Project 32 of many. . .

"Chicken poot!" - Jonathan Daniel Williams


























So profound huh? Sometimes the silly things said just stick. I set out about a month ago to build a chicken coop and today I bring home 6 chickens to their very own "poot."

I would like to thank all the scoffers and critiques out there who think that I am insane, your words have fueled my fire and made me all the more determined to succeed with this! Yes, I know I will have messes to clean up and I know I won't save money. I know and I am okay with that. I want to know where my food comes from and I want my children to know where their food comes from and to me having chickens takes me a step closer in this.  So, without further ado. . . the process. . .

The process is not going to get any more broken down or explain than those pictures right there. Okay, okay, I will just say a few words, building is a lot like making a dress, only instead of using fabric, thread and needles you use wood, screws and power tools. If this were a wood working 101 class I'd have likely gotten a C- in the class. Give me 20 years and maybe I'll get a little bit better at it. I don't understand why cutting in a straight line is so difficult!!!

The Project. . .

The crooked roof  there at the bottom corner is a design feature.

The Purpose. . .

 Up next. . . The Product. . . 

Shout out to God.

I joined a women's Bible study. As I was driving home, after the first meeting, I started thinking about friendship and how much I do not like making new friends. It's not that I don't like making new friends so much as it is that I really enjoy my old ones and would rather spend time fostering those relationships than putting energy into new ones that lets face it . . . could turn out to not be as wonderful. And by "could" I mean, "How could they possibly? I have the best, most awesome friends in the world!"

Anyway, I was thinking about one gal in particular and how much I would love to be doing the study with her, to just have her sitting there next to me - knowing me and all of my flaws and understanding me unlike anyone else does. Later that night I was thinking again about how I really wished I could be learning about God with her and decided to write her an email about it. . . turns out that she is currently doing the same study 3500 miles away!! When things like that happen God just feels so much bigger than everything else. How awesome is our God?!

It's been one of those days, weeks, months, half of a years that you can really only complain about in a developed, civilized, western society. I feel like I have not had a single answer since the end of January and it is starting to get to me. That it can be so stressful trying to find and secure a home really has me thinking just one thing. . .

I am not meant for this place.

We are settled into our "place" now (at least for the time being), and while the stars shine brighter and everything else I wrote in my last post about life in Missouri has come to past, I still feel . . . wanting. . . waiting . . . hoping. . . for something better, something more secure and tangible.

That I can't hop on a plane, or buy a ticket to Aslan's Country has me in pieces right now. I don't even want Narnia anymore, give me the real thing.

"Further up and further in"

I'm so glad that I got to carry you for 21 and a half weeks. . . 

. . . and that these hands got to hold you at all. 

Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

1 Timothy 2:15

1 Year

How very excited we were to find out who you would be a year ago today. . . 

Still amazed at all you have managed to do without actually being here. I don't know what to call this day, but, it's the day that we realized we had lost you, Benjamin. And a day I will remember forever and a day I still look forward to.

Moving

We are moving states. To say it gently, it has been a difficult journey thus far. "Where did this pack up and move idea come from? " is a question that many have asked us. . . . Hmmm, let me see if I can try to remind myself. Maybe that will help me hurl myself back into the familiar and take away some of the remorse I have about moving. Because the truth is, I do not want to move. . . and my list for that is a whole lot longer and a lot easier to write.

1. Spousal discontent with work
2. Not liking to travel with small children
3. Wanting our children to grow up around their "family" (I've really been struggling with this one lately though as I realize how much I love the community around us and how they have made us feel so much like family, Jesus' words keep echoing in my mind, "who is my mother? and who are my brothers?"
4. 4 seasons, and the desire to be somewhere naturally green
5. Frustration over the Phoenix housing market
6. Knowledge that someday we will move back closer to our birth families and we might as well do it now when it is easier on the kids.
7. (and this one is just me) Wanting to see the stars again.
8. ("") The romantic idea of trying to grow most of our summer food


Here is why I don't want to move. . .

1. I love my job
2. I love the state of Arizona and all of it's burning hotness
3. I feel more independent here, going back makes me feel like I'm throwing in the towel.
4. Housing in Columbia is just as frustrating as it is here. Probably worse because there are more opinions and I don't actually live there yet, and we were given a month to move and settle there. . . with a brand new baby.
5. Ticks
6. Mosquitoes
7. Humidity and 365 days of bad hair to follow.
The real reasons.
8. Our friends out here are so great. In a lot of ways I feel more cared for by them, than I do by my actual family.
9. We love our church
10. Jonathan's friends
11. I buried my baby here
12. Arizona is probably the reason why Kyle and I made it through those first rocky year of marriage - nothing makes you cling to your spouse like being in a metaphorical desert (though the physicality of the desert might make you want to stay away from them because it is just so hot at times).

Regardless of what I want or what I think I may want, I do think that we are making the right decision and that we are trusting God on this one.

In 9 days we will be back there. I have no idea where we will be living (I have less of an idea now than I did before I went on a house hunting trip), but I do know that wherever that might be that the stars will be shining brighter and that our opportunities will be many and that I feel more prepared to take on those opportunities than ever because of the great love that our friends have sowed into us here.

Birth Story

On Sunday, June 3rd Kyle boarded a plane and flew to an interview with MidwayUSA in Columbia, Missouri. I was 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant. We prayed that the baby would not come while he was away. I said, "it's a full moon tomorrow night, I bet the baby will come," crazy things always happen during full moons was my reasoning.

Jonathan and I had a good Sunday together, we went to the pool and he did all sorts of darish tricks and had me running after him all afternoon. I stayed up late that night working on a project for a client.

The next morning I woke up to bloody show. I think that typically this would have freaked me out, but instead I just laughed at the irony of my being in labor while Kyle was 1000 miles away. Kyle was in interviews all day and I knew he would have his phone off, so I called my mom and told her what was going on. I didn't want to cause unnecessary panicking for Kyle so I held off on calling him until after I went to the midwife's office to get checked out.

Sure enough, I was in labor. 4.5cm dilated, 90% effaced with a bulging bag of waters. The midwife told me I was going to have a baby that day. I asked if standing on my head could prevent that.

I spent the next few hours wondering how I was going to get to the hospital once my contractions started getting harder. When you are planning on an all natural birth you want to spend the smallest amount of time possible at the hospital - meaning you need to do a lot of your laboring at home. This would be fine, except I didn't know how if labor came on all of a sudden I would manage to drive Jonathan to a friends house and then drive myself to the hospital.

I decided it was probably best to go to Costco a buy a video camera so I could record what I had decided was going to be my Blair Witch filming style birth video for Kyle. I bought two, one was waterproof (could come in handy right?) the other was just a regular one - I had not done any research on camera's so I decided it best to get two and return the one with poorer reviews (waterproof pocket camcorder turned out to be a piece of junk.). Sometime in there either Kyle listened to a voicemail I had left him or my mom called at talked to someone at MidwayUSA, because Kyle got his flight moved up from landing at 11PM that night, to landing at 7PM.

I knew that I should be resting - I had only had 5 hours of sleep the night before - but instead I got the a huge dose of nesting rush and spent the day sewing, cleaning and dancing with Jonathan. I also took my first non-successful nap ever.

I did not believe that I was going to have a baby that day. I was almost certain that the midwife was wrong. By this point I was having very slight contractions and had lost my mucus plug. But, I wasn't going to let myself think that that meant anything. I did a classic Caitlyn thing where I break down the amount of time until an event into little tiny segments. "Only 5 minutes until it's half an hour until there are only 5 more hours until Kyle gets here . . . Only 4 more hours, that's half of what I was waiting 4 hours ago and nothing has changed!"

I made it to 7ish. The phone rang, Kyle's plane had landed. I told him that Jonathan and I were going to go on a walk to get labor started because "apparently I am having a baby today" - something I was less convinced of now than I had been that morning.

Jonathan and I walked over to the tennis court. I sat down on a bench and filmed him playing with rocks, he started to run away and I thought, "oh, I had better go get him" so I turned the camera off. I realized I was having a contraction, probably the hardest one I had had all day. My cell phone beeped, it was my midwife texting to see how my progress was. I stood up to get Jonathan and respond to her and my water broke. My water broke like it does is the comedy movies. It was just gushing down my legs, pooling in my shoes. I ran and got Jonathan, texted my midwife, called Kyle (he had just turned onto our road) and realized Jonathan was not going to cooperate on our trip back home and that I was going to have to carry him. So I picked up my screaming 21 month old and carried him back to the apartment amid contractions that I had decided to start very suddenly and very painfully all the while leaving a trail of dripping water behind me.

I got home and called my friend Colleen to tell her what was going on and to try to work out how she was going to get Jonathan from us. My head wasn't working too well, so I told her Kyle would call her in a bit. Kyle got home right then and I really had no idea what to do. Should we drive Jonathan over to   Colleen's house or take him to our other friends house? So I timed my contractions, realizing that they were 3 minutes apart I decided we needed to get to the hospital ASAP.

We put the bags in the car and drove to our friends house to drop Jonathan off. My bag of waters is still gushing and I am yelling at Kyle to slow down and drive more sanely because his sharp turns are making everything hurt worse.

We got to the hospital, Kyle dropped me off at the emergency room and I walked in. There was a line, so I stood in it - shortly after I am standing in a puddle because my water will not stop ( I had been drinking at least 2.5 gallons of water a day for the last 4 months), I am having contractions and the woman in front of me says, ". . . are you?? Do you want to go in front of me." "Uhh, yes please."

Get signed in, lady with a wheelchair comes and whisks us away and tells me to let her know if I think I am going to have to push. I am still thinking that I am not going to have a baby today and that this lady is crazy for thinking that I am so close to delivery. We go past triage, right into a room, "you're obviously in labor, we are not going to check you." Once in the room I ask for a birthing tub - I never got an answer on this one, I think they thought there would not be enough time.

I'm still cracking jokes at this time, so I know that it's not nearly as close as they think it is. They check me and I'm 6 something dilated. "Fantastic," I think, "I hope the rest of it is this easy."

Long story short, the second half of it was not as easy as the first. The pain got really bad. I told Kyle I wanted an epidural, he told me I didn't . . . but then he fell back asleep (he stayed up the night before reading the hunger games. . . ) and I got back in the shower and realized I didn't care what Kyle thought I wanted, I was going to get an epidural and he wasn't even going to wake up to know about it. It was probably 11:20 and I was exhausted. I think if I hadn't been so tired that maybe I would not have wanted the epidural so badly - but, I was falling asleep in the shower between contractions and was getting so irritated that I had to wake back up 2 minutes later to have another minute long contraction.

My midwife told me that maybe I could try something a little more mild than an epidural to see if that helped at all.

I got out of the shower. They checked me, 8 cm. I felt a little defeated here, I had been 8 the last time they checked me, over an hour ago. They made me lay down and put this giant ball between my legs which made my contractions feel about 75% more painful than they had before. I just screamed that I hated it. I told them to get the IV going for the lesser pain med and signed the sheet for the epidural. Then I got back in the shower to wait while they got everything ready (the shower was really amazing. My contractions were somewhat manageable in the shower, but, I hadn't progressed in the shower - so it was a love/hate relationship). 10 minutes later I got out. It was probably 12:20AM. They hooked me up to the IV and got the bag of fluids going into my arm. Once it was in they said they needed to check me again before they could give me the medicine. I said, "no, I don't want to be checked," and they informed me that they had to because if I was too close to 10 my baby would be born sleeping and they would have to give him/her a shot to wake him/her up. "Born sleeping" was all I had to hear. The world stopped. I knew they didn't mean born sleeping in the way it is used to describe babies born dead, but it still freaked me out.

So, it was now an epidural or nothing. I had one more contraction. Told them they could check me and while they were checking me I said it was time to push, they said, "oh yes, it is, you are 10 cm, 100% effaced and at -2." It must have been about 12:44 AM.

Pushing was a lot worse than I had imagined. They told me that was because I had a 9lb 2 oz baby with a very big head and shoulders that got stuck under my pelvic bone. I pushed for 12 minutes and yelled, "Claire!" when I knew the baby was out, then I heard Kyle say, "No," and the next thing I knew I was holding a baby boy with dark black hair.

I know it was the most painful thing I have ever gone through, and at first I never wanted to do it again.  But, I really have forgotten how bad it was, and even thought it hurt worse than having Jonathan, my memories from Jonathan's birth stand out as more painful to me.

So, now I am in the process of packing up my home and moving to Missouri. We leave in two weeks. It has been a crazy month!

Project 31 of many. . .

One of my favorite things to do is have a big project going on while I am in labor. With Jonathan it was a purse, Benjamin a wedding dress, and with Levi it was this little number. 

I actually tried really hard to get this one done before Levi arrived, and with the dress done and the coat mostly complete on Sunday night, June the 3rd, I was feeling really good about things.  

Kyle was out of town and I was feeling very productive. I went to bed at about 2 in the morning. That morning I got up earlier than usual to work on the coat some more and realized that I was in labor. And I laughed. I laughed because you really don't want to be in labor when your husband is over 1000 miles away, and when that happens, you might as well laugh because freaking out is not going to accomplish a single thing. . . and I had a lot of things that needed accomplishing that day. 

I put the line lead project on hold and made a wedding veil for a friend of mine who was getting married in Greece in two days. I don't know if I worked on the coat anymore that day. . . I am thinking that I did not. 

Finished the project while my mom was here and got it sent out. Competition starts sometime in July, I'm excited to see how she does!

I had a lot of fun making the reversible headband. . . I am thinking it is a good Christmas present idea. Maybe if I ever do a craft night again I can teach how to make them  . . . Sadness. 

Child 3 of many . . . maybe

I say "maybe" only because of my inability at the present moment to get over irrational fears. . . well, people tell me they are irrational, I personally think there is nothing irrational about a war happening and modern culture being destroyed sometime during the 9 months one is pregnant and then having to give birth by yourself in a post apocalyptic world. . . while taking care of two other children. 

More of a story to come later! 

It usually starts with Pinterest. Clothes, handbags, shoes, scarves, sunglasses. . . all of these things are so pretty on the outside. But am I willing to pay the cost to obtain them?

I find myself asking more and more these days "what is the real cost of this?" Who made it? What is their quality of life? 

Frustratingly, I can't know the story of every product that I buy. . . not the whole story. Even clothes I make, you have to wonder about the fabric. . . how was it woven? Who helped harvest the cotton? What subsidies were paid? What are the reproductive systems like of the women living around these farms that are being sprayed with chemicals? What are the dollars I am spending doing to change the world? We step all over life to get what we want. . . 

. . . and I can't see much of a way to get around it. . . beyond starting a new world.

Is it because I am getting older? Or is there really more despair, frustration and crookery now than their used to be? Either way, how I am suppose to function 20, 10 . . . even 5 years from now?

You may return to your embroidery

Humbly, my lord.

-Braveheart

Things are seeming a little dull around here, so I ordered this book:

I should probably watch Braveheart while I'm at it. Oh how I miss the simple days of hand quilting with Suz, after school let out, while we watched Alias. I was an awesome highschooler.

Project 30 of many. . .

14 weeks. . . that's how long I have until I have to go back to work. In the last few weeks my mind has felt free to think creatively for the first time in . . . months. No classes to think about, no students to worry about . . . just a house to keep clean, a family to feed and take care of, and perhaps a house to move. . . I feel so liberated!

I teach a textile design class and one of my first orders of business is to create a course manual for my students, myself and any teacher who may have to teach the class in the future. Yes, I just realized that one of my projects I have set for myself has to do with work. Oh well. Anyway, in this agenda I will be teaching myself how to better use my Bamboo digitizing pad. So far I really hate this thing. It draws when I don't even have the pen touching the tablet, and it is very difficult to control my brush movements. Perhaps I should have read the manual better. . . I feel like I am past that stage now though and can't force myself to go back and actually learn the right way to use the thing. Thank you, but I'd much rather struggle along by myself than ask for help!

I prefer using the Bamboo in Illustrator, maybe this is just because I enjoy Illustrator better? Okay, it's not that I enjoy it more, I love Illustrator and hate Photoshop.

The following is the first part in a series of drawings that I am doing for a photoshop textile project. Last semester I assigned each of my students a foreign city and instructed them to create a storyboard for that city and to then use that story board as inspiration for two textile designs. I then asked them to give me a city so that I could do the same project and they all agreed on Guatemala City. I couldn't be more thrilled with the city they picked for me! The markets in Guatemala City have a wealth of beautiful textiles and colors to be inspired by!
 Back in highschool I would come back each new year and be completely surprised how my drawing skills had increased over the summer - despite my having not picked up a marker or brush all summer. I would look at work from the previous year and realize that what I had thought was well done before was actually quite amature. I am hoping for the same thing to happen with the digitizing pad. . .

Heliconia in Photoshop. 4.24.12

Frozen yogurt

I don't know why it took me so long to discover this and I almost feel silly even sharing it. But, I started making my own frozen yogurt and it is delicious - best of all (except for the spoonful of mango sherbet) I know exactly what is in it.

To make I took a carton of yogurt and stuck it in the freezer. This really wasn't the best idea, because now I have to cut chunks of frozen yogurt off which is a little difficult - in the future I will freeze the yogurt in an ice cube try.

Then stick the frozen yogurt in your blender with whatever fruit you have lying around . . . I used a banana and some frozen cherries. . . blend. Eat. Delicious. Eat it for breakfast, chances are you already have, it just wasn't frozen before. 

In light of extreme sorrow and suffering I often have a very hard time expressing joy. But, My God, it is the most beautiful day and I am so thankful for each and everything in my life! My cup runneth over.

Grace makes beauty, out of ugly things. 

Kombucha

"It's an acquired taste" - Jacquie Palmer

Well, it's taken me about 6 years, but I've finally acquired the taste, and I gotta say, I'm a little in love.

Spread

My mom just told me about a great butter spread that a Dr. friend recently told her about. It sounded delicious, simple and best of all. . . I already had all of the ingredients.

Here it is folks:
Equal parts: Butter, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil  <- blended together.

Viola! You are done. I added a little real salt too.

Tastes delicious and the smell of the coconut tricks you into thinking you are eating something sweet . . . always a plus.

My son has re-set the answering system on our home phone. Many people have called and thought that Jonathan was answering the phone, you hear him breathing and then you hear him say something inaudible, followed by a long stretch of things being moved around. One person called twice, got the same thing each time, and was convinced that since I wasn't answering my cell phone that this meant Jonathan was in the house with an injured/unconscious adult who could not get to the phone.

I just spent the last hour trying to figure out how to re-record the messaging system. . . no luck. So for now, we have no answering system. It's probably time to get rid of Vonage anyway.

Salivating

Did you salivate the last time you sat down and looked at the meal in front of you? If not, here are some helpful suggestions for getting your drool on (In no particular order, but all tested and approved by me)

• Spend more than 15 minutes preparing your food and don't sneak a bite
• Only eat when you are hungry
• Eat your food off of a real plate with real silverware
• Add some bacon
• Be past the nauseous stage of pregnancy

Tried and true, people.

Di

"You can't comfort the afflicted without afflicting the comfortable."                                       - Princess Diana of Wales

Lately I've been feeling like my little boy is getting too skinny. He's not.
World Vision
..

Scary

Apparently I am a scary teacher. Some might think this odd, especially as I have the reputation around campus as being the peaceful, quiet, reserved, patient, young girl. But. I am the peaceful, quiet, reserved, patient, young girl who expects nothing less than your absolute best (or better).

I spoke with a student today (last day of semester, emotions are always high), he was literally trembling as he spoke with me about his performance in my class. Me, 5' 6", in my pencil skirt, cardigan, conservative heels, nude hose and pregnant.  He, 6 foot something, pierced, tattooed, psychedelic everything, carefree. . . visibly terrified that my standards were not met and vocally expressing this too.

What's my point? You don't have to be Beyonce, to be Fierce. I think that if you respect people, treat them well, care for them and don't act like you are better than them, that if they have any decency in them at all, they'll put aside their rough exterior and become the genuine human being that they were meant to be.

Design Flop

Sometimes I see things and wonder. . . what were you thinking? Some people may very well look at this design and think that it is cute. Me? Well, I think it made it onto a discount shopping site for a reason. Excuse me, but you just put your gathering on the wrong side of your bra cup. What is this for, an extreme amount of side boob? Bad idea. 

Ruined

My sister-in-law has ruined my life. Let me explain.

About two months ago she sent me two books, one I read right away and one that I've had a harder time diving into. The book I ate up was called Real Food for Mother and Baby. Honestly, I didn't expect much from the book. I felt like I ate a lot of real foods. Margarin is a food I only force myself to eat at other peoples homes. . . I couldn't be that bad off, right? Wrong. So wrong. Turns out I've never properly eaten flour. And when I say flour I'm not even talking about white flour, I mean, I've never eaten whole wheat flour the correct way.

Sprouted grains. That's where it's at people. Now, the thing about sprouted grains is that if they are not stored correctly, they actually become less nutritious than non-sprouted grains - they have a very short shelf life and need to be frozen if they are not going to be used. What does this mean? It means that if I want to eat sprouted grains that I am going to have to start soaking, dehydrating and grinding my own grain into flour, because buying sprouted grain is very expensive and when you buy those grains off of the shelf at Whole Foods (or whatever the name of your health food store is) the nutrition is already gone. Makes me glad that I didn't spend $7 on a half pound bag of flour the other day. Long story short, right now I am on a flour strike until I find the time to go get some real whole grain. That hasn't ruined my life though.

I got a tortilla press for Christmas from my mother, and I recently started making my own corn tortillas. These are delicious and have 3 ingredients in them, best of all, Jonathan can eat them because they do not have gluten. Eventually I'll probably read that I need to grind my own corn, but, I haven't gotten to that part of the second book yet, so, life goes on. Although, I used to fry all of my tortillas and make tostadas. Because I no longer believe in yellow oil, I cannot fry these. Well I could. I could use coconut oil, butter or olive oil. . . here is why I don't. We all know that olive oil is really lousy when it comes to heating up to a high temperature. Coconut oil does great at high temps, but, I don't love the taste. Butter. . . well, that's another story.

The higher the fat content on your food, the more important it is that that food be real. Hormones and antibiotic residue is stored in fat, when you eat that fat you are taking all sorts of things into your body that you do not need there. Long story short, butter is very fatty, so if you can you should buy organic, and if you really want to do things right you'll not only buy organic butter, but you'll buy organic pastured butter. . . which can only be made seasonally as cows don't always have access to fresh green grass. So, it's very expensive. There is one nice thing about the expense though. . . you start treating butter better. You don't waste two sticks of butter in a batch of chocolate chip cookies that you don't need to eat, and can't eat because you don't have any real flour. But, if you could make those cookies the right way, they really wouldn't be all that bad for you.

Eating organic is more expensive. Some people (cough, Kyle, cough. . . ) think it's all hype and not important. It's hard to know anything for sure. Some people smoke a pack a day, snack on candy and white bread and live to be a hundred, others don't. All of our bodies are different. I drink whole milk like water, eat butter, love steak and salt everything like crazy (real salt. . . salt that actually has minerals in it) and I have low cholesterol, low blood pressure, a low resting heart rate and don't exercise all that much, I'm 5'6" and usually weigh under 137 lbs, I'm sure there are other people out there who eat the same way and weigh in at the Drs office very differently. Why does that happen? I haven't a clue. What I do know is that I feel good about eating organic, I feel good about knowing exactly what I am putting into my body.

I say that my sister in law has ruined my life, but in all honesty January has probably been one of the best months of my life as far as eating and cooking goes. I've made dinner most nights or we've had left overs. I've stretched a piece of meat further than I knew it could be stretched. I've wasted less food. I've made meals that I feel good about serving. The bread I've eaten has been sourdough (another story) and the breakfast "cereals" I've eaten have been soaked and prepared properly. I haven't had a perfect score card, we've gone to Chipotle and I ate a pint of Ben and Jerry's in three sittings, also there was a bag of sea salt potato chips in there. I don't feel bad about those things, and I won't let myself feel bad about them in the future. I know that I will eat the wrong things, intentionally and unintentionally. The last thing I want to do is become a nuisance to people because of the way I want to eat.

Time to go make lunch. . .

candy for cuties

http://www.wimp.com/fashionpredictions


Great video clip about future fashion!

Citrus

If you live in a warm place in Arizona and you are buying citrus at the store right now, then you are a fool!!! All the orange and grapefruit trees are ripe for the pickin' right now! Last week Jonathan and I headed out to the little orange grove planted at the entrance to our neighborhood and picked ourselves an entire grocery bag full of oranges.

I didn't quite know what to do with 40+ oranges and was afraid that they might not even be any good. I gave some away to friends and with the rest I made orange juice. I was going to make marmalade, but, I don't want to spend money on canning equipment right now. I think that is actually a law somewhere, that you aren't allowed to buy things (unless it's with a gift card) during the month of January.


The oranges are a little meaty, but, they made great orange juice. The grapefruit that we got on our walk two days ago were perfect. I have never had a juicier grapefruit.

One year ago. . .

January 4, 2011

We're in a bit of a standoff here at the Williams household. We can't decide if the same Santa appears in both pictures. What do you think?