super long list of happy things?

It's been a long week.  I'm pretty sure it's been about 41 days since last Tuesday.

Sarah and her familia left for Monterey a week ago today, just as we were finding out that mi padre is fighting an internal battle nobody knew about.  I could go on about how it feels to discover your dad has cancer, but a distraction is what I am wanting right now.
Maybe you are too?
Want to talk about happy things?

Working backwards?  Warning:  there are probably only one or two photos here that you haven't seen on fb.  Just a lot of words if you've seen them already.  What's new.

Today:
 First off, I had jury duty today.  I got out of that jury duty.  I did that by calling in the night before, listening for the range of numbers on the message to see if my juror number was in range.  It was not.  I was thrilled and free.
 

Right now I have beet chips in the oven.  They'll be slowly baking at a low temperature for the rest of the day.

I sliced them thinly with a knife, not eager to face losing the skin of my fingers on the mandolin slicer.  While I can think of lots of fun reasons to not have fingerprints, I do appreciate the inconsistency in imperfecly sliced chips.  Each chip can offer an array of crisp, crunch, and chew.  I like me some texture variety!

I tossed the slices with olive oil, nutmeg, a little brown sugar and some Masala spice. We'll see about this.





My buddy is slumbering while I type.  I have not typed next to a slumbering buddy in a long time!

Yesterday:  [intended for my female readers only]

Yesterday I discovered how nice it is to invest a modest $20 into a "good" brassiere from Target.  Please inquire privately if you are a female wishing to achieve support on a budget.  I will tell you all about my new best friend.  Not only is it weightless and comfy, it helps you to achieve that PFSMOCPAB (Pre Fifty-Six Months Of Continuous Pregnancy and Breastfeeding) look you might be longing for.  You know what I mean.  A couple of years later, the situation is not any better, even in our thin, high-altitude, gravity-defying Colorado atmosphere.  The only way this bra could be better is if it pumped your mams up with botox and that stress-ball filler stuff throughout the day.  Painlessly, must I add.  Also- if it had totally modular straps, but I plan on making that happen so I can wear racerback tanks this summer without looking too WT.   

If you have a natural looking support system, you will love wearing a plain ol' t-shirt with it.  They even advertise bras as 't-shirt' bras.  As if all of the other ones only have to look good under fairisles and parkas or something??  Anyway, THIS t-shirt is one you need.  $6 is cheaper than the thrift stores around here, and you don't even have to worry about someone else's pit stains.  You can make your own!!  Go get yourself some of these.  They are long and slim, soft, and have a cute fit up around the neckline.  Also a cute fit around your newly uplifted chest-section.  Did I say they're six dolla?

Last night I made a delicious roasted rosemary chicken and some hand-scrambled rosemary olive bread.  I say hand-scrambled because after the first rise, I had to literally scramble my hands through the dough with olive oil, chopped olives, minced garlic and rosemary, and parmesan cheese.  It was an incredible mess.  And the tastiest treat ever scrambled in our kitchen.  My husband and offspring were running a commentary on the quantity I consumed at the dinner table.  I couldn't stop.  Cooking makes me happy and eating does too.

Happiness is also a few little seedlings sprouting in your bathroom window, next to your eyelash curler and Bare Minerals.

I know.  This picture is super impressive.

 Our upstairs bathroom is almost too warm a lot of the time, so I stacked up my little seedling starters near the register and let them do their thing.  They now need ample light, so our window ledge is perfect.

 Onions, salad mix, and Tulsi basil.

 

Green onions

 Future salad:

 

Cinderella pumpkins!!!!

Sunday:

It happened.  It hit me.  It happened and it hit me.  

What happened was, I picked up two more baby hen girls.  

What hit me was, this is slightly becoming a problem.  Slightly.  

It's only sliiiiightly a problem because it was also kind of necessary.  Look at them.
They are Silver Grey Dorkings.  Dorks!  They look pretty dorky NOT.  They are stunning.
Dorkings date back to ancient Roman times.  They are a heritage breed that I was really interested in.  Since discovering my hidden love for my girls, I have learned a lot about their breeding.  We had a few breeds in mind when we got our first three, but we weren't deciding based on their heritage.  Mostly on their egg production and temperament reputation, as well as what was available that day at Golden Mill when the kids threw themselves down in despair if I didn't let them buy some.  Chickens, like everything else that lives on our planet right now, have been bred into hybrids that have their pros and cons.  Usually at the expense of hardiness and innate survival skills and immunity.  Now these new girls, they go back about as far as you can go.  They are the only breed with five toes, so we feel connected to them since most of us in our family also have five toes.  We really bonded with them over that one.

They grow up to look like this:

They are the sweetest things.
When you hold them, they just lie down in your hand!  They have these sturdy and soft warm bodies and it feels like holding a little bunny or something.  They are known for their friendliness, their docile nature, and it rings true in these new girls.  I just love them. They were totally worth the  $8 dollars I paid!!  Each.  Eight dollars each.

They don't have names yet, but we have a running list including Hello Chickie, Fannie Farmer, and Annabelle, among others.  Roo told me we should have gotten three so we could name them Annabelle, Betsy and Bonnie from one of our favorite books.  I might have to call the gal we got them from and make another order :)

Rosie's all, "Pssssst, peep peep, did you notice the new girls  in the corner?  I think they were printed in grayscale."

 Saturday I had rebuilt a portion of the hen cages that we got last month, and was able to let them try it out outside for about an hour.  I know it wasn't quite warm enough (maybe around 65) but since there were 5 of them, I was hoping they'd be up to a bonding little snuggle-huddle if necessary.  I don't know how territorial hens are, but I also was hoping that this would be good neutral territory for them to all meet for the first time.

 It is also a nice way for Howdy to get used to being around them!  He was a fan, but I can's speak for the girls.  You decide.

The kids were having fun pretending Spring was on it's way for real.  Poor little foolies didn't know we were in for about a foot of snow.

 Roo helped me set the girls up in their new cage in the garage.  Time to toughen up, hens!  The coop will be waiting for you soon :)

Speaking of coop...
I have all but decided that this is going to be the main part of their new home.  The old tilted gazebo in the middle of the backyard.

 

I have their other soon-to-be-rebuilt coop also, but I am thinking I will attach it coming off of the side on the left.  That part will be facing our house, and its orientation is perfect for building out some nesting boxes that we can keep watch over from the back door.  For the gazebo portion, I'm picturing windows right under the roof all the way around (possibly our leftovers from our old house??) and screen/wire during the summer.  Perches to roost on.  Maybe one or two of my old doors that are in the garage.  A chandelier like I've seen in other adorable coops :)  It will all come together, I'm just not good at describing it and have not yet sketched it up!   

I'm hoping my little chicken addiction doesn't become too much of a concern.  For husband, that is.

Saturday:

Playing with the Three Amigas, before there were five :)

 

And just for fun...

 

Friday:

Friday I got my second parking ticket of the week.  Thanks, Denver.  No wonder I don't live in you anymore.

I negotiated them but still had to pay $50 total.  Do you know how many chickens one could have gotten for fifty dollars?  

Good news is that one of them was during a mostly-weekly playdate at the house of some of our favorite friends.  They're worth a ticket originally valued at fifty bucks.

Friday is also the day when it was confirmed just how much cancer there is to deal with, based on the tests done last week.  Still waiting on the results from yesterday's pet scan, however.

Let's stop talking about Friday.

Prior to Friday and Sarah's visit:

 

Sarah takes photos.  Like, really awesome ones.  And she's self-taught.  She has a really amazing camera and really amazing talent.  I'm super talented at taking pictures of her trying to teach me how to use my camera for REAL.

 Just trying to see if using her camera turns me into an instant sensation...  Which it did not.

Maddie, my suddenly a teenage-ish ten year old niece, reading to Tulah while she digs for gold.

We did quite a bit of running around, because when you get company in the snowiest week of the year, you definitely want to drive all over Denver and beyond.  We hit up some stores like Anthropologie, H&M, Justice (Maddie's favorite!!), Whole Foods and REI's flagship store.   We cooked food and played with the baby chickens and even drank a little bit of wine. We tea-tasted at Celestial Seasonings' factory in Boulder and snuggled with the Sleepytime bear.

 The weather was absolutely freezing and unpretty, but hopefully next time they come we'll be able to have more than 100 feet of visibility.  We DO have mountains all around us, you know.  Even if we had no proof this time.

Today I'm unusually somber.  I'm waiting for some peace for my parents- news of when Mike's surgery will be and how I can help.  Ready for them to have a plan of action and to know there's a date that the masses will be removed.  Ready to bring the kiddos up for a visit while they're out of town, because I'm pretty sure they'll greatly benefit from the stories Knox can only tell while he's stalling his bedtime.

Soon enough.  A week ago we didn't know any of this was going on.  I need to rejoice that things are actually moving along quickly, even if it feels like time is stuck in quicksand.

Take care of yourselves this week!!

Sister, come to visit!

My sister is coming!  My niece is coming!  I have not seen them since I had a Knoxer in my belly!!
In 48 hours they'll be landing in Denver!!
I am not excited!!
That's a lie, I am excited.  I pee when I think about it.  Slightly.  Sort of in the same way my mom pees a little when she sneezes... Which she STILL blames on "damage" I did to her bladder during my days as a fetus.  Pretty sad when you have to blame your incontinental discretions on a water-logged unborn baby.  Anyway, if my excitement is my mom's bladder, then my sister's arrival is definitely the sneeze that makes for soggy drawers. 

I've been trying to get some spring cleaning done lately, and their impending arrival is sort of turning it into a frenzy.  Get out the caulk and drill and paint and sandpaper, boys, it's time for spring cleaning!!

Over the winter we put up our board-and-batten walls.  We mostly-painted them, but I found myself at Easter telling our first-time visitors to "Just ignore this... Oh we haven't quite filled in those nail holes... Ignore that lumber there in the corner... That table saw is just for decoration..." and so on.  I get tired of a) looking at the unfinished ends, and b) pointing it all out to people by asking them to ignore it.  Seems counter productive.  Also I'm running out of "IG-NORRRR-ING IT!!!" energy lately!  I finished filling, sanding, caulking, and painting our battens and baseboards.

board and batten walls are disguising the horrible 'knock-down' texture in my house :)

Those tree branches in the galvanized bucket are a couple that came down recently in the backyard.  One is a willow branch I broke :( and the others are crabapple from when Nick took down a tree behind the shed.  I figured they deserved to leaf out at least once more in their lifetime, so I threw them in the bucket and gave them the chance.  I hope the crabapple flowers while it's inside, there's nothing prettier!!

Sometimes in the midst of kids, cleaning, and keeping faces fed, you spot unexpected incredibleness that make you stop for a minute.  I saw the light coming in just right through our dining room window, filling the blossoms on the sill with radiant energy.  Simple springtime happiness!

 Unfortunately, on the other side of the dining room, a horrible ogre was staring at me.  It's a monster I try to ignore:  The ugly face of the VERY wrong shade of Sea Foam.

I need a hug.

Now I'll be honest with you.  I enjoy a sea-foam and red combination just like the rest of you.  Or maybe like one or two of you, if your name is Ashleigh.  But the shade in this room was all wrong.  Now I own up to painting the ceiling a nice shade of "Red Stripes" (again, inspired by Ashleigh...), but that was because I was hoping to pull it all together with some fun fabrics, curtains, and frames.  It has never happened.  The room has one teeny, north-facing window, and the lighting is all wrong, all day. 

Luckily, at Home Depot the other night, I spotted a can of white on clearance.  Apparently it was sooooo last season and by me simply inquiring on the price, the dude at the counter offered it to me for $15.  Mine.  It was zero VOC and begging to don the kids' bedroom walls.

I ignored the kids for several hours yesterday, visited the storage unit for some items of sentimental value, and sent the cubs to a movie with DaddyO last night.  This is what left when it was all over:

 A little organization of ze books, plus a few items from their old bedroom, and the bookcase area looks way better.  The shelves were in our old basement, one half of a former set of two that Nick's grandpa had built.

  above:  Fat baby Knox, hand prints from the baby days, a Truffala Tree sculpture by Tulah, and a whittled stick from our new whittlin' neighbor.  Special thangs from our old house and our new life here.






I went to Kansas city a year ago to visit my bff when she had her baby Hank.  They took me to a great little once-monthly market and I found these books.  I love them because I have a handmade Raggedy Ann from when I was little.  My kiddos play with it still.  And my momsie gave my kids their own handmade dollies too.  I have these dreams of making my own modern handmade Raggedy Ann's and Andy's one day, but I haven't gotten to them in all the years I been a-thinkin' on it.  One day soon maybe.

The Blue Bird book is neat because Blue Birds is a junior spin-off of a group that Nick's grandma belonged to through adulthood, called the Camp Fire Girls.  I saw it and knew we had to have it, and it's in brand new condition!  Pretty neat.

A little collection above the toy box where we have some photos and a valentine, a couple of ornaments, and a flower Tulah made a couple of years ago.  Her buddy Freedom's little baby picture was still on the board when I pulled it out of the box, so sweet!!

Nick's toy box from when he was little.  His dad built it. ---->

Newborn Roo getting smooches from her mom and dad

I found an ol' board in the garage and used it as a shelf above the closet door.  Sometimes if you use brackets on the top side of the shelf, it'll look like a floating shelf (if you're short enough for such deceit).  I don't think Knoxer ever had baby-sized feet, so I put up his old trademark green crocs on the shelf.  I thought I had given them away at one point, but seeing them in the boxes made me happy I still had them!  My mom gave him those crocs for his first birthday, and she also had given us the beautiful, vintage Little Red Hen book.  I got to play the leading Hen in our first grade play, so it has sentimental value.  Value tripled now that we have Rosie the chickie!! 

I couldn't believe what a change some white paint makes in a dark, tiny room!  Thrilled to have it done.  It kind of felt like the black hole of the house since it was really not personalized in any way (except the stripes).  I walk in here now and it feels like a real and loving bedroom for my sweeties.  I love that some of our forgotten treasures are on display because it feels like there is a bridge now from the room I lovingly created for a babyTulah in our yellow house, and the growing we'll all be doing in our Golden house.

I still have floors to scrub and sheets to change, but we're getting closer to having a home ready for our honored guests to relax in at the beginning of their new chapter in the United States!!  Cannot wait!!

In other news, the girls are growing fast!  I have to feed them twice a day now, and pick up after them lots and lots.  I'm putting their bedding to work in the compost pile though, and am on the hunt for a low-priced (or FREE!) larger container for their growing bodies.  

 

Tulah is getting confident with reaching in to get one when she wants to hold them.  She knows how to hold her hands around them securely but gently, and loves to love on them!  She's trying to get me to trade her Country Girl for my Belinda Carlisle.

 Country Girl is getting her feathers in, and around her shoulders they're coming in redish!  I wonder if she must be Red Star sexlink and not a Golden.  We shall see... I hear the Red Star are some pretty heavy layers- schwing!!

She might be inherently broody too, she seems to have some Mother Hen traits already :)  Maybe that's why she tends to be the most skittish of the group, the most protective so far?

Boys just wanna have fuh-un...