Story Time

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

I read aloud to my baby a lot.

Baby books? Yes. We do the silly voices and the bright colors and the black and white contrasts for his little eyes to develop.

But I’ve been reading him full chapter books since I was twenty weeks pregnant, and I don’t intend to stop now. This month, we’re reading one of my oldest and dearest favorites. (I’ll let you guess the title.) He may not understand the story yet, but it’s snuggle time and connection time and, one day, hopefully, he will be just as obsessed with the books as I am.

Plus, I have an excuse to read all my old favorites all over again. What could be better than that?

Juggling

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

I had meetings today.

All day.

Which means, because my husband is amazing and supportive and a terrific dad, he took the day off to hang out with Adam and do guy stuff.

Lots of napping was involved. And apparently they started reading Lord of the Rings together.

You know. Regular daddy/son things.

My heart melted just a tiny bit, but whose wouldn’t?

We’re Building A House!

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Why is January always the month that seems to last eight thousand years?

Seriously. January is the worst month. Why does it have to be the longest too?

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. And being a bit of a baby about the snow, negative degree weather, pitch black evenings, and icy roads.

Wait a minute.

No, I’m not.

Guys, I haven’t been able to get my car out of the driveway for weeks. Weeks, I tell you!

Ridiculous.

January is fired.

I’m moving to Mexico to open a chinchilla farm.

Okay, whining aside, I promised y’all a house update. Remember at the beginning of 2022, I told you that we bought an airplane hanger and had broken ground at our new house site? Everything was great, we were excited, progress was happening after a year of waiting, and we were finally going to move out of our 400 sq ft cabin and into a house that was big enough for us to walk by each other in the hallway without turning sideways.

And then . . . reality set it.

Because the next step after breaking ground was to get our plans approved and get our permits in order so we could start building.

Which means . . . the government got involved.

It took months, guys.

Months.

We couldn’t pour concrete for the foundation, we couldn’t get the plumbing in, we couldn’t do anything. We had to sit around on our hands trying to fix all the nitty gritty details so that the government would finally give us permission to build a house on our own land.

I’m not bitter about it at all.

Thankfully, we had an actual angel—for real, I’m actually pretty sure he was a real angel from heaven, you know, the ‘do not be afraid’ ‘I bring you good news of great joy’ kind—who finally got us around the last tripwire, and permits were issued.

After that, we sat around on our hands some more, waiting for the foundation guys to have time in their schedule to come out.

Building a house sounds like a lot of work, but it’s actually three or four days of crazy activity followed by weeks of waiting followed by three or four days of crazy activity followed by weeks of waiting followed by—

You get the idea.

On top of that, winter has set in. Which means icy roads, way too much snow, mud when it all melts (if it melts), and extreme cold.

Okay, maybe not extreme.

Extreme for me.

Oh yeah, and I had a baby and spent a month and a half recovering from a horrible breast infection because apparently breastfeeding is not intuitive and it’s harder than it looks so education is really important, guys, please always remember to have sunflower lecithin on hand before you start breastfeeding and don’t be afraid of pumping right from the beginning, especially if you have a clogged duct.

Inhale.

But!

The foundation is in. The metal building is up. The support beams for the second floor have been installed, as has the plumbing. Once the snow is gone and temperatures are more moderate, we can pour the concrete pad. Until then, we will be working on framing the upstairs, getting in a gas line for our propane stove, leveling the dirt work, and installing the pipes and insulation for our in-floor heating.

In other words, we have plenty to do.

Thankfully, after a year of drumming our heels, we have reached the stage  where most of the work is on us, and things will proceed as quickly as we can handle.

Since both of our little families are living in cramped quarters and have been going crazy with cabin fever this winter, we are pretty motivated. Our hope is to be in the house before we have to spend another winter in our tiny cabin.

Actually, what my sister says is, by the end of summer.

That feels ambitious to me.

But you never know!

Yikes, that was a long update! Let me know what you think in the comments, and any advice you may have for lasting through a long project like this!

House Update Coming Soon!

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Until then, here’s our tiny house, lost in the snow.

It’s so cute.

But seriously, look at that sky. Good heavens. Colorado is flexing today, folks, and if it wasn’t freeze-your-eyebrows cold outside, I would be out enjoying it.

Since it IS freeze-your-eyebrows cold, however, I’m going to stick with a hot drink on my couch and a quick heads up for y’all that I have a house update coming! We’re slowly chipping away at our enormous project, and I can’t wait to share the progress with you.

I’m Reading Again!

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

My current read, which, may I add, has a fabulous title. To be honest, pregnancy kicked my reading habits in the teeth, y’all. Like, hard. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to pick up a book and read it through to the end.


But! Now I’m nursing. And when you’re nursing and hanging out with a newborn who insists on being held while he sleeps at two AM, you find you have a lot of time for reading.


So glad to be getting back into it!

Winter in the Tiny House

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Folks, this is tiny house living at its very realest. The snow is too deep outside to use our clothes line, and probably won’t melt for a good long while.

Cute, huh?

Living like this stressed me out until one of my lovely writer friends suggested I romanticize it a bit.

So now I live in The Burrow with the Weasleys.

Be jealous.

I’m Alive!

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Guess what!?

I’m alive.

I know, miraculous, right? I can’t believe it’s been six months since I’ve written for this blog. I think that might have been the last time my brain worked properly. When was that?

July.

Yes, July. That was the month I lost my mind. I remember now.

In case you didn’t remember, I was pregnant in July. Just hitting the second trimester, and expecting things to get easier from here on out.

Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

It did not get easier. Hense the six month absence and my foggy, glitching brain.

Growing a human is hard, y’all. It takes way more work than I was expecting.

But! I am here now, and I do, in fact, have a tiny human to show for all this work.

He’s cute, right?

I made that.

Super proud of myself, if you can’t tell.

Recovering from pregnancy and giving birth has been a little more intense than I expected. (Read: horrible and soul-sucking.) But we’re finally done with doctor’s visits and infections and I didn’t die, so there you go.

And now . . . now I’m trying to find my feet again. Remember who I was before, what I liked to do, what I wanted out of life. I can do my dishes again and workout and feed my bunnies, thank goodness. My writing is attempting to come back too, and these days I’m rethinking where I want it to go and what I most want to put my time into.

I don’t have a lot of time, see. Newborns are needy little creatures. Gotta squeeze those chubby cheeks, y’all. Every day. And count those tiny toes. And give him all the kisses. It’s exhausting.

Thankfully, this blog is going to make the cut, and I’ll still be around to talk about writing, bunnies, greyhounds, tiny babies, and that one housing project that is still not finished.

So here’s to a new year! Hopefully my brain shows up for this one.

I’ve missed hearing from you all in the last six months! What’s been up in your world? Tell me about it in the comments!

Summer Projects

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

I’m starting to feel like a human again.

Exciting, right?

I have more energy, I don’t need a nap every two hours—thank goodness—and I can actually get excited about projects again.

Including my birthday project!

Something that I love to invest in—when I’m not so tired that I can’t string four words together—is farming on our 35 acres and moving my little family toward being as self-sustaining and independent—especially from grocery stores—as it is possible to be. Colorado makes this a difficult project, what with the garden-mowing deer, the endless drought, and the altitude that kills nearly every garden we attempt to plant, but I do my best. My family owns a substantial chicken flock, and my sister has several goats that will, eventually, become a large enough herd to provide milk for the three families living on our property.

Since they have eggs and milk covered, my husband and I decided to tackle finding a source of meat that isn’t wrapped in cellophane. We’ve discussed pigs and beef cows in the past, but with a baby on the way and limited energy while I finish creating my tiny human, big, pushy animals are a bit out of our reach. Instead, my husband brought several loads of reclaimed scrap wood home, and the two of us dedicated several of our evenings to building the cheapest—and safest—rabbit hutch we could manage.

To my shock, we actually finished it. The doors open and everything. I’m amazed, since it’s built completely of scrap wood and we started and finished without a real plan.

When it was—basically—finished, we drove down to Fort Collins and picked up our gorgeous breeder rabbits. As a general rule, a breeding trio—two does and a buck—can provide up to 600 pounds of meat in a year, especially if you’re willing to go the extra mile for a really solid meat breed instead of buying your ordinary, garden variety mixed rabbit. Which, coincidentally, we did.

I hesitated to post this particular story because of the negative reaction things like this tend to elicit. (What?? You eat your rabbits??) But I like to be real on my blog, especially about myself and the things I invest time and effort into. It is incredibly important to me that my children grow up knowing where food comes from, and that my family is as sustainable as it is possible to be. I don’t like to depend on the grocery store, and I like to know that—should something happen—we would not be relying on a dwindling store of processed and canned food that we are unable to replenish without the aid of corporations or government. We can’t produce everything we need, but we can do as much as possible, and meat rabbits are a step toward that.

Plus, after months of barely managing the minimum and sleeping more than I ever thought I would need to in a day, I’m excited to have the energy for some summer projects again. This is a good start!

What summer projects are you working on? Tell me about them in the comments!

A New Garden

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Summer is here!

Shockingly.

Every time winter comes to an end in Colorado, there’s always a chancy few weeks when I’m not quite sure if spring is here or if winter is just waiting for me to get my hopes up so it can crush all my dreams.
Case in point, we planted our garden at the very beginning of June this year, as you do. In fact, we planted both gardens—our huge, family garden down by the barn, and my own small flower garden next to our house.

Then, two days later, it snowed.

Like, six inches.

Thankfully, it was a wet, heavy snow without the freezing temperatures to freeze the ground, and we didn’t have any sprouts up yet to get murdered by the cold, but still. Colorado always has a trick up its sleeve.

I’ve learned not to trust its false springs or cheerful sunshine.

But, it’s the mid-July now, and snow is behind us, so I am starting to relax. Our enormous, three family, barnyard garden is full of zucchini and pumpkin plants that are, thankfully, winning their own battle against the weeds, and we should have an abundance of vegetables—and maybe even some watermelon and cantaloupe—in a month or so.

Gardening in Colorado is always a challenge. Besides the tricky spring snows, we have the altitude to battle (7,000 feet above sea level), and the desert climate, which makes rain an event worth celebrating. Deer jump over the fence and decimate our plants, our chickens do their share of damage while digging for bugs and possibly a few tender roots of baby plants, grasshoppers chew our leaves—and sometimes whole gourds—to bits, and July always greets us with at least one rainstorm that turns to hail.

Still, hope springs eternal, as they say, and every year we plow up our garden and plant our seeds and hope for something better than a whole garden of disappointments.

And yet, despite all the challenges and the very best resistance that Colorado has to offer, we almost always end up with more zucchini than we can feasibly eat, enough pumpkins to satisfy our Halloween cravings, and sometimes even a few surprises in the shape of cantaloupe or a watermelon that really, truly tried its best.

What more could you ask from a garden?

What are you planting this year, if anything? What kind of battles do you have for a good garden around your home? Tell me about it in the comments!

Finding Time For Fun

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

Okay, I’ll admit it.

Lately, my husband and I have been a little, teeny bit stressed. You know, with the new baby coming, and my traveling for work, and watching my nephew several days a week, and our house project stalling every time we get some momentum going. (Gotta love those government regulations.)

Between me hating food and falling asleep two or three times a day and struggling to keep up with deadlines, articles, this blog, and a constantly dirty house, the last three months have been a little . . . interesting.

Okay, dull and stressful.

There, I said it.

Pregnancy is hard, y’all.

Being pregnant and trying to maintain a business and move a career forward is hard.

So, since school ended with May and June has been more open and fluid for our schedules—and I’m no longer quite as sick or tired as I was during my first trimester—we decided it was time for some fun. Grown-up, adult fun.

Since neither of us are particularly good at grown-up, adult fun, and gas prices are through the roof and currently building a ladder, we had to be a bit creative. No more long drives in the mountains. I get carsick now anyway.

Yay, pregnancy!

Turns out, finding ideas for dates is really hard, especially dates that don’t involve a large amount of cash or a plane ticket to another state. I’ve cruised Pinterest for ideas a thousand times, and if one more blog encourages me to take a ‘sexy cooking class’, I will probably scream.

What is a ‘sexy cooking class’? What does that mean? I cook every day, and I am here to tell you that there is nothing sexy about peeling floppy, wet skins off of thawed chicken thighs while trying not to retch because your pregnant body loathes raw meat with every fiber of your being.

It is not sexy, y’all. It just isn’t.

But, I have lately discovered that date ideas for teens are way more fun than the adult lists. So we’ve been min-golfing and rollerskating, to ice-cream parlors and pizza joints, touring museums, going to the movies, and strolling through Manitou Springs, which might be the most touristy thing I’ve ever done in Colorado.

It’s been great!

Since we’re both adults with jobs and are exhausted by the time Saturday—our designated date day—comes around, it’s been a bit of a struggle to convince ourselves that going out sounds more fun than lying in bed all day and binge-watching our favorite show again. But making the extra effort has shaken off more stress than I would have ever imagined, and we always have a good time once we actually get to town and start having fun, so we’re going to keep at it.

Just . . . no sexy cooking classes.

Do you have any dates/activities that you swear by for a good time? Let me know in the comments!