farm cats

We took an impromptu trip to North Dakota yesterday, which isn't as weird as it sounds out here in the sticks. Mike's mom and sister and her two kids Hannah and Ava (Ainsley's cousins) were going to be there for a night staying with Mike's awesome Aunt Lynette at her farm just over the border, and it's just a two hour drive from here, so we decided to go be part of the fun.

Lynette and her husband live in the house and on the farm that Mike's grandparents lived in for years, so it's cool to take Ainsley back to her roots a little bit. While we were dating we went up a few times for weddings and other things, when Mike's Grandma Norma was living, and she was and remains one of the coolest ladies I've even met. We would go to the Borderline Bar with Mike's sister and her husband just a few blocks from her house in the tiny town, and then when we'd stumble home late Norma would be up to make us roast beef sandwiches. Then in the morning it was a never-ending feed of eggs and bacon from dawn onward, for whichever kids and grandkids and friends would stop over for food. I really, really wish Ainsley could have gone there with us, but Norma died of cancer on the St. Patrick's day before our wedding. She would have loved seeing Ainsley and her two cousins together.

But, Mike's Aunt Lynette is a pretty good lady herself, and it was a nice night and morning (complete with never-ending eggs and bacon and then a huge turkey farm lunch ... we ate turkey, it's not a turkey farm ... it's a cow farm ... or whatever they are called ... oh, never mind).

Best of all for the girls, there were ... (wait for it) ... KITTENS! Four adorable three-week-old kitties living in the garage, as farm cats do. It was pretty funny, as KITTENS were one of my favorite things on my grandparents' farm when we were growing up. And our cat Murray actually came from this same farm, in fact, his sister is the mom to this current batch. This is our beautiful specimen of cat:

The KITTEN Ainsley loved up on all morning was Murray's spitting image, down to his feral nature and general distaste for people. But no matter, Ainsley was in love, as evidenced by these pictures:

And for a split second my icy heart was melted and I forgot that this little KITTEN would grow up into a CAT that would surely hate me as much as his kin we already have at home, and I thought "maybe, just maybe, two cats would be a good time" and then my husband noticed my train of thought and shut me down. But it was fun while it lasted.

the love tree

We got married almost four years ago at a local fish hatchery (sounds weird, but it's very lovely). As part of the ceremony we planted an ornamental crab apple tree. It was touch and go for a few years, but the director of the hatchery was a good friend, and he bravely fended off deer and took good care of the little guy. I think it paid off. Mike snapped a few pics when he was there for a social a few days ago, and it actually looks like a tree now! Kari and Cliff did the same thing during their ceremony, so it's becoming sort of a family tradition.

It's actually a pretty good metaphor for marriage, isn't it? Slow going, a little fragile at first, but it gets stronger and more worth it over the years.

oink

I am just uggers today. Last night my sister called me to say the wedding pictures are posted on the photographer's site. So I looked through all 800 of them and there were LOTS of beautiful, lovely, breathtaking ones ... but also lots of gross ones of myself. They have become less grotesque with each of my subsequent nine viewings, and clearly this event was not about me looking good, but it's just not super fun. For most of my twenties, especially after having Ainsley, I have managed to avoid being in many photos for the reason that I find the outcome pretty repulsive. They bring to light a lot of things I like to ignore, like the 30 pounds I have packed through a myriad of things over the last eight years--creeping toward 30, sitting at computers 45+ hours a week, succumbing to the familial "fat gene", having a baby and actually, um, eating stuff. Even when I was younger and a billion times more attractive, I still used to rip up all the nasty photos as soon as I got the roll of film back. Isn't that crazy? Clearly. But sometimes I also think we are over-documented as a society (which is kind of counter-intuitive to having a blog and facebook account, but do as I say and not as I do). There's a great part of Tina Fey's new book that talks about how women used to be either attractive or not, and if not, you learned a trade. Now you're expected to MAKE yourself more attractive. Then there are a billion pictures of you out there, NOT looking like a Kardashian, to show you just how miserably you are failing at it. And for women, all the things you are doing well in your life--your smart and healthy kid, your career, your friendships, your hobbies, your home--are completely wiped out when you look like Miss Piggy in your sister's wedding photos. Maybe that's just me, I have always been hard on myself in this department. When job and family took up the energy I used to spend running and not eating more than 5 fat grams in a day and making myself throw up Taco Bell, my body just revolted ... and EXPLODED. And I am not a dumb girl, but in all these years I haven't figured out how to eat stuff and not be a little bit fat. I just wish it didn't bother me so much, because I should be better than that. I guess we all should.

misty island

This weekend Mike was gone for work, so Ainsley and I went shopping and stopped at a really great park called Storybook Island. She refers to it as "Misty Island" from one of her Thomas the Tank Engine movies that she's watched nine million times.

We went to this place a billion times when we were kids, and it's still pretty awesome. It's also free admission--they run on donations. They have a hodge-podge of different little houses and themed playground equipment, running the gamut of fairytale stories (Peter Pumpkin's pumpkin house, the Old Woman's Shoe slide). Go figure, mostly Ainsley just wanted to play in the sandbox and go swinging, but she also loved to hug the (cement) Pooh and Piglet. She was running into them full force for hugs, actually. They also have a little train that kids can ride around the park for a buck (ok, it's probably a lawnmower pulling some little cars) but trains are generally a hit with this kid. 

And then this morning she painted her face blue. When Crayola calls their stuff non-toxic, I hope they aren't kidding, because she's surely tasted almost all of it. Maybe we can be part of a study on the long-term effects of art supply ingestion.

lost footage

I forgot I took a few pics of the weekend on Mike's iPhone! I love that thing, I have terrible phone envy right now. Anyway ...

Ainsers running away from pictures. 

On second though, I might opt for slightly less tulle next time. As Mike said
when she was throwing a fit "she's just anger and tulle". But it looked so pretty!

The gorgeous cake and cupcakes by Spearfish's own Courtney Berry.
She did our wedding cake too and it was amazing!

This was a little frightening. Kari gave the flower girls purses and sunglasses at the
rehearsal and suddenly I had a mini teenager. Eeek!

And to the newly-minted Mr. and Mrs. Creek

We couldn't be happier for you.

nuptials and other things

So the great Tschetter-Creek wedding of 2011 has come and gone, and I think we all made it out alive. It was a lovely last couple of weeks, actually, if a little bit hectic. We managed to fit a branding, a bachelorette party, a Jimmy Buffet-themed rehearsal dinner extravaganza and tons of wedding preparations into the last week and a half and it was crazy, but it ended up being a lot of fun too. I don't even know where to begin, but I'll just say everyone has a good time, and Ainsley didn't disrupt the ceremony too badly as flower girl (she did however, walk behind the preacher and  promptly fall asleep on the grass). I didn't take all that many photos, unfortunately, but I'll post what I have ...

Ainsley and Aunt Kari at the branding. When I say "branding", we didn't actually 
brand my parents' five baby calves. We did de-ball two of the them and give all of them 
shots and ear tags. And by "we" I mean everyone but me, as I was wearing flip flops 
and am also scared of baby cows. Ainsley, however, loved them, and was very 
angry she couldn't help Uncle Cliff with the wrestling-to-the-ground part of things.

Beautiful sister at her beautiful wedding. Also, lots of beer, because that's how we roll. 

Sleepy Ainsley Jane. This was right after the ceremony, Mike carried her into the room where 
the social was and she slept for a solid hour. The line for food went right by these couches, 
so this was quite a hit with the passerby. 

And we got our second wind for the dance. This is a kid who loves to boogie. 
And also eat cupcakes. In fact, this might have been the greatest night of her life.

D is for diatribe!

I had a physical a couple of weeks ago, because I think Mike and I should just get in the habit of yearly physicals now. They did a blood test for my thyroid because there's been a little thyroid weirdness in the family, and apparently at the same time tested a bunch of other things (cholesterol, etc.). So everything came back normal and healthy, except I'm pretty Vitamin D deficient - like a 17 and it should be a 28. Not really a big deal, if I want to get old and have brittle bones and cancer and heart disease and a billion other horrible things. So now I'm on a super-strength Vitamin D supplement and have to go back in about a month to get re-tested. But the bummer is there are a lot of rotten physical side effects of not getting enough Vitamin D. Fatigue, muscle aches, weight gain, difficulty to lose weight, etc., all of which have affected me to some degree, and who knows how long I've been deficient. You know when you have a baby and permanent exhaustion just comes with the territory? Well, mine never really went away. But the last two weeks I really have had energy. I am a total head case, so there's a good chance it's all mental, but who cares? It's such and easy, easy fix.

And now it's time for the public service announcement! I've learned a lot on the interwebs about vitamin D deficiency in the last few weeks, and scientists/nutritionists are just barely scratching the surface of how important this vitamin is. Your body makes vitamin D through unprotected sun exposure and diet (milk, egg yolks, junk fish, green leafy veggies, things that are sun-dried). However, it is very difficult to get enough through just your diet, and Midwestern weather makes it difficult to get enough sun from, oh, November to May (15 minutes, twice a day, three times a week). So most of us in the corn belt or oil belt or wheat belt or whatever it is, should probably default to taking a supplement. Oprah even says so. And many, many people are vitamin D deficient, like epidemic proportions. So I guess my point is, take ya vitamins, and get that sh*t checked if you have a chance.

uggers

Blech, today was just one of those days. I couldn't get rolling with anything. Like I woke up and drank a whole pot of coffee and watched garbage Real Housewives for like two hours until Ainsley woke up. Then she was a whack job and we had to do three CONSECUTIVE time outs. Then I tried on my bridemaid dress for the upteenth time and decided it still looks a gross, so I made my little sister take me with her to the bridal shop for her dress fitting so I could see if they had anything else I could buy off the rack (I knew it was a long shot, but I had to channel all that negative energy somewhere). So after that we went to lunch, and it was kind of the bright spot in the day. Then back home where I tried on my dress for her, and she kindly insisted I don't actually look like a refrigerator, or The Refrigerator (see photo), which is still what I feel like I look like, but what do you do. Anyway, after that it was the two-hour nap battle, and finally I laid down with Ainsley to get her to fall asleep (in full workout gear, because I had every intention of getting on the treadmill while she was napping) and we both fell asleep until 5:00, at which time I was woken up by my dear husband calling to let me know his teeth cleaning at the dentist was like $180 bucks. So, blechchch.

I know these aren't real problems. But sometimes it's just one of those days. And I find that now that I'm staying home more, it's all on me if I'm not productive. When I worked full time, I was generally productive most days. I wouldn't trade this for that, by any means, and I can't even believe that I'm even remotely complaining about this, but sometimes it's hard to feel like you put in a full day when you're doing it for yourself. And with a two year old, which pretty much makes a full productive day of anything totally impossible. And I'm probably a harder critic on myself than any of my co-workers or bosses ever were, so I struggle a little bit with feeling like I got anything done at all even if I clean and do house projects and go to the park and whatnot all day. I suppose it's just going to take awhile to relax about it all. When you're used to going at a certain pace for many years, and constantly struggling to carve out time for everything, then much more time can be pretty overwhelming. But like I said, I wouldn't trade it. So anyway, there is my piece for the evening. Time for bed. Good night.

Wedding Fevah

So my little sister Kari is getting married in T-minus 12 days, so we are all abuzz with wedding fever. Ainsley and I went shopping yesterday to get a few things (bachelorette party favors, her flower girl shoes, my double spanx) and craft supplies for the two projects that were delegated to me by my dear, overextended mother. The first project was re-decorating the "love shovel", which Mike and I used to "plant" a tree during our wedding ceremony. (Really, we did, on the grounds of the fish hatchery where we were married. It is there to this day, growing nicely, and actually gets a few blossoms each year now.) Anyway, Kari and Cliff are doing the same at the lodge where their wedding is, so we have passed on the love shovel to them. For the second project I had to make tags for the snack baskets that are going in each of the wedding guest hotel rooms. They were pretty easy actually, I just used one of those big round scrapbooking paper punchers to cut circles out of some pretty paper in different patterns (all green, which is one of the wedding colors). I designed some tags in MS word and printed them on metallic paper and punched those out. Then I glued the tag circle and the paper circle back to back with a piece of ribbon in between. I'm thinking this would be a good technique for gift tags in the future, so I'm glad I sprang for the paper puncher. I have a heart-shaped one we used for our wedding favors, but that's not super useful.

Spring Plant

Things I planted yesterday:
Geraniums
Snapdragons
Basil
Parsley
Cilantro
Grass
Petunias
Hydrangeas

Things Ainsley tried eating yesterday:
Sidewalk chalk
Markers
Rocks (4)

All in all a success - got 10 pots and the rock bed done, and nobody choked!