Friday, March 2, 2012

First Post of 2012! IN MARCH! OOPS!

I've started writing so many times, but time really has been escaping me since the end of harvest. So much has happened and yet...not much at all. So, here are the highlights, or at least highlights to me...
Kids continue to grow and amaze and bless us. They are truly amazing. Yes, I know, I'm a bit biased.

I have lost about 18 lbs since Thanksgiving and think that is pretty good progress. I'm feel good and clothes are fitting better. I get frustrated because I sometimes wish it would happen overnight, but truthfully, for me to have a healthy life and achieve the health and life I want, I need to do this the right way.

I have a new vehicle, it's new to me. An Avalanche. With the move, it was going to be difficult to maintain driving a rearwheel drive Lincoln Towncar, go figure. We have been looking for most of the fall and winter and finally the right thing came along. Ironically, since we really didn't get snow until this last week, we could take our time and I had been able to drive the Lincoln. Last winter, it was parked for about 3 months. The winter has been crazy...such little snow and only one blizzard and it was not much of one, they kinda missed the mark. Yet, today, it's horrible out.

I did not EMT-Basic refresher last weekend. It gets long, but it's only once every two years. I learned quite a bit and reviewed some good things too. Dustin now is spending this weekend and next weekend at his Paramedic refresher and I think he has another class to get in too, but I'm not sure when at is scheduled for, but it must be soon.

I turned 36 in December. Which means I'm now closer to 40 than 30. This really doesn't bother me, but it did usher me into my first mamogram to get my baseline. Not has horrible as I thought it would be, but getting that friendly with the X-ray tech was interesting. She was very good at making me feel comfortable, which is really no small accomplishment.  Thankfully, all was good and I'm clear until 40. It made for a funny time at my EMT refresher. We were doing patient trama assessments and kindly, when I was a patient, my classmate asked if I was comfortable being touched, because let's face it, assessment is pretty personal. I said it was fine, but I appreciated him asking. He then said, he didn't know my well enough to just start assessing me. To which I responded, "I had my first mammogram last week, I have no modesty left!" It was pretty funny and did lighten the mood. I am also happy to report that I still am capable of doing a fairly competent patient assessment. Good news.

Ella turns 18 months on Monday. I'm not sure how that happened, but the time has flown. She is our climber and since she has no fear, I have used my patient assessment skills several times. It amazes me how she has managed to climb so quickly when I leave the room for 30 seconds to move laundry from the washer to the dryer. She can be sitting in front of the TV when I leave, perfectly content, and when I get back, on the counter and usually in the process of trying to get down and falling on her head. No Fear! She doesn't learn from these escapades, but she is awesome and talking more and more, but not very clearly. This could be delay, but since Ian can understand her often, I'm guessing it's because she has a translater in house.

Ian has become quite the conversationalist. Which really means, he never shuts up, but I love it. It's a very tenderhearted little boy, so it's an interesting combination with his little sister Rambo. He's been going through these fakey tantrums lately, they are starting to stop fairly quickly because we ignore them and probably a bit rudely, laugh. I hate to hurt his feelings, but sometimes it's just too funny.

Our new hired man started about 3 weeks ago. He's a great guy and it is going to make a huge difference this year. There is just more that we have to do on our own and my in-laws are not capable of helping like they use to help. We needed more help and the right help came along.

The biggest news is related to me, but not about me directly. My parents are moving from 3 hours away to 17 miles away! YAY! It has taken quite a few years to get to a place in which I would be excited about this, but it will be wonderful. My dad turned 80 last summer and they wanted to make sure they were leaving their farm on their terms and moving to a house that eventually they can live on one floor if needed. They found a great place. They close at the end of the month, they are busy packing and a real estate agent comes to look at their current place, this week, so they can work on selling it.

I have changed my background to tomatoes because the seed catalogs have arrived and I am excitedly going through them...I can't wait to get out to the garden and get my hands dirty. We have planned our farming acres, so that is exciting to have planned out and we have our seed purchased for the year, with the exception of a little wheat that we will put in so we have straw for cows. This year we will plant soybeans, corn and sunflowers. The cows will begin calving at the end of the month.  We have some beautiful steers we have held back for people for butchering, we'll take them to the butcher and will then be able to get people whole, halves or quarters of beef. We also have some nice heifers we are holding for replacements for cows. I try to get out with the steers and heifers to make friends, but I don't get out as much as I would like. I do enjoy the cattle more than I ever thought I would.

I feel like I've written a lot of paragraphs of nothing, but maybe something exciting will happen in 2012 and I'll have more to write about.  You'll get more about the crazy life on the Family Farm.

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