Making My Marriage Magnificent in May

As I was getting into bed last night I had this title of a blog go through my brain. "Making My Marriage Magnificent in May".

I got out of bed. Got paper and pencil and wrote it down.

The idea stems from me wanting my marriage to be magnificent! Don't we all?

So, though out the month of May I will posting random blogs about what I am  or should be doing to make my marriage magnificent.

I might have guest posts about on the same topic. I hope that you might join me and be encouraged to make your marriage magnificent.

Got Milk?

Cause I do! LOTS O' MILK.

What does a girl do with 3 gallons of milk a day? (TWENTY ONE gallons a week!)

1. feed baby goats 16 ounces each 3 times a day. Not quite 1 gallon. (6 a week)

2. Herd share owners Mon. 1.5 gallons. Tues. 1.5 gallons every other week. Wednesday 1 gallon. Thursday 1 gallon. (3.5-5 a week)

3. Make Chevre cheese 1 gallon.

4. Eight batches of muffins. Almost 1 gallon of milk.

5. Mozzeralla cheese. 1 gallon

6. Cottage Cheese. 1 gallon

7 Yogurt. 1/2 gallon.

8. 4 batches of pancakes 1/4 gallon

9. Our family drinks about 1/2 gallon a day. (3.5 a week)

10. Freeze some for making soap (1/4 gallon)


That leaves about 2-3 gallons a week that I need to find other recipes for. Ice cream, creamed soups.

BUT this was a heavy cheese making week. And I don't make 8 batches of muffins every week, that would be NUTS! I made these and froze some, gave some to a friend, and sent them for snack at church with the kids.

Lately the dog has been getting a 1/2 gallon of milk a day! The chickens get one half to one and half gallons of milk a day as well. Though they got none today.

I need more time in the day and I would fiddle with making more cheeses. Yawn. I want to invest in a thermostat for my extra fridge and some cheese wax. Then I can start making aged cheeses.

Did I mention that this milk is from TWO goats. I have one goat due to kid next week! Then I will be up to 4-4.5 gallons A DAY. THEN I have one more goat due to kid the end of May. 5-6 gallons a day!

Anyone interested in a raw milk herd share?

Kids are fun

Collin is so fun! He told me I could not post this video on Facebook. So, I put it on You Tube, then posted that link onto my blog, here.

Then I will post the blog link onto Facebook. Grin.

I was trying to get Corey singing, Collin just happened to be in the shot. What fun!

This video is of Corey mumbling along to "I'm Fat" by Weird Al. Enjoy! 

Week 2

Saturday- No exercise, but thoroughly cleaned the whole house. That's gotta count for something. Especially since it kept me busy so I didn't over eat. :-)  Drank less than half my water.

I ate cereal for breakfast. Ham, mashed potatoes, and corn for dinner/lunch. At a late lunch early dinner combo again. Then had 4 cresent rolls with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on them before rolling and baking. YUMMY.

Sunday- Had an Easter gathering at my house. Food choices and amounts were HORRID. Nuff said.

No exercise. Nor enough water.

Monday- Went on a field trip. Awesome trip by the way. Went to the Michigan State Police Academy for a wonderful tour. Got to ride in a police going 85 mph around curves! On their training track.

Field trip meant packing a lunch and eating breakfast on the go in the van.

I had a banana and chips (greasy awful, too many chips) for breakfast. Oh yeah and some of Elaine's Easter candy.
Lunch was more chips, carrots, PB and J sandwich and pop. More chips and carrots on the drive home.  Dinner was a left over hamburger, potato salad, and macaroni salad.
I had book club tonight and ate refreshment goodies. Then came home and got a very large scoop of macaroni salad and potato salad.
We will be calling today an epic fail on hand to mouth control. Exercise was the stairs and walking and standing at MSPA. I'm counting it! I'm guessing that I came VERY close to having my water intake, but the number of trips I took to the bathroom while out. HA

Tuesday- Breakfast - bowl of bran flakes with a banana sliced on it. YUM. Less than hour later, 2 eggs huge scoop each of potato and macaroni salad. :( Bad idea. Then 2 huge scoops of ice cream an hour after that. It gets worse, believe it or not.

I then went to Burger King and got a Medium Smoothy, a chicken sandwich and fries.

Dinner was then spaghetti pie. Oh wait an epic fail.

Not even half my water, and NO exercise.

Wednesday- Breakfast - bowl of bran flakes with a banana sliced on it. Then gone for the morning to the Homeschool Partnership building and I did not take any food with me :) YEAH!

I ate something when I got home around 1pm and can't remember what it was. So, mindless eating is NOT good. I made beef and noodles for dinner and had two helpings. Went out for what was supposed to be dessert for date night with the hubby. Ended up at Arby's and had a small orange shake, value fry, and Jr. Ham and cheddar melt. Yes. That.is.a.whole.nother.meal. sigh.

I drank water and ate carrots as I am typing this days update.

I did not drink enough water. I know because I started to get a headache and remembered I had not drank much. I downed some water and my headache went away. Dehydration headache. ugh.

No exercise, tho I planned in my head to walk for date night. Obviously I made a bad choice.

Thursday- I don't remember what I ate or how I did, but I am certain I blew it big time.

Friday- Went to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum with the kids. The boys did "Mission to Mars" with FLASH (homeschool group) and we all seen the planetarium show. We took lunch with us. Which was reasonably healthy and I didn't engorge myself. I walked around the museum all day, so I think that counts as plenty of exercise. :)

Conclusion- First I am late being accountable to myself and no one said a thing :-( SO, if you meant to say something if ever I was late...oops.

Second, I missed my exercise goal by one day! Never did the water thing right and ate pretty awfully.

Thirdly, I did not weigh myself on Friday, but today I was holding my own at 141 :/ ugh.

Now to start writing this week 3's accountability post. I try to do this as I go along each day of the week. So, I can remember what happens and I don't have a brain fart come Friday.

1 week down

First off, if anyone would like join me in holding each other accountable in a road to healthier living/weight loss...Please feel free to comment with a link to your blog and I would appreciate if  you shared my blog as well. Whether it be on facebook or on your blog. Share away. I hope to encourage others with my life's journey.

Here is where my current journey to a healthier lifestyle started in case you missed my first blog post last week....  Accountability- Holding myself to it.

Saturday - I was supposed to go to Grand Rapids and work and grill out with my bestest friend, Suzie. Her hubby and her were sick and so I went shopping with my another bestest friend, Christina. We grabbed Subway after shopping. I was cranky as I had not eaten breakfast. I spent my breakfast time scrubbing the milking stand. April (a goat) thought it necessary to step in the milk bucket and tip it over.
I drank 1/2 the water I was supposed today. And did not exercise.

Christina and I shared a foot long oven roasted chicken sub. I got mine minus bread and cheese, fat free honey mustard on the side. Subway was awesome about it and charges us for a foot long. Knowing I was going to be accountable to you, I took a picture.

Easter Sunday- Means pancake and sausage breakfast at church. I had 2 pancakes and 4 sausages and drowned it in syrup. Not the best I could of done, but its not the worst that I wanted to do. Grin. So we will call breakfast a win.

For lunch I made pizzas on Whole wheat pita bread. I had mine with pineapple, onion, and green pepper.

I ate 2 of these. One around 1pm and one around 4pm. So we will call that lunch and dinner, um kay?

I also made Jesus' tomb with Elaine and ate 3 or 4 of them. (over did it) They are 1 large marshmallow wrapped in a crescent roll that we sprinkled with cinnamon.

Of course I had some Easter candy as well. Two Reese's peanut butter eggs..amongst other things.

I drank half my water that I should of.

I slow jogged 1/2 mile and walked 1.5 miles.

Monday- I am training a 100 lb yearling goat to get onto the milking stand. Its proving difficult. So, I'm getting up at 5:30am this week so Lindsey can help man handle her before he leaves for work. Which means I will be done with chores a good 2 hours before I am normally even out of bed! Today I used that extra time to stretch really good and then jog a 1/2 mile and walk a 1/2 mile.

I ate a 1/2 peanut butter sandwich, a banana and an apple for breakfast. Did not drink all my water, probably did not even get half of it in. Lost track.

Had a pita pizza just cheese for lunch and ate a couple hot dogs for dinner. Had too many chips this day, too.

Tuesday- Went back to bed after doing chores. I am not used to this new schedule. I am not a morning person. It snowed here today and my legs hurt. Had cereal for breakfast and a couple of bananas for an early morning snack.

A hot dog and half for lunch. Tried to choke on it while on the phone with my funny friend from Stampin Up With Joy. Not a good idea to laugh and eat. Just sayin.

No exercise today and definitely not enough water.

Wednesday- Stayed up this morning and jogged 3/4 mile and walked 1/4 mile. I was going to another mile of walking but when I got to the end of my driveway I did not turn around and go back down the road. Kind of counter productive, eh?

I had shredded wheat and a banana for breakfast. I have not drank enough water. I ate goulash for lunch/dinner. It got to be 2pm and I hadn't made lunch, oops. I browned up enough hamburger for 2 meals. I made goulash and hamburger pie. Hamburger pie is the fridge for dinner tomorrow night.

Went out for dessert for our date night tonight. Had free coupons for it, too! My frugal side won out. I had a snack size Resess's McFlurry and water.
I stepped on the scale this morning and thought it was broken. It said something like 114. I turned it over and switched it back to LBS from KG. Then I still thought it was broken, I witnessed a number that should not be, in my opinion. It said 230lbs! When I feel like the only change I have made is in exercise. So we will see what Friday brings. In the mean time read on...

Thursday- Stayed up this morning, but did not walk or jog. My back pain returned this morning :(. It was not very bad. Low back where my bad disc is at and down my left leg. Was still able to get out of bed and function tho, thank God. With this new regression I do think it is prudent that I don't jog, walk yes, Jog NO. That might have aggravated my back, or my schedule change. Who knows!

I had Hamburger pie for dinner and didn't over due it. One serving for me. Lindsey ate almost half of a 9X13 pan! He was hungry! ha.

I had some Frito's late in the evening and over did it.

Did better with my water today, got more than half of it in :)

Friday-

Did not exercise today or drink enough water. But kept very busy (see my other post from today).

So, I would say Exercise goal was met. Water an epic fail. And food was so so.

Will try again next week with the same goals.

How are you doing?

Numbers-counting down

All in a days work.

9  Drawers on Elaine's dresser- organized.

8 loads of laundry folded and put away.

7 meals made

6 of those meals are in the freezer

5 children in my house (2 not mine)

4 goats in my barn fed and watered.

3 hours spent gaming (How did I find the time for this? that is what boggles my mind)

2 goats milked twice. (OK technically I have to go out soon and milk the second time)

1 goat ground up, packaged and in the freezer. yummy!

And the day is not yet over. Also, this list is not exhaustive of what I have already done today. Yes, I am exhausted. 5:30 am wake up calls make me productive, but oh so tired!

My son

I will not name which son but...

Today I was watching my son and was thinking how much he is like me. I felt sorry for him. While I did not have a horrid time of growing up, I never felt like I belonged anywhere.

I wasn't a stoner or drugy. Nor was I super religious. I wasn't musical. So, I wasn't in band or choir. I was not athletic, so no sports for me.

I was smart but was not of the elite. I made bronze cord, but not honor society.

I enjoyed lots of things, and wanted to achieve greatness at something. To be someone. To make a difference about something. But alas I never found my passion source. A passion that made me want to be great at any given thing. I dabble. I like lots of things and so I never really excel in one single area.

I made friends easily enough, but only a few lasted into adulthood. Even those have there ins and outs. Times when life is too busy to stay connected.

I have friends from all walks of life. I had a good friend who got pregnant in seventh grade and gave her baby up for adoption, before I even knew her. I've had friends who would get drunk on the weekends and the weekdays for that matter. I had friends that loved God with all their heart. I had friends in band. I had friends that played sports. I had friends that were smart the elite kind. Honor Society members.

But today for the first time, I looked back at my growing up years and realized that I was richer for being able to befriend all kinds of people.

That by not being in one single group of people or click....
I learned compassion and empathy. I was humbled by what I could not do, that others excelled at. I was proud of my friends for who they were and what they could do. I never felt jealous of them as I grew up. I aspired to be like some of them, but did not want to be them.

I then looked at my son and I no longer felt sorry for him for being like me. I hope that one day he will treasure his uniqueness as much as I do. Growing up I did not treasure my personality. I always wanted to be more.

I expected more from myself that I ever have become. I have also become more than I ever expected.

God used all the events in my life to make me who I am today. I pray my son can take a path that keeps him closer to God than I was growing up. One less pained by mistakes, but I will love him none the less. Just as God loves me.

But I'm happy being mediocre, are you?

Tired

I am not a morning person. I don't drink coffee.

I have to get up at 5:30 am until further notice. Lindsey sets his alarm for 5:30am to leave for work. Usually that means he gets up turns it off and goes back to bed. But I need his help before he leaves for work. So, now he must get up, as do I.

We are training a rather stubborn 100lb doeling to get on the milk stand. She is due to kid at the end of May and I have been lazy with training her until now. In the past I have worked with the little darlings when they are much smaller. I threw my back out in October and was unable to do anything for the goats at all for almost 2 months. Lindsey stepped in and milked my girls both morning and night. I didn't have the mind set, nor the heart, to ask him to do more than milk, hay and water the goaties.

I was able to do some of the milking, still in much pain, in January and February. This month I am finally feeling more like myself and have been able to clean the barn and do all the milking duties. Then it dawned on my these week that Angel, the stubborn doeling, had not been on the milk stand much. And whenever she was I had to drag her onto it then she would either fall limp on the stand or try to jump through the head lock thingy. Neither are good options.

So, get up at 5:30 am we must. Neither of us want to get up that earlier or be on a super set schedule, but when you are dependent on one another to get something done. Plus we have to have somewhat of a time frame for milking to keep the girls happy.

I think we have passed the first hurdle. Angel will now come to the gate when we call her and the other goats are staying back and letting her come out first. To begin with I had to hold them all back and push my way in to grab her collar and drag her out with out letting the other girls out. Of course they sometimes got out, then I have to drag them back in. Goats are creatures of habit so they have to get used to a new order of coming out of the pen. Angel is first on the stand because she is the last due to kid (have her babies) this year. That means the milk is not sitting in the barn while I wait for her to eat her grain. I do the goats that need to be milked last.

So, Angel comes out fairly good now. Getting her on the stand is still difficult. Lindsey drags her up by her collar then has to hold her back from jumping through the head lock or she will break the milk stand. I know this because another goat did that and indeed broke the milk stand. That happened when I rearranged the milk room and put the stand in a different spot. They didnt' know where to go when done on the stand and took a flying leap up and over. Toppling everything in their path. See? Creatures of habit.

I hope that a week will be long enough for Angel to figure this out. It's pretty simple really. Come out of the pen, jump on the stand, hold still, dont' freak out, and you will receive a grain treat after I lock your head in place. Anyone wanna show her how? Just kidding.

Today I think she didn't freak out as much about getting on the stand. The first day she thrashed about something fierce. Flipping herself all over the place.

Maybe I will video it and post it with this post later...but for now. You have been given a tour of my morning.

Accountablity..holding myself to it.

Here is a shocker for you (dripping in sarcasm).

I am overweight. Obese. My body mass index (bmi) is 36.5. I am 5 ft 8 in tall and 243 lbs. The heaviest I have ever been.

I have begun wearing a scarf to cover the bulge that I call "my 3 and 4th boobs" because my bras no longer fit right. sigh.

I have excuse after excuse of how I "got here". Those don't matter, what matters is that I don't want to "be here". I know what I need to do and I AM going to do it!

1. Move! Exercise.

2. Portion control

3. Drink plenty of water

So, these are my 3 goals.

1. I will exercise at least 30 minutes  a day 3 days a week.

2. I will pay attention to my portions. I will modify this later to be a more specific achievable  goal, but at this point I need baby steps. I know I will eventually have to food journal, its what works for me.

3. I will drink 120 ounces of water every day. (half my body weight in ounces)

I will post an update on how I am doing weekly. Every Saturday. To hold myself accountable to working on the above 3 goals. Help hold me to it. If it is Sunday and you haven't heard from me. Please contact me to encourage my efforts and hold me accountable.

Thank you in advance.

Epic Proportions

I love practical jokes. Especially when I am the one pulling the joke. Grin.

So, I play at least one April Fools joke every year. You know stuff like switching the sugar with the salt. Saran wrapping the toilet. Fun times.

My cousin posted this on his facebook wall and inspired some mischief in me.

"Once when we lived in town in Columbus O I had a '69 Javelin and someone broke out my back window. I had a spare so it was no big deal and being lazy I just swept the broken glass off the edge of the pavement. My next door neighbor was the type who wouldn't leave the house unless perfectly groomed. On March 31 he forgot to lock his car. I took advantage by rolling his window down and sprinkling the broken glass from my window on his seat and floor and the ground outside. He drove around 3 days with plastic duct taped in the window, and when he mentioned he was taking it to a body shop I asked him why he hadn't tried the window crank..."

This is the story of that mischief.

April 1st around 3pm I called up a friend whose husband does auto body work and asked, "Do you have any broken auto glass?" And got a good laugh out of her and her husband when I explained why I wanted the glass.

They did not, but they had a piece of auto glass that we could break. Muaahhaa. So, I drive over with my Rubbermaid tote in tow. She was washing the glass and it had been sitting somewhere buried and was dirty. Her husband tells us how we can break the glass. Wrap it in something that you don't care about and drop the splitting maul on it. It worked, we dumped the broken glass in my tote.

I get home and locate the victim, my husband Lindsey. So, he won't see me "breaking his window". OK, he is watching a movie. Phew.  I'm clear to go about my business. I roll down his truck window and dump the glass the in. I was nice enough to choose his passenger side. That way if he didn't find it till morning it wouldn't make him late for work. It was, after all, meant for pure fun not to cause harm.

The kids had a friend over for the afternoon, between church services. They were outside jumping on the trampoline and shooting around some golf balls.  Mr. Oblivious comes out and shoots some golf balls around, too. I took this as the opportunity to holler out, "You better be careful shooting those towards the house, you might break your window out of your truck!" To which he replied, "No I won't. I know right where I am hitting it." I replied, "Yeah, I would think golf would be much easier for everyone if that were the case."

Lindsey didn't notice his window till about an hour later when he was filling my goats water. He thought someone had rolled it down and went to see. Then found the broken glass and asked all the kids who broke his window. Oh how perfect! 

He came inside told me about the broken window and I just started laughing and laughing. He was not the least bit suspicious of my reaction. He then pulls all the kids together and asks them who broke it. Of course all of them said none of them did it. Well, cause they didn't. Oh how much fun I am having at this point.

Lindsey further inspects the damage and finds a golf ball. I did not plant that golf ball. It just happened to be in his truck. Proof God likes practical jokes, right?  Grin. Of course I tell my husband, "I think you did it, you were out there golfing, too."

Well we needed to leave in less than 10 minutes, so I offered some more advice. "Why don't you get some plastic on the window and we will deal with this later. Since it looks like rain." So, he did.

When we got home from evening church Lindsey vacuumed up the glass and covered the window more thoroughly. Then talked to me about how much this is going to cost to get fixed. He asked if I would call around for prices on Monday. I agreed to.

Around 9:30pm Lindsey told our 14 year old, Corey, that he had rolled up the window, trying to get Corey to admit to having broke it. Lindsey then tells me this story and laughter ensues. I thought he was saying that he indeed had rolled up the window and found that it wasnt' broke. That was not so, he only had said it to try to get a confession out of the teen aged one! How awesome is that?

So, Lindsey drives to work this morning with his window down, plastic in place. Grin.

I called a local auto body shop, M-66 Auto Body and roped them into my mischief. The plan was to have Lindsey meet me at the shop and have someone roll up his window in front of him. The worker was awesome! He played it so well. When he came out Lindsey asked, "will you be able to get it inside tonight?"  He said, "I think that won't be a problem."

I will let the following video tell the rest of the mischief story. I had Collin tape it as I let the kids in on the mischief while we were parked at the body shape waiting for Lindsey. Collin is not the best videographer, but for 10 he will do. :) Please, avoid focusing on the cackling loud laughing woman, also known as, me.


Enjoy!