Miracles do happen…

When hundreds & hundreds of people who you do not know, still say prayers every morning  & evening and keep having faith & hope when you might have lost it a little bit…

When hundreds & hundreds of people that we do not all, know sent cards, gifts & lovely surprises just to show their support and love…

When you are able to see your husband smiling at you each morning and say “Hello Honey”, and when family & friends come over often to just do, “fun things”… And look at our Alpaca's...

 
In the previous blog post I told you all about being admitted to the hospital and doing my “Poopie Dance”. And I have been dancing ever since, because I wake up in the morning! The doctors gave me about two weeks to two months to live…   Yes..      I know..

It is the eleventh of December now…!!!

For me that is one miracle every day. Not that it this is easy. Because you KNOW you could NOT wake up the next morning. But really that is not even the scariest part. Because I believe that (hopefully) somebody saved me a little spot up there in Heaven… so no reason to be scared about dying itself.

The more scary part is the how…

I am afraid that my family or Bastiaan will have bunches and bunches of trouble with me because I’m gonna go a little crazy on them, like talking like a crazy person, (Yeah I know, I already do that sometimes, haha) . But it worries me, to become somebody I do not know.

Or worse that they have to take care of me 24/7…

I am a very independent lady (yes, stubborn.. hehe), and I want to do things my way. It was sooooo hard to give up “control” of the farm because, for one I love it so much and for two, It was kinda my dream. Having had your dream and then having to give it up again is though… But I know it is in good hands with my family and Bastiaan.

And at least MY DREAM CAME TRUE…

How wonderful is that?!?

Last Year Emily Caldwell from Progressive Dairyman wrote a story about me and my Family. She did a wonderful job of writing it up and won an award! She also managed to get us to the number 1 spot on their most read articles!!! If you click on the link below you can find the updated article and the original article!

Progressive dairyman Article!

I don’t know how many more posts I can write. I would love too, but I just don’t know. My eyesight is not doing so well, and my “thinking cap” seems to be lost some days. But I will promise you, if something happens I will make sure you get an update. Please check Facebook, The Four Leaf Clover Dairy website and of course here at my blog.

Maybe the doctors are “wrong” again and I’m still typing away in a year from now! I love you all.

And miracles do happen, you know…

…

The C stands for ...

When we were in the hospital something amazing happened!
Well... I think it was pretty amazing, anyway...

It is very uplifting/humbling to see your life story written down by somebody else, it sure makes you feel very blessed! I really hope you like Emily's article!

And i am sorry but you have to click the link in order to get to the article (maybe even open a new window)...

Chasing a Dream: One woman's fight for a Dairy farm life


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Things are going well. Every new day is a better one then the day before. Hopefully we are going to see the girls today! And i am sure happy to be back here with all of you!

In the spotlight!

When your are a bit blue….

As in, waiting for biopsy results and because of that you simply can’t put a decent word on paper… 

You paint…

Well at least that is what I do…. But because my painting is like my drawing in kindergarten (all over the place)  and as you can see in the picture of our bathroom, i must have been color blind at that time (I blame it on the meds)... I won’t bore you with how MUCH the color is going to CHANGE and yes practice makes perfect so I keep practicing...

Yes this is pinkish and purple... What was i thinking...

But since my right side is still hurting and yes, literally a little bit blue too, BUT only 2 stitches (whoohoo), and i couldn't finish my painting job...  I decided to show you something really neat! We, as in you and I, made it into the Progressive Dairyman Magazine! 

Front page of Progressive Dairyman

The article! Yes you can enlarge and hopefully read...

Oh, so sweet!!!

Even more fantastic is that this magazine goes all over the US! And this makes me happy because i love to spread the word about how fantastic dairy farming, AND blogging is! So thank you all for making this happen i simply could not have done this without you all!

Hopefully tomorrow the waiting ends and i can tell you the good news that everything was negative and that i just have been an incredible stressed, emotional overwhelmed, silly girl! And i can go back to try to be a good wife, thoughtful family member, motivational employer and  good caretaker for all our girls (the cows)... yes i am a bit of a perfectionist, if you didn't already knew... ;-)

Dr Nala here we come!

Big hugs

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We won! So... Kidnapping your husband guidelines!

We won Whoohooo! Yes, i am talking about the Ice Cream Flavor Face off contest!!! So my present and THANK YOU gift, from me to you; Kidnapping Guidelines!!!

These are easy to follow and no, it doesn’t have to be your husband, it can also be your wife, best friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, (and yes it would be lovely if you can ask him or her to marry you on this trip…) or soon to be fiancee! It's always good to hit two flies with one swat, or so my grandma used to say...

Just make sure it is an (almost) adult and you HAVE TO FORGET about work, troubles, sickness, pain, worries, money, kids OR cows!

So you pick a date, call his or her boss to make sure they can leave for a while, but you also have to make sure the boss is in on it and don’t spoil the surprise. Grab some favorite jeans, pants, shirts, hiking boots and toiletries and stuff them in the back of your car the night before. Think of good excuses to give to him or her so they don’t find out that you have hidden them! Good excuses include, “It is in the laundry basket, yes it is been in there for over a week”,” The dog used it as a new playmate”, “Oh sorry honey I ruined it with the bleach, but I will get you a new one soon” and/or “The cat pied on it and now I need to wash it again”…

On the day of, put your designated “victim” in the car, take his or her keys, phone, blackberry, I-Pad, laptop and other play toys from them and put them in a zip lock bag and store them in your glove compartment of your car! Tell them to enjoy the ride/drive/flight! And no they can’t have their toys back until you get back in the car to drive home… I know this will be a little bit of a challenge for some of us, but trust me, it is worth it!

Arrive at the The Quail Ridge Inn in Sevierville and enjoy 2 or 3 days of relaxation with your loved one AND George and Anita! They are absolutely fabulous and they will make you feel at home in their beautiful log cabin and cook the most INCREDIBLE breakfasts AND (yes, I know it is almost too good to be true) desserts! There are NO tv’s in your room, you are in the middle of the mountains, right in front of the Smoky Mountains, and you have very BAD reception. So it is the perfect time to enjoy your loved one and the KING SIZE bed (o my gosh it is HUGE!!), the Jacuzzi, good food, trees, raccoons, butterflies, birds, deer, flowers and bears (who steal Anita and George’s peaches) and mountain views, rivers waterfalls and green meadows!

So you see it is not that hard…

I am so glad that we are blessed with a super mom, dad and little brother so we COULD go away like this last weekend and we enjoyed it too the fullest! Yesterday we came back and it was back to business and cows as usual but everything was a little better to bear because we were refreshed. Maybe sometimes you just need to be refreshed to do the best job possible…?

Besides the fact that we had a great time with each other and Anita & George …. IT IS OFFICIAL…. Because of all of your votes WE WON!!! I got this fantastic news on my blackberry, yes I snuck out, dug into the glove compartment of the BMW, opened the zip lock bag and checked all my messages and all of your comments on the “kidnap Bastiaan post”. “Don’t tell Bastiaan, though!”

So this great news was a little cherry on top of Anita’s great dessert!

I would like to thank each and every one who voted in all the rounds and yes if you want to read how we got to the top…
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Little Brothers!
Ice Cream and multi Colored Peppercorns
Kidnapping Bastiaan... and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream...

Or if you want to go give George and Anita the pleasure of your and your kidnapped person's company…
The Quail Ridge Inn Bed & Breakfast

Or if you want to learn some more about everything dairy and / or cows…
The Progressive Dairyman Yes, Whoohoo we won!!! Super article if i may say so myself! ;-)
The Proud to Dairy Website

THANK YOU SOOO MUCH and I told you before but I will tell you again… YOU’RE THE BEST!!!

Thursday (blogging life) will be back to normal! So we’ll probably do a new “Crazy American’s” then but now I am going to catch up on some work. We are going to have a big group of people coming to tour the dairy today, so that is going to be exiting enough! And yes tonight I will be off to go and read some of your fantastic posts that I haven’t been able to see in (what looks like) ages! Hehe…

 
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Kidnapping Bastiaan…. And Vanilla Bean Ice Cream…

Yep, I admit it!
I kidnapped my husband!
And I LIKED IT!

We don’t go out much. Our life pretty much evolves in and around the dairy. We don’t feel the need to go too far and away places, because when we were “young” (yes, this means in our teens and twenties) Bastiaan and I traveled the world. So now we are just happy to sit on our own couch in our own house enjoying each other’s company.

But sometimes you (well, I anyway) get this feeling and you just need to chance paces a bit to keep yourself and your relationship happy…

Soooo, I kidnapped my hubby!

Last year my sweetie turned 30 (such a young pup...)! And we needed to celebrate, but I am not very good at giving gifts and I am also ALWAYS forgetting his birthday day (yes I know, it is usually on the same date every year…) but somehow it always sneaks up on me! So to make up for all the years that I almost (or fully) forgot I planned a little get away trip.

He did not know ANYTHING! I just told him he needed to make sure to shower and shave and be ready at 11 am Thursday morning.

The night before I packed his favorite shirts and yeans, tossed some cologne and gel in a bag and put that with my girly girl stuff in the trunk of my car. At 11 am he was ready and was anxious to know where going…. Bastiaan is not very good with surprises or gifts; he just has this need to know what it is or what the surprise is…. But I was NOT going to tell him!

I had to be pretty crafty because after his shower and getting dressed, with me telling him “Sorry honey, that shirt of yours is still in the laundry basket…”, “Yeah I know it is been in there for over a week….”, “I’ll do it when we get back tonight…”. And sneaking back into the house, while he waited in the car, with a lousy excuse of having forgotten something, to get his toothbrush and shaving stuff, in two Walmart bags, so he couldn’t see what was in it... We finally got going.

No I didn’t need no handcuffs, and also I didn’t need a blindfold, but I had him in my car and I wasn’t gonna let him go!

After we drove for 4 hours he REALLY wanted to know where we were going. I told him, “surprise!” and kept driving. But of course I got a little hungry and he got a little grumpy after all this driving, so we pulled over at an exit close to Cincinnati. Bastiaan was all ready to hop out of the car and do some driving with race cars (that was what he thought we were going to do) but when we pulled into the parking lot of a Steak and Shake, he figured it out pretty quick! No racing cars, not today!

After we had a fabulous burger and a shake, YES some VANILLA BEAN (hehe), we hit the road again. And finally after driving a little over seven and a half hours we were there! By that time Bastiaan knew we weren’t going home that night, but he still did not know I booked us a Bed & Breakfast close to the Smokey Mountains and we were going to stay there for two nights. We ended up staying there for THREE nights, just us, our lovely hosts and some wonderful house guests. No phones, no TV, no computers and NO COWS! We did have long walks, amazing breakfasts and even more amazing desserts, some incredible views of the mountains and our own porch and Jacuzzi! It was fantastic!

And..., because of all of you, we made it into the final round of the Progressive Dairyman Ice Cream Face Off!!! AND because Bastiaan is going to be 31 this weekend and yes I am kidnapping him again today! But this time with his knowledge, I am gonna ask you ONE MORE TIME to please vote for Vanilla Bean! And I promise you, I will do my best to find the best ice cream place in DollyWood and eat some Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and let you know about it…. Well…. And if we won the contest of course!

A big THANK YOU SOOO MUCH to everybody who voted AND a big THANK YOU AND A BIG HUG for everybody who where brave enough to try my Ice Cream and multi colored Peppercorns recipe, and actually did LIKE it!

You guys are the best!!!



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Ice Cream and Multi Colored Peppercorns!

If you look at those great chefs on television, they sometimes mix things together and in your head it just doesn’t make ANY sense…

Well, this is a post AND a recipe about Ice Cream that just does not makes sense! But the food  (Ice Cream) will taste as if a little angel pied over your tongue…. (Yes, this is a Dutch quote but somehow it doesn’t sound as good in English as it does in Dutch…but i like it anyway)!

A couple of weeks ago I promised you another Ice Cream story if we would make it into round 3 of the Progressive Dairyman Flavor Face off 2011!!! Sooooo, guess what!?! We made it into round 3, and a promise is a promise so here is the story!

When I was about 20 years old, after working at several jobs in agriculture I decided that it was time to do something different. My school was taking up a lot of time and so I tried to find a job in the weekends and in the evenings. My little sister worked at a restaurant/party place/cafe/bar a couple of towns over and she had to change jobs because of her school. Because of her change of plans, I had the opportunity to take over her job. And so I became a waitress/bartender/ amateur cook (sounds pretty good, right?!)/ kitchen help…

The Viersprong (the restaurant’s name) was a the most perfect workplace I could of asked for. Being a waitress in Holland is a little different then here in the US or Canada. They don’t pay minimum wage, you get full pay but the waitresses don’t get tips in Holland. Also another HUGE difference is, there are NOT so many waitresses. Truly sometimes I just wonder why on earth there are some many waitresses in a single restaurant. We had to take care of 50 people all by ourselves and in the same time they do here! But this could be a great subject for one of our “Crazy Americans” series…

I would work there every Saturday and Sunday and at days that I didn’t have to go to school. I had the best coworkers you can think of and Gerard & Lieke (the bosses) were fantastic teachers! On how to deal with customers, on how to plan your day or hour as efficient as possible. On how too never walk or do more than necessary to get the job done as best as you possible could and how to look… As in REALLY look!

Before I worked at The Viersprong my mom would tell me to go into our basement and find something like a can of beans, and I could not find it! No matter how long, how hard or how good i checked every inch of the basement (and my mom had the best basement ever! Clean, good light and super organized!)! After some good lessons on LOOKING from Gerard and some extra lessons from my mom, I never have troubles anymore in finding things! I also learned to think and plan ahead. This is something that I am still grateful for everyday, because I use that a lot now that we have 21 employees ourselves at the dairy!

While working at the restaurant Lieke and Gerard started to make their own Ice Cream desserts. I was all “soft ijs” (the kind of Ice Cream that you get at Mc Donalds in a cone, “yes the soft, oh so good, yummy stuff!!!” With different kind of fruits, liquors (yes booze!), whipped cream, chocolate or other goodies! And people just loved them!

So for this special post I’m gonna give you a special taste of my home country and you can try it out. Of course AFTER you have voted for Vanilla Bean on the Progressive Dairyman Website…. Hehe…

Drive to the closest liquor store and get yourself a nice, little, bottle of Anisette… Then you hop over to Walmart, Krogers, or your local grocery store or farmers market and get some lovely strawberries. I assume you have some pepper in your house at all times but if not, grab some red/black and white pepper powder. Or just get the little "balls" and grind it in your pepper mill later. And last but not least you have to go to Mickey D’s and get yourself a large bowl of the soft Ice-cream, you can toss the cones! Maybe you have to take a cooler, because otherwise it melts before you get home being as hot as it is!

Ok, so when you are home you have, for 2 people:
- Ice cream
- Strawberries 4 or 5 per person depending on the size!
- Pepper
- Anisette

And yes if you want to fancy it up you can even get some heavy whipping cream to put on top of your Ice Cream.... But you need to do the whipping yourself no fake stuff here!

The steps of making a fabulous bowl of Ice Cream:
You divide the ice cream over 2 large bowls, cut the strawberries and divide them over the two bowls. Sprinkle a little bit of the Anisette over the Ice Cream and strawberries. Don’t throw a bus load over it, just a little to bring out the flavors. And then you grind some of the pepper over your bowl. Again not too much but enough to actual taste the pepper but it can’t be overpowering!

I know it sounds strange, Ice Cream, pepper, strawberries and LIQUOR but trust me it works! If you forget the liquor or the pepper it is not the same (and all of this coming from a NON alcoholic person, so it must be AWESOME) and yes it really, really is something GREAT!!!

I hope you give it a try and tell me if it was as good for you as it was for all those crazy Dutchies! And please, please, pretty please vote for Vanilla Bean in the Flavor Face Off!

If you want to see Gerard and Lieke’s gorgeous restaurant you can click on this link: The Viersprong, in Dutch but with great pictures (like the ones above!), or their BEAUTIFUL "Pluk de dag" (Seize the Day) website, yes this one is in English!!!

Have a wonderful rest of the week and THANK YOU for voting!!!



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Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and little brothers

We were raised in a good "old fashion" Dutch way. This meant we only had one glass of pop a day (normally this would be coca cola because we don’t have Mountain Dew in Holland). There would be a cookie waiting at us when we came home from school and on Saturday’s we had a private party because we got a little bowl of chips. And on Sunday some candy when we visited grandma… But that would be IT as far as the sweets went. An apple, a pear, a banana, as much or as many as we wanted BUT NO SWEETS!

In the summer sometimes my mom and little sister made popsicles out of water with usually a strawberry flavor. They were really tasty but if you would suck hard enough the strawberry flavor would be gone and all you had left was frozen water.

But sometimes my mom would buy some REAL ice cream! And yes this would be vanilla (hehe) and she would make us little bowls and then we could put sprinkles on them or wiped cream (my dad’s favorite). And if it was a real real special occasion we would have the popsicle faces with a gumball as a nose on it or those really fancy looking Magnums that were huge!

It was a beautiful day and we were all playing outside. We had some great swings and a sandbox behind our house in between the two pig barns. I vaguely remember it was a Saturday or Sunday and me and my sister were playing with our dolls and bears in the sandbox (yes I know, dirty dolls) and my little brother was driving around on his “skelter”. This is a little four wheeler but you have to paddle with your own two feet instead of having a little engine doing all the work for you…

Our mom came out and brought us an ice cream (so it defiantly must have been a Saturday or Sunday) and while my sister and I enjoyed our ice in the sandbox, Jan Willem was pretty content sitting on his skelter, licking and driving at the same time. After 10 minutes all of a sudden we hear a scream! Not the same kind of scream as when my little brother decided to see and FEEL what would happen if he peed on the electric fence .......... but similar…………………………….

My sister and I run over towards where our little brother had stranded and he was just holding his head and screaming his lungs out!?! We were is serious panic mode and while my little sister ran to fetch my mom i was holding my brother.

Mom hurried down and started to check all his vitals and trying to get him to come inside. After we got him inside and on the couch she called our doctor. The doctor asked all the standard questions but we really did not know what was wrong with him! Finally the doctor asked if he ate something. "Well", my mom said, "he just ate an ice cream not to long ago..." And that was IT! The doctor explained that he might have a 'Brain Freeze".

We had NO CLUE what that could be (and yes in Dutch Brain Freeze is still a Brain Freeze). So the doctor explained: It is caused by having something cold touch the roof of the mouth, and is believed to result from a nerve response causing rapid constriction and swelling of blood vessels and that results in you have pain going from the roof of you mouth to the top of your head. In this case my brothers head. The doctor also told my mom that he would be alright in a half hour...

And yes half and hour later, my little brother was paddling along on his "skelter" and me and my sister were playing with our dolls and my mom had recovered from her heart attack! Oh, those good old days, when little brothers could turn your world upside down...

My little brother still LOVES ice cream! And yes, so do I! So when i was asked to participate in the Ice Cream Flavor Face off by the Progressive Dairyman i was really excited! I didn't really know what to do,  but i had to pick a good flavor of ice cream! My flavor is Vanilla Bean, and somehow i managed to get into the second voting round (totally unexpected i might add)!

Sooooo, now i would like to ask you.... please, please, pretty please... can you hop over to The Progressive Dairyman and cast your vote??? We are only in Round Two yet, so there are still some other flavors competing, but as long as you vote for VANILLA BEAN too... I will be the happiest girl in the world!

Thanks so much and if I get true into the next round, i promise, I'll try to write another funny story about ice cream...

THANKS!!!


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