Briefly Checking In

Once again, I've been incommunicado for a couple weeks. This seems to happen most often when I find myself super busy with other projects- my internet time drastically decreases and my blogging slows from a trickle to a sporadic drip.

I have about two more weeks of busyness (despite my efforts I did not finish all the painting before Christmas), and then I hope to be more regular with my posting.

On the upside, I will have lots of pictures to share from all the painting and remodeling work I've been doing, as well as Christmas photos, GAPS updates, goals accountability and updates, and Disney photos (parks and races).

In the meantime, here's a photo I took while running on a canal towpath Christmas Eve morning. Parts of it were covered with snow and ice, but a lot of it was fairly clear, so while it was colder than I'm used to (I've been doing a lot of treadmill running), I was able to go for a nice four mile run.

Easy Fall Neckerchief Slide

I made this for the month of November, but for a variety of reasons, we didn't have time to actually make them with the boys. I thought I'd share it anyway.

I started by cutting three sizes of the same leaf with my Silhouette, then tracing them onto three different colors of felt. The yellow is stiff, and added some structure to the whole thing. I layered the felt leaves, gluing them with my trusty low-temp glue gun, then added some googly eyes. The last step was to glue a section of conduit to the back.

Christmas Tree Neckerchief Slide

This was a fairly easy slide, though I need to find some slides that don't involve felt. The boys just aren't that adept at cutting felt. January's slide will be a miniature wood car in honor of the Pinewood Derby, but I haven't come up with anything for February yet.

This should be pretty easy to figure out, but here's what I did. I cut two identical trees out of green felt and stiff brown felt, cutting the trunk off the green tree so the brown trunk showed through. The stiff brown felt kept everything from flopping around. I used my low- temp glue gun and glued the layers together. Then I searched through my button collection for likely "ornaments" and cut some baker's twine for garland. Some more dabs of hot glue, and the tree was decorated. All that was left was gluing a piece of conduit to the back (go here for more details on the conduit).

I forgot to take pictures of the ones the boys made, but here's a picture of the one LMS made (with help from the other den leader).

And yes, I totally made a pink neckerchief for LMS :)

GAPS Intro Week 5

Read why we're doing GAPS here.
Read about our GAPS Intro Week 1 here.
Read about our GAPS Intro Week 2 here.
Read about our GAPS Intro Week 3 here.
Read about our GAPS Intro Week 4 here.

I still struggled with eating enough, but since I didn't realize what was going on till the end of week 4/beginning of week 5 this wasn't surprising.

We added homemade applesauce (so yummy!), cucumbers, Boston lettuce, raw apples, and honey.

We did more juicing, adding beets, apples, pears, and celery to our carrot juice. I only add small amounts of beet though. I learned my lesson when we were newlyweds years ago and I was doing some juicing. I don't remember what else I put in, but I do know there was an entire beet in the mix. I drank the juice then got in my car to go to class. A few blocks later, I had to pull over and I puked all over the fence surrounding the soccer fields. Needless to say, I was scarred for life by that experience. I think I may have stopped juicing after that? Can't quite remember, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I've been roasting an organic pastured chicken each week, and it's so easy. Rinse the chicken, then sprinkle sea salt, pepper, and Herbamare on all sides. I cook it for about 2 hours at 350. I start it breast side down for half an hour, turn it over and cover with foil for another half hour, then uncover and cook for about 1 more hour (till the internal temperature is at 180. The skin gets nice and crispy and brown and tastes sooo good. Healthy fats, right? It's a big change from before, when just the thought of eating the skin was a bit icky. Even LMS, who has never liked skin and such before likes it.

After roasting, I deglaze the roasting pan and add the juices to the crockpot with the carcass, which makes the best tasting broth. Yum!

Adventures with Chainsaws

Back in August, a gust of wind proved to be too much for one of our oak trees. There was a damaged section of trunk, and the wood splintered. It took a while for the top half of the tree to fall down, so we left it alone till recently. I'm sad to lose this tree- it was a big tree at the end of our driveway and the branches gave great shade and coverage.

The tree started at this angle, about 45 degrees closer to the ground.

After a few weeks the weakened wood had splintered enough for the the top of the tree to be at a 90 degree angle.

A few weeks later, it finally gave in and broke off completely. Unfortunately the top half was still leaning against the trunk, which made it difficult to do anything with it. So we didn't. We just let it stay as it was.

Here's a view of the damaged part of the tree, right after it started splintering. Once I looked, it was quite obvious that that section was weakened and in trouble.

 Here's the other side of the tree, showing the bulging of the splinters.

The mangled ends after the tree finished breaking.

Here's what it's looked like since the leaves fell. Not very pretty.

A week ago our very kind neighbors came over and took the tree down for us. I'd asked one of them to show me how to use a chain saw so I could do it, but he expressed concern about the technicality of the job since the top part was leaning against the trunk. So he got together with our other neighbor, who's more experienced in such things, and they took it down.

They looped a rope around the top section of the still-standing trunk, attached it to the tow hitch of a Jeep, and ratcheted it tight before making the first cut.

Here you can see the fallen top part has slid down to where the rope is.

Tightening the rope before cutting a bit more.

Pulling the tree down.

And it landed right where it was supposed to. Yay!

Branches on the top part had to be cut then it lay on the ground as well.

Here's a section of the trunk where it splintered. It was just mangled. 

A few cuts and the trunk pieces were moved off the driveway. They'll finish cutting the trunks and take the wood home for seasoning and splitting. They both have wood fireplaces/heaters, and we don't, so giving them the wood was a no-brainer.

The chunk of trunk on the right hand side of the driveway, furthest up, is for us. We're going to let it season and then get it planed into a mantle beam by a local sawmill. We'll then hollow it out so we can attach it to the wall above our {gas} fireplace. 

I've always hated the minimalist mantle the previous owners installed, and thought the idea of a rough-hewn mantle made from a tree on our property was a great idea. I planned on using one of the other trees that need to be taken down, but since this one came down before we had a chance to take down any of them, we're using this tree.

{this is not what it looks like anymore- thank goodness!}

After they did the big stuff, I pulled out our {as-yet-unused} chainsaw and they walked me through the proper usage and safety precautions  of a chainsaw. I've been nervous about doing it myself (I kept having visions of accidentally chopping off part of a foot), but figured once I learned how to use it all would be fine. This proved to be true. It's fun to use! Though I do need to watch my body mechanics since I managed to get a migraine and trigger my sciatica because I was tensing up so bad while cutting the branches on an incline. Probably a flat cutting surface would be good.

Have you used a chainsaw?

Conversations with LMS

Posing on a newly cut-down tree- "Mommy, take a picture of me!"

Listening to Christmas carols in the car....

Mommy, what's mistletoe?

A plant that you hang on the ceiling or doorway, and if you stop under it, you kiss.

Who do you kiss?

Your husband or wife.

Ewww!

Next year I'm going to get lots of mistletoe and hang it all over the house and daddy and I are going to do lots of kissing.

No, I don't want you to do that.

Why not?

Mommies and daddies aren't supposed to kiss.

Oh? What are they supposed to do?

Um, they're supposed to take care of their kids.


---------------

Oh, kiddo. you make me laugh. You're a little young yet to understand that if mommies and daddies don't kiss, there's no kiddos for them to take care of :)

She's actually been in the anti-kissing phase for awhile now- anytime she catches us kissing, she yells "no kissing!", but we just kiss again, which prompts her to yell "no kissing!" again. Cheap entertainment :)

GAPS Intro Week 4

Read why we're doing GAPS here.
Read about our GAPS Intro Week 1 here.
Read about our GAPS Intro Week 2 here.
Read about our GAPS Intro Week 3 here.

This week we started juicing- carrot juice to begin with. We also added olive oil back in. Nut flour bread was on the list, but since we're not eating nuts or eggs, we skipped it. LMS loves the carrot juice, my reaction is more "meh". The earthy sweetness isn't really my thing. Once we tone it down with other juices, it'll be more acceptable.

All week I had bad cravings, which made life difficult. After a lot of thought, I decided I wasn't eating enough.

• I've increased my level of physical activity since I'm training for a half marathon in January.
• Taste bud fatigue. Or is it appetite fatigue?  Basically I'm getting tired of eating the same thing over and over, and I'm not fond of the taste of beef fat, which ends up in a lot of our food. As a result, I'm eating less overall, which isn't a good thing at this point in time. Adding more foods back in so we have a wider variety to choose from should help with this though.

Random thing:
I usually wash my hair every other day, only blow dry it on Sundays, and let it air dry the rest of the time. The last couple weeks I've noticed my hair isn't nearly as greasy as usual. Usually the morning I'm due to wash my hair, I can tell it needs it and there's no way to let it go another day.  Lately, I've been going 3 or 4 days in between washings, and my hair doesn't feel gross. I washed my hair Sunday morning, and it wasn't till Friday that I felt like it needed to be washed again. Now if I could get my face to clear up a bit more, I'd be happy. It's never been really bad, but I do have a problem with blackheads and blemishes on certain parts of my face.

November Goals Re-cap

four random broccoli (cauliflower?) plants that somehow survived the scorching summer and crappy soil- I found them when I cleaned out the garden and prepped it for winter.

Since I wrote down some new goals, I thought I should track my progress at the end of each month. So here's how I did in the month of November:
(October's progress report can be found here)
(September's progress report can be found here)
(August's progress report can be found here)
(July's progress report can be found here)
(June's progress report can be found here)

A few goals under Health:
1. keep strengthening my knee and start running for longer periods of time/distance
I'm running regularly and increasing my mileage. The next thing to do is be more diligent with my strength training.
2. train for and run at least 4 races by the end of 2012 (at least one half marathon)
I ran the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, giving me 5 races for the year, the first of which was a half marathon.
3. be more careful with my eating and lose some weight
We started following the GAPS diet at the beginning of November. We're feeling good and hopefully making progress with the health of our intestines. I lost the weight I gained last month plus some, and am now down 20 pounds from where I was in August. Yay!

A few goals under House:
1. finish painting all the rooms
I worked on the guest bedroom and master bath, but didn't finish them. I did finish the trim and doors in the entry way and living room. I also finally hung some art on the walls- pics to come.
2. do the family room ceiling
Paneling is up, spackled, sanded, primed, and painted. The crown is repainted and reinstalled, so I'm calling it good.
3. finish building built-in shelves in the library
I got the books sorted and organized and placed on the shelves, only to realize I underestimated how many shelves I'd need. I've made some more, but still need to paint them.

A few goals under Homeschool:
1. stick to the schedule I've worked out, as much as possible
We're still doing pretty good. I'm really liking the 3 weeks on/1 week off schedule that we've been doing- no time for boredom or burnout.
2. be more consistent with violin practicing
Since we started school we're doing better because it's in our school schedule. In thinking about this particular goal, I think I meant more consistency from LMS and myself. We've been really good about making sure LMS is practicing, but I still haven't been, so now I need to be more consistent with MY practicing. Like a lot of other things, though, it won't happen till after Christmas.

A few goals under Habits:
1. practice the piano more frequently
Still haven't had time. Realistically, with the schedule I've imposed on myself, I won't have time until after Christmas. I'm ok with that.
2. index several batches every week for FamilySearch
I only indexed once or twice this month- I need to be a bit more diligent with this.
3. have more meaningful daily scripture study (start journaling as I read)
I wasn't loving my topic journal that focused on people in the Book of Mormon, so I tweaked it so it would be more of a summary. I will probably end up buying a topical study guide (I've found one that I think will work out) and using that before attempting something on my own again. This is not a strongpoint for me, so I'm willing to take any help I can get.

How did you do with your goals this month?