Hmmm...

Well, it took me a bit to update on the detox. But here it is. All went well until Friday evening. I tried to do the saltwater flush Friday evening and again Saturday morning. I achieved bloating and feeling awfully sick and not much "flushing". I made through the rest of Saturday, but by Sunday morning I was barely functioning and I caved. I switched over to a different detox program and I feel better to say the least! I'm back to real food again and I'm still feeling good. I have analysed what happened and I have the perfect mix of detox programs for my body for the next go 'round.

I don't know if the lack of food gave me a cooking buzz or what, but I have been going nuts lately. For many of my creations, I was very proud of the results. Felipe was excited for my first pudim. I think it turned out pretty well. I'm going to try a different recipe next time. I've attached some pictures.

Saturday, Mike got us some tickets to a Saginaw Spirits game and it was really fun. Felipe got to see a hockey game for the first time, even though the Spirit lost. Felipe has just about covered the sport spectrum now since he's been here. He's gone to a MSU football game, a Tiger's game, a Piston's game and a hockey game. Hooray for sports!

Sunday, once I got feeling better I wanted to head outdoors. Mike, Felipe and I decided to explore the Maple Rapids State Game area a bit. We headed into Section A of the flooding zone and had a lot of fun scooting across ice and trying to find which way to go. We didn't make it too far on our chosen path, but we have plans for our next exploring trip there.

February 2009

Sick of Feeling Sick

Well... after an incident on Wednesday night. I decided I'm sick of feeling sick. Now that I've finally got some of my hormone issues under control. I'm tired of other things going haywire. So I decided to try the Master Cleanse/Lemonade Cleanse.

It basically is no food for a period of time while you force the bad stuff to leave your body. I was going to try to wait until it was a bit more springy, because spring and fall are natural cleansing periods for your body... But, I just can't take it anymore!

Today is day 1. So far so good. I made my "juice" up this morning and have been chugging it down. I'm being a little mental because lunch time is coming. Lunchtime is when you normally eat, not drink some juice and think about food. It's kind of a bummer right now. I'm going to blog through it and then I can see the process I went through after it's done.

Pictures!!!

Talahassee 2009

Ice Skating!

MSU Bowl Game - Florida 2009

Holiday Season 2008

Back in the saddle again...

Eventually I knew I had to get back to blogging. Apparently the time has come. I have been striving to get more things in my life as organized as I would like them. It certainly has been helping with some things. I have been pushing myself into the mantra, "Things must be hard before they are easy." So I have been doing many things that I have been putting off for ages. Like cleaning my office. I attacked it this weekend. I have thrown out so much paper that has been clogging up my life. It felt AMAZING. Now when I go upstairs, everything is filed and I can sit down at the desk and actually do work. What a miracle.

Life has been flying by fast and furious of late. We have done so many things. I'm planning on posting some pictures from the holiday and whatever else has happened of late. This weekend made me realize how much I have yet to learn as far as being an animal caretaker. It also made me realize how good my instincts are and that I should trust them always. I will always listen to those who are more educated than I (veterinarians), but I will not feel so unsure of my instincts the next time something goes wrong. Because if there's one thing I've learned from my farm animals... Something certainly will. I also learned how wonderfully blessed I am to have people surrounding me that know so much about animals and are willing to help me grow, learn and survive having animals.

Bell stopped eating and excreting waste (nice way to say not pooping or peeing..hehe) on Friday. This mirrored Vernors symptoms exactly. For any who do not know, Vernors was one of our original goats and she got sick and died a day and a half later. The vets could not tell me what had happened to her. I was freaking out! Luckily, I eventually calmed down and Mike and I called the vet and Denny (my savior). The suggested a few things and I had suspicions of other things. We went and got some medicine from Denny and had a good talk with Pam and Denny about the possible problems. They agreed that both my ideas and the vets were plausible. We started treating for both things Friday night. By Saturday morning, Bell was up and about and eating happily. Whew! I am very excited that Bell and her babies to be are ok. It was an intense weekend, monitoring Bell and deciding what needed to change at our farm to fix the problem.

We decided to move the goats away from the chickens until we can build a new home for the chickens. Mike and I worked very hard Sunday morning cleaning a space in a different barn for Bell and Pepsi. And then Mike spent the day making a beautiful new pen in the big barn. I will take some pictures tonight and post them when I post the others. I'm going to make it a goal to build the best, yet cheapest chicken coop possible. Wish me luck!

On the road again...

**DISCLAIMER - I wrote this blog 11-20-2008 and forgot to post it!**

The last two weekends have been tons of fun. We first took a trip to visit Mike's cousins Chris and Emily. Then I took a quick weekend trip to Chicago with a group of girls and I got to visit with Uncle David and Aunt Jane while there. How great is that? Not sure how great that it? Well let me tell you.

We scooted down to Ohio University on Friday night after work. We went to Chris's place and then decided to get a couple of drinks at the bar across the road. Night ended with me asleep in the papasan and Mike & Chris playing beer pong. After a lazy Saturday morning I pushed Chris out of the apartment to take us on a walking tour of campus. We met up with Emily and eventually with Becky who had come to visit as well. Chris took us up to the scariest place I have ever seen, The Ridges. A very creepy place where we went to a terrifying condemned Tuberculosis Ward, where I saw dead people for sure. Extremely scary!!! Saturday night we had a dinner on the run (unintentionally) and then we saw BJ Novak do standup. It was pretty funny. Out for some more drinks and then the night ended with me asleep in the papasan and Mike, Emily, Chris and Becky playing beer pong (a reoccuring theme). Sunday we had a nice breakfast with the whole crew and then we drove up to Columbus for a quick visit with Mike's parents. Very nice to see them if only for a couple of minutes. All in all a very nice weekend!

The next weekend began last Thursday evening actually as I met up with Sarah Sageman, Jeanna, Renee and Sarah Stewart to drive down to Battle Creek to catch the train to Chicago. The train was running late so we entertained ourselves for a bit at Kmart and also picked up some alcoholic beverages at Horrock's for the train ride. The train ended up being at least an hour and a half late, but Jeanna was attracting the local drunkards while we waited at the station. That provided for some entertainment while we waited until the police came to take them away. The train ride was nice, ecspecially with the added buzz from the beer I had. The weekend was really successful. Thursday when we got in at midnight or later we all had a nice reunion in the hotel room and chatted away at each other like little girls at a sleepover.

Friday we semi-slept in, but we were all excited to go do some sightseeing in the city. We split into two groups. One group went on a free Chicago tour that included Millenium Park, several other small parks, the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. It was a lovely tour with a great tour guide, Ray. Thanks Ray! The other group did a bit of walking about and went to Shed's Aquarium, where Sarah Stewart almost got the pee scared out of her! They went to a 4-D movie that was just a little bit too real for Sarah! We rejoined at the hotel and Liz and I went back out for a bit of shopping. I found Filine's Basement and H & M and a couple other stores. My most exciting stop was to the Pastorial Cheese Shop. I tasted about a dozen goat cheeses and made a few choices to take home with me. A delicious soft cheese and at least a 5 year gouda. Yumm! We went out for dinner to a fun Italian place and then went back to the hotel to get ready for the big outing. The big outing was in fact to "Coyote Ugly". Yes, I know what you're thinking. This IS the bar of the movie. It was interesting to say the least! A night filled with dancing, drinking and a few hillarious situations (Crazy ladies from Michigan!). Needless to say fun was had by all.

Saturday I decided to strike out on my own while the girls went to the Miracle Mile and I visited the Field Museum. After a quick visit there I had a curbside pickup by Uncle David and Aunt Jane! What a fun day I had hanging out with them. I got to check out the new apartment, I had a "Chicago Hot Dog" for lunch and we went to see Riverside. It was a super fun day and I am already plotting a return to visit them in the spring with Mike and Felipe in tow!

Pictures of our adventures below.

OU & Chicago 2008

Yabadabadoo!

Last weekend was an eventful one. Halloween and my birthday all in one weekend. Thursday Felipe and I carved some jack-o-lanterns to celebrate and Mike helped out once he returned from his class. I think all three pumpkins were fantastic this year!

For Halloween we spent a nice night at the William's meeting the new baby and catching back up after the last few months. Felipe went treat or treating with some friends and watched OE win it's first playoff game!

Saturday was exciting for me, in that we took Pepsi and Bell up to McBain, MI to get bred. I am so excited for baby goats this spring. In about three weeks we get to venture back up to retrieve them. Hopefully they will be preggers! Saturday Mike and I had a Halloween party at Charlie & Sarah's and Felipe went to a friend's party. We had a lot of fun and I think our costumes turned out terrific. The Flintstones looked very authentic. Although everything I own now has a hint of orange from trying to replicate Wilma's hair color! At the party we also had a best costume trophy that ended up going to Marsha & Rob. Man they were creepy looking! Everyone was dressed up so nice and we had lots of fun.

Sunday was my birthday believe it or not. I choose to not believe it personally and I swear I found a gray hair that morning (Though the jury is still out. It could have just been a blond hair because I do have highlights... I hope it was a blond hair.)!! It was tragic. I blame it on Felipe, hehehehehe! If I wasn't a parent than I would still look 21 years old. Ha! We had such a fun day though. We made apple cider, played croquet (fittingly I won), had dinner with family, played an old board game (fittingly I won again) and I watched the newest Indiana Jones. It was a relaxing an enjoyable birthday day. I spent the day the best way I can imagine, with family. Then I continued my celebration of me with what I like to call the "birthday week". It's something I picked up from Christy and I personally think it's wonderful. Tuesday night I went to dinner with my friends whom I love so much. It was so nice for us all just to be together. Wednesday, I had birthday cake at work. It was delicious! A beautiful gluten free creation from A Piece O Cake.

Below are a whole slew of new pictures. Enjoy! I'll have some more pictures and something more to say later this week about our super fun visit to see Chris and Emily at OU this last weekend!

Yabbadabbadoo!

Into the Woods

Fall seems to be a time to get back to work. All of the summer play has ended and it is time to get your act together. It's back to school time and back to schedules and work it seems. I think it should be a time to play as well. It's just not fair to make the hot sticky summer the only time to play.

We have been busy playing in the cool weather and enjoying the great weather. Although I do object to the frost we had the other day! It's not quite time for that nonsense yet!

Samone and Felipe picked some apples behind Mom's temp house and it was a first for Felipe who had never seen an apple tree before. We've had a quick shopping trip to Birch Run where Felipe got a winter coat and some new tennis shoes. We even went to the famous Tony's to show Felipe the hugemongous portions. I think that burrito lasted him a few days. The next day we had a birthday party for Miss Samone. OMG - she is officially 13, a teenager! Does that officially make me an old auntie? Yikes!

Several weekends ago we had a wonderful visit from Mike's parents. What a great weekend! We did the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, which Momma K really enjoyed. We had a nice dinner with friends and family and then biked the Pierre-Marquette Trail on Sunday morning. We went from Midland to Clare for an exhilerating 30 mile bike ride. It really got me excited for the trip Samone and I are taking next year. I had no idea I liked biking quite so much!

Mike & I decided to take an impromptu overnight in the beginning of October and we ended up going to the Hoist Lakes Foot Travel Area. We have never been and it was a delightful weekend. A great getaway that we both sorely needed. We headed out semi-early Saturday morning and arrived at the west access around noon. We met a boisterous group of gentlemen in the parking lot and we would meet up with them on Sunday on our way out and have a nice chat.

We headed onto the trail and decided to head north around the big loop. We then realized after a couple of miles we should have done a figure 8 of the trail to get the full 20-ish miles. We figured oh well and trekked on. The trail was nice and wide in most places and well marked. The weather threatened rain but held off all weekend. It was an extremely comfortable temperature in the 50's. We stopped for a little lunch where the trail heads back south and visited with the many chipmunks running about. We were surprised how many other people we encountered on the trial. At least 15 to 20 people in total. We thought we may camp down around the Hoist Lakes, but seeing the 3 or 4 campsites already there we decided to move on. We ended up at Penoyer Lake all by ourselves, which is our preferred location. Found a nice site that had been used before and made a fantastic new recipe I found for dinner, bean & chicken burritos. I will bring along some shredded cheese to sprinkle on the top next time. It was down in the 30's in the morning and we packed up after a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and oatmeal. A nice hike through the
woods back out that was a little bit more challenging but not as challenging as we were led to believe by some accounts. We had a nice stop to chat with others at Byron Lake. What an amazingly gorgeous lake. The GPS had us at 16-ish miles. What a nicely maintained area. Good job National Forrest Service!

All in all a nice little getaway and we were back on the road by noon. We took a bunch of backroads home and had a great time buzzing through towns we've never seen before, including a late lunch in a mom & pop restaurant in Standish. A couple there was celebrating being married for 51 years, certainly something for Mike and I to aspire to.
Only 50 more years to go!

I hope the weather holds out for a bit longer and we can squeeze one more fall weekend in.

Clickie to biggie

Fall 2008