So much to be thankful for

Recently I have had the bad habit of seeing the things we don't have, seeing everything as a problem and forgetting that we have oh so many blessings in our lives.  So since we just celebrated Thanksgiving, and in an effort to be in a more Christ like mood for this Christmas season I have decided to make a thankfulness blog.

First off I am thankful for family.  We haven't always gotten to spend the holidays with family but this year we got to spend Thanksgiving Day with both sides of my family.  And then we got such a special treat yesterday.  We missed Jeremy's family Thanksgiving because of time off issues but his cousin Eileen and her family made a special stop in Twin Falls to spend the night so that we could drive over and spend some time with them.  We are still sad that we didn't get to see the rest of the family but we are so blessed to have seen Eileen, Brian and the kids.  It was a wonderful, although much too short, visit and we all now know that we like 5 Guys Burgers.

I am also thankful for our health.  Even though I seem to have passed my recent cold on to Jeremy we are both relatively healthy.  I think of friends and family who have been or are battling such horrible health problems such as cancer and diabetes and I am so thankful that we don't face any of these problems.  Along with this I am thankful that I am able to be stable with my Bipolar and live a happy functional life.  Sure there are ups and downs but overall we are happy and healthy and I thank God for that.

I am thankful for our house.  It's warm, has the fireplace I've always wanted, and other then having a dishwasher it is pretty much our dream home.  We have dreamed since we got married of moving out of town and having a place where we could raise our own animals.  Now goats weren't always part of the dream but I am so thankful for our three little goats who give us milk that we can use for so many purposes.  Horses were always in the plan and I am thankful for Cimmy and Charlie who both have such wonderful personalities and have each bonded to one of use so that we have his and her's horses.  And of course we can not forget our puppies.  As I write this the puppies are at my mom and dad's house because they babysat them so we could go see Eileen and family.  I miss them and their cuddles so much and cannot wait to go pick them up when I finish writing this.  Both dogs have adjusted so well to being farm dogs although I will say Jynx is still our little princess and definitely is the "Green Acres" girl.  Little Copper dog has become a regular little farm boy.  He rolls in things I'd rather he didn't, sniffs EVERYTHING, and makes sure all of his animals are accounted for each time he goes outside.  I honestly don't know what I would do without out animals.

I am thankful for both of our jobs.  We are both very happy where we are at.  Jeremy is still working at CAL Ranch and he loves it.  He enjoys his coworkers and he loves learning more and more about animal health and being able to pass his knowledge on to his customers.  Camp Hippo is my dream job and I'm so glad that we were at a point in our lives to be able to move here for this job when it came open.  I love each and every one of "my kids" even on the days that I'm ready to pull my hair out.  I work with a great bunch of therapists who I am always learning so much from.  And being able to take my Copper dog to work with me is definitely a benefit not to mention all the other animals I get to interact with there.

I am thankful to be able to learn new things.  We both enjoy learning and trying new things and our next adventure is make goats milk soap.  We've been doing lots of research and hope to soon make our first batch.  I will try to remember to take pictures so I can post about our adventure.

Above all I am thankful that I am married to my best friend.  There is no one else that I would want to spend the rest of forever with.  I love the long talks we have about random things and I love that I can discuss anything with him.  Even if it is something from my research for work he will ask questions and learn right along with me.  I am so thankful to be on this adventure of life with such a smart, kind, funny, loving man.

There are so many more things that I am thankful for including my faith, my friends, my car, having a freezer full of food, my electric blanket, I could go on and on.  But no one has that kind of time to read about my every little blessing.  I am so thankful to be able to count my blessings and to have a husband who helps me see that I really do have so many blessings.  Even in our trials we are truly blessed and honestly when I step back and look at like the things I see as trials are so very small compared to the blessings.

Welcome November!

Well, we survived October.  Not that that was a hard feat.  Other then the fact that it is a longer month (5 weeks) it wasn't bad at all.  We had one trick-or-treater this year which is one more then we had last year.  But its kinda sad.  I miss living where we got the whole neighborhood worth of kids in costumes at our door.

Our girls (the goats) are hopefully bred now so we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of babies in March.  And for now, we are savoring the last of the wonderful milk they are giving us before they go dry for the season I have learned a new recipe.  It is called Cajeta.  It is Mexican Milk Caramel.  It is quite possibly the most delicious thing I have ever made in my whole life.  My sister Mollie helped me make the first batch of it yesterday and it was enjoyed by all as an after dinner snack with apples.  It is quite the process to make it but thanks to the RoboStir that Kris gave me it was not so bad until the end when it got too thick and we had to stir by hand.  That puts me up to three things that I know how to make with goats milk.  The next on my list is Mozzarella and soap.  My mom has put in a special request for goats milk lotion so that will be coming soon as well.

Other news for November is that I am going to be working on writing a novel.  I don't plan to finish it this month although it is NaNoWriMo.  However with my job and other things I'm just not sure I can actually do a whole book this month.  But its good incentive to pick up where I left off and get a big chunk of the book done.  A few of my friends may know that I have started several books since I was in HS but I just haven't ever seen one through to the finish.  I took a creative writing class in college and wrote several short stories but my dream has always been to write a novel.  Well I have a few things motivating me this time.  One of them is my friends the Emmett Family.  Even their teenage son is published.  I think its so great that he took his ability to write and ran with it at such a young age.  He, and his whole family (all writers) are definitely a big inspiration to me.  Another of my motivators is finding myself again.  It seems like since the move to Idaho we have both been super busy with work and with the animals and with taking care of our place and I honestly feel like I lost me in all of that.  So I am going to dedicate time to writing and see if I can't find me somewhere in there.

Also in November we will be celebrating Thanksgiving twice.  My sister and her husband are coming up from Vernal UT but can't make it on the actual holiday so we are celebrating early.  Then we will of course have a Turkey dinner again a few weeks later on the actual day.  I am hoping while my sister is here we can get some good games of cards going and maybe even a game or two of Marbles.

Ok, so now that I have rambled on about things no one really cares about I will go and actually work on my novel.

PS.  If anyone wants to read part of my novel just to give me your opinion on it let me know!  I would love some input.

Bipolar Awareness

First of all, deciding to make this post has been a very hard decision for me.  I have not been super open with this part of my life but with the support and encouragement of a good friend I have decided to be open and honest with this post in order to educate others.

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and today is Bi-polar Awareness Day.  As a few may know I was diagnosed 4 years ago with Bi-polar Disorder Type 1.  I think I probably started having symptoms when I was in college but it didn't become a problem bigger then I could handle until a few months before I got diagnosed.  My journey to diagnosis started with me going into my family practice doctor in the spring because I had been very depressed.  He gave me some anti-depressants and at first I felt GREAT!...for a while.   Then I started to become out of control.  I didn't sleep, I couldn't focus on anything, I spent money on silly frivolous items like a belly dancing outfit, and I signed myself up for a doctoral program.  Not that going back to school was a bad idea but I didn't think it through.  I just did it on a whim.  I couldn't sit still for more then a few minutes at a time.  And the worst part was I am not a fun manic person.  I get irritable...very irritable.  I was attacking Jeremy over nothing.  He would look at me and it would make me mad.  And I wasn't just mad at Jeremy.  Every one got on my nerves.  The week before I finally got help I actually rev'd my engine with the intent to rear end someone because they had a bumper sticker I didn't like.  I got out of the chair in my office and walked toward a coworker with the intent to hurt her just because I was in a bad mood and she made me mad by existing.  Luckily I was still with it enough to catch myself before actually doing anything and I was able to say "Whoa!  What the hell is wrong with you?  You can't just attack people for no reason."

 So I finally went to a psychiatrist and got a diagnosis of Bi-polar.  The first few weeks were hard.  My doctor wouldn't let me drive because of my road rage and she had me take a week off of work because she was afraid I wouldn't continue to be able to control my violent thoughts and I might act on them against one of my patients or coworkers.  She put me on medication so most of that week that I was off work I spent sleeping, which was great because I hadn't slept for more then an hour or so in weeks.

Again the medication was great for a couple of weeks and then I started getting over sedated.  I was a shell of who I really am.  I was a zombie.  This went on for several months because my doctor wasn't willing to adjust my meds.  She said I needed to be medicated and I would eventually adjust.  But like I said months went by and it did not get better...it got worse.  I literally fell asleep when I sat down.  I would start to fall asleep at my desk.  I fell asleep while sitting at a restaurant celebrating with my parents and some family friends.  On my last visit to my grandma's house before she died I fell asleep while we were talking and spent 75% of our visit napping on her couch.

I finally had enough.  I told my doctor I was going off of my meds whether she helped me with it or not.  She changed my medication but I apparently have a very low tolerance for medication that is sedating.  I still struggled with being tired during the day.  So finally almost two years later I got a new doctor who was willing to work with me.

But during this time I still dealt with episodes of mania and depression although I'm sure they weren't as bad as they could have been.  During one particularly bad manic episode I was driving Jeremy home from work and I was speeding and running red lights.  Jeremy warned me that I needed to be careful or I was going to get pulled over and I told him that if a cop pulled me over I would tell him to suck his own...well you can add your own colorful language here.  I had a hard time keeping up with my work during these episodes and I would get so behind that I would have to spend hours at work on the weekend and evenings for a week just to catch up.

Over the past year since we moved to Idaho I have been more stable then I have been probably since I got diagnosed.  The year before we moved I started to get stable but then the doctor I was seeing closed her practice and I medicated myself until a while after we moved...not my best plan.

Well now I've pretty much shared my story so I want to share the things I've learned.  I have learned that anyone can be affected by mental illness.  I've met a lot of great people in my journey who also have mental illnesses.  Some of them are bi-polar, some have schizophrenia, others have depression.  People with mental illnesses can achieve anything.  We are no different then anyone else.  I have a masters degree.  Some of my friends also have masters degrees, some are nurses, one of my friends even has a doctorate.

People you see every day, people you work with, people you pass at the store, people at your church may have a mental illness.  Its more common then you think.  People with mental illnesses do not always stand out in a crowd.  The number of people with mental illness who have difficulty functioning and need assistance is actually pretty small compared to those of us who hold jobs, have families or meaningful relationships, and that function along side our peers every day.  I know I shared above that I had violent thoughts before I was diagnosed.  I have had them since too.  When I get extremely manic it is a common problem for me.  But I have never acted on it.  People with mental illnesses are not generally dangerous. The statistics on violent crimes committed by the mentally ill are actually very low.  The mentally ill are more often the victims then the perpetrator.

And there are good things that have come from my diagnosis of Bi-polar.  I have accepted a lot of help that I probably needed but wouldn't have sought out or accepted under different circumstances.  I have a different outlook on the world.  When my patients say they don't want to take their meds I get it.  I've been there.  When my kids have a hard time focusing I get it.  Sometimes I have a hard time focusing still although it is better.  I have a greater appreciation for the little things in life.  I am easily awed by small things that I don't think I would notice if it wasn't for my different way of perceiving life.  I have made friendships with people that at one time I may have judged but now I appreciate our differences and the differences we can make in each others lives.

Is living with bi-polar hard sometimes?  Yes.  Am I glad I live with bi-polar?  Usually yes I am.  Do I see bi-polar as a disability or a disease or a disorder?  No I don't.  My brain works a little differently but that's what makes me me.  I actually kind of like my differences.  I like the way I see life.  Its kind of fun to feel like your on a caffeine high or a good buzz without any of the drugs that normally cause those feelings.  Am I different?  Maybe but I am proud of who I am.

So I challenge you this week to learn something more about mental illness.  Look at reputable web sites to get more info.  Email me and ask me any questions that you have about bi-polar or mental illness in general.  I worked in the mental health field besides living the life.  I'm not saying I know everything, I know very little in fact.  But I am always learning and I am willing to research as much as I need to in order to educate others.  I want to show my friends and family that having a mental illness doesn't mean you have an illness.  You have a uniqueness.

Here on the farm...

I just realized that I have not posted in almost a year.  I can't believe that!  So much has happened here.  We now have a regular old farm...or zoo.

We bought a steer that will be going to the butcher soon.  We are really looking forward to having all that meat in the freezer.  On the first day we had him he escaped within two hours of being here and it took us most of the day to find him.  After we found him we had to get the neighbors help to bring him back to our pasture and then spent all evening fixing fence so he didn't leave us again.

We also bought two dairy goats.  One of them is actually my brother Zanes and the other is ours but we care for both of them.  We are having lots of fun making all sorts of good stuff from their milk.  We are now regularly making yogurt which is my new favorite breakfast food.  And if you know me you know this must be special yogurt because I really am not usually much of a yogurt eater.  We have also made soft cheese with the goats milk and it is delicious.  I want to expand into making more types of cheese but cheese is actually a lot of work so I am still contemplating where to start and when to start.  The goats themselves are just fun because they each have such a unique personality.  Having baby goats this spring was quite the experience as well.  Both goats gave birth while we were not home and neither had any complications which was really nice since it was our first time at this.  The babies were fun but they are a lot of work.  We bottle feed our babies so that means up every four hours during the first week and then feedings every six hours...which was not simple with both of us working full time.  And Jeremy was out of town with work when the second set of twins was born so I had my dad's help thankfully in the mornings but other then that I was on my own.

Then there's the horses.  We started out with Cimmy (Cimmeron) a mare we bought from a friend of Jeremy's.  She is 4 and has some training but we have basically restarted her from the ground up and she is coming along quite nicely.  We now have her in a snaffle bit and have been riding her in the arena as well as out in the yard a few times.  She's kind of a small horse but she has a lot of go and even though I was skeptical of getting a mare I am really starting to enjoy her.  After we got Cimmy some friends of ours approached us about a horse they had.  They just were no longer able to put the time and effort into him that he deserved so they wanted to see him go to a good home.  We went and looked at him and even with a minor snafu (he did a little crow hopping at first) we decided that his new home needed to be with us.  He is an older horse named Charlie.  He is also HUGE...but he is a gentle giant.  We have been working some basics with him so far just to build that respect between us and him.  Both of the horses are out at my grandpas house right now because he has the round pen and arena where we can work them plus he has really dense pasture for them to graze on and our pasture was getting pretty sparse.

Some of our friends may think all of this sounds crazy but for us we are living the dream!  We have wanted to be out of town and be able to have animals since we got married.  We are so happy with the move we made.  We both love our jobs, love the animals, and are thoroughly enjoying our house.

PS...on top of the farm animals we still have the two dogs who have become good old farm dogs.

This is one of Cocoas babies...I'm pretty sure this is Little Miss.

This is Cocoa.  She's the more vocal and outgoing of the two goats.

This is Cowgirl one of Daisies daughters and her other daughter Bubbles has her bum in the picture. 

Here I am with Cimmy when we first got her.  She is friendly to a fault.

This is Daisy.  She's much more timid then Cocoa but once she warms up to you she is very loving.

Here is Jeremy riding Cimmy.  This was one of the first days that we got on her.  She is doing so great with her training.  I don't have any pictures of Charlie on my computer but I will try to take a few over the next week or so and get them posted.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our family and friends!!  We had a great Thanksgiving.  For starters Jeremy didn't work...first time since we've been married that the turkey dinner wasn't planned around his work schedule and it was so nice.  We were able to go out to my Grandma and Grandpas house and had a big dinner with them, my parents and my brother and sister.  We were missing Shanon but we got to talk to her which was really nice.  After eating the boys went out and shot the guns and us girls taught grandma how to play Skip-bo.  When the boys came back in we all played cards and it was so much fun.  I really can't remember the last time I saw my grandpa have so much fun.  And we all had fun laughing at him laugh at himself.

Jeremy worked Black Friday but he said it wasn't too bad.  I did some shopping, got his birthday presents all bought...now on to Christmas presents.

We hope that all our family and friends had a great Thanksgiving and was able to celebrate it with the ones they love.

Settling in

Well, we are settling in and loving life.  Jeremy has changed from working at Schwan's to working at CAL Ranch.  He is much happier at the new job and doesn't have to work the graveyard shift so he enjoys it a little more.  He is a "floor man" which means he just roams the store and works where he is needed.

As for my job things are great.  I love the kids and my coworkers are all really great therapists.  I work long days which is hard sometimes but I get Friday off so it is so worth being a little tired in the evenings.

Other then just settling in things are pretty boring here.  We spend a lot of our time at work or sleeping so we're pretty boring.  Maybe something exciting will happen in our lives so we can blog about it but until then I guess I'm done.

We're Here!

Well, we made it to Blackfoot!  We moved in a little more than a week ago and so far we are loving it.
Jeremy found a job working in the Schwans warehouse and so far has worked one day and heads back for a full week of work starting tonight.  It is an overnight job so we are able to spend the evenings together between me getting off work and him going to work so its not a bad arrangement for us.
As for my job, tomorrow is my first day.  I am overwhelmingly excited for my first day but very nervous since it has been a while since I worked with children.

I said that I would post some pictures but I only have a couple pictures so I will post those but they don't do anything near justice to how wonderful our place is.  This is our barn/hay shed, and the front yard.  Some of the things you can't see are the wonderful apple and pear trees at the west side of the house.  We are eating some of the apples with dinner tonight and have been snacking on pears for a few days now although they are not all ripe yet.  We also have a garage/shop and two pastures as well as a small and medium hay field.  Basically we have our dream place!!