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?