Braids and Boots

My new blog - Our Little Wooden House

2011-12-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

A NEW blog? Another one? Really?

For a few reasons I've decided to start a new blog. This one will be mostly stuff for family - pictures of my adorable kiddos, things like that. But for everything else that family isn't that interested in like organizing, weight loss, homemaking, cooking, gardening, homesteading, etc. I will be moving all of that to Clay and I's new blog:

Feel free to add it to your bookmarks as it will be where my new year of posting will be. Santa brought me a new camera to replace my old one early so I will be posting pictures of the kids here often in 2012 as well so if you are someone who cares about my kids and our family life, stick around as there will be lots to see!

2011-2012 Curriculum Choices

2011-08-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted here in a long while :) We officially started back to school this week so my brain is 100% in school mode. I have our school choices nailed down (for now, things always change a bit throughout the year). I'm feeling good about almost everything except maybe Frankie's Latin but time will tell with that. So here's this year's plan.... I'm going to link to everything if I can. I'm going to come back throughout the next week and explain all the choices and curriculum in more details.

Frankie - 6th Grade
Math: Saxon 7/6 with Dive CD supplemented by Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals
Bible: Explorer's Bible Study –
• Quest: Promises
• R&S Reading (Bible) 4 (he loves it an is insisting he finishes it so whatever lol)
• Daily family reading and Memorization
• LONG memorization passage (Romans 12 is first though now Clay says he wants him to do Romans 8)
Science: Life Science task cards
History: Geography and Culture Cards
Literature: Potters School Online course literature selections, some readings from the cards and choices from mom
Writing:
• Potters School Online Writing Course - writers workshop
• Geography & Science writings
English: finishing Rod and Staff 5 & and doing Rod and Staff 6
Language: First Form Latin and Rosetta Stone Spanish
Logic: Finish Logic Liftoff, Orbiting with Logic and move towards Fallacy Detective and Thinking Toolbox
Cursive – New American Cursive II
Typing: BBC Typing
Art: Picture and Artist study
Music:
• Classical music "survey"
• Recorder
• piano
Scouts, etc.

Cassie - 4th grade
Math: Finishing Math U See Gamma and doing MathUSee Delta
Bible: Explorer's Bible Study – Discovery Promises Fulfilled
• R&S Reading (Bible) 3
• Daily family reading and Memorization
Science: Life Science task cards
History: Geography and Culture Cards
Literature: some readings from the cards and choices from mom (she devours books)
Writing:
• Daily journal entries
Writing With Ease daily (narration, dictation, etc.)
• Geography & Science writings
English: finished Christian Light Education Language Arts 3 and doing CLE 4
Language: Prima Latina and Rosetta Stone Spanish
Logic: Logic Countdown and Logic Liftoff
Cursive – New American Cursive II
Typing: BBC Typing
Art: Picture and Artist study
Music:
• Classical music "survey"
• Recorder
• piano
American Heritage Girls, etc.

Adric - 2nd grade
Language arts - First Language Lessons, narrations, copywork, etc.
Math - MUS Beta
Penmanship - printing copywork and New American Cursive I
Science: Life Science task cards
History: Geography and Culture Cards
Reading lots of books
Language - Prima Latina
Logic - Mind Benders Warm-ups
Bible - Rod and Staff Reading 1 & family reading and memorization
Typing: BBC Typing
Art: Picture and Artist study
Music:
• Classical music "survey"
• Recorder
• piano
Scouts, etc.

Garrison - Pre-K
Lots of fun file folder games, 100 easy lessons, etc.

Culturing, Fermenting and Baking Oh My!

2011-06-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

As part of the Homestead Barn Hop I'm sharing an amazing resource that has been already proving to be invaluable to me on our journey towards being more self-sufficient.

Not too long ago I read a post over at Healthy Homesteading that inspired me to start making a list of the things I want, no need, to start learning and becoming proficient at as part of our journey to be more self-sufficient. One of the first things that came up was learning to create a self-sustaining kitchen of cultures and fermented foods. The idea of becoming more self-reliant is based around cutting as many ties, cutting the string of necessity, from the world as you can. The main one of course on everyone's list if FOOD. Way up on that list for me was not buying yeast, yogurt and buttermilk cultures, as well as learning to naturally store foods through fermentation. It really kills a few birds with one stone. Culturing and fermenting not only make food healthier, they make types of foods that we buy at the store ourselves (sour cream, pickles, sauerkraut, etc. etc.) AND they are a natural way of storing food to avoid spoilage (cold storage fermented veggies last a LONG time!)

Now I've been doing sourdough and kefir on and off for years, but have never 100% integrated it into my life. I still buy tortillas instead of make them, things like that. So I bit the bullet and I purchased a single month access to the Gnowfglins ecourses.

I tend to not spend money on things I feel like I can find myself on the internet but MAN these classes are worth it! She has a number of different plans you can choose from. They each give you access to all the classes she's done so far just for different periods of time. I decided to go with the one-month plan. It was only $11! The classes all have print pdfs you can download and videos to watch. Every single recipe, everything has an accompanying video. I mean the sourdough class has 25 lessons!

Anyways I started just a few days ago and am SO re-motivated. I have learned SO many new recipes already. Okay so I admit I've been a tad obsessive about wanting to watch all the videos and read all the print as fast as possible. But still... within a few days I made amazing long-soaked sourdough tortillas, have some clabbered cheese straining, homemade buttermilk done and in the fridge, raw sour cream culturing on the top of the fridge, the water kefir rebooted (boy was it happy I did it!), and have a friend who's going to send me a new kombucha mother. Tonight I'll be setting up some dough to make sourdough english muffins, rebooting kefir, and upping my milk order at the farm to be able to make cultured butter and feta. Every single one of those things (except maybe the kombucha) has a video and pdf explaining every tiny step.

The fruits of my labor? Well some of them.
And NO I'm not affiliated with Gnowfglins in any way. I just am amazed at what a great resource it is for a very affordable price. And I hope others will find it helpful as I am.

31 Days to Clean

2011-04-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to read this little book. 31 Days to Clean.

I love the idea of a month long spring cleaning devotional. Some "Mary" Challenges and some "Martha" Challenges to tackle not only my external house but my internal one. 31 Days to Clean is about the "why" and the vision and the heart for taking care of your domain. Each day you will be encouraged with some thoughts and ideas on the heart of cleaning, and then you will put those ideas to action.

After each days reading, you will be given two challenges:

The Mary Challenge -Something you do that encourages/engages your heart
The Martha Challenge - Specific cleaning tasks

And honestly with ebooks ranging upwards of $25 these days I'm SO glad to see an affordable ebook. $4.99!

I have really been in need lately of a little boost in not only the "get off my rump" department but the "keeping my house as a service for the Lord" department. I think this little book is going to be just the ticket.

How to get started with chickens

2011-04-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick little primer for getting started with chicks. Honestly getting started with chicks is quite easy. The first handful of weeks they can even live in a big box! Really, easy. It's only when they get bigger that you have more to consider. I'll start with the beginning basics now and as Frankie and I work on the run for the coop I'll show more about coops and tractors and just general chicken housing.

If considering getting chicks the first thing I would do is sign up at backyard chickens. It's really the most comprehensive place for chicken information. You can find anything you've ever wanted to know about raising chicks at BYC. But if you're more of a book type person and just like to hold information in your hand here are a few recommendations for books:

There are a few ways to get your chicks. Around here most common is feed stores, Tractor supply or farmer co-ops. We live in a rural area so when it's chick season you pretty much can find them being sold all over the place. We also have very reputable local hatchers that sell on craigslist. But if those aren't an option for you you can order them online. There are many hatcheries out there. Here's a few of the top hatcheries:
McMurray Hatchery - this is where we always order from when we order for ourselves. The have an insane catalog. If nothing else, order a catalog. You'll learn SO much about chicken breeds!
Ideal Poultry

Cackle Hatchery - This is where our friend who owns a feed store orders from and he likes their service a lot.

Meyer Hatchery

Onto basic supplies. You really don't need a whole lot to get started with chicks. You'll need a waterer. Something like this:

You'll also need a feeder. Once again a couple different basic designs. I like the long red ones with the holes. It's what we've always used.

A heat lamp. As chicks are most often sent off as day-olds. In the wild they'd be spending most of their time under the warmth of their Mama Hen and as such NEED a heat lamp. Heat lamps are pretty cheap actually. About $10 or so. Plus a heat bulb - a couple more bucks.

A note on heat. If you notice your chicks always huddling 100% of the time under the lamp it may be a tad too cold. On the other hand, if they are always huddling away from the light, move the light back a bit. Over time you should be able to slowly back off on their heat until they don't really need heat anymore. Hopefully it's warm outside and it will be time to move them out!

What you house them in is up to you. Some use big rubbermaid tubs. Some use big boxes. We've done both in the past. This year we happen to have ours in the house part of a chicken tractor that Frankie and I fixed up. There are actual brooders you can build or buy.
Ours in years past looked something like this:
or this:
Now we haven't used a galvanized tub but I've seen it done a lot. Really anything will work!

And they even sell cardboard brooder "kits". The kits come with heat lamp, that cardboard, the feeders and waterers.

Chicks need heat, food, water and dry housing. Aside from maybe a little love (that they really would do fine without as horrible as that sounds) they will do just fine with that.

And last but not least, here's a little shot of our current set-up. I should say that the ventilation hole up top is covered in chicken wire for safety.

Back to Chickens again

2011-04-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

THEY'RE BAAACK!

So this last year Clay decided he officially hates chickens. We've had chickens for years but this last year, well their free-ranging got on his very last nerve. Our first flock didn't really get on the porch for some reason. They were great. The only one of the porch were these rogue roosters that someone dropped off. Now THEY lived on the porch. And drove Clay crazy lol. There was one large rooster that hated Clay. Every time Clay would walk out the door he would crow and crow and crow. I loved that big ole rooster though and it was because of that that Clay didn't kill that giant rooster.

But this last batch of girls, well they just wanted to live on the porches. And if you don't know, chickens that live on porches, well they poop on porches. If they want to roost on top of your standing freezer they poop all over there. And that is a giant mess to clean up. It's unsanitary and gross and Clay was done. So this last year we went from a HUGE flock of chickens down to 3. And he was ready for us to get rid of those last girls.

But chickens are a part of every budding homestead. And after a year of really getting little to no eggs and really missing having home flocks of chickens and ducks, I miss it. And Frankie does too. He's my go-to poultry guy. He feeds, waters, catches rogue poultry and helps me deal with injuries. He goes out late at night if we're not sure we shut the coop doors.

So Frankie and I made Clay a deal. If he would buy the materials we would do all the work and build a large run outside our coop for the chickens to live in. He reluctantly agreed, but agreed.

So what did we run and do as soon as we got the okay? BUY CHICKS OF COURSE! I'll return tomorrow with some pictures of our set-up to show how to start with chicks but here's a few sneak peeks of the little cuties.

Horseback Riding Badge

2011-04-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

So Cassie is an American Heritage Girl :) Today we went to a horse ranch with her group so they could work on their horsemanship badge. 3 hours of loads of girls, siblings and horses. Oh and gorgeous weather. Gorgeous. Love spring. So nice to just get out with the littles and enjoy the weather. A few pics from our fun day!

Cassie on the horse. In the car she thought she'd be a tad scared because horses are SO much bigger than goats but once she was in the ring with him she wasn't scared at all! In fact she put her foot in the stirrup and sprung up so fast the lady kept saying over and over that she acted like she had been on horses her whole life.

Cassie watching with her new friends.

Frankie with the BIG boy Breeze. He was so so tall. He was sweet at first. But there were these little girls who kept jumping and tapping his nose and bugging him that he was ornery by the end of the day and tried to nip fingers.

Who knew that Adric of all of them would love on the horses the most? That little pony just took to him. He didn't care too much for all the other kids but just kept sticking his head all the way out and loving on him the whole time Adric sat there.

Even Hartley hopped up and watched his big sister ride the horse around. Now of course he called them dogs :) "Dooog" So then I worked with him and he would say "hhh hhh hhhorrr". Right Hartley horse! Proud mom - of course until he turned and actually looked at the horse and said..... "doooog".

Always something for everyone to do at a farm. Pinecones? Definitely a great score.

And a couple cute baby doll pics.

So a family outing to the horse farm today and then off to Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and AHG meeting tomorrow.

My first 2011 Before and After and organizational rambles

2011-01-09T22:16:00.000-08:00

Okay so the reality here is that I need to get this house in order. NEED. I've realized a lot about our life in our messy house lately and I have to do something about this. A messy, disorganized house causes more problems than I care to think about. But I need to keep reminding myself of them to stay motivated. In fact I'm pretty sure I will be working lots of these out for the first time right now.
Problems a messy, disorganized house causes:

Husband stress. Husbands go work all day and when they come home, they expect their home to be a place of rest. Now our attitude as wives and how well (or not well eek!) we have trained our children contributes, but there is nothing relaxing about a messy house. There is nothing relaxing to your husband if he has to sort through a mountain of laundry on the couch for clean socks at 4:30 in the morning. Or not being able to find a clean spoon when he wants ice cream before bed. And don't forget the fact that he has to FOCUS to not be upset that he worked almost every minute of the day while the wife can't bring herself to find 15 minutes to fold laundry. Laziness in a wife is not restful to the soul of the husband who wants to respect his wife.
Wife stress. I've said this many times here. I cannot feel at peace in my home. Why you ask? Well there is not a single place (okay actually when I show you my before and after there is now a tiny space) but for the most part there is not a single space where my eye can look and see anything other than WORK that needs to be done. Nowhere where I can look where I don't see what I didn't get done while I was on the internet or watching tv. Nothing where I don't see failure. Wife stress. Then there is the stress that comes from realizing you don't have clean pants for any of the boys for church. Or that 5:30 scramble to make quesadillas because menus aren't planned ahead of time. And for me one of the biggest... the stress that comes from feeling like my husband can't be as proud of me because of my laziness and lack of respecting him enough to take care of the house as he'd like (and my husband does not have high standards on this because he loves me so)
It costs money! Things on the floor get ruined and need to be replaced. As do having all the cups dirty on the counter so babies get on chairs and knock them down and they all break. Clothes on the bathroom floor get stained beyond what can be fixed when walked on by mud-covered boots. Kids' shoes that aren't kept nicely on the shoe shelf get lots and a new pair need to be bought. Food left in a chaotic refrigerator goes bad and ends up in the trash. What a waste! How many things get bought only to 4 months later get found under someone's bed?
It does not teach children good character. Self-control, diligence, hard work ethic, respect for things, respect for people, scheduling, all of these and way more are taught through the well-kept house.
It does not glorify God when we are doing the opposite. Being lazy, messy, careless, reckless, slothful, destructive, all these and more are shown when a house is messy and chaotic. A house full of stress instead of peace does not show the wonders a family of God can and should be.

I'm sure there are 100 more points and if you have some I'd love to hear them. All those things plague me day in day out. And it causes pain and sadness. And the Lord is not content to let me stay on this path.

So my plan. While I am praying about how to best handle different issues like scheduling, etc. for the basics of the house, the Lord has showed me one of my major issues. There are two that I feel need to be tackled first.

First, that there isn't anywhere to PUT anything. That whole "a place for everything, and everything in it's place" blows up if you don't have a place for everything. Things get thrown here and there, things get piled up on side tables because no one knows easily and readily how and where to put things. SO I need to make a place for everything. Containers, baskets, decluttering, it's all part of this first part. My non-official plan to tackle this first part is to slowly work on getting areas of the house 100%. That means absolutely DONE. Containers, labels, paint if need be, all done. Nothing without a home in that area. Nothing not how I want it in that area. It will be slow going as I can't afford containers, etc. for all the spaces. I just can't. But a $3 basket here and there and it will get done.

Secondly, I have lost the sense of beauty in my home. I don't love the spaces like I should. I don't think everyone's house needs to look like a magazine but you should love your space. Peter Walsh, the rockin' organizer said once "Your home is the outward expression of what you value, what you enjoy, and what is important to you". For ME anyways, it most certainly holds true. So saving money for paint, doing some crafty things for the walls, etc. is on my list.

SO FINALLY... the reveal of the first TINY place that has been redone. The "blue desk" as it's called here.
Before: *note* this is SUPER clean compared to how it normally is. We had just cleaned it. But even then, when it was considered pretty clean it has t-tapp videos, maple syrup, a phone, a bowl, a notebook, lots of junk, and lots of papers.

Drumroll please................... the after
The colors in the pictures don't really tell but I painted the wall a pale icy blue instead of a dusty mocha. The middle basket holds my camera. The smaller basket holds Clay's stuff from when he walks in the door. I tried to get him to just not need a basket and put stuff away but my camera basket became his stuff basket so I needed to add one. Our little desk needs a new coat of dark blue paint. I also painted the inside of our front door a pretty dark navy (which is the leftover paint I will be painting the little desk here).

So there it is. With the addition of the calendar and white board I'm done with this space and pleased! One small victory for Kim, one large victory for our family.

This is definitely NOT a New Year's Resolution LOL

2011-01-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

So let's just say that the house is NOT a wreck a lot of the time. Let's be reminded that I am NOT doing New Year's Resolutions this year. And let's just say that I don't have any plans to get this house in order (for the last time). Let's not say that there is not an area of the house that is clean and clutter-free. Let's not say that my husband puts up with WAY more than he should with this house. And let's not say that the laundry has finally formally revolted and has decided that the bathroom is not big enough and it needs to live in the storage room, upstairs, by the doorway and on my bedroom floor. We won't say that I have grand plans to organize this house and my life. Let's not say that I have plans to blog about it. Wouldn't want to say that lest I don't do it and fail us all.

We won't say any of that!

And then I will proceed to not give you a few great links :)

FIRST here's the link to my t-tapp blog where there are some free downloads of exercise and food logs to get your BODY organized (though we definitely won't say you need any of that! Oops forgot the link originally. Edited to add it (Um and it's obviously the most important link LOL) http://pursuitoftappiness.blogspot.com/2010/12/free-foodexercise-log.html
http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/ - I have spent WAY too much time lately reading this blog!
Part 1 of a two sectioned series: http://www.beneathmyheart.net/2011/01/organizing-your-heart-and-home-2011/
Part 2: http://cyndispivey.com/?p=1200 - Follow both blogs to play along
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/organizing/before-after-mikis-diy-super-sized-wall-calendar-133831 - a very cool wall white board calendar (though I couldn't have the spaces between the blocks because there's no way for my kids to not write on the spaces. But still a great idea!
http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/2011/01/unveiling-of-james-book-club.html - Courtney is leading a book of James Bible Study. I've been struggling a bit lately and was reminded what a great book this is. I've read James SO many times! I will be reading it again tonight in fact and starting to memorize some of it.
Fab before and after Organizing pictures :) http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/roundup/before-after-organizational-projects-the-best-of-2010-135490

Happy New Year

2011-01-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

First things first.... Happy New Year!!!

But as I head into the New Year I am SO grateful that the Lord has been working with me the last couple weeks and preparing my heart for this New Year. By working through my issues with food and exercise and generally stripping away any pretenses leaving nothing but truth, this year I have a different perspective on the New Year than any other year to date. Like everyone else I am So temped to want to say I'm starting a new diet, making this change or that.
WHAT? No new diet for you? No PLAN? I mean everyone HAS to have a plan going into the New Year right?! I do but it's not the plan you think. Late last night the Lord stripped away any plan I thought I was going to have. He stripped it down to one single solitary plan. He did this by showing me this verse. I didn't go to bed until 1 AM and yet still I opened my Bible. I was SO tired but the Lord wouldn't let it go. He had greater work to do than letting me sleep. This is what he showed me. And when He did I couldn't believe it. I got tears. He is perfect. And his plans to prosper me are perfect. And His Word is perfect.

[20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— [21] “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” [22] (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? [23] These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
[3:1] If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. [2] Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. [3] For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
(Colossians 2:20-3:3 ESV)

Any rule I could come up with, any diet, any resolution, would be of NO value in stopping the indulgence of my flesh! The ONLY answer is to set my mind on the Lord, on the things above, NOT on the things on the earth. In one fail swoop the Lord destroyed my towers of Babel that thought that I could be like God, doing it on my own.

There is only one resolution to be made this year, and every year from this point on. To set my eyes on the Lord. And all the things that I would love to make resolutions about will fall in place. With the Lord ALL things are possible.

ONE RESOLUTION to rule them all.

On a side note, I have a side blog that chronicles my weight loss, and journey to better health here if you're interested:
http://pursuitoftappiness.blogspot.com/

The Lord's Table Study

2010-07-05T21:25:00.000-07:00

I've posted in the past about my struggles with weight. I thought I'd share this amazing resource with those who haven't seen it. Recently I've had to come to terms with the fact that for ME weight is most definitely a spiritual issue. Lack of self-control, self-discipline, laziness, food as an idol/turning to food before the Lord in times of pain, boredom, escapism, and general giving in to the lust of the flesh, all those issues are rooted in sin, rooted in lack of relationship with the Lord Jesus.

I've tried endlessly to do this weight thing on my own, of my own power and clearly *cough cough* I am failing. I am powerless over this sin without the Lord. When I try and do it without HIM all I experience is my weakness when what I need is His strength.

There is a great Bible study online called The Lord's Table at SettingCaptivesFree.com.
Setting Captives Free also has studies on other food issues, substance abuse, s*x issues, and self-injury/cutting, etc. When you sign up you are given an email mentor who gets sent your answers, is a prayer partner, etc. for you if you want that. You can also buy a book version of that at CBD here if you like to hold things in your hand. I know I do but haven't been able to buy it yet.

They do have an eating plan that I personally do not agree with as being a true healthy way to lose weight so I don't do that. But the study itself is amazing. I hope this helps someone out there! Off to do tonight's lesson and go to bed.

The Declaration of Independence

2010-07-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read this, or haven't in a long time, as we celebrate Independence Day this weekend in the US, now's the time. Click on it below and it will take you to a readable transcript. And hey, while you're there, take a peek at the Constitution, read yourself the Bill of Rights. Have you done it since High School?

Hope everyone is enjoying the freedom to assemble together with our families and celebrate this day. We're off to the July 3rd celebration at our church complete with food, fireworks, fabulous southern gospel band, fun crafts and fellowship!

Living Math

2010-04-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how you can homeschool for years and not hear even a whisper about some of the amazing resources out there. Up until now I've taught math like most homeschoolers. We have math textbooks and then we chat about math in life. Then I read a post over at Bakers Dozen where she mentioned living MATH books. Wait. What?! So as I try and fill our schooling with more and more living books, how did I not know there were loads of living math books? So I swaggled (yeah swaggled. It's a word. And if it's not, it is now. Swaggle aka search with swagbucks) So I swaggled the Sir Cumference series she mentioned. Then I saw the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought"s and then I clawed myself out of the vortex I had been sucked into and it was closer to 2AM. Yeah. Let's not tell Clay. I'm sure I slept until 9 the next morning. Let's not tell Clay that either.

Living Math = Literature books that teach math. Literature. A book I can sit with a 6yo and read and I won't see eyes glaze over. Stores of mummies and knights. Adventure with math. Yeah, it's that amazing. Let me send you on a trip to look at loads of great math books too.

Now I think the best of the best is LivingMath.Net . LivingMath not only has a huge Living Math books resource list in all sorts of categories, it has endless ideas for math games, math websites and more. And despite having looked at that site a lot recently just discovered it offers a historical living math curriculum that while I've only read samples looks like it could be a great supplement. And the book list for it looks amazing!

Here's a little taste of the endless living math books out there:
There is a series of 6 Sir Cumference book and every one gets rave reviews!

I had to stop myself. I have so many math books on my wish list. I wanted to add 100 more! In fact I published the post and am now editing to add a couple more like the History of Counting. Hope your feed readers shows the added books. Here's a great Amazon tag list too "Teaching Math Through Children's Literature".

I think hands down one of my very favorite things about homeschooling is being able to teach my children in ways I never even imagined as a child. Off to swaggle some more so I can start buying some of these books :)

Truly Excited About School

2010-04-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

There is a moment in whatever it is where you have that "ah ha" moment. Yeah yeah I quote Oprah. Don't hold it against me. For the last 5 years I have homeschooled. We did fine. The children have learned to read. And add. The have good handwriting. They're learning grammar. We've been getting the job done. But that's what it's been. Getting the job done. And that is okay. But it's not what I always wanted for them. Getting the job done isn't enough for me. At least not right now while I'm not pregnant or sick :)

I have some friends that school with a strong Classical leaning. They are inspiring ladies to say the least. Go check them out. Dell and AmyKate truly amaze me in what they do with their lovely families with ease. Over the years I have watched and listened to what they were doing and always felt that there was no way I could school like they do. But I was always in awe of their use of living books, their children's writing, and general passion for learning.

So I went and got The Well Trained Mind from the library. I started to read and was absorbed. It was almost obsessive! I read. And read. Then it lived in the bathroom. Yeah maybe library books in the bathroom is bad form. I never thought about until this moment. *blush*. Every chance I got I read that book. Here's a link to a page that gives the basic premise. Classical Education ala WTM. It was as if the heavens parted, a lightbulb went off over my head, and everything just fell into place.

I could do this. I could teach my children the way I wanted to. I didn't have to just get the job done. I "got it". I had already started Tapestry of Grace (love love) which is a classical curriculum but I started adding in more suggestions ala WTM like copywork, narrations, memorization in younger ones, her writing suggestions for older ones, and more. My children are thriving. She explains the three stages of learning and how to teach children based on their developmental stage. Blew my mind in the clarity it brought me. I could WHY to teach my 6yo one way and why I have to teach my 10 yo differently. I understood how to teach writing. That was a biggie. I have developed this love, no PASSION, for books. I've rethought Science. And am actually thrilled about it instead of dreading change like I always do. I hate change. I do. And I am now revamping lots of things! Yeah it really was an "ah ha" moment.

But more than anything, I am excited. Which makes them excited. I am thrilled to understand how all the pieces of what we're doing work together and how that works as they get older. It's not just a day by day thing. I see our future goals more clearly now.

Budget Bit - Paperback Swap

2010-04-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

Not that I'm a series gal but I get these crazy ideas that I may talk about something having to do with budgets and cheap and free stuff more than once.

Do you use Paperback Swap? If you don't, now's the time.

PBS works like this. First sign up! Click through my link here: Kim's paperback swap referral link You list books you don't want anymore. When you first sign up, if you list 10 books you get 2 FREE credits!

When someone else wants a book you're posted, they request it from you. You print an easy printable label with their address, wrap your book in it, and mail it. You pay postage. When they receive it, you get a credit. You then request books, either ordering them if they aren't other people waiting for them, or you put them on your wish list.

On your wish list it shows how many people are ahead of you in line waiting for it. Keep adding books to your wish list, and keep posting books of your own. As your turn comes up, you get an email requesting you to confirm you still want the book and BAM the person who has it sends it to you FREE! Okay so you paid postage for other books but still... it's feels free when that long awaited book shows up in your mailbox!

Just today I got an email that one of the books on my Paperback Swap wish list was on it's way. I'm SO excited. Another great book for pennies. This is what's going to be in my box before I know it!
I'm trying to gather up a list of books to use this year for Science. I'll post about what I want to use soon. Between this and swagbucks, I've saved a lot of money. Such a blessing.

So sign up and start getting free books!

Backwoods Home Magazine

2010-04-10T18:41:00.000-07:00

A friend of Clay's bought us a subscription to Backwoods Home Magazine. We just got our first issue. I'm so excited! I've bought issues at Tractor Supply and the feed store in the past but never would go spend the money and subscribe. I'm not sure what's wrong with me but I should have years ago. Years.

If you haven't checked out Backwoods Home Magazine, click this cover of the current issue and it will take you to their website's front page where it has online versions of a few of the current issue's articles.

But on top of that, their website is a HUGE resource. On the left side with all the links are blogs of some amazing homesteaders. And archives of retired BWH bloggers. But there is my all-time favorite "Ask Jackie Clay". Jackie knows everything and she gives me confidence that I can do it. Even when it's raw packing crazy meats and canning them or canning cheese :) Or acorn stew.

BWH rocks though seriously. They cover everything from building clay ovens to harvesting acorns to building log cabins with step by step instructions to politics and guns :) Anything and everything a homesteader or dreaming homesteader thinks about is covered in this magazine.

Now just when you think it can't get better........... there's this:
THE BWH ARCHIVES

It's the insane, and I mean insane, archive list of past issues from 1998! So run over there and start clicking and reading. Meet me back here in a couple years.

Easter Pics

2010-04-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

We snapped a few pictures for Easter. Goodness I love these people!

A family pic snapped after church:

This has to be my favorite picture of the entire day. Such love there.
My big boy and little boy:
Adric reached his hand up without any prompting. It was such a sweet loving move on his part. I will always love this picture because of it.
Look at this gorgeous dude!

The kids:
What 956 of the other pictures I tried to get of them looked like:
Hope you had a blessed Sunday last week. We did.

I think I can.. I think I can

2010-04-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

Start blogging again that is. There's so much to talk about. Way too much to sit down and ramble about in one post. But I see changes coming to my blogging (IF I actually do blog of course. We all know that it's one "okay I'm going to start blogging again" post after another LOL). But I see changes coming if I do blog. One major one being talking about our homeschooling as well as homesteading. As of late I have been so inspired in the area of schooling and am excited to share what we're learning and doing. But for right now I'll throw up some pictures.

This is a great list

2010-02-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

A Brit is collecting a great and at times hilarious list of things that Global Warming, I mean Climate Change, is being blamed for.

THE LIST

Some of my favorites:
brothels struggle
fashion disaster
killer cornflakes
Italy robbed of pasta
witchcraft executions
NFL threatened

Not sure where this madness ends, but killer cornflakes and fashion disasters? Is there ANYTHING that this Global Warming, or is it Cooling, "well let's just call it Climate Change" business is not responsible for?

Homestead to Health

2010-02-03T12:28:00.000-08:00

So I'm overweight. Yeah. I said it. Oh I've said it before? Yeah well I'm still overweight. Nothing's really changed. Up until now I've tried everything. South Beach. Schwarzbein. Calorie Counting. And on and on. I've gone up. I've gone down. I've lifted weights (which I firmly believe in!) and done endless hours on the elliptical. But the life change was never really there. Not there in that it stuck.

The other day Clay and I went and worked outside. I pulled weeds in the garden. We were out for a couple hours. I felt great. I slept great. I've always said that I want to live the type of life that doesn't need ellipticals. I've heard SO many of my girl friends say it. We all want to be living a life so full of activity, a life that tries to live off the real food their growing in their gardens, so FULL that they don't need to plan elliptical time and buy diet "cheese product" (I couldn't call low fat cheese CHEESE. I just can't. It's weird.)

At this point I figure the way, the only way, for me to lose weight and live a life of good health and good body weight, will be to achieve this idea of living a life that doesn't need constant trips to the treadmill to keep it off. So I'm starting my own little series to try and keep myself motivated. If any of the 5 people who read this blog want to join along be my guest! I'll even make myself a little graphic you can use if you want.

So the idea?

A, Basically an attempt to eat how a homesteader would eat. That doesn't mean no cake ever but trying to make deliberate choices in what I make for my family and what I put in my mouth. Eat seasonally. Eat grass-fed meats and dairy. Can and dehydrate foods for leaner times. Eat whole real food. And enjoy the occasional treat as it comes along. Try and eat in a way that's intentional. Eat like one out on a homestead in the past would eat. Whole fruits, veggies, home canned foods, good healthy meats, healthy traditional fats like butter, lard, olive oil. Long soaked sourdough type breads and grains. Also in the thought process of eating like a homesteader, not eating insane amounts of food LOL. I just can't see Pa and Ma Ingalls eating 7 pieces of cake. Or eating 10 handfuls of chocolate chips. Can you?

B, work outside almost every day. And even on off days, do small outside projects like reload the wood on the porch. I need to get off my rear and make this homestead happen. A lot of projects would be done already if I had been out everyday doing them instead of in here on my rump in front of this computer. Essentially, start creating that life so full of activity that my metabolism does its job naturally. That life I was saying I wanted.

So I'm going to start keeping track of the kinds of food we eat, how to prepare certain foods, link to other's great information about fats, etc. And post the great homesteading chores I'm doing to shrink this waistline.

Real Food Challenge Week 1: Day 2

2010-02-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

Ahh now onto the good stuff! Stocking the pantry with yummy nourishing goodies! I won't paste the entire looonnggg informative email from Day 2. Go JOIN and you can get them everyday. Honestly I recommend you join even if you can't or don't want to commit right now to doing the entire challenge. Learning some simple steps, trying some new things, and generally just moving towards better health is a good thing.

Pick up some wholesome foods to help round out your pantry, replacing the processed foods you tossed (or were supposed to toss) yesterday. Remember, you needn't purchase every item on this list - this challenge isn't about spending every penny you earn on groceries; rather, pick a few items and there to round out your pantry. Choose organic, local ingredients where possible.

As I glance at this list. I am overwhelmed with how the Lord has truly blessed us in the area of food.

Natural Sweeteners* such as honey, blackstrap molasses, whole unrefined cane sugar (e.g. Rapadura / Sucanat), sorghum syrup, maple syrup.- have these :) We have probably 2 1/2 gallons of raw honey left, some maple syrup (and soon to be more since Mom has decided she likes the fake stuff better and is giving me hers. What?!), we have a gallon of blackstrap molasses, and a gallon at least of local Amish sorghum. Remember that we have been stocking up on these things slowly over time. Start small and go from there.
Wholesome fats such as unrefined olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, tallow, butter, ghee- Have these. I have a gallon or so tin of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a jug of red palm oil, and loads of butter. I'm going to look into grass fed butter. We use LOTS of butter. I don't know that I can afford healthier butter for now. We'll see. For now we get plain ole Costco butter. And lots of it. I'm out of coconut oil but usually have some.
Whole meal flours such as grain flour, sprouted grain flour, coconut and blanched nut flours - We have hundreds of lbs of whole grains and grind our own. Frankie has tricticale and kamut on her list. Hmm... off to check prices on those to start saving! New fun stuff is a good thing.
Unrefined Sea Salt such as real salt and celtic sea salt- We needed more of this. I've fallen in the trap of using the refined sea salt we have for salting meat in cooking. So I talked Mom into giving me her gorgeous gray Celtic Sea Salt. I want more. More. More.
Meat (preferably grass-fed or pasture-raised) such as beef, lamb, chicken, pork, bison, elk etc.- Meat. Glorious meat! We have lots of meat. I wish we had more grass-fed beef than we do. But we have enough to eat in once a week for a few more months. We also have some wild deer sausage. I have lots of turkeys. Yes they're not free-ranged but they were cheap and they will be enjoyed here. We're going to talk about some meat goats and chickens this year. There will be posts about it. Oh and we only can afford grass-fed beef buying it in bulk. We bought 100 and something lbs of it this last time. I hope we can save up and buy 400 lbs or so at least next time. If you look at the prices at Whole Foods and faint, start searching for a local source. It's the only way to go.
Fresh vegetables and fruit (preferably organic in season and local)- Eh we don't have loads of these. We have been sure to always have a big bag of organic carrots from Costco cause those are cheap cheap. We do have some of our own organic canned pears from last Fall. I'll have to be sure and start using those as a local yummy fruit source. I love looking at my jars of food so much I forget to actually USE them. Stupid right? But Spring is coming. We are planting the first seeds tomorrow for Spring. In a handful of months we will be brimming with insanely delicious organic produce. Praise God for gardens.
Full fat dairy (preferably raw) such as whole milk, butter, cream, cheese- Don't worry about us. We have more than enough raw yummy milk goodies. There are some things I am beyond thankful for. Raw milk is one. We will be going in with some other families to get a case of cheese making kits for half price so we will be making our first hard cheeses soon. Maybe I'll do some buttermilk, cream cheese, ricotta posts here soon.
Naturally fermented foods and beverages such as kombucha, yogurt, kefir- we do all these already. But I have let them slip some. I have some of the biggest, thickest kombucha mothers you've ever seen due to neglect. Okay. Off to brew the tea to reboot right now!

So. This was the easiest part of the challenge I think. For others it will be one of the hardest. Over the next few days we will continue to go through our pantry and get rid of processed foods from Day 1's challenge. I thought at first glance yesterday that I had done it but being honest and looking really at things, we have more than I thought. So more will be going tomorrow when I clean out the fridge and pantry.

28-day Real Food Challenge

2010-02-01T15:27:00.002-08:00

I'm starting the 28-day Real Food Challenge over at NourishedKitchen. We do fairly well here but we've let some things slip so we're going to do this (uh Clay, we're doing this just so you know). Click this lovely picture to go straight to the challenge:
The first day of the challenge may very well be my hardest. It's to clean out the pantry. I thought when I read at first that we were going to cut all processed foods out of our pantry it was going to be a breeze. But as I read more, oy, this isn't going to be as easy as I thought.

The list of things that are supposed to go:

* Vegetable Oils: Soybean, Cottonseed, Canola, Corn - this is easy. We don't have or use any of those anymore.
* Sugar: White Sugar, Brown Sugar, Turbinado, Agave Nectar (including "raw"), Sugar in the raw - I need to keep this for kombucha and water kefir. I will be talking to Clay about making a firm commitment about not using this for any other reason.
* Stevia: white stevia powder, stevia liquid - Ouch. Honestly I've known for a while that the stevia we've been using is hyper processed. But it's so good and it's been a crutch. I truly need to give it up. Part of me wants to just bury my head in the sand and pretend that this white powdered, non bitter stevia is better than Splenda. I want to pretend it's my low carb savior. It sure makes amazing low carb chocolate. Off to pull out our container of stevia leaves from our plants. This is one thing I will HAVE to grow more of next year I think. Okay. I just poured $10 worth of stevia down the drain. I feel sick to my stomach. But the time to try and stop being a health hypocrite needs to stop. Wow. So I am actually going to try and DO this thing! I think. Maybe.
* Margarine - no brainer. Couldn't pay me enough to eat margarine.
* Shortening (excluding palm shortening) - Same with this. Butter or lard for my pie crusts thank you.
* White flour: all-purpose flour, unbleached all-purpose flour, white rice flour, - Now this is where Clay and I will have to talk. It's easy to have a bucket of white flour. Sometimes I'm lazy and want to feed my sourdough starter without grinding flour. A LOT of times Clay wants cake and cookies. But I'm overweight. And tired. I need to stop this white flour, white sugar nonsense. In the last year where we started having desserts all the time instead of once a month or so we've had loads of sickness, lots of "my tummy hurts", headaches. Time to have a REAL talk to Clay about this. It's going to be a tough sell though to be honest.
* Cornstarch - I have some. But it's really out of selfishness. Adric's allergic to corn yet I keep some to use in random recipes. As I type it it leaves me a tad breathless that I've served my allergy child foods with cornstarch in it on purpose. Off to grab it and throw it away.
* Soy foods: soy sauce, soy flour, soy milk, soy lecithin, isoflavone-enriched foods and supplements - Okay this is a tad hard too. I'm so used to having it. BUT I have and believe in fermented miso. I have that and am interested in starting to learn to make it. Off to find my soy sauce. Ack. Once I went in the pantry I realized that A, I have more processed condiments in there than I realized. B, I realized that Clay won't be into getting rid of some of them like ketchup. And C, I just bought an entire big bottle of Bragg's. If I make sure I have miso, can I get rid of it without guilt? HELP again. It's painful to get rid of whole bottles of Bragg's. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about it. I'll tell you at the end of the post what I'm going to do about the Bragg's. It's from non-GMO soybeans? Doesn't that make it better? Ugh. But financially it's a lot to just get rid of. Thursday I will grab the unpasteurized Nama Shoyu they sell at our Whole Foods. Then we'll talk Bragg's.
* Dried Pastas and Noodles - don't have any and didn't order any in my last bulk food order.
* Iodized Salt - we don't use it.
* Refined Sea Salt - now we do have a big bag of this. We won't be getting rid of it because Clay wants to have it in case we need to salt large pieces of meat. I Think have found a source of bulk nice pink Redmond RealSalt for cheap. I'll have to research that. But I'll pick up some more gray yummy wet mineral rich salt at Whole Foods in the next day or so for actual use in the meantime.
* Meat & Dairy Replacements: TVP, veggie burgers, vegan cheeses, sour creams, rice and nut milks, vegan sausages - eh we don't use these.
* Processed cheeses - Clay's a big cheese guy. He won't want to live without it. This may be the one thing that won't officially be able to be changed. I'm not a miracle worker :)
* Skim and Low-fat Dairy: cheese, milk, yogurts etc. - we don't use. Hmm though we do buy processed cream cheese. But it's something we can live without and might need to learn to. Maybe start making some again.
* Boxed cereals, crackers and cookies - Another "talk to Clay" thing. He likes crackers. He has a huge box of them. BUT if I made sure that he had snacks everyday he wouldn't need them. Deviled eggs he loves. Muffins. Soaked flour muffins :) Fresh sourdough bread is his absolute favorite. So if I kept these things on hand he wouldn't crave the crackers. So will have to start planning on that so we can ditch his crackers. Maybe soaked flour crackers for that cheese he won't get rid of LOL.

Okay so I am still praying about the Bragg's. Part of me feels like Clay will be really upset if I throw it away. I'll post this week about how the conversations with Clay go about processed foods. He really doesn't feel like little bits are that big of a deal. Part of me feels that way too, but only when I want to not do what needs to be done. Ouch.

So run on over and join the Challenge. Even if you do just some of it, and make small changes they are changes. Any and all changes for the sake of your health are good and worthwhile.

Wanna see our humble abode?

2010-01-31T21:01:00.001-08:00

There it is. It's cute. And cozey. And country. And I love it.

Homestead Blessings Giveaway

2010-01-29T19:39:00.000-08:00

Kendra, at New Life on a Homestead, is giving away copies of the oh-so-fabulous Homestead Blessings Collection, by the wonderful West ladies and Franklin Springs Media. There will 8 winners who each get to pick one of these great DVDs! You can find this giveaway here. Good Luck to all who take the time to enter! :)

The blogging will commence

2010-01-14T20:41:00.000-08:00

Soon :) I had finally come to terms with the fact that I didn't really care to blog so much. BUT then Clay asked me how come I hadn't been blogging. Then the next day he told I should update the blog. Over the last few months he's asked me periodically when I was going to update it. I realized this week that A, he checks my blog, and somewhat regularly and B, that he wants me to blog. Then I had to admit that my wonderful Grandma likes it when I blog. And my so very sweet Auntie Kate loves it too. And so here we are with a start over. Sometimes we just need a do-over right? So this next week I'm updating the look of the blog and will resume blogging.

SOS Conference Giveaway!

2009-12-12T19:58:00.000-08:00

I would have given my left arm to go to this conference. But winning the Audio CDs of it would be the next best thing! Honestly the line-up of speakers is like no other conference. Voddie Baucham, Ken Ham, Paul Washer, Doug Phillips and more! We'd never have been able to attend. But you can buy the Audio CDs here: http://ncfic.org/conferenceaudiopreorder BUT first, the lovely family over at Inashoe is giving away 3 FREE sets if you follow the guidelines on their blog Inashoe . So whether you order them or get them free, it will definitely be a blessing! Wish me luck! And you luck!

Tab Check Tuesday

2009-11-24T21:50:00.000-08:00

http://livingaslights.blogspot.com/2009/11/yelling-kids-in-line-of-fire.html
Did a little tab check. Here are some random websites open in tabs in my Firefox right now. Enjoy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GarlandsOfGrace

http://visionarydaughters.com/quiz/

http://mcpactions.com/blog/2009/11/19/over-300-incredible-photography-tips-from-mcp-fans/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mcpactions+%28MCP+Actions+Blog%29&utm_content=Bloglines

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

http://bluebehemoth.com/

http://needleinahaystackstitchery.blogspot.com/

http://jenniwren32.blogspot.com/

Beauty in the little things

2009-11-23T22:48:00.000-08:00

Go here first and see her oh-so-lovely laundry room.

http://pleasantviewschoolhouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/beauty-in-laundry-room.html

Just looking at that makes laundry not seem so bad. I can see myself with sunshine beaming through the window as I iron Clay's shirt on that floral ironing board cover.

Oh to make my surrounding such that I can't stand to see them messed up. Oh to make the little things beautiful. To have my laundry soap in a cute metal bucket with a metal measuring scoop. To have large floral ribbons weaved through my laundry baskets so that when they're filled with homeless socks they aren't an eyesore but an addition to my bathroom. I want to make or really should I be wanting to SEE the areas of house as beautiful and lovely; places that I straighten up as I walk by to keep them looking beautiful.

On a side note, this is a great idea to me:
See how she uses an actual bed pillow with on the couch? How much easier would it be to try and find cute vintage pillowcases than pillows? I actually love this and will be doing it ASAP!

Honestly though. Run on over to PleasantVilleSchoolhouse. She has post after post showing the beauty in the little things of her life, of her home. Inspiring.

If you blog...

2009-11-23T21:49:00.000-08:00

There's this post. This one here at Rocks In My Dryer. Go read it. It says things like this:

"But there is undeniable part of blogging that feeds a part of us (me) that is, perhaps, not the most sensible part: the part that craves to "measure" ourselves, the part that is naturally drawn to a false sense of urgency, the part that needs to be heard even when there's not really anything to say. "

Then you move onto the comments. READ THE COMMENTS. Yes, that was a command. Heed it. But you move onto the comments and you read things like this:

It was feeding something unhealthy in me - mostly a whole lot of narcissism. It was hard to admit that to myself, that I was wasting so much time on something that was essentially just a big ego booster. It felt awfully self indulgent.

I have felt God yelling at me to 'find the quiet' (yes, I see the irony in that statement). Blogging has started to feel like a highschool clique, and I'm certainly not part of the in group. I had started to wish I was the popular blog out there instead of just enjoying writing when I was inspired and had something to say. I was starting to fret if I hadn't blogged for a few days, worried that I was losing readers.

What was supposed to be a place to practice my writing sort of morphed into a journal and then a place to complain about anythign and everything. And then suddenly, I become more concerned with catering to the people that I thought might be reading my blog and I worried about what would draw them in and keep them

Seems like lately I come across a lot of blogs where the writer starts by saying that they don't have anything to blog about however they manage to write a very lengthy post about nothing

WHY do I do this? Is it pride? Is it making friends? Is it wanting to feel interesting or needed?

My post from last night and then reading this made me think. I haven't been posting because things aren't perfect. In fact, they're far from perfect. Really far. From here to China far. I haven't been doing great things. I haven't been canning or gardening. I haven't been finally conquering the behavior problems with the kids. Or keeping the bathroom spotless because of some great inspirational cleaning routine.

I started this to document things for my family. I could have stayed on my other blog with the readers I already had. Comments everyday sure are nice and who doesn't love the pat-on-the-back of loads of comments? But I moved. To start a blog more for our family. More about our family. And SO fast I came back to this place where I was blogging for other people, and hey, NOT blogging because of other people. In the same respect, I haven't been blogging real life BECAUSE family reads this blog. Who really wants their Grandmother (Hi Gramma! IF you've gotten this far and haven't turned back because my ramblings are too weird and annoying, I'm waving to you *wave*) but who wants their Gramma to read that they just can't seem to climb Mt. Laundry?

But if I don't mention Mt. Laundry I never post. lol!

SO what's the answer? I'm not sure. Part of me wants to not blog at all. Part of me wants to just cut this internet off and be done. Part of me wants to be able to just throw it all out the window and blog like a journal. Part of me wants to limit the blog to family stuff and farm stuff with no ramblings. Who knows. I don't. I know myself well enough to know I won't stop 100%. I know myself well enough to know I won't stop being on the internet. I wish I would. But I won't. Just won't happen. BUT I need to do something about my internet addiction. Maybe that should be the first step. To step back. Now how to do that? I'm an all-or-nothing gal. I'll pray about it and talk about it tomorrow. I've been thinking and praying about this internet thing for a while.

But for now you get my "I'm doing a blog post about whether or not to do a blog post" post. Which brings me back to another great post from the original post here

(In other words, I think writing a 47-part blogging series about Why We Probably Shouldn't Be Blogging So Much might be a little disingenous, don't you think?)

Hmm... blogging about why I blog. Blogging about whether to blog. Spending time on the internet debating whether to be on the internet. Ever wonder if because you're wondering you should just get up and stop?

See ya.

Late night bits

2009-11-22T22:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. And I know why. I don't want to admit it, but I do. At first glance it feels like I have the whole "I have nothing interesting to blog about" syndrome. But deeper, it's not that. Not that at all.

I know I'm not the only one who feels like I do. Like at the end of every day there is disappointment. Just that feeling of not having given 100%. The feeling of not having done enough, not tried hard enough, been selfish, been on the computer too much, or too much tv. Too many times where a child had to ask me something 4 times before I responded. Too many times where I said "no". "No" we can't play a board game. "No" you can't play playdough. "No" you can't sit on my lap. Too many dishes undone before bed. Too much laundry piled up. Too many chores undone. Too many times I was not the mother the Lord wants me to be. Too many times I was not the wife the Lord wants me to be. Too many times I didn't speak with kindness. Too many times I was actually mean. Too many times where I saw behaviors in the children I did not address. Too many times where I saw my behavior mirrored in their behavior. Too little prayer. Too little time in the Word. Too many times where guiding was really nagging. Too much laziness.

I'm sure by now you get it. And no, it's not a pity party. It is what it is. At the end of the day when I usually blog, it feels fake to talk about the little things done when everything else is left undone. It feels fake to do homemakery posts when I feel like a struggling homemaker. Same with fun children stuff when all day I was a "No" Mom.

So I'm going to work on crocheting this snood for myself, wait for Clay's clothes for work to dry (yeah he needs clean clothes for tomorrow and there's none in the closet. Sue me) and then set the alarm to go off at a reasonable time, spend time in the Word and start afresh tomorrow with a new Make and Share Monday scrapbooking post and you can pretend this didn't happen.

Odds and Ends

2009-11-14T23:08:00.001-08:00

A few minutes before bed to blahbitty blah blah.

A, have you been getting turkeys? Cheap turkeys? What? You haven't? It's pre-Thanksgiving time people. Right now at Walmarts all over the country there have been reports of 40 cents a lb turkeys. The turkeys have been around $5.50. Yeah 5 big bucks. Now there's a 2 turkey at a time limit. Over the last few days we've gotten 8. I sure wish I lived closer to town. I want 30 total. It's not looking good. But I've got my mom on the turkey hunt and she's going to be getting me 2 a day when they have them. Go Team Mom!

And in case you didn't know, turkeys are great. Yeah I wish I could afford nice free range turkeys (we raised our own this year, and unfortunately didn't take good enough care of our baby turkey poults this Spring) but at $40+ a turkey for free range, it's not in the budget. But 5 BUCKS?! Dude. And turkeys go so far. Far far far. See next paragraph. :)

So we cooked a turkey today. Actually it's me cleaning out all of last year's turkeys. We had a huge Thanksgiving turkey meal. Ahh the wonders of my mom coming and making homemade stuffing with sausage and mushrooms. Yum. But we ate loads of turkey. Then I stripped loads of turkey meat off. LOTS of it. And I put the carcass in the crock pot for soup. I easily have 2 full meals worth of shredded turkey meat. And more for soup. All those meals include a full dinner, lunch for Clay, and leftovers for us at home the next day. So that's how many meals? 8 meals in total? For $5 for the meat? Understand now why I want so many? 2 turkeys a month. Wouldn't want one every week cause we'd get sick of them, but every other week? Go budget, it's your birthday.....

What's that sound? You running to Walmart? Pick me up one while you're there eh?

*note* some Walmarts have been selling out of turkeys. The manager told my mom to call ahead of time. Might be worth a call if you live 30-45 minutes away like we do.

*note 2* if I were a cool blogger I would have taken a picture of the turkey and crock pot and whatnot. Does it ever feel ODD to take pictures of things like cutting meat off a turkey carcass? Sometimes it feels way too weird. When you're ripping tendons and hacking away at the turkey it feels pretty full of myself to take pictures of that grossness and feel like people will care about them. **Then I type out my post and wish I had taken the weirdness, narcissistic pictures to make my blog post look cool.**

B, Forget my old Last Hoorah post. I've had many of them in the last week. I'll touch on that Monday. Or late tomorrow night. Blasted weight loss. I hate it. Why can't I look like a goddess at 200 lbs? Why? Or live in one of those countries where they love their women fat? Now that, THAT would be nice. To weigh 200 lbs and be thought of as the most attractive woman in the room. Okay I don't seek to have men look at me, in fact I try to dress modestly so they don't. And the heavier I am the harder it is to dress modestly and feminine. It's not easy to find feminine modest clothes at Goodwill. So maybe the other country business would be even worse? um...No. It wouldn't. Where ARE these magical places people talk about anyways? And anyone want to make me some nursing jumpers or find some XL blouses for me at Goodwill? Okay. THis is it. So this is the LAST Last Hoorah Day LOL! Time to lose this weight. It wasn't so bad really. Some homemade stevia chocolate before bed. But let's not forget that I ate a plate and a half of Thanksgiving dinner. Even it being 5 hours ago and it was still Last Hoorah worthy. If I lived in that magical Fatland would I eat Thanksgiving every week? Do you think women specifically TRY to get fat there and being skinny is considered the state in which women are to strive to not be? That would be weird right? "Ew look at how skinny she is. Blech. Honey I love your fat." Okay enough. Must go to sleep. Can you see my tiredness morphing into madness? Eh... ignore my ramblings. This is just the tiniest glimpse into the rambling nonsense that makes my sweet rational, reasonable husband roll his eyes at me :) I love him.

C, Why am I up this late? Oh yeah, babies who don't sleep. Or prefer staying up until 1am and then sleeping til 9. I've never had a baby sleep through the night before the age of 2! And here I have this baby that sleeps 8 hours at night. But seriously me not being able to go to sleep until 1-2am isn't a huge help. I really need to buckle down and get working on him going to bed earlier. The first key is... NO, I don't want to say it. I can't. Sigh. Getting him *cough Me cough* up earlier.

D, Thanks mom for coming over and making a pre-Thanksgiving meal with me.

E, and because I read something that said people hate blog posts without pictures... I leave you with this. Garrison...
And that headdress thing was brought back from Egypt, real Egypt by my mom. Why Garrison is wearing it and why he looks so grumpy in all the pictures I found of him wearing it, I don't know. But it just feels like this post. That's what I should be wearing right now as I typed it. And I leave with that look on my face.

Sleep. Must. Find. It.

Our Hospital Stay....

2009-11-13T19:45:00.000-08:00

I've been missing this last week or so. You know you were thinking I was going to get back into the blogging almost every day thing again. And I am. Unless we're in the hospital with the baby that is!

Early last week Cassie and Adric had a little bout of something or another. They both had little fevers. But it all lasted just a day or two. Adric was sick for only about 12 hours! But because of the baby, my great mom came and took the fevery children away from the house until they were well.

Thursday Garrison had a little of an off day. He slept most of the day. But Friday he was feeling fine so I just figured, hey, normal baby stuff. But then Saturday mom came over and we were going Goodwilling. But Garrison wasn't feeling so great. He was fussy fussy. He would fuss when I picked him up instead of being comforted when I picked him up. I realized he was hot. So I took his under arm temperature. It was 101.5. I immediately called the on call nurse for the pediatricians and she said "Take him to the Emergency Room right now". Sigh. Just what every mom with a 5 week old needs to hear to make her a worried mess.

So we went.

And it turns out that with babies that age, it's a 100% "Better Safe Than Sorry" policy. Because newborns can go downhill so fast when things ARE serious, they treat things like they are serious until they find out they're not. So they take a spinal tap, blood and urine to culture all three to rule out any sort of bacterial type infection.

Ahh spinal taps in little babies. Not the best thing to watch. But I'm not one to be squeamish, so I watched all his procedures. Did you realize that little itty bitty babies have litty itty bitty veins? Yeah, 2 HOURS, 4 sticks, and 10+ people later, Hartley got his IV in. And he was a tad too dehydrated from his fever to get spinal fluid. He'd need ANOTHER spinal tap later. Great...

I did get to go in an ambulance. They transferred us from our local hospital to the Children's Hospital in Nashville. Mandatory 48 hour stay. There they did another spinal tap, got all his IV antibiotics going and by 2:30AM we were in a room. Poor Clay. He probably got to sleep at 3:30 and his alarm went off at 5 to go to work.

So I spent the next two days in the hospital. Let me just say, it's like Grand Central Station in the hospital room of a baby. All.... night.... long..... And let me also say that antibiotics make my baby Hartley gassy. And that gassy Hartleys stay up most of the night fussing.

Oh and they also give you meals if you're breastfeeding the baby. Nice. And you get to order off a stacked huge menu. Nice again. And let me give you an idea of how good the food is. I ordered PORK LOIN in the hospital. Twice. And it was fantastic.

But after 2 days, the cultures came back fine and we were discharged! I've spent the last week glad for a baby with no fever, trying to get the children back into normal life, and get my sleep schedule better again.

To all my friends and family that prayed for Hartley and sent well wishes, it was more than appreciated. Love you.

Back to regular blogging tomorrow.

Beautiful Results!

2009-11-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

Okay sometimes we need God to show us that what we're doing is working, that what we're doing is important. I'm so dorky to be excited about this right?

So since I originally typed my beauty post, which was a handful of days before posting it, I really have been trying hard to get the house in order and just looking nice. This morning I awoke to THIS email:
Making an effort in the little things does NOT go unnoticed even if you never get a thank you email.

What is even more lovely to me is how working on the little details adds to the big picture, making Clay think to thank me for the things I have done for a long long time.

There are some things I normally do to show Clay how much I love and appreciate him. I gather Clay's clothes before bed so at 4:30 in the morning he can just walk in the bathroom and take a shower. He has an ironed shirt everyday. And I make his breakfast and lunch everyday. I make a container of oatmeal, a quart of unsweet tea, a quart smoothie with raw milk and strawberries, a lunch, and now that he's working until 9:30 at night, a dinner as well. And I set up his coffee maker, grinding the beans, setting it up so her can just turn it on, setting out a coffee cup.

And if you rolled your eyes thinking how old-fashioned that all is, and how I'm giving into male/female stereotypes, that's good!

Menu for Nov. 6-12

2009-11-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

Here's our weekly menu to soothe those who have been waiting on the edge of their seats for our menu since I mentioned it a couple days ago.

Friday:
Breakfast: Sweet Rice (leftover brown rice simmered with milk, cinnamon, vanilla & honey until the rice is soft, then beaten eggs mixed in to thicken)
Lunch: Bean salad with an open faced PB&J
Dinner: Black beans and brown rice with salsa
Tomorrow's Prep: Start sourdough, soak oatmeal, reboot kefir, get pita recipe written on card for recipe box for morning

Saturday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Vanilla Kefir
To Do: Make Pitas and bread
Lunch: Beans and rice leftovers (Clay will be at work) with kombucha
Dinner: Creamy Garlic Potato Soup with my sourdough bread
Tomorrow's Prep: Make Pitas, Start Sourdough IN pans so can bake first thing in morning, soak lentils, kefir grains in fridge, make quiches

Sunday:
Breakfast: Mexican Scrambled Eggs with my sourdough bread
Lunch: Pitas with hummus and coconut curry lentils
Dinner: Quiche
Tomorrow's Prep: Set up baked oatmeal before bed,

Monday:
Breakfast: Baked Oatmeal
Lunch: PB&J on sourdough
Dinner: Turkey and Mashed Potatoes and our yummy canned green beans
Tomorrow's Prep: Reboot kefir, soak pintos, soak oatmeal

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Kefir
To Do: Make tortillas
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Shredded Turkey with beans and homemade tortillas, reboot kefir, soak oatmeal, start sourdough, put turkey carcass in crock pot

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Kefir
Lunch: Cream cheese scrambled eggs (made by a 9yo)
Dinner: Turkey Soup with my sourdough bread

Thursday:
Breakfast: Homemade granola with homemade yogurt
Lunch: In town.
Dinner: Red curried cabbage and carrots over brown rice(unless I see my mom before then and get the red curry paste I left at her house. Then I'll do it earlier in the week cause I'm craving it!)

To see the beauty....

2009-11-06T06:59:00.000-08:00

Clay loves Fall. He loves it. Every time we step outside he revels in the beauty of the colors of the trees. He'd live somewhere that was Fall all the time. I can see awe in his eyes at God's creation.

And there's me, looking, thinking it's pretty and all, but...

There was a time as a young wife that I was SO focused on bringing beauty to every area of our lives. At that time, Clay and I lived in a schoolbus. It was a rockin' long schoolbus. And I made it home. We had a bed, a dresser, a rod for our hung clothes. It had a wood stove and a propane stove and oven. It had recliners and a small couch and a bookshelf. Everywhere you looked you could see touches of beauty I had tried to instill in our little humble abode. Curtains, doilies hung over backs of chairs, random little things here and there that as a new wife were my ways of showing love for Clay and bringing beauty to our simple lives.

After we moved here to TN, as a young wife I wore lovely skirts and dresses everyday. I did my hair and wore a nice floor length floral apron. We lived in a.. hmmm what's the word for it? Very hillbilly looking shack I mean house. And still again it was lovely in it's way. I had nice curtains, throw blankets on our free stained couches to try and cheer them up, a nice green rug on the floor, everywhere again there was me trying to bring beauty in the little things.

Now as Clay looks with wide eyes at the glory of the leaves changing color I sit and ask myself "Where's the awe?". As I sit in my nonfeminine grey sweat pants, needing a shower, with not a single picture of my children on the walls, and ask myself again....

"Where's the awe?"
(okay it's not a picture of Fall, but man, the beauty of that simple little creek running over rocks!)

Where's the awe in how amazing it is that the Lord blessed me with a husband to love and care for, truly amazing children to train and love on, a home in the country to tend, just a life that is so overflowing with blessings I can't number?

Somewhere amidst laundry piles, dirty walls, diapers to change, tangles to comb out and school to do I forgot to look around and see the beauty in life. And it shows. I no longer get up and put on lovely feminine clothes. I no longer leave scriptures in Clay's lunch. I no longer try and make little corners of my house lovely. I no longer plan meals ahead to be 100% sure we have nutritious meals for our family. I no longer keep the house in the beauty that is order and cleanliness. I no longer make it a priority to keep my body beautiful and slim.

I've officially let myself go. And everything else in a way. I've stopped appreciating the beauty in an organized closet, in not only clean dishes but an empty dishdrainer (*gasp*), in a mopped floor (do people actually still DO that?), I've stopped appreciating the beauty of straightened books on a shelf, of colored leaves strung on strings around the house for Fall (do I have to actually DO that now that I've posted it? *help*).

I've heard it a gazillion times about learning to love homemaking, learning to love the little things like laundry and dishes. Honestly I don't love those things. I may never. BUT I purpose to start seeing the beauty in them well done. To look in the mirror with a nice skirt on in the morning and see the beauty the Lord sees in me, that Clay does. I purpose to not just look in the mirror and see the overweght woman, he one that doesn't need to look nice because what difference does it make? I purpose to smile when I smooth out wrinkles in our bed in the morning. I purpose to cover that bulletin board with pretty fabric and hang it up. I purpose to empty the dishdrainer, wipe down the counter and see it's beauty.

When I think of the Lord's creation, the tiny details He made with such loving care, I am reminded that I need to treat the little details of life with such loving care whether it's combing tangles out of 8yo hair or stacking cups in the cabinet. Beautiful.

Red Shirt Fridays

2009-11-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

Red Shirt Friday is a symbol of unity of support for our solders who have given their lives and their freedoms so we might enjoy ours.

Red Shirt Friday is not just to give thanks to the thousands that have died for us. It is also for the millions that have served our country, our serving our country now, and to the millions that have supported our brave military.

It is for the loved ones that have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for our benefit. Mothers, wives, brothers, sisters, children, and relatives.

It is for the friends neighbors, communities, organizations, states and our nation that suffer from our loss.

It is for all of the ones that are serving now and have served.

Our Homeschool 2009-2001 -Part 1

2009-11-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

I am going to do a few posts about what we're doing this coming year. Actually our year goes from about Jan-Jan since we school year round. The Winter is when the children seem to switch to new books. But since I read many a homeschool blog post this Fall, I, being one that always gives into peer pressure figured it was time :) I'm going to break these into a couple posts. I'll post what we're using, why we like it and where to get it.

Math first. Seems there's always more talk about math than anything else. Maybe phonics, but math still seems to be the one people debate more, have strong opinions about, and doubt whether they're using the right thing, the most. We as a family use Math U See. I LOVE it. I won't say I haven't had my moments where I considered switching, but the fact that my children love it and thrive on it always keeps me on track with it.

MathUSee is definitely in the middle of all homeschool math debates for a reason. There's also a reason SO many homeschoolers use it. It's different. It's succeeding where for many children, the same old math was not. MUS (Math U See from now on in this post) is different for a few reasons. A, it's visual and tactile. It teaches learning using blocks all the way up through higher math. Being able to see and touch and build using manipulatives helps the brain visualize math. So it's good for those great at math. AND it's good for those who struggle with math. That makes it a great fit for the homeschooling family that will have children all over that map.
The blocks:
B, it focuses on the how and WHY you solve a certain problem a certain way. It's not just about learning how to do something but why you use a certain method, why you are doing what you're doing. I've learned a lot already and Frankie's only in 4th grade.
C, and perhaps the most important and controversial part of MUS, is that it uses the mastery method instead of the spiral method. Normally math is taught via the spiral method. Spiral programs introduce a variety of topics without expecting children to fully understand them. With repeated exposure and continuous review, children are expected to learn and master all necessary concepts. BUT with the mastery method, which I LOVE, a child masters a concept before moving onto a new concept. So you would master addition before moving to subtraction. So you would learn addition, then multiple digit addition before even starting subtraction. Then you would master subtraction, complicated subtraction, before moving onto multiplication, and so on and so forth. I love that my children are actually getting to cement an idea, cement what they've learned before being expected to move onto a totally new topic. They have 3, yes three, pages per lesson (each page has word problems too!). So if your child needs more than just the standard one day on a subject (like most children) they have 3 lesson pages, three days, to do the lesson. Then, it has 3 systematic review pages for each lesson. SO not only do they review past lessons and books (which people worry about) they also get more lesson practice if they need it. And of course lastly, the fact that we USE addition to subtract, that we use it to multiply. Just because we already did addition, it doesn't mean that the children don't use it every day.

Another worry is about the fact that schools use a spiral method so children aren't always in the same place testing wise, or won't have learned the same thing school children have at the same time. Don't worry! It all comes out in the wash. They WILL all learn the same things, they just learn them at different times. So while a public schooled child in one grade would have learned single digit addition and subtraction, our MUS children would have learned addition and double digit addition that year. But the next year the school children would learn double digit addition and subtraction, our MUSers would learn single and double digit subtraction. So after a couple years everyone's learned the same things. And my homeschooling goals do not include mimicking the public school system's goals, so I don't worry about it anyways.

MUS also comes with a DVD that has Mr. Steve Demme teaching each lesson up with a white board. My children just put the DVD in the computer, watch their lesson and that's it. Now I do have to teach now and then :) but Frankie especially doesn't need me at all. The DVD is all he needs. So if you aren't sure about teaching math, then this is great for you.

Check out a free demo here:
http://mathusee.com/demo.html

That was longer than I expected! Maybe I'll just stop with that for now.

Wednesday's Visual Things To Do

2009-11-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly I really enjoyed doing the pictures of the messy areas yesterday. It was quite motivating! I found myself working in things when I normally would be poking around on the computer. Be sure to check out yesterday's post as I updated as I went along. So.... we're trying round 2. But this round is scarier. Honestly. I have messes that easily trump the ones from yesterday. Ones that I cringe at the thought of taking pictures of. But here goes...

Blue desk Before:

Laundry take 2 Before:

Okay this one's going to hurt! The upstairs. This was just allowed to get totally out of control the end of my pregnancy and this last month with the new baby. Out. Of. Control. Thankfully I had Frankie take the picture and he didn't capture a good half the room lol! Sheepishly hitting Enter... Before: Status - DONE!

And the After:

Make quiches to have ready for tomorrow's dinner.

These three things I will post about here soon!
Reboot kefir

Reboot kombucha

Feed sourdough starter

Write out menu for the next week

Take shower. NO before here because an unshowered Mommy is not a good sight. Honestly.

Change sheets. We won't do a before of that because well... who wants to see my used sheets anyways?

Okay off to work!

Tuesday's Things To Do

2009-11-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

Last night Cassie and Adric both had fevers so my amazing Mom drove 45 minutes to come pick them and take them to her house to keep the baby safe in case of them having the flu. Thankfully they're feeling better this morning, with Cassie only having a slight fever this morning. They're still there and enjoying being spoiled by their Nana. We all like a little Nana spoiling now and then right?

That leaves me with Frankie (9), Garrison (2), and the baby. I'm kind of letting Frankie have a free day today. He will work with me tonight on the kitchen but for now he's having a free day. The baby's asleep and Garrison's laying down for a nap.

So now what do I do?! I'm never without children. And it's not just not having lots around to deal with arguments or boo-boos or special drawings to look at. But it's also not having them to HELP me with the things I need done. I am looking around at some things and I realize I never clean them! Like the bathroom. I only do once in a blue moon and it's when I'm doing deep cleaning with Bleach and tea tree oil. Or straightening the blue desk. Or anything on the floor :) What a blessing having older children is in terms of house cleaning. They all make more mess but they sure clean well too!

On top of it, Clay's working late (until 9 or 9:30pm). I miss him so when he's gone.

*note* to make myself actually DO this, and for some sort of accountability, I'm going to post before and after pictures of some of these areas. Kind of scary posting this for all to see. But hey, I'm not perfect. And um... Grandma.... ignore the pictures of the mess. Just come back later to see the pictures of my nice clean house. Got to keep up appearances and all.

So the plans for today:

Watch V the series that's on Sci Fi today :) DONE! LOL!

Deep clean the kitchen counters. - DONE! Before:
After:

Clean out the baking pan cabinet, wiping and reorganizing. Before: status - job for tomorrow.

Clean bathroom (not sparkling, but normal day to day cleaning). - DONE! Before:
And After:

General straighten - DONE!

Fold all the laundry. Before: - status report: In fact that laundry pile grew more than twice it's size! It now fills the whole couch AND the coffee table has three laundry baskets of clean laundry on it. Now how did THAT happen?

Put laundry away

Straighten living room bookshelf. - DONE! Before:
After:

Cut out the pieces of Cassie's skirt - didn't even think about this! There most definitely wasn't time to find to do this. I wish I would have though!
Twirly Skirt Free and Easy Pattern and Instructions

Okay off to start. I'll be back to post after pictures as they come!

String Figures

2009-11-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

How we got to this place I don't know. On one hand we are moving more and more to being as self-reliant as we can. Cutting way back on electricity, line drying our clothes, heating with wood, growing as much of our own food as we can, and yet we are all tied to technology, bad. TV, computers, video games. Bad.

None more than I am. But that is for another post coming soon.

As a result of seeing this more and more, I've been trying to be more active in turning their minds away from the tv. I've been trying to remember and seeking out those simple fun games and toys that my kids can play that require little more than a string or ball.

Remember String Figures? While my childhood was the real beginning of the video game revolution (yes I spent way too many hours playing Atari, and then way too many days and weeks playing Nintendo as a kid) I still think back and there are so many simple pleasures we enjoyed as children.

We've started learning string figures. Cat's Cradle, Jacob's Ladder, Teacup and Saucer, and there's a million more we have yet to learn.

What's amazed me is how much they LOVE it! They each have their length of string they take with them everywhere constantly doing Jacob's Ladder. Here's a proud String Figurer :)
I remember Jacob's Ladder and Cat's Cradle from my childhood, but we did watch a YouTube video about it to double check :) Here's some links to some YouTube videos:
Sweet YouTube Videos by a nice young man

And here's a great site. It looks like it will take some getting used to and learning the symbols, but there are LOADS of great ones there that the kids are excited to learn.

Fabulouso String Figure Website

Yeah you know you love toys that are nothing but a scrap of yarn. You can thank me later.

Excuse the mess

2009-11-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

While I work on a new template :)

Make and Share Monday & A Sweet Baby

2009-11-01T10:32:00.000-08:00

Another entry for Make and Share Monday. Now I know that last month Kristy said she quit doing Make and Share Monday but I'm not one to follow directions. So pop on over to her blog and pester her about where her crafty Monday goodies are. While I'm working on some other crafty things, as usual I have some scrapbook pages to show. Honestly it's been beyond hard to find time to scrap this month, with the new baby and all. I also knit the baby a hat and I'll post that too :)

I was going to start with the scrap pages but man, this face..... I can hardly stand looking at it, it's so gorgeous. Here's two of the sweet things I made recently. This light blue knit baby hat and the lovely squishy baby underneath. If this picture doesn't make you ache for a baby, I don't know what to say.
Second, if you don't read with a feeder, you would have already seen my next crafty thing. I redid my blog template. I wanted to learn to do those static templates you see floating around everywhere. So here it is :)

It's been a while since I posted a couple scrapbook pages. Here's a couple of the new baby:

Everything from these layouts (and most of my blog design though not all) is from a great store called Scraporchard. The ladies there are super friendly and outgoing so if you're looking for a nice place to hang out and learn how to scrap and of course a great store filled with amazing scrap goodies, SO is on that list! I'm actually a team member there and have been blown away by just how wonderful the ladies that call that their scrap home are. I've worked at a number of digital scrapbook stores, but honestly from the minute I started on the team there I've really been overwhelmed with how good hearted everyone is. Was a HUGE added bonus for making it on their team.

If you have any questions about digiscrapping, he sure to comment and I'll answer next Monday. I'm going to start work again on some tutorials about getting started scrapping. Until next Monday...

Homeschool Science warning dead animal picture

2009-11-01T08:41:00.000-08:00

Who needs a Science book when Daddies come home with this beauty found dead in the road. Note..... picture of dead owl ahead. In theory Gramma you won't be reading this since you saw the title first thing. Hopefully...

Originally when they saw it in the road they thought it was a hawk and threw it in the back of the truck. But when Clay brought the kids out they saw it was an owl. The kids were wide-eyed as they looked at the claws and beak. Cassie, our resident feather collector, got a huge owl feather to add to her collection. Clay and Frankie told the story about how there were two dead rodents right by the dead owl and how they looked like were run over together. Frankie felt like it told a "story" about how the owl was chasing the rodents and swooping down to get one when the car came.
Clay's face says "I'm holding a dead thing". Doesn't it?

Wow those claws really were something. Oh the creatures God has made.I think looking at the face is what made me feel sad that the owl was dead. Owls are amazingly beautiful, so unique in the look of their face. It was fascinating and sad at once.

While he supposedly brought this for the kids to see, the most excited to check it out was Daddy. It made the children more excited about it. As parents we really need to show excitement for learning for our children to have excitement for learning. Clay and I searched online until we found out what kind of owl it was. The children were most excited in this whole process when they saw a picture of what the own looked like alive. Their little brains put it all together then and I could see light bulbs go off. It is a Spotted Owl.

Clay then went to throw the owl off into the woods. Somehow he managed to get it stuck in a tree. So there the owl sits on a branch overlooking the side road. I don't even want to know what it will look like in a month. Eek.

Honestly I hate to see such majestic creatures getting killed in the road. But it's important to seize these little learning opportunities when they come.

My Last Hoorah

2009-10-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

We all have done it. The last hoorah. You know what I’m talking about. The night before your new diet, and all bets are off. The night before the new diet. Pizza at 10 at night, followed by a couple cookies, the bottom of a strawberry milkshake (okay smoothie but still) a bowl of ice cream. And on and on. I mean tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of your life and all that jazz right?

Until tomorrow comes :)

Then you screw up and eat whatever. Yesterday’s long awaited tomorrow just became the new last hoorah because you’re starting OFFICIALLY this time, tomorrow. And you just had two, count em two, binge nights. Then two turns into three and instead of skinnier from this new diet, your new diet made you GAIN 10 lbs.

Help. I need to stop. Tomorrow’s the beginning of the best of the best food life. I hope. Well either way, tomorrow’s the beginning of no more last hoorahs. It may not be a perfect eating day but it won’t be a last hoorah day.

I hope.

Hey wait does that make today’s last hoorah the last hoorah of last hoorahs?

Help. I need help.

Blogging is an interesting thing

2009-10-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

I used to have a blog, long ago, that had a much larger and loyal (now note I didn't say MORE loyal!) audience. I loved that blog in so many ways. One is because my audience was different than what I perceived my audience to be when I switched to this blog. There were things I posted there daily that somehow didn't become part of my postings here. I didn't ever really stop and think about it purposefully. But over time I found myself posting less and less on this blog where on my other blog I blogged regularly. With a focus here on mostly homesteading, I had stopped posting unless there was a picture, I stopped posting about the simple things of our days, I stopped posting about weight, and what we ate, homeschooling, God, and on and on. I had stopped posting about most of what made me me and what made our life one that is my joy. What have I been thinking? I should just give it up if I'm not going to be all of me. What fun is that anyways? You're missing out on how utterly cool I am. Well and crazy and you'll get that too as I get back to posting about the realities of our life. But ce la vie. What's cool without a little crazy anyways?

I hear women talking about blogging all the time. They don't feel they have anything worthwhile to say. They make comments about how no one's reading their blog anyway... Many of us have felt blog jealousy at either how perfect someone's life 'looks', how gorgeous their blog is, how successful their blog is, honestly it's never ending. As women our insecurities come blazing out guns loaded for lots of us when it comes to our blogs. When honestly the blogs we really love the most are women (or men) just being THEMSELVES. So how did I get where I wasn't just BEING? Not just being myself but just being? Bah. Stupid self-conscious self.

After having started this and not having the chance to return to finish it, honestly it made me chuckle to see how flawed and neurotic I can be. Blogging? Ah yes, something definitely worth fretting and overthinking right? :) :) :) You'd think I didn't have children and animals and weight and homeschoooling to overthink and fret about. Well at least I got a momentary self-conscious, overthinking, not-really-that-deep ramble off my chest so that I can move on to blogging the way I want. Blogging about the things that matter to me whether they matter to anyone else. Blogging because I want family to know about our lives. Blogging because I have friends that do as well. Blogging because I want to write memories down before they're gone. Blogging because there's a community of online bloggers that I enjoy being a part of. Blogging because I love my life and hope that a glimmer of the joy of my life helps someone be able to see the joy in theirs. Blogging because it gives me a chance to get some of my neurotic ramblings somewhere then just unloaded on my hardworking not-too-verbal husband who lovingly listens to me go on and on. Enjoy lol! AND you know you love a good neurotic Christian homesteading homeschooling lack of sleep having needing to lose weight Mom ramble. You know you do. Admit it.

Something I never would have imagined I'd say

2009-10-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

"It does NOT make you look cool to not like Butternut Squash" - said to Frankie this week.

Who turned off the heat?

2009-10-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

in the South? It's cold. We went from 77 last week to not getting over 40 yesterday. I actually love Winter and the cold. Much better than the horrible sweltering heat. But this year there wasn't really a transition from warm to cold. I think Fall came while I was having a baby. I went into the hospital and it was hot hot and came out and the leaves were changing. The leaves are all falling from the trees, the cold is here and it's supposed to be 20 degrees tonight! The last of the squash will die off tonight.

But there's an upside to all this cold. This gorgeousness.... one of my all time favorite things...

There's just nothing like the smell of a woodstove. When I got up this morning Clay had already started the fire. Walking down the stairs to that faint smell was heavenly. Now I admit I wanted to still be sleeping (I have a 3 week old that thinks he should be wide awake until 2am) but that smell made me smile. And the heat. Oh the heat. It's just different. Central heat and air is great but it doesn't feel like heat. It keeps the house warm but there's not warmTH. Wood is warmTH. Love it. Seeing children sitting all around the stove sharing a book because it's the warmest spot in the house is just nice. Coming in from the cold to put your hands above the stove to warm them up is just nice. The sounds of crackling wood, snaps, pops of wood in the stove, is just nice. I can't wait to get the wood cookstove hooked up. You'll never hear the end of my love affair with wood then :)

And of course, I can't not post another sweet Hartley picture. He is changing so fast that in each picture I take he looks different than the last! Okay this picture makes me chuckle. He looks like a sweet happy piglet to me in this picture. Oink. Love when they're all cute and piglety and have those upturned breastfeeding noses and make little piglet grunting noises. I could eat him up. Not like pork of course. But in a "I could just eat those toes right up" kind of way :)

Love you Hartley dude.

Welcome Hartley Clay

2009-10-16T19:20:00.000-07:00

Yes long time no blog. But there's a great reason for the couple months off. Promise!

I'm so honored to be able to introduce our sweet angel, Hartley Clay. He was born September 29th :) He was a big guy - 10 lbs. 8 oz.! He 's huge honestly. He's two and a half weeks old and is just a giant baby doll! I've been taking loads of pictures, but for today here's the first couple pictures of his life. The B&W is him at two days old, and the color at closer to a week. Funny, to me he doesn't even look like those pictures anymore! They grow SO fast.

He's such a sweet and wonderful person. His one and only flaw is his desire to be awake from 9:30pm to 2am, leaving his Mommy tired tired. But he'll grow out of it. And if I could resist the overwhelming need to lay down in the middle of the day due to his late night activities, I could probably convince him to have a mid day long wake time that would help his schedule smooth out faster. But man... that mid day laying down time... it's precious.

On an up note, I am going to be resuming real blogging here soon. I've had a blogging epiphany and just a desire to start blogging again.

Frankieism of the day

2009-09-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Frankie: "If I don't eat soon my arteries will become disabled and I will die".

Thankfully his mom rescued him from this life-threatening condition.

A sweet little giveaway

2009-09-09T20:52:00.001-07:00

Over at the Seven Sisters blog. I love finding little blog gems. Today someone sent me over to check out their mother's blog Never a Dull Moment. What a wonderful blog that is. What a love of the Lord she has and it shines through in her words. Through her blog of course I found her daughters' blog Seven Sisters. My Cassie came over immediately looking at the pictures of these gorgeous modest Christ-centered young ladies with a smile on her face. Then I read through many of their posts and was touched my how sweet and kind and lovely they are.

They are having a sweet, sweet giveaway that I want to win but want you to enter too :) :)

They are giving away this pretty little hand-embroidered journal:

So breeze on by their blog and be amazed at the grace of these young women and enter their contest. Seven Sisters Blog.

In case you didn't know

2009-09-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Michelle Duggar has a blog!

http://blogs.discovery.com/tlc-michelle-duggar-blog/

Fun stuff.

Real Food Wednesday

2009-09-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

I think this is my first Real Food Wednesday contribution though I've taken pictures before with the plan of doing it. We all know how that goes around here. I can't seem to find whether there's a theme for this week so I'm winging it. I also can't find the Mr. Linky for it so I'm still just moving forward. If you have never checked out a Real Food Wednesday, it's hosted alternating weeks at http://www.cheeseslave.com/ and http://kellythekitchenkop.com So run over and check out all their Real Food Wednesday posts. Their posts are packed with information and you will find insane amounts of great recipes and info on the blogs that participate each week.

This is an old standby recipe that I LOVE but haven't made in a while. I've already eaten these up from the pictures and am making more today. Yum. They're fantastic, a little different, high in protein and fat and great for pregnant ladies, children and everyone else.

*note I kind of suck at this so I kept forgetting to take pictures of me actually DOING anything lol. Next time I'll have Frankie be my photographer. He'll be thrilled.*

Halvah Balls
What you need:
Sesame Seeds. I prefer the brown ones with the hull still on.
Coconut oil, preferably virgin coconut oil but whatever you have.
Sweetener, whether it's raw honey or stevia or maple syrup. Whatever floats your boat.
Coffee grinder
optional: spirulina

Start by taking your sesame seeds.
In small batches, grind the sesame seeds in the coffee grinder until fine. IF you choose to add spirulina put small amounts in the coffee grinder AS you grind the seeds so it mixes in well and easily. I grind until I have a handful of cups worth. Maybe 4 cups worth a batch or so. As each batch is done in the grinder, pour into a large bowl.

Once done grinding, start throwing in some scoops of coconut oil. I like Wilderness Naturals myself.
Mix well until it seems most of the sesame seed meal is a tiny bit coated. You don't want it wet, just crumbly. Like making pie crust. Here's mine in all it's green glory.
Then you add your sweetener to taste. This batch I used local raw honey. We have a 5 gallon bucket of it. Yum. Don't go too crazy or it will be sticky. They should be sweet but not icky sweet.

Then it's time to roll into balls. Roll them, put onto a plate and freeze. The coconut oil firms up and they're easy to hold for little hands and easy for pregnant moms to eat too many of. YUM.
There you have it. High protein, high fat, spirulina filled, raw goodness.

It's these moments

2009-09-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

After a long, hard day, the kind of day where you really start to think you are the worst mother in the world and are more than ill-equipped to raise these children to love and serve the Lord, it's these moments that make it all worthwhile.

Background - early this Spring we had the money to get a beehive and start with bees. Clay's realllly into getting bees. But it turns out that Frankie didn't realize that all the trial month games on our phone that he was ordering cost well.... money. My cell phone was on my mom's plan for next to nothing. But it's not next to nothing when your 9yo runs up a $300 bill in ONE MONTH. Sigh. So bees were out. We paid my mom back and Frankie well... was in debt. Over the course of the Summer he's sloooooowly paid off $50 or so of the debt. (He's not so into paying it off). But now he wants to pay it off so that he can do odd jobs to make a little money to buy some hens for his banty roosters.

More background - Adric (5yo) has this jar lid of money. It's his most prized possession. Every penny, every nickel goes in there. It's something special I tell ya. The lid. God forbid anyone even looks like they're by the lid.

So tonight after my "insane, no-good, horrible mom" day, Adric out of the blue walks up to Clay. He says he wants to pay off Frankie's debt (the $250 debt BTW). He explains how he must have enough in his lid to pay it off. He says that it makes him sad to think that Frankie will be working it off forever and asked if he paid Clay the money if Frankie could be free of the debt. *insert mom tears here*.

So Clay has him go get his money. They count it out. $2.95. Turns out that's just how much was needed from a 5yo little brother to pay off a $250 debt. *insert more tears here*

Maybe I won't ruin these children after all.

Here's the sweetest 5yo in the history of 5yos.

Gardening Rules?

2009-08-20T18:10:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend a few months ago and we were talking about bolting cilantro. Mine always bolts of course. I didn't realize you could plant it every few weeks and use it all summer. I just always lamented not having it when I was to make salsa. Here I was talking about how cilantro doesn't grow well in the heat supposedly because well... it bolts. And she said something that stuck out to me. She said "I don't know anything about gardening rules. And I'm certainly not going to follow them."

I'm such a reader about things. Read read read. I may or may not actually DO them but I've read loads about everything. Loads of information packed up there but not nearly as much doing as I'd like. And a lot of times it's because this thing I read said it was too late, or that I don't have what I need, etc.

So Fall and Winter gardening is coming. And here I keep looking and reading things that say I should have started x, y, and z weeks ago, some many week ago. And I'm bummed. I keep asking myself whether it's even worth it to start things that the internet and books say I missed the window to plant. The real question is... is it worth it to TRY? Sometimes frosts are late right? If I cover with plastic it gives me a zone and a half bump *maybe* right?

Ack I'm such a rigid dork. I hate it too. Part of the whole gardening process is getting dirty, digging in, trying new things, failing at many of them, enjoying the successes. Tell me I can start cabbage now and it'll grow through the cold. That if I start broccoli it won't all die. That carrots aren't a lost cause. Radishes? Lettuce? Should I start it inside? Outside now though it's hot? Both? How much importance should I give to gardening "rules"? Obviously throwing out ALL wisdom from those who have had their hands in the dirt for years and years isn't wise. But to let it paralyze me isn't either right?

I surely can't be the only one that just totally geeks out when they look at empty gardens. I know over the years I'll get over it but looking even at the row and a half I've prepped and composted I'm geeking out and I have a couple more rows to prep and plant.

Kim the geek. Off to sleep so tomorrow I can can tomatoes, make Phelan's cucumber ketchup, pull out all this year's seeds and get ready for planting this weekend!

Mini Paper Towels post Q&A

2009-08-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

I was asked a question about not using paper towels. I thought I had written about it but I must have forgotten. The question from Dana

Agreeing 100% with one confession... I use paper towels to drain greasy stuff... like turkey bacon (which we don't actually eat very often and isn't really that greasy at all), ground beef, french fries...

Do you not ever have greasy foods that need to drain? Or what?

I use cardboard or newspaper. I always seem to have cardboard around and Clay reads the local paper now and then and I save those. Now to be honest the only greasy thing I ever have is bacon. I don't really fry things ever. But for bacon I use cardboard or newspaper. The truth is if I had paper towels around for certain things my tendency to be lazy would take over and I would use them instead of rags for things. I would. Give me convenience and I choose convenience every time. I wish I didn't but if I HAD presliced store bread I'd put off making bread, if I have disposable diapers laying around I use them, if I had paper towels I'd use em :)

Is there some reason

2009-08-14T06:14:00.000-07:00

that none of you told me that a low hoop tunnel is called a cloche? Hours of searching.... Hours. Trying to get a good enough article to show hubby exactly how to build a low hoop tunnel. My "hammer down some rebar, slip pvc over, then plastic, just wasn't inspiring him. After days of searching, countless cursings of Google, I read something that calls it a cloche and suddenly I can find a bazillion gazillion articles about it? I blame you, I really do. Now the question is.... why didn't I look in Eliot Coleman's book? I have it and all. I chalk it up to being blond AND pregnant. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Stinging Caterpillars Batman!

2009-08-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

So after Clay took Adric on a rockin 4wheel drive trek through the woods they went out to check the corn field/pumpkin patch. Suddenly they come in saying Adric got stung by a caterpillar. A caterpillar? Seriously? After I put a paste of meat tenderizer on it because I found it before the bentonite clay, they proceed to tell me tales of the weirdest looking caterpillar they've ever seen. Spots and horns and poison hairs. Treks through corn jungles to find the allusive horned poison hair spot caterpillar. Yeah yeah guys. Men and their fish tales and all that jazz.

Then Clay shows me this picture:

And suddenly I realize how glad I am to have missed the grand adventure because I don't have any desire to get stung by that thing. It's a Saddleback Caterpillar by the way.

*note* Adric normally is very sensitive to things like bites. But we dabbed tape on the sting to check for poison hairs and put the meat tenderizer and he doesn't have even have so much as a bump. When he came in he had a big spot where the main sting was and a red ring around it, but getting the hairs is key and sucking out the poison with clay, activated charcoal, plantain, or meat tenderizer.

Why oh why

2009-08-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

Am I on the computer right now when Clay should be home soon, I have a load of dishes to wash, laundry not put away, sewing area I wanted set up today, and 100 other things? *help*

Make and Share Monday - Aug 10th, I mean Wednesday

2009-08-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

**Note I never got around to finish this, so I'm leaving it half done and posting it anyways so I can finally move on with my life. I've been paralyzed you know with the feeling that something was missing**

On to another Make and Share Monday Er... Wednesday. So of course there's more scrapbook pages and hey, some dishcloth pictures. I DO do things off this computer you know!

So first things first, layouts from this week or two :)

See Flower Picking full credits HERE

See Your Light Shines full credits HERE

One of the things that inevitably happens to every single person who starts digital scrapbooking is downloading and using all sorts of "freebie" kits and later hating every page they did because they had NO idea what was good quality and poor quality digital scrapbook supplies. Happens to just about everyone. My last M&SM I talked about what digital scrapbooking is, what programs to look at and use, etc. So today I'm going to lead you to where to find good quality, FREE, supplies to get started. Cause honestly there's nothing like looking at an old page with embellishments that look like cartoons when you wanted realism, etc.

First and foremost. The first place most experienced digiscrappers think of with free kits is Shabby Princess. http://www.shabbyprincess.com/downloads.asp There's 22 FREE full kits there to download. And every one is high quality and won't let you down. Gorgeous stuff there.

The Makings of a Great Day

2009-08-10T06:20:00.001-07:00

Fabulous breakfast of Whole Wheat Dutch Pancakes with Amish Apple Butter and Raw Whipped Cream Sauce.

Church at home with Dad that including fun singing, laughing, a good Bible story and children inspired enough to make homemade paper puppets of the story of Zacchaeus and give Mom and Dad a puppet show (pictures later).

Lovely time hanging out on the front porch while Clay grilled. Hot but a nice breeze blowing, me crocheting a dishcloth, children sitting nicely with us, being great. Loving front porches lately.

Great lunch. A cookout with BBQ chicken drumsticks with Grillin Beans, chips, corn on the cob from the garden and stevia lemonade. With coupons I had, all that cost me $6. And let me say, I LOVE BBQ chicken legs.

Me, going to see Julie and Julia by myself. Clay even feeding the little people dinner while I was gone.

Finishing a scrapbook layout that night.

Great day.

Living Without Paper Towels

2009-08-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

For many this will be old hand, but as I was folding today it felt like a good thing to post about. I don't know how long it's been now, quite a long time I'm sure, but we no longer use paper towels. It's honestly been one of the easiest things to transition to. I rarely even notice that we don't use them anymore. The only times I think I do is when the stomach flu is going around here or the dog has a bad accident. But with the day to day things, it's cake.

We use primarily three things.

Dishcloths. Not only are those for dishes, avoiding having to buy sponget, but wiping up spills, thing that need a wet wipe, these are great.

Little rags. These are free free free. Anything that has holes, gets too stained, quitter socks, etc. get cut up and turned into these smaller rags. We use these for noses, for picking up that piece of squished banana off the floor, things like that and also for anything that you REALLY want to just throw the rag away when you clean up. Those are very rare, but they happen and being that they're just old socks and shirts, no tears are shed if it has to go in the trash. Ours live in this hanging basket to be easily grabbed.

Dishtowels and surgical rags. Dishtowels are self explanatory. Hand drying, etc. all need dishtowel. But we are also blessed with surgical rags. My great aunt and uncle send them in boxes when they pack gifts, etc. They are super absorbant and great for anything really! Here soon I will be cutting and edging all old ripped towels as well. Smaller pieces of thick towels with a zigzag edge make fabulous fabulous rags.

And of course there's the old standby, cloth napkins. And we'll just pretend they're nice and folded in the drawer. Cloth napkins don't need an explanation do they? The only problem I have with them is there never seems to be enough here. I need more.

See? Not hard. There's something for every use of a paper towel. Cake.

Do You Swagbucks?

2009-08-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

I debated for forever whether to post this but I'm going to lol!

Okay so are you on swagbucks? Total self-promotion thing going on here but bear with me. Swagbucks is so simple and so cool though. Join and start searching. What's the premise? Search through swagbucks' search engine when you search and earn swagbucks. A certain number of SB and you earn REAL bucks towards online stores - Amazon, etc. That's it. Search and win! Simple. Then refer others and you get bucks whenever they earn bucks. Honestly it rocks. No gimmicks. If you Google, start swagbucking and earn while you search.

Go through this link to join or click the image banner and I can earn swagbucks as you do:
http://swagbucks.com/refer/kimchristensen

Click that link and join. Free stuff!

I guess I'm not ready

2009-08-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

To live without electricity. I want to. BUT last night... the storm knocked out the power. And this big pregnant woman, with a headache, lay in bed drenched in sweat with no A/C, tossing and turning most of the night cursing the fact that the electricity was out, cursing the heat, cursing this dream I have of living with electricity. The dream was shattered.

Until tomorrow when I forget how hot I was.

Belly Shot

2009-08-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

Told my wonderful Gramma that I would post a 33 week belly picture. (wanting to run and hide) But here goes.
It's hard to believe tomorrow it will August! With the baby due in September, looking at the calendar at can be intimidating. I don't know why, but we just don't feel ready yet for the baby. Usually by now we're feeling ready and it's just a countdown to labor (eek). I think it may becaue Garrison still wakes in the night. He's finally moved out of the 3-sided crib by the bed and into a playpen at the foot of the bed, but 4 out of 7 nights he wakes and cries and wants to climb in bed. Every night I lay there thinking about having a newborn and that boy crying LOL! !! But 4 out of 7 night is better than 7 nights a week. So hopefully by the time the baby comes he will have stopped and can move out with the big kids!

This pregnancy has been pretty uneventful aside from some tiredness which I think is pretty normal. No swollen feet, morning sickness, back pain, etc. Just run of the mill, "I'm pregnant, okay what do I need to do today again?".

Anyways, so there's the picture. Doesn't everyone hate pictures of themselves?

Around here today....

2009-07-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Or yesterday or the day before. Around here in the last two or three days. Okay well the last few pictures we've taken....

11 little chickies under a VERY good mom born yesterday!! They're going to be our new layers for next year. Dad is half Rhode Island Red, Half Buff Orpington and most of their moms are RIRs as well though there might be one or two with a Buff Orpington mom. Don't know why my Barred Rock didn't lay in there. But we have two half RIR/Buff O half Barred Rock pullets running around so that's fine. SO much fun getting new batches of chicks. I'm SO over new batches of ducklings this year. If we don't get another duckling until next year it'll be too soon! We've only had maybe 50+ ducklings hatch this year, maybe way more.

Did our first batch of canning Clay and I. 4 quarts of tomatoes, 5 of green beans, 3 quarts of bread and butter pickles and a pint of bread and butter pickles that won't be waiting the 4 weeks to age and get yummier. First time using our ROCKIN' All American canner. Can't wait to can 100 more jars with it~! It's amazing!

Clay's garden has loads of acorn squash growing on it. We'll get more from his garden than we ever thought possible!

Our first garden carrots. Why I wasn't planting these all Summer I don't know, but next year I will be! They're amazing. Amazing.

One of the two kinds of pumpkins that we have growing in Clay's big garden. This is the first one finishing up. We're not really sure when it's going to be done as we've never done pumpkins, but we're read online and hey, live and learn. But it sure LOOKS good right? We have some super cute Cinderella looking sugar pumpkins out there as well.

Just a quick post until later....

Laziness

2009-07-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

This is a few weeks old, but Clay went on the roof for this shot. Since then, many things are considerably bigger. Tomatoes are huge, cucumbers spilling over the trellis, winter squash is vigorously spreading out and filling every available space. As are sweet potatoes, as are.... weeds. Weeds weeds and more weeds....

A garden is a wonderful thing. It's taught me SO much this year. So many lessons learned in a garden. Some good, some bad. Of late it's taught me that I am a lazy person. Oh yes, the era of not just blogging happy go lucky stuff for the fam has begun.

I'm not being hard on myself, I'm not. Gardens that go untended, lack of clean laundry, no plan for dinner, worse yet, Bible not read, yet all message boards checked and scrapbook pages made. Honestly I feel that the list of things going undone applies to every area of my life right now. Oh how many women get to this point where they feel overwhelmed by everything, where everything feels and IS out of control. But the Lord doesn't want this for my life, for anyone's life really. He doesn't want us to drown under being a mom, a homemaker, teacher, and wife. He wants us to thrive for HIS glory. And hey, it's not what I want for myself, my husband, not what I want to model to my children, not a good witness of the Lord's power and strength, and just drains me. Oh how I cry out to the Lord this verse today!

-For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
-If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
-Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
-For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
-For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.Now if -I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
-I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
-But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
-O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
-I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Romans 7:15-25

Now my nature is to now come up with a huge list of schedules and whatnot and try and get crackin. But that hasn't worked in the past and won't work now. I need to start where I should have always started. With the Lord. Period. What that means, I'm searching out. Sure there's all the "DO" things that I want to assign myself.... read the Bible X amount, start reading the Bible from the beginning, setting up devotional time, doing memory verses, listening to sermons, turning off the tv, etc. etc. All those godly things that surely will fix me right up. Right up. Before you know it, I'll be the perfect godly wife.......

Stop Kim, stop. There's nothing wrong with those things. I'm sure they will find their place as thing change here. But there is one thing to do. Fall on my face and pray. Pray for wisdom, guidance, for strength. Tell the Lord my troubles. Go the HIM in all this. Because "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".

Make and Share Monday - July 20th

2009-07-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

Time for another Make and Share Monday..... This week is hosted by Kristy. Run over and join in!

Of course I have digital layouts to share, and we'll start talking digital scrapbooking. Today will just be a little intro....

Let's take a look at these layouts I did this last week and we'll go from there.

What is digital scrapbooking?

Basically digital scrapbooking is making scrapbook pages on the computer in a photo editing program that can be printed out later. No paper to cut, mess to make, everything is 100% on the computer until it's time to print.

Why digital scrap? What are the benefits?

No mess. Nothing to store, leave out on the table, no mess. It's all on the screen in front of you. Nothing for a two year old to decide would be great to pour his glass of milk on.
Undo (lol) You can undo every mistake. I love love love this :)
Price. It can be downright cheap to free to do this!
AND you can reuse those supplies ENDLESSLY. Nothing EVER gets used up!!! I can use the same kit 14,998 times if I want.
and of course you can change the color of things.... so it can match perfectly... or hey that cool flower you used the other day? Recolor it to match this new layout you're doing. Twice the bang for you buck.
You can easily print copies of your pages for family members.
If your scrapbook gets wet or colored on with Sharpie by a two year old, you can reprint them!
I'm sure I'm missing a million more things!

What do you need to digital scrapbook?

Digital Camera or Scanner to scan hard copy pictures
A photo editing program such as Adobe Photoshop (PS), Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE), Jasc Paint Shop Pro (PSP), Microsoft Digital Image Pro (DIP), Ulead Photo Impact (PI), Corel Draw, Lumix Foto Fusion, Memory Mixer or any kind of program that supports .png files & layers. If you have any of those already you could feasibly get started. There is a free program called gimp that you can download at gimp.org. (I should note that my personal suggestion to everyone is to use Photoshop Elements from the beginning if they can afford the $70 to buy it)
Patience to learn a new program
That's it! Maybe some creativity, but hey even then, do your best and move on

How does it work?

In many ways digital scrapbooking mimics paper scrapbooking. You choose your pictures, your papers, your decorative elements, and arrange them on a page to your liking. Add a title and journaling and done. But in digital, you will be using digital versions of papers and embellishments. The photo editing programs work in layers just like in real life so you can move a paper under a photo, put a ribbon above the photo and so on. Then it can be printed out and put into the sleeve of a normal scrapbook.

How much does it cost?

Aside from the startup should you choose to buy a program (which is under $100 for a great great program), digital scrapbooking can be as cheap or expensive as you'd like. There are endless free resources, kits, embellishments out there. You could do the actual page making for free if you choose. Over time, it becomes more and more fun and tempting to buy kits now and then but at $3-$6 for something that can be used indefinitely. Some people spend hundreds a month, while another can spend nothing!
What about printing?

As we talk about cost, let's talk printing. You CAN print at home, but I don't and never will. It's just not economical. Digital scrapbook layouts print just like a normal digital photo! So you can print them at your local photo center! Costco, Walgreens, Walmart, whatever. I like to print in 8x8 so a cheap 8x10 picture which is about a buck a layout. If you want to print 12x12 for a big scrapbook, you can print those from many online sources, and even at Costco! They cost around $2.50-$3 at Costco. Less on sale at places like scrapbookpictures.com when they have sales.

And there's photo books! You can for less than a dollar a layout print them into nice NICE bound books from places like snapfish, winkflash, shutterfly, all dot coms.

So there's our little introduction into digital scrapbooking. Next week hopefully I'll nab a few tutorials, show you the best places to find good quality free digiscrap goodies, etc.

A profound thought.....

2009-07-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

Over at With Great Joy, she said EXACTLY how I feel. And while she feels she has no profound thoughts, that in and of itself is profound. I will quote the first part here and then you can go say hi to her lol.

In her today's post, she wrote this BUT I could have written this, word for word:

One of the frustrating things about blogging, for me, is that I feel like I need to have some profound thought in order to post, or a topic to cover, or a practical, helpful thing to share, or at least an event in our family life to write about.

The thing is: I rarely, if ever, have a profound thought.

And my brain- when I sit down to write- isn't organized by topic.

And most days I have nothing practical or helpful to share. We may be doing things that I think are fun and or helpful to us, but it feels a little presumptious to think that others will, too.

As for family events, we have lots of those happening, but by the time I sit down to write about them- it's been several days, I have no photos uploaded or just didn't take any photos and my motivation to blog about it has waned.

Often I open up the little "New Post" window to write something and then sit there with the cursor blinking and the blank screen before me and decide I have nothing to say.

But I do have lots to say, it just doesn't seem "polished" enough for a blog post.

For the time being, I'm throwing anything remotely resembling a "polished" blog post out the window and I'm going to try to simply be me. Conversational.

***NOW, go over and read about her sweet and normal day and get to know her.

Make and Share Monday - July 13th

2009-07-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

Katie and Kristy are starting up Make and Share Monday. This week Kristy is hosting at her blog.

While these are not crocheted or sewn, Monday is when I'll share new scrapbook pages along with whatever else I've made. This week scrapbooking it is :) Here's the recent handful I've done. Click to see them larger.

I didn't mention it while it was going on, but I entered a 4 week contest over at Scraporchard to get onto their Creative Team. A creative team gets to get the fabulous scrapbook goodies for free in return for making great pages with them and posting them in online galleries, as well as posting on their forum, and just generally helping show people the great stuff at their store. I was one of the fortunate group that made it through all 4 rounds and made it on the team! Woohoo! Given our current state of brokeness, having access to such amazing scrap goodies for free is a God send. Truly. The first, third and fourth of these layouts was made with all stuff you can get at Scraporchard. Maybe next week I'll start my how to digital scrap series to go with Make and Share Monday. We'll see how the week goes.

I am in desperate need of new dishcloths. So hopefully this time next week will be a dishcloth post!

Sunday July 12th ramblings

2009-07-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading a book my friend, Chautona, is writing about a lovely lady named Willow. Go read it! She posts chapters as she writes them. Tonight though something touched me a little. Throughout the first part of the story, she would read through her Mother's journals. Journals that told everything from the garden to her feelings on having a baby. Everything. Life. In words. Then tonight she was reminded at how important her own journals would be to her family in her the future.

I scrapbook, I do. And I journal about the story or my feelings on them. I do. But so much of it is art to me too. Creating, the fun of making a layout I love to look at. Pictures I love to look at. But oh how I'd love to read my grandmother's journals. Or great grandmother's. To read about how she did this without electricity, about the great flood this year, or the sound of the rain on the roof of the farm house or...

So there's that romantic part of me that wants to journal. But I've tried before. I've started journals a million times. Do I try to do it here? Would I be able to be real enough? That is the real question I think.

In the past in my old blog, I got the most response from friends when I was honest about weight, about struggles, marriage, all of it. When I started this blog, at first it was homestead focused, and family focused. Family focused as in I was writing and putting pictures for my family to read, not posting about thing that might be too real for them. But I lost the stories, the ramblings, the truth of life.

What does that mean? How will I go from here? I don't know. I had someone the other day tell me they missed my old blog, that they really loved reading the things I wrote. It made me sad that I haven't been that here. In some ways it was because no one I knew in real life knew my other blog for a long long time. What does my sweet hubby Clay want? I know he looks at the blog, he has his family read it, gives people the link to it, maybe this should be a family blog only? So I need another blog? I'll have to ask him I think eh?

So I'm starting a new hard copy journal. And starting to journal more here. And asking Clay how he feels about the blog. And praying about it. And rambling way too long. Good night.

Garden Journal - Tuesday June 30th

2009-06-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

Smaller Garden:

Loads of green tomatoes. Haven't seen any aphids or tomato hornworms yet.
A handful of cherry tomatoes everyday
We've gotten maybe 8 big tomatoes. A couple Mortgage lifters, a few Bush Goliath, and a few of something I didn't pay attention to what they were.
Cucumbers are just now reaching 5 feet tall on the trellis. Are getting a handful (5 or 6) of cucumbers everyday.
Lots of hot chili peppers on the plants. Have picked a handful of the thin green ones.
Bell peppers are starting on a few plants as well.
Getting a handful of green beans off the teepees everyday.
A few small yellow squash on the ys plant
Zucchini plants are big and vining over and I get a zuke off each plant every couple days.
Basil is flowering.
Thyme's looking dead
Dill looks horrible. Bottom half looks yellow and dead. I think it's on it's last leg
Potatoes plants are all dead. Time to dig!
Onions from garden center are falling over and looking done
Amish bottle onions are flowering, some are falling over. Wonder if it's because I just did the heavy weeding the other day? Hope I didn't kill them
Eggplants officially all dead
Brussel Sprouts eaten to death and I might pull them
Huckleberry plants are ginormous and are starting to get purple berries
Sweet potato plants starting to perk up and vine a little bit
Corn has it's first small corn on it! And the flower thingamajigs on top.
First butternut squash plant vining and about 3 feet long
Planted new yellow squash and zucchini a couple weeks ago. Chickens destroyed about half of the starts. Ugh. Need to get new seeds as I left them in the yard in the rain. That's why I planted them when I did lol.

Clay's bigger garden

Corn is getting pretty big.
Pole beans growing up the corn on two 100 ft rows
Pumpkins are vining and getting yellow flowers
Pumpkins wilting in heat of the day
Bush beans were getting a few handfuls a day but they're getting eaten by rabbits
Clay put up a fake owl yesterday to try and scare the rabbits
Clay found a few surviving watermelon plants. They're about a foot long LOL but have flowers.
His butternut squash are going slowly but going
Sweet potatoes not so great but limping along
Two pumpkin plants have died. I see no sign of cutworms or squash bugs. I think he's not watering enough

I know this is just for me, thanks if you even read it lol.

Bounty

2009-06-30T05:44:00.000-07:00

Oh neglected blog how I miss you so.

We've gotten so much out of our garden over the course of the Spring. I've taken pictures and then never get around to posting them. Like this yumminess from the Spring:
But those great lettuce and bok choy days are gone. Unfortunately for us the inexperience gardener I am didn't plan well enough, didn't plant some things early enough and all those type mistakes so we had a dry spell between Spring and Summer harvesting. But here's a taste of what we've been getting the last few days.

We still have lots of potatoes still to dig up (it's going on Clay's weekend project list) and of course the zucchinis are just getting started.

Oh my do I love fresh onions. They just make me happy.
Zukes and the first yellow squash. Bad picture but still yummy.

And you know it goes when you miss a day picking cucumbers. Ours have just started and one missed day and we walk with 10 at least. In a few weeks, we'll be overrun!

We have been getting tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, herbs, zucchinis, yellow squash, hmm... what else? Don't know why I don't have a picture of our lovely tomatoes. They're sitting right there on the counter right now lol.

Okay fly by quick post. All I have to say is that I am amazed by the miracle that is putting a tiny seed in the ground and having a huge plant that gives our family food grow from it. Amazes me every year.

Father's Day

2009-06-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Like I always say, it's been a while. And like always I say I want to post more and that I will but..... we all know how that goes. We had a great Father's Day. Well we sort of did two days. Today my Dad came into town to visit and we spent the day with him. It was great to have him here on Father's Day. I don't know the last time that was the case. When I was a teenager maybe. So Happy Father's Day dad. I love you.

Last night we celebrated Father's Day with Clay. It sure made me love him more that instead of wanting to do something alone or have a free day he came up with the idea to do something with the kids. He wanted to have fun with THEM for his day. And I suppose if one celebrates Mother's or Father's day that is what it should be. Not a day off but a day to celebrate the beauty and just great fun that being a parent is, a time to love and enjoy our children.

So this is our Father's Day.

Rounds were brought over for seats, rocks too, firepit made, fans made to beat the horrible heat, hotdog/marshmallow sticks sharpened, and tents played in.
Then after we roasted hot dogs, there was lots of this happening. In fact Adric roasted marshmallows until bedtime!

All of that led to lots of this:
Pictures of beautiful people were taken
We laughed, played, ate, laid on the trampoline, ate, were HOT, took a break after hot dogs to go in, cool off and watch Wall-E, had a great time and it all led to this:
Daddy and the kids sleeping outside in the tent. Mom on the other hand, went inside to watch movies and scrapbook in the cool house.

About 15 minutes later, Cassie came in. Turns out Clay thought he'd tell a scary story that was TOO scary for her. She couldn't sleep outside after that.

Then.... came Adric. It was too hot.

Then came Clay who had woken up Frankie who was asleep. Too hot.

And my movie time turned into movie time with Clay which meant he wanted to watch X-files instead of chic flicks. SIGH. LOL lol.

Happy Father's Day honey. I love you.

A few more Scrapbooking pages

2009-06-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

A handful more to show you :)

Don't you love when toddlers first learn to "smile" for the camera? This is Garrison's version.

Still working on/thinking about starting the digital scrapbooking posts. Working on, yeah that's it.

Garden Journal - Sunday June 14th

2009-06-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Before I forget, going to do a quick garden journal. This one will have pictures though!

Currently:

All broccoli and cabbage are done and gone. Had bad infestation of caterpillars that did my cabbage in. Planning on row covering them next year to see how that goes.
Loads of green tomatoes
Pole beans huge and overflowing. No open flowers yet but close
Potato plants starting to die back
Cilantro totally flowered and fallin over. Needs to be pulled
Amish bottle onions flowering
Most eggplants dying from flea beetle infestation. Gotta find out what to do about those. I've read loads and can't find a good answer.
Lettuce tall and bolted.
Lost 2 out of three of the first yellow squash plants lost to what look like vine borers.
Inch long zucchini on the plants.
Planted loads of sweet potato slips yesterday
Have lots of hot peppers growing on the hot pepper plants
Caught a gazillion squash bugs by spraying water on the plants and catching them as they crawled up to dry off. Kids loved that!
Cucumbers just starting to flower
Brussel sprouts have little buds, lots of caterpillar damage but I couldn't find a single bug one them yesterday. Maybe getting too hot. Hopefully.
Clay's winter squash seeds he planted are starting to peek their first true leaves. Just peeking. He planted those about a week and a half ago
Lots of green huckleberries. The huckleberries have really made it through and grown big despite the flea beetles.
Amish bottle onions flowering, open flowers. Took all flowers off all the other onions.

Clay's garden:

He put some fertilizer (gasp) on the corn. His corn is finally starting to get bigger with all this rain. Some are still 2 inches tall but some are 2 feet tall or taller.
Pumpkins starting grow. A couple are about 5 feet long with vines.
Two official nice yellow pumpkin flowers
Bush green beans just starting to flower
Planted 50 foot row of 2-3 wide of sweet potato slips yesterday

Day Huh?

2009-05-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Okay after seeing Katie posting day after day about her time with NO internet and my whole "yeah I'm doing that too" thing, I figured I better check in :) Do I have any grand revelations? Lessons learned? I've learned that my resolve is not as big as I thought. I've learned that the internet is much more of a HABIT than I thought. I sit when I'm tired and read a blog or two. A lot. I've learned that my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak. And that I'm not okay with just giving into my flesh quite so much.

What's she got there? A new garden plant to plant? I want LOTS to grow!

But I've also learned that even the simple concept of trying to not eat the bread of idleness has left me getting SO much more accomplished everyday. And that when I truly get to where not a moment of my life is fruitless I will get done everyday what I want to get done, what I dream can get done, and have been told that a mom whom homeschools with almost 5 children can't possibly get done in one day - that I CAN grow huge gardens, have animals, have a clean home, clothes on the line, never run out of things, read my Bible, spend great time with my children AND husband, bake all my own bread, and well.. be the superwoman I told myself just isn't realistic. Because in a few days of not NO internet but simply less, of reminding myself throughout the day to not be idle, things are getting done. And I can see a glimpse of just how some women achieve the seemingly impossible.

What a hard worker.

It's not that I can't do these things. I just choose not to. Like sitting here typing instead of cleaning the morning dishes. Sigh. Off to clean the kitchen :)

Getting more done gives you more time for this.

In scrapbooking news

2009-05-23T07:09:00.000-07:00

I scrapped :) I'm starting up a few posts about digital scrapbooking that should come out in the next few weeks for those of you who can't or don't want to spend thousands of dollars at the scrapbook store. And I have some recycled scrapping posts coming too!

*note* click layout to see bigger

First up, Oops. Garrison fell and gave himself a gnarly little black eye. Doesn't he look cute? :D Who can resist a 1 year old with a shiner? Not this mom.

And speaking of irresistible baby moments, here he is again in rare form. No comments about me not tomato staking him. Clearly I wasn't doing the best job. But man he was so sweetly guilty I loved it.

I'm SO glad my kids are able to play for hours without a single toy. Cass and Adric spent the entire day "cooking" up grass and black walnuts for their restaurant. The two of them can spend hour after hour together pretending anything and everything. It amazes me. And makes me proud.

And oh how Frankie is growing up way too fast. He was so proud (and clearly so was his mom!) when he used the big tiller Clay rented.
I admit that scrapping is relaxing for me. I can tune out why Clay watches a movie and just scrap. It's nice. I missed it for the longest time.

Frankie's joke

2009-05-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

Okay the kids make up all sorts of great jokes and I always forget them. I don't want to.

Frankie's joke of the day.

I was making salad and asked Cassie to get the Grey Poupon for the salad dressing.
Frankie says "Ew who would want Grey Poupon their salad?"

Get it? Grey Poop on their salad?

Yes potty humor. Do we do potty humor, not really. But man that was a good joke.

Work Is Like Breathing

2009-05-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

It's amazing to me how the Lord can put something on your heart and then have it confirmed everywhere you look. And so it began that way within the last few weeks.

Work. A few weeks ago it was my turn in our raw milk co-op to go to the Amish. I always leave there inspired and this didn't disappoint. Now there was my new found desire to grow or at least get some birdhouse gourds this year and run a long string of them for Martins. Or my reassurance that a woodstove outside in a screened porch to not heat the house is totally doable for cooking in the Summer. There are always loads of those things. But this time was different. I was left feeling a desire to work.

It was 7 in the morning and everyone, including kids were outside planting gardens. One farm had kids the age of my oldest son outside by themselves with no adults pounding in tomato stakes in a huge garden. 3 yos carrying buckets of milk to the house. WORK. Done by everyone. Not a frown in sight. No one was spared. And then we came to the farm where in the midst of work there was smiles. Children laughing with each other. THAT was play. That was time to be together.

Work there was like breathing. Everyone does it not because they "have to" but because that's what you do. SO much gets done. More than I can possibly imagine.

I prayed about it. The Lord brought me to verses in the Bible, then days later Clay read the same passages during family devotions. And when I was on the brink, Katie posted this post. It was everything the Lord had been working in me. Everywhere I turned there it was.... idleness. The Lord convicted me wherever he could.

So tomorrow it begins. I'm finishing off the week as a no internet week. It should have started today. But uh... my flesh got in the way. But like Katie, I'll post the difference it makes in this week. And uh... no tv for me either. I wish I could say it's never a problem for me, and it usually isn't but the need to commit to it is there. But it goes beyond internet and tv. It's about idleness.

Proverbs 31:27
She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

My goal is to abolish idleness. Now that doesn't mean no rest. I'm going to attempt to quelch the idleness that takes over my days. How easy it is to be read verses in the Bible and then push them to the side. That Proverbs 31 verse has been read by me 1,000 times and I've felt the sting of that word idleness 1,000 times. But little to no change. So here it is.

I'll be posting this week even if it's just a little note. Well maybe it may be too tempting but we'll see. Hehe. I may know myself too well.

Garden Journal - Thurday May 14th, 2009

2009-05-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Okay so I haven't blogged in a month. And even now I'm not going to really :) I realized that whether I blog or not I am going to keep track of what is going on in the garden. I wanted to do a written one but I'll never get it done or lose the notebook or something.

Tuesday May 12th:
Planted 4 zucchini plants (8 seeds) about 2 feet apart
Planted 4 butternut squash seeds in a hill - hoping for 2 strong seedling on hill
Planted about 12 feet of cucumbers (1/2 straight Pepino or something and 1/2 pickling cucumbers. Will look at seeds tomorrow) Planted about 8 feet of pole beans
Planted row of Romaine lettuce (ugh I should have pulled out the seeds so I could know what variety but I'm too tired now) between the 2 pole bean teepees in other bean bed
Transplanted second batch of peppers - 20 plants - sweet Italian stuffing peppers and the Hot Pepper Mix from bountiful gardens. I started those under lights this year. About 50 plants in total. I'm thrilled about it.

Garden status:
2 broccoli plants out of 12 going to flower
Other 10 plants have smaller heads slightly smaller than a baseball
1 Bok Choy out of 6 flowering. Ate it. Was amazing
Big Romaine heads ready to eat. Salad tomorrow! Maybe whole wheat pizza and salad. Sourdough pizza crust. Yeah.
Onions have unopened flowers
Straight neck yellow squash planted two weeks ago looking good. About 2 inches tall with 1 set of true leaves.
Mesclun too tall. Must eat.

Clay's garden status. All his silver queen corn is up. Compost transplanted Amish pumpkins looking way stronger than thought all with one set true leaves.

Today Thursday May 14th:
Cut 3 heads of cauliflower. Slightly smaller than store bought ones, nice slight purple color :) They were starting to open a bit so I cut them today. Sauteed with some Spring onions from the Amish, butter and fresh Thyme from the garden. Honestly the best cauliflower I've ever had. Honestly.

Boy it's been raining a lot. Raining a few times a week for 3 weeks at least. Everything in the garden going off, weeds too. Though suddenly my Spring veggies are wanting to flower. Sigh. I guess I need to eat them. Yum.

Quick Blog Giveaway!

2009-05-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

Katie the wonder friend is having a rockin giveaway on her blog! Last minute and all but you have until tomorrow, the 15th to enter. Yeah it's just me keeping my chances of winning higher. You know how I am. :) You can win one of these from Vision Forum:

New products are always exciting, and we hope you’ll be as excited as we are about the 5 new DVD titles in the Reclaiming the Culture set.
Titles include:

• You May Not Take Our Guns (DVD)

• The Devolution of Law (DVD)

• Top Ten Questions About Genesis and Creation (DVD)

• The State of Parental Rights in America (DVD)

• Christianity and Science Fiction: Reclaiming the Genre for Christ (1 DVD & 2 CDs)

Description from the Vision Forum website:

At every level of government, our rights as citizens and parents are ignored and usurped by power-hungry politicians. Our news media, universities, and entertainers actively wage war against God’s Word and those who live by it. And our children are confronted daily by the lies of evolution and the horrific realities of its “survival of the fittest” ideology.
In an effort to provide encouragement, hope, and practical instruction to Christian families, Vision Forum is pleased to release five new DVDs. These timely presentations will equip your family to understand our culture’s most critical battles and biblically fight for the rights granted to us by God, rights recognized and preserved for us by our Founding Fathers.

Go ahead. Enter now. Tell your friends!! Get hopping!! The deadline is Friday the 15th!

CLICK HERE :)

In the Garden - April 22 2009

2009-04-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

I've started three posts now and haven't finished any of them. So I figure I'll just do a little pictoral of the goings on in our garden right now.

Radishes! See them popping their little heads out? Might pull the biggest one and eat it today for fun. They're always a little spicy for the kids but I'll make them taste it anyways. The first fruit of the season for us.

And woohoo the potatoes are up and looking great! This is the first time we have grown potatoes and I'm glad we did because we're going to be growing A LOT of them next year. I need to do some research to figure out how many we need to grow to try and grow enough for the family for the whole year. Clay should have the open basement/root cellar ready by then to store them. But honestly I didn't have any idea what they were even going to look like when they came up. Every weed that popped up got a good going over before it was pulled :) Once they came up though, I knew them instantly. They're so big and healthy and strong and I am in love with my potato sprouts. I am. Really. They amaze me. I'll be both happy and sad to cover most of them up with dirt in a couple weeks.

Romaine lettuce, Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Bok Choy progress. They're just so big and shiny and growing SO fast. The broccoli side shoots are getting little knobs on them making them just look so broccoli-y. :)

Onions. Happy happy onions. We got these sets from a friend that owns a garden center. They're just so happy they make me happy.

We also have some Amish bottle onion sets coming in the mail from someone on homesteadingtoday.com I'm excited. It's just thrilling to go rare heirlooms. They should look something like this when they're done.

They're supposed to be spicy and great keepers. I just better not screw them up and better figure out how to store some for next year!

Spinach. Sigh. I don't know what happened with the spinach but it's just been Sooo slow. Germinated slow. Grew slow and even now are just little seedlings. Though they have taken off like mad in the last week. From almost nothing to two true sets of leaves in a week! But they've been in the ground for forever and forever so who knows what's up with them.

Lettuce. Honestly they're one of my favorite garden items. Not only do fresh greens out of the garden taste unbelievable but little baby lettuces are just so gorgeous to me. They're the epitome of Spring. Bright green, bright, cute, and a promise of a lovely salad.

Um.. think I overseeded my mesclun patch?

Empty teepees. I learned something about peas this year. They don't like being too wet. They really need to be started EARLY. I screwed up both of those things and ended up with 3 tiny horrible pea seedlings. Well they're gone now and the ground is reworked and covered with compost for pole beans.
Clay if you're reading this... I NEED those extra teepees you promised to make me. It took the kids and I hours and hours to gather the right sticks and make these LOL!

Tomatoes. The first batch IN. I planted them all yesterday. I have maybe 5 more plants to buy but it wasn't in my budget. This was a horrible year for my attempt at growing tomato seedlings. I researched and bought loads of amazing heirloom tomato seeds. The problem? I planted them in Miracle Grow Organic soil from Walmart. Never again. Turns out I found a thread this year at homesteadingtoday that others had the exact same problem as I did - stunted seedlings turning dark purple and dying. I lost ALL my starts. Everything else I had was grown in other medium (peppers, eggplant, huckleberries) and they're all huge and green and healthy. Sigh. So I bought plants. And turns out there's not loads of heirloom starts available around here - that I've found anyways. So we've got Brandywines, Mortgage Lifters, three kinds of cherry tomatoes - Super Sweet 100, yellow cherry and Sweet Grape, Burpee Red I think, Goliath bush and... well whatever I buy next will be something early. Clay asked me if I got early tomatoes last night and I realized I didn't, so that's next.
Those are just a few of the tomatoes. I planted 18 plants in total.

It randomly got really cold last night though and I had to go outside first thing and check on them. Phew.

Now the question is... should I plant my peppers tomorrow? It's only a few days past the frost date and I know you're supposed to wait two weeks BUT we're going to have 7 straight days of 79-80 degree weather!! So that makes 1 solid 10 days past the last frost. Yeah I'm planting those bad boys. If it gets cold I'll just have to freak out and protect them. Hmm... egglants too? I think I'm talking myself into it. I'll show those next week when they're settled.

That to do today? Hmmm.. how cold is it going to get tonight? Off to check.

Storing Information

2009-04-14T11:40:00.001-07:00

I realized the other day that I rely WAY too much on the internet. Why print things out when I can just Google? Why store recipes when I can just go to my favorite message board and run a search for it since I know it's there? That's a mistake.

Look I'm not nearly as much of a "the sky is falling" type gal but I do feel a slight pressure more than I ever have to start preparing myself. For what I don't know. Maybe the Lord has some plan for us I don't know about yet (okay of course He does lol). Maybe the world WILL fall apart. Maybe we'll just keep plugging along day after day towards our goals and I'll need the information. Maybe one day we'll turn off the internet. Maybe the power will go out for 3 weeks in a bad storm. Who knows? AND of course I find it really hard to manage all the links in bookmarks and whatnots. Nevermind the anguish when you go to a site that had somethin special and BAM it's gone. Sigh Robyn. hehe. Or Candy when she stopped one day. Yay she's back. Or any of the other gazillion sites that left me hanging. All I know is I am starting to print off some of the great tidbits of information I've been gleaning off the internet and putting them in a big binder.

Like THIS:
http://www.scienceprojectideas.co.uk/make-rubber-band-from-dandelion.html
Yeah you can make rubber bands and waterproof fabric with dandelions. That rocks. And WHY haven't I heard this before?

I do have lots of really amazing books that have soo much information in them. I am so thankful to live in a time where amazing books are so plentiful. And I have some books I really still want like the Ball Blue Book and Root Cellaring.

But I'm going to start making myself a running list of what I want to print off. Things like:
Dandelion latex coolness.
Making lye (and drying it!!) from wood ash
Soap recipes
All sorts of gardening info
Rendering fat
Making baskets from local weeks and barks
Darning socks
Pattern Drafting info that is starting over at mrssurvival.com forums
Natural medicines
Medical info on farm animals
All sorts of plans for things like the rockin giant homemade dehydrator I just printed off or milking stands or homemade brooders, etc.
Preperation lists (love the 100 first things to go in an emergency list I'll post that soon)
And a million more things I need to figure out.

And there's something about printed information. I read all day long about winter gardening but when I sat and read Elliot Coleman's book it just clicked. Something about having it in my HAND helps me.

So I encourage you to get some of your valuable information off your computer and into your hand. Or at least I'm encouraging myself.

Who needs flowers? - Take 2

2009-04-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

Remember my first installment of "Who Needs Flowers?" Well my sweet husband has done it again. A ways back I emailed him a nice wood cookstove that I saw on craigslist. I've wanted one forever. Slowly, way slower than I'd like hehe, we're working towards living without much electricity. I think we're still quite a ways from my hubby giving up running HOT water and flushing toilets but cooking with woodstoves and weaning off lightbulbs, we're getting there. Anyways, I've been keeping my eye out for wood cookstoves. BOY they're expensive even on craigslist. Then I found this beauty. It was almost 2 hours away and while cheap, still a fair amount of money for us. He told me he wasn't thinking we could get it. I tried to let it go but kept making little comments here and there about it. Yes I should have let it go. I tried. Honestly.

So I eventually figured we weren't getting it. Then late Friday night I made some little comment followed sweetly and jokingly by "you non woodstove getting husband hehe" He just smiled and said "who said I'm a non woodstove getting husband?" "WHAT?!!!!!!" replies his astonished wife. "I WAS going to surprise you but I'm going to get it early tomorrow morning". "I LOVE YOU!!" I squealed as I covered him with kisses.

And the next morning the alarm went off at 5 AM (on Saturday no less) and a few hours later he returned with this beauty. (ignore the fact that I had to piece two photos together and didn't feel like working on it to make it look right)

It's in pretty great condition. Very little rust, no cracks, nice white finish still. It does need a little TLC from me. I'll be getting rid of all the rust I can, either oiling it or stove blacking it (still need to research that), etc. We're not so sure about the water resevoir since it's just an open box with nothing else and there's a space under the water resevoir I need to figure out the purpose of. Clay's going to get the metal shop guys to build him a new insert for the hot water that perhaps I can lift out or.. well we haven't figured that out yet.

My hubby and son had fun because they said it was a really nice lady they brought it from. My son was more excited though about seeing all her geese and animals and whatnot but he's 9. She was happy it was going to a family that would actually use it and love it. And we will. All winter long we plan on using it. And for the summer... well my son's next job is hauling rock over to where together the kids and I will be building an outdoor grill. I'd LOVE to build an outdoor oven but one step at a time. I'll start pictures of the outdoor grill this week as we get started.

Anyways, the wood cookstove. I'm in LOVE with it. Well and my husband too. And my son who went with him.

Our Chicken Coops New and Old

2009-03-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

We've had chickens for forever. It feels that way at least. They've lived in all sorts of places. We've built a number of chicken tractors. They still sit around the homestead. Occasionally a duck or chicken decides they're a good place to raise a bunch of babies. Right now in fact we have a Mommy duck sitting on eggs in one. No one actually lives in them, just random chickens and ducks decide to lay in them now and then. Having a few chicken tractors around is always a good thing though. Whether it's having a good place to quarantine new poultry, a temporary holding place for all sorts of animals, somewhere to raise a new batch of chicks from the feed store or a place for Mommies to hatch babies, everyone should have one around. They're a "Good Thing". In fact here's a happy Duckie Mama working on hatching some baby duckies as we speak.

She's in this old HEAVY chicken tractor. I need it moved for a garden there but man, the last time we tried to move it it tried to just break into a million pieces. :)
We also have the chicken trailer which just an old rickety trailer that we gutted and put roosts and nesting boxes in. The chickens lived in there for the last year. And we moved it more than once. Chicken coops on wheels are convenient for a number of reasons. But the chickens decided on their own to move out. Now the new chicks live in there.
Here's our happy little chickies in their trailer. I am a firm believer in the trailer coop. Cheap. Most people will almost want to pay you to take their old ugly one away. It can move. And easy to gut.

Why the chickens decided to move in with the ducks I'll never know but they did. We needed a new place for the ducks so what we did was run chicken wire all around the bottom of our back porch which is fairly high. I can't stand underneath it but still fairly high. We put a gate on it and presto! In 30 minutes or less we had a complete pen for the ducks.
*note that Adric sprayed the orange marking paint for marking the garden post holes all over the back porch. Dad's yet to see that one. He will soon. Uh oh Adric.

Yet of course, the ducks have decided to just free range in the yard all night. Whatever. I can't tell these things what to do. We used to round them up every night but after months we had enough of that nonsense. Hopefully they fly away when a predator comes. They've survived all winter so who knows. Stubborn creatures.

So the chickens moved in under the porch. The only problem with that is that they stopped laying in regular places. And it's not so safe with the gate open and ducks free. So this weekend we finished up the chicken coop. Note to mom - you'll probably be annoyed we didn't turn this into a playhouse like you wanted but really, even after we cleaned it out, it never would have been clean enough to be a playhouse. It was a mice house for way too long. Yeah it just couldn't get un-icky enough to be a playhouse. Here it is: Forget the stuff out front. We have yet to haul all the stuff we gutted out from it to the dump.
*note since writing this Clay has taken all that stuff to the dump. Hooray!*

We ran roosts on the framing beams.

We had leftover cabinets that work perfectly for nesting boxes and a feeding center. LOVE reusing things for free!
The cabinets worked great for nesting boxes! Clay ran 2x4s across the front not only to keep the straw and eggs in the boxes, but to give the girls a place to easily jump onto from the ground. They're loving the higher boxes. Us women like to make things as difficult as possible. Go figure.

And everyone is happy! They've been laying us eggs everyday in there and things are hunky dory.
And I'm really happy to have one more permanent part of our homestead finished. With so much to do and with the fact it feels like it will be years before anything is really done, as each thing gets ticked off the list, it feels like a huge victory.

The girls should be really happy now. I hope one day to run a small run around it so they can be outside in the morning before we let them out. Hmm... but then that would mean we'd have to have a chicken door open all night so it's open in the morning for them to get out and critters could get in. Well I still want a run so that they can be outside when we go out of town.....someday. We never go anywhere and like it that way.

The Birthday to Top All Birthdays

2009-03-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was my birthday. I'm still awaiting packages from all of you. So often our birthdays around here are pretty low key. We rarely do anything. Just a day to relax. My amazing grandmother always sends me package filled with perfect goodies. This year though.... Was just over the top. Honestly how can a day go wrong that starts with these on the table:
Then I go outside and find out that these little cutie pies are the newest additions to our homestead. Born on my birthday. I awoke to 3 hatched. By the end of the day, 9. And that Mama doesn't look too happy that we're taking her picture does she. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. I'll expect you sometime next week Katie to take some home.
And this boy who fell yesterday comes downstairs looking cute but still looking like this:

And a box with this on the side awaits opening (yeah you're drooling now)
And your mom brings over not only Mexican food but a cake from Whole Foods that says this on top:
*note that we were far too distracted actually eating the cake to take pictures before it was almost gone* And a special thanks to my friend Nancy for sending her to get this cake and paying for it.

Boy oh boy.

My grandma went above and beyond this year. Honestly it will knock your socks off. Inside the Lehman's box from her was this:
Notice the nice big tank so forgetful people like myself aren't having to fill it every night. Woohoo. I'm so inspired now and want to buy a few more lanterns! Another big one like this. A little one to hang on the post that we can take room to room easily. A rockin hurricane one that can go outside and never blow out. One for my bedroom. You rock grandma.
Also in the box was this:
Galvanized clothesline. Drool.

Oh and that wasn't the only box she sent!! There was an assortment of amazing books that I can guarantee will keep me up at night obsessively for days to come. Click the images and go straight to Amazon to buy them.
The Apple Grower. The best organic apple growing book. We weren't able to get our fruit trees in the ground in early Spring like we should have. We'll probably put them in late fall instead. Which is great. It means I have all Summer to read this book, prepare the soil, till and put a nice ground cover. Then trees.
Seed to Seed. Even just skimming this book I am impressed. No frills. Vegetable and herb species by species it breaks it down . How to plant the seeds, how far to separate each plant to not cross pollinate, how to hand pollinate, etc. etc. How to plant, fertilize and save seeds from almost every garden plant out there. I'm almost scared of how much information is in this book.
And the Encyclopedia of Country Living. If I thought I was afraid of the info in Seed to Seed this book terrifies me. Okay it doesn't. I love this book. And you know who loves this book? Frankie! It's his new bathroom book. And if you're not careful the child will spend 15 minutes in the bathroom now. 10 times a day I hear "Mom did you know that all other ducks take 28 days to hatch their eggs but our muscovies take 35 days?" " Mom did you know that you can just cut the head off a rabbit and just peel the skin back like a sweater?" I LOVE that he loves this book. He can read it cover to cover 100 times for all I care. Please do Frankie dear.
And if that wasn't enough, there was this:
The picture doesn't do the color of this justice. It's a big gorgeous sewing basket. I don't even have enough to fill it right now. When we got our German Shepherd, Chief, one of the first things he did was chew up the sewing basket I got when I was a kid. So everything I had had to fit in this little space underneath my sewing machine. I've been wanting to get into sewing for so long. Now I really have to.
There aren't enough words Grandma really. I love you.
And Gary and Mary Pat, thanks for always helping out Grandma by picking up the packages and taking them to be shipped. This is always such a huge blessing to her.

So one would think that this break from our normal low-key birthday would be over. Nope. Hubby gives me this. It's a terabyte harddrive for all my pictures and scrapbook stuff. Here soon I'm going to do some basic digital scrapbooking posts and maybe a recycling around the house to scrapbook posts. AND he's started transferring all my stuff onto it because he loves me so. Now I can sit and scrapbook on the laptop. I miss it and am so behind. Funny on one hand to be working towards less electricity and the other getting terabyte harddrives. The perfect example of the paradox of our lives.
And the harddrive was special because on things like this I know we don't have that money just sitting in the budget so my darling husband had to plan, save and make it work to get it. I love you Clay honey.

Remember me telling you the Moms brought Mexican food and cake? Well the Moms is moving here to TN from CA and has started bringing some of her stuff. So she brought me these rockin rockin pots. She's already found me a immersion blender for my soon-to-be soap making project. Now I not only have some big new pots for our family but a new stainless one for soap making. Yay! And the orange La Cruset? I'm shocked she gave it to me. I love love love it.

And the Lord is so good and thoughtful. I'd been asking on a couple message boards for some ideas for making over our bedroom for my hubby (forget you read that part husband who secretly reads my blog). The favorite one I had been shown had a gorgeous aqua coverlet over it. I knew I'd never be able to afford something like that but it gave me something to look for at garage sales or Goodwill. I never told Moms that I was looking for that. I only started looking last week. Turns out that when she was in CA she found this marked down from $130 to $30!! EXACTLY what I wanted.
See? Told you it was a birthday to top all birthdays. Now back to reality LOL.

Making Home

2009-03-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

Over the last month I have really felt this overwhelming need to deal with my home. Call it Spring Fever, call it whatever you will. To be honest, homekeeping does not come naturally to me. At this point I'm way too old and way too responsible for my own actions to blame it on childhood, parents, personality, or anything else. It's lack so self-control, poor time management skills, laziness, and a million other words I cringe to hear in regards to myself.

I've tried this before. More times than I can count. In many ways I'm a perfectionist. It's all or nothing for me. If I want change I want everything changed at once or I just throw my hands up in the air. I've discussed this in length before. Dealing with the homestead this last year more than any other year has taught me a lot. I've had to accept that we won't be able to get everything all at once. We just don't have the money. Never will. Or the time. And that is okay. Gasp. I want it all. I want it all now. But having to slowly plug away at projects and I think I may slowly be getting it. Each step along the journey gets you there. When it comes to making changes in my home, I always try and just take a plane flight to the end and then I find I'm not strong enough to stay there.

So I'm determined to take small steps around my home to make it look and run the way I want it to. We've all read those blogs. Where women have detailed pantry lists, knowing exactly what their family uses each year. They have clean homes and clean children. They sew clothes and make all their own bread. They homeschool in ways that inspire their children to learn. They grow large gardens and can enough for their whole family for each year. Their homes have nice curtains. Heck, they have curtains at all! They never run out of toilet paper or anything else for that matter. I know that I dream of all these things and more. And while part of me wants to say "Oh that's just a dream. Those women don't truly exist. Why set up unrealistic expectations for yourself?" But in truth, I don't believe that. I do believe it possible to have a home that inspires my family to be better people. I do believe it possible to manage my time where I can get it all done. Women used to get it done. They HAD to. No stopping for BBQ when you didn't menu plan and it's 5:00 and have no idea what's for dinner. If they could build a fire for the oven to make all the bread for a family of 12, I can find time to turn the switch on my oven, and make bread for our family of 6. If they could heat water on their stove they just had to add wood to, to heat water to wash the laundry by hand, I can keep on top of my piles of laundry.

BUT I've made a commitment to myself that I won't take on too much at once. I won't.

And amazingly, taking it a baby step at a time has been working!

One of the first steps we've taken is to change up the way we do chores. We used to do chores where I just told people what I wanted them to do. It worked okay but took too long and never stayed clean. Now they have Jurisdictions. Thanks Duggars. They have areas they are responsible for. We just started that change a few weeks ago and it's made a difference for sure. At chore time I can just tell them to clean their jurisdictions. A few times a day I have them do a quick pickup of their jurisdictions. Here soon I'm going to start doing "checks" during the day to get them used to KEEPING their jurisdictions clean. Maybe a reward system (though in all honesty I hate reward systems so we'll see about that). Nothing like watching a child (or a Mom ACK) step over a sock on the floor as they walk by. As the house has stayed cleaner downstairs, miraculously we have more time for bigger cleaning jobs (slowly but surely Clay. Be patient), gardening, school, etc. A cleaner house for some reason has given us more time for everything!

In the next few weeks I'll post all the little changes I've made or will make. Little changes. I need to keep telling myself that.

Weekends are for rest?

2009-03-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

Not around here! Weekends are for work. The evenings of weekends are for resting. Last weekend the weather was amazing. In the low 70s, slight breeze and SO much to do. Like SO many others it seems, we're a tad behind on getting our garden finished up. Not anymore! Hooray! So my super sweet husband woke up Frankie at 5 am, and they drove the truck and trailer to a farm a ways away and picked up two big loads of that great composted manure I wrote about earlier. When they got back, the work day really began.

First, we shoveled out all that compost and spread it across the whole garden. What a beautiful site to see all that black out there instead of brown. Ah for the day my soil is naturally just black and has great structure and yum.... So Clay rented a tiller and him and Frankie went to work. Frank was so proud his Daddy let him run the tiller. Look at that face. Love that dude.

While we hope to get to where we have great soil structure and never have to till it, there is nothing quite like amazing fluffy dirt. Love it.

Everyone pitched in. The ducks did their part picking out bugs and seeds. The chickens did too but you know those chickens, they're camera shy.

Adric was the resident rock picker alongside his Mama, following behind the tiller picking out any big rocks. Mom just threw the rocks in the woods but Adric was proud of showing off his spoils whenever his bucket got too heavy.

Then we made our wide rows. We are doing intensive planting via this amazing book:
I'll talk more about this as the gardening season goes forward and I can take good pictures and really show it. I did link the book picture to the great seed site partnered with this book. I love their philosophy not just their seeds. And I love that their seed catalog instead of having great color pictures to promote their seeds, they have fabulous descriptions (I use their catalog as a planting and growing guide!) they use their color pictures to show the places around the world they are teaching people how to grow food in a way that is bountiful and self-sustaining. Love it.

You know while it would seem that you could just rake that fluffy soil into rows, soil is heavy. HEAVY. It took us forever shoveling to make these rows. By the time this day was done it seemed like I shoveled dirt for 6 hours. You can see everyone working together, even the baby, putting straw over everything to help avoid erosion. We made some grand mistakes this year not knowing better. We left our soil without mulch or groundcover and suffered some horrible erosion. Our dirt was almost ruined and void of any organic matter or living organisms. It was sad. Never again. Cover crops and mulch are my friends.

We also cleared most of the rest of the orchard area. Remember when Clay started cutting trees here? It's hard work to clear all the limbs and move them out. Rewarding work though. We're closer. Hopefully soon a friend will be bringing his tractor and getting those stumps out for us. And hopefully help us clear the last few big trees that are too close for comfort to the power lines.

Okay I said all we did was work but that's not true. Can't have work without play. Saturday Clay went out and put up a swing on a tree for the littles. They LOVE it.

We started our new family activity. Knife throwing. We all suck. :)

And finally Sunday when we were all done, we had a nice relaxing evening. The sky looked like this,
accompanied with a nice wind, so the new kite came out. For his birthday Frankie got $10 from his awesome aunt. It was the most he's gotten at once yet and was SO excited. He's agonized over how to spend that $10 for months. Then he saw the kite. It was $18 and begged me to loan him the money to buy it. How could I resist after all the times he wanted to spend it and didn't? So Clay set out on building it. The new family rule? No more complicated kites allowed LOL!

And then flying it. We had so much fun. The wind was erratic and kept switching so it wasn't great kite weather but it was fun nonetheless and allowed everyone time to just unwind and enjoy themselves.

And when people are happy they let me take their picture. Cassie laughs and is silly so much yet whenever I take her picture she gets all serious.

And look at THIS guy. SO OLD. So grown up. Where's my baby?

Sigh. I feel like I just lived a whole weekend just typing this. And the idea that anyone would read this far? You deserve a prize. Here take some brownies.

Who needs flowers?

2009-03-03T07:48:00.001-08:00

When you have compost? See this:?

Aged. Over a year aged manure. My amazing husband agreed to go get me TWO loads of this aged manure for the garden. I'm so excited! To think women want jewelry when they can have aged manure. What's wrong with people these days? :o) I can't wait to finish this garden up!! The weather's going from snow Sunday to in the 70s by this Saturday. So this weekend is garden finishing time. Woohoo!

Welcome our new additions :)

2009-03-03T05:53:00.000-08:00

It's a busy time around here. All sorts of fun things going on around here. It makes me always wonder how all these homesteaders with loads of littles have time to blog everyday. Onto our new arrivals.

Meet the Rhode Island Reds. There are more of those guys. 10 in total but these are their spokespeople. Note I said spokesPEOPLE. That guys who got a little out of control with the green marker is the rooster. He better be a good one. We miss our other RIR rooster, Max. Our mean rooster Prince (who's in the freezer now) ran him off and we miss him. Rhode Island Reds aren't usually the kind of chicken to want to be close to humans, but they're not skiddish either and are great egg layers. They have always performed incredibly well for us so we got 10 of them.

Next, meet the Buffs. Buff Orpingtons. We've always had those. Always. They're fluffy and gorgeous and are fairly good egg layers but they are Mommies most of all. They love to set and make us little babies. And Buffs are one of the friendliest chickens out there. We don't really handle our chickens a lot but if we did they'd love for us to pick them up and whatnot. Just sweet chickens. With ONE exception. This doesn't hold true for their roosters. Our mean rooster that attacked kids and babies and adults and other chickens and ducks and was just mean was a Buff Orpington. So glad to be rid of Prince.
Those yellow Buffs are classic little chickies eh?
Here's a grown Buff Orpington:

Onto the Barred Rocks. I only got 4 of them but should have gotten more. They're my favorite "looking" chicken and ours laid all winter this year. Even when everyone else slowed a little she laid and laid. I should have gotten 10 of them!

Their markings look like this. Don't know why it's just a Barred Rock rear end but whatever.
I love Barred markings.

Next onto the Black Sex Links. Here's another one that are egg laying machines and I regret not having more. But honestly. How many eggs a day do we REALLY need? We'll be getting a couple dozen a day during peak season with all these girls. 2 dozen. Black Sex Links are my least favorite looking chickens but definitely the best layers
Here's a little Black Sex Link pullet (a young girl chicken) so you can see the markings
Last but not least the Ameracauanas or "Easter Eggers". They'll be all sorts of different colors and they lay all sorts of different color eggs. Okay well mostly green but all sorts of shades of green. We always get some of these each year because the kids can pick one for "their" chicken that is a totally different color than anyone else's. Last year we had "Fluffy, Cocoa, and Isabella". This year we have "Nana" (Mom bought em for us and so we bought one that's for her and named after her), and the kids have yet to name theirs. Well they've named them a few times but nothing has sticked yet
The first one is Adric's. You can't see it but it has a cool looking cheetah face. The next is Frankie's. It looks just like his one from last year. The striped head one is Cassie's. It's a cool looking chick for sure. And last but not least. Nana :)

They lived a few days in a box in the house but now live in the trailer that was in the tour thread. They have two heat lamps in there and are healthy and thriving despite it being down in the teens at night. They'll be in there for quite a while. Right now they're only allowed in about a third of the trailer and it's more than big enough. So they should be fairly big before they outgrow it. The hens are mad though because they started laying eggs in there. They walk around it mad and squawking. So I guess I will be finishing up the chicken coop ASAP. Our black australorp has taken to laying on Clay's work bench on the back porch for some odd reason.

Alright off to real life.

Actually Scrapped

2009-02-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

Some of you know but not all of you that I used to have a more popular blog when I was a scrapbook designer for my stay-at-home job. Since retiring from designing I took a long hiatus from scrapping. But Garrison's growing up, there's so many things going on around here, that I felt I needed to at least start doing some simple memory layouts here and there. So I did a little layout tonight about Garrison's special words. That child, he talks up a storm. He can say, or at least try to say, almost everything. But there are some words that are just special. Whether it's what they are, what they mean to someone in the family or how he says them. I didn't want to forget. I wish I had kept at least a journal or baby book when the others were little to jot down these little things. I do have my old blog. It has a lot on it but it's not the same. I may start journaling again. I miss it. Okay, off to bed. But here's a little layout eye candy for fun. And maybe it'll serve as a little reminder that it's important to write these little things down so we have them later when they suddenly become more important then you realized in the moment.
Click for larger view. Night.

The Grand Tour

2009-02-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

Finally I'll do a little tour of our technically 5 acre but truly 1 acre homestead :) I thought I took more and better pictures but I didn't get everything like I thought. I did do a little sketch of the property. The dotted lines are things we're working on or aren't there yet. So hop on and take the tour of our little piece of property. We've tried and still haven't been able to name our homestead yet. We're still kicking around some ideas. So onto the nameless homestead:

Click to see a nice big version of it. So our driveway comes down and on the left currently there's this:

This is facing it from the house, but you can see the driveway there. You can see on the drawing that there is a side driveway on the other side of the orchard. Okay, one day it will be an orchard. That road goes through our property but is an easement for the nice guy that owns the property behind us. It throws a monkey wrench in some long term plans but we'll work through it. Eventually we'll be fencing off down the hollow for goats and pigs and the fence will go over the road and they will have to move gates to drive down. You can see that there are a few trees that still need to be cut and lots of brush for me to move this week. Or next week probably :) But they're a little close to the electric lines and Clay wants to have the bobcat out and chain the trees before he cuts those just in case. But our orchard area along the driveway will be a two or three rail fence that will have grapes and raspberries. It gets great sun there. In the tip of the triangle by the side road where there is great sun and a big clearing of trees will be the blueberries. The area is bigger than it seems! Then trees spaced throughout the rest of the triangle. Sure it won't be a huge orchard but enough for our family.

Okay as you keep driving down the driveway in front of you will be the house. Now this isn't a fabulous picture as I was being lazy and didn't want to move the cars lol. And with no real functioning garage we had some woodworking equipment on the porch. But most of the equipment is gone now. Woohoo! You can also see a swing. Clay's in the process of putting two swings and a baby swing on the front porch.

With the house in front to the left is currently a chicken tractor. Or whatever tractor. Whenever we need to put a new animals of any kind it goes in there. But hopefully soon it will be a front garden.
To the right of the house is the wood area. That'll be changing some this summer with it moving more over and an addition of a small wood outbuilding of sorts. I've shown the wood area before. But I snapped the unfinished stacking job Frankie was not doing the other day :) It's nice and stacked and twice as much wood now. If this wood stack is on the left, the wood cutting, etc. area is on the right and not pictured.
As you walk past the wood, there's the garden! yay! We're farther along than in this picture. We're excited to be expanding the garden this year. And I have such a great and fabulous husband. I asked him if he thought with all the rocks if I would be able to dig holes for fence posts and he grabbed the digging bar and posthole diggers and said "Okay let's go!" We sunk all the posts that are in this picture that afternoon. Since then the whole back row of poles has been sunk as well. The posts are all the tops of cedar trees we either cleared for the orchard or from the tornado. Clay said we definitely have enough to do the whole garden in those posts. Awesome.
This garden area is 27' x 50'. Considering I'll be giant and pregnant during most of the main season that should be plenty big for this year. Next year it'll be twice as big. Yeah. As you get to that far right post on the back of the garden, straight ahead is an area that is either going to be more garden or the greenhouse and behind that the soon-to-be-finished chicken coop and to the right is an area that is either going to be garden or greenhouse. It's undecided. Here's the right garden area:
And a weird angle of the almost finished chicken coop. Didn't get a great picture of that.
To the left of that is some lawn and currently a trailer that we converted to a chicken coop. It has roosts, nesting boxes, etc. But come this Friday it will house quite a lot of new Spring chicks. I haven't decided how many yet but at least 20. I'm SO done with chicks in a box in the house. Never again :) That area will either be the rabbit colony or goats or both. We haven't 100% decided yet. I'll talk about the difficulties finding where to put the goats either later on this post or later later.

Now if you keep turning left there's a big tree, more lawn, and some space that will either be goats or clotheslines and strawberries. So much to fit, so little space. Sure would be easier if it was one long flat acre.

Now if you look at the drawing of the property, on the other side of the side road is 4 or so acres of somewhat steep wooded hollow. Eventually we'll fence off a couple areas through the hollow for goats and pigs. Man and where will the pigs go? I need to figure out where the big animals are going to go. Soon.

See the problem we're having is this. We don't want to have to drive through our only lawn to get to the back of the house to put hay in the barns. But um... where in the front can we put goats and pigs? Hmm... I'll have to work this out with Clay. Now the side road is probably only about 8 feet or so down a slope on the side of the back. So the area between the big tree and the house on the drawing. It would be an 8 ft slope down or so to deal with hay. Is there some way to deal with that? Digging out the hill and setting the barn farther back? Hmm... I'll have to talk to Clay and see how that goes. If you have a suggestion, I'll take it. Any suggestions. Now we considered doing the goat barn in the front. I could move the front garden out a bit and put the barn behind it. BUT the wind tends to blow towards the house. So we'd be downwind from the barn. I THINK. Again, I'll have to ask Clay. I mean it was blowing towards the house the other day. It seemed like it always blew that way. Maybe it doesn't! Who knows.

Okay that took way too long. It's highly doubtful anyone got to the bottom of this anyways. Except maybe my Gramma. She loves me. :)

Blog Giveaway

2009-02-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

It's not mine but I want to win it! Serenity Sheep Farm has a great new idea. Okay so you know CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture)? Where you pay for a share in their farm so-to-speak and get a share of their bounty every month? Fabulous stuff. Anyways over at SSF they're doing a sheep CSA - where you pay your share and get yarn or roving (your choice) instead of produce. Such an incredible idea. So over there is a fabulous giveaway. Check it out here:

Serenity Sheep Farm Blog

And check out the amazing goodies over at the fabulous SSF etsy shop

Their fabulous Etsy shop

Run, don't walk, on over and check out their blog and shop.

Gardening - Feast then Famine?

2009-02-06T09:27:00.001-08:00

Everything I've ever read about gardening, every garden I drive by here in TN, operates on a feast or famine philosophy. When things are great and warm, there's loads of fresh food, when things get cold, the garden dies back and then you're scrounging on canned produce or *gasp* going to the grocery store to buy tired produce. The gardening season is the feast and the rest of the year is famine. With one of our goals being this tiny tiny homestead of ours providing us with as much as it can as steadily as it can, I refuse to accept this feast or famine gardening idea this year. But being a somewhat new gardener I had no idea how to really achieve this goal.

BUT I just finished reading a fantastic book. It was given to me for Valentine's Day by my always thoughtful Gramma. Love you Gramma. It's definitely on my top 5 must-read gardening books. Click the picture to go straight to Amazon and buy it!

I got it and read it obsessively in a day. Now, first let me say his ramblings about going all over Paris grew a bit old, BUT this book really changed my outlook on gardening. It's FABULOUS! Greenhouses always seemed so complicated. Winter gardening so complicated. I kept reading about heating the greenhouse, running heated water pipes underneath, and on and on. It sounded SO expensive. Then I read this book.

He and his wife live in Maine and don't heat their greenhouse. Yeah no heat in Maine. He doesn't try and operate outside of nature, heating greenhouses and trying to grow tomatoes when they don't want to grow. He operates in harmony with nature, growing plants that WANT to grow in the Winter. From his point of view, greenhouses, cold frames, row covers are for regulating the wild change in temperature that can happen in the winter and for keeping the temperature just high enough to not kill our winter hardy plants. The phrase that stuck with goes something like this "the goal is not to extend the growing season but the harvest season". You're not trying to grow things that don't want to grow, you extend the harvest on things that can handle it.

And he focuses a lot on what I was talking about before. Feast or famine. This year I'm going to focus more on successive plantings. Why does everything I read say I need to plant zucchinis on x date when I can plant new ones every few weeks for a month so when the first ones start slowing down my next ones are in full force. Then just yank those tired zucs and plant something for the winter there. The goal is to have there always being top quality produce coming out at any moment.

He talks about root cellaring, he has exact plans for green houses and cold frames, it even has a whole section in the back with a lot of information on every plant you could want! And loads of info, even whole chapters on soil and organic gardening.

Wait, you back from buying the book already to read the rest of my post? Man I need one of those Amazon affiliates things over there. I just lost money while you bought this book.

I can't wait for Spring!!!

A new favorite blog

2009-02-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Lately I've found so many "must-reads". I love reading blogs. Just when you feel like you're reading every good blog there is, you find a new fabulous little treasure. Eclectic Culture is one of those treasures. Why didn't any of you tell me about it sooner?

This blog is a journal of a normal homeschooling Christian family. Normal looking in every way. They wear pants and blow dry their hair, normal. They felt called by God to buy a farm smack dab in the middle of Amish country. They gave away all their electronic goodies, packed up and left the world they knew.

Their story and adventure as they deal with living totally off grid, getting to know their Amish neighbors, doing things like working for days with their neighbors cutting huge chunks of ice to fill ice houses and the women working in the house together to make the meals, just all of it is fascinating in every way. She definitely leaves most of us out here in homestead land quite jealous! Me at least. I admit to being somewhat obsessed with the Amish and the choices they make for their lives. I definitely learned things on this blog already that smashed a lot of my preconceived notions about the Amish.

Here's the link to a welcome post of sorts. It has the link to the beginning of their journey.
http://eclecticculturefarm.blogspot.com/2009/01/welcome.html

Go read. I started from the beginning and read post by post. It was a nice way to spend the evening with everyone asleep except for the sickie lethargic baby doll. Pray these sickies go away soon.