have you had your vitamin d? (and other random items)

so, today, our rain has been delayed and the warm weather has decided to hang around a bit longer than expected. (yeah!) that being said, i decided to go and soak up some sun and let the animals play/eat grass/roll in the dirt. i remembered that sun exposure (limited, of course) is a great source of vitamin d. it is explained well, and simply, in this article (if you want to read the entire thing) or summed up here...

Simply put, exposure to the sun helps our bodies make vitamin D. Ultraviolet rays from sunlight trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin, creating vitamin D for our bodies to use. A deficiency in this important vitamin can cause serious health problems, and vitamin D deficiencies are becoming more common than most of us realize.

Eating foods that contain vitamin D is good, but exposure to the sun is much more efficient. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sun exposure is perhaps the most important source of vitamin D, because normal exposure to sunlight provides most humans with their total vitamin D requirement. However, season, geographic latitude, time of day, cloud cover, smog, and sunscreen use all affect UV ray exposure and vitamin D synthesis.

For example, sunlight exposure from November through February in Boston is insufficient to produce significant vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Complete cloud cover halves the energy of UV rays, and shade reduces it by 60%. Industrial pollution, which increases shade, also decreases sun exposure. Sunscreens with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 8 or greater will block UV rays that produce vitamin D, but it is still important to routinely use sunscreen to help prevent skin cancer and other negative consequences of excessive sun exposure.

An initial exposure to sunlight (10 -15 minutes) allows adequate time for Vitamin D synthesis and should be followed by application of a sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15 to protect the skin. Ten to fifteen minutes of sun exposure at least two times per week to the face, arms, hands, or back without sunscreen is usually sufficient to provide adequate vitamin D.

now, how is that for a great excuse to catch a little sunshine?! the breeze outside today is even warm and while this was my current view as i sat on my patio

in my mind, this was my real view...


... much better, yeah? if only...
the dogs and cat don't mind the grass and backyard, though. in fact, it was all i could do to get them to come back inside. check them out:

dave lovin' him some grass

pets who graze together.....

and, for the bit of randomness, my sister-in-law has some new pictures of my sweet niece, courtney, on her facebook and her blog. i cannot resist posting a favorite, or two! (you can check out her blog by clicking here.

wearing her outfit i got her for her birthday :) i love her curls!

i totally love this face!

wordless wednesday

i cannot wait for summer!!! (yes, that is cotton many many summers ago.)

spring fever

...we all have it! the weather has been so lovely the last few days that it is hard to stay indoors. i decided i could use a little "sunshine on my shoulders" to make me "happy" this afternoon (which i did and i am), so i opened the door and out we all went. cotton and barley had a great time playing outside, and even dave came out for awhile, so he could chomp on some grass. i got some great "portraits" of cotton and tried to get some of barley, but she was being a bit obstinate today. ha! who says dogs aren't like kids?

sweet cotton

i asked her to "sit." she did... facing the wrong way!


much better, although we will try again another day

fun tug-of-war time with the rope

barley's ready to pounce!

looking forward

we are looking forward to vacation in 2 months. in fact, we will already be at our destination in 2 months time. we have not been on a real vacation (i.e. for an entire week that hasn't included going to visit family/friends- not that this is a bad thing) since our honeymoon. our friends, becca and brad,
invited us along with them to cape hatteras. the dogs will even be joining us, too... yes, 2 yellow labs, 2 chocolate labs, 4 adults, one rather spacious beach house, 2 SUV's, 1 beach... sounds fun, right?! so we will be going here

and we will be staying here

and we absolutely cannot wait! jay's not super excited about the long drive, but we are excited about seeing the rest of north carolina on our way to the coast and the outer banks. it should be great fun and it is quickly creeping upon us... vacation will be here before we know it. (and i am definitely looking forward to that!)

a bright (white) sunshiny day

i thought you all might like to see some pictures of our snowy mountains today. after the sun helped to melt the ice on the roads, we ventured out (to walmart, of course!) and to visit alicia at work (poor thing) and got some great pictures of the mountains.

the top of our street in the neighborhood

mt. pisgah

looking towards the black mountains

pretty mountains over walmart

another pretty shot over our target shopping center (yes, check out all my shopping!)

after our little excursion, we came back and i took the dogs out to play. we still have a couple of snow drifts in the yard, and they had a great time playing in and eating the snow.

the drift behind the chairs grew overnight

the girls were having a great time playing in the snow

sweet barley and her snowy nose

both girls enjoyed eating the snow

cotton in the drift, having a snack

check out our "blizzard"

i woke up yesterday afternoon (yes, i worked all weekend) to the power shutting off... how did i know the power went off? my room became very quiet... i sleep with a sound machine. it was about 3pm. i got up not expecting to see much snow on the ground because they always say we will get it and we never do... well, they finally got it right! and we did get power again around 4:30pm only to lose it again around 6:30pm (jay and i actually witnessed that transformer blowing out) and then it came on again around 8:00ish and stayed on the rest of the night. (surprisingly.) it was so windy that, while it was snowing the hardest, we couldn't see the houses on the street behind us and we could barely see the ones across the street (why they called it "blizzard conditions".) the sides of the house and windows were covered in snow and it is hard to know exactly how much snow we accumulated because of all the drifts the wind created. jay went out to brush the snow off the

all the snow on the window

jay's measurements of the deepest snow drift


view from the front porch

snow-covered front door

after capturing the view from the front yard, i cut through the house, of course, and captured a few shots from the back porch. (the first picture is of the back yard.) it was really pretty, extremely windy, decently cold, and surprisingly winter. it was so windy and the snow was so wet that the dogs didn't play too much... until their after-dinner outing... they both got some blow dryer time after that excursion!

the snow plastered against the back of the house and the kitchen windows (the wind spared none of the four sides of the house)

the patio drifts

towards the neighbors

today it is still quite windy and most of the pretty drifts in these pictures have been blown away. it has taken us from may of 2007 until now to get a real snow in asheville, but it was worth the wait. (and i am sure i speak for myself when i say that if it takes 2 years again, that'll be okay with me!)

cotton's birthday

yes. another birthday party... but this time for cotton. cotton's birthday was yesterday. she is now 3 years old. she's been a great addition to our furry collection. she's smarter than any dog should be. she loves (and i mean LOVES) to lick you, anywhere that may be good for licking. she loves to lay on our bed and the couch, mostly when she's not invited to be there, so we have to take measures to prevent this occurance. she is the "alpha female" so she listens very well to jay, but hardly at all to me, if she knows he is around. she loves walks, taking her time to do her business, and anything to do with treats. she sheds everywhere, constantly, and as soon as she sees her shedding blade, she gets ecstatic about getting groomed. we love our sweet cotton ("dot") and don't know what we would do without her.


yesterday i made some another batch of homemade dog biscuits for the girls. (barley's were peanut butter for her birthday.) cotton's are applesauce cheddar. they were super simple and the girls continue to devour them. (of course, there isn't much they don't, or wouldn't, devour!)




and, of course, it wouldn't be a party without a party hat! cotton, obviously, loves the hat (insert sarcasm), but is so tempted at the treat above the camera, and is already salivating, she will do anything, even wear the birthday hat, for a taste of the birthday biscuits.



she enjoyed the treats, too.

wordless wednesday

teaser

my latest knitting creations have to do with this...



... can you figure out what i am making?

a note about barley

how could anyone not love that sweet face? well, she does some pretty random things that aren't so lovable, but we still adore her despite all of this. for instance, if you are a pair of scissors, you best steer clear of this girl, or this might happen to you...



i had to make 2 trips to superpets the other day to purchase barley a new collar that fits. her 21 inch neck required the 26 inch collar. i thought i could get away with the 24 inch one, but wasn't lucky. but we have moved on from orange to lime green. :) she is stylin' and profilin'.



how could you not love that huge brown beast we call barley? she offers nothing but love and affection, and is happy to receive any attention thrown her way. if you ever meet her, and she sits next to you and you begin to pet her on the head, be ready for her to lean further and further until she is on the floor, belly up, waiting for you to scratch/pet it, too. she may bark at strangers, but i don't think she would ever meet one. she loves kids and cats, too, although for the life of her can't figure out why all cats don't love her. she loves to chase dave (our cat) and he actually likes it, too, although if he could talk (in words, he meows sometimes incessantly), he would deny this.

she is barley, and as we have no children except the 4-legged kind, who else could i post about? (oh, right, cotton... it is almost her birthday, so you can expect her profile soon. and dave just got his own post, so we are almost done!)

tomato hat

pregnancy is going around at work... imagine that on a mother/baby floor! jessica is having a baby soon and i hope she likes her gift. she is having a boy and has chosen a "john deere" theme for her nursery. i can't wait to see pictures of that! i have just finished part of her gift, a tomato hat. i think it turned out to be quite cute, since i made the pattern up myself!

daisy hat

*****update*****  jamie loves the hat i made for her daughter.  she said she actually has an outfit it will match, and plans to give me a picture of it all put together.  i will ask permission to post it, so you can see it all together, too.

my friend at work, jamie, had a baby in september. i just found out her favorite color is yellow. she mentioned she would love to have a yellow hat for her baby, and i told her i would be happy to knit her daughter a hat, as it is still quite chilly here. my intention, when i started it, was to make a lemon hat, similar to the apple hat. but i wasn't quite sure if it would turn out the way i wanted it to. so, instead, it has become a very cute daisy hat. i may have to make a few more...

dave's adoption/birth day

so, i adopted sweet little dave matthews february 6, 2001. yes. i have had the pleasure(?) of this furry little guy's companionship and coughed-up furballs for eight years. in addition to that, he has warmed my lap, left plenty of fur in his wake, meowed (if you can call it that) incessantly when he can see the bottom of his food bowl, meows now when the dogs have drank so much water that he can't reach it (yes, he shares the water with the dogs. he will no longer drink out of a little bowl.), and keeps me company while i blog. (right now, he is sitting against my left arm.) he's been a great cat, for the most part, and i can't believe it has been so long.

tagged

i was tagged by kate.



and my task: go to the 6th picture folder and the 6th picture and explain it. then tag 6 more people.


we took this picture on our honeymoon in gatlinburg. i believe it was taken off the deck at our little rondette/chalet. aahhh, vacation, wouldn't that be nice???
and now, i tag courtney b, courtney d, samantha, sarah, and trish. have fun!

check out this blog!

my friend, courtney, has just written her 100th post!  in honor of this post, she has decided to host a blog giveaway.  head on over to courtney's blog and check it out.  congratulations, courtney!

please pray for abby

please pray for abby.  you should be able to click this picture and read her parents' blog, but if not, you can click the button at the bottom of the right column, and find your way there as well.  abby was adopted by a God-loving family, who already had children of their own.  abby was diagnosed with leukemia last fall and has been struggling through the ups and downs of treatment.  she is in a very tough phase of her treatment and because of her genetic make-up, she is even less likely to survive and is very sick right now.  please pray for God's will and for God's love to be upon this family like nothing they have ever felt before.  pray, also, for abby to be without pain.  just pray.  thank you.