Family Worship Thoughts

I really appreciated this article about "family worship". We have done various "family worship" type things at different times but they change and evolve a lot. I think that is the part of the point of the article- evolve with your families needs. Anyway it is a good read.

Harvest

It's time to harvest finally.The beets were delicious and look at my pile of chard. we have been eating a lot of greens lately. I have already frozen some collards and will probably do some chard too.

The pickles and rhubarb came from a friends garden. I think I'll freeze the rhubarb and make jam or pie later. We almost have enough cucumbers to make a salad from our garden and the tomatoes are turning red.

Extract Experiments

I had such good success with making vanilla extract that I tried orange and peppermint extract. You make the orange (or lemon) extract by using a veggie peeler to scrape off the skin of the orange but not the white bitter part. Then you stick it in vodka for a few weeks. It has been 2 weeks and mine smells nice and orangey. I also tried peppermint but it was trickier and I am not as sure about the results. I used fresh mint leaves and put them in vodka for a few days then strained them. But I think I needed to either cook it or use dried because it doesn't quite smell minty enough. I kept worrying the leaves would rot or something.

Butter and Spies

 

Ward has been a bit devious lately. I found out that for  a few days he has been drawing on the walls and furniture in his room during nap time. When I had my first child this was caught right away but by the fourth it took a week for me to see it and it was a lot more drawing. Sigh, I am getting rusty.

Then other day I walked into the kitchen and saw a very guilty looking Ward looking at me. I knew something was up and asked him, "What are you doing Ward." His response, " Oh, I just eating peanut butter, Mom."

( He calls butter "peanut butter" right now.) And you see the above picture of the results of his "snack." 

In the midst of being a booger he said something yesterday that made me forgive it all.

Renata ran by and said, "I'm spying Mom, shhh." She ran to a doorway and leaned out cautiously to see if the coast was clear and then ran into the next room. (She LOVES Nancy Drew books right now and wants to be a detective.) 

George came in behind her sucking his thumb with a backpack on his back. "I'm spying with Renata, Mom. This is my spy pack!" ( He is more interested in the spy gear.) And away he went to follow Renata.

Lastly Ward comes running in and says," I spicy, Mom! I spicy!" and runs off after his siblings.

New Dress for the Niece

I made a dress for my niece a while ago but decided I like this one better. So I am sending this one to her. It is linen cotton blend and the red cotton print with the ever necessary rickrack on the top edge.

Painting the Bathroom

 Before in seafoam green

Add caption

After. They drywall is a bit lumpy but I get what I need to do next time and it is am improvement. The color didn't end up as brown as I wanted but it looks a whole lot better.

Hail Storm

                           
                                  Here is a video of the storm we had here Joffre took with the kids.

Hail Damage

 Squash before the storm.

 

Squash after the storm.

 Tomatoes down. They are all leaning in weird directions now.

My snapped blueberry bush. I am going to try to propagate it now.

We had a rough storm the other day and it was a bit rough on my garden. Thankful I had only one serious casualty. I lost a blueberry bush. sniff sniff. My poor squash and swiss chard are quite holey now.I took pictures the day before and it makes an interesting before and after photo .And after the storm I saw my first zinnia bloom.

The Bad Day

So I had one of those bad days that leaves you not upset as much as curious. Why did everything I try to do today go wrong, God? It was weird.

It was when I tried to finish some of my unfinished projects. I went to screw in the threshold to the floor of where I was going to hang my chalkboard door and couldn't get the screws all the way down and the stripped the screw and couldn't get it out. Nothing like a screw sticking out an inch above the ground in the middle of a doorway. Joffre managed to hammer it in with brute force and I was so relieved. I thought I hope the door will be easy to screw into the door jamb.   Well when he brought it in I realized the door was way too small and I had measured it wrong. So no chalkboard door for awhile.

Then I decided I need to get going on painting the bathroom. So we went to get the paint at Lowes and I got the wrong white! AAAAAAARRGghh. I reconciled myself to it and came up with a plan involving 3 different colors in the bathroom. I got to work painting the ceiling only to see this weird fuzz all over the ceiling. It was the fuzz from the too cheap rollers I bought!  Then I realized the joint I drywalled looked really bad in one spot and I was going to have to sand and redo that one area.

I knew better with all these things it was all my errors. That is what bugs me the most. I decided I needed to sit down and read a fun book and not touch anything for few days. That's what I did. I hope this week goes better.

Red

 I wanted to paint the trellises a sedate green but Joffre convinced me to try red and boy are they red! Now I like a lot of color in my house but the garden was going to be mellower. But I do like red. So we went with the red and it is only for two small trellises and I like it. I was thinking we could get some chairs or a picnic table and paint it the same red to put in a sitting area elsewhere in the garden to tie it all together.  

 

My cucumbers are going crazy up this one already.

 My tomatoes are growing really well and we have lots of little tomatoes forming on them. Just a few more weeks!

 And this tiny sprout has me very excited. It is an artichoke. Artichokes are perennials so if I can get it to grow it will keep coming back. I had just about given up on them. A friend also gave me a rhubarb plant that I have growing inside till fall.

 Trying to propagate roses on my kitchen windowsill.

Radishes

I decided to paint a quick painting of a radish i harvested this week. I kinda like it.

Unfinished Projects

 I think it is a very bad thing to have lots of unfinished projects. Ahem... I have lots of unfinished projects right now and guess what? I want to start new ones! (and I am not even showing you the unfinished chair and painting in my room.)

My neighbor and good friend has told me I can not start anything new unless I can finish it in a day.
So I am determined to get these projects done the next 2 months or less.

Some are almost done and some are waiting on funding or help, etc. (Just trying to justify the madness a little!)

So here they are to keep me accountable:

My chalkboard door that needs to be hung in the den in front of the bathroom.

 

My bathroom that needs to be finished painting (this is the biggy
because it is oil paint and not fun to paint with.) You will notice I am also painting some frames to hang the kids artwork in along our stairs.Just another little added side project. I am so bad right now!

)

 A really cool armoire that needs some serious love.

A coat rack that I made with different knobs that I really need to figure out how to hang on the wall!
 One step at a time.