Easter Weekend

Yes, I realise Easter was a week ago. I feel that I should mention that at the moment I'm finishing up my first semester of Graduate school, so life is crazy busy. Plus, while this Easter holiday is filled with fun memories, it also holds a very sad one for us.

The sad news first. My rat Gus died. I of course knew it would happen. Death comes to us all, no? And I expected it. He's been losing weight and slowing down since December. But he lived to a ripe old age of 3-3.5 years. He's been with us since November 2011, and I like to think that I gave him a happy end to his life, with the love of me and Camden, and also the companionship of Robin. Saturday (the 7th) night I held him while I sat outside on my parents' porch swing and read. I snuggled with him Sunday morning, also. I knew he was close, but I didn't expect it. Not really. I went to town, and when I came home, he was gone. I buried him in my parents' orchard, which is close to the garden I've planted there. He's "just a rat" and I only knew him for a year and a half. But I loved him. And I miss him. He was such a snuggle bug. And now Robin is alone, which is terrible for him, I know. I'm giving him as much freedom and time with me and Camden as I can, since I can't bring myself to get another short-lived rattum to keep him company. Is that selfish of me? Probably.

And so I can end this post on a happier note: We did have a lot of fun at my parents the days we were there.

Saturday, Camden and I helped my dad get the garden in. He's trying a new thing this year: raised beds using stock tanks. He planted green beans and zucchinis in them, hoping it will be easier to harvest them. And since I'm fresh out of home-grown canned green beans, I say more power to him! And if it saves his and my mom's backs, even better.

Planting corn with my dad's fancy corn planter.

Planting a garden is hard work! Naps afterward are always nice.

We also went to Haha Tonka State Park. I was hoping to see the bats fly out of the cave at dusk, but unfortunately, I should have done my research first! Apparently the bats were still hibernating, and we saw nary a one. We did have fun picnicking at the cave, and walking a shortish (3/4 mile) nature trail with my mom, who never goes for that sort of thing because of her knees. Amazingly, we even got my dad to go with us, even though I think he would have rather stayed at home. (But I'm pretty sure he had fun, even if we didn't get to see any bats.)

A jack-in-the-pulpit. This is the only place I've ever seen one.

Me and Cam and Molly. I have zero idea what he's looking at. *cough*weirdo*cough*

Walking the trail. I cut through a grassy area to get ahead of them to take the picture. Camden got on to me for it :(

Dad jumped out from behind a tree and (tried to) scare us. We'd been hearing him making owl sounds since about halfway through the trail, so I wasn't that surprised. Funny story: He was making owl sounds to mess with us, and then an actual owl started answering him. I think he and Cam are listening for the owl in this picture.

The bat cave! The entrance is in a sink hole, so you have to walk down a bunch of stairs to get to it. They've posted three or so thermometers along the way so you can see how the temperature changes as you go down the steps. So nifty. We're going to try to catch the bats when we're back in the area in mid-May. Wish us luck!

the princess and the peas

Sunday night I had the opportunity to rescue my neighbour's girlfriend. Kind of. I had put Cam to bed, and was enjoying my alone time while browsing Pinterest. At least, I was until I heard what (I imagined to be) a person being thrown to the ground and start crying. After going through the possibilities (zombies, thieves/plunderers, domestic dispute between my neighbour and her boyfriend who live across from me, or something else) I decided to brave the unknown and poke my head out my door. It was not zombies, or thieves, or my neighbour's boyfriend beating up on her, but what appeared to be a basket of laundry spilled across the grass and sidewalk. That would explain the sound I thought. The door to the apartment next to mine was open, and that was where the crying was coming from. I knocked and called in, "Are you okay?" She answered, but I couldn't tell what it was she said. I walked through the house, idly musing that it was a mirror image to mine. She was in the back bedroom sitting on the floor with the lights off. I turned on the lights and looked her over, but I couldn't see what was wrong. "What happened?" Apparently, she had been carrying laundry to her car and stepped off the porch wrong. She told me she heard something snap. I winced inwardly, having just recently done about the same thing (I sprained my ankle pretty badly right before Valentine's day). Quickly, I ran back to my place for a bag of ice. Except, I don't have ice. Or an ice pack. I did, however, have some frozen peas. I poured those into a Ziploc bag, wrapped it in a dish cloth, and ran it back over to her. "Do you have a phone to call your boyfriend?" I asked her. She did; that was what she was after before I came over. While she called her boyfriend, I stepped out to give her some privacy (partly because she started crying again when she told him what had happened) and decided to pick up her laundry for her. After I made sure her boyfriend was coming to help her, I told her I picked up her laundry, closed her front door, and walked the few steps back to my place. And I sat there wondering if she'd just sprained her ankle or if she'd broken it. A few minutes passed and I heard her boyfriend's Jeep pull up, and the sounds of him helping her to her car, then them both leaving. This morning, I saw her boyfriend and asked him how she was. He said it was just a sprain. Thank goodness for that!

archery

Last week, I mentioned that I pulled my bow out and was shooting it. And that Camden was jealous and wanted to shoot, too.

Well, now he can!



Lookit, lookit! He has a bracer, too. And tiny arrows. He was so excited when I was opening the package; he was literally jumping up and down.



We're still working on proper stance.



A huge thanks to Bogaman for the totally awesome bow. Camden loves it!

spring break, finally!

Spring Break! *cue McDonald's music* I'm lovin' it!

So far, it's been a pretty exciting break, for all that it's only been three days.

On Saturday, I attended a marimba competition (to watch, not compete). It was amazing! The best part: five of my friends were competing (though none placed) and the majority of the percussion studio from Truman were there to a) support those competing and b) they were the featured ensemble for the concert that night! The featured marimbist/guest judge was Mark Ford, who is a pretty big name in the marimba world. It was a great day of competition, and a fantastic concert that night! My only regret is that I'm no longer a part of the studio, and I wasn't on stage performing with them.

Yesterday, I pulled my bow out of storage. Since I can successfully do push ups, I thought shooting might be a tad bit easier than it was five-six years ago when I was first learning. (Note: I haven't shot in those five-six years.) I was surprised at how easy it was. Not that I was getting bulls-eyes or anything like that, but I was hitting the target more often than not and from further away than I was shooting before.

Camden was helping me by being my quiver. He'd hand me the arrows and help me fetch them. (I sent him after the once that missed the target. I'm lazy. I know.) He really wanted to shoot the bow. But at a 45 pound draw, that just wasn't happening, though he tried several different times. Poor guy.

After shooting today, he decided that he wanted to go deer hunting. So we took the bow and arrows and went for a walk in the woods. Climbed a tree; threw some rocks and sticks into the ponds; looked for some wild animals, but saw none.

Tomorrow, we're off to explore a cave! I say explore like we're strapping on head lamps and knee pads and crawling into some dark crevice... But, really, we're visiting a cave with nice smooth paths, hand rails, lights, and guided tours. It will be exciting anyway! Prolly more so than dark crevice exploration, considering that I have a great fear of enclosed dark places.

Camping

Have I posted about camping before? Possibly; it's on my mind a surprising amount. So, if I have, and if you've already read about it, I'm sorry. This might be more of the same. (But then, it might be entirely different! Who knows!)

When I was a kid, my family would go camping all the time. At least two times a year. Wow, okay, maybe that's not all the time. But still, it was a big part of my life growing up, and I always looked forward to it. We did what I refer to as "real camping." We didn't pay to stay in a managed campground. Excepting the last few years, we didn't bring a camper. We mostly cooked over the camp fire. The first few things we did on arriving at the campsite was mow the grass and dig a latrine. (Well, the first few thing my dad and brothers did. I jumped in the river!)

I miss those lazy weekends on the river, where the only worry was cottonmouths. (Hmm.. That's kind of a big worry, now that I think of it.) I miss spending the day trekking from camp, to the river, back to camp, back to the river. I miss the cheap soda we bought to bring along. I miss the frustration of putting up a tent with it's stupid bendy poles that never seem quite bendy or quite long enough. I miss the early mornings and watching steam rise off the river and the fish jumping for bugs.

I've finally decided that I am going to go camping again. Camden is old enough to truly enjoy it, I think. I'm finally brave enough to try doing it on my own. (Probably the biggest thing that has been holding me back.) I know that I'm not, and Camden's not, going to have the same experience. And that's okay. It's not about recreating my childhood, right? It's about forging ahead and creating our own traditions.

Now I just need a tent! Oh, and it needs to be summer.

My Awesome Weekend

It snowed Friday afternoon and into the night, giving us about an inch of snow. When I picked Cam up from school on Friday, there was already a good dusting of snow. And for whatever reason, he decided he need to clear the "roads." So he ran into the house, found his toy snowplow, and started clearing roads on the sidewalk. The funniest part: he was saying he was clearing the roads to Camelot (no, I am NOT making this up), so he was Camelot's snow plow. So we played in the falling snow for about half an hour, because the wind wasn't blowing, so it felt positively balmy out, despite the snow.



Saturday, we spent more time outside, clearing more roads. Though it was a tad bit more difficult, since the wet, fluffy snow that had fallen had frozen into the kind of snow that doesn't want to be messed with. The kind that crunches with every step you take. And laughs when your snow plow tries to break through. Luckily, we had something of a staging area where his trucks could work without the snow being in the way. (Can you see the payloader in the bit of dirt? He was loading the dirt into a dump truck, taking it over to a bit of snow, and dumping it. It was "sand" to help clear the road.)



I'm still making headway in eating better. Last night, I had homemade sloppy joes. Before, if I wanted sloppy joes, I would buy burger, Manwich, and hamburger buns. But in my healthy eating, hamburger buns are obviously off the table. And with the second ingredient in Manwich being HFCS, and the third being just corn syrup, well, I don't really want to eat that either. So my sloppy joes took a bit longer and a little bit more effort to prepare. No problem. (BTW, have I mentioned just how thankful I am that I enjoyed cooking/knew how to cook before I started on this food adventure?) I wish I had had a red bell pepper, to replace half of the green bell pepper that I put in the sauce. That's my only complaint. Too much green bell pepper taste. Not bad, I say. Oh, and that I had put the onions in to cook sooner, because they're still crunchy, and I'm still not a fan of crunchy onions.

Sloppy Joes

8oz tomato sauce
1 C ketchup (I used HFCS-free stuff. One of these days I'll learn to make my own!)
1/4 small onion, diced
1/2 small green pepper, diced (or 1/4 green and 1/4 red)
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp mustard (oops, I forgot this in mine. Oh, well!)
1 pound ground beef

Brown the ground beef.
Add onion, pepper(s), and garlic and cook until soft (or to desired crunch level).
Add remaining ingredients, mix.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10-20 minutes.


I also made my own buns. The recipe can be found here. They make an excellent GF/low carb alternative to hamburger buns and with the strong flavour of the meat sauce, you really can't tell that they aren't your typical buns.

what i miss

Mostly I miss being able to eat whatever I felt like. Yeah, I always had to worry about what might disagree with my stomach - but that was the thing, sometimes I would eat something and be fine, then eat it a day or week or month later, and be sooo much LESS than fine. Now I can't pick up anything in the "inner aisles" of the grocery store without scanning the ingredient list - some of the things in the outer aisles need to be scanned, too. So I guess what I miss most is my ignorance? It's easy to be ignorant. Now I have to make good choices or pay the price (nausea, head ache, general malaise).

But for specifics:

I miss oreos.
I miss being able to whip up a batch of cookies or cupcakes.
I miss pie.
I miss macaroni and cheese.
I miss tortillas. (Have yet to have a taco in the last two months that doesn't have my entire face and both hands covered in taco-stuff.)
I miss being able to buy a box/bag of "food" for lazy food preparation.
I miss sammiches.


But it's getting better. It's getting easier. When I see a picture of a sandwhich, I recoil a bit, because I know how terrible and awful I would feel if I ate it. Christmas at my parents' was a fun exercise in staying gluten free. I didn't want to be miserable, but my mom had made poppyseed bread, which is my absolute favourite! so I kept joking about different processsed food stuffs - well, if it has gluten in it, at least I'll be able to enjoy the poppyseed bread because I'll already be feeling miserable from this! Luckily (unluckily?) nothing I ate had gluten in it (except for some gravy at a HyVee food court. oops!)

So, I've been gluten free (except for two mishaps) since Dec. 1. And I've had very little in the way of any sort of grain in that time, too. I've made steps toward eliminating (or severely cutting back) the presence of processed food-stuff in my diet. I've almost completely eliminated franken-foods like hydrogenated vegetable(*cough*SOY*cough*) oils and HFCS.

Go me!