Weight--Always a Tough Topic

I was the stick skinny girl in school.  The one who actually wore a size 0 at one point in her life without even thinking about it. Who ate and ate and still fell in the 'underweight' category on the charts.  Even my final days of high school, when I was nearly 4 months pregnant, I hadn't broken 120 pounds yet.

I didn't stay that skinny.  Four kids and twenty-some years later, I found myself teetering on the edge of obese.  According to the BMI charts, I was 'overweight' at 178 pounds, just not quite to the dreaded 'obese'.

I was frustrated.  I didn't want to be obese.  I ate well; home cooked meals, not fast food. Honestly, even as a teen I didn't like fast food, and by the time I hit 30 I pretty much refused to eat it.  Eating out had better mean a sit-down restaurant, not burgers and fries, or I wasn't interested in being taken out to eat, thank you. We didn't and still don't eat out much.  I didn't drink soda, as I'd figured out before hitting my twenties that cola gave me a stomach ache, and in my mid-30's I had to give up even my favorite never-caffeinated sodas because their manufacturers had started adding high fructose corn syrup to them.  HFCS gives me severe headaches, so I've been avoiding it way longer than the media has been preaching against it.  I've always hated potato chips.  Prepackaged baked goods fell way short in the taste department, so those weren't my downfall either. All in all, I was a pretty healthy eater.

So why in the world was I so darn fat.  (I do realize that a lot of women would look at me and say "178 pounds at 5' 7" tall is not fat." )  I puzzled over it.  I researched.  I soul searched.

Well, I didn't exercise other than doing a lot of walking and more physical labor each day than most American women my age.  And I did have a big sweet tooth.  Baking is my specialty.  And I do eat like a farm hand (my excuse:  I am a farm hand.)  But I ate a lot of potatoes and noodles.  Those starchy carbs.

So I started exercising in a focused way. In my typical fashion of "if you say you're going to do it, then you better get it done or die trying" (a morale I was taught in my youth: if you make a promise to someone, you better keep your promise. Be a person of integrity), I did it.  I exercised five days a week, half hour a day, for about a year and a half.  Along with that, I tried to eat less carbs--unless they were fruits and veggies--and more protein.  And I lost weight.  I lost almost 30 pounds, getting down to 149 when I hit the point that I was starting to think I looked almost too bony (and DH did comment that I was getting awfully bony but then again, I'd been bony when we met, being roughly 120 pounds back then and still with a metabolism that let me consume endless amounts of calories).

Somewhere along that year and a half, I decided I wanted to run the local Memorial Day 5K, and I started training myself for that. 3+ miles, three times a week, with fewer intervals of walking until I was able to actually run (actually more of a jog) 3.5 miles without stopping.  I picked up a little weight then, all muscle mass, weighing in at 155 when that 5K came around.  I blogged about that, my one and only 5K here. 

After doing the 5K, that summer I ran, but not as much.  And I exercised, but not always 5 days a week.  Then autumn came, and I went to the doctor to get some newly arisen female problems checked out, and ended up being put on severe restrictions in terms of physical activities.  The list from the Dr looked something like this: no bending, twisting, pulling, pushing or lifting more than 5 pounds for the next six weeks.  I asked about running or jumping and was also told NO.

Needless to say, that was the end of my exercise habit. So I gained a little weight that winter.  Lost a little when summer came again, and I was hit and miss running and working out again.  That fall was DS1 and family's big move up to MI from SC and into our house for about 18 months.  Enter stress into my life big time.  Not to mention no space or time to do my workout dvds.

Something in me changed during that winter.  I don't know exactly what, and neither do the family doctors I've seen since then--and honestly I'm so tired of getting the same old generalized tests run and not being given a referral to any sort of specialist (like perhaps an endocrinologist)-- even though I've asked for referrals.  While, at first, my weight didn't go up much (even though for some reason my waistline ballooned nearly 5 inches in a two day time frame after doing some of those female tests), my blood pressure did.  And my iron went down.  And then we--the Dr. and I--tried battling my anemia with iron pills, but those gave me digestive upset.  And despite having diarrhea every morning, my weight continued to go up.  So did the blood pressure.  And my resting pulse.  My lung function, however, has decreased. Going up a flight of stairs shouldn't affect my breathing, but it does.  Going up two flights of stairs--from the laundry area in the basement to the master bedroom--carrying a hamper of clothes about does me in.  I am literally coughing and gasping.

This cannot continue. It's time for me again to get serious about a regular exercise routine, and about vetoing those starchy carbs.  It's time to switch doctors, and try to find a primary care physician who will listen and not just say "Oh, you're overweight" without looking into why my body got so out of whack that lead to this weight and what we can do to put my body back in stride. It's time for me to do it or die trying.  Honestly, I think I'm going to die if I don't try.  I'm too young to feel like this.

Last week, I dug out my workout dvds, and I've been doing three or four workout sessions a week,  running through a different workout each session, on top of riding The California Horse (which is a huge cardio and core strength workout in itself) three times a week.  I'm doing it, albeit in a modified form when I get extremely out of breath, but I'm doing it. 

Now to start interviewing, I mean, trying new, primary care doctors to see if we can get to the bottom of what I think is a hormonal/adrenal/thyroid/cortisol from ongoing stress imbalance.

Toyless

Yesterday, we had K3 and Toad over to this little place here.  I had spent some time with them two weeks prior, but at that time, DH was out of town for the weekend, so it had been nearly a month since he'd had a chance to see them.

Mid-week last week, everything here had been wet, wet, wet, after warm weather and torrential rains brought us several inches of rain on top of quickly melting snow from the approximately one foot of snow we got while DH was out of town.  Thankfully, by Friday it appeared that most of the frost had gone out of the ground, because the water levels and flooding around this little place here went down drastically.  By yesterday afternoon, you could actually walk across our field without fear of losing your footwear in the mud.  As a bonus, the sun came out!

So, what did we do with the grandkids?  We put on coats, hats and mud boots, and we trekked out to the woods!  Actually, DH had gone out on the 4-wheeler about fifteen minutes before they arrived, with the intentions to cut down some of the widow makers that were hanging over the woods road from this winter's storms.  Once the kids had been dropped off here for the afternoon, and changed into their boots, K3, Toad and I headed out to find Grandpa.  There was quite a wind blowing from the west, which, according to Toad, "blew us across the field so we could get to the woods faster".  Inside the woods, it was quite a bit calmer, and we set to following the 4-wheeler tracks and listening for the sound of the chainsaw to help us determine which part of the woods DH could be located in.

He was, of course, found in pretty much the opposite corner of the woods from where we had come in. The kids were so intent on following the sound of the chainsaw, that they didn't seem to mind the quarter mile trek. And, once they found him, their attention turned more to climbing the nearby hill and looking down into the neighbors drainage ditch to see how full of water it was.

They ended up spending about two hours out in the woods, and probably wandered well over a mile following deer trails--looking for shed antlers, which we never did find, climbing over or ducking under fallen trees, as well as using many more fallen trees as balance beams, or bridges across large puddles, or climbing up a huge blown over but leaning beech tree to see how high off the ground they could go (about 6-7 feet).  The smiles on those faces were huge.

They found turkey tail feathers, learned to identify poison ivy vines clinging to tree trunks, picked acorn caps out of the leaf litter under an oak tree--debating whether it was a deer or a squirrel that had eaten the acorns, and just generally had a ball exploring outside without a toy in sight.

Talkin' 'bout Wood

We've been heating this little place here with wood since 2007.  When we installed our (used) wood boiler, we figured with ten acres of woods out back, we could probably manage our 'woodlot' well enough to never have to buy firewood.  We just weren't sure if we would be able to never have to cut down a living tree in order to heat the house in years to come.

Well, we're most of the way through our eleventh heating season, and I can proudly say that so far, we have not cut one live tree off our property in order to feed the wood boiler.

How have we managed that?  Several ways.

First, the neighboring farmer told us that we could have any tops in his woods that were left from when he'd had some selective timbering done in the early 2000's.  He really hated for that good wood to just lay on the ground and rot.  So DH, for the first few years, cut up tops and piled them up to dry.  By the time he'd cleaned up all the usable timbering detritus, the same farmer gave permission to also cut up and haul off any blow-downs from storms.  That project has been ongoing, as the farmer's woods mature and become more open, and more gusty wind storms topple more aging trees.

The second way we've not had to cut any live trees at this little place here, is to clean up our own blow-downs.  Every ash on the property fell victim to the emerald ash borer when it ate it's way through mid-Michigan in the early part of this century.  We've left all those dead ash standing (they don't rot as quick that way), and as they become storm damage there is a pretty steady source of 'new' dead fall.

A third way we've taken care of our wood needs is to clean up storm damage of family and friends.  From time to time, DH has also been called upon to take care of a nuisance tree or one otherwise in a place where the homeowner no longer wants to have a large tree.

From time to time, he's been lucky enough to happen upon someone--either listed on Craigslist, or a friend of a friend--who is clear cutting a chunk of their property and has no need for the wood, or who wishes to have someone do the clearing for them in exchange for the wood.  Since DH loves to use his chainsaw, he finds it fun to spend a day or an entire weekend cutting and retrieving the wood in those situations.  We once got an entire heating season worth of oak that way.

In recent years, some of the trees on our north line have been dying off.  Last winter, when the ground was frozen, DH cut down three and hauled them through the hay field with the tractor.  Since then, we've noticed there are about a handful more dead ones out there in the fence line.  Those were going to be this winter's project, once the ground was good and hard and the hay field wouldn't be dug up and rutted by the weight of the large trees being drug through it.  Except that the way the weather, family issues, and DH's work and travel schedule ended up being, those trees didn't get cut in December, nor in January, and now its late February, with the frost laws all ready on the roads (several weeks early) and our ground quite soggy and thawing.  I guess we'll have to put off those trees until next winter now.  They will stay good for quite a number of years as standing deadwood.

Other than DH's trusty chainsaw (a Stihl  MS271 with a 20" bar), our next most valued wood harvesting item is the wood splitter we bought used back in 2008.  It handles just about everything we've attempted to put through it, with the exception of some oak stumps.  Those were too hard and twisted (near the root) for the 22 tons of force of the splitter to crack.  So far, we haven't found a chunk of wood that has been too big; if DH can manage to maneuver a 36" diameter hunk of oak or black cherry to the splitter, the splitter has reduced it to nice wedges with no problem.

As we look to the end of another season of stoking the wood boiler (possibly in late March, if the weather continues its warm earlier than normal trend), life with wood heat comes full circle again. Once the ground thaws and dries out in the spring, we'll hook the wood hauler trailer onto the tractor, and haul in the stacked, cut wood that was sawed up in winters past.  The hauling will continue through the summer, as time allows. Then, sometime in late summer, we'll pull the splitter over to the pile of wood brought up, and commence to splitting and stacking another winter's worth of heat.  Then, sometime in October, DH will light the fire again, reinstating the daily ritual of feeding the wood boiler.  And, once all the deer hunting seasons end with the beginning of January, he'll take to the woods again with his chainsaw to cut more downed trees and stack that to age for heating the house roughly a handful of winters from now.

Fitting it in

I was running through my list of unfinished blog post drafts, and came across this one.  It had the above title, and then, here, in the body of the text was this and just this:

(Canning)

My intent, back whatever day probably five or six months ago that I jotted down the quick little bit, was to write a helpful post on how I fit everything into my busy days when the garden is pumping out produce and there is all this amazing, wonderful fresh food that needs to be canned or otherwise preserved. But, I obviously never got around to writing more than that one word.

Now, sitting indoors on a real Winter day; a cold, gray, gloomy Winter day, I see that while my intention was to be upbeat and full of inspiring advice, the plain truth of it is that I, and most likely you too, just can't fit it all in.

Good intentions don't always come to fruition. Some of that awesome fresh garden bounty goes to waste before we can get it properly taken care of.  Things come up that interrupt our plans.

I don't know about you, but I'm guessing that, like me, you get a little depressed, a little disappointed, a little hard on yourself when that happens.  No one likes to throw out food that was once perfectly good, but now is spoiled because you just didn't get it used up in time.  No one likes missed opportunities.

There is always so much to do, so much that can be done, so much that probably should be done, so much that we want to do, that we are not humanly capable of doing it all. We have to prioritize, shuffle schedules, and do what we can.

As I sit here, at the cusp of another gardening season, I make notes, make lists:

• how to keep the garden weeded better (MULCH!!), 
• average annual date of ripeness for each crop (why I put the actual month and day canned on the lid of each home processed jar or freezer bag rather than just the year--I can look at the jars/bags and see the date range that crop came in the previous year), 
• better watering strategies for the areas of the garden that don't always get enough moisture throughout the growing season (again, MULCH!, as well as maybe a different type of sprinkler, or at the least a different sprinkler arrangement.)

Weeding takes TIME, so if I can cut down on the amount of weeding needing to be done, I can fit in more.  Watering also takes TIME, whether it be moving hoses and sprinklers to different parts of the garden, or just being around to turn the water on and off at the right times of the day, if I can water more effectively I can gain a bit of time for fitting in more.

Armed with my approximation of what will need picking and processing when, I can then go to my calendar and see what non-food related events are going on at the same time.  I can try to keep my schedule as loose as possible during the expected heavy food processing dates.  Work is a must, but other than that, I can attempt to keep my daily allotment of 24 hours as open as I can to accommodate putting up food to last us until the next years harvest of each crop.

Will there be unexpected events that cause me to stray from my good intentions?  You bet there will.  Maybe its unfavorable weather, maybe its unpredictable family issues, maybe its a too good to resist invitation to spend a weekend or several weekdays camping or kayaking.  Life is never perfect.  I just have to fit in what I can, and hopefully not waste too much.

I also need to remember that I can combat garden waste in a number of ways when my life just doesn't coordinate with keeping a perfect garden and being on top of harvesting and canning or freezing things.

• If I am going to be out of town for some can't miss event, I can ask neighbors or friends if they would like to come harvest and keep for themselves the ripe fruit or veggies while I'm gone.
• If things get overripe, I can see if the chickens (or deer, if I take it to the woods) will eat it.  This way it get turns into protein that I can eat at a later time.
• I can compost it, and once that compost is finished aging, I can spread it over the garden to feed future crops.

Rutabaga, Anyone

Do you eat rutabagas?

I have to confess, until I was about 20, I never did.  Not sure if I'd even heard of a rutabaga. My introduction to the rutabaga was through my boss sharing a pasty with me one lunchtime.  I'd never had a pasty either, being as I'd lived the majority of my life in Michigan's Lower Peninsula, just having moved to the UP roughly four or five months previous, and pasties are a definitive Upper Peninsula thing.

That pasty (thanks, Art, for sharing), had been made by his wife, and was delicious.  Without that positive introduction, I probably wouldn't still be making pasties from scratch more than 26 years later.  And I know I definitely wouldn't be eating rutabagas, let alone growing them in my garden year after year.

Pasties are the main recipe I use rutabaga in. But, slowly, I have branched out a little and occasionally serve them mashed, or as part as a roasted root vegetable dish.  This year I have found (thanks to the recipe included in the 2018 Maine Potato Lady catalog), a tasty soup to use my rutabagas in.

My pasty recipe, I've already given here.

You can throw rutabaga and carrots into this dish instead of using all potatoes.

And, giving all credit to the 2018 edition of The Maine Potato Lady catalog, this is the recipe I used for the very tasty (especially as a leftover) soup using rutabaga.

1 pound bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
4-5 cups scrubbed and cubed potatoes--about 2 pounds
2 cups rutabaga, peeled and cubed
water or chicken stock, enough to cover (I used chicken bouillon mixed with water)
1 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 branch fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste
grated Romano or sliced Cheddar cheese for garnish

Cook the bacon in your soup pot just until it is crisp.  While the bacon is cooking, prepare the vegetables.  

Remove the bacon from the pot, drain, and set aside.  Remove all but 2-3 tablespoons of bacon fat from the pot, add the onion and garlic and saute just until translucent.  Add the potato and rutabaga, saute for 5 minutes, (I ended up adding back in an additional 2 tbsp of bacon fat with the potato and rutabaga), then add water or stock to cover.

If you are using fresh thyme, add it now.  Bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat, then cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until the rutabagas are tender.  Stir occasionally, adding more water or stock as needed.  Cut up the bacon into large pieces. When the rutabagas and potatoes are tender, add the bacon and (if using) dried thyme to the pot, season with salt and pepper to taste.  If you used fresh thyme, remove the branch.  Garnish with the Romano or Cheddar cheese.  Serve with hot cornbread (I had freshly made, buttered slices of wheat bread).  Serves 6 generously.

I forgot to get a picture of the soup until I was on the very last serving of leftovers

Got Seeds?

My seed orders are here!

Annie's Heirloom Seeds! Baker Creek! Seed Savers Exchange! Even the new-to-me Caribbean Garden (found on Etsy while looking for a source for some Peruvian things--purple corn for making chicha morada, and aji amarillo peppers--that DD2 introduced me to after her study abroad trip last summer) have arrived and are now ready for me to get my 2018 garden underway.

My Dixondale Farms order of onion transplants--because I have awful luck with onion sets, and the only way I've been able to grow onions is to buy the baby plants--is awaiting it's proper shipping window (much warmer weather) in a few months. My Maine Potato Lady order (yet another variety of potato; I think I might be addicted) is also waiting for temperatures to rise.

I have the trays, the soil, and the plant markers with which to start the seeds that don't get direct sewn into the garden.  Tomatoes (eight kinds this year; experimentation going on),  peppers, broccoli and cabbage.  A new trial is rhubarb seed and asparagus seed.  I haven't had a whole lot of luck with crowns of either, so I figure why not try starting them from seed?  If it fails, it's a cheaper failure than purchasing crowns that never sprout.  And if it succeeds, well, I'll have lots of asparagus and rhubarb in a few years!  Also, if I can successfully grow asparagus and rhubarb from seed, I might give onion seeds a try in 2019.

DD2 is excited about the seeds I found for two of her favorite Peruvian things. She can't wait to harvest and eat them.  I can't wait to harvest them either--because if they grow well and we have a regular use for them, I will be saving seeds for future gardens. Neither seed was easy to find, which is why I am trying a new to me seed source; none of the nearly two dozen seed companies I either receive catalogs from or have done business with in the past offer seeds for aji amarillo peppers or purple corn.

Are you ready to get gardening?  I am!  I've got seeds and its mid-February, let the garden begin!

Disclosure:  I am in no way sponsored by or paid to mention the seed companies listed above.  With the exception of the Caribbean Garden which is new to me this year, all mentioned seed companies are ones I have found, through the years, to provide good viable seed in the varieties I want.  Speaking to my readers as friends, I mention these seed companies because I like them and you might like them too, not because I get reimbursed from them in any way.

Why I Like to Exercise

This is a post I wrote, and never published, back in early February 2013. Oh how much has changed in five years, even more so in the last two years, in my health.  I fell out of my exercise routine in the Fall of 2013 after having some testing done because of a few female issues which resulted in being put on severe physical restrictions that literally said

NO

• bending
• twisting
• pushing
• pulling
• lifting more than 5 pounds

for six straight weeks.  I was also told no running or jumping (because I asked), which meant basically no exercise at all, not even going for a jog.  

Less than a year after that (a year in which I kinda but not quite got back into my workout groove), DS1 and family moved in with us. Nearly 18 months later, they moved out, and its been two years since then, but the stress eating I learned to do during their stay at this little place here keeps rearing its ugly head, and despite good intentions, I have never gotten back to the point, in terms of physical or mental health, that I was at in early 2013.  Even with riding 3-5 days a week for most of 2017, my weight has stagnated.

I really, really need to get back to where I was five years ago. Back when I wrote this

I'm back on the workout bandwagon after having my schedule disrupted for the last half of December.  Other than being mildly sore the first week, I have noticed a few things that made me realize how much different I am in my exercise lifestyle than in my sedentary lifestyle:

1. my skin is clearer.  Weird, and I don't have a scientific explanation for it, but it seems that a good daily sweat (and rinse off) gives me a glow that chases away the dry dull skin of winter.
2. I'm ravenously hungry for protein, but not so hungry for carbs.  This is the exact opposite of how I felt during the few weeks I didn't work out regularly.  Those weeks all I wanted was to eat (and eat, and eat) something crunchy, preferably sweet and crunchy.  The past week those types of foods haven't even sounded appealing.  Give me a pork chop, a venison steak, a chicken breast! 
3. I'm more upbeat.  I noticed this back in 2011 when I first implemented a 5x a week exercise routine.  Working out helps keep me in a good frame of mind and not so prone to feeling depressed.  I might start the day feeling draggy, but after 30 minutes of keeping up with a workout video, or on a 3 mile run, my brain is on overdrive and I have energy flowing through me.  After a week of not exercising at all, the pessimistic overtones had crept back into my life and were fighting for dominance.
4. I have more energy.  Funny thing, how expending a lot of energy creates more energy.  Long lasting energy.  So much so that on my 'day off' from working out, I can barely sit still, I have this urge to be doing things.
5. I'm more limber.  Touch toes?  Yes.  Kick my own height?  Yes.  Two years ago I pretty much had given up on ever being able to do that again.  Thought it was just part of my long lost youth.  Do a back bend?  Well, not yet.  But half-way, and I'm not giving up. . . maybe next year.  Truth be told, I could never do a back bend.  There's a lot of things I never could do before that I do now: butcher chickens, hunt deer, bake bread, quilt, knit. . .
6. My pants fit better all ready.  Two weeks ago, they were tight.  At the end of day five of exercising, they were back to comfy.  I'm kind of hoping to need to buy new pants in 2013. . . pants that are a size smaller than these.
7. I don't feel 41.  Nope.  I honestly feel about 1/2 my age.  Hmmm.  It's hard to remember being 20.5.  That chick had the world by the ba--- well, I'm sure you know the phrase.  She was going places.  The future had nothing but good things in store for her.  She wasn't afraid to tackle anything.  She ran like the Energizer bunny.  How cool it is to feel like that two decades later.  Thirty felt so much older than 41 feels now.

That, and the fact that in the sixteen months since I began my new routine of working out five mornings a week, I have gone from a size sixteen (the largest I'd been even while pregnant eons ago) to a size ten (the size I was after DS2 was born).  I feel like I've gained back the "me" that was lost while rearing children.  Funny thing was, until I started to get myself back, I didn't realize I had missed me.  I just thought I was bummed out about all the challenges and craziness that being a wife and mom brings. All the things that life in the middle stage (not young, but not a senior citizen yet) brings. But now, now I remember the me that I was back in the day.  The more athletic me.  The optimistic me.  The energetic, zealous me.  The me that loved to work hard, that didn't mind sweating or being out of breath.  The me that could work hard without being so out of breath!

That is why I like to exercise.  It gives me me.

Oh my goodness.  I want me back.  I want to not get out of breath just carrying the laundry hamper from the basement to the upstairs master bedroom.  

To quote myself, Thirty felt so much older than 41 feels now.  46 is so much harder than 41 was, and I don't think it really needs to be that drastic of a change in ability in just 5 years. If 41 was easier than 30, 46 feels like I have one foot in the grave. 

I Love This Horse

This one right here.

Obviously the pictures aren't recent (we've got about 8 inches of snow on the ground currently), but this big handsome lug has really connected with me in a way that not too very many horses have.  Honestly, The Quarter Horse and I did not connect like this. And I'm not even sure The Mare (who was my partner for roughly 14 years) and I had quite the same relationship as The California Horse and I enjoy.

Yes, enjoy.  It really hit me the other day, that we have a mutual enjoyment of and respect for each other. Something different than I've had with any of my previous mounts.

Riding him is a lot of hard work, and really, there are times when I know I'm being totally uncoordinated in my aids--and the expression on his face and in his ears lets me know he's finding me confusing and uncoordinated. But even with the times of not quite clear, or smooth, or beautiful aids, and all the muscle power (especially in my core) required, riding The California Horse is fun.  And it's rewarding.  Especially when he makes contented little snorting noises as we work, or when he puffs himself up with pride in knowing the answers to my questions, or when we walk out on a long rein during our cool down at the end of a session and he just has this satisfied swagger about him.

There is such a feeling that we are a team, sometimes its just overwhelmingly cool and gratifying.  Almost too overwhelming when I think that this partnership isn't a long term thing--its just a lease.  And really, unless he were to be offered to me for pretty much free, I just couldn't buy him.  Not in my budget, not in the cards for me.  It's really too bad he's not about 6 years younger and I'm not about 5 digits richer.

Meanwhile, I really really love this horse.  And I can tell he likes being ridden by me.  That in itself is a huge reward.  The progress I'm making in my riding is rewarding too--like being able to sit the trot so much better than I ever have; even without stirrups my sitting trot feels more and more like we are one being, like my seat is suctioned to his back and we cannot possibly become out of sync.  But knowing that he's a happy horse and hearing him make those contented, satisfied little noises during our riding sessions, that's the icing on the cake.

Some Quick and Easy Sewing

Last year, I didn't manage to handcraft nearly as many Christmas gifts as I'd intended.  And honestly, I was quite frustrated by that; more than a little cranky about the projects I'd purchased supplies for but then didn't have to time to create, and ended up having to spend more money and more time going out shopping at what seemed the last minute in order to have gifts to put under the tree.

The gifts I did manage to make were of the quick and easy category: some mug rugs, and some pillowcases. Both projects require not much cutting, and sew up in next to no time.  I found tutorials for both by googling (sometime past, and have lost the links but had printed out instructions, so it's all good).

While the mug rugs are cute, I might get addicted to making pillowcases.  They are just too fun to sew, and also can add whimsy to anyone's bedroom.

A "Monkey George" pillowcase for Toad, 

who currently loves Curious George stories.

 K3 received a pillowcase made of this cat fabric.

Wintry llamas for DD2, nostalgic for her days in Peru.

(Mayhem thinks it's for her.)

Yarn Along, February

It's back!  Ginny's Yarn Along is back!  And I missed the first one!

Ginny has reinstated her Yarn Along as a monthly, rather than weekly, feature as of January.  Due to the craziness of my life events last month, I missed linking up to that one. In it, she (and other participants) talked about some of the knitting they had done in the latter half of 2017.

Some projects I started and finished in the later months of 2017, mostly before having the grandkids live with me on-again off-again, were the pair of "Alaska" socks I began in June and took with me on our Alaskan adventures. It ended up taking me until about late November to finish them.

Socks, pattern Envy

While in Alaska, I bought a skein of yarn in a lovely blue that reminded me of the color of the glacial lakes, and in the Fall of 2017 I made myself a new winter hat with it.  It was a quick knit, maybe a week or so of not-much-knitting-time.

Hat, pattern Hinterland

I also knit DD2 a few dish cloths as Christmas gifts (now that she's out of the dorms and living in a house for her final two years of college).  I forgot to get pictures of them, but the patterns were Merry Christmoose and Wolf Track.


I am determined to participate in the current (and future) Yarn Along(s), despite having missed the inaugural one for this year, so here goes for the February edition:

In mid-January, I started knitting another pair of socks for me, using yarn I purchased several years ago on Etsy in a colorway called 'Oslo'.  The pattern I am using is Classy Slip Up, which I think highlights the various colors of the yarn quite nicely.  Sock number one was mostly knit on DH & my recent trip to Vegas, and finished up when we got home.  Sock number two is underway and progressing nicely, approximately three quarters of the way through the leg portion.


After not reading hardly at all in 2017, I've set a goal to read regularly in 2018.  I just really need that downtime, and the break from real life that a frequent dose of fiction brings.  So far I've managed to read three books this year, all in the category of Amish Fiction, and two being murder mysteries as well.  The first one, What the Bishop Saw, I enjoyed immensely.  The second, Hearse and Buggy was good as well, although sometimes parts of the story seemed weak/unrealistic, so I found myself mentally ranking it lower than the other book.  The third, Seeds of Hope, was general fiction, no one got murdered in that one, but the lack of mystery isn't why it ended up being a "probably won't read more from this author" kind of book--just too many parts that I felt weren't very well written.

Currently I am reading another murder mystery, When the Bishop Needs an Alibi.  I'm only a few chapters in, and all ready I can tell I will be eagerly awaiting the next in this series.

How To Make a Cooler Out of a Grocery Bag

During our long daytime excursions out in Nevada, we packed a cooler of food and drinks.  At the hotel, I would make some wraps (out of leftover mesquite chicken breast the first time, and with turkey lunch meat the second) for our lunch, throw in some fibrous, yet juicy snacks like baby carrots, and grab a whole bunch of bottled water out of the fridge.  The carrots and the water I wasn't so worried about obtaining ambient temperature when left in the truck for hours, but I didn't want the wraps, with their mayo, meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato and green pepper, to get warm.  So I used the thermal mass of the water bottles and carrots to help keep the wraps cold.

I improvised a makeshift cooler out of a reusable grocery bag (obtained on our Colorado trip), my beach towel (which travels with me everywhere there is a chance of a pool or beach or river), and some temporarily borrowed clean hand towels from the hotel room bathroom.

First, a folded up hand towel in the bottom of my bag.  Then a layer of chilled water bottles.  On top of that, our wraps (in a plastic bag in case of leakage).  Another hand towel went over the wraps, plus a couple more chilled water bottles.  Add the bag of baby carrots along with either salsa or hummus.  

Folded to fit the interior dimension of the grocery bag went my beach towel, which ended up being a satisfying and insulating 4-5" thick. 

 Finally, on top of the beach towel went the 'non-refrigerated' food of chips, nuts, jerky, fruit, etc.

We were ready to be gone 6-8 hours (we also had water in refillable bottles that didn't go into the 'cooler') without going hungry or risking dehydration.  While this probably wouldn't work quite as well in the summer time, for a January trip where the starting temps was in the 40s and the high temp around 65, it worked excellent.  We drove for roughly an hour, then hiked for about three hours (leaving the 'cooler' in the truck), before having our lunch.  When retrieved from the 'cooler', the wraps felt just like they'd been in a refrigerator.  

I think I'll be packing this bag along with my beach towel on all trips from now on.  You never know when you'll be wishing you had a cooler!

Killing Me

I haven't posted much at all about DS1 and K2's situation.  Mostly, when I actually do find some time to post, I just post about the grandkids being here with DH and I.  I haven't said much because, well, it's their personal business not open for public discussion. Especially when CPS is involved.

However, all this stress is really taking its toll on me.  In light of K2's mental struggles, my own depression is a walk in the park.  And yet, I feel that depression, and its affects on my daily life, getting stronger and stronger.  I'm battling my own dark hole, a yawning chasm that seems to be stalking me, lurking just out of sight around every corner.  I cannot fall in that pit.  How will I be there for the grandkids, and an acceptable caretaker in the sight of CPS, if I am in that pit?

And yet, often talking about depression is a very effective way of fighting it, of clawing my way up the walls of the pit, of gaining ground until the top is reached and firm footing once again achieved.  What a catch 22. To talk is taboo (they can't know I'm less than perfect, flawed), yet to talk is often a solution.

On the assumption that I'm not alone in this frustrating vicious cycle of stress and depression, I'm going to choose to talk, albeit somewhat vague on details for the sake of privacy.  Also, because it feels like I'm getting to the point where mental stress is piling up into physical breaking down of my body.  Weight gain, digestive troubles, unsatisfactory sleep, lethargy. . . I bet you know the list.  The symptoms.  The feeling.  The point at which it feels like dealing with other people is literally killing me.

When DH and I went away for a week in January, he made some startling and somewhat unsettling observations.  I've been thinking a lot about them, which has led to some conclusions.  

First observation, I rarely laugh.  I did, more than once, spontaneously bust out in laughter while on vacation.  Something I just don't do at home.  That, in itself, is sad.  Sad that on a day to day basis, I find few things to smile about, and even fewer things that create such joy in me as to generate a laughing response.

Second observation, I never want to try new things.  I may very well be tired of my rut, but I am in no way open to the suggestion of something different. Truth be told, I'm afraid of wasting my precious time on what may likely be another unlikable/unhappy experience.  On this past vacation, I actually relaxed enough that not only was I open to attempting what could possibly be an overwhelming social situation (actually walking on the chaotic Las Vegas Strip to see things like the Bellagio's fountain and the statues at Caesar's Palace) I even willingly tried new to me cuisine: we ate Indian and I loved it (although I confess we only ordered the least spicy sounding things on the menu).  As soon we boarded the plane to come home, though, the funk enveloped me and I was back to shut-down mode.

A few things I wrote in my notebook about these feelings:

• frozen with fear of unpleasantness
• bundle of nerves, always anxious, no control over schedule  
• If I do get 'a break' I feel like I must either catch up on all that I haven't been able to maintain in terms of housework, or I feel like I must do a "fun" task now, before the opportunity gets taken away from me.  Yet, I never enjoy that "fun" task because of the 'do it now' aspect.
• a desperate need for creativity and physical outlets

Third observation, I don't have the stamina I had 5 years ago.  Or even 2-3 years ago.  I get out of breath so much easier. My body hurts. My head does too, more often than it should, and now my eyes seem to be joining the rebellion.  Yes, my weight has increased quite a bit from what it was 5 years ago (when I was working out pretty much daily and even ran a 5k).  It's not just the weight, though, because my weight has held pretty steady for the past 2 years while my breathing has gotten worse.  Bad enough that I'm contemplating requesting an allergy test, because I suspect I've either developed allergies or asthma (both of which more than one of my offspring have, but I never did before).  And if it's not allergies or asthma, then I have a lung problem, which is a scary prospect. 

It was a rude awakening when, while hiking, DH commented that in another 5-10 years he and I probably wouldn't be able to get out and hike in places like we gravitate toward (the unpaved, steeper, more challenging trails).  His point; we aren't in shape for it now, and we're only going to get older and more decrepit in the years to come.

Whoa.  Old, I can't do anything about.  But decrepit has never been on my itinerary. Especially not if we're talking somewhere between 2023 and 2028! I've said, more than once, that I don't want to die from some debilitating disease or waste away for years before my death.  My preference has always been for a 'sudden and tragic' death.  (Apparently when I went off that horse in December, DH feared my wish was about to come true.)  A heart attack in my 80's, while riding my then favorite horse, is totally okay with me, as long as I'm gone before I fall off and hit the ground (because hitting the ground hurts, and the whole idea behind a sudden death is that it doesn't hurt. Fine one minute, gone--and blissfully unaware--the next).  A heart attack at 46 (or 51 or 56) because I'm dealing with too much stress is absolutely not okay.  Something's gotta change.

The weight is going to have to come off.  Some of my go-to stress eating favorites are going to have to just not be made or otherwise brought into my house. I've never been a drinker, never understood the allure that it seems a lot of people find in alcohol, in daily drinks after work to help them relax.  I do, however, find my fix in chocolate and other sweets.  *sigh*  In fact, I rarely will just drink a beer, glass of wine, or mixed drink by itself.  No, I need food with it to find the alcohol desirable.

Finding time for regular exercise is going to have to happen somehow (although, during the times the grandkids stay with us nearly round the clock, I just don't know how feasible that will be; I can barely fit in time to go to work and next to no time for riding). Riding 4-5 times a week helps, but after a while, that becomes a set point and I need to add different types of exercise to it in order to continue  weight loss.  How to carve out 1-2 hours a day, every day,  for sweat-inducing, heart-pounding exercise?  Especially if the grandkids need to return to my care on short notice and for an unknown length of time?

So, I guess, if talking about my stress, my depression, is the only change I can make right now, because a lot of the sources of the stress and depression are out of my control (ahem, how other adult members of my family choose to behave), I'll have to work with what outlets I have.

The Better Stuff (Vegas Trip Part 2)

The very best parts of the vacation were the days we spent outside of Vegas.  We found a wetlands to 'hike' through (on mostly paved pathways, which makes me think more of city sidewalks than remote trails), spent quite a bit of two days hiking different parts of Red Rock Canyon, and did a little driving through the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.

Fun fact: the Desert National Wildlife Refuge is next door to Area 51, and our drive was accompanied by muffled random booms coming from 'the neighbor's place'.


Clark County Wetlands Park

I kinda wish I could have a larger than life dragonfly to adorn the entrance to my garden.  

Or maybe our pond, once we actually get it dug.

A wetlands in the desert looks way different than a wetlands does in Michigan.  This 'lake' (or was it a pond?) which was the largest body of water there, was not even the size of my (1/4 acre) garden.  The little bit of green you see around the edges of the lake/pond were as green as the flora got.  It was really weird walking through a wetlands and looking at plants in shades of grey, yellow and brown.

Jackrabbit under the tree.

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

We spent the better part of two days hiking at Red Rock Canyon.  The first day was cut short a bit, as DH got something through the sole of his shoe that would intermittently poke into his foot quite painfully.  All we managed the first day was hiking the "moderate 2.2 mile" Keystone Thrust trail.  The moderate rating was debatable;  we seemed to really have a tough time with this hike.  We got out of breath quite frequently.  Good thing the views were interesting, as we had to stop often to catch our breath, wait for our hearts to stop pounding like jackhammers, and take gulps of the water we'd brought along.

One view from the Keystone Thrust trail.

Another view.

A small hike down a wash in another part of the park yielded less view, but other interesting things.  Shortly after we entered the wash, a handful of quail came out of the brush about 5 yards in front of us and walked down the wash a ways.  They blended in with the rocks really well, and were hard to see when not in motion.

.

There was also quite a variety of neat looking rocks scattered throughout the wash.  Many with stripes or rings, some with spots, and others that had both rings and spots. Some of the spotted rocks had divots where the spots were, leading us to guess that the spots were deposits of some sort of water soluble mineral .

Very cool (and huge, about 6' long and 3' wide) stripey and speckled rock.

Rock with purple polka dots.

We had also wanted to hike the Ice Box Canyon trail, but with the mysterious thing (which turned out to be a 1/2 inch piece of glass) stuck in his shoe, I vetoed anymore hiking for DH until we could remove the pokey thing from his footwear.  And good thing, because when we took his shoe off, we found that that piece of glass had not only bruised his heel from repetitive poking, but it had also managed to pierce the callus on his heel.  

When we went back, a couple of days later, my intent was to hike Ice Box Canyon.  DH was hesitant, given our struggles with being old and fat on the Keystone Thrust Trail, which had been rated as moderate.  The trail map had Ice Box Canyon rated as strenuous, with 'boulder hopping' through a good portion of the canyon.

Boulder hopping was exactly the phrase that had me so interested.  Like I said in the previous post, I'm 46 going on 6, LOL.  I promised DH that if he was willing to at least start the trail, we could turn back at any point that he wanted.  As it turned out, the further we hiked, the more into it he got, and we ended up going way past the designated end of the trail (at a waterfall) and exploring our way to the back of the canyon until we couldn't go any further without doing some rock climbing.  We're too old, fat, and gear less to attempt free climbing. Were I 40 lbs lighter with rock climbing gear in tow, I definitely would have tried it.  ;0)  Because for me, age is still mostly relative. DH, on the other hand, is getting older faster these days.

Hiking across the desert towards Ice Box Canyon

Looking back as we start to climb into the canyon.

Wall we are hiking towards.

Looking back again as the trail gets more rocky.

The mouth of the canyon is behind us.

He's not ready to turn back, despite the much larger rocks to traverse.

This is a waterfall; the park brochure (with hiking trail descriptions) said so.  

Actually, as we hiked close to it, we could hear water running.

It just doesn't look like an impressive waterfall.

Looking down the trail as it continues past the waterfall.

Guess where we headed next.

Down! (Yes, it was steep.)

The rocks got even bigger, but that didn't stop us.

The trail continued over the 'smaller' rocks on each side of this massive chunk.

End of the road.  The shadowy area towards the bottom of the picture was actually so big I could stand up in it. No more trail without a way to scale that rock above my head. We decided rock climbing was not part of our day.

I love hiking through wilderness areas.  In a way, it takes me back to the days of being a kid with nothing more important to do than poke around outside all day looking to see what is over that hill or beyond that clump of trees.

Desert National Wildlife Refuge

Our final desert adventure for this trip was to drive through (a small part of, since DH discovered our truck was getting low on gas) the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.  If you want to see more than Joshua trees, small cacti, and endless gravel going for miles and miles toward the mountains in the distance, this is probably not a vacation destination for you.  On the other hand, if you enjoy off roading or two-tracking, put the DNWR on your list! The very narrow one lane roads look like they have literally been scraped out of the desert floor and go for miles without intersecting.

We followed one road as it went towards, and then way up into, the hills before it petered off down to nothing you could think about driving a (rented) truck through without possibly doing some serious body damage.  Maybe something smaller with an articulated suspension, but not a full size (rented, did I mention belonging to a rental company?) pickup truck.  Hmm.  Maybe next time, if there is a next time in Vegas.