Merry Christmas 2017

May your Christmas be filled 

with the GIFT of faith

And the BLESSING of hope

And the PEACE of His love.

The Raatjes Family 

Andy, Erin

Bronwyn, Nicholas

& 

Rusty

Running and no one is chasing me...

I accomplished something last month I never even considered I might do... I ran a 5K Race.  Now mind you I was not running to win anything, it was actually a fund raiser for a food bank in Illinois (one our church works with).
This crazy running started back in July but it goes back further than that.  When I got pregnant with my son I realized I didn't actually lose the weight from my daughter - two years prior.  Getting off the floor pregnant or not was not pretty.  Fast forward to March - 6 weeks after my son was  born, pounds were coming off - yay!  Off they came, then they stopped.  I realized I was going to have to do something about it.  A year before our office had done a weight loss challenge and had started using MyFitnessPal and oddly enough it was still on my phone.  So, tracked my food for a week, lost weight.  It was amazing.
In May we had a step competition between Andy, My sister-in-law Allison, and our friend Dawn.  Who could take the most amount of steps in the month.  The day before it ended Al and I called a tie - we were both tired and said enough was enough.  More than 10K steps a day, that got the weight moving off too.
Well July came.  My brain was cooking up an idea of doing a couch to 5K program.  Andy said he'd do it too.  We'd end it with running a 5K.  We even went out together and bought running shoes!  That first Monday morning at 5AM on our $15 Goodwill treadmill was about as close to hell as I think running should come.  What did I do Wednesday?  Got up and did it all over again.  Some how in the last 3 months I worked up to running for 30 minutes.  I've had a few setback, killed a few bugs in the dark morning basement, gotten quite the startle by a very small mouse, but almost 28 pounds since I started in March, I can run for 3 miles and not die.
What's next?  I'm thinking I'll try to keep running - especially since Allison and I have another 5K in November.  I have a goal for March - but we'll see if that happens... I'm not saying what it is, that way if I don't make it - no one will know...
Oh and Andy?  He never did do the training program.  Those nice new shoes?  He ran in them for the first time on Saturday at the 5K.  Yes folks, me 9 weeks of training, Andy tosses shoes on and runs 3 miles.  He probably could have run it twice.  Oh well, I was thankful to have someone by my side supporting me as he always does.

My name is Erin, and I have a problem...

So I have this problem, it's an addiction of sorts.

Spring flower bulbs.

You know the kind... the type you stick in the grown in the fall and hope the animals don't dig up (or relocate) and pray for spring so you can see their amazing glory.

These flowers are popping up all over my yard.  Each morning before work - I walk around the yard in almost an Easter Egg like hunt - trying to see the new blooms, see what color they are and look for any new sprouts out of the ground.  Each evening I go look again to see if any more have opened.

When we moved to our house - I had bought a bunch of bulbs from a bunch of places.  I had some red tulips, a bag of daffodils, some crocus.  Then our friends in Pella gave me a box of tulip bulbs from Pella Iowa's Tulip Time.  Yes, the residents can go dig up the bulbs after the festival.

Last year I got another bunch of Tulip Time bulbs but also went a little crazy with a bulb company.  When they all came Andy just shook his head.  I was planning to plant them all - but you know... the pregnant lady probably shouldn't be doing that all by herself... so he helped.

Fast forward to right now - after I've walked the yard in the morning  and evening - I'm hunting online for another fix - more bulbs!  Andy says no more buying bulbs... Free Pella bulbs are great and awesome - fill up the yard, but time for some summer blooms in our yard.  I promise I'm working on some of those too.  But I will admit - there is nothing more fun than a new tulip blooming.  Oh the Alliums - those are amazing too - those are only just beginning!  Maybe I can find some cheap bulbs......

A Fall Walk and Peek-a-boo

 

A few weeks ago we went for a walk to a local church that has beautiful grounds.  It was fun to see the fall colors and play a little peek-a-boo.  By the way, some people cheat at peek-a-boo, I won't name names... but she knows who she is....

Watching our girl grow up!

Raise your hand if you pin things on Pinterest to DIY and never do the DIY part?  Ok…. Ok…. My hand is up to.  Sometimes you like an idea so much – you actually do it!  This Growth Chart was one of those things.  And by me doing it – I ordered the vinyl decals and my dad did all the rest of the work.  Let’s be honest – no one wants me to touch a table saw or try to get decals on straight.
I wrote on Bronwyn’s heights before we moved, while this was still at my folk’s house.  It’s deceiving because it doesn’t start at zero.  It starts at 8 inches.  So when I was writing the dates I asked Andy and my Dad if I was writing Bronwyn’s birth height on the right line “oh yeah – right there -  you are good.”    Several days later my dad laughed and told me I wrote it an inch below where it should be.  “Argh!  But I asked you guys!!”  Oh well, now it has arrows and a good story.  Soon we’ll add Andy’s and my height to make sure we aren’t shrinking or growing.

Lake Katherine - Palos Heights, IL

Once again I have to brag on my little city Palos Heights, IL.  We have this man-made lake called Lake Katherine.  Once again it served the perfect backdrop for me to take photos of my Myrtle Grace Designs.  I hold them over the winter so I can get a bit of nature in each, nature that isn’t dirty icky snow.  Enjoy some of the sights of Lake Katherine.

Living a Grassless Existence

Currently we live a grassless existence… sure our association has some grass we can use, but it’s not really ours.  OK, maybe .07% of each blade of grass is ours.  Still they’d give us a funny look if we tried to plan a garden in our .07% of the lawn.  Instead we do some gardening on our front porch.  This year’s line up?  Basic, Peppermint, Parsley, Chives and a few pepper plants.  They are all looking good so far… we’ll see if we can keep them all alive and producing.
Update – this week our… neighbor’s overly psychotic dog tore down one of the pepper plants.  Sadness… it even had some flowers.  Guess we’ll have to get a new one.

The many faces of Rusty...

Another sunny warm winter day… another day for Rusty to sit in the sunshine and take in all the warmth he can.
I love how you can see all his crazy whiskers… currently they are quite a mess… he’s got one growing the wrong direction, one above his eye that’s all bent funky. He sure doesn't seem to mind.

Loving his Gruel

Here’s a tasty new recipe! It’s easy and only has two ingredients! Ground turkey and rice.
First, fill a pot with water, plop a pound of ground turkey in it.
Make about 6 cups of rice.
Boil the ground turkey until it appears done and the water is really nasty looking.
Then, mix the rice and turkey and feed to the dog.
Yes… this new recipe was for Rusty. He had a little… tummy upset a few weeks ago. The vet’s orders were turkey and rice. I’m not sure if he could possibly have loved it more! Oh he was so excited! Each time we fed him, he was anxious to get his nose in it.
Please don’t make this for yourself. Smells so bad! Have a pup with a sad tummy? Works like a charm.

Snow Dog... he is not....

Did you hear about our Snow-maggedon? This past February we had the storm of the century… at least that’s what the news people called it. Granted… while it DID shut the city of Chicago down for a few days and we even had an emergency plan go into effect at work – it wasn’t the end of the world. We did get lots of snow! Rusty LOVES snow. Mostly LOVES to eat it. He also loves to jump around in it. I had to get some pictures of him in it just to show how high it was on him. Sure makes for a tough place to do your business… we had to find a low spot for him. :)

Sun Sitting

Rusty is one fierce creature. You can tell from these pictures – it must be the pit-bull in him right? Or not.
On a sunny day this winter we had the front door open and he enjoyed sitting in the sun – just like a cat. He’d follow the sun and just sit. Not lay – sit. Stare directly into the sun and sit. I took a few picture of him since I thought it was so odd. He must have been a bit dazed since he wasn’t bothered by me – generally he less than thrilled to be photographed.
If nothing else you get to see his crazy eye brows… wild animal!!

OZ – Snorkeling

Many people have something on their bucket list… Swim the Great Barrier Reef. We can now say we’ve done that. Amazing is all I can say about it. Ok… that’s just not true. I have a lot to say about it. I’m not a huge fan of snorkeling. Let’s rewind further… we took a day cruise in Cairns out to the reef. They gave us little to no info on how the actual snorkeling would be happening, so I was a bit nervous. When we got to the place, they ferried us to an island that was covered with birds. We were told not to go near the birds, don’t touch the reef, leave the fish alone. Ugh… so many rules and things not to do! How do I snorkel? So we got this 30 second lesson – not enough. I was still freaking out that I wouldn’t be able to breathe out of my nose… then the chilly water… then Andy was swimming like a fish. Ugh… not my thing. The ships photographer came and took our picture underwater…. Well…. I was somewhat underwater. See the panic in my eyes?
We had a super fancy ziplock type bag for our digital camera so we were able to use it to take photos underwater. Really cool. Our camera was dry as a bone after.
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I would hope this time I’d be at least less of a freak about it.

OZ –Bush Walk

Just a few blocks away from the beach condo we stayed in, we were able to go on a Bush Walk. It was a maintained pathway, so we didn’t exactly wander into the bush and fight our way through it. Belinda warned us to always look down, since most things in Australia are poisonous… at least, so it seems like. In the middle of our walk Belinda would say, “you aren’t looking down, look down people!” We survived AND got to see many fun animals and plants.

OZ –Kangaroos

Yay for pictures… Sorry for the delay. I have no real excuse.
One of my favorite parts of our trip to Australia – other than getting to see my family, was getting to see, touch and feed kangaroos.
We got to see kangaroos in a few different ways… In Sydney we saw them through the window at the Wildlife World, at Australia Zoo we got the pet and feed them, in the bush we were surprised by one right around the corner… on the road on the way home we meet one with the bumper of the car. Oops.
Roos are so soft and sweet, at least the ones that we encountered. Feeding them was amazing, they would grab your hand and pull it down further so they could eat with more ease out of your hand. So cool. I do think they had to rotate the roos that were being feed… otherwise they’d have a whole bunch of REALLY overweight roos no longer to hop around.

The Dune of Death

I know I know… post some Australia pictures… I’ll get there… first I had to share our latest adventure – Warren Dunes, Michigan. We went camping last weekend and what a beautiful weekend it was. October can be kind of a dicey month as far as weather. Last year around the same time we went camping - pretty miserable. This year we went with Andy’s family. We had a great time. We laughed over a late night bonfire, walked and almost died on the dunes, sat by the lake, generally enjoyed ourselves.
What? Oh yes… almost died on the dune. I’d gone on a hike Friday afternoon, enjoyed winding my way through the trees and enjoying the color. Saturday we all wanted to go for a hike. We got to the start of my nice trail… No… wind through the trees? That’s silly, why not go right over the dune. I’ll tell you why not, it’s nearly impossible to get up the dune without thinking you are having a heart attack! After finally getting up it and sitting for a nice long while, we all made our way to the lake. What a gorgeous day for it.
We came home with a little less lunchmeat than we thought. We found some footprints inside our cooler – our raccoon friends snatched our lunchmeat! I hope they enjoyed that brand new unopened package of ham! :)

Down Under Pictures

Want to see our vacation pictures? Let me pull out the slide projector... hold on.
Oh wait... Just look at this neat collage... Oh, you want a few more to see? Ok... I'll post some in the coming weeks so you can actually SEE them. Can you figure out where we went? I'll give you a hint... our photos are in the shape of Australia for a reason... and no, we didn't go to Alabama.

Front Porch Gardening

Remember that tomato plant we thought might eat us? We ate its fruit! We combined it with some of our front porch basil, some onions, garlic too…. Mmm Bruschetta! They were mighty tasty. All that work and tending for one meal. Certainly makes me wonder if that was worth our while. Ehh… At least we enjoyed them.

A day at the beach... the dog beach

Rusty loves the dog beach. Who knew? Andy knew. Off to the dog beach we went downtown Chicago on a day off of work. Who knew chasing every ball anyone was throwing could be so fun? Rusty did. He had a little doggie ADD that day… swim swim BALL! sniff sniff BALL! drink drink BALL! No matter what he was doing : BALL! So fun to watch. He got covered in sand, but he dried off and cleaned up quick. So fun to watch.

Clarence the Sheep

So let’s talk about sheep. Sheep and pincushions… oh and buttons too!
This is Clarence. Clarence is a sheep. On his day out… he tip toed through the… flowers. Hrm… not really tulips… oh! Poppies! This cute little guy was designed for my mom for her birthday. It’s been SO hard to keep it a secret – especially when we went to take some photos of it!
First off… Week’s Dye Works has this amazing blue linen called Blue Jean. Then… the floss colors - also Weeks– of course are awesome. Then the buttons. They are from Just Another Button Company – again so cute. Love them. And finally, the Sudberry Shaker Pin Cushion. So neat.
We went to a local childrens' petting zoo to take pictures. I had some grand plan idea that they’d be in a field and we could have them in the distance… instead we were invited into the stale and had a great time with the sheep. We did find a field of sheep – under the power lines on the corner of a busy intersection. Now, don’t think that is normal in the Chicago suburbs… surely not. :)
Sadly he’s not available to purchase until February 2011. But for now… enjoy the pics of the sheep.
And today… Today is my mom’s birthday – so Happy Birthday Mom!! Enjoy your Sheepy Sheep!

Scenes from Lake Katherine

Sometimes when I go to take pictures of projects, I find something unexpected. We are blessed to live near a man-made lake (formally a gun range) called Lake Katherine. It’s a gorgeous location for photos, so often I will take my finished pieces there to photograph them. Several weeks ago I went and found beautiful flowers along the waterfall, a goose that was practically posing and a peaceful scene. I just wanted to share – so enjoy.