I’ve been trying to bust out some posts in advance that I’ll schedule in June to keep the blog fresh while I am away from the internet waiting for Tater to come. That is the idea at least. If anyone wants to guest post here just sign up as a user and I’ll get you all hooked up to be a contributor.

Okay, so over the weekend we did get lots done, as usual… For starters we wrangled the freecycle dog home through our back gate so now Dixie has an even nicer shelter to enjoy. Problem is Haily, the outdoor cat, is smarter than Dixie and she manages to take over the dog house every time. Dixie refuses to fight for it and just sleeps out on the deck.

Mind you Hailey has her own house that we built but she refuses to use it unless absolutely necessary. So when we go out and lure her out of Dixie’s home, Dixie can use it but it seems every time the rain starts to fall or when it gets windy Hailey is in the dog house and Dixie is outside… I give up! If the dog doesn’t want care to fight for her home that is her bad, right?

We also went by the old place to do some deep cleaning. We spent 3 hours there doing the kitchen and basement. We’ve only got a few rooms left to do now and then we’ll be totally done with that shit hole. Yay. Oh and while the cleaning was happening guess what we discovered growing on top of the basement carpet and up the outside of the wood paneling in the corner…

MOLD!!!

Yep, you can see it with your own two eyes just growing right on top of all the carpet and wood siding. We had a freestanding shelf in that corner holding my business stuff but once we moved all our things out of the basement and began vacuuming we spotted the fairly big moldy corner. N took some photos of it on his iPhone. I’ll share them soon.

It’s been over a month since we met with the slumlady and started the ball rolling on having them sign our mutual release letter. They’ve been avoiding us now for over a month and N has begun the harassing phone calls to them again. We’ve not paid them April’s rent and are trying to set up a meeting time to turn over the keys and complete the final walk though. It seems they could care less, still.

Last night N put the freecycle crib together in Tater’s room. It was an interesting process since it’s an older crib that needs work, plus the assembly instructions were nonexistent so we were winging it so to speak. It is now pieced together, just needs some wood glue and some screws tightened. We’ll buy a crib mattress for it sometime after Tater is here if we still haven’t found anything better/ safer.

We spent Sunday thrift store hopping. We were window shopping for a washing machine since come May 1 we will have no way to wash clothes (other than a laundry mat), we also thought we would keep our eyes peeled for some necessities for Tater while we were there. Things like cloth diapers, receiving blankets and a variety of sized onesies.

We managed to find some clothes and a few receiving blankets that we spent $6.00 on. We didn’t see any pack n’ play’s or newborn sleeping solutions and we didn’t see any washing machines either. We plan to keep looking, hopefully we’ll find all that we need in due time.

It’s was a windy, rainy weekend but we still managed to get some good progress made! We even found a work around for our failing external hard drive (I’ll post more on this later) and N painted my toenails for me since I can no longer reach them. Isn’t he a trooper?

We took my blood pressure at the grocery store and it was 108/70, I am still not swelling or having any heart racing or blood sugar issues. I haven’t weighed myself since we moved in, the scale is still missing but I feel like I’ve gained a few (5 or so) pounds. LOL. What do you think?

We’ve got a shower in our honor taking place in Phoenix, AZ courtesy of Krystal on May 2nd that we are getting excited about. We’ll be there via video conference to talk to and enjoy everyone’s company. If you are going to be out that direction and haven’t already received an invite shoot me an email and I’ll hook you up with the details.

We’ve also got a web baby shower going on right now and a live shower chat scheduled courtesy of another bloggy friend, Maiden53, that you can check it out here.

Don’t forget to put your dollar in and place your baby weight bet! Remember 2 winners split the pool of cash so the more people who enter the better it is for YOUR pocket book, lol.

Okay, I am off to try finishing those 3 blog posts and I’ve got to feed the animals and such. Have a good monday everyone!

Oh, and if you aren’t afraid to see how an actual homebirth was featured in a commercial check out this video. Thanks Ryan and Kari for blogging this! Don’t worry it is peaceful and beautiful. Just graphic, shows nudity and you know a baby coming out from down there:

The post Weekend #2 in our new place, it's been busy! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

During the week N had a meeting with some higher ups about his future at the station. Remember how this job was supposed to be an anchoring/ reporting gig? Since moving here his anchor time has been minimal (it’s happen once) so he was eager to hear what they had planned for him and his future.

It looks like they are hoping to have him around and are grooming him to fill some big shoes in about 3-5 years. This means buying a home was absolutely the right decision to make and that we truly will be able to stay here for a good amount of time. Yay for following the gut instinct.

Knowing you can truly settle in and build a life for yourself is amazing. We’ve got our “bun in the oven”, a home of our own and his career going in the right direction so we are super fortunate and are so grateful to have arrived at this stage in life. It’s been a long and grueling journey and it will continue to have up’s and downs I am sure but what more could you ask for? We are pleased with everything, obviously.

I’ve been getting bursts of energy and then major spells of fatigue so I am gardening and unpacking when I’ve got the energy. The weather is warming up and the plants are springing to life, I am enjoying this very much.

Also, the animals are adjusting much better these days it seems. They still act up now and then and need to be reminded of the rules but the overly obnoxious stuff in the middle of the night has stopped. This is a relief.

Other random musings:

I just saw a commercial about birth defects and Paxil so I googled it for more info and am just floored. “Babies exposed to Paxil early in pregnancy may have a higher risk of major birth defects, according to a new study.”

I already don’t have much faith in our drug saftey testing process here in the USA. This is why I’ve refused the RhoGam shot during pregnancy and am doing my research on vaccinations right now.

This whole Paxil development is just added proof that we approve and distribute way too many drugs to people before we fully understand the effects and risks of the drug. It’s irresponsible and scary. We really can’t trust that all approved drugs and procedures are safe for us.

I need a washer bad!! We are doing laundry at the old place till the end of the month because our new place doesn’t have a washer in it already. Ideally we would love an energy star, front loading washer but there is no way we can afford one right now. Shoot we can barely scrap $100 together to go towards the purchase of a used one.

Not having a washer is stressing me out a bit and I don’t really know when and if we’ll get one. I’ve been looking at craigslist for them but am so worried that I’ll end up with one that is crap and our money will have been wasted.

Also, the external hard drive we used to back up all the PC files and financial stuff (a Seagate Free Agent External Drive) is now dead.. Or at least the USB portion of the drive is acting wonky.It worked at the old place but somehow in moving the computer it’s become damaged and is not longer recognized by the computer.

I am stressing because I need to balance the accounts and work the budget before this weekend so I know how much money we have for groceries but all the data is on that drive that I can’t access.

I am going to go work in the garden a bit now to counter all the things I currently have to stress about, LOL. Hopefully you have a pleasant weekend in your neck of the woods. We are so ready to chill and get some slow progress made on the new place.

The post So glad the weekend is almost here! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.