300th Post

Wow, in spite of my busy-ness, I've managed to make 300 entries onto my blog.

It's been a busy morning. I was asleep by 8pm last night. At 9:40pm, dh and I awoke because LJ was roused and barking. I do not allow him to bark in the house, so it was unusual. I corrected him, but we looked outside to see what might be going on since all the outside dogs were barking incessantly. We saw that there was a vehicle with a trailer on the property next door was driving around. They stopped after a minute or two and the dogs all stopped barking and everyone went back to sleep.

I remember waking around 4am - eight hours sleep by that point, but I wasn't about to get up. My back won't let me sleep much longer than 7 hours without stiffening, but sometimes I can move around and get it to let me sleep. I eventually got up by 5:30am. So I had some good sleep last night.

I was out to milk shortly after 6am. Came back in and processed the milk, started a load of laundry and went out to begin cleaning the Pathfinder. I got out there right around 7:30. What a mess! I have not cleaned the inside for months, maybe even a year? Dh has been eating sunflower seeds on our way in to work and home (me, too) and they are majorly messy! I took out the floor mats and washed them all. Vacuumed all the floorboards, under the seats, and anywhere else that needed vacuuming.

I heard ds1 was up and about around 8am so I came back in for a short time so I could work on his room. It sure is easier cleaning his room once a week, rather than letting it get real messy for a month or longer. I have only missed one Sunday since we did the redecorating in his room.

Dh and I were supposed to have Saturday off, but the coworker called and thought we were coming out, so we decided to just do it, rather than disappoint her. We managed to make $90 after the cost of gasoline. So I had this long list of things to do for Saturday and Sunday, and had to cut the list in half since I ended up with only Sunday. Ds2 was a great help yesterday, he cleaned the livingroom, vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen and shined the bathroom mirror.

Anyway, back to the vehicle cleaning... I also washed the outside and put Rain-X on the windows in hopes that the bugs will be more easily cleaned off. Gas stations used to put window washing liquid in the buckets with the squeegee but now they either water it down to nearly nothing or they use only water. Because it hardly helps at all to clean my windshield.

So I finally got back inside about 12:20pm. It is getting HOT out! It was so nice to come in to the wonderful air conditioning. :-)

Yesterday I also got 2/5ths through figuring out what's happening with our money, so I must continue working on that now.

Until next time. (What a boring 300th post)

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Knitting Problem, Please Help

First of all, I want to say that there is a part of me that wants to know why in the world am I struggling with knitting, when I know crocheting so much better. I could be finished with this baby sweater, well, at least a lot further along, if I were crocheting. But I really enjoy knitting and want to be a better knitter!! So I'm trying to make this work. Even though I messed up on so many rows and if I was giving this to a person who knits I'd be embarrassed since they could easily see all the times where I messed up. One of my knitting friends one time said she frogs out as much as she knits and that just made me think that if I had to do that, I'd never knit again. Because I have NEVER had to rip out crocheting rows over and over and over and over to get it right. Well, to be honest, the last baby sweater, I did have some confusion getting the one front side right with the neck and shoulder decreases, but I was okay on the second side.

So, I'm having a problem with the baby sweater I'm knitting. The first piece is the back and in spite of all the messed up stitches and rows where I lost track of which row I was on in the pattern (even though I was using a row counter) from what I can see, the shape is correct. The problem is with the second part, which is supposed to be the RS of the Boy's Left Front. The pattern doesn't show what the pieces should look like when completed, so I'm not sure if I ended up decreasing on the correct side. The last baby sweater I crocheted, the decreases were on the shoulder side.

The pattern is here: Bernat Softee Baby Hooded Baby Jacket

I am hoping that one of my experienced knitter friends can help me figure out what I'm doing.

One of my big problems I've always had (and not paid much attention to) is which side is the right side or the wrong side. Especially when the stitch pattern I'm using looks (to me) the same on both sides.

On to my confusion:

The pattern says: "1st row of pattern is RS for boy and WS for girl."

Confusion No. 1: The first row of the pattern is not the casting on row, right?

That sentence also tells me that EITHER side could be the RS or WS. If both sides were exactly the same width, then it wouldn't matter which side is which; however, according to the pattern, the Boy's Left Front will be narrower than the Right Front, since the Left Front begins with 25 stitches as opposed to the 31 stitches on the Right Front.

So I'm following the pattern and I get to the part where it says, "...proceed in moss st pat as given for Back until 11 rows less than Back have been worked..." uh... how in the world do I count 11 rows of moss stitch pattern? I guesstimated that... Then it says, "thus ending with WS facing for next row." Now at this point I'm not sure if I've ended on the WS or RS, but I continue on thinking how can it matter since both sides look exactly the same.

Confusion No. 2: In hindsight, it becomes obvious that I need to be paying attention to which side is the right side or the wrong side. When I think about this logically, I tell myself since the casting on row isn't the first row (RS), that means the second row is. The tail string would be at the left side of the casting on row, so the second row the string would be hanging off to the right side. Correct? So looking at the picture above, that's the RS showing. Correct?

Confusion No. 3: Now I'm at "Shape neck: Next row:" Decrease at neck edge... Uh... which side is the neck edge? Since I don't know which side is RS or WS, I am not sure which side should be the neck side. And secondly, how did I miss that little detail -- that my decreases should be on the neck side? It looks like I need to frog the Left Front down to where I start decreasing and decrease the other way. I have seen patterns that go either way - there is decreasing at the shoulder, or there is decreasing at the neck. But the picture of the baby wearing the hooded sweater, it doesn't seem there is any decreasing at the neck side?

So, knitting friends... in your expert opinion, do I need to frog that Left Front down to where the decreases begin and make the indention on the other side?

Until next time.

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50% off Goodwill Shopping - April 2007

I went to Goodwill with a list, three things for which I've been looking. (Now THAT is grammatically correct.)

1. Four drawer letter size filing cabinet, preferably Hon brand
2. Soap dishes (these things are ridiculously expensive, like $6.49 at Walmart!)
3. I can't remember the third thing

Dh had agreed to stop by his boss' house. Bossman's brand new eight hundred dollar Whirlpool washing machine was stampeding its way across his laundry room. First of all, the washer was simply placed on top of the pedestals, and they are supposed to be secured together. Dh didn't figure out what the problem was, but while we were there I read in the INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS that the shipping bolts had to be removed once the washer was in place. Bossman said there weren't any shipping bolts, and dh didn't press the issue, but is pretty sure he saw four bolts that could have been them. Today I googled the problem and found that my suspicions were correct. The shipping bolts weren't removed.

If I can help it, I will NEVER buy an electronic washer or dryer. That darn thing held Bossman's clothes captive, the door would not open. You can't move the dial to do what YOU want to do. What if you just want to spin some clothing you hand washed? Not sure if that's possible nowadays.

Dh put a call in to Bossman today and left a voice message to let him know what we discovered. After we finished there, we had to drive 25 miles to the other side of town to another of dh's coworkers, an elderly woman (72) spry and so perky you'd never believe she was that age, who needs to have a bunch of miscellaneous jobs done around her home. Dh leaves the money stuff up to me or ds2 and since I was along, I had to deal with it. She made several comments about money problems, so I left feeling like a jerk for charging them instead of just having dh doing everything for free. But they have this long list and want us to come back next Saturday. I only charged them $45 for three hours work. So we can't just drive into town, weekend after weekend, one of our only days off, doing free work, you know?

I was looking forward to this trip into town, usually unfortunately I'm somewhat aggravated about it, since I'd just as soon stay home and clean house, knit, blog, nap or something else equally fun. I guess dh making money is nice, too, but I keep buying all these things to sew, knit or home improvement projects and when do I have the time to do any of them? For example, in the past week I bought six gallons of OOPS paint from Home Depot (really high quality paint mistinted and marked down to $5/gallon) but when will I have time to paint? Not on my one and only day off, Sunday.

I was looking forward to the trip into town because Goodwill was having their 50% Supersaver Saturday Sale at all their stores.

I ended up spending $55.28 AND feeling guilty. And trying to persuade myself I shouldn't feel guilty because mostly all the things I got were practical and would have cost several times more if purchased brand new.

So here's what I got. I found my filing cabinet! Not Hon brand, but the drawers roll in and out nicely, so seems to be a quality cabinet. Black, no lock, four drawer, letter. $6.50. I'm so glad dh dissuaded me several months ago from impulsively buying a used filing cabinet that was FIFTY dollars.

Once I found my filing cabinet, which made me very happy, I began looking around more.

I found five glasses (we have had NOTHING to drink out of lately). $0.34 each.

I meandered into the bedding area; I'd been thinking about buying a second set of bedding for everyone's bed for the past few weeks. Now was my opportunity.

I found two brand new looking, twin sheet sets with a planet and stars theme. 2 fitted sheets, 2 flat sheets, 1 bed skirt, 2 pillow shams and 2 pillow cases. The sheets and bed skirt were all marked $3.99 each, but as I examine my receipt, it appears I was charged $1.99 for each one and THEN 50% off on top of that! The pillow shams and cases were $0.74 for each set of two. Total cost for the first set: $3.35 [One flat, one fitted, 1 sham, 1 case and 1 bed skirt]. Total cost for the second set $2.36 [One flat, one fitted, 1 sham and 1 case]. And YES, I was feeling GUILTY for spending money. Those two sets will cover ds1's twin bed and the twin bed in the master bedroom.

Next I found a fitted sheet for the master bedroom queen bed, we don't use the flat sheet, and two pillowcases. The sheet was $2.99 and the cases were $0.74.

I also picked up a fitted sheet for ds2's full size bed. $2.49 and two pillowcases $0.74.

Now everyone has a second set of bedding. Usually I have energy when I'm stripping the beds, so my hope is the spare set will be clean and available so I can strip the bedding and replace it right away. By the time the bedding is out of the dryer I'm lagging, so it should be nice to get that done and out of the way while I've got the energy.

We have started to use placemats on the table, since ds2 will make our plates ahead of time, and put them in the oven for warming. I found five placemats - we only need four, but how could I leave one behind? Total cost for all five: $0.49.



Dh thought ds1 would like this cute cookie jar to put pens in. $4.99.













Dh also like this sterling silver casserole dish, which included the Pyrex casserole: $7.48.









I found two soapdishes: $0.83

Dh found some weird wooden thing with two rings on each end and thought it was neat: $0.99

Dh found a pair of work coveralls for $3.49

Two mystery items, I can't recall what they were, coming to : $1.73. $1.39 for a Pepsi for dh. No tax.

And last but not least, ELEVEN skeins of 100% virgin wool. Each skein weighs 2 ounces. The label says "Irish Twist Yarn for Aran Sweaters. Made Especially for Mary Maxim." The bags with three skeins were marked $3.99, and the bag with two skeins was marked $2.99. As best as I can figure out the receipt, the gal only charged me $1.99 for the bags marked $3.99, charging me the correct price of $2.99 for the one bag. The yellow tagged items seemed to be half price, prior to the 50% coming off. ?? So, the grand total for this wool yarn: 22 ounces for $4.48.

In the two skein bag there is a spool of thread that says "Gütermann 500 m 547 yds/vgs CA02776 100% Polyester Germany".

I have no idea what this wool is about... it has a dye lot number. I wonder, does that mean that *I* can't dye it? Like that Kool-aid dyeing? I found a blog that isn't very active that seems to have something to do with this yarn.

I am really tired. I'm going to lay down for a while.

I have cleaned ds1's room today, washed three loads of clothes, cleaned the stove including the drip pans and changed the aluminum foil under the drip pans. Went into town to buy ds2's newest video game, came home and then went and bought ten bales of hay.

I need a vacation.

Until next time.

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Yarn Stash Post - April 2007

Okay, here is the yarn I found last weekend:

First bag: $0.99. Yellow tags 50% off. Five balls of *something*, in a dark rose color. I'm not sure what material, I haven't had a chance to figure it out yet. Probably acrylic? Yarn Harlot tells how to figure out what type of material in her book Knitting Rules : The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks. From memory, acrylic burns, but wool doesn't. One ball of light pink acrylic, and one ball of Aunt Lydia's Baby Denim 75% cotton, 25% acrylic in light pink. The Aunt Lydia's retails for $4.99 at JoAnn's.
Second bag: $2.99. Six balls of "Made in France" Ungar Fluffy. 100% Acrylic. 1 3/4 ounce, 156 yards per ball.
Third bag: $3.99. 1 skein Bernat So Soft in a cream color. One skein Red Heart Super Saver Navy Blue. And two skeins of Red Heart Baby white sport.
Fourth bag: $2.99. 7 skeins of Lion Chenille. 100% acrylic. Brown. 1.4 ounces and 87 yards per skein. I believe this is a discontinued item of Lion Brand's.
Today I found a really cool, old, nearly antique iron. $10 from a yard sale. It's heavy, by Sunbeam and pink. I can't wait to try it out. But now it's bedtime.

Until next time.

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Forgot The Camera

My company allows me to use its camera for personal use and I always bring it home with me, unless I happen to forget. Which I did last night. I remember looking at it and I could have sworn I picked it up and brought it with me. But it was not in my purse when I got home and it was on my desk when I got to work.

ANYHOO... all that to say I had hoped last night to take a picture of the yarn I found over the weekend so I could post about it this morning. But then I didn't have the camera. We own a camera of our own, but this one is way better AND it takes the honking huge SmartMedia card we got for it. I think we paid $10 after rebates from TigerDirect.com. It's an ULTRA SECURE DIGITAL CARD 2GB 60X. So now I can take something like 1500 pictures on this card and I don't know how long of a video. I impulsively made a bid on a similar camera on eBay. See... I know the battery insertion directions on this camera are confusing and people here at my job often put them in the wrong way. So I found this camera with four days left to go on the bidding and decided to place a bid! Anyway, the auction says the camera won't turn on, and I bet it's because the batteries were put in backwards. I could be wrong, I might be wrong and hopefully if I am, someone will outbid me in the next four days. Otherwise I'm taking my chances - I won't bid any higher than I have already.

Regarding My Birthday Wishlist... I found this really awesome little tool on Amazon, which I would love to impulsively buy. I have always had an interest in how much electricity is used by household appliances and for many years I was proud of myself for my low electricity bills. For years and years I paid less than $100/month. Then we moved and most of our family members put on weight and now we run the air conditioning a lot. Anyway, this item is called P3 International Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor and you plug your appliance into it - blender, television, computer monitor, whatever sparks your curiosity, and you can find out how much electricity the item uses. We have three old refrigerators and one old freezer and they were given to us free - hand me downs from family members - and everyone says new ones use less electricity. Now if I had one of these neat little tools I could see how much electricity they really use.

I did look at the bags of yarn. One had Ungar "Made In France" "Fluffy" Acrylic Yarn, a dark turquoise-green color. The Lion Chenille is not the "Thick and Quick" but the smaller skeins with the skinny yarn. I said yesterday it was $1.99 but it actually cost me $2.99 and there are seven rolls.

Well, it's almost 7. I'd better stop for now. I wanted to talk about my Lutterloh Pattern Making book which I found several years ago for $0.75 at a thrift store. It sells for $50 and up on eBay every time I search for it. But I'm keeping this one! Apparently this book is still updated, so I'm looking into maybe updating mine if I can ever get the PDF order form to open...

Until next time.

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Watching Food

I had a bad day with food yesterday. By "bad" I mean I didn't bring the right kinds of food with me, and was hungry often throughout the day. Like annoyingly hungry every couple of hours. It is becoming more and more apparent that my body is sensitive to carbohydrates. And mostly what I mean by this is when I eat carbs, they don't stay with me and I'm very hungry within a short period of time. I started the day out with a bagel with cream cheese.

Last week I started to loosely pay attention to exactly how many calories I'm ingesting and was chagrined to discover it's a lot more than I thought. Like 3000 a day or more? No wonder I continue to gain weight. I think 2000 is a good goal for me, so that's what I started aiming for, and soon discovered I could easily go through that many calories before dinner. I tend to eat a large dinner, too. Back in my dieting days, about a decade ago, I would save 1000 calories for dinner. Anyway, back to the bagel. It was a Trader Joe's brand onion bagel and those suckers are huge and full of calories. 320 to be exact. Not to mention they are white flour which is basically sucking nutrients from my body to even digest the things. Next 2 ounces of cream cheese because I may as well forego the cream cheese altogether if I limit myself to 1 ounce. I toasted my bagel and ate it at 6:30am. By 8:30am I was ravenous.

I find I do much better with my kefir smoothie. 1/2 cup kefir, 1/2 cup goat's milk [168], 1 tablespoon virgin unrefined coconut oil [120], four strawberries [15] and today to cut out 100 more calories I started using the stevia again. I was using maple syrup - 1 to 2 tablespoons daily. We'll see how it goes for me today, food-wise. I also brought a chicken breast, maybe 3 ounces? 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1/2 avocado (if I bring the whole one I'd eat it), cauliflower, cucumber slices, baby carrots, 4 slices salami (100). Eating the salami at 3:30 holds me well until dinner three hours later. I'm not dieting. I'm just paying attention to what I'm eating. Yesterday was very uncomfortable what with all the hunger pangs from too many carbs. The foods I brought today have few carbs, so I'll see if that makes a difference. I have known for years that I can't tolerate sugars well, and our bodies convert carbohydrates into sugars. Anyway, enough about food.

My birthday is next month and this year I want my immediate family to acknowledge that. Since I'm the only female human in the household, I probably should spell that out exactly what I mean by "acknowledging" my birthday. Nothing big and fancy, guys. We don't have to celebrate ON my birthday, which falls on a Friday, we can celebrate it on one of the weekend days. I'd like a cake, but I'm not sure what kind yet. Maybe carrot cake? And ice cream. I would like some gifts, wrapped please. Maybe a birthday tablecloth, some balloons? I'll be 434. So I'm going to rein in my impulsive purchases for the next few weeks and list the things I'd like to have here, so y'all will have an opportunity to buy me a few things. Four weeks notice should be good, yes? I'll start thinking. Since my dh doesn't do computers, I'm hoping ds2 can help me out with triangulating.

Wish List Item 1: Whistling Teapot. It needs to have these features:

1. The lid has to come off and the opening big enough that I can get my hand into it for cleaning.
2. It should have a whistle so I'll know when the water is boiling.
3. It should be stainless steel or porcelain (not aluminum).
   
4. I would like the bottom edge to be rounded and smooth, as opposed to having a lip and a corner. For example, view this teapot to see what I don't want.
5. Basically I want one like the one my sister and I passed back and forth to each other at holidays for a few years. It was white, porcelain, had a whistle, the lid was big enough to fit my hand into to clean. I think it was tossed some time ago.
   

I like this one, although I don't know how well it will blend in with the Holstein cow theme: Pfaltzgraff Napoli Whistling Tea Kettle

I like this red one, although it seems a bit expensive: SoftWorks Red Pick-Me Up Tea Kettle

This one is nice, also on the expensive side. I do like these colors better than the first Pfaltzgraff: Pfaltzgraff Mission Flower Whistling Tea Kettle

OH, OH, OH!! Look at this one! I would love to have this one! Very cute! However, it has some poor reviews, [spout doesn't work well, spills water all over] and I do want it to be functional. Kamenstein Cow Design Tea Kettle 2222

Okay, so there are only one of these available, it's used. It would work great, if it's still available.
Pfaltzgraff Sphere 2-1/2--Quart Enamel on Steel Whistling Tea Kettle

The teapots listed should give an idea of what I'm looking for. If one meeting the criteria can be found at a thrift store for $3 -- even better. In fact, I'm going to hit some Goodwill's this coming Saturday [50% off sale!], so maybe I can even find one that y'all can give me. ;-)

Until next time.

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Happy 20th Birthday, DS1

Ds1 was born at 12:02am on the 16th. Coincidentally, I worked for the State Department of Revenue, tax division. Everyone else was hard at work, while I was in labor with my firstborn. 3 minutes earlier, and he would have been a tax baby.

Speaking of taxes, I've worked since 1979 and I have NEVER had to file an extension, but the past few months and now the busiest schedule ever, I have not had time to get our taxes done, so this year I am filing an extension. I need some time to figure out how to claim our ranch - I had hoped we could claim it as a business, but I really don't see how we'll EVER make a profit at this rate. Here's a list for farmer's at the IRS site. Here's the entire Farmer's Tax Guide. I've been told you can claim a loss five out of seven years, but Ellie Winslow's Making Money With Goats says you have to claim profit three of five years. I can't figure out which is correct by searching IRS.com. We spent close to $6000 on the livestock in 2006, so I don't see how selling a few dozen eggs and some milk to my family is going to do us any good. I think if I claim the couple hundred dollars "profit" it would be best under the IRS definition of a hobby since then we wouldn't liable for taxes on the measly income.

Plus you aren't supposed to include expenses for anything used by oneself, so we'd have to figure out how many eggs we ate. We actually did very dismally last year at selling eggs. I remember frying up dozens at a time a few times, feeding them to the dogs and chickens. Now that dh and I are both making an effort to sell at our jobs, we're doing very good with not wasting any eggs. We are selling them for only $2.00/dozen though. That's better than last year, when we charged $1.50/dozen!

Filing for an extension will give me more time to think, and will relieve stress.

It was fun thrift store shopping on Saturday during the great desk hunt for ds1's birthday desk. I found some yarn -- mostly acrylic, unfortunately. The first Goodwill we went into I found some Lion Chenille to add to the stash. $1.99 for six small skeins, in a medium brown color. I don't have the yarn here with me, but I think the color is Mocha. Wow. This stuff seems to retail for $6.99/skein!!! I found some pretty soft turquoise (acrylic) that was made in another country, maybe France? Part of me so wants to be a yarn snob and only buy WOOL, but personally I don't find $16 per ball of sock yarn to be inexpensive. (Yarn Harlot says that's cheap when you figure it takes her 16 hours to make a pair of socks, so entertainment at $1/hour for her). I'll have to post about my finds some other time.

The only Saver's we shopped had several clocks. I examined all for the possibility of making this year's birthday gifts, but none would have worked. I found one really cool star one. I wish I'd bought it now. I did pick up a nice oak clock for ds2 for $3.99. We spent $26 there. Oh, I also bought some patterns for making some office clothing for myself. We'll see how soon I get around to that. The patterns were only $0.34 each. One pattern for a full length dress, like I like, and another for making a jacket. The last one is for making shorts. I also have this really valuable book which shows how to enlarge patterns.

Ds2 had this really awesome idea to decorate ds1's cake. He used a stencil that he made! He then sprinkled cocoa powder on top. I thought it was just the neatest idea! When we went out to milk last night, I was wishing I'd bought cake decorations but then we got in and ds2 had come up with the stencil idea.


I snapped a lot of photos, ds1 always acts like he hates his birthday parties. I had to go into his room when he was napping, looking for tape and he always puts a blanket against the bottom of the door, so he knows I went into his room. So he was really grumpy when he got up and was complaining about how I used my key to get into his room while he was sleeping. So I told him I only did it because I was looking for tape! Then he apologized. In this next photo he was cutting the cake into slices and he gave ds2 a quarter of the cake and the thought of having done that just cracked him up to the point he was shrieking with laughter. His eyes are crinkled totally shut, his head thrown back, mouth wide open, he's totally cracking up. Ds2 is examining the huge piece of cake with dismay and it just make ds1 laugh even harder.
Here's the birthday boy with his new desk. Finally someplace to put that SpongeBob lamp (normally retails for $20 but we found it marked down to $5 at Lowe's in June 2006).
I wish I could get here early every workday morning - it would help if I didn't hit the snooze button so many times. Then I'd have time weekday mornings at least, to blog.

Until next time.

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Blog, Clean House or Sleep?

That's what it has come down to. Obviously, taking time to blog slides down on the list of priorities, although I still want to blog, and think about it wistfully.

Here's a rundown of my typical week currently:

Monday:
My alarm goes off at 3:10am and I whack the snooze button a few more times. I have a hard time getting up immediately. I'm usually up by 4am, although that gets me off to a late start right away. Last Monday I decided to simultaneously try two things that would help my asthma. I decided since two inhalations of Flovent is 44mcg, then three inhalations would be 66mcg. I also started taking my kefir again, since the last time my asthma had turned worse the kefir seemed to help me right away. Also, I'd started getting sick the previous Monday, so it was day 8 of the cold or whatever it was. I'd like to think the magic component was the kefir. For now I'm making sure to take my kefir since it seems to be important for me. I asked on a list I'm on about the effects of kefir on asthma and received this response: "Your immune system is based in your gut in large part, and dependent upon a healthy gut flora, so it makes sense that a constant flow of the friendly microbes from kefir would help your asthma." Dh and I leave the house between 4:30 and 5am so we can get him to work by 6am. I then drive over to my job. Sometimes I stop and get gasoline, getting to work between 6:10 and 6:45 depending. My work day starts at 7am. I then leave my job at 3:30, drive over to dh's job. It takes 20 minutes or more depending on whether I leave work right away, or am late leaving. We leave dh's job by 4:35-4:40 and head home. It takes 90 minutes, so we usually arrive home around 6:10pm. Dh begins chores right away, I go inside the house to make the "yeast balls" for the milkers, grab the two milking pails and head out. Milking and chores takes from 30-45 minutes. We're usually back in the house by 7pm. I immediately rinse the eggs and put them on a dry towel on the counter, then start straining the milk. Sometimes there is enough extra milk that I mark a freezer bag and measure a half gallon for freezing. This takes about 15-30 minutes. So now it's 7:30. Ds usually has dinner ready for us, sometimes I'll jump in the shower at this point, then eat. My goal is to be in bed by 8pm, but I rarely meet that goal, plus being in bed by 8pm is no guarantee I'll be asleep at 8pm.

Tuesday: Pretty much a repeat of Monday.

Wednesday: Repeat of Monday and Tuesday.

Thursday: Repeat of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Except we don't have to get up before dawn on Friday, so we usually stop at the grocery store to pick up a couple of things and do the "shred" pickup.

I really don't see anywhere that I can fit in even 15 minutes of FlyLady.

Friday: We milk in the morning on the "weekend" days, so we milk along with morning chores. We have more shred pickups to do on Friday. One place is 26 miles away, the next place is 20 more miles. We try to get started early so we can get back home at a decent time. The "shred" places open at 9am, so we can't leave too early. We also do our grocery shopping. We seem to get a late start this day, leaving around 10am. That puts us back home around 4:30-5pm. Just in time for evening chores.

Saturday: Dh has had a side job every weekend since he's gotten home. My waking time depends on how much work he has to do, and how early he wants to get there. Yesterday I was up at my regular time (3:45am) since we had to milk I had to get up to my alarm. We left about 6:10. Stopped at Home Depot and arrived at the job site at 8:30am. We were there until 2pm. Then we were on the big desk hunt. It is ds1's birthday tomorrow, and he's been wanting a desk in his room. I finally found a really nice one for him, for only $14.99.

The finish was very dry and in need of some oil, but it looks pretty good after polishing.




Our buck is sick again. Gave him the ammonium chloride each day but he's backed up again.

Oh, it's time for the birthday party, so I have to go for now.

I ate, now I'm waiting for the rest of them to finish. I meant to say more on the kefir and my asthma. So coincidentally, my asthma was amazingly better the next day after I started having my kefir again. I used 3 inhalations of Flovent Monday morning and evening, and 3 on Tuesday morning, then went to using 2 inhalations. I've been able to cut out the rescue inhaler (Albuterol) completely. Oh, something else on Monday night, one of my coworkers recommended I try using ds1's breathing machine with his Zopenex at night since I'd been having a lot of trouble during the night. So I did use that on Monday night. But by Tuesday I was much better. Time for cake and ice cream.

Until next time.

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Auto Maintenance Oil Change 4-15-07 209,249

This post is the first oil change post.

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Basket Case

I'm still sick. My asthma has been giving me a LOT of trouble. I am sure if I called my allergy/asthma specialist he would prescribe prednisone, which I abhor.

I figured out something. Every time I start feeling the tiniest bit better physically, I start trying to get the house cleaned up again. (I also considered the thought that maybe I really AM allergic to housework?) So today being my only day off, I decided I can't do anything. I did clean out the truck this morning, and go through 3 months worth of mail.

I seem to get sick physically every time I get an emotional crisis. Last Sunday our herd sire was sick with a condition that is sometimes fatal. I was very upset and crying over that. He recovered and we will make sure to treat for that condition. I found out that the Ammonium Chloride for which I paid $16.00 for a pound, can be bought on the Internet for $1.60 per pound. Great.

Thursday was very emotional for me at work. I've been basically railroaded into changing an area of the way our agency runs from manual to electronic. The person doing the manual thing doesn't want to switch to electronic and threatened to quit. It is scary for me to confront this person but I had to. I was very nervous and upset after the big scene. Later, this person came back to my office and apologized, but I was still very emotionally disturbed by it. I WAS feeling better on Thursday morning, but then I felt worse on Friday morning. Another emotional crisis = sicker. I don't think I'm just imagining things.

Then Friday morning I discovered that a website I worked on to customize for dozens if not hundreds of hours had been deleted from the webserver. I am positive it wasn't intentional, but the person who downgraded the website has been out of town and so I was freaking out worrying about that. This is not just a site that belongs to someone else. It belonged to a few ladies and we all sold items from this site. However, everyone is now wanting to drop out, but I want to keep the site and keep selling my things. Just very emotionally distraught again. Finally my friend got back to me and she's been out of town. She is going to see what she can do to help me get the site restored and into my name. So that helped me feel better, but the emotional stress. I have been crying about it since Friday, several times. I'm sure being sick isn't helping me feel any more positive about anything.

I was away from home most of Friday. Ds2's appointment was at 9am, once again frustratingly inconclusive. His legs hurt and we have ruled out blood clots and poor circulation. This is the third doctor he's seen for his legs hurting, only each and every doctor instead of listening to ds2's complaints of leg pain chose to concentrate on the sores on his shins. Which do not itch or hurt him, and are not on his calves, thighs or anywhere else on his body. This doctor was a hematologist and thinks it's strictly a "growing person" thing combined with ds2 being a "big boy". He suggested ds2 continue to get plenty of exercise and do what he's been doing to continue to lose weight. Once ds2 and I got home, dh and I took off again for town, to pick up the "shred" and run errands and grocery shop. So I was gone from home from 8:30am to about 5:30pm. Yesterday (Saturday) we left home for the big city (dh helping one of his coworkers with his evaporative cooler) and were gone from about 9am to 6pm.

One neat thing yesterday. Costco had a really nice drill on sale for $29.97. It is cordless and comes with two battery packs. It was $34.97 on March 31 and Costco gave us the difference back. We actually bought a second one, because dh will be using his for work and we need a drill for around the house.

So today I have tried to do as little as possible. I did nap from 10am to 1pm. I'm wheezing a lot, even though I'm using my Flovent medication twice daily on schedule I'm still having to use my rescue inhaler several times a day. Since I'm sick, it's to be expected that my asthma is acting up. The last thing I need to do is take prednisone, which I'm pretty sure being a steroid depresses the immune system (which Flovent is a corticosteroid, so probably has the same immune system depressing feature) At least now I'm not coughing up thick green phlegm. I'm taking fenugreek as an expectorant, the herbal version. I'm also taking grapefruit seed extract, vitamin C and The Grapefruit Remedy (a family recipe used for 35 years). I am feeling better, but I'm still sick. I'm starting to wonder if this is going to be the story of my life from now on. I have known people that get sick again and again and again and again. And have to take off work every couple weeks for being sick. But that isn't me and has NEVER been me.

I haven't been doing Nourishing Traditions hardly at all. My health has declined since falling away from many of the traditional foods. I did make my kefir last night for the first time in a couple of weeks. Poor grains, in the fridge starving for new milk. I should go check on them now.

I haven't done our taxes for this year. I think I'm going to file an extension as there is no way humanly possible for me to get them done within the next week. No time.

Since I was with dh yesterday, I did get a chance to work on the knit baby sweater. That is one true thing about being out with dh when he's working on side jobs. I at least get to sit around and do nothing for the most part. Otherwise I would have been home feeling compelled to tidy up the house. I got about half of one of the front sides done. I ordered another of the Yarn Harlot's books, Knitting Rules, it arrived by mail and I've been reading that in the past few days. It made me want to knit more. I already want to knit more, but there is no time for that at all on Monday through Thursday.

I hope I'm feeling well soon. In the meantime, my dh is the Energizer Bunny and keeps going and going and going. He needs only four hours of sleep each night and drinks coffee and eats whatever he wants. He never gets sick and never gains a pound. I have also discovered drinking even four ounces of coffee affects my immune system (caffeine stresses out the adrenals) I wish my body was a little bit more like his. Today he finished fixing my toilet (fixed the handle which I didn't have the muscle to finish -- some little chain thing you have to snap into the plastic part of the handle and I could not do it -- and adjusted the float so it flushes properly now), has been cleaning off the porch, built a new bee box (our old one was warped beyond recognition) and I don't know what all else he's done today. We would still like to have bees, but have not ordered them for about three years. Dh is hoping a swarm finds our bee box. Or maybe I should post on Freecycle and Craig's list like a friend of mine has done.

Until next time.

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Sick Goat Doing Good

On Sunday our herd sire could not urinate. Urine was still dripping steadily from him, so it wasn't a complete blockage, but I immediately suspected it was urinary calculi, a problem especially for male goats. I was so worried I was crying because it can be fatal and Bambi is such a nice buck. I have heard horror stories about bucks who are aggressive and dangerous to have around. This boy leads easily and is gentle with the does when breeding. I would hate to have lost him.

We called a vet - not many vets "know" goats, but there are handful who have some experience with goats, and are willing to give advice on the phone. (Vets make their money on horses, cows, dogs and cats, so tend to concentrate on those). The vet we called on Sunday does house calls, but not to our area of town, and he doesn't work on Sundays anyway. He said the other vets probably wouldn't come out on Sunday either. I read on the Internet that Ammonium Chloride can be given as an emergency treatment, so we set off to the nearby town we like to shop in to see if we could find any. None. A lot of things we look for to treat the goats is like that. No one seems to know what we are talking about. We ended up buying some herb combinations from the health food store. One was Uva Ursi and the other was Planetary Herbals Stone Free. Both items that humans would use for kidney problems or kidney/gallbladder stones. I made the "onion cure" which consists of one large onion, 6 cloves of garlic and the juice of four large lemons, cooked until the onion turns clear. I then strained the mixture and watered it down just a little bit. I opened several capsules of Uva Ursi and crushed several of the Stone Free product. Mixed into a gravy like mixture and drenched the buck with it.

He was straining so hard to urinate, poor guy. I was worried about him all night, and then dh and I had to leave to work on Monday and I was afraid we'd come home to find him dead. But we got home and he was not only alive, but peeing and headbutting with his buddy! I had managed to find the Ammonium Chloride from a chemical store in the big city and we drenched him with a heaping teaspoon of that mixed with water, just in case he had any other stones that still needed to be dissolved.

So that was a big relief. Now we will need to figure out what to do for maintenance. One of the big problems is bucks should not be fed the same as does. The does get alfalfa hay and wow, what a difference good hay can make! Two of my milkers that normally give me around 2 pounds of milk each day are now up to over 3 pounds! The hay we'd been getting delivered from the nearby hay dealer is apparently poor quality hay for goats. I guess they call it horse hay, and handpick it for horses. They like the hay to be stemmy and have hardly any tender green leaves - to prevent the horse from bloating. Tender green stems and leaves is what the goats need to make more milk. It is hard to find anything but alfalfa hay in our area. And to complicate matters, the bucks hate grass (bermuda) hay. AND since the grass hay is harder to come by, it is more expensive than alfalfa.

So today is day four of mine and dh's four day work week. Ds2 has really taken up the slack for us regarding cooking. We've had hot meals ready to eat upon arriving home, which helps a lot since the first thing we have to do upon arriving home is chores and milking. Then it's a quick shower, dinner and off to bed shortly. 3:30am gets here really fast. The past three days have not been too bad, but I am, as usual (how did you guess?) tired. I have also been sick again!! I am really frustrated at my body's low defenses against illness. This time it started out on Monday as a tickling cough and then a really tight feeling in my upper chest/lower throat. I have been taking grapefruit seed extract (gross stuff, tastes like drinking a shot of dishwashing detergent) and lots of Vitamin C and today I'm coughing up nearly clear um, stuff. That is better than it was!

It's now 10 to 7:00. I'd better get busy working.

Until next time.

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The Ultimate Surprise

I was thinking this morning, as I was driving to work, about the baby sweater I'm attempting to knit. I won't digress into how many mistakes I've made, thus wasting my precious blogging time. Anyway, I know two people who have babies due in the month of April, and I was thinking about making a second sweater as well. But since knitting is still so cumbersome for me (I know it will get less cumbersome the more experience I have) I was thinking about crocheting a sweater for the second person's baby. I am actually quite fast with crocheting and could easily crochet a sweater in a weekend or two. Unlike knitting, which takes quite a bit longer. Especially since I don't know what I'm doing being basic knit and purl stitches. I bought yellow yarn to crochet the second baby sweater, but at a Goodwill on Saturday I found some white baby yarn. That would be pretty, but it's got that little shiny thread wrapped all around which is totally horrible when crocheting.

My thoughts brought me to the fairly common practice of learning your baby's gender prior to his or her being born. My opinion on this practice? Cheating, plain and simple.

I wondered why it bothers me so much. Most people think it's wonderful and one of my coworkers complained that she can't find yellow and green outfits for all the blue and pink ones, so she appreciates knowing if the soon-to-be-here-grandchild is male or female. I still think it's cheating.

As I was driving, and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me why it bothers me so much. I don't know if I've shared here how difficult I am to surprise. I don't know what it is but I always seem to catch on when someone's trying to surprise me, or even reading a book or watching a movie, I almost always know whodunit or how the story will end. I don't know if I am too aware or people around me trying to surprise me are careless but I always seem to know something is up.

So... I realized that not knowing the gender of one's baby before he or she is born is the ultimate surprise. With my pregnancies I didn't have regular ultrasounds, amniocentesis, etc. No one knew and could accidentally allude to the gender. It was a complete and total surprise.

No wonder I think it's cheating. It's one of the few things with which I've ever been truly surprised.

Until next time.

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Here I Am

How much of a post can I create in 9 minutes? When I know good and well it takes at least an hour to make a good post. Let's try a quick update post.

My life has changed again. Dh arrived home last Monday as planned and our first meal together was Thanksgiving Dinner. For we are truly happy he is home. The first thing he did was fix the toilets. They were flushing weird. More on my toilet in another post, if I ever find the time.

Now would be the time to learn where all those "free" Internet connections are at that everyone talks about, and I definitely need to get the laptop battery charged, for I will have some extra time on my hands with the new change of schedule. I"m thinking this "extra" time may be an opportunity to blog. Why I could even sit outside my office in my vehicle and compose something... hmmmm... now I would need some type of image software to be installed on the laptop.

Dh started a new job, one which allows him to flex and since I'm working four days a week, he's going to try working four tens. Monday through Thursday. This morning he got up at 3am and I got up at 3:30am. We left the house right at 4:30 and were off the property by 4:40. We were at his job by 5:30. Quite a feat when you consider we live 51.4 miles from his job. Then I backtrack to my job which is 6.4 miles due east of his job. Well, pretty much due east. Maybe one mile south.

Anyway, this morning no one was at his job when we arrived, so we are hoping he will be allowed to have a key in the near future. If I leave his job as soon as I drop him off at 5:30am or so, I'll be at my job by 6am. I can either ask about flexing my hours to work from 6am to 2:30pm, or just do something with the extra time. The only thing that sucks is the time available at home due to this schedule. I figure we'll arrive home by 6pm, I need to milk and process the milk which takes about 45 minutes. 6:45pm if I work steadily, then I need to be asleep by 8pm in order to get 7 hours sleep and get up by 3:30am again.

So I'm at work now. I have two minutes before I need to start working.

I will be here until 3:30, then I drive back over to dh's job and he gets off work at 4:30pm.

Well, that's all I have time for. Better learn where those "free" Internet connections are at, and get that laptop battery charged. Although before too long it will be so breathtakingly hot, even at 6am in the morning that I may have to rethink everything. Like maybe I'll just stay at work during my extra time.

Until next time.

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