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Preparedness

I'm always thinking ahead. What will be my next project? When do we go on a trip next? How should be plan the garden for the upcoming summer? If I;m finishing this, then when can I start that? Well, I'd like to think this is to my advantage (although, possibly this is a disillusion :)). One way I believe it came to my advantage is when we were shopping a fun and learning store in the area. All the products the store sells are learning toys, and also they have a lot of "natural" products. Products made with wood and non-toxic paint, rather than plastic. While we were there, we spotted on display a cute kitchen set up for a child. It was completely wooden (eco-friendly rubber wood) and was on display with some wooden foods that can be cut. Although Flora is only 4.5 months old, I was thinking ahead. How awesome this would be for her to learn and grow with! If this were the right sale price, we should get it now and give it to her a few years from now. I turned the corner and there was one in a box, never opened, and about 40% off the original price! What a deal! However, it was still a bit too expensive. So, I asked if they'd be willing to sell the display item, which was in great condition and no assembly required. She would, and for over 60% off the original price. Sweet! So, we now will have a kitchen set for Flora, along with some fun food to cut with it. The extra bonus is that when we decide to give it to her, no shopping needed for that birthday or Christmas :) Call me a geek, but I love thinking ahead, and being frugal about it :)

Eating a radish.

My food nemesis was my lunch hour. I would run out and grab something quick - a sandwich, burger, whatever. Now I don't take a lunch hour, so I am responsible for bringing my own lunch if I plan to eat. I have a rubbermaid storage box with several goodies in it. It keeps me stocked with healthy choices when I need a snack. What's in it? Walnuts, our own dried apples, Kashi bars, tea, dried pears and organic instant oatmeal. I certainly need a bit more variety than this, so we decided we'd start doing some heavy shopping in the produce section. Tim has been eating PB & Jelly sandwiches every day at work lunch for the 5 years I've know him, so it would be healthy to get him some variety too. We buy whatever looks fresh and delicious in the produce section. We keep organic and local in mind as much as possible when making our buying decisions. We bring the produce home, wash it really good, and then bring a variety to work each day. Usually it will be a mix of cucumber, green pepper, mushrooms, carrot, apple, etc. Today I had something new in my lunch....radishes. I'll be honest, I'm not sure I ever had a radish before, but something about these little red guys appealed to me at the store. I put 3 radishes in my lunch today. Crunch, crunch, crunch. What yummy, crispy little things. I did a little research and it turns out that these radishes are good for fiber, folic acid, potassium, calcium, and iron. I also learned that if you like sprouts, radish sprouts are great for using the sprouts in salad and give a little different taste than the basic bean sprouts. Having this little something different today gives me excitement to try other new things. And, it also encourages me to research growing some of these goodies in our garden rather than sticking to the staples. It doesn't hurt to try a plant or two with something different. Any recommendations? Happy fresh eating!

Quiet Moments

The work week always seems difficult for me as a mommy. I am blessed that I can do my 40 hour work week from Monday - Thursday, giving me a 3 day weekend to focus on being a mommy, and of course, get stuff done around the house, errands, etc. However, because of my Monday - Thursday, I only see Flora for about 1 hour each of those days. When I leave in the morning she's still sleeping, and then she goes to bed about 1 hour after I get home in the evening. This morning I was fortunate enough to have a few extra minutes so instead of my quick checking on Flora and giving her a gentle sleeping hug, I sat next to her while she slept and I ate my breakfast quietly. It was a peaceful and loving way to start the day, and even though she probably never knew I was there, it helped me get my mommy time in. I foresee getting up a little earlier now so I can have my breakfast with Flora. :)

Get well.

For three days now I have been attempting to fight a really bad head cold. I came down with it on Sunday morning and as of Tuesday, still feeling it pretty bad. I didn't go to work for the past two days, and being home by yourself is really boring...even when you sleep half the day away. Being sick makes you realize the freedoms you have when you are healthy. For instance, the freedom of physical contact. Even though I'm living in the same house as my excellent husband and wonderful daughter, I haven't been touching either of them in effort to keep them germ-free. I feel physically neglectful. It's amazing what physical touch can mean to your body and mind. The only cuddling I have is with my furry pals - Quigley and Cora. Another freedom when healthy is being awake :) I have slept so much in these past three days I feel like a lump of uselessness. I have been doing everything natural that I know to get well. Taking my all natural immune booster pills, elderberry for anti-viral, sleeping, drinking hot tea with honey. Either I'm missing something, or this bug is extremely resilient. Next, blending kiwi with orange juice...a Vitamin C kick in the butt to this cold! Any other solutions? Help!

New Year!

Happy New Year to all our friends and family! 2009 was a spectacular year - the highlights being the purchase of our land and welcoming our wonderful daughter, Flora. The last few weeks have been a nice wind down time. Less hours at work due to the holidays, and I've had a 2 week break from teaching too, which frees up my time after work. In 2009 one of my goals (documented here last January) was to learn to crochet. I started it, but as it goes, it fell to the side. During my pregnancy I vowed to crochet - that didn't happen. During my maternity leave I vowed to crochet, the closest I got was getting the yarn and hook out. It then sat on the end table in the living room for the next 2 months. Frustrating. I want to learn, but time always seems to have the last laugh. I told Tim that during the last two weeks of the year I NEED to crochet....and he made it so! He reminded me and helped me find time. And, I made my most complex project yet - a hat!!! I love it! It's warm, and cute - at least I think so. Also, the great thing about this project is that it gave me confidence I needed to keep crocheting. Another thing is that I feel as though I'm actually "getting" it....before I was just following the instructions, now I get why I'm doing things a certain way. It's exciting to think about new projects - I have a few planned for 2010. Tim has put in a hat request, so I am going to make his next. Here is my project (Tim's won't have the flower):

P.S. The blog has a new look. The white text on blue background got too hard for me to read...seriously, I'm getting old. Hope you all enjoy the new look. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Game/Reading Night

When Flora was born, we felt our days and nights completely change in pace. As it was, we didn't do much TV viewing during the week. If we are watching the TV, it's either Thursday night "Office" or a movie we've rented from Netflix. But, sometimes we would find we had a moment, and the tv would go on for lack of better things to do. Now, we have a better solution: Game Nights! We are finding that it didn't work to say that these nights are always Monday and Saturday, but we have been trying to spend at least one night a week playing a game together (usually after Flora's sleeping...she's not into Scrabble - yet.) Games are fun, and generally require some thought. Both good things :) We usually end up playing our favorites - Scrabble, Sorry, Spite and Malice, Farkle....this last weekend we played Monopoly for a change of pace. First, I kicked Tim's butt, and then he kicked mine. Here's a snapshot of how the first game went. Me on left, Tim on right.

We hope to keep this up as a family tradition - games, at least once a week! Having wind-down time is so important when it seems like all there is to do is working, running errands, and keeping busy one way or another. Games have been a way to unwind, while having fun, not just sitting in a vegetative state in front of the tv screen.

An Autumn Visit

Usually during this time of year we take a week long road-trip vacation to celebrate our anniversary. This year, due to our amazing girl Flora, we felt best foregoing the week long trip. Too hard to travel for that amount of time with a 1-mo old, 2 dogs, ourselves and luggage. Instead, we went out for a nice dinner on our anniversary, and then this past weekend, we took our last trip for the season up to White Sky Woods. We did just one night. We left the dogs at home with my Mom who watched them, and we headed out early Saturday morning, all packed up and with baby in the back seat. Since the heat in our camper is somewhat unreliable when it comes to providing a constant temperature, we felt it safest to stay at a hotel, and then spend the days at our property. On the way up, there was snow! The night before had left about 4 inches of snow in central U.P., but once we got closer to the Keweenaw, there was no snow and lots of fall color! Since the climate zone on the peninsula is the same as where we live here in WI, it was prime color viewing for those fall leaves. We headed directly to White Sky Woods. Wow! It looked so different from our last visit over Labor Day weekend. It's always wonderful, but the colors on the trees were just amazing. The color was from the ground up. Lots of leaves on the ground, colorful grasses, and brilliantly colored trees. The most impressive were the tamaracks, which were a bright sunny yellow color. On saturday we hiked our cleared (okay - semi-cleared) trails and spent a little time in the camper for Flora's feeding since it started to drizzle outside. When it got dark, we checked into our hotel. We ordered pizza from a local place - it was delicious...maybe some of the best delivery pizza I ever had. Later, Tim went swimming while Flora and I watched.

The next day we went back to our property and decided to do some off trail exploring. Tim carried Flora in the front pack both days, which worked out great. She loved it, the motion lulls her to sleep. We found some areas of our property that have older hardwoods, along with Cedar and different types of conifers. Tim's eye caught one of our forest creatures. A blue-spotted salamander! Cool looking little salamander. We found a dilapidated hunting shack that a tree fell on. It appeared the shack was built around the tree. Hmm. We then headed back to the camper. While I fed Flora, Tim picked lots of apples! We have tons of apple trees with a variety of apples. The best looking apples were Golden Delicious apples. He also picked a lot of apples that will be better suited for baking. So, this week, I have a project on my hands! I will be dehydrating a portion of the apples for healthy snacking, not sure about the rest yet. Before we left, we also talked to the neighbors for an hour of so. They told us about 2 wolf encounters they had this summer. Overall, it was another great trip to White Sky Woods! Can't wait to go back...

Back pasture.

In the forest.

All bundled up!

Snow! On the way up, but no snow at the property :)

Spotted blue salamander.

Pumpkin Project

On Saturday we went to out local grocer who annually has Pumpkin Blowout. Local pumpkins for $2 each! We purchased three pumpkins and then planned to carve them. I can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin. I painted a pumpkin in college with a little girl I mentored, but that's my most recent memory, and that was almost 10 years ago. We had a carving kit that we purchased a few years ago and got underway with our Pumpkin Project. Tim carved one pumpkin and I carved another, so we each had our own unique design. The third pumpkin became Flora's. She slept through the whole project, but since she's less than a month old, I don't suspect she could have done much with her pumpkin :) The pumpkins turned out awesome! Also, we saved the seeds and roasted them. Yum! Here's some shots from the Pumpkin Project. The final night picture with them light up shows mine on the left, Tim's in the middle, and Flora's on the right :)

Fall Splendor

Fall is here! The average temperature during the day has been in the high 50's and there have even been 2 frosts overnight. We covered the garden as best we could and seemed to save it. When it hasn't been raining, I've been taking walks with Flora in the afternoon. I love fall! The changing colors and the crispness in the air. When the sun is out, you can almost feel your body soaking it up, regardless of the slight chill in the air. Hands down, this is my favorite season. I was up for the early sunrise last week and captured this picture of our backyard. There is steam rising off the river and the colors on the trees are slightly changed. Beautiful!

Drying Clothes, Saving Money

Since we live in a village, we have sewer and water. We get a bill quarterly for our usage and it's typically only within dollars of the month prior. We had a bit of a surprise this past bill as it was almost $20 more than usual. Since in the past three months we had baby on the way, we were doing a lot of laundry. All the clothes we received used or new were washed, all bedding, etc. Lots of wash! And, now that Flora is here, I'm still doing just as much laundry. It's amazing how many clothing changes this little gal will have in one day! The bummer about being hooked up to the village sewer and water is that you pay for the water that comes in AND the water that goes out. At this point, I don't see any decline in our water bill.

The good news is that we have a process that helps offset this new cost! This past summer, we purchased an outdoor clothes hanging dryer for under $40. We successfully hung about every load of laundry on it to dry in the warm sun and fresh breeze. Now that the weather has quickly turned from summer to fall, the opportunity to dry laundry outside has pretty much disappeared. Time to move clothes drying inside...without using the dryer. For our baby shower, we registered for a drying rack for drying Flora's cloth diapers. Air drying is supposed to help them last longer. We actually received two racks and were happy to keep both. We can hang more than just diapers! Then, we received another, larger drying rack for Flora - so we have three. I am so happy we do! We have a perfect space for these drying racks right by the patio door where they can get sunlight to help dry. We have enough drying racks to hang 2 loads of laundry. Although you need some patience for the drying process, it saves the cost of 2 - 60+ minutes drying cycles in the electric dryer.

It feels good to offset costs, and be good to the environment. In the process, we are also putting some free humidity into our home now that the heat is on and drying things out. Here's a shot of our drying set up.

Our Baby!!

WE HAVE A BABY!!

Flora May Reitz

5 lbs. 15 oz.

18.5 in. long

born 09/15/09

at 7:15 AM

To everything....turn, turn, turn....

The title is appropriate lyrics by The Byrds to sing to our baby, who is still in breech position. Since she hasn't yet turned, we are now scheduled for a c-section. They simply won't deliver a breech baby naturally - too risky. So, unless this little one moves out of breech on her own, she will be welcomed into our big world on Tuesday, Sept. 15th. :) Wow! What an amazing step forward in this process! I guess I never really expected to know in advance what day would be her birthday...but it's now right around the corner! We are so excited to welcome our little one into the world and we have a lot of love waiting for her! Tim has been working on some final things at home and I have been doing as much as I can from the couch or kitchen table. Today I cored and diced about 100 tomatoes which Tim then took care of the rest of the canning. We have just about everything checked off our to-do list...it feels good! For most of Sunday we can relax. Monday, we both complete a full day of work before leaving bright and early on Tuesday morning for the birth of our baby.

Early in our pregnancy we hired a doula to help us with labor assistance. Since it doesn't appear we are going the labor route (not by choice or without trying all other means!), our Doula has given us the option of being there for the c-section and post-op, or for a post-partum trade out. We have decided to have her with us for the c-section and post-op. She will be an extremely important person in keeping us calm and collected while I'm prepped for the operating room. She will be in the O.R. with us, allowing someone to always be by my side and then she will stick around afterwards to get the bonding process going with our little one, help get breastfeeding established, and just help out in general. I am so happy to have someone with us who has supported this type of situation and knows Tim and I. I know the nurses will be simply amazing, but we are really another patient to them. Our doula knows us as people.


I had planned on having music during labor, but since the c-section was planned, I gave up on the idea. Our doula suggested that we still plan to have music and keep the mood relaxed with dimmed lights, etc. for the pre-op. I'm working now on the music compilation. I'm keeping it upbeat/relaxed to stay positive. Between Tim, myself, and our doula - we will make the c-section a positive experience, considering it's major surgery! I pray that all goes safely and well and that the recovery is quick and comfortable. Also, that our little one is healthy and happy when she arrives!

The day is almost here!

Moderate Bed Rest in the U.P.

Wow - life's plans have taken a bit of a different direction this past week. At my last Dr. appointment my blood pressure was up, so now I'm on "moderate" bed rest. This means that I'm supposed to be at home relaxing, sitting, no errands, no chores, etc. Thankfully, my employer has been so flexible with me and is allowing me to work from home full-time on my laptop. Working from home is actually going very well, feeling productive and accomplished. Also, at the last appointment, we found out that our dear daughter is still quite comfortable in her breech position. We did a lot of homeopathic attempts to have her turn prior to this revelation, and nothing worked. So, our next option was to go in for an external version to have them attempt to manually turn her. They tried with all their might for 45 minutes and she didn't want to budge. So, at this time, she's still breech. Unless she turns on her own, we will be scheduling a c-section. This has been a bit defeating to me, but I understand that we need to do what is the best route for safe delivery and that our goal outcome is a healthy baby! We have all the love in the world waiting for her when she arrives!

Over labor day weekend was our last opportunity to go visit our favorite place before baby arrives, White Sky Woods. We left on Friday evening so we would have a few full days instead of traveling Saturday morning. Our trip was so well needed. Since I'm on moderate bed rest, I did nothing but relax. We read, listened to NPR, played games, napped. Tim finished one last thing on the outhouse to have it winter ready. It was a great weekend to unwind, relax physically and mentally, and slow down the pace of life before our baby arrives. Here is my favorite photo from the weekend. I took this when I woke up from an outdoor nap under the apple tree. The sun was shining so brilliantly illuminating the leaf. Oh, we also saw our friend - Paulie the Porcupine! He was chilling out up in one of the Aspen trees.

Blueberries!

We returned Sunday night from another great, and extended 3-day weekend at White Sky Woods. It was rainy on Friday and a bit overcast on Saturday, but Sunday was simply amazing. 70 and sunny - blue as blue sky. The Sunday theme must have been blue. Blue sky - blueberries. We discovered a month or so ago that there are patches of blueberry bushes on our property...but until they came ripe just recently, we didn't know how many! Wild blueberries - everywhere! They are sweeter and smaller than the grocery store variety - simply delicious. We had a couple of gallon pails up there for just this type of event, so we went picking. After over an hour of picking, we had a full gallon of blueberries. The dogs also ate their fair share - straight off the bush! We have the blueberries home now and all the supplies to make jam. We will reap the benefits from our beautiful day of picking all winter long :) UPDATE: Tim made 10 half-pints of blueberry jam and we still have more blueberries left over which I will make blueberry bran muffins with and freeze so we can thaw and eat as we please.

Cloth Diapering

Upon finding out we are pregnant, we made the decision to try to keep our earth-friendly practices consistent with baby. She deserves less chemicals (food and body products), more natural remedies in life and also the privilege to leave behind a smaller carbon footprint (in a literal and figurative sense!). One of the decisions we made was to choose cloth diapering. In doing research, I couldn't believe how far cloth diapering had advanced since when I was a kid. There were many options and all different styles. These new cloth diapers are no different than putting on disposable diapers, expect that you reuse them over and over again. No pins, no special folding...just put it on the baby and velcro up. The great thing about the type we chose (BumGenius 3.0) is that they are one size fits all...adjustable to your growing baby.

So, we made the purchase and now we have over 30 diapers in a variety of colors to keep us going. No running to the store because we ran out of diapers. No wasteful piling of garbage. No spending thousands on diapers. It's shown that it will cost around $2,000 to diaper a baby through their time prior to potty training. Our cloth diapers were $500, plus the cost of laundering, which is simply water and slight cost of laundry soap (since we make our own). We have drying racks to air dry the diapers which will keep them in good condition longer - so no electricy costs on that front either. We were excited when our delivery arrived via FedEx! We ordered with a special discount that was running through clothdiaperoutlet.com. The husband/wife duo had excellent service and shipping was free. They have many natural products for baby care and other earth-friendly solutions on her site. There a few more purchases we plan to make with them, including wetbags (nylon bag to put dirty diaper in on-the-go) and reusable diaper pail liners that can be washed with the diapers.

It feels good to be eco-friendly and save money :)

Unique Plants

We are blessed to have our piece of paradise in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Although we haven't even seen all our property yet (or is it possible to ever!), we've been able to do some exploring! Tim's seen more than me since he's not pregnant and has much more energy and mental-will to take him around :) A few trips back, we had Tim's Mom, Aunt, & Uncle visiting and Tim when exploring with his Uncle while I napped. Tim came back with pictures of plants that many people might never encounter including lady slippers, rare mushrooms, and the carnivorous plant - Pitcher Plant. I've never seen lady slippers in the wild, but last year Tim and I did see Pitcher Plants in a bog we visited in Minnesota. What a unique plant! It produces a sticky type of material which bugs will land in and then the plant digests the bug. Amazing such thing could even grow in Upper Michigan where 6 months out of the year there is snow on the ground! When Tim saw the pitcher plant on our property, he even saw it when it was blooming. What a beautiful sight!

I saw the pictures and knew that next year I would be able to go back and see them with my own eyes. Well, somehow on our last trip Tim convinced me and our visitors that it was a short/easy trip. Not without complaint, we FINALLY got to a pitcher plant (he had marked it on the GPS). I was the only one complaining...my 8 months pregnant body didn't want anything to do with the trip, and my mind really got at me. It wasn't too bad of a hike for our friends or dogs, but was a different story for me! I can't quite paint a good picture of the trip, but imagine being stuck in a dense jungle with no path to follow. That's what this was like...but less tropical :) Looking back now, it was kinda funny...but I definitely pushed myself a bit too much that day. Anyhow, we found the picther plant, and it was beautiful! We also came across many other cool things - living and dead. Several deer skeleton's and also a pretty big pile of poops...maybe bear? We saw Cedar Trees, Spruce, Tamarak, and some hardwoods. Quigley found himself a deer foot to run around with, so he was happy as pie.

It's simply amazing how many different things you can find when you are looking on just a small piece of land in the realm of an entire region, country, continent, world! I recently read an article that reminded me of how cool it is to discover something. Explorers found the largest pitcher plant yet. It can eat rats! Here's the article: Giant Meat-Eating Plant Found

Here also are some pictures taken at our favorite place - White Sky Woods!

Cedar Trees

Pitcher Plants on the property. This is a grouping of several with some of them flowering!

Pink Lady Slipper on the property.

Gourmet by Lisa

Yummy, easy, quick, and healthy dinner from the weekend.

1.) Set aside 2 large tortillas.
2.) Cut up zucchini and mushrooms. Saute Garlic, zucchini and mushrooms with Olive Oil.

3.) Rinse black beans. Rinse quartered artichoke hearts.

4.) Smear light layer of cream cheese on half of one side of each tortilla.
5.) Cut up into small pieces or shred your favorite cheese.
6.) Put sauteed zucchini and mushrooms on 1/2 of tortilla (on top of cream cheese). Add black beans and artichokes. Top with Cheese. Fold Tortilla in 1/2. Put in toaster oven or conventional oven for about 5 minutes at 350....or until cheese is melted and tortilla has slight browning.
7.) Enjoy with fresh fruit!

The great thing about this meal is that you can really put whatever you want in the tortilla! I also really like artichoke hearts, black olives, tomatoes and sprinkled with basil. Yum. Try your own version. What would you like on yours? Share in comments if you feel so compelled!

Passing it on...

Through the pregnancy, it's been tempting to buy cute baby clothes, but we've done a good job controlling that.  We only have a few pieces.  We figured people always like to buy cute outfits, even when what you REALLY need is practical things, so that's what we've avoided buying clothing for her.   Well, wow, generosity has taken place in a serious manner.  One of my coworkers has a daughter who was born in late August a few years ago.  That means that the sizing and season of her daughter's clothes will be similar to our needs.  She said she would bring some stuff in that she would like to get rid of.  People say these kinds of things, so I wasn't counting on it.  Monday when I came in, there were 3 BIG boxes by my desk.  All clothes!   We are officially set on clothing for our daughter  - at least for the first year and a half!    She passed on everything from newborn to 18 months!  We have lots of great things from shoes to onesies to sleepers to bibs.  My mom also had picked up some cute things to contribute to our clothing needs last time I saw her.  We are so blessed to have all this wonderful stuff without having to acquire it on our own.  Attached is a picture of just SOME the great stuff my coworker passed on....this picture is only newborn to 6 months, huge stacks!  Even though she said she didn't want any money, I plan to do something nice for her.   This was such a nice gesture and needs to be noticed :)

This is a cool thing about bats and moths if you like that kinda thing :)

Scifri Videos: Moths Can Escape Bats By Jamming Sonar

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