This picture is telling.  Isn't it pretty?  This was taken on one of the very few cold crisp winter days that did not have a valley inversion.  Of the roughly 60 days that make up January and February, over 50 had horrible horrible air quality, like pretend you smoke-a-pack-a-day air quality that makes national news.

But this day? This day was striking and beautiful. The twiggy arch was my summer therapy creative session, and it proved to be a pretty winter statement.

But notice the gate?  It fell off its hinges in the snow and was stuck open for some time.  Last week a mystery pooch/beast came in the night and killed 8 of our chickens.

See the bridge in the background?  The siderails have been a scratching post for goats, to the point that they are detached and slowly inviting the decay of our cute bridge.

See the chicken coop?  It is sturdy and well, perhaps just in need of some new paint. 

By some measures, the farm has fallen into the "disrepair" category, what with the adjusting, mending, and painting that clearly is in order.

But the snow melted last week, and the grass is in plain sight! There are outbuildings to paint, weeds to pull, garden beds to till, flowers to plant.

I worry that I am lacking the drive I had a year ago.  There was a freeing throwing-of-the-hands-in-the-air-gesture of "still got that baby fat but I'll just work it out in the garden" shrug.  Well guess what?  I just got fatter.  Apparently working in your garden all day is quickly cancelled out when you eat ice cream late at night while watching Portlandia.

I suppose nothing great comes off without a detailed plan, but I feel like my body is contradicting my words of responsible agriculture, raw greens, and living off the earth.



 We're still looking at these winterscapes as I whine about not being beautiful and twenty years old anymore.
 Seriously, why is everyone running marathons?  Why is success, drive, goal-setting, ambition, and success constantly compared to whether or not you go to the gym every day?

Earlier this month we sent our pigs to the county fair.  After 3 years of raising pigs over the summer, we finally figured out:

A) How to get the pigs from the very back of our one-acre lot- through the farm gate, past the garden (which they could destroy in point-five seconds)...and between the yard gate into a waiting trailer.

Lucky day Grandpa Anderson visited the pigs (and the Olsen's) at the farm.  It's fun to ask advice from my dad.  He grew up on a farm and fled fled fled for a better and cleaner life.  I'm sure he wonders where I came from when I run to the dirty germ-infested farm life (wait, that's my mom).

While looking at tractors with Chloe, he laughed when she saw a small tractor and exclaimed "Oh that tractor is A-dorable!".



Here's Olsen's-Don't-Know-What-They're-Doing Part II.  We sold 7 goats a month before fair, just wanting to get them off the property and be done. 

Lo and behold we see one of our goats showcased at the fair, with a purple grand prize ribbon.  We wanted to yank it and put it on OUR chest, after all we bottle fed these goats for two stinkin' months.  Give me that ribbon!



Here's Chloe in the last-place stall with Petunia the Pig.  We're just starting to realize that there's a good chance that the fair will be during Leif's birthday every year.  So this little trooper hung out at the fair while everyone puffed about sister and her pig.  She got $11 for showcasing her pig, and little brother couldn't believe it!  I know he was calculating what Legos he could buy if he had that money.


Here's a little reminder at the fair.  Leif's holding up 7 fingers so we know that this fair year, he turned SEVEN.

Leif is great.  Here's what makes him an awesome part of our family:

He loves his baby brother twin.  Every morning he gets him out of the crib and brings him to me.

He is quiet and observant, but surprisingly confident.  I was afraid he would be sensitive about things (friend troubles, or ?) but he is always quick to laugh.

He and little brother Isaac play together all summer.  Isaac's friends are all Leif's buddies, and Leif lets him tag along without a complaint.  They really are best little buds.

He is an awesome reader, the best in his class.

We had a party for him before the fair, so we made sure he felt special on his day.  Buenos Dias folks!

As a girl who has loved having a blog because it helps sorting out my head, the recent silence of my tapping fingers was surprising. I thought I would need to sort out my lessons and thoughts, but instead it has been a quiet period of reflection. For now I have a little perspective, and the thick summer air still holds the posts about all of the women who helped me overprepare my home, kitchen, closets, and suitcases before baby Giddy arrived two days past his due-date.

How just hours before his arrival we had a family home evening talking about when we lived with God before we came to earth, and how our new little brother was soon to make an astronaut-inspiring journey through space, time, and my birth canal. How we cradled a doll and reminded everyone how to hold a baby. And how I loved seeing the light go on in my five-year old's head as he asked about God, and how could he be his father, and his daddy's father? And how when I went to bed that night I thought "Sheesh, even my dang garage is cleaned out I've been nesting for so stinking long...and of course this kid is coming now because we had a spiritual family tune-up".

For now, those stories await a future harvest like my late plantings of garden corn. At the moment, it is enough that my baby is home, is safe, is healthy....and beautiful!

Photo Credit Filter Photography.

I think this biological clock thing is real. With my oldest on the precipice of puberty, my last "baby" grown up and not giving me kisses, I am finally starting to understand what all those grannies have been telling me for years as I frustratingly wrangle little mutts: "Enjoy it! They will be gone before you know it!"

With a big fat baby living amongst the tiny NICU crowd, I gasped in panic at the thought that my investment of love, calories, nausea, and fatigue would be gone all the while ripping out my heart with its departure. But instead, my baby lives! I love to hold him, to squeeze him, and proclaim: You're a little person!



I love him so much that I'm even over the fact that this is the most unflattering picture of my gut. Where in the heck is my waist? But guess what, I honestly don't care right now. My garden will get it off eventually, and that joy on my face is real cause my baby lived.

Good Night Planet.

Because we chose to hire a Certified Nurse Midwife with a Birthing Center over 100 miles from my little valley, I have taken lots of little day trips to The Great Salt Lake. One of the bonuses of these trips, and because I rarely leave home otherwise, has been reconnecting with old friends.



Here's Paula with her latest offspring {insert longing female sigh here}. When I called my old high school buddy Paula and said I'd be in the neighborhood, she offered to make me lunch. "Oh, you're doing your salad thing! My husband made some awesome smoked salmon...does that sound good on a salad?"


"YES" I said truthfully. Though excited, I felt a little guilty.

I hate salad right now. Wait, let me rephrase that...

I ate an entire package of Girl Scout Cookies yesterday, and the thought of rinsing, draining, chopping, & layering fresh greens seems like an undue chore most days.

What with my blogg-y pronouncements of keeping up with the greens until the end of this pregnancy; with my holiday sugar buzz leaving me resolute to walk (not even jog, skip, or run) the 3-mile-loop three times a week during my last trimester; my intent to infuse this child with a love of vegetables in the womb and because I was already on a roll...I'm not sure why I have turned into my own worst enemy. Perhaps I'm finding a reliable scapegoat in these hormones. The truth is, I stuck my middle finger to my green leaf resolution and I feel awesome/horrible about it.

And yet, fix me a salad, especially like the delicious one Paula gave me (with a golden fork no less!) and I'm in heaven. It tastes delicious to me, and deep down I know that I still crave it.



What is up?!

Not only did Paula's visit give me a guilt trip about not keeping my word, it gave me clarity that salad is still a huge part of my future. More importantly, the visit gave me some cute, clean, non-stained hand-me-down baby stuff for the little mutt growing in my gutt. Check it.

Paula is super creative. I had no idea she could sew in high school, but she seriously makes the cutest stuff! Check out her craft blog here.



The outfit and bib she embellished with fabrics from the awesome custom car-seat blanket. The reversible car-seat blanket is in place and waiting for my baby son.

As a bonus of going through bins of baby stuff, I found the doll that was crocheted by my Grandma Anderson. I'm pretty sure every granddaughter received one. I remember her invitation to come and pick a doll, where there was an array of color combinations you could choose from. I used to love to wrap this doll up in her never-to-be-lost blanket.

For now, this little doll, a labor of love, is a place-holder inside the soft, clean, and longing to snuggle my son blanket from Paula.

A little over 3 weeks to go!

A couple weeks ago my one and only female child walked up to me while I was doing dishes and commented that she had a little bump in her shirt. Just one side, right on her chest. She thought it was funny. My eyes turned to googly-pies and I remembered the horror of coming onto puberty unawares. Jumping on the trampoline one minute, finding a surprise in my pants and quietly telling my mom...only to be lovingly thrown in the tub while a giant maxi pad gets taped inside a fresh pair of panties and the talk of how this will happen to me every month for the rest of my life.

Trampolines and popsicles one minute. Walking around with a crinkly diaper butt the next. So scratch that. Trampoline one minute, crying in the corner the next so no one will have to hear you walk across the room.



Please dad, I hope you aren't reading this. Mom? Don't take this personal. You told me what was up even if it was a day late. I get it that we come from different generations and that there's a good chance no amount of pep-talking would have kept me from crying in the corner...but this is real stuff ya know? It was exciting, weird, and traumatic (for me). So when Rainbow Girl came up to me unawares, all I could think of was my own naive dive into puberty and how it sucked. How would you respond?

Mrs. Olsen: Rainbow Girl! You are getting little boobies! You know what this means? This means you are starting to go through puberty!

Rainbow Girl: [places hands on her face and looks at me with a shocked and slightly happy look on her face]

Mrs. Olsen: First little bumps, then it will swell and pop! (hands flowering over chest). Then you get hair here, and here (more air flowers). You will start to stink under your arms and roll your eyes at me. Please don't roll your eyes at me okay? Your legs will get hairy too and you'll probably want to shave them. Unless you got the hairless Olsen gene. That would be lucky...

Rainbow Girl: (tentatively) Is puberty when....you know....bleed?

Mrs. Olsen: Oh yes. That too! Yes you will bleed. These are all of the changes that you will have to go through to become a woman! (pause) I can't believe you're getting little boobies. You probably won't need a bra for a year or so, but we might need to wear a tanktop under your shirt to smooth things out.

You get the idea. We have talked about all of this before, but I felt compelled to expound a crash course right there in the kitchen. Then Rainbow Girl went to her room to finish her homework and I immediately texted The Mister of the House:

ME: Rainbow Girl's getting boobies.
HIM: What?! How old were you? Isn't this a little early?
ME: She won't need a bra for a while. Maybe not so early.

So I went about doing dishes and making dinner, and thinking of how quick my little girl is growing up and how she was just a baby. She never knew I told her dad, but when he came home from work he popped his head in her room and said hi.

Then the cutest thing happened. She turned to him and said: "Dad, did you hear? I'm starting to go through puberty."

He said that yes he heard. She commented how scary it would be to go through puberty and...."you know...bleed."

And The Mister of the House sat down and said, "Yes, lots of changes happen when you go through puberty, but you have to go through them to become an adult. And you know what? Being an adult is my favorite thing so far. If I wasn't an adult I wouldn't have my own little family, with you as my daughter. I love ya. It's a good thing that will happen."

Rainbow Girl didn't say a thing and just went and sat on his lap and he held her like the little girl she still was, and in some ways, always will be (at least to me and her dad).



And when I heard about it after the fact my heart melted, and I thought that's how every puberty talk should be. Okay okay so I was a flibbertigibbet and had diarrhea of the mouth but it turned out just fine because I have back-up. I was glad that Rainbow Girl wasn't afraid to talk about boobies and bleeding with her own dad, and that he could give her a vision of why it all mattered in the end.



And what a beautiful woman she will become! Just look at her!


NOTE TO PARENTS: Apparently crash courses in the kitchen can be soaked in by little brothers as well. Which is why the next day, while carpooling friends in the mini-van, Vanilla Wafer turned to Rainbow Girl's friend and stated: "Guess what? Rainbow Girl's getting boobies!" and then proceeded to giggle.

So we're into crash course number #2 about how we don't really say the word boobies and how we have private parts and don't talk or laugh about them. That's what you get for being a flibbertigibbet.

Being involved in a local non-profit had its perks this week. With one of the missions to "improve quality of life on a local level" along with some extra funds needing to be allocated this year, we decided to do some shopping for some families in need from the a local community center.

I'll be honest, after reading this story of a family wanting to help do a sub-for-Santa, I was leery of helping out for those with the lottery mentality. But when we saw the community center list detailing simple necessities like:

*shirt size
*pant size
*shoe size
*dream toy (most listed "anything". Others listed things like a barbie, or a radio).

we felt we could really make a difference this holiday. We spent around $550 to provide items for 2 families, both single mothers with four kids. For the youngest recipient, an 18 month old boy, the listed dream toy was diapers.




In reality, all I want for Christmas is to get rid of half the stuff in my closets, toy room, bookshelves, garage, & shop. The rest I wouldn't mind getting gorgeously organized somehow.

But I remember the lean years, when I used Christmas money for new tires, or even groceries (since my grocery budget went for Christmas instead). But now I am full of kids, blessings, and even stuff more than I can handle. I know it's going to sound cheesy, but I couldn't help having a "Schindler's List" moment after shopping for these local families. I thought, man do I really need all that stuff I put on my lists (and yes I gave a real "list" to people who asked, and yes it included more fun stuff!)? Do my kids need all the stuff they're getting? Are they staying up thinking that all some kids want for Christmas is a new outfit and a barbie?

With all the browsing in toy aisles and department stores, I sometimes feel I am cultivating a personal lottery mentality among my own kids.

"I want that mom I want that!"

"Just put that in your cart for Christmas and I promise I won't peek!"

"Who's getting that toy? I want that!"

But for a small moment yesterday, when we unloaded a simple outfit, new shoes, and one toy for each person, I couldn't help hoping that my kids (and my heart) was paying attention to those who really stood in need this holiday season.

It was so exciting for The Mister of the House and me, we took pictures to document what The Sparrow Alliance (our local non-profit) did for 2 small families this Christmas.



I wanted to buy some quality department cast-offs from TJ Maxx, but in the end Wal-Mart found me stretching my dollar with new jeans and long sleeve shirts with boys, along with some clearanced ankle boots to complete the look. Some twin boys are sharing a big "Cars" rug with some accompanying cars. My four-year-old was drooling over it all night, and his Christmas list was once again re-arranged.

Nothing like a huffy "touch that toy again and you're going to bed!" from your mother to harbor the Christmas spirit eh?



Each of the mothers each received a $30 gift card to Wal-Mart or Sam's Club. I wish I could see the 10-year-old girl (because I have one?) with her green cowl-neck sweater, funky jeans, and red sparkly shoes totally strutting her stuff right? We can only hope!

I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

The evening of Thanksgiving, just after dinner, turkey nap, and a movie night with the whole family...my husband left on a 12 day trip to Asia. This with school and schedules just around the corner, and bitter below-zero temperatures, winter storm warnings and a little farm...and me. Alone. In charge.


Gone is my morning person, who wakes up and gets Rainbow Girl to practice the piano before school, who takes fresh water to the chickens and goats, and fills the chicken feeder, refreshes the hay, shovels the walk, and is off to work by 7:30 am.


I told myself to not get to the end of the rope before the end of the day, because no back-up was coming! My thoughts went to my sister-in-law Kristen, who sent her husband to Iraq just as they were starting their little family.

I think I would not make the best army wife.

Lugging the 4-gallon jug of water every morning and in my head I feel picked on. Boo hoo! I love the farm thing we've got going on, but this thing would not be happening if I was flying solo.

I think of my friend who just filed papers for a divorce after waiting for a year for him to stop dating another woman (he didn't. jerk.). I think of my neighbor who just lost her husband while her youngest is still in high school. Like me, we have all been left to shovel the 2 stupid-freaking-feet of snow that fell on our sidewalks and driveways last week by ourselves.

I think of them and wonder how I could manage this as a permanent fix.

I can't.

So for now, with technology and a thriving heart, I haul the water in the mornings, shovel the snow, help with homework, get babysitters for errands...and instead of sending a prayer or a curse: "did you notice all the extra work you left for me when you decided to take off?"...I send an email. Or a skype.

Mrs. O: How's the 80 degrees punk! The stupid snowblower isn't working!

Mister: Did you put gas from the yellow gas can?

Mrs. O: *Huff*

Mister: I miss you.

----or-----

Mrs. O: Can't talk. I just got pooped on my head in the chicken coop! Disgusting!

Mister: Sorry! Love and miss you.

-----or-----

Mister: Hey Rainbow Girl, I tried some Pringles that were shrimp flavor and they were pink!

Rainbow Girl: Ewwww...sick!

-----and------

Mrs. O: We're about to kneel down for family prayer, want to kneel down with us?

Mister: Okay

Mrs. O: (later): In the prayer Rainbow Girl said "Thank you that we could have some sort of contact with dad"

Mister: Some sort, that is cute.

Mrs. O: I know, right?



So for now Thailand and Hong Kong, you left me wanting but secured me some much needed sympathy, some well-wishes, and even i-miss-you's and i-love-you's. You smell like heaven, I think. Please send back The Mister of the House with exotic cheap goods and a newfound appreciation for my awesomeness (or just some sympathy would be nice).

Ten-Four.

Signed,

Cold and Lonely

p.s. The real heaven appears to notice my predicament because some neighbors have come and cleared my driveway...twice! That's always good to tame a wife's wrath. Thank you real heaven.

Over the weekend I ske-daddled to Idaho for 2 root canals. Lame. I stayed at my parents house, retreated to my old bedroom, and climbed into the giant bed I use to share with my sister. I had a sad revelation.

Here is why this picture is lame (and in a class of lame-ness way beyond 2 root canals if that is even possible):



A) My folks house lay on a bluff above those famous Idaho potato fields (and I do mean miles and miles of them). We moved there from Apache Avenue back in 1991.

B) The bedroom window would overlook these fields, which were wheat half of the time. The dirt sucked all the light pollution and made for brilliant stars.

C) Way off in the horizon, you could see the tips of the Teton Mountains. Moon + Mountains + Glowing Fields = Heaven.

D) I could sleep with the blinds open and not worry about neighbors 10 feet away peeking in on my bid-ness.

E) Every night I would open the blinds, and sleep on the right side of the bed because it was closest to the window/stars/moon/fields.

F) This is how the right side of the bed officially became "my side" of the bed when I became Mrs. Olsen. It had everything to do with this bed, this room, and this Idaho.

G) When I was just in Idaho this weekend (alone)I threw open the covers on the left side of the bed. That is because it was closest to the bathroom. I didn't even open the blinds.

H) It took a few minutes until I realized what I had done and how far I had fallen! Then I took this picture in disbelief.

And that is what happens when you grow up!