Back in Business.

Question?

What do you need to create this?...

(I'm referring to the food in these pics, not the children.
Clearly, I've got that one figured out--
five kids, remember?
Yup, I know what it takes to create them.)

;)

(Goose is crazy. I love her.
But there is no denying that she is nuts.
I smile pretty much every time I even think about her.)

(Yes, we celebrated a birthday 'round here.
And a birthday brownie cake was requested.)

(I love my boys. They love my cookies.
It's a match made in heaven.
And they love it when I take pictures of them eating.
Especially Adam, I think it's his new favorite thing.)

(It sure is a good thing I got that whole Kid Creating thing down,
because I really do have some oh so good looking punks.)

(please try to control your jealousy over my circa 1970 plate,
i have a whole set, you know. as i said, try to control the jealousy.
it's not good to covet thy neighbors flat ware.)



But, I digress.
Now- back to the point...
what does one need to create such delectable goodness?

Ohhhh, just one of these little gems.
I was prepared to go ovenless for the long haul.
And then, well.....
Isn't great that some times life is just so good to me?
And, yes, it has been less than a week and I have made ALL of those things.
Some more than once.
What can I say??
I'm really good in the kitchen.

This is it.

The last day of school.
The last school bell will be ringing in just moments....
Are we ready, Troops?
I think I am.
This has been such a crazy, busy year I am actually looking forward to just being with my own kids for a while.
Are you all okay???
Did the fall cause any permanent damage?
Ya, ya, I know-- you can all get back up off the floor now that you have fallen out of your chair with the shock of that statement.
And, yes, I will need to come and reread that statement often because I'm sure I will forget why exactly I was looking forward to the chaos-fight-fest that we like to call summer vacation.
Actually, the summer is already feeling pretty full to the brim.
I'm sure it will come and go at light speed, just like the school year did.

Only a week and a half until operation Recharge farmgirl's Farmgirlness Ways begins.
We also like to call that, my annual Idaho trip.
Pretty exciting stuff.

All right, that's it.
I'm going to go savor the last 5 minutes of school year that is left for me.
:o)

My life as a Pea Plant.

Anyone who has spent a spring or two here in the St. G knows that the wind blows.
Oh, how that wind does blow-
Especially here on the heights.
This has been a particularly weird weather year, instead of our normal spring wind we have had sort of a cool-esk/wet-ish spring.
And then yesterday came, and then last night came, and then today came
...and it's been a bit breezy.
Nothing too horrible, unless, of course, you are a pea plant....


A pea plant residing on the south side of the trellis specifically.

If you had the unfortunate luck to be on the south side, well, it's probably been kind of a rough 24 hours.
When I walked out this afternoon to check on the beloved garden, I discovered those southern trellis pea plants. Poor guys all fallen over, I thought for sure the stems and stocks were all broken. However, on closer examination I discovered that was not the case--
Yes, they were leaning.
Ya, they were falling over, big time.
At a glance it looked like they were beyond any help.
Any closer to the ground and it may have snapped them right in two.
BUT,
They were hanging on.
They were down, but not out.
How did they do it?
How did they survive?
Holding on to the trellis?
Sort of.
But, mostly,
they were holding onto each other.

This is the part were if I had a fancy shmancy camera you could really see just how intertwined those pea plants are (since I don't you will just have to work with me people).
There is one little guy living on the south side holding on for dear life, ready to bite the dust and there are a whole bunch of helpful northern friends leaning over the trellis, not letting go. Keeping that friend of theirs from completely falling over.

And I just had the thought while I was picking up those tough southern side pea plants and tucking them back into safety that they maybe feel a little like I do.
Really, really grateful for a garden full of pea plant family and besties.

I'm thinking I should be afraid.

Very afraid.

Audrey is a self portrait queen.
The Queen.
You can all bow down to her greatness and glory.
She takes a lot of self portraits, at one point I wanted to do a blog post about it.
I had a vision of the cool little doodads with tons of pictures on them...I don't know if you even know what I'm talking about here--but, I have seen them on other blogs and they are pretty cool.
However, I am very limited in my abilities (blog wise) and I really don't think I could of show cased the masses of pictures she has taken.

The other day when I was down loading pictures off of the camera I came across a fresh batch of her latest work.....



I know I'm her mother and all, but--seriously?--she is beautiful. So beautiful.
She is her own special kinda crazy (aren't we all?).
This girl is absolutely one of a kind. :o)
--but, I'm thinking her dad and I need to be afraid. Very afraid.

Moving on....

Wow,
After such an overwhelming response to my ramblings I thought I would move on...
Sheesh, people!
If I want to ramble and have next to no one notice I have a husband that I have been married to for almost 16 years that can do the job right nicely. ;-)
(JUST KIDDING DEAR. I know you hang with baited breath on my every syllable.)

Where did everybody go? Are you out there?

Anyhoo.....

Here's an update I know you have all been on pins and needles to read about.

Thee Garden.

It's been so much fun and thanks to my genius husband we have bypassed our two biggest problems we faced last year:
1-forgetting to water
2-keeping dogs/small children out

Tonight for FHE activity we harvested peas.

Good times. Good, good times.

Elsie and Audrey were very excited about the work.

The finished project.
Minus a few.

First of all, is that or is that not a fantastic fence?
Secondly, let me explain the irrigation system so that you can have the proper appreciation.
What we have hear is a square foot garden,
meaning,
the boxes are divided into square foot grids with a plant in each square.
Get it?
We started down the square foot road last year after many a failed garden attempt.
So, my genius husband made the grid out of PVC pipe,
drilled holes in it,
ran water to it,
using the pipe as a drip system,
and that is how we water the garden.
Smart, right?

And, finally, just in case you were wondering...
Yes, if you do a head count in the garden you'll come up with 5 chitlens.
No, I didn't trade Grant in for a cute browned eyed 7 year old girl.
He was inside.
But don't you worry....

He still enjoyed the bounty.
(btw the nasty scab on his nose is a direct result of a little too much excitement when he spotted,
and ran for a tractor/backhoe thing down the street.
when your feet can't keep up,
you know you are REALLY, REALLY excited)

I like this family.
I think I'll keep them.
:o)

Mind if I ramble???

No?
Okay, good.

-I'm not scoring any points on Mother/Wife of the Year.
Here are my confessions.....Fathers and Sons was last night, don't tell Mike-but I may have encouraged Grant's excitement about the whole thing. What? Mike was considering not making an over nighter out of it. Does he not realize he was taking the kid who keeps me up the latest at night (teenager) and the kid who wakes me up earliest in the morning (three year old)??? Do I look like a fool? Am I stupid? Was I really going to let that opportunity pass me by?? Uh, NO. So, Wife of the Year is out of reach for me....maybe next year.
I am also the mother that abandoned her daughters on the night of fathers and sons. Loser. Who does that? So, there goes Mother of the Year. I did try to make it up to them this morning and took them to breakfast (thank you dixie direct card. and thank you gift giver that gave me dixie direct card).

-I hate, and I do mean HATE the ice cream truck. This isn't a case of 'oh, that's annoying' or 'that kinda bugs me'. No, it's a case of 'where do I send hate mail' and 'can I send a petition around to get them out of my neighborhood'. Grant's chances of being hit by a car go up at least 90% when he hears that stupid music. We convinced Adam when he was little that it was just a music truck, those were the good old days. Seriously, who watches a kid running down (and venturing into the middle) of the street with their mother chasing (and yelling) after them, flips a u-turn (causing child to venture further into the street), pulls over, opens the little window and hangs an ice cream bar out for the child to almost have in his little grasp, so that mother can then sweep him into her arms and haul the child (kicking and screaming) back to the house? That's dumb. Not to mention .75 for a little ice cream bar on a stick?? DUMB.

-Running. It's been a little rocky.
I took a stupid fall over spring break. Something reminiscent to what a 75 year old might encounter. That is, of course, if the 75 were holding a three year old in their arms at the time, loosing their footing on a stair, opting to protect the child thereby allowing all the force of both 75 and 3 year old bodies to impact on the 75 year old tail bone and hip. The only difference was a 35 year old body instead of a 75 year old body. But, I will tell you in the weeks following I felt much closer to a 75 year old. Much closer.
So, I dealt with that frustration. It took some time, but I did heal up nicely. But, by then I felt behind in my training and I've sort of felt behind since then.
I'm running a different leg this year in the Wasatch Back. A different, longer leg. My total mileage is 16.5, my longest run is seven miles. It's at night, that helps, but I do want to feel ready. Let's face it--I'm not fast. Nor do I have any real desire to be. I'm a ten minute miler kind of a gal. So, anyhoo...here I am plugging along, having more mediocre runs then good ones (any one who has run at all knows exactly what I am taking about. sometimes you get out there, run the kinks out, and feel like you can run forever. other times you get out there, run the kinks out and just feel rather crappy the whole time.) although.....I did have a bit of a break through this morning. Six miles, folks. I ran six miles. It felt really good. That was nice.

-Even with as much denial as I can muster, the fact of the matter remains that school will be out in just a couple of short weeks. I don't really want to talk or ramble about that. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

-I feel some what volatile at this point in my life. I'm not a big fan. Yes, I know--changing is up to me. And I'm working on it. I don't have nearly the patience that I used to. Especially with my own children and husband. That's not so good. But, I'm working on it. I used to be a much funner person. I kinda want that girl back. I'm working on it.

All righty, then. That just about sums up our rambling session for today. If I add anything beyond this it could get weird. Thank you for tuning in.


post script:
A couple of days later and a re-read and I would like to say....
Hello, Debbie Downer (woah-woah)
I'm a bit of a kill joy, ya- sorry about that.
Things, they are a changin'.
Life is good, people are good, and I am good.
:o)

Just Because....

I wanted to post something new,
And he is adorable.
I don't think he can help it, actually.
What can I say....he's a natural.

There are a couple of things that I try to get Grant to say
multiple times a day,
purely for my own amusement.
1) His name.
{some day, some where, some one is going to tell him the grim truth that his name isn't actually Grant Delicious. I am probably going to need to smack that person upside the head.}
2) His favorite color.
3) His favorite food.
{Adam and Sam taught him this Napoleon Dynamite tidbit and we all think it is hilarious. He veered from his usual answer only because we were in the middle of enjoying a lovely batch of rice crispie treats, which he is wearing all over his funny little face.}




*p.s.
I'm still looking on the bright side.....
this boy
(and the rest of the punks)
are a real big bright spot on the bight side of life.
I sure am glad they are mine.

Clever is as Clever does.

Cleverness.
It's an ancient Chinese/farmgirl secret.
A secret I learned very well from my mother--who, learned it from her mother--one that I hope to pass along as well....Cleverness is the key.

For instance.....
Let's just say that you are the kinda gal that really enjoys baking.
And let's just say that you are the kinda gal that likes baking so much that she bakes almost every day.
And let's just say that you are the kinda gal that 80-90% of your baking is treats (hypothetically speaking, of course).
And let's just say that you bake so much that---ohhh, I don't know??...your oven dies.
And let's just say that it is at this point that you realize that you are not only addicted (addicted? addicted is such a strong word....how about compelled) compelled to baking treats, your family is also compelled to eating treats, so much so that your self proclaimed non-treat-loving husband says, "I miss your treats."

What are you going to do???

You may go into some form of denial.
You may say to yourself, I don't bake that much....what's the big deal, it'll be fine.
You might think---ehhh, treats? Who needs 'em?
You might even agree to not eating any treats for a whole week. (You may want to think long and hard before you hastily jump on board that band wagon.)

But,
in the end--if you are smart, if you have your farmgirl game on, you'll start thinking outside the box.
And that's when clever mode starts to kick in....

You'll make blondies in the microwave.
You'll make no bake cookies.
You'll make rice crispy treats
You'll make brownies in the microwave.
You'll make carmelle popcorn.
You'll make scotcharoos.
And then if you dig deep, real, real deep and become one with your true farmgirl self....
you will remember a recipe from your childhood.
And you will make that recipe.
And your children will think you are the most clever woman that ever did walk the face of the Earth.
And they will praise your name.
And they will call you Wonderful, Mother.
And they will tell all of their friends about the beautiful genius that is their mother.
And their friends will come, and they will see that it is true.
They too, will attest that you are, indeed CLEVER.

This recipe could change your life,
use it wisely.
Behold, I give you....

Chocolate Waffle Cookies
Melt 3 squares unsweetened chocolate & 1 cup butter.
Beat 4 eggs and 1 1/2 cup sugar & mix.
Add to chocolate mixture and mix well.
Add 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla.
Mix well, drop 1 Tablespoon full on each section of waffle iron heated to medium and bake 1 minute. Remove, cool and frost.
Frosting.
Melt together and stir 1 square unsweetened chocolate, 5 Tbl butter, 1/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup granulated sugar.
Add 1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar.
Mix well.

*one more clever tip*
I never use unsweetened chocolate.
Neither does my clever mother.
She taught me that:
1 Tbl butter + 2 heaping Tbl cocoa = 1 square chocolate

Bizarre Proof

That Lucy is as crazy as I have always claimed....

I was shocked she was willing to perform for the camera,
but,
once she did I could not resist
posting it for all to appreciate.
Just so you know, this is not Goose at her craziest.
This is just totally normal Goose.
And she is crazy.

Some of my personal favorites...
Gimme money, gimme money.
The armpit smelling.
And the shooting,
that's nice too.

Funny, funny girl.

Thoughts On: No Treat Week.

To put it succinctly, not my favorite.

A little back ground...
My sister, Sara, is running the Wasatch Back with us this year. Last week we were discussing our training and how we have noticed that as we are, well, how do you say....er, um....no longer spring chicks that we actually have to be a little more aware of what we are stuffing our faces with. Some how, I'm not totally clear on how this came about, I'm pretty sure she used some sort of hypnosis-voodoo thing over the phone--- the next thing I knew, I had agreed to do a 'No Treat Week' with her. After one week treat free, here is what I think:

• I'm really not the dieting type. I've always assumed this about myself, now I know. My logic has been that it would be silly to make any changes I wasn't willing to stick with. Yup, I was right. If I ever went down that road, I would be the queen bee of yo-yo dieting. No questions asked. And I only gave up treats, not sugar all together.
• Even though I don't have an oven, there are a lot of treats that I can still make. Trust me, I spent quite some time considering my options.
• As it turns out, I actually do have a fair amount of will power. I turned down caramel popcorn (Among other very tasty treats). Not just any old caramel popcorn, my mom's caramel popcorn. That, my friends, is will power.
• I think about treats. A lot.
  
• In my predawn, post-slumber, hazy brained head ramblings lying in bed on Monday morning, I was contemplating my day/week and what it entailed, I actually had a moment where I nearly sat bolt upright thinking it was a new week and therefore I was done with this 'No Treat' nonsense....and then I remembered we started on Friday. I was slightly bummed.
• When I stepped on the scale this morning my actual words were, "Oh crap. I lost three pounds." Could it be true that by avoiding sweets I might actually drop some weight?? Say it aint so! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about the drop--but, seriously? Did I really need to know that it works that way for me too, and not just the rest of the world? Whatev. *Started this post last night, got back on the scale today, and I'm down anther pound. :)*
• I don't think I will be participating in 'No Treat Week' again any time soon. Fewer Treat Week, maybe. No Treat Week, not so much.
• Baking therapy is every bit as real as retail therapy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I LOVE TO BAKE. I love everything about it, not just the end result, but the whole process.
• I'm really grateful for good genes. Shout out to my parents. I remember my mom telling me when I was young that if life were fair I would be as big as a barn, well aren't we so glad that life isn't fair. Yes, this is also the woman who told me to 'get a grip' a few posts ago. She's a no nonsense kinda gal, that mom of mine--and I like her like that. :)

All right, so that just about wraps it up. In conclusion, I would like to say that No Treat Week was actually no treat for me.
But, I am glad I did it all the same.