Chronicles Of A Crafty Mama

Score : )

2010-02-07T11:13:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I had an eye doctor appointment . Sissy needed to stop at the accountant. So we
made a couple of side trips while we were out. Hit Walmart to pick up the stuff we forgot , hit the accountant and headed to the doctor. Sissy yells 75 % off Mom turn . What .... where?????? It was Rite Aid . See for some reason there are 2 Rite Aids with in a block of each other. Well they decided to close one ( after having them both open for 3 years lol) So hit the brakes made a quick turn and we went inside. The place was pretty picked over but we were able to score some stuff.

2- composition books
1 -bakugan spiral note book reg price
2- packs of Crayola markers
5- light blue poster boards
3- big bottles of rid dye
( purple, scarlet, dark green)
2- small packs of rid dye
( orange)
1 - 5 pack of sharpie markers
1- 2 pack of sharpie click able markers
1- Paper pro nano stapler
2- small bottle brush trees
2- paper mate mechanical pencils
1-Revlon nail polish
1- Sally Henson nail polish

total before sale $ 78.26 after the 75% off $ 19.60

I was giddy lol lol. Sissy made her mama proud. I didn't even see the sign lol. Everything we got we're able to use , some of the stuff like the pencils where split up between the 3 kids. Other things Sissy needed like the nail polish lol lol . The dye ......oh man I'm so happy. Bear has been wanting to tye dye , and it was killing me to think that I had to spend $4.50 a bottle. So we got more dye for alot less. Now I have to find him stuff to dye lol.

Til next time........ Have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!

Shopping, snow and stuff

2010-02-05T12:57:00.002-05:00

Yeah it was that time again .... the monthly ( groan lol) shopping. We all know how much I love to shop ( gag gag ). So I spent a week check everything we have on hand and made my list. I woke Sissy and Bear and off we went. We get there and no list lol I thought Sissy had it so did she .... so we tear the van apart no list . OK we need to get it done ( One of Sissy's bff's grandma passed and she was going to the funeral) I had to wing it . I hate to do that .....so into the store we went .We split up I sent the kids to go get the cold cuts and I started to shop. By the time I hit the cereal a woman stopped me and asked if I was trying to beat the snow. I started to laugh and told her that I was just trying to get everything in the cart before the kids caught up with me and started tossing stuff into the cart . She laughed and said that she was wondering why I was moving so fast . OK almost done the kids come back. I sent them over to dairy and ran over to check out the books ( always better to look with out the kids lol). I grabbed a few for me and finally found The Percy Jackson books for Bear. Well book 1 and 3 anyway but he's happy. We checked out and got home in time for the girl to get ready and go.Thank God that's over : )

Snow ....... OK it's going to snow. You'd think the people around here wouldn't freak. But they do. We really try not to make a big deal out of it . I mean it's winter and we normally get dumped on once or twice a season any way so ... OK it's gonna snow. Shopping is done , the flash lights are charged, we have plenty of wood around the stove, so we're good. What will come will come. I'm more worried about those people who will get pounded and aren't ready for it. I hope all of you who are in the path or this storm stay safe and warm.

Stuff..... Pretty much the same lol. I'm still working on my goals and hopefully will have something that works soon. Bear's doing good with his school work but I need to find him a more fun way of working on his multiplication. Both of the older kids are good just being teenagers lol. I've been thinking about starting a small business with a friend. All homemade stuff . Right now we're leaning toward , soap , lip balm, maybe some salves. Of course crocheted things. I have a couple of other ideas kicking around in my head , just need to sort them out.

So that's about it for now the boy is calling lol. Til next time , have a great day and stay safe.

Living room re-do

2010-01-21T10:30:00.014-05:00

Ok finally the living room re-do :) I didn't think to take befores but I took these to use on the Bear paint website. See the brass pole? That's where I hang the laundry in the winter. Oh yeah see our booth.

Now the afters but please do look to close the place is a mess.

This one is from the kitchen

From the kitchen again but now I'm standing by the front door.

From the bedroom doors.

From the bathroom door.

From the back windows by the wood stove.

Same corner just a different angle. See our bedroom doors????

A picture of the book shelves that won't flip for some odd reason.

So that's it I told you it was small and it really needs to be painted. Sorry the pictures are so dark :) . This works for
me at least for now lol. I'm not sure how else to rearrange it with out losing stuff that we use. Now we have to paint lol. I like painting but getting to the ceilings is going to be fun:) Ok I'm done for now. Next up ........Christmas. Til next time have a great day!!!!!!

2010 ... Ready or not....

2010-01-14T11:49:00.003-05:00

Here it is lol !!!!!! Happy New Year everyone !!!!!! I have been reading all of your blogs and I'm happy to see you all are well.

This year I decided to keep my goals short and sweet....
1 set up a house cleaning routine
2 set up a homeschooling routine for Bear
3 blog more
4 get the other house sorted and packed

See simple right??? So since Christmas I've been working on our "plan". It still needs a bit of work but I'm getting there. The hardest thing is trying to keep it simple. I'll post more about it soon. Right now I have a lot of catch up to do on here, so be ready lol.

Til next time .... have a great day

I'm done !!!

2009-12-24T08:05:00.002-05:00

Yipee !!!!! The wrapping paper is stamped and the gifts are wrapped. The stockings are stuffed. The ornaments are finished and the tree is decked out in all of it's homemade glory. Dinner is set. Today is the great cookie bake off and the pies are ready to go in the oven. Bear is so ready , he's counting the hours until Santa comes. All that's left is putting the stuff under the tree and of course cookies and milk for Santa, but I'm done. I can't believe it! I thought I'd be working on stuff right until the last minute.
I took Sissy out on Tuesday to finish her shopping and when we got home I saw that my wonderful Hubby cleaned the whole house, and the oven . YAHOO!!!!!!!! I love that man lol. That was the best present ever!!!!!!!!! I have tons of stuff to tell you and a huge amount of pictures to post but that will all wait until next week. Right now I'm off to enjoy the next couple of days with the family. I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday !!!!!!! Enjoy !!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas to you and yours may all of your dreams come true!!!!!!!!

Buzz, buzz, buzz

2009-12-11T14:17:00.002-05:00

Yep I've been buzzing around like a little bee trying to get stuff done. Here's just some of the list......

Write names on stockings: Done and it only took 2 years lol

Prep the stuff for the ornaments the kids want to make : Done except for the salt dough. I'll
wait til Monday when we plan to make them.

Make the wrapping paper: Hoping to be finished today.

Wrap gifts: hahahahaha I have to finish the paper first.

Post living room re-do pics : Maybe after I finish the paper.

Thank Amy for the awesome package: Not yet ... well I guess I just kinda did. I won one of her stocking stuff give ways ( pics after the holidays) and it is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Amy.

Find cards , write them out and mail: hahahahahaha soon ... hopefully before Christmas is over.

Resolve the problem with seller on eBay: Done ordered 2 gifts in October needless to say no gifts.... contacted eBay , they took care of everything and got us our money back

Re order gifts that we didn't get: Done thanks to Sissy. She jumped on overstock .com and found replacements , and the best part ?????? We saved $30.00. ( ha UPS just dropped them off)

Sew up gift bags: Excuse me as I fall on the floor laughing. Not this year.

Finish stuffies and monsters: Getting there.

Put up the tree: It's going up Monday. Sissy asked me to wait. Where am I putting it you ask? On top of the booth table lol. We're just going to put up part of it . I guess we'll see lol.

There's more to do but I seem to have a very loose handle on things. OK I'm off for now . More to come over the weekend....I hope : )Til next time stay warm.

Another contest......

2009-12-10T08:24:00.001-05:00

Heather is having another great contest on her blog ..... go check it out

Wow ..........

2009-11-30T06:18:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I had time to get on here !!!!!! Thanksgiving was awesome .... Sissy surprised us and came home on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. We spent Thanksgiving eating and eating and well... eating lol. In between all of the eating we watched movies : ) Friday morning Sissy and I rolled out of bed at 3:30 and hit the Black Friday sales at Walmart. Not as good as years past but we did get what we wanted ........kinda. See we had to wait on line of an hour for a gift for Bear ( I'll post pics after Christmas) and missed a few things we wanted like the $ 7.00 video games and the $ 2.00 towels ( Buddy wants he's own towels lol). We did manage to get some games and I grabbed the $4.00 towels( which are much nicer). We really cleaned up with the 2 piece fleece pj sets even if I had to dig to get certain sizes. Grabbed a couple of things that certain kids wanted and a few that I thought they would like and we were home by 6:30. All in all not bad considering that except for a couple of small things for Buddy and the candy for the stocking I'M DONE SHOPPING !!!!!!!!!!!! Now I have to wrap lol. ( Ha caught a little boy trying to read this lol .... he even tried to look Innocent hahahahaha.)
So did you guy's go out black friday????? Get anything good ?????
OH guess what ???? I won some really great stuff from Amy's stocking stuffers I'll post when I get it . Ok I'm off to let out the chickens. Til next time have a great day

Contest

2009-11-16T12:37:00.001-05:00

Heather over at My Frugal Family is having a great give away. Stop by and sign up , while your there be sure to take a look around she has a lot of great idea's.
Til next time , have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did it again !!!

2009-11-11T09:09:00.002-05:00

I ended up moving the living room around yet again. I have a problem at least according to the rest of the family : ) I don't know why I do it lol. I was feeling closed in . I needed more room. Short of building another room ( which is something we've been talking about) the only way I could get it was rearranging again. I had a plan yep spent a couple of hours drawing out exactly where everything was going to go. Hahahahahaha not even close lol. Things didn't go as planned but I'm really happy with the way it turned out. And Guess what .......... I'm not done lol. Yep still cleaning , sorting and organizing. And after all of that I still can't figure out where I'm going to put the Christmas tree. Hubby told me not to over do it ha good luck with that. Boy does my body hate me right now. Meanwhile the rest of the house looks like a tactical nuke went off. So looks like today and more than likely most of tomorrow will be spent getting things back together. So good bye to dust bunnies and cobwebs. Time to throw open all the windows and freshen the place up. Maybe I'll play around with some of my knick knacks. Some stuff needs to be put away for the holidays any way.
So that's it for now.... off to clean lol. Til next time have a great day and stay safe.

Stuff

2009-11-07T11:06:00.004-05:00

We've been rolling along here. Still have some more outside stuff to do. Than hopefully we'll be good until spring..... well besides shoveling snow lol. We still have to get to the last 10 Cornish rocks but we're thinking about only doing a couple at a time . It gets to be to much when we do a bunch at once.

In the kitchen
I've been drying a ton of fruit. Mostly apples and pears but I have found some mango's and bananas on sale so in they went. Been using the bread machine but the bread seems to get moldy faster than the other bread. I have to come up with something to keep that from happening. I'm starting to prep for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure who's going to be here besides Hubby , Bear and me, but I'm going to be ready lol. We're going to have cheese and crackers, veggies and drip, chips, pumpkin and apple pie. As far as the kind of bird.....well lol it could be go old turkey, a 10 pound Cornish rock or duck. I guess it depends on what hits the freezer last lol.

Craftiness,
I'm still working away . I have a good start on Mr. C 's blanket I'm just hoping that I have enough yarn . All of the yarn I've used has been from the tons of free yarn that M's mom gave me. ( and I still have a ton lol ) I think I have some more of that type of yard in storage I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed. Dear MIL asked me to make some dollies for her to give to my sister in law for Christmas. HAHAHAHA I've never made dollies so after some trial and error I think I have some thing they'll both like. I did get Bear's curtains done, just have to get our done. The softies are coming along, they're not perfect, but they look OK. I have to finish closing them up , tossed them in the washer and dryer, than add the faces. I really want to make gift bags out of the fabric I got after Christmas last year. I'm hoping to find the time.... I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Homeschooling
We've had to move Bear from 3rd grade work to 4th grade. Now he seems to be more challenged. I guess we'll just keep shifting stuff around until he hits his groove. We're starting lap books next week. The first set will be on the 50 states. I feel that the lap books cover alot of subjects all at once. And gives him the creative side of things too. We still need to find something he likes for science.

Christmas
You all know that I've been cranking out gifts for months but there are still some things I need to buy . Now we're only buying for the kids and a couple of things each for Hubby and I. Well Hubby is done hahahaha, I'm picking up books and small stuff for me ( it is much easier on all of us if I just pick up my books other wise the kids and poor Hubby stand in the book store looking lost lol) So it's started. I picked up alot of stuff on sale or clearance. Bear and I where out shopping and he wanted to show me what Bakugan he wanted.... OK so we look. They where on sale $5.00 a set instead of $ 12.00 so ...... well I grabbed them. I know , I know that its terrible but it was one of those things ...... do I grab the ones he wants now ... with him here or do I wait. I figured if I waited they would all be gone and I was right. What was funny was that he got it lol "Mom at this price we can get 2 for one" Thankfully Santa can pick up the slack . Bear has been out growing he's clothes at a super fast rate. So again I took him with me and he picked out what he wanted good thing too because I was going to buy 8's and go figure he wears a 10 lol. But he didn't see the cool shirts I got him for a $1.00 each :). Bear even picked out a set of books he wanted. Books ....Books.... you want books for Christmas.... sure Honey grab what you want lol. So yes he knows about a couple of things he's getting but at least I know he'll like them.
So as it stands now , I have to do some more shopping but I'm thinking about doing it when I have the tires done on the van . Just me !!!!!!

OK enough about how cheap I am . I swear there must be a support group for the cheapskates lol. I've written a book and you guys must be bored lol. I'm off for now .Til next time have a great day and stay safe.

What's happening here

2009-10-14T15:35:00.002-04:00

A ton of stuff as usual lol . We culled 10 chickens , have 10 more to go. We have 2 more roosters to do. C found some old shelving on a job sight and brought them home for us . Hubby has been busy installing them in the coup for the little chickens. All that is left is to cut a small door for them to use this way they can get in without having to deal with the big ones. Winter is on the way and we have the last of the prepping to do. Wood needs to be moved up closer to the house, our medicine cabinet has to cleaned sorted and re- filled. Still need to get gas for the generator , the " power out box " need to be sorted. The list goes on and on . I have been crafting too lol thus the lack of posting on my part. I finished the blanket Sissy wanted for Christmas. I 'm almost done with the last ( I hope) hat and scarf set. I just have to finish the blanket for Mr. C , and I have 2 baby blankets to make for a friend of ours that is having twins :0 . Than the sewing begins. I'm going to make new curtains for both bedrooms, than lol I'm going to start on the stuffie animals for some of the little kids. Oh and I have a couple of more projects that hopefully I'll be able to pull off by Christmas.

On the homeschooling front..... things are going good. I joined the local homeschooling group which has been great. We're working hard on finding out what works for Bear. Mostly trail and error but everyone tells me that this is normal and it takes time. Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water and so does he but we're rolling with it.

So that's it for now I'm off to move some stuff around in the living room . More to come . Til next time be safe and have a great day

I'm a bad Blogger

2009-09-26T14:13:00.016-04:00

I know I'm a bad girl : 0 Things have been crazy lol I know what else is new right. I just need a couple of more hours in a day. So to make it up to you here are some of the pictures I promised way back when. These are some of the crafty things I've been working on and finally finished.

Picked these up last year after Halloween for 25 cents a piece.

Found this skull too 50 cents

This I got this year at the dollar store and well it fits our house lol lol

The next 3 are the finished product .A little glue and glitter . Yahoo !!!!!!!!!!!! See it's the little thing's that make me happy.

The busts and small glitter skull are what Bear found at the dollar store. He just had to have Medusa and Dracula lol.

Now on the crocheting front I'm made a ton of these bracelets. I did bead some but I can't find the pictures : ( I'll have to take some more. If all goes according to plan ( ha ha ha... plan.... ha ha ) I'll get them all beaded in time for Christmas.

I finally finished my " fake" granny square blanket

I made this poncho for Vikki

This is another Christmas present for one of the girlie's

And last but not least the blanket I made for Sissy before she went to collage

That's it lol . I have do have a bunch more stuff to make : 0 . At least 3 more hat an scarf sets to make. I found this awesome youtube video series on making theses really cool sock slippers. There are a ton of clips but he's really good . I hope the link works if it does you'll have to search he's uploads to find them believe me it's worth it . Now I'm hoping to make them just for the kids ( including Mr. C and Miss T) me and the Hubby .... we'll see :) .

OK I'm off for now. Til next time have a crafty day.

PS.... Blogger has been hiccuping for me today. Don't know why...... so if thing's look wonky sorry ; 0

September already!!!!!!!

2009-09-04T13:40:00.000-04:00

WOW !!!!!!!! Time has just flown by. Been busy making peach butter , breaking in the new to us bread machine, dealing with Sissy's car trouble ( looks like the engine is shot) taking care of the animals, getting Bear ready to home school, getting Buddy ready for tenth grade and so on and so on lol .

Than we found her behind a local shopping center. Her name is Bella. Isn't she cute :) I just couldn't leave her there . We took her to the vet and she checks out OK except for a bite on the under side of her neck. We didn't know what it was until he shaved her neck . So we have to watch her but so far so good

One of the smaller hens finally ( after 2 attempts) hatched her first chicks. Bear and I went down Tuesday morning to let out the chickens than went out and did our shopping. We got home , unloaded the van , and than headed down to clean the coop and feed the animals. Chirp chirp Mom where is that coming from . Bear runs to the baby factory (lol lol lol ) and yells that mama is in the bottom of the coup, than he climbs up and sees 9 furry babies in the box. I ran in to look yep there they are. Ok I took the babies out of the box and put them in a clean one, now mama decides she wants to sit on them so she jumps in . Meanwhile Bear is keeping the other hens away because they aren't happy with the new additions. So here I stand with a box full of chickens lol, I couldn't leave them there, Hubby wasn't due home for hours , and we couldn't get the chicken run out of storage so... I took them up to the house. Now that was something to see me and Bear with ten chickens and a cat lol. Bella was very good and only went by them once . Thankfully Hubby got home and set the run up for me . Mama and babies are happy in their new home.

I'm off for now . Have a great day

Hanging in there

2009-08-11T13:27:00.000-04:00

Since my last post alot as been going on. So hears to the short version lol. We finished the trim on the windows in the living room, front door, and put up the beam around one of the living room ceiling fans. Now we're done lol. C gave us a ton of furniture ( pics to come) and we had to rearrange again lol. Buddy and I did get Bear's room done before he left, Bear loves it. I guess it takes a boy to get a boys room just right. Sissy well.... after a ton of tests she has Lyme Disease, is lactose intolerant, and has hemorrhoids. Whew !!!!! is she on a lot of meds and believe me she's not happy about it. She's glad we know but says she's on more meds than her grandmother : ). With all of this stuff going on we where still able to get a load of stuff packed and Sissy and Mr. C took it up to her apartment. Just another trip and I think she'll be done. Of course we still have a ton of stuff to get together but we'll get there . Mean while, the fridge starts acting up ( yep the new one ) well Hubby had enough and tore it apart and guess what we found????? A chunk of foam wedged in the cooling vent . Guess that's why it wasn't getting cold growl. We did lose some stuff but well what are you going to do right. I have been able in the mist of all of the craziness to get some green beans in the freezer, dry some fruit, and a touch of crocheting done. Tomorrow I'm off to Vikki's to get Bear's homeschooling paper work together and get some pointers from her. I have been working on getting work together for him, now it's just a case of figuring out what works for us.

So thats the short version more to come, til next time have a great day

Getting there

2009-07-27T10:50:00.006-04:00

Things here are moving along. Not as fast as I would like for some things and way to fast for others. We've been busy getting Bear ready for homeschooling. I sent out our letter of intent today . As soon as I get the paper work back I'm off to see Vikki. This way she can help me sort things out. At some point we'll get together with all of the other homeschoolers in the area. Now that homeschooling is under way I have to get a handle on the other chores we do. I've had to re work alot of stuff . Hopefully with some tweaking we'll get into a new routine and that routine will keep things rolling along.

The for sale sign is up and we've been getting calls. If it doesn't happen right away that's OK. We are holding firm on our price because we could if we had to stay here. Things in the house are tight ( I don't have a clue where we'll put a Christmas tree this year lol) but with some organizing we'll be OK.

The kids.......... well Sissy and Mr. C have gone down to North Carolina for a week. One more vacation before they head upstate to collage. This weekend I took them to my favorite yard sale to pick up the odds and ends they needed. And good thing we did they were having a blow out sale $5.00 a bag. Mr C finally got a TV for his dorm room. Sissy pick up all of the little odds and ends that she needed for her apartment. I picked up some cute Christmas ornaments , books , and a discovery channel planet earth CD ROM for Bear. Needless to say we got 5 bags of stuff lol. When they get home we'll start packing. Buddy and his girlfriend Miss T are going to Florida ( with her parents) on Thursday . They are coming here tomorrow to help us redo Bear's room, yes again lol I have a problem lol lol . We hope to make Bear's room more functional. It's funny to watch the older kids work on his room. They want things to be just so for their little brother.

In the house........ Well besides cooking cleaning and laundry it's pretty much the same : ). The big shop is coming up this weekend. Bear and I have been working on the list. I've been having him write stuff down for me , he really likes it , and hopefully his handwriting will start to improve. I 'm hoping to find more seasonal fruit to dry and or can. I need to make granola and short bread cookies too.

On the crafty front...... I've been crocheting up a Storm. I finished Sissy's blanket , two ponchos, started a poncho for Miss T, finished a hat and started a scarf. Yesterday I started make dish clothes for Sissy . Than I'll start make dish towels. I'm still trying to work out what to make every one for Christmas. I want to make some sort of ornament . I can crochet something or use the pile of wooden spools I have. I'm drawing a blank lol Any one have any ideas or links they want to share???????

Ok I'm done for now : ) Have a great day.

Finally.....

2009-07-20T13:34:00.003-04:00

.... a little bit of down time. Things here are moving along at a super fast pace. Brother in law 2 came up with the kids and stayed with us the weekend of Sissy's graduation party . Her party was a blast. Of course I have to pick that weekend to put up 15 pounds of green beans, 12 pints of blue berries and than dry 10 pounds of peaches lol. I met with Vicky and talked about home schooling Bear. I'm going to head over to her place this week and get that ball rolling.

We've been doing some shopping for sale items. Sissy has been picking up stuff she needs for collage. We have been on the look out for stuff we can use for Bear and scored some great stuff. Oh and yard sales finally yipee lol. One of my favorites opened last weekend and we really lucked out. I've been looking for drinking glasses well I found a set of 12 great big heavy glasses for 6 bucks. We really needed steak knives so I started digging in boxes and I see a bunch of silver plated silverware. Sissy laughed and said my eyes got huge lol. So I grabbed all of it I could find along with 12 knifes and 2 sets of tongs. Than as we're getting ready to pay I see a really nice skirt . Sissy grabbed it and went to look for a shirt needless to say we ended up with a ton of clothes lol. Oh and I found 4 small Pyrex bowls, maybe refrigerator dishes, I'm not sure I'll post pictures and maybe some one will know what they are.Of course I grabbed books and the like. I have been trying to keep the buying down to a minimum. This weekend we went back , didn't get much some books, more clothes and a walking with dinosaurs computer game for Bear. Than we headed over to a Church to take a look at their thrift store. We picked up more clothes ( both Sissy and I are covered for clothes for a good long time) and sheets. I'm hoping the our Church will do their sale before Sissy leaves for collage, this way we can finish up the shopping for her new place.
Loads more going on but I'll save that for another post or this one will go on for ever: ). So til next time have a great day!

Craftiness

2009-07-04T08:00:00.002-04:00

I've been working like a mad woman on a ton of projects and looks like there is no end in sight lol. Here's some pictures of what I'm working on .

I made 2 of these hat and scarf sets (exactly the same) for 2 special little girl for christmas.

Here are the squares that I made (instead of the grannie squares) for our bed. Now I just have to put the black trim around them than stitch together.

I made this over sized lap blanket for a christmas gift but Bear might get it lol lol. Not sure yet.

Mean while M's mom is cleaning out her storage room so along with the huge pile of yarn she gave me , she also gave me 2 trash bags with her old finished projects. Most of them just need to be tied off and they are ready to go. The rest are sorted and ready for me to work on . Most are baby items that I'm give to friends with well babies lol. Some are hats , scarfs, blankets. She made some really cool bathing suit wraps and bikinis ( anyone want a bikini and wrap??? seriously just let me know). Right now I'm working on a blanket for Sissy. When I started sorting the yarn ( still not done lol ) she found some she really liked and asked me to make her a blankie lol to take to collage with her. She didn't care how I did it so after some trail and error, I came up with " pattern" that she liked. I did start a rag rug but.... the damned thing kept twisting up sewing it together was a nightmare so M's mom gave me a huge crochet hook and a pattern to crochet one. Hopefully I'll get to that before the summer ends. And the list goes on and on. Pictures to come as I finish things. Have you been crafty lately????

Homeschool or not

2009-07-03T08:00:00.001-04:00

Hubby and I have been giving some serious thought to homeschooling Bear this coming year. Why ???? Well with budget cuts alot of the programs are being cut. The school police officer is gone . And to tell the truth we don't like the way Bear has been acting. We loved all of his teachers but he's bored. At the beginning of the year the school does a test to see where each kids reading level is. By October they are unable to track him. He scored 20% over the district average in math. He was the only 2nd grader cleared to read the 5th and 6th grade books in the library. We did kinda home schooled him before he stared school. We couldn't find a pre-k school for him so we did it our selves. If thing s go according to plan we'll be moving at some point in the near future ( looks like we're going to move upstate a bit) and I'm not sure on the schools there. I do have some one I can go to for information, Sissy's Boyfriend was home schooled ( he just finished he's 2nd year of collage at 17). I'm going to meet his mom at Sissy's graduation party in a couple of weeks. Even the older kids think it's a good idea. Bear just gives me the " whatever". I guess we'll have to play it by ear uh. Any one have any advice?????
Gotta run and grab the laundry before it rains. Til next time , have a great day.

Weird and wacky weather

2009-07-02T08:00:00.001-04:00

I don't know about you guys but the weather here has been screwy. It reminds me of when I was in Hawaii. Raining one minute sunny the next. We've taken to weed whacking instead of mowing because the ground is so wet that pushing the mower is a pain. The poor chickens look like drowned rats after every storm. So of the storms are really heavy. I don't ever remember getting this much rain . Even putting the wash on the line gets tricky. I know it's going to rain just never when . One of us have to be home to get it down if a storm hits. So I've had to use the dryer more in the last month than I used it all last winter. Bear has taken to trying to see whrere the rain is on the radar so he can get some outside play time in.

Ok done with the weather :) Til next time stay dry.

Yard sale haul!!!!

2009-07-01T12:19:00.009-04:00

Finally some time to get the pics on here lol lol

Clear oval Pyrex bowl

Hubby wanted a old fashion percolator coffee pot, and of course more glass jars

I needed a pot for canning, I had 1 that was to big and 1 that was too small

A girl can never have too many crock pots,

or crock pot cook books :)

2 more vintage table clothes

A new to me quilt king size yippee I'm really in love with purple now lol

Of course I also picked up books for Hubby and I . Bear got a ton of dinosaurs, boxing gloves, books, a viking hat, and more stuff that I just can't remember it all. It was great day. One of my favorite sales is coming up on July 11th. Hopefully our Church will be around that time too. Til next time , have a great day.

I'm still here!!!

2009-06-29T10:15:00.003-04:00

Just been super busy . We still don't know whats up with Sissy. Looks like more trips to the Dr's for us. I did get Bear to the Dr's and he had fifth disease Yikes. The fever did break and once he got the rash he was cleared to go back to school. My birthday came ( last Wednesday) and went lol. I've found that 39 isn't any different than 29 lol. And of course I ended up at the Dr's myself ( on my birthday lol) double ear infection and as the Dr put it a massive sinus infection with impacted sinuses . Yippee lol lol. But the day was good I was happy Hubby and the kids where here so we had a BBQ. Friday was Bear's last day of school now I have all of my kiddies back. I'm working on how to keep Bear busy lol . I did the shopping early so I don't have to deal with the summer crowds. The next trip will be at 7 am in and out lol. Sissy graduated yesterday. Hubby and I are so proud. We had some family come up to watch the ceremony. The rest will be up for her party in a couple of weeks.
Things are moving along here. We are getting ready to cull the Cornish rocks in the next couple of weeks. One of the ducks hurt it's foot so we've been keeping an eye on him. The little chickens are growing fast and are super funny. One of the Millie roosters likes to jump up on our legs and climb up to our shoulders and just hang out . I finishes the curtains for Bear's room and crocheted 2 hat and scarf sets to give as Christmas gifts. M's mom gave me a ton of yarn I mean a ton the pile is about 6 feet long, 5 feet wide and 5 feet high lol . I have to get that mess sorted out. We're working on the decorating here. I picked up a bard nailer so now we can get the wood up in the kitchen. All of the paint colors are picked for the living room. Now I just have to get the paint. Still have to pick paint for the rest of the rooms but one thing at a time right. Hopefully now that all of the craziness is done for now I can get back on track because the other house needs to be done and to tell the truth I don't look forward to getting in there. But hopefully when I get in there things will move along fast.

Ok I'm off for now . Til next time have a great day.

And so it goes.

2009-06-16T07:43:00.002-04:00

Busy as usual ! Sissy is doing better but I think she went back to work to soon. She has another Dr's appointment today. The Dr had her appendix tested to find out exactly what happened. He might want to test her for crones disease. Hopefully today we'll get some answers. The big kids are done with school and now it's time to get ready for Sissy's graduation. Bear is sick . He started a fever on Sunday and is complaining his head hurts, sounds like a sinus infection to me. I'm going to call the Dr this morning and hopefully get him in. He's not happy lol lol . His school field day is this week but I'm not sure if he's going to be able to go.He's laying on the couch looking terrible poor kid.

I'm ...well buried in stuff lol. My to do list is huge but we're knocking some stuff out. After we put in the booth it kinda started the ball rolling on other home improvement projects. I have to paint some parts of the booth , than make curtains to skirt the bottom to cover the base. I all of the stuff together to make new curtains for Bear's room, and to make the curtains for the shelves in the living room. Now if I can just find the time. We also cut all of the wood to put up in the kitchen. Than staining the cabinets. Of course if we're going that far we might as well paint too lol. Mean while the first set of chicks and the ducks are growing like weeds. Looks like we'll be processing the chickens soon . The ducks have a while to go. The little chicks are doing great , they are the friendliest chickens ever.Yes I have to post pics hopefully in the next couple of days. There are a couple of yard sales this weekend I'm hoping to hit .We'll see how things go.

So those are the happenings at the old homestead. I'm off to get some housework done. Til next time have a great day.

Getting it together

2009-06-11T08:27:00.002-04:00

Sort of lol. Things here are getting back to whats considered normal for here. Sissy's back to school today now it's crunch time and she has to get all of her finals done. She's sweating it a bit but I'm sure things will work out.Bear went on his field trip yesterday. The big kids are out of school next week. Bear's last day is the 25th . We are all looking forward to summer break. I got my new washer and dryer on Tuesday. Yipeee I'm so happy yes I know I'm weird lol . The wash is all caught up and I can breath a bit easier. I'm still working on the rest of the house. I made room in the living room for another surprise..... a diner booth. C is doing a diner redo and asked Hubby if we wanted a booth . Now we have a place to eat and to play. I need to make some curtains to use as a skirt. I'll post pics soon. While I'm at it I'm going to make new curtains for Bear's room and to cover the open shelves we have in the living room.I was able to finish the blanket for J's daughter and I started a hat for Hubby. Ton's more to do so I guess I'd better get to it. Til next time have a great day.

One of those days.

2009-06-06T15:39:00.003-04:00

You ever have one of those days that lasts for 2 weeks????? That's whats been happening around here. First poor Sissy has been sick for over a month. After a load of doctors ( don't get me started on those morons) we took her to the ER and after much yelling we found a doctor that figured out what was wrong. It was her appendix. So out it came, the doctor is awesome and is taking really good care of her. She's doing really good but no school or work indefinitely. Needless to say she happy that someone finally figured out what was wrong but she wants to go to school and work :) Than lol the washer starts acting up. So Hubby pulls it apart cleans everything, greases what needs to be greased , puts it back together and thing are good . HA it crapped out yesterday in a big poof of smoke. Today Hubby went to find another one at Sears. Low and behold all of the models they had in stock and on the floor were recalled. Can't sell us one of those no siree ok so he orders one, that we can pick up on Tuesday. Mean while I'm home cleaning out the bathroom lol lol thinking that he'll be home with it hahahahaha. Add to all of this chaos our monthly shopping, a trip to Sam's club, the normal everyday stuff, moving the living room again ( that's a whole other post) and our female parakeet did a Houdini got out of her cage and fly out the back door. Than I get a call from the post office the chickens we ordered are there waiting :0.
Ok I'm done now lol . Thanks for letting me blow off some steam. All in all I grateful for all that we have the good the bad and the down right ugly lol. I'm off of here for now. Be back soon with a bunch pics and good stuff. You guys have a great day. Til next time.

Hey there....

2009-05-27T10:00:00.000-04:00

Things have been as the kids put it "Mad Busy" around here. Where to begin????? Well the kids and their father had a huge falling out. My ex and his wife that is. And to make a long story short. The kids have been here more than there. Because our place is so small and both kids are teenagers, so Hubby and I gave them an apartment in the other house. Hubby had to do some retro fitting but he was able to set the place up so they heat and hot water with out us having to open the whole house. Than the fun started . Thank God we save everything. We were able to set up the whole place. Yes lol we had enough stuff to put together a 2 bedroom apartment lol and than some. Hell they even got to pick and choose lol lol . PACK RATS RULE LOL. This works out well for Sissy who is leaving for collage in August. She gets a head start on living on her own. Granted they are right next store :) and they drop off the laundry lol but it's a start. Lets see what else????? Sissy went to Boston on her Senior trip. Memorial day weekend was great . Nothing like a 4 day weekend. We played , hung out and of course worked around here.I went to hang out with my friend J. C and Hubby culled more roosters. Hubby finally got his retaining wall done down by the creek. Bear and I went a couple of towns over and went yard saling with my friend D (J's mom). Hubby took the training wheels off of Bear's bike and Bear was off lol . Hubby thought he was going to be chasing the boy up and down the road.Nope Bear hopped on and was good to go. Buddy spent his time between here and work. I made more jam, strawberry rhubarb this time.Than of course there is my ever growing pile of projects.
So with that I'm off for now. I have a ton of pictures to download and post. Til next time have a great day.

For the birds.

2009-05-16T13:50:00.001-04:00

I'm in the kitchen doing some prep for dinner and the 6 birds start freaking out . So I run over and look everyone looks .... alrighty than.The bird are a bit weird at times. Go back to dinner and they start again, UGH now they aren't settling down so I start looking around and what do I see???????

This birdy sitting on the tree right outside the back windows.

Than it flies to the deck, back to the tree than back to the deck lol.

The whole time the bird were acting like some thing was going to eat them. Bird brains :)

What happens when you pick up stuff

2009-05-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

I end up coming home with stuff like this.

They were running a clearance on ducks we only wanted 6 but I couldn't just leave the 7 th one there all by it's self. So 7 ducks lol. The top picture is their first time in the water. The picture below is just a longer shot of the pond if you look close you see the little quakers.

Than well........ they offered my Cornish rock chicks for a dollar each. Now these are heading for the freezer in a couple of months. They can grow to weigh 20 pounds a piece .Did I need to get 20 well.... no not really but they were a dollar lol lol lol

When we got them home

All settled in their new digs :)

No I didn't buy a rooster this is Casanova, my boy friend, the top man in charge, the king of the coup. If Hubby and I are down by the coup and Hubby move toward me Casanova lets him know that I'm off limits :0. He is a good hubby to the girls so he's a keeper.

And last but not least....Black and white poke a dotted mama. We got her with the rest of the convicts lol. She is so wild that we can't catch her. I'm lucky I was able to get this picture :)

She had a nest some where and now she has 8 tiny chicks . The chicks looked like little mice lol.

Now I'm off to go check on the babies. Til next time have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!

And another week flies by.

2009-05-15T12:56:00.002-04:00

And this is the first time I've been able to sit and post. How was every ones Mama's Day???? I had a great day. Bear gave me a grass plant, a cup with dirt and seeds ( so we can grow the flowers together) and a cute little book to write my favorite memories of him . So sweet. The big kid gave me a huge bag of bagels ummmmm.Than we spent the rest of the day hanging out.
The rest of the week went by in a blur. I finished crocheting that lap blanket and tossed it in the box with the rest of the Christmas stuff I've made. I got a good start on a birthday gift for my friends almost 2 year old. And I started another crocheted blanket this time for us. I was going to make a granny square blanket but to tell you the truth I just don't have the patience to mess with it lol . So instead I decided to make regular old squares. I have a bunch of single skeins of yarn , all multi colored, that I want to use . So I dug them out and got started. I'm going to post pictures over the weekend . Than just the normal stuff , housework , laundry, cooking , driving kids to school see normal. Running around to pick up some things lol you'll see what kind of things next post. I did get to make strawberry jam. It came out great. The gang loves it so looks like there will be more jam making in my future. Now if I could just get the rhubarb harvested.
So that's been our week here at the old homestead. I'm off to crochet :) Til next time have a great day.

TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-08T16:08:00.002-04:00

Yep thank god it's Friday ... what a week . Nothing bad just a long long week . Hubby went up state to an auction to get Sissy a car on Tuesday than they had to go up again on Wednesday to pick it up. Thursday it had to go to the shop thankfully they got it done fast and we picked it up later that afternoon. And she was off lol lol . It's nice that she has her own car now lol she can drive Buddy around. Today I had to run into town and pick up some stuff. Found 5 pounds containers of strawberries for $5.00 yippee lol. You know I had to grab 2 .Looks like I'm making some strawberry jam this weekend. I picked up some books lol lol . Grabbed so other odds and ends and ran home. We started looking for land we don't know if we'll go to PA or move farther upstate . Hubby can't make up his mind lol lol . We're looking for a really big piece of property. A house isn't really an issue. If one is there fine if not that's OK too. .And I'm tired:)
So I'm off .Til next time have a great day.

I must have a.......

2009-05-07T09:00:00.001-04:00

sign at the bottom of the driveway ( that I can't see) that says "Mama's chicken rescue" .Why you ask .....well I'll show you.....

Can you see the 5 chicks ????? C's daughter was give 6 chicks for Easter and well let's just say one met with an untimely death and C's wife gave them to us . Thankfully we had cleaned out the old dog crate to get ready for the chicks we just ordered. They're still a bit small to put in with the older chickens. I do love all of the chickens lol lol but yikes . So I'm chicken mama yet again . Wait until the other ones get here than I'll really be chicken crazy.

I'm off for now lots more to come soon . Til next time have a great day.

Saving

2009-04-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

A bunch of us sat around talking about the way things are going with the economy. When one of the girls asked why I didn't post my ideas. To be honest I really never thought about it. Some stuff is posted just in the normal course of my daily life . Other things are so ingrained that I really don't think about it . Over the years I've tried tons of different things some worked some didn't. I've had people look at me like I was nuts but oh well lol.I'm a firm believer in the saying "to each their own". So here are some of the things we do to save money.

I save small bills and at the end of the month I put half in savings. Than I split the other half between Christmas and yard sales envelopes. You all know that I do try to thrift or make all of our gifts. We also save all of our loose change roll it in the fall and use it to finish our Christmas shopping. If there is any money left( which happens more often than not) we put it into savings.

At the beginning of the month we but a pretty big amount in savings envelope. Unless there is a huge emergency we don't touch it. When the next month rolls around it goes into savings. This money is a combo of savings and/ or emergency fund. Because we don't have credit cards, we use this money for stuff like car repairs or replacing the fridge.

People always offer us free stuff all the time and we take it lol . If we can't use it we always find some one who can. The only problem with that is having the space to store it until it can be used. I can't tell you how much money we've saved. But I can tell you that just about everything in our house was given to us one way or another.

Our electric bill runs us about $50 a month ( last month it was $48) People tell us that's good considering that there is always some one home. Some of the electronics we have we don't always use. The stereo , the DVD player, PlayStation, or the surround sound unit aren't used every day. So we went around and put all of the "Energy Vampires "on surge protectors. We have a ton of surge protectors lol. This way nothing is left on " standby" We even put one on the computer so when we're done we can shut down everything including the printer and modem.

When I food shop I go to 3 stores plus the farmers market. I know the prices of just about everything we buy. In recent months I've have been thrown off because the cost of food continues rise so I will wait if I'm not sure .I keep at least 3 months of supplies in the house at all times. I also rotate all of our extras putting the new stuff in the back while moving the older stuff up to be used next. All of our clothes are either used or bought at a deep discount. The big kids buy most of their clothes but Bear out grows his stuff so fast that it makes more sense to spend less. Bear has play clothes and school clothes. When the school stuff gets to worn or stained we flip them to play than when they get to small I save them to craft with.

OK now that I've bored everyone to tears lol I'm gonna stop here . I'll just put this question out there..... What do you guys do to save money??????? With that I'm off to get some house work done. Til next time have a great day.

AWOL again :)

2009-04-28T09:30:00.000-04:00

Spring has sprung and things have been busy here at the old homestead.The flowers are up and the herbs have sprung out of the ground with a vengeance. The weather has been beautiful . We went from 40 to 80. I thought there was another jail break when I couldn't find Sweetie ( one of the little hens) one morning. Hubby went down to take a look and found her in the crate curled up in a cute little ball. I'm to short to see in without standing on a rock to see her lol .When she got up to eat Hubby saw 10 little eggs. Maybe just maybe we'll see some chicks soon. The spring cleaning has started ( can you hera the family graoning lol ). Most of Bear's clothes have been switched out. Our clothes are next. Than it's on to the curtains. The fan's have been dragged out of storage. Cobwebs have been cleared and with the windows open the house smells fresh and clean. Good bye to winter. I've been working on the other house a couple of hours a day. Trying to get it ready to put on the market.

I'm having croquet withdrawals :) . My arm is a lot better . Soon I'll be swimming in yarn lol lol . I've got big crafty plans. I've been buying quilt squares. All I'll need is the fabric for the backing than hopefully I can start on that . I want to make rag rugs. We've been saving all of our old clothes forever lol and I swear I keep finding more. So looks like I'll be cutting and sewing some rugs . I still have a ton of stuff to paint up. I guess I better get hopping.

So that's it for now. Til next time have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!

We got us some more......

2009-04-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

chickens. I went looking for the chickens that hubby wanted last week . After much searching I ended up on the web. After some more searching I found Cackle Hatchery. Looky what we have on order

Some Golden Laced Wyandotte's

Some Golden Seabright Bantam's

Some Mille Fluer Duccle's

And some Silver Duckwing's

The Mille Fluers and the Silver Duckwings are to replace the ones we lost. Hubby was so happy when I found them. The other ones ......well they're just cooling looking lol . Everyone thinks we're crazy lol. Last year when we got the Mille's and the Silver Duckwings we had people ask if they could buy them. Now Hubby wasn't going to give up his babies but we where hoping to breed them than sell the babies. Since that evil animal got them we have to start over. Oh well I guess them's the breaks right.

That's it for now . Til next time have a great day.

Well....... damn

2009-04-15T08:46:00.002-04:00

Yeah damn .... you never guess what I did. Are you ready?????? I fractured my left fore arm :0
How did I do that you ask ????? I have no idea. I moved around Bear's room on Monday that night my arm was bothering me I just figured I pulled something. Tuesday more of the same but now there was a huge bruise. By Wednesday it was swollen, so off to the Dr's one xray later yep a small hair line fracture. UGH!!!!!!! I didn't get a cast thank god. Just a ace bandage, a splint and a sling . I feel like an idiot. Hubby just looked at me and said " How on earth did you do that and not feel it" . Just lucky I guess lol.

Easter was good we did the normal, eating until we couldn't move, the kids just hanging out and eat more candy then is humanly possible. Than we all passed out lol lol. The last couple of days have been quiet. I can't do much with this arm ( typing one hand truly stinks) so I'm just hanging out . Thankfully everyone has been helping out so things are rolling along. Ok I'm gonna get off of here much more to come. Til next time have a great day!!!!!!!!

Wishing.....

2009-04-12T06:31:00.002-04:00

All of you a wonderful and joyous Easter.

Whew!!!!!

2009-04-08T13:25:00.000-04:00

Time sure does fly lol . Well spring break started here on Monday . The big kids are in Florida with their dad and step mom . Us ........well we've just been hanging out. M finished moving back to take care of his mom. He had a full house of stuff but couldn't take it all sooooo lol Bear ended up with not only the computer desk but a dresser, wall unit and a set of metal cube shelves . We spent Monday re-doing his room . Of course he was all excited to get big kid stuff lol lol. What a job but it was worth every ache and pain. Now all of his books are in one spot and everything was sorted and re organized. Yippee!!!!!!!!! One room down and 3 more to go. Hopefully I'll be able to get to them in the next week or so.I haven't been able to get to the other house yet. The weather is just so weird it's still really cold in there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it warms up soon so I can get in there and get it started.
I've been getting ready for Easter. We have all of the goodies for Bear and the kids. I just have to pick up some odds and ends for Easter dinner and we're set. I still have to stuff the eggs but Bear can smell goodies a mile away lol so I'll wait until the last minute :) Tomorrow I have to run out to grab some stuff. Hubby wants to replace the 2 little chickens that we lost to an animal. They were his babies and he took it really hard. We also want some turkeys. I'm figuring 2 for us and a couple of extras for family and friends. Hubby is talking about getting some ducks for the pond . Our neighbors are going to freak lol lol since C just picked up ducks too lol. I guess it's not as weird as the goats and pigs we had last year right ?????Than stop and grab the rest of the fixings for Easter dinner.
Not much crafting going on here. I am working on a lap blanket for a Christmas present but that's it. M's mom sent over a big bag of eye lash yarn ( insert evil laugh here) I'm trying to figure out what I can make with it. Hopefully I can get some other stuff done in the coming weeks with pics of course. I found some really cute doll patterns that I can't wait to tackle. And lol I really want to make a quilt for our room. Do I know how to make a quilt?????? Nope but I'm hoping to figure it out. I've had a queen size batting( bought on sale of course lol ) in storage for a year I guess it's time to get my act together.Internet here I come lol.I try to remember to take pictures as I find my way around quilt making.

So that's about it for now. Til next time have a great day.

And the beat goes on

2009-04-01T07:31:00.001-04:00

The last couple of weeks have been crazier than normal. I went shopping and we all know how much I love that. We really didn't need to much with the huge amount of stuff we picked up last month, and I still spent $200.00 :0. Yikes time to tighten the belt again I guess. Monday I did alot of running around. I went to see a friend , than stopped to pick up chicken feed, off to Walmart to pick up books( and got offered a job lol ), a stop at the farmers market to pick up pears, than home for an hour. Into the truck pick up Sissy help her move the rest of her stuff to the new place ( my ex gave us a small chest freezer so I grabbed that too), sent her off to the Dr's, helped the ex put her stuff away ( and I didn't kill him lol lol ) rolled into the driveway in time to get Bear. Needless to say I was wiped and wanted a nap.
Yesterday I did a lot of housework. So many little things that always need to be done. The weather was beautiful, so 2 loads of wash went on the line. I opened all the windows and aired out the house. I puttered and poked lol and got a lot done. This morning I have to change sheets, put a foam pad on Bear's bed, do 1 load of laundry, vacuum and clean the bathroom. Than I'm off for my weekly Wednesday visit with my bff ( Hubby calls it hen's day out lol yeah I beat him lol lol ). Thank God for my crockpot dinner is cooking away.

Well that's it for now, I need to get my butt in gear :) . Til next time , have a great day.

Chicken madness

2009-03-30T16:10:00.000-04:00

The chickens .... well last summer C found a bunch of chickens where he was working. Of course we took them lol . From what we can tell they are some small breed of bantams. Now all of this time we've let them have free run in the yard . Until last week. I was heading out to pickup Sissy when I get to the end of the drive way and what do I see??????? 1 of the roosters with all 4 of the little hens crossing the main road :0. We get home and tell Hubby. So Hubby decides it's time to coup them. As he's adding their coup to the side of the main coup we got to listen to the car horns has they ran back and forth cross the road. OK coups done . Hubby waits until they all head in to roost and grab them ( these chickens can fly like peasants lol )and get them in their new home. So all's well right????? WRONG lol. The next morning I head down to free the chickens and the little buggers worked open the wire and escaped. Ok I tried to grab them ha ha ha than went to get Hubby. I stayed in the house to get Bear ready for school. Watching from the window I see Hubby get them from across the road back into the yard than the fun begins. Chasing them here and there .....cursing ...finally he comes up and let's Miss B out . Still watching Miss B rounds one up and drives it to the gate Hubby grabs it , than I see 3 heading up here so I toss on my crocs and head out to push them back down the hill. Just for the record crocs are not the best thing to wear when you are chasing chickens . So on it goes we chase them around the pond, around the enclosure, across the creek, repeat. A half hour later I think we have them all , Hubby yells 1 left... uh... OK where is the little bugger?????? Why she's under the coup. Okay we can't get in there and of course she's out of reach what to do???????? Send in the dog. I go around back. She gets in and gets behind her and..... she flies past Hubby. ( Insert cursing here) I take off running along the creek to cut her off she sees me and freezes , Hubby grabs her and puts her in . I head back up to the house to a laughing Bear who tells me " To bad I didn't grab the camrea I cound have used the pictures for blackmail" lol lol lol. It's he cute.Meanwhile we're looking to buy a couple of more chickens. Yes the madness never ends lol.
So that's it for now. Til next time have a great day.

Back in the saddle

2009-03-24T09:10:00.000-04:00

I'm back !!!!!!! I still have a bit of a cold ( sucker will not give up the ghost lol ) but I'm almost back to my abnormal self ; ) . Everyone else is better . Thanks for all of the well wishes. So things here are moving along. When I was stuck on the couch I made Sissy a shawl. Than a girlfriend had some yarn she was never going to use so she gave it to me. I made her 1 year old a small pocket book. But in my sickness induced fog I forgot to take pics lol. The house is looking better thank god . Spring cleaning will start soon. Much to the family's horror. The big kids are moving again ( don't ask ) so we'll be sorting their stuff ( again horror).The weather here has been strange to say the least. One day it's warm the next it's cold. Last night it was a whole 12 degrees. I can't wait until it makes up it's mind and spring finally gets here. Tomorrow the kids have a day off so we're going to work in the Bear's room. "M" gave Bear his old computer desk. We're going to move it into his room tomorrow and put the desk in there now in storage until the big kids get settled, than it will go to Buddy.Bera is looking forward to the new desk but not the cleaning that he knows will be done lol.Sissy passed her driving test ( God help us all lol ) and Buddy got his permit. Now I can be driven around lol lol lol .
So that's it for now. The kids are off to school and it's time to get some stuff done, hopefully :). More to come . Til next time have a great day.

Sick

2009-03-15T06:58:00.004-04:00

We've had a run of sickies here. Bear and Hubby ended up with nasty stomach bug. Bear was feeling better by Tuesday and went to school. Hubby was feeling better the next day . Sissy got sick on Wednesday but went back to school on Thursday. Buddy ... well so far so good. Me ??? I ended up with a head cold that is still hanging on. I was able to get the living room done on Tuesday with some help from "M" but the house is mess. I'm OK with the mess ( I must be sick ) . I'll get to to sooner or later.

Besides all of that things are good. I have a couple of other posts running around in my fogged brain. Along with some craft projects . Hopefully I'll get them straight soon lol ( meds do your thing). With that I'm off. Til next time . Stay well and have a great day.

Another week goes by.

2009-03-07T08:10:00.000-05:00

Time sure flys when your having fun lol . Things are moving along here not as fast as I want lol . I just want everything done lol lol . Like now lol . The weather has been really nice the last couple of days. Now I have a bug in my bonnet......I want to re do the living room .... yes again lol. I bet you can see Hubby's eyes rolling lol lol lol. I've been really good. I haven't moved stuff in a while. Maybe spring is in the air... finally. I have it all planned out : ) you know what they say about the best layed plans lol. So I'm gonna start today after I take Buddy to work. Hopefully we'll ( notice I say we lol lol ) get it done pretty quick . We went to Sam's club this week . A friend has a card and asked us to go . We spent more money shopping this month than we normally do , but Hubby reminded me that there are a lot of things that we won't need to buy again until October lol . I've been doing some crafty stuff. I'm hoping to get some pics soon . Look a short post lol lol . More to come soon. Til next time have a great day.

A short one kinda lol

2009-02-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

Hey there. Well things have settled down here a bit. We ended up having trouble with the furnace last Friday. Thankfully Hubby was able to fix it and we're back in business. The rest of the week has been pretty normal. Hubby and I went shopping on Wednesday. Now Hubby doesn't normally go shopping cause he hates it as much as I do, but he offered to go so why not. The kids were too funny Sissy and Buddy were saying prayers for him lol . As Bear was getting on the bus he made to sign of the cross over his Daddy and said God bless you lol lol . Now I'm not that bad.... OK maybe I am : ). I do move really fast when I go shopping . Maybe because I don't want to be there lol . I'm happy to report Hubby lived and made it home without any serious injury's. It was nice to have help loading the stuff in the van. I do like the once a month shopping thing but it can take forever to get everything put away.
This weekend is more of the same lol lol . I have cookies to make, more french toast sticks for the kids . I really need to get a handle on the house. With every thing that been going on here and the fact that for some reason I've been really tired things have slipped. Crafty well not to much over the last week but I did find some crochet video's yipee lol lol . Now I can learn some new stitches . That's about it from here for now. I'm off to walk the dog and let out the chickens. Til next time have a great day.

Crap

2009-02-20T09:12:00.000-05:00

Ok first a bit of back round. Both Hubby and Bear sleep walk. Now Bear isn't to bad cause I can pick him up ( for now any way) and drop him in bed. But Hubby on the other hand well he's 6 ft ... I'm 5 ft 4 hahahaha so I have to be more creative lol. Needless to say I'm a light sleeper .On to Tuesday night . We went to bed around 9. Bear started about an hour later. After we chased him around I decided to just sleep in his room. OK so I settle him down toss my arm over him ( to keep him from getting away from me lol ) start to fall asleep and hear a click. UH??????WHAT????growl , hiss . OK drag my tired butt out of bed figuring that Hubby was wandering around ( still growling and hissing) walk into the living room and ..... nothing ...uh ??????? Check our room there he is snoring away. OKAY maybe I'm losing it ( God knows I'm friggen loony tunes lol ), Bear is talking, off to he's room get him settled, start to fall asleep and CLICK. WTF!?!? *Drag myself out of bed.... click. Search the house don't see anything go back to bed. CLICK. Repeat *. I don't know how many times I wandered around the house cursing and looking for what was clicking but at some point I passed out. Morning rolls around , Bear gets up and turns on the coffee pot lol mommy needs coffee. I roll out of bed grab a cup of coffee and toss a waffle in the toaster for Bear. UMMMM the waffle is a little soft fridge must be on self defrost. CLICK!!!!!! What????? CLICK!!!!!! Damn it !!!!!! Drag out the fridge ummm. CLICK!!!!! Hubby and I stand there CLICK!!!!! Bet you see where this is going. I open the freezer and .....damn things are defrosting. Shit.... Hubby and I grab the laundry basket and start moving stuff to the other freezer. Fridge is warm shit shit shit . Grab some milk crates toss the stuff in and pile them in the snow. (Bang bang bang the sound of me banging my head on the wall) Hubby works on it for a while but it's dieing slowly . Now I'm pissed off and over tired, Hubby is waiting for my head to explode , thank god he doesn't try to make me feel better lol he hopes for the best and waits until it passes. Do we buy a used one or new umm????? It was a hard call for us ,we really want to get out of here this year, to buy a new one but Hubby found one and got a great deal . So we spent all day yesterday cleaning and organizing the kitchen. We had to move the microwave, it used to be on top of the fridge but the new one is to high, so we ended up with it on the counter. How we have to remember where the microwave is lol lol . But we made it lol .

Now I'm off to start dinner : ) Til next time have a great day.

Hello there

2009-02-16T09:15:00.001-05:00

First some pics....

New heating pad covers
Bear's Harry Potter robe

HAHAHA Franken robe

MIL's cape

Cape for MIL's bingo buddy lol

Some Christmas ornaments 10 cents a piece for some projects I have planned

Some wired Christmas ribbon cheap lol

Super cheap Christmas fabric

Things are moving along here at the old homestead. It's been another one of those long weeks. We did some shopping . Picked up a couple t shirts and sweats for Bear. Sissy grabbed 2 more shirts for work. Gotta love the clearance racks : ). Buddy had all 4 of his wisdom teeth pulled so he was home most of the week only going to school to take tests. " C" took Miss B to the breeder to well lol breed lol. We got her back yesterday guess we'll see. Today we're going to start getting the canary's ready for breeding. No parakeets this year. Dalila died so we would have to buy another bird. I don't see that happening but you never can tell. Everyone has been enjoying the warmer weather, including the chickens. Looks like a have a couple of rooster boyfriends lol lol . When I go down to let them out 3 of the roosters ( including my first rooster boyfriend Casanova lol ) meet me and do the rooster dance of love lol lol lol . So looks like spring is in the air. But Hubby just told me that it looks like we're in for another weird storm. You know the kind , might be rain , maybe snow , how about some ice just to make things interesting. So looks like I'll spend sometime today getting ready just in case.

I did get most of the stuff done last weekend as you can see by the pic's. Still more to do but at least I'm putting a bent in it . The kids are on vacation this week so it's a perfect time to really get into the other house and get that moving. It's funny how things just pile up. So I'll do the old half hour at a time bit til it's done. The rest of the week well .... I'll just play it by ear. See what happens.

Ok I'm off . Til next time, stay save and have a great day.

Weekend plans

2009-02-06T17:10:00.000-05:00

I'm hoping to get some crafty stuff done this weekend. First I want to do Bears robe. I finally found craft paper so I can make my own pattern. Next I want to make new covers for the heating pads. I have a ton of old towels that I can use. Plus I have a list of other crafts that I want to do but I'll play those by ear. Than the cooking , short bread cookies, 2 loaves of raisin bread, maybe some brownies. Bear wants french toast sticks lol and regular french toast to put in the freezer. Silly boy lol .

I did get the rest of the shopping done or so I thought. I forgot to grab dried cranberries for the granola I made for Hubby. But I did score some clothes for Bear at walmart. All of it was on clearance, two pants and shirt sets and a camo shirt $ 3.00, a pair of camo pants , hulk t-shirt, and 3 pairs of fleece pj pant for $ 5.00. All but the t-shirt and camo pants are getting put away , they are to big. But now I have a jump on school clothes shopping.

Ok that's it for now it's time to get dinner on the table. Til next time have a great weekend.

Chilly

2009-02-05T08:30:00.001-05:00

Woke up this morning to see it was a whopping 3 degrees . I really look forward to going to let the chickens out ... not lol . I end up wearing 3 coats, Hubby's balaclava, and a heavy pair of gloves and hope I don't freeze : ). Than it's off to walk the dog..... yep we're dog sitting for "C" while he's working out of town . She's a pointer, super cute and every well behaved . Once the kids are all off to school I can hide in the house until Bear gets home.

So today is house cleaning day lol. I've let things slide a bit so.... I'm starting to feel a bit better now that we replaced the humidifier. Guess the house was to dry. I want to get everything done before the weekend cause we have big plans lol. I got most of the shopping done. Tomorrow I'm going to finish up and hit the 1 and only thrift store in town. They're having a 50% off sale so I figured what the hell. I need a thrift fix.

Tons of cooking happening here. Hubby likes short bread cookies so after some searching I found a really simple cookie recipe that with a bit of tweaking is perfect. I also found a really great raisin bread recipe. Than ( hahaha) I found a crock pot recipe of yogurt. Bear loves yogurt so I figured why not. It is great everyone loves it so no more buying yogurt and no more plastic cups going into the land fill.

Well thats about it I'm off for now . Til next time .

What a week

2009-02-01T06:28:00.006-05:00

This last week was just wild. I feel like a headless chicken. First we had some trouble with the van than the truck. We lost a rooster to a fox and a chicken to the cold. The weather has been crazy. I'm sick of the ice and the cold . I do feel ( and pray) for everyone out there who is having major problems due to the wild weather. I have been having so troubles breathing. I have no clue what is going on. Twice now I've swallowed wrong and couldn't catch my breath,tried to do the old nose breathing trick no go . When it happened yesterday Hubby got me out side and that seemed to help. Talk about freaking your self out. I end up shaking and feel wiped out for a while. I guess I'll have to suck it up and go to the doctors at some point uh .

OK I'm done with the doom and gloom lol . I scored a couple of major deals this week. I picked up a ton ( about 20 yards lol ) of Christmas fabric for 50 cents a yard . Than I found twin packs of toothbrushes and toothpaste for 88 cents each. You know I grabbed the limit on both.Than I lucked out. Hubby wanted to make chili so I went to buy chop meat. I found two 5 pound packs( normally $10.00 a pack) that where both marked down $ 4.00 off . The catch was they had to be used by yesterday. No problem lol . We cooked up all of it got a huge pot of chili ( half to eat half went into the freezer) and ended up with 4 more meals bagged and frozen.I'm so happy lol . I even found the fabric for Bear's robe on clearance.

I'm still working on the capes for mil. I had to rip apart the first one three times lol but now I have it lol lol lol . So I'm almost done with #2 . Than I'll ship them to her and see what she thinks. She doesn't need the gift one til the end of the month but I figured if she got the early and wanted something changed I would have time to do it.

Ok I'm off for now . Talk to you soon . Til next time stay warm and safe.

YIPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-27T07:51:00.003-05:00

We just found out that Sissy was accepted to Broome Community College. She had her heart set on Broome and we're all very proud of her. She is ready to go lol . Now mom has to deal with the fact that my little girl is off to college.

Same old : )

2009-01-23T07:15:00.001-05:00

Well it's been a bit uh ? We're good. But I swear I've been running around like a crazed monkey for the last couple of days . My days seem to run together.

Last weekend was a blast . We spent 3 days just hanging out. Then Monday rolled around and holy cow .... it's been one thing after another. Had to pick up meds and drop off scripes. Took Sissy to the bank to open a checking account. Pick up meds again. Back to the bank lol .Today is the first day that I can hopefully stay in. I'm making progress in our room I think I'll be done by the end of the week. I did a small rearrange in Bear's room Monday. I think his computer is getting to hot ( it's been locking up if it's on to long) I hoping that moving it will fix the problem.

I was talking to my MIL over the weekend and she asked me to crochet her .. well lol not a shawl or a poncho I guess she wants a cape. 1 is a gift for a friend and 1 is for her. She said their arms get cold when they are playing cards hahahahaha oh and at bingo too lol . So I've been working on it since then . I couldn't find any thing on the net that wasn't too lacy . She doesn't want any holes . I'm so confused : ) . After 1 try I think I have it down maybe lol. We'll see soon I guess. I'm going to make another robe for Bear soon ( just waiting til the next time I go shopping)

So as you can see things are the norm here at the old homestead. Craziness still reigns supreme lol. Til next time have a great day.

2009-01-15T10:15:00.000-05:00

Wow it's cold. I went down to let out the chickens boy did I get some dirty looks lol lol. They say tomorrow will be colder yet I guess we'll see. Looks like a good time to hunker down in the house around the wood stove and watch movies :) I've been busy working around the house. Once we got the tree down I moved the computer desk and cabinet back in front of the windows . Of course I had to clean the baseboards and tackle the cob webs lol . I started deep cleaning our room, it's coming along. Because I tend to take on to much in one day I've been trying to tackle small jobs. It does keep me from feeling overwhelmed so I guess it's working :) I

Bear asked me to make him a Harry Potter robe. I was a bit shocked but said ok . See Daddy started reading him the books again and now that he's older he's really into it. Than he says can you make a scarlet one and a black one. OK I understood the black one but scarlet????? When I asked him about it he looked at me and said " Duh Mom scarlet is the color of the quidditch robes" Well smack me silly lol lol. Now I'm not very good at sewing but I planned to learn more lol . I guess this as a good as time as any. I can handle the basics but..... needless to say I made a mess out of the red one. It's all pieced together. The Frankenstein robe lol lol lol. Everyone said it looked OK ( but I feed them and they're afraid I'll do something to their food lol) It looks like a robe if you don't look to close. I think now that I have an idea of what to do I'll use franken-robe to make a pattern.I looked up patterns on line and found one that I think I can use to help with the measurements. I'll post pics when I get the new one done ( yes of both lol).

So besides all that things are moving along . I'm going to get off of here I have a meeting at the high school and need to get ready. Hubby won't let me go out in my normal attire lol aka sweats and one of his tee-shirts. So I guess a change of clothes is in order lol. Til next time, stay warm and have a great day.

Goals in 2009

2009-01-10T06:30:00.000-05:00

Our biggest goal this year is to move. Yep it's time. We never meant to stay here this long. We always wanted a bigger piece of property . Some where to have more animals, more space to move around , and a little bit bigger house. A garage, some barns or other out buildings. Space for Hubby to have a man cave lol lol lol . I'm really not picky as long as it won't fall down around our ears I'm good lol. This will be my 25th move .... yep 25. I'm really really good at moving , but I want this to be the last time. So that means we need to start packing , sorting , cleaning out the other house. What a chore that is going to be. I can be really brutal when it come to getting rid of stuff ( packing before the last move I filled a dumpster ) much to Hubby's dismay lol . He's more of a pack rat than me , not by much lol but he is :) Our place isn't too bad and most of what we have up here is being used. That means that packing here will be easy lol .

Other goals ....

Save more money (redo our budget)

Live as green as possible.

Cook , can and bake more. ( use the crock pot more)

Learn to do new things.

Organize.

Make and stick to a schedule ( kinda lol ).

Deep clean each room every month.

Craft alot more.

Make or thrift all of our gifts again this year.

I'm not sure how these are going to play out. I'm still working out the kinks . The other house is the biggest of the lot but I have to make sure that we find a good balance so we don't fall behind with the everyday stuff. Hopefully writing about it here will keep me on track, I'll be able to keep track of how I'm doing. I'll more than likely post about my progress weekly. I'm sure I'll need a kick in the butt every now and than :)

So that's all of them. I guess the our word for this year is Progress. And with that I'm off to make some progress ;). Til next time, have a great day.

Sick again .

2009-01-09T06:42:00.002-05:00

I swear I just got over a cold. Wednesday I started feeling a little stuffy , I chalked it up to dry air in the house . By that afternoon my right ear was killing me . Like some one shoved an ice pick in my ear . OK not cool , had Hubby put ear drops in, took drugs, used the heating pad, added water to the pot on the wood stove, ran the humidifier. I still feel like crap. I think my problem is that I'm just to thick skulled to just lay down and rest, needless to say I feel like a limp dish rag and I'd better chill out today before Hubby ties me to the bed lol. Any way the storm came , school was closed, the storm went lol and now looks like another one is a comin lol . It looks like just snow which we can handle. Might be a good thing lol I'll have to sit still for a couple of days.
Ok I'm getting the evil eye from Hubby lol lol lol . Time to hit the couch and be a good girl hahahaha.You guys have a great day Til next time.

Getting ready.......

2009-01-06T07:10:00.000-05:00

... for yet another snow/ice/sleet storm. Now snow is ok we can deal with snow . Ice can means downed trees , lose of power and sliding down the back hill at high rates of speed to let out the chickens . I hate ice lol. So we're getting ready. Time to charge the flash light batteries, check the batteries in the little radios and stock up the wood in the house. Of course today is my big shop day. I'll be shopping with all of those people who panic when we get an inch of snow lol . We all know how much I like to shop ( gag gag gag ) but days like this are just too much. But I need to get the shopping done not because of the storm..... because I always do the big shop the beginning of the month. If I don't get it done it messes up my whole schedule for the month. Ok so I'm a little anal ( maybe a lot but don't tell anyone I said that ). So shopping it is 3 stores, the farmers market, than off to the bank and post office. Hubby and I will get all the stuff put away than start on our daily chores.

Last weekend was pretty quiet. We just hung out and watched Harry Potter :) Yesterday morning we woke up and there was a 2 hour delay. OK I look out side nothing ummmm .The temperature says 34 weird . Bear was up so I fed him and got out his clothes. Time to play free the chickens, out the front door..... stepped out on the front deck and went flying ICE alot of ice ( ice sucks lol lol lol ) Ok slowly slide to the front walk ( which is stone lol ) and went flying again. I didn't fall thank god but if this keeps up I'll have a ton of frequent flyer miles lol lol .Now I slide to the driveway and decide to walk in the snow bank , all the way down the hill to the chickens haha better wet feet than a busted butt ; ) By the time the kids got on the bus things were pretty much melted. The rest of the day was spent cleaning and working on the shopping lists.

So gang I'm gonna get off of here and get every one together. Til next time... have a great day.

Happy New Year!!!!

2009-01-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

Hope you guys had a great new year. Things here have been busy but oh so good lol. Christmas was great . The weather not so much lol . I store all of the gifts in the other house . So one has to walk down the driveway to get to it. In the middle of an ice/rain storm. OK so picture this . Buddy and I head down to start hauling stuff. Sissy is keeping her eye on the sleeping bear, Hubby is working on clearing the 2 inches of ice from the driveway. Did I tell you when I mean down I really mean down... all of the houses here are on top of a hill. So picture me and Buddy 2 inches of ice and a driveway that if you slide your going to end up shooting across the main road at a high rate of speed.OK so we start to working our way down ...him holding me up lol lol . Than we remembered last year when the kids put out the rain deer food ( in an ice storm lol ) Sissy started to slide down the hill and Buddy had to save her lol . Well we started laughing ...we got laughing so hard that we couldn't walk . We finally pulled ourselves together and got moving lol. We made it with out getting hit by a bus lol .The kids loved everything. ( Bear was a bit over whelmed got to much stuff I guess ....note to self less stuff for next year). Sissy made breakfast than the kids where off to their dads. Then we just hung out and eat. The duck came out really good. We made cranberry chestnut stuffing and covered it in home made cranberry sauce.The rest of the week flew by with visits from friends and family .New Years Eve here was quiet, hell we hit the bed at 10. Yesterday was spent just hanging out . I've been getting some new goals set for this year ( more on that in another post). Right now we're going to spend the next 3 days getting ready for school to start again.

So with that I'm off to hang with the kid and get some stuff done. Til next time have a great day.

Just popping in

2008-12-24T18:54:00.003-05:00

Before we finish up here for the night and I sit down for a glass of wine I wanted to wish you all.....

A truly wonderful and magical Christmas.
May all of your dreams come true.

Santa's coming, Santa's coming.

2008-12-24T06:44:00.005-05:00

That was Bear's chant this morning. He's really ready . Looks like I got everything done , at least I hope so lol . Gifts are wrapped. I picked up the veggies, chestnuts and wine yesterday. Oops...brb. It helps if I take out the duck for tomorrow's dinner uh . Took out the Christmas movies, got out Bear's Christmas pj's. Made the cookies for Santa. I remembered Santa's plate and mug.Cut the tags off the kids new ornaments. Double checked to make sure I have all of the stocking stuffers together. I even put together our menu for the big day, duck , shrimp cocktail, fresh veggies, deviled eggs, mashed taters, and pie ( just not sure what kind).

We're just gonna hang out and putter around to get ready for Santa's big arrival. Sissy is working today, Buddy is going with his dad and step mom to see her family . Than they are heading here. Of course we'll head to bed early cause little Bear likes to get up at 4 lol.Those are the plans any way you know what they say about the best layed plans. Good thing I can roll with things lol .
Ok I'm off for now . Til next time have a great day

Let it snow

2008-12-21T11:15:00.001-05:00

Ha what a mess lol ?!?! It's been snowing since Friday. Hard snow too lol . Yesterday we canceled our Christmas party. We're going to try to get together this week. Today well more snow . I did go out early this morning and that was a trip lol . I'm in now and I plan to stay put. I'm hoping that the weather will be OK tomorrow so I can pick up some stuff. Bear has my cold poor kid. I'm hoping he can make it and finish the last 2 days of school. He has a winter caravel that he just has to go to lol lol.
Yesterday M stopped by with 2 huge black trash bags of ....... yarn( yipee lol )from his mom. She's been going thur her stash and offered me what she didn't want , Now I have more than enough yarn to keep me busy for a while. I'm a happy girl lol. Besides that .... well we're just hanging out. Off to clear snow at some point later. Bear's watching Slappy and The Stinkers on his computer. Hubby is reading the paper, the big kids are sleeping , and I'm typing away.

I'm off of here to get lunch ready. You guys have a great day , stay safe. Til next time. Have a great day.

Ta Da lol some pics

2008-12-17T07:13:00.012-05:00

Yahoo Pictures finally lol lol

Scarf for C's wife

Scarf for Dear sister in law

Tote bag for mother in law

Picture frame and cross for our friends new baby

Buddy's blanket Big enough to cover his full size bed lol

Stockings I made for the little kids

Looks like Bear is trying to tell us something( hopefully you can see where the ribbon is lol)

The kids have a 2 hour delay so I'm running around getting stuff done. I tried to let out the chickens but I can't find my boots (gone don't know where Bear wants to know how boots can walk away on their own lol) It's way to icy to use my sneakers. So now I'm going to try hubby's boots , and try not to break any thing brb. OK I'm back and no broken bones lol . That hill is way icy . But the chickens are free lol . Today's plans are cooking and canning. I'm off to make sure everyone is ready for school. Stay safe .Til next time have a great day .

Rollin with it

2008-12-15T06:17:00.004-05:00

Did you miss me lol lol lol ?!?! It's been too long . But I'm back now lol . Ok grab a cup of coffee( or tea if that's your poison lol ) and we'll catch up :)

I'm feeling better, thanks to everyone who asked. It took a week but the pain is gone. Than I ended up with a cold . It's slow going ( lots of cold meds) but it looks like the end is near. I really don't want to be sick for Christmas. Buddy was cleared to play so he's back on the court, so he's happy. Hubby got 2 deer so the beginning of last week was spend processing them.

We got hit with that storm last week. What a mess. Thursday night the power went out and we didn't get it back til Friday night. Thank god for the wood stove. M and C's brother T came here . I made coffee on the stove and Bears oat meal ( Bear thought that was way cool lol ) but they opened school.The town closed the main road so it took an extra 20 minutes to get any where so no bus for Bear. The big kids where at their dads and there where so many trees down the bus couldn't get to them. We had a huge tree down across the drive way and we couldn't get out. So needless to say the kids had a day off. We spent the weekend playing catch up. Did alot of cleaning. Still some to do but thankfully thing are in some kind of order.

This week will be crazy lol . We're having our annual family Christmas party here at the funny farm this weekend. Today I'll go grab the last minute stuff and start the cooking. Nothing fancy just pasta , meatballs and sausage. My mil is making sausage and peppers and yummy brownies. Just about all of the wrapping is done. All of the gifts are done but the totes. We just have to can the apple butter.I decided to make cranberry sauce ( Yep I'm nuts lol ) so that has to be canned too.Than add to all of that we're supposed to get another ice storm. Yuck and double yuck. Looks like I'm going to spend some time today getting stuff ready just in case.

So today looks like this . I'll go play free the chickens lol . Get the kids off to school , pick up the mail. Make the meat balls and sausage, toss in the fridge. Can the first run of apple butter. Whip up the cranberry sauce. Make the last of the apple butter. Start dinner. Pin the totes. Knock some stuff off of my ever growing to do list. Clean , do laundry lol .Post some pics to this blog if it kills me lol lol . That's it I hope lol . So I'm off . Talk to you soon . Til next time have a great day.

****** As you can see I started this post yesterday lol lol 24 hours to get a post done . Have mercy lol lol *****

Craziness

2008-12-07T07:29:00.004-05:00

So much shopping on Thursday, for posting pics on Friday. I woke up Thursday morning and could turn my head, my neck and shoulders where killing me. OK I'll shop on Friday right... wrong. Poor Buddy stubbed his toes and we ended up in the ER. After 2 hours and a ton of x-rays thankfully it was just a sprain but he can't play basketball until he gets cleared on Monday. After we left we decided to shop. Poor Buddy 4 stores in an hour. But I did get most of the shopping done. I still need to grab some stuff but the big stuff is done.

On the Christmas front. Both of the boys scarfs are done . SIL's scarf is done ( Hubby is picking on me about how fast I can croquet lol lol lol) I started a scarf for "C's" wife lol lol. Today I have most of the Christmas cards done, I'm hoping to start painting what gifts are left, and get the rest of my weekend list done.

So I'm off . Til next time have a great day.

So

2008-12-03T15:15:00.000-05:00

The last day of school Bear's class had a save a turkey brunch. So I went down to help out. 5 pounds of bacon , 2 dozen eggs and countless numbers ( and flavors) of pancakes later we had some stuffed kiddies on our hands .Our thanksgiving was great. We just hung out , watched TV and ate. The Black Friday sale on the other hand .... well.... sucked. Not as many good deals as past years( we did get a couple of things) and the fighting. Have mercy .. 2 older women got into a cane swinging fight ( yes canes) over the baby alive dolls. 2 guys had a slug fest over a TV, oh look here comes the ambulance. I looked at the kids and we got out of there. We put up the Christmas tree and most of the house is decorated. We just hung out for the rest of the weekend.

Now the fun begins lol lol. Most of the Christmas shopping is done, and I started wrapping stuff( yes I can hear all of my friends booing me lol they say I'm too organized) There is a meaning to my madness. I just want it done. I want to be able to enjoy the holiday season with out stressing over what I still need to do. Buddy's blanket is done . Now the boys want scarfs (lol lol ) made in the same colors . Bear's is done and I'm almost finished with Buddy's. I want to make a scarf for my SIL. I have the yarn just need to get it going. Than all of the crochet stuff goes in the gets washed and dried . Of course I still need to dust off the sewing machine and get those tote bags done. I still need to get some stocking stuffers for the kids. But I did get me gift box sorted out so at least I know what I have. I still have to make the apple butter and jar it all up. Than I can box it all up yippee and it's out of here lol. I have some gifts to paint but that normally goes fast.Our friends had their baby so I have to get all of the stuff I made out ( and of course finish a couple of things ) and bagged up this way I'm ready when they get home.

Tomorrow is big shop day,than I have a dentist appointment. Hopefully Friday will be a easy day and I can post the pics I have lol lol lol .So with that I'm off to get some stuff down . Til next time. Have a great day

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T06:36:00.003-05:00

I hope your day is filled with food , family and lots of love.

This morning

2008-11-20T06:30:00.008-05:00

First some pics

The cheapo (lol) Halloween fabric

Fabric for the totes I'm making( soon hopefully ; )

Some glass ornaments I found at the $ store

I wanted new beaded garland but I couldn't find any thing I liked so I dug out the beads and made these.

These are the ornaments that I picked up over the summer . All they need now is glitter

And last but not least lol lol my new clothes drying spot :o lol lol lol

Bear was up at 4 this morning. No clue why lol. He beat Hubby out of bed this morning. Hubby's hunting, Bear is cleaning his room ( at least he'd better be), the big kids are at school, and I sit here typing and cleaning lol. We have a bit of snow on the ground. When I let the chickens out you would think I was trying to kill them.I tried to coax them out of the coop but they didn't fall for it lol lol . So I tossed their food and they are slowly coming out.

OK I'm back . The Bear is off to school and I ran to get milk and pick up the mail. Now I have til 12 ( Bear has a half a day )to get the rest of the house work done. Dinner is in the crock pot , I hung a load of clothes, cleaned the sink and fed the birds. Than I have to get Sissy from school and take her to work, and at 4 I have to get Buddy from basketball practice.

I'm putting the finishing touches on our thanksgiving menu. So far turkey of course, apple and pumpkin pies, veggie platter with dip, shrimp cocktail , biscuits and herb mashed potatoes. I'm going to try my hand at making french fried sweet potatoes. Since it's just us I won't go all out. We tend to keep the holidays pretty mellow.

Ok I'm off for now. Til next time have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good morning.

2008-11-11T06:56:00.002-05:00

Wow the week just flew by. Let's see..... "M's" mom was giving away her upright freezer and you know that we jumped on it lol . Hubby picked it up . We cleaned out the chest freezer and it is over at "M's" waiting if we need it. I stopped at the farmers market and they where selling pumpkins for a dollar. Ha I grabbed 6 and now we have 13 bags of pumpkin in the freezer yum. Apples are in season so I've been drying them and making pie filling in the crock pot. I had some extra lasagna fixin's so I whipped up a pan , cooked it than cut it and froze. Not a lot of work and we get at least 3 meals out of it.

Yep I'm on a major frugal run lately . Trying to stretch our money lol . I was bad before now... hell it's like a sickness. The kids try to pick on me but all 3 are just as bad lol lol . I hit walmart and scored a bunch of Halloween stuff . I'll take pics this week ( really lol ) . Than I ran back to grab fabric for some totes ( Christmas gifts) I was talking to the woman that works in crafts and she told me that the Halloween fabric was 50 cents a yard ( I was feeling giddy lol ) I picked 4 yards. But when she rang it up it came out to 2.oo $ a yard well I'm not having that so she went into the computer to fix the screw up and it was only 25 cents a yard . Hot dog lol lol . See a sickness :). I'm itching for the thanksgiving sales. Black Friday here I come.

This weekend I rearranged the living room. I was feeling closed in and Hubby pointed out that all of the front windows had big pieces in front of them . So with abit of shuffling I was able to open them up and the room feels so much better. Now I'm working on decluttering the house yet again lol . The weekend after thanksgiving I put out the Christmas stuff and I want to be ready. Specking of Christmas I have a bunch of projects lined up and hopefully I'll get them started this week.I just need to remember to take pic's lol .

No school today , Bear had a bad head cold. Not sure if he's going to school tomorrow or not. Hubby is out hunting. I'm making a cup of tea than I'm off to get my to do list done. That damn list gets bigger every day lol . Til next time . Have a great day.

Well

2008-11-04T06:19:00.005-05:00

The week in review :)

Bear's party was a hit. We all had a great time. The cake the kids picked up was way too cool . I love having the whole family together.

I've been having some computer troubles but that's all fixed now. Now I can post with out any issues.

Hubby and I are putting up the last of the heavy curtains today. Than I'll take down all of the Halloween stuff, put out the Thanksgiving stuff and start planning for Christmas.

No school today so we'll be doing some yard work if the weather holds. Speaking of the weather ..... it has been weird here. 25 one day , 60 the next. And the rain has been something else. The day of Bear's party it poured all day we got almost 2 inches. Welcome to November lol lol .

We took Bear to the safe trick or treat that his school does every year. He was a pirate but he first asked to be Colonel Sanders lol lol lol . I have no idea where that came from but he came up with it too late and had to settle lol .

The weekend was pretty quiet. Just house work , watching TV taking the kids back and forth from work. Hubby did some hunting.

Yesterday was spent doing errands.

And that's it lol for now any way. Til next time , have agreat day

Still here.

2008-10-21T09:10:00.003-04:00

Just can't seem to get on here as much as I want to. Do you like the new background lol ?? Bear picked it out ... oh and the jack o lantern pic too. He said it's halloweeney lol lol .

Only around here do we incubate chicken eggs in the iguana tank :0. Yep Hubby figured we'd try and see what happens. Mean while.... we've had a ton of flies in the house ( this is the worst we've ever had) and they seem to want to hang out in the iguana tank. So I figure I'll use the vacuum and suck them out ... right. WRONG!!!! What do you think happened?????? Can you guess???? I sucked one of the eggs into the vacuum. And all I could think was oh shit. Needless to say what a mess lol lol . I felt like a dope lol lol . So after I cleaned the whole vacuum out ( egg egg every where) I tried again this time taking out the eggs and the iguana ha ha.

The last week was filled with the same old stuff. Housework , laundry, cooking and cleaning. The fall cleaning is almost done. I just have to swap out the last of the living room curtains . Than I'll wash down the kitchen cabinets . We're still working on getting the last of the wood done, but alas the chain saw broke . Hubby is going to try to find one this week than hopefully we'll get it done before the end of the month .

Hubby has been hunting for the last 2 days so I've been hanging out here getting a ton of stuff done. Bear's birthday is this Saturday so we've been busy planning. I'm gonna make lasagna . I always make the all of the kids birthday cakes but this year Sissy and Buddy want to buy Bear's cake( They are so good to him) . So we've decided on a red and orange theme. I'll pick up the balloons and streamers tomorrow.

I did some fall decorating and realized I don't have much in the way of Halloween or thanksgiving stuff. I do have a huge closet full of Xmas stuff but nothing for the fall. So I'm going to go out the day after Halloween and see what I can grab on clearance. Than I'll check for thanksgiving stuff when we go out on Black Friday. I really loved the pumpkins I saw on Wendy's blog so maybe I'll find the stuff on sale than I'll give it a try. I did find some really cool foam snow flakes at the $ store. I'm gonna gussy them up and hang them in the living room. Still working on Buddy's blanket. I want to get the stocking kits started . I'm also thinking of making some more scarves. We'll see how things go.

Today I have to prep the lasagna than I can just toss it into the pans and cook on Saturday. I have some laundry to do. Change the sheets. We're having split pea soup for dinner so that's bubbling away on the stove. The weather here has been cold so we've been lighting the wood stove. Today they are calling for rain so I have a nice fire burning.

So that's it. I'm gonna make a cup of tea and watch a scary movie :) . Til next time have a great day.

More stuff lol

2008-10-11T08:33:00.012-04:00

Morning y'all !!!! :) First some pics of finished projects.

Wreath on the front door

New table center piece

Baby blanket #1

scarf for dear auntie

scarf for Sissy

I have some more stuff done just haven't gotten around to getting pic's yet.

Since Tuesday I got a bunch of stuff done . Changed up 2 Set's of curtains , did our curtains . Cleaned some of the windows. Thursday the kids had a day off so we pulled out the winter clothes. Had everyone try everything on ( Bear was acting like he was being tortured ) . We cleaned out the drawers , made a list of what was needed, than put the summer stuff away. I'm going to take out the winter blankets today and switch everything out when I do the sheets tomorrow. Yesterday I ran out to Walmart to pick up a couple of things and a found 2 piece short set's for Bear on clearance 3 bucks a set yipee!!!!! I grabbed 3 that gives me a jump on next summer. While I was at it I started looking for Xmas gifts. Bear will need some jeans and long sleeve shirts so he asked for them for Xmas lol he's a clothes horse lol. I grabbed to pairs of jeans and 4 shirts cost me under $40.00. All I need to get for him clothes wise is flannel pj bottoms. He's funny when it comes to clothes most kids I know want clothes with batman or iron man not my Bear sports or strips are is thing and orange of course lol . Sissy asked for a new robe and slippers. Buddy wants jeans. Those things I can get them but any other clothes I'll take them with me and let them pick . They did ask for board games and movies. They have been having game or movie nights with their friends. It works out great and all of the parents know where the kids are so we don't worry as much. I've been picking that stuff up either at Walmart , off eBay or from friends that are getting rid stuff.

Today Hubby and Bear are off to hunting camp for the day. The big kids are working and I'm home alone again hahahaha. I'll be hanging out here and doing a bit of this and that. Maybe watch a movie. Dinner is on the stove ( turkey soup) clothes are on the line. The weather has been beautiful so maybe I'll sit on the deck and read a book. More than likely I'll be cleaning and stuff lol . Must be that touch of ocd we all swear I have. Can't sit still, have to do some thing. Even my post are rambling . lol I'll have to work on that .

Ok I'm off to do stuff lol lol . Til next time have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!

What a week !!!!!

2008-10-07T09:09:00.003-04:00

Yep another long week at the old homestead. Bear's tummy troubles only lasted one day and he was in school Monday. The kids had off Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday I headed out to get the monthly shopping done. I was able to grab a couple of Xmas gifts. The shopping took so long this month . Prices have really gone up, but our income doesn't. So I really had to watch every dime. I had a dentist appointment. Had to call in and pick up Bear's zantac script. Hit the dollar store.The weekend rolled around and we got busy with the yard work . Moved more wood. Checked under the house , made some small repairs, started winterizing. Dried 25 pound of fruit. Took out the snow shovels and checked the salt and sand buckets. Made so changes to the chicken coop. More fall cleaning. Yesterday I went out and picked up some sale stuff. Than went to get a long over due hair cut. I was starting to look like I had a crazed poodle on crack lol lol . So I changed my style going from crazy curly to hot iron straight . It takes a lot more time to do my hair now but it's better than the 6 foot fuzzy ball that used to be on my head lol lol . I did freak Sissy out Ia text to her and told her I got my head shaved ( a threat that I make all the time ) Boy was she flipping out lol she ran out to the van when I picked her up from school to check . Yes I'm mean lol lol . Bear wanted to know what happened to all the hair , and Hubby being the smart ass that he is said he gets to sleep with another woman hahahahaha . Yep I smacked him lol lol .

So today I'm all alone. Yep kids in school, Hubby out hunting . Ah the peace and quiet. What am I going to do with my free time you ask...... maybe drink coffee and read a book ????? Nope I'm cleaning and cooking . LOL LOL . I seem to be able to get much more stuff done when everyone is gone. So on the hit list ..... well the chickens have been laying eggs like it's cool so we've been giving the extras to friends and family. One of those friend's raises turkeys so he gave us 2. I'm going to cook them up ( just tossed tommy turkey # 1 on to the oven) . I have the last 10 pounds of fruit to dry . I want to get our curtains washed ( in the machine now) hung outside than re hung. Of course that means washing the windows lol . I have to get the winter curtains out of storage than iron and hang. HA HA than the normal housework and laundry. Maybe a couple of other things depending on time.

So I'm off but first I think I'm going to have a cup of tea and watch an ER rerun ;). Til next time have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh snap!!!!! ( might be a bit gross lol )

2008-09-28T07:35:00.002-04:00

Bear woke up this morning and said his tummy was bothering him. Into the bathroom he goes, comes out and announces ( very a matter of factly lol) he has the runs. Than he said those 5 dreaded words " I think I'm gonna puke". Rush him into the bathroom, and in the words of Bear, no pukeage. OK get him settled on the couch, give him some Pepto, fluff the pillows, cover him up and get the bowl. Than he says "I think I'll take a nap". Uh? what? who is this kid? Bear hasn't napped since he was 2. Now Hubby and I are still in the pre coffee brain fog lol lol lol. I turn to him and say " who is this kid ? have you seen a pod ? " :). OK more coffee... that's better.. the fog is lifting. He seems OK for now, a bit pale, a little warm, I guess we'll see how the day goes.

Lets see what's on the list for today???? Clean the bathroom( yippee skippy hahaha) make a pan of granola , maybe some cookies, work on Buddy's blanket, make more dish clothes, and try to relax ( hahahahahahaha). Thank God we have dinner in the crock pot.

And with that I'm off to cuddle with Bear . Til next time have a great day

Yikes!!!!

2008-09-27T06:52:00.003-04:00

Damn I did it again. Took another break..... didn't want too . Might be a good thing. I've been pissy lately. I've been trying to shake this cold. All of the crap with the economy has me a little freaked out. It is what it is. I know this but lol I'm still worried. I know we are lucky to have the things we have . We're blessed to have a good stock pile of food. But what about people who aren't as lucky as us???

Ok enough of that . How have you been????? Me you ask??? Busy lol lol .

Cooking:

I've been drying fruit all week. 10 pound of papaya and another 15 pound of apples and pears. I'm going to pick up more soon . We're still getting some tomatoes. Looks like I'll be making more salsa soon. We do have some pumpkins in the garden. So as soon as they ripen up I'll freeze them.
For dinner tonight I'm going to try another recipe in the crock pot... bean soup .

Around the house.
I've been working on the shopping list. I re worked our budget yet again. My goal is to lower our food budget. I have gotten some Xmas shopping done , mostly for Bear. The big kids are working on a list of what they want. Kids are busy with school , sports and work. I'm making head way on the fall cleaning. I just love when the clutter leaves and things are really clean. The next things to do are hang the winter curtains, drag out the heavy blankets and all of the winter clothes.

Crafting.
I made a new fall center piece. Still working on buddy's blanket . I've been cranking out dish clothes. I have a bunch of stuff to paint. I'm thinking about glittering some of the glass ornaments I picked up . So of them have really worn. I really need to get pics on here.

So thats it for now . Til next time have a great day.

2008-09-15T09:05:00.003-04:00

So much for the rainy weekend lol lol . We did get some rain but not what the weather man said. I did get the salsa and monkey munch ( that monkey munch is addictive lol lol can't just eat one ) done on Saturday. Yesterday was so hot that the thought of baking made me sweat more . It didn't help that "C" got it in his head that yesterday was the day to" take care" of the pigs. Oh the insanity of it all. So needless to say we where up late last night packing the pigs. Thank god our buddy "M" was around he took a bunch of the venison and chicken , helping us make room in the freezer. I have to re organize the side by side today because god only knows what he'll take care of next lol lol . Thankfully someone is giving us another small freezer and we'll have more room . The only problem is where to put it. I guess we'll figure it out when the time comes lol .

I did get some cleaning done. Not as much as I wanted but it's OK lol I'll get to it sooner or later. We picked up a couple of cleaning jobs on our road. Most of the places here are summer places ( just "C", "M" , and our clan live here all year) so when a couple of the owners asked if we would clean and close up their units we figured why not . All of them are cleaned and ready for winter. I figured that because it's so windy today I would finish up washing the bedding . Than all that's left is to bag it .

I have been crafting a little. I finished the scarf for Auntie E, still working on Buddy's blanket and was able to whip up a fall wreath . I still have a ton to do but at least I'm getting something done.
Today Buddy gets his braces off (Sissy's came off last month) Sissy has a cold and is home today , Bear is feeling a bit stuffy but wanted to go to school. I'm going to work on my fall cleaning.

So I'm off . Til next time , have a great day.

Looks like a rainy weekend.

2008-09-13T09:00:00.003-04:00

So we're planning to stay in . We are going to make monkey munch. We saw it on Jon and Kate plus 8 ( which we love ) and found the recipe here . Because of all of the tummy troubles Bear has been having I have been looking for stuff to make him . I really want to have control of what is in the stuff he eats. The recipe looks easy and the ingredients are simple . I want him to be able to have some sweet stuff with out all of the extra stuff that I see in pre packaged stuff. The diet ( and I use that term loosely) that we have him on seems to be working. We'll hopefully know more next week when he goes for his video scope. He's not happy about it but he understands that it needs to be done.

I plan to make some french toast sticks, more zucchini bread, and a patch of salsa.I have goose soup in the crock pot .... yes goose lol . Hubby went hunting and I had to figure out what to do with goose. It's really good . I just tossed in the goose , some french onion soup mix, garlic, tomatoes, sweet peppers, rice , salt and pepper. Along with the housework that should keep me busy. As I type I have the salsa bubbling away on the stove it smells so good( the neighbors what to know whats cooking lol ).

I've been sorting and cleaning . The new fall cleaning plan seems to be working. I'm taking one area at a time. We moved the living room around. I cleaned all of the baseboards. Took care of the computer desk( a lot of stuff seems to pile up there). This weekend I want to get to the plant stand and maybe the TV stand. I have to sort out our "sick box" . I really don't like when we find ourselves sick and out of stuff.

Looks like we all have colds ( yuck) . It's that time of year. As soon as school starts some one gets sick. So that's about it . I'm off to get some stuff done. Til next time, HAVE A GREAT DAY

Unplanned Blog Break

2008-09-11T09:14:00.005-04:00

I haven't had much free time lately, so blogging has taken a back seat. Here's a quick update .

School started . Buddy has been moved up to varsity soccer ( go Buddy lol ) Sissy is a senior
( feeling old here lol ) and only has half days. Bear thankfully loves school and couldn't wait to get back into the swing of things.

I've been busy trying to get the fall cleaning started. This year I want to make the fall cleaning a little less crazy. So the lists have been started lol. Every year I bum rush things and than I'm tired and cranky lol. Maybe slow and steady does win the race.

The chickens are laying eggs. They taste so much better than the eggs from the store. I'm still baking and putting up everything I can. Soon apple season will be in full swing , that means lots of cooking , drying and freezing. Looks like we have some pumpkins in the garden yipee . Once those are ready I'll cook and freeze them too.

Yesterday I started some Christmas shopping. Mostly stocking stuffer's and some stuff for our nieces. I found 3 make your own stocking kits at the $ store. I'm going to give them to the little kids full of goodies instead of the bags we normally do. I was able to get Bear the first 11 of the Lemony Snicket books on eBay . We have the 12th one here so I just need to find the last one. Now I just have to figure out what else to get the kids lol. They are no help either. Every time I ask them I get "whatever " or " I don't know". Ugh !!!!!!!!!!!

That's it for now. Off to get some stuff done . Til next time have a great day !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Around the house

2008-08-26T11:02:00.003-04:00

We serviced the furnace ( we meaning Hubby did the work and I handed him the tools lol ), repaired a broken boiler valve , caulked everything in sight, cleaned around the house. Fixed the pickup, started hauling the wood from the lower part of the yard and stacking it by the house. We cleaned out the coop and put in nesting boxes. Hubby and "C" got 3 Cornish game hen's and about 20 babies over the weekend ( yes we need more birds like we need a hole in our heads lol ) so we've had to get them used to being in the coops. And with all of that going on the house looks like a hoard of 6 year olds hopped up on sugar have run a muck ha ha ha ha . So when I get do here I'm off to get myself a shovel and try to get things cleaned up lol .

I cleaned and sorted out Bear's drawers. Now he's ready for school next week. The big kids have finished their school shopping and we sorted and cleaned out their rooms. Where did the summer go?????? I can't believe that school is right around the corner.On the flip side of that fall is coming YIPEE!!!! I love the fall . I 'm so ready for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I can't wait to get out all of my fall stuff. I was hoping to find some really great vintage Halloween stuff this year but it just wasn't out there. Well at least not here maybe I'll try my luck on eBay.

Sissy and I went to thrift sale this morning. Not as good as the ad said but Sissy was able to find some clothes . I found a pair of pj bottoms and a pair of pants, a small sewing box, and 26 glass xmas ornament's. The ornaments aren't vintage . I don't want to use the vintage ones my mil gave me until Bear is a little older. This way I can have the look of the glass with out the freaking out if they get broken.

I'm still cooking up a storm. The zucchini is still coming( I've been seeing it in my sleep lol) looks like more bread in my future . I did get 5 pounds of green beans frozen this weekend and will do more in the coming weeks.I didn't do my normal big shop last month . I wanted to get the kitchen organized . Now that it kinda is lol lol lol I've been working on the list for next month.

Well that's it for now.I'm off to shovel ..... I mean clean ; ) Til next time . Take care.

Cooking

2008-08-19T08:50:00.003-04:00

Yep lot's of that going on this week. We have been over run by zucchini. We did get some from our garden but our neighbor "C" is zucchini rich lol and he has been dropping them off at a record rate. Thankfully everyone love zucchini bread and muffins cause by the time I'm done both houses will be swimming them lol . Looks like I'll have some bread to freeze for xmas gifts.
We ( by we I mean Hubby and "C" ha ha ha) have been slowly butchering chickens. We have about 50 between the 2 houses and are planning to keep about 2 dozen hens and a couple of roosters. So I've been cookin me some chicken lol . 1 we had for dinner than made a pot of stock. The stock is headed for the freezer,and what meat is left will be chicken salad. I'm roasting the last one ( for now any way lol) now and I'll put some of the meat up for a couple of crock pot meals with the remaining meat and stock frozen for soup . There is some left over ham that I going to toss in the crock pot to make a casserole and half a pork roast to make pork fried rice. Looks like we'll have enough food made for a couple of meals .

I love to have stuff in the freezer . I will cook up 10 pounds of chop meat. Toss it in the freezer in meal size portions. I do the same with sausage. I keep chili, meat loaf, lasagna , all kinds of stock on hand . There are days when I just don't feel like cooking so I can just raid the freezer and whip some thing up in record time. I've been cleaning out the freezers. I need to make room . With all of the cooking, the chickens and hunting season looming we'll need the room .

So I'm gonna cook, cook and cook some more . Til next time. Have a great day.

Stuff

2008-08-12T08:16:00.003-04:00

Let's see , Bear has acid reflux. After the smashing of the head thing he said he was having trouble swallowing. So we took him for a dye test and there it was. His Dr. put him on a liquid version of Zantac we're keeping our fingers crossed that it will straighten this out.

I finished Bear's school shopping . We did really good this year money wise . I only spent about $50.00 . Between yard sales and what I've picked up on sale we only had to buy2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of jeans , a back pack,and a hand full of supplies. He's super excited about going back. The big kids .... not so much lol lol . Sissy and Buddy are going this weekend to get their shopping done. Thankfully both of them know how to find a deal. Cheap like their mama lol I've trained them well : ) .

Besides that things are moving along. The chickens are good. Hopefully we'll get some eggs soon. The garden not so good. We have been getting some stuff but other things seem to be growing slow. We'll see what happens . Maybe next year we'll change the spot . Could be the weird weather we've been having . Yesterday we had a wild storm . I took pics I'll post them later.

I finished Sissy's scarf and started Buddy's blanket. Sorted out the yarn stock pile and found some chenille yard at the bottom of the pile. I'm going to use it for a scarf for Our dear aunt. I have to see what else I have down there. I have one more baby blanket to make. Looks like a run on baby girls this year lol lol lol .

Well that's it for now . I'm off to work on the house and Buddy's blanket. Til next time . Have a great day.

Crockpotting ,crafting and Christmas gifts

2008-08-06T08:00:00.004-04:00

Our aunt gave us a new Crockpot, a box of Crockpot liners, and the Fix it and Forget it cookbook. The cookbook is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!.Recipes are simple and made with stuff I normally keep in the house. I've been trying new recipes out weekly . I can't wait til the cooler weather comes so I can try out the soups and stews.

I finished 2 more baby blankets (yipee lol) and started a scarf for Sissy. Buddy asked for another blanket this time in orange and lime green :0. I have a small pile of dish clothes done , one started and God knows how many more to go lol lol . I still have to figure out who's getting them and how many each. I'm thinking about tossing together a couple of more scarves. Just have to dig in my yard stash and see what I have. I've been whipping up zucchini bread I might freeze some and give them as gifts. If the crew doesn't eat it all first lol.

Ok I'm off . Til next time . Have a great day.

Have Mercy

2008-07-28T08:49:00.003-04:00

That was the quote of the week last week. Things started out normal ( ha ha ha normal) enough. Cleaning, gardening, chickens, yard work you get the idea. I had to have 3 teeth pulled ( in an effort to fix some problems that I've been ignoring) on Tuesday. Not fun but I rolled with it. Took the big kids back and forth to work. More house work. Than Thursday rolls around . Bear was out side with Hubby working on repairing the drains in the back yard , all the rain made a huge mess , than he goes off to play . Next thing I know is Bear is screaming blood curdling screams, Hubby is running and screaming for Bear to come to him. I look out the back window and there's Hubby carrying Bear ( always a bad sign) up hill and there is blood every where . After I panic a bit my EMT training kicks in ( it's always harder when it's one of mine) Ok so I run out side with towels and grab Bear , take a good look , umm head wound. Bear mean while is off his rocker, ok calm him down, apply pressure, hubby cleans up, grabs the peroxide pours it on ,( Hubby's in full EMT mode ) he needs stitches . Off to the er. By the time we get there the bleeding stopped now we can get a really good look , oh man what a mess I won't share all of that lol. Bear is calm now and cracking jokes. 3 hours later they finally get him in . The Dr decides on 3 stitches because the cut is torn in a weird pattern. So on the table I hop and lay Bear next to me, talking to him to keep him busy. Hubby was cracking jokes , nice family outing lol lol. He was very brave only grunted a couple of time. The Dr gives us our walking papers with instructions, the normal stuff but we have to wait 8 days instead of 5 to have the stitches removed. 8 days??? Yeah the cut was weird and the ER Dr. wants to play it safe Yipee let's blow this clam bake ( Bear is so funny some times) home we go. Late night for all. He's fine ( Thank the Lord) acting like his old self .
BIL 1 calls need to have his car inspected asks if Friday is a good day. Sure come on up. Friday morning rolls around and dear BIL 3 calls says they're coming up and want to stay the night. OK sure. Mean while I feel like crap my mouth is killing me so I'm crabby . BIL 1 shows up gets his stuff done and leaves , he's going fishing. BIL 3 shows up with the 3 kids and the dog. My jaw (which hurts like hell) hits the floor. Hell I love all of my family but the 2 little kids are a hand full and I'm not in the mood but I suck it up. Poor Hubby ( who is waiting for me to go nuclear) is running around trying to take care of everything so I don't have to. Saturday Hubby takes everyone but Bear ( who was bent that he couldn't go) and our niece to go shooting. No yard sales for me lol lol . Every one returns and BIL 3 leaves around 4. Than I hear a car door and I'm like now what?????? It's BIL 1 with 30 pound of blue fish. He makes the drop and leaves lol. Sunday was our anniversary and thank god it was clam.

Ok I'm off to take the kids to work .Til next time have a great day.

Yard Sale Haul

2008-07-21T08:45:00.014-04:00

Here are some of my yard sale finds from the last couple of weeks

Some clothes for Bear. The shirts are for school , the pants and shorts are just for hanging out . I'm trying to get a jump on his school stuff this year. I even scored a new back pack that was 50% off.
A new rug for the front door .

A great old latch hook rug ( it is huge) I think I'm going to put it our room.

A science book for Bear, he already has a bunch of them marked lol lol.

Is this just too cute ????? There is some debate as to whether it's a dog or a pony lol . Tossed this in my gift bin.
Lol new Pyrex. I've been wanting blue Pyrex, so I gave my set of green crazy daisy to our neighbor cause he didn't have any mixing bowls

More glass jars. I'm really drawn to blues and greens now. These will be used for the herbs that I've been drying. I also picked up a green one a bit bigger than these but the photo is crap lol .

Than of course I picked up tons of books for me, craft supply's , yarn and clothes for Hubby and I. I did get a comforter for us the bag said full/queen but when I got it home I found it was a full. It's beautiful and our bed is a full but... see... Hubby does that old grab tuck and roll with the blankets lol lol lol .So I started using queen blankets so I don't freeze. Maybe Sissy will want it .

Well that's it for now off to get something ( anything lol ) done. Til next time. Have a great day.

So much to do

2008-07-16T09:10:00.005-04:00

So little time to blog . Let's see...... umm.... well I've been hitting yard sales but pickings are slim at best. We did get a bunch of stuff ( pic's to come ) but not nearly as much as year's past. I guess I'm just used to ton's of stuff lol . I've been just getting what we need verses what I want . We have tons of "stuff" and with thing's being what they are with the economy I decided that I'm only buying what we need. I am still hoping to pick up some stuff for Christmas. There are some more sales this weekend and the summers not over yet so we'll see. We did get a wood stove (along with a couple of other things) at a yard sale last week, yipee but now that means re-doing the living room. So I started sorting stuff ( which we have a lot of lol ) I finally got all of the stuff I tear out of magazines sorted, put in sheet protectors and tossed them in 3 ring binders. I set up binders for food, crafts, tips you get the idea. Than I cleaned out a cabinet we have in the living room That's the new home for all of my binders. Still have a lot to do but I'm making progress. Next I want to get started on our room. Maybe ( if I can get Hubby to agree lol) I'll put some more stuff in the yard sale pile. We did get the shelve done under the stove top but lol C gave Hubby a bunch of tongue and groove bead board . So now we're going to use that to " finish off" the kitchen. Once thats done we'll re-stain the cabinets . Than I'll be re-organizing everything again :0 lol. I picked up 2 huge totes last week. One I have in our closet to use for my gift stash. It is clear so I have to keep the kids stuff in bags lol they notice everything. It works so much better than the wally world bags I had crammed in there. Now I can see what I have. The 2nd one is in my craft room packed full of fabric.
There has been a bit of crafting going on . I'm working on some Christmas gifts. I have grand plans for some other gifts lol lol hopefully I can crave out some time and get them done. Doings here today you ask lol well laundry, more sorting , have to come up with something for dinner. Bear needs to do some school work . His teacher sent home stuff for him to do and I grabbed some stuff off of a couple of home school sites that I visit. Better to keep him busy lol . And of course the dreaded housework.

So with that I'm off. Have a great day.

Summer time

2008-07-03T07:41:00.003-04:00

Summer time Yipee. No more school.....just sitting around here.... kickin it . It's nice to just hang for a change. Not that it's been all fun and games lol lol lol lol .

We've been working on projects left and right. We did get our new ( to us ) stove top it's a Viking if that means anything to any one lol. I hear it's a great brand. We got it from a local demo house we are trying hard to reuse/recycle and this place is awesome.Hubby put it in and he is working with our dear friend and neighbor C to build out a huge set of shelves for under it . Now you all know how that goes, it starts with the shelves and becomes a total kitchen reorganize lol lol . Hubby now whats to re stain the cabinet fronts , good thing there are only 9 cabinets . Want to bet that we'll be painting before to long.

On the crafting front, I finally made the solar system for Bear's room . Last year I picked up a box of "stuff " lol for a couple of dollars , inside was a bunch of glow in the dark stars and planets. You know the ones you stick to the ceiling. I don't stick stuff lol lol so I decided to make a mobile. I used fishing line beads and what ever else I had around . A twist and a tie and we got 1 mobile and 8 extras. Bear and I set about hanging them up on his new shelve ( which is over his bed) and now he loves to hang out there and stare lol.

This weekend is yard sale heaven hopefully. So C's wife ( her first time) and I are off to our church sale( kid free lol). I checked the paper and there are a couple of more about a mile away so we'll be hitting them.

I 'm off to get ready. Hope y'all had a great 4th. Talk to you soon

Always busy around here...

2008-06-27T07:22:00.002-04:00

...not a bad thing but there are some days I just want to stay curled up in bed. Always more wood to cut /split/ stack,the garden to water /harvest ,the kids, housework ,ugh the list goes on and on.

The other house...
Well we're not opening the other house now.With the price of oil ( as of yesterday it was $4.59 a gallon) it's just not cost effective. So now the goal is to finish the clean out, get some furnisher decorate and rent it for next summer for the season. Hopefully some of the yard sales that are coming up will have stuff we can use. My craft rooms will stay put. When winter comes around I'll move all of the paints/glues and what ever else will freeze up here.

Specking of yard sales I did go to that church sale last weekend. Not to much unfortunately an older couple who does re sale got there at 8:30( sale started at 9) and filled 2 trucks. I did get some table clothes not vintage but 1 for fall and 1 for xmas plus 8 xmas napkins. I found a green crazy daisy bowl and a craft magazine. The haul was about $ 2.

We finally got the last shelve up in Bears room yesterday( happy dance lol ) So I spent the day reorganizing his stuff. The shelves are up over his windows so we put all of the games and puzzles that he doesn't play with all the time , a couple of rockets, some books on one. And all of his army/ gi joe stuff on the other. Than a quick clean up in the closet. Than the shelve on top of the dresser. Need less to say I'm still not done lol lol. It was supposed to be a quick thing lol lol lol . NOT!!!!! I always do that to myself oh well lol . Thank God Bear is willing to cull his stuff with out a fight as long as I give the stuff to some one. God forbid I try to toss some thing .

Well I'm off . Today is Bears last day of school, hopefully he doesn't have a melt down ( last year he cried and cried it took us 20 minutes to calm him down when he got home the poor bus driver) Catch ya later.

Christmas in June

2008-06-26T09:00:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about what to do for Christmas this year. Yes I know I'm nut's, who thinks about Christmas in June lol lol. . I've been looking for different ideas for home made gifts while staying with in my goal of thrift it or make it. Yard sales have been few and far between but either its an bunch of unusable stuff or the prices are so high that I can get it new.
I'm kinda hoping that the 2 big yard sales that are coming in July will be better than some of the stuff I've seen.

Bear likes to read which is good so I'm on the hunt for books that I know he'll love. Sissy and Buddy are really easy they are more concerned that Bear gets stuff than with what they get ( yeah I know they're great kids and we're lucky to have them) but we'll still get them stuff. Hoping to get so computer games lol lol . Maybe a couple of PS2 games. Sissy is so girly girl that anything pink and frilly will work lol. She has been hinting around that she wants a canopy for her bed. I guess I'll see what I can find made something will pop up. Sissy is easy lol the boys not so much.Buddy loves sports and Bear loves anything science. So that helps lol lol .

I do have some ideas floating around in my head. If I can get them made I'm hoping that they turn out the way I picture them.

Update

2008-06-21T07:47:00.002-04:00

School here is almost done . The older kids are done except for Sissy she has 1 more test Tuesday . Bear is done on the 27th. Bear had 2 trips this year 1 was to the Bronx zoo, the other was field day. I went to field day (to many parents for me to go to the zoo)It was a ton of fun much better than last years. So now the fun begins everyone is so ready for the summer to start.

Our computer is still down it works we just can't get it on line. So for now our system is in Bears room. It's ok we just have to play games in there lol .Yep we're a family of gamers . All of us. We all like different games but we share lol .

I'm still working on organizing things ..ugh... what a chore. It's all good lol because when it's done it's done . Yesterday I was looking for last years year book and thought I put it in with the pictures(which are stored in the trunk we use as a coffee table) nope wasn't in there ( found it on a book shelve lol ) but the pics in there where a mess. Things got wet ( don't ask I have no idea) pics where stuck together. So Sissy and I sorted it all out tossed the doubles put what we could in albums. Now we're going to work on scanning them all into the computer.

So this weekend we have 1 yard sale to go to , the normal housework stuff ,and hopfully so time to chill. I have more stuff rattling around in my skull but I'll post them another day . Better than you guys reading a book that never ends lol lol .So with that I'm off to hit that yard sale keep my fingers crossed that it's worth the trip. Til next time . Have an awesome day.

Warp speed

2008-06-16T13:59:00.002-04:00

Things have been moving at warp speed around here over the last week or so. But things are getting done . The chickens decided that they want to sleep in the coup so Hubby has made some small changes to make them happy lol . The garden is really taking off. We have some flowers on the bigger eggplants, the snow peas have put out a couple of beans and the tomatoes plants are flowering. We've been stacking wood, cleaning up the yard, preping the back deck for stain, mowing, weed whacking lol the normal summer stuff. And I swear the list keeps growing . We're hoping to get a lot more stuff done before Bear gets out of school.

I've been looking to re do our deck we have the space so we might as well use it for some thing other than a drop off place for crap hahahaha. So I'm doing a no cost make over.I did a bit of dumpster diving last summer and found 2 bar stools. They're supposed to be used inside but Hubby liked them on the deck so I changed out the heavy card board seat bottoms and replaced them with ply wood. Than I used the original vinyl and foam to re cover them . 1 down 1 to go. We have a heavy porch rocker and another wooden chair that just need to be cleaned and sealed. Than I have to go into the basement ( the horror) and find the tables that I think are stored there. Those will need a good cleaning and staining. I also have 3 awesome old rusty metal Japanese's style candle holders that I want to seal and put in Citronella candles. All that will be left is to make or reuse something to put our little barbecue on.

I've been working on my craft room. I didn't realize how much stuff I had. I'm not complaining or anything lol but damn. I'm glad I have it, now I just need to finish my work space so I can get crackin. I've been shifting stuff to the left than back to the right , from one room to the other lol lol . But it's coming along.

I'm still working on cleaning and organizing the other house. Looks like I'm going to be having a yard sale this summer. We have a ton of stuff and I've decided we don't need 3/4's of what we have. How many dishes do we need . The knick knacks, glasses, pots and pans are breeding in the attic lol lol . I don't even remember putting half of this stuff up there put it's my hand writing on the boxes :) so I must have....right.

I guess I'm on a roll because I've been doing a lot of re decorating/organizing our house.It's just time I guess. With summer break right around the corner I need to get this palce running right....kinda lol. With that said I'm off to get a getting lol .Til next time .Have a great day.

When lighting strikes.

2008-06-11T16:32:00.005-04:00

Yep we had a lighting strike during Sunday's storm. Want to see?????

Talk about scaring the crap out of me . A friend and I where standing in the living room when it hit .It was like someone set a nuke off in the back yard. There was a HUGE ball of blue light than a HUGE ball of orange light, the whole house shook. Did you know that lighting doesn't have to hit the house to fry things????? Yep fried. The TV, the phone, a couple of outlets , 2 of the 3 lights in the kitchen and the Ethernet board on our computer( we had to hook up Bear's puter to get online) Weird. Ok the tree is really close to the house ( that's the next tree to come down) but damn. There was a 60 foot wide spray of pine bark around our place and into the yard next door.
Thankfully no one was hurt.

Thats it for now .I have some work to do on this computer to speed things up a bit. Til next time. Have a great day.

Get into the groove

2008-06-02T11:05:00.002-04:00

Lord save us. I've got Madonna going around in my head lol now I'm showing my age lol lol. I'm really trying to get my stuff together , it's weird I'm still on my "work " schedule when it comes to housework and stuff. Looks like I'm going to have to make a list of the stuff I do weekly and try to break it up into a daily list. Than tackle things by day. I know it sounds anal but I'm hoping that I'll have some sort of plan worked out when summer comes. This way we'll have more time for fun. I've found that things I hate doing like cleaning the bathroom really don't take long to do 15 -20 minutes tops. So I guess it's just a matter of getting a plan in place and sticking to it.
Things have been busy here at the old homestead.We most of our plants in the garden. I still have some in the planter boxes that we have to figure out what they are lol . Right now we have 4 grape tomatoes, 12 beef steak tomatoes, 2 egg plants,2 broccoli, assorted pumpkins, zucchini,yellow squash, black beauty squash, 2 kinds or hot peppers, parsley, sweet basil, potatoes, chives I think that's it lol . I want to pick up some oregano maybe some carrots . We started chopping wood. It's going slow ( there is a ton of wood ) but we're making a dent in it. I did get to the church thrift store on Saturday. I picked up a pair of pants , a tinker bell t-shirt, and what the kids call a girlie shirt lol for me and a red summer shirt for Sissy. But yard sale's where no where to be found.

I'm getting ready for the big shop tomorrow. I have the list going and have to start sorting and cleaning out the fridge and both freezers. The list isn't to bad but we have some extra stuff . Hopefully we'll have enough stuff stock piled , less to buy next month.

Alright I'm off to get to getting lol . Til next time. Have a great day.

Summer time fun !?!?

2008-05-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

Well the school year is coming to a end and I wondering what we're going to do this year to keep Bear busy . This is the first summer that I'll be home in 4 years. So I'm hoping that with some looking I can find thrifty stuff for us to do. I need to find things that Bear will do. Stuff that falls in with what he's into at the time . With the price of gas being what it is some of the stuff we had planned is not going to happen. So I've signed up for some craft news letters. I'll toss the links on one of my side bars. I've found a great site for just about anything a mom can want. Thirftyfun is an awesome site.They have everything from recipes to crafts and everything in between. So I'll be looking around on triftyfun alot in coming weeks. What do you guys like to do ? Any cheap and easy ideas any one would like to pass on? What do your kids like to do?

I've been thinking.

2008-05-28T16:00:00.001-04:00

Yes lol lol I've been thinking (be afraid very afraid) about starting another blog. A blog geared to anything kids and the people who raise them. I'm still working out the whole thing in my mind ( might take a while don't want to overwork that last brain cell lol ) A one stop place with everything from crafts , books, saving money on the things they need.Toss links in the side bars Recipes of all kinds. Stuff that's tried and true. Stuff that mom's know work. You get the idea. But I don't know if I can keep up with it myself . Any one want to team up. Might be easier with a bunch of us posting . Just a thought. I'm looking for some feed back. Just email me and let me know what you guy's think.

Thanks

Random stuff

2008-05-28T11:27:00.003-04:00

Have a bunch of stuff going on. Our garden is almost done .We have some more plants to put in ( I got them today ) and guess what we here on the weather..... we have a frost warning for tonight . I'm sooooo confused .What month is it ???? I swear it was May . It's all good we'll just cover the plants and keep our fingers crossed.

The chickens are doing great , getting bigger by the day . They still think I'm Mama Hen lol lol . I have to watch where I go in the yard cause they run around behind me . Now they will come up just to watch me hang the laundry on the line lol go figure. The coop is finished and.... lol the chickens decided that they don't want to go inside they want to sleep under it lol so now we have a storage shed with 52 chickens sleeping under it .

The other birds are doing good . We waited to long to take Lucky out of the cage and now Lady has laid 4 more eggs :0 . So today I'm going to move Duke and Dalila another cage. Than I'll move the little canary's to the other side of the flight cage with the little parakeet. Than when the time comes we'll move Lucky into another cage we have so there will be no more babies this year anyway.

Later today when Buddy comes home we're going to go do some work in my craft room. Hubby has moved alot of the big stuff around ( and around again lol ) but there is still more to do . I want to wash the floor and put down a rug I found in storage. The rug is in rough shape but it works for that space. Than I have to work on sorting and putting stuff away.

I've been looking on eBay for long peasant skirts. Now I'm not a skirt person .I'm happy in sweats and one of Hubby's tee shirts but the is a method to my madness ( when I told everyone want I was looking for jaws dropped and my smart ass kids where running around looking for the pod with their real mom in it lol lol ) I don't like to wear shorts . I'll wear them when I'm home but if I have to go off the property for anything I toss on sweats .It's getting hot. I don't want to be all sweaty so peasant skirts. Now try finding large all cotton long skirts on eBay . I want used this way I don't worry about messing them up. I want cotton this way I can just toss them in the wash and on the line. I don't want to hand wash any thing lol . I did find a few so we'll see what happens.

When I'm done on here I have a ton of house work to do . Hubby is busy working away in the other house. So I can get a ton of stuff done. I always seem to get more stuff done when the house is empty.

On that note I'm off . Til next time, have a great day

Yard sale haul

2008-05-27T09:32:00.003-04:00

Here's the pic's from this weekends yard sales,

A bunch of baby blankets.

The receiving blankets are flannel and stained so I figured that I can cut them up for quilts. The bunny blanket is all fuzzy lol and is a gift for a friend.

A super cool vintage metal picnic basket / box,

Perfect to hold all sorts of things. I'm going to put our growing pile of cloth napkins in it.

Speaking of napkins ,

Picked up 8 more , better than buying paper. I found a huge tablecloth that matches I figured I could fold it in half and use it. When I got home I saw there was a huge hole in the center, see what happens when I have Bear with me and don't take a good look. I've tried to fix it but had no luck and as much as it kills me I'll have to cut it and re hem it. Thankfully it's not super old .

A new to me Christmas tree skirt,

I love it and it was only a quarter.

Sissy lucked out again

This whole bag of clothes ( forgot to take a pic before I put it in the bag) $ 2.00

Some glass jars,

We've been grabbing them when we can to use for beans, rice, and stuff.

Another baby blanket and a patch work pillow.

So that's the haul. Not as good as I do locally but I'm happy .

So that's it for now , off to clean. Til next time. Have a great day.

What a pain in the butt

2008-05-26T20:18:00.004-04:00

Well I ended up with another massive sinus/ear infection that knocked me on my ass. What a pain . Ok I'm really stubborn , like super thick headed so when I started to feel sick I blow it off. HA it decided to blow back . My head hurt, my ears felt like they where bleeding, my eyes felt like they where going to melt of my head. Every time I moved so did every thing else lol. I couldn't even take any more antibiotics because I just finished a batch. Which is ok I really didn't what to take more . I did all natural (kinda I did use ear drops) We ran the humidifier 24/7 . I drank enough chamomile tea to make my teeth float. Thank God Hubby took over . I tried to do the normal house stuff (see thickheaded lol ) and he would give me that evil look of his that means sit your butt down woman lol or else.He was able to keep up with things while I sat on the couch ( yuck yuck ugh) I'm feeling better not 100% but better.

So back to the grind today. I did get most of my craft stuff into the other house.Have to move some stuff around see what stuff I want to keep in there , what needs to move out , and what I need to look around for. It all needs to be organized but that will wait til I'm done cleaning.

We did get some yard sales in this weekend ( a bit of a mistake cause I felt like crap when we got home) I'll post pic's tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. Til next time . Have a great day

The other house

2008-05-20T09:59:00.002-04:00

About 5 years ago Hubby and I decided to renovate the bottom half of the other house for ourselves. We set it up so we had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. And a space for me to craft. About half way in to it Hubby got called back to active duty. So we had to close up the house . By the time he got home it was winter again and we just left it. Well now as you guys might already know we are opening the house back up and getting the other 2 apartments ready for tenants. But we're not going to move in. We'll stay put here until we sell( hopefully soon God willing) We have a ton of building supplies to store and have gotten used to not having people live next to and above us. But I do get my crafting space YIPEEE . I've been working at cleaning out 3 of the rooms, 1 is a pretty large kitchen , a 3/4 bath , and what would have been Sissy's room. What a ton of crap we have lol . Because we have the rentals we have all sorts of building, plumbing, electrical, and paint supplies. Add to that all of the other stuff we've collected over the years . Holy shit lol lol lol . Alot of the stuff we originally planned to use in the new place has been moved up here . We had a brand new Hamilton Beach counter top oven with convection that also is a rotisserie. Works great it and uses so much less electric than our oven that we're now thinking about replacing the old stove/ oven and putting in a cook top than we'll be able to put in more storage. What we can use or don't want we have been either putting on eBay or giving it away. And on it goes hopefully I'll have it cleaned out by the weekend and than give it a good cleaning. Than the hard stuff begins :) I have to start moving all of my craft stuff in . That might be harder than moving the crap out . It will take some time to get it all organized but it will be soooo worth it . We'll have so much more room in the house with all of my stuff out and it will be nice to start a project or 2 and be able to leave them out . Maybe I can even start painting again after I dust off the easels.

Well I'm off of here gonna go do more work in my new space ( hehehe I'm all giddy) .Til next time. Have a great day!!!!!!!!

Yard sales yipee

2008-05-18T08:26:00.001-04:00

Well it's a bright sunny day here at the old homestead. A definite improvement from the last couple of days of rain. We did get to hit a yard sale and stopped at a local church thrift store yesterday.

Picked up this Vincelli Tote for a $1 (our new library bag) Don't know who Vincelli is but Sissy was all excited so I guess it was a could buy lol lol .

Found this sweet bunny fabric at the thrift store for 10 cents. It's a smallish piece but I want to make a couple of baby quilts ( 2 friends having baby's this fall) so I'll cut it into blocks . Do I know how to make a quilt ?????? Nope but I guess I'll figure it out lol lol .

Sissy found 3 Express shirts and 3 old navy shirts for $2.50 and she was really happy.Don't have a picture because I'm washing them. Hell I have to remember to take pictures of all of our finds lol lol . Yard sale season officially opens next weekend . So we'll be heading a couple of towns up for their annual town wide yard sale. It's always a great event 4 or 5 of the surrounding towns join in .We even get maps lol lol .

Well that's it for now Bear and I are off the the library. Til next time. Have a great day

On the crafty side of things

2008-05-14T09:02:00.001-04:00

Shawl for Mom

When I sent my Mom her mothers day gifts, I stayed on track with my goal of making or trifting gifts. I had 2 books that I finished that I knew she would like and I made her a shawl
but I didn't want to buy wrapping paper. Hubby bought a hunting bow off of eBay it was wrapped in sheets of brown paper, so I grabbed it and put it away (Hubby gave me that your crazy woman look lol ) Light bulb moment... I can use the brown paper. I have some stamps ( I'm not really into stamping but they where in the one of the craft lots I bought on eBay) So I used the stamps than colored the images with colored pencils ( a gift from a friend) . Presto chango wrapping paper.

Bear's coat rack

Hubby helped me fix Bear's hockey stick coat rack today. He told me that the way I did it wouldn't work and .... oh this hurts ..... he was right. So he re-did it so it won't fall off the wall. I was able to get 5 hooks per stick so it hold all of his hats ( for some reason Bear and Buddy have huge hat collections lol lol they are almost as bad as Sissy with her shoes lol lol ). Now I have to work on Bears bulletin board. I made each of the big kids a customized bulletin board for Christmas but Bear couldn't make up his mind what he wanted. He finally decided today on color ( honey brown) and the design ( dinosaurs).

Blanket for BFF

Made this blanket for my Best girl friend as a mother's day gift. She just did her bedroom over in icy blue and white .

We have a friend who's mom crochets alot and has a room full of yarn. She's been going though it and sent him over with a bag for me . So I started a throw for the back of the couch. The timing was great because I just bought a slip cover for the couch ( sage green denim) and the yarn is Homespun (Lion brand) Fiesta . I like the multi color yarn lol this way if I get it in my head to change colors in the living room I don't have to make a new throw.

Well that's it for now.Til next time. Have a crafty day.

Hey!!!!!!!

2008-05-13T15:30:00.001-04:00

Hey y'all. Hope all of you mom's out there had a great mother's day. I did!!! Bear made me this awesome pen out of polymer clay.

The big kids gave me cards and Hubby worked on the chicken condo ( we passed coup some time last week lol lol it's huge lol lol ).And what did I do you ask ..... I rearranged the living room rotf. I really wanted to get it done so I did it . It came out really nice except.... well see remember that table I was working on it's all done but one problem it's to big. Now it my last brain cell was working I would have remembered that we had this one

in storage and I could have saved my self the trouble lol lol ( ignore the mess ) Bear was so happy to have a " regular table" to eat at . It's the little things that make him happy lol .

We did get a yard sale in this weekend. Bear got some new books , he's really into science now so when he found books on underwater animals he had to have them . He also got a hungry hungry hippo game. LOL LOL I forgot how noisy that game is. I found a tablecloth. It's huge. I'll have to fold it in half to put it on the table. (I have to take pic's of my small tablecloth collection and put them on flicker) Speaking of tablecloths Sarah is having a vintage tablecloth giveaway for her birthday, you should check it out.

I did take yesterday off and relaxed ...well as much as I can relax any way than got back into the swing of things today.

And with that I'll leave you with pictures of our 3 baby birds

The baby canary's looks like we have a boy and a girl( maybe lol )

and last but not least

the baby parakeet don't know what it is yet.

Til later than .

The insanity continues and other ramblings

2008-05-08T13:15:00.001-04:00

So 52 chickens at last count. 7 eggs incubating in a cooler in the living room. Baby parakeet is out of the box ( have to watch because Delilah goes after it Hubby things it's because she doesn't recognize it outside of the box lol ) for how long who knows. 2 baby canary's that look like their ready to pop out of the basket any time now. Both sets of bird have been doing the birdie mating dance again.

* I did get the monthly shopping done and had a heart attach when I saw the price of food . The prices go up here around this time of year ( because of the summer ) anyway but to get hit this early really freaked me out. I'm working hard to expand our food stock pile cause it looks like things aren't going to get any better. We do have 2 full freezers. But I want to work on dry goods. So to do that ( ugh hate shopping ) I have started making more room in the house to store the extras . Not easy when your house is only 400 sq feet. Small is not a bad thing you just have to be really creative on how you do things. So I just cleaned off the hutch and ....well I have to get rid of alot of stuff :). So let the sorting begin. I really don't need more than 4 Pyrex bowls ( well.... ok ok I have to be strong lol ) so one large yellow bowl headed for eBay. I have a pink sugar bowl and creamer ( I think they're anchor hocking) off to eBay. 1 pink daisy Pyrex divided dish with lib ....eBay. Any the list goes on and on. Sissy will be on picture duty after school.I have to get this stuff listed.

On the project front Hubby is working hard expanding the chicken coop. Poor man just when he things he's done . ** I have decided to re arrange our living room( much to poor Hubby's dismay). See we don't a dining table( Hubby built a breakfast bar between the kitchen and living room so we just never put a table in ) I want a table to craft, do puzzles, for Bear to do project etc . Oh and eating lol. *** So I went hunting in storage and found a wooden table ( with the leaves that pull out the sides) . I have been working on it as much as I can to get it ready ( pics to come) So long story short I want to move things around to toss it in . LOL LOL I'll let you know how it works out . Plus the 3 or so dozen other things going on . See insanity lol lol .

Ok Ok before I bore you to tears with all this rambling( my mind is in over drive) I'm off lol lol . Til next time. Have a great day.

* Rambling

**More rambling

*** Even more yep you guessed it rambling

Alrighty Than

2008-04-28T09:52:00.001-04:00

Just when you think it's safe.. lol I'm... back . Awesome weekend around here busy but awesome lol.

First flock of chickens. I have to get some new pic's They have gotten really big.

Here are the new chickens . Aren't they super cute?

Here's our baby parakeets . Cute too uh !!!! ( sorry about the pic but it's hard to get it to sit still )

Bear found some scraps that he grabbed from daddy ( left overs from the chicken coup) He's been coloring them to use as ramps for his cars.

I did get a bit of crafting in . Made this wreath from a grape vine wreath I got from the dollar store , had the vine and swag in storage( have a ton more so I have to get it used up ), a little wire and got myself a new wreath for the front door.

Rainy day here, so I'm going to do some inside stuff. I did get our clothes done. I still have to get to the top of Bear's closet but that will have to wait until the weather is better. Now I have to get off of here and get some stuff done.

Till next time. Have a great day

Going green

2008-04-28T09:48:00.001-04:00

I know I'm late for earth day but I wanted to post what we've been doing to go green .

We combine trips as much as possible . It looks like that will be a more consistent thing now that the gas prices are going sky high.Yardsaling might be effected this year I'll end up staying close to home.

I use the clothes line as much as possible only use the dryer on days like today when it's raining ( I have a thing about the laundry piling up). I only wash full loads and only use half of the soap the company recommends.

We picked up some outside solar lights that we use inside as night lights . I'm hoping to pick up some more in the coming months. I even saw some that are table top lamps . Maybe I'll grab a couple of those . This way I can read and craft when it gets dark.

Recycle and reuse everything. I'm trying hard not to buy anything new . This falls in line with my make it or thrift it gift goal for this year. But we also have been re using alot of construction materials that might have other wise ended up in the land full.

We are really working hard to grow what we eat. The chickens are a great start. We have started our seeds . I'm making a list of what veggie plants to buy next month. We are using the pond , soaker hoses, and an old water storage tank to water the garden. No need to turn on the hose. We compost all of our yard and kitchen waste so there is no need for us to buy fertilizers. I'll need to buy a food saver( hoping to find it used) to store all of the food

We shut off our furnace as much as possible. Only turning it on when we need the hot water. We're looking to buy a wood stove this year used of course. We have a ton of wood ( the trees had to come down because of the moth damage) so if it works out right we'll have enough wood for the winter.

That's all I can think of now lol lol lol . I know there are other things but they just flew clan out of my head lol . So til next time.Have a green day