away. We grudgingly paid our $10. Honestly, if they'd had free parking, and then a donation box, we actually would've donated more, and been happy to do it.

The whole thing felt a bit rude and extortionistic though, and we muttered to ourselves about it for a while.

The first couple miles of the hike is just dirt road, but then you get into the narrow canyon. It is also stunningly beautiful, and we forgot to be annoyed.

All in all, it was so much fun, and incredibly memorable. I think maybe from here on out, we'll try to do more trips like this as a couple. We did buy a National Parks Pass, which will get us into any national park for a calendar year, so we'll take our kids back to Zion before it expires. Some of the hikes are not for kids, but there's plenty for us to see and do.

I have hundreds more pictures, so if you want to see more, let me know and I'll let you watch a slideshow of everything.

Day 21

2011-08-08T21:31:00.001-07:00

Day 21

So today is day 21 for most of my eggs, and tomorrow is day 21 for the rest. Regular gestation (? Is it gestation if it's not a mammal?) for chicken eggs is 21 days.

I went camping in the high uintas last week, and wasn't around to obsess at all over the chickens last week. I left my neighbor in charge of my chickens. I told her to collect and eat any eggs the chicken left. She decided to give me one of her rhode island red pullets, Bow, because it was being really meant to her other chickens. Awesome! I don't have a chicken that lays an egg that color, I'm thrilled. Anyway, during the acclimation period, Bow broke through my separation area to keep poor Lucy in peace. My neighbor fixed the breach, and thought nothing of it.

Well, I got home Saturday night, and of course wanted to go check my eggs. I get counting, and realize that instead of five eggs, there's SIX!! Sometime during the week, Blondie managed to sneak over and lay an egg in Lucy's nesting box. Whoops. I have no idea how long the egg is sitting there, so I take it inside, and stick it in a glass to see if it floats or sinks. It sank, which means it is fresh. I left it on the counter and went back out to candle the five hatching eggs.

I used a very powerful mini LED flashlight. I found it worked much better than the other thing I rigged up. So, I'm candling eggs, and just not sure what to think. They're much more opaque, but I still don't see veining or anything else. So, I'm pretty sure they're duds My neighbor came over to watch the candling, and I'm thrilled to have someone else to give their opinion. After seeing those, I said I'd go get the rogue egg, so she could see what a fresh egg looked like, so she could give her opinion on whether or not the other eggs were duds.

So, I went back and grabbed the egg, and took it out. I put the flashlight up against it, and we IMMEDIATELY see a little shadow in there, and we can see it moving allllll over the place. Oh. My. gosh. It is so cool to watch! I never saw anything like that with the other eggs, which leads me to believe that the other five are definitely not going to hatch.

I'd hate to be wrong though, so I think I'm going to let them sit under the chicken for a couple more days. After that, I think I'll crack them open. I'm a little scared they'll really stink, or, even worse, I'll find mostly ready chick.

Stay tuned.

My attempts at "Candling"

2011-07-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, we're down to five eggs. My black copper marans egg got stepped on and broken. Lucy is in the favored box (read: only nesting box that really counts), so the other chickens keep trying to step over her to lay. Never mind there's five other perfectly good boxes. We went camping for a couple days, and my neighbor chickensat for us. While gone, my neighbor was getting 1-2 eggs a day in the other boxes, and figured they weren't laying much because of the heat. Then, Sunday morning, she realized there was a broken egg under Lucy, so she went to clean it up. She found a DOZEN eggs there that weren't supposed to be hatching! Poor hen was trying to sit on 17 eggs.

I've never really been known much for my patience. When I heard that it's possible to "candle" an egg, I was all over that.

I've been trying to rig something to candle the eggs, but I don't think I've been entirely successful. I don't think the light is quite bright enough. The only egg that I feel like I'm getting much luck with is the white egg.

This is what I saw yesterday, which would be around day 7:

That definitely looks like more than just a plain, unfertilized egg. However, I don't see any veining, and I don't see any independent movement, like I've seen some of on youtube.

Today, after finding two different chickens sitting on poor Lucy, I decided to try and separate the henhouse so that she'll be left in peace. I used our chicken wire/fabric, and just tacked it up. Lucy still has access to food and water, but she can't get out of the coop. She hasn't wanted to, so I only feel a little guilty about that. On the plus side, so far, no other chickens have gotten in.

When I was trying to rig it up, Blondie kept trying to sneak past me into the nesting box so she could lay. She was such a pain that it was like having a 2 year old out there "helping" me. I finally got the net up enough to where she couldn't go in, and she finally gave in and went to a different box and laid.

I have the highest hopes for eggs 1 (white) and 4 (green). #2 is so dark I can't see inside. I think I can see a slight shadow in 2 and 4. 5 seems quite porous to me, and I can't see any air sac, so I'm pretty sure it's a dud. However, I'd hate to crack it open and discover I'm wrong, so I'm trying to sit tight.

Broody Hen!

2011-07-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

I noticed that Lucy, my black copper marans hen, has been spending most of her time sitting in the nesting boxes. This coincided nicely with me putting Sue in with the girls, and getting (I hope) fertile eggs. With her going "broody", I thought it would be fun to experiment and see if we could get some chicks.

So, on Sunday night, I decided to give Lucy the four eggs that were laid that day (well, the fourth egg was one of her own, and from a day or two earlier). Then, I decided to give her three eggs that were laid Monday. I didn't bother giving her an egg from the silver laced wyandotte because she is so mean to Sue that I seriously doubt her eggs are fertile.

The eggs that I decided to let her try and hatch are all marked with a marker because the other chickens keep trying to lay eggs in the box she's sitting in, so when I go to collect eggs, it could get very confusing. Here are the eggs I have given Lucy to try and hatch (one of the white ones went into the cheesecake).

Monday night, I realized I was shy an egg for a cheesecake for K's birthday party, so I went and stole one back. Oops.

Anyway, from what I've read, chicks hatch in about 21 days, so I figure around August 8 or 9th, we could possibly see some babies!

When they have been sitting under the chicken for 7-8 days, I can try "candling" the eggs, and I should be able to tell if there is a chick developing. I'll have to try and find a really powerful flashlight and try it out in a week or so.

Here is Lucy sitting on the nest. Doesn't she look MEAN? So far she hasn't tried to peck at me, but she makes a weird growling sound whenever I root around, trying to find eggs that I haven't earmarked for her.

I may get her on video getting mad at me. It's kind of funny.

Chicken Update

2011-07-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I haven't blogged about my chickens in a while. Frightening!

First, Lucy, the black copper marans, saw her replacement (more on THAT later) because we had all of the chicks outside in our time out coop, and started laying again. Same big, beautiful eggs, 3-4 a week. Because of that, there's been a few times when I've gotten an egg from all seven hens in one day!

Second, much as I hated to admit it, Foster/Sue seemed to have a much redder and more developed comb than I thought a pullet ought to have. Sadly enough, he started crowing, and is most definitely a rooster. He was kind of picking on a rooster my neighbor had, and she got fed up with it, and kicked him out. We put him in the time out coop, and she kept her chickens in her back yard.

Here's a video of him crowing from a month or so ago:

And here's a picture of him taken just a few days ago. I think he seems to have grown into a very handsome boy. His crowing has improved, but I haven't taken video of it recently.

We are in the process of making the chicken run about 3x as big as it was before. We did most of the work today, we just need to get some more chicken wire to complete the project.

Once that's done, we'll probably have Sue join the girls. As it is now, he's still separated from them because he hasn't quite asserted his dominance yet. He did manage to, um, not be a virgin anymore. That was awesome- we had our friends and their six children over when that happened. However, there's still a couple hens picking on him. He is bigger than all of them now, and that really helps. In the beginning when he was smaller, he just ran away like a big old chicke... well. Yeah. Anyway, we'd been calling him Foster up to that point. But, we decided to go back to Sue, following Johnny Cash's philosophy in "A Boy Named Sue".

I think he was shocked because his nestmates adored him. They followed him everywhere, and he basked in their admiration.

They still remember him, and recently when he was free ranging, the saw him on the other side of the fence and went running over to visit. It was funny.

Adams Canyon

2011-07-07T17:34:00.000-07:00

For date night last night, J and I decided to hike up Adams Canyon to the waterfall. That link has a typo- it's actually 4.2 miles round trip, with an elevation climb of 1580 feet. It is a somewhat challenging hike. I'd take my 11 and 13 year olds, but not the 4 and 6 year olds.

The sun was starting to be a bit lower in the sky, and most of the hike is shaded, so it was really quite lovely.

Looking down the trail.

See that rope across the river? No? Look closer. It's there. To get to this angle, you have to take off your shoes and socks and walk through icy cold water. We're talking 35 degree water, I swear. My feet were numb by the time I got across.

The sunset view we saw as we left the canyon and went down the switchbacks to the trailhead.

Monster Repellent

2011-06-30T22:15:00.001-07:00

What you are seeing here is monster repellent. Z got that viking hat at Scandanavian Days, and has loved wearing it around, pretending to be a viking. Yesterday, he told me that vikings are very fearsome and scary, and if he left his viking hat outside his bedroom door, monsters would be scared to come in because they knew a viking was in there.

S thought it was a great idea. Before she moved bedrooms, we would write "Keep Out, no monsters allowed" in dry erase marker on K's aquarium. Because everyone knows monsters respect keep out signs. But now that she's with Z, no keep out signs have been written.

A New Stove!

2011-05-31T21:25:00.001-07:00

When we bought our house a few years ago, we immediately started remodeling the kitchen. I desperately wanted a gas range, but the ones I wanted were a bit spendy. In addition, our kitchen could only be called "tiny", and I figured that if I got a smooth surface range, I could use the cook top as counter space as needed.

I've really coveted gas ranges ever since though, and have been sad that I didn't have a gas range, especially since all the cool cooks had one. I got a nice commission check from my real estate business a couple months ago, and decided to finally give in and buy the range.

I have a friend who works in the Sears appliance department, and he helped me figure out what I wanted, then let me know when to buy it.

I invited my dad up for dinner, and he and J did all the plumbing for the gas line.

Meanwhile, I took our big, growly pickup truck to go pick up my range. Helped the guys load it, then tied it down myself. Then, I went to Lowes and got all the electrical parts and the flex conduit. I could just feel the chest hairs sprouting as I did all of that. It was kind of fun.

I am so excited to cook on it!Isn't it pretty and shiny?

After it was all installed, I brought S & Z into the kitchen to give them a lecture about safety. Z in particular tends to twist knobs whenever he can. Today alone, he turned on the water heater to the trailer, opened the drain of the gray water to the trailer, and turned on the hose bib to the house. Obviously, he couldn't be doing this with a gas line. I made a big deal about how dangerous it was to twist these knobs, and how if little kids twist them, it could make a big fire, and we could get burned, or our house could catch fire.

I then went to SHOW them what happened if they twisted the knobs, hoping to appease their curiosity. Z actually ran from the kitchen, yelling not to make a fire. I had to try to explain that it's ok if Mommy, Daddy, K or M do it. Just not little kids. I don't think he's convinced though. I suspect he'll freak out when it comes time to cook dinner tomorrow night.

The Scandanavian Days 5k

2011-05-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Every Memorial Day Weekend, we always head to Ephraim to attend their Scandanavian Days Festival, and have a family reunion. This year, the family reunion kind of fizzled because my uncle is in poor health, and my grandma (justifiably so) felt that he shouldn't be so far from a major medical facility. With the two of them staying home, we kind of agreed not to do a formal reunion, though we did make Grenco, a traditional soup we always make (I'll post the recipe later).

Since joining a gym, I've toyed with the idea of running in the annual 5k they hold at the festival. I've always chosen not to, partly because I'm chicken, and partly because it starts quite early in the morning. This year, however, I decided to approach J and my sisters and brothers in law, all of whom attend the family reunion. Yes, they're not related to the Larsen family, but they're all super fun people, so the Larsen side adopted them. J's parents also attend every year, and everyone is welcomed with open arms. So, I mention to them that there's a 5k/10k/half marathon that morning, and it had exactly the reaction I was hoping for/was afraid of.

Yes! Let's do it!!! So, J and I signed up. SIL N and SIL E say they'll do it. E, being a runner, plans to do the 10k. SIL J also is on board. The week before the 5k, BIL E ran the Ogden Marathon. He got a good time, but tweaked his knee, and decided he couldn't do another race so quickly. Definitely understandable.

The morning of the race dawns. I was a little nervous. I am not a fast runner, and I still hate running with a white hot passion. I don't want to be the last one in. I don't expect I will be, as the 5k is a "fun run/walk" and there's people with strollers and children. I don't have any illusions of beating SIL J, SIL N, or J. J and his sister (and his brothers, too, I imagine) are superhuman freaks when it comes to cardio stuff. I truly believe they could all wake up tomorrow morning and run a marathon with no training, just for giggles. SIL N had fairly major surgery a few months ago, and was just getting back into her routine. I wasn't sure how competitive of a runner she was, but she didn't seem to have my level of passionate hatred for running, so I figured she was also a lot faster than me.

The race began, and J and SIL J and SIL N all take off. BIL E was there to take pictures and cheer us on. Immediately, they all leave me behind.

Within a minute or two, I'm huffing and puffing. Is it the cold air (we could see our breath)? Is it the higher elevation (5500 feet)? Am I a wimp? Or could it be that maybe, just MAYBE, I should've tried running outside, instead of on a treadmill? I've run outside before. I think. Years and years and years ago. All those articles about how different treadmills are from outside running come flooding back. I feel stupid and slow.

After about 5 minutes, SIL N comes up alongside me. I guess she hadn't passed me after all. We ended up being about neck in the the whole race. We'd run for a bit, and then one of us would drop off and walk for a bit. But, for the vast majority of the race, we were together. It was nice, and I figured we'd most likely finish at the same time.

BIL E kept popping up to cheer on N, and take her picture. Seriously, the guy easily ran the 5k with all of his appearances. He was a great cheerleader, even running alongside her to keep her spirits up.

We finally get pretty close to the end. SIL N suddenly steps up the pace to a sprint. I was a little surprised because we were still a good way from the finish line. The competitive spirit that I thought I was utterly lacking when it came to running reared up. No way was I going to let her get a better time if we'd spent that much of the race running together! So, I sped up too. She sped up more. So did I. I think I was not as close to the end of my rope as she was, as I got a sudden burst of energy, and I actually was smiling.

We passed by some cones, and I guess she thought they were the finish line, so she completely dropped back, and I ended up finishing ahead of her. My competitive streak was pleased. Hey. I never claimed to be a particularly nice person.

Meanwhile, J had finished his 5k with an impressive 28 minute time. SIL J had finished with an also impressive 32 minute time. J had gotten his t-shirt and decided to come back to find me. He was pleased to find me within feet of the finish line, and he jogged past the line with me.

My time? 34.06.

Wait, what?!

When I ran the 5k on the treadmills, I was generally finishing it around 36-38 minutes. When I decided to do the 5k, I was hoping to finish in under 40 minutes. Considering all of the time I spent walking on this race, I figured I'd be over that for sure.

I was ecstatic to have beaten my personal goal by such a huge margin.

I still hate running though. I have yet to experience this "Runner's High". I'll probably keep it up, at least through this summer, and if the Runner's High continues to be elusive, I'll give up running come fall.

Postcard from K's school today

2011-05-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

I don't know why the image won't rotate- it's rotated fine on my computer. -sigh-

Anyway, I got this postcard in the mail today from one of K's teachers. Isn't it so sweet? I know that teacher is one of her favorites.

S's Birthday Party

2011-04-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

S was wild to have a birthday party with friends this year, so I decided to throw her one. I thought it would be more fun than the video game parties that M favors, or just 'hanging out' parties, like K wants.

We invited a couple friends from girl scouts, and a couple friends from school.

While we waited for everyone to arrive, I had the girls play outside. The chickens were a HUGE hit. When everyone who was going to get there, I let the girls each make a treasure box- I found these little wooden boxes at Dollar Tree, and bought some plastic jewels. I spray painted each box metallic gold ahead of time, and then let the girls glue the jewels on.

Here's a finished box that S made:

Then, I let the girls make their own homemade pizza. Earlier that day, I made the pizza dough, formed the crusts, then baked them, so that they would be finished quickly. I put out all of the toppings, and let the girls build their own pizza.

They asked to eat outside. Since that sounded a lot less messy, I was all over that. I had J take the girls outside while I finished things up inside. When I came outside, this is what I saw:

The girls would toss grass in to the chickens, then scream and squeal when the chickens ate it. They considered it to be dinner theater, I guess.

Then, we came inside and S opened her presents. She was thrilled with everything she got.

Last, I made a batch of buttercream frosting, and dyed it several different colors (the girls told me which colors to make). I put the frosting in a few decorating tubes, and let the girls decorate their cupcake.

Which brings me to the cupcakes. Ooooh, the cupcakes. If you know me at all, you know I am a SUCKER for anything crazy colored. I read about these rainbow cupcakes online, and just HAD to make them. I made a batch of vanilla cake batter. Divided it out, and then colored each section a different color- red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. I then put a spoonful

of each color in each cupcake paper. Baked as usual. Aren't they marvelous?!

After I posted this, K got mad because I didn't take a picture and post the treasure box that SHE made. So, here is her box. It really is lovely.

Z's birthday and Spring Break

2011-04-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

We ended up celebrating Z's birthday on the day before his actual birthday. He asked for a truck cake. Oh dear. That sounds deceptively easy. I knew it would never live up to his expectations because of his attention to detail.

I decided to give it a shot, and sure enough, it was awful. I would say it was worthy of cake wrecks, except that it was SO bad, it would be obvious it was a home cook, and not a professional's cake at all.

We got him a couple of Wii games and clothes for his birthday, and he was really tickled. He also got a Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag, which he has insisted on sleeping in every night, even though it's made him break out in a rash. I've washed it, but so far, no go.

On Z's actual birthday, we spent most of the day driving. J and M were going on the annual MAN ATV TRIP. We had all week off school, and I wanted to do something fun too. I decided to drive to Yakima, WA, to visit my friend Amy, who was one of my very best friends in junior high and high school.

On the way up, we stopped for lunch in Boise, where we had lunch with my friend Shelley. Shelley and I were pregnant with our oldest kids together. We met on a pregnancy expecting board and have been friends ever since. We were even featured in Parenting Magazine back in 1999 when our group had a reunion in Florida. It was great to see her again.

We got to Yakima just after dinner. Amy's kids met us before we even got out of the car. What an amazing welcome!

We had a wonderful week together. Amy and her husband, Tony, own a dance studio, which also offers singing lessons, and also recently opened a theater in the round. It was so neat to see their business, and see them living their dream. I was genuinely thrilled to see their success, and I am so proud of them!

Amy arranged for S to take a dance lesson with her daughter, who is the same age. S was so tickled to wear her dance outfit that Amy gave her, and take the class.

I know this is weird, but I love to go to the grocery store when I'm on vacation. I like to see how the store is different from my local stores. I was tickled with the Yakima grocery store because their wine selection (wait, what? Wine in the grocery store?! We don't have that in Utah!) was bigger in that one grocery store than we have in the entire liquor store. Yakima is surrounded by wineries and hops fields, so it makes sense there would be a large selection of local products.

It was tough to leave. We had such a fun week. It was fun to play house with an old friend, and take care of our kids together. Her kids are amazing and fun, and got along so well with mine. However, we did have to get home, so we got ready to leave a few days later. That last morning, there had been frost danger, so a local orchard had sprayed their trees with water to protect them. It was absolutely stunning.

The drive home seemed to take twice as long as the drive there. Isn't that the way it always goes? We didn't get home til nearly midnight. We had nice weather until the last hour. The last hour we were driving in snow, but the roads were ok.

I can easily say it was the funnest spring break I've ever had.

a new chicken

2011-04-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

Since Lucy, my Black Copper Marans, has only laid two eggs since Sept 1 (and the last one was in early November), I've been contemplating replacing her. The problem is, you can't get just one chick. Chickens are flock animals and typically don't do well if raised alone. However, I didn't want more than one chicken.

I'd been mulling over this problem for a few weeks, when in mid March, my neighbor called me excitedly. My chicken fever had spread, and she's bought eight Rhode Island Red chicks. I was thrilled for her, but a plot immediately hatched (ha ha ha).

I asked her if she would be willing to "foster" a chick for me, so that I could get another chicken, and only ONE more chicken. I offered to buy a 50 lb bag of starter feed, as well as a small bag of medicated feed, since one of her chicks seemed to need the medication.

I found a local breeder who was selling Black Copper Marans chicks that were about the same age as my neighbor's chicks. I picked out an adorable chick that looked to be a couple days older than the neighbor's chicks. I suspect she/he was hatched on 3/12 or 3/13. The breeder isn't able to sex for gender, but she was trying an experiment this year. I picked out a chick that we both suspected were pullets.

Here's the chick at 5 days old, give or take.

Initially, I was going to name her Suzie, after the breeder. However, my neighbor has called the chick "Foster". Since I worry (ok, obsess) that this chick is actually a cockerel, Foster seems to be sticking.

Foster is now almost 5 weeks old. I'm still really hoping that it's a pullet, but I'm just not sure. If it's a rooster, I've kind of decided it's not the end of the world. Roosters really are gorgeous, much prettier than hens. It would also give me the opportunity to hatch eggs- a Copper Marans Rooster with an Easter Egger hen could make some cool offspring, particularly their egg color.

Unfortunately, chickens get really, really ugly once they lose their fuzz, but before they're grown up. I've said that Foster looks like a velociraptor that has been drizzled in honey, then dipped in feathers.

April Fools' Day 2011

2011-04-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

Every year, I tell the kids we're moving to a foreign country as an April Fools' Day joke, and every year, they believe me. I almost didn't do it this year, because it seemed like such a tired joke, but they bought it. Again.

My big joke for 2011 was the following surprise the kids got when they went to collect eggs:

They thought it was very, very funny.

How K Got Her Name

2011-03-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

Last night, about 8:45pm, K tells me that her 7th period teacher wants an essay from each kid on how they got their name. I think this is a great idea. I get ready to tell her the story (again), so she can write her essay when we get home. (It was a crazy day yesterday, and we were out eating dinner)

"No, Mom. She wants YOU to write the essay."

"Um, I'm not a student. I have a tough time believing your teacher wants the PARENTS to write the essay."

"Seriously, Mom, she said she wants the parents to write it. I promise!!"

I'm still not entirely convinced I'm NOT being conned, but on the off chance she's right, here's the essay that I quickly typed up and emailed to her teacher this morning.

How Kysa Got Her Name

I was about eight months pregnant with my oldest child when crisis hit. I already knew I was expecting a girl, and I’d chosen a name for her (Samantha). One of my closest friends finally came in to town, and wanted to see my ultrasound video that I had of my expected baby.

As she watched the video, she started making comments. She’d say things like, “Oh, look, there’s Samantha’s arm!” or “Oh, there’s Samantha’s little mouth!” I wanted to slug her and say, “QUIT CALLING HER THAT!!!!” (read that with a slightly crazed, demonesque voice that pregnant women sometimes have)
I realized that while pregnant rages are quite normal, the fact that I didn’t like someone calling my unborn child by the name I had chosen was probably not a good sign. With that conversation, I realized that while I did love the name Samantha, I didn’t feel it was right for this child. I was in a panic- this baby was coming in less than three weeks, and I had NO IDEA what to name her.

At the time, I worked in a model home. Things were fairly busy, however, I did have a lot of time to reflect on the fact that my poor child was still nameless. This was definitely a sign that I was going to be a terrible mother.

One afternoon, I was at work, obsessing away, when I heard the door to the model home open. In walked my grandfather. This was quite a shock, as he’d been dead for over three years. Once the light was out of my eyes, I realized that while the resemblance was striking, this was actually his brother, who was (obviously) very much alive.

He had heard I was working at this model, and had some questions regarding my mom and her siblings. He is an avid family history researcher, and needed some birth and anniversary dates for our side of the family. I gave him the information he needed, and then said, “Since you’re working on our family history, you must have come across some good names in our family tree. I am looking for suggestions for a girl’s name for this baby.”

He gave me a look like I’d better hurry and come up with something, and FAST (I also was carrying very large, and people were very nervous to be around me that last month; they were terrified I’d drop and give birth at any second). The first suggestion he gave me was terrible, but the second suggestion was “Kaijsa Marie”, from a Swedish branch of the family. I LOVED how the name rolled off the tongue, and asked him to spell it. Hmmm. I didn’t like the spelling. Nobody would ever pronounce or spell “Kaijsa” correctly.

I said goodbye to my great-uncle, and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to anglicize the spelling of Kaijsa. By the time I left work, I’d decided that “Kysa” was going to give her the best chance of easier spelling and pronunciation.

I came home that night, excited to share our baby’s new name with my husband. He was agreeable to to the “Kysa” part, but not the “Marie” part. I have to admit I was a little surprised by that- I thought “Marie” would be the easy part. After a couple days of playing around with names that had the same basic cadence as Marie, we finally agreed upon “Nicole” as the middle name.

People have struggled to pronounce and spell Kysa’s name correctly, and I still get the occasional hairy eyeball and accusation that I made the name up, but when I tell them it’s a Swedish name, and a family name to boot, they tend to shut up. I still love the name, but I do have to admit that Kysa’s siblings all have names that have appeared in the top 50 most popular names at some point or another.

There. All fixed!

2011-03-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

If you've been to my house, you know that the road is in pretty terrible shape. J and I don't see eye to eye on this. He wishes the city would fix it. I LOVE it this way. For one thing, it gives everything kind of a nice country feel. Secondly, and more importantly, I think it deters speeders. People love to speed down our road, and I'm terrified that there's going to be a terrible accident one day.

We actually did have a fatality a couple years ago. On the same street,

but a couple blocks north, a couple was in their front yard, gardening. Two cars got racing, and one lost control and ended up hitting and killing the wife. The road there is in much better condition (different city).

So, I don't have a whisper of complaint for the state of our road. We joke about the lakes in the front yard. The city occasionally comes by and puts some road base in there, but it is a very temporary fix.

Today, I watched a pothole crew come to the roughest spot of road in front of my house. I have taken a picture and circled their work.

All better!

Honey!

2011-03-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

My city has been offering some local co-op produce, and they were looking for tasters for the products. I volunteered, and this morning I tasted the honey. Here is my review of it.

This morning I got yet another reminder of just how little I know about food sometimes. Before this, I thought that honey was honey. Bees make honey. We eat honey. I didn't realize that there was a difference. I would just buy whatever was cheaper, though I would try to get locally produced honey if possible.

Turns out, they can process honey quite a bit, and it has a rather dramatic effect on it. Most of the

honey we buy in the grocery store is pasteurized and filtered. It makes for a nice, clear product, but the enzymes, antibacterial properties and other parts of the honey can change.

Today we sampled three different honeys. 1- BeeMaid Canadian Clover Honey (henceforth known as "clover"), 2- Miller's Pure Honey from Utah (generic) and 3- The farmer's honey (farmer's), also produced in Utah.

The first big difference we saw was appearance. All three were filtered, and the first two were pasteurized. The farmer's honey was significantly darker in color, and wasn't quite so clear.

We were given bread and butter to help us with the sample, but I mainly tasted each by itself to get a better taste. The next big difference was the consistency. The grocery store honeys were quite a bit runnier. I put a blob of each of the three on the plate, and then held the plate upright for a few seconds to show the difference in runniness.

Then came my favorite part- TASTING! I'll admit that I didn't taste a huge difference between the clover honey and the generic Utah honey. The utah honey was slightly better, but not a big difference. There was, however, an enormous difference in the farmer honey. It wasn't nearly as sweet. Now, I realize this may seem like a bad thing, but it really wasn't. It was still definitely sweet, but it had a more complex flavor, if that makes any sense. You didn't have that teeth hurting all consuming sweetness with the farmer's honey that you got with the canadian clover honey.

The best part is that it looks like the farmer's honey will end up being cheaper per pound than either grocery store honey, and by a fairly significant margin. Now, you'll have to buy more of it than what comes in a little honey bear, but good news- Honey is about the only food on the planet that never, ever goes bad.

If you are interested in buying, here is a link to the order form. You have to scroll past the citrus and beef order forms to get to honey. They are charging $13.75/tub (5 lb tub), and that works out to be about $2.75 a pound, which is a great price!

Leader/Daughter Retreat

2011-02-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

This weekend was my girl scout service unit's Leader/Daughter retreat. It was held at Camp Trefoil, which is up Provo Canyon. Usually, when I go on long drives, I try to take our little Honda Civic, since it gets almost 50 miles to the gallon. However, there was supposed to be some snow this weekend, so I decided to take the safer route and bring along my Expedition. This turned out to be a very good thing.

We got to camp on Friday night. The lodge was absolutely beautiful, and we were amazed by how much snow was on the ground- there was at least 2-3 feet of snow.

The first evening, there was a murder/mystery performance put on by Hunt Mysteries. A cast of 7-8 people come, all dressed in costume. They mingled with the group, in character, and you talked to them a bit. They then had people sit down, and they had dialogue. After a bit of this, a murder occurs. The "guests" have approximately 10-15 to talk to the characters individually to determine HOW the murder occurred, WHO did it, and the MOTIVE. You then filled out a paper with your guess and turned it in. Once those were collected, they revealed all. It was pretty funny because one of the characters showed up at the same time as my daughters and I, and we had chatted quite a bit and really hit it off. We bantered a bit once she was in character. As it turned out, I decided she had committed the murder.

S was really taken with all of the characters, especially the bride. She begged to have her picture taken with her.

Once the murderer was revealed, they did a drawing of all the people who had the correct answers. I was one of the winners!! The murderer said to me, "How could you accu

se me of murder?! I thought we were friends!". I retorted, "Just because I think you're a killer doesn't mean I don't love you!" I thought it was hilarious, but maybe you had to be there. The performance was a LOT of fun, and I would recommend it to anyone.

For sleeping arrangements, there were three options: Party Lodge, with no curfew, then a different building with a midnight curfew, and then the bunkhouse, with a 10:30 lights out time. We decided to go with the funsucker area, and boy am I glad we did!! The other two places were huge, communal sleeping areas with dozens of people in the room. The bunkhouse had individual dormstyle rooms, so the girls and I got our own room. Once we were in there, it was silent. Beautiful silence.

The next day, they had some guys come in to do a dutch oven cooking demonstration. They were very friendly, personable and knowledgeable. Once I find out their names/website, I'll link that here as well; they were also top notch. They showed us how to make dutch oven lasagna, and then served it for lunch. It was A-MAZ-ING. I'm anxious to try it out at home.

After lunch, the girls and I went outside. I shoveled walks while they went sledding (it had been snowing lightly all day). Then, we went snow shoeing.

S did amazingly well considering the snowshoes were all the same size, and almost half her body length.

Then, we went to go cross country skiing. Unfortunately, they didn't have boots/skiis small enough for her, so she played in the lodge while K and I took a spin. It was a lot of fun, and I would've liked to have gone longer, but it was about to get dark.

This morning, we get up to find that it had been snowing hard all night long. I had to dig my car out of the snow; there was probably at least 18" of snow on it.

We finally got out to the main canyon, and found that highway patrol had closed it due to treacherous conditions. After about a 45 minute wait, they opened up the canyon again, and our drive home was uneventful.

A concerning doctor's visit

2011-02-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

(warning- puss mentioned, so if you have a sensitive stomach, just stop reading once the doctor comes in the room)

A few days ago, I started developing a third nipple. That's concerning enough, but it was the placement and pain level that really freaked me out. Where was this third nipple, you may ask? It is on my calf.

By this morning, I was really having a tough time walking, which makes exercising difficult. It also was making me turn into a whiny baby, and generally a pain in the a..... um, calf to live with.

I made an appointment to see a doctor this afternoon.

When I got there, they gave me one of those light up flashing coasters that restaurants use. I thought this was funny, considering there was only one other person in the waiting room. Nevertheless, I sat down with my coaster.

Within a few minutes, it went off, and I obediently gave it to the medical assistant waiting for me. She took my back, and took all of my vitals (pulse, oxygen level, weight, blood pressure). The blood pressure machine was facing away from me, so I couldn't see what my blood pressure was. She looked concerned and said, "Your bottom blood pressure (sic) is kind of high. Maybe it's because you're feeling anxious, or maybe you took the stairs. If you want, you can sit here and relax for a few minutes and we can retake it if you'd like."

Concerned, I looked at my blood pressure to see what it was.

121/83

Really? 120/80 is considered "normal". 83 wouldn't make anyone even bat an eyelash, or so I thought. Meanwhile, this MA is sitting there looking really concerned.

I took a couple deep breaths to fend off the attack of the giggles coming on. Then, I told her that it's normally lower, and I wasn't concerned, and she could count that as my blood pressure. Still a bit unconvinced, she led me back to a room.

Eventually, the doctor came back. He was very nice, and could be a great candidate for the general family doctor that I've been half heartedly looking for.

I showed him the third nipple. He informed me that it wasn't a nipple, but an abscess (ANOTHER abscess?!). I couldn't decide whether to be relieved or disappointed. I lean towards relieved, since I think I have pretty nice legs, and having a nipple on the calf generally isn't considered classically beautiful.

He told me we have two options:

1- put me on oral antibiotics, and come back in a couple days if it's not improving

2- lance it

I told him that I'm a picker, and generally speaking, I'd be all over lancing it. However, I was pretty sure that it was full of blood, not puss, and that's really not a lot of fun to pick at.

Now it was the doctor's turn to try and keep a straight face (he doesn't know me well enough to know that it's ok to laugh at me). He told me he agreed with me. He said my abscess was XXX (can't remember the technical term, but basically, rather hard to the touch, and felt/appeared as though there was no puss) vs. YYY (which would feel really soft and squishy, and look like it was ready to pop). So, he measured the actual abscess (2 cm), and then drew a line around the reddened, infected surrounding area (about 5") to mark where it was at. Then, he gave me a prescription for some antibiotics, and sent me on my way.

I'm hoping that I feel better tomorrow, because I'm even sick of my whining!

Delusional

2011-02-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

I have decided that I want to sink into a delusional state. In said state, the family and I are in Fiji. Kids are playing on the beach, while J and lay back in lounge chairs and watch them frolic happily, not a fight to be seen. If not Fiji, maybe Thailand?

That sounds much lovelier than here. It's been bitterly cold. I guess I can't complain, most of the US in "Snowcopalypse 2011", and buried under feet of now. Very little snow here, but it's been in the single digits. Makes me feel my lack of a garage even more.

We took the daisy scouts to the fire department for a field trip last night because our elementary school was having parent/teacher conferences, and we were asked not to meet there this week. It took us a few minutes to figure out which door to go to, and we nearly froze. Girls loved the trip though.

Speaking of parent teacher conferences, that means the middle kids are out of school early alllllll week. Yay. My favorite!

I think my daiquiri needs a refill. It's getting all melty in the hot sun...

Girl Scout Cookies

2011-01-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

I know that I've been very quiet lately. Part of is that I've been so busy. Ironically, nothing terribly interesting has happened.

I got an iPhone. I like it. I understand the love affair with them now.

Five of my chickens are on egg strike now. Only the silver laced wyandotte and one of the easter eggers have laid anything since New Year's. I'm wondering if it's the cold? (of course, within an hour of posting this, the easter egger who lays the beautiful seafoam green egg produced an egg, so I guess only FOUR of my chickens are on strike now)

I've been trying to get immunotherapy for allergies for both K and M. I'm hoping that by doing two shots per kid, twice a week, they can not have severe reactions to animals, grass, trees and weeds. Finding time to make the drive (20 min each way), and waiting for 30 minutes at the clinic after the shots has been difficult. If we can do the two shots a week for another few weeks though, they will have progressed to the point where it will only be once every THREE weeks, which sounds much more manageable.

K & M are playing Jr. Jazz basketball. That's taken up a lot of time in our evenings. It's been interesting and fun to watch them improve.

I've had two sales fail for real estate through no fault of mine or my clients. Both were short sales, which are notoriously tricky and difficult to close. We actually closed our end of one transaction, but the seller didn't follow instructions, and the house ended up going into foreclosure. I had a listing expire, which was really sad for me. I really wanted that house to sell, mostly because the seller NEEDED it to happen. The market is tough, and the house was a "project" though.

I volunteered to help with the spectrum testing last weekend. I'm volunteering as a judge for the science fair tomorrow.

I'm still working out 4-5 days a week. Still chubby, but I'm fairly fit. I can actually run 3 miles without stopping, which is HUGE for me.

I started a Daisy Girl Scout Troop for S. It's been a smashing success- we have 31 girls in our troop, though only about 25 or so come regularly.

Speaking of girl scouts, it's girl scout cookie time! I have to turn in my orders by January 31st, so if you want to order, let me know. We've been doing a bit of door to door sales, which I really hate. However, I really want both of them to be able to go to the cookie party this year. To be invited, they have to sell 250 boxes of cookies EACH. We are at just over 300 total now, so we still have to sell a couple hundred before they can go to that special event.

Moro Oranges

2011-01-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am a sucker for anything unusually colored, or anything that changes color or glows in the dark.

My latest food item that I am in love with is Moro Oranges, also known as "Blood Oranges".

They taste more or less the same as a regular orange, but perhaps a touch juicier. I think they are such a beautiful color though.

Eye Color Family Tree, the sequel

2011-01-12T21:37:00.000-08:00

After seeing my little family's eye color chart, I decided I just had to do the same thing with my parents and sisters. I thought it would actually be even more interesting since there's more variation in color.

Eye Color Family Tree

2011-01-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be fun to show our immediate family's eye color. I'm not thrilled with the quality of these pictures though. Z's eyes have some gold flecks that don't really come through. I may end up replacing individual photos as they improve.

But, for a fun afternoon project, I'm pleased.

I think I'm going to try and do this with my parents and sisters. There's some amazing variety in that group for sure!

Why Z got a new bed

2010-12-23T06:55:00.000-08:00

Last night, as Z was getting ready for bed, he was discussing his racecar bed with his daddy.

"Daddy, I didn't always have a race car bed, right?"

"No, mommy and I bought this big boy bed for you."

"Right, we got a new bed because my old bed looked like a cage, and you didn't want me to sleep in a cage."

Yes, son, a crib does resemble a cage, doesn't it?

Homemade Marshmallows

2010-12-21T09:26:00.001-08:00

Several of my friends have made homemade marshmallows this Christmas season. I decided to give it whirl. I decided to use Alton Brown's recipe.

Alton Brown's Homemade Marshmallows

Ingredients

3 packages unflavored gelatin
1 cup ice cold water, divided
12 ounces granulated sugar, approximately 1 1/2 cups
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
Nonstick spray

Directions

Place the gelatin into the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1/2 cup of the water. Have the whisk attachment standing by.

In a small saucepan, combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, granulated sugar, corn syrup and salt. Place over medium high heat, cover and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Uncover, clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan and continue to cook until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F, approximately 7 to 8 minutes. Once the mixture reaches this temperature, immediately remove from the heat.

Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Once you have added all of the syrup, increase the speed to high. Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add the vanilla during the last minute of whipping. While the mixture is whipping prepare the pans as follows.

For regular marshmallows:

Combine the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Lightly spray a 13 by 9-inch metal baking pan with nonstick cooking spray Add the sugar and cornstarch mixture and move around to completely coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Return the remaining mixture to the bowl for later use.

When ready, pour the mixture into the prepared pan, using a lightly oiled spatula spreading evenly into the pan. Dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar and cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. Reserve the rest for later. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

Turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares using a pizza wheel dusted with the confectioners' sugar mixture. Once cut, lightly dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining mixture, using additional if necessary. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

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Smoothing the marshmallows into the pan was surprisingly difficult because I'd prepped the pan so well. It wouldn't stick at all. I finally had to sprinkle some of the cornstarch/sugar mixture on top and pat into place.

Here's S & Z, ready and anxious to help me cut them out.

Cutting them into snowflakes turned out to be a major pain, so after doing the plate full, I decided to use a greased pizza cutter and cut the rest into squares.

The kids all agree that these taste MUCH better than storebought marshmallows and have a better texture.

Orange Tree

2010-12-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

My uncle and grandmother found an amazing deal on potted orange trees, so they bought a couple, and gave me one.

Imagine my excitement a month later, when it started blooming! It smelled heavenly and looked gorgeous.

A couple weeks later, I looked at the faded blooms, and could see tiny little oranges forming. I was now practically incoherent with joy.

Then, a few days ago, my little kids decided to play with the tree. 3/4 of the leaves are gone, and all of my bitty oranges have been plucked off as well. While I didn't cry, I was pretty disappointed.

Meat Pies

2010-11-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago, J and I watched a show about pies. The history of, different kinds, etc. It was a total geek show. They had a bit about the old meat pies, and we were both drooling.

Since today was a lazy, snowy day, I decided to experiment and come up with a meat pie recipe. We just got done eating, and I have to admit that it was AMAZING.

So, here's the recipe.

Meat Pies

1 lb stew meat, diced into small pieces
packet of onion soup mix (I think it was a packet? I buy it in bulk, and just sprinkled a couple tablespoons into the crock pot)
1 cube beef bouillon
2 c. water

Combine the above and place in a slow cooker. Let cook for 3-4 hours.

Add:

3/4 c. diced carrots
3-4 potatoes, cut into small cubes
a bit of cornstarch mixed with cold water

Let that cook a couple more hours.

Prepare pie crust:

1 c. shortening
1 tsp. salt
2 2/3 c. flour
7-8 tbl. ice cold water
Combine shortening, flour, and salt with a fork til it resembles pea sized balls. Add the water, one tablespoon at a time, until the proper consistency. Divide the dough in thirds. Roll out each third til it's big enough to fit in a single sized ramekin with enough to spare to fold over the top.

Put the dough in the ramekins, and scoop enough meat mixture to fill the ramekin. Fold the dough over the top. Repeat until you have 6 ramekins filled (I had a bit of leftover filling).

Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes, or until crust is lightly browned.

Here's how it looked once we broke it open to let it cool before serving it to the kids. Yes, my husband insisted on serving corn with it.

Super Heroes!

2010-11-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

All day today, S and Z have been wearing super hero costumes.

S has been Supergirl (recognize the costume from Z's halloween costume?)

Z has been Thing from Fantastic 4. He started out wearing the costume properly, but since he couldn't zip and unzip himself for bathroom breaks, has taken to wearing it backwards, creating an odd hunchback appearance.

There's a blizzard a 'comin

2010-11-23T12:52:00.001-08:00

There's a huge blizzard predicted today, and I don't feel ready. Last night, I watched the weather report, and the meteorologist started off his portion by saying, "Now, I don't want to SCARE you, but...." Hmm. That's not a good sign. All of the school districts have canceled their evening activities, and some schools are even releasing kids early from school.

Winds are at 40 mph here right now. Hope my pine trees don't blow over and ruin my beautiful new roof. I made J drive his big truck to work this morning, in case the snow started before he was able to get home from work. He rolled his eyes, but must have decided it wasn't worth the fight and did as I asked. I love that guy.

Now, you can laugh at me here, but now that J is in a big safe truck, and will probably leave work early, what has me most worried is my chickens. I normally wouldn't fret too much, since we've insulated their hen house, and with the light, it stays pretty warm in there. Unfortunately, the hens got in a fight last night. Injured worst was Clover, the white chicken. J was out there putting heat tape on the water dish, and things were great. He went out a half hour later, and she was bleeding pretty badly from her comb, and a spot in back of her wings. She kept shaking her head, so there was droplets of blood on her feathers, making it look much worse.

I checked on them at bedtime, and they all seemed to be getting along again.

This morning, as soon as it was light, I went out again. Clover's comb was scabbed over, but the spot in back was bleeding again, and a new spot towards the front was also looking a bit plucked and bloody. She looked pretty bad. She's never been a friendly bird, and has never let me pick her up. I was able to catch her a bit easier than expected (though she still put up a pretty good fight, which gave me hope).

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I've been told in commercial chicken farms, they have red lights so that the chickens don't see the red of blood, and that they debeak the chickens so they can't peck each other to death. I've heard that if they see any blood/injury on a chicken, often they will peck at it until they've pecked the poor chicken to death.

Just in case this is true, I moved Clover to our small chicken tractor that we originally built for our chickens before chicken math/multiplication took over. However, it hasn't been used since we got rid of the roosters, and I haven't insulated or prepared it for winter at all. This morning, I added a ton of bedding to the box area to help insulate.

Clover was NOT happy to be moved away from her sisters. She did lay a nice, large egg for me today, but stuck on her nest for several hours. She's been out pecking and scratching for a good hour now, so I am hoping she's feeling a bit better.

When J gets home from work, he'll help me move the tractor to our now dormant garden, so she'll be right next to our chicken run. That way, she can see her sisters, but they can't hurt her. We can also run power to her little run and put a light out there to keep her warm and hopefully protect her if this storm turns out to be as big as they say.

Live like you were dying?

2010-11-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

An old high school friend who is now a professional motivational speaker posted the following status update:

"If today were the last day of your life, would you want to do what you are about to do today?"

This sort of thing gives me a mixed reaction. Part fury, part thoughtfulness. The message implies that we need to make sure that we don't leave anything unsaid or undone, or wasting our time on things that don't really matter. If I knew I would be dying by morning, I would try to say goodbye to all of my loved ones. I'd want to spend the evening cuddled up with my kids and husband, creating a few last minute good memories. I wouldn't bother doing the dishes, paying the bills, cooking dinner.

However, I'm reasonably sure I won't be dying by morning. So, I will cook dinner (marinated turkey breast in the slow cooker). I'll do the dishes. I'll straighten up a bit. I'll put a kid in time out for hitting. I'll support my husband in his job so that he can continue to pay the mortgage, utilities and food.

It's one thing to live in the moment, but you also have to live for the future. To live fully in the moment means to not plan for the future, and that can make the future uncertain, or unbearable.

I feel like status messages like his imply that we should only be living for the moment, and not living for the future. Instead of ranting on about responsibility, I simply replied with the following:

I would certainly rather not spend my last evening holding a girl scout meeting. However, since I'm reasonably sure it ISN'T the last night of my life, I'll do so, since I think it'll have a long range positive benefit for my daughter and her troop.

a gut wrenching week

2010-11-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

I've debated whether or not to post about this, since it involves someone else. I've also been too busy to sit down and write about it. I think that I'll tell you about why I've been so busy this week, but keep it down on the details to protect privacy.

Last Wednesday, I got a phone call from a friend, sobbing. Someone had turned her into the state for having a dirty house. DCFS investigated, and determined that she couldn't let her kids back into the house until it was cleaned up. I offered to let her have a couple of her kids stay with me and to help clean up. Unfortunately, that evening, CPS decided that it was in the childrens' best interest to be taken into state custody. I was there for the removal, and it was one of the saddest things I've ever witnessed. I don't envy anyone who was directly involved in the situation. Even now, I get a bit teary eyed thinking about it.

Since then, I've done what I could to help them out. I've worried a bit though. Sometimes I can insert myself deeper into someone's business than they feel comfortable. I don't like to think that I do that, but I know that it's been known to happen. I also can be too bossy and too blunt. I've worried that I would alienate friends by showing those characteristics in this particular crisis.

I was invited to, and attended, the family team meeting. I was not invited to court, so I didn't go. Given a facebook status post, I suspect she's angry that I didn't go. I've submitted to (and passed, Yippee!!) a background check to help the family.

I was approached today by the case worker. I may be supervising the daily visits between the mom and her youngest (still breastfeeding) baby. They also asked if I would be willing to have a couple of the kids stay with us, after getting licensed, of course. I told them I was willing, but concerned that we wouldn't qualify, since our house is pretty full. It sounds like I may not qualify to take more than one, and they want to keep the kids from being completely separated.

Patience paid off

2010-11-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

I have tried to keep my chicken ramblings down here a bit. I suspect I haven't been entirely successful, but hey, it's MY blog. S's teacher finds it FASCINATING, and has requested I bring eggs into class and talk to the kids about it. In fact, she wanted me to bring in an actual chicken, but I vetoed the idea. I thought it sounded very messy, chaotic, and traumatic. If the chickens get boring, skip this post. So there.

Lucy, my Black Copper Marans, laid her last egg on Sept. 3. I suspected she was molting, although she didn't look nearly as ragged as other molting chickens are reported as being.

This afternoon, I went to collect eggs (wahoo! 3 were waiting- a light brown, a white, and an olive), I caught Lucy in her favorite nesting box. Interesting. She hasn't even bothered peeking in there since she went on strike.
I went out an hour and a half later, and look what I found?
I also found a lovely sea green egg, but I didn't take a picture of it. Yay!

Before, she was laying every other day like clockwork. After a molt, chickens often are less productive layers, so it'll be interesting (to me) to see if she keeps up her prior pace or eases off.

Halloween

2010-11-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

K ended up being our drama queen this year. If you remember, I sewed her that amazing medieval dress this past spring with the understanding that it would be her halloween costume budget spent there. She was agreeable.

Then, in girl scouts, they decided to do those duct tape dresses. I went along with buying the tape for that (which, admittedly, was only about $15, and it also helped repair M's costume, and we have leftovers for other ducting emergencies).

She also was invited to another party before we finished the duct tape dress, so she wore the devil costume my MIL (mother in law) gave her. I took the following picture of the kids on their way out the door to my parents' ward halloween party:Z loves being superman so much that it's impossible to keep him still when he's wearing the costume, which is why he's the only part of the photo that's blurry. He's worn the costume almost daily since.

Trick or treating was fun. We spent some of the time with J's sister and her family. They went more for looks than function, so, not wearing coats, they tired of trick or treating much sooner than us. Maybe it was the poor economy, or maybe it was the fact that we weren't out on REAL Halloween, but the candy seemed a little less ample this year. It was actually into the "reasonable" category, as opposed to last year's "Are you *&^^$% kidding me?!!!"

Duct Tape Dress

2010-10-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

As a girl scout activity, K's troop decided to make duct tape dresses. It's been a long and arduous task, but we finished it tonight. K was invited to a halloween party tonight, and she wanted to wear the duct tape dress.

We followed the instructions based on THIS website. I think it turned out pretty cute! As much as I dislike sewing, I've gotta say that I prefer sewing to duct taping dresses.

What happens when you die, by S

2010-10-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

This evening I was at my parents' house with my kids. We got talking about death. I'm not sure if it was because we have been going to a lot of halloween parties and seeing skeletons, or because my sister in law's dad just died. Anyway, S asked what happened when you die. I told her that you leave your body behind and go to heaven. She had this slightly confused look on her face, and then started to giggle.

My mom and I looked at each other, befuddled. We weren't sure what I'd said that was so funny. Then S said, "So your head floats up to heaven, and you leave your body behind without a head?!"

My mom and I couldn't help it. We collapsed into fits of laughter, understanding why S was so confused and amused by what I said. I tried to do the sock/foot hand/glove analogy and said that the head stayed with the body.

I think at this point, she must have remembered her Grandma Jorgensen's funeral, and said, "Oh, so your whole body goes in a box for people to look at and then they bury it, right?"

Yep. That's right.

Homes with "Character"

2010-10-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

I rarely post about the unusual homes I see in my professional life. After a really interesting day of showings, I am breaking that rule, and hoping that it doesn't come back to bite me. I hope that I don't come off as mean; the houses I'm talking about were all lovely houses, and we liked all of them.

I took clients out to look at homes last week, and we saw some of the most unusual features I have ever seen in homes. After the fourth home with amazing quirks, I started bringing my camera so that I could capture it. Unfortunately, some of the best was not captured on film (memory card?).

House #1: pretty typical multi level, except that the master had bright pink carpet and pink walls. Then, we walked down to look at the garage. When walking from the garage into the house, the first room we encountered was a room with nothing in it except for an enormous jetted tub. Not a hot tub, a bathtub.

House #3 was mostly vacant. They hadn't quite finished moving everything out yet, but what was left was unusual. There was everything from VHS tapes to a CB radio to MREs to a false leg.

House #4 was almost immediately dubbed "Frankenhouse". It started as a tiny bungalow, and slowly has had more and more added on. It also had a very large, very unusually shaped lot. Horse and goat negotiable in the sale. Some inventive owner had seen the toilets they have in Japan where there's a sink on the back of the toilet, so that the gray water from washing your hands drains into the toilet tank, thereby reducing water usage. A very clever idea, and difficult, if not impossible to find in the US. The owner didn't let that stop him. He used an American sink and toilet and plumbing supplies, and made it work for himself. Another bathroom was painted blood red. They also had a pet cemetery in the back yard, complete with headstones. It was by far the most unusual house I've ever seen. Having said that, my clients and I really loved it. It was very different, but a LOT of fun.

Houses #5-6 were normal, more or less. One had painted the entire interior of the house an unfortunate seafoam green.

At this point, we stopped for lunch. We saw a BBQ restaurant that looked interesting, and started to go in. We saw a sign that said their bathrooms weren't functioning. Well, that wouldn't work. Next door was a bar, and the bartender was outside smoking. She offered their bathrooms for our use, so we took advantage. It was right around noon, and there was only one patron in the bar. We walk back to the bathroom and realized that it was a strip bar! There was a poor girl halfheartedly dancing for no audience (single patron had his back to the stage). Awkward!

After lunch we went to house #7. They had tried to maximize the space as best they could. They added a bar to their minuscule kitchen so that there was room for a dishwasher. Unfortunately, it made it impossible to open the fridge all the way, and difficult to access one of the drawers. I didn't try to open the dishwasher, but I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been issues there. They created a master sweet in the basement. Normally, I think it'd be a suite, but to be a suite, shouldn't there be more than one room? They put a bathroom in the corner of the master bedroom, but there was NO separation between the two. Not even a room divider. The one spouse could easily watch the other do all bedtime routine, including restroom, brushing teeth, shower, etc. The house was really nicely staged, so I was a little surprised that hadn't thought to use one of those cute room dividers to at least give the illusion of privacy.

House #8 was yet another house where the owners didn't seem to demand the same bathroom privacy issues that I've come to expect:You hear stories all the time about people leaving pets behind when they move. I'd assumed that was primarily cats and dogs. Add fish to that list:The last house we went to was another amazing old bungalow with some great history. They actually had an old boiler in their basement, which was pretty amazing to see.
They also had the largest water collection I have ever seen. Insert "Signs" movie joke here.Not enough water? How about more?Still not convinced? How about this:

The end of an era

2010-10-25T12:35:00.001-07:00

As you probably know, I've been a cub scout dean leader for nearly 10 years now. I took a year off when we were living in Japan, but otherwise, it's been a pretty constant thing in my life. When I was first asked to do it, M was a year old, and he was the first boy born into my mom's side of the family in 40 years. My knowledge of cub scouts was that the boys wore the shirts to school on certain days of the week.

I quickly caught on, and absolutely adored the job. It kept my inner 10 year old very happy.

The last six months or so have been very difficult though. Our group only had 1-2 cub scouts, and neither were really great about coming. My co-leader had a lot of things going on in her life that made attendance difficult for her.

I really wanted S to join girl scouts as a Daisy, but there were no openings in existing troops, and they were forming a new troop. A couple of the would-be leaders flaked out, so I decided to make a change.

I told the ward that I wanted to be released from cub scouts, and I filled out all of the paperwork to be co-leader of S's Daisy Troop. The ward officially released me yesterday.

It's kind of a bittersweet moment. I loved my cubs, I really did. I was ready to move on and do something different. Now that I'm officially out though, I'm mourning the loss.

I have to admit I'm a little overwhelmed at just how much work there is to start a new troop. I'm sitting here staring a pile of money that needs to be deposited in the bank, but first I have to select a bank and set up an account. We were assigned our troop number, which is good. My co-leader is an amazingly motivated and creative person, and I think she's going to make it a lot of fun. We have a mentor leader who meets at the same time who is willing to help, as well as have her Cadettes help. Our service unit leader is also helping out, both with set up AND being willing to be our cookie mom this year. Amazing.

Our next meeting is going to be a birthday party. We're celebrating the birth of our troop, as well as the birth of Juliette Low, the founder of Girl Scouts. We've asked the girls to each bring a small gift (like crayons, glue sticks, tapes, etc) to give to the troop.

I figure once I get organized, the whole thing will go well. I'm not worried about meetings, it's just the administrative side of things. I've agreed to be in charge of money, and need to find a good spreadsheet to keep track. I may have to give in and buy Excel; I've been using OpenOffice and/or Google Documents.

Bountiful Baskets Oct 23

2010-10-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't done a Bountiful Basket in forever, but this week they were offering pomegranates and tortillas as add ons, so I simply had to do it. We got a 24 lb box of pomegranates for $18.50, which is an amazing bargain. I also got a MEEELION tortillas for $10. I love these tortillas.
So, here's what my $15 basket was for this week:
I still have tomatoes and pears coming out my ears, so those parts were less than enthusiastically received, but I'm really happy with the rest. I've never cooked parsnips before, so that'll be a fun new thing to try.
In other news, I have confirmation that two of my Easter Egger chickens have begun to lay. I got both of these eggs today:

The interesting thing about the speckled egg is that when it's dry, the brown spots are more beige, and almost unnoticeable. The egg was a little dirty, so I washed it off, and it went speckled. Too cool!

The cat with commitment issues

2010-10-22T20:22:00.001-07:00

My younger sister J bought a kitten this past spring to be a "cold blooded killer". She found a litter of rats in her back yard. She loves rodents almost as much as my mom, which is to say that she has a full blooded phobia. She scoured KSL ads until she found the perfect cat. Mom and dad were barn cats in the country somewhere in Wyoming. She actually drove several hours to get one of their free kittens.

She then paid big bucks to get the cat spayed, vaccinated and microchipped. She bought her fancy toys. Installed a cat door in the garage. Named her Oren Ishii. Things went well until about a month ago.

Oren didn't come home for a few days. Oren loves to wander, so it is normal for my sister to not see her for a day or two. But, she realized she hadn't seen the cat for a while, so she started watching. No sign of her anywhere. She started calling and visiting various animal shelters. Posted an ad on KSL. Nothing. After 3-4 weeks, she accepted that Oren was probably gone.

This morning, she was surprised by a phone call from a vet's office. Oren had been found! As it turns out, a neighbor who lived behind her and down a few houses had been seeing Oren around for quite a while. She'd turn up all the time and beg for food. She assumed Oren was a stray when she started spending the night. She eventually adopted the cat, and kept her indoors at night. Bought her a kitty condo, food, and toys. Apparently there's quite the facebook following on this cat's adventures. Today, Christine (the OTHER WOMAN) decided to bite the bullet and officially claim the cat as hers. She took her to a vet to get her spayed and vaccinated. The vet decided to scan the cat for a chip, and Christine was surprised to discover that Oren did have a chip.

Christine nicely offered the cat and all of her goodies back. Within a couple hours, Oren was back at her house. I suggested that maybe Christine had better food, which insulted my sister. Jill bought this super expensive food and Christine had Meow Mix. I remember that my old cat growing up hated fancy stuff, and loved the cheapest, driest stuff you could find.

I told Jill that at least the "Other Woman" is a nice person, and happy to accept that she's not the real owner. I said it may end up being a shared custody situation.

Another cool egg

2010-10-22T20:17:00.001-07:00

Today I got another two eggs! One of them is obviously Clover's. I'm not sure if the other one is from the same chicken from yesterday's chicken. It's also green, but a distinctly different shade of green.
The egg from yesterday is in the middle, the egg from today is on the left.

First Easter Egger Egg!!!

2010-10-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

It finally happened!!!

This afternoon, I went out to collect Clover's egg. I noticed that she and Mabel weren't with the other chickens, and figured they were probably in the hen house. I opened up the left door, and sure enough, Clover is sitting in her favorite nest box. I can see she's already laid her egg, so I was a little surprised she was still there. Mabel was standing up, but watching her pretty intently. After a minute or two, Clover began singing the egg song, stood up, and left the hen house. I grabbed my egg and went inside.

I decided to go back outside to see if *maybe*, just MAYBE one of the other chickens had laid. In the last week or so, four of the five younger chickens have been willing to "squat", and they've all recently become much friendlier, even allowing me to pet them. I'm told those are signs that a pullet is about ready to start laying eggs.

I was disappointed to see the favored box empty, but decided to check the other side, just in case. I found the most beautiful olive green egg there. I am so tickled!

Here it is:
I am thrilled to get an olive egger- you don't find them too often, and it's the next hot thing. People are cross breeding blue laying hens with dark brown laying hens to get them. To get one from my EE is very exciting for me. J just rolled his eyes when I came up looking like Christmas had come early. M is the only one who has even a fraction of my enthusiasm for the eggs (well, maybe S can muster some, sometimes). When he got home, I showed him. He thought it looked like the same color as Lucy's eggs, but smaller. -sigh- Being color blind just is no fun.

Tour of the Coop

2010-10-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

I've had a couple people ask to see pictures of my chicken coop, so I am going to give you a grand tour.J designed the setup himself after looking at a lot of peoples' designs.

Here's the back of the coop with our brand new roof.Across the back, you'll notice some doors, which latch shut for safety, but open up for easy access to the nesting boxes, where the chickens would hypothetically lay.
Here's the inside of one side of the nesting boxes. We have a total of 6, though only one is used. You can see that Clover has laid an egg for me here. I am using a fairly fine hardware cloth to keep the bedding in the boxes when I open the door to collect eggs.This is the back side of the coop, the side the chickens have access to. You'll see that there's a large door so that I can access the inside, as well as provide good ventilation during the summer months. There's a smaller hole for me to stick a light in so that as the weather cools off, I can supplement their light so that they continue (START?!) to lay all winter. I close the door at night and latch it shut. This coop is not really designed to keep out a determined predator, but I figure latching that door shut will help protect the chickens from large dogs, which would be the most likely culprit.This is the access for the chickens to access the coop.

Here is the back side of the coop with the enclosed run. There's chicken wire on top and all sides. It's held in place by boards. A determined critter could burrow beneath the boards, so the coop isn't particularly ideal if you have skunks, raccoons, dogs, wolves, coyotes around. We generally don't, so I haven't worried about it too much.

Now we have the inside of the coop. You can see the nest boxes below. Paula is in the popular box, showing us what it would look like if she were to ever lay an egg. The chickens generally either roost on top of the boxes or on the branches I've put in place. The floor also has hardware cloth. In the summer, we leave it exposed, but as it's gotten colder, we put OSB board in, and covered it with shavings. I've also bought some 1/2" styrofoam insulation that I've cut to fit the back and side walls of the chicken coop. However, I put it out there, and the next morning found they'd been pecking at it. I'm going to have J cut some very thin boards to the same shape and sandwich the insulation between the boards so the chickens will leave it alone.

Why the golf balls, you ask? Supposedly, they show the chickens that it's acceptable to lay eggs in nesting boxes other than the popular one. Clover is the only one laying, and thus far, she's only laid in that second box in.
This is how we shut the door to the run.

Here's a close up of our chicken feeder. It's nice to be able to put a large amount of food out at a time so that if we go out overnight, we don't have to worry about feeding and watering our flock. The water is set up the same, except that we had to seal the lid on, and cut a small hole in the top and plug with a drain plug to create a suction situation.
The chickens do get to go foraging around outside of the run/coop, but I only let them do that when they can be supervised, so it's usually only for an hour or so at a time.

Topaz Mountain 2010

2010-10-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

We got to go to Topaz Mountain again. This time, my parents were unable to make it due to back problems for my mom. My ILs came, as well as J's Aunt Sue. It was really emotional seeing her again, as last time we saw her was last Christmas, just after a stage 3 cancer diagnosis. She is a real fighter, and has come out to visit this week with a CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH!!! We also had J's sister's family come; some of our favorite camping companions.
We got the same spot as last time. The kids were like little mountain goats the entire time, climbing around the big rock.We spent several hours looking for Topaz near the south slopes. We split into two groups- one group was up on the hill, chiseling topaz out of stones. I was with the other group, looking for loose stones in the wash. I found quite a bit, but I gave almost all of them to my kids or my nieces.

Here's most of the topaz the kids collected:Some detail on M's topaz:
On Friday, J's brother and his family family joined us for the day. We had talked to EVEN MORE people, and had gotten EVEN MORE instructions on finding the geode beds, which I had started to privately refer to as "El Dorado" (the city of gold that spanish explorers looked in vain for). We loaded into 3 side by sides and two vehicles. I think I surprised my husband by opting to drive the rhino instead of the truck. I knew it would be dusty, but it would be a smoother ride, and it was going to be around 25 miles each way. On the way, we saw a herd of antelope, which was pretty neat. We found the turn off for the geode beds. Instead of stopping within five minutes, as we have in the past, we actually drove for a good 15 minutes past where the sign was.It was as described. You couldn't walk more than a couple steps without tripping over geodes or fragments of geodes. We collected about a 5 gallon bucket's worth. Some need to be cracked open; some are just fragments.

M found a tarantula around camp on Friday evening, which we thought was amazing. We knew they were out there in the desert in Utah, but had never seen one before.
We ended up finding another one on Saturday morning and it was even bigger than the one pictured. We are fairly certain that this is a male Aphonopelma iodius.The first spider we found was in the evening. The second spider was in the morning. We also caught and released many lizards. M really wanted to keep that tarantula, but I'm not a fan of taking healthy wildlife home as pets, so I told him NO.

All in all, we had a wonderful time. Tentative plans are being made to go next spring. We're hoping that winter runoff will expose some more topaz for us.

Want to have a REAL LIVE Author come to your school?

2010-10-13T18:26:00.001-07:00

I have a friend, Michael Young, who is a real live PUBLISHED author. You can see his book for sale at amazon HERE. It's a really interesting work of fiction that is a fun fantasy.

He is really great with kids, and wants to share his gift. He's appeared at a few schools, doing assemblies with the whole school, and workshops with individual classes. He recently did a workshop at Roy Elementary that sounded so interesting. He talked about it on HIS BLOG.

He is looking to do more workshops. Can you believe it? It seems like a really amazing opportunity for kids to learn about what goes into writing a book and how to write effectively.

If you think your school (or your kids' school) would be interested in having him, and you are within 60 or so miles of Salt Lake City, UT, you should contact him to set something up. Michael's email address is: thecanticlekingdom@gmail.com

I hate fundraisers

2010-10-11T15:45:00.001-07:00

I hate most school fundraisers.

I really, really hate them. Passionately.

I hate how they have an assembly getting the kids all excited about the crap they can "earn" if they sell enough stuff. I hate how the stuff is overpriced, and only a small percentage actually goes to the school. I hate how the kids are desperate to sell stuff, utterly convinced that the success of the school, indeed, the very FUTURE of the school relies on them selling a bunch of wrapping paper. Or greeting cards. Or overpriced candy.

I've become spoiled because M's elementary school does the "no one comes a knockin'" fundraiser. Basically, they've figured out that if every child brings in $10, they make as much or more money than if they were to hold several traditional fundraisers. I've donated $20 per kid in the past, just to be safe, and so far, this is the third year I haven't heard from M's school.

S's school, on the other hand, LOVES fundraisers. We've already had two. The first one was Happenings Books (which, admittedly, M's school does too). Today, she came home with a new folder with order forms and booklet. I think they must've had a big assembly about it too, because she knew about allllll the wonderful prizes she could earn. Fabulous.

There's also a big decal on the folder telling me not to throw it away.S may be 5, but she knows what that says. It doesn't say to not burn it though....

Oh, and before you accuse me of not supporting S's school, I've donated more than $20 to them. I've joined their PTA. I bought a tshirt for S. I made sure to contribute enough that I can be righteously indignant and refuse to participate and not feel an ounce of guilt.

Pink Eggs?

2010-10-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

Clover has been laying eggs for three weeks now. In those three weeks, she's only skipped three days. Pretty amazing!

I've put her eggs in my egg carton. I noticed that her eggs aren't the bright white that my store bought eggs were.
As you can see, it's not a dramatic difference, but it's a definite difference.

I got thinking about it, and looking at Clover. I knew she wasn't a purebred bird because her lines aren't quite right, plus, she has a few black feathers. Not a lot, but a few. I conferred with my chicken bulletin board, and they all agreed that she must be some mix that makes the slight variation in color.

The eggs are almost pink. The last egg she laid was a definite pale pink, and had white speckles. Unfortunately S was so excited when she saw it that she grabbed it and dropped it on the tile floor, shattering it. I was very sad.

The Easter Eggers and the Silver Laced Wyandotte are still not laying. My Black Copper Marans is still molting. I think that can last a couple months. We're at one month since last egg.

Dear Kindergarten Teacher

2010-10-05T10:41:00.001-07:00

Dear Kindergarten Teacher,

As you know, today was the day that S was assigned to bring a show and tell. We chose to have her bring in a hand painted handkerchief from Japan. She and I talked about how it was handpainted, came from Japan, and how my friend gave it to me while we were living there.

I want to clear up a couple of misunderstandings. Yes, we did live there. It was, however, for more than a couple days. Yes, it was when S was a baby, and before she was born. However, when we moved back to the US, we did NOT row the canoe from Japan to Mexico, and then carry the canoe from Mexico into the United States. We flew commercially.

Hmm, maybe I am one of those people?!

2010-09-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

So, in my last post, I talked about people who can't say no. After today, I'm wondering if I'm one of them.

I showed up at the school today with my crockpot of soup. There was a bunch of moms busily setting up the teacher luncheon. I quickly notice that it's not set up for people with crockpots. I also notice immediately that there's no bowls, no spoons. Hmmm. That's odd.

I talk to the lady in charge, who looked completely confused. She said that she'd planned a meal with just salads and bread (i.e green salad, fruit salad, chicken salad). She'd also never heard of someone by the name that my caller on Monday told me. This soup thing was news to her.

Huh?

I immediately start wondering how I could've possibly messed up this badly. I can be scatterbrained, but not THAT crazy. I distinctly remember it being Wednesday, because I figured it'd be no big deal since I was already planning on being there to volunteer. I also distinctly remember talking to her about her 7th and 9th grade sons. I was also 100% certain that neither of the elementary schools my kids attend were having parent teacher conferences today.

If it WAS Thursday, wouldn't the PTA lady in charge have said, "oooooh, no, you were supposed to bring the soup tomorrow. THURSDAY is soup day, not Wednesday."

Someone, somewhere is going to be angry that they're down one big vat of soup. Or, someone, somewhere is laughing their guts out.

Or, I have completely cracked. If I was going to go crazy, why couldn't I be deluded into thinking that I'm in the Caribbean somewhere, or that I live in a massive house with a huge kitchen, and a garage. Or that I was skinny? I could quite happily live with that kind of delusion or misunderstanding. But no. Instead, I'm bringing soup to a bunch of (pleasantly surprised) people.

The teachers who had started arriving were not going to let me take the soup home. They managed to scare up bowls and spoons eerily fast. That was flattering, anyway.

Some people just CAN'T say no!

2010-09-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

K's school's parent teacher conferences are Wednesday. The PTA tries to provide dinner for the teachers on those nights.

So today, I get a phone call from the PTA, asking if I'd be willing to bring in a crockpot of soup Wednesday afternoon. I said that would be fine, and volunteered to bring in a tortilla soup.

About 10 minutes later, the lady calls me back.

Her: "Um, you DO have a student who attends XX Jr High, right?"

Me (sounding very confused): "Yes"

Her: "Oh, good. See, I'm also in the PTA for YYY Elementary, and somehow I got my volunteer lists mixed up. I was most of the way through the list making food assignments. One lady was really nice and said she'd bring an item, and then said it was really weird she was being called because she didn't even have a kid attending XX Jr High."

Me:

Her: "So, I wanted to call all the volunteers and make sure they're all parents of students at XX Jr High"

Me: (still not able to talk I'm laughing so hard)

Some people really are incapable of saying no, aren't they?

Dog Bite

2010-09-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my inlaws lost their beloved dog, Buddy. He was poisoned, and it was absolutely awful for all involved. He was a good, sweet dog, and we were all so upset. My inlaws feel strongly that when they get a dog, they adopt from a shelter. Since they have 14 (at last count) grandchildren, it's also important that they have a dog that's good with children.

A couple months ago, my MIL (mother in law) called me on a Saturday afternoon. She and my FIL (father in law) were at the shelter, trying to pick out a new dog. They'd brought Hershey, their chocolate lab, and the two seemed to get along ok. They'd pretty much decided on a miniature pinscher and wanted to give him the final test. They wanted to see how he did with children. I brought my kids, and we met the dog. He seemed cautious about kids, but somewhat tolerant. We spent a good 30 minutes at the shelter playing with the dog. While he didn't want to actually interact with the kids, he tolerated them ok, and was not at all aggressive. They decided to bring him home.

They quickly discovered that he had kennel cough, and he wasn't able to be around other dogs much. As he started to recover, they were taking him on walks around the neighborhood. They realized that Snickers had what I like to call "Little Dog Syndrome". He was completely unaware that he was much smaller than the other dogs, and some of them could eat him for lunch. He would bark and try to start fights. He established dominance over Hershey, his roommate, but was constantly trying to fight with the other dogs in the family.

As time has gone on, he's gotten aggressive with the kids too. I know he's bitten K and M, both unprovoked. I have to admit I've gotten a bit nervous to have him around the kids as he's gotten more and more aggressive and less tolerant of kids.

On Saturday, my ILs had nicely volunteered to babysit our kids while we attended a wedding. When we arrived, Snickers was barking and barking and freaking out. My MIL picked him up to make sure everything stayed safe. J went to pet the dog. After a couple seconds, he turned and bit J's arm as hard as he could. It was a pretty nasty dog bite, and broke the skin and bled quite a bit.

My MIL was horrified over how bad the bite was.

At this point, she is contemplating getting rid of the dog. I feel really awful about the situation because it sounds like when it's just my MIL and FIL around, he's not a bad dog. He's crazy about them. They also are animal lovers, and not people to take getting rid of a dog lightly. In fact, I'm not sure they've ever gotten rid of a dog while it was still alive. I think it's awfully risky to keep him around if he's a biter.

I have to admit that I don't feel comfortable having the dog around my kids anymore. If that bite had been to one of my kids, particularly their face, it could've done some really serious damage. I support my inlaws in whatever choice they make. I will say that when we come over from now on, I'll want the dog to be kept locked in another room.

My brother in law's niece had her face practically destroyed by a dog bite, and I just don't want to take that risk with my babies.

POSTSCRIPT: The day after J was bitten, my BIL and SIL went to the inlaws' house for dinner. Snickers attempted to bite BIL, even though he wasn't even interacting with the dog. Snickers got put in time out for the rest of the visit. MIL and FIL consulted their vet a few days later. They asked about behavioral therapy and doggie prozac. The vet actually recommended that they rehome the dog, that he was just too big of a risk to have. They ended up taking him back to the Humane Society a couple days ago. I know they are really sad about it, and I am sorry for their loss. I think that they are averting a much bigger tragedy by doing this though.

Wrist Injury (?)

2010-09-14T20:34:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, my 12 year old fell playing soccer in gym class. She came home after school that day, complaining her wrist hurt. In fact, she said, "I think I broke my arm again." Considering this is the same kid who hid a broken arm from me for 5 days, I sat up and took notice. In fact, I'd been writing the blog post about kids growing up, which is why that particular post ended rather abruptly and without a nice poignant closing. It had nothing to do with the fact that eloquence had failed me. Nope.

I took her to the doctor, that evening (LOVE that Layton IHC kids care!) and they did xrays. Said everything looked fine. They gave her a soft brace to wear and sent us on our way.

It's been 5 days now, and she's complaining that it still hurts a lot, and is having to take motrin around the clock. Her arm is still quite swollen, with visible bruising. She has such a high pain tolerance, that I was worried. In addition, her gym teacher was insisting on a doctor's note to excuse her any more from arm-related exercises from here on out.

This evening, I gathered up all four kids and took her back in. The doctor we saw decided we should get some more xrays. The nurse walked her over to radiology, and the tech immediately recognized K. She said, "The xrays aren't going to show anything different, it's been less than 7 days. I'm not going to xray her again."

The nurse took her back anyway. The tech stayed out front and got on the phone. The tech then got K and walked her back to the doctor's side, and told me xrays weren't taken because they wouldn't show anything different, and they were worried about radiation.

We waited in the exam room for a good 20-25 minutes, and the doctor came back and essentially told us the same thing, and that the radiologist suggested we not do more xrays.

She gave us a better, more supportive brace for dd's wrist (at my request), and an Rx to come back in a week from today for xrays if her arm still really hurts. I also had her write a note excusing her from any arm related exercise in gym class for a couple weeks. The receptionist wrote the note. Did you know crab walks/pushups ect (sic) can axacerbate (sic) her arm?

I shouldn't be mean though, the receptionist was really nice, and admitted she'd been there almost twelve hours and was dead on her feet.

I'm frustrated that I spent another copay and an entire evening there, and weren't able to check her arm again. Hopefully, this new brace will make her wrist feel better. The nice thing about that Rx we got is that we can go get an xray in a week if it's still feeling awful and NOT pay (yet another) copay.

Clover's First Egg!

2010-09-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

Here's my girls out free ranging.

I am so excited! I sent M out to check for eggs today, and he found one! And, even more exciting, it's a white egg, so it's not Lucy's. I am 99.9% sure that it's Clover's, since she's supposed to lay white eggs. I guess it's theoretically possible it's one of the easter eggers, but since they're barely 20 weeks and Clover is 24, I think it's unlikely.

This photo shows the egg along with store bought "large" eggs. It's the slightly smaller one in the middle. It's actually quite big, especially for a first egg.
Close up of the egg.I wish I could show you a picture of it next to Lucy's egg, but Lucy went on strike, and hasn't laid an egg in 8 days. She was laying every other day like clockwork, and now, NOTHING.

Our chicken coop has 6 nesting spots. Lucy always used the same spot. M found Clover's egg in the same nesting box. I thought that was kind of funny.

A visit to jail

2010-09-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

No, no no! I have managed to keep myself on the right side of the law.

On Saturday, I went to visit someone in jail. It was a very interesting experience for me.

The jail is a very dismal and depressing place, but oh my, the people watching is PRIME!

We made the appointment to visit our prisoner at 5:30 pm. We were expected to be to the jail and checked in by 4:45. To check in, I had to show picture ID, and they took down my address and phone number. I guess they also do a mini background check on you, and later on, if they find a warrant, they'll arrest you. Our check in guard was nice. She kind of rolled her eyes at a couple kids doing a shrieking banshee act.

Next to the check in desk, there's a cashier's station. That's where you go to post bail, or deposit money into your prisoner's account for commissary. Almost nothing comes free in jail, but you can put in orders for things like top ramen, stamps, soap, shampoo, conditioner, colored pencils, etc. If you don't know anyone on the outside to put money into that account, I think you're out of luck. Maybe you could manage to have an attorney do that for you?

After you check in, you sit down in the main waiting area and people watch for about 30 minutes. I was highly entertained by this, so the time flew by. They then call everyone up, and you exchange your photo ID for a key to a locker. You put all belongings in the locker. No keys (other than the locker key), papers, coins, phones, gang attire, or anything else is allowed back in the visiting area.

After putting our stuff in the lockers, we were herded to waiting room #2. We had to go through a metal detector that was super, super sensitive. The locker key and the button on my jeans set it off, so I had to have the wand swiped. They were extremely suspicious that I'd taken off my watch and set it on a table. The metal detector guards were the same ones who did the keys. A new guard came in, who initially came off as very, very dry, but she redeemed herself totally in my eyes. She spoke to us like we were three (and as I soon learned, this was necessary, given some of the people in the room). She insisted that we all be silent while she gave instructions, and that kids (yep, there were quite a few there to see mommy or daddy) not play with the noisy toys while they talked. Screaming banshee children ran around yelling and playing with toys while grandma looked on obliviously. Guard was really irritated (as was I), but surprisingly enough, screaming banshees weren't escorted out.

We were given rules, which included such gems as "no talking to any prisoner but your own", "No gang signs", and "no flashing". A couple people looked baffled at that last one. She asked if everyone understood, and a couple people expressed confusion on the last one. So, she pantomimed lifting up her shirt and actually said, "Wheeeeeee!!!". I had a great laugh and decided I really liked that guard.

She then read off the name of each prisoner. The visitors were supposed to raise their hands and say "here" when they heard their prisoner, and she would announce the visitation room. One guy obviously had a HUGE chip on his shoulder, and gave her this weird look and said, "Present". Whatever. However, he did capture Screaming Banshee Child #1, so I can't totally hate him.

We were then let go to walk down to the visiting areas. The hallway was painted very drab, no windows, all concrete. It was very depressing and somewhat claustrophobic. As we were walking down, my companions were muttering, "Please don't let us be in the same room as the kids, please please please please..." Well, the gods have a sense of humor, because guess who was in our room?

The visiting rooms are small, concrete rooms. There's a stool in the middle of each cubicle, and glass in the concrete so you can see your prisoner. There's metal mesh on the sides so you can theoretically hear them. Sound quality isn't that great under the best of circumstances, and you have to be within about 8" of the grates to hear anything. Add in banshees #1 and #2, and it was tough to hear much of anything. I tried to be patient, since they were there to see Mommy, but ARGH!!!!!

We actually got to the room right about 5:30 on the nose, and we got to visit til 6. At 6, a voice on the loudspeaker announced that visitation was over. On the prisoner side of the room, a metal door slid open, and they were expected to get up and leave.

It was very interesting, but I can imagine how horrific it is to be on the other side. It reaffirmed my decision to obey the laws, or at least make sure that if I ever do decide to do anything to put me in jail, to never get caught.

Brushing a horse's teeth?!

2010-09-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

We had a really great day today. K heard that Ogden had a new orchestra (currently just a strings section), and that they would be performing for free at the Ogden Farmer's Market. She was dying to go listen to them, and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun.

Imagine my delight when I realized that the orchestra was performing right next to the playground! K sat on the grass and listened/watched the orchestra, and I watched the younger three play on the playground while enjoying the music. It sounded absolutely amazing.

My attention was soon drawn to a man and his horse. The horse was decked out in beautiful hand tooled saddle and bags, etc. His handler was wearing an old west sheriff's outfit, and having him dance to the music- stomping his feet, turning in circles, etc. Sundance was also kicking balls around to the delight of the children around him. Ron Gardiner also had trading cards that he gave out to the children that featured a photo of him and his horse.
S wanted to come meet the horse, and Mr Gardiner wiggled Sundance's lips so that he seemed to be "speaking" to her. He asked if S wanted to brush the horse's teeth. Well, of COURSE she did!
I don't think I've seen her smile that big in a long time, and S is a very smilie child.

I have to admit I was really intrigued by the duo, and decided to look them up when I got home. I have to admit I was somewhat horrified by the article I found (linked HERE). To sum up, Mr. Gardiner retired just over a year ago after 37 years of service to the Ogden Police Department (seriously? He doesn't look old enough, does he?). He almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a call he went on in 2006. In 2007, he suffered a head injury in a training exercise. He's since had three brain surgeries. Going through all that has left him unable to work, and so he had a medical retirement last year.

Ogden city has offered him $90,000 as a settlement, which equals out to about 15k a year, assuming he lives another 20 years. They figure since they see him at the farmer's market, he should be plenty capable of working full time.

I really hope that Mr. Gardiner can get the settlement he's asking for. It seems to me that his injuries are from trying to protect and serve the people. I think it's the people's turn to protect and serve him!

The kids are growing up

2010-09-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been more and more aware of just how quickly my kids are growing up. Some things are obvious and noticeable (like K not being able to wear my shoes, or passing me in height). Others are smaller.

I recently took the child safety lock off of our kitchen sink because I had to get to something in the back. I simply didn't bother reattaching it because I wasn't concerned that the kids would get into the chemicals there.

Today Z noticed the lock was off when I had him put away the bottle of window cleaner. (I've been letting him spray it on the walls and wiping it off with a rag, much to his joy). He was very concerned that the lock wasn't on there, and got it put back on there himself. I guess this is why I never bothered childproofing with him much- he always figured out how the locks worked almost immediately, thereby rendering them useless.I had another moment of realization this morning. I still tend to follow automotive trends and new cars that are coming out. This morning, I read an article about the 2011 Honda Odyssey, which will hit showroom floors at the end of the month. They had two new features that interested me: First, they have redesigned their minivan so that three carseats can be in the middle row, and all three can be attached with LATCH and a tether strap. Two more carseats can be latched in the back row. Now, I'm still way too vain to drive a minivan, but I was really impressed for a minute.

Then it hit me:

My time to worry about tethering multiple carseats is almost behind me (no pun intended).

Z is still in a five point harness. S was until about a month ago, when we cleaned out the car and never reinstalled her carseat, and just tossed a booster seat in when we realized we'd forgotten. Her seat will go back into our car. Z's carseat will expire in December, and I think at that point, I'll have S's bigger seat go to him, and let her use a belt positioning booster seat.

I gleefully donated my maternity clothes and threw away the nursing bras.

I find myself getting worked up about junior high school policies, not the latest and greatest in baby gear.

The amazing harvest of oddly colored vegetables continues...

2010-09-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

We harvested our carrots this week! We bought Burpee's Organic Kaleidoscope Carrot seeds. I did not follow many of the directions. I made two rows about 3 feet long each, and then divided and dumped the seeds in each row. I've never been able to thin plants like the instructions say, so I didn't thin them at all.
Here's our harvest after pulling them out of the ground:

And, after cutting the tops off and scrubbing them a bit:
Isn't that just amazing? They taste just like the regular carrots. A couple of interesting notes: The purple on the carrots is just on the surface. Once you take the skin off, they just look like a slightly darker orange color.
The white carrots have a stronger flavor than average carrots, but still are very tasty.

Went Shooting

2010-09-06T20:11:00.003-07:00

This was a very unusual Labor Day Weekend for us. It's the first time since we've been married (that I can remember, anyway) where we did NOT go camping. We didn't even have a particular reason. We moved our big family trip back a couple weeks so it wouldn't be so crowded like labor day usually is. I figured our small family would end up going camping, but it just never panned out.

J's younger brother has expressed an interest in joining "the boys" for their favorite pastime- going out on the ATVs to the wilderness, and then shooting stuff. They don't hunt, they just set up targets or annihilate dead trees and rocks. J, our BIL, J's brother, and his dad all made arrangements to go on a ride and go shooting today. J really, really wanted me to go, and was trying to talk me into it all weekend. I fell prey to the typical "mommy guilt" and felt bad about leaving the kids so long. Finally, we decided that I'd go, and then we'd go do something fun after J and I got back.

We had a nice ride, and then went shooting. The boys were were sweet and anxious to have me try out each gun that they had. I tell you what, between the bunch of them, I think we could've had a pretty good chance of taking over Idaho, militias and all! I don't remember all that I shot, though I know I shot a 22 pistol, as well as a 22 rifle. I shot a Mouser, and I also shot an AK 74 (? I KNOW it wasn't a 47, and I'm pretty sure they said it was a 74). I thought I did rather well, if I do say so myself. I managed to not get a black eye or bruised shoulder from the kickbacks, and had pretty good aim. I even managed to blow the top off of a flower. Before I could get too cocky (ha ha), I had to remind myself that the AK (my favorite gun, and the one I shot the most rounds on), had both a scope and a rifle rest. And we weren't that far from the targets. But, considering I've only shot guns once or twice in my life, and both times were BEFORE I got married, I'll say that I wasn't too bad.

We got home, and J brought his gun (in its' case) into the house. Z saw the case and asked what it was. J told him it was a gun.

"Ohhhhhhh. For shooting bears?"

"Um, sure. I guess."

That was the end of it for a while. We aren't a hunting family. J has never gone hunting to my knowledge, and he's never got the gun out in front of the kids. We don't shoot animals.

We got everything safely put away and cleaned up, then took the kids to the Iceburg and to see Despicable Me. As we were getting into the car to go home, Z pipes up from the back seat, "So we can go shoot bears now?"

I have no idea where the kid gets it, but he sure cracks me up.

May as well paint the car yellow

2010-09-02T08:23:00.001-07:00

I may as well paint my car yellow and write "bus" on the side. Seems like all I do is drive kids to and from schools.

I'll write out a typical day on Friday (my busiest day) and Tuesday (my least busy day).

Friday:

7:20 AM: Leave the house to drive middle school carpool. Pick up 5 kids. Drop one off about halfway (he goes to a different junior high), and then continue on to the junior high where the other kids go.
8:10: Arrive back home, hoping that the younger kids are ready to go. Rush around helping with final day preparatons.
8:20: Drive spectrum school carpool, which involves picking up two kids. Take them to their spectrum school.
8:35: Drive back towards home so that I can drop S off at the neighborhood school.
8:45: Drop S off, have a minor scuffle over whether or not she needs me to walk her to her class or not (she will be winning this battle starting next week, and I'll stay in the car).
9-10am: Go to the gym
10:50: Pick S up from school
12:15: Take Z to school
1:25: pick up the boys from the spectrum school
3:15: Pick Z up from school

The nice thing is that with the junior high carpool, I don't have to pick up after school.

Tuesday Schedule:

8:20- Leave to drive spectrum carpool
8:45- Drop S at school
9:00- Drop Z off at neighborhood preschool
9:00- go to the gym
11:00- Pick up Z from neighborhood preschool
11:30- pick up S

And then I'm done for the day. I am in a carpool for spectrum school, but the other mother told me yesterday that they're moving to california in October, so I'll have to start picking the boys up after school starting then. I'm disappointed because it's been really nice. In addition, her son seems to be getting along really well with M, so I'm sad he'll be losing a friend.

a flaw in the plan

2010-09-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

So, when I bought chickens, I decided to start saving my egg cartons so I could use them to store my eggs. I also figured we'd probably get more eggs than we needed, and I could use these extra cartons to sell the extras.

I normally buy the "large" size eggs at the grocery store.

Here's a picture of 11 "large" eggs, along with one of Lucy's eggs.
I'm not sure if the angle is right, but try and compare Lucy's egg with the one next to it. Yep. There's a size difference.
The carton won't even CLOSE with one of Lucy's eggs in it. Not sure how much of a bigger wreck it would be if the entire dozen was that big.

I have to admit I hadn't even thought about that when I started hoarding egg cartons. Oops.

Vindicated!

2010-08-31T16:46:00.000-07:00

So one of the problems with K's school schedule was her math class. A few months ago, they let us know that any 7th grader who wanted to take Algebra (as opposed to pre-algebra) had to take a certain placement test. K took the test, and felt good about how she did. Results never came in the mail, as promised. However, I was able to check her results online, and her score was surprisingly low. I was torn on what to do- push her into Algebra, and risk her falling behind, or let her go into pre-a. Well, the school ended up saying that they would NOT let her do Algebra with that score, and Pre-A it was.

However, there was some drama, and apparently one of the counselors who had been in charge of the whole pretest had quit a few months ago, and taken records with her (Oh, so THAT'S why we never got test scores). Therefore, almost everyone was put in Pre-A. So, they spent the first few days of school doing more tests to determine placement. They also added a 7th grade math for those who found Pre-A too challenging.

Today, during 8th period (study hall), K was called to talk to the counselors. She was informed that she was being moved up to algebra. Ha! I knew she was smart enough for it.

This afternoon, I got a weird automated phone call from the district. They said K's name (pronounced it wrong), and then hung up. I got home and found an email telling me that K missed one or more classes today, and that I had to "clear" the absences within two days. Turns out they changed her schedule last night or this morning, but didn't bother telling her, so she accidentally sluffed two classes because she was following her former schedule.

I'll be calling the school tomorrow, and hopefully, I'll be able to keep the snide remarks in my head.

Oh, and update on the bass: They are having K rent a second bass, and she's sharing it with another student (they have orchestra different class periods), so they're also sharing the cost, and getting a discount since it will stay at school. Cost on the second bass came to $44.50, which is a pretty good deal- cheaper than driving her bass to/from school a couple times a week all year long.

misc. ramblings

2010-08-26T11:04:00.001-07:00

Z had his preschool orientation yesterday. It looks like he'll have the same lineup of teachers that S had last year. I love that preschool, and am excited for him to attend. I also decided to join a neighborhood preschool group. It's only once a week for two hours a day. There's a total of eleven moms participating, but we've divided into two groups. So, Z's group has six kids. I'll only have to teach five times the entire school year. That's sad in a way, because I love kids that age, but quite frankly, the last thing I need is even more stuff to do, so it's for my own good. I think it'll be a good way for him to get to know the kids in the neighborhood.

S had her kindergarten testing on Monday. The teacher who did the testing seemed pretty amused by her, and commented that she was one of the only kids she'd tested who could identify a hexagon. Class lists/times were posted today, and she is in AM Kindergarten! Yay! I noticed that the morning classes have 24/25 kids, and the PM kindergarten classes have 18-19 kids. Just shows how much more popular AM is. She officially starts tomorrow, though we parents are supposed to come along. S is so excited she can hardly see straight. The interesting thing about her class is it's a job share situation. I don't know the nuts and bolts yet (I figure I'll find out tomorrow), but I do know that she has two teachers. Should be different.

A boy who was in first grade with M has started spectrum. His mom has joined with us in a CARPOOL! I don't have to pick up the boys at the spectrum elementary anymore! Yahoo! A seems to be a very nice boy, and he and M have really clicked since being back in the same class. M is really happy to be back in school, and is really liking his teacher this year.

K has taken to junior high like a fish to water. She seems to really enjoy her classes, particularly orchestra and spanish. She still hasn't forgiven me for making her take PE instead of Art, as her coursework requires. She knows at least one or two kids in every class, and it sounds like her former spectrum class is still pretty tight in school. I hope that she does open up her circle of friends and get to know some more kids. We set up another carpool (yippee!!) with some of her former classmates, so I take them TO school twice a week. It's wonderful. I love carpools.

Since I've sat here and fretted about how high my heart rate seems to go when exercising, I finally made an appointment with a cardiologist. He did an echocardiogram last week, I do a stress test tomorrow, and he's having me wear a heart monitor. It's kind of an interesting thing- I have three electrode things hooked to my chest, and they plug into this monitor thing that I can wear around my neck or in my pocket. It transmits data to another monitor, that looks like a cell phone from 15 years ago, except that it has a touch screen. It wirelessly transmits every heartbeat to a company, who then runs reports for my doctor. I'm able to report "incidents" or symptoms. I have to say that I hate wearing this thing. It's such a pain to have all these wires hooked up to me, and I have to wear super baggy shirts to hide it. I get to wear it for two weeks though, so hopefully I adjust soon.

School Frustration

2010-08-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

I have been fairly tense and stressed out with the beginning of the school year looming. Because I'm trying to give my kids the best education they can get, my older two do not go to the neighborhood schools. The way it's shaping up now, all four of my kids will be attending four different schools this year.

K is starting 7th grade, and will be going into the IB Middle Years Program, at a school about 5 miles away. I've got a carpool almost fully formed with her, so transportation won't be too big of a deal. They messed up her schedule however, and we have to go meet with the counselor today to fix it. I paid almost $200 in school fees for her, $95 of which is to rent a bass violin. I was under the impression the rented bass would be kept at home, and that the school had a couple of school instruments that would be available for students' use during class. Seems reasonable, no? Apparently, that's not how it works. Unless I want to haul the bass to and from school every day (not feasible with the carpool), I have to rent a SECOND bass to keep at school. I was practically in tears when the orchestra teacher told me that. It seems utterly ridiculous to me to expect that. Her school also will not allow students to use backpacks in school, or let them wear coats.

My second frustration point is with S. I would prefer to send her to the neighborhood school. However, because I'll have four kids at four schools, I can't have her be in afternoon kindergarten because three of the kids would get out within 10 minutes of each other, and be scattered at least 3 miles apart in three different directions. I can handle that with two kids, but not three. The neighborhood school refuses to promise me a spot in morning kindergarten. I did get the impression that if a parent has a valid reason for having a strong preference, they'll most likely get their request. I still worry.

I'm just hoping it all works out. Hopefully by the end of next week, the kinks will be smoothed out and it'll be ok.

I bet that was disappointing!

2010-08-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Today I babysat three of my nieces. They were in the back yard with my kids playing with the chickens. The kids noticed I had quite a few ripe veggies in my garden, and asked if they could pick some. I told them they were welcome to pick whatever was ripe, and bring it in the house for me. They picked a bunch of tomatoes and a couple eggplants.

Z was really, really excited about the eggplant he picked. He asked me to wash it off so he could eat it right away. I explained that it was a vegetable best eaten at dinner after it had been cooked. He said "OK", and set it on the counter.

A couple hours later, I find this:
Apparently, he didn't quite believe me. The chunk of eggplant was on the floor nearby, so it looks like Mother knows best, after all.

I can kind of see his point though- I think the eggplant is a beautiful vegetable, and something that shade of purple really ought to be a sweet tasting fruit. I'll admit that my primary reason for planting eggplant in my garden is that I think it's a really pretty plant with a pretty flower and vegetable. I hadn't actually really eaten much eggplant before I started growing it. Even now, I tend to give away most of the eggplants I harvest.

That feels MUCH better

2010-08-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to cut my hair for a couple months. I've had trouble finding time (see previous blog post about my part time summer job). Plus, the kids and I went to this Harry Potter party a couple weeks ago, and I was going to play Professor Trelawney. I thought it would be cool if my hair was still long, and I curled it up all crazy with hot sticks. I remember hot sticks from high school doing scarily frizzy things with my hair. Even though I ALSO remember my hair never taking a curl, I figured the hot sticks were able to counteract that.

Unfortunately, it turns out my hair was more stubborn than the hot sticks. So, I put off cutting my hair for the party, and then my hair was stick straight within 30 minutes of the party starting. -sigh-

I finally got around to cutting my hair today and it feels soooooo much better.

Almost 14" inches this time, and I'm guessing that Locks of Love will be happy to receive it, unless someone has a better idea of what to do with this hair?

How I spent my summer vacation

2010-08-16T07:26:00.000-07:00

This summer, I decided to do something a little different. Real estate has been challenging in these poor economic times. While I have good success with cold calling for business, I really hate it. Referrals have been down, so I just haven't had too much going on. I decided to take on a temporary summer job with the 2010 census.

I was part of the Coverage Followup Operation. Several million households needed a followup phone call. Sometimes it was because they had a large household, and demographics weren't captured for all household members. Sometimes it was because there was a child custody situation. Other times, it was because the data entry process missed or made errors with the information.

I found it hugely ironic that I took this job because I didn't want to make cold calls with real estate. I suddenly found myself cold calling people for 20-25 hours per week. It was a heavily scripted call, and if I didn't read the script verbatim, and was caught not reading it verbatim 3 times, I was fired. Considering they monitored several phone calls a day, odds of getting caught if you weren't doing what you were supposed to was high. I often felt ridiculous asking questions of people that they had just answered, or that the answers were painfully obvious. I asked 91 year old women if they had any newborns or babies. I asked apartments full of 20 year old college men if they had foster children. I asked an 85 year old vet if he'd been gone serving in the military on Apr. 1. I asked a blind, bed ridden woman if she had a vacation home. I asked a man with an obvious man voice/name if he was male or female.

The vast majority of the people I spoke to were, at best, annoyed. There were a few nice people I spoke to, but they were the exception, not the rule. Half the people thought I was incredibly stupid, or just not listening. The other half thought that I thought *THEY* were stupid, or trying to conceal something.

I worked with some really great people, and made some wonderful friends as a result, so I can't say the whole summer was a waste. I can easily say it was the toughest, most hated job I've ever had. And given my varied career experience, that is really saying anything. Sample of nasty, microwaved nachos, anyone?

I made enough money to replace the roof on our house, and buy a back seat with roll cage for our rhino atv. However, if I'd made a few cold calls on my own, without having to use a script, and made one big real estate transaction, I would've made the same money.

The project ended on August 14th. Well, I'm not sure if the census is done with the coverage followup, but my part in it ended on that date. I swear, it's better than I remember the last day of school being! I'm still somewhat giddy with all the freedom that I have before me.

I am hoping I've learned from this experience, and will put forth more effort in prospecting in real estate.

Good luck in bad

2010-08-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

I had quite the adventure today, and while the initial incident was bad luck, I truly feel like I was very lucky with how it all worked out.

I had taken the kids to the movies this morning, and let the bigs each invite a friend. We'd dropped M's friend off after the movie, and were headed back to our house.

We passed under a phone line that was being hoisted up for repair. We made a couple jokes about the line being dropped on our car. I heard an odd clanging noise from the front driver's side of the car, and almost immediately after that, my low tire pressure gauge light came on. Uh oh. Within a couple seconds, my front driver's tire was totally flat. (Note to self: stop worrying about inadvertently driving on a flat tire. You WILL know if the tire is flat)

This is where the good luck came in. We were right in front of the Les Schwab Tire Center in Clinton when my tire went flat. I was able to pull in there, and not have to drive on my flat for more than a couple seconds. They were exactly like the commercials. They literally ran to my car, found out what was going on, and were happy to put my spare on for me at no charge. I told them that my husband was in charge or tire purchases for our family, and that he has such specific requirements for tires that I just go along with whatever he wants, so even though the tire was destroyed, I couldn't purchase a tire at that time. But, I was in and out of Les Schwab within about 20 minutes with excellent service. I can't recommend that shop enough.

The second piece of luck was this: directly ahead of us was a Qwest supervisor. He had his driver's rear tire destroyed, and the damage was identical, except that his was on the tread, and mine was on the side wall. He was on the phone with various staff members trying to figure out if Qwest was somehow responsible. The lineman had done a visual search for parts in the road, but hadn't seen anything. It was generally agreed that the damage done to our tires looked like it came from a "j hook" (whatever that is).

I feel so lucky that when this happened, I was close to someplace that could put the spare on for me. I'm perfectly capable of putting on a spare, but it's a HUGE pain. Secondly, I always would've questioned and wondered if it'd been related to Qwest, but would've been really nervous about putting in a claim. Of course, I figure my husband probably would've anyway, but it's really nice to see Qwest being a really great, responsible company, and wanting to make it right without threat or hassle. Well, maybe. We don't have a check in the mail yet or anything, but the supervisor was really great and professional when we spoke to him.

It's a bit sad that we're going to have to go buy FOUR new tires right now though. We'd planned to buy a back seat and roll cage for our side by side, but I guess having matching tires is more important.

Purple Fries

2010-08-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

I started harvesting my adirondack blue potatoes today. I think they look more purple than blue.

This potato had a heart in it. Awwwwww!Here's the fries we ate for dinner. In the interest of full disclosure, this was taken while they were still raw. Cooking them tends to leach a bit of the color out.

That was gratifying!

2010-08-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

My favorite "go-to" gift to give at weddings is a carbon monoxide detector. I think they can be such a lifesaving thing, and everyone should have one, regardless of whether they rent or own their home. Every winter, there are a couple stories of families who died, or nearly died due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

I've always assumed that it was not a gift that the bride and groom squealed over, but I was ok with that.

A couple weeks ago, we ran into an old friend. We'd given her and her husband a carbon monoxide detector about five years ago. She thanked me for the gift, and told me the following story:

We had just moved into a new apartment a day or so earlier. We were exhausted from the move, and had just collapsed after a long day. We weren't feeling very good- a bit headachy and nauseated, and had chalked it up to the move. Suddenly, we start hearing a beeping alarm. We dug through the boxes until we found our carbon monoxide detector, howling like a banshee (ok, this is my description, not hers). We thought that maybe it needed new batteries, so we replaced them with fresh batteries. The alarm immediately went off again. We tried to call the apartment manager, but nobody answered.

The carbon monoxide instructions said to call the fire department if the alarm went off. We called, feeling a bit foolish to bother them. They acted like it was probably a false alarm, but came right over. They brought their detector with them, and tested the air.

Immediately, they got a very serious look and tone, and told us to get out of the building NOW, and get to fresh air. It turns out that our apartment had deadly levels of carbon monoxide in it. We had to find someplace different to spend the night, but that was the extent of it. The next day, the apartment manager was able to repair our furnace and we were able to live there just fine.

We are so grateful that we had that detector. If it hadn't gone off, we probably would've just gone to sleep in there, and the results probably would've been tragic.

Wow. Best wedding gift ever, isn't it?

My deal breakers

2010-08-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

When you have small children, there are constant playdates and family parties. When you're in a family with 14 grandchildren, odds are very slim that every single person will be healthy at every single get together. There's some things that I will let slide, and some things that I don't want my kids exposed to. Here's my personal trifecta of things I will cancel a get together over:

1- Lice. It's in the number one position for a reason. I am so grossed out by them. I know nearly every child gets them at some point or another in their life, and that lice are attracted to clean hair, so it's not a cleanliness issue. I can't help it. I hate them. I have sat here scratching my head and cringing as I even type this out. When I was 12, one of my BFFs (best friends forever) had a huge slumber party. We had a wonderful time doing each other's hair, makeup, and rolling around on all the bedding that was set up. As it turned out, one of the girls had head lice. Every single one of us (and there was 14 or so girls there) got it, and it turned into a massive epidemic at our elementary school.

2- Pink eye. My kids have brought pink eye home from school with them a couple times, and it's a miserable thing to have. Unfortunately, they've also passed it on to me, and then I don't get to wear contacts til it's cleared up. Given all of my eye issues, it's just something I don't want running through our family.

3- Vomiting. Vomit is smelly, and it's messy. You know what's even worse than vomit? Vomit in the car. Know what's even worse than that? Vomit when the child has had a lot of dairy, and it's had a little time in the stomach.

Today we are supposed to have a big family party with J's side of the family to celebrate K's and a niece's birthdays. Z had a pooping accident this morning, but since he's not quite got the hang of pooping in the potty, we chalked it up to that. We decided to go for a hike this morning, and halfway to the trailhead, Z threw up all over. He had had cereal with lots of milk for breakfast. Yay. We turned around, and J dropped Z and I off at home so that I could clean up the mess and baby him while everyone else worshiped at the Cathedral of the Mountains. I think I am going to cancel the family party tonight. I feel bad because my SIL made a ton of cupcakes. I am going to take a vote, and maybe they'll vote to have it, but keep Z inside watching a kid show. He's got sick eyes and wants to just lay around, so I don't think he'd fight it. Poor kid.

Quick Thinking Daughter

2010-07-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

The other day, after I'd left for work, K decided she wanted to make brownies. She called and got permission from J to make the brownies. She got the mix out, and realized that she didn't have enough vegetable oil for the brownies.

She's watched me experiment quite a bit in the kitchen, trying to make baked goods that are healthier, free of allergens, etc. She had seen me substitute applesauce for both eggs and oil. We didn't have any on hand, and thought for a moment.

She ended up using yogurt instead of oil. The brownies tasted slightly different, but not significantly. I was really impressed that she was so quick thinking and made it work. I'm guessing it saved quite a few calories and fat to use yogurt.

She could've called her dad and asked him to pick up oil on the way home, but she instead chose to substitute. I'm so proud!

Close Call

2010-07-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, we decided to visit the zoo with my grandmother and uncle. My uncle hadn't been in a long time, and my grandma hadn't seen the new baby elephant, Zuri. Since our membership doesn't expire til the end of the month, we thought it would be a great time.

K had her 12 year old well visit and immunizations, so we decided we'd all meet at the zoo, and then my grandma and uncle would watch the younger three while K and I dashed off for the doctor.

Things went well at the doctor, though we now know officially that K is exactly the same height as me. The nurse measured her barefoot, and she was 62" tall. Just to double check, we had her measure me as well. Exact same height. I am sure that K will be taller than me by the time school starts.

When we got back, we found everyone at the bird show, waiting for it to start. I noticed that Z was extra loving, and very cuddly, and my grandmother seemed shaken.

Apparently, while they were looking at the elephants, Z managed to wander off and get lost. Considering how small and quick he is, I'm not at all surprised. Losing a child in a public place is every parent's worst nightmare, and the sad thing is, I'm sure it's happened to every parent. My grandmother looked frantically for him, and had M running all over trying to find him, with no luck. After a couple minutes, they alerted a zoo employee, who got on a radio to alert the other employees.

Thankfully, another employee had already spotted Z, and had put him on his golf cart and had been driving him back to the offices so they could stick him wherever they put lost children. When my grandma got to him, he was his usual, stoic self, not crying or anything. He reported that he got to go for a ride with Lee (apparently the employee had introduced himself).

I consider the fact that all ended well (except I suspect my grandmother is deeply traumatized by the whole thing) to be a minor miracle. I know that 99.9% of the time when a kid gets lost, it ends this same way, but that doesn't make it feel any less miraculous when it happens. Everyday miracle, perhaps?

I feel bad that my grandma had to go through all that. I know that horrible feeling when you do a head count and come up short. I suspect it's even worse when you've been entrusted to care for said missing child. I know that she is a great caregiver, and trust her implicitly with my kids. Kids are just slippery little suckers, and easily get away. I'm hoping that the whole thing spooked Z a bit, and he'll be more careful to stay with the group from here on out.

Further proof of my eccentricity

2010-07-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

I told K that she could invite her entire class over for a birthday party for her 12th birthday. We'd attempted to have everyone over for an "end of school" party last year, but it didn't go so well. First, another boy in the class decided to have a party on the exact same day. I thought that was incredibly inconsiderate, especially considering they sent their invitations out several days after we sent ours. Then, to make matters worse, it POURED RAIN the whole party. Seriously. I live in the desert. We only have a handful of rainy days a year. My odds of choosing a rainy day were in the 1/300 range. But I managed to pick one. Go me. The kids were all amazing and wonderful and good sports, but we did have twenty something kids crammed into my front room, and had to think of games/activities on the fly. Regardless, I think the party last year was fun.

I figured if I let her have the party in July, my odds of choosing a rainy day would go down, and there'd be less chance of other parties interfering. I did tell K that if it rained again, I would have to commit suicide. Lucky for me, it was probably one of the hottest days we've had all year.

We had a good twentysomething kids come. We served hot dogs that they got to roast on the fire, fruit salad, chips, pasta salad, and marshmallows. We also gave out ice cream sandwiches. The kids had a huge water fight, played basketball, capture the flag, and "touch the electric fence".

As crazy as the whole thing sounds, it was actually a lot of fun. The kids seemed to really enjoy themselves, and the younger siblings also had fun. I let M invite one of his friends to the party so he'd have someone to pal around with.

M is DYING to have his entire class over for his birthday. Part of it is the funness, and I think a bigger part is he saw the MAD LOOT that K got. Seriously, some of these kids (and their parents) are so much more generous than I am!

I broke the news to M that his birthday is in February. I am NOT going to have 30 kids in my front room on purpose. He said that it could be a snow party. Ummm, no. I told him he could have a summer party. But then he wouldn't get gifts!!!!

Who knew that having a summer birthday was so much better?!

Another egg!

2010-07-14T22:10:00.000-07:00

Lucy laid another egg today! Even more exciting, she laid it in the nesting boxes we made.

I thought the first one was amazingly huge, at 2.5 ounces. Today's egg was even bigger though, at 2.75 ounces.

Wow!The first egg has a one on it, and the second egg is next to the mountain dew. I felt like it would provide better perspective than my hand.

Our first Egg!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-13T13:28:00.001-07:00

I've been starting to fret and obsess over the fact that our new hen, Lucy, hasn't laid an egg yet. I think J was too- between the two of us, we're checking almost every hour.

This morning, I was starting to worry that she was egg bound (basically means an egg is stuck, and can be fatal to chickens). I even posted to a forum worrying about it. They convinced me that I should palpate her belly and figure out if I could feel something in there.

So, I headed out to the coop to see if she was ok or not. Before I got a chance to molest her, I happened to see that she was most certainly NOT egg bound! I am so excited!

I took a picture of her egg, and put a grocery store "large" egg next to it for comparison. My egg is 2.5 oz, which is considered "jumbo".
Isn't it beautiful?

Now I'm thinking about trying to incubate it, since odds are really good that it's fertile.

Wild day at the "farm"

2010-07-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning, I went to check obsessively for eggs as soon as I woke up. As I was walking to the chicken area, I found what appeared to be a small cowpie. Hmmm, interesting. No egg though.

Disappointed, I walked back inside, and found a second cowpie on my way back.

Curious now, I went to check my neighbor's facebook page to see if she'd had any adventures this morning. Sure enough, there had been mischief.

When J was getting ready to leave for work yesterday morning, he saw the two horses and cow grazing in our neighbor's front yard. Originally, he thought they'd been tied there to be lawn mowers. When he came out to officially leave, he realized they were in our yard now too. He managed to wake up Jennie and helped her get the animals to the back yard. Bella took a couple bites out of my corn, but J managed to get her away before hurting the rest of my garden. Moose, the calf, walked through my garden, but managed to not step on a single thing. Amazing!

He helped her get the animals situated, and left for work.

Jennie and I were chatting about it soon afterwards, and I got a phone call from one of M's friends who lives on the next street down. They spotted Moose walking down that street. I ran over to let Jennie know, and a couple neighbors had managed to get Moose to Margaret's front yard.

Jennie was mortified and decided to keep her horses and cow in her fenced back yard proper where she knew they couldn't escape until they strengthened the fenceline in our yard.

This morning, we have a new and improved fenceline, so hopefully, this won't be a home where the livestock roam...

All in all, I found it to be hysterically funny, but it could've been tragic, and my poor neighbor was pretty upset about the whole thing.

Addition to our flock

2010-07-11T10:14:00.001-07:00

Now that the roosters are gone, I felt free to go buy one more hen. We haven't quite decided on a name, but Betty and Lucy are right up there.
For those who care, she is a Black Copper Marans. For those who REALLY care, she comes from Wade Jean and Bev Davis lines. I know that currently Bev Davis has a TWO YEAR PLUS wait for her fertilized eggs. Black Copper Marans lay a chocolate brown egg. Betty/Lucy did not lay an egg for me this morning, but after the trauma of being moved, I didn't expect it.

She is a full grown hen, just over a year old. Even though I could have gotten some chicks and raised them in the smaller chicken tractor, I just didn't have the energy, so I opted to get a full grown hen. She seems to be acclimating well with the other girls.

Clover is still around, but she didn't feel like getting her photo taken with everyone else.

Rooster Update

2010-07-10T19:38:00.001-07:00

We posted ad for us to be adopted to new famlee on KSL. Owner got phone from guy who tattle on us. He sez "Did you know your chickens have been sneaking on the internet?" Tattletale.

But, we forgivz him becuz he buyed us. He bring us to home with 40 girl chickenz who r verrrrry pretty. Plenty of girlz for both of us. Our own Harem! (henum?)

Yay us!

We live happily ever after.

Barbeque!!!!

2010-07-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Several different things collided yesterday to make for a great evening.

1- Our air conditioner broke
2- My dad quit working in the temple on Friday nights, so much more time for socializing
3- We haven't had my parents up in ages

So, we invited my parents up for dinner last night so they could visit, and fix our a/c. Initially I was going to grill ribs. As I got thinking though, I decided to make kabobs. I have to admit I went a little overboard though. I bought mushrooms, red and green peppers, purple onion, zucchini, yellow squash, and pineapple. Then, I set out to make three different kinds of kabobs. The first was very simple.

Ham & Pineapple Kabobs

I got a small ham and cut it into 1"x 1" cubes, and did the same with pineapple. Skewered them on the stick, and then grilled just until the outside had a bit of browning. These were definitely the biggest hit with the kids.

Next, I made beef and chicken kabobs. I used the same cut up veggies, but marinated the meat in slightly different marinades. For the chicken, I used one of my favorites, the Sanpete Marinade.

Sanpete Marinade

6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Marinade:
1 can lemon lime soda
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup creamy horseradish (it's usually by the mayo in the grocery store)
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 T crushed garlic
1 T ginger
coarse ground black pepper to taste

Cut the chicken into 1x1" pieces. Mix marinade in a gallon size zippered bag, and put the chicken cubes in the zipper bag. Let marinate in the fridge for a couple hours, or even overnight. I like the marinade even better with turkey, but turkey isn't as easy to get.

Steak Marinade

2 lbs steak, any cut, cut into 1x1" cubes

1/4 cup soy sauce

3 Tbl light brown sugar

3 Tbl distilled white vinegar

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp seasoned salt
1 Tbl pepper

1/2 c. lemon juice

4 fluid ounces lemon lime soda

Mix marinade in a gallon size zippered bag, and put the steak cubes in the zipper bag. Let marinate in the fridge for a couple hours, or even overnight.

I then assembled the kabobs. Knowing my kids are a little iffy about peppers and onions (and let's be brutally honest, I don't like them either), I made some kabobs that were all meat, and some that were all veggies.

It was so beautiful and colorful to see them on the grill.

Hmm, that's not right...

2010-07-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

One of the plants I put in my garden was a spaghetti squash. This is my first time planting it, since my mother in law always gave me a couple in the past. We really liked using it in place of noodles for a healthier spaghetti. I decided to grow my own. My mother in law was disappointed that she couldn't find any easily, and the one plant she did find died. I told her that I'd share with her.

This morning, I started looking at the fruit starts (or is it a vegetable?). While I am a spaghetti squash newbie, this really doesn't look right to me:While this does look like a fun and interesting squash, I'm sad that it's my "spaghetti squash". I was really looking forward to that this year. Why couldn't it have been my extra zucchini (one of the kids tossed an extra in my cart), or even my crookneck squash? It appears to be the beginnings of a "Pattypan Squash". It may be fun.

Now, this may still be hope for spaghetti squash. I never thin my starts, and there was two plants in the cup. The other one is blooming, but hasn't shown fruit yet. Maybe it will be a spaghetti squash?

Pleez Halp us!!!

2010-07-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

Pleez halp us! We iz very smart cockeralz. We think z we very handsum, but we herd our owner say we go to "freezer camp". This soundz bad. We think our only hope is to be show birdz. We stol camera and take photoz. Then we sneek on puter when everywun sleepytime. We post here to see if we have chance.R we pretty birds for showz, or must we goez to freezer camp?
Weez evun gud wif kidz.