Monday

Hello everyone! Seems like time goes by so quickly. I wanted to give you all an update on Hubby. He is doing some better. We did go to the doctor on Thursday. They did some blood work and we are waiting on the results.

We had a very busy but great weekend. Chuck and his family came and spent Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday with us. Irma and her kids were gone to N.C. to see her family. Her dad has been diagnosed with cancer. Anyway, Chuck and kids went with us to church on Sunday. We had a really good crowd at church. Several visitors, which is very unusual for us.

Today was school as usual. I had hoped to work on Sam’s quilt but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Probably won’t happen today. I have all the squares sewn together now and am ready to start putting it all together. I think it looks pretty good. I will take a picture and show you all when it is finished. I gave Alexius her quilt this weekend. She slept under it Saturday night. When they were leaving Sunday evening, she forgot to carry out her overnight bag. Chuck carried it out for her. He asked her if she had forgotten anything. She said, “No, I got my quilt.” She wanted to make sure she didn’t forget it.

We have been cold here today. Morning wind chill temperature was zero when we got up. We did have sunshine though but it still has been cold all day. I think I am ready for warmer temperatures. I got a new seed book in the mail today which we have already looked through. Looking at all that beautiful produce always gives me the fever to go play in the dirt. Well, it won’t be too much longer (I hope).

Enjoy your evening and God bless.

March 4, 2013 7

Wednesday

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a good day. Things are kinda slow here. Hubby is still sick-YUCK! He has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I would appreciate your prayers for a healing for him. He does feel better today than he has in 2 weeks. I can see an improvement every day just not as fast as we would like.

Yesterday another ice storm came through. Everything was covered with ice. This morning though all is gone. YEAH! We have some sun with temperatures in the upper 30’s. We are supposed to get more snow come through Thursday and Friday. I know, though, spring is just around the corner. The birds are singing so pretty and the air just has a different feel to it.

Not much else going on here. School, laundry, housework. You know, just the usual stuff. Enjoy your day and God bless.

February 27, 2013 4

Wintry Mix

We awoke this morning to a wintry mix.

Not a lot going on here this week. Grace has had a little sore throat and congestion going on this week. Hubby has been dealing with something going on with his tummy. Not exactly sure what. I think a trip to the doctor might help but he thinks for sure (today) that he is doing better. We’ll see.

Yesterday, Julie and I went to C-burg while Grace and Hubby stayed home. I was hoping to find a few twin size flat sheets at Goodwill to use as the backing for the quilts I’m working on. I did find one but I don’t think it will be for Sam’s quilt but hopefully it will work for one of the other ones. We picked up a few things at Wal-Mart, paid a few bills and came on home. I’m glad we got all that done yesterday before the storm hit. We also downloaded sheet music for Julie. The song is titled Hope’s Song by Rebecca St. James. She wants to play and sing this song at church for Easter. She’ll have to work pretty hard on it though as Easter is just around the corner.

Julie and I spotted a few of these colts foot blooming yesterday. I took this picture from an older post of mine as we did not have the camera with us yesterday. It is always so exciting when we see these starting to bloom. They are (to my knowledge) our first wild flowers to bloom in spring. YEAH!

Well, I guess that’s about it. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

February 22, 2013 4

Spring

Friday these beautiful red winged blackbirds stopped by our feeders for a little snack. They are usually the first birds to return in the spring. They are a week earlier this year than last year. Hopefully, that means an early spring. However, this morning was no indication that spring is on its way. Wind chill temperature -10 degrees with snow on the ground. Well, the snow is gone now and the wind chill now is 5 degrees so we are warming up some.

Not much going on here. I have started work on Sam’s quilt. I have all the 5 x 5 in. squares cut out and am ready to start sewing them together. School has went well this week. Did I mention to you all about the last batch of homemade laundry soap I made using the laundry bar soap instead of fels naptha? Well, those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that in the past I have had trouble with the homemade laundry soap. My clothes seem to get a dingy look and the towels became really non-absorbent. I know, strange stuff, but strange happens a lot here. I guess it is our water that causes these problems. Well, so far I have had no problems using this batch. It is a little bit different recipe than I have tried before but I think the real difference is using homemade laundry bar soap. I will try to remember to keep you all updating as to how it is doing.

Well, I better get busy. Church tonight and the menu is baked potato bar. Sounds delicious to me. I really like baked potatoes. Enjoy your Sunday and God bless.

February 17, 2013 3

Finished

I am finished with the quilt. This will be for Alexius (oldest granddaughter on her birthday). Next I am starting on Sam’s. His birthday is next. Last week seemed to go by quickly. We got our haircuts and enjoyed a nice afternoon with Faye and Gene. The girls and I went to Sam’s one day to get stocked up on a few things. Hubby cut wood while we were gone. Imagine that, choosing to cut wood over going shopping! On another day, we did some more electrical for our friend that is moving. And before we knew it the weekend was here.

So now, school is finished, outside chores are done, the girls have taken a walk on the tractor road and supper is in the oven. Wow, how good is that! Tonight we are having something new. I bought some marinated turkey breasts at Sam’s last week. We are baking one of them for supper. It smells awesome.

I wanted to share this picture with you all. You remember a while back when I made the comment that our pond was overflowing. Well, we finally figured out why. A duck has somehow got sucked into the drain pipe. Not pleasant, I know, but strange things do happen. Marvin told me he read somewhere that if he fell in, he had 20 min. before hypothermia set in. I told him I’d be watching and if he fell in I would let him know when his time was running out but to make sure he got the duck out while he was in the water. (lol) Anyway, they are trying to get the drain unstopped. So far, no success.

Well, I think that is about all that is going on around here. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

February 11, 2013 6

Happy Monday!

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a great day so far. We have worked on half school today as we are going to get haircuts this afternoon. I found this new recipe for bread and so I am taking this loaf to Mrs. Faye as a thank you for cutting our hair. We also plan on sharing these cinnamon buns with her.

I got this recipe from http://redfarmhouse.blogspot.com/search?q=one+rise+bread.

I also wanted to share another new recipe I am trying. I got it from here http://belovedsbride.blogspot.com/ I had a beef roast to put in the crockpot this morning. Amazing how things work out that way. It sure does smell good cooking.

Another new thing I did last month was bake our bacon in the oven. Jess does this all the time so I thought I would give it a try. We buy our bacon at Sam’s in a 3 lb package. Last month, I baked the entire package at one time. Instructions are here: http://blog.makezine.com/craft/kitchen_101_cooking_bacon_in_t/ I then froze the precooked bacon. Wow, I’m thinking, why hadn’t I thought of this before. Now all I have to do is get out the amount of bacon needed for breakfast, heat it up in a skillet or microwave and ta-da bacon is ready. I am impressed with how fast it is and how crispy the bacon is. Of course, the instructions on the post said to throw away the bacon grease that accumulates in the pan. I’m sure that ain’t right! I would never throw away good bacon grease. Mine is in a jar in the fridge and has already been used several times. Once, for some refried beans I made the other day that was delicious.

Well, that’s about it. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

February 4, 2013 7

Friday

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a good week so far. We have definitely had an assortment of weather types here this week. The first of the week was beautiful, warm. Our temperature one day was 70 degrees. It felt like spring. I hung clothes out on the line. Then the rain came-in buckets. We had heavy downpours of rain and high wind. Now the cold is here. Our temperature this morning is 10 degrees. We have wind gusts of 50 mph, wind chill temps below zero, and snow on the ground. It is very cold.

School has went well this week. On Wednesday, we helped a friend by changing some light fixtures. They are moving into a new place and are doing some small upgrades to the place before they move in. We took our school with us. As I have said before, this is one of the things we love about homeschooling. School adjusts to our schedule not our schedule adjusting to school. It was a nice day. We did a lot of catch-up as we had not really seen them in a while.

Well, I guess that’s about it. Stay warm and God bless.

February 1, 2013 3

Homemade Hot Fudge Cake

Hello everyone! I thought I would share with you all a picture of this delicious dessert I made yesterday. Now bear in mind that by just looking at this picture you have probably added 500 calories to your day but believe me it is SO worth it. I made the cake from Cheryl’s recipe-buttermilk chocolate cake. So that is the healthy part of the dessert. Then I made the hot fudge sauce from this recipe-hot fudge sauce. When I used to work outside the home, one of the girls I worked with always brought this to our dinners. I had not had it in at least 15 years, maybe more. It is delicious. For me to say this is pretty amazing as I am not a chocolate person.

We are enjoying BEAUTIFUL weather here today. It is 55 degrees right now with tons of sunshine. Feels like spring!! Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer, I think. We did, however, have freezing rain this morning. Everything was covered with ice. The sun and warm temps have melted all of that away. We do still have patches of snow though.

Well, I better get busy. Lunch break is almost over. Enjoy your day and God bless.

January 28, 2013 4

Trying New Things

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful, blessed Sunday. We are home today-no church-due to the snow we got on Thursday.

I have been wanting to try making our own body wash ever since I came across this recipe for it. So today is the day. I am making homemade liquid face wash. I divided the recipe by 4 as I just wanted to make 1 qt to try. I used 2/3 of a bar of aveeno clear complexion cleansing bar, 1 and 1/2 tsp glycerin and a qt of water. I’ll let you all know how we like it. I estimate the cost of this qt. to be about $2.00. I bought the aveeno soap at our local pharmacy and probably paid more for it than I would have at Wal-Mart. We have a big thing of shower gel right now that we are using but when this runs out I plan on making the gallon recipe using ivory soap. I think you could use any soap of your choosing. I like ivory and it is not expensive.

My quilt is coming along nicely. I finished all the 9 X 9 in. squares yesterday. Now to put them all together. I am thinking of a border but am undecided as of yet. A border would probably mean I would have to purchase material and I am wanting to make it all from scrap material I already have on hand. I hope to work some more on it today.

We were still cold this morning-16 degrees-but the wind is not blowing too much so it is not so bad. Well, that’s about all that’s going on here. Enjoy your day and God bless.

January 27, 2013 7

Tuesday

Good morning, ladies! I hope you all stayed warm last night. We were at 8 degrees this morning with a wind chill of -4. The bathroom and laundry room water was frozen but it didn’t take Hubby long to get it unthawed. The above picture is in what we call our sitting room. I wanted to share the beautiful sunshine coming through the window, especially for Cheryl. I understand she has had a really cold dreary several weeks.

We will be starting school in a little bit. After school I hope to work some more on the quilt pieces. So far it has been kinda fun. I am making crockpot terriyaki pork for supper with rice and green beans.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

January 22, 2013 6