So, it's only been, what, 3 weeks since the contest? What with summer winding down I'm grateful to know where my computer is these days, let alone work on it. School starts MONDAY! Yes, I'm shouting.
Okay, back to buisness. My daughter picked up my ARC of Farworld and the next morning came to me, slapped it down on the desk and said "There's going to be another one right?" she then eyed me with that look that makes parents worry their kids might start building bombs in the basement if they answer incorrectly. I assured her there would, in fact, be another one and she relaxed significantly before asking me "When?" So I'll have to ask Jeffy if he will kindly reply here and let me know so that I can pass the information on.
and the winner of the ARC of Farworld per this bloggers blogtour contest is . . . . Jenna Consolo, who runs one of my favorite blogs Cranberry Corner. I know she'll love it and so will her kids. Jenna, if you will send me your address privately I'll forward it to Jeff and he'll send the book out to ya. Thanks everyone that played, it really is a fun book you'll really love to not only read but then reccomend.
So, other Updates.
Update #1: Dogs--I'm trying really hard to love them, I really am, but they make it difficult. They run away from home, they go nextdoor and sit in the neighbors horse water trough before coming back and jumping all over me, they dig up dead animals and chew on them, they poop all over the place, and last Saturday they both jumped into the Canal. I had to jump in and save them--I really did--cause the walls are angled and they couldn't get up. My 6 year old was crying on the side, sure we were all going to die. She did not have the trust in her father that I had, and so with the help of some bungee cords in the back of his truck he rescued us. The upside of having dogs is that they are super cute, the kids love to play with them, and I feel and added measure of security having them. But they are a lot of work and I don't know how to 'fix' their bad behaviors or train them into good ones. I've been watching the Dog Whisperer and It's me or the Dog, and I read a book Mother Knows Best: The Natural way to Train your dog, but it seems that simply reading such things doesn't cure much. Anyone know of a good video or something? Husband is even less thrilled than I am, which does not bode well for the dog's future. I'm at a loss and wish I'd stuck to chickens.
SPEAKING OF WHICH, we hatched chicks! Update #2. We bought some new hens in June and the seller told us they were very 'setty' which means they like to sit on eggs. When chickens sit on eggs they go into a funky kind of trance. They don't move, they just sit there and stare at nothing. They do this for about a month. And so we had one doing that, so I figured I'd see what happened. We now 6 of the cutiest chicks you've ever seen. I'll get some pictures, but it has been so much fun. The kids and I go out a few times a day to see if we have more. AND, another hen started setting, so both hens were setting on the same clutch of eggs, one on top of the other hen. Super funny stuff.
Update 3: Isagenix. So I've been doing Isagenix for 90 days. I did the two shakes a day thing for 30 days and then I've done the 1 shake a day thing for the last 60. I'm still six pounds down from where I started, and I've lost several inches, but I gained back a few pounds I lost initally and haven't noticed dramatic physical changes. That likely has to do with the fact that I'm back into my old habits of snacking all the time and hiding candy. It's not good, and I need to curb all that stuff, but still, I'm 6 pounds down and that's pretty good. Emotionally I feel much better. I am definitely more balanced, I'm not feeling so scattered and I'm sleeping better and have more constant energy throughout the day. Basically I FEEL better, and that's my main reason for doing the program. I plan to continue doing it and might try the kid shakes for my daughters that don't take the time to eat breakfast--we'll see how it goes. all in all, it's been a success for me and I'm glad to have done it. It runs me about $120/month now and I have not had my budget thrown off by that since I'm still buying less impulse foods and snacky stuff--so that's all good too.
Update #4: Her Good Name comes out next week! I'm so excited. I got my author copies today and it's super cute. It's a little smaller than the typical trade paper back; To have or To Hold was the same size--and I like the smaller size, it makes it look more like a mass paperback. Because it's coming out in stores a little early I'm only doing my pre-orders up until the 26th so that I'm not directly competing with the retailers. If you wanted to preorder a signed copy, you've got a few more days to do that.
Update #5: Opening Night Party for Her Good Name will be at Reflections of Utah Bookstore 47 So. Main in Brigham City, on Thursday, September 11 5:30-7:00. I won't have prize drawings like I've had in the past, the economy has been hard and I don't want to ask people for donations, but there will be door prizes for the first 75 people that show up and there will still be a grand prize drawing for those that purchase a book that night. If you're local, I'd love to see you there.
I guess that's about it . . . well, until next time.
Showing posts with label chickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chickens. Show all posts
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Day One + New Chickens!
So I started the Isagenix today. I got my product yesterday and was reading up on it and realized I hadn't quite understood how it worked. But I started the shake stuff today and will do the two day cleanse on Monday and Tuesday. Today wasn't that bad. What it consisted of was 'breakfast' of 1 oz of nasty muck, an 8 oz. Shake, and what they call an accelerator tablet. For lunch I had another 8 0z shake and another accelerator tablet. I thought I would be revished and starving, happily I wasn't. I wanted to eat, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't exactly hungry, just habitual. They have these snack things which are similar to those chewable Vitamin C's, but chocolate-chalk flavor. They are something you're supposed to eat if you get hungry. I held the first one in my hand, looked a it--then looked at my loaf of bread--then looked at it again--then thought of the 1/2 gallon of Starlight Mint ice cream--then ate it. A friend had told me to suck on them for a minute before you chew them up, and I think that helped but it still wasn't delicious. However, it did seem to curb my appetite which was totally weird.
For dinner I made cream of broccoli soup and homemade rolls--relishing every bite. I'm supposed to keep it to 600 calories--I ate until I was full. I drank a ton of water througout the day, they say to take your weight, divide it by two and drink that amount in ounces. I think I drank more than that because every time I thought of something yummy to eat I drank instead.
I got a ton done around the house, another part of distracting myself from the kitchen. I organized the storage room and guest bedroom downstairs and moved the 9 buckets of wheat that have been in the middle of the hallway for three weeks. It was really quite effective, and I have LOTS of those kinds of things to do so it's all good. As far as energy, I haven't felt 'buzzed' or super energized, but I didn't want a nap today and I haven't been irritable. I can easily chalk that all up to the fact that my mind is so focused on the program that I have no time to think about how the world is out to get me--go figure!
Anyway, I've also been looking on KSL.com for some chickens, trying to find something close by and I totally lucked out. I went up to Wellsville and got 6 super cute bantams. Bantams are 1/2 size chickens with feathers on their feet and they waddle when they walk. They lay small eggs, three bantam eggs are equal to 2 standard size eggs and they are just so dang cute! I've raised them in the past but didn't have any so I'm thrilled to have them. And they are funky looking. I'm gunna take some photos tomorrow cause I know y'all are dying to see how freaking cute they are!
For dinner I made cream of broccoli soup and homemade rolls--relishing every bite. I'm supposed to keep it to 600 calories--I ate until I was full. I drank a ton of water througout the day, they say to take your weight, divide it by two and drink that amount in ounces. I think I drank more than that because every time I thought of something yummy to eat I drank instead.
I got a ton done around the house, another part of distracting myself from the kitchen. I organized the storage room and guest bedroom downstairs and moved the 9 buckets of wheat that have been in the middle of the hallway for three weeks. It was really quite effective, and I have LOTS of those kinds of things to do so it's all good. As far as energy, I haven't felt 'buzzed' or super energized, but I didn't want a nap today and I haven't been irritable. I can easily chalk that all up to the fact that my mind is so focused on the program that I have no time to think about how the world is out to get me--go figure!
Anyway, I've also been looking on KSL.com for some chickens, trying to find something close by and I totally lucked out. I went up to Wellsville and got 6 super cute bantams. Bantams are 1/2 size chickens with feathers on their feet and they waddle when they walk. They lay small eggs, three bantam eggs are equal to 2 standard size eggs and they are just so dang cute! I've raised them in the past but didn't have any so I'm thrilled to have them. And they are funky looking. I'm gunna take some photos tomorrow cause I know y'all are dying to see how freaking cute they are!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Blog Action day--the Environment
Hey all, did you know yesterday was Blog Action Day? Well, me neither, and now I'm a day late but I've actually been wanting to post about this topic and so I'm gunna take the chance now.
I'm not a huge environmentalist--I don't want to get hate mail, but I've been to rain forests and they seem to go on forever. I 'm not convinced global warming is a result of pollution or if it's a natural cycle of the earth. I can see the stars at night and contaminants don't keep me up at night. I know that in some ways that's horrible, and someone somewhere is putting me on their prayer roll, but I think I'm like most people in the world--because I'm okay I don't look to far beyond my own backyard. That said, I definitely want to do what I can (short of devoting my life to it) and I want to teach my kids to do the same. I hate waste--be it a shirt that doesn't fit but will fit someone else, or six pounds of packaging for a cracker sized electronic divice. So I try and make wise choices and live certain principles but I'm far from perfect. Here's what I do.
Compost: I don't throw food away. Table scraps and uneaten leftover usually goes to the chickens, who eat it and love it and save me from having to buy chicken feed. I get better and healthier eggs when they eat a good variety of food. They even eat egg shells and chicken. The only thing they don't like to eat is lettuce and banana peels--they love watermelon rinds and pasta. The goats eat a lot of leftover too--they don't like anything with vinegar.
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or, if the chickens and goats are overfed, leftover food goes to the compost. Because it's fall and my garden isn't in season, I dump left over food in my grow beds. Over the winter the scraps break down to give me great soil for the plants I'll grow next year. When my garden is growing, I put compost in a different pile that I haven't quite figured out how to work yet. It's supposed to create heat and break down into great fertilizer, but I haven't got the mixture right yet so it's kind of a mess . . . okay, not kind of about it, it IS a mess--but I'm working on it. Not only does composting reuse my leftovers, but it keeps me from needing to buy commercial fertilizer and put the chemicals in my plants. (see photo of chicken eating dumped compost--this adds even more fertilizer to my garden as said chicken processes what it eats--ain't nature beautiful?)
Home Canning: I love to bottle tomatoes, pickles, peaches, pears and anything else people will give me. This no only preserves the best quality produce for later in the eyar, but I don't buy the canned derivatives as much which cuts down on the use of cans and bottles bought from the store.
I reuse the canning bottles each year. This is economical and highly rewarding. I absolutely love home canning. there is a magnificence about looking at quarts of peaches and knowing they'd have gone to rot if not for me saving them. And come January, there is nothing like peach cobbler made from home canned peach pie filling.
Recycling: I keep a garbage can under the sink and it's child #3's daily chore to divide it into the slots in an old laundry hamper in the garage.
We live in a rural area and don't have curbside, so about once a week I load the bags and boxes into my car when I'm going to drive into town for other errands. Once I got the system down it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and it really only takes me a couple extra minutes a week. Not only does it feel good to be "A Good Citizen of the Earth" but we went from two garbage cans to one--which is awesome.
So there you have it, what I do. could I do more? yes. could I do less? Absolutely. I'm comfortable where I am right now with it and foresee that I will continue to improve as time goes on. Every little bit helps, right?
I'm not a huge environmentalist--I don't want to get hate mail, but I've been to rain forests and they seem to go on forever. I 'm not convinced global warming is a result of pollution or if it's a natural cycle of the earth. I can see the stars at night and contaminants don't keep me up at night. I know that in some ways that's horrible, and someone somewhere is putting me on their prayer roll, but I think I'm like most people in the world--because I'm okay I don't look to far beyond my own backyard. That said, I definitely want to do what I can (short of devoting my life to it) and I want to teach my kids to do the same. I hate waste--be it a shirt that doesn't fit but will fit someone else, or six pounds of packaging for a cracker sized electronic divice. So I try and make wise choices and live certain principles but I'm far from perfect. Here's what I do.
Compost: I don't throw food away. Table scraps and uneaten leftover usually goes to the chickens, who eat it and love it and save me from having to buy chicken feed. I get better and healthier eggs when they eat a good variety of food. They even eat egg shells and chicken. The only thing they don't like to eat is lettuce and banana peels--they love watermelon rinds and pasta. The goats eat a lot of leftover too--they don't like anything with vinegar.
.
or, if the chickens and goats are overfed, leftover food goes to the compost. Because it's fall and my garden isn't in season, I dump left over food in my grow beds. Over the winter the scraps break down to give me great soil for the plants I'll grow next year. When my garden is growing, I put compost in a different pile that I haven't quite figured out how to work yet. It's supposed to create heat and break down into great fertilizer, but I haven't got the mixture right yet so it's kind of a mess . . . okay, not kind of about it, it IS a mess--but I'm working on it. Not only does composting reuse my leftovers, but it keeps me from needing to buy commercial fertilizer and put the chemicals in my plants. (see photo of chicken eating dumped compost--this adds even more fertilizer to my garden as said chicken processes what it eats--ain't nature beautiful?)
Home Canning: I love to bottle tomatoes, pickles, peaches, pears and anything else people will give me. This no only preserves the best quality produce for later in the eyar, but I don't buy the canned derivatives as much which cuts down on the use of cans and bottles bought from the store.
I reuse the canning bottles each year. This is economical and highly rewarding. I absolutely love home canning. there is a magnificence about looking at quarts of peaches and knowing they'd have gone to rot if not for me saving them. And come January, there is nothing like peach cobbler made from home canned peach pie filling.
Recycling: I keep a garbage can under the sink and it's child #3's daily chore to divide it into the slots in an old laundry hamper in the garage.
We live in a rural area and don't have curbside, so about once a week I load the bags and boxes into my car when I'm going to drive into town for other errands. Once I got the system down it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and it really only takes me a couple extra minutes a week. Not only does it feel good to be "A Good Citizen of the Earth" but we went from two garbage cans to one--which is awesome.
So there you have it, what I do. could I do more? yes. could I do less? Absolutely. I'm comfortable where I am right now with it and foresee that I will continue to improve as time goes on. Every little bit helps, right?
Thursday, August 30, 2007
How can I tell if he really loves me?
Last week I had the opportunity to read a blog at Cranberry Corner. Jenna's story really touched me and has stuck with me this week. Maybe because I finished the book and am looking at my family and admiring them again, but pondering her theme of finding love I was reminded of something Tristi Pinkston said a few years ago.
We were talking about romance on the LDStorymakers e-mail list and she said her idea of romance was different than most people's. Flowers and stuff like that didn't do much for her, but now and then her hubby would let her sleep in on Saturday morning and go get her a McDonald's breakfast because he knew she loved it. For her, THAT was romance. I couldn't agree more (though I like flowers too) and this morning all of this came flooding back to me as I was gagging while holding the bag for my hunny-bunny to dump the dead skunk in.
It's our second dead skunk in a week, and dang but do they stink! I really like skunks--from a distance. I don't want to trap and kill them--killing and trapping is for the raccoons--but we keep catching skunks and Animal control does not come out for skunks in our county so it is up to us. Here's where the romance comes in, though that's probably not the right word, but it's definitely love.
My husband does not think skunks are cute, nor chickens either. The chickens are my idea, my passion, but he loves me so he puts up with it. And it's because of chickens that we have raccoons, which is why I bought the trap. He could say that because the chickens and traps and raccoons are my buisness, the skunks are too, but he doesn't. Instead he dresses up like the unabomber and goes takes care of them so I don't have to, then, this morning, in his dress clothes no less (he'd forgotten we still needed to dispose before he left for work) he picks up the stinky trap to dump the skunk in the bag. And as I'm dry heaving, he offers to take it to the dumpster at work instead of putting it in our household garbage can (we did that with last week's skunk--Baaaaaaaad idea--though I feel sorry for the people at the office building).
Through it all, he does not berate me about having to do something so awful, he doesn't complain at all(in part because he thinks I make funny faces)--and that, in my book, is love. He loves me enough to deal with dead skunks. To top it off, later today as I'm running errands in the city he works in, he calls and offers to do take out at our favorite sushi place so I can meet him for five whole minutes and we can eat together. So, I did. We sat in the back seat of the minivan with our five year old and ate sushi until I had to take the five-year old to kindergarten.
The date nights are great, and getting flowers makes my day, but when he tunes the radio to my favorite station, even though he'd choose Hinder over the Eagles any day, or he offers to pick up Arby's on the way home (again) because I told him I HAD to get a scene written, I'm reminded why I married this guy, why he's my moon, sun, and stars. These are things that make my heart thump.
So, outside of candy and chocolates and snuggling on the couch, I want to know the non-traditional things you're Sweety does to show you he (or she, though very few men read/comment on this blog) loves you. Or, if he's a lump and doesn't do nice things, what do you hope your next husband does?
Monday, August 20, 2007
Good News--Bad News
The Good News--is that I'm closer to finishing my book than I have ever been before! I've revised everything I have written half a dozen times, I've taken a few steps closer to my actual ending scene and I feel good about the book. I've lined up a few readers ready to give me feedback!
The Bad News--is that on August 27 Mars will be closer to the planet Earth than it has been for something like 6 mazillionfinite years. It will look like a full moon to us earthlings, and yet the distance between the two planets will still be 34,649,589 miles. All of this only goes to show that 'close' is a completely relative word. I still can't figure out that blasted ending.
******
The Good News--is that I finally bought a raccoon trap to catch the raccoons that are slowly picking off my poor little chickens (I'm down to 13 of my 17 batch I bought last month after my second batch of the season was massacred by said raccoons--see this post for more details.) And, I figured out how to use said trap, which means my neighborhood Raccoon's days are numbered.
The Bad News--We didn't catch a Raccoon. Instead, we caught a skunk. And how the #@#$% are you supposed to get the skunk out of the trap without needing a bath in Tomato Juice? Not to mention the fact that if he gets out of the trap alive, he'll likely come back tomorrow night.
******
The Good News--Summer is almost over. As of next Monday (six days and 16 hours from the time I post this blog) all of my children will be at public school and I will have FREEDOM. It's so close I can taste it.
The Bad News--I'm not sure I'll last that long (see the bad news about how close Mars will be to Earth on the 27th)
The Bad News--is that on August 27 Mars will be closer to the planet Earth than it has been for something like 6 mazillionfinite years. It will look like a full moon to us earthlings, and yet the distance between the two planets will still be 34,649,589 miles. All of this only goes to show that 'close' is a completely relative word. I still can't figure out that blasted ending.
******
The Good News--is that I finally bought a raccoon trap to catch the raccoons that are slowly picking off my poor little chickens (I'm down to 13 of my 17 batch I bought last month after my second batch of the season was massacred by said raccoons--see this post for more details.) And, I figured out how to use said trap, which means my neighborhood Raccoon's days are numbered.
The Bad News--We didn't catch a Raccoon. Instead, we caught a skunk. And how the #@#$% are you supposed to get the skunk out of the trap without needing a bath in Tomato Juice? Not to mention the fact that if he gets out of the trap alive, he'll likely come back tomorrow night.
******
The Good News--Summer is almost over. As of next Monday (six days and 16 hours from the time I post this blog) all of my children will be at public school and I will have FREEDOM. It's so close I can taste it.
The Bad News--I'm not sure I'll last that long (see the bad news about how close Mars will be to Earth on the 27th)
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Chicken massacre!
So, a few years ago I wrote a book, Star Struck. It's my only attempt at YA and I find it hilarious (I wrote it, so I better love it, right?) In the book there is a chicken massacre that takes place in the book where raccoons get access to the chicken coop and execute poultry-cide, killing and dismembering a whole bunch of chickens. The next day the book characters had to clean up the chicken parts left behind.
At the time I wrote this book, I had just begun my chicken-raising years, and didn't know if this was really plausible. It seemed like it was, but I didn't know for sure--hence, why I write fiction. I've since realized that raccoons hibernate during the months this event was written to have taken place. But despite that, I'd wondered if the massacre itself could have truly occurred. I've lost a chicken here and there to raccoons, but would they really kill numerous chickens all at once?
Yes, in fact they will.
I got a batch of bantam (smaller super-cute chicken breeds) chicks in April, and all but three were dead in a few days from some kind of illness they'd caught before coming to me. So I bought eight more standard (regular sized chickens--not so cute) and all of them survived. I kept them all together in the garage for the first month, then moved them out to the coop where they have been for the last two months. Everyday I got out and tell them how cute they are and how lucky they are to live in the Best-little-henhouse-in-Willard. I love my chickens. While waiting for them to be big enough to be introduced outdoors, I've been painstakingly working on my chicken run--trying to raccoon proof it and make it fully contained so my chickens don't free range anymore. I've spent hundreds of dollars and many many hours doing this. And on Monday, I finally let the chickens out. They were so happy, scratching and playing and enjoying the sunshine. It was a great day and I was one happy chicken mama.
And then, sometime Monday night raccoons found a way into my coop. Tuesday, I noticed I couldn't see the chickens moving around and when I went outside to check, I found a chicken foot . . . then a head . . . and so on and so forth. I had to hurry and clean up the mess before my kids saw it, but it was horrible. Feathers were everywhere, carcasses were strewn all over the place. One poor chicken had survived, but he is scared to death of everything. I've found some more chickens I'll be picking up tomorrow, and I'll be spending a good deal of time fortifying my run AGAIN, but it was an awful day and not something I ever want to repeat.
It's not very often that research happens in reverse--write it and then it happens, and quite frankly I hope it never happens again. I've written about some really lousy circumstances in my book--far worse than mutilated chickens. I really don't want to find out the hard way if those are possible too.
At the time I wrote this book, I had just begun my chicken-raising years, and didn't know if this was really plausible. It seemed like it was, but I didn't know for sure--hence, why I write fiction. I've since realized that raccoons hibernate during the months this event was written to have taken place. But despite that, I'd wondered if the massacre itself could have truly occurred. I've lost a chicken here and there to raccoons, but would they really kill numerous chickens all at once?
Yes, in fact they will.
I got a batch of bantam (smaller super-cute chicken breeds) chicks in April, and all but three were dead in a few days from some kind of illness they'd caught before coming to me. So I bought eight more standard (regular sized chickens--not so cute) and all of them survived. I kept them all together in the garage for the first month, then moved them out to the coop where they have been for the last two months. Everyday I got out and tell them how cute they are and how lucky they are to live in the Best-little-henhouse-in-Willard. I love my chickens. While waiting for them to be big enough to be introduced outdoors, I've been painstakingly working on my chicken run--trying to raccoon proof it and make it fully contained so my chickens don't free range anymore. I've spent hundreds of dollars and many many hours doing this. And on Monday, I finally let the chickens out. They were so happy, scratching and playing and enjoying the sunshine. It was a great day and I was one happy chicken mama.
And then, sometime Monday night raccoons found a way into my coop. Tuesday, I noticed I couldn't see the chickens moving around and when I went outside to check, I found a chicken foot . . . then a head . . . and so on and so forth. I had to hurry and clean up the mess before my kids saw it, but it was horrible. Feathers were everywhere, carcasses were strewn all over the place. One poor chicken had survived, but he is scared to death of everything. I've found some more chickens I'll be picking up tomorrow, and I'll be spending a good deal of time fortifying my run AGAIN, but it was an awful day and not something I ever want to repeat.
It's not very often that research happens in reverse--write it and then it happens, and quite frankly I hope it never happens again. I've written about some really lousy circumstances in my book--far worse than mutilated chickens. I really don't want to find out the hard way if those are possible too.
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