Quickies...

...as in quick updates :) This is going to be one.

Nyla's birthday was amazing. What a cool kid. I know she's mine, so I have to love her, but I'd love her anyway.
We rented a bouncy castle for her party... what a friggen great idea. Seriously, peeps with kids out there... do it! There will probably be some bounce related injuries, but Nyla is about as clumsy as me and she survived intact. So, normal non clumsy kids should be just fine.
Seeing her face when the bouncy castle inflated was worth a million bucks :) sigh... warm fuzzies in the guts.
I PROMISE pictures SOON. (Take that Kelly... you unbeliever!)

Other then that, I just seem to be losing my mind. A few days ago we were taking the kiddos to Dairy Queen for some 'last of the sunshine' ice cream cones (Darryl's mom is in town too). I was walking towards the door when I noticed that everyone was looking at me like I was all nekkid in public or something. Then Mr.Smartass (ie: Darryl) said, "Are you missing something??" Ahhh, but of course... I forgot Maren in the truck. (I was only about 2 feet away, so it wasn't like 'crazy bad mom' shit).
Yup, I'm awesome.
Then, earlier tonight we were having dinner at a friend's house and I was getting ready to feed Maren her bottle. Without even thinking I grabbed Nyla and stuck her on my lap... yup, even tipped her back and tried to feed her the bottle.
"Where is my mind" by the Pixies seems to be my theme song lately. I feel like a total jackass half the time. I should start drinking early in the day to re-set my equilibrium. Man, I have a lot of great ideas!

We're going to get our asses whipped by winter soon, so all my free time will now be spent gathering fire wood like some kind of freaky squirrel. I at least have my own chainsaw now, so I can be all freako and pretend the trees (which have already been destroyed by beavers along our creek) are people who need some schoolin' chainsaw style.

Ok, this is way longer then expected. I'm tired.
peace out homeslice

You know when you've started an official countdown to something and start to get really excited about it, the time you have left before the big exciting thing seems to drraaaaag on? OY!
I realize that we still have to get through the nasty ass winter here... but man, am I ever getting excited. I'm getting the excited jumping in my guts to be able to go HIKING again. I've missed it. Really, really missed it.
Calling all hiking and camping buddies.... prepare yourselves!!!

Happiness is....

The leaves are changing, the weather is stormy... fall is coming :) I love fall. I love the crisp air and being able to smell the cranberries in the woods. I love NOT melting under the sun's death ray, (although I did have a pretty sweet tan).
Yes, I can promise I'll be bitching about winter in a few short months, but for now I'm content.

The excitement of the 'BIG MOVE' is starting to make us a bit giddy. The whole concept of the new farm is growing and changing and becoming cooler then I ever imagined. I realize that cool to me is not necessarily cool to others, and I'm ok with that... but I'm going to share anyway.

I've already mentioned that we're going to be working our way 'off the grid', but we've decided to experiment with just how self sufficient we can be. It's like a huge challenge to see how much we can do ourselves in every aspect of farm life. Power, food... everything.
I've been canning :) I'm learning how to make pretty much everything... Ketchup, juice, bar b q sauce, salsa, spaghetti sauce... lots of stuff, in preparation of what's to come. (NO, I don't think we're preparing for the end of the world... and we're not building an underground bomb shelter... we're not THAT crazy... yet).
We're downsizing in a major way, getting rid of a lot of stuff, trying to figure out what our essentials are and we're going to see what happens.
I know it sounds like we're becoming crazy hippies, or weird compound people, but its not like that, really... unless you want to call me your leader and give me all your money... then I'll consider the whole compound thing. Its just a life experiment. An adventure of sorts. A challenge :) Besides, we're still big fans of deodorant and waxing... so we're not THAT extreme...
And you don't have to worry about the girls, we're going to make sure they don't turn all farm weird. I think they'll be pretty damn cool kids.
There's other exciting farm news that I'm just going crazy wanting to tell, but I'm not going to...
Just cross your fingers for the possibility of something really great happening (no, it has nothing to do with babies... I'm clearing that up NOW. There will not be any more babies, so lets all accept that and move on :)

Another SUPER exciting bit of news... a really great friend has decided that she wants to join us in this madness and become a business partner. I'm not going to say much about her yet, because she still has to explain to her family why she's giving up her job and life to move far away with a bunch of crazy hippie yahoos ;) I'll just say that we're excited to include her in our farm and family life. I'm totally going to force her to learn how to knit so we can make llama fur toques and scarves :) Bahahahahaaa, we really ARE going to be those weird hippie freaks aren't we...

Our farm truck died. I was a bit sad because it was a pretty cool truck. It was ancient and bright yellow... all the farmers got to know us by the truck. Anyway, its unbelievable how important a farm truck is to a farm. We have to haul our own water... its pretty hard with no damned truck. (We have a medium sized cistern). So we recently found another one. Its a beast, and the only reason I'm mentioning it is because some of you might remember our issues with getting snowed in here. That will not be a problem anymore... (You'd be so proud Jenny and Joni!)
It doesn't have the character of the old yellow truck, but hopefully it will make up for it in usefulness. I could totally run over that jackass moose that sits in our driveway and not have to worry.

I'm going to wait to do Nyla's update since her birthday is only a couple of weeks away. I can't believe she's going to be 3! Bizarre...

That's our life as of now. Things are pretty great in my opinion. So far a lot of people think we're crazy :) I'm ok with that too. I've always been a little bit off the beaten path, and am lucky that Darryl is happy to be there with me. We're not concerned about becoming rich, or having all the latest and greatest stuff. It's never been a big issue for either of us. We decided a long time ago not to join the 'rat race', so for us this is ideal. But, this is what WE want, we're not arrogant enough to believe that everyone should think and live the same way.
I just think that life is too short to live in a way that doesn't make you happy. Like that quote says, "Live the life you love." We are terrified and excited about the next chapter of life, but at least we know we're going to be loving life. That is pretty fricken cool.

Now I have to give a pat on the back to Darryl. I'm pretty lucky to be doing all of this with a man who is so involved with his kids that his big dream is to be present in their lives every day. He doesn't want to miss anything, he doesn't want to have to say goodnight over the phone ever again. He wants to have the girls following us around learning all sorts of great things and having a ball together. Family is his #1 priority. This move, the farm, this lifestyle is going to be a great thing for our family (including our newest family member, who's name I will share as soon as she is ready to have it shared). We are sooooo going to rock this :)
You should see the grin on my face. I can't effing wait to get this party started!!!