Will you join me in this challenge?

The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the trees have leaves, the grass needs mowing but most of all

The Sun is Shining!

What a beautiful day we have been blessed with!! This is the weather I have wanted for the last several months! I'm so glad that it is finally here.

Today has been a pretty relaxing day so far. The older four kids are in school. Tim has already had a fire run today and Jonathon and I are just enjoying the outdoors. The garden has been watered. The dogs have been fed, watered and played with. The geese are being sassy today so we had a little "chat" about their little attitudes. The chicks have been fed and "talked" to and the quail have been visited this morning already as well.

I think we may finish up the midmorning by going to brunch together after we run a few errands that need to be done.

And then, it's off to nap land for Momma. I'm working tonight so I need to have a little bit of a rest before going in and staying awake all night.

I do have a challenge that I am going to begin though. I'm looking for as many others to join me in it as well. If you want to participate, please leave me a message. I need motivation, people! :)

So far, I am down several inches and not quite 15 pounds lost! It's not much, but a start! It's 15 pounds closer to my goal than what I was a month ago. Right? :)

And so, here is the three challenges. It is a six week challenge. I encourage you all to join me and check in often. I will post more information about it tonight. Keep watching!!

Join me for the six week challenge that will increase your strength!

Pushups, Situps, and Squats

Oh My!

~~Official~~

I'm just getting a chance to sit down and relax for a minute...or two. The past few days have been very busy and filled with studying for finals and preparing and planting our gardens.

Yesterday I worked in the garden all day and well into the evening. It felt really good. Not only did I burn a ton of calories and get a lot accomplished, I also felt a deep connection to my Grandpa. I just imagined him walking there beside me, working there in the garden right along with me. I have no doubt that he is enjoying his garden up in Heaven. His gardening tradition will now live on in each one of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I also push mowed much of the side yard, raked until my arms felt like they were going to fall off, and prepared the rows in the garden for planting. I thought I had stayed well hydrated through it all but I must not have. I came inside and took a nice cold shower to cool off before eating dinner. I had a few glasses of water with dinner (spaghetti) and finished it off with some fresh strawberries...YUM!

And then, it hit.

I had a screaming migraine and no meds! I tried everything. I tried cool cloths, heat, tylenol, more water, resting in pitch black with no sound, hot towels wrapped around my head and even drew a bath of hot water and submerged my head in that. Unfortunately, nothing helped! Thankfully, I did make it to the bathroom in time for my dinner to come back up.

Just for the record, spaghetti and strawberries do NOT come back up very gracefully! There is just something not quite right when angel hair pasta is hanging out of your nostrils. Not to mention the fear it puts into your spouse when they walk in and see the toilet bowl is bright red. I had to assure him it wasn't blood.

Several times I thought about going to the hospital but I just couldn't bring myself to call an ambulance. My pulse was racing at 120-130 and my head felt like it was going to explode. After seven hours, I finally fell asleep. Thankfully, it was gone this morning when I woke up. Okay, so...around lunch time, when I woke up!

Today I worked out in the yard some more. I didn't over do it this time though. I made sure to make more frequent water breaks. I did get tomatos, onions, peppers, squash, and cucumbers in today though. We still have peas, watermelon, pumpkins, cantalope, sweet corn and a couple more things I can't remember now to plant.

We are still awaiting on our new additions to join our family. We are expecting again. Well, not WE...but our geese. We couldn't find White Wing a few weeks back. When we approached the pen, Pluto kept trying to nip at us. This was unusual for him. We opened the little hut we had built for them (that they had never used) and found White Wing sitting on a nest of six eggs! Over the next three days, she laid 3 more. So, we are expecting nine baby geese in the next week or so. We thought maybe Pluto was male and White Wing was female but couldn't be sure...and we were NOT going to sex them! I'll be sure to post a photo when they arrive!

In other news, I ask for your prayers for my wonderful sister-in-law as they try to figure out what is going on with her health. She has been in some tremendous pain and is hospitalized yet they are still searching for the reason. Please send up some prayers that she will recover quickly from the surgery, that they may find an answer, and that it may be fixed and put her on the road to recovery very soon!

I also ask for prayers for a dear friend and her newborn daughter. Please keep them in your thoughts as they are currently hospitalized and going through some testing. I know this is a difficult time for Mom and she could really use some good thoughts.

Last but not least, please think positive thoughts for a dear friend who is undergoing a procedure this week. Just keep thinking positive...positive....positive! :)

On an exciting note, I logged on tonight to find that I have officially been assigned my state EMT license! It's official! I'm legal! :) I am pretty excited about that! I do have a couple leads on some part time postions that I will be checking into.

As far as the weight loss, it's still progressing. The jeans I have on are on the verge of falling off. This is, of course, great news! I'm not weighing in for another few days but will update when I do. I also have my measurements so that I can keep track of inches lost vs weight lost. Sometimes the scales don't move but the way your clothes fit tell you that something is changing! I'm okay with that too.

Tonight we tried ground turkey in our chili. It wasn't too bad. I didn't get to add all of the things I wanted to because it was late, we needed a quick dinner and I forgot to purchase everything I wanted to add. It was a bit bland but it definately is much healthier than ground beef. It has a ton of protein and much less fat. That's a good thing!

I guess I will let you all get back to what you were doing before this. I've just kind of rambled on here. Hopefully I will have something a bit more interesting than this in the next few days.

Stay safe,
Becky

All in a days work...

The only sound I hear is the humming of a fan. The kids are all tucked in and sleeping and so is the hubby. I, on the other hand, am wide awake. I've made sure that the kids have their clothes, bags, shoes and paperwork ready for the morning. Every item has been labeled from backpacks to pencil boxes. I've written the family schedule up on our gigantic marker board (no, seriously, it is larger than your standard sized two door kitchen cupboards). I've written the posts I needed to for my precious daughter, which will post automatically tomorrow, as well as those for my niece and a dear friends birthday. I suppose I could finish reading some in my EMT book and study for an upcoming A&P exam. However, I find myself still sitting here in front of this screen. :)

Today was a busy, yet productive day. We had planned to go do something as a family but things just didn't turn out that way. I was able to sleep in a bit before heading out to the farm store. We picked up a few things to complete the pen for the quail, found an awesome bargain on a pair of American Eagle jeans ($1.90) and then stopped for a quick lunch. Afterwards, we headed home.

I was able to capture a few pretty interesting photos this afternoon of the kids and geese while Tim built the pen for the quail. Even though he's not happy with the imperfections he sees, I think he did a fine job! A bit later, I was able to get a nice chicken dinner cooked while he was still outside.

Tomorrow, the hustle and bustle begins as we kick off the first day of the school year! Oh boy!! Don't worry, I have the camera battery all ready to go! :)

Before I sign off, Kristi & Beth, I pray that you're all still safe and sound! We're thinking of you all.

Hugs everyone!

Breaking & Entering

Let me first assure you that each of us are perfectly fine. However, I do have a story to share with you!

Recently, we've been leaving the kitchen window open. A few different times, I had left and returned home to find that the screen was also opened. I was pretty sure that I had not left the screen open but thought to myself that perhaps I had just not remembered leaving it open.

Tim had suspicions on who was coming through the kitchen window when we were gone but I wasn't so sure his suspicions were correct. Afterall, nothing was missing or out of place anywhere with the exception of the screen being left open.

After I had everyone settled into bed tonight, I sat down to do some studying. I was startled by a noise coming from the kitchen. Seriously, who in their right mind would try coming through my kitchen window while I was sitting just fifteen feet away from it. I turned my head and caught the crook red handed.

Errrr....shall I say red clawed.

Look who decided that they wanted in. And it wasn't just him either! There was another one right behind him.

Tim's suspicions were right!

Sunset & the moon...

This is the view we had from our house this evening.









And from the deck tonight...










*These pictures are SOOC (straight out of the camera). I didn't tinker with them at all.