Thistles

Posted on September 9, 2011 | 6 comments

In the process of moving and getting adjusted to life out here, we let our pasture maintenance slip. Before the goats and horses came, our pastures became pretty overgrown. And then the thistles came. And then they bloomed (such pretty purple blossoms). And then they seeded the hell out if the pastures. I’m sure our neighbors are simultaneously laughing at us and cursing us (since I am sure some of the thistle seeds blew onto their property). I now know why they say to take care of weeds before they seed. I’m afraid this one season is going to take us years of work to undo. Recently I started the de-thistle process. Man. I went through most of one of our small pastures. The main goat pasture. The back end of it is full of flat thistles, with a few tall ones thrown in for good measure. Josephine and I went to town, and still, we did not get them all. Notice I said Josephine and I were in the goat pasture. This is possible because…we no longer have the asshole goats!!! Hooray! Yippee! Party time! We are down to three: our two wonderful, lovely goats named Duck and Billy, and the rental goat, a fat Pygmy goat named Giselle who likes to make a lot of noise, but who is quite well mannered. Now that the asshole goats have moved on to a new farm somewhere with tall fences that they can not leap over, it is safer for Josephine to spend time in the goat pasture with me. And now that she has stopped (for the most part) asking, “Where Bobby Poppy?” (the names of said asshole goats), it is quite pleasant to be able to walk through the pasture or do maintenance without being reared at or head butted or pushed around. Thank the goat lord!
Anyways, thistle time. We have a long road ahead of us, but every day it’s getting easier to do chores with Josephine in tow (in the pasture she spent a lot of time throwing grass into the water troughs, dipping sticks in the water to “paint” on the rocks nearby, and talking about her muscles. She is strange). Taylor even irrigated with Josephine this week without a hitch. You can be sure she had a blast tromping through the waters with her boots on! As for the thistle, one day we will look back and realize that we conquered them. And I will dance a jig (because I am strange, ok? I take after Josephine).

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Oh, and one more thing. The neighbors butchered Mister Cow. Right in the pasture directly in front of our living room window. Luckily Taylor saw and closed the window before Josephine could watch. She LOVED Mister Cow. Farm life just got real!

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Posted in life on the farm

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Stressed

Posted on September 6, 2011 | 2 comments

I am feeling stressed, which is unfortunate, since I just returned from a truly wonderful weekend of camping and fun at the Strawberry Music Festival (stories and pictures to come). Real life has a way of doing that to you, I suppose. Today I lack patience, which makes everything harder for everyone. I just want to go to sleep and stay there for a week with no one talking to me. Post vacation blues? Pretty much. I need another vacation. A little hair of the vacation dog that bit me, if you will. Luckily Josephine and I are going to Seattle soon to visit my sister, brother in law, and my beautiful new nephew, Emmett. That should do the trick! If I suffer from post vacation depression after that one, I always have our October trip to Vegas (sans baby) to look forward to. That should get me through until the holidays. I know, I know, poor me.

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Posted in housewoes

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Who wants five dollars?

Posted on August 29, 2011 | 3 comments

Well, the weekend is over and I DID NOT complete my list of things to do this weekend. Not even close. Like, a million miles from done. Well, maybe a thousand.
Perhaps I was too ambitious, but when it’s Friday and the whole weekend is stretched out ahead of me, I feel like I can do anything. Then the weekend passes, I feel busy as heck, and I don’t get the things done I wanted to. I forget that Josephine doesn’t nap consistently, which makes doing things that I need to be without child for almost impossible. This was a no real in the crib nap kind of weekend. And my neck has been bothering me a lot. I thought it was better, but Sunday it started in again. It’s kinda hard to turn my head. Boo hoo! And now, on to the list!
1. Dust the house. Completed! I did this late Sunday night, kind of half assed it, but dusted all the rooms minus Josephine’s room, since she was sleeping.
2. Clean the bathroom. Completed! When Jane came by to help watch Josephine while I turned the irrigation water off (as you might have read in my last post. I know I can link it somehow, but I am typing blog posts on my phone these days, so I can’t figure it out), I utilized Jane to watch my kid while I quickly cleaned the bathroom. I am sure it already needs to be cleaned again. Stupid bathrooms!
3. Mop/sweep the floors. Completed! Last minute, late late Sunday night, and I did not move the garbage or cat food out of the damn way, but I mopped at any rate! Half assed once again!
4. Harvest my tomatoes. Completed! This was simple, since my kid loves to pick tomatoes. We got a bucket full!
5. Dehydrate tomatoes. Completed! (hey, I’m doing better than I thought!)

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6. Get my dresser drawers in. Fail! I put one drawer in. I am totally blaming this on Taylor though. We switched dressers in the move and he has a bunch of crap in the two last drawers. He’s been too busy to take care of it. But still, my own fail.
7. Finish weeding around the playground. Ha ha ha! Yeah right. With irrigating the ground was too wet, Josephine can’t play nearby, and you know, my neck. I looked at the swing set and I tipped over the play house next to it so that I could eventually clean it out and kill the wasps that inhabit it. I saw four black widows at first glance and walked the other way. This was my biggest fail!
8. Beware of the wasps. I suppose I completed this, as I have no new wasp bites! Success!
9. Start weeding the fire pit area. Yeah, nope. I looked over in the general direction of the pit. Then I walked away. I am not prepared to tackle that yet. F, f, f, fail!
10. Look through boxes of CDs. Well, I thought the CDs were in the guest room, and I went looking. After an irritating few minutes of moving boxes around I realized they weren’t actually there. They were in the damn barn. I went to look, but they were back behind a bunch of shit that needs to be organized, so, once again, I walked the other way. Freaking fail!
11. Finish washing and putting away all the blankets. Completed! Let’s hear it for success!!! This was the easiest thing to do, since I just load stuff in the washer and then switch them to the dryer. I really truly like doing laundry. Does that make me weird?
And so it goes. My list was definitely not completed, I feel like I didn’t get anything done, and my yard is a mess. I have to say, also, that the ONLY reason I did as much as I did was because of the goals I set on this blog. I didn’t want to have to confess that I got zip done. So it worked as a motivator, even though it didn’t motivate me to cross the finish line. Next time, five goals tops. I aim to be realistic. And no neck pain! My weekend was not a total bust, though. I was able to take Josephine to concert in the park and a Yo Gabba Gabba party. And those two events really took the sting out of my lack of completion! Until next time…

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Posted in G-O-A-L!

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Irrigation

Posted on August 27, 2011 | 1 comment

We got water this morning and Taylor had to leave around noon to play a show, so Josephine and I trekked across the neighbor’s pasture to shut the water off this afternoon. I was nervous to have Josephine so close to the canal while I turned the valves, so I called Grammy Jane to come help. While we were waiting for her, we decided that we could actually do this alone. So we got out the trusty ergo, climbed over the fence, hoofed it through Mister Cow’s pasture (so exciting for Josephine, she LOVES Mister Cow), climbed up the canal bank, and shut the gate. Success! Grammy Jane showed up right when we finished, and was able to snap our victory picture! We’re gettin’ the hang of things 🙂

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Posted in life on the farm

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Paused

Posted on August 26, 2011 | 1 comment

I have been on home pause for the last week or so. I really haven’t done anything to move towards having the house settled or getting the land in order.
Work has been ridiculously busy, which my colleague keeps saying is the new normal (and I have the sinking feeling he is right). I have been in meetings pretty solid for about three weeks. It has been slightly exhausting (I’m being kind on that one. It has been downright excruciating, especially given the amount of work I still need to get done in between all these meetings). Also, my neck decided that this was a good week to take a shit on me, so I was mostly unable to move my head for a couple of days. Add to that one sleepless night due to neck pain and worrying, and a child who has decided that she would like to wake up to cry for 5 minutes right when I have just gotten to sleep each night, and you have the picture of my week.
Tired of hearing me complain? Yeah, me too.
So here’s the deal folks. I am going to tell you what I am going to accomplish by the end of the weekend. If I don’t accomplish said goals, I will pay all three of you who read this $5. Deal?! Juuuuust kidding. But really, if I don’t accomplish my goals, feel free to harass me about it until the end of my days. Sound good? OK! Now, on to the goals. I should say, my weekend is fairly busy with Uncle Spencey and Auntie Chris coming over today to spend some long overdue quality time, the Thrift Store Outfit playing at the Oakdale Concert in the Park tonight (shameless plug, starts at six if you are in the area), and the much anticipated Yo Gabba Gabba birthday party we were invited to tomorrow at noon (my child might die when she meets Plex and Foofa. Seriously. She has an addiction and I fear overdose).
My practical list (trying not to set myself up for failure):
1. Dust the house
2. Clean the bathroom
3. Mop/sweep the floors (so easy with my new fantastic Shark cleaner. That thing is epically bad ass. I cried tears of joy when Taylor bought it for me. Same as I cried when he bought me a new washing machine days before Josephine was born. Apparently the way to my heart is through home cleaning devices. But I digress.. )
4. Harvest my tomatoes
5. Dehydrate tomatoes
6. Get my dresser drawers in (yes, only half of my dresser drawers are in. My clothes are in piles on top. I’m a classy lady)
7. Finish weeding around the swing set
8. Beware of wasps while weeding around the swing set (one of the little bastards got me last weekend. No fun)
9. Start weeding the fire pit area
10. Look through boxes of CDs to find that one you have been looking for for years
11. Finish washing and putting away all the blankets

OK, I think that’s enough for now. I’m pretty sure I can knock this shit out. In fact, I’m going to start riiiiiiiiiight NOW!
Happy Friday!

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Posted in housewoes

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Guilt Free!

Posted on August 21, 2011 | 1 comment

Today I decided to take some well deserved relaxation and play time with Josephine. Without the guilt. On Friday night I was having supper at a friends house, and my friend Cynthia and I started talking about guilt. Both of us had experienced paralyzing guilt for not being more productive. Hers born from a toxic job environment, mine born from some need to succeed at everything and please everyone (so realistic, I know). What the heck?! Cynthia brought up a fantastic point. What good does it do wasting time berating yourself for not being productive enough? Why not just be proud of what you do get done and let go a little if you aren’t always on top of your game. I was re-reading my very first blog post explaining why I started this blog, and I remembered a huge part of it is balance. As it is I take pride in feeling good when I’m super productive, but I feel guilty or LAZY when I’m having fun or not working toward a goal. No, folks, I’m not backsliding into lazy town. Lazy is when you are sitting around doing nothing when there is something to be done. Just for sittings sake. What I’m talking about is taking life in, relishing in the simple moments, and just having fun. If I don’t do that, then what’s the point? Enjoying your life should be just that: enjoyable. And so I took today. A guilt free enjoying the day kind of day. And it was AWESOME! It started with playtime, then we met our friends Rachel and Meyer for brunch, then music class, then more playtime in the music class parking lot. After that Josephine and I returned home to look at the fish. Josephine claimed the empty dishwasher spot for her very own club house, and then we went to Mountain Sage Nursery in Groveland to watch Daddy’s Band (The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit) play. This just might be the best weekend I’ve had. Ever. My house may need cleaning and the weeds are taking over, but who cares? We had a blast!

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Posted in Think about it

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Boiling Point

Posted on August 17, 2011 | 2 comments

Last week we hosted our first house guests. Our friends Mario, Casey, Andrew, Ben, Andy, and Josh -otherwise known as The Preservation -came through on tour (if you haven’t heard their music, check it out. So good!) We were so excited to see our friends, and it was amazing to see our home filled with friends, laughter and good times. They just happened to be our first visitors at the last house too, visiting two weeks after we moved in. That time we had the house set up and all the art hung before they got here. This time, not so much. However, we got to test out our set up and enjoy the bad ass front porch for hanging out. Success and good times all around! It was fun to have people in our house playing music and enjoying our country home.
So, The Preservation left on Friday. That was five whole days ago. 1 2 3 4 5 days. And I just completed all of the dishes last night. Now, this isn’t because there was a crazy ton of dishes. In fact, Mario was so nice and did dishes twice when they were here. It’s taking me so long because we have no dishwasher. Additionally, because we have plummed (Spelling? Anyone? Is this even a word?) for a dishwasher and haven’t installed it yet, we have no hot water in the kitchen sink. So do you know what that means? It means I am boiling water to do dishes. Yes, you heard me right. Boiling. Water. Pot after tea kettle of water so that we can eat off of clean dishes. Every night.

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And since we only have a small dish rack and I draw the line at drying my dishes by hand (a girl’s gotta take a stand) it has taken me all of those days to play catch up. And I’m finally done. Right in time for our next visitors this Thursday 🙂

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Posted in housewoes

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Pooper Scooper

Posted on August 14, 2011 | 4 comments

First off, I apologize in advance for the number of times I’m about to say poop. Secondly, if you plan on reading my blog, get used to it. Recently, Josephine has been all about poop. Horse poop, dog poop, goat poop, mommy poop, Josephine poop, it’s all fascinating to her. I can’t tell you how many times in the last week I’ve said, “Josephine, put that poop down! We do not play with goat/dog/any poop!” This afternoon we were playing/working in the yard. Josephine was playing with water in her “own swimming pool” (a plastic tub). She was running around “nakie baby” as she calls it, since the girl can’t be outside with her clothes on. I was weeding the concrete area close by and keeping an eye out for Josephine (safety first!). All off a sudden Josephine yells out, “Go potty! Poop in grass!”. Since she almost always tells me she needs to go to the toilet when she has to go and we’re outside (she was thinking she was a dog and freaking LOVED! pooping in the grass a while back, so we worked hard on pooping in the toilet like a classy lady), and she sometimes mixes up the words pee and poop, I didn’t think twice when she ran her “nakie baby” self over to the grass (because apparently we’ve decided that it’s all right and fine to pee on the grass, but pooping is a no no. Got that?). Fast forward, say, thirty seconds to me running over because, lo and behold, my little lady is, indeed, taking a lovely, classy shit on the grass. I wish this was the end of my story, but no, it is not. Immediately, as I was picking Josephine up so she wouldn’t step in said poop, Buddy the dog ran right up and snatched up the poop IN HIS MOUTH! I yelled, he dropped it and ran, but the damage was done. Josephine is now fond of saying this sentence over and over: “Josephine poop in grass aaaand Buddy eat it. So funny!”. Funny, I guess, but really, so, so gross.
And that concludes my poop story. Carry on.

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Posted in dirty dog

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Tonight…

Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 comment

Josephine, Taylor and I spent the evening in the yard. I pulled some weeds by the swing set, but mostly we just hung out. I truly lead a charmed life.
When I’m feeling frazzled, over worked, tired and super bitch style, I’m going to think of this picture.

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Because really? How lucky am I?

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Front Yard Dinners

Posted on August 6, 2011 | 1 comment

Aaaaaaand we still have no dinner table set up. The neighbors probably love seeing Taylor and me squeezed into Josephine’s kid chairs eating dinner on the front porch. Class all the way.

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