Meet Inky

I thought I would introduce the newest member of the family. After out last cat passed away from a heart condition we knew we would eventually want to get another one. Last year about this time my sister in law posted a picture on facebook of an adorable black kitty that they found on their door step. As much as my sister in law loves cats they could not keep him and so it came to live with us.

This was soon after we got him, he was such a tiny little thing! He is a true alley cat and loves to scrounge for food, especially apples and applesauce.

The bandit cat. 

 

He loves to go outside and chase bugs and generally getting into trouble.

He loves to nap in the afternoon sun in all sorts of strange cat positions.

And lets not forget drinking out of the toilet. 

He also loves his dinosaur, it is his best friend. 

He is such a wonderful addition to our house, well maybe not his litter box. 

Summer Busy

I have been trying to find some time in the past couple of weeks to hop on here and share with you all. Apparently that is harder to do than I thought! It's harvest time and the food is pouring in. Thanks to all the rain we had this year the crops are going crazy and the fruit is juicy and big. 

Last week I ordered 2 two bushels of peaches and put them up for a total of  51 quarts.

We also harvested about 3/4/ of a bushel off of the one tree that produced this year. I took those after we ate as many as we could and made cinnamon spiced peaches. I have never done these before so I am looking forward to trying them in a few weeks. They smelled so good as I as putting them in the jars. 

We also went and picked blackberries to make some jam. 

The berries were beautiful, and the vines were so full. 

I also made dilly beans, canned green beans, garlic, and banana peppers. 

And lets not forget the tomatoes. I've lost count of how many gallon Ziploc bags I've put in the freezer to deal with later. I am so thankful to have so many this year. Last year with the lack of rain and disease I had to buy whatever I needed. I am looking forward to spaghetti sauce again after we ate out last jar in April.

Through all of this we have been doing school also. I normally don't have anything planned for August but due to all the moving, not moving, having the house on the market, etc. we felt we were a bit behind. So I have been using this summer to catch up.  It has been lots of fun as we are studying the Revolutionary war and finishing up our botany lessons. I am looking forward to our first 6 week break and a couple of field trips to Valley Forge, and  Brandywine Creek. I also have a post in the works about our curriculum for the new year starting on September 16th!  Now, I must get back to the kitchen the tomatoes are calling smelling.

The post that explains it all (or why we are still here)

Back when I stopped blogging there were so many things going on in our lives that I couldn't share because my husband had asked me not to and we were just trying to survive the days. This blog became one of the things pushed off the list of must do's, I even stopped taking pictures it was just to much. This is the story of why and the happy ending that God gave to us as a gift.

As you may remember my husband took a job in New Jersey about an hour and a half away when his company was bought out back in 2009. We spent all of 2010 deciding whether to move or not . Then we made a decision and I spent the early part of 2011 preparing the house to sell. We thought we would put our house on the market, sell it and move to New Jersey. Well, we tried that  for 6 months. We had so many people walk through and always got the same feedback. Beautiful house, but... It gets to be so tiring trying to keep it perfect for 6 months. We decided to take a little break. I even wrote about that here. 

In the meantime things at my husbands new job turned south and it was not a good environment to be in, especially tacking on a 3 hour commute round trip. He went through some seriously difficult things while working there. He started to look for another job and even a career change and move south closer to family. He spent the winter of last year applying to over 25 positions is various states. Then we heard nothing. Silence, not even a rejection letter. 

Waiting can be so difficult especially when emotionally drained by work conditions and being so far from home every day. God was the only one who got us through such a dark time. One day in March of 2012, after a particularly bad day at work my husband noticed an open position at a company 10 miles from our home. He applied and was hired in June. He quit his job in July and started the new one in August after a month of much needed vacation and a mental break. Despite the fact that we tried for 3 years to move out of the state of Pennsylvania, God kept us right here in the same house and with a job that my husband calls his dream job.

We laugh about it now and often when we run into someone we haven’t seen in a while they ask us what we are still doing here. We have settled into a routine now and moved past such a difficult time in out lives. Waiting can be so stressful and put such a strain on people but it only brought us closer together and closer to God at the same time. He is good even when you can’t see beyond the next day and I’m so thankful for all the lessons learned during that time.

So what’s next? Only time will tell, for now I am working on some projects around the house and we are still gardening and of course homeschooling takes quite a bit of time. It's nice to finally put down a few roots and be able to commit to things like volunteering at Church, hosting people for dinner, and planning things out a bit more than "just next week".

  I hope to share some of the projects we have done, updates on our garden, and just daily life stuff which I am so thankful for!

Pardon the Dust

I'm coming back! 

Please pardon the dust as I make some changes to this poor neglected blog of mine. 

I have missed being here. It may take a few days but I hope to be posting again in the next week or so. 

I have so much to share. 

A lot can happen in fourteen months. 

Stay Tuned! 

 

365

One of my goals this year is Project 365. Take a photo every day for an entire year. We’ll see how I do. So far I made it through January!

January 1st~ Happy New Year!

January 2nd~ Spending the day with a good book, or two.

January 3rd~ Putting away some of the Christmas lights. It took forever!

January 4th~ New Lego organization that hasn’t made it to the proper spot. That never stops anyone from playing!

January 5th~ Sourdough dough bread that turned out perfect.

January 6th!~ My most wonderful Christmas gift from my Aunt. A hand carved nativity from Uganda.

January 7th~ The new Lego mini-figures came out. The boys had it written on the calendar so we took a trip to the Lego store to purchase some. 

January 8th~ Taking down the school room tree.

January 9th~ For Epiphany we celebrated with a kings cake and presents.

January 10th~ Time for winter decorations. Christmas is gone.

January 11th~ My girls pouring over the Hanna Anderson catalog.

January 12th~ My new enemy friend Bessie. We have a date every day for 30 minutes.

January 13th~ Wind so strong it knocked down the decorations inside the house!

January 14th~ Trying to keep the dreaded strep throat from visiting everyone. Sterilizing the toothbrushes!

January 15th~ The boys and their amazing Lego creations.

January 16th~ The start of another project. Something must be done with this mess!

January 17th~ Organizing the DVD’s into manageable storage. Still working on this project, but it’s all ready so much nicer than before!

January 18th~ The girls wanted me to take their picture, turns out it was the only one I took that day.

January 19th~ More organizing! I get bit by the bug every January. Hello happy closet.

January 20th~ Gweneth dancing

January 21~ My first born. Looking so grown up lately.

January 22~ My new favorite kitchen utensil. A bread box big enough to hold all the bread and other things I’ve been baking. No more bags of bread strewn all over the counter.

January 23~ More rearranging. Since the arrival of the piano the room has felt over crowed. I removed the sofa and the room works so much better. Someday some tall bookcases on either side of the window on the left will finish it off.

January 24~ A new improved, completely organized and labeled school room!

January 25~ Homemade soft pretzels for lunch.

January 26~ Art class.

January 27~ A cold and dreary day. We lit a fire and did our lessons by candlelight.

January 28~ Time to start planning the garden and ordering seeds.

January 29~ My Owen during school.

January 30~ More Legos. We spend a lot of time playing with them in the winter.

January 31~ Gwen helping me wash up after baking together.

There you have our month in review. I have to say I love looking back like this its so much fun and never to late to start.

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.

Teeth!

 

Fiona is finally getting her front teeth! We are so excited!

Over two years ago her little sister hit her in the mouth with a small hammer causing her front tooth to turn black. Ever since then she has smiled without opening her mouth.

May 2010

April 2011

Well, I found one or two photos with a big smile in the past two years. I don’t think it ever crossed my mind that it bothered her until I started looking back and really noticed.

June 2011

The dentist eventually pulled the dead tooth and the one next to it quickly followed. She stayed toothless for over a year. In October we noticed them starting to come in. Although still no big smiles…

October 2011

Until yesterday!  It’s been a long time coming and I just love to see her smile!