Six

Well, the crown molding in the bedroom is finished (yeah!), and we still had time to enjoy our anniversary.  This will be our last anniversary that we are without a human child, so it is a little bit of a landmark.   This upcoming year will be a lot different, with changing responsibilities. 

We had a lovely day for this anniversary.  We went to Hendersonville Produce, hoping to make it to the Farm Fresh Food Fest, but got there too late---still I picked up goodies for the week ahead.  We did make it to the grand opening of Butterbean Bistro.  This was their official ribbon cutting, they have been open for over a month, and we've been there several times.  Their entire menu is gluten free, and they have lots of dairy free options as well.  We saw my friend Loretta when we got there.  I love living in a community where I randomly run into friends.  It really makes it home for us, which is something I don't think Joel and I had when we were in Michigan, or even when we lived in Joelton.  We picked up a couple desserts---a date bar for me, and a pineapple right sight up cupcake for Joel that we will be enjoying in a little while.

Once we got back home we decided to spend our afternoon enjoying the things we love best around the house.  We put on our boots and walked our whole property, spending time sitting by one of the wide bends in our creek and just enjoying the beauty around us.  We are thrilled that the grass is getting green again and Spring is about to re-bloom.  We had our first scheduled phone call with Makallia, and got to chat for 30 minutes, which was a great re-connection after our visit a week ago.  Tomorrow she will turn 13, and we are just sad that we can't be there for her birthday.  She is extremely excited to come to the house next week, so we at least know she is happy.

We opted for a night in instead of a night out tonight, so I am about to take a whole roast chicken and honey carrots out of the oven, and we'll snuggle on the couch for a movie (Water for Elephants).  All in all a very lovely day, and a great celebration of the start of our next year together. 

Crowning Glory

I went back to work this week and so did Joel--on projects that is.  Yesterday I came home to crown molding almost completely installed, and copper inset panels in the stairwell.  The shoe mold is also put down around the edges of the hardwood floors, so our flooring finally looks finished downstairs.  Next week he is getting the upstairs done---but we are already getting ready to head out for our second trip to Lowes today and it is only 10am....

The Dining room.  I like how the crown has a return where the wall ends: 

The foyer leading to the stairs.  It is a curved room, so this was a challenging part of the trim:

This shows a little bit more of the curved detail on the foyer walls:

The stairwell---the insets were streaky paint before, and now have beautiful copper panels in them.  I bought the panels about a year ago from Van Dykes on clearance, and we finally found the perfect use for them.  They look gorgeous.

The master bedroom in progress.  Hopefully this will be finished today.

New Beginnings

A week ago yesterday I left my job with Debut Broadcasting, and today I accepted a position that will be a next chapter, and new beginning.  I will be joining the team at W-Squared as a Corporate Controller in charge of their new outsource division.  It's an exciting position, organizing a new branch withing the company.  I'll have a little bit of travel (not much), going to the Philippines.  I'm very excited, and very very relieved to have found such a great opportunity so quickly.

The Well Engineered Lunch

Lunch is one of my hardest meals of the day.  It's easy to deal with food allergies eating in, but lunch requires planning since it is the one meal of the day that almost always has to be eaten out of the house.  I'm also now starting to try to plan for integrating Makallia into our home, and planning for her needs.  We don't really want to do a cafeteria meal plan.  We eat all organic at home, and it just seems counterproductive to go from all organic at home to mass produced, chemically grown, genetically modified foods loaded with things we don't allow in our home---like artificial food colors, refined sugar, and high fructose corn syrup.

I'm not living in a fantasy though.  I know Makallia is going to have a tough adjustment going from eating how she does now to how we do, and she is not always going to like it---I've gone through sugar withdrawal when we stopped eating sugar, and it wasn't fun.  Sugar is truly addictive.

I turned to the blogs that I follow for some suggestions.  Now, with the bloggers I follow their kids have pretty much eaten gluten and dairy free from birth so they have a much different palate than Makallia will, and probably even more so than we will.  However, I was able to get a really good idea.  One suggested that if kids build their own lunch box they will be much more apt to be happy with their meal choices and eat what is provided to them.  They even provided a sample lunch box planner.  I used their lunch box planner as an inspiration (which included things like Quinoa, Nori Rolls, and other things that I know won't fly in our household), and came up with my own.   The idea of the lunch box builder is that you choose one item from each column, and that is your lunch.  The columns are Fruit, Vegetable, Protein, Treat, and Drink.    Though the treat column has things on it like snack bars, cookies, pudding, etc...those would all be homemade items that are much healthier---I have so many recipes now that are sugar free for desserts.  They don't use synthetic alternatives, either.  They are generally sweetened with dates or honey, and taste delicious.

I am going to start using this now with Joel and myself so we can tweak it as we go along, and be totally ready for when we need to add in lunch box #3.  I gave it to Joel for him to review, and he already chose for his Monday lunch raspberries, green salad, ham, kefir and water.  I chose strawberries, baby carrots, hummus, dark chocolate and grape juice.

A Book For The Future

I've never scrap-booked.  Going to the craft store and finding the row upon row of scrapbooking materials can be rather overwhelming.  I had no idea there was that much stuff out there for the purpose of archiving your life on paper.

We decided to put together an album for the child we will one day adopt with family, pets, and home so they can have something to keep with them to help them get to know their potential future family through photos.  I took advantage of the plethora of scrapbooking materials available, and put together a cute album.  I hope it does not overwhelm our adoptive child when we give it to him/her.  I used a family theme for the whole album, since that is really what everything is all about.

I can't imagine meeting my potential mom and dad for the first time, but having a physical leave behind will hopefully be a good thing.

The album cover---baby blue will work for either a girl or a boy:

This photo of Joel and I with Nugget is one of our favorites.  We took it ourselves using the timer on the camera, and it came out great:

A single photo of Joel on the "Dad" page:

A single photo of me on the "Mom" page:

My brother saw the scrapbook, and made a comment about the dogs coming before the rest of the people in the family.  We decided to put the pages in order of everyone who lives in our house and then the rest of the family.  We put the dogs in order oldest to youngest, so Lady gets the first Retriever page:

Molly's Page...she is a very girly girl dog, so pink polka dots seemed fitting:

Sebastian--I'm not totally thrilled with this page, but we have so many cute photos of the little bug, and couldn't choose which ones to leave off.  It was hard to limit it to just these 6:

This page is all photos of the house, barn and arena so they can see where they will live:

I think this will be a favorite page.  I'm pretty sure almost all children love horses, and this shows the horses out on the pasture that will be right in her/his backyard:

This page is my mom, and says "Grandma" at the top and "Always There For Each Other" at the bottom:

This photo is me and my Grandfather, and says "Great-Grandpa".  On all the pages that had lines for writing we left blank so our adoptive child could journal whatever he/she wanted there.  This is their album, after all:

This page says Uncle & Aunt and showcases Benjamin and Allison:

Continuing the Aunt and Uncle theme, here is a Aunt Josie:

We don't have any photos of Joel's half-brother Rex and his wife Theresa, so I wasn't able to include them.  Instead we went into the cousins.  We put them in oldest to youngest which also inadvertently sorted them by family.  These are the cousins on Joel's side, from oldest to youngest, Kayla, R.J. and Katie:

Here's Josie's boys, Ammon and Dallin:

Last but not least, Benjamin and Alie's boys, Douglas and David.  We must like Halloween, since we chose lots of photos with Halloween costumes.

The last page I put in just has some candid family photos.  Some are just simple reading a book together, or being out and about.  I was hoping to show her that we do have fun together even if it is just with simple things.

A Long Time Coming

Today I did something that I should have done 18 months ago.  It was still hard to do, but I feel relieved.  I resigned from my position as Chief Financial Officer of Debut Broadcasting.  It's a crazy time to be in the job market, but it was the right choice.  I'm focused now on getting interviews and into a new position that will bring a lot of stability.  As we move forward and look towards bringing our adoptive child home it became even more essential for me to make this choice.  I am so grateful to Joel for all his love and support---not only over the past year + that things have been far from ideal at work, but also in my decision to finally leave.    I'm excited to find out what the next chapter is.

To CSA or Not To CSA--That is the Question

My seeds finally came in!  I order organic heirloom seeds for the garden each year, and have had various levels of success.  I find that I do best when I direct seed outdoors.  When I try to start inside and transfer out I always kill all my plants.  I guess I don't harden them off properly or something, but I'm not sure.    The seeds took a long time this year because of a system glitch that left my order stuck in "processing".  A quick email to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds fixed the problem, and my seeds were here a couple of days later.

I subscribed to Mother Earth News for their garden planner, and have my layout all done.  It is 25' x 40' with a collection of raised beds and seasonal rotation.  It is ambitious.  Sometimes I get overly ambitious on my garden---I am hoping my ambition level is just right, and not too high.  This Garden Planner software is wonderful.  It reviews what I am planting, and emails me two weeks before planting time for each plant, so I can plan ahead and get things done on time.  In a week or so we will start tilling and hauling up composted manure (thank you horses!) to get the beds ready for planting.

Here is a link to my actual garden plan: Sariah's Garden Plan

So, that leads me to the big question. I plan on doing canning and dehydrating this year.  I do think it is smart to have a reasonable food storage.  It's way cheaper to eat organic all the time if you plan ahead for it.  So, do I join a CSA or not?  I haven't in years past, and by mid-Summer have always wished I had.  Of course, I've had a couple of years of unsuccessful gardening, too.   Hendersonville Produce is taking signups now, and if I sign up before the 20th it will save $25 for the year.  Lots to think about, and lots to do.
 

Surveying Her Domain

We have been a little light on major projects (we needed a break!), but we decided to get some fencing done so we could finally have a properly fenced in backyard and can just open the door to let the dogs out.  We also added a new gate to make it shorter to get from the house to the pasture. 

The retrievers have all given the new yard area their paw of approval.  The high spot in the yard allows them to look out over the pasture.  We say they are surveying their domain, but they just really love looking out over everything and watching the horses. 

Lady, at 14 years old, still looks regal.  We can only imagine what a beauty she was when she was 2 or 3 years old.

New Feathered Additions

As part of a VEA cruelty seizure, 7 ducks came to rescue along with horses.  We ended up with 4 of the ducks.  They are all muscovies.  Joel named 2 of them and I named two of them.

There are Annabelle, Angel, Heckle and Jeckle....can you guess which two we each named?  The girls generally live by the pond, but are free range, so they can go anywhere.  We had a huge dog crate set up to be their house, but they refused to go into it, so they just do their own thing, and seem very happy about that.  Joel feeds them, so they will follow him everywhere.

New Furry Addition

After our loss of Charles we all mourned---we're still mourning.  We'll miss our big boy forever.  Molly, however, got into a deep depression and wasn't eating well and was melancholy all the time.  We felt that she needed a new playmate, so we decided to adopt another Golden. 

Way back last Summer, I had the opportunity to transport a Golden for MTGRR. His name was Maximus, and he was a real charmer.  For some unexplicable reason, all this time later he had not been adopted.  Other than being younger than the age of Golden we typically adopt, Max is practically perfect in every way. 

He joined our family about 3 weeks ago, and has fit in quite seamlessly.  His full name is Maximus Diocletian Hopkins.  It's a little cerebral for a pup's name, but Diocletian is the real life individual that Maximus from the movie Gladiator is based on.

These photos were the ones that I took on Max's transport day.  I think it was in July, but it may have been August.

 

And these are of Maximus in his forever home with us:

Allergens

In October I started allergy testing---it's a long process, but by Mid-January I had it figured out---it also helped me learn why I was gaining weight when I should have been losing weight (oh well....the White Chocolate Bread Pudding at Larriviere's may have had more than a little to do with that...).  

My allergen issues are dairy and gluten.  I have voluntarily also eliminated refined sugar and soy simply because they are SO bad for you.

The greatest thing in this process is I learned I was far from alone in my allergen issues.  I live by blog for my recipes, and was able to make awesome Thanksgiving and Christmas meals all allergen free.  I have a two week rotating meal plan, and almost all of the recipes come from blogs.

My go to sources are:

The Spunky Coconut

The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen

and

Real Sustenance

These are in no particular order, but all three are great---they also all have links to other blogs, and the wonderful recipe makers and experimenters that put these together have saved me so much time and frustration, and have been a life-saver in keeping Joel happy with our meal transition.

My Deepest Sorrow

New Years 2012 is the saddest day I have known in such a long time.  It is hard to write this post, but also one of the reasons that I needed to start updating our blog again.

The day started out great.  We got up, and I cooked bacon for the retrievers as a special New Years Day treat.   We went out in the yard to play, and then loaded the pups up in the car for a long car ride.

Early in the evening, Joel went out to the arena with me, and I saddled up Demi and went for a ride.  When we got back to the house, Charlie was laying in the laundry room.   We knew immediately that something was wrong---Charles never goes in the laundry room.  He was lethargic, and wouldn't get up. I contacted Dr. Sammons and told her we needed to bring him to her--it was an emergency.  She left Church to meet us at the clinic, but our Charles left us on the drive there.

His heart was healthy, but apparently had a weak spot, and he died of a massive heart attack.  It was not preventable, and there was nothing we could do, but it does not lesson the pain we feel.  Charles will always be my baby.  There won't be a day that I don't miss him.  He was only 9, and I expected so many more years of him by my side.

I know if he had to choose his last day that we gave him his most perfect last day ever--I just wish we could give him 8 dozen more just like it.