Gin Mule (or Gin-Gin Mule) Recipe

In today's installation of Operation Empty the Pantry, I bring you the gin mule. 

There are lots of recipes for this drink when you google it. If you found me through google I hope you like what you see here. 

It's a pretty simple drink, and quite refreshing. I would call it a summer drink, although I discovered it's parent drink (the Moscow Mule) the winter. 

I got a little artsy with the photography

1 1/2 oz Gin

1/4 squeezed lime

6oz of Cock & Bull Ginger Beer 

ice

combine in a rocks/higball glass and enjoy

I have seen most recipes add muddled mint and simple syrup, but I think those make it too complex. This is simple, flavorful, and goes down easy. It's not too sweet, the gin is very subtle. 

Maybe without all that shit mine isn't a real Gin Mule, but it's delicious, and I suggest you at least try it before you add more sugar and the mint. 

Just as good (maybe better) thank the vodka drink it's modeled after.

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On The Move

Moving physically, not bloggerly- Movers are coming this week and we are headed to Sunny California after we take some much needed personal time. I've tried to set things up so you don't notice my absence, and I will try to post from the road periodically. We should be back to your regularly scheduled blogging in mid May. Until then have fun and find me on facebook and instagram and maybe even YouTube for more frequent updates!

Project 52: Week 12

Some of my favorite photos of the week. 

Spring must be super near because I have seen a lot of this little guy the last week. 

Perhaps I should name him? 

Any ideas?

I don't want to get too attached because we are moving in less than 3 weeks and this fat little guy is going to have to say hi to the other neighbors every morning. 

He did let me sneak up on him a little this week though. 

Vitamin D Deficiency (or- This would have never happened in Okinawa)

I got pretty sick in January/ February, Cold, upper respiratory infection, sinus infection, all pretty much at once. I put off going to the doctor for weeks but my symptoms only got worse. Finally I caved and went in, got diagnosed and I began treatment, and after a change in medicine I started to improve. But a few weeks after I started to feel better, I started to feel bad again, I was having waves of shortness of breath, often accompanied by nausea, dizziness and the shakes, similar to how I felt when I was sick earlier. I really just wrote it off as anxiety because we are so close to moving, and we have a lot going on in the month between leaving Montana and arriving in California. Also if you know me IRL I have sort of been complaining of the winter blues for the last couple months.
Also my monthly cycle got really screwed up at first I blamed this on being sick too, but when it happened again after I was better I decided to go to the doctor because it was possible that there was something hormonal or thyroid going on. After lots of questions and blood work I was told everything was A-Okay except my Vitamin D was not only low, but really low. 30-100 is normal, below 25 is considered a deficiency, my number was in the low 20s. When I got this diagnosis I giggled a little inside, I am a sun worshiper, I love being outside in the warm sunshine. I am likely at a higher risk for melanoma because as a kid I spent almost every day of summer vacation at the pool often nursing a sunburn afterwards. Same in Okinawa, I had a nice tan year round. But here in Montana there is only 3ish months where you can go outside in shorts and a tank top. My sun exposure is easily less than a quarter what it has been most of my life. I am also missing out on the other great sources of Vitamin D; fish and fortified milk, neither of which I get much of. Fish in my area scares me, I live next to a very toxic mine, so I don't fish and almost all the ocean fish at the grocery is farmed, also I just don't do milk.

My doctor prescribed me high dosage vitamin D supplements, one a week for 8 weeks, then I need to get my levels re-tested. I am also planning, besides adding regular sunshine back into my diet, to start taking supplements, to make sure this doesn't happen again. I started my first dose last week and I have only had 3 breathing "episodes", versus the 2-3 I was having daily. I have also noticed an increase in my energy, and maybe even my mood, although I'm still bitchy because it's still cold as shit. 

I know google is not your friend when you are sick, but WebMd and a lot of other general doctor websites say there really isn't any physical symptoms associated with Vitamin D deficiency, besides muscle and bone weakness and rickets. But when I googled "vitamin d deficiency shortness of breath" I got tons of hits. If you google hard enough you will always find someone that says you are right, even if you are wrong. But I found comfort in the fact that people also had the same physical symptom that I was, and they found relief. Because honestly I was initially worried that there was no answer, or it was the anxiety and this was a symptom I would just have to learn to live with.
So I am finally back on the road to recovery. I hope for real this time, I need to get out and be more active, my weight loss has stalled and I feel like I have been stuck in a "end of winter slump" of lethargy and lazy. I really want to go outside and walk, feel the sun on my skin, but there is too much snow still on the ground for the stroller, and I don't trust myself to baby wear and walk in the snow, I'll fall and hurt us both.

I really hope this explains why I have been a little down the last few weeks/months. and I really hope things will start looking up for me again.

Has anyone else dealt with a vitamin D deficiency? How did it affect you? 

Winter Blues- update

I think I am back, hopefully I can get to posting again. I have been knee deep in the winter blues, and sickness. What started as a cold, turned into a sinus infection, and then turned into an upper respiratory infection, all over the course of about a month. It finally caught up with me, not being able to breathe, and not being able to get anything done around the house, and barely being able to keep up with Evelyn, I finally went to the doctor and began antibiotics, Slowly I have been improving, and after an antibiotic change I think I feel 100% again, but it's been so long since I felt better I am not sure. So between being knee deep in snow, seriously almost a foot this week, and the winter blues, I am so ready to move to Southern California, where it never will snow. I check the weather every day, it's so beautiful in Oceanside, and our forecast is calling for more snow. 

Yeah, I can't even make this shit up.

Saturday Morning 

Saturday Morning

Tuesday Morning
more snow, yay (heavy with the sarcasm)

But things are still looking good for our move, we should leave Montana some time in early/mid april and we will begin our trek across country to visit Evey's Grandparents, Uncles, and Aunts. Then we will head back west to Camp Pendleton. To say I am excited is an understatement. I have a countdown on my phone and We have about 60 days left until we leave! 

except I don't think we'll go through vegas on our way down, we'll just drive through northern arizona like we usually do.

Its going to be a huge pain in the ass at first because we will be driving 2 cars, 2 dogs, 1 cat, and 1 baby from Montana to Arizona, then leaving one car and the animals at my parents house and my sisters place. Then picking them back up on our way to California. 

For our short time left here in Montana, I hope the weather improves so we can have some nice weekends to spend outdoors with our friends, and Evey's little boy friend, before we move. It really sucks that both places we lived here in Montana, we start making friends when we are about to leave.

Go Link up! 

Fall?

Yeah, we skipped it. 

I know my porch is a mess. And now it's covered in snow. This was at 10pm, looks like about 1/2 an inch. Now it's midnight and we are closer to if not past 3 inches. Oh dear. 

Glacier National Park (part 1)

For the first time since our Honeymoon in 2006 Paul and I went on a real overnight vacation. We've had lots of stay-cations and day-cations, we've road-tripped for work and to see family. But we've never had our own trip where the destination was our choice, family fun, no goals, no "just drive, so we can just get there". We decided we are long overdue. 

Another really nice thing about this trip was we didn't really have much phone service the whole time, so it really was just the two of us. 

I am going to break this up into a couple posts so we don't go into picture overload all at once. 

First Family Vacation

The first night we drove up to East Glacier. We stayed in a cute little motel (Mountain Pine Motel) that had a very retro feel, but it was very clean. Not a lot of amenities, our room had two beds an old TV, towels and bar soap (and of course I forgot shampoo) But considering we are right outside the park, for the price, I was very pleased. Most of our neighbors were hikers, after we arrived and they dwindled back in most of them sat outside and drank a beer while they took their hiking boots off and unloaded their gear from their cars.

If you ever go to Glacier I highly recommend Mountain Pine, It was clean, the grounds were beautiful, lots of grass and trees. I think they are pet friendly, I saw people with dogs, but we didn't bring our monsters.

The hotel manager (Cute little old man) gave us a really nice map and basically outlined our trip for us. I am so glad he did, because we had no intention on going to Two Medicine (blue arrow) or Many Glacier (pink arrow). 

Today I'll share with you those two places. 

Running Eagle Falls Trailhead

Two Medicine Lake

Drove down to the shore of Lower Two Medicine

On our way in Lower Two medicine was very calm and the Mountains reflected perfectly off the lake, so on our way out we decided to explore and drove down a washed out dirt road to try to get a picture. We got down and it wasn't calm anymore, but it was still beautiful. 

On our way back up the washed out dirt road though we almost didn't make it back to the main road. I was really upset because I thought we were about to ruin our vacation and it had just started, we had literally only been out of bed maybe 2 hours max. Lesson learned, don't take your Jeep, no matter how BA it is, off-roading, with crappy road tires. After about 10 minutes of trying we got up the hill and back onto the highway. 

rain coming in looking in to Lower Two Medicine from the main highway headed North.

obligatory selfie

lower two medicine panorama

Lower Two Medicine panorama 2

after we got back on our way a storm started to roll in, lots of rain and lightening on our drive from Two Medicine up to Many Glacier. 

Family Fun! 

Look at all those Glaciers! 

Once we got to the end of the road at Many glacier we noticed the clouds were parting and the sun was peeking through, it would be a good day, the rain would eventually stop and the sun would come out! 

Many Glacier view from the Swiftcurrent Lodge parking lot

Stay tuned for more Glacier National Park coming soon! 

Ringing Rocks

Once upon a time I picked up a silly book about oddities in Montana, Montana Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff. Fun little book, with all kinds of silly, neat places to visit. One of the fun things that's really close to us is the Ringing Rocks outside Whitehall, Mt. It's only about a 20 minute drive down the freeway and then up a dirt road. So why not? 
What are ringing rocks? well they are some rocks with a weird geological feature. When you hammer on them they make more of a bell tone that rings, as opposed to just a "bonk" or a "tink" from the hammer.
So back in March, While Paul's mom was visiting us we made a family trip out there. It was pretty neat, the rocks certainly made different noises, I even took some videos, but the sound quality is very poor and you can't really hear the pings and pongs. 
There was also lots of rocks available for Paul to climb on. Because that's what boys do, right?  

Oh my gosh E was so tiny 6 months ago!

I'm a Famous Published Photographer!

okay, that's a slight exaggeration.

Last fall Paul and I went on the Gates of the Mountain Boat Tour. I took about 32 hundred pictures.  And loaded them up to Flickr.

Well, this was one of them:

entrance to the canyon i.e. Gates of the Mountain

Then a couple of months ago I was contacted by AllTrips.com, the wanted to use my photo for their Gates of the Mountain page.
So I'm now a famous, published, Photographer.


 I was nominated for the top 50 Military Mom Blogs by VoiceBoks, you can vote for me here. Thank you for your support.

Moving My Military Family (part 1, early preparation)

I can't wait to cook at sea level again.

We are currently at about 6,200 feet, and I have to adjust cooking times, and I burn a lot of things. I can't even grill right. As I write this I am trying to make dinner and my mac and cheese is taking for-ev-er.

We have finally accepted our fate that we are moving to Cali. Well I had already accepted it, but we tried to change things, to no avail. I am excited, I have been excited for a while, but now that we are about 3 months from moving I am really getting excited. Paul will only be working about 2 of those 3 months because he has vacation time that he has to use or he will loose it.

So this is our third PCS (permanent change of duty station), but our 7th move in the 8 or 9 years we have been together. So 3 states, 2 countries, 7 houses/apartments. I am by no means a moving pro, but I kind of know what to expect. We are a few months out still, so a plan is in place. The plan? Get rid of all the shit we don't want to move.

Step One: Early Prep:

We have been planning what we want to take and what we want to sell/donate. We want to get rid of most of our big furniture, except baby stuff and some bedroom stuff (hopefully, if we can get decent prices for our stuff.) I have a running list of the things I don't want to move, things that are broken, or well past their lifespan. Like our couch. We got it our first year in Okinawa, it's been almost 6 years. Is that a long time for a couch? I don't think so, but ours is breaking. The springs are falling apart on one side and it sags. It's also covered in dog slobber because Renji licks it all the time. It's so sad. It still works, it's just a sad couch.

"it may be sad, but it's tasty"
"am i really related to this guy?"

Since we moved to Butte a few months ago we have been downsizing, we moved from a 4br house with a garage to about half that, and no garage. We have stuff everywhere, all of our garage stuff is outside, well not all of it, but with winter here storing anything outside is a bad idea. Plus the stuff we have outside is subject to the elements, like our tent, which I am pretty sure is toast. We still have stuff that has no home, boxes piled everywhere, we are using the extra shower as storage, because oddly this house doesn't have any closets besides the master bedroom, and that one is filled with clothes that don't fit.

We have already gotten rid of 2-3 loads of stuff, clothing and housewares that we don't use or need. But there is still a huge pile of stuff I need to go through this week. I have never really hung anything on the walls because I knew we were moving in 9 months so most of that is still in the boxes the movers packed in Helena, or we repacked in rubbermaid containers.

It feels like we have only made a small bit of progress in downsizing, but do you really want to sell your entertainment center, when you have nothing else to put your TV on? Part of me says do it now, part of me says wait until October. And our bed, I think we plan on keeping the mattress but we want to sell the bed frame. So do it now? or wait?  Well it looks like we are waiting, because I don't want to deal with it now. Also part of me thinks that we are more likely to get better prices in Cali. Way more families coming and going, some new military couple looking to furnish their house may really want my bed, and my coffee tables, and my entertainment center, and my sad couch (which I will steam clean), and my clothes that don't fit, someone wants it, right?

Just a friendly reminder, I was nominated for the top 50 Military Mom Blogs by VoiceBoks, you can vote for me here. Thank you for your support.