RAIN

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

It's raining today--FINALLY! The cool wet smell of the rain is so refreshing after our long hot summer and dry start to Fall.

Even the cat seems to be enjoying the view. The other cat we usually let outside during the day is comfortably curled up on my sewing chair taking a nice nap after her quick trip outside this morning. Sounds like a plan to me! Too bad I have Halloween things to prepare for today! It's supposed to rain all weekend. Yay! I see sewing and household things getting done this weekend!

I'll be posting a bunch of pictures from this past week tomorrow. Have a safe Halloween!

moving mishaps

When we moved I had put all of my candles in one tub and made sure they went into a livingspace instead of the barn at my parent's house. I bought these candles when we were up in Squaw Creek this past summer. There is a great candle shop up there! You'd have to check it out on my old blog page posted to the right. Notice how they look a little funny in spots??? Gee, I wonder why.


This is how they looked minutes before the picture above. Nice. This is what happens on a 10 minute trailer ride across town when you have to move in 100 degree heat. I was so bummed! Heating them in the oven worked a little. I refuse to throw them out!

Really, I just wanted to show a picture of how clean my oven is before it goes through a winter at my house. (Imagine the Vanna hand waving around here, and here.) It looks brand new inside! Either they never used the oven or they did a lot of hard work to make it look all spify. I wasn't that nice to our buyers...they got their "hard work" out of their reduced sales price...the kids want to go trick or treating in our old neighborhood to check them out. We never saw them. They'd probably open their big mouthes about it on the step. What are your Halloween plans this year? Amanda is going to a friend's Halloween party and I'm taking Evan to the Downtown Businesses that are participating in giving out candy after school. I might be too pooped to trick or treat after those 2 events...hopefully. It's supposed to rain too. There might be a lightening strike or a flash flood...what else can I come up with? No candy!!! It's hard enough to make it through the grocery store without going into chocoholic rants and holding up somewhere in a corner like a crazed animal growling at customers while one rips open bags of Reeses...

The gift of Amish Friendsh...wait a minute...

Look what I got at the gym this morning??? I saw her coming, her little bags of slime in hand. She nailed me at the door on my way out from spinning class. Her: "Hey, have you ever tried one of these?" Me: "Uh, no." Her: "It's really easy. You're on day 6. It's really yummy too!" Me: "Ok. I guess with the holidays coming up I can throw them in the freezer." See? Already justifying the extra calories coming into the house. Well, once I got home I saw why it was so yummy. Day 1 mush the bag. Day 2 mush the bag. That goes on for a while. Day 6 add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and one cup milk. Mush, Mush, Mush. Then add more sugar, more sugar, more sugar. Every time you add flour you add the same amount of sugar! No wonder it's soooo good! Then at the end you add a box of vanilla pudding as well! Ah, do the Amish add a box of vanilla? I bet not. So, I've already started tweaking it. I added the right amount of sugar, but I did half whole wheat half white flour. Basically, I won't be able to pass my slime on to anyone else cause I'm tweakin' it. Maybe if it turns out tasty I'll pass on the loaves instead. It also has the typical, "Only the Amish have the recipe so if you don't pass it on and keep it going at your house you'll never know the recipe to start it again!" Ah, have you heard of the internet? I'm now on a quest to do a healthy bread starter. I'll try a sourdough or something that won't add as much bad stuff to it. Be on the look out for bags of slime and a smile!

We're off!

Well, I'm off for the night. Amanda and I are heading out of town to a Girl Scout overnight cabin trip to Woodland...you heard it. Woodland. Apparently there is a Girl Scout cabin there. Not much else IN Woodland. All I know is 5 girls in a cabin should be interesting. I think I'm taking my ear plugs! Chris hasn't been alone here overnight for QUITE a few years. Last time it was for a Woman's retreat. I'm quite sure I won't be coming home refreshed. Hopefully the house is still standing when I get home! Keep good thoughts!

Lots of learnin' today

Part 1: So, my day started with Rodney, my funny little rooster, not doing well. He wasn't crowing when I let him out this morning and he was walking around like he was drunk. Poor guy couldn't see. So, panic time. He is my favorite, he is my kid's favorite. We love the little guy. I was scared he had the little cold my new girls had. Not much I could do at the time with school and work to get through. When I got home I threw a towel over him and my Dad discovered he had mites in his eyes. Ok, this is where the creepy itchies started. Yuck. So, dust his vent(hiney) with powder and get some drops in his eyes and he was a new man! Wow! I'm learnin' lots 'bout chickens.

Part 2 of my day: We're having an issue with flys coming in the house from the garage every time we open the door. There are TONS of them in the garage now that the weather is getting colder. Chris got those fly strips to hang in the garage. I decided to put one in the kitchen. I decided to let Evan open it by twisting it counterclockwise SLOWLY. Evan doesn't do SLOWLY well. Now Mommy knows how sticky fly strips are when you touch them to get the rest of the strip out of the package that Evan ripped in two. Mommy also figured out the directions lie about soap and water taking off the stick'um.

Colored hair rocks

Common ground. This is an important thing in our household. I never paid much attention to it when the kids were little. I don't know if I'm even using the phrase correctly, but this is what it means to me right now: The kids have something that makes them connect and enjoy each other and forget that one was touching the other, or too close to the other's side, or was looking out their window instead of the one next to them, or was "copying me", or was looking at me, or was laughing at me, or was going "____" ...you get the idea. These rare moments are so fun to see them truly enjoying each other and being able to laugh at each other without hurt feelings or anger and this time it was called "crazy hair day" at school. Yup. Give my kids some colored hairspray and they are best friends trying to figure out what to do and where to do it. When I went to take this picture Evan said, "Let's put our arms around each other!" Awww. I wish I would have had my camera at school. Oh my gosh there were some cool hair do's going on! Very creative. A little boy at school was walking behind his older sister and when my kids were admiring her crazy hair he said, "That's my sister." He was so proud of her. Who knew hair products could bring siblings closer together? I advise all you moms of bickering siblings to go get some Halloween spray and have a good weekend!!!

Ahhhh!

My hawk is back. Chris took this picture when he noticed the hawk eyeing my chickens this week. I guess we're going to have to go get some netting to cover the top this weekend. So far Hawkie hasn't gotten any. I like to think it's because my chickens are so smart...well, uh maybe it's because the hawk is so dumb. Darn it if he isn't pretty too. I still don't like him, very much anyway. Dumb hawk. Any good name suggestions for him? I think if I get serious with him and yell out a name instead of "Dumb Hawk" when he's swooping in he might take me more seriously.

Happy Friday

This morning has been peaceful for me. I was working extra hours at school all week in the morning and today I wasn't needed until noon so I took advantage of it. After dropping the kids off for school I talked to a few ladies, hit the grocery store, and checked out some blogs I've lost track of. I've been thinking about things I should be thankful for and here's my list:

1. Thankful for coupons and the "bring your own bags" credit. I saved $5! I'm also thankful I remembered to get my bags out of the trunk this time. One small step to help the environment!

2. Thankful for nature out my window. I am watching quail run around in my pasture.

3 Thankful I have a pasture now.

4. Thankful my husband is such a great guy and willing to go back to living paycheck to paycheck again for a while. Not much fun, but worth the effort.

5. Thankful we're all healthy.

6. Thankful for my family and friends. They really make my life more full.

7. Thankful we have food in the fridge and clothes to wear.

8. Thankful it's Fall and the stores have those pumpkin shaped candy corn again. Love those! Plus if you eat too many they get nauseating so it's easy to keep it to a dull roar.

hummm...I'm trying to get to 10...

9. Thankful that my children are happy to help Mom this past week with chores without complaining THAT much. Just a little here and there but I was ignoring that.

10. Thankful that I am FORCED to spend some time sewing this weekend on costumes so I have to ignore a chore. Shoot! And also that Marcy had a black cape Evan could borrow for his Darth Vadar costume so I only have to work on Amanda's witch cape. That means I'll MAYBE get to work on something of mine. You know how it goes, once the machine is out and there is time set aside it inspires us to keep going! Oh, the list of unfinished things...I guess I should finish Evan's quilt before it gets too much colder...especially since it was supposed to be a birthday present and now it will probably be a Christmas present instead.

Whew! That was 10.

Happy Friday!

Meet Missy

Guess what this yarn mess means? Yup, new kitten. We lost Chester when we moved to my parent's house. Coyotes were really loud and up close on occasion and he didn't come home one night. You can piece together the rest. Amanda was upset but understood that country life sometimes means a shorter life span for cats that insist on going outside like he did. He pretty much went nutty if you kept him inside for too long. We tried to break it to her gently and said maybe he went to live at someone else's house. This said to the kid that at 4 years old kept pressing me about how the baby got INSIDE. Nothing I said (kid appropriate of course) satisfied her and she knew I was leaving out a key piece of the details. Thank goodness she stopped asking! So, back to the cat. I finally just told her after a couple of days of her running through senarios of what might have happened, that he probably was caught by a coyote as he wandered too far and wasn't farm wise about being too far away at night. I figure she needs to learn these things and had a couple of days to get over the pain of her cat not coming home and since she kept getting her hopes up about him coming home I thought it was time to tell her the truth. She took it really well, cried about it, and then asked for another cat.
She is 5 months old and sucked Chris right in to her little plan to overtake the house one human at a time!

She is a sweetie and loves to snuggle with any warm lap willing to sit still. She also took over the afghan on the couch. She kneads and purrs when she sits on it. There's nothing better than a little kitty doing that!
It took a couple of weeks for Molly to stop terrorizing her. Molly was used to being a Brutus with Chester and wanted to play rough with Missy, who is a third the size of Molly. There was a lot of hissing and spitting but Molly's persistence payed off. Now they are buds. CUTE! Ok, that's enough for today!

Meet Missy

I just found this in my editing area on my blog board. Apparently I never finished this. Well, I guess I'll just stick it in here. This was from Fall 2008. Better late than never! Can you tell I'm cleaning house here?


Aww, man! I forgot about the yarn tangling that comes along with a new kitten.

Final resting place

My piano finally ended up in the place that it's going to stay until they drag me out of this place. I am NEVER moving again. I know you aren't supposed to say never so I say again, "I AM NEVER MOVING AGAIN!" This poor piano is too old to move again. After getting it here it needed lots of work to get back in tune. If you've never seen the inside of one of these old pianos it's really cool. When you click on the picture you can also take some time to get jealous over my boss wood paneling. Admit it, you love it. Wasn't "boss" a 70's word? I was trying to take you back...Is it Friday yet?

Painting Day

The kids are always dying to help me paint. Most of the time I let them have one or two passes with the roller and that's it. The thought of 2 kids painting inside the house makes me cringe. This time they got to help! We had to paint the chicken's barn out back and they were in charge. Hard as I tried to just let them do it all I eventually stepped in a little. I just couldn't help it! For example, Evan kept rolling his roller all the way to the dirt and then back in the paint pan. Now it's got texture added! Then Amanda liked to dip her brush ALL the way into the paint can. ALL THE WAY. I tried, really I did! There are certain things I can't handle when painting...crap in the paint and a messy brush. Thank goodness they got tired and decided they were done after about 30 minutes. I was about to have a coronary. My hats off to the Moms that can let it go and allow their children the room to explore and learn without interfering. I wasn't born with that hardwiring.

See? See???? That's Evan painting his hand and I let him do it! Does that count?
I think the chickens liked the new paint and roof on their house. Nice and cozy!

Whew!

It's Sunday, and I've just finished a big bowl of SALAD. Not just any ordinary salad, but one with crunchy chips, cheese, pulled pork a la Jerry(my brother) and Uncle Doug's bean recipe a la Lorna(my sis) mixed in for flavor. It started out as a salad needed to purge myself of my overindulgences from last night and ended up being last night without the bread. I tried! Hey, overall it was pretty healthy. I had my family over last night to celebrate a couple of birthdays and we all pigged out. Yum! The first official pig out of the holiday season! It was also my first official week back at the gym after my 2 month "vacation". Yeah, I'm sore. It's back to waking up when it's still dark and rolling out of bed to attempt to lose 10 pounds by the end of the year. I've been a bad girl the last couple of years and need to get serious...and my lunch wasn't that serious, but better than what it could have been! Baby steps! Here are some pictures of what we've been working on this weekend. My dogger has a LONG body and has a hard time with the steep steps. Corgi's don't do well with steps as they can slip disks in their backs and such. Daddy has been trying different ramps for her(don't tell Chris I called him daddy when it comes to the dog) to see what works the best. I'll try to get caught up on some pictures now that we have 3G internet. Couldn't stand the slow speed. Not excited about the price but the speed is great! Have a great week!

Get some caffeine for this one. It's long!

I'm going to attempt to tell you the story about how we got our house without crying...which is hard since I've been crying about it for the past month now. Here it goes.

We had moved out the second weekend in August to my parent's house so we could then take our profits we were due to recieve on August 25th and find something else. You see, no one wants to deal with contingencies. You REALLY need cash in hand and squeaky credit. Two weeks after we had accepted an offer we were on the hunt for property. Most of the places we went to look at were ROUGH. Rough in the sense that we couldn't live in the house until major things were fixed. Either that or it was on a cliff, had a horrible driveway that we couldn't fit the 5th wheel down or was too far out of town. There was a property that we'd seen online, but they wanted too much money. The day our house was to close I checked out the internet and saw that same house for $30,000 less. It was still too much money, but Chris and I decided to stop by that weekend and just look at it. There wasn't anyone living in it so we were going to snoop a little. Low and behold when we showed up the back door was unlocked. We snuck inside and fell in love with it's potential. The land was nice and flat. It was fenced. There were 2 little barns and a chicken coop. It was surrounded by lots of trees. The AC unit was younger than both of my children and overall the place was neat as could be for it's age. SO, Monday morning I called our Real Estate Agent and said we really liked what we saw but would have to offer quite a bit less. She said we needed to hurry as the listing agent, a fellow agent of hers, said they had another offer coming in soon. SO, I raced down and we decided that we'd just offer what we could and see what happens. I also wrote the seller a letter about how we loved their house and knew it would fulfill a dream for us to have property again like we grew up with. It was what we wanted for our family. I told them everything about us. Hey! You don't ask you don't get, right? The next day we found out the other people offered full price with a 10% carry back on the loan. This woman is 85 and is being taken care of by her daughter in Florida so we were hoping the carry back wasn't going to work for them. The seller decided to look at our offer first since we made our offer first, but after we countered back and forth a couple of times the other offer came in at a full cash offer. Basically we were outbid. I decided to stop thinking about it and would just let things work themselves out. The hurricane was hitting Florida at this point so everything was crawling along at a snail's pace. It was tourture! Then something I'm still amazed at happened. The daughter said her mother wanted us to have her house. This was the house she and her husband had built with the help of her daughter. The mother knew she was accepting the lower offer and losing $25,000 but she said she wanted that family to have her house and it was important for her to know children were going to live there. I pretty much stopped breathing. Then I started crying. What an amazing gift this woman gave us. What an amazing feeling to have the Lord sitting on our shoulders. I felt it. It was my ahh, ha moment that I've always heard about people experiencing that brings them closer to the Lord. Looking back now at the turn of events, now that we're all moved in, I can honestly say there were many times we were just in the nick of time with this deal--writing the letter(which my Mom said I should write...thanks Mom!), countering back and forth and them putting us in 1st position even though they had the full cash offer with no carry back, and knowing the other people called every day to see if our deal fell through...scary! I honestly feel we were meant to be here. The weekend before our escrow was supposed to close the daughter had flown out from Florida to sell the rest of her Mom's things in a garage sale. My Dad was interested in an old truck that belonged to the lady's husband so when he talked to the daughter she said she would love to meet us. We went by and were all crying within 5 minutes. She said she and her Mom both felt that the Lord placed us in their lives and it was meant to be. Can you believe that? I told her that her mom was the gift and had made our dreams come true. She then went on to show me all of the paper work on the appliances, the blueprints, the new keys she had tooled, the new carpet warranty, and the hummingbird solution. She wanted to make sure we fed her mom's birds. Can I BE anymore connected to this woman? Feeds the birds, has a canning storage room in the garage, has a chicken coop, and planted lots of trees herself on the property...It's as if she read my mind on what I needed at our house. I still keep waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under us. It's been an amazing ride this past month. When we started moving in the daughter had left little gifts that were her mom's for each kid in the room they had showed her they wanted as their own. She had left posterboards with sweet messages written on them for each of us in our rooms. They truly are wonderful people. It's hard to believe a month ago we were signing papers and now we're moved in and planning our holidays with our family. I feel blessed to be here and will cherish every memory made possible by the generosity of one little old lady named Mary Price and the grace of God. This was my "God moment", my Mack truck, my ton of bricks. Yeah, I believe. "Can I get an AMEN?" :) I PROMISE pictures and less rambling soon. Internet issues...

Fundraising strike!!!

Ok, I'm officially tweeked about fundraising!!!! Don't get me wrong, I understand the concept. Each group has their needs. Girlscouts need it for their trips. Boyscouts needs it for their events and trips. The PTC needs it for computer lab and the library. Can't I just give them all 5 bucks and run away screaming in the opposite direction??? Please? Let's see...since August I've been hit up for the $10 PTC fund, the ice cream social from the PTC, popcorn sales for boyscouts, magazine sales for Girlscouts, nut sales for girl scouts, the book fair for PTC, and NOW, the PTC is doing cookie dough and cheesecake sales. To top off all of this, Chris got hit up at work for one of those damn coupon books for $40. FORTY DOLLARS!!! Of course you can make your money back in the first couple of months with the savings you'll get. Of course you have to go out and spend money to get your money back. He agreed to this so his co-worker would buy $40 in popcorn, that as of yesterday he said he wasn't going to be able to do now. I'd like to shove his $40 SAVINGS b...breathing, breathing. Ok, I feel better now. I think I need some cookies...wait! I know just where to get them...in 4 to 6 weeks. I'll try to get some pictures in here this weekend of our new kitty, Missy. She is a cutie.