Jingle Balls

Well, I finally went nuts for Christmas. I usually get antsy right around...January. It is so bad that I have to actually live by my own strict rule of "no Christmas until AFTER the Turkey has his day." And typically it is all I can do to wait. Then the day after Thanksgiving, I go "Jingle Balls" as my friends so aptly named it. I set up the tree, the lights, I bake, I make and I wrap my bootie off until, well...January.

The last couple of years have been atypical though. I finally decorated my tree and put frosty the snowman window clings up, but there hasn't been much Christmas in my spirit. Now, I find myself 2 weeks away from the joyous holiday and so behind I don't know what to do.

I am behind on gifts. Looks like cards won't get out. And I have a BUNCH of homework to do...what a wonder that I am not in the mood.

But I am changing all of that. After all, Christmas is a joy from inside you. The joy of sharing.

And Cookies.

I made gingerbread cookie dough and sugar cookie dough to rest last night. Cutting and baking will happen tonight, then decorating whenever I can get Peter to help. This last step will be the hardest for me. I want to get things done. Patience is a virtue that I do not possess. But I want to share the joy of Christmas with my DB and the best way that I know how to do that is to share my joy of cooking.

Which reminds me: Santa? Would you please send me the Joy of Cooking Cookbook for Christmas? I need it! My youngest cookbook (an everything cookbook) is 50 years old.

While I am here, I want to share with you how very cold it is! Here is a picture of our very frosted Lilac bushes.

Well, I get a big fat "F" in Blogging. I haven't updated for quite a while. Since I wrote last, Pippy got severely hurt, then got better, has been weaned, I enrolled in an MBA program and we have gotten into Dairy goats. Yes, I have just crossed the line.

I am officially: "Just Plain Crazy."

But, don't you want to hear about the goats? I am overly obsessed with self sufficiency, and the more research I did, the more I liked the idea of having dairy goats. They could cut milk and cheese (and possibly even butter if I can muster the patience of Job) right out of our grocery bill. Of course, they add some back on top of the grain and feed bill, but I will analyze that later, and then continue to not care.

After finally deciding to go ahead with the goats, I put out feelers and an ad on craigslist stating my purpose. Almost immediately I was contacted by sherry. She had 2 Saanen/Oberhasli doelings and offered them to me cheap. Perfect. Babies we could raise the way we like. So, about a week later, Trixie and Honey joined our Family.

About 2 weeks later, Sherry contacted me again to say that she has one more doeling that she would part with. A little Saanen/Lamancha. I have a huge soft spot for Lamancha goats, so Amy Farah Fowler (or just Amy in most cases) came to live with us also.

Along with Amy, we decided to take one of Sherry's bucklings. A small mini alpine/cashmere ball of adorable. We are going to use him to breed the does this winter and then castrate him. I think he will make a much better pet than a herd sire, and I can't wait to learn to spin his glorious fiber.

As if I didn't have enough on my plate.

I do have to say that these goats have added just the right amount of joy to my life. Amy is a little trickster, and we call her the "Parcor" goat. She will do a wheelie off of a bale, hit the wall and spin around before landing. Honey is a quiet little thing that follows me around and doesn't ask for much. Trixie likes attention. She wants to be loved and pet and scratched all the time.

We named the buck Willie, and he is so cute I can hardly stand it. He follows me around like a dog and seems to take part in every conversation. Cute. Cute. Cute. I got supplies to make drop spindles (I will post a tutorial when I actually get around to doing it) and I bought a few different kinds of fiber to learn to spin. Having one small cashmere goat won't give me enough for a sweater, but it will probably contribute to some pretty sweet mittens! Maybe a hat...I don't really know what to expect.

Which brings me to a bit of a gripe: Even on this marvelous World Wide Web, it is nearly impossible to find information on managing a small number of Cashmere goats. I plan to document what I learn by trial and error here so that maybe someday, someone can learn from me. Cashmere type goats are said to be hardier than Angora goats, they have finer fiber and I hear they give a decent amount of milk. Why don't more people have one or two? Maybe I can help to change all that.

As far as the rest of my life goes, I am behind in school, I haven't spent much time with my lovely Cricut, and my horses get ridden on the weekends (sometimes) because at 4:00 pm, when I get off work, it is pitch dark outside. Lovely.

Anyway, I promise (as an advance resolution for 2012) to update more often, provide pictures and maybe even some tutorials. Finally, a resolution that does not require me to give up chocolate; I am liking this more and more as I think about it.

Pippy

I hadn't realized how terribly neglected my poor little blog was. I mean the one and a half of you that might actually read this have probably already given up on me. But here, appropriately is my first post with actual pictures:

Anyways, you think that I own a Pregnant (yay) mare. That is not true any more, because on April 21, 2011, Pippy was born.



Now, the deal was, I breed sissy to a stunning Stallion named Zorro Dan Quincy, and the baby would be for sale. I spent 11 months praying for a rotten little colt that we could sell no problem. Who would be gorgeous and go to a show family, but who would not instill much of a desire in me to keep.

And then Pippy was born.



She is a tall, stunning red head with her dad's gorgeous short back, and her mom's beautiful face.

And, unfortunately for me, she also inherited both parent's personality.

Pippy is the little filly that will walk up to you, when she is out in the large pasture with her mommy and two aunties. She likes to be scratched...everywhere. She also picks up all four of her feet and lets me clean them. She is almost 2 months old and is almost halter broke. I mean she is the smartest and sweetest little thing.

And I absolutely love her. And everyone who meets her absolutely loves her. She is precious, and perfect. Which means I have another horse.

Bless Peter's heart, someone asked: "when are you going to sell her?" and he chimed right in, "when she is 37!" Do you see why I love him?

Pippy is such an angel, that we don't even have her right now. My parents were going to bring her and her mom down last weekend, but they chickened out and brought their older mare instead. There were all sorts of pretences and "well the grass would be good for Pepsi..." but the truth of the matter is that my parents hate to see her go. As much as I would love to be around her every single day, I can't blame them...



...I mean look at those faces!

New House....FINALLY

So, Peter and I finally moved. We started last Saturday (June 4) and everything was in our new house by Monday, June 6th. this was no easy feat either. It took two trips each with my parents' large and fancy 3 horse trailer with living quarters, and our 4 horse stock trailer. It also involved an entire trailer load to the dump.

How do two people gather so much CRAP? I mean, it is actually embarrassing to have that much stuff laying around, hiding in corners, that needed to go to the dump.

On Wednesday, we cleaned. We scrubbed from top to bottom and let me tell you, I was thankful that we kept it so nice because if we hadn't it would have taken us so much longer. Oh, and you know those white carpets I complained about? Well I had to clean them all the time because they are WHITE and we have ANIMALS, but thank God for that, because all they needed was some freshening up. The water in the carpet cleaner was clean. I am proud of myself...can you tell?

The new house...not so clean.

It is a lovely 2 story remodled farm house, with a 3/4 wrap around deck, a creepy meth basement, a large arena, pastures and...24 ACRES!!! Like, we super lucked out on this one scoob!

But, it is dirty. There are limbs down everyewhere. Thwe 100 year old barn is sturdy, but a walleyed mess. and the inside of the house is just filthy. I made a huge deal about how we take care of our animals, we clean up after them, they live in our home, not the other way around...and I am now thinking that I may have offended the owner. Who is a very nice, and classically busy soul. I really do like her, but GEEZ.

And the carpets.

OMG, the carpets upstairs were dastardly. I can think of no other word. They actually had a persona. And the smell would reach down the stairs and smack you in the face. They are a smart dark green color, and you know there is trouble when you look at dark carpets and can see dirt stains.

I have 2 Bissell Big Green Machines (which I get so much crap for by the way "why do you need two of those" all of the whiney voices ask) and a small little green machine for spot cleaning.

I was thanking the Maker for having 2 big greens because one of my machines actually BROKE while cleaning this carpet. I was pulling out the muddiest most disgusting water you could ever imagine, and I went through six bottles of pure Amonia (for cleanliness) and 4 bottles of "LA's Totally Awesome Floor Cleaner" in Lavender (for deoderizing).

After three tries, the smell was gone, and our carpets were cleaned. There are stains that I can do nothing about, but it smells fresh, we can move furniture in and I feel better about it!

Now for the lower level floors: gorgeous oak flooring that looks pretty hammered...until you get it clean. After 4 buckets of mop water, the dining room is clean, and actually sparkles. The newly painted walls and beautiful accent crown molding are really set off by the floors. Add our antique oak dining set, and china hutch and the result is breathtaking! And, to date, the dining room is the only finished room in the house.

Which brings me to the kitchen. For a moment, let's forget the food and utensils and boxes laying around (canned food of course, I'm not a pig!) and get to the root of the matter: a stunning updated kitchen with a convection combo oven, a glass cooktop and griddle combo range, a two tiered drawer style dishwasher and a recessed fridge. Those last two are most certainly broken.

Yup, brand new, and broken. The appliance store has the part to fix our fridge, and they are having two guys come out and fix it...sometime. The dishwasher is another story.

I opened it up to find Dog hair and crud in both drawers. In taking them apart to clean, we discovered that the drain hose is broken in half, so the dirty water was recycling right back onto the dishes. YUCK! So, that is in pieces until we can figure out how to get the hose.

These are just some of the things that need to be done. And believe me, there will be more. I will more than likely be talking a lot about this in the coming months, so be prepared!

One Year of Misery

Ok, this is it kids. Peter and I have officially been commuting 4 hours a day for one year.

52 weeks.

1000 miles per week.

Actually, total (including the time in which we had to commute seperately) we have driven 72,000 miles between work and home.

When we first moved there, I was so sure that we would be moving on to better things. In reality it has been a lesson in patience, and an out and out torture.

C25K: Week 4 (the re-mix)

Okay, I actually started week 4 today. I was so darned lazy all weekend I didn't feel like running.

In my defense, it was pouring and snowing most of saturday so I cleaned house. But Sunday, I simply didn't feel like it!

I was concerned about starting week 4 because I didn't actually get to use podrunner last week. I wrote the intervals on my hand the first day, and I only did one other run on which I ran for a mile and then stopped. I was surprised to make it a mile because I was supposed to be running 1/8 and 1/4 mile intervals. I kept making little deals with myself such as: "you can stop when you get to the crossing, but only if you are really tired." As it turned out "really tired" did not happen until I had run a half mile down, turned around and ran back.

Only then was I exhausted.

So, today I decided to go ahead with week 4, and it went well, but it was very hard. I ran at 1/4 and 1/2 mile intervals, keeping in time with the music. When I start out, I travel east to west. This may seem insignificant to most people, but on the palouse, the spring wind (which is a considerable force) blows west to east. It blew rain and snow into my face and made my ears ache. It also made me feel like someone was pushing back on my shoulders not allowing me to move forward, which I think added to my early fatigue.

But, I have run in the wind before. Arguably, never for as long as I did today, but I have always let my stubborn pride carry me through. The trip back to the office wasn't quite as bad, with the snow hitting me in the back. I was exhausted by the time I got back though. My body now wants nothing more than a nap, but that isn't going to happen.

After last week's success, I was all cocky thinking "oh, I will do a couple of days of week 4 and move on to 5" but I sincerely doubt that I will. I am going to run tomorrow, go to the gym wednesday and then run and go to the gym thursday and friday. Might as well hit it hard until I am in shape!

C25K: Week 4 (ahem, 3) and Chirunning

So, I had to repeat week 2 of C25K because my joints and bones were hurting. I decided to push through the pain on monday and start week three, only to find that I was missing that podcast on my ipod. So I tried to do a week 2 workout again and the pain was so bad I had to stop.

We were having a pretty horrible windstorm and I could barely walk, my knees and ankles ached and I just couldn't do it. It finally occurred to me that others have had these same issues, so I googled "C25K Joint Pain."

Lo and behold, there is nothing new under the sun. I found someone exactly my age having exactly the same problem. There were quite a few suggestions but the most common was heel striking, and many people suggested the girl check out "chirunning"

Well, that sounded so silly to me that I went again to google and typed in "how to avoid heel striking" and the first thing to come up was a chirunning video on youtube.

Fine. I decided to watch it. And it made sense. Go figure! I had to watch the video on silent, so the movements seemed repetitive and silly, but I got the gist by reading comments. Basically, I needed to shorten my stride so that I land on the squishy part of my heal instead of the very back of it like people tend to do.

Time to try it out.

I still didn't have the week 3 workout on my ipod, so I wrote down the intervals, and used the stopwatch function on my ipod. I got the dogs out of the car and we set out. Me using the new technique I had discovered, and them bouncing around like large bunnies...or small clowns.

To my surprise, the week three workout was the easiest of them all. I could feel the proverbial burn, but my joints actually felt better during and after my run, and I could have kept running for much longer.

Today I have been "chiwalking" the same way I ran and my pain (especially the constant pain in my bad ankle) is all but gone. Apparently I am a chronic heel striker and that has been causing all sorts of issues.

This whole running experience has done so much more for me than just help me get into shape. I have gained 3 pounds, but lost 2 inches off of my waist in 3 weeks. I am also starting to understand my body a lot better and I am figuring out other ways to be fitness conscious. It has really boosted my self confidence a lot!