Saturday, September 29, 2012

Saturday at last!



It was homecoming week and with Chyann being on the student council she has been busy with pep band at the volleyball games, band at the bonfire and pep rally, decorating the gym for the dance and pep band at the football game last night (don't forget a whole lot of homework too) ~

Left me to ride all by myself on several occasions this week and it was great!

Did you know that dry corn is incredibly loud when there is even just a hint of a breeze?
That noise doesn't bother Scotch, but Jennifer and Gypsy? 
They think there are lions and tigers rustling in that corn coming after them!
So, I rode Scotch. 
Much less of a chance ending up on my arse!

And when Chyann found out I have been riding without her?
She was actually kinda mad.
Guess she didn't think I could/should ride without her.
Guess again baby :)


I do so love this time of year.
The trees and their colors make me feel good.




The horses are getting their winter coats on and are not appreciating this Indian summer weather we are having.


The kids dressed up for Spirit day on Friday.


Hmmm.. 
Didn't realize I was taking pictures in front of Caden's picture gallery on the wall.
The Hubby believes in showcasing all art work.


The view from my office window.
I've been pretty fortunate to have been able to watch the seasons change for 11 months now out that window.


That red maple is incredible.



In other news:

My worst allergy season ever has morphed into a nasty sinus infection.
The doc said I totally should have came in earlier - like the first time I woke up in the morning after having laid on my left side all night, to hopefully relieve pressure in my right sinus area, and my left eye leaked sinus shit out and I couldn't open my eye because of all the crust. 
nasty.
But you know how it goes, I was hoping to get better and avoiding the docs seemed like a good idea at the time.

I need a new monitor for the home computer.
Somehow we've managed to have a second one go out on us in a year, strange.

Colton is home for the weekend - YAY!

Caden's second football game is this morning.
Speaking of that, I've got to run.
Time to get them all rolling.

Have a great weekend :)





Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Football, nasty foods and color

Caden had his first football game on Saturday and we all froze our buns off.

We had a hard frost Friday night.
 The temp when I got up in the AM was a whopping 28*!
Game time temp was only 46* with a stiff North wind blowing.


Colton and the new girlfriend showed up for the game with a bag of donuts and coffee.
Look at that nasty ass donut Colton is eating!
It is a vanilla cream filled, maple frosting and unbelievably topped with BACON!
YUCK!!


nasty, ish.
He said it was good though.


The girlfriend, Colton and Chyann all bundled up.


Caden had a hell of a game!
He was the quarterback for a quarter and threw for two TD's,
got an interception and
made two TD's himself!

This years team.


Sunday I didn't do much.
Laid on the couch and watched some football.
(took a nap too and man was that nice)
Four games that went to OT! 
Exciting stuff!

Course last nights Packer game was unbelievable!
GRRRRR!


This mornings color update.


It's beautiful out there and we've warmed back up to normal - mid 70's.
Good working outside weather.
We've been cleaning out the garden and tidying up around outside.


It's almost wood cutting time.
Big fun, but I love the wood heat so I'm in with helping.

Have a good nite :)


Thursday, September 20, 2012

Home ALONE!

It almost NEVER happens that I am alone in this house.
Tonight I am.

what-to-do, what-to-do

Well, let's blog quick and surf some shit, then I've got to cook some dinner I guess.
Might even make some muffins if I have time.

Yesterday it was windy as hell!
Which was probably a good thing, seeing how they were still spreading that liquid manure down the road.

The kids and I picked the pumpkins we grew. 
They filled up a whole trailer.
Even had about four whopping huge ones, that of course I didn't get pictures of, but will soon.

Chyann was attempting to start the three wheeler and Caden looks like he laid that pumpkin.



I rarely get a good picture of them at the same time, as you've probably noticed.


As seen this morning:
Apparently the grass is greener (better tasting) on the other side of the fence.


And hey!
Leaf update.
Actually with the wind we had yesterday I'm surprised there are any leaves left. 
This am


and about 15 mins ago.
They are turning fast.


In other news

My Mother and Gerry are coming up for Thanksgiving!
We are very very excited!
I have taken off from the 21st thru the 27th!
A freaking vacation with my Mother in November!
Cannot wait!

We are also looking forward to seeing Colton this weekend. 
I cant' tell you how strange it is to have one of your children not living at home.
I call him at least once a day. 
I'm sure that bugs the shit out of him, but he is humoring me for the time being and talking to me lol

Speaking of that - Mom I totally apologize for not calling more often after I moved out.
I had no idea what kind of hell I put you through by being so distant.
xoxo


Did I tell you Chyann got on the high school student council?
She did and helped plan all the Homecoming activities for next week.

Caden's first football game is on Saturday and we are stoked :)

Hey, funny thing I heard on the radio today.
Warewolves of London by Warren Zevon was playing.
The dj comes on after it was over and said he was going to London for Thanksgiving and it was going to be weird not having pumpkin pie for desert on Thanksgiving day and went on to say that his host's were going to make him a British style "thanksgiving" dinner and for desert they were going to have spotted dick.

I KID YOU NOT

I'm afraid to even google that to see what it is lol

Alright, off to cook so it's ready when they walk in the door.
Have a nice night and let me know if you are brave enough to google what a spotted dick is.




Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Autumn has arrived

The view from my office window yesterday morning.
Can you see how the trees are turning?
Think I might take a picture every few days to track the progress of Autumn.

This morning we had a light frost - burrrr.

The farmers have cut the corn across the road and spread liquid manure on it today.
MAN O MAN does it stink!
Can't believe you can't see turds floating in the air.
Terrible!
Every inhale is an assault to my poor sinus's.
So what did I do after work to compound the assault to my allergy and sinus irritation?


You guessed it.
Pickled these bad boys up.
The house was toxic.
Open windows and fans did little to dispel the stench of shit and pepper fumes.
The most toxic?
Green habaneros.
Literally made me cough and hack, pissed my pants a few times too. 
This getting old shit is for the birds.


Plus two batches of salsa, one of chili,


and cranberry jalapeno jam.
This is the absolute best stuff!
How do you eat it you ask?
On a club cracker with a smear of cream cheese and a dab of this jam.
Delicious!
Might have to eek out another batch of this it is soo good.
Course I'm out of lids so it will have to wait till I hit the store later in the week.


You wouldn't know just how cold it was outside while I was waiting for the last batch of peppers to get done by looking at this picture. 
Needed a damn hat and maybe something other than a fleece jacket that is for sure.


Sweet dreams :)

ps 
my hands are super super dry from all this canning - washing, washing, rinsing, rinsing and more rinsing, then do the dishes.
lotion city baby

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Weekend news

I don't want it to be Sunday already.
I've got too much to do.

I'm going to do the last, really the last of my tomato's and peppers today.
Love tomato's, but am tired of spending all my free time trapped in the kitchen because I can't just let them go to waste. 
Next year I promise I will only do 20 - 25 plants, really.

For today:
Habanero salsa, cuz my habaneros are finally ready
Cranberry jalapeno jam
Tomato sauce
and whatever peppers are left will get pickled


Thought I'd post a pic of the calves Socks and Cookie.
They sure are getting big. 


Yesterday we went to a friend's place and the kids got to play on this ginormous obstacle course.


It was a beautiful day.
Today is going to be mid-80's, then a cold front is coming through tonight and will be leaving us with high temps for this next week only in the mid 50's - with some possible frost at night, another reason these tomato's and peppers have got to get done.


The kids are all doing well in school.
Chyann decided to drop info processing and take Spanish instead.
I'm excited to see if she takes to Spanish like Colton did.
He was quite fluent in it after taking the required two years.
The teacher was miffed that he didn't want to continue for his Senior year and go on the trip to Mexico, but he was just not that into it. 
I'm like what?! No trip to Mexico?! I could have been a chaperone!


The girls volunteered to go in before it was deflated to make sure there was no debris/leaves that got sucked in.


Colton came home Friday afternoon.
He has been meeting a lot of new people and really starting to dig into his courses.
Somehow he only has four classes that equal 15 credits?
What is up with that? He has a shit load of free time.
Dude you need to get a part time job or something.

My allergies have been miserable this last week too. 
Been taking allegra and that has worked pretty well.
On Thursday I was especially miserable and decided to take some sudafed too because the pressure in my sinus area was killing me. My glasses felt like they were going to pull my nose clean off my face.

That wasn't such a good idea apparently.
I had heart palpitations, shortness of breath and chest pain for the whole four hours until the sudafed wore off. 
Now that was really miserable and i'm NOT going to try that again.
Sure thought it would be ok since you can buy an allegra-d that has sudafed in it. 


My coffee pot of seven years conked out on me yesterday AM. 
waaaah!
Ended up making it by putting a coffee filter in a strainer and pouring hot water through it.
Definitely a little messy, but I got my coffee.
Would have taken a picture, but wasn't coordinated enough to pull that off.


Happy Birthday to my wonderful Alaskan friend Rose!
Love ya lady!
Hope you have a fantastic Birthday!!


Toodles :)


Friday, September 14, 2012

As promised...


Pictures from last weekend. 
I totally intended to post before this, but as usual time slipped away from me.

So here is a much better picture of Krissy, Caden and I after finishing the Twister run last Saturday.
Kris actually won 3rd place in our age group!
but left before she got her medal and is currently tracking it down.


At the parade afterwards.
Here comes our High School Band 


There is Chyann.
Can you just make her out on the very far side? kinda under the tuba horn?


Cool kid, eh?
Love the bandannas and the River Falls sunshades, compliments of her brother.


 The guys watching the parade.




 Can't have a parade without a shit load of tractors as far as the eye can see.


Chyna soo happy to mug on her brother.


Our neighbor and his team.


So glad it's Friday.
More tomorrow. 

Monday, September 10, 2012

The big RUN!

Saturday morning dawned clear and cool. 
It was a brisk 46* - burrrrrr

There were three different races being run - 
the 1 mile, which Caden signed up for, the 5K and the 10K - no walking allowed!

This is the group of 1 mile runners.


Caden as he sprints through the finnish line!
He won third place for his age group! 
YAY Caden!


Chyann didn't get a lot of "decent" pictures of me and Kris doing the 5K.
Kris says that TJ got some good ones, but I haven't seen them yet.

That is me and Kris to on the left of this picture, also note TJ standing across the road taking pictures. 


Me coming across the finish line!
Don't think I did too badly considering I'd never ran outside really.
Kris said my time was about 35 minutes.
I kept up with her for about 1.5 miles, but had to slow down and even went to a walk three times because of that damned stitch in my side. 

She did her run in a whopping 32 minutes and NEVER walked once! 
YAY KRIS!


The thrill of victory!

After I caught my breath a little you wouldn't believe the feeling of exhilaration I had.
Thrilled, giddy, amazed that I had done it and more.
Felt pretty damned good I tell ya.


When our actual times get published in the paper I'll post them.

Finished the race - check
didn't fall - check
didn't shit or piss my pants - check
didn't do too badly - bonus check

Sunday didn't find me feeling too bad either. 
My calves were achy, but that didn't stop me from spending about seven hours on my feet canning.
5 freaking batches of salsa.
Unbelievable how much work goes into one delicious jar of salsa.

Even managed to squeeze a short horse ride in.

Also!
Colton came home on Friday.
We visited about 45 min before he had to take a nap in his own bed.
Still not sleeping well.
He got up and left.
We didn't see him until the parade on Saturday at noon.
(pictures of this next post cuz my rotten printer is not communicating with my computer to download them)
Spent most of the remaining time with the new girlfriend.
nice.... but not totally unexpected I suppose.
Still irritated me.


As far as doing more races with Kris, maybe.
Got to get off my buns/elliptical and do some outside running if I'm going to do that.

Here's to a fantastic week!
Later :)







Thursday, September 6, 2012

First day of school and some random junk

You would not believe how big of a pain in my arse it was to get Chyann to take a first day of school picture.
She is apparently way too cool for this type of thing. 
What is the big deal!???
Colton did it his whole school career without bitching - or at least he didn't complain out loud, just stood there and smiled. Which is what I totally expect to happen.
They smile, I take the picture - DONE!

GRRR

Anyhow, they both had a good first day of school.



It's been foggy in the mornings this week.

Took these pictures the other day, this is the view from my office window.
Earlier the fog was so thick you couldn't see the road that runs past the house.


The distant trees slowly emerged.


Till the sun finally burned it off.
 I love how the sun turns the corn all golden.
Do you see my favorite maple tree that had the branches broke off over the summer?
The whole top of the tree appears to be dying now.



Colton finally got his roommate. Says he is a nice guy.
 Sounds like he is adjusting to school alright. 
We sure miss him around here. Looking forward to seeing him this weekend.
Course he probably has plans and wont want to be hanging around the house.
sigh.

In other news.

My gal friday, oh I mean my BFF Krissy, stopped by yesterday afternoon and we went for a little run since the big 5K we are going to do is this Saturday. 

 Kris has been training for this for months, running and cross training. This gal is in shape and has some serious endurance - folks that knew her way back when - would be so proud!

 Me, I've been doing my elliptical almost daily, but no running outside. 
So, we did a mile running and I was just starting to get a stitch in my side when we turned to come back ~ ouchy!
Then we walked a mile back home.
HOLY SHIT that running was tough!
Doing the elliptical was and is not adequate preparation for actual running outside - in my opinion.

That's ok though.
I'm going to go, have fun, try not to fall on my face or shit my pants!


Caden's first football practice is tonight and he is totally jazzed. 

I've checked out a Kindle from the library that had a whole bunch of popular new books loaded on it.
Didn't think I'd like this format of books, but turns out I really like it.
Think it's the convience of it. I read one book, scrolled through the other titles and picked another.

 Wallah! new book to read.

and i'll admit that, i was curious about all the hoopla over the 50 shades of gray series.
i've read book 1 and 2. just started book 3.
They are ok. Not exactly the mommy porn everyone was talking about, but ok. 
The dom/sub crap totally does not appeal to me and there's really not too much of it.


Toodles :)  



Monday, September 3, 2012

Labor day! and photos from last week.

Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer.
Or as I like to call it Canning Mania.

A hot weekend to be canning, but it has to be done. 
It' raining now and I don't feel like picking tomato's and peppers in the rain, so I figured I'd post some pictures from last weekend.

Cool dude Colton mowing the lawn for me. 


Apparently that strange pose means he has been seeing a lot of rabbits.


And it finally happened. 
Caden has been (as expected) getting braver and braver on the motorcycle.
He did a little jump coming up a hill, lost control of the bike and laid it down.
Thankfully he didn't get more than a scrape on his forearm.


Scared the snot out of him!
Definitely has dialed him back on the brave meter.
That wont last for long I'm sure and he'll be trying small jumps again.


Chyann and I had another "BEST RIDE EVER".
I know I say that all the time, but it's true. 
I love these long rides, they are fantastic!
And man was it HOT!
We both had nasty sweaty horse stained butts when we were done.
(this was short/stunted corn compared to another field we came across)


Again, no idea how many miles we put on, but were gone for almost three hours.


I know it's only corn and the dratted rag weed, but isn't it beautiful?!


Chyann is still nervy about coming across a bear. I figure we'll deal with it if it happens. We are always talking and making noise so that reduces the chances that we'll have an encounter I think.


Tried to get a picture of Jenny standing by the corn to show how tall this corn was - had to be at least 9' maybe 10', but she decided a snack was a better option and wacked herself with the stalk scaring herself and then wouldn't stand for a picture. Kept hold of that stalk tho. 


Came across this hunting cabin/house in the middle of nowhere.


Again I'll say: BEST RIDE EVER!



School starts for Chyann and Caden tomorrow.
Can't believe how fast this summer flew.

Also, Colton is doing alright at UWRF.
A lot of orientation programs, get to know the folks that live on your dorm floor and where to go if you need assistance type things.

A gal he graduated with lives in his building and two other guys he knows from town are in the dorm next door, so he's got a few familiar faces.
Still no roommate.
And he's having a hard time sleeping at night.
New place, strange bed.
He's got quite a list going of things he needs to get while he's home next weekend.
Top of the list is a bike to ride around campus on.


Alright, the rain has stopped and it's really humid. 
 I'd better get picking IF I'm going to get done and squeeze a ride in this afternoon.

Enjoy your Labor Day!
Later :)