Emily, the white organizational thing is the Expedit bookcase from Ikea. Canvas bins were a surprise find at Target.
Judy, breakfast cake is GOOD. :) I've also seen it in recipe books as coffee cake, but when my mom baked it, she called it breakfast cake.
And, there is a sign in my front yard. We are officially listed now. Let the showings begin ;)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Show-worthy
So, this is our new carpet:
I thought about taking pictures of the new paint, but... well, that didn't work out. All walls and closets and doors, etc have been painted by my long-suffering husband. And they look fantastic, darling.
Now, I do not do well when things are out of place. So, when we got the call Thursday that the carpet installers were on their way to our house, I took the kids and deserted Jared. Temporarily, of course. :) We ate lunch at Ikea [always good for an hour's worth of looking around and trying out all the furniture], then headed down to Thanksgiving Point. According to this scale, I have a goat and her kid's worth of children. Wonder if I could trade...
The kids got a pony ride each, and spent a lot of time feeding corn to the chickens and turkeys. We also walked through the gardens- they're sort of closed right now, but members can get in to go walking. We saw 2 or 3 other people there. Being solitary has advantages: my kids got to run and scream and play "BEAR!" because nobody else was around. We headed back home about 5:30, stopping to get sandwiches for dinner. Normally, I'd cook [okay, normally SOMEBODY would cook], but with the table on its side, the kitchen chairs stacked on each other, plus a couch and a desk squeezed into the kitchen, I couldn't even see the counter, much less reach it to prepare anything. We ate outside. The carpet guys got all the carpet laid except for the living room, so after dinner we moved furniture again, leaving that room bare and echoing. Friday, I read a few chapters of history to the kids, and we colored in my bedroom while the carpet guys finished up. Then we straightened and organized and scrubbed things the rest of Friday and all day Saturday.
I feel like I'm living in a Stepford house. This is my new living room- all neat and tidy and dusted :)
This is my craft room. With all that scrapbooking junk out of the way [ha ha], this room is so big and open :)
Sunday my planning meeting was cancelled [hooray!] so I made bread. 4 beautiful, golden, delicious loaves, waiting for me to gobble them all up. Or, ummm, maybe I got a few bites in before I took pictures. So, 3 1/2 loaves waiting for me to gobble them all up :) Warm-because-it's-fresh-out-of-the-oven-homemade bread, drizzled with butter and honey, is my favorite comfort food. And I could totally eat an entire loaf all by myself. I didn't, but I could ;)
This morning, just because I could, I made breakfast cake. I am a baking fool.
Gratitude List:
* New paint and carpet :)
* Neat and tidy house- I know it won't last, but someday ...
* Mmmm, more homemade bread in the freezer, waiting for me.
* Hot cocoa and breakfast cake taste SOOOOOO good when it's snowing outside. Yep, those early-blooming crocuses are now under two [so far] inches of snow. And it's still falling.
* We'll have plenty of water for gardening this summer.
* I have a yard, so I can banish my children from the house instead of killing them. :) :)
* Even with the snow, it is still warm enough to send kids outside without endangering their health.
* Time this morning to read my scriptures.
* All the blessings my Heavenly Father has given me today.
* The Library.
* A working furnace.
* 4WD so I am not stranded at home, even if it does keep snowing.
* A washer and dryer, because doing my laundry by hand and then hanging it up to air dry would really stink in this weather. LOL, so would wearing the same clothing all winter and washing it the following spring ;).
I thought about taking pictures of the new paint, but... well, that didn't work out. All walls and closets and doors, etc have been painted by my long-suffering husband. And they look fantastic, darling.
Now, I do not do well when things are out of place. So, when we got the call Thursday that the carpet installers were on their way to our house, I took the kids and deserted Jared. Temporarily, of course. :) We ate lunch at Ikea [always good for an hour's worth of looking around and trying out all the furniture], then headed down to Thanksgiving Point. According to this scale, I have a goat and her kid's worth of children. Wonder if I could trade...
The kids got a pony ride each, and spent a lot of time feeding corn to the chickens and turkeys. We also walked through the gardens- they're sort of closed right now, but members can get in to go walking. We saw 2 or 3 other people there. Being solitary has advantages: my kids got to run and scream and play "BEAR!" because nobody else was around. We headed back home about 5:30, stopping to get sandwiches for dinner. Normally, I'd cook [okay, normally SOMEBODY would cook], but with the table on its side, the kitchen chairs stacked on each other, plus a couch and a desk squeezed into the kitchen, I couldn't even see the counter, much less reach it to prepare anything. We ate outside. The carpet guys got all the carpet laid except for the living room, so after dinner we moved furniture again, leaving that room bare and echoing. Friday, I read a few chapters of history to the kids, and we colored in my bedroom while the carpet guys finished up. Then we straightened and organized and scrubbed things the rest of Friday and all day Saturday. I feel like I'm living in a Stepford house. This is my new living room- all neat and tidy and dusted :)
This is my craft room. With all that scrapbooking junk out of the way [ha ha], this room is so big and open :)
Sunday my planning meeting was cancelled [hooray!] so I made bread. 4 beautiful, golden, delicious loaves, waiting for me to gobble them all up. Or, ummm, maybe I got a few bites in before I took pictures. So, 3 1/2 loaves waiting for me to gobble them all up :) Warm-because-it's-fresh-out-of-the-oven-homemade bread, drizzled with butter and honey, is my favorite comfort food. And I could totally eat an entire loaf all by myself. I didn't, but I could ;)
This morning, just because I could, I made breakfast cake. I am a baking fool.
Gratitude List:
* New paint and carpet :)
* Neat and tidy house- I know it won't last, but someday ...
* Mmmm, more homemade bread in the freezer, waiting for me.
* Hot cocoa and breakfast cake taste SOOOOOO good when it's snowing outside. Yep, those early-blooming crocuses are now under two [so far] inches of snow. And it's still falling.
* We'll have plenty of water for gardening this summer.
* I have a yard, so I can banish my children from the house instead of killing them. :) :)
* Even with the snow, it is still warm enough to send kids outside without endangering their health.
* Time this morning to read my scriptures.
* All the blessings my Heavenly Father has given me today.
* The Library.
* A working furnace.
* 4WD so I am not stranded at home, even if it does keep snowing.
* A washer and dryer, because doing my laundry by hand and then hanging it up to air dry would really stink in this weather. LOL, so would wearing the same clothing all winter and washing it the following spring ;).
Friday, March 20, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
More accomplishments to be proud of
My day:
- wakes up at 7:50am because dh's phone makes some weird, loud noise.
- puts on his Air Force sweatshirt, her black yoga pants, and a pair of flip-flops.
- stumbles out to the living room, where kids are transfixed by '3-2-1-Penguins' cartoon and informs them that Walker is in charge till Mom and Dad get back. no response from kids.
- opens the gate while dh backs the Durango out of the driveway.
- hopes none of the neighbors see her leave kids unsupervised.
- gives husband directions to storage unit.
- husband rolls down window and comments, "Hey, I thought they [car repair shop] were supposed to fix that squeak." [wife is way too cold to like driving w/window down, even if husband must listen to important car-sound thing.]
- unloads big heavy boxes and one small heavy bookcase at storage unit [the purpose of this act of temporary child abandonment- get junk in car to storage so there's room for important hunting equipment in back.]
- keeps window down to listen to car-sound thing, in case it changes.
- drops wife at home, then drives now-squeaking Durango back to car repair shop. wife has shower. kids haven't moved from couch.
- husband calls 4 times while wife is in shower. when she returns his call, she finds out that the U-joints are bad [they hold the transmission in place, so when they go, so does the transmission. right onto Foothill Boulevard, actually, which necessitates husband leaving work and driving an hour to pick up stranded wife and kids, then dropping them at home and arranging for a tow truck to collect undrivable Durango while wife self-medicates with chocolate. 2 years later, memories are still fresh.] thankfully, U-joints are going bad, but haven't arrived yet, so transmission is still attached to vehicle.
- husband stays at car-repair shop and supervises necessary repairs.
- wife is now awake, and eating breakfast.
- kids get dressed and eat breakfast, during commercial breaks in cartoons.
- kids whine about missing commercials. no sympathy given.
- kids notice that "good" cartoons end at 10am. hooray. herds kids into car, and loads a bowl of shredded chicken and 2 hard-boiled eggs into trunk.
- drives to church building, unloads chicken, eggs, and kids, takes a call from husband who tells her cost of repair and that it isn't finished yet. reassures wife that this won't ruin his planned day of hunting. wife is thrilled.
- herds kids into church building, stopping at kitchen which is locked; no key. takes kids to nursery room, makes them put coats/shoes/socks/boots together in one pile. threatens with dismemberment if noise is made. or toy boxes are broken.
- heads back to room next to kitchen. calls husband. car repairs progressing slowly. decides to send oldest child home [5 minute walk] for keys to kitchen.
- oldest child agrees. he leaves building, and close friend with keys opens kitchen door.
- eventually, oldest child returns, with no longer needed keys.
- kids are invited to play with friend at the gym, and their departure is eagerly encouraged.
- church activity goes relatively smoothly. breathes a huge sigh of relief.
- goes home. packs 2 boxes and labels them. gets out crocheted blanket and sits down to take a break.
- kids call 1 hour later, wanting to extend their gym time. permission granted.
- more crocheting, and self-medicating with chocolate occurs.
- kids home. younger son brings in mail. kids abandon house for neighbor's much-more-interesting garage.
- opens mail. renews driver's license by filling out questionnaire. wonders how DMV ensures truthful answer to questions: "Have you suffered from, or been under a doctor's care for, any disability or condition that may affect your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle?" finds out how government is raising money to pay for stimulus package: "Do you authorize the DMV to release your name and address for commercial sales or marketing purposes?"
- writes a check out.
uses a christmas stamp on envelope.
- wonders about dinner. takes pictures of DMV forms instead.
- wonders about dinner again. posts instead. crochets blanket some more.
- wakes up at 7:50am because dh's phone makes some weird, loud noise.
- puts on his Air Force sweatshirt, her black yoga pants, and a pair of flip-flops.
- stumbles out to the living room, where kids are transfixed by '3-2-1-Penguins' cartoon and informs them that Walker is in charge till Mom and Dad get back. no response from kids.
- opens the gate while dh backs the Durango out of the driveway.
- hopes none of the neighbors see her leave kids unsupervised.
- gives husband directions to storage unit.
- husband rolls down window and comments, "Hey, I thought they [car repair shop] were supposed to fix that squeak." [wife is way too cold to like driving w/window down, even if husband must listen to important car-sound thing.]
- unloads big heavy boxes and one small heavy bookcase at storage unit [the purpose of this act of temporary child abandonment- get junk in car to storage so there's room for important hunting equipment in back.]
- keeps window down to listen to car-sound thing, in case it changes.
- drops wife at home, then drives now-squeaking Durango back to car repair shop. wife has shower. kids haven't moved from couch.
- husband calls 4 times while wife is in shower. when she returns his call, she finds out that the U-joints are bad [they hold the transmission in place, so when they go, so does the transmission. right onto Foothill Boulevard, actually, which necessitates husband leaving work and driving an hour to pick up stranded wife and kids, then dropping them at home and arranging for a tow truck to collect undrivable Durango while wife self-medicates with chocolate. 2 years later, memories are still fresh.] thankfully, U-joints are going bad, but haven't arrived yet, so transmission is still attached to vehicle.
- husband stays at car-repair shop and supervises necessary repairs.
- wife is now awake, and eating breakfast.
- kids get dressed and eat breakfast, during commercial breaks in cartoons.
- kids whine about missing commercials. no sympathy given.
- kids notice that "good" cartoons end at 10am. hooray. herds kids into car, and loads a bowl of shredded chicken and 2 hard-boiled eggs into trunk.
- drives to church building, unloads chicken, eggs, and kids, takes a call from husband who tells her cost of repair and that it isn't finished yet. reassures wife that this won't ruin his planned day of hunting. wife is thrilled.
- herds kids into church building, stopping at kitchen which is locked; no key. takes kids to nursery room, makes them put coats/shoes/socks/boots together in one pile. threatens with dismemberment if noise is made. or toy boxes are broken.
- heads back to room next to kitchen. calls husband. car repairs progressing slowly. decides to send oldest child home [5 minute walk] for keys to kitchen.
- oldest child agrees. he leaves building, and close friend with keys opens kitchen door.
- eventually, oldest child returns, with no longer needed keys.
- kids are invited to play with friend at the gym, and their departure is eagerly encouraged.
- church activity goes relatively smoothly. breathes a huge sigh of relief.
- goes home. packs 2 boxes and labels them. gets out crocheted blanket and sits down to take a break.
- kids call 1 hour later, wanting to extend their gym time. permission granted.
- more crocheting, and self-medicating with chocolate occurs.
- kids home. younger son brings in mail. kids abandon house for neighbor's much-more-interesting garage.
- opens mail. renews driver's license by filling out questionnaire. wonders how DMV ensures truthful answer to questions: "Have you suffered from, or been under a doctor's care for, any disability or condition that may affect your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle?" finds out how government is raising money to pay for stimulus package: "Do you authorize the DMV to release your name and address for commercial sales or marketing purposes?"
- writes a check out.
uses a christmas stamp on envelope.- wonders about dinner. takes pictures of DMV forms instead.
- wonders about dinner again. posts instead. crochets blanket some more.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
My to-do list
Today I meant to:
* pack up the extra books I keep with our homeschooling stuff. These are random textbooks that might have useful information on a history unit, or the stargazing book I grabbed because it was only $9.95 at Barnes and Noble even though we aren't studying astronomy this year, plus the creative science projects book I haven't had time to open yet... and all sorts of other interesting and random books. [I got one box full, so hooray- only 3 or 4 more to go]
* pick up and pay for the Durango. [who knew a squeak would cost $900?!? but I got a good 20-minute walk out of it]
* balance my checkbook. [this actually got done before I picked up the Durango, and thank goodness- and Dave Ramsey- for our $1000 emergency fund]
* move kids' savings accounts to the credit union [Walker came with me, took about an hour to get the money from one bank, then open three accounts at the credit union. That was the easy part. The hard part was moving the money in Myles' account, and knowing that I couldn't keep it in his name. I mean, I can call this account whatever I want, but it isn't his account anymore. *sigh*]
* work on a crocheted blanket. [did a little of this tonight while the kids were playing after dinner]
* feed myself and my family breakfast, lunch, and dinner. [Jared made breakfast, lunch was whatever the kids found in the kitchen, and dinner was me running away from the chaos to a fast food restaurant, with a good friend and her son, where we fed the kids fattening and unhealthy food, talked a lot, and I completely forgot to get Jared anything to eat, so he had to find something in the less-than-organized kitchen at 11pm after he spent the day painting. I pretty much lost my 'loving spouse of the year' award there.]
* clean out the car. [hah! not even close]
* sort the magazines in the house and pack what I want to keep, recycling the rest. [Maybe tomorrow, or maybe I'll just do this when I unpack, because I didn't have time to sort anything and had to throw everything into boxes to prepare to show the house to potential buyers.]
* do another load of laundry. [where would it go?!? The couch is full.]
* have the boys fold and put their clean clothes away. [Their clothes are still on the couch.]
* fold my clean clothes and put them away. [Folded, yes. Put away, no. My dresser is in the middle of the room, and there's stuff in front of the drawers. So my clean clothes are piled precariously on top of the pile of things on my dresser.]
Currently, the carpet in my bedroom is randomly pulled up and away from the walls. Jared was checking to see if he needed to paint the baseboards down to the subflooring. There are random doors leaning against walls in rooms they don't belong in: all the closet doors in my room are in the kitchen, and my bedroom door is in the computer room. My bed is propped up against the living room wall. There are random socks and books scattered on the living room floor, and probably under the blankets on the couch as well. We turned off the heat for about half the day, because Jared was painting the outside doors, and took them off the house to do that. It was about 57 degrees Fahrenheit inside- brrr! My kids were piled up on the couch, watching 'Curious George' under 3 blankets. The doors are back on the house, thank goodness, but the handles are still missing...
On the plus side, all surfaces needing paint have now received it. All that remains are minor touch-ups here and there, and we'll probably do those after we sell the house and move all our big furniture out.
Gratitude List:
* I didn't have to paint anything.
* We have enough money to fix our car without borrowing anything. And, the problem was easily fixed. Had we waited another week or two, we would have paid at least double the price, and it would have taken 3-5 days' work to fix it.
* My friend's company at dinner tonight.
* Crocheting is very soothing for my order-obsessed self [knitting would also work].
* I have SO MANY books. [I bet I could open a library.] This makes me feel rich- to have so much information at my fingertips when 100 years ago I would have been lucky to own one book [a Bible], much less be able to read it.
* Good poetry. Emily Dickinson is one of my very favorite poets.
* Robert Louis Stevenson is pretty high up there, too.
* music.
* good friends and neighbors, and a family who loves and supports me.
* a camera, to record my current chaos.
* that someday I will laugh about this move.
* Jared is an awesome painter of rooms.
* God
* the internet
* that tomorrow I get to start again LOL.
* pack up the extra books I keep with our homeschooling stuff. These are random textbooks that might have useful information on a history unit, or the stargazing book I grabbed because it was only $9.95 at Barnes and Noble even though we aren't studying astronomy this year, plus the creative science projects book I haven't had time to open yet... and all sorts of other interesting and random books. [I got one box full, so hooray- only 3 or 4 more to go]
* pick up and pay for the Durango. [who knew a squeak would cost $900?!? but I got a good 20-minute walk out of it]
* balance my checkbook. [this actually got done before I picked up the Durango, and thank goodness- and Dave Ramsey- for our $1000 emergency fund]
* move kids' savings accounts to the credit union [Walker came with me, took about an hour to get the money from one bank, then open three accounts at the credit union. That was the easy part. The hard part was moving the money in Myles' account, and knowing that I couldn't keep it in his name. I mean, I can call this account whatever I want, but it isn't his account anymore. *sigh*]
* work on a crocheted blanket. [did a little of this tonight while the kids were playing after dinner]
* feed myself and my family breakfast, lunch, and dinner. [Jared made breakfast, lunch was whatever the kids found in the kitchen, and dinner was me running away from the chaos to a fast food restaurant, with a good friend and her son, where we fed the kids fattening and unhealthy food, talked a lot, and I completely forgot to get Jared anything to eat, so he had to find something in the less-than-organized kitchen at 11pm after he spent the day painting. I pretty much lost my 'loving spouse of the year' award there.]
* clean out the car. [hah! not even close]
* sort the magazines in the house and pack what I want to keep, recycling the rest. [Maybe tomorrow, or maybe I'll just do this when I unpack, because I didn't have time to sort anything and had to throw everything into boxes to prepare to show the house to potential buyers.]
* do another load of laundry. [where would it go?!? The couch is full.]
* have the boys fold and put their clean clothes away. [Their clothes are still on the couch.]
* fold my clean clothes and put them away. [Folded, yes. Put away, no. My dresser is in the middle of the room, and there's stuff in front of the drawers. So my clean clothes are piled precariously on top of the pile of things on my dresser.]
Currently, the carpet in my bedroom is randomly pulled up and away from the walls. Jared was checking to see if he needed to paint the baseboards down to the subflooring. There are random doors leaning against walls in rooms they don't belong in: all the closet doors in my room are in the kitchen, and my bedroom door is in the computer room. My bed is propped up against the living room wall. There are random socks and books scattered on the living room floor, and probably under the blankets on the couch as well. We turned off the heat for about half the day, because Jared was painting the outside doors, and took them off the house to do that. It was about 57 degrees Fahrenheit inside- brrr! My kids were piled up on the couch, watching 'Curious George' under 3 blankets. The doors are back on the house, thank goodness, but the handles are still missing...
On the plus side, all surfaces needing paint have now received it. All that remains are minor touch-ups here and there, and we'll probably do those after we sell the house and move all our big furniture out.
Gratitude List:
* I didn't have to paint anything.
* We have enough money to fix our car without borrowing anything. And, the problem was easily fixed. Had we waited another week or two, we would have paid at least double the price, and it would have taken 3-5 days' work to fix it.
* My friend's company at dinner tonight.
* Crocheting is very soothing for my order-obsessed self [knitting would also work].
* I have SO MANY books. [I bet I could open a library.] This makes me feel rich- to have so much information at my fingertips when 100 years ago I would have been lucky to own one book [a Bible], much less be able to read it.
* Good poetry. Emily Dickinson is one of my very favorite poets.
* Robert Louis Stevenson is pretty high up there, too.
* music.
* good friends and neighbors, and a family who loves and supports me.
* a camera, to record my current chaos.
* that someday I will laugh about this move.
* Jared is an awesome painter of rooms.
* God
* the internet
* that tomorrow I get to start again LOL.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Adventures in Cleaning
So, at almost 35 years of age, I have had PLENTY of experience cleaning house, starting when I was a wee little child and thought that anything my mother did was fun because she was doing it. :) Thanks, Mom. And I have certainly put in hours of scrubbing time on various stove-tops, trying to remove grease and baked-on food. However, I have never enjoyed much success getting rid of that grease. I've even been tempted to remove the stove-top and spray-paint it white, just to cover up my inadequate stove-top cleaning skills.
A few weeks ago in Church, one of the ladies in our women's group did a little spot about being prepared. She does this once a month during our women's meeting, and she is very creative with her presentations. This last one was about being prepared to clean [gee, one of the advantages of natural disasters, IMO, is that the house is no longer there to need cleaning...] and she brought a few things that she said were her favorite cleaning supplies, because they WORKED [she put a lot of emphasis on that last word]. One of those favorite, effective supplies was baking soda. Yep, baking soda. Funny thing, it works really, REALLY well on grease. Now, I know [because Jared told me] that there is a chemical reason for this. I can't remember what it is, but I have proof that it is as effective as Diane stated.
[I realize that this next picture, and most of the rest of this post, will reveal my poor housekeeping skills, and it's okay. Y'all can sit back and revel in the knowledge that you clean more often than I do. Now don't you feel better about yourselves? LOL]
Before: [this picture was actually taken about half-way through the cleaning process, after all the easy gunk was removed, leaving only the greasy, stubborn, baked-on stains around the heating element of my gas stove]
After:
I love baking soda :) That, plus a damp rag and some elbow grease, was all I needed to get my stove completely grease-free! [okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, since I stopped halfway to share this incredible insight with y'all...] It worked wonders on the outside of the oven, and on the inside of the microwave, and I am actually compiling a list in my head of some other places I want to clean with my new best friend.
Gratitude List:
* iTunes, and how it has all my favorite songs on it :).
* baking soda [oh what a shock]
* Jared
* kids
* family and friends
- can't write anything else, must go back and clean LOL.
A few weeks ago in Church, one of the ladies in our women's group did a little spot about being prepared. She does this once a month during our women's meeting, and she is very creative with her presentations. This last one was about being prepared to clean [gee, one of the advantages of natural disasters, IMO, is that the house is no longer there to need cleaning...] and she brought a few things that she said were her favorite cleaning supplies, because they WORKED [she put a lot of emphasis on that last word]. One of those favorite, effective supplies was baking soda. Yep, baking soda. Funny thing, it works really, REALLY well on grease. Now, I know [because Jared told me] that there is a chemical reason for this. I can't remember what it is, but I have proof that it is as effective as Diane stated.
[I realize that this next picture, and most of the rest of this post, will reveal my poor housekeeping skills, and it's okay. Y'all can sit back and revel in the knowledge that you clean more often than I do. Now don't you feel better about yourselves? LOL]
Before: [this picture was actually taken about half-way through the cleaning process, after all the easy gunk was removed, leaving only the greasy, stubborn, baked-on stains around the heating element of my gas stove]
After:
I love baking soda :) That, plus a damp rag and some elbow grease, was all I needed to get my stove completely grease-free! [okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, since I stopped halfway to share this incredible insight with y'all...] It worked wonders on the outside of the oven, and on the inside of the microwave, and I am actually compiling a list in my head of some other places I want to clean with my new best friend.
Gratitude List:
* iTunes, and how it has all my favorite songs on it :).
* baking soda [oh what a shock]
* Jared
* kids
* family and friends
- can't write anything else, must go back and clean LOL.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Oddities
Because I was bored last month and had access to the library's online interface, I now have these books clamoring for my attention:
Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance [smiling from the title, haven't cracked it open yet]
Keep Chickens! [and an exclamation point at the end because... they try to escape?]
Keeping Chickens [nice picture of roosting hens on the front]
Keeping Pet Chickens [two chicks kissing each other. BABY CHICKENS!! sheesh]
Chicken Coops [Morgen's already thumbed through this one, and come up with her own plan for a coop with a trailer hitch and wheels "so we can move them whenever we want to." I'm still working on the 'WHY would we want to' part]
Gratitude List:
* Jared's unit is working in town this week. He still has to sleep at a motel, but he will have some down time he can spend w/us.
* Jared isn't traveling again until April :) :) :)
* Podcasts
* Uncle Ryan came and patched a hole in our ceiling today. I am so glad he did, because he's a professional. I can only imagine the, umm, creative methods I might have used had I been in charge of the job.
* The Library
* Warm weather all day today
* I took the kids for a late movie [Inkheart, and it was pretty cool], and they don't have to be up early for school tomorrow.
* Telling jokes in the car on the way home, and getting a genuine smile from my moody 10-year-old.
* Fat, white, fluffy flakes of snow that began to fall on the drive home from the theater. The more snow we get now, the more water we'll have this summer.
* I am learning that perseverence [a fancy name for bull-headed stubborn behavior] is the key to mastering anything. Right now, it's helping me figure out a new crochet pattern. And my kids noticed me ripping out stitches and starting over, so I got to explain to them the whole process of trying and failing and trying again until you succeed.
* Dishwasher
* Washer and dryer
* Flushing toilets :)
* My family
* Daily meditation makes a huge difference in my attitude.
* Setting goals and reaching them.
* Faith in God and His plan and purpose for me.
Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance [smiling from the title, haven't cracked it open yet]
Keep Chickens! [and an exclamation point at the end because... they try to escape?]
Keeping Chickens [nice picture of roosting hens on the front]
Keeping Pet Chickens [two chicks kissing each other. BABY CHICKENS!! sheesh]
Chicken Coops [Morgen's already thumbed through this one, and come up with her own plan for a coop with a trailer hitch and wheels "so we can move them whenever we want to." I'm still working on the 'WHY would we want to' part]
Gratitude List:
* Jared's unit is working in town this week. He still has to sleep at a motel, but he will have some down time he can spend w/us.
* Jared isn't traveling again until April :) :) :)
* Podcasts
* Uncle Ryan came and patched a hole in our ceiling today. I am so glad he did, because he's a professional. I can only imagine the, umm, creative methods I might have used had I been in charge of the job.
* The Library
* Warm weather all day today
* I took the kids for a late movie [Inkheart, and it was pretty cool], and they don't have to be up early for school tomorrow.
* Telling jokes in the car on the way home, and getting a genuine smile from my moody 10-year-old.
* Fat, white, fluffy flakes of snow that began to fall on the drive home from the theater. The more snow we get now, the more water we'll have this summer.
* I am learning that perseverence [a fancy name for bull-headed stubborn behavior] is the key to mastering anything. Right now, it's helping me figure out a new crochet pattern. And my kids noticed me ripping out stitches and starting over, so I got to explain to them the whole process of trying and failing and trying again until you succeed.
* Dishwasher
* Washer and dryer
* Flushing toilets :)
* My family
* Daily meditation makes a huge difference in my attitude.
* Setting goals and reaching them.
* Faith in God and His plan and purpose for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)