Blogging is Hard

I used to be a blogger.

I would mentally notate things in my head throughout the day that i wanted to blog about.  I would delight in arranging the words of my story in a pleasing (and hopefully sometimes witty) manner.  I looked forward to blogging every couple of days and sometimes even a couple of times in one day!

Now i don't even recognize that person!

I still want to blog, but there are no words.  It seems exhausting to make a coherent sentence, much less a witty paragraph.  It seems difficult to pick out things to blog about in my new life now.  My creative writing juices just seem to have dried up.

All that is not to say that life is hard or bad or nothing to write about has happened.  Quite on the contrary!  Though our move has come with some inherent challenges and some surprise ones, as a whole i can not complain.  In fact i would say life has been great!  We are making great new friends, we love our new church, we are adjusting to our new schedule and things here have actually stopped seeming so new and strange and now feel, familiar.

My husbands job is going wonderfully!  He loves the people he works with, has an excellent supervisor and seems to handle his split shifts remarkably well!  His schedule allows us a lot more family time and a lot less stress about finances, which always makes everything a bit easier :)  He has found a great love for ice fishing, as we both are, and we are learning what activities we have available to us in our area.  We both drew deer tags this fall, and we both filled them as well, an exciting event for me as it was my first deer!

Gwen just continues to blossom and grow, becoming more talkative, friendly, and still just as girly and dramatic!  She loves to go visiting and have playdates with friends and especially loves reading books, dressing up, playing kitchen, having real tea parties and anything to do with princesses!  She is a Cubby in Awana and is doing remarkably well, since she is 6 months to young to be involved.  But since mommy is the music leader, Gwen gets to go!

I have found fabulous and supportive friends within our church and the local MOPS group.  I love the sense of community and family that we have found here.  Everyone is so friendly and kind and the community as a whole seems to be very conservative in their values and morals, it is so refreshing!

The challenges of moving and adapting in a new state has served to stretch us and grow us and only bring us closer together.  Only to God can i give all of the glory for that.  He has been stretching and growing me in ways i didn't even know i needed!

And all i can say is life is good.  But right now, blogging is hard.

Maybe someday, it will get easier again

EXCITED!!!

When i first went to college for massage, i kinda knew i would want to go into pregnancy massage.  As i learned more about massage and the various modalities i could specialize in, i added getting my doula certification as a goal of mine as well.  Now five years later, two years of not actively practicing massage, and three births to attend before i am a certified Massage Doula, I am finally attending my first  birth!

And what makes it even better, is that i get to attend the birth of my second little nephew 

I hope you can feel my excitement through this page!!!

My little sister is having her first baby, and hopefully, over the two weeks that i will be in Idaho, that little guy will decide to make his entrance.

I am a little nervous, as i feel out of practice and a bit unprepared as all my massage doula literature is packed in boxes far away in Idaho.  But mostly excited!  Excited to have a nice long visit with family.  Excited to help my sister through this incredible rite of passage and into motherhood, and excited to try my hand at actually being a massage doula.

Maybe someday, i can actually assume that title as my job title?  Or maybe i will shoot for midwife :)

Moving Pains

I know i have talked a lot about how moving two states away and getting used to a new place has been challenging.

It has also been interesting and i am continually suprised at how many little things are different here, and how much i notice them!

For instance, barrow pits.  In Idaho, you probably never even notice them.  Most of the freeways have nice big ones (in Idaho we call them "shoulders" more often) but they are mostly covered in weeds and are only green for about two weeks in early spring.  I remember when they put in a few new overpasses and planted it all up in beautiful green grass and shrubs and flowers.  Now they are all dead and brown because (i am assuming) they didn't water them.  I always wondered why they went to all that work just to have it look as bad as the weedy patches.

Not in North Dakota.  Not just on the freeways, but nearly every road, driveway and such has big green grassy barrow pits.  And since we get more moisture here, they are almost always green!  Lots of homeowners actually MOW theirs, and often it seems the county or city mows the main ones on the main roads (kinda weird huh?).  This girl who comes from the desert thought it looked awful pretty, but was kinda silly.  So i tried to figure out why they would do this ( i just didn't think that it could be just for looks).  Maybe it is because of all the snow they usually get?  And all the rain?  Having tall, unruly grass in your barrow pit that is supposed to hold all the scraped off snow could present a problem.

But now i think i have figured it out.  Or at least found another reason.  In the last couple of weeks, guess what i have seen in these barrow pits?  Big, round bales.  Thats right!  They cut and bale all the grass in their barrow pits!  At first i though, what a lot of work!  But i guess if you need to mow your barrow pits so that there is room for snow and water, then you might as well get some hay out of it!

Another thing i have talked and though about a lot is how dry it is here!  Though we get a lot more moisture then my desert like Idaho, somehow my body gets more dry here!  I think it is the extreme cold and the tons of wind we experience.  So about three weeks after moving here, i started to experience excruciating headaches that felt sinus in nature and didn't seem to improve with pain relievers.  I soon discovered it was because my nasal passages had gotten so dry that they were causing me pain!  I started putting vaseline in my nose, and that helped a bit.  I tried to drink more water, but found that the interruption of my sleep from drinking so much water, was not worth the minor improvement i got.  I began to despair and wish there was a switch to tell my body to make more snot!  (never thought i would wish for more boogers!)  Finally i learned that saline is actually moisturizing.  I began to carry around a bottle and would spray my nose frequently!  Now i think my body has adapted, because i am forever having to deal with TOO many boogers!  (hard to please, right?!?)  What a crazy thing to deal with just because we moved!

PINTEREST!!

Lately i have been on a Pinterest/crafting spree!

I know that sometimes Pinterest can be a bit of an obsessions and sometimes i probably spend more time then i should on that sight.

But


But i have also found so many AMAZING things that have changed and improved our life in so many ways, i also think if you can use it as a tool that it can be an amazing tool!

I can not even count the amount of recipes i have tried and added to our repertoire.  Quite a few fun crafts and projects for Gwen have come from Pinterest as well as some amazing money saving decor ideas for her room and our future house, halloween costumes, plus i have planned an entire amazing birthday party for Gwen, with tons of help from Pinterest, that i know would not be so great if not for this amazing site! Cool stuff like freezing chopped green onions in an empty water bottle, starting an avocado tree and growing plants from kitchen scraps, homemade from scratch recipes, making our own laundry soap and cleaners, plus i have learned an amazing amount towards eating whole foods and cooking healthy and using more natural products.  Plus so much more!  It has touched my life in more positive ways then i can even remember!  I LOVE PINTEREST! p

Reflections

Most of the time, i just don't know where all that time gets to.  I know each day i start out with the same amount, but it seems to slip away so quickly.  If i could figure out where it flew, i might fly there too!

Already, we are coming up on our first year anniversary of living in North Dakota. I still can't believe it has been that long.  It has been full of new experiences, some good and some bad, lots of struggles and heart ache and trials, but just as many good things as well.

We love the ice fishing and regular fishing, the enormous and beautiful lake that is so conveniently close to us for recreation.  We loved sledding and snowmobiling (what little we got to do, with almost no snow), and we love the people here.  Everyone is so friendly and accepting, so open and.... conservative.  It is nice to fill like you aren't some weird overly religious, ultra-conservative wacko.  Most people here still go to church and seem to believe in God.  It is refreshing!  We love all the time we get together as a family, and the thought of maybe getting to ice skate or have a child in hockey.  We love all the families we are getting close to and friends we are making and most of all our church.  We love our church! It was a hard bill to fill, coming from a very dear and loving church that we had practically grown up in with a Pastor as much as a dad and uncle to us as any.  But God is so good, and He gave us a wonderful church where we have met many good friends for ourselves and Gwen, and where we are continually challenged to live each day filled with the Holy Spirit and surrendered to His Will so our actions and reactions can give glory to God and point people to the cross.

And now we are embarking on a new adventure, as we are beginning to look for a house here, so we can have our own home.  Though our Idaho house is far from selling and looks to be a long and messy process, we have decided it is time to really put down roots.  We need our own space.  Gwen needs an actual ROOM, and Daddy needs to have a shorter commute.  So please, pray for us as we look at taking on a SECOND mortgage and buying another small, needs work house and how scary that all is.

On the up side, Me and Gwen are so excited to be traveling to Idaho soon, in hopes of being there for my little nephew's birth.  I am excited to hold this new precious little bundle from God when he arrives, and to fellowship with family and friends.  And lets be honest, to show off how much Gwen has grown and changed and how cute she (usually) is.  It is still so hard to believe that she will be turning three in just a few short months and starting "preschool" as i will be doing a preschool curriculum with her here at home (yikes!)  She has grown up so much in the last year, she is now potty trained, brave and climbing at the park, not afraid of making friends and meeting new kids, talking up a storm, no more highchair or sippy cup, and just in general being "grown up".  Turning on the lights herself and going potty herself and getting dressed herself and doing everything HERSELF!  (We hear that a lot around here :)

I am hoping now that things are settling into a nice fall routine, and we once again have a computer, that i will manage to blog.  At all.  I have missed it a lot, and am hoping to touch base more often.  It seems though that my thoughts and feeling are often so scrambled it is hard to put them down in a coherent form!  Must be mommy brain :)

Running

I have always envied runners.  How they can just get up and go for a workout wherever they are at and come back all rosy and flushed and saying that they had such a GOOD run! 

I have always hated running.  I don't know if it was the actual act of running, if it was that i couldn't watch TV while working out or if i am just not built to be a runner.  I couldn't manage to like it, not even tolerate it. 

And while i have always WANTED to have a consistent workout routine, it had alluded me.  That was another reason why i envied runners, the apparent ease with which they exercised on a regular basis.  It was like i was missing something, some grand awesome thing that happens when running that makes you want to do.  They always talked about a runners high, i usually got a bad temper.

But suddenly all that has changed.


And now, i think, i might be a runner!


For the past two weeks or so i have been "running" ( more like walking a lot and jogging in between till i feel like stopping).  Most evenings, as soon as our toddler is in bed, i go until our lab and we go for a run.  I have no idea how far i go, but i am usually gone between 30 minutes and an hour.  I still haven't quite figured out why it is working and why i actually, desperately sometimes, want to run but i do.  Maybe it is the time alone, maybe it is the physical exertion, or that i have a "companion" of sorts to run with, or maybe it is because the weather is generally really nice and wind free around that time of the evening.  Maybe it is because we live "out" and the most likely thing i will run into is a pheasant.  I don't really know and i don't really care.  I am just glad that something is finally working for me!

And yes, maybe just maybe, i might be a runner!

That " Cowy" Flavor

In my quest to know more about nutrition and whole food, i have found that raw milk from grass fed cows is nutritionally superior over store bought milk.  I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say the difference was big enough that i was a little desperate to find a source of raw milk here in North Dakota.  Imagine my dismay when searching online, i found it has been OUTLAWED to sell raw milk in this state.

How sad.

Thankfully, there are enough health conscious people around who agree that raw milk from grass fed cows, when handled properly is not only nutritionally superior, but perfectly safe.  So of course, they have found ways to get around this law so that they can feed their family safe whole foods.

So i dug in deeper and had found a couple leads, but all much to far away to make it practically for consistent supply.  Finally i decided i should consult a dear friend at our church who i knew to be very "granola" and figured that if there was a source near by, she would know about it.  Imagine my surprise and delight when she informed me that they actually had several pastured Jersey's and would have plenty of milk for my needs!  Yeah!

We got our first gallon for "pet food" on Sunday and i was quite eager to start drinking safe and healthy milk.  I remembered having raw milk in my childhood and was looking forward to the unequalled flavor and creaminess.  So imagine my surprise when i took a big drink and had a hard time swallowing.  The only way i can describe it was that it was decidedly "cowy".  Not in the way you think of cows, like that it tasted like the smell of manure or something.  It was just so obviously "cow juice" from a cow, that it was all i could think of.  Crud!  How am i going to drink raw milk that i can't deny is so much better for me if it tastes so weird?

Luckily, after some discussions with my dad and sister, i got some answers.

First of all, me getting raw milk, is like the first time people who have grown up on store bought meat eating grass fed beef.  They ask if it is deer because it tastes wild and gamey.  I always thought this was silly, but i grew up on grass fed beef.  That is essentially what i am going through with grass fed raw milk.  I only had raw milk occasionally as a child and it was from a dairy.  And apparently when you have multiple cows adding to the milk, it kinda levels out the flavors and you don't taste the "cowy".  I am getting milk from ONE cow.  So whatever she eats, or if she is just started milking or almost finished, all of that will change the milks flavor.  I also found drinking it ice cold helps.  And last but not least, my sister said i will get used to it and not taste it anymore.

Phew!  Cause after going to all this trouble, and paying a considerable amount for high quality grass fed raw milk, i was afraid all my work would be for naught!

I am now GRANOLA

Wow!  All i can say is whole foods and knitting, knitting, knitting!  I have been planning several baby knits, as my dear sisters are bringing me a niece and a nephew this year (phew!).  I have been having so much fun with all these fun baby knits i have had to remind myself to take it one step at a time.  I will have the rest of their LIVES to knit cool things for them, i don't have to knit them all NOW!  I have also been having fun planning secret and exciting Christmas gifts, but those you will have to wait a long time to find out about :)

And i am still so wrapped up in learning more about healthy food.  It just continually amazes me how PROCESSED even the most innocent of foods are.  And all just to make a buck.  It is a sad world we live in when food producers care more about making money then making something healthy and nutritious for its customers.

Did you know that most chicken we buy is bleached?  They do this because there is so many diseases because they cram so many chickens into such a small place and then feed them ground up parts from other dead chickens and animals.  Gross.

And did you know that beef has been given the bad rap of being unhealthy only because the industrialized way we raise beef has MADE it unhealthy?  Cows were not meant to eat only grain and yet that is all we feed them, plus antibiotics to keep them from getting sick because they are also crowded and in their own poo.  Ewww.  The grain diet makes them gain fat and weight quickly, making them a lot fattier then their grass fed counterpart.

And did you know that when you buy pasteurized milk, that they allow 300,000 to 500,000 parts of fecal matter in it while raw milk they only allow 25?  That is what pasteurization has in part, caused.  Laziness when it comes to cleanliness. 

I could go on and on.  I have learned so much about food in the past couple of days i can't hold it all in!  I just can't believe that companies have allowed this, that we are so ignorant of this.  If we can't even buy chicken, beef, eggs or milk the way they were meant to be, unprocessed and grown properly, then how much GROSSER are things we buy in boxes and bags that have things in them we can't pronounce?

Wow.  I have become a "granola" person overnight.

All that Natural stuff

Now that i am no longer working outside of the home, i have time to make plans.

To make plans for healthier eating, finding whole and nutritious foods, weeding out the chemicals that pervade our everyday lives.  Plans for growing medicinal herbs, and cleaning with natural ingredients and (shock of all shocks) washing my face with honey.  Yes, honey.  Plans for teaching our daughter and preschool curriculums and bible verses, bible stories, shapes and colors and names and numbers and all that is necessary and good and exciting to a 2 1/2 year old.  Plans for projects to start and field trips to take and camping trips to make and knitting to commence.  So many things that need done and want to be done and that would be cool to do.

It can get a bit overwhelming!

As always, i find, my nemisis, my difficulty is in drawing the lines.  Where to stop and what to say yes to, while always saying no to something else.

Lately i have really been caught up in nutrition and whole foods and all that it entails.  I am conscious of the fact that i can not implement everything all at once and go all green and all natural in one fell swoop.  But the more i learn and find and discover about this bad chemical and that bad filler and this cool easy way to clean and so on, the more i want to implement more and more!  I have to tell myself to take it easy!  But it is so exciting to me, to be able to know i am feeding my family healthy whole foods.  That we know what everything is on the ingredient list, that we are reducing our exposure to the toxins and chemicals that pervade the most tiniest moments of our lives.

I am also excited to learn more and more about medicinal herbs and there uses.  In American, herbs are so very neglected and there has been such a pall of danger and fear cast over them, that i know many will tell me i am playing with fire by using herbs.  But many of our modern medicines have extracts derived from these herbs, or properties chemically altered or changed, but that came from an herb.  And for our forefathers, herbs were their only medicines, and often a very good medicine.  Herbs are by nature less potent and more gentle to human bodies, they tend to work within your body, rather then against it.

Now don't get me wrong, i am not going to never go to a doctor, nor will i shun antibiotics when needed, surgery or the like.  And i am pretty sure i will still have a bottle of tylenol in my medicine cabinet, as i have yet to find a effective pain relieving herb that doesn't come with some pretty substantial risks, at least to me.  But i am interested to see what herbs can do, and will most likely be trying a home remedy before rushing to the medicine cabinet, as i learn more about God's green medicines.

As always, i have many knitting projects planned, and some actually in the works.  And i always want more :)  I have also been excited about the biblical preschool curriculum i have found online.  Many of my fellow homeschooling moms directed me to multiple websites where they gleaned this from one and that from another, telling me that the free stuff was often just as good as the stuff you had to pay for.  For a short time i was feeling, compelled or feeling bad that this prospect did not excite me.  In fact it frightened me and made me feel like quitting on this whole homeschool endeavor, at least until next year.  But then i realized, it is okay that teaching itself is not my passion.  I do not get excited about creating lesson plans or finding a great game to teach math with.  I would rather someone else find it and package it into a tidy little book that i can look into each day, or a couple days before hand, and know what that days plan is.  And there is no shame in that.  Though teaching may not be my passion, my CHILDREN or rather, my child IS my passion, and thus the decision to homeschool.  So i will do my best, and will not feel bad about buying a curriculum, rather then making my own.  Besides, the curriculum i am getting also has 12 other supplemental materials/learning tools that i have to make on my own.  Eeeek!  And that is more then enough for me!

And through all of this has been the struggle to settle.  Though i can not stress enough how good this move has been for our family, and how certain we are that this was the path God has for us, it does not make the hard parts any easier.
It has been quite a struggle deciding what to do with our house in Idaho, and the struggle is not over.  The market is so dismal that in human terms, it just might not be possible to sell.  So I am glad that we have a very big God working for us on this.  And as is that is not enough, as typical humans we like to borrow trouble and worry about finding housing HERE once everything in Idaho is buttoned up.  To put it lightly, housing is in extremely high demand here, thus prices are going up and supply is extremely low.  And with the uncertainty as to whether or not dear husband could be moved to a different mine within his company, we are unsure whether to rent or buy, and if either will be possible.  All this on top of the inherent stress of not having your own place, somewhere to call HOME and put down roots and make it your own.  Well, it has just all been rather stressful.  But thank goodness, God is bigger then it all and we know he has a plan, it just isn't always easy to live that "knowing".

But hallelujah, it seems that summer is finally here!  I know i will not love a lot of the weather out here, but i have been incandescently happy that the sun is back and it is WARM!  It is amazing what some good weather can do for your spirits!

So on continues this great adventure in the Great Plains of North Dakota.  I guess God never said life would be boring!

Yard Sales and Rummaging

I have always been big on yardsaling! Why buy something brand new when you can get it used, cheaper and in just as good of shaep?  My husband used to make fun of me for screeching to a halt whenever i saw a sign (not really, but if i could read it fast enough i would screech around the appropriate corner :)  That was until i showed up back at home one day after buying Snap-On tools for pennies at a yardsale.  And he has been singing my praises ever since! (For those of you who don't know, Snap-On tools are like the Rolls Royce of tools and are therefore super expensive.  Unless you get them at a yardsale!)

So of course, shortly after arriving in North Dakota, i started to interrogate my newly made friends about the yardsaleing practices of our quaint little town.  Do we have good yard sales?  Where are the best?  Etc, etc.  I was disappointed to find that we don't really have many yard sales.  I begin to think, what is wrong with these midwestern folk?  Don't they know yard sales are fantastic?  Don't they know they can make money off their old stuff cause it might be someone else's treasure?

But then i unearthed the secret.  They don't have yard sales much because twice a year they have a CITY WIDE yard sale weekend.  Only they call them rummage sales.  Let me repeat that again: CITY WIDE RUMMAGE SALES! 

Holy.  Cow.

This is too good to be true!  But it wasn't.  Oh, it was gloriously wonderfully perfect!  So our quaint little town had their city wide last weekend.  Of course thursday i came down with the worst cold in HISTORY (and i am not even kidding, never had such a horrible cold.  Thought i had pneumonia) but of course that didn't stop me.  I woke up bright and early on friday morning, armed with DayQuil and my long suffering daughter and hubby (he was such a good sport) and we drove around town looking for the sales we were interested in.  Oh, and did i forget to mention that the local paper publishes a MAP of all the rummage sales and where they will be not to mention times and a running list of a selection of items!?!

Oh yeah!

We actually "rummaged" so well on friday that i almost didn't go saturday.  But i stuck it out and two days and $100 dollars later, i had an almost complete summer wardrobe, Gwen is done with summer and more then half way into winter and we got countless other odds and ends items that you just can't get for a couple bucks brand new! 

I did find out though that "rummaging" with your husband, your money doesn't go as far.  And you buy things you never thought of buying before.  And sometimes he buys things you don't really want him too.  But it was well worth having the company and the help with Gwen, not to mention my own personal driver :)

We got a slide for Gwen, now hubby just has to make the swing set part.  We got an adorable elephant humidifier for our little tike, as well as her first bike which was of course pink.  I really can't even remember what else we got, as it was mostly clothes, but it was all very cool.

So now i can say i really like one thing about living here:  the city wide rummage sales!

And they are having another one before school!  Yipee!!

Ahh, Pinterest

A couple of days ago, i had a Pinterest day.  This doesn't mean i spent the whole day on Pinterest, though i don't think it would be that hard to do.  Instead i tried a bunch of new things i had pinned from Pinterest. 

If you don't know what Pinterest is, it is sort of like an online bulletin board where people can pin pictures, ideas, DIY instructions, just about anything they want, and then those of us who might not be so creatively inclined, get to feel creative by pinning and trying all these cool ideas!  It is a well spring of information, recipes and innovative ideas, and i must say, i have felt more creative since joining Pinterest.

Anyway, i have amassed quite a collection of recipes and other things and since i have been especially tired of all the recipes i have, we have been trying a lot of new things.  One of my favorite parts about Pinterest, besides the recipes, are the recipes and ideas that take us "back to our roots" as you might say.  Really doing things from scratch, in a healthier and cheaper way.

So on my Pinterest day i tried making homemade ranch dressing (which turned out to be the MOST fabulous i have ever tasted),  and made my own yogurt (which i have actually been doing for the last two months in my crockpot and everything about it is amazing!  It tastes so good and it is so much cheaper and healthier without all the added thickeners, preservatives and sugars.  Plus i have been pleasantly surprised that it keeps for quite awhile.  It has never made it past three weeks since by then we have eaten it all :)  I have been making my own sour cream for awhile as well which is also super easy, healthier and cheaper for us here in North Dakota as everything dairy is outrageously expensive.  Since it is made with heavy cream though, probably not on the low fat side :)  I have also made my own dryer balls (pretty much they replace dryer sheets, keeping all the chemicals and artificial scents off your clothes and they last for five years!  So i will be saving some money on dryer sheets :), mixed up my own laundry soap which i have not used yet, but i am really excited and hoping that it works.  It cost me about $25 dollars and it is supposed to last for a year of doing 4-5 loads a week!  I have been making my own better butter which is a recipe i got from my Aunt a long time ago.  It is a way to stretch your butter farther, and to also have soft from the fridge butter, rather then buying the fake stuff that is almost plastic.  Once again, healthier and probably cheaper too.  Another fun thing i am trying was a recipe for iced coffee.  Now this probably was not cheaper, because i don't spend money on iced coffee as it is.  And most of the time i don't spend money on coffee at all.  Plus i went all out and bought coffee at Starbucks, which turned out to be way more expensive then i remember from working there 7 years ago (wonder why?!?).  But the finished product?  Oh. my.  So yummy, like Starbucks Double Shot in a can, only in my own house!  And not 2 dollars per tiny can!  I think i will definitely be repeating this one!  I have tried quite a few recipes and so far we have enjoyed most of them, if not all.  Oh, i almost forgot, and this is a big one for you crafty minded folk.  Tried out a recipe for homemade Mod Podge, since all of you crafters know it is ridiculously expensive, and i have two words for you.  Elmers and water.  That is it!  And though i have yet to use it myself, there were quite a few reviews on the blog i got the recipe from, and they were all VERY good.

Next i will be trying homemade artisan bread in 5 minutes a day, maybe homemade mayo and who knows what else!  If you haven't joined, maybe you should check it out.  Happy Pinning!

Water water everywhere, but why is it so dry?!?

Lately i have been mulling over the harshness of the land that i live in now.  I don't think i ever realized when i read books like the Little House on the Praire series, that all the blizzards and the crazy weather things they experienced, people still experience today.  It wasn't just like that because it was the old days or because they did'nt have electricity.  If you live in the midwest region of the US, especially the further you go north in this region, you will experience some pretty harsh weather.

We were prepared for this, or at least i thought we were, when we moved here.  We knew winters were bad, there was a lot of snow and it would get unearthly cold.  So we outfitted ourselves with boots and gloves and excellent cold weather gear.  Especially my hubby, since he would be out working in it.  We spent more on a pair of long johns for him then i have ever spent on a pair of shoes, or even a purse.  We even bought a pickup, thinking we would definitely need it for my hubby to drive the 50 miles to work everyday.


Then the winter never came.


Oh, we had some killer wind.  Wind so bad that i didn't think it could ever really blow that hard.  And it did get cold, down in the single digits and a couple weeks of below zero.  And the cold was somehow COLDER here, i know that sounds silly, but i said the same thing about the heat in Arizona.  Ninety-five degrees did not feel as hot in AZ as it did in ID.  But all in all, our winter here was pretty mild, yet extreme.

Are you following me?


What made it extreme were the weather fluctuations.  I don't think it was ever in the same general weather pattern for more then two weeks, and it hasn't been since we move here.  One day it is blowing like the dickens and your ears could freeze off your head, and two days later you are thinking about digging out the shorts and taking your kids to the park.

But what i really wasn't prepared for is how DRY it is here.  You wouldn't think so being surrounded by water in the form of rivers and numerous lakes, not to mention that all the farming here is non-irrigated, but it really is DRY!  Three weeks after we moved here i thought i was getting a cold, or something sinus like because i was getting these horrible sinus headaches.  I later found out that it was because my sinuses had gotten so dry that they were swelling and irritated.  Fast forward seven months of trying to learn to cope with this problem.  Vaseline every night in the nose, drinking water like a fish, taking steam inhalations and using a humidifier.  It has been very frustrating!

Finally i got the bright idea of asking someone who has lived here longer then me :)  I was told :  Saline spray.  Use it as often as you need, and sooner or later your body will adjust.

Sigh


I suppose this probably should not be a big deal, but it has been a daily irritant.  And i am ready to fix it!

So tomorrow i am buying saline spray, lots and lots of it.  And now i will be packing it around with me.  Everywhere!

What We've Been Doing

I don't know if i have mentioned that spring in North Dakota is literally bi-polar. One day it will be 80 or 90 degrees and two days later it is nearing 10 degrees and snowing. Or it goes from windy and dry to pouring rain. Anyway, we have had to learn to adapt to this, but we have still managed to have some fun this spring!

Our first, and so far only, snowman for this winter

smiling for the camera, she loved making the snowman and playing in the snow!

This picture was taken after we went sledding on a FABULOUS sledding hill here in town.  One of the parks has an amazing hill with plenty of room at the bottom so you don't slide into the road.  It is a hot spot when the snow is flying and this evening was no exception.  Though it was so cold (about 13 degrees and with the wind chill it was probably a lot colder) that we didn't dare go down the hill more then twice.  When i started talking funny cause my face was so cold, we high tailed it out of there.  But we had so much fun and Gwen LOVED it!

She has gotten so brave about going down the slide all by herself, and most of the time now, we just sit back and watch her play.  Oh, and this was only a couple days after sledding :)

In March we went to South Dakota to visit my little brother Shane and his wife Val.  We mostly helped them take care of cows and rode horses.  Gwen loved riding and asked to ride "the Grace and Mercy horseys" every day.

Daddy got Gwen a little pink princess fishing pole, so one afternoon we took her out to teach her how to fish

Easter Sunday was, of course, cold.  So we bundled her up for her egg hunt and did it really quick!

She loved riding with Nana to mow the lawn, which is a good thing as she will probably have to ride with Mommy this summer

Here she is hiding in her baby doll bed.  Silly girl!

A Wretch Like Me

Sometimes it just seems like nothing can go right.  You don't know what to do with what you have been given, find yourself asking why?  Why can't anything just ever be all easy?  Why is there always a stick in the mud?

I've been asking myself that a lot lately, as we are plunging into a new phase of this crazy North Dakota adventure.  And i am having a hard time not seeing the horizon of this new phase as all gray, nothing good to change the outlook, just a long, long time of sacrifice and frustration.

And though i know that God makes the ugly into the beautiful, and that someday, on the other side of this valley, i will be able to see the beautiful tapestry that God meant to be woven into me, into my life, because of this valley experience.  But unfortunately knowing is not believing, and even believing is not LIVING the knowing. 

Maybe that is my prize, to learn to LIVE my believing, to let every faucet of my life be colored with my knowing of who God is and HOW MUCH he loves me.  I think i just might need a little more time to get used to how God loves.  Sometimes it doesn't feel like love.  It feels like pain and stress and headaches, worries and taut muscles tangled into knots, and frustration at the hand you have been dealt.

But that is when i am seeing through my eyes, and not HIS. 

Sigh

I wonder how Christ must have felt about how his Father loved Him.  Christ got sent to a cross, to be hung by nails through his body, stripped of all skin and recognizable features.  The way that Christ's Father loved him was to give him pain, unimaginable pain, just to save ME.  Me, the whiny one who just can't believe, who just can't live her belief.  Who complains when something isn't all easy.  No wonder one of the disciples described himself as a wretch.  That is what i am too.  And yet He LOVES me.

I don't think i will every fully understand that love, but i am trying.  And i hope someday to be able to LIVE my believing, and to see the storms of life coming and rejoice for the knowing of how much my heavenly Father LOVES me.

A wretch like me

Caught in the Busyness

Though my schedule looks bare and empty and forlorn, it still amazes me how you can just get caught up in the busyness of all that is life.

With potty training starting, and stopping and stuttering and going again over numerous mopped up puddles and wet pants and squeals of excitement over m&m's won for doing business on the all important pot, every day, every moment can sometimes feel a little anxious.  Have i waited to long to take her?  Is she hiding somewhere making a mess?  Will something be ruined this time or will i get lucky and find a puddle on the tile floor instead of a mushy step on the carpet?  Is she learning?  Are we starting too soon?  Doing the right thing?

Only God knows.

All i know is i don't love potty training.

Then there is pinterest.  A wonderful, maddening online pin board where you can find so many scrumptious looking recipes, fabulous kids craft ideas, amazing homes and DIY projects, and much of your spare time.  Yes, you can spend so much too much time there.  But boy have i learned some great things!  From amazing sock bun curls by wearing my hubby's dress socks to bed on my head, storing fresh chopped green onions in a empty water bottle in the freezer, cute hair ideas for Gwen, artisan no-knead bread, homemade and easy sour cream, and about 50 new recipes i can't wait to try.  Yes, i have lost time.  But gained a feeling of being smart and creative.  :)

And Oh!  Ice fishing.  Our new winter-time past time.  I have now went twice, and actually caught a fish this last time!  We have been blessed with mild days in which to go ice fishing without the freezing part, as the last time we went it was nearly 45 degrees.  Being on the ice still scares me, and it is unnerving that though you know the ice is thick after you see how deep your holes are, it still cracks and groans and sputters at you as you walk across it.  I must confess, some good loud cracks have sent me slipping and sliding for shore.  And it will be even more fun when we figure out how best to treat our most frequent catch, the Northern Pike, so we can actually bring fish home and eat them!  Here are some pictures of our most recent trip:

And the worst part of the busyness:  trying to figure out our housing situation, when we have a house that needs to be sold in a severely depressed market and we are hoping to buy in a market that is booming and growing and has little choices for higher and higher prices and tough competition with other buyers.  (sigh)  Though we know God has a plan, as He worked miracles to get us here, right now it feels a little impossible and depressing. 

But all in all life is good.  I have a great group of ladies who have taken me in as their friend, and we have already had some fun times together.  I also have been attending MOPS here which is HUGE as most mommies are stay-at-home here.  And a great deal of the people we are meeting are transplants, just like us, and so we all kinda feel like kindred spirits, and we all step in as each other's "family".  It has been a beautiful thing :)  I can't say we love everything about North Dakota, but it has been good to us so far and we praise God often for the blessings He has brought our way, here in the frigid praire of North Dakota.

Snow Fun

We really do love to snowmobile!  We were blessed with the ability to travel to Idaho last month for a snowmobiling vacation!  (that is how far we had to go to get some snow ;)  Our little one went to a very excited Nana and Papa, who have not seen her for the last 4 months since our move, and mommy and daddy jetted away to the snowy mountains of Garden Valley.  We lounged in the hot springs pool and played in the powder to our hearts content!  It was a much needed play time for me and my hubby and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it!  Here are some pictures of our trip:

Knitting Pictures

Here is the beautiful hat i am working on, in Spud and Chloe yarn

The scarf i will probably NEVER finish because the pattern is so involved!  But boy will it be beautiful when i do :)

The lacy hat i am knitting to go with my green fingerless mitts.  This one also has been taking awhile

I found a pattern i like to knit Gwen a cardigan.  Now if i can only figure out what yarn and color to use!

I fell in love with this hat the first time i saw it, and i know it will be in my knitting bag in the near future

A scarf that i think i will love, but i have to learn to knit from a chart, and i've never done that.  Plus it is another marathon project as it is knit with lace weight yarn, and as you can see has quite an involved pattern

This is the pattern i have chosen to knit my first sweater!  I am excited and a little nervous, but i think it will be forgiving if i am a little off on the sizing and the fit.

And here is the BEAUTIFUL yarn i will be using to make the sweater!

Oh, here is my first pair of fingerless mitts.  I have been putting them to good use!

I got all of my patterns off of Ravelry.com, a great site for knitters and crocheter's.  And most of the patterns were free!

I also just ordered yarn for one more pair of slippers: my own!  I knit all those slippers and never knit myself any.  So now i am going to, and i need to knit Gwen a pair as well.

More picture to come!

How You Know When It's Cold

When you walk outside, you can't breathe


You can't feel your face after 10 seconds


Your vehicles won't start unless plugged in, and even then, it might be an uphill battle


It doesn't snow, it beats ice particles down at you and the air shimmers it is so full of ice


It just "looks" really, really cold


When you come inside from starting your car, you talk funny cause your face is numb


Your ears ache even when you wear a stocking cap


Mittens don't come even close to keeping your hands warm


Everyone leaves their vehicles running:  at the grocery store, the gas station, the bank, etc.  If you turn it off, it might never start.

Your heater doesn't really heat your car, cause it can't build up heat in 20 below


The forecasted high is -6


You might have guessed it has been cold here.  Really, really cold!  Today our high was -6.  When i woke up it was -12, and they are saying tonight with the wind chill it will be -45.  Holy cow!  That is an unfathomable number.  Kinda like the National Debt (snarky laugh).  It has been cold enough to make me start thinking about wearing long johns every day, or maybe getting some jeans with flannel lining that i made fun of in the L.L. Bean catalog.  It is really cold here! 

It got me thinking about one of the books in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series.  The winter where she is teaching at a tiny little school and on the weekend Manly would come out to the school and bring her home to her family.  One of the trips everyone said he was crazy and foolish to even try, because it was probably -45.  Laura had to jump into the sleigh because if he stopped the horses they would freeze.  And then he had to pause every so often to thaw the breathe that had frozen over the horses nostrils, making it hard for them to breathe.  They almost didn't make it home alive.

Now i get it.  Funny how reading about it in a book just doesn't do that kind of cold justice.  But i live there now.  Where it gets that crazy cold.

Holy cow.


So how do you know when it is REALLY cold?  Well for me, you live in North Dakota :)

Knitting Catch Up

It is strange to me to think that last year this time i had just really started knitting. I barely knew the basics but i realized i loved to knit and got rather ambitious by excitedly telling my husband how we could make wonderful Christmas presents for everyone and still save money.

Well, actually how I was going to make wonderful Christmas presents for everyone and save money. I can't say i enjoyed every minute of it, but i did enjoy most of it. And the finished gifts i was very proud of and excited to give to our family members. I thought i got pictures of them all, but i guess i didn't. So here are the pictures I have:

I made all these slippers (now i need to make myself some, cause mine are getting old and stinky :), plus 8 striped hats (which unfortunately i don't have pictures of), a pair of fingerless mitts for me and my daughters tea set, which she got for her birthday.

After all of this knitting, i was a little less gung ho about "sentencing" myself to a certain amount of knitting.  I like knitting when i feel like it, and not under a deadline.  I have started a few new projects (which i need to get pictures of soon) including a nubby purple hat and mittens, a green lacy hat to match my green fingerless mitts and a lovely and complicated scarf that will probably take me my whole life to finish :)

I also have yarn, pattern and needles for my first ever sweater!  I am excited and a whole lot nervous and i have to start taking gauge seriously now.  But i plan on starting it once i have some of my mitts and scarves finished.  The yarn is a gorgeous deep red with a hint of sparkle, and i can't wait to see how it knits up!

I also really need to knit my daughter a hat and i would like to knit her a cardigan for her birthday or christmas, but i have not yet settled on a pattern or yarn.  Do you know of any good ones?

And i am still trying to decide if i want to knit for gifts.  




Yep, still haven't made up my mind :)



And, as always, i have grand plans of knitting adorable baby gifts to have on hand such as blankets, pacifier clips and such.  And as it seems everyone around me is pregnant (uh oh, i think the baby bug may be biting me) i will have ample opportunity to knit baby gifts, just who knows if i will have the time and manage to complete them.


I find myself already looking ahead to gardening season, and I am excited to have ample time to care for a garden properly this year, as my garden last year was sadly neglected.


I so often want to blog, and then when i sit down can think of nothing to say, and certainly nothing clever.  But i still love the outlet it provides, and though it may be less regular then before, i plan to try and keep it up. 


Happy knitting!

A Little MOPS

Today i went to my first North Dakota MOPS group.  And it was so refreshing to be, once again, with other women who were there to learn and to grow and to come closer and to find friends.  Gwen had her first successful stay with child care today (yeah!), and though i took a pager, to my surprise, it never went off!  I relaxed, and drank in the community.  I made a somewhat shabby craft, i ate and drank and just felt.......

happy, and renewed.  I needed this.  I needed to be close to other women, to women who want to be friends and share something in common with me.  To friendly women who came up to me to ask where i was from, and then actually listen about my life!  It was so nice, after 4 months away from all i know and hold dear, to find friendship and fun again.

I am so looking forward to the friendships i know it will bring.  To the things i will learn and the time i will get away, twice a month, to refresh and renew.  To remind myself why I am a mommy, and why it is so important.  They also have a moms night out one evening a month, no kids, just fun.  I am really looking forward to that too!  As much as i am a home body and love to be home most days, today was a reminder of how much my soul needs other women as friends and companions.  And though i still feel so timid and shy and not really loving having to put myself out there into the new, I am excited for all it may bring.  I am excited to start forming some friendships, and putting some dates on my calendar which up until now has been so stark and blank.

I am so excited for what God has in store for me, putting me in this amazing group of dedicated and friendly women.  We are 75 strong in this MOPS group, so i have lots still to meet :)

Ice Fishing

I don't know if I am really qualified to write a post about ice fishing, as i haven't actually gone yet.


But i am going to anyway  :)

When we first moved here, we had not yet realized how different things really are here.  And we hadn't had time to think about all the things we wouldn't be able to do now that we live in North Dakota.  Things like counseling at the church camp that i went to, taking our kids to the campsites we remember from growing up, etc.  We also quickly realized how a lot of little things being different can add up to make you feel sort of like you moved to a different country.  Like everything here opens late and closes early.  If you get a hankering for a snack or some fries after 9pm?  Well, too bad. 

But we realized there were some new things we would get to try here as well, things we could never do in Idaho. 



Like ice fishing.


When i first got the low down on ice fishing, i was super excited.  Apparently ice fishing is when you catch these enormous Northern Pike that are like eating a steak!  I love fish, so i was ready to go drill some holes and get me some fish!  Ice fishing is kinda of like camping too.  Everyone picks their spot on the ice and sets up their little ice fishing house.  These houses protect you from the cold and the wind and do actually have little heaters in them, though i promise you, it won't be 70 degrees in there, not unless you fancy ice swimming.

Anyway, everyone brings their hotdogs and some people set up fire barrels and you roast weinies and catch fish.  It sounded pretty fun to me!

But i was also really ignorant.  For some reason i thought ice fishing would be a lot easier then regular fishing.  I thought it would be more like catching.  That the fish would be more active, bite better and you wouldn't have to worry about setting the hook.  Maybe they would be extra hungry and biting all the time cause they were locked under ice?  I don't know why i thought all this, but i did.

I was assured that with proper caution, ice fishing is quite safe.  The ice is at least 10 inches thick in most places, and hard to get through with a hand auger as my husband has found out.  All the equipment you need is different too.  Starting with an ice auger which can range in price from $80 dollars for a little hand crank like ours, to several hundred dollars that have a small gas motor on them and do the work themselves.  Then you need the fishing poles, which look nothing like poles i have ever seen.  More like little plastic T's with a plastic reel and string hanging off the bottom of the T.  Then comes the bait.  You fish with minnows and they have to be live.  So Michael came home on Sunday with a small 3 gallon bucket that was making a funny noise.  It was his left over minnows from fishing.  He had bought an aerator that was powered by a D battery that aerated the bucket so the minnows wouldn't die!  Where do you get these minnows?  You go down to the gas station and pay for a scoop of minnows.  It will cost you $2.50


It all seems kinda funny to me, and a whole lot different.  I had a moment of panic also, when i realized we would be catching fish we had never seen!  How would i know what i caught and if i COULD catch it?  Foreign country feeling again!


But i am really excited to get out and try it.  Apparently, just like the non-ice fishing kind, when they are biting they are REALLY biting!  My hubby just texted me to tell me he was thick into the fish!  I am excited at the prospect of seeing these strange new fish up close and in person, and hopefully cooking some for dinner.