::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.



::30 Days:: Redux

Four years ago, I participated in a 30 Days series, where one posted a picture a day to represent their day.  I found it hard to choose just one picture, so I posted 3 or 4 a day with a brief description of my day.  Some of it was hum-drum,  with nothing much to share, just ordinary days in which I do laundry, tend to the children, can apples.  But I was recently looking back through old posts and I really enjoyed reading each one of those 30 posts. It forced me to look and find the beauty in my ordinary day. To stop for a moment, snap a picture, and remember.

I'm going to do it again.  I'm busy these days, but how much busier am I than I was 4 years ago, with a newborn baby?  And I was preserving all sorts of apples-- applesauce, dried apples, apple chips.  And we were splitting and stacking wood.  And I  had not just baby Peter in diapers, but young Sylvia, too. And the older two were not exactly independent and doing things on their own compared to now.

While I tend to bring the camera along for special occasions-- a visit with family, or a picnic outing-- these very ordinary, sometimes boring days, deserve some recognition, too. Because within these days spent at home are some extraordinary moments, a glimmer of extra-specialness that lasts only a second, and if it isn't remembered somehow-- writing it down, or a photo taken of it, it will very likely be forgotten. I know I have had plenty of those, 'this was so cute, I need to write this memory down' and then I didn't and I couldn't remember the moment anymore.

I'll start next Monday, giving me time to gear up for it and if any of you want to join along, please let me know in the comments.  Just a photo (or 3 or 10) a day that represents your day for 30 days. The original series, if I remember right, asked for just photos, but I guess I'm a chatty person, I couldn't post just a photo and not say anything!  So feel free to silently post just a picture(s) if you want, or by all means, describe your day!

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.

Onions!

We harvested the onions yesterday. Seeing all those yellow and white onions just make me feel so pleased with our efforts at keeping the garden weeded. Last year, when we planted onions, we lost the entire crop when weeds completely choked them out.  All that back-breaking work to plant them only to have all our efforts wiped out.  Not this year!

I didn't count, but there are more than enough onions here to last us for quite awhile. I don't think it'll last til next summer, though, so we plan to plant a second batch to make sure there's enough. We eat plenty of onions, just about in every dish we make.

A far cry from the onion-hating person I used to be! I used to plead with my mom not to put onions in meals, and she made onion-less potato salad for my sister and I.  Then I met Andrew, with onion juice in his veins and he often says, "A house is not a home without onions!" I'd begrudgingly add chopped onions into a dish, just for him, only a little! He'd ask for onions in the meatloaf I make, so I obliged, just half of one! Then the amount of onions I used grew, onions were included in more and more meals. We'd give raw onions to the kids when they were babes, and to my surprise, they liked them!

Now, I cannot imagine not having onions! Onions go in practically everything I make these days. Even though our kids have grown up eating onions, it still surprises me each time they willingly put raw onion slices on their sandwiches or hamburgers.

The onions still need a couple weeks of drying time, and they're in the pole barn now. I plan to store some, dehydrate some, and of course, use them as we go.  I've stopped buying store onions quite awhile ago, and there's nothing more satisfying than being able to provide something we need from our own garden.