Goals

It's been quite awhile since I posted an actual list of goals. I tried the 100 goals in 100 weeks, which had a lot of good goals on it, but my life is just too crazy right now to be dealing with that many goals.

So for now I'm limiting it to a few categories:
Health
House
Homeschool
Habits

{did you notice how I managed to use words that all start with H?}

A few goals under Health:
1. keep strengthening my knee and start running for longer periods of time/distance
2. train for and run at least 4 races by the end of 2012 (at least one half marathon)
3. be more careful with my eating and lose some weight

A few goals under House:
1. finish painting all the rooms
2. do the family room ceiling
3. finish building built-in shelves in the library

A few goals under Homeschool:
1. stick to the schedule I've worked out, as much as possible
2. be more consistent with violin practicing

A few goals under Habits:
1. practice the piano more frequently
2. index several batches every week for FamilySearch
3. have more meaningful daily scripture study (start journaling as I read)

How are you at keeping goals you make?

Our Treehouse

Every child needs a treehouse at some point in their life. We had one when I was in elementary school. My dad built it onto a huge eucalyptus tree in our back yard. It was a pretty simple box supported in two corners by posts and the other two corners on the tree. Boards nailed to the tree led to a trap door in the floor. A wall high enough to keep us from falling out went all around, and a roof kept all the eucalyptus leaves and berries out of the treehouse. Simple, but it provided hours of fun and entertainment for us. Though I think it was mainly the older kids that played in it. I don't think we let the little kids come up very often. Sorry guys! They're all grown up now and are all taller than me, so I don't think I can call them the "little kids" anymore  :)

Our property has lots of trees, but no low branches to support a treehouse, so we built one using two trees as supports and two 4"x4" posts as the other supports. But first we cleared out some of the underbrush so we could see what we were doing and to make room for the future play area.

We started by attaching 2" x 10" x 12' boards to the trees to act as the center support. The ground isn't exactly level, so on one tree it's about 6' above the ground and on the other it's closer to 7' above the ground. It was a bit difficult keeping everything level while drilling the holes for the bolts. Luckily my dad was out for a quick visit, and he helped. We then built a 12' x 9'4" frame and filled in the joists.

Since the frame was made of 2" x 6" boards, it wasn't exactly light, but we (Mr M and I, because my dad had to leave to catch his plane) managed to drag it over to the center support.

We leaned it against the support, then attached ratcheting straps to the higher end and tightened them as much as possible.

We then lifted the frame and rested it on the ladder, so we could tighten the ratcheting straps again.

Then it was a matter of wiggling the frame back and forth while tightening the ratcheting straps. It wasn't the easiest process, but we eventually got the frame centered on the supports. We toed in the frame to the supports, then moved on.

Mr M and LMS ran to Lowe's for a couple more pieces of wood for the diagonal braces (we forgot to factor those in when we bought the wood) and some more bolts (which we'd also forgotten to factor in).  While they did that, I got out the leaf blower and cleared out all the fallen leaves so we could see the ground better. We kept tripping over tree roots and holes in the ground, so it seemed like a good thing to do.

We wanted the corners supported, so we cut diagonal braces that meet in the center and are attached to the trees. We made sure the corners were level and then screwed the supports to the frame.

After that, we measured and then dug the holes for the posts. We screwed the posts to the frame to hold them in place, then we mixed water and kwikrete in both the holes.

LMS wanted to help us throughout the process, but the wood was too heavy for her to actually help with anything, so she was quite excited to help stir the kwikrete. This is her posed "I'm smiling for the camera" face and Mr M's "Hurry up and take the picture so we can finish this" face.  :)

At this point, we were out of time, so we left the concrete to set. The next step will be drilling holes and bolting the posts to the frame, the supports to the frame, and the supports to the trees.

This is very much a work in progress that will evolve as we work on it. We need to add decking and a railing, a ladder, a "house", swings, a slide, a climbing wall, a telescope, a rope and a pulley, the list goes on and on. And LMS keeps coming up things to add- the telescope and rope and pulley are her ideas :)

Unlike most of our projects, this one actually went faster than expected. Though maybe that's because I hadn't really thought about how long it would take, other than that it needed to get done. In any case, we got this done all in one day, and now the hard part is done. The rest will be a lot easier to do and can be done in small increments.

Did you have a treehouse when you were little?

Sunday Funny

We tend to sing snatches of songs and make up nonsense lyrics to go with other songs, just for fun. Well, Mr M and I think it's fun, LMS doesn't always appreciate it :) We don't have great voices, but hopefully LMS will be less self-conscious about singing than I was as a kid (and teenager, and adult...).

The other day, Mr M sang "the sun will come out..."

and LMS immediately followed with "in a few days!"

She's seen 'Annie' several times, so that was *not* the answer we were expecting :)

Daddy-Daughter Camping Trip

Last weekend Mr M had a campout with the 11-year-old scouts. They were camping in one of the other leader's backyard, so we let LMS go along. She had a blast!

The picture above is great- all in pink, in her little chair, eating her dinner (cheezy noodles I made that afternoon for her to take with her). Love the crossed leg :)

She was very excited about going on the campout and several days before they left she pulled out clothes and bedding to bring along and stacked it neatly on the ottoman in her room. I should have taken a picture of everything she wanted to bring :) The stuffed animals and extra pillows stayed home, but I don't think she missed them.

Saturday morning they had a three mile hike the boys needed to do, and LMS went along. I love the outfit she picked out- pink t-shirt, pink twirly skirt with sparkles and striped leggings. What else would a well-dressed little girl wear on a hike? We didn't let her get too crazy though- she also wore her wool socks and hiking boots.

It was a fun activity for LMS and Mr M and one that I'm sure will be repeated.

**I had no desire to go camping with a bunch of 11 year old boys :) I stayed home and finally made some progress on my built in bookshelves. We'll go camping as a family soon.

Clipix

I recently had a discussion with a friend regarding the pros and cons of Pinterest. After the discussion, she did some research and found Clipix (thanks Kristy!), which is similar to Pinterest, but has privacy settings, so you don't have to share your "clips". Since that was a big downside to Pinterest in my eyes, I gave it a try. I'm slightly paranoid in not wanting anyone to have more info about me than they need, and feel that what I choose to bookmark is my business. If you want to share with others, though, you can change your privacy settings from "only me" to "only Clipix friends" or "everyone". Even better, you can do it for each clipboard, so some can be private, some can be shared with friends, and some can be shared with everyone.

I spent a few days transferring all my zillions of bookmarks into Clipix, and for the most part, I love it! I love being able to keep things organized with a visual reminder of what I want to do/buy/make. I'm a visual person, which is why Pinterest appealed to me in the first place: being able to see a thumbnail of something is a great reminder/helps me find things quicker.

It's easy to add new items to your clipboards- you just add a "Clip" button to your toolbar that you click when you want to clip something. You pick a picture, type a title, and choose which clipboard you want it in (or make a new clipboard). Easy peasy!

After playing around with it, I've come up with some tips.

-- when naming your clipboards, be more specific rather than less specific. If you decide to move half the contents of one clipboard to another one, it can be a bit tricky since the view where you can move things between clipboards only shows the first 9 clips. If you have more than that you have to spend extra time moving them to the top so you can access them. This was my biggest gripe- I would like a scroll bar on each clipboard on the homepage, so I can see what's in each one without actually having to open that clipboard in a new window.

-- you can have an unlimited number of clips and clipboards, and you can organize the clipboards into multiboards. I started out with a couple multiboards, but ended up separating them into individual clipboards because I find it's easier to access the clips that way. Just be precise in your titles, and you'll still be able to find everything.

-- I have about 60 clipboards and close to 1000 clips (embarrassing, I know! and I got rid of a lot when I was moving bookmarks), in a variety of topics ranging from various homeschool subjects to recipes to races I want to run to things I want to make and build. I'm not sure if it's the site in general or if it's because I have so many clipboards, but it does take a minute for all my clipboards to load on the homepage. Or it could be my slow internet.... Just something to be aware of.

So far, I'm really liking Clipix and I find it very easy to use as I go through posts on my Google Reader.

Have you tried Clipix?

Blogs I follow and what we eat

Little Miss Sunshine, finally healthy and growing properly

I've recently been asked by several people about going gluten free, learning to read labels, dealing with restricted diets, and everthing else that goes along with it. I've been directing people to this post, but since I wrote it 2 1/2 years ago, I thought I should update it a bit.

I no longer follow very many gluten free specific blogs. Given all the dietary restrictions we have, I follow a variety of paleo/primal/vegan/allergy blogs. {hee hee} Listing paleo/primal with vegan seems counter-intuitive, but it works for us.

Anyway, here's the most helpful blogs I follow, mostly for recipes. I rarely follow recipes as they're posted, since I'm getting better at using them as a starting point and tweaking them for dishes we can eat.

The Spunky Coconut
The Food Lovers' Kitchen  I have their cookbook, and it's great!
Cybele Pascal
Elana's Pantry
The Sensitive Pantry
The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen  they also have a great cookbook
Civilized Caveman
Comfy Belly
Gluten Free Goddess

These blogs host linky parties, so they're a good source of random recipes and new blogs to check out. I'm always searching for someone else who has the same dietary restrictions and who posts recipes. Hasn't happened yet, but I keep hoping :)
Allergy Free Vintage Cookery
Simply Sugar and Gluten Free

An athlete's perspective on dealing with celiac, which helps me as I work to overcome damage caused by years of nutritional deficiencies. He also writes well-researched and well-written articles on various gluten free topics, which I find very informative.
No Gluten, No Problem

As I've mentioned before, we have a fairly restricted diet that doesn't include a lot of processed foods. I'd like to eat less rice crispies and rice milk, but at this point it's our best breakfast option.

Breakfast is usually rice crispies sprinkled with Enjoy Life cinnamon crunch nut and gluten free granola with rice milk. We were eating rice Chex and cinnamon rice Chex, but the BHT was giving both of us problems. The Kellog's Gluten Free Rice Crispies also contain BHT, but it doesn't seem to be as much, since it doesn't bother us (yet). If (when) it does, we'll switch back to Erewhon gluten free rice crispies, which don't have BHT, but are more expensive. In the past we've done green smoothies, but I got out of the habit over the winter and haven't quite picked it up again.

Lunch is usually leftovers from the night before (ie, meat and veg). Occasionally we will do nori rolls or meat rolls (lunch meat rolled up with veggies inside), and there's always fruit in a bowl on the counter that we can grab a piece from.

Dinner is a variety of dishes. We do rice pasta once a week, rice once every week or two, and quinoa and beans occasionally- I'd like to do more, but haven't yet found recipes we like. Mostly the meal is made up of meat and assorted veggies. We don't eat potatoes, but mashed roasted cauliflower and mashed baked squash make pretty good substitutes. We eat fish, chicken, pork, and elk (instead of beef), and I'm always looking for new recipes that incorporate them. I'd actually like to eat less meat, but that's just not an option right now unfortunately.

Snacks are usually fruit or the occasional Larabar (they're made with nuts, and most nuts are on the bad list these days, so we don't eat them often, but they're easy to keep in my bag). Treats are homemade sorbet (still need to post that recipe), smoothies, Yummy Earth lollipops (the ones made with rice syrup, not tapioca syrup), and occasionally fruit strips (corn syrup free, of course). I keep trying different recipes for snacks and treats, but none of them has worked out well enough (or agreed with us well enough) to be added into our repertoire.

We try to eat as balanced a diet as possible, but we're also trying to overcome years of nutritional deficiencies caused by the untreated celiac. As a result, we take Juice Plus+ supplements (instead of a traditional multivitamin), calcium, D3 and a chewable B (6, 12, and folic acid) vitamin. We also take digestive enzymes and I take CoQ-10 because I sleep better when I do (I actually have dreams, which never happened before I started taking it) and fish oil. We do have to be very diligent about reading labels on vitamins and other supplements. I once had a reaction to a vitamin I was taking that claimed to be gluten free, but was manufactured in a shared facility. A lot of supplements are made with soy or corn ingredients, which drastically decreases the brands that we can choose from when buying supplements.

We only occasionally eat out- there just are not a lot of options for us right now. In the past, 5 Guys Burgers and Fries was a great option. Their limited menu offerings mean you don't have to worry about the french fries being fried in the same oil as the chicken nuggets. They're also good about preparing your burger without a bun, wrapped in lettuce. Unfortunately, potatoes just do not agree with me, so we haven't been to 5 Guys for awhile. The pad thai at Noodles and Co are gluten free (I always let them know I have celiac just to make sure) and can be ordered without eggs. We don't have a restaurant close to us, so we don't eat there very often. Chipotle's burrito bowl has been a go-to meal in the past, but they cook the meat and rice using soybean oil, and I've been progressively having more and more problems when we eat there. And you have to be careful about anything they touch with their hands- so no lettuce or cheese. Outback Steakhouse has a great gluten free menu (it tells you how to order in order to avoid gluten), and their employees seem to be fairly knowledgeable. I've never had problems eating at Outback.

That's all I can think of for now, but I do need to add a disclaimer. These are things that work for us, but may not for others. I am not a doctor, so consult with yours before changing your diet. Good luck!

Co-op sewing class

Last fall I taught a sewing class for the kids in our co-op, and I'm just barely getting the pictures together for this post :)  There was two classes- the younger kids (4-7) and the older kids (8-12) and we ended up doing three projects- plastic canvas bracelets, fabric stuffies, and felt ornaments.

The kids sewed the bracelets in whatever design they wanted with yarn, then sewed a button and a yarn loop to close it. The younger kids did need a bit of parental help, but they picked the colors they wanted and did most of the work. The older kids were able to do all the work themselves.

The sample bracelet I made.

Some of the bracelets being modeled.

The next project was some stuffies. I searched far and wide for an easy project the kids could do, and finally came across these, which looked super cute and fairly simple. After looking over the designs, I drew some patterns on paper and sewed a couple samples. I used a velour-ish sheet from IKEA, leftover from LMS's Finding Nemo room. I incorporated a green strap from the sheet into the back of the doggy and used some scraps of fleece for the spikes on the dragon. The dragon was a bit more involved because of the tail and spikes, but the rest of the patterns I drew up were fairly easy.

Top: doggy, Bottom: dragon

I didn't take pics of the other kids' stuffies, but here's LMS's kitty cat that she sewed by hand. She picked out the buttons herself, too. Isn't it cute?

The last project was some felt Christmas ornaments. The kids sewed buttons and had help gluing trim to pieces of felt. They then sewed a second piece to the back, as well as a loop for hanging.

Some of the kids chose to do plastic canvas and yarn ornaments, using shapes I picked up at JoAnns.

 (I didn't get pics of those, though)

The ornaments I made to show the kids.

Again, I didn't get pics of the other kids' ornaments, but here's the one LMS made. Pretty good sewing for a 5 year old :)

The class was a lot of work, and didn't quite go as I had hoped (I intended to do some machine sewing with the older class), but in the end, I think the kids learned a little bit, at least. Lots of parental involvement made the whole thing possible, especially with the younger kids. I'm not sure that I'll attempt another sewing class at the co-op, but I will be doing some sewing with LMS. She's been asking me to make clothes for her Nanny, so I'll use the opportunity to give her some practice with my sewing machine (with my help, of course).

Have you done any sewing with your kids, and how did it go?

Butterfly Adventures

Lately we've all been going to the park after play class. The nice weather allows the kids to run around and play together outside after playing together inside. This past week the kids came running over with a butterfly. I'm not sure where they found it, but it was content to sit on their fingers.

They took turns carefully passing it around to each other. They were very careful not to touch the wings or otherwise harm the butterfly.

The butterfly patiently walked from hand to hand, finger to finger, not flying off till each of the children had had a chance to hold it. They were all so excited that they had been able to hold a butterfly. Experiences like this highlight the joys of homeschooling- learning opportunities are everywhere!

Have you ever held a butterfly?

Our sad garden

 the arrows are pointing to our sad squash plants

We've wanted to have a garden for years, and this year we finally managed it. Unfortunately, we're not sure how it will do.

Last fall Mr M and my dad tilled up the spot where we wanted to put in our garden, but there's so much clay and so many {large} rocks that they weren't able to accomplish much. We figured we probably wouldn't have much luck if we planted directly in the clay, so we bought some topsoil, hummus, and mulch, mixed them together and poured them into some trenches we dug. We then transplanted the squash and zucchini plants that we started in the house.

A couple weeks later we added a third row (the one on the left) with some other plants, and the difference in the rows is quite obvious. We're not sure if our dirt is getting absorbed into the clay, or what, but the dirt seems to be disappearing.

The plants are yellowing, but they have blossoms, so they haven't completely died. It'll be interesting to see how many squash and zucchini we do/don't get, as well as how well everything else does.

We're hoping to do some major landscaping in our backyard this fall, so we didn't want to do anything too big/expensive this spring. If nothing else, this will be a good learning experience.

Anyone have experience growing a garden in clay?

Birthday Cupcakes

Chocolate  wacky cake cupcake with raspberry frosting

LMS had a few friends over for a birthday party last Saturday. After playing and the obligatory pinata busting [which required help from Mr M- don't buy pinatas from Target- they're impossible to break. Mr M took a whack at it and the loop tore out of it- the sides didn't bust out.] we had cupcakes and strawbery sorbet.
I used the same recipe that I used for her birthday cake, but used the chocolate gluten free option this time. I used the same frosting recipe (substituting raspberries for strawberries again), also, but didn't overbeat it this time and it turned out a lot better. I also made the same strawberry sorbet that we made for her birthday.

It was all very yummy!

Sunday Funny

LMS asleep in the car after an evening of culture via the local high school's production of

"The Sound of Music"

The other night Mr M and I were getting settled in bed, talking about things that had happened that day. I recounted the conversation about pretending to sleep that LMS and I had when I put her to bed.

I started by making noises like this: {little snort} shooo, {little snort} shooo, {little snort} shooo.
She corrected me and said it went like this: {little snort} me me me me, {little snort} me me me me.

I asked why, and she said it was because she's a kitten, and kittens make different snoring noises.

As I was doing the snoring noises for Mr M, we heard LMS making her kitty snoring noises in her room down the hall, which startled us, since we'd checked on her not long before and she'd been asleep.

Apparently not.

Good thing we weren't doing anything besides talking....  :)

What we eat: Birthday dinner

Little Miss Sunshine turned 6 last week.

For dinner, she requested noodles (of course!), jello, fruit salad, and root beer.

Noodles: Tinkyada Little Dreams shaped rice noodles with faux mato sauce, pepperoni, sausage, and sauteed shredded veggies
Jello: blue jello
Fruit salad: fresh strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries
Root beer: Jones brand (doesn't contain corn syrup)

For cake and ice cream she requested a lemon cake with raspberry frosting and strawberry ice cream. And she wanted the cake to have "rings", by which she meant layers.

I used this recipe for the cake, using the gluten free and lemon options. It's called Wacky Cake, and dates from the Depression when eggs, milk and butter weren't plentiful. This is great for us, since that means it's naturally vegan! No substituting with flax eggs- yay! I used Authentic Foods GF Classical blend and it turned out pretty good. A little dense, but the texture and flavor were quite good. The blend does contain tapioca flour and potato starch, so we won't use this recipe too often- I could definitely tell I was eating things I shouldn't be.

I used this recipe for the frosting, using raspberries instead of strawberries. I think I used about 1/2 cup of lightly smashed raspberries instead of the 3 Tbl strawberry puree. It's been quite some time since I made frosting, and I ended up beating it a bit longer than I should have so it went grainy. It was also a bit grainy because of the powdered sugar I used- it clumped pretty bad, even after sifting it. The frosting didn't look super appetizing, but it tasted fine.

I'll post the recipe soon that I used for the strawberry ice cream, which is really a sorbet. Since we had to take coconut milk out of our diet we couldn't use the super easy ice cream recipe that we've used in the past.

All in all, it was a yummy dinner and there was only a minimal amount of things we shouldn't be eating :)

LMS turned 6 this past week

She's getting sooo big and grown up.

Last week when I took her to a friend's house to play, she told me "I can walk to the door by myself"

When she went this week, she told me the same thing, then started up the walk. After a few feet, she turned around and came back and gave me one of her cute little waves before heading down the walk and into the house. So sweet.

She wants to be all grown up and independent, but there's times when she's still my little baby. I love that she's becoming more confident in her ability to do things.

The trail through our woods

Looking at the trail from the "trailhead"- the large rocks on either side border our parking area

A couple weekends ago we rented a stump grinder and a wood chipper. There were several stumps that were in the way, especially one in our driveway from a tree we took down to enlarge the driving space. And there were some brush piles left by the previous owners that we wanted to get rid of. After taking care of the brush piles, we walked the lot, picking up a lot of the downed branches and clearing up the underbrush. I wouldn't have worried about the underbrush, but we wanted the wood chips for our trail, so we chipped as many branches as we could.

The grinding generated a lot of sawdust (lower right of picture), which is finer than the wood chips (upper left of picture), so we spread that on the trail with the wood chips.

We also lined the path with some of the fallen trees that we didn't chip up. We weren't able to do all the path (the wood chips end at the right edge of the picture), but we got a good start, and I'm excited to finish off this section of the trail. Once we do that, we can clear another loop through the trees.

Have you gotten to use any loud power tools lately?

Celiac, vitamin deficiency, and shinsplints

photo courtesy of LMS

Several years ago, before we found out I had celiac, I had a very extensive physical done, and my vitamin D levels were low, as was my calcium. They weren't sure why I was low, but ever since I've taken supplements to correct the deficiency.

I read a post awhile ago that was eye-opening. I originally found Pete's blog pre-celiac diagnosis, when I was looking for info on closed ski resorts in Colorado, which he wrote an interesting book about. Once I went gluten free I started reading his blog, which as a fellow gluten free athlete, though I'm nowhere near his level, is quite helpful and encouraging.

Pete says that the athlete they highlighted had bad shinsplints that were caused by low levels of vitamin D and calcium. He goes on to say that this is a common occurrence in athletes with celiac that hasn't been diagnosed. Once she went gluten free her vitamin levels increased, her bones got stronger, and her shinsplints went away.

Hmmm. Sounds like me. Only I'm not a champion runner :)

Seeing the connection between vitamin deficiency (Ca and D) caused by the untreated celiac and shinsplints and stress fractures was good for me. As I've mentioned before, I've had problems with chronic shinsplints since I was in college. I've seen progress recently, which I attributed to the physical therapy I've been doing, but after reading Pete's post, I think it's a combination of the PT and the vitamin supplementation. Years of intestinal damage and low vitamin levels doesn't get undone overnight, unfortunately.

I'm coming up on my 3 year gluten free anniversary this month, but I'm only a couple months past my 1 year "free of everything my body doesn't like" anniversary (less than that if you count from when I eliminated almonds and coconut). I think I've made more progress this past year than in the previous two. I know LMS has improved more this past year. I sorted her clothes a couple weeks ago, and she's finally outgrowing a lot of her clothes. She didn't grow much the last two years, so it's nice to see evidence that her growth is picking up again.

Yay for progress, and yay for progress validated!

Sunday Funny

in one of her many "forts", this one made on the couch out of an umbrella and some play silks

The other day, LMS came to me and said

"I'm not {her full name} anymore,

I'm {her first name} Fort Keeper."

I'm guessing this was influenced by the Eragon books we've been listening to, with Eragon Shade Slayer and Roran Strong Hammer and their cohorts. That, coupled with the fact that she is constantly building forts out of anything she thinks will work, in all the rooms in the house.

I love seeing her imagination at work :)

Sunday Funny

(A few days late because we had a crazy busy weekend that we're still recovering from.)

The other day during reading time, I heard myself say to LMS:

"Sit up straight and use both eyes, please."

Yeah, that's not something I ever thought would come out of my mouth.

~~~~~~~~~

backstory:

I don't think her prescription is quite right still, and I've noticed lately that she turns her head and squints a little so she's only using her good right eye, which is, of course, not something to be encouraged. She's got a checkup soon, so we'll be addressing this then.