Whoo hoooo!!!

I just did 2 BOY push ups! I've wanted to be able to do real push ups since I was a kid and have never been able to! After 3 weeks of The New Rules of Lifting for Women, I can do TWO!!!!!!!! My goal at the end of this 6 month program is to be able to do at least one pull up...........and after this I KNOW I CAN DO IT!

I am woman.............can you hear me roaring??!!!!!

My Treasures!

So today The Man and I had to go do some Christmas shopping for his family. We are getting together with them on New Year's Day. After we got that bit of fun outta the way we went to my most favoritest place in the whole wide world.........THE ANTIQUE STORE!! Oh such a wonderful, happy, lovely place for a homesteader gal like me. It's my candy store doncha know! Today we went to a new place that we'd never visited before and what a faboo place it was! See I have to tell you a secret............I HATE collectors. I'm so terribly sorry if you ARE a COLLECTOR, but I really don't like you. You are the bane of a homesteaders existence. See the rich people who like to decorate their homes in the "primitive" style have driven the prices of those oh so useful tools up to ridiculously ridiculous heights, thereby making it very hard for little ole gals like me to buy the items that I want to USE. I don't want to hang them on my wall or set them on an old table that will never be covered in flour and homemade noodles, or use them to hold fake berries and twigs. Now don't get me wrong, I've got alot of antiques in my home, but I use every single one of them. Some of them I even have hanging on my kitchen wall, but I take them down and use them all the time, then wash them and hang em back up. So forgive me for this frightening turn down the lane of why I don't like collectors, and lets get back to the point of my post shall we? Ok then.....



This antique store was simply lovely. It was nicely laid out and the prices, oh how I could go on and on about the prices. There was a sign on the door that said, Our Prices are Firm, but They are Fair, and boy howdy were they right! Here are my treasures.....



The brown bowl was $3.25 and it holds about 2 cups or so. I washed it as soon as I got home and had a salad in it for supper. Pretty bowls make food so much more fun to eat, don't you think?



The larger of the two cast iron skillets was $8.95 and it was a real steal! I don't know what cast iron pans go for in your neck of the woods, but they are stupidly high around here. If you know anything about cast iron, a Griswold pan is the best of the best. The smaller one is a Griswold and it was $12.95. Now I could care less about the brand name, but there is a very important reason that a Griswold is the best. They are made different and the way that they are made makes the inside silky smooth. That's what makes a good cast iron pan. If you've ever tried to cook with cast iron and haven't had any luck, get a Griswold, season it well, and you will never ever want to use another type of pan. You can find nice smooth ones that aren't Griswolds, and that's what the larger one I found today was, but they are harder to find. If you look at a Lodge pan, they are ridged inside.....that's why food sticks. You just can't get them seasoned like you can a good silky smooth one. Ok.....I've veered off the blog road again.......sorry!


I was very excited to find that silly ladle. It made me want to rush right home and make a big ole pot of stew and serve it up on some grannyware plates!! It was $4.00 which was probably a little high, but I wanted it........good economics right?


Finally I got that lovely covered glass refrigerator dish. I don't like plastic bowls and the glass food storage bowls that you buy today are very fragile. This is a good dish that will last me a very long time. It was $4.00 as well.


The very bestest part about the things I bought today?? Every single one was made with pride in the good old U S of A.........of course they were made about 50+ years ago, but who's counting?


Till next time.........GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!

New Rules of Lifting for Women....

I have to tell you how much I'm lovin' this book! Wow! I'm on my 3rd week of workouts and I can't believe how much my strength has increased in those three weeks! I work out three days a week and just follow the program and it's amazing. In the beginning I must tell you I was a little concerned that I wasn't doing enough, but my strength is growing by leaps and bounds. I took beginning pictures, but am not anywhere near confident enough to show pics of me in a bikini! But....I can promise you that in June.........there will be a bikini pic on this blog!!

Merry Christmas from the Goodwife!

As some of you may know, my other blog is about life on our little homestead here. We call our place Goodwife Farm. I just wanted to take this second to wish you all a very Merry Christmas full of the blessings of God's love!

Today is The Youngun's last day of school, so I'm headed out there for the Christmas party. Then we are back home to bake sugar cookies for Santy!

May you get everything you want in your stocking, and not too much junk food in your bellies!

Till next time..........I'm unTHICKINandsoTHINNIN!

Getting set for CHRISTmas and the 11th Birthday of The Paintiff Child!

Things are good around the ole homestead. The tree is up, shopping is all done, packages are ready and waiting! The Youngun had the good fortune to be born on Christmas Eve so we always have alot of fun around here. Every December 24th my folks come down and the three of us take her to a movie matinee and then dinner at Ponderosa. This year we are going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel. The Man seldom gets to join us on this little journey because he has to work. The next time that he will be able to go is for her 13th birthday! Anyway, after the movie and dinner we will come home and wait for him to get off work. The Youngun, Granny Bob, and I will play games while Pop Pop usually plays on the computer or snoozes! When The Man gets home we will have supper. This year The Youngun asked for hamburger roast, brown gravy, and peas with cream cheese brownies instead of birthday cake. Then she will open her birthday presents and we'll play more games till bedtime. Gotta hit the hay early so the fat man in the red suit can come!!

When our daughter was born, the very first night that we brought her home I was laying in bed saying my prayers as usual. I remember thanking God for blessing us with a beautiful healthy child. I told God that I was giving her back to Him that very minute. She wasn't ours, she was His, but we would do our very best to raise her up to be someone that would bring Glory to His Name. She has been a treasure every single day of her life! She knows Jesus and God and strives to follow Him in every way. I still pray for my baby girl every day, praying that she will never forsake Him, and will look to Him for guidance and leadership her whole life long. I also pray for her future husband (if it's God's will that she marry) that God will be with him, wherever he may be. I pray that she will have the good sense to wait for the man that God chooses for her, and that the young man will be a child of God. Life is alot more bearable when a husband and wife both walk hand in hand with the Savior. I'm very thankful that my husband and I both do, and I know the reason our marriage is so rock solid and strong, is because we have God at the head of our household. The Man is on one side of Him, holding on, and I'm on the other and it's a good good thing!

On a different note, we butchered nine rabbits on Sunday. My folks took 5 home and we kept 4. We boned most of our meat out, and then packaged up the bones to boil down for BBQ. I got 5 lbs of boneless meat out of 4 rabbits, so I was happy with that. Not sure how much meat boiled down off the bones, but I already pressure cooked 2 of them and got enough BBQ rabbit for supper Sunday evening, The Youngun had it for supper again last night, AND she took it to school for lunch today! That girl loves her BBQ bunny!! There is still enough in the bowl for at least a couple sandwiches as well.

Well I hope that your Christmas preparations are going well. May you keep the love of Christ in your hearts and on your minds not only during this time of year, but in every season, every month, every second of every day!

Till next time..........GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!

P!ssed Off and Mad About It.........

I'm mad today. Very very mad today. Actually have been since yesterday. As some of you may know the evil TOM affects me in different ways. The last two months he really didn't bother me at all. That always sends up alarm bells in my head, cause I know that sooner or later it will be awful. Well sooner or later is here. I am so furious that I feel as if I'm full of bouncing balls and they are pinging around inside my skin trying to get out. Notice that I didn't say that I was angry. Anger is a nice quiet civilized emotion. No, what I am is mad, p!$$ed off. I want to hurt somebody. I want to punch with my fists, kick with my feet, and lash out with the sharp sword of my tongue. I can be so very very mean when I feel like this. I'm a very direct person (I know, news to you right) but my directness is usually filtered by my genuine compassion and empathy for people. Not so when I feel this way. I've ripped that compassion filter to shreds and am standing here snarling, just daring anybody to mess with me. The mental picture that I have of myself is of a Tigress, pacing, pacing, pacing, growling, growling, growling.

There is a silver lining to this disturbed little narrative though. Two silver linings actually. Ok, if you prefer, a platinum lining (this one I've know for as long as I can remember) and a silver lining that's quite new and very nice. The platinum lining is this..........God loves me even when I'm a psychotic b!t'ch. He knows me, and He loves me, and I can call on His strength and His love to calm me down. I try to visualize the white light of His love and I picture myself inhaling it every time I breathe in, and exhaling the blackness that is my rage. This actually helps me. The silver lining is this: even though I'd like to take the person who decided there needed to be a stoplight just before and just after the railroad tracks in Carlinville and bash their head against the sidewalk until their brains splatter out, I don't want to eat! Whoo hoo! I'm p!$$ed off and mad about it, but I have no desire to stuff that emotion with food and that's a victory in itself.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go whip somebody's @$$, punch an old lady in the face, steal a quarter from a kindergartener, and possibly kick a puppy. C-ya!

Till next time.......I'm seriouslyunbalancedandunTHICKINandcheckinintotheboobyhatchTHINNIN!

ps.....blogging is fabulous and I already feel calmer and more centered, so please put down the phone. You don't have to call the guys in the white suits!

My Support System........

No I'm not talking about a good bra, even though that is terribly important! I'm talking about the people who encourage me, inspire me, lift me up, commiserate with me. The ones who just "get it" and the ones who even if they don't "get it" they are still there for me. I've got a good support system. My Lord and Savior, my hubs, my beautiful daughter, my friend Darling Deb, all of my WW's family, and my sister. This is about my sister.

We had Christmas with my folks, my sister and her family, and the three of us this past Sunday. It was very nice. We had a big ole pot of ham and beans, cornbread, and pumpkin pie. Then we opened gifts and after that my sister, my mom, and I played Scrabble and laughed and joked and teased each other and it was so fabulous!

We usually focus most of the gift giving on the two girls, my daughter and my niece, but we do get a little something for the adults. This year my folks got me a new scale! It is a much bigger gift than they normally give us and I was thankful and excited. Mom had asked me what I wanted and I told her I'd like to have that, but it was expensive (30 bucks), but she got it for me and I was very excited for today to get here so I could use it. It measures body fat, bone density, BMI, hydration levels, and of course your weight. This morning I weighed on my old scale first, then on the new one so I could see the difference. The new one weighed me two tenths of a pound lighter, so that's good that it's so close. I took the weight off of the old one this time but next week, I'll just weigh on the new scale and go from there.

I was very surprised when I opened the gift from my sister. I got a little emotional as I read the poem that she wrote just for me. I have this sitting right at my computer so that I can look at it several times a day, and as soon as I get it framed it will hang right next to my computer. My sister is so supportive of me. We are there for each other, and even though we are very very different, none of that matters. I love my sister. I've got her back and she's got mine and we are tackling our demons together, every single day. Some days she's the strong one and I call her for help, and other days I'm the strong one. Some days we are both a free-cockin' mess and on those days we just try to hold each other up! One thing will never ever change.......I love my big sister and she loves me!! This is what the poem says, in case you can't read it.

My Sister

If will power was a yellow orb

You would own the sun

If determination shined bright

You would own the stars

If perseverance was water

You would own the ocean

If triumph was the color blue

You would own the sky

If happiness was the night

You would own the moon

Do you see your wealth?

You own the world

I am so proud of you

Love, Susie

ps.....please don't steal this as my sister wrote this poem just for me! Thanks

Till next time..........I'm unTHICKINandsoTHINNIN!

An NSV....post one of probably alot of blog posts this morning!

So it's a balmy 16 degrees here in Illinois. What a fabulous day to run outside! LOL! Got my long john's on, my workout pants on over those, my thermal shirt, sweat shirt, stocking hat, and my gloves and I'm ready to boogie! Did my warmup walk, started running for all I was worth.....Uh oh....something's wrong....I'm feeling a draft....on my bum....GOOD GRIEF, I'M SO FAST I'M RUNNING OUT OF MY DRAWERS!! Yup, I had to slow my speed literally every TEN SECONDS to pull up my pants, or they would've been around my ankles! Such a lovely NSV, and a reminder that when you are on WW's you've got to buy pants that TIE!

Till next time.....I'm very much unTHICKINandsototallyTHINNIN!!

Our New Project........

As I stated in my last post we have a new project in the works. I am SO excited about this!!

This is my kitchen

As you can see............it's TINY!!! I hate my kitchen.

There I said it. I like where we live and I like the layout of our land. I mean someday I'd like to be way back in the hills miles away from civilization but until The Man doesn't have to go to work every day, we are very happy right where we are. I love my beautiful barn for my girls, I've got a cozy barn for Luke (my Kinder buck) and a wonderful chicken house. The Man has the garage and his shop. We have beautiful shade and a lovely barnyard and my fruit trees will bear fruit soon. My garden spot is just about perfect, with wonderful drainage, the right amount of sun and fertile black soil! But............I can't stand my kitchen. For a homestead wife there just isn't room to do anything. I constantly have stuff stacked on the floor and canning is a chore because I don't have enough counter space. The Man and I have been wracking our brains to figure out a way to get me a bigger kitchen. We've gone from bulldozing the entire house down (not exactly feasible) to knocking walls out (again, not very cost effective!) to building me a new kitchen where our backporch is now. None of these are going to happen any time soon due to the cost! We were laying in bed last Saturday morning talking about things as we usually do on Saturday mornings. It's really my favorite thing about Saturday's! Anyway, I said something about too bad we couldn't move the icebox and just add a counter in there. The Man said he had been wondering the same thing.

We got up and measured and figured out that moving the fridge would give me THREE more feet of counter!! Not to mention three more feet of cabinets top and bottom. We can move the icebox onto the other wall. It might stick out a bit and look sort of funny until we get used to it, but I've got no problem with that at all if it gains me THREE FEET! of counter space! Sorry for the caps, but I'm so excited about this! We went to Lowe's and looked at the instock cabinets. We were getting prices to know what the cost of all this would be. The base cabinet was going to cost $218. I wrote it down on my little book and we went to look at the instock countertop. I saw a base cabinet sitting at the end of the row. I looked at it and it said it was damaged and the price was reduced to 100$ Whoo hoo! The only damage to it was a hole in the back. Who the heck is going to see a hole in the BACK of a base cabinet?? We bought it right then and had to go home to get the truck to bring it home. That evening after picking the cabinet up we were in bed when the phone rang. It was the guy from Lowes asking us if we picked up the cabinet. I said that yes we did and he proceeded to tell me that they gave us a brand new cabinet instead of the damaged one. We hadn't even looked at it. We just rolled the cart out to the truck and loaded it up! We told him we'd be happy to bring it back and get the damaged one, but he insisted that we not do that, he just wanted to be sure that we got our cabinet so that he could sell the damaged one! So we got a brand new cabinet for over 100 dollars off the price. I feel a little guilty about it, but the gentleman insisted we not bring it back, so I suppose it's a big of good fortune for us. I ordered the faucet at a great price from Overstock.com and now all we have left to get is the top cabinet, the sink, and the countertop. We should be able to do that shortly after Christmas and then I'll have a nice new kitchen.

So in the photos above where the fridge is will be a 36" base cabinet and a 36" top cabinet. I'm getting new counter tops (standard laminate from Lowes) and a new kitchen sink and faucet. That's the other thing. My current kitchen sink is less than 7" deep! Washing canner pans is so very hard! My new sink will be 9.5" deep and this is my new faucet.

It is very tall so between this new faucet and the new deep sink, washing canner pans will be a breeze!!

I'll post updates and photos as we go alone with our project. I just wanted to share my excitement with you all!

Till next time..................GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!

God and His Infinite Wisdom

God is so good! In my overzealous desire to have milk again, I allowed Luke to breed Naomi back in July as soon as she came into heat the first time. That would have given me kids next week and only left me without milk for 2 months. Well Naomi came back into heat in October, letting me know that she wasn't bred after all and I was upset about it. No milk until March!! Ugh! My dear friend Rhonda has been cautioning me every since she got me started with these wonderful Kinder goats, that December and January kids aren't a good idea because it isn't the most hospitable weather for babies to be born. I do have a really nice barn with a heated kid box which makes things nicer, but that only works if you are out there when the little darlings arrive. Well, the temperature this morning is right around 10 degrees! That is c-c-c-cold for a tiny little wet goat to make it's appearance, so once again, even though it annoyed me at the time, God know's what He's doing! Thanks Big Guy!

Now some more about this wonderful woman that I call Rhonda! I first met Rhonda because I was looking to buy some Kinder goats. I was thrilled to discover that somebody bred Kinder's just a few miles north of me. I put in a call, she agreed to part with Tulip and would even breed her for me! Whoo hoo! Our friendship was born. Rhonda is an amazing woman and a fabulous mentor for me. Her latest project is an amazing online course for herb growers titled Herbs in the Garden Please check it out! I have been fortunate enough to be one of her testers and it really is chock full of wonderful information on growing and using herbs, from crafts, to cooking, to medicines! If you want to learn how to really utilize those pretty plants you've got growing around the place then this course is for you!

Things are good here around the homestead. I had a scare with Luke that I was embarrassed to share with you all. He had gotten so thin over the past couple months and so I came in to email Rhonda about him. She thought that perhaps he was wormy so I dewormed him with some herbal wormer. He wasn't gaining any weight and then developed severe diarrhea so I took a sample to the vet. He was FULL of worms and he has coccidiosis! Ugh! So, off to Rural King I went to buy some Ivomec. The vet gave me some sulfa for the coccidiosis and I dewormed him. Now I'll deworm him again in 10 days (Thanks Rhonda!) and keep him on the meds for the required amount of time. He already feels better and is stronger. I dropped the ball on this one. Should've chemically dewormed him right off the bat and then used the herbal to keep him worm free. I don't have worm issues with my girls, I think because they are in a much much bigger area. Lukie lives in a smaller barn during the day, and then gets turned out at night. The girls are out all day, and then get locked in the big barn at night. Anyway, he's on the mend and I'm very thankful.

I spent most of the day yesterday organizing and wrapping Christmas gifts. I'm expecting a few more things in the mail today and then I'm all set and ready to go! I hope you are enjoying getting ready as well!

I also have some exciting news to share, but not yet. I'm so happy about it and can't wait to get started, but it will be a couple months before we can get things underway. I'll blog about it soon!

Till next time..........GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!

Survivor Guilt??

My demon and I have been together for a long while now. Sometimes he's at the helm, sometimes I'm at the helm, and sometimes we are both standing on the deck, battling each other with cutlass at dawn, desperate to retain control! The longest that I've ever been commandant of the ship is about a year. Then he totally mutinies and keelhauls me and it takes me forever to get my poor bloodied body pulled back out of the water and ON the ship, let alone ready to take control. This time is different though. This time, with the nutritional education that Weight Watchers is giving me, and the support of my online WW's buddies and my real life support system (Thanks Sissy and Darling Deb!) and the wonderful therapy that is blogging, I've got that dirty SOB hog tied with duct tape over his mouth and he's currently rotting in the brig!! I'm not about to say that the sneaky little POS won't wiggle his way out, rip off the duct tape and with a mighty roar of WHAT'D YOU SAY FATTIE, leap out of the hold to wrestle me for the helm once more, but I am confident in saying that I'm fitter, faster, and yeah pretty much downright meaner this time and I think I can take him!!



Now having said all that something has been tickling me lately and I think it's his latest way of f*ck!ng up my program so to speak. All day yesterday I browsed the WW's community. I got caught up on my friend's blogs, read some posts on the groups, and read some status updates. I got sadder and sadder and sadder. I couldn't figure out why. I was having a good day, organizing and wrapping Christmas presents, drinking my hot tea, working on my quilt, but my mind just got "not right". I chewed and stewed and thought about this all last night. I talked to hubs about it and finally I decided that I have to blog about it, for good or ill, or I'm not going to feel better. The bright part in this whole saga is that I didn't ONCE want to eat over it. Never occurred to me, but boy did I want to figure it out so I could feel better! Here is my latest disclaimer.........this may offend some. I hope not as it isn't about you, it's about me and working through this feeling that I have. It may be a way off base feeling, completely foundless, but it's a feeling nonetheless and I've got to deal with it. Perhaps I'm even a conceited hag and it's totally groundless, but nevertheless I've gotta get it out! Whew, now that that's out of the way.....on to the problem!!



I think I have "survivor guilt" so to speak. This program is working just fabulously for me. I'm getting fit, strong and healthy. I'm consistently losing weight, although I do have a small gain once in awhile, I just ignore it and keep doing what I'm doing because I know that I'm doing the right stuff. Small gains happen and it's not a big deal to me. I lift weights, I jog (thanks C25K) and I'm in the best shape that I've even been in my life even with 40 lbs to go! As I said, I was reading some blogs yesterday and some status updates about how some of my friends are struggling right now. My heart goes out to you/them! I feel guilty because I'm not struggling. As some of you know, on Thanksgiving I ate to my heart's content because the food tasted good not for any other reason, and the next day I was out jogging at 7 AM and right back on track. This is the first time that I've even been able to do something like that. In my prior weight loss efforts (before WW's and blogging), if I so much as ate a candybar, it was all over! It took me weeks to get that b@$tard demon locked back up and myself back in control. I don't really know why this time is different, other than I'm focusing on getting fit and healthy instead of on what the scale says, and I have my support system. I don't know if that's it or if I'm just really ready.


I feel the need to defend myself and the fact that I'm not struggling. I don't like that feeling, and it isn't rational, but it's there all right! I'm a SAHM, as most of you know. That makes it easier for me, as I can prepare good wholesome food for myself and alot of times I prepare myself a whole separate supper! I know that would be difficult if not impossible if I were working. So now, I'm putting myself down for doing what I love which is being a SAHM and Homesteader!! Good grief, sometimes I'm so nutty that you could whip me and spread me on a piece of bread....whole grain of course!

I feel the need to constantly remind people that losing weight has never been hard for me (which is very true). It's the keeping it off that I struggle with. So even though I'm losing at a nice pace, I feel terrible because MY struggle is in keeping the weight off. That is most likely when I am going to fall apart. Perhaps not this time, perhaps I'll remember to keep an armed guard in front of the door to the brig with orders of, if the pr!ck moves, shoot to kill! I can just see myself, dressed up like the rebel leader girl in the movie The Rundown......with the bullets bandoliered over my ample chest and my machine gun at the ready...but wait, I digress. I just needed to get all this off my chest, outta my heart, and in the water. I know that I don't check in as often as I used to, and I don't post on AG anymore, but I care about you all so much. You are all in my prayers, every day, and my thoughts more often than not. We are in this together and like any survivors the strong can carry the weak, and when the strong fall, hopefully the weak will have recovered enough to carry them for awhile.

God Bless, stay strong and focused!

Till next time........I'm unTHICKINandsoTHINNIN!

Week 21!

Today is my 21st week with Weight Watchers! I got on the scale this morning, feeling like I had lost. I can usually tell in my body if I'm going to have a loss or not. I sure didn't expect to be down 3.2 lbs for a weight of 191.4 and a total loss of 36.6 lbs! Whooo hooooo! I immediately said Thank You God and then hit my knees. I am so thankful to God for giving me the strength and drive to do this! Without His help, I wouldn't have made it past the first week!

I completed week 8 day 2 of the Couch to 5 K program and I have a plan for when I complete the program next week. I intend to restart at the beginning, jogging where it says to walk and sprinting where it says to jog. I'm hopeful that will help me to increase my speed. I am also expecting a book from the library called
"The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess" As some of you may know, I love love love lifting weights, heavy weights, and I look forward to seeing what this book has to say. I know that I lift correctly, but it's always nice to get a new perspective. I will let you know if I decide to do this 6 month program.

I also want to mention to any other "lifters" out there. If you are using machines to weight lift you are cheating yourself! My husband and I both work out with free weights. When we were on vacation all the condo had were machines. We worked out every day while we were gone. My husband lifts only 2 to 3 days a week at home. We both lost strength while we were gone because of using machines instead of free weights! Hubs worked out MORE and LOST strength. So if you use machines, consider giving free weights a try, they really do build more strength. If you are just looking to tone, then I'd say you are just fine with a machine.

Anywho, just wanted to give ya'll the goods on my week 21 weigh in!

Till next time, I'm unTHICKINandsoTHINNIN!