Mountain Mama

Don't Give Up

2012-01-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

Gretchen gives up easily. She puts forth a little effort, then when it looks like it's going to take a lot of work, or it's not going the way she wants it to, she throws in the towel. Or tries to get someone else to do the work for her.

She was trying to make one of those black crayon pictures-- you know, the kind you color in random shapes and colors with crayons, then color over in heavy black crayon, then place a paper over and draw on top. When you pick up the paper, the black came off where you drew and left pretty rainbow colored pictures. Anyway, the heavy black crayon coloring part can wear a little hand out. She kept asking me to take over for her, and I kept saying no. She'd pout, sit and stare at her project, scribble a little more, then ask me again to finish it for her. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

This was not going well. She came to me one last time and when I said no, she crumpled it up, threw it on the floor, then stomped out. I called her back, gave her a little speech, but I could tell it was just bouncing off her little ears-- like talking to a brick wall. I tried another tactic-- my own picture.

Exhibit A, part 1: top

Exhibit A, part 2: middle

Exhibit A, part 3: bottom

I've been working on this poster for 20 years. Yup, 20. At least. I got this when I was around 18 or so, and worked on it little by little, coloring it in when I got inspiration. One summer at the beach I worked on this nearly every day at the bar. The most perfect spot to color: the height of the bar and the stools and the light coming in from the windows = bliss.

I collected my color pencils one at a time, slowly buying them as I needed a certain color. That dark blue sky used up 2 whole pencils! I couldn't afford the whole set all at once, so I settled for one or two pencils at a time, whenever I was close to an art store.

Then I got married and I only worked on it a little bit here and there. Then the kids came along and I think the last time I worked on this was when Evelyn was a baby, napping. It's been sitting in the same box as all the rolls of wrapping paper, and every time I need wrapping paper, my hand brushes over it and I'm reminded of it. I want to finish it. But it's so large. So overwhelming. There's a lot left to do! Then I remind myself-- One color at a time. One pencil at a time. Do one small picture at a time.

My latest addition: the gold ornamental doorway and the planet behind it.

This handsome Griffin was done three days ago.

Snake boy was finished four days ago.

If I had given up, I wouldn't have gotten this far. It may be another 20 years before I finish it, but I *will* finish it.

I showed this to Gretchen. You know what she said? "I'll help you finish it!"

She finally finished her picture. It took some tears and quite a bit of time, but she did finish it.

All by herself.

This one is going to go in the memory box.

Don't give up, Gretchen, good things come to those who keep going towards their goals.

Figures!

2012-01-22T22:35:00.000-05:00

Not that I made a resolution or anything, but I did make an attempt to try and post more often, and as soon as I thought this, the laptop goes kablooey on me. I'm not computer savvy enough to figure it out, so off it went back to the place where we got it-- still under warranty, luckily. They fixed it, good as new, or so I thought, but a few days later, it went all kablooey again.

Took it back again, but they swear that's it's fine, it's the internet program that keeps messing it up. My laptop is no longer a joy to be on anymore. I dread getting on to check my emails or anything else I usually do online. Going to try and take it back one more time, hopefully third time's the charm. Insist they find the root of the problem or replace it. What good is paying for a warranty if they cannot fix it or replace it?

Sure makes me wish I took up all those computer lessons back in my school days!

Planned a double birthday party for this past Saturday. Weather has been mild and not a bit of snow since Halloween, so of course, we get snow and sleet and have to cancel the party. Well, at least my house is cleaned and the kids understand why the party was cancelled. I love this age they're at, no tantrums and they realize that not everything revolves around them, as much as they would like.

Life is the same old same old around here. So I'll stop and hope this ornery laptop behaves as it does with me in front of the people that fix computers. Nothing worse than something that doesn't work right but behaves itself in front of others!

Life Is What You Make It

2012-01-05T21:14:00.000-05:00

It's a new year and I feel like I need to say something witty and clever and mention resolutions and express gratitude on new beginnings and blah, blah.. But truth is, new year's day is just another day to me. It's a brand new year, yes, but the day is just the same as the day before and after it. Andrew had to work, so it's not like we could go out and par-tay. We don't drink like we used to in the old days. Too many memories of drunken stupors and hangovers the next day. Who wants to go through that again?

When I was younger, I remember going with my parents to a party on December 31st, and I must have been 12, or 13 maybe. I knew it was something exciting because my parents were drinking. Like real drinking. I'd never seen them drink before! But I was stuck with older kids who seemed to be all aware of adult activities and I felt pretty left out and thought the whole party was kind of boring-- could we please hurry up and go home now?

When I was 21, I could legally drink, as if age ever stopped me before, but at least now I wouldn't get in trouble. A real good friend of mine, her older brother was hosting a party in the basement of their parent's house and it was some party! I actually liked the champagne! It was dark and there were strobe lights, the music was bass heavy and pounding. People were dancing and I imagine kissing, too, though I had no one to kiss. You want to know where I was at that party? Hanging with the DJ, who happened to be a good friend of mine, and helping with the music.

For as long as I can remember, if there was a party and I was there, somehow I always ended up helping in some way-- helping with the music; helping dispense the beer from the kegs; refilling chips and dips in the kitchen; picking up empty cups and helping to clean up. Even if I was the guest! I never felt like a social butterfly, flitting around and making small talk or going from group to group and being the life of the party. I've always felt a bit like a wall-flower and I would get tongue-tied at conversations- what do I say, what can I talk about, what if he comes up to me and says something?!? So I kept myself busy, it was easier to say "hey, how ya doing!" then have an excuse to leave by saying, "I'm helping out, gotta go!"

I do better in small groups, when the conversations turn deep or there's actual substance in what we talk about. Where I can learn more about the few people there and make connections and maybe, become closer friends with. Living out here in the country is easy for me, I have an automatic excuse not to go to big social events by saying I live too far.

And New Year's Resolutions? I don't make them anymore. I'm sure there are people who faithfully make them and follow them, but I bet there are more that only last a week and then go back to old habits. I'm pretty happy with myself and my life, I don't see that there are a lot of changes I want or need to make about myself. I'm comfortable in my skin and it's taken me a long time to get to this point in my life. Resolutions, to me, are about making improvements in your life and I feel like anytime is the time to make improvements, not just that one day a year.

Though I am happy with myself, I am always trying to improve things around me. That's a daily struggle-- keeping the house clutter-free, feeding my family healthy meals, doing my part to live greener and improve my corner of the world. Teaching my children to be good people and loving them. Making sure Andrew knows that he is appreciated and I am thankful for all he does for us. Remembering to count my blessings and be grateful for what I do and don't have.

Here's to a new year, I hope you're as happy with your life as I am. You have every day this year to make changes so if you fail your new year's day resolution, make another one. Who says you have to wait until new year's day?

Eggnog Spice Bundt Cake

2012-01-01T15:15:00.000-05:00

Still have leftover eggnog in the fridge?

Here's a yummy recipe to help use it up:

Eggnog Spice Bundt Cake

It's a really moist, yummy cake, and what cake doesn't look good when you cook it in a Bundt pan?

You could sprinkle some powdered sugar on this, or make a light glaze if you want, but this tastes good as is.

My kids love this and so do I!

Don't you just love my covered cake stand?

I love pulling this out and using it, it makes the cake extra special!

The recipe uses a spice cake mix. I've made this twice now and I'm curious how this would taste with a regular cake mix-- if it would taste more eggnoggy and add in a bit of nutmeg as well. I still have plenty of eggnog left and family is coming over in a few days. I may use them as guinea pigs and have them try it out for me!

Here ya go!

Eggnog Spice Bundt Cake

1- box spice cake mix

1- box instant vanilla pudding mix

1 C vanilla yogurt

1/4 C vegetable oil

1 C eggnog

3 eggs

1 1/3 C toasted, chopped pecans (I omitted the nuts in mine)

powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350*. Coat Bundt pan with grease and flour (those baking sprays make this a cinch!).

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl and mix until creamy. Stir in pecans. Pour into greased and floured Bundt pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. (the first time I made this, it came out undercooked, the next time, I ended up cooking it for almost an hour and it came out perfect, so keep an eye on this and use that toothpick!)

When cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve and enjoy!

Sweet and Simple

2011-12-28T13:06:00.001-05:00

It has been a good Christmas this year.

The kids are still playing with their new things, 3 days after, so I know they are happy.

I bought presents on sale with coupons throughout the year, and that was a major help-- when Andrew lost his job, we already had more than half of our presents bought and stashed away.

There were no big ticket items, just small things for each of our children, and a few shared items.

Even the gifts they got from other family members have been toned down, something I appreciate greatly since I always feel bad that I cannot reciprocate. I know they enjoy giving, but it doesn't make me feel any less guilty when I cannot give in the same fashion to them or their children.

Every year, I make fudge, cookies, candies and bars to give as gifts. I didn't make very much this year, it feels like time got away from me and I chose to spend time with the kiddos or doing other things. I think it's time to accept that I'll never make over 800 cookies like I did for a few Christmases before the kids came along! I did manage to make two different ornaments to give as gifts this year and I love them!

Felt rooster and fimo clay snowflake

better shot of snowflake detail

I got the rooster idea from the Better Homes and Gardens December issue.. I just eyeballed the ornament then made my own pattern and ran with it! I can't remember where I saw the snowflake idea-- off of someones blog probably, and I went out to get me a snowflake stamp with my 40% off coupon. So simple but makes a nice ornament. I made this after the kids went to bed and I set a little table in front of me and watched an episode of Supernatural while rolling and stamping.

I'm ready to put away the tree and decorations, to get the house back to normal again. I went out the day after Christmas to shop the clearance sales and use some of the gift cards we got. Stocked up on Christmas craft projects to put away for next year, Christmas cards, gift tags, and little bits and bobs for future stocking stuffers and party favors. I have two January babies to shop for and I'm all done! Thanks clearance sales!

Looking forward to the new year and hope it will be a good one for us all.

Happy New Year!!

Out of the Bag!!

2011-12-23T17:37:00.000-05:00

Anyone that knows me, knows how much I love cats. And how kittens are my kryptonite.

So when I saw an ad in the local paper for two (2!!) pure white kittens, free to a good home, I just couldn't resist! Andrew and I have always talked about getting a white cat someday, but how often does one see two white kittens at the same time?! Not too often in my experience. So we called and the lady said she found them and brought them home but already has too many cats of her own. They're now ours.

We told the kids they are an early Christmas gift to the family and boy, they are loved.

We've had them a little more than a week now, and they are just so cute!!

Any of you seen "Despicable Me"?? You know that scene where they are at the amusement park and he wins the unicorn for the little girl? She squeezes it and squeals, "It's so fluffy!" That's exactly how I feel about these kittens- they're so fluffy! squeeeee!!

Meet Bones and Walter, the newest additions to the Mountain Mama Zoo!

Tag! You're IT!

I caught a mouse and it was 'this' big!

Well it ain't behind here!

I got it! No, I got it! No, I got it! No, I got it!

Whoa! You can really jump!

Look, you stay there, I'll stay here, and we'll see who catches the mouse!

Safe!

Whaddaya mean my tail is showing?!

After a few days of growling and Percy giving a few sound smacks, they're all one happy family. I've seen Percy giving the little ones a bath and he lets them sleep on top of him. Looks like the boys have a new papa!

Do you mind? These pipsqueaks kept me up all night last night, I need my sleep!

They've been a wonderful addition to the family and a pretty good way to kick start the Holidays.
Merry Christmas to you and yours! xoxo

Yummies for the Holidays

2011-12-14T15:13:00.000-05:00

I make and give a lot of home made cookies and candies as gifts to family and friends. I'm always on the lookout for something new and when I spotted a recipe that included chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels, well, need I say more?

As always, when trying out a new recipe, a sample batch must be made. I like to test out how easy or difficult it is to make, how time-consuming it may be, how much does it produce, and of course, the taste test! My favorite part!

Peanut butter mixture rolled into balls, then pressed between two mini pretzels, and dipped in melted chocolate. How could this combination fail? And it didn't. It's oh, so good!

What is it about the salty and sweet? Peanut butter and chocolate? Crunchy and creamy?

My melted chocolate wasn't gooey enough for dipping, so I ended up spooning the chocolate onto each pretzel sandwich. I used twice as much chocolate than the recipe called for, but that's OK. It's worth the extra chocolate!

It was easy to make, the most time-consuming task was rolling the peanut butter mixture into small balls. This could easily be a job for the little ones to do, if you don't mind ending up with half the amount-- because I'm pretty sure it would end up with one ball rolled for the pretzel and one ball rolled for the mouth!

I made this using milk chocolate and when I ran out of that, I used semi-sweet chocolate. Both are equally delicious!

Not quite bite-sized, just one or two would be enough to satisfy that sweet tooth!

These would look lovely packaged up into canning jars or small bags and wrapped with a ribbon as gifts. They'll tempt guests in pretty dishes or platters and make great hostess gifts at the holiday party you're invited to, or for the potluck at the office party.

Ready to make your own?

Chocolate-dipped Peanut Butter Pretzels

1 C creamy peanut butter

2 tbsp softened butter

1 C powdered sugar

3/4 C packed brown sugar

1 pound bag of small pretzel twists (this uses nearly the whole bag)

2 bags of semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips

Combine peanut butter, butter, and sugars and with a mixer, mix until crumbly. Using hands, roll into small balls, teaspoon size. Flatten balls slightly and sandwich between two pretzels. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Melt chips in microwave. Heat for one minute, stir, then heat in 10 second increments until completely melted. Dip chilled pretzel sandwiches in chocolate then place onto wax paper and refrigerate. (I couldn't dip mine very well, so I spooned chocolate onto the sandwiches instead)

Keep in an air-tight container in the fridge and enjoy or give as gifts!

Commence Christmas Music!

2011-12-02T17:35:00.000-05:00

December 1st and we're getting into the spirit! The tree is up, the Advent Calendar is hung, cookie recipes are calling my name... It's beginning to feel like Christmas around here! Even Andrew is getting elfish!

Even though Andrew is now working, it doesn't mean that we are spend, spend, spending. We are still frugal with our money, and I shopped for gifts the whole year, scoring items on sale or with coupons to make it an even sweeter deal. I'm pretty much done with gifts for the kiddos this year, but I still have a few items I need to pick up for other family members.

Despite repeated requests not to exchange gifts, we have relatives that insist on giving the children something and I always feel bad not having anything in return. I know it's the season of giving, but I always feel like I'm taking and taking and not giving. So I am trying hard this year to come up with some simple gifts that are thoughtful and appreciated, without feeling like I've just drained the bank account. I don't spend a whole lot on my own children, so it makes no sense to me to spend a lot on my nieces and nephews. It doesn't mean I love them any less-- on the contrary, I am putting a lot of love into what I am making/creating and hoping they'll like what I've come up with.

Andrew has an Aunt that just loooooves snickers-- I plan on making a cloth bucket and filling it with full-size snickers candy bars for her. Simple, yet it will be something I know she'll enjoy, and it didn't cost a lot of money, because I used coupons for the candy bars, and it was just a little bit of time at the sewing machine. I'll be making several similar gifts like this for the Aunts and Uncles, for the ones that have a sweet tooth and put their favorite candies inside them.

For the kiddos-- I have group gifts for them to share, but I'd like to get them all something special for individual gifts. I'm still thinking and working on that. I can't say too much here, but I have a few ideas up my sleeve.

I get to go out all by myself next week-- a rarity now that Andrew is working and I have to wait for a day off, and I'll be picking up items and stopping at the fabric store for a few things. I don't want to take the kids with me-- they'll see items I want to keep a surprise. And I must admit, Peter is not the best shopping companion. Whew! He's a handful, that one! I don't enjoy shopping with him along, I get all flustered and frustrated and I end up forgetting items on my list, or errors are made with the coupons and I end up paying more than I should have, but I can't figure out what went wrong when I am wrestling with a squirmy, screamy toddler that just wants me to let him go and get. down. now. Just reading that last sentence makes me want to go lie down! He's a great kid, I know he just wants to run and explore and if mama wants to shop, it's not a good combination! Better to leave him at home where he's on familiar turf and I can do my thing in peace.

I have Christmas music playing on my internal radio and I love when the kids tell me they hear certain songs on the radio. They still believe in the magic of Christmas and they were so excited when the tree went up. Now it's the battle of the wills between parents and kids at getting them to leave. the. tree. alone. I actually went so far as to take off the garland and tears were flowing, "I'll be good, I'll be good! No, mama! Please! We won't touch the tree anymore!" I left it off a day before putting it back up and it worked for a while. The threat has lost its' power now, so the newest warning is: Any bad behavior and you have to take an ornament off the tree! So far so good!

I've been thumbing through recipe books, looking for new ideas for cookies and bars. Before kids (B.K.), I used to make hundreds of cookies and give them as gifts. After kids (A.K.), I'm lucky if I can make a couple of batches and then fend off the hungry cookie monsters. If anyone got a dozen cookies, they're the lucky ones! This year, I have a good feeling I'll be able to make more than a few batches. I have some cookie ideas bubbling up in that brain of mine and can't wait to make a test batch.

I made eggnog spice cake the other day and man oh man! Is that ever good!! Moist and flavorful, and I get that great eggnoggy taste I love in every bite! It's a keeper! Anything cooked in a bundt pan looks great and we love cake that requires no frosting! The only thing is I would cook it a little longer next time, 40-45 minutes isn't long enough, I'll try 50-55 minutes next time.

Any good cookies recipes you want to share? I'd love to try new ones!

Thankful

2011-11-23T22:16:00.000-05:00

We have much to be thankful for:

Family, our health, our home.

We have something else to be extra thankful about:

Andrew got a job!

He is working in the automotive department at Sears.

We are happy, happy, happy!

***

We went to craft day at the Library on Saturday. Since it was nearing Thanksgiving, I figured it would be a pilgrim or turkey related project. It was turkey related, alright, but this is ridiculous!

Turkey Drumstick Hats?!?

Ah well, we got a good laugh out of it.

***

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Be thankful for what you do and don't have.

Bloopers

2011-11-19T18:36:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year again, when I start thinking of Christmas cards and which picture I want to use in it. Usually I make my own card by printing a picture on card stock, then stamping or fancy-writing a holiday message. If I'm feeling particularly rushed, I'll just print a bunch of copies then slap a photo inside a store-bought card.

That means it's time for family photos!!

I wish I knew of a photographer that didn't charge an arm and leg, or friends that took great photos, but as it is, I have to make do with what I got: Using the timer on the camera and running back and forth to make it just in time before the 'click'.

I think we got some nice photos and the bloopers are just as fun to look and laugh at, too!

Lots of nail-biting, hoping mama doesn't trip running from the camera!

A candid shot of daddy telling them to "look at the camera!"

Big leafy hats modeled by Sylvia.

No shortage of fishy faces, frowns, and closed eyes in this one!

Will some one please tell this kid to sit down and sit still!

I can't tell you how many photos I took with him not looking at the camera!

We took 2 days worth of photos at Ice Mountain, just down the road from us. We have passed through hundreds of times, but this was the first time we actually stopped and walked around, looking in windows of the old restored houses, church, and barns. Beautiful place and we'll definitely return. I can see future picnics happening here!

Sewing With The Kids Around

2011-11-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

Here's why I wait for the kids to go to bed before I sew:

I made a long skinny scarf in the middle of the afternoon. I had an itch to sew. I didn't want to lose my inspiration, so I sewed with the kids underfoot.

I cut, pinned, sewed, then when I pulled the whole thing inside out, I saw this.

aggghhhh!

I pinned right side to wrong side!

sigh...

Instead of cutting it all apart, I just made a little patch to cover it all up.

Good thing it was the lining and not the outside fabric.

Remind me not to sew with the kids around to distract me!

Fancy Schmancy Sammiches

2011-11-04T23:52:00.000-04:00

Around here, we sometimes get tired of the same old-same old.

PB&Js get tired.

Plain ol' ham and cheese get old.

Even my number one fave, grilled cheese, gets boring.

Andrew has been having a hankering for a Rueben sammich lately.

I don't care for rye or sauerkraut but hey, if he likes it, by all means, eat it!

A trip to the deli counter and a lovely lady that let all 6 of us sample different cheeses and meats--

brown sugar ham? delish!

Jarlsberg cheese? yummy!

We came home with a nice selection of deli meats and cheeses to make 2 kinds of gourmet sammiches:

The Rueben.

Rye bread with thinly sliced corned beef, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing then pressed on the grill with a side of pickle. The husband reports, "It tastes like another!" It looked good, Mom gobbled up her sammich, but just the smell of the sauerkraut after Andrew opened the can was enough to chase me out of the kitchen and keep me from trying a bite. Glad you like it honey, more for you!

The Turkey Cubano.

A twist on the Cubano which normally pairs ham and pork, this one uses turkey and ham.

Lightly buttered kaiser roll layered with turkey, ham, jarlsberg cheese, dill pickle, and mustard then pressed on the grill. Oh man!! SO freakin' good! And I don't even like pickles!! Even the kids gobbled this one up.

It's nice to shake things up a little, to try something different once in awhile.

When I saw the recipe for Turkey Cubanos, I didn't know what Jarlsberg cheese was, though I had heard of it. I learned it's a swiss cheese, slightly stronger tasting than the usual plain swiss cheese. I tried a bite of Andrew's Cubano with a pickle and liked it, then tried a bite of one without pickle and found I liked the tangy taste the pickle added to it, so I made mine with the pickle, too. It's the first time I've ever purposely eaten a pickle and enjoyed it.

Eaten anything new lately?

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T12:01:00.000-04:00

The thing about living in the country is that we're so spread out from neighbors that children can't trick or treat around here. People look for other ways to go trick or treating, like the mall or other venues. A local church in town hosts a 'Trunk or Treat' in the parking lot out of the trunks of their cars. It works well, the kids yell "trick or treat" and a little something-something gets dropped in their open bags. We thought we'd try going to one of the little neighborhoods as well and I was quite surprised, though I really shouldn't have been, at how many people were parking their cars and walking around the neighborhood. There must have been hundreds of costumed kids! I hope those houses stocked up on candies! We went to a couple of houses and then decided to head back to the car, there were just too many people and cars and I didn't think it was safe anymore. Plus, it was cold and started to mist so after a quick walk through the small shopping strip where each store was also giving out candy, we came home.

I made Peter a Transformers costume!

He loves Transformers and has several cars he goes to bed with. I found an image of Optimus Prime from the original Transformers cartoons and used that as my inspiration. I purposely made the outfit a little bigger so he could wear it longer and while I was sewing it he was so excited, trying on unfinished pants and sleeves and shouting in his little 3-year old voice: "Transformers! Transformers!" It's made from warm fleece, which could also be used as jammies or a regular outfit. I also made a mask from the Transformers autobots logo but he refused to put it on for the picture. I could barely get him to stand still long enough for a picture.

So, time for trick or treating and what does Peter do? Absolutely will not put on the costume. Fine. He can use the Popeye shirt. Nope, won't use that either. I know! We'll put him in camo pants and he can use his camo jacket and he'll be hunter boy, except his camo pants were in the dirty clothes basket and after a sniff-test, determined to be too stinky to wear. We finally managed to get him dressed in regular clothes and after much screaming and whining, got him buckled in the car to go. He perked up once we got out of the car and went trick or treating.

Miss Gretchen as a pink princess.

Someone tell my girls to stop growing up! They were so excited for make-up! I never use make-up myself, but I had coupons to get free make-up, luckily, and bought some eye shadow, blush and lipstick just for Halloween.

Evelyn started out as Frankenstein's bride, but morphed into a black princess bride. I wasn't able to get to the store and buy hair stuff to make her hair black and add white stripes to her hair, but she was ok with that. She was just as excited to wear make-up and I tried to make hers a little more dramatic and boy, did she look like a different girl with all that make-up on! She made Piggy a costume, too!

Miss Sylvia wanted to be a princess, too, and while looking for a fancy dress to wear, she spotted this old Cinderella costume we had that was down in the basement for a couple years. It just fit her and she opted to wear this. Flimsy and poorly made, but she was happy and that's what matters. I made her wear a shirt and tights underneath since it's see-through and it was cold.

Happy Children make for a Happy Mama.

I'm disappointed Peter didn't wear his costume, but I know he'll wear it later. I enjoyed making it anyway.

Hope Halloween was good for you, too!

Just, Wow!

2011-10-30T02:21:00.000-04:00

What a lovely white winter wonderland it is out there right now. No matter that it is still Autumn and still October. No matter that Halloween hasn't happened yet. No matter that all the winter coats and snow pants I washed last month and hung to dry, then got played in and soiled all over again and I haven't had a chance to wash them just yet. No matter that Peter likes to wear snow boots in the house and then leaves them where he takes them off, be it under a bed, or under the stairs, or between the wall and the back of the dresser (*#$*&^!!!), and I have to hunt high and low for a matching pair of boots.

Still, it's beautiful out there.

Not so sure about my poor Mulberry tree, though. All that heavy wet snow hanging onto the leaves that have yet to fall bent the tree nearly in half before we knocked the snow off it. I hope it bounces back. Andrew said he could hear tree branches cracking in the woods. So I guess if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, it does make a sound!

I'm glad we had no plans to go anywhere today. Very quickly, more than 10 inches of heavy, wet snow came down. We knew it was coming and prepared for it. Andrew gathered more logs, split and stacked the wood near the door. We pulled up posts and tomato fences in the garden, pulled up the weed covers, then tilled most of the garden. Cut the grass and mowed over the leaves. I raked leaves where the mower can't get to and raked the leaves into the chicken coop and the duck house for bedding and insulation. Closed up the window flaps on the chicken coop. Andrew took the trash out to the landfill. Cleaned up the toy vomit in the basement so we could fire up the wood stove if it got too cold. Filled up gallons of water in empty jugs in case the power went out. It did, but only for an hour.

Chickens said "Hell, no!" to the snow and stayed inside the coop all day. Ducks never saw snow before and didn't know what to make of it. They were mostly outdoors before they called it an early night and went to bed.

I finally got smart this year and put up an indoor clothes line in the sun room. Previously, I used a clothes drying rack, but it couldn't handle the weight of the wet coats and pants and the kids were, let's be honest, just too rough with it, tossing heavy wet pants in it's general direction, knocking it to the floor until Mama comes and picks everything up and rearranges it so it can air dry. I'm learning from my mistakes, indoor clothes line it is!

Also new is the coat rack. Put up in the Spring since Mama was tired of hollering at the kids to pick up their jackets and sweaters off the floor after they fell off the puny little coat rack with tiny little pegs obviously not meant to hold 341 coats/sweaters/jackets. Fashioned by yours truly out of an old fence rail and vintage clothes hooks, it works great!

Also with the snow, comes the wet, muddy floor and strewn boots kicked off, left to sit in melting puddles of snow and when Mama comes to help hang up wet snow things, guess what I step in? Brr!

We tried, we truly did. We tried so hard not to have a fire until November, but when the temps dipped into the 30s last night and we woke to all the snow, and it was oh so hard to get out of the nice warm bed, it had to be done. Maybe November will bring us some warm days to make up for winter in October, but I won't hold my breath. More likely, I'll see my breath from now on.

Working on Halloween Costumes. Cannibalized a men's XL grey fleece jacket from the thrift shop and using up what's left of my fleece scraps to make something special for Peter. Nearly done. Any guesses?

Evelyn wants to be the Bride of Frankenstein, easy enough-- pulled together an outfit from her clothes and a bit of fancy hair styling and make-up will do the trick.

Gretchen and Sylvia both want to be princesses, so fancy party dresses and vintage tiaras borrowed from Mama, and make-up will do.

Plans are to go trick or treating at a local Church that hosts a 'Trunk or Treat' in the parking lot. We went last year and had fun, so unless we get more snow, that's what we'll be doing. And mayyyyybe a little walk around town, too, wait and see how cold it is.

"Have you seen a duck?"

2011-10-25T20:04:00.000-04:00

Every morning, Andrew lets the ducks out of their hoop house and feeds the cats. Two hours later, when I wake, I let the chickens out. If he lets the chickens out at the same time as the ducks, the chickens all rush over to where the cats are and eat their food up, so this way works well and the cats get to eat in peace.

This morning went as usual, I go out to let the chickens out and behind me is a duck. Wait a minute! A duck?? Where's the other duck? That never happens, seeing one duck without the other nearby. Something had to be wrong! I walk around looking for signs of a duck or duck feathers. I assume maybe an animal has gotten an early lunch or perhaps a car hit it? Looking up and down the road, no signs of feathers or a dreaded bloody spot. I walked all around the property and nothing. How I wished the one lone duck could talk and tell me where the other one was.

I contemplated going across the street to the neighbors but how weird would that conversation be? "Excuse me, but I've lost a duck. Have you seen it?" Besides, they have two pitbulls that bark really loudly whenever they see me walking around the front yard and I'm not willing to risk my butt being bitten. Andrew isn't home either, so I can't send him over there instead. Better his butt than mine! No, he has a nice butt, I'd have to kiss it and make it better.

Ahem!! Anyway!

A couple hours have passed and I've pretty much accepted that Quackers is gone. (the girls have informed me that Cheese is the lone duck and Quackers is the one missing) We're all eating lunch when there comes a knock at the front door. It's the neighbor.

"Hi! What can I do for ya?" says I.

"We found 2 ducks, are they yours?" he asks.

"I happen to be missing one!"

"I got two of them in our dog kennel right now," he says.

"Well, the other one must have gone missing too! I'll be right over!" I say.

Ain't it the darnedest thing?! The other duck crossed the road to join his buddy! Quackers is hurt-- he has a bloody wing. I don't know if one of his dogs bit him or not, I'm just glad they're OK. He mentioned the ducks charged his dogs and they ran away from them. I know for a fact that the ducks do charge and my own dog stays away from the ducks, so I believe him, but I also know two dogs can certainly tag-team a duck and it's possible one of the dogs got a bite in and he didn't see it or doesn't want to tell me. He said he had 18 chickens once and one of his dogs killed every single one of them one day, so the possibility is there. Whatever, Cheese and Quackers are home again!

I brought them back home and tried to examine Quacker's wing, but who am I kidding? I don't know what I'm looking for under all those feathers. All I could see was a spot of blood on his wing and when I tried to look underneath, there was a bald spot, but no wound. I let them loose in the pool and they hurriedly waddled out and into the garden area where they stayed for the rest of the day.

Now I wonder if I need to put up the fencing around the coop and duck house? We bought the materials a few months ago, even cemented in the fence posts for the gate door and pounded in a few t-bars, but that's where I stopped. I hate to fence them in, I love having them free-ranging around the yard. Have the ducks learned their lesson and will they stay in the back from now on? They say ducks are smart, have they learned anything from today's events? Maybe I'll pound in the rest of the t-bars before the ground freezes and then if something else happens that shows me they haven't learned their lesson, I'll put up the fencing.

Cheese and Quackers

2011-10-22T15:23:00.000-04:00

Cheese and Quackers have adjusted really well here. They roam all around the property doing their duck thing and have hardly touched the feed I gave them. Their previous home was a small penned in area with nothing but packed dirt, the little pool, and a bowl of feed, so I imagine being set free in our yard is like the Garden of Eden to them. So much to see and do and eat!

Their first few nights here, we kept them in a large dog carrier we had and parked it in the corner of our patio area. We had to chase and catch them to lock them up. After a couple nights of this, they learned to hang around the patio until we put them in the carrier.

I made a little duck house next to the chicken coop for them. I hoped they might go in and share the coop with the chickens, but it didn't happen and I don't want to force things, so a little hoop house next to the coop works just fine.

As before, we had to train them for a couple nights before they learned to go in their house on their own. Now, they go right on in as it gets dark and all we have to do is slide the board down for the night.

All closed up for the night.

It's been a real joy to watch the ducks waddle around. They have been all the way out back in the garden and I've seen them out front near the driveway. When it rains, they hang out where the water shoots out from the gutters and really have a ball! We're glad we got them!

Sewing For Me!

2011-10-18T20:56:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I "discovered" a new-to-me blog: No Big Dill She only just had a baby and during the time she's recovering from childbirth and adjusting to a new baby at home, she was posting past tutorials. Pretty nice stuff, but when I saw the tutorial for her Billy Cardi, I fell in love with it! I couldn't stop thinking about it. The only thing stopping me from making it was lack of fabric. I rummaged through my fabric bin looking for at least 2 yards of fabric and couldn't find anything, unless I wanted flannel spaceships in baby blue. I had a coupon from Joann's for 50% off burning a hole in my pocket so on the very last day the coupon expired, I managed to convince Andrew to take me to Joann's so I could get some fabric.

I considered cotton knit fabric, but with colder weather coming, I couldn't help but think it would be great in fleece. I have two fleece shirts I love wearing during the winters, so warm without being bulky, so making the Billy Cardi in fleece? I had to try it!

I followed the tutorial exactly, cutting up an old long-sleeve shirt for the pattern. No problems with sewing it up-- I cut and sewed this in one evening after the kids went to bed. The only issue I have with it is, because I based the pattern on a shirt, the sleeves and shoulders fit snugly and wearing a long sleeve shirt under it make it too snug. Fits perfectly when I wear a t-shirt underneath it. I want to make another one and this time I'll make the pattern just a bit bigger so I can use it over long sleeve shirts and as a jacket on not-so-cold days.

Otherwise? I love it! It's nice and comfy. I love the longer sleeves, which easily fold up when I need to do dishes or cook. The fleece is so warm and I find I am choosing to wear it at night over my usual sweater.

Warm dark brown fleece

With contrasting turquoise blue thread.

I added the zig-zag edging just for a little extra pop.

I like the way the shoulders were sewn together, mine are not perfectly even, but who'll know if I don't say anything? Well, so now you know!

I used zig-zag stitching on the edges of the front and up around the neck.

Really love those longer sleeves.

One of the other nice things about fleece is there is no hemming required, it doesn't fray! yay!

Less sewing for me!

This is quickly becoming my favorite sweater and with the ease of how it all came together, it will not be the only one either! As soon as I can get my hands on some more fleece, I'm definitely making another one!

WIP: Vintage Star

2011-10-12T12:23:00.001-04:00

Ever since I saw this, I've had quilt-making on the brain. I love it. It's so simple and unfussy, yet bold and classic. It doesn't hurt that the blocks are big and I can easily make four quilts for each of my children without having to make hundreds of cuts and joining hundreds of small pieces of fabric to make one big piece. And then it uses vintage sheets? Even better!

I love vintage sheets and snap them up whenever I see them at yard sales or thrift stores. I have quite the pile. I actually use some of them on our beds and love the super soft feel of sheets washed hundreds of times over the years. I love the graphics on them, the great big flowers and the pop of color combinations used.

I've cut into the poorer ones and turned them in rag rugs, but for the most part, they're piled in a box in the basement, until I saw that Giant Vintage Star Quilt. Oh so lovely! So I gathered every vintage sheet I could find, sorted by colors, stacked them on the hutch in the dining room in plain view, so I could see them and be inspired and.... nothing. I can't bear to cut into them! What if I cut into it and make it and turns out I hate it? I've now wasted my lovely vintage sheet!

I needed to do something, anything, to give me that little push and get me over that hump of fear.

I decided to make mini stars!

I got these squares from a bloggy friend and I've been wanting to do something with them, but until now, had no inspiration. I decided to make small versions of the Giant Vintage Star Quilt and see how I like the pattern and it gives me a little practice, too.

I really like how they came out. I started with thinking I'll just make one, but one is not quite big enough for a doll blanket, unless it's for Barbie dolls, and making only one will surely cause some tug-of-wars between the girls. Can't have that. So I made three more, thinking if I wanted to, I could join them to make one small quilt.

Every star I made after the first showed improvements. Tighter corners, points matched up, better ironing on the back, less wonkiness...

And here are the finished blocks, four in all.

Now I'm thinking they need something between them, maybe a solid color to unite them. A line of zig-zags have crossed my mind, too. Or I could add a border to all of them and make 4 little doll quilts. Or make a wall hanging out of it? Options are endless. They'll be put on the back burner for now until I decide what to do with them.

Did they inspire me to cut into the vintage sheets?

I must say they have.

Sometime soon, I'll pick out colors and make my attempt at making my very own Giant Vintage Star Quilt.

Wish me luck!

Yard Sale Finds

2011-10-11T00:02:00.000-04:00

We haven't been yard sale-ing much this summer. When we do go, I try and make up for lost time and hope, hope, hope that each yard sale I stop at, something good pops up!

Pickings have been so-so, but we did get lucky and found these adorable doll beds!

They stack to become bunk beds and the girls really love playing with these.

We've talked about making blankets and pillows but there's so many other projects going on, we haven't gotten a chance yet. Probably later, during the colder months when we're all cooped up in the house, those long-awaited projects will get started. For now, they swipe their old baby blankets from the closet and fold them over to use for their dolls.

Want to guess how much I paid for them?

Two dollars!!

Score!

Pumpkin Economics

2011-10-10T00:19:00.000-04:00

Oh thank goodness!! I feared the cold temperatures were here to stay and I am so happy to have lovely fall days again! After nearly 2 straight weeks of rain every single day, the sun has come out and the ground is drying up. The ducks seemed to be the only ones truly happy with all the rain as they splashed in the puddles and searched in the mud for tasty things to eat. I'm not one to complain about rain, I love rainy days! We needed the rain and it's good for us, and there's nothing sadder to me than a dried up creek, but being cooped up in the house with four crazy children can take a toll on me. I think if you look close enough, you can see footprints going up the walls and along the ceiling!

With such perfect weather this weekend, we just had to go somewhere and take advantage of it. Money being tight and trying to be frugal, we looked for a pumpkin patch that had free admittance. Most places around here charged entrance fees and had all sorts of activities, like hay rides and slides, and while those would be fun, we cannot afford those little extras on top of the entrance fee for our large family of 6. I knew of a regular farm stand / apple orchard not too far from us that would be sure to have a pumpkin patch, and without looking at their website, decided we should go there to walk around and take pictures of the kiddos. Little did I know! They were packed! Apparently everyone from Washington, D.C. and their cousins in Nothern Virginia decided to pick apples and headed down there, too, for a day out in the country.

Of course, right when we get there, a little train of cut-out barrels filled with kids being pulled by a tractor roars by and then shortly after, a huge tractor towing a tractor float with hay bales filled with people sitting on them go by. The kids all holler for hay rides and jump up and down excitedly. Damn. This was exactly what we were trying to avoid. Serves me right for not checking their website and learning they were more commercialized than I thought. We tell the kids to "hold on, let's go see how much and what else they got to offer," and hope that there's no entrance fee or charges for anything else going on.

We find the pumpkin patch and take pictures, but the kids are so excited it's hard to take any decent ones. Hopes for a family picture for the Christmas card pretty much fade away. While I'm sure there were plenty of pumpkins grown here, all the pumpkins present in the patch were already cut away from the vine and I found a pumpkin with a label on it! I wonder if they sold all the ones they grew and had to truck in some more from some other pumpkin farmer?? Did they "plant" the bought ones in the patch to give the city folks a taste of picking a pumpkin from the patch?

Whatever. I knew pumpkins would be pricey here, so we already picked up pumpkins from Walmart before coming here. We got them before going to the pumpkin patch, so we wouldn't have to deal with begging, whining, whimpering children who would just dieee if they didn't get a pumpkin! By getting pumpkins first, we nipped that in the bud! Genius thinking on my part, I think.

So the kids lose their interest in the pumpkin patch as another train of kid-filled barrels go by and we bite the bullet and get closer to the action and the crowds of people. $3 per person for a hay ride and $2 per kid for the barrel ride. No, Thank You. "Come on kids, let's go inside and see what they got in there," we say, pulling them away from the sight of the rides and into the big faux barn. Ugh. Packed with people and completely a commercial-style farm stand. A bakery, cafe, fake vintage farm trinkets, and bins of apples everywhere! We duck through the crowds and out into a blocked-off parking lot filled with vendors. Some kids walk by with their faces painted and I wince, waiting for it. "Mom! Can we get our faces painted?" Sigh. I crane my neck looking for the booth and I spot a sign: Faces Painted- $5. Hmm, don't think so. I shake my head and it makes me sad to see the disappointed looks on their faces.

While looking for the painted faces sign, I spotted a play area that was teeming with kids and I quickly turned towards Andrew and silently gave him the "look." The look that says, "move it or lose it!" I point with my eyes and he looks and quickly understands my point and we steer the kids in the other direction. There isn't much else to do but head back to the car and the kids quickly express their displeasure at this. I try and suggest walking through the apple orchard we parked nearby for pictures and the kids whine and groan, but they're good sports and pose for a few pictures.

You can just see their hearts aren't into saying "cheese" for the cameras. They complain the apples are too big, or too small. They fidget and look away from the camera. They finally say "cheeeeeeeeeeese" and this is the best one of the bunch, taken by Andrew and his camera while they're looking at me and my camera.

I make a promise to stop at the store on the way home and pick up some treats for us to enjoy when we get home. I try to be cheerful and upbeat, but they're on to me. Finally, after we get in the car, we explain, "You know daddy hasn't worked in a while, right? Well, that means we don't have a whole lot of money to spend. We can't spend $20 on face painting that will get washed off and down the drain in the shower tonight. We can't spend $8 on a barrel ride or $18 on a hay ride. You get to ride in the wagon at home when daddy hooks it to the tractor and ride around the yard, so you know it's kind of bumpy. Why would you want to ride in an itchy hay wagon that's all bumpy around someone else's yard? Isn't it more fun to ride the wagon at home and when you want to stop and get out, all you have to do is yell and Daddy stops and let you out?" They seem to understand and stop protesting and settle into their seats in defeat.

Their moods improve once we get home and the prospect of making pumpkin faces become a reality.

Andrew and I moan and groan at having to carve pumpkins. We're tired, both physically and emotionally, and hand out pumpkin-head face pieces instead, telling the kids we'd carve tomorrow. They're happy with that thought and make silly faces on their pumpkins, borrow my camera, and take 126 pictures of pumpkins and silly faces.

Today, we put off carving again and encouraged them to paint their pumpkins instead. They spent 4 hours outside painting, washing off, re-painting, washing off, and re-painting their pumpkins. I called it off when the paint started landing on the blue bench and Peter had paint in his ears!

I admit, I hate to carve into these pumpkins. With money so tight, it's such a waste of perfectly good pumpkin that could be turned into pies, cakes, and breads. I'm hoping to convince the kids to stick with painting faces, then I can wash the paint off and cook up the pumpkins later, but 3 out of 4 kids are pretty determined to carve into them. It might be hopeless at this point, all those holes poked into the pumpkins with those face pieces have probably doomed those pumpkins already. Of all the things related to Halloween, the one I enjoy the least is the waste of pumpkins.

From The Inside Out

2011-10-04T00:41:00.000-04:00

What is it with the weather and the calendar, man?

These last few months have been strange, to say the least.

Flipping the calendar to September suddenly took away hot summer weather and, in an instant, Autumn was here. Not complaining really, there are lots of great things associated with Fall--

the start of a new school year

apples

and all things apple-related

cooler weather

sweaters

fall festivals

pumpkins

carved and pie

Halloween

changing colors of the leaves

that crispness in the air.

Flipping the calendar to October usually means more of the above.

But ever since October 1st got here, it's been cold, man.

Like, want to start a fire cold.

The temperature never got higher than the mid-40s today.

We seriously considered starting a fire, but we hate to start so soon on the wood pile.

Instead, I'm turning to baking.

If I can't warm from the outside, well, we can start on the inside.

Apples.. you can see where this is going, can't you?

Bet you didn't think I was going here.

Anything better in the tummy than warm apple crisp?

How about vanilla ice cream on top of warm apple crisp!?

Oh yes, the cold is much easier to face when one is warm from the inside out.

Apple Crisp

serves 8

Peel and core 8 apples. Cut into largish pieces and place in baking dish. Sprinkle 2 tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon on apples and stir to coat.

Combine 1/2 cup (1 stick) of softened butter, 1/2 c flour, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup rolled oats, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and dash of salt. Mix until crumbly.

Pour crumb mixture onto apples and bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Let sit so you don't burn your mouth and serve warm with ice cream.

Smile.

Say yum!

Eating with "Daddy"

2011-10-02T17:22:00.000-04:00

Most meals are eaten together around the table. Sure, we have our moments and we eat in front of the TV with a movie on, or the kids have a "picnic" on the living room floor and it's just Andrew and I at the table, or sometimes, he's in the office in front of the desktop computer and I'm at the table with the laptop. But that's pretty rare, usually during lunch. Dinners are always, always, together around the table.

A few days ago, Andrew was out running errands and wasn't back for lunch. No biggie, really, but the kids were a little bummed about it. Our whiteboard was still out, having just finished some lessons and taking a little break for eating, so the kids asked me to draw daddy.

I started out simple, just the head and shoulders, his eyes, nose, eyebrows, mouth and goatee.

"Don't forget his earring!" Whoops! Added his earring.

The kids were happy, chatting away with "Daddy" while we had our lunch.

Every now and then, one of the girls would get up and add a little more detail:

his forehead wrinkles..

arms and a shirt...

hand holding a fork with food on it...

blue eyes...

lines under his eyes...

a heart on his shirt.

Eating with Daddy, even putting a plate and glass in front of him.

Nice to know that the kids miss him when he's away from us.

:o)

Like Mother, Like Son

2011-09-29T20:47:00.000-04:00

Poor Peter. He's allergic to poison ivy, too!

I couldn't tell at first, because I thought maybe his belly and legs were scratched up from climbing the fallen trees, but checking a couple of days later, it was definitely spreading, definitely a rash. So we made an appointment for him with the same Doctor I went to, and sure enough, he has the same diagnosis. Poison Ivy allergy, just like his mama.

For the next 13 days, we'll be taking our medicines in the morning and lucky for me, he has no trouble with taking his in liquid form.

Looks like we both will have to be more careful when we play outside in the woods. Hopefully, since he's only 3, he'll grow out of it, maybe, if he's lucky. Until then, I'll do my best to keep him away from poison ivy.

Sorry, kiddo. I know you can't understand just why mama won't let you run free and wild in the woods, but trust me when I say you can't. We'll stay on the trails or we'll find some other thing to do, ok?

Signs of Fall

2011-09-28T00:59:00.001-04:00

Definitely Fall around here. We had a couple of days of absolutely perfect weather!

Fridays here have the best yard sales and there's a church nearby that holds a semi-annual indoor yard sale that I look forward to and one cannot miss! Just rows and rows of tables piled high with good stuff!

Of course we all went and found something for everyone.

Then on to town for a little bit of grocery shopping, Library, apple orchard, and then the scenic route home.

Saturday, Andrew fired up the chain saw and cut down some trees we had marked earlier. The kids had lots of fun climbing trees and we all pitched in, sorting logs, branches for kindling and pulling leaves to the burn pile.

Even Peter did his share of loading up the wagon with logs!

The little guy is strong!

This used to be a big leaning tree, shadowing our tiny orchard. I had a long swing hanging from it, but learned the hard way that if both ropes are not tied off at the same level, the swing won't swing evenly. So hardly ever got used. Seemed like the tree was hanging lower than the year before it, so with my blessing, Andrew cut it down. Good thing, it was hollow and probably wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway.

There will be plenty of wood from this tree to last us a while.

Working together is always fun!

Gotta have some fun mixed in with hard work!

After unloading the logs into the pole barn, the kids get a wagon ride back to the work site!

Wheee!!!

This cat will put up with anything for attention!

Silly Archie!

Apples!! Local orchard had a good crop this year, so the apples are nice and big compared to last year.

These are Jonagolds-- love them! Only one bushel this year-- still have plenty of applesauce leftover from last year. I plan to freeze a few pies and we're eating plenty everyday-- so I just might get a second bushel. Wait and see.

Our so-called garden is still blessing us with tomatoes. Slowing down fast, though.

I got poison ivy again. Dang it! Must have been from when we were working on the felled trees. I checked for poison ivy, worried a little bit about it, but just dove in and got to work. Monday comes and I see itchy welts all over my face and I literally felt my lips blistering. I wasted no time in calling the medical center I went to last time and made an appointment. Knowing I am allergic to poison ivy now, I know that all those over-the-counter creams will do nothing for me. It spread to my ears, neck, cheeks, lips and a bit on my arms and fingers lightening quick! Second day of meds and the spreading has stopped, but still itchy.

Looks like I'll have to back off on helping out with the wood pile. I really like working by Andrew's side, we make a good team. But in this case, I have a legitimate excuse. I'll just have to figure out a way to help with the wood in other ways, without actually touching the wood. I'm sure Andrew would be grateful for my help and appreciate when I hover behind him while he's sawing and I tell him where to cut, how to cut, where to put his hands while holding the saw, and maybe I'll even kick his feet apart a little bit more. Men like a back-seat driver, don't they? :o) (Love you babe!)

Thinking Out Loud

2011-09-26T00:44:00.000-04:00

I thought summer was pretty hectic, turns out Fall is even more so! Why does it seem like there are multiple events happening on the same weekends? Makes it so hard to decide what to do, which to attend, which is more important, which would be fun for the kids. Most of the time though, money is the deciding factor-- entrance fees? gas? eating out?

This coming weekend is my high schools' Homecoming and an informal 20th class reunion (20 years? No way!). My high school was sort of an international school-- students came from all over the country, some from other countries. Kind of makes it hard to get together for reunions when many of us are all spread out, as opposed to a local school and say, 75% of the students still live in the area.

We had a 10-year reunion, which had a pretty good turn-out. But only because there was a major event happening and most of us were coming into town anyway. This year, however, it's just a plain ol' Homecoming game. A lot of classmates are pushing for a cruise for our 25th reunion. Honestly? I'll probably never go on a cruise of my own choosing, preferring to travel by car or train to my destination, fly if I have to, but a cruise? No thanks. Too expensive and just not my thing. So why would I cough up big dough for a class reunion held on a ship? Did we graduate on the ship? I still have small children to think of-- 5 years from now, Peter will be 8; my children will not be grown up and out of the house and I'm high on the hog with money to spare. I'd rather see the old school and all the changes that have been done. Several of the dorms have been torn down and new things have happened, I'd like to see that in person, not go on a ship in the middle of the ocean.

I planned on going to the Homecoming, but then I realized it's the same night as the shopping night for consignors at the consignment store. I worked my tail off gathering all the too-small, or fits-but-no-one-will-wear-it clothing, washed them, hung them on hangers, tagged and priced them, then took them to the shop to be scanned in by hand. Do you know what kind of miracles had to be performed just to accomplish all that with 4 children underfoot? What kind of sleep I gave up? Before we got there, I had told myself that there wouldn't be any shopping this year-- we can't afford it, definitely won't take the kids in or we'll never hear the end of their begging for something that's not a necessity. But then, while there, I looked around and I saw a few things-- winter shoes for the kids (they can't wear flip-flops forever!), a set of books for our book-loving Evelyn, and even a few items that could be put away for Christmas, if I can get it before anyone else does. Surely we can manage to scrounge up enough to purchase a few items. Consignment store prices aren't that high!

What's more important-- things our children need/want? Or going to a Homecoming where only 10 or 15 of my class show up? I'm already heavily leaning to the first choice, and at the same time, the whiny girl inside me reallllly wants to go, no matter who will be there. I know for a fact that my friend from since 6th grade will be there, and a close friend is coming down for it. Some classmates that'd I'd really like to see aren't coming-- they live too far away, but swear that they'll come for the 25th cruise (rolling my eyes). Don't really care about the others... yes, it'd be good to see them and at the same time-- eh, who cares. In all these years, since the 10th reunion, I've only kept in contact, close contact, as in talk-at-least-once-a-month contact, with maybe 5 school mates.

I feel like going to the Homecoming is selfish. I'd be driving 3 hours to go to DC, spend a couple hours hugging people I know but don't like enough to keep in touch with, repeating the same "here's what I've been up to lately" story over and over, fielding comments like, "yup, 4 kids! Who would have thunk it!" and "No, sorry, you don't know my husband, he's hearing" (it's a Deaf thing, to always ask who your spouse is, maybe they'll know him/her). It's nothing official, no plans in place to meet at a certain location, no eating arrangements, except a tentative maybe "let's go to the bar down the street", of which I'll bow out of, since I have to drive, and no idea who will actually be there since no one seems to be replying to the class Facebook page.

Yeah, it's more likely I won't go. I'll have to send an email to my 6th grade friend and gracefully bow out of attending. My family comes first. I can't see making things more financially difficult for us by spending money on a 6 hour trip to see people that can't be bothered to reply to a simple request. And if I don't really care about seeing them, one way or the other, then why would I want to go in the first place? There. Problem solved.

Rubber Ducky, You're The One..

2011-09-24T14:18:00.000-04:00

Ever since we got two new additions to the homestead,

I have Ernie's Rubber Ducky song playing on repeat in my head.

We got ducks!

They look like White Pekin Ducks.

The people we got them from likely got them for Easter, since in their duckling pictures, their feathers were tinted pink and blue.

Don't know the sex of them, don't care.

We talked about getting ducks before, so when these ducks showed up on a local exchange site, for free, we couldn't resist! She had no shelter for them and didn't want to build one for the coming winter, so she was giving them away.

I love the little curls on the tips of their tail feathers!

These two are tight! They stay together everywhere!

So much fun to watch!

The kids all had fun watching them as we took them out of the cage. I was a little worried we took them out too soon, because one bolted and ran into the woods and the other stayed for a while. I wondered what the roosters would do. The dog? Would the ducks come back? I hadn't made a pen for them yet.

Turns out, I needn't have worried. These two ducks seem to know this is home already. They hang around, eating grass, leaves, and I assume, bugs in the ground. They wander in the woods, always within sight, then come back to their little wading pool and swim and bathe.

As it got dark, and the chickens put themselves to bed in the coop, the ducks came close to the house, probably looking for a place to settle for the night. Previous owners only had them in a small fenced in area with no shelter, so I have to think they are not used to sleeping inside of something. I rounded the ducks up and put them in the dog carrier, then put the cage inside the coop for the night.

I don't know if that's ideal for long-term-- keeping the ducks with the chickens in the chicken coop. I know of others through blogger that have ducks and chickens, and even one family with one duck that thinks it's a chicken and hangs out with the chickens. In my case, these two ducks have never seen chickens before, and the chickens seem afraid of the ducks. They hide in the coop when the ducks are around it and don't come out until the ducks are out of sight. Curious!

I have enough lumber scraps to make a largish dog house-style shelter for them. I've been turning over plans in my head ever since we got them home yesterday afternoon. I'll probably place the duck shelter a little bit away from the chicken coop and build a temporary pen until they learn to go in the shelter at night. The little pool will go near it, as well.

The ducks are fun to watch when they get into the pool.

It's fun to see them dunking themselves and splashing around.

The previous owners gave this to us, but eventually, I'd like to get a little bit bigger one, so they can actually swim around some. It looks like they are standing and not really swimming. The water is only about 6 inches or so deep.

We've named them Cheese and Quackers.

:o)

Scratching the Itch

2011-09-20T15:21:00.000-04:00

I've been itching to get on the sewing machine lately and it's so hard during the day with Peter fiddling around with all the buttons on the machine, pulling the spool of thread off, walking around me and tripping over the cord, that I just wait until the kids go to bed. But by then I'm too tired or I have something else more pressing than sewing, so it gets put off and put off and put off.

Sewing and crafting is good for me. It's good for my soul. Sooner or later I have to make time to do something and get it out of my system and when it's finished, I feel better.

Last year, a wonderful bloggy friend sent Evelyn a box of fabrics for Christmas (Thanks, Karen!). I gave Evelyn most of it when I put it inside her very own sewing box, but kept out a few things-- either I thought she wasn't ready for it, or *ahem* I wanted it for myself. heh. Included in the box of fabrics was a set of charm squares, I think that's what you call them. A rainbow of colors in the same design but different colors, all pre-cut into 4x4 squares. I've been itching since before Christmas to make something with them, but didn't know what.

Finally, inspiration struck and I spent several days looking at different pinwheel quilts on the internet, looking for a design I liked. I don't have enough squares to make a full size quilt, but I wasn't looking to do that. I just wanted to make something quickly. I needed my fix!

Ta-dah!!

My first tiny mini-quilt. It's the exact size of a potholder! hahaha!

It's not perfect, some of the corners don't match up and I flubbed the binding.

I like the orange and turquoise together.

I like how if you stare at it long enough, the pattern starts to change-- squares, diamonds, triangles, squares within a square...

I'll probably end up using it as a potholder.

I used a scrap of fleece as batting in the middle.

I see a lot of quilters adding a little something-something to the backs of their quilts,

giving it that extra special bit and I ended up with an extra pinwheel left over after I pieced the front together, so why not? There's my little extra special something-something!

I did this one, too. Can you see the diamond pattern?

Trying to line up all the tiny squares on this was tough!

I should have used a different fabric, switching out one of the red-and-white ones.

Like keeping the stripes, both the green and the red/white, and adding a different color stripe. The red-and-white polka dot is cute, but it doesn't help define the diamond pattern.

At least I got all the stripes lined up the same way.

This is also the size of a potholder-- the squares are the size of a dime.

I'm thinking I'll finish it and let the girls have it for a doll quilt.

Extreme Couponer For A Day

2011-09-19T07:11:00.003-04:00

When I shop with coupons, I save an average of $25 to $30 each trip. My savings run about 50-60%. Sometimes, I only save $10 off $70, but hey, every little bit helps.

Once in awhile, I save big and it makes me feel like I'm one of those crazy coupon ladies that walk out of the store with $300 worth of groceries and only paying $5.

I had one of those days recently! I have to share:

Martin's food stores was running a special-- Buy 5 Quaker Oatmeal bars at $2 each, and recieve a $5 catalina to use on your next shopping trip. (A catalina is a coupon that prints out with your reciept, to be used later) They happened to have coupons on the display for 75 cents off 1 box. I grabbed 15 coupons and made 3 trips. Here's what I did:

1st trip: Bought 5 boxes = $10 Used 5- $.75/1 coupons (the first gets doubled to $1) for a total of $4 off. Pay $6 and get a $5 catalina.

2nd trip: Bought 5 boxes = $10 Used 5- $.75/1 coupons for a total of $4 off AND the $5 catalina.
Pay $1 and get a $5 catalina.

3rd trip: Repeat #2, pay $1 and get a $5 catalina.

That makes $30 worth of Quaker Oat bars for only $3 after subtracting the catalina! That equals to .20 cents a box!! Nice! A round of applause please! Thank you, thank you!

Next, I went to Target. They will price match any store's current ad, so I took a Food Lion ad which had a sale on 12 oz boxes of Rice Krispies for $1.50. That alone is cheap, but there was also a manufacturer's coupon for $1 off 2 kellogg's cereal AND a Target coupon for $1 off 2 Kellogg's cereal-- nice! Instead of paying $2.94 a box, I price-match and save $1.44 per box. After price-match, buy 2 boxes for $3, use both Target AND manufacturer's coupon and pay $1 for BOTH boxes! I got lucky today, though, because the clerk made an error and entered $1.25 eight separate times for eight separate boxes! So I ended up getting 8 boxes for 50 cents each after coupons! Sweet!

I also had my eye on a large picture frame that suddenly went on clearance and with a birthday gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket, it was the perfect time to pick it up. It was marked down 50% off, $24.99 down to $12.48. A twin-size sheet set in a boy theme I had my eye on was also on clearance, and I was waiting for it to come down lower, but since there were only 2 left, I had to grab it-- marked down 50% off, $17.99 down to $8.98.

Picked up the new Velveeta Cheesy dinner kit, too, for $2.04 and 2 toy cars, priced at $3.29 each. Lucky for me, there was a coupon on the Rice Krispies box that stated: Free car with purchase of 3 boxes of cereal! With 8 boxes of cereal, I had more than enough, and I found 2 coupons, which means 2 free cars! The cars will be put away for Christmas.

Here's the breakdown:
8 boxes Rice Krispies- $1.25 each
2 toy cars- $3.29 each
1 Velveeta Cheesy dinner $2.04
1 Frame $12.48
1 sheet set $8.98
Grand total: $40.08 (Total value is $75.12)
Used 4- $1/2 Kellogg's cereal Target coupons
         2- $1/2 Kellogg's cereal manu. coupons
         1- $1/1 Velveeta coupon
         1- $.50/1 Velveeta Target coupon
         2- FREE car wyb 3 boxes Rice Krispies coupons

Paid: $27.28!! Had I not bought the frame and the sheets, my total would have been only $5.82 for 8 boxes of cereal, 2 cars, and the velveeta dinner!! Pretty good to me!!

Any good couponing trip for you lately?? Do tell! :o)

Another Year Gone

2011-09-17T22:10:00.000-04:00

My birthday has come and gone.

Another year wiser, I hope.

Family came two days in a row to help celebrate my birthday.

That's the best gift right there-- spending time with family.

My kids gave me hand made cards-- so precious!

I made cake Friday to share with my Aunt, her birthday was on the 7th.

It was german chocolate, her favorite.

The kids wanted to know why it was called "german" chocolate and we explained about different chocolates and locales and Germany. Andrew went on to tell them that they are part German, since Andrew and I both are part German.

Sylvia piped up, "And now since I'm eating [german chocolate] cake, I'm even more German!"

Too funny!

I made a second cake on Saturday, to share with my Father-in-Law. His birthday was on the 10th.

This time it was both of our favorites-- Pineapple Upside Down cake. yum!

I don't need much, as long as I have my loved ones, I'm happy.

Here's to another year!

Old Rotten

2011-09-14T21:06:00.000-04:00

I'm hungry.

I sit here sipping chicken broth because I cannot eat normal food right now. I have a big hole in my mouth where a tooth should be. I broke a tooth a while back, but it didn't bother me and so I left it alone, not going to the dentist because a) we have no dental insurance and b) we have no money for expensive dental repairs/bills.

More than a month ago, a small dull ache would come and go in that tooth. I'd promptly gargle with hydrogen peroxide or warm salt water, and the pain would go away. Then the pain wouldn't leave. I'd try everything-- brushing, flossing, gargling-- to no avail. Then came the pill-popping, downing 2 aspirin, then 3, and I'd feel better again. But the last couple of days was the absolute worse-- tossing and turning, the pain radiating up to my brain and my ears, throbbing and pounding. No pill would help and every movement just made it worse. I'd bend down to pick something up and the blood would rush to that tooth and pound some more. Peter's screeching was a whole 'nother level of pounding. Something needed to be done.

I had visions of dying because of my rotten, old tooth. Old Rotten getting all infected and sending armies of germ soldiers carrying yellow puss-filled buckets and dumping it onto my brain, causing me to die and leave my four young children mother-less. I saw my children and husband crying at my grave site and inscribed on my tombstone, instead of my name, Rotten Old Tooth. I was losing it!

If we had the money, I would go for the root canal. Painful, yes. Expensive, yes. But I'd still have my tooth. But we are barely making ends meet, every bit of money going for gas, bills, food. The cheaper option is to have it pulled. So, Old Rotten is now in a shiny, plastic, white container, shaped like a tooth. I attempted to nap earlier, but with four children, naps for mamas are impossible. Sylvia asked me if my tooth was under my pillow, sweet child. Maybe I will put it under my pillow tonight. Might get lucky.

So, the pain. I feel better. No more throbbing aches, no more little trolls pounding on my head. I inhale and the cool air doesn't hurt my tooth. My mouth is numb still, I can taste blood, and it feels different inside my mouth, a big gaping hole where Old Rotten used to be. Am I happy? Not really. I would have liked to try and save Old Rotten. Instead of visions of germ soldiers, I now have visions of a future me, my falsies popping out when I laugh, my children giggling when my teeth are soaking in a glass while I sleep.

I used to wonder how people let their teeth go bad. I have the answer now.

Wishful Thinking / Pet Peeve

2011-09-13T00:55:00.000-04:00

There's been a lot of crafting around these parts lately. By me, and the girls. Not so much Peter-- unless you count eating play-doh. I'm happy the girls are picking up the crafting bug-- it's something I remember Mom trying to get me to do when I was their age and it never stuck with me. Now I start doing it when I am a busy mother of 4 trying to do everything else that needs to be done around here. Why didn't I do it back when I had all the time in the world?? I must like a challenge!

I get a lot of my supplies from yard sales and thrift shops, or there's a good sale at the fabric store with half-off coupons. I'm lucky Andrew indulges me my crafting and encourages me when I get on a sewing binge. I try to return the favor and not break the bank on crafty purchases-- like I can afford a whole lot anyway.

Today for home school, the girls all wanted to sew and make dolls. So it turned into Home Ec class and the topic was embroidering doll features, sewing bodies on mama's sewing machine, turning inside out, stuffing and yarn hair. Finished 1 doll; halfway through a second; still need to assemble a third. Doll dresses are slated for tomorrow. My patience ran out when, first, I was feeling like I needed to be mama octopus and help 3 girls all crying for help at the same time and Peter constantly screeching that ear-piercing scream while knocking down his blocks, and then Gretchen getting pickier and picker about the yarn hair or the eyes or the heart and how it wasn't looking like Evelyn's. I slammed my hand on the table, grabbed all the fabric, yard, thread, hoops and put it up. Went to the bedroom to get 5 minutes of peace and quiet.

I hope tomorrow will go smoother, brand new day and all that.

With the girls jumping on the crafting bandwagon, I'm finding myself short on supplies to share. I hate that I have to run 45 minutes into the next big town for the closest store that sells fabric and supplies. It's been my mantra since the day we moved here. Why is the closest craft store 45 minutes away?! In six years, I still have not discovered any sort of crafting store around here and I know there are quilters in this area and lots of the town fairs are full of people hawking hand made stuff, so there are other crafty people here. I can't believe that they all go 45 minutes to the next big town for supplies?? Or else they have money and order online, which I wish I could do but online stuff is expensive and I like to see/touch what I'm buying first.

It would be nice to open up a shop of my own. Couldn't afford to lease out a store space, much less purchase all the stock. Plus, start up costs, liability insurance and all that expensive stuff. A woman I knew liked to quilt and she found it cheaper to order her fabrics whole-sale, by-the-bolt, but then she had too much fabric, so she opened a fabric store in her basement and, by-appointment-only, sold her surplus fabric. She had a nice shop, but way overpriced. I ended up just buying a teeny small bit, feeling obligated, because I made an appointment and I was taking up her time, after all. I think about that set-up a lot these days-- how nice to have a store in my basement, to run down and pluck what I need off the shelf. Have a sign out by the road on days I'm open to the public or by appointment. No overhead costs, no lease to pay, just a bit of advertising and finding crafting supplies to stock the shop and sell. Is it worth it? Would I be offering a desired product? Would it succeed? Can I fill a need? Profit would be nice, but even better would be the convenience of a shop closer than 45 minutes. It's all a nice idea, maybe just a fantasy, since we're really tight on money and starting a business in this economy? hmph!

I'll have to make do and look for an old teddy bear no one loves and cut it open for it's stuffing. I don't have enough stuffing for the dolls the girls are making. Can't afford a trip into town just for stuffing, and while I'm there, I'll be drooling over all the other stuff I'd really like to bring home with me. What I really just want to do is take the whole store, strap it onto the roof of my van and park it in my back yard.

WIP: Blue Flowers Embroidery

2011-09-12T07:33:00.001-04:00

A great embroidery blog called Feeling Stitchy hosted a stitch-along in August that I just had to jump onto the bandwagon for. The project was to pick a fabric with a pattern and then embellish it with thread. I'd seen other examples and wanted to try it, too. I found this great vintage linen towel at a yard sale and I knew it'd be perfect for the stitch-along. The stitch-along is over now, and I'm not done with it yet, but I wanted to show my work-in-progress.

The vintage linen. It took some courage to actually sew into it. I was brought up to keep things in their original condition and I am slowly learning that it's OK to personalize something the way you want it. If it's yours, and you aren't 100 percent pleased with something, then shouldn't you be able to make changes to make it better?

The embroidery thread all picked out and matched to the linen.

My work so far..

Adding the thread adds a dimension to it and I think makes it look more interesting. I found a great oval frame for it from the thrift shop and I've marked the area I'll sew to fit inside the frame. Looking forward to finishing this and seeing it in the frame. I already have just the spot for it in my bedroom.

Family Game Night: LIFE

2011-09-10T07:28:00.001-04:00

Now that the kids are getting older, we're breaking out some of the games that require more than climbing ladders and sliding down chutes. We have longed for the day we can gather around the table and play games that we remember playing with our own families growing up.

We recently played LIFE with the girls and they love it!

We're skipping over some of the complicated bits, like getting insurance and stocks, but otherwise, playing the game as usual. They get especially pleased when they get married and they plot how to get the wheel to stop on a certain number so they can have children.

We usually have to set Peter up with some toys or put a movie in for him, or else he gets into a screaming fit and starts swiping every one's money, which gets the girls screaming, which gets me screaming. ahem. Anyway, it's pretty fun to watch how the girls arrange the "people" in their cars. As soon as Gretchen gets married, she puts her husband in the driver's seat.

Money, money, money!

Gretchen loves the money! She could have eight 100,000 bills, but if she has no other bills, she thinks she's so poor and cries that she has no money. She's only happy when she has several bills of each color. Silly girl!

We've played this quite a few times, and I think they're ready for a game of Monopoly soon.

All of our games are older, either mine from when I was a kid, or Andrew's from his childhood, or games we pick up from yard sales and thrift shops. We like the older games better. The girls recently played LIFE at a friend's house with a newer game set, and my girls complained it wasn't the same as ours. I just told them that we had an older game and sometimes the manufacturers update the games and make them look different.

Do you have memories of a certain game and remember how much fun it was, then play it again as an adult and it's the most boring game ever?? My husband and I both have a game like that in our past. His is Mousetrap and mine is a game called Mystery Mansion. I'd never played Mousetrap before and he went on and on about how much fun it was, so we bought a new game and started playing it and I kept waiting for the fun part to start. He looked at me sheepishly and admitted it wasn't as fun as he remembered it. My sister and I spent hours, hours! playing Mystery Mansion. You built the mansion as you go along, looking for secret passageways and treasure. Sometimes you'd find a chest and it would have just cobwebs in it, or the secret passageway would take you down to the scary dungeon. I couldn't wait to show Andrew how to play this super fun game and then when I broke it out and we started playing it, I realized it was our imaginations that made this game so much fun. I'll give it to the girls and see if they like playing it and hopefully their imaginations will make Mystery Mansion as much fun for them as it used to be for me.

Peter and The Strawberries

2011-09-08T22:50:00.000-04:00

Peter thinks he's so sneaky.

He swiped a box of strawberries from the fridge after I told him, "no, we're eating lunch soon."

He knows I cannot hear him sneak behind me and open the fridge.

He thinks if he grabs it and runs away quick enough and I don't see him, he's in the clear.

Good thing he doesn't know I can feel the vibrations of his feet and recognize the difference between walking steps and running steps.

I go and investigate.

He's watching for me, expecting me to come from the other entrance.

He doesn't hear me sneaking up on him!

"There you are!" I say.

"Ahhh!" he screams and jumps, startled that I was behind him!

"Show mama what you got!" I ask him.

And there are the quickly disappearing strawberries!

With Or Without Me

2011-09-07T07:08:00.001-04:00

Despite my complete lack of attention, the chickens noshing on them, and rampant weeds towering above my head, the tomatoes have continued to thrive and produce hundreds of fruit for us to eat and enjoy. I have not even watered the garden except for a few days in the very beginning after planting, and we have had a pretty dry summer where we're at. I didn't do a lot of tomato canning this summer-- I still have many quarts left of whole tomatoes I canned last year. I did manage to can up batches of taco sauce and mild salsa, though. The salsa won me a blue ribbon at the county fair. We've also eaten plenty of fresh salsa this summer, made with lots of onions, chopped cilantro and lemon juice. And goodness knows how many tomatoes we've eaten in salads, BLTs, sandwiches, burgers and all by their lonesome with a dash of salt! I'll miss eating those fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter when all that's left of summer is in our memories.

Dinner Tonight: Five Spice Pork Kabobs

2011-09-06T07:12:00.003-04:00

What's the point of looking at all those recipes in magazines if one never tries them?

I have magazines I save just for the recipes I want to try, but then they get lost in the clutter and I never get around to trying them. I am vowing to start trying a new recipe every week and start going through all those magazines, picking out something that, surely, the whole family will love.

This came from a recent issue of Better Homes and Gardens, July 2011.

Five Spice Pork Kabobs

Now who doesn't like eating food off a stick?! yum!

These reminded me of those teriyaki beef-on-a-stick things you can get at chinese restaurants and it looked simple enough to try. The only thing missing was the spice-- Chinese five-spice powder. We planned to make a trip to a town that has an international grocery soon, so that went on the list. As soon as I got all the ingredients I needed, I was so anxious to try this!

Here's the recipe:

2 tbsp ketchup

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp packed brown sugar

1 tsp chinese five-spice powder

1 1/2 pound pork tenderloin

8 skewers (if using wooden ones- soak in water to prevent burning)

1/4 c peanuts

1/4 c cilantro sprigs

lime wedges (optional)

For sauce, in a small bowl, combine ketchup, soy sauce, brown sugar and five-spice powder. Set aside. For kabobs, trim tenderloin, slice thinly, then thread slices onto skewers. Brush skewered meat with some of the sauce.

Grill kabobs directly over medium hot coals for 3 to 4 minutes. Brush with remaining sauce. Turn kabobs and grill 3 to 4 minutes more or until fully cooked. To serve, sprinkle with peanuts and cilantro. Serve lime wedges alongside. Makes 4 servings.

We doubled the recipe and halfway through cooking on the grill, the propane ran out, so we finished this in the oven. So good and tasty!! I wished there was more sauce though, so the next time I make this, I'll make extra sauce. I also omitted the lime, peanuts and cilantro-- I didn't have any on hand when I made this, but I don't think we missed out on anything, it was delicious! I made ramen noodles and broccoli to go with this and the kids all seemed to like it, as there was very little leftover meat, which I later chopped and added to ramen noodle soup a couple of days later.

Just to make things fun, and I wish I remembered to take a picture, we also had fruit kabobs for dessert. Evelyn helped thread cantaloupe, grapes, strawberries and peaches onto skewers. Talk about a major hit! The kids ate about 3 each of those fruit kabobs!

Let me know if you try this!

Happy eating!

King and Queen of Hearts

2011-09-05T07:28:00.001-04:00

In 2009, the Post Office issued their yearly "LOVE" stamp around Valentine's and this particular year was an image of the King and Queen of Hearts. I fell in love with the stamp and couldn't help but think it was a good candidate for an embroidery project. The stamps are long gone, but I held onto the image from the stamp booklet and more than two years later, I blew up the image on my printer, traced it onto vintage linen, and then in less than a week, completed it!

It measures 9 x 5 inches.

(click photo to enlarge image)

The original image had only a few colors and I've used my own color choices, but kind of stayed true to the original, since I like it so much. I left off the stamp amount as well.

After framing, I entered this into the County Fair and won 2nd place. I'm a teeny bit disappointed it didn't win a blue ribbon. I don't know what the judging criteria was, but there were no other embroidery projects at the Fair, except for my daughter's projects and they were in the Junior division. Most sewing projects were in quilting form, a couple of dolls, and some clothing. Oh well, it's a Blue Ribbon winner in my eyes and is now holding a place of honor above our bed.

County Fair 2011

2011-09-04T07:40:00.001-04:00

When the kids found out we were all going to the County Fair, the girls all wanted to make something to enter into the Fair. I already had a project finished and ready to go, plus I had some jam and salsa to enter. The girls looked through my cookbooks for inspiration and they also embroidered pictures to enter.

The day before the Fair, Gretchen made Peach Buckle and Evelyn made Tic-Tac-Toe cookies.

We got to the Fair really early to get our free tickets for entrance, meals, and rides. A little too early, since none of the rides or the games were open for at least another two hours, but we were able to look around and eat before the real action began.

Sylvia made a pair of gnomes-- Mr. and Mrs. Gnome. She embroidered them, I sewed them up, she stuffed them, then I sewed the holes shut. 2nd place!

This was Gretchen's very first embroidery! I'm bursting at the seams at how all 3 of the girls like to embroider! Gretchen sewed up a Chicken and got 2nd place! Evelyn sewed up a turtle with a flower in the shell and got 3rd place!

Both girls got 1st place for their baked goods!

Both my Cherry Almond Jam and my Salsa got blue ribbons!

While we were eating, they had plain old trashcans placed between every other picnic table. Peter was being especially helpful and wanted to throw the trash away. He walked right by the trashcan closest to us and kept on going, going, going all the way to the clown trashcan a good distance away. Can't say I blame him, I think it's more fun to throw stuff into a clown trashcan, too!

We had a good time. The nice thing about getting there early was being able to get ahead of the crowds. After about 3 or 4 hours of walking around, going on the kiddie rides and constantly staying on top of 'Runaway Peter', we'd had enough and were ready to head home. It was just starting to get dark and the teens were getting wild and crazy, cutting in front of the little kids and I was so done with that. Time to go.

It was easy to get the kids in bed that night!

Happy To Be Back!

2011-09-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

It's amazing to me that as soon as we flip the calendar page to September, the weather seems to flip, too. While I'm a little sad to say good-bye to summer, I admit, I love these cooler days and nights. We haven't needed to use the A/C in several weeks and I've had to put light blankets on all the beds because we all seem to wake up just a tad chilled.

Lately, after dinner, we have been walking in the woods again. It was too hot and muggy to do it during the summer, plus the gnats and mosquitoes are quite ferocious here and it just doesn't make for an enjoyable walk. It's so nice to walk out after dinner as a family and be together, enjoying nature's changing of the seasons. I almost feel like I need to shield my children's eyes as Mother Nature sheds her leaves and bares her naked limbs.

We have a young black walnut tree growing in the middle of the garden area. I'm torn about cutting it down. As it grows, it will shade the garden, but-- it's a walnut tree!! All this time I thought it was one of those fast-growing weed trees and we have been putting off cutting it down because we wanted to let it grow just a little bit thicker and get a little more firewood out of it, but this year it sprouted black walnuts for the first time! Pretty impressive for a young tree that's only 3 years old. I counted more than 25 walnuts hanging off the branches. What to do, what to do? We have other walnut trees, but many are old with rotten limbs and not producing a lot of walnuts anymore. I'll probably just procrastinate another year and see what happens in the garden shade-wise.

Is there anything more precious than seeing your children holding hands?

I predict many more after dinner walks in the woods with the family.

***

I've missed this little space I have here. I missed writing and reading your comments. I really needed this time away, to not think I needed to blog every little thing and appreciate time with my family. We did a lot together this summer-- spent every single day of July in the pool; went to the county fair; lost teeth, celebrated birthdays, spent time with friends, enjoyed cook-outs... but most importantly, we were together. There's nothing I love more than being with my family.

I hope you all had a great summer, too. I am looking forward to what the future holds and what Fall may bring to me and my family.

Dropping In...

2011-08-06T23:21:00.000-04:00

When I said I was going to take a bloggy break, I thought I would need all the way 'til Labor weekend. Turns out I am already itching to come back and I'm trying to decide if I should hold fast to my time-line or say the hell with it and start posting again. Maybe just writing this one post will be the release I need and I can hold off until Labor weekend.

A lot has happened around here-- some good, some bad. Nothing like a death in the family or a major illness, thank God, but definitely something that forces us to change and swallow our pride and to count our blessings even more. I know that things happen for a reason and what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I also know you don't judge a man before you walk a mile in his shoes and don't count your chickens before they hatch. The point is, life happens, and not always the way you want it to. It's the journey, not the destination.

Andrew was let go from his job not too long ago. It's been a blow for us, but we're honestly doing ok. We're already used to living on less and we don't live the high life and keep up with the Joneses. It just means we have to tighten the belt up another notch. Shopping with coupons like I do is a major bonus, our pantry and closets are well-stocked with food and supplies and the only thing we really need to shop for would be milk, meat and diapers (though diapers will soon be dropped from the list!). He's been looking and applying for work and hopefully something will come along soon. We're happy to have him home, though, and we've been enjoying the extra family time together.

We've been blessed with good friends that are passing on their children's clothes to us, so I won't need to worry about that. One family has 2 children, a girl a year ahead of Evelyn and a boy 2 years ahead of Peter. Another has 2 girls, both a year or two ahead of Gretchen and Sylvia. I'm lucky that ever since the kids were born, I've always shopped second-hand clothing for the kids, so they absolutely don't mind getting hand-me-downs and actually, they think it's normal procedure. Pretty much the only things they get brand-new would be shoes and underclothes, but even then, it's clearance prices and sales from the year before. I just bought clearanced flip-flops for the kids for next summer.

What really hurts with not having Andrew's paycheck is the gas money. Living in the country, we have to drive so far to get places, so we do a lot of consolidating with our errands and shop at stores that give us gas discounts. We recently filled up the van on gas that cost us $2.97/gallon thanks to gas points at the food store. That same food store also doubles coupons so it gives me more incentive to shop there.

New friends we've made that live nearby do a lot of volunteer work (they're retirees) and recently let us know that they dropped our name into a hat at the ruritan club that sponsors a few families and pays their way into the county fair. We hadn't planned on going to the county fair this year, because we cannot afford both the entrance fee and the rides for the kids, so it's really nice to know that we'll be able to do both and for once, we don't have to tell the kids "no" when they ask to go on the rides. They are even paying for our meal at the fair which always smells so good, but again, too pricey for a family of six. The kids are really excited about going to the fair and they all want to make something and enter it at the fair. Evelyn and Sylvia both embroidered their own designs and Gretchen wants to bake a cake. I embroidered something as well, and I plan to enter a few jams. Fingers crossed the girls all get blue ribbons for their efforts!

Total neglect of the garden and yet we are drowning in tomatoes!! I feel so lucky! The kids love walking up and down the rows filling arms and buckets with tomatoes and bringing them into the house. I love that the girls eat tomatoes out of hand and sometimes they make a feast out of tomatoes for a snack. Peter doesn't quite understand just what is so great about tomatoes just yet, but hopefully, in time, he'll grow to love eating them, too. I don't hold much hope for the onions and the peppers-- the weeds have choked them out. I may be able to dig up a few taters, but I'm just not too sure about them. I'm already imagining next years garden and I'm thinking this is the year I try for a fall planting for a winter garden. I'd really like to try cold-weather gardening and see what that's like.

I recently lost a Speckled Sussex hen. She was one of the first 15 and I had only 2 left of the 6 Speckled Sussex I started out with. She wasn't looking so good for a day and I had a bad feeling when I shut the coop that night. Sure enough, the next morning, she was dead. Before Andrew was let go, I was thinking about ordering a batch of chicks. I'm tired of the Red hens and roosters and wanted to have some more colors in my flock, but that'll have to wait now. The Reds are not as friendly as the yellow Buffs and the Speckled Sussexs. They run and scatter when I come near and pretty much the only time I can handle them is when they're settled for the night in the coop. The Buffs and the Speckleds are super friendly and the girls love to hold them and enjoy their feathered company. I'll definitely order more of those two breeds next time.

I still have a bit of corn left from last summer's canning sessions. I hoped to plant corn this year, but that never happened. I hoped to score corn cheap from the food store like I did a few times last year, but it's been pretty pricey all summer long. I still have hope, though! Andrew's friend has a neighbor that recently complained he had too much corn-- eek!! Too much corn?!? How can that be?? I'm trying to get Andrew to talk to the nice man and convince him to sell his surplus of corn to us! After we've eaten our fill, I'll can the rest to enjoy during the cold winter months. Oh.. I hope so! I do love corn!

I think I'm done unloading the brain now. My shoulders feel lighter and my head doesn't hurt so much now. I'll stick to my original time-line and be back after Labor weekend.

~jenny

Summer Vacation

2011-07-12T10:44:00.002-04:00

Going to take a bit of a bloggy break and just enjoy the summer with the family. I'll return after Labor weekend. Have a great summer!! :o)

~Jenny

Fits and Starts

2011-06-22T15:17:00.003-04:00

The pool is up!! It's just the right size for all of the kids this year. The water comes up to Peter's neck when he stands, so one less child to fret over in the pool. The kids have all improved since last year and they are swimming like fish. Sylvia is still the ever cautious one, though, and she rarely dunks her head underwater.

A cute picture of Lucy the cat. She likes to sleep in this little wooden crate. No idea where it came from, but the kids brought it out one day, didn't bring it back in, and Lucy has claimed it for her own. She caught a small woodpecker the other day. She's the huntress of the outdoor cats. Always voles, mice, chipmunks and, sometimes, birds, left around the food table for us to find. Turned the dead woodpecker into a biology lesson for the kids. It's tongue was hanging out and you could see little "thorns" on the tip of it. Makes it perfect for sticking in holes to skewer a bug and pull out. It was a pretty little bird, don't mind when Lucy catches mice or voles, but I always feel bad when it's a chipmunk or a bird.

This is the garden. ~sigh~ I'm so behind on my weeding! This is my potato patch. I checked and all the potatoes are growing strong, many are over a foot high and thick, just need to weed and hill them.

My solitary row of cabbage and broccoli. Heads are forming nicely, if I hurry and weed, this may be my first year at harvesting some cabbage and broccoli.

This is going to be the tough weeding job-- my onions are buried in there somewhere. I haven't weeded since hurting my back and hip, and then the poison ivy attack that left me in itchy fits. I haven't wanted to go outside much since all that happened. Slowly catching up, now, the tomatoes have been weeded and tied, lots of small green ones, hoping to have some ripe ones by July. Peppers are mostly weeded and I see lots of buds and a few tiny peppers growing. All out of frozen peppers in the freezer, so I'll be keeping an eye out for peppers at the farm stand. Last year, they could be found $1 for 4, if I can score them again for that price this year, I'll be stocking up.

Just about missed most of the mulberries this year. Still some left and I've picked, juiced, and froze 8 cups of mulberry juice so far. I'd like to double that if I can. Wild blackberries are coming in now and I've picked a nice bucketful. A few more bucketfuls would be nice.

Finally started on the chicken fence project. I got the two gate posts in and cemented. Going to work on the gate door next. Hopefully the fencing goes up this week. I'll be sure to wear long pants and long sleeves and then shower with poison ivy oil remover right after to prevent another outbreak of itchy rash. Still on meds, another few days and it's all gone. The rashes are fading, but they're still itchy. Just left with numerous healing little sores from all my scratching fits when I broke skin and where the blisters burst.

Kids are pestering me about going in the pool now. It's a blessing and a curse, keeps the kids amused, but forces me to hang about and supervise when I'd rather be elsewhere doing some other project. At least the blackberries are nearby, I guess now's the time to pick some more.

~Later..

Father's Day

2011-06-19T21:32:00.002-04:00

I hope you all had a nice Father's Day! Ours was nice-- the kids were excited to give daddy his wrapped candy presents and Andrew was thrilled to get "Jackass 3" on dvd. Those boys are crazy!! I'm happy to watch them do crazy things from the safety of the couch! :o)

The kids all piled on Andrew this morning, which made for a really nice picture, then right after it was "Kiss Daddy's bald head!" which resulted in:

Where'd Daddy go?! :o)

********************

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there!!

:o)

Frugal Friday : Frugal Finds

2011-06-17T18:21:00.002-04:00

I had a great trip to the stores today. I made a trip to Best Buy and CVS for a grand total of $128.19 in merchandise and only paid $11.29 out of pocket!

If you aren't aware already, Best Buy has an awards program in which you earn points from every purchase you make. Just apply for the free store card, then every time you shop, scan the card before you pay. They'll track your purchases and when you accumulate so many points, they'll notify you by email, then you print out the awards certificate and take it to the store for money off your next purchase.

A couple months ago, my mom and I both got new laptops from Best Buy. I put both purchases on my Best Buy store card, even though she paid for her own laptop. It made my points jump quick and they sent me a notice that I earned a $30 rewards certificate. Great! We've been wanting one of those disc repair/cleaner thingys to clean up the dvd movies the kids scratched up. Now would be the perfect time to get one!

Did I mention how awesome Best Buy is?? The disc repair thingy was $29.99 or at least I thought it was. I also picked up something else, which isn't pictured because it's a surprise for the husband for Father's Day, but anyway, the total came to $64.98. Huh?? That isn't right. Turns out the disc repair thingy was actually $44.99 and when I asked the clerk about it, she asked me to show her where I got it, and though *I* was wrong-- I looked at the wrong price ticket (but in my defense, there was no price ticket to be found for it), she gave me the $29.99 price anyway! So she knocked off $15!! Sweet!

So my total for Best Buy went from $64.98 to $44.68 minus the $30 awards certificate to a final total of $14.68. Nice!! And my purchases today will go to future points later!

My next stop was at CVS. Here, I purchased $77.89 worth of goods and they paid me to shop!!
I bought:

2) Whitman's Sampler candy boxes- $19.99 on clearance for $4.99 each

6) Hershey's candy bars- buy 2 for $1.19 get 3rd for $.01 (3 got eaten by the kids before I could get a picture of all 6!)

2) Zyrtec allergy medicine- 5.99 each

1) Motrin PM- $4.oo

2) Hershey's Drops candy bags- buy 1 for $4.59 get 2nd for $.01

My grand total was $77.89, minus coupons and CVS extra care bucks, I paid $11.59 out of pocket and then they gave me $14.98 extra care bucks to make my final total $3.39 profit!

So minus the +$3.39 from the Best Buy total of $14.68, I paid $11.29 for everything today! Not bad at all! I got a nice surprise gift for Andrew plus an unexpected bonus box of Whitman's chocolate for Father's Day. I have an extra box for a quickie gift if I need one, too!

This makes couponing totally worth it!! :o)

So That's It!!

2011-06-16T19:12:00.003-04:00

After more than a week of miserably trying not to scratch, tossing and turning at night, and trying every over-the-counter poison ivy medicine I could find (Tecnu's Poison Ivy Scrub is great!), my rash continued to spread and get worse by the day.

Blisters broke out along my wrist and spread to my fingers. I had to take my wedding ring off, the blisters were so bad. I had rashes spread from my chest to the sides of my breasts under my armpits, down to my back, the back of my knees, my thighs, my crotch, butt, arms, shoulders, ears, ankles, agggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Enough is enough! I'll pay the damn doctor bill, anything, just give me some relief!! I found a free clinic not too far from us, though why they call it "free" when there is indeed a bill to pay, I'll never know. Called them up and explained I have no health insurance, but I'm desperate and do they treat poison ivy rashes? They do, so made an appointment for 2:15 this afternoon.

I had to bring my tax papers, to verify my income and see if we qualify for lower billing rates. Filled out all the forms and then I saw the doctor. What a guy!! He was very nice and funny and really enlightened me to my itchy condition: I'm ALLERGIC to poison ivy! I also discovered that I am not contagious like I thought I was. Once you've bathed and washed off the poison ivy oil, you are no longer contagious to people around you. huh. If the blisters pop, there is nothing in the liquid oozing from the blister that will pass on poison ivy to other people I may touch. huh. All that blather we've heard about poison ivy being contagious is a bunch of hooey!

But!! If you get poison ivy on your clothes, lie down on the bed, get up and someone else lies down on the bed, then it's possible for that person to get poison ivy, see? Once you wash the clothing, the bedding and yourself, you're safe. Fifteen minutes after touching poison ivy, the oil gets under your skin and the rash you get results from your body's reaction to the urushiol oil, not because you touched the first spot then touched your chin or your leg or your arm.

Anyway, I got my prescription meds, $5 for 12 days of steroids which should take effect 12 hours after the first dosage (3 am, I look forward to meeting you!). I expected to pay $85 for the visit plus $5 for the meds, which is what they quoted us on the phone when we told them I had no health insurance. Guess what? We qualified for the medical bill payment assistance and reduced rates and the visit and future visits will cost $1 per visit! So today's visit only cost us $6 including the meds! Do you know what a relief that is to me?? I was already feeling guilty making the appointment in the first place, thinking I should tough it out, and it makes me feel so much better that I made the right decision to go. "Toughing it out" would have taken forever with my poison ivy allergy.

So, now I'm on the road to recovery, though I'm still itchy at this point, but no longer afraid to touch my kids, cook meals and do other normal mama stuff. I'm a bit nervous about poison ivy now, but I'll just have to be more cautious around it and diligent in making sure the kids stay away from areas with poison ivy, stay inside when Andrew burns underbrush, and wash his clothing (and then myself) right away. I also won't dilly-dally about going to the doctor now, knowing that I can afford the visit and the meds.

Here's to a speedy recovery to me! :o)
~

Photographic Proof

2011-06-12T13:41:00.002-04:00

I'm still in my poison ivy induced misery. I toss and turn at night, fighting urges to scratch and spend the day trying not to touch anyone and making frequent baking soda and vinegar pastes to help soothe the itch. In my research, I found that most poison ivy rashes last around 2 weeks. 2 weeks?!? I think I'm on day 3 or 4...

These photos were taken yesterday and it's spread a little more today. My face, although worse, doesn't seem to itch much. I also have spots on both eye lids, and I am very very careful not to itch those at all.

This looks nothing like it looks now. It's about four times as bad as it looks here. The rash has spread down to my fingers and up my arm. Hundreds of tiny little blisters all over my arm up to my arm pits.

Yesterday, the rash was mostly on the left side on my chest and now has spread to all over my chest and starting to creep down my right arm. It goes up and around my neck, under my chin and stops just under my lip.

I've started wearing long sleeves and I keep my hair up tight, securing stray hairs with a headband. The hairs tickle and make me itch more, so up they go. I am also wearing latex gloves when I do things around the house, fearful of contaminating the dishes or the laundry-- it's that bad.

Picked cherries at the local orchard on Friday and then I wore gloves to pit them and freeze them. I don't dare touch the jars and canning equipment with my rash-covered fingers. I'll make my cherry-almond jam later. My cousin and a friend were supposed to come up and learn how to make and can mulberry jam. I've cancelled that and will pick berries and freeze enough for making jam later, when I am rash free.

If anyone knows any sure-fire tricks to speed up healing, please shoot them my way.

Must.Not.Scratch.

2011-06-11T10:06:00.004-04:00

Absolutely the worst case of poison ivy I've ever had, period! Cripes! I've never, ever had it so bad before and spread over so much of my body. Usually just a little spot and then after a couple days of anti-itch cream, it's gone. Not so this time. I must have not caught it fast enough or I've gotten sensitive or what, but holy cow, this stuff itches!!

It's spread all up and down my left arm, the worst of it on the inside of my wrist, though it is spreading to my fingers fast and that's starting to bother me. It's gone from my upper arm and hopped over to my chest and up my neck, chin and sides of my face. A little spot on my left eye-lid. Because when I go to the bathroom and wipe with my left hand, I now have a bit of poison ivy rash very near my crotch and a little on my bum. A small bit jumped to my right arm, but not much-- knock on wood!

My legs were really itchy a few days ago, but that's mostly stopped now. Just a little bit left on my left thigh, not too far from that spot near my crotch.

I've learned much about poison ivy lately, doing my search online for itching remedies and double checking my symptoms. Did you know that just a quarter of an ounce can make the entire population itch?? Just a little tiny dab of urushiol, the oil in poison ivy, oak and sumac plants, the size of a pin-head, can make 500 people itch?? Ancient chinese people built a golden temple and painted the gold with lacquer tainted with urushiol, so if anyone stole any, they'd look for someone with a rash!

I am finding relief with a paste made from baking soda and vinegar, benadryl, and anti-itch cream for when I go to bed. I use rubbing alcohol, too, which helps to dry out the rash.

I have accidentally passed on the rash to Peter and Sylvia, which makes sense-- I usually pick up and carry Peter and Sylvia still comes to me for soothing hugs and affection. Evelyn, Gretchen, and Andrew are rash-free, for now. I tell them to steer clear of me and I pray I don't pass it on to them.

For now, I am fighting every urge not to scratch the itch and getting after Peter, whose rash is starting to get worse because he doesn't understand why he shouldn't scratch. I see him scratch his butt, where the worst rash is, then scratch his face. Pretty soon he'll look like me if I don't stop him somehow.

Excuse me while I run a bath for Peter and soak him in baking soda.

~

Check, Check, and Check!

2011-06-07T11:23:00.004-04:00

A poison ivy rash slowly spreads along my arm and what began as a little spot has morphed into a trail creeping down my arm. I feel an itch and my willpower is unable to stifle the urge to scratch. The caution I tell the kids, "stay away from the poison ivy!" Should have been the warning I heeded myself!

Little by little, things are getting caught up around here. The nearly 2 weeks I was laid up from hip and back pain left a lot of unfinished projects. The weeds have nearly taken over the garden! I hope to get out there tomorrow and beat back the weeds.

Yesterday and today was spent prepping the pool area. After last year's fiasco with the water escaping from the pool, we were determined to make sure the ground was perfectly level this time around. I know the garden takes priority over the pool, but the pool keeps the kids occupied so I can do other things without interruption! We shoveled and removed several wagon-fulls of dirt and then smoothed and leveled the ground. Checked and double checked with a level and it's good!

Today we put the kids to work cleaning the grime left from last year. If only my work could be as much fun as their work!! We squirted dish soap on the bottom of the pool, added water and then they slipped, slided, and scrubbed their way around the pool! They were thoroughly soaked and cooled off on this very hot day and the pool is nice and shiny clean again! We'll call the pool water guy to come out, hopefully tomorrow, and then I can do my work while the kids play.

Earlier, since it was too hot to do anything outdoors, we made a run to the hardware store to pick up a few things I need for the chicken fence. I've thought and thought and looked at ideas on the internet and finally came up with a solution for the gate I need to make. Maybe tomorrow when it's too hot to hoe and weed in the garden, I'll sit in the shade and work on my gate.

It feels good to check things off my To-Do list again!

The local orchard just advertised their cherries in the paper today!!! If I had my way, I'd be there RIGHT NOW picking cherries, but more likely, I'll be there Friday morning, maybe Saturday. Can't wait!! There goes another check after I make my cherry-almond jam. Yum!

Hope you're getting things checked off your own To-Do list!

Nine

2011-06-04T23:06:00.006-04:00

Evelyn turned nine today!!

Hard to believe that's it's been nine years already. It doesn't feel like yesterday that I held her in my arms, but it certainly doesn't seem like it was that long ago!

She is turning into such a smart, beautiful young lady. We are very proud of her!

Strawberry cake with vanilla frosting, as requested.

We weren't planning to have a birthday party since we didn't have one for Sylvia or Gretchen back in January, but Grandma and Grandaddy wanted to be here to share her special day and then my Aunt and Uncle came over and then next thing you know, Andrew's sister and her family joined us! Turned out to be a pretty special day for Evelyn.

Can you just hear the cries of "it's not fair!" coming from her younger sisters? Oh brother! I spent much of the day fielding complaints from Sylvia and Gretchen over every little thing and by evening time, I'd had quite enough griping. It was either hush up or go to bed right. this. minute. It worked for about half an hour before they started up again. I think I was more ready for their bedtime than they were!

Happy 9th Birthday Evelyn!!

We love you very, very much!

Promising

2011-06-02T11:09:00.004-04:00

Despite my lack of attention to the garden and surrounding areas, things still look promising around here. I am feeling much, much better these days, but I did have a little bit of a relapse yesterday after being stuck in the car not being able to stretch my hip out and extra walking around the stores running errands. I paid for that with more hip and back pain.

Half of my rhubarb is doing pretty good. I've had better years, but with the chickens pecking the young shoots as soon as they come out of the ground, I'm happy with what I can get. I hope once the chickens are fenced in, the other half of my rhubarb patch will bounce back.

My cherry tree is so-so. It's over-shadowed by two large dogwoods and they need to be cut down. Previous owners went crazy with the dogwoods and our property has many of them. I can definitely stand to lose a few. I'm out of my cherry-almond jam (so good!) so I'm looking forward to picking cherries at the local orchard down the road from us. I know for a fact that this lone cherry tree won't give us enough for even one pint of jam.

The mulberries!! This was taken last week and since then, I have a tree with ripe mulberries that I can see from my bedroom window! It's a recently discovered tree, with all the branches are high up, so those berries are for the birds. Meanwhile, right around the corner from the ripe mulberry tree, the one closest to the house is a.l.m.o.s.t. there! Maybe in a week or two. Mulberry trees by the driveway and in the garden area are soon ripe, too.

My cousin and a friend both want to learn to make and can mulberry jam, so I'm going to invite them up as soon as they are ripe and plenty of berries come down daily. They bring their own jars and I'll provide the rest. Will be nice to have company in the kitchen when making jam!

Brush Hogging

2011-05-29T00:29:00.000-04:00

Our friend came over with his brush cutter to help us clear away brambles and brush around our property. Priority was the space behind the chicken coop where we plan to fence the chickens in.

It's amazing how powerful that cutter is and how quickly it mowed everything down. Andrew pulled out fallen logs and big branches on the ground and also pulled down vines creeping up tree trunks while Jim brush hogged away.

Here it is, all cleared. They continued to brush hog around the corner to the right of this photo, until the engine back-fired and then sputtered to a stop. Oh dear. They got a good section cleared, but still much to do. He'll come back after the holiday after he looks at the engine and gets it up and running again.

Haven't done any fencing yet. My back has been bothering me for some time now, then Tuesday evening I was in excruciating pain. My hip quivered in pain at every step and by the time I put the kids to bed, it was screaming. I went downstairs to put a load in the wash and couldn't make it back up the steps. Lucky for me, Andrew arrived home and heard me on the stairs and helped me up the last few steps.

Looking up back/hip pain leaves too many possibilities, but I suspect a pinched nerve. I rested as much as I could on Wednesday and felt somewhat better on Thursday, so I ran errands-- grocery store and picked up Percy at the Vet's. Big mistake, the position of my leg in the car did not help and by the time I returned home, my hip was quivering in pain again. Another day tied to the heating pad and resting as much as four children allow me to has helped immensely. I find it helps to keep moderately mobile, as keeping still only stiffens the joint and I need to warm up all over again. Warming up hurts. Getting out of the bed in the morning is almost comical and then hobbling over to the toilet and back is something else entirely.

As of now, I am operating on 50% power. I want so much to DO stuff, but I know I'll pay the price if I do. The garden needs weeding, the fence needs fencing, the house needs housing and the kids need parenting. I don't know what I'd do without Andrew, he's such a big help. I'm hoping tomorrow brings me another lift in power. I'd like to at least get some weeding done. I'll take it slowly and see how it goes.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Another Tooth!

2011-05-28T23:39:00.002-04:00

Goodness Gracious! This girl has got to stop spitting out teeth!! Evelyn's going to be nine next week and I can hardly believe it! She's growing up so fast. We love you girlie! xoxo

Always Something To Do Around Here

2011-05-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

The desk top computer has been giving us trouble lately. I'm no computer expert, but I know enough to get by. The router/DSL modem crapped out last month, so I got a new one. The problem with the new router though, was we had to turn off the security to get on the internet! That ain't right. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the security system to view the new router as a non-threatening program. Then the power went out once and we lost internet connection. I finally figured out it was the new router. After much fiddling around with it, I re-installed the program disc and it worked, but we still had to turn off security to use it. Yesterday, the power went off and once again, the router/DSL modem no longer worked. This time, however, I couldn't get it to work again. Time for a new router. And a new security system.

Amazing how a day without internet services can sort of put a damper on things. We aren't online all day, but there are quite a lot of things we do on the computer and not having internet service really stunts us. We're too far from anywhere with wi-fi access and more than 20 miles to the nearest Library, so packing up the laptop is not ideal for us. Making a trip into the big town was necessary.

The other day, the riding mower sputtered and back-fired, then shut off on Andrew just as he finished the majority of the mowing. Lucky for us, he knows enough about engines that he knew what it needed and a trip to the hardware store for parts should do the trick. The hardest part about that was finding a hardware store that carried what he needed! At one store, the filters were all bent. At another, nothing matched what he needed. Third time was the charm indeed when he found all he needed at store number three.

While at the hardware store, we picked up fencing. We're going to fence in the chickens! After much talk, we've decided it would be best to build a pen around the chickens. I love the idea of free-range chickens, but in the case of my chickens, that means free-ranging all over the back stoop! Nothing like stepping on cold, mushy chicken poop in bare feet! I used to be Miss Barefoot until the chickens came along, then I became best friends with my flip-flops.

We bought 150 feet worth of fencing, which I think will give the chickens plenty of room to roam. I'm still thinking on a way to make a gate without resorting to buying one. I have plenty of scrap wood, so I'm leaning to making a frame then stapling chicken wire to it and voila! a door. I get lots of ideas in my head, just a matter of translating to paper to actual materials.

The kids are pretty happy about fencing in the chickens. The big rooster chases them and I constantly have to provide distraction to the rooster so the kids can make their escape to the swing set. It's getting irritating. Warmer weather equals kids playing outside equals mama dropping everything and distracting the rooster 10-plus times a day.

Anyway, after we got home from the computer store and the hardware store, I tried to get the new router working. I had quite the time trying to get it all to obey me. I get frustrated to tears when it comes to the computer because visions of it freezing and floating bits of money flying out the window do not a pleasant picture make. After about 4 hours of installing, un-installing, deleting, more installing, updating, down-loading, re-starting and one final updating, the desk top works! It works, it works, it works! Happy dance!

I worked right through dinner and sweet Evelyn made dinner without any prompting. She came to me and asked me to check and see if the macaroni was tender. "Macaroni?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm making dinner because I can see you are too stressed out from the computer, so I wanted to help you." Evelyn replied.

Well, melt my heart! We ate a mighty fine dinner of macaroni and cheese last night, paired with a glass of juice. It makes me proud when one of the kids can step up to the plate and pitch in when Andrew and I are both busy doing something.

Andrew's friend is supposed to come over tomorrow and let Andrew use his brush hog. I'm so excited! All the weeds and brambles and small brush are slowly overtaking the yard and I cannot put up the new fencing for the chickens until we clear away the brush. Using the brush hog will make the job go so much faster and easier, then we can just maintain afterwards. Fingers crossed it all goes well!

Percy the cat is quite the TOM cat. He is getting rambunctious and jumps BC, the older cat, a lot. He's starting to pee on clothing or towels that get left on the floor and I try to keep after the kids to pick up their clothes, but I don't catch every one. We could smell pee somewhere and sniffed around for it, but couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. Andrew says here, I say there. Finally I moved a bed over and there was a pair of pants, soaked with cat pee.

Peter let Charlie the cat in the house a couple days ago, and he made a beeline to the bowl of cat food on the floor. I let him chow down when this happens, then put him back outside when he's done. This time, however, I got distracted and forgot about Charlie being in the house. I got a quick reminder when Percy spotted Charlie and a swirling, angry, hissing and yowling ball of black rolled around the kitchen floor, tufts of black fur flying! I'm not stupid enough to stick my hand in there and separate them, but something needed to be done! It all happened so fast, I somehow got them apart, swatting at them with a towel or something, then just as I was about to pick up Charlie, Percy came charging again, and the crazy ball of two black cats fighting rolled into the sun room, leaving a trail of fur. Andrew came in and managed to pull Percy off Charlie, then Charlie hid under the table in the sun room. After I finally coaxed him out and let him back outdoors, we knew something had to be done about Percy.

No way are we letting him out, free to impregnate every fertile female cat within spitting distance. He has an appointment on Thursday to get neutered. After he comes back, if he continues to pee in the house, he'll go outside with the other cats. Hopefully he stops that, cause I really like having him in the house. All the other outdoor cats are there because they peed in the house at one time or another.

Andrew works from 1-9 today, so I'm hoping for an uneventful day. At this rate, I'll be happy to distract the rooster to let the kids outside than face another computer issue.

Bad Chicken!

2011-05-18T21:52:00.000-04:00

We have some naughty chickens! A few days after transplanting all the broccoli and cabbage plants, we had to run into town one evening. When we came back and I checked on the garden, this is what I found:

A few tentative nibbles on the cabbage plants.

But a full-on feast on the poor broccoli plants!

Look at this poor little guy.

We really gotta put up some better fencing. The fencing that is there now is rusted through in some spots and not very high. I've seen the chickens take flying leaps over the fence or they go through the holes and gaps. I have an idea to take down the old fencing and the rotted posts, purchase some t-bars and new fencing and then move the fence closer to the garden area. It'll open up space behind the pole barn and shed area and make it easier to cut the grass back there with the mower. Now to stop talking and start doing!

The kids have been playing with sidewalk chalk lately. After my discovery of chickens eating the poor broccoli pants, I drew this. Made me laugh anyway.

13th

2011-05-16T10:13:00.005-04:00

If I could do it all over again, I'd probably get married outside in a park somewhere, completely laid back and relaxed. Just family and a few close friends and we'd all chow down at a cook-out and a bonfire. I'd be in a simple dress, my hair down, a flower picked from nearby. He'd be himself: pants, a nice shirt. Definitely no bridesmaids or groomsmen.

We got married in a lovely church and had about 60 guests, but the reception part will always be disappointing to me. We held it in the basement of the church, which was fine, really. I wanted it to be simple and so we had ordered platters of sandwich fixins' and a sweet store-bought wedding cake. Unbeknownst to me, the night before, at the rehearsal, also held in the church basement, my soon-to-be-in laws ordered identical platters of sandwich fixin's for the rehearsal dinner.

I had labored on making a music mix tape and it never got played beyond the first song of "We Are Family" and we never had our first dance. The pastor left immediately after the ceremony, too sick to stay and join the celebration and the janitor rushed us along, anxious to clean, lock up and go home.

I always felt we got home too early, sometime around 4 and as Andrew and I sat in our apartment living room, surrounded by gifts, we didn't know what to do. It felt too soon to be alone, where was everybody? We went to the nearby mall to eat dinner at the food court. I didn't want to cook--I got married today!-- and I was in the mood for a pizza turnover and he wanted something else, so to the food court we went. To this day I still think it's funny to see our car in the mall parking lot with 'Just Married' written on the back window.

Looking back, I got caught up in the traditional wedding arrangements. I was determined to not spend money we didn't have, but I wanted the wedding I thought I was supposed to have. We paid for everything up front-- there was no debt after the wedding was over, and I am proud of that, but I look at those pictures and I'm not sure who I'm looking at. My hair was all curled and fixed up and my face painted. Andrew was all gussied up in a rented tuxedo. Bridesmaids in lime green dresses and groomsmen in more rented tuxes. We look like a nice couple, but it isn't who we really are.

Part of me thought that it would be a once in a lifetime chance to dress up and get my hair fixed and get married to a man in a tux. But now? Who cares about the clothes! I have a dress hanging in my closet that I'll never wear again-- thank goodness I only paid $75 for it. I have shoes and make-up I bought just for the wedding that never got used again. The wedding didn't really reflect who we were and I really think that we were being who we thought we were supposed to be that day.

I don't regret that day, we did get married after all. These 13 years together have been wonderful and I wouldn't change a thing. All of the happy moments, the rough spots, the time spent together, the children we created, the home we have made for each other-- all of it was meant to be. I couldn't imagine being married to anyone else. He loves me exactly the way I am, never asks me to be who I'm not. I never have to pretend around Andrew. He never has to be anyone else but himself around me.

I love who we are, the family we have become together and what we stand for. Thank you for asking me to marry you and for being my husband these 13 years. Happy Anniversary Andrew! May we have many, many more! I love you!

Recycled: Market Bag and Laptop Cover

2011-05-13T18:47:00.000-04:00

I confess that I don't bring my own bags to the store and use the plastic bags they offer. I've always felt guilty about that but never really did anything about it. I don't like the cheap bags you can buy-- I find they tear easily ( my MIL passed some on to me ) and I don't want to spend money on something that I know will not last, even if it's only $1 (usually). I have the sewing skills to make some, but I'm either too busy or if I have the time, I don't want to spend it making a bag. In my defense, we DO bring the plastic bags back to recycle and we re-use plastic bags around the house as little trash bags for our smaller trash cans and for litter box waste.

I saw a post quite some time ago.. probably 2 or 3 years ago and it's never left my head. I looked for it but couldn't find it so I'm unable to share the link. Anyway, the person used a plastic bag as a pattern and the resulting bag ended up just like a cloth version. I really like the plastic bags that Target uses, so I used one as my pattern. I used a vintage pillow case which eliminated some sewing and reduced a little bit of my pillow case stash and I really like the final result:

Ta-da!!

I used bias tape around the handle and the opening of the bag and folded in the sides just like a plastic shopping bag. I like it, but I can see where I could use more improvements. Like the top of the handles are a little thick with the folded ends and then covered in bias tape. It makes the top pretty stiff and doesn't feel very flexible. I also used an unfamiliar sewing machine for the first time when I sewed the bottom and it totally messed up the stitches. grrr! I was too lazy to pick out the stitches so after I switched back to my usual machine I just folded over the ugly stitching, then sewed over it. It made the bottom a little stiff, too, but it works.

It holds 4 boxes of cereal easily with a little room to spare. I could probably fit 5 boxes in there, but I know if I were to take this in to the store, they wouldn't pack it tightly either.

I have since used another pillow case to make another bag, a few tweaks here and there, and it's better and worse at the same time. I improved on the top of the handle and it's not stiff, but I made the side opening of the handle a little too small. I also made the bottom of the bag boxy instead of folded in like a plastic bag is. I like it, it'll do, I think I can improve on it. It also holds 4 boxes easily and I have already used it at the store. There will be another bag in the works with more tweaks as soon as I can bring myself to give up another vintage pillow case.

I had a little bit of pillow case left over, the hemmed open part of it. I got to looking at it and thought it would make a nice cover for the laptop. I measured the length, cut, sewed up the side and length of the pillow case and it fits! Our laptop is not the traveling kind, it stays at home for use on the table or in the living room, so I just wanted a little slip cover to keep the screen clean when it's shut and put away. Since it's a vintage pillowcase and has been washed who knows how many times, it's nice and soft and lint-free.

I like it! Two useful items from one vintage pillowcase!

Garden Progress

2011-05-10T20:09:00.004-04:00

Beautiful Spring days equals lots of work in the garden-- finally!

Lucky for me, even though we live out in the country, one of the neighbors only a mile down the road has a little greenhouse business. She sells flowers and vegetables out of her two hoop houses for very reasonable prices and everything looks so good! It was hard to choose, but I ended up getting a flat of 6 different types of tomatoes which amounted to 36 tomato plants.

After we set up the fence panels, I dug holes and the girls transplanted all the tomato plants for me. There's room for 12 more tomato plants, so I'll be going back to the neighbor's place and buy some more tomatoes. I'll also get green peppers and a few other vegetables, too.

Andrew and Evelyn took the little tiller and tilled up a section for planting the potatoes. Evelyn was happy to help work the tiller. We have always encouraged the kids to help in the garden, and I am pleased to see how much more helpful they are this year. They used to give up so easily-- dig a hole then walk away; plant a few seeds then hand the bag over and say, "I'm bored"; or just go off in a corner of the garden and dig a hole to play in. This year they have planted all the potatoes and nearly all the tomatoes and they were a big help when we planted the onions.

Speaking of onions.... they are doing very well so far. We had lots of rain and a few washed out, but the majority of them are doing well. Now if we can just keep Peter from trampling them every time we go out to the garden...

I'm looking forward to the progress of the 2011 garden. Fingers crossed that the weather cooperates, that we stay on top of the weeds, squash any hungry bugs that threaten to eat up all my vegetables, keep the chickens out, and everything planted grows and grows and grows.

amen!

The Day Something Exciting Happened In The Morning And Made The Rest Of The Day Boring

2011-05-05T13:45:00.005-04:00

Ever have one of those days? Something unusual and unexpected and exciting happens and then the rest of the day just putters along, nothing compares and you sink into a dark, depressing hole that just swallows you whole. Ok, a little dramatic maybe, but what do you expect from a woman that's PMS'ing??? Seriously, after this morning, the most exciting thing that happened was Gretchen spitting down the front of her shirt! (??? I haven't a clue why.)

Morning routine happened as usual: Andrew wakes, lets the dog out and feeds the cats and dog. The kids wake and play and/or watch a movie. I wake and make breakfast for myself and anyone else that hasn't eaten yet. Sylvia comes running and tells me there's a spider in the sink. I go and get a paper towel to squash the little thing and then I spot it-- the biggest mofo spider I've ever seen outside of a zoo in. my. house. I froze.

"Go get daddy!" I scream as I stare in horror at the freakishly huge King Kong of spiders, ever so casually perched on the edge of a coffee mug in the sink. I swear the thing grew bigger with every sip of water.

Daddy happened to be in the shower, his head covered in shaving cream as he was in the middle of shaving when all hell broke loose and two little girls burst into the bathroom screaming for daddy to "Come and see! There's a big spider in the kitchen! Come and see!" He ignores them, thinking, it was just the exaggeration of children when they say 'big spider', and mama can handle it just fine.

Mama, in fact, was still frozen in the kitchen, watching Godzilla the spider grow another inch, imagining it jumping on my face if I even moved a step closer. I wielded a fly swatter and gripped it tight, but even that seemed puny in my white-fisted hands. I knew that if I even tried to swat at it, it would grab the fly swatter out of my hands and proceed to beat me senseless with it. Please God, tell me this is the only one inside my house and there aren't hundreds of baby Godzilla spiders getting ready to hatch from an egg that's been safely tucked away somewhere inside my house!

I commanded my kid to watch the spider while I ran to Andrew, who was STILL in the bathroom oblivious to the fact that his kitchen housed the biggest damn spider outside of a zoo, and was STILL shaving his head. I stuck my head inside the shower and told him to hurry up and kill the thing before it runs off and makes more babies!

Finally, the man comes sauntering into the kitchen, asking ever so casually, "Alright, what's all the hub-bub? Where's the little spider?"

"There! There!" we all scream, pointing to the sink.

He looks and looks at me and looks back at Godzilla the spider. Meanwhile, I have since scurried into the hallway, knowing, just knowing, that as soon as Andrew gets close to that spider, it'll jump onto his face and just like in the movie Aliens, proceed to wrap it's eight million legs around his head and lay some Godzilla-sized eggs inside his mouth. He tried to scoop it into a cup and take it outside, but it wasn't co-operating with him, so in the end, he squished it.

"Make sure you clean up the sink," I call to Andrew, from my safe location in the hallway. I do not want to even see a leg next to a fork or cup in the sink. I'd have to burn whatever that leg touched!

He's never going to let me live this down, but I don't care. Call me a pansy, a wuss, a fraidy-cat, but Godzilla sized spiders do not belong in my sink, much less my house! I'm going to be looking around all the time now, just waiting for a foot-long spider leg attached to an even bigger spider to creep around the corner, wanting to exact revenge on me for the death of it's loved one. It's torture, I tell ya! How am I supposed to go about my day always worrying there's going to be an even bigger spider than Godzilla the spider??!!

See what I mean? After this, the rest of the day is turning out to be so dull. Hanging laundry on the line-- yawn! Fish sticks and fries for lunch-- double yawn! Sorting through clothes for the kids-- super mega yawn!!

It's Cinco De Mayo-- maybe a spicy mexican dinner will liven things up tonight! Heck, I may even make margaritas, with double the tequila in mine! Goodness knows I'll need it if I'm ever going to fall asleep tonight! Just imagine the nightmare waiting for me once I turn out the light and my eyes close.

Stir Crazy

2011-05-04T20:41:00.003-04:00

The weather outside is frightful and we have been pretty much staying indoors. Lots of rain and overcast days. It's just too cold to plant any garden items, and I pray the onions we put in fare alright. Never did get those potatoes in the ground, with all the rain we've been having. They're calling for temps to drop into the 30's tonight!

We have been amusing ourselves in many ways:

Posing Barbie and Ken and making them dance in front of the screen while mama's on the computer, then insisting that mama take a picture...

Playing with playdoh, creating all sorts of funny little characters to play with, then sobbing when Peter takes it and smushes it into a blob...

Taking said playdoh, that has been mixed into dull gray colors no one wants to play with anymore, and turning it into a science project and making a volcano complete with lava...

Making silly faces...

Helping papa put together new dining chairs so we can retire the poor, falling apart old ones.

The few warmish days we've had, the kids run straight to the swing set. That set has been so nice, I'm grateful we have it. It gives this mama some quiet time indoors when I can sit at the table where I can see them and catch up on things. Local people here say May 15th is the "safe date" to plant warm weather crops outdoors. I sure hope so! I'm getting antsy to get started.

Hope the weather has been nice where you are! :o)

~later

Yard Sale Finds

2011-05-02T09:29:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to complain, but dang! The weather sure has been uncooperative for gardening! Constant raining and chilly temps make it very frustrating. I'm appreciative of the rain, though, grateful that our well should be nice and filled by now, and everything around here is looking green and lush. We drive slow over the bridges to see how high the rivers and creeks are and whether or not they have flooded their banks.

Yard sale season is getting off to a wet start with the rain, and lucky for us, our favorite church holds their yearly yard sale inside the gym. This sale is huge, with rows and rows of tables and organized, too! They give us a head start with the sale starting on Friday. I always find something there-- clothes for the kids, books, toys (not that we need anymore of those!), kitchen stuff... Last year I scored a couple boxes of canning jars.

We did alright this time, not so much kid clothes this time around. Seemed like there were more older kid clothes than the younger set, but as we were going in, there were several ladies who had arms full of bagged clothes walking out the door, so maybe they beat me to it. I picked up some vintage sewing notions, a school dictionary, 3 vintage drinking glasses, a few clothes, cloth napkins, books, and my favorite find: a vintage chinese checkers game.

Still in the original shipping box which was sent from Sears, but no date. I'm guessing 60's? I haven't had the chance to do my homework on this yet.

Regular checkers on one side...

Chinese checkers on the other! Great graphics on this set! I love chinese checkers. I had a set when I was a kid and I wonder if that's what set me off on my love of marbles, too? But my favorite game with marbles? Oh yeah! A winning combination! This is a nice set, there are two inner drawers on the side sandwiched between the games, one side holds marbles, the other holds checker pieces. Some of the pieces are missing, but I can find game pieces to complete the set easily.

I had other vintage chinese checkers game boards up on the wall in the dining room, but then the blue corner hutch took over that space and they came down. I haven't found a new home for them yet... maybe the living room? *eyeing wall appreciatively*

I also found this: an Oil Paint by numbers of Van Gogh's Sunflowers. I've always loved that painting and, if I could afford it, I'd buy the real thing and hang it on my bedroom wall. Guess this is the next best thing and, at $1, it's in my price range! Now if I can find some time to actually paint it... Evelyn has a paint-by-numbers kit, maybe we can paint together while the other little ones are playing outside?

It rained the rest of the weekend, so no more yard sales to go to. It's chilly here, the temps never got above 60 and I actually asked Andrew to start a fire for me. I don't think we've ever had a fire in May! It's looking like another overcast day, but at least it's not raining. I have errands to run in town, so I better skedaddle!

Beadin' Fun

2011-04-30T00:01:00.001-04:00

We've had perler beads around forever! Feels like it anyway, as I am always finding a lone bead lost under the couch, stepping on one, or even, as some roll into the sliding door groove as we open and shut to let the dog out and the chickens peck what crumbs they can find in the groove, in the chicken droppings! They come and go, the girls get into a beading frenzy and it's several days of constant making things and me ironing endless little plastic pictures and then there are long stretches of nothing where the containers sit on top of the fridge, gathering dust.

Lately, interest has been high and the girls are finally starting to play around with their imaginations instead of strictly following the pictures on the containers. It used to be only hearts, stars, squares and whatever shapes the boards allowed them. I tried to show they could do pictures of their own, but they adamantly refused to stray from what the labels showed. Evelyn shows great promise with her color choices, but it was always the same shape, again and again.
They got a Disney set with clear boards you place over a picture and you place beads over it until you've finished, but some of those projects were pretty darn big-- they'd get halfway through before dumping all the beads off, giving up.

Yesterday, with a burst of enthusiasm and a promise of help from me, they completed some of the big Disney ones and then inspired by the feeling of accomplishment, they came up with many more all on their own!

Evelyn's finished Disney castle with a bridge that helps it to stand upright. A princess to go with it, made up by Evelyn.

Sylvia's BIG, BIG Disney princess that took a long, long time to finish. Too big really, there's not much you can do with such a big princess when all the other little toys are less than half her size. I caught Sylvia pretending she was a giant and smashing through the castle, stomping on all the other princesses. Guess that's about the only thing Big Princess is good for. (she's supposed to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast, but Sylvia changed the dress color from pink to blue)

The girls got little perler bead kits in their Easter baskets-- they were for $1 at Michael's. I picked ones with different board shapes that we didn't have and the owls were from one of the kits. The green owl came from the original beads and had enough to make two, which Evelyn made, then she made the pink girl owl from beads we had. So cute, I asked for one and I'm going to glue a magnet on it for the fridge. The other kits were bugs (caterpillar and butterfly) and a cat.

Evelyn wanted to make a prince for the princess to go with the castle, but when we made him, he was taller with his crown. Forgot a crown for the princess, so the crown-less princess got bumped down to princess assistant and a new princess was made, along with a little green chameleon.

The little green chameleon made Gretchen think of the iguana from Tangled and she asked me to make the tower, Rapunzel, Flynn and the iguana for her. Only fair, since I helped Sylvia and Evelyn with theirs. I totally winged it and it came out better than I imagined! I really like the tower and I made the center piece so it can stand upright, too. The girls are having lots of fun with this!

This morning, Sylvia begged for an Ariel mermaid one, so I came up with this and of course, the sisters each want one, but with a different color bikini top for Evelyn (pink), different color hair for Gretchen (yellow) and Flounder and Sebastian, too!

I'm so happy to see the girls are finally thinking out of the box and realizing they can make stuff up. Hopefully I'll see less hearts, stars and squares and more random items being made!

More Milestones

2011-04-29T15:01:00.003-04:00

We've had lots of milestones lately. As the family grows, the milestones come more frequent and I am constantly reminding myself to take photo evidence of each event. When Evelyn was born, we easily filled several photo albums of pictures with nothing but Evelyn. Along came Gretchen and we barely filled one album of photos. Then the digital camera entered our lives and along came Sylvia, then Peter, and I have yet to even put one photo into an album since. I'm so grateful to this blog, or else the kids will grow up and wonder if perhaps they were adopted, as there are barely any pictures of them to show otherwise!

Sylvia lost a second tooth recently. Another easy pull and pop! it was out. She still has the remnants of sun blisters on her cheeks from the sunburn we all got while in Florida. Evelyn has a bunch of loose teeth and Gretchen has been wiggling one... We may have to start a fund for the Tooth Fairy!! :o)

Gretchen got her ears pierced! I always told the girls that when they felt ready, they could get their ears pierced. She's been fretting over whether it will hurt much and here's what Evelyn told her: "First, Sharon will numb your ears, then you'll feel a pinch, and the next thing you know, you got a hole in your head!" It was a little more complicated than that. :o) She burst into tears after the first earring was in, wailed that it hurt and tensed up. I could see that if it had been me doing the piercing, she would be pushing my hands away by now. Sharon, the piercer, was wonderfully patient with Gretchen and offered soothing words of comfort. Plenty of experience guided her to know she needed to move quickly and while I was bribing Gretchen with a milkshake afterwards, she deftly pierced the second ear and it was done! Four days later, she is happy with her decision and following orders to keep turning the earring and keeping it clean. She is eyeing the pink dangly earrings I am wearing and I promised her she could have them at the end of her 6-week healing period.

We had our first corn-on-the-cob this year, here. We had cobbed corn in Florida, but this is our first at home. Not grown by us, obviously, but we couldn't resist and boy, was it ever tasty! A common summer meal for us is BLTs and corn-on-the-cob and we had an early start on it this year.

Just seeing Peter enjoying that corn so much makes me want to eat one, too! I'll try and refrain from buying any more corn unless it was grown locally, but just this one time... :o)

Finally!

2011-04-26T16:49:00.002-04:00

After weeks of itching to get into the garden, we finally tilled the soil the other day. It was too wet to plant, but all the chicken manure and compost and leaves got rolled over and it was looking good. It rained almost continously after that and got cold enough to start a fire one day, too. Yesterday was a lovely day and we tilled again then planted all those onions we bought. Many had sprouted, some went mushy, but I think we planted about 3 lbs each of white and red onions. I think I'll plant another row of each after supper tonight, I hate to see the remaining onions go to waste. Hopefully the ones we did plant do well and we'll have enough to see us through the winter.

Potatoes are next, those will go in the ground tonight. Funny story, while my Aunt and Uncle were house-sitting for us, my Uncle spotted the potatoes and served some up for a meal. He liked them so much he went to see what kind they were and whoops! Found out they were seed potatoes! Good thing there are plenty of potatoes to plant.

While planting onions yesterday, Andrew mentioned trying corn again. I must be a glutton for punishment, because I want to try again, too. I used up all our corn seed last year, so will need to buy more. We have enough space in the garden to try corn again, so hopefully, with the addition of plenty of chicken manure this time around, corn will do better for us.

Everything is in bloom here. Dogwoods, forsythias, redbuds, peaches, apples, cherries, buttercups, phlox(es?), lilacs and more. So pretty to see everything greening up again. We will have to go through the yard and pick up fallen sticks, it will soon be time to mow the grass.

Once again I have failed to start my own seeds this year. Lack of space and a 2-year old that doesn't listen very well had a lot to do with that. A big goal this year is to set up some sort of green house so next year I can do my own seeds. Doesn't need to be a big one, I have seen many ideas on the Internet, just a matter of choosing which one works best for us. If I could, I would get the big hoop-style green house and keep the chickens in the back half and use the front half for the usual green house uses. Maybe someday, but not now.

After seeing plenty of other homesteading bloggers mention this book, I picked up a copy of my own and am in the middle of reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This is not a book I can read though at my usual fast pace. I am often reading only a few pages at a time then walk away to think about what I've read. There are things she talks about that I knew of, but not at that level. I am also learning much and sharing my discoveries with Andrew and Mom. Reading this book makes me want to take our homesteading goals further and speed things up a bit to make it happen sooner. If you haven't read this book, I suggest you go and get yourself a copy and read it, it's worth it.

Eating an early supper tonight so we can work in the garden later. I count myself lucky that Andrew has taken over the kitchen and we'll be eating bacon cheeseburgers made by the chef himself! Why does food taste so much better when someone else prepares it? :o) It will be good to take off the chef's hat tonight and just eat.

~later

Sideshow

2011-04-21T11:46:00.003-04:00

Every year, the same people hold a yard sale and I always look forward to seeing their address in the newspaper advertising their sale. First, they sell great stuff. I suspect they either own an antique shop or lease out a booth at an antique mall, because they are meticulously priced with item numbers and such a large variety of choices. We always find good stuff to bring home. Second, they have peacocks!

It's a beautiful area they live in, about 10 miles down the road from us. A great old farm house, I'd love to peek inside! Lots of land, cool barns, gardens and peacocks! It's so fun to see them and hear their calls. The kids really enjoy watching them and it's one of the few sales we can go to and know where the kids are!

There was a nice group of peacocks in the garden area and in the back there, one of the males had his feathers up in full display.

Here's a cropped close-up of the above picture. Andrew and I were explaining to the girls about why the males were more colorful than the brown females you can see in the foreground, then we started ad-libbing: "Hey baby, look at me and my lovely feathers. Don't you want a handsome feller like me on your arm? That's right, I got it and I got it good. Let me turn around and give you the full scope of my fan here. See that baby? I'm working it! You know you want me! I'm all that and a bag of chips!"

Wouldn't that be nice in real life? The men all dressed up and parading in front of us ladies, begging to be chosen? :o)

The kids chased this one around and he hopped through the fence to get away. Wait til you see the views on the other side of the fence!

Oh! If I lived here, I'd never move! Such a great place to go to for the afternoon-- nice people, good stuff to dig through, peacocks for entertainment and gorgeous views to soothe the soul. They usually host a yard sale twice a year and I am already looking forward to the next one! :o)

Home

2011-04-19T22:05:00.000-04:00

We've returned from our trip to Florida. Burned, crispy and now peeling. Remind me to visit Florida a little earlier in the year-- we went from 40 degree weather to temps in the 90s. For us mountain hillbillies, that's HOT!

I forgot how intense the sun can be at the beach and I did not put enough sunscreen on all of us, so our first foray into the full sun with exposed bodies did not do us well. We had lots of fun at the beach, and the water was a little chilly for our Floridians, but for us West Virginians, it was great! The kids stayed in the water most of the time and the waves were quiet enough that they could play safely without worrying about the undertow.

We collected seashells...

...Dug in the sand...

...and buried ourselves.

It was a great time for sure. I'm also quite positive that if my sister had not brought the tent for us to hide from the sun, our burns would have been that much more severe! Thanks for bringing that, Teena, along with everything else you brought!

We spent the next day at my sister and her husband's place and swam in their pool. I was more diligent with the sunscreen this time, but 2 days out in the sun was just too much. Poor Evelyn suffered sun poisoning and her face swelled up to where she looked like a different girl! We had plans to go to the zoo the next day, but knowing that would be more time in the sun, I cancelled that and we stayed inside, out of the sun. It took about 48 hours for her to look like her old self again, with lots of water, children's pain medicine and rest out of the sun. The other kids were luckier, and did not have poisoning, just a few blisters and peeling everywhere.

Evelyn got to do a scroll-saw project with Grandpop and they had fun doing that. Being 8, she's the right age for doing that, and scroll sawing is similar to a sewing machine, just a different medium, and Evelyn is already good at that! Dad got a bunny bowl pattern, which is perfect for Easter. If we had stayed longer, he would have tried to get time in with all the kids-- well, maybe not Peter, but each of them would have had a bunny to take home. After cutting it out, Grandma helped Evelyn paint it and got the other kids other little wood cut-outs to paint. I wish I thought to take pictures, but I didn't. We were just having so much fun and really lived in the moment that a camera just never made it out.

The time went so fast, it hardly seems like we were there for 4 days, and it wasn't long enough. Andrew and I seriously thought about the pros and cons of moving to Florida to be closer to my family, but then we'd be far away from his family and my Aunt and Uncle, too. Living near the beach is awesome, year-round fresh fruits and vegetables at the farmer's market is a BIG plus, easy access to shops is nice, but we're happy where we are. sigh.. Too bad we're not closer. It takes a full day of driving to get there, which is not so bad, but it's not easy to get away either.

Definitely, we'll have to visit more often.. three years between visits is much too long, especially for the kids. I really want them to know Grandpop and Grandma well, not just someone they see only once in awhile. While on the way home, we were texting our progress to them and Dad made me laugh, saying, "the house got QUIET all of a sudden." Yeah, 4 kids leaving your house will do that! :o) The kids were pretty good though, except for Peter and his curiosity-- we really had to keep an eye on that one! He got into a few things, (sorry!) but we were able to keep him occupied most of the time.

It took a few days to get back to normal around here, once we got back. I miss everyone like crazy and the kids ask when we can go back, often. One day, I had the kids with me to the store and on the way back, Evelyn found my mapquest directions to Florida. She pretended she was me telling Daddy where to go and I played along, making imaginary turns. Sylvia burst into tears when I pulled into our own driveway, fully expecting to arrive back at Grandpop's and Grandma's house in Florida. Sorry baby girl, we're not going back yet.

It was a good trip, went too fast, and it's good to be home again. Hopefully, next time will be longer than 4 days. :o)

(Thanks for everything! Love to you all and miss you much! xoxox)

Chicken Feed

2011-04-04T10:57:00.003-04:00

I've had a custom chicken feed recipe borrowed from a fellow blogger friend for awhile now and I've been wanting to check around local mills to see if anyone could/would make it. There's a mill not too far from us that has been in business for 100 years. They were the first place we called and after reading off the ingredients, they could have it ready that afternoon! Talk about service!I wish I could have gone with Andrew to pick up the feed, but all 6 of us don't fit in the pick-up and it's silly to take 2 vehicles. Lucky for me, Andrew took his camera along! It's the original building and sits right on the corner of the main road. There's a 2nd building across the street where they sell garden supplies.

Inside the mill, still using all the original mill equipment.

Love the look of the gears on this. I'll definitely try and get there myself to see it in person.

Someone else's bulk order, waiting to be picked up. Such nice people there, they already entered our recipe into the computer, with our permission, so if we order from them again, and we will, the recipe will already be in the system. While there, Andrew looked around in the garden center and they had onion sets for sale. He called and asked if I wanted some and I said to get both red and white onion sets. Silly me, I said 5 lbs of each; silly him, he didn't correct me. When he got home and I looked in the bags, I nearly fainted! That's a lot of onions!! We are now itching to get the garden tilled so we can get those onions in the ground!

Feed on the left is commercial feed from the co-op. Feed on the right is the custom recipe from the Mill. We have 900 lbs of feed stored away that, hopefully, will last us a while. I already marked my calendar so I can figure out how long it goes for. Price-wise, it's cheaper for us to buy in bulk like this, so it's a good fit for us. I don't expect to go back to commercial feed and with Spring coming on, pretty soon there'll be plenty of fresh greens and bugs for the chickens to nosh on.

In other Chicken News:

A Buff died yesterday. She hadn't been looking well lately and the past couple of days she confined herself to the coop. I had a feeling she might die. When I opened up the coop yesterday morning, there she was, face down on the floor, dead. Poor girl, she was 2 years old. After we buried her, I cleaned out the coop and laid down fresh wood shavings. Old chicken manure and bedding went to the garden where it will get tilled over with the dirt.

Makes me extra hopeful that I'll get a hen or two from the 3 chicks we have. Fingers crossed!

Show And Tell

2011-04-02T16:24:00.003-04:00

Yard sale season is gearing up around here. These past few weekends, I have spotted a few signs here and there and even stopped at a couple. Last week, on my way home from errands, I spotted a moving sale sign, but I was in a hurry to get back home before Andrew needed to leave for work. With Mom away at my sister's house, we don't have that freedom of flexibility anymore and we have to be more aware of the time.

Anyway, the next day, Andrew didn't have to go to work, so I suggested we hit a few yard sales. The moving sale I spotted the day before was first and it looked promising, but upon closer inspection, much of it was junk. Nothing more disappointing to see lots of stuff and nothing worth even making an offer on. The stuff was dirty, in poor condition, or just plain broken. They were even selling a microwave with a busted glass door! It was almost as if they wanted to see if they could sell the stuff before hauling it to the dump.

On our way out, right by the door, was a pile of games. Dusty and dirty, but an old scrabble game caught my eye-- I've been looking for an extra game for crafting purposes with the letter tiles. A wooden box with a drawing of a castle looked interesting and I grabbed that, too. Boy, am I glad I did!! It's an old wooden block set for building castles, made in Germany. An awesome set!! I'm trying to figure out what it says... I know that baukasten means blocks and 150 teile is 150 pieces, and that's all I got. An online search gave me little to go on. Anyone out there read german?? What does Schlob-Baukasten mean? How about "Ungif tige lacioerung"?? There are some vintage German block sets on Ebay, but nothing like this with a castle theme. Anyway, we've played with this several times and it's lots of fun coming up with different castles. I haven't counted to see if there are 150 pieces yet. I'm sure there are at least a few pieces missing.

It's definitely a keeper! I wish I could find another set to double the fun. There's plenty of bickering among 4 little ones on who has more pieces or 3 kids wanting the same turret. This is one of those toys that gets put away and only comes out with parental supervision.

Not bad for a buck! :o)

Milestone

2011-03-31T22:19:00.003-04:00

A major, major milestone for Miss Sylvia-- her First Tooth!

Such a practical kid. When I asked her to open her mouth, she opens it. No struggle, no clamping shut of the mouth, just: "ahh!"

So easy, this one!

As soon as she was done gargling with the salt water, she put her tooth under her pillow and didn't even listen to Daddy phone the Tooth Fairy. I told him he was wasting his breath.

On the other side of the spectrum:

Miss Gretchen was upset after I pulled out Sylvia's tooth. I thought maybe she didn't like the sight of the blood-- I pulled it in the dining room, just to see if it was ready and it came out easily. Gretchen holed up in her room and when I checked on her, she was crying, but didn't want to talk. I finally got it out of her. Wanna know why she was upset? In between sobs, she asked, "How come it was easier for Sylvia?"

I'll tell you why it was easier! With Gretchen, everything comes with a little bit of drama. A loose tooth? As soon as my hand comes even close to her mouth, she clamps it shut and whimpers and whines and cries that it's going to hurt. After much pleading and bargaining and cajoling, I might get my hand on her tooth only to have her pull my hand away. Going out? She'll complain she has nothing to wear and takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to pick something out. New clothing? If it isn't the right color or even a little bit too big, she won't take it. Meal times? The pickiest eater ever! Chores? Let's not go there.

Hopefully, when Gretchen saw how quick it was for me to pluck Sylvia's tooth today, the next time she has a loose tooth, she will just open wide and let me get my hands on it, without clamping shut her mouth or whining or pulling my hand away at the last minute. I'll remind her how easy it was for Sylvia and it could be easy for her, too.

Wish me luck! :o)

Eye See You

2011-03-30T23:25:00.005-04:00

My eye appointment went well. The eye doc was very thorough with the examination, checking and double-checking and I was getting dizzy with all the bright lights being shined into my eyes to check for glaucoma or other such eye issues. But I got my new prescription and got my new glasses, too!

They were having a two-for-one sale, so I got one with glass lenses and one with plastic lenses. It'll be nice to have a back-up pair and I also wanted to compare lenses-- see which one lasts longer and has less scratches. I already see a big difference in prescription, everything is so clear now. No more slight blurriness from wearing glasses more than 8 years old. I got the plastic lens glasses in an hour, the glass lens one will arrive in 10 days. We'll be in Florida then, so it will be nearly 3 weeks before I get those.

I remember the very first time I got glasses. I complained that I couldn't read the chalkboard at school and so I got my first pair of glasses in the 8th grade. When we came home, I remember getting out of the car and looking up. I was amazed that I could see, with clarity, every single green leaf on the trees that rose around the apartment complex we lived in. When the wind rustled the leaves, I could see them quiver and wave. I ended up sitting on the curb and just watched the leaves.

My bedroom window opened into the woods behind our building and I would sit on my bed, prop my chin on the windowsill, and just look. I had a tree guidebook and I'd try and identify all the different trees outside my window and my favorite became the tulip tree. I loved the shape of the leaves and the orange and creamy white color of the "tulips" at the ends of the branches. None of those trees around here.

Today, leaving the place with my new glasses, I wasn't really looking for anything. I had those drops put into my eyes to dilate them, so my vision was still a little blurry, plus my eyes were exhausted from all the tests and lights. All I wanted to do when I came home, was to take a nap, to close my eyes and let them rest. As soon as I got home, Andrew had errands to run, too, so off he went. As of now, my left eye still seems blurry, I'm thinking it's because I haven't rested yet, and I hope, in the morning, it'll will be clear. I'll look out my bedroom window, look up at the bare branches, and hope I can see every bud on the tips of each branch.

G'night.

Sticker Shock

2011-03-29T09:40:00.007-04:00

Our budget is tight. That means we hardly eat out, if at all. I make almost every meal, and sometimes I cheat and buy frozen pizzas or quickie foods, but it's cheaper than eating out. We got our tax refund and along with buying some long-desired, needed things around the house, I must admit, we have been eating out quite a bit. And feeling pretty sick about it, too. Not only are there 6 members in our family, but it looks like prices have gone up, not to mention the restuarant tax added onto the regular tax.

The kids loooooooove Chick-Fil-a. I think more for the play area than the actual food, but still, it's always a big hit when we go there and there's never any food left to take home. I remember it used to cost us just around $20 to eat there some time last year and two recent excursions there cost us nearly $40 both times!! A trip into town last night and a quick drive-thru pick-up at Wendy's yielded us 4 kiddie meals and 2 adult combo meals that cost $32!

I had to rescue Andrew from a locked-out truck at work when my sister and her family were here and I ran out just as it was time to make dinner after working outdoors most of the day on the swingset. After I gave Andrew the spare key, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner without the kids after he got off work. We love steak and cheese subs, and there was a Jerry's Subs in the mall, so we went there. The last time I ate there was before we moved up here nearly 6 years ago and even then, it was pricey, but not this much: $22 dollars for 2 meals and that's with the employee discount.

We went to Subway the night we picked up the swingset and for 4 footlongs, chips and drinks, it cost us a little over $23. By far the best deal for the most food and the most filling. I can split two footlongs between 4 kids and they will eat every last bit of it, and be full for several hours afterwards.

Andrew and I talked last night about the high cost of eating out and we both agreed it's just not

worth it. Needless to say, we will not be eating out anymore, except for our upcoming trip down to Florida and even then, we'll stick to Subway. At those prices, our tax refund won't last very long! We'll be packing our snacks like we always do on long trips, and maybe a picnic lunch as well, just to save on eating out at least one meal on the way down.

Fast food isn't really fast if it takes us more than 30 minutes to get there in the first place. I could have made our meal in that time and enjoyed it much more, use zero gas to get there, and hardly any trash compared to all those wrappers and bags and cheap-o kiddie meal toys that end up scattered on the floor, waiting to be stepped on.

We used to miss eating out at some of those places, liking the convience of it and hey-- I don't have to cook! But after so long of not going anywhere, we have come to find that we prefer to eat at home, whether it's home-cooked or quickie frozen pizza, it's still a home meal. Cheaper in cost maybe, but richer in every other way. -

Monkey Boy Goes Aerial

2011-03-28T14:57:00.003-04:00

Not that we condone jumping off the furniture or anything like that, but here we were, Andrew and I, having a conversation in Peter and Sylvia's room and Peter is playing around, then suddenly starts leaping off the dresser and landing on Sylvia's bed. He was having such fun and we were right there watching. I love the following photos. He truly is fearless!

Walk-ins Welcome??

2011-03-26T21:53:00.002-04:00

So very frustrating. I am trying to get new glasses. The ones I got last year were off in the prescription and ended up giving me headaches and blurred my vision even more. I ended up going back to my crooked old, old ones. The ones I wore when pregnant with Evelyn, like 8 years ago! It was too late to return the new glasses by the time I realized that no, it wasn't me but the glasses. And funny thing, the frame that I just loved, I have come to realize that they don't look good on me after all. Or maybe it's because I hate them because they caused me such problems.

Anyway, living where we do, there aren't very many places for getting glasses. I've already decided not to go back to where I went last year, so that's one out. Another needs membership, which I do not have, so that's two out. Leaves me with 3 choices. When checking their websites, they all say, "Walk-ins Welcome". So I did just that: walked in. Guess what? I wasn't welcome.

Grrrr... I guess with such a few choices, all the places are busy, not like in the city with plenty of alternatives to go to. But still... I managed to slip away, leaving the kids at home with Daddy, hoping to get new glasses, and come home with the same old crooked ones.

I'm particular about the lenses. I like glass. They don't scratch like the plastic ones, even the scratch-resistant plastic ones. I know you're supposed to use those special lens cloths, but sometimes, when I'm wrangling a kicking and screaming 2-year old, trying to change a poopy diaper and I get a smear of god-knows-what on my glasses, I can't exactly drop everything and use the fancy-schmancy lens cloth. I just grab the bottom of my shirt and clean. These old ones I'm using, more than 8 years old, and not a single scratch on them. I have several pairs with plastic lenses and they look like a road map with all the scratches in them.

Did you know that there is only one lab in the whole area that makes glass lenses for glasses?? They can do plastic lenses on the spot, in-store, in under an hour, but glass lenses have to be sent away and takes 10 days or more. So frustrating. Am I really part of such a small group of people that prefer glass lenses that in-store labs have done away with the equipment needed to cut glass lenses? Really?

I have an appointment now, for Wednesday, since walk-ins are apparently not welcome anymore.
-

Swinging!

2011-03-23T10:08:00.006-04:00

Things are quiet here again. I say again because my sister and her family came for a visit and with them, all the lovely excitement of 6 little cousins playing together. We had such a good time, that we hardly took out the cameras! D'oh! I have very little evidence, picture-wise, that they were here at all, save for a couple of pictures taken at the very end. I could kick myself, but we had a good time and that's all that matters.

Before they got here, Mom wanted to get the kids a swingset to play on. We had been watching sales and tracking prices and a few days before my sister and her family were due to come, the one swingset I had my eye on went on sale. So we picked that up, and I sort of hoped it would be set up before they got here, but who am I kidding? I needed help. With Andrew's crazy working schedule, 4 kids to chase and everything else I gotta do, there was no way that swingset would be up in 2 days!

Luckily for us- my sister was up for the challenge! They got here on a Wednesday; Thursday, we cracked the box open and worked a few hours; Friday was a lovely day and we worked all morning before a cousin popped up with 4 kids of her own to make it 10 little ones running around. No way we could have worked with all the kids around, and we had a good time catching up with each other. Saturday, we picked up where we left off and worked all day until our tummies growled for dinner; too cold to work on Sunday (they're from Florida, 40 degrees is freezing to them!); and we finished Monday!

Teena and I did the majority of the work-- we always were a good team! Her husband helped out a little here and there, but mostly he kept an eye on the kids. Teena and I were pretty determined to finish it ourselves. The kids scampered all over the place, climbing partly finished clubhouse, ladders, and monkey bars and I'm sure we would have finished much sooner if not for the kids, but... it's done! I'm proud of the work we did and the kids are really loving it! Thanks to Mom for getting it and Thanks to Teena for helping set it up!

The instructions for the swingset said it would take two people 10-12 hours to set up. It took us about 20 hours, but we had diapers to change, meals to make, children to chase, tools to take out of naughty little hands, children to rescue from ladders, power tools to wrangle from kids, drinks and snacks to pass out, boo-boos to kiss, children to scold... I'd like to see a pro do what we did in 20 hours! :o)

I miss my sister and her family already. The house is so quiet-- even with my four kids. She took Mom home with her, so I miss Mom, too. But!!!! But, but, but now I have an excuse to go visit HER! Someone has to bring Mom back home! Yay!! We'll be going down next month to visit for a few days, our first vacation in quite some time. Can't wait! See ya soon Sis! xoxo :o)

Good weekend!

2011-03-13T22:01:00.003-04:00

Saturday was a beeyootiful day! Andrew had to work, so we didn't go anywhere, but man, oh, man! Did we spend the day outside! I took advantage of it and cleaned out the stinky, smelly, dusty, dirty, stinky, did I say smelly? sunroom! We keep the litter box in there and after a time, things get dusty. Add to that the constant build-up of dirt and chicken poo that comes in from our shoes. Add in also the muddy days we've had. And don't forget the pile of winter coats, boots, snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves, drying rack, and scattered clothes pins to hold clothes to drying rack. And the shoes! Good Lord the shoes! They're fornicating in there! I swear, shoes multiply in that sunroom! It smelled like cat pee in there, too. Phew.. what with the litter box and Percy the cat peeing in places he isn't supposed to be.

Needless to say, the sunroom needed a BIG clean up/out. While the kids played outside, I cleaned. Cleaned and cleaned and cleaned! High chair? Out! Box of too-small shoes Percy peed on? Trash! Empty plastic bags? Gathered together and recycled! One by one, things got sorted, cleaned, put away, trashed, lost and found or moved to the pole barn. It no longer smells in there now. One can walk in there without tripping over something. And best of all? I finished in the nick of time-- the kids were starting to come in and out, in and out, looking for excuses to come in and plop somewhere, tired from all the outdoor play.

Before and after pictures? Are you crazy? I'm too embarrassed to show any before pictures of the sunroom (yet I can tell you how filthy it was!?!) and after pictures are nothing to toot my horn over. It's not a pretty room-- gray fake-wood paneling, faded tan linoleum floors cracked and ripped and worn through in some spots, drop ceiling panels and florescent lights, and black fake-wood plastic trim. I have plans for that room! Oh! Can you just imagine ripping out the drop ceiling and finding exposed beams, staining the wood in warm rich color and adding lights and replacing the cheap-o windows with new triple-paned windows, adding real bead-board wood to the walls and wood, maybe tile flooring. Losing a couple of windows and putting in cabinetry in it's place for better storage and turning it into a fancy-schmancy mud-room slash laundry room. ~sigh~

Who knows what that drop-ceiling is hiding, probably lots of spider webs and nothing but nails poking through the roof. I bet we'll find the walls are not insulated and we might find termite damage in the framing. There's even an old 80's speaker-phone speaker on one wall. We've already ripped out the main radio/speaker-phone thingy and other speakers from the rest of the house and patched the holes in the drywall. The sunroom is the only one left because of the fake-wood paneling and hanging a picture over the resulting hole just won't do, it's too close to the door frame. Ah well... one can dream. At least the sunroom is clean now.

I don't know about you, but this time change thing really knocks me for a loop! I wish I could be like Archie the cat up there and just flop on top of the truck and go to sleep. Ok, maybe not on the roof of the truck, but flopping on the bed sounds good to me.

I'm already tired and sore from all that cleaning from Saturday and it sure doesn't help that at 8 am this morning, my Aunt and Uncle came over to visit. That's early! It's really 7 am if it wasn't for that time change! Why?! Who gets up at 7 am?? Oh well, I slap a smile on my face, hug the relatives, nosh on the doughnut holes they brought and enjoy the company.

And we did have a good day, too. I took my Aunt with me to the stores for my Sunday morning shopping. She's a coupon queen, too, and we've never coupon-shopped together before. I told her to bring her coupons and we could go together while most people are in church and we can have the stores all to ourselves. She comes from the city where everything on sale gets sold out the first day and she couldn't believe it when we pulled into the empty parking lot and nobody else was there but us.

It's so funny to watch her after we got in the car from making our purchases and see her scan the receipt and cackle at her success and her lucky day when the cashier gave her a better price on the coupon and she made a little bit of a profit when I gave her a higher-value coupon to use instead. I could tell she was watching me shop, too, and my mom told me later that she was impressed with my shopping skills and that I knew what I was doing. I'm not looking for validation, but it does make me feel good to hear that.

The kids have so much fun when my Aunt and Uncle are here.. Great-Aunt and Great-Uncle to them. Aunt brought over a tube with 10 different colors of nail polish in it. Do you know what nail polish does to little girls?? It makes them squeal with delight and beg to get their fingers and toes painted! It's even more fun when Auntie has her digits painted in different colors, too!

I get to pick Uncle's brain about farming and gardening and chickens and he takes the kids outside and pushes them on the swings and walks in the woods with them. It's good fun and the kids are sad to see them go at the end of the day. On the bright side of their early arrival, the kids are tired and hardly any protest at going to bed.

Speaking of bed... I'm headed there right now. ~snore, snore~

Endless Possibilities

2011-03-09T20:33:00.004-05:00

A friend of Andrew's told us that there was a place not too far from us that sold used metal barrels in good condition for cheap. When he told us how much, I thought he was kidding. Turns out, he wasn't.

We knew of the place, in fact, we'd been there before. It's a digger's heaven! They sell everything from marked-down food, yard sale items, those cheap-o tools you find at flea markets, furniture from salvation army with the sale tags still on-- the price crossed off and an even cheaper price written in, and boxes of stuff outside, under a roof that you are free to dig into and get your hands dirty. Beware, though, we found out the hard way, there is only a port-o-potty and no place to wash your hands, so better bring wipes with you!

Anyway, he told us they sold barrels for $7.50 each. Really? No, really??? I envisioned rusty, dirty barrels with films of grease or oil, all dented and banged up. I imagined I'd be half inside scraping out stuck-on bits of black tar and trying to figure out where to dump the chemicals. These barrels were nothing like that. They were clean, in good shape with minimal dings, and once contained fruit juice concentrates. Labels still on them ranged from lemon, lime and apple concentrates. Food grade metal barrels with lids and bands for $7.50? And clean?? What a bargain! We paid and then walked across the street and picked out 4.

We are giddy with excitement at all the possibilities these barrels give us. There's so much we can do with them! We picked these green ones because they are creamy white inside and easier to see if they are dirty and if we decide to use these for food storage, we can see better if there are bugs or rodents in them. The lady we bought them from said she uses them for rain barrels, but I'm kind of hesitant to use metal barrels as rain barrels. We do have a plastic barrel that we plan to use as a rain barrel and sure would be nice to have a 2nd rain barrel but not metal.

I want to go to the local grain mill and see if they will make a custom chicken feed for me and usually to do that, most mills need to make it in batches of 500 pounds or higher. These barrels would be perfect to store all the chicken feed in and that would mean no more almost weekly trips to the farm store for chicken feed.

They would also make good dry food storage barrels for surplus bags of flour, sugar, or rice. Keeping them in the basement in a dry, cool area and we'd have plenty of food to last awhile if the sh!t ever hits the fan.

With some of the less-than-perfect barrels, they could be used in the pole barn for holding farm tools or as garbage cans. They're better than those cheap-o plastic garbage bins. Bigger and sturdier and no worries about cats or other animals getting into them. You could even cut into one and turn it into an outdoor wood stove.

We're already planning to go and get a few more-- we want to replace our cheap-o plastic trash cans and I'm thinking I can take one of the sturdier plastic ones and use that for a rain barrel. No sense in tossing a still good trash can, even if it is cheap-o! The trash can-turned-rain barrel can be the one we use for garden water and I can cut out part of the lid and replace it with a screen to keep out debris and mosquito larvae. I'll use the other plastic barrel by the house for watering the herbs and rhubarb patch, also for refilling the water bowls for the cats and chickens.

My mind is just going crazy with all the possibilities of these barrels!! They had 2 colors-- the green with the white interiors or all blue inside and out. To keep them from mixing, I think we'll get blue for trash and pole barn/farm use and save the green ones for food/grain/storage use. The lady at the store said they go fast in the summer and hard to keep in stock, so we'd best go back soon while there were still plenty to choose from and we can afford to be picky.

Any other suggestions on what we can do with these barrels??
-

The Battle for Spring Begins

2011-03-08T10:34:00.005-05:00

We had some lovely days, which can easily lull one into thinking winter is over.

We spent hours outdoors, playing and working.

Quite enjoying the break from the cold.

We knew better, we knew winter wasn't done with us yet.

It began as rain then turned into snow.

We woke up to a lovely winter wonderland.

Three inches of snow covered everything.

So, so pretty to look at.

Even the fences were made beautiful.

Then as quickly as it came, it went just as fast.

Within a few hours after taking these photos, most of the snow has melted.

The mud has returned.

*
Meanwhile, back at the coop...

Mama Buff is still sitting on her eggs/chicks. I checked and she now has 3 chicks.

I suspect there's 4-- I counted only 5 eggs, but I think #4 is hiding.

I like this picture, taken yesterday, with papa Roo peeking in up there in the corner.

Taken this morning, chick #3 and #4(?) are still hiding.

No more progress made on the add-on for mama hen and her babies.

I've been hampered first by the rain, and then the snow.

Mama is still quite comfortable in the cage I have her in and I can see that both her and the chicks are eating and drinking. Hopefully, I can finish the add-on this week, but I won't be able to let the chicks roam free until it sufficiently warms up first. They'll be fine in the cage for another week or so.

Thank goodness Spring is on her way in!

:o)