Today was a really interesting day, so if you can hang in there through the whole post, you will be a real trooper! :)
Woke up this morning knowing it would be a crazy day! Why, you ask? Today is the day that my husband, Tim, goes on terminal/transitional leave! He is using up the paid leave that he has saved up before officially getting out of the Army a month from now after almost ten years of service. Crazy, right? (Paid leave being a relative term, considering what is going on with the governmental agencies acting like a bunch of kids with dirty diapers!)
We've been looking forward to this for the last 3 years that we've been planning this transition to civilian life and it was just so cool to see the day finally come! We got out of debt (car loans and such), saved up a chunk of change, had a baby, got me preggers with another, and got both he and I back in school.
What a way to sum up three years of marriage!
It felt like we waited all day for Tim to get home, so I tried to keep my hands busy!
I picked up sticks out of the yard (thanks, storm!), cleaned the chicken coop, lamented over the huge tree down in our yard and how being 19 weeks pregnant, I'm not in any shape to bust out our chain saw...
Oh, did a ton of diaper laundry, got Jackson down for a nap in his twin bed (Yay for my big boy!), and got in the kitchen!
This was our lunch, along with some homemade corn muffins that my son absolutely adores! Zucchini, squash, red potatoes, and carrots. All thickly sliced, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with sea salt. The flavor was incredible, totally filling, and the chickens were thrilled to get the ends of the veggies as a treat! (Maybe now they will feel inclined to give us some eggs?)
Here are some banana chips dehydrating! I had to lay the smack down on my dad and son today. They were both in the kitchen getting into the dehydrator all afternoon. These guys just slay me- I can't make chips that actually get to be chips, because they get eaten too quickly. Banana fiends need to back off of my snacks ;) But yes, these were salvaged- 3 of my 4 trays made it into crispy, crunchy, delicious chips! I'll take the 75% odds!
Gotta love his "no poo" hair and cloth diaper!!
Jackson on his $5 consignment sale bike! He's a little guy, so it cracks me up that a bike that teeny has training wheels that are removable. I would love to see a person that small riding a Fisher Price two-wheeler without training wheels!
On top of my cooking, cleaning, and thumb twiddling- I sliced up a TON of fruit and froze it combinations that would be yummy for smoothies, which have become our go-to breakfasts around here.
I finally got tired of being productive and sat myself in a lawn chair to read the end of a book and start another while Jackson napped.
The book I just finished is:
“Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream . “ by William Powers
A great book written by a guy local to me. It highlights his experiences living in a 12 foot by 12 foot cabin in rural North Carolina. Very cool read!
I'm actually planning to give away a copy of this particular book (gotta support our local authors!) next week!
This is the book I just started reading:
"Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology," by Eric Brende
So far, it seems to be a book about an Ivy League educated couple that decide to see what life would be like without the distraction of electricity and their quest to return to simplicity. I have a feeling that this one is going to be good!
