::30 Days:: 9

Finally! Our internet is restored and we are go!

Seems silly to catch up on missed days, so let's just pick up where I left off and pretend the gap between days does not exist, shall we?

So without further ado....

When I walk to the mailbox, I keep an eye out for those wild grapes.  Still green? Birds gobbling them up? Ripe yet? A couple weeks ago, the vines were loaded with grapes, they're dwindling down and I hope there will be enough to pick in the next couple of weeks. Still too early to pick, so fingers crossed the birds don't get what's left!

The last two jars of 2011's wild grape juice concentrate from the freezer. I tried to make it last, making it every now and then. Good stuff! Let's hope I can make at least 10 pints this summer.

Kids and books, it happens.  Put the two together and there's going to be rips, scribbled on pages, broken spines and books dropped in liquid, or food spilled on them. I recently went through our books and pulled out all the damaged ones, too far gone to repair or donate. Waiting for Andrew to make a trash run and throw them away, but in the meantime, the kids are having a blast drawing silly faces on the books, adding captions and mustaches, glasses and zits, and completely changing stories around. The first time I let them do this, I got two hours of quiet! TWO HOURS! Why didn't I think of this before?!?  Letting them draw on these old books is guaranteed leave-mama-alone-time! I just may keep those books around a little while longer!

Made 3 loaves of banana bread tonight. I love when the house smells all banana bread-y and I look forward to eating a slice after it's cold and sat in the fridge overnight. I know what I'm having for a snack tomorrow!



::30 Days:: 8

What I saw when I woke up this morning: Peter's black eye. The skin glue did it's job, and at bath time, it came off and I could see I didn't need to add any more. As of bedtime, the colors of the bruise deepened to a pale dark blue/purple.

Today was a long, long, long day.

I went back to the booth and added more stuff, looks better, don't it?

I was pleased to see a few items sold! Yay!!

After finding homes in the booth for everything, I went all the way to the big town in the opposite direction and ran errands with my Mom. It was a grand effort, but it was just too much to do all in one day.  By the time we got home past 5 pm, I was exhausted. Won't be doing that again!

I'm glad I had the sense to pick up frozen pizza and then Andrew cooked 'em on the grill. Fast, easy, and delicious! Bonus points for not heating up the house with a hot oven!

I've been busy setting up a facebook page for our new booth, while eating leftover chinese from my lunch out today. Find my booth on Facebook: 516 Antiques.  Like it, too! :o)

::30 Days:: 6

Today was a big day!  We loaded up the truck and I went down to the antique mall and started setting up the booth. This is the mall where our booth is. It's in downtown Berkley Springs, West Virginia.

Here it is! Yipes, it's huge!! 

All those boxes and it hardly looks filled!

It's 10x10 but it seems so much larger!! I got to tag more things, stat!

Here's that white shelf I painted and I love how it looks with all the stuff on it!

Makes me wish I had more shelves like it.

After I got home. I went straight to work painting another shelf. This particular shelf used to be Mom and Dad's and they kept their record player on top with all their records on the bottom shelves. Memories!  But it was dark brown, too, so it had to be painted.  Took 3 coats and it's done! I'm going to try and make it back to the booth on Monday with another full load of stuff and fill up that huge space!!

I *should* be working on more stuff, cleaning and pricing, but I'm absolutely pooped! I deserve some TV time where I just relax and watch '27 Dresses' on dvd. Tomorrow, I'll get back on the ball and work like a maniac to get more stuff packed and ready to go, tomorrow!



::30 Days:: 5

Still working on inventory for our antique booth, but we need something to put them on, so I tackled painting this old, brown, boring shelf. Looked like rain, so I dragged it into the sun room to paint.

Between coats.

I'm amazed the kids managed to keep their fingers off it while drying!

The kids cooked dinner tonight. Spaghetti! Something they can do on their own without me fussing behind them and I can go off and do what needs doing.

The onions have been drying out in the pole barn for more than 2 weeks now, time to start bringing them in. Started on the yellow onions and filled the bag more than halfway and stopped when Gretchen complained the bag was getting too heavy for her to hold any longer. Can't wait to get the final weight on the total onion harvest! I'm hoping to get all the onions trimmed and bagged by the end of the weekend.

Finished! Looks pretty good! Took 3 coats to cover the brown. Normally I don't like when wood furniture is painted, but this is one instance where the shelf looks sooooo much better painted than it did with that dark brown stain! Seeing as how it will be displaying my wares in the booth, I wanted my items to pop out of the white shelves and not disappear into the shadows of the formerly dark shelves.



Bath night and bedtime reading.

Sweet dreams!



::30 Days:: 4

Hummingbirds have been humming around the flowers outside the back door lately.

This morning there were two of them. Pretty green ones.

Impossible to get a shot through the screen and I'm afraid that if I tried to open the sliding door, they'd fly away. But I'm content with this shot of the girls watching.

 Still plugging away at cleaning, tagging and packing up inventory for our booth.

Didn't do as much today, it was just too hot and I was plain old cranky!

I did about 25 items today.

"C'mon kids, let's go into the pool," says I!

Ahh, I feel that crankiness melt away once I slip into the cool waters.

Just what the doctor ordered!

We stayed in the pool long past supper-time, so I needed to make a dinner that was quick and easy-- tacos! It always helps having pre-cooked meat packed away in the freezer to cut down on cooking time.  My secret ingredient? Oatmeal! Helps to stretch out the meat between the 6 of us and adds a bit more fiber. Not really a secret anymore, since all the girls know I add oatmeal, as they help cook meals with me, but they always whisper, "time to add the secret ingredient" when they help!

Yummy yummy in the tummy!

Pay no mind to the Christmas wreath on the door! It usually hides behind the curtain and comes out for the holidays.  I've always meant to put it away, but I keep forgetting and until I saw this picture, I realized that I never really notice it anymore.  It sort of disappeared into the background! By the time I finally get around to putting it away, it's going to be Christmas again!! 



::30 Days:: 3

We recently put a deposit on a booth in an Antique Mall. The booth opens August 1st, though we are allowed to go in now and start setting up shelves and what-not.

Of course, now that we are committed to a booth, we have the fun job of going through our "inventory", cleaning everything, and deciding on prices.

Early start today, continuing to bring stuff up from the basement to clean and put prices on things.

In the future, I want to try and do 25 items per day, but for our initial set up, we'll need quite a few things to fill up a 10x10 booth! I'm thinking... 300 items to start? More?

Better get cracking!

Popcorn for dinner because...

...I'm still doing this!

Whew! I did more than 50 items today.

Looked up certain things on the internet for reference prices, dug through boxes in the basement, washed off the dust and dirt, priced and packed into clean boxes for transport. I have 87 items ready to go, just over 200 more to do over the next few days!

::30 Days:: 2

We've been cleaning out the basement and in the process, finding "lost" things.

Found the replacement lamp socket and wiring I bought ages ago for a different lamp.

First thing this morning, I re-wired a thrift-store lamp.

Love the lamp! It was a bargain at the thrift store.

I also love that the kids see Mama doing handy-woman stuff, with tools and everything!

 It works!!

Then the rest of the day, the kids kept switching on the lamp, turning on the big lamp, then the small inner lamp inside the green globe, then they both turn on, then off again. Over and over! It'll be a miracle if that lamp makes it a year in this house!  I hope so, I really like it.

This is what happens when you leave your beads out and your nosy little 4-year old brother gets into them-- a big mess on the floor!

They had a choice: sweep and put in the trash = no more jewelry kits

OR

pick each bead up and future jewlery kits will be given.

They chose to pick up all the beads, but not without grumbling.

Lesson learned by the girls, I hope.

Found the old ViewMasters and reels and the kids had fun with them.

Evelyn took over reading the bedtime story tonight. One of the ViewMaster reels was a very, very condensed story of Rumpelstiltskin, so they pulled out the longer version to read.



::30 Days:: 1

The only picture I took today:

We've been playing with the old Spirograph set lately.

Any one remember those?

I had a set when I was a kid and it used to occupy my time for hours.

Probably got rid of it when we moved.

I found this set at yard sale, almost complete.



The Best Investment

We've had such a stretch of hot days.

 The temperature rises and makes everything sticky hot.

The children melt.

We trip over the cats and the dog laying on the coolest parts of the floor.

The sun shines bright and beats down on our skins.

Sweat beads on our brows.

It's just hot.

Hot, hot, hot.

Ah, the pool.

The cool water is just the place to be on these hot, hot days!

So grateful to be able to slip into the water and instantly wash away that stickiness.

We spend a good chunk of our days out there, in the pool.

A break for lunch, then it's right back into the pool again.



 In the stillness of the evening, when I come and check the water,

I catch the sun taking a dip in the pool.

Mr. Sun gets hot, too, I suppose.

Just, Wow!

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.

Fall Color Week:: Monday

Sorry for not posting regularly these days. It's been busy around here and I haven't been able to squeeze in blogging time. I do, however, read your blogs, though I might not leave a comment. Over at Elsie Marley, she is doing a crayola fall colors picture week that I thought might be fun to participate in.

Here's my Monday entry for Brick Red:

With yet another trip to the local orchard on Friday for more apples (3 more bushels! that makes 6 so far!), I've always been fascinated with old barns and this one is no exception. I love how it seems like they've given up on painting, maybe they ran out of steam or perhaps the paint. Or maybe they've meant to finish but something else keeps popping up that takes priority. (I know how that feels) They have an orchard to run, so I imagine keeping hundreds, possibly thousands, of trees in good condition is a lot of work. Between pruning and fertilizing and picking and packing and hawking their wares at the farmer's markets and dealing with customers who stop by for pick-your-own, I'm sure they have plenty to do and very little down time.

Feel free to play along... Pop on over to Elsie Marley and leave a comment saying you want to join in.

Monday: Brick Red
Tuesday: Burnt Sienna (reddy orange)
Wednesday: Goldenrod (deep yellow)
Thursday: Chestnut (warm dark brown)
Friday: Plum

County Fair 2009

We went to the County Fair tonight.

A photo of the kids before going in,

just in case we got separated and I would have a picture to show.

I wasn't going for smiles, just documentation of their clothing.

I made a beeline to the homemakers building to check on the results of my jam entries.

My Crazyberry jam (center, left) got a red ribbon for 2nd place.

My Rhuberry (center, right) got a blue ribbon for first place!

yay! I'm happy!

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I wonder how they judged them, though, because they were not opened.

I guess they judge based on how they look in the jar?

I think it would have been "Best of Show" had they tasted my jams!

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Time for rides!

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The girls got on this one and then when we got in line for another ride, the guy asked for tickets. "Tickets?" we asked.

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Apparently, things are different this year. Last year, the kids got to ride the kiddie stuff for free, but there was a hefty entrance fee. This year, the kids got in for free, but rides are now ticketed.

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I counted 7 kiddie rides-- the merry-go-round, the elephant ride, race cars, baby train, baby ferris wheel, space ship (but the lift didn't work) and alligator bouncy thing.

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2 tickets per ride, per kid. $1 each ticket equals $2 per kid times 3 kids equals $6 per ride.

--OR--

Buy unlimited rides in the form of a bracelet for $12 per kid times 3 kids equals $36.

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Yeah, um, no.

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We compromised with the girls:

One more ride and they could have cotton candy.

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They enjoyed every minute of that merry-go-round ride!

Baby kept me company while we waited for Daddy and the girls.



The girls liked their very first taste of cotton candy!

"More Daddy! More!"
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We enjoyed the Fair. Next year, we'll have to remember to take out a loan first.
At least the kids seemed to understand why they couldn't go on all the rides, and they are happy. Before they went to bed tonight, Oldest told me she had fun at the Fair. And then she drifted off to sleep, probably dreaming of bouncing on blue and pink cotton candy clouds.