Almost six weeks ago, my husband left the Island in search of work.

Now, almost six weeks later, thirty nine days and 23 hours later, he will be home here on the Island.

In exactly 11 hours and 42 minutes.

But who’s counting?

At the moment I hear Shaylah excitedly saying over and over, like a cheerleaders cheer, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

I think she may be excited.

I think… she might not be alone in her excitement!

He’ll be home for 6 days. I know it won’t feel like it’s long enough but it’s better then not at all!

40 Things to do While I’m 40

Through a round about on the internet last night (I was reading blog articles, got side tracked at one point…) I came across this website: http://www.squeezeitin.com/

It immediately caught my attention because I’m the type of person who does like to try and ‘squeeze it in’, whether it be exercise like this site teaches, or a chance to smell the roses, a few minutes with one of my children one on one, bringing along my camera for a photo opportunity ‘just in case’, or a spontaneous opportunity to go for a quick ride on the atv with my husband. Doesn’t matter what it is, I figure it’s better to be aware of opportunities to ‘squeeze it in’ then to miss out! Life’s just too busy to wait for the perfect time to do anything.

I pondered on the ‘squeeze it in’ exercise routine today. I even downloaded the neat app! It’s pretty cool! I’m going to try and ‘squeeze in’ some more exercise into my days.

However, on a day like today I’m left wondering why I even need to try.

Today, I seem to have gotten plenty of exercise, simply through life and didn’t even have to TRY to ‘squeeze it in’!

First off, there were the countless trips from the house, to the car, to the house, to the studio, back to the house, to the car, to the house and back to the studio again, and then yet once again at 9pm. What? It was Sunday today? The day we’re to ‘rest’? Hmmm… didn’t feel like a Sunday here.

Then, as I was working in the studio during the afternoon, I heard a sound I know all too well. The hens going berserk. When they REALLY go berserk you know there’s trouble. I flew (almost literally) out of the studio, down the stairs, and across the lawn to the hen yard as quick as I could, hollering “HEY!” as loud as possible. Sure enough, a hawk had one of them. There were feathers everywhere, and some blood on her comb, but otherwise she actually seemed ok. My hollering scared the hawk off pretty quick. All the hens and ducks had run into the hen house so we checked them all over, gave the injured hen a squirt of vitamin e and locked them in there for the rest of the evening.

We have one small area that is not covered in netting, and sure enough, that’s where the hawk flew in and then back out again. I guess we’d better either get some more netting, or some fishing wire. Now that the hawk knows it can get in and out of there, I’m sure it will try again before the leaves grow back and cover up their yard a little better.

Shortly before I had run out to rescue the hen, I had spent a few moments wrestling with some very large bolts of fabric.

Ever wrestled a floppy, taller then yourself, 50 yard roll of bamboo velour?

I envision that it is probably similar to wrestling a VERY large, and VERY fat, boa constrictor. Sorry to snake lovers, but I envision it dead, because that’s what I’m dealing with. A large floppy roll of dead weight. Trying to fit it into a space which it would fit into perfectly, IF it were to behave and actually STAY PUT, and STAND UP!

Thus… the wrestling. It flops, it falls, it squiggles, and doesn’t want to stay put.

And actually, we’re not snake ‘haters’ around here. I have lots of proof!

You may notice that all these hands in the photos, are children’s hands though.

I said I don’t “hate” them. I didn’t say I “love” them.

Although they do make for great photography.

Anywho…

All that to say. Today, I didn’t do a whole lot to try and ‘squeeze it in’ other then simply live life.

And today, I think that was enough!

I just wish that one day, the scale would feel the same way I do!

but since my posts on facebook have a limit of 420 words, I decided to post here instead!

Check out this seriously gorgeous new colorway from Three Irish Girls:

http://www.yarnista.com/blog/2011/2/16/i-dont-know-why.html?lastPage=true#comment11949086
Some of the proceeds go to a great cause as well, get yourself some beautiful yarn while supporting a great cause! Really, what could be better on a Friday afternoon?
I’m determined to learn how to knit socks this year (I’m turning FOURTY, it’s about time dontcha think?) so I got some adorn sock yarn. Can’t wait to see/feel it!
To top it all off, Sharon, the woman behind TIG, THE Yarnista, is totally awesome. 🙂

I thought I’d take a moment to share a bit about things here at the Emporium, the business end of things, since I’ve been sharing so much about life on the homestead, the personal side of things. I feel it’s important to keep you all in the loop!

There’s no doubt about it, life is busy here around the homestead and the emporium right now.

However, keeping the business running as smoothly as humanly possible has always been a top priority! Things within the business (and home) are changing though.

With my husband away, it means there’s only one of us to take the kids where ever they need to go, just one of us to pay the bills, get the groceries, run errands, AND, get to the post office to ship all these packages. I won’t even begin to say I’m doing the single parent thing, because I’m not. I still have a husband, my kids still have a father, he’s just not home and able to help right now. He is still my constant support though, and I won’t take that for granted!

On top of it all, Alesia, my biggest helper within the business, is now working not just one job (on top of working for the emporium) outside of the home, but two.

So what’s this mean for Homestead Emporium?

Well… we’ve had to do some reorganizing, restructuring, and… upgrading!

It’s the ONLY way things can continue to run smoothly.

The first step was to figure out a way to decrease Alesia’s work load within the business, without overloading mine.

So, I invested in an electric cutter! It’s great! I now cut all the inner fabrics as well as the tops. Alesia and I will share the cutting of the backs (the windpro fleece), but she will no longer be doing the inners. This is a big weight off her ‘todo’ list.
It does mean there’s a bit more work on my end BUT, the electric cutter makes it quick enough that it’s ok. I can handle it.

The next restructure will have me going back to packaging all the orders.

This is a big one… this job takes aprox. 10-14 hours each and every week. We were sharing this job before, I would print out the orders, she would then print out the shipping labels, gather the orders/products with help from another sister and put them in their packages. I would then go through and close up packages and get them ready to head out the door. Previously, at this point dear hubby would take them TO the post office.

Now, with her gone to work 7 days a week, I just don’t think I can ask this of her any longer. I’m going to do my best to take this entire job back over.

In trade, Alesia will now be taking the packages to the post office. Her main job at the grocery store just happens to be right beside the post office so that works out rather well and saves me from having to get to the post office during open hours amidst driving her and Joshua back and forth to work every.single.day. We’ll simply try our very best, as we have done for the past years!

The absence of remaining home is the VERY biggest part for me to get accustomed to.

I lived for TWO years without a vehicle. THAT’s how much of a homebody I am. THAT’s how I grew this business and still maintained the home, the schooling and life in general. Being on the road SO MUCH now, has changed that a LOT. I just keep reminding myself it’s just TWO more months until they get their drivers licenses.

In the meantime, I think I’ll need to slow down on taking custom orders. As much as I always want to help customers out, even when they are in a bind and need something quickly (baby due soon, etc.), I’m realizing I can’t do it ALL and I need to take a step back and slow down on trying to meet EVERY need. Something always suffers for it, and lately it’s been my children, and my own health. That’s not something I can allow to continue.

So although there are changes taking place here at the Homestead Emporium, be assured that they are good changes and we will always try our very best to keep customer service, and product quality, at it’s very best!

Over the last while Alesia, my eldest daughter, has been bringing me home flowers.

Alesia knows I love flowers.

I love everything about them.

I love any one of them.

They are all so different.

The intricate-ness of each one amazes me.

The vibrancy.

She knows I love photographing photos as well.

Beauty!

I can’t wait for spring! In the meantime, the photos will have to do!

After a rude awakening this morning while it was still pitch dark outside, I started thinking of a new business venture.

“Think Again Riding Camp”

At think again riding camp, our horses will teach you how to “think again” about the idea of adding horses to your life.

You see, most people when we tell them we have horses immediately say something like, “Oh! You are SOOOOO lucky!”

I mean, why wouldn’t they react that way right?!

Horses are WONDERFUL!

They are beautiful.

Graceful.

Always calm.

Always clean.

Always VERY Loving (my horse even has a heart imprinted on her, see, PROOF she’s loving…)

Even when young.

(not our horse, but one at a rescue, as well as the mother shown with it above)

And always, always, very obedient.

(this is our baby, Lacey, she’s much bigger now)

Oh wait! These are HORSES we are talking about, living, breathing, LIVE horses.

At “Think Again Riding Camp” you’ll learn all about REAL horses.

Horses that look all sweet and innocent after you’ve fed them the night before and put them safely away in their paddock…

…who then wake you while it’s still dark outside by trotting past your bedroom window.

Real horses who then go running off down the road.

We live in the country.

We do NOT have street lights here.

Have you ever tried finding horses in the pitch dark with just a flash light?

At “Think Again Riding Camp” we could teach YOU how to find five horses, including two black ones, in the pitch dark.

First lesson, it looks something like this:

But darker.

Wait? You don’t see the two galloping horses in the neighbours yard? Oh I’m so sorry, you’ve already failed.

But thankfully, all hope is not lost because at Think Again Riding Camp, the horses will also find a way to weasel into your heart… forever.

And you’ll never be the same again.

I’m feeling MUCH better today. MUCH better then I have in DAYS, possibly a couple of weeks! I did not realize just how bad I had felt, until I felt better!

Why? How?

You’d never believe it, but… I had treats last night. A third of a intense dark chocolate bar, and a handful of skittles.

Within an hour or so, I realized my head was starting to clear. When I realized what was going on, I really couldn’t believe, it. I never even thought this could be the problem, low blood sugar?

So today, I woke up still feeling some what better. I made sure I had breakast, an apple and a boiled egg along with a coffee with sugar and cream. I’m STILL feeling better. Still not quite 100% but I feel 200% better then I did this past week. I feel like I can actually function again, WITHOUT a ton of effort. I really feel sorry for anyone going through something like that on a regular basis. I honestly can not imagine. A week or so was bad enough and I’m going to be working on my eating habits to try and figure out how to keep that from happening again. To be so unable to control how I was feeling was NOT fun. I felt so disorientated, almost confused, couldn’t think clearly, had to work hard to concentrate on the stupidest little things and then the blurriness on top of it all was just too much. I was starting to wonder how I would carry on if I had to continue to function like that?!

So glad I feel like me again.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share a few snapshots from this past week.

Two weeks ago today, our son landed a job at a local riding stable. If you’re on our facebook page,  you’d have seen how exciting that was!

This stable, we learned, is not like your regular riding stable. This stable has 30 RESCUED horses. Anyone who has been ‘hanging’ around our homestead a while, knows how we feel about horse rescue.

All five of our horses are rescues.

(some of the ponies at the stable)

The more we learned, the more we fell in love with the place.

Even Carl, the pet TURKEY!

Within a week, our eldest daughter also applied for a job there, and, also started working there this past Thursday.

So yes, now Alesia has three jobs. The full time-but-not-called- full time job at the grocery store, working for Homestead Emporium, AND now working Thursday’s and Friday’s at the horse stable.

She really couldn’t resist.

I really couldn’t blame her and although this now means driving her to work and back SEVEN days a week, and Joshua SIX days a week because they don’t work at the stable the same days, how could I do anything to stand in their way?

Besides, come April, they can FINALLY go for their drivers tests.

Then I’ll finally be graduating from Taxi back to just plain old mom.

For a couple years anyways, until the next three start…

Although, they will be volunteering at the stables soon, but I’ll be volunteering with them, so that shouldn’t be too much driving.

On our way to the stable every day, is a train track we drive over.

There’s an eagle tree along the track.

You all know how I love eagles. I tried to persuade him to fly away, so I could get an inflight shot, but he wasn’t going for my attempts.

Guess eagles are pretty smart.

Last Sunday, my sister brought over dinner. A “caught” salmon from the wharf in Seattle.

I mixed up a glaze of brown sugar, sweet Japanese soy sauce, garlic and a teeny bit of chopped pickled ginger.

Poured it over top, covered it up, and baked it in the oven.

YUM. It was SOOO good.

So as you can see, my week wasn’t all bad. I just couldn’t concentrate long enough to share the good parts, so I shared nothing.

I hope to be blogging daily again this week. 🙂 Just ELEVEN days until my husband comes home! FINALLY! It will have been almost 6 weeks since he left by the time we seem him again.

We’ll be celebrating Valentines Day, and my 40th birthday, apart.

But, we’ll make up for it while he’s home for 6 days. We may work hard, but we like to live life/play hard too.

Makes life that much more fun.

In the meantime, I need to get back to work.

I have this bad habit. I think it stems from my deep belief in the simple phrase, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

So profound, isn’t it…?

The problem is, I allow it to seep into my life in ways that it’s really not meant.

When things aren’t going so well, I tend to completely shut up and not share anymore.
Unfortunately, the reality of life is, rarely do things always go well. Such a shame.

So… my blog, the place I share most often, goes neglected for periods of time in between periods of lots of writing.

Not that I don’t write AT ALL when things aren’t going so well, I wrote on the 5th about how the  honeymoon of my husband’s going away seemed to have passed. I was able to share then. But I just didn’t want to keep sharing when I felt I didn’t have a whole lot of uplifting new info to share.

But that makes it sound like life is the pits right now, and really it isn’t, but I just have this OTHER bad habit of pushing the negative things aside and trying to pretend they aren’t there.

It’s getting harder and harder to pretend like my husband is not away.

As he put it, “locked away in a closet some where…”

Yeah, that’s what my brain likes to do! Pretend that I’ve just got him locked away in a closet somewhere.

Everyone says it’s easier to live apart with all this new technology.

Well, we tried the webcam thing last week and it just about tore me apart.

Suddenly, there he was, AWAY, in the flesh, sort of.

There was no more denying that he’s NOT locked away in a closet somewhere.

We haven’t done the webcam since. I just can’t deal with it. I should set it up so the kids can do it, so he can webcam with the kids, but personally, sitting around the computer with a child on my lap, seeing him in a plain room, alone, looking tired, doesn’t really do a whole lot to ‘pick-me-up’. Add to that a very crappy internet connection EVERY time we try to chat. Frustrating, heaped on top of difficult.

If I can’t be strong, and he’s not here to pick me up, then what? It’s not like I can stop to pick up the pieces myself in between trying to run a business WELL (this has never been an issue for me before, now, running the business spectacularly is getting more difficult!), making sure my family is eating every day, trying to keep on top of the house, the bills, AND getting two very busy older teens back and forth to work every day. Not to mention school… Two days this week we missed school. Well, sort of. The girls still did their three r’s, reading, writing, arithmetic and even their spelling, but they had to do it WITHOUT me. I don’t like that. Add to that an amazing fact I’m learning… our bodies NEED sleep…? How’s that work?

And now, I’ve been hit with some outrageously stupid fogginess in my brain. I’m trying to combat it. I made sure I had a good night’s sleep last night. I woke up feeling pretty good, thinking maybe that did the trick, yet now, here I am, trying hard to concentrate on what I’m typing and trying even harder to be able to focus on the computer screen.

Like I said to my husband this morning in chat, “I don’t do well not being all ‘together’.”

He understand this about me.

Mind you, I honestly don’t feel like I’m totally falling apart. Really. This morning I even took some time to have a nice hot soak in the tub. I took a few moments to just listen to some praise music while in the tub, lay back, and just breathe. It felt good, and I felt better. Maybe I should have just stayed in the tub? We could do school in the bathroom? Eh, guess I can’t run the business from there though. Hee  hee. So I don’t totally feel like I’m falling apart, I just don’t like how HARD my brain and body are having to work to keep it from happening!

I’m taking the kids to costco later. Going to be very careful about what I buy for groceries. Going to try and cut out anything and everything that’s not going to  help me, and the kids, stay on track.

Problem is, in reality just about everything we eat now adays is a negative in one way or another. But, I’ll do my best anyhow!

Oh, and I won’t be getting that crab I threatened to buy while my husband was first away and we learned he’d be eating things like steak, prawns and cheese cake. Seems the ‘tax man’ likes his pay a lot more then we expected. Who’d of thought they’d want such a big piece of the pie!? Guess that means no pie for us!

Ahh… seriously though. If our life here on our homestead was always a bed of roses, would you really believe me?

I didn’t think so.

And if you did, you probably wouldn’t want to hang around for too long. Roses are pretty and all, but if it’s all you ever see, even they’d get boring.

And if you DID want to hang around, it would mean you like phoney, and you’re not going to find any of that around here, so this wouldn’t be the place for you anyways! I just can’t do phoney! I can’t even TRY to do phoney! So I’m sorry to those who would rather hear all about beds of roses. I do have some roses here on the homestead, but we put horse manure on them every year, and that kind of sums up REAL life on the homestead.

Beds of beautiful roses, with a great big helping of horse manure.

Never the less, we seem to like our life, and even through these ‘storms’, our roots are just going to dig deeper, get stronger, and we WILL continue to carry on.

That’s just how we grow around here on the Homestead.