Happy New Year!

Here's wishing you and yours a Happy 2013! I hope it's filled with love,happiness,and goodness! I'll begin blogging again on a regular basis later in the week.

Have a fabulous year on this Fabulous Planet!!!!!

The Eve of a New Year

Well, 2011 is about to draw to a close,and it's been a really good year overall. I have no complaints!

Tonight we are going to have a seafood dinner-lobster,scallops,shrimp and steamers-and it will be our last big blow out for quite a while.Any leftovers will be made into a nice seafood chowder-with potatoes. Apparently the Shaw boys just make a basic chowder. Considering that they grew up in Portsmouth,right on the ocean,you would think they would make a proper chowder! LOL!

We also have a bottle of bubbly,to ring in the New Year.Rick might have a sip,if that. The last few years I have been lucky to make it to midnight-as soon as the countdown is over, I head for bed! That's OK,though,I have enough New Years Eve parties under my belt. :) At this point,I am more than content to have a few drinks at home and not be out on the road with a bunch of drunken revelers!

People are making their resolutions,and I admit that I no longer make resolutions ( or perhaps,I no longer call them resolutions)because I usually give up on them by February (namely regarding my weight). I have,however, been thinking about what I can do to make myself a better person and to create the type of home I want-meaning,a house with feeling. One of my biggest problems is detail.Now, I am all about the big things. I like to make sure those things get done. However,it's the small things that tie everything together that I seem to let fall to the wayside. For example: a year or so ago,we repainted the living room,put up new trim,etc. I never put the pictures back on the walls. They are still on the floor in the bedroom. Why wouldn't I just put them back up? It's simple,and takes no time. Who knows? I just never did. Silly,isn't it? Another example is the kitchen chair cushions. Over  a year ago,two of the cushions had their ties come off. They were here and there in the house,and a couple of months ago I was able to track them down and I put them in a drawer so they would all be together.I actually sewed (well,my definition of sewing) them back on. Sounds pathetic,but to me that was a big accomplishment! So I am determined that this year,all the loose ends in the house will be tied up.Here are a few:

-organizing the attic
-going through the Christmas ornaments...I have many I no longer want and am going to make some projects with the old glass ones
-make my computer corner an area of inspiration with photos and loved items
-finally frame the photos that have been waiting for years to be displayed

There are many more,but I don't want to bore you with the whole list.You will hear about them enough!

I hope you all have wonderful New Year,and that you are all blessed with much happiness!!!!! A toast to 2012! It's going to be fabulous!!!!!

No Resolutions

This year for the first time I have decided not to have any New Year's Resolutions.Not because I don't want to set goals,but because my Resolutions always fall by the wayside by March and I am tired of setting myself up for failure.(  For the last 10 years, my main resolution has been about losing weight) All I can do is what I can do,and I refuse to beat myself up for it. Besides,what difference will a New Year bring? It's all up to me. I know a New Year brings the thought of a clean slate ahead,just waiting for me to write upon it, and I am eager to do that,but I don't want to feel under pressure to do so. It has to be because I want to do something,not because it's January 1. Besides,January 1 or  June 1, it's all the same thing,isn't it?

That's not to say I am not looking forward to the year ahead! We have started receiving seed catalogs,so this has spurned on excitement about our next garden,which we plan on doubling this year. We are going to start planning it within the next few weeks,as it won't be long before our little seeds need to be started. One thing I think we will have to wait on is goats. We love them and want them,but we have much to do this coming Spring and Summer,and I do not want to put more on our plate. We want to put a metal roof on the house and garage. We have had issues with ice dams . We need to build more square foot garden boxes and get those ready for planting. We need a new deck,and new porch stairs. Our house and garage need to be painted.We need to redo our mud room so it's weatherproof. If we didn't have that much to do,I would be more apt to say yes to goats this year.

Today begins our back to normal routine. I am taking down our Christmas decorations,but might leave our pretty tree up for a few more days. That is the sad thing about after the holidays-all that work,planning,decorating-and then it's all over. Sigh.

Happy New Year!

Last night was a very laid back night,at least for me.We had decided a while ago to stay in this year. Our plan was to have appetizers,I would have a drink or two,and we would have some champagne at midnight ( Rick actually said he would have glass this year).

Rick and Zach started assembling his new entertainment center/TV stand. We wanted to help create more space in Zach's room,since it is rather small,so we bought him a 26"flat screen TV and a horizontal TV Stand. He had our old corner entertainment center,which stuck out a bit. This new stand has all kinds of storage space,which is behind doors,so the games,books,and movies are out of sight. Since the TV in our room was beginning to go on the fritz,we now have his old TV in our room. They began this project at 2:00 PM.

One thing I forgot to mention is that Rick has been put on Ritalin,to help with his organizational skills. Many of the issues that those with TBI have are the same as those who have ADHD. They are not acquired in the same way,but Ritalin works the frontal lobe of the brain in the same manner. He takes this at 8:00 AM and again at noon. He says he can feel it working. It does help,though he still gets confused,but he is more focused than before.  He has also been getting more accomplished and has more drive.

At any rate,the building of the TV stand hit some bumps along the way. The instructions called for building the unit upside down,but then when they turned it over,Rick and Zach realized that the instructions called for them to put the back on the wrong  way. So they had to redo it. Then the doors were put on wrong. Zach kept coming out every so often saying," I have good news,and I have bad news..." I felt so bad for Rick,but he did not want my help. They stopped at 6:00 PM for our dinner of grilled chicken quarters,rice,and green beans. They then went back to work. I told Rick to just leave it until tomorrow(which is today),but he said he had promised Zach that his TV and stand would be done and he was determined to keep his promise. So while they were in Zach's room, I sat in my recliner watching Dr Quinn and knitting.  I then lit my candles and finally figured out how to shut off the flash on my camera so I could take some photos...it only took me over a year to think about and do it!

This gives you an idea of what our house looks like on any given winter night,with the exception of the Christmas decorations,of course!

At 8:00 I made the appetizers ( frozen mozzarella sticks and pizza rolls -they were awful...next year I will make my own.I know...what do I expect from frozen,right?)
Rick was going to have unbreaded buffalo wings,but wound up not because he was concentrating on the stand. By 10:00 PM,the stand ( with the exception of a couple shelves) and the TV were done. We sat and just watched New Years Eve coverage on CNN with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin. Midnight rolled around,and I did not feel like drinking champagne. I was tired and didn't want to open the bottle,so we are going to drink it today. Brother B was down at Brother Dale's house,so I would've had to drink most of it myself,and I knew that was not going to happen. We all went to bed by 12:10.

This morning we woke up at 8:00. Brother B came in and was looking out the kitchen window when all of a sudden,he said,"Quick! Look out front!" We did,and there,across the street,were 10 wild turkeys.

You can't really see too well in this photo that Zach took,but you might be able to make out a couple of birds to the left of the tree in the foreground. Apparently,according to our neighbor Kelly,they came out of the field down Avon Lane,and there were 20 of them in our driveway. They then proceeded down the front of the yard( we can see their tracks),down the pathway,and across the street to the woods. By the time we saw them,half of them had already made their way into the woods,and a few were hanging back.

Rick and Zach finished putting the doors on the stand,hooked up his game system and DVD player this AM. It took two hours.

Today our New Year dinner will consist of ham,potatoes,yams,peas,rolls,and pineapple. We will have that this evening. I haven't forgotten the champagne!!!

Happy New Year!!!!

Goodbye 2010...Hello 2011

It doesn't seem possible that we are already going to say goodbye to 2010 in just over 12 hours. So much has happened to us this year,and we have learned much.Not everything got accomplished,and some things that I personally was striving for (such as weight loss) fell to the wayside. However,the overall year was certainly more positive than negative. Here is a reflection on the year that was........

The biggest things that happened to us as a family was that Rick was finally medically retired from the military in April. It took three med boards and 5 years for this to happen. By November,he was 100% disabled through the VA,collecting his monthly pension and receiving Social Security Disability. In May,his knee problems were finally diagnosed by one of the best hospitals in the US,Dartmouth Hitchcock,which is also a training hospital for Dartmouth College,one of the Ivy League schools ( For those of you who are outside the US and may not know,Ivy League schools are schools that are the oldest in the nation,such as Harvard,Yale,Brown,Princeton).He was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Degenerative Arthritis,which was incurred from his days in Combat Airborne back in the 1980's,fighting what I call President Reagan's "secret little wars." Both knees were replaced with titanium.He spent three weeks in rehab,and has made  a quick recovery-his surgeon is very pleased. Those three things are most certainly the biggest things that have happened to us this year.

At the beginning of the year,we sat down and discussed what we wanted to do,why we wanted to do it,and how. For the first time,we started seeds indoors. That was a learning experience.Lights,grow trays,heating pads, timers....the one big thing I learned was that I should not take peppers off the heating pads once they sprout. Our basement is cool,and it stunted the growth of the peppers,but I put them back on heat and they did wind up growing.We learned about Square Foot Gardening,and made boxes,made a compost shifter,and shifted lots of compost. We bought a compost tumbler,and my sister gave us a compost bin. We put a small bucket in the kitchen for composting kitchen scraps (who knew that paper towels were compostable? I didn't!). Rick and I built our turkey cage and got Narragansett turkeys from one of our friends. We built a chicken house and got chickens. I discovered that chickens and turkeys love weeds pulled from the garden. We did our first canning this year,and though my veggie weight tally wasn't complete,I do know we grew 28lbs of cukes! We set up rain barrels from juice barrels that Brother Dale gave us. That helped keep the poultry watered since our dug well was low. We planted blueberries,blackberries strawberries,and raspberries. We started a kitchen garden-mint,rosemary,oregano,thyme,and basil (Rick and Brother B tell me I need to plant and dry more oregano next year).Our Concord Grapes took off last year and we bought a trellis,which is already too small-I think we will make an arbor this coming Spring. We got edible apples from out Jonathan apple tree this year! It was planted before Rick went to Iraq. We used our neighbors wood chips to make a walkway to the house and we also used them in between the raised beds. Our  other neighbor let us use a mix of their dirt and wood chips to extend our driveway.  We made our own maple syrup,as little as there was.I made lye soap,continued making laundry detergent,and attempted to make dish soap,but because I didn't like the results I went back to store bought,but went to Planet,and stopped using Ajax. I stopped buying Clorox wipes and started making my own cleaners-bleach and water for disinfectant and white vinegar and water for glass cleaner. I began making my own brown sugar ( sooooo much better than store bought!). I make our own bread and baked goods.I started teaching myself how to knit.

We made a few investments: a new (used) four wheel drive truck,an artesian well (which will never run dry),a new snow blower,and a new wood splitter. We purchased tree length wood,which should keep us in heat for a few years. Rick bought me a Cuisinart stand mixer,with  food processor and meat grinder attachments.

We took a lovely trip to Malone,NY,and got to explore the world of Almanzo Wilder,the husband of one of my all time (if not THE all time) favorite authors,Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was so much fun,and was really something to stroll among the grounds and in the house that I have read about so many times in Farmer Boy.

Personally,though I haven't succeeded at weight loss,or conquered my procrastination issues,I have done much soul searching this year. I feel as a person I have grown and have a more sense of self,though I still have much more growing to do. I am more comfortable in my own skin and in what I believe. I don't get into religion and politics on this site,because that has nothing to do with what we are trying to achieve here.However, these two issues have been some of what has been rolling around my head this last year. Suffice it to say I don't like extremism in religion or in politics,and I don't like it when people try to use fear or paranoia to try and gather followers or votes. Sadly,there is much of that out there right now. I think it's scary.

We have a list already in the works for this coming year:
-Double the size of the garden
-New metal roof on the house and garage
-New deck
-Weatherproof the mud room so we have a place we can keep coats,etc since we dont' have a coat closet.
-Remodel the bathroom
-Remodel the kitchen
-Paint the house and garage
-Clean out the attic
-New windows in the basement
-Make a cold frame with the old sliding glass doors
-Have a cold weather garden this year
-Maybe get goats!

I am sure the list will be added to,and though I know not all will get accomplished,that is what we would like to see happen.

Thank you all for following our lives here in our little cottage.I am very grateful that you all have followed us on our continuing journey.

From all of us here at The Little Yellow Farm to all of you throughout the world,have a wonderful New Years! I hope your joys are many,your sorrows few.

See you next year!!!!!  :)

The End of the Decade

I hope everybody enjoyed their holiday,whether you celebrated Christmas,Hannukah,or Kwanza. We had a great Christmas,with good cheer and spirit.

Our living room is finished,and it looks beautiful. My sister and mother were full of compliments,and also loved our Christmas tree. My sister told me I should take a picture and submit it to Better Homes and Gardens! She loved the simplicity of it.

Right now we are waiting to hear back from Walter Reed regarding Rick's med board. The military deemed his PTSD,Cogentive Disorder ( combo of PTSD,TBI),knees,and the nerve in his right leg as preventing him from doing what he used to do in the military. Fort Drum emailed us the final Narrative Summary and we read it,and agreed with what they said,so Rick signed it and sent it back to Fort Drum. They have sent it Walter Reed Hospital,and it will get reviewed by doctors there who will make the determination of how much of a percentage Rick will get for disability. So the end is finally in sight.It's a bit unsettling,to have waited so long and gone through what we had to go through,to know have it come down to a matter of weeks and in the hands of a few doctors. Very strange feeling.

Now that Christmas is over,I am finally stress free.I am looking forward to this coming decade.This last one has not been a great one for us,and I will be very glad to see it end. However, I am very optimistic for the next one,excited in fact. I am going to make myself a binder,in which I will keep track of thoughts,plans,etc. My "Manifesto,"for lack of a better term. I will have in the front what I wish to accomplish for this upcoming year ( Rick too) regarding our health,home,garden,homesteading,organization,and things we would like to do for fun. Like I told My Dear Friend Michelle,this coming year is a clean slate,and it is up to me what to write upon it! What we both would like to do is lose some weight. I need to get healthy again,and stop eating my frustrations and sadness. That is probably my main goal for the year.I also need to come to terms with the changes in Rick and not feel bad about "what was" and finally accept and work with "what is." You would think going on 5 years since he was wounded that I would have everything all worked out,but I don't. It still hurts me to see him this way,and I still get angry and sometime resentful. Not nice,but true. This year I am going to iron these things out. That is not to say I won't have my down days,because we all do,but I will not spend so much time dwelling on what our life used to be,because that life no longer exists.However,that is not to say that this life can't be just as good.....it will just be different. That's all.

So...good bye to this past decade,and good riddance!!!! Onward and upward to 2010 and the beginning of a good year. I can feel it and am ready for it!!!!