How to spend a chilly afternoon

 

Earlier this week I was downstairs doing some cleaning when I realized it had gotten really quiet upstairs. While my children may be older that the age of creating major messes, they still can get into mischief.

When I came upstairs to check this is what I found and the reason for the quiet. They ended up spending almost two hours reading stories together. Such a pleasant afternoon.

What to do when it rains

 

Today it rained, and yesterday it rained, and yep it rained the day before that one too. The forecast for tomorrow? More rain. Now normally I love rain, it makes me want to curl up with a book, bake cookies , and generally lounge around the house all day. Especially if it’s a chilly rain. But this? This is during the harvest and I am busy. I don’t have time to do all those things the weather making me want to do. I must dice up those tomatoes that are sitting in boxes, string the beans, freeze the broccoli and some how try to keep the house clean in case someone wants to look at it.

The children are very helpful but there is still only so much I will let them do when working with boiling water and pressure canners. So after asking me about a million times to play in the rain, I finally said yes. After all there was no lightening or thunder and it was warm. They played outside for 3 hours, building dams, moats, and filing the boat with water.

They were quite resourceful in their playing and wore themselves out!

The girls? Well they didn’t want to get wet so they played inside under umbrellas.

Sometimes saying yes is worth all the extra work.

Breakfast at the park

The other day were had a scheduled showing at 10:00 in the morning. This happens to be right smack in the middle of our school day. As I was thinking of what to do I decided upon a breakfast at the park. I whipped a batch of Cinnamon Ripple Muffins to make the house smell good, grabbed some water and some yogurt and off we went.

It was a great time to go to the park, it was still cool, and no one else was there. We played for about an hour and then headed to the library to do our lessons. It turned out to be such a nice change of pace from our normal routine we might just have to do it more often.  

Ice cream on a warm day

In the middle of all of our chaos we took a little break to get some ice cream at the dairy store. So yummy, especially after a hard days work.

Soon I will be able to share pictures of what I have been working on the past few months. In tackling the entire house cleaning and organizing at once, I am not completely finishing anything, especially with the yard sale on tomorrow. I am praying that it all comes together at the end. Only a few more days, and then perhaps I might get to sleep again. I'm not counting on it though.

A Daisy Day

"Mommy we're going to pick you some flowers!"

So thankful for little girls who bring sunshine in a bowl to their Momma!

Rest

This past week I have been resting at my parents house, away from all the work needing to be done. It was glorious! Spring was in full color and nowhere on earth does spring smell the way it does in the South. I knew I was home when I smelled the sweet scent while driving up the mountain.

I had the chance to meet up with one of my friends from elementary school while she was in town with her family. We hadn't seen each other in years! We met up at the park we played at as children, and watched our children play while we chatted. It was so nice to catch up face to face!Over the weekend my brothers came into town for to celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday. It was such a fun time to all be together!

I think we wore him out! :) Happy Birthday Dad!

During the week I had a chance to work on a little project my Mother picked up for me off of Craig's list. I'll share that with you as soon as I can get pictures tomorrow!

Now it is back to work, our house goes on the market in 12 days!

On why I decide to blog again...

If you have checked in at all you might have noticed that I haven't posted anything for over a month and even then not much before that. At first, blogging just became to much like something I had to do and not something I wanted to do. So I stepped back and did nothing. But then I found myself thinking about all the things I could post, all the things I want to share, all the friends I have made along the way. I am not sure at this point what direction my blog will be going, but I will continue to share what is happening in our little corner of the world. I just miss it to much to quit. :)

So here are a few glimpses into the last month at our house.

Fiona lost her front teeth after falling out of the bathtub. So thankful they were her baby teeth!

We celebrated the Chinese New Year.

 

and Valentine's day.

I cut out dresses for my girls.

 

The children played in the mud... a lot.

 Prepared for the gardening season. The dining room windows are filled with seedlings, just waiting for warm weather. We(my husband) tilled in the garden and added some more nutrients. Soon. Soon we can plant.

Watching spring come.

...and of course I worked on a couple of projects. Can't wait for it to be warm enough to paint outside again! My husband is tired of the house smelling like a factory. :) Here is a sneak peak at a project I worked on. I'll share the rest later!

Cabin Fever

Need a little distraction from the monotony of winter?

Play with your food.

One Month

I didn't realize that's how long it's been since my last post. It feels like only days. Much has happened since Christmas. The biggest change is our new piano! My husband bought one for us for Christmas and I had to make room for it. We had been talking about purchasing one for years so where to put it was not a problem. Pianos are rather touchy and so there was only one choice for our house. Welcome to our music room.

There used to be a book shelf and an old Victrola on this wall. This meant removing the books and getting rid of half of our collection.

  It took us an entire week to go through them all, touch up walls, rearrange the furniture, and make the trip to the goodwill. On the day it arrived everyone had to play and try it out.

What do you think? I have some plans for more art above the piano and new wall color. We also need a lamp to be able to read the music clearly so the decor will be changing. I am on the lookout for a better sofa(no more red), chairs and perhaps white washing the tool chest/coffee table.   The curtain rods also need to be replaced as they are not sturdy enough and are pulling out of the wall. This is now the room where everyone wants to be and its one of the smallest rooms in our home. Of course that could have something to do with the fact that is one of the warmest.

Return

Are you as sick of looking at that last post as I am every time I open up the ol' blog? It doesn't even have a photo to help it! I have been quite busy this past month, but that is not really why I dropped off posting entirely. You see I have been sick all year, I just didn't know it until my hair started falling out. Then I finally decided to go to the Doctor, nothing like waiting until the extreme begins to happen. I am a great procrastinator. :)  I mentioned all of the things bothering me, cold all the time(even in the middle of summer when it was 100 degrees), dizzy, so tired I couldn't get out of bed, pale skin, etc. Believe me when I say there was a loooooong list of things. He sent me off for some blood work and after many vials of blood and a couple of days wait, it was determined that my Iron and Vitamin D levels were extremely low. I began taking supplements, and about 5 weeks later around the beginning of November I could feel myself getting better. I had so much more energy, wasn't dizzy, and could get out of bed without a struggle. After my 6 week check up for another round of tests, I felt like I was bouncing off the walls some days I felt so good. With that came the urge to clean my house. I began to notice all those things I was to tired to do before, like wash windows, and cabinets, and the walls. I went on a cleaning spree and scrubbed the first floor from top to bottom, nothing was left untouched. I didn't want to sit down and blog I wanted to do something! I feel so much better but my hair is still falling out, not as much as before and I can see new growth coming in, but I believe I lost about half of what I had. My mother really noticed it when we were visiting for Thanksgiving, thankfully I have a LOT of hair on my head to start with or I would have bald patches. I am ready to be back to normal and be able to keep up with the daily tasks and still be able to do all the extras that need to be done.

We have been spending a lot of time just being together, having fun, making messes, and living.  

I am so thankful to be feeling better, and am trying to not look to all the regrets of what could have been if I had gone to the Doctor sooner. God is good and he carried me through so many days when all I wanted to do was hide under the covers and sleep. I plan to pick up my camera again and capture all the things I have been missing, and focus on being thankful for every day good or bad.

Eleven years

Today we celebrated eleven years of marriage.

How time flies! Picture take by our son. At least there is one of us together this year, even if we are a bit fuzzy. :)

Crazy

Well it seems like the summer finally caught up with me. I am am tired! Unfortunately there is no rest for the weary when the weather still thinks its summer and the tomatoes won't stop growin'. Seriously I am DONE with tomatoes, but I can't bring myself to give them away or even ignore them glowing on the vine out my kitchen window. The sad fact is I still don't have enough put up for winter. So I continue to plug away at them and pray for a killing frost. The 80 degree temperatures are not helping! I also did three more bushels of apples last week, all of my children had a 24 hour virus, my husband was out of town for a few days, and my parents came up this weekend for my brother's wedding reception. It's no wonder I couldn't find time to update this little blog of mine!   I do have SO much I want to share. Lots of yummy recipes', my fall decorating I am trying to finish up, and a little give away at the end of the week. So stay tuned for that. I promise it will be good. I want to celebrate the fact I have been blogging for two years and thank all of you for coming along on this journey with me.  It seems like I just started time goes so fast.

And because I don't like posts without pictures, here are a few pictures from the reception. We had lots of fun and my children loved staying in a hotel for the night. It was nice to get away and celebrate with my family. Me, my brother, my children, parents.

What is wrong with this picture?

My cat loves to eat flies. Its like they are her dessert, and she prefers to catch them herself, alive. I believe that is why she jumped into the open cabinet and made herself at home. There are plenty of flies in the kitchen despite our attempts to control them. It's a side effect of living in the country and not having a good screen door. From now on I'll make sure the cabinets stay closed, at least most of the dishes were dirty at the time. Who know I would be thankful for dirty dishes one day?!

The last days of summer

A little bit of swimming, A little bit of bike riding,A little bit of watching the cars drive by, and a sweet treat to end the season. Good by summer, it has been another season full of great memories!