Bee Memorial

Rodney checked both hives yesterday. We knew we had lost one hive to moths - which is one of the dangers of organic beekeeping - but he disovered yesterday that both hives were gone. All that was left of the other hive was a few, sad, little, dead, bee bodies at the bottom of the hive. No moths in that hive just an empty cache of honey. He had said that if both hives were gone that he was going to take a year off - build some more hives and move his hives to a different place. Not sure if this is still the plan. I worry a little bit about the garden and the wasps. Since we got the bees, the wasps have left for the most part.

It's funny that I am so sad about the bees being gone since I wasn't thrilled to get them in the first place. I understood the importance of bees but I am just so stinking afraid of them. Over the last 2 years however, I have come to respect them and appreciate them and I am so sad they are gone and I feel a little guilty, like maybe we didn't take good enough care of them. In truth, we were lucky to come out of that first winter with both hives. Beekeepers lose hives to winter all the time.

I'm still sad though. :(

Here are some pictures from the last hive.

Southeast to Alaska

For Valentines, Rodney booked a room at the Alaskan Inn which is where we went Saturday for a nice relaxing evening without kids. The Inn is a couple miles up Ogden Canyon right along the Ogden River. Every room has some Alaskan/outdoor/wildlife theme. The room we stayed in was the Goose and Gander. The problem was that the bed was a queen which sounds cozy but when you're used to a humongous California King bed is a tad cramped. Also the head board didnt quite match up to the mattress so the pillows kept falling down behind the mattress. The jetted tub was fun though and it snowed which was nice. We also had a great dinner but maybe next time we will just visit and then come home to our own bed. Am I old? I think so.

Romantic Dinner for Four

Rodney had to work until 9:30 tonight so we had a late Valentine's Day dinner. I bought some yummy pasta (wild mushroom and five cheese ravioli) and tossed it with some olive oil, butter (just a little), garlic and fresh basil. We had it with salad, french bread, and white wine (for us ADults). For dessert, I hand dipped some HUGE strawberries in dark chocolate. I also made some strawberry shortcake for the girls. It was a late dinner but a tasty one. *yawn. Now for some much needed sleep.

In addition to getting Rodney's truck serviced and filling his tank (I know! How romantic am I????) I got him a silver guitar pick stamped with "I Pick You". My valentine from him is an overnight stay on saturday at a bed and breakfast. Yay!

Saving the world one bee at a time....

Last night Rodney and I watched a documentary about bees and their role in the world, entitled, "Queen of the Sun" I know shocking that Rodney was home to watch a movie! It was a great movie and has inspired me to become more involved. Sadly, we lost at least one of our beehives this winter. Rodney said that if the other one was also gone, he was going to take a year off and move the bees and build a better fence for them. I'm not entirely sure what will happen, but I do know that I want to be more involved in their care. This is a huge thing for me considering I have been, historically, terrified of bees. Of course having two beehives in your backyard changes your perspective a bit - especially since I haven't been stung once since we got the hives. Bees play such a critical role in our lives and all of us should be doing our part to secure their future. If you get a chance - I highly recommend watching the movie for yourselves.

Things you can do to help the bees
Take the time to listen to and take care of the honeybees in your neighborhood. Here are some steps that you can take right now to help the bees:

1.Plant bee-friendly flowers and flowering herbs in your garden and yard.
2.Don’t use chemicals and pesticides to treat your lawn or garden.
3.Buy local, organic food from a farmer that you know.
4.Bees are thirsty. Put a small basin of fresh water outside your home.
5.Consider backyard beekeeping. It really isn't difficult and your garden and your neighbors gardens will thank you.

Curry fries - the weight watchers way

Yum @ roasted garlic curry fries - made by moi!

Debrief

Our impromptu staff lunch retreat. Not sure it helped much but lunch was tasty!

My iPad doesnt take great pics in low light so I had to do some noise reduction which blurs things up a bit. They are still a good looking group.

Sad Days

I work with some wonderful women. We all get along so well considering the level of hormones interacting with one another on a daily basis. We also have very tough jobs. We have fifteen plus women working on topics such as domestic violence fatalities, teen motor vehicle crash victims, child maltreatment, suicide, violent death, rape, teen dating violence, etc. Because of the subject matter that we work with, every month we get out of the office to have a debrief meeting so everyone can come together, bond, debrief, vent, laugh and eat. It can be a barrel of laughs in the Violence and Injury Prevention Program. Really it can be. This week hasn't been so fun though.

I know the Josh Powell case has been hard on everyone. It's so difficult to understand how a father - or anyone - can do what he did to his entire family. Our group is no exception. When you deal with death, child abuse, homicide, domestic violence on a daily basis, you learn to distance yourself and look at it as a case and not real people. Maybe that sounds harsh. We do care. Immensely. Which is why we do what we do and have been doing it for so long. But getting emotionally involved in these cases would be overwhelming and unhealthy.

We mostly do a great job of keeping emotions in check. The problem is, the tragedy is always there just under the surface and when high profile or especially difficult cases like this one happen, all that emotion that we have kept in check, comes gushing out all over the place.

The past few days have been so difficult that one co-worker suggested we do an impromptu debrief meeting. In a way it will be our own private vigil for Susan, Charlie and Braden Powell. May you rest in peace.

Additionally, there will be a public vigil sponsored by Prevent Child Abuse Utah in Ogden on Thursday. If you're able, please plan to attend. We all need to work to make sure these things stop.

Too blah to blog..

I had a couple ideas for my blog tonight - Like telling you all about the conference call I had with CDC today, or my trip to Whole Foods tonight to get my husband some hummus since he is only eating grains, fruits and vegetables. But when I got home and turned on the news, I heard more about what happened to Susan Powell's children before they died in the fire their father set and I just can't think of anything I can say about whole foods or the CDC that matters in the whole scheme of things. Instead I am going to post a pic that I took today of my friend Anna and her darling bug Addi. Her smile helps me feel tons better.

I'm Not Fat - I'm Just a Little Husky

I have a bed broom. A broom to sweep off all the junk Amaya drops on the bed from her her hairy body. When I change the sheets, I try to keep her off the bed for at least 12 hours. Last night, she was banished from the bed in hopes of keeping my sheets clean for at least one full night. At some point in the night she jumped up without any of us realizing it. I was mad - but how can you stay mad at this cute little sh*@?

A Sinking Feeling

A couple weeks ago I was doing dishes and went to turn the water off at the sink and the handle popped off. When Rodney got home I asked him to fix it but the screw in the handle was corroded and he couldn't fix it. For the past 15 years, I haven't had a squirty thing on my sink - which I HATE. After Rodney's failed attempt at fixing the sink he got online and bought - not only a new kitchen faucet but a sink, faucet, and garbage disposal. I LOVE IT! It even has a soap dispenser!

Thanks again Bubba!

Hannah Date

Hannah took me to get my hair done. After we were done, we were starving so we went out to dinner. I rarely get one on one time with my kids. It was nice just chatting and enjoying each others company. I have great kids - all 6 of them. I love them all very much. So Zach and Kylie -when should we go out?

Sick and twisted

I work with a group of very disturbed, damaged, sick and twisted women. To decorate for halloween, we put tape outlines of ourselves as dead victims of some horrible, injury. We do have a couple of male honorary members. Our Bureau Epidemiologist sits next to our program and he has a birthday coming up on Saturday. Some of our staff decided to decorate his cubicle for his birthday. They also wanted to thank him for all of his work with our program. Nothing our program does is very traditional so "decorating" for his birthday included dolls with speech bubbles thanking Mike for his work in public health.

I work with some non-traditional colleagues. But I adore every one of them. It sure makes going to work more enjoyable.

Earlier, another colleague did a presentation about our program entitled: Top 10 ways to injure yourself or your loved ones. It included information like

1. "Stuff your baby’s crib with soft, fluffy pillows.
• 2/3 of Utah infants who died of SIDS were sleeping in a bed inconsistent national recommendations."

2. Leave your baby alone with your boyfriend. More than half of child homicides result from injuries due to abuse. The biological father or boyfriend of the mother are most often the perpetrators.

3. Who says Grandma doesn’t need all those rugs laying around? Falls are the:#1 cause of injury-related hospitalization and emergency department visits #1 cause of traumatic brain injuries.

4. Take a bunch of pain pills and call us in the morning. Starting in 2006, more Utahns died from poisoning than from car crashes each year.

5. Have your family reunion right next to a stream or pond. Two common drowning scenarios in Utah are:
• Toddlers (ages 1-4) wandering off during a weekend family gathering – with several adults present – and falls into a pool, stream, pond, river, etc.
• Teens swimming with friends at a lake (aka “dumb boy stunts”). Many are “witnessed” drownings, where friends or family members see the victim go under the water and are unable to rescue them.

6. If you ain’t tough enough to take it, don’t play!
• Half (49.5%) of all ED visits for sports/recreation-related concussions in Utah are among children age 10-19.
• Even “getting your bell rung” can be serious. If your brain doesn’t have time to heal, a second – even mild – concussion can be fatal.

7. Belittle, control, and abuse your significant other. If you think abuse is someone else’s problem, think again.
• More than 3,400 men, women, and children entered shelters in FY 10 to escape domestic violence.

8. Strive to obtain as many Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) as possible. ACEs include verbal, physical, or sexual abuse and family dysfunction (e.g., incarcerated, mentally ill, or substance abusing family member; domestic violence; or absence of a parent because of divorce or separation).

In fairness, she did warn them:

*Disclaimer: When you deal with some of the topics we do, you quickly lose all sense of moral boundaries. It’s a coping mechanism. We’re disturbed. We know it.
Please don’t be offended….

A New Doo....

I wait way too long between hairdressing appointments. I wait until I can do NOTHING with it but stick it up in a clip - which I do WAY too often. I made this appointment almost a month ago and as usual, I had waited so long that I wanted something drastic. I told her to cut it all off and paint it red... which she pretty much did. Now its too short to clip and I like it.

I hate my picture taken - hate hate hate it. If I edit to the point you cant really tell its me, I can live with it...lol. Now Warhol knew how to doctor a photo... lol.

In case of emergency.....

I know I have to give up Diet Pepsi. I know it's bad for me. I know it hinders any weightloss. I know that aspartame has been shown to cause brain tumors. I know the caramel coloring makes my teeth a nice shade of beige-tan. I know I spend way too much money on soda too.

I just have to stop. For good. I have to give it up.

My daughter gave this emergency diet pepsi thing for my birthday. Sometime tomorrow, I am going to stick my last diet pepsi in it. Let's just hope that I dont have to use it!

Vino Italiano

My very good friend, Katie and her husband just got back from spending 10 days in Italy. I would be jealous but I know how hard they worked to get this trip, saving money, skipping Christmas, etc. Today is the first day that I have seen her since she got back last week, and she brought me a delicious fun surprise that is a PERFECT gift for Rodney and I. A bottle of Italian Red Wine! Num! Also, a picture below - as I promised!

Also, you can see the view from my office. It overlooks the Jordan River which is mostly nice and isn't without some amusement on some days.... but more about that in an upcoming blog. ;)

A Cheap Knock Off

Today we had a family birthday party for Brittany and Zachary. Yay! for the last birthdays for a while. January is just a mess of birthdays and it seems like I spend every weekend preparing food for our kids parties and a fortune buying for their birthdays. Whose brilliant idea was it to have 3 kids right after Christmas???!

Since the majority of my family is on some kind of diet or healthy eating kick, I decided salad was probably the best way to go so I decided to recreate Cafe Rio salad and let people make their own the way they wanted them.

The ingredients are layered on top of a tasty tortilla and then topped with an amazing salad dressing. So I made cilantro lime rice, barbacoa pork, shredded chicken, tomatillo dressing, and guacamole. Beans, lettuce, cotija cheese, salsa, and tortilla chips can also be added.

I think it was a hit. Except with my nephew. He ate two bites and said it had too much guacamole on it even though he made the plate himself. My dogs weren't sad that he didnt eat it all though. ;)

Sorry, no picture again. I keep forgetting to take them until everything is put up. I promise I will have a picture tomorrow. OF course who knows what I will be blogging about tomorrow - ha ha.

Veggin out!

It's been a veggie kinda weekend. This week I ordered Bountiful Baskets and since Rodney has been on a whole foods- grains, veggies, etc regimen, I decided to order the basket as well as the tropical add on and the asian add on. Which left us with a kitchen full of fruits and vegetables. This is what I picked up for $45:

Cabbage
Tomatoes
Potatoes
Green Beans
Bell Pepper
Onions
apples
grapefruit
lemons
oranges
limes
Bluberries
2 vanilla beans
coconut
pineapple
kiwi
mint
basil
Bok Choi
Chinese Cabbage
water chestnuts
ginger
garlic
plantain
asparagus
celery
spinach
romaine lettuce
tomatoes
mangoes
eggplant
Five loaves of organic 9 grain bread

What a deal, huh? What a ton of work! I spent saturday blanching vegetables to freeze for stir fry packs. The great thing about this produce is that it comes from small farms and are as local as possible - the bad thing about it is it goes bad really quickly because it lacks industrial pesticides - wait that is also a good thing!

We did find a place for it all to go which is good. I shared some with my future daughter in law and my mom. And we are set for stir fry for a while. Tomorrow I think I will make a tropical smoothie for breakfast ;)

A Quarter of a Century and then some!

Twenty six years ago today at the ripe old age of 18, I gave birth to my only son, Zachary John Brechlin. I had been in labor for 26 hours and watched the Super Bowl (The New England Patriots and the Chicago Bears) during the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. Since that day I have had an abscessed tooth which certainly rivals labor on my pain scale.

After about 25 hours of labor and a string of complications, I was rushed into the operating room for the first of the three c-sections that I would have before 25 years of age.

I don't begrudge him the 26 hours of labor, the sleepless nights that followed, or the sleepless nights he caused as he entered teenaged-dom. He actually turned out pretty good for being the product of young parents who had no idea what they were doing.

Zach, I am super proud of the man you have become and I am excited to be part of your life as you start your own family.

Thirty Point Lunch

So today was my first Domestic Violence Fatality Review meeting of the new year. Since we usually have about 15 DV cases each year we only review for the first half of the year and take the rest of the year off. The meeting is at the Medical Examiner's office so we often go to the Corner Bakery for lunch. Which is a good choice for my new lifestyle. They do have some truly sinful things (Think Cinnamon Creme cake at 770 calories per slice!) From their website:

"Our signature rich, golden cake swirled with ribbons of cinnamon, topped with crumbly cinnamon streusel and powdered sugar. Available in Large, Medium, or by the slice."

but they also have some tasty salad and sandwich choices. However, after some pressure, we ended up at Ye Olde Spaghetti Factory instead.

I have no idea what I was thinking. I guess I was thinking, how many calories can a little mizithra cheese have? Even if it is tossed with spaghetti and browned butter? Well let me tell you - A LOT!!!!! Between that and the "salad" I used up my entire allotment of nutritional intake for the day and will now be eating celery dipped in water and a diet pepsi for dinner.

What kind of wine goes with dog hair

I have a special place in my heart for dogs. They are such sweet companions. I have 3 dogs of which only one is really mine. And Max is only mine because his mother was hit by a car several years ago and he was just too skiddish and awkward to start over in a new home so he became my dog. Yuki our old basset/husky mix is actually Hannah's dog that she left here for me to take care of. Amaya, our Husky/Malamute, has been here for almost a year - and was Kylie's contribution to our house o' mutts.

I do love dogs. I don't love the fog of flying dog hair that is floating around at any given moment. After a week of the dogs sleeping on my bedroom floor I can fill my vacuum canister twice with their dog hair. It's unreal.

Tonight I had plans to do laundry, make dinner, work on some honey jars - but instead I vacuumed my bedroom, bisselled the hard wood, erased the couches with the pet eraser, changed the sheets on my bed and dusted my bedroom. Maybe I can actually get dressed in my room tomorrow morning... ick!

Declutter and Dehoard!

This is a link to the de-clutter calendar that I will be using this year to get rid of the massive amounts of junk that has accumulated in my house. I put off getting organized and cleaning because it just seems to be such a daunting task but I think I can stick to it if I just take it a day at a time. Who knows? Time will tell!

http://www.mysimplerlife.com/2012.htm


My before and after pics - not enough light in my bedroom but you get the idea!

A Life Mulligan

So, since I have this almost new life with some new additions to my family, I thought it only fitting that I round out (pun intended) my life mulligan with an improved body and psyche. I avoided a Calendar-New Year resolution mostly because of all the negativity surrounding it and the fact that I have yet to stick with a New Years resolution. So starting today (the Lunar New Year), I am going to start chronicling my journey into a more healthy place - spiritually and physically. My first step today was re-joining weight watchers - a small step but one that I know will work for me. Today, I really am the best person I have ever been - but there is soooo much room for improvement and growth (spiritual growth not physical! ha ha) and I think I am finally in a place that I can take it on! So wish me luck! :)