Around here today....

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

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

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.....

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

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

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.