A night without J

While J is off jettisoning across North Carolina attending Hop Classes, networking with breweries and home-brewers, and generally playing with our new farm friends, I'm at home. This doesn't bother me at all, but I will admit that I'm a little jealous. I have to work behind a desk in a suit while he gets to work in the world in jeans. Hopefully, I'll be able to join him at some point this decade.

For the past few months, he's been traveling during the day and I've been able to be involved during the evenings and weekends... but a conference officially pulled him away for an overnight trip last night. At first, I was a little grumpy(I wanna go!), but then that turned into excitement... what in the world can I do with the house all to myself for a night?! Let me tell you: absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

I got home from work, took care of the dogs, had dinner, watched LOST (my small obsession), took the dogs out again, and went to bed. That's it.

When I woke up this morning, I was a little disoriented... where the heck is my husband!?!? Hayden rolled over (she somehow managed to jump onto the bed in the middle of the night without waking me), laid her paws on my back, and seemed to tell me to just go back to sleep...

So, I had a successful night of doing absolutely nothing different. He's going away again this weekend (on a boy's trip this time), so I have another opportunity to do whatever I want. I can almost guarantee it'll be nothing but cleaning, stitching, and playing in my garden. We'll see though...


In other news - we have a website! Of course, all it does is redirect to our facebook page right now - but we're getting there. We found a great graphic designer that is giving us some crazy-good material, so hopefully the actual site will go up soon.
www.cbhopfarm.com

Since I don't have any new pics for y'all, here's a snow covered yard gnome from our last snow.
Ciao!

Happy April!

I can't believe it is April already. And so gorgeous too! I think we're at 82 degrees right now, and I hate that I'm inside the office all day... C'est la vie! At least I have tomorrow off. :)

But let's do a quick recap of March, shall we? In the past 31 days, we've had crazy rains, snows, and warm days. I can't even handle it. Not only that, we've got some great work done on the farm! Sadly, most of it was business related, so I don't have any awesome pictures to show you. BUT! We have poles and rhizomes and winches and etc all ordered and ready to go. Now, we just have to wait for delivery and then BAM! Stuff to show you!
J and I have also been busy with networking, networking, and more networking. Here's to hoping we can sell our entire first year's harvest! We made some great connections with local breweries and homebrewers, and even a few clubs in town. Cross your fingers, but I think we might be in good shape.
Also in March: Penny celebrated her first birthday! yeah, it wasn't that exciting. But still... we're looking forward to her 2nd birthday - when she's expected to stop acting like a shark. Seriously though - that dog NEVER stops moving. Unless she's sleeping, of course.

Quick Penny story:
Most nights, J will put me to bed, and I'll spend some time snuggling with Hayden. For whatever reason, I decided that I would also like to have some snuggle time with Penny. We had the windows open, so a nice breeze was coming in - it really was an ideal way to spend some time. About 2 seconds after J closed the bedroom door and headed downstairs, Penny started growling. Straight up growling. I couldn't see what she was looking at, but homegirl wasn't happy. A few barks later, she jumped up and started pacing the bedroom. Focusing on the door. Mmmmmkay - weird. I hopped up and open the door for her, expecting her to see that no one is there and be satisfied - but she jetted downstairs and started growling at the front door. I wasn't really sure what to make of it, so I decided to put her in her kennel. She went up, no problem, but growled for another few minutes.
Feeling satisfied with her being up, I headed back upstairs JUST in time to hear my phone ring. My neighbor's boyfriend was locked out...
Somehow, Penny knew something was off - and she was protecting us. I gave her an extra dog-treat for that...
/Penny Story.

Well, I hope everyone has a great Easter Weekend! I think we have a fun weekend planned with a bunch of activities - I'll try to remember to take pictures. In the meantime, here's how the farm looked yesterday... Look at all that clover!

PICTURES! Finally... (long post, sorry)

Here's a photo story type update:

First: Dogs in the snow.

Hayden



Penny running around

They loved it.

Okay, now for a few pics from the Farm


Before clearing the land


Very Tall Grasses


Items Removed...


After clearing the land - no more grasses


But we did plant a cover crop!


It WILL look like this, just not yet :)


The dogs are happy with the room to run...

The end!
More soon :)

March Madness? Spring Awakening? Another overly-used phrase that has nothing to do with this post in place of a title?

Well hello!

March seems to have brought a cleaning bug into my home. J and I have both been going through old boxes, throwing crap out that we don't need/want/use/etc. We're both looking forward to moving, but not looking forward to actually MOVING stuff that we don't have any use or desire for. I think that has us in a bit of a "let's just take care of it now" mode. I've also been working on other housekeeping type things: mailing back our census, taking care of taxes, cleaning out the fridge, etc. I love it. I absolutely love that we're getting everything in order and minimizing the crap we have just laying around.

We're also looking at other ways to save money. We went from grocery shopping at the local, expensive chain store to Walmart (yes, I know. But dude! 25% savings! When we're pinching pennies to pay bills, we do what we need to). We finally got sick and grossed out by our Walmart shopping, and I've switched us to the Farmer's Market. Yes, we pay more for meat - but we're eating organic and locally raised meat now. We're also saving on our veggies, and only buying what we need. For other products, we've taken to the Trader Joe's. I hate the crowds there, but it fills our boxed-goods needs. Now if only we can find a place to buy our dogfood on the cheap...

So, we're cleaning house, the budget, and eating better foods. All this without a New Year's Resolution looming over our heads. I like this.

That's all. Nothing new or revolutionary beyond that - I just wanted to let you all know that there's a happy bug growing :)

Phew - An AMAZING weekend

Good news everyone! I have good news!

This weekend was, beyond a doubt, amazing. And you all should know.

Friday night: not so awesome. J and I were wiped out in a MAJOR way from our weeks, and decided that changes needed to be made. In the short-term, however, we needed to eat. A short trip to the local Moosehead bar turned our spirits around completely: Hopslam was available and good food was to be had. +1

Saturday: after sleeping in as long as we possibly could, we set off in pursuit of our day. Errands, naps, and general merriment with our pups during the afternoon lead into a hilarious dinner at Boudreaux's that included Category 2, 4, and 5 hurricanes and a veggie burger that was as big as my face. I have the picture to prove it. I do need to confess something to you: I'm not sure how we weren't kicked out of there.... There was too much laughter and happiness going on there. We moved the party across the street for Mike Garrigan & Mark Kano playing at the Muse. If you were at our wedding: they were the entertainment. We love them, they love us, good times. Our evening wrapped up with some Chappelle Show. +8

Et par-dessus le marché, Sunday was perfect. Coffee and giggles in the AM, cleaning and doggie time in the afternoon, Super Bowl in the evening. There was, for the first time ever, just enough food. Usually there's too much or not enough - but last night was perfect. The game was fun and a great showing of two teams that deserved to be there. +5

So - I'm happy to report some happiness in our neck of the woods. Expect more to come with the impending Spring and planting season!

I have done it... I really have...

I have become that girl that I never could understand.
I have, legitimately, forgotten to eat.

Now, I do realize that it is around 2pm, so I can still eat "lunch"... but go with me on this:

Noon: Hey, look, Noon! I should eat. Yay Eating! Lemme just finish this one thing...
1: Woah, where did that hour go. I should go make my soup.
1:30: Glad that report is finished! Okay, going to the microwave.
1:31: What? That's a cool new feature of my product! I should look into this!
1:45: Mmm, my tummy hurts, I wonder wh-- DOH!
1:47: Timer goes off on the microwave, my lunch is ready! But, I don't hear it - drafting an email about said cool new feature.
2:04: Finally pull my soup out of the microwave and eat lunch, while telling you all about it.

Now, why on earth is it important for me to relay this information to you?
Because I don't forget to eat. I don't get so distracted that I'm not thinking about food. I just don't. And when people say: "ahh, I forgot to eat breakfast/lunch/dinner today," I DON'T understand! I mean, I sometimes just don't have a chance to eat, or don't have food nearby - but I think this is the first time that I have actually been mind-blocked enough to Forget that I was thinking about food.

I'm changing. I don't even know me anymore.

What is this?

Two posts within 5 days?!?!?! What the deuce?

I can't handle all the excitement that's been happening recently - so I decided to write about it.

First: my grandma is taking a slow and graceful bow out of this world right now. I don't know if it'll be tomorrow, or next week, or 7 months from now... but they've official begun to "make her comfortable." While it is a relief (she's been sick for 9+ months now), it is still sad.
Then, J started having issues with his back recently. They're work related, so we'll see what happens with that.

Here's some good news:
Before all the sad happened, I was able to get some major work on my office done. I know, I know - you don't believe me. But Daddy came over and helped me hang shelves - so the "office" portion of the room is done! Seriously! Everything's on the shelves and organized! I'm pleased. We also hung the shelves for the "craft" portion of the room. I'll tackle that when I dern well please.

More good news: The Jets and Vikings did not advance to the SuperBowl, but the Saints did. Why am I happy about the Saints? To start, they represent the NFC South and are not the Falcons (I have a horrible dislike for ATL). Second, they haven't been to the Big Dance before. They've been around since 1967... so this is severely overdue. Third, Drew Brees is the Bacchus Parade King this year. I think it is quite fitting that he also bring the team to the SB. And Last, but not Least: Cajun Food. Why would this be included? I tend to cook meals based on the teams playing. For example, if the Panthers are playing the Buffalo Bills: I make Wings. Once the Colts won the AFC title, I was begging for the Saints to win. There really isn't a food highly associated with Indi, and I didn't want to make Brats for the Vikings. Thus, thank goodness the Saints won because now I know what to cook.

And the final piece of good news!
I have received my Peaceful Valley seed catalog and I'm gearing up for the planting season. I just wish I had more land... We'll see how this year goes!

See, I'm trying to be happy and optimistic! :D