Have you ever had "one of those days?"

"Huh?"

You know those days. The ones when everything is weird, backwards, and just didn't come out anywhere near how you thought it would? I'm proud to say that I'm old enough...er...wise enough to take life's punches.

It doesn't matter that when the wind blew, the power line that hooks to the house melted and caused power surges all over the house. (Yes, the Wii did survive-the kids are now dealing with their post traumatic stress syndrome over it all.) I was even able to handle waking up at 5am to the sound of the fish aquarium's pump starting up, ........over, and over, and over again because of the power surges. Yes, I did not bite my nails when I had to wait patiently in the dark for daybreak to finally come so I wouldn't be so scared if the house did catch on fire and we all had to run outside. Thankfully, that little scenario never came to life.

Thankfully, (and I vowed 6 years ago that I would never say this after being powerless for almost 2 weeks during a freak ice storm), our power company came to the rescue fairly quickly and solved the problem. The nice technician even disconnected the "juice" to the pole in the vacant lot next door. We had been worrying about that line falling down for a long time.... simple blessings...

Anyway, I guess we have a lot to be thankful for. Never mind that we didn't get the first thing done in school today- the kids didn't mind at all. I even had to run to the next town in the van (which, upon my late, and unfortunate discovery, was almost out of gas and the van didn't like the fact that it was almost out of gas.

Never mind that the roofers came unannounced to inspect the roof (Oh, please, oh please roofer man, don't ask to come in for some reason! After a day of hardly using power, nothing has gotten done and I'd be mighty embarrassed if someone seen the state of my house!)

I'm OK, really. I am. Like I said, I'm older, wiser, and I like to kid myself. I'll probably panic later. For now, I'm blogging (and still hoping the roofer guy doesn't need to come in). Afterall, I only get a free moment here and there. I'm taking advantage of the "there" right here and now.

Somebody else had a bad day too.....

I found this interesting photo on my camera today. Apparently, it's really a big deal when your army jeep crashes into the Lego sea and actually burns underwater.

You just gotta love those Lego games! You should see the time and thought put into creating scenes of mass destruction like the one above. Go Cart Boy puts most of these together. I don't think that kids can ever laugh as much as Go Cart Boy and his older sister do when they are creating Lego chaos....

Even though my day was weird and went totally haywire, at least I can say that my couch isn't haunted.....er...uh....smoking?....uh... covered in spider webs?? After all, I could be like this poor guy that lost his jeep and couch in the same day to unfortunate circumstances.

At least, I can smile and know that tomorrow is another day......

Corn Worms, Compost, and Curtains (Not necessarily in that order)...

I've felt kind of mischievous lately. It might come from the wonderful invention called, "vitamins" or something. Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm just glad to be feeling better lately.

I've even gotten the gardening bug. Well, uhm, I guess you could call it, the "next year" gardening bug. Remember that cold frame experiment from yesteryear? I figured one of those old, wooden frames might have another year or two of life in them- a new life so to speak. No one ever goes behind the playhouse in the backyard so, I figured starting a compost pile at the house would be a good venture. It would be out of the way. One of those old cold frames would make a good housing for some rotting good stuff.

Last time, I filled a 5 gallon bucket with scraps and about once a week or so, I took that bucket to Uncle Bubba's farm to join his compost. Now, I'll be able to make my own. My goal is to make enough good stuff to plant my seedlings in next year. With that being said, I'm planning to garden next year. Having not really "gardened" to any large scale this year, I realized that gardening makes me happy. Hey, you just gotta' go with what makes you happy sometimes. It took shucking some corn to make me realize that....but that story is to come....


Here is the beginning of my compost pile. It already has 2 spent heads of lettuce, several apple cores (and a few peelings), the watermelon that was cracked (and we didn't realize it until it was too late), some cucumber peelings, the leftover organic dirt from my cucumber plants, some leaves, and of course, all of the corn shuckings and cobs that you see in the photo.

Where did the corn come from? Uncle Bubba. He gardened pretty big this year even if he got started a little late.


Scott and Go-Cart Boy brought these ears home the other day. We had no idea what condition (or stage for that matter) that the ears were in since the crop had been ready for many days.

"Hey, what are you lookin' at?"

I guess you can figure that my insect loving daughter had a ball finding all of the corn worms. (This corn was totally organic- nothing was sprayed on it so it was bound to have some critters in it).

"This acorn smells like corn"

I've never liked the wiggly critters. Even when I was younger, I always passed the "wormy" corn to my Daddy. (Let me rephrase that- scream and throw the corn down on the ground). He would just reach down, and flick them off and break off the "eaten" pieces. It would gross me out a bit. Have you ever come across "wormy" corn? If you have, you understand how gross it can be. Well, with age comes wisdom. I can now "flick" corn worms and break off the "eaten" parts of a corn cob. Roly Poly girl had no problem with it at all from the start. She didn't get that from me!


This is what we ended up with. The two dark orange cobs were already dried out! In case you were wondering, this corn was an open pollinated variety (heirloom) called "Bloody Butcher". It's an all purpose corn good for roasting, animal feed, and grinding (think grits). Uncle Bubba is going to let a lot of it dry out so we might have a "grits" making post one of these days. I'll have to read up on that before we attempt it though....


Roly Poly Girl found one tiny, little ear. She squeeled, "BABY CORN!!!" and took off for the house to tell her "baby corn" eating brother about it. They actually washed it and halved it. I didn't ask them how it was.

Scott brought some other goodies home too. The yellow guys are some type of Asian melon that taste like cantaloupes. The big squash, we have yet to slice and cook. I hope it tastes like pumpkin. I love pumpkin....mmmmmm

Oh, what did we do with the corn? Since a lot of it was a various stages and it was actually showing it's, "Blood Butcher" hues, I creamed it. I had no idea what I was doing so you can figure that I made a complete mess of my kitchen. (Hence the absence of a creamed corn tutorial) The good news is that everything turned out alright and I ended up with enough for 3 quart freezer bags (and I didn't scorch any of it!!). I'm going to give Uncle Bubba some since he grew the corn in the first place.


The last item on my title says, "curtains" The curtains in question have nothing to do with corn or compost but it was a major event at my house this week. I had seen these curtains at a local home improvement store but shuddered at paying the price they had marked for them. Walking away from the curtain display was a simple thing to do since I'm somewhat frugal at heart. Speaking of being frugal, I went to a thrift store over the weekend and what to my surprise did I find (brand new and still in the original packages)? You guessed it, the very curtains I had sighed and walked away from at the home improvement store. They were more than 80% cheaper (did I mention, brand new and still in the package?!!) Needless to say, my girls have the "girly" curtains that I wanted and they love them. All it took was a quick run under the iron and they were ready to go. I love it when things work out like that... God is good.

I'm Still Around...

Betch'a gave up on me didn't you? Well, I'm still around. I've just been super busy- in crazy spurts no less- if that makes sense. You know, things seem calm and slow and then, BAMMM, everything jumps into high speed. At this particular moment in time, I have a free moment and thought I'd let you all know what was going on....that is if things don't jump into high speed all of the sudden.


I was alerted that Uncle Bubba built a scare crow, so we took a trip over to take a look. I'm not sure how good it was working on his corn. With the looks of that scare crow's t-shirt, it looks like he has been doing some hard labor. Maybe that hard labor will pay off with some corn. Scott said that one day he is going to sneak over there and paste a ridiculous photo on the scarecrow's face and see how long it takes Uncle Bubba to notice. Hee, hee, can't wait for that one...

My little cucumber plants started blooming at last! I ordered an heirloom variety so it was extra important that the little buggies visited these little blooms. This photo was taken a few weeks ago and since then, we've harvested about 5 little cucumbers. They turned out being this tiny gherkin kind. (I had misplaced my seed catalog and couldn't remember if they were the tiny ones or the regular ones- now I know). 5 cucumbers is not enough to make pickles so maybe next year.

Look at that- nature ties a better knot that I can!

Our former neighbor built the kids a playhouse out of some old scrap wood. This is the frame of it on the first day he started. If you look really, really, closely, you will see that it was built over a stump. Yes, you read that right, a stump. We call the finished playhouse- The Stump House.

The kids were really excited about this new playhouse and so was their cousin Rachel. She made this housewarming gift the day it was finished. If you can believe it, that grass stayed alive for almost a week and a half! I thought it was sweet that the new Stump House was graced with live foliage (at least for a little while anyway.) Scott even installed a solar barn light inside (which the kids left on the other night and nearly made me jump out of my skin when I saw it glowing in the backyard!). For now, we haven't installed the shingles or siding but the kids don't care- it's just the most awesome Stump House ever. Good summertime fun is in store!

Hope summer is going great for everyone!

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. "
............................The Pledge of Allegiance


My blog is not a political blog. It was never intended to be. My blog is just a little peak into life- in my world. There are just some things that bother me in my little world nowadays. I've always tried to bring a little silliness into my posts, because, like I often say, life is just too serious already.

I do want to make it clear that I am an American. I was born in America. America was formed under certain principles and because of those principles, America is a great country. There are some in this country that want to erase our history and make our America something else.

I am who I am, America is what it is. You can try to change a person or thing but deep down, to the foundation, a person or thing is just, simply, what it is and you can't change "grass roots".

Please don't let your children forget how America was formed. Please don't let yourself become biased by the opinions of people who are only out to make a dollar or to gain "power" over others. Be an American. Be strong. Stand up for what you believe in...... It's our right as an American.

More Yard Critters and a Marble Treasure

Mr. Dragonfly

Somehow or another, we went from the dead of winter to early summer. What happened to spring? I'm not complaining too much since it's not blazing hot, but some days, it's in the mid 80's already! Anyway, with the warmer weather, we find ourselves outdoors a little more than we had been. Roly Poly girl is still young enough to find nature amazingly interesting so I find myself taking full advantage of these little learning opportunities.

Yes, Roly Poly girl was at it again. She had to lift up the mat in front of the basement door to find her little crustacean friends hiding below.

Mr. Bumble Bee

This little guy strikes fear in one of my kiddos heart the minute she sees (or hears) him. Why, I don't know for sure but I would suspect it is due to the fact that my daughter managed to step (yes, I said step) into a yellow jacket nest when she was a very little girl. She feels the way I do about snakes (you know, a good snake is a dead snake) but her little saying would be; a good bee is a dead bee. Maybe we both will get over our little fears one of these days...

Mr. HoneyBee- Stay away from Monsanto Corn!!!!

Speaking of bees, I was thrilled to see Mr. HoneyBee. You just don't see these guys much when someone has planted that evil, genetically modified corn in the area. You might want to get educated on "Frankencorn" if you haven't heard about it already. You can start at Mother Earth News Magazine's site and read their recent article or head on over to one of a gazillion web sites dedicated to let the public know what Monsanto is doing to our food supply.

Ok, I'm off of my pure food high horse now- back to the program......

We have an over abundance of robins in our backyard. That's not a problem. They supply us with hours of endless amusement. The other woodland creatures in our backyard (the squirrel family) do not approve of the flock of robins so, they are constantly waging war on the birds. It is quite hilarious to see either birds jumping straight up into the air after a squirrel sneaks up behind them, or squirrels running around confused after being dive bombed. It's a win- win for us- hey, it's free entertainment!

Stay tuned, I've been trying to get a photo of the squirrel family but they are photo shy. One of these days I'll try to share the squirrel family with you. Their three babies are sooo cute so it will be worth it to see them.

A Roly Poly Girl treasure.....

With the general population of children in the neighborhood being male, there are a lot of boy-related games that are taking place at any given time somewhere around the house. One of those boy-related activities is marble shooting. No, not the old fashioned kind of marble shooting- the sling shot kind of marble shooting.

What's so good about boys shooting marbles in slingshots? Well, little girls enjoy spending hours looking for marbles that boys shot out of slingshots. Before it's over, the girls have more marbles than the boys!

Roly Poly Girl and I like to leisurely walk around in the backyard and nearby gravel to look for long lost marbles. (It's like treasure hunting...) On this particular day that I snapped this photo, we found 3 of them. The best time to go marble hunting is in mid day, the day after a rain storm. Once, we found 4 at once- that's a good haul if I do say so myself!

The week in photos....The Vampire Bunny, UFO's, and some new sewing projects

Vampire Bunny

We had a really great Easter and our Easter dinner and egg hunt were lots of fun ( I ate waaaayyyyy too much) . This cute bunny bread is from a recipe that I had in an old Quick Cooking Magazine from years ago. I misplaced my magazine but I found the link on Taste of Home's site. The link to the recipe for the bunny bread pictured above can be found here. It's super easy but next year I think I'll scale the recipe down to just one batch of bread dough so I'll have more room for the veggies around Mr. Bunny.


I had a few minutes a couple of days before Easter (and some spare cloth scraps) and whipped up this little pocket tissue holder from a pattern that I found on the internet. (Sorry, I'd share the link but I had sewn the holder while the computer was on and later turned the computer off for the day without bookmarking the site- I didn't realize that until later the next day- argh!) Maybe I'll run up on that pattern again.

The only problem is that I don't have a pack of tissues to use inside- so I'll just have to wait until I can remember to buy a pack to see if they actually fit inside! I've got some ideas to make my own pattern with "quilting" and other strange designs that are cooking in my brain. It just might take me awhile to turn those ideas into reality! ....isn't that always the way it goes..... plenty of ideas, just no time to make them come to pass....

I'm keeping this one for myself....

I also found this really cool Bible carrier pattern and knew right away that I had just the right fabric for the job (hence the scraps that went into the tissue holder above). My Bible is a little too small for it but, this was my test model just to see if I could make one. I don't use other people's patterns for anything I sell in my Etsy shop so I'll have to come up with one myself soon as I really enjoyed sewing this one up. I'm planning on changing the tie strings to a buckle type closure with a large button, adding a key ring with a clasp (for holding car keys), and a cell phone pocket. The possibilities are endless as to what they could look like. They could even be made from holiday type fabrics. Hey, I would have used an Easter Bible cover if I had one. Look out, I'd imagine I'll have some interesting choices come Christmas time!

A UFO

I thought I'd share a picture that one of the younger kiddos at our egg hunt took. I have no idea which one did, but they managed to get this photo of a UFO in mid flight in the backyard. (See it? Look near the top center of the photo- it's long and pinky looking) Awe, I know what it is I just thought it was funny that they managed to get a picture of it. I don't know the technical word for the UFO but it is part of a Ladder Ball yard game. Let's just say that these UFO's were flying back and forth a lot that day. No one got beaned in the head by one believe it or not!

Love you Heather... (Now your hurt boo boo is all over the internet...)

We did have one casualty though- well, technically 2-1/2 casualties on Easter Sunday. One kiddo tripped and hurt her toe when she fell and the bandaged toe in the photo above was cut by the teeniest, tiniest, piece of glass. What was the 1/2 casualty you say? I say 1/2 because it wasn't until the next day that the casualty fully blossomed into a full blown case of poison ivy on Go Cart Boy. ( I guess you could say 1/2 since the ivy claimed it's victim on Easter but didn't show up until the next day.)

So how did your week go?

American Responsibility

Definitions that every American needs to know as found on Webster's online dictionary website: (Don't take my word for it, click on the links to see for yourself)

1. Socialism-"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

2. Republic- "a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law"

3. Democracy- " the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges"

4. Communism- " a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production"


Quotes of famous Americans: (as found on USHistorysite.com)

Benjamin Franklin- "All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse. "

Thomas Jefferson- "That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." "The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

George Washington- "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."

Abraham Lincoln- "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. "

Food for thought, I would say.....

and yes, this is one of those blog posts with a message to my fellow Americans...

Frog's, Turtles, and Chickens, OH MY!!

My mother has quite the collection of yard critters- both live ones and those that aren't alive. Here are some of her critters that she gathered from the "fire ant" side of the house and moved to the "non- fire ant" side of the house. Let's hope the "other side" of the house continues to be the "non- fire ant" side of the house for a long, long, time.

On Going Projects....

Quick! Point to the nearest chili bean! Phew, you made it.

Lately, I've been looking for opportunities to have as many "projects" that the kids can work on in school that they can handle. One such project was one that my 7th grader asked to do. She had found the project in her science book and it kind of went a long with the "wild" garden that is growing on my kitchen counters at this very moment.

The project involved painting 3 seeds with fingernail polish and leaving 3 seeds alone. All were put into jars of water and observed the next morning to see what the fingernail polish had done. Well, the lesson learned was that the seed needed water to penetrate into it, in order to start the germination process. Lesson learned and the girls had lots of fun painting kidney beans with fingernail polish.



A local Walmart store finally bit the bullet and began to close it's fabric department over the past few weeks. They didn't sell enough of the stuff to justify the fabric department's existence. (Could have been the fact that, at anytime of the day, no one was there to actually "cut" the fabric for you and the guy in automotive had no idea how to do it?) Anyway, I picked up 4 yards of homespun (shown in the photo above) for $0.56 a yard! What am I going to do with it? Well, I'm in need of some new cloth napkins for the kitchen. I should be able to make enough to keep us swimming in napkins for a long time. If you are interested in making your own cloth napkins, you can see this old post for a "how to".

As far as other projects, I'm desperately trying to figure out some kind of sewn item that would be good for men. Making things for women are easy- it's men that are the problem for me. Any ideas?

Are You Playing, "The Game" ?

I'm not and I never will. I guess that means that I won forever.

Let me explain......

This isn't "The Game" but various family members use the sight of it as a tool to make the other family member lose "The Game".

What is the game you say? Unfortunately, I know very well what it is. Where it came from, I do not know. I'd imagine that some teenager, somewhere thought it up. I don't have time for it (OK, you got me there, I do have the time to blog about it but that's about it.)(Ok, you got me again, I do have time to make people loose "The Game" as you will see later on).

The rules are simple: If you remember that you are playing "The Game", you lost. As long as you forget, you win. Simple enough. That's it in a nutshell.

I've caused several people to loose the game inadvertently (and I must admit, sometimes purposely) over the course of the last year. Just the other day, I was helping my oldest daughter with a word problem that simply stated that a particular ratio had to be set up with games won to games LOST. Two other kiddos as the table muttered, "Oh man, I just lost the game" under their breath. We girls just looked at each other and smiled and proceeded for several minutes to mention the word problem and how to set it up (over and over and over again....heh, heh, heh....).

Another example of how to make someone loose "The Game", is to mention that it's Tuesday night and LOST comes on. Simultaneously, you will hear the mutterings echoing through the house again, "Awe, I just lost the game...." (By the way, if you watch LOST, and play "The Game", you loose for an entire hour while the show is on.)

I've even sent Flair buttons to my son and niece on Facebook that say, "I just lost the game". I don't think they appreciated it very much. I know that when my son received his, I heard, "Ahhhhhhhhrrrrrggggggghhhh, I just lost the game again- geesh, thanks mom!" coming from the next room.

Sometimes I can mention random words or phrases like, parsley, box of chicken, John Locke, meep, or even Noah Webster, and those words will cause various outcries during the day from the two boys that are playing at my house. ( My oldest son's mind works through association- that is why those random words cause him to lose the game- How he associates those things with playing, "The Game" go figure??? The world will never know.....)

So, the moral of the story is, if you didn't know what "The Game" was, you do now. If you know someone that plays "The Game", I've probably given you some ammunition to make them loose "The Game". Anyway you look at it, it's just a game.

The Cleanup BEFORE The Flood

It was time. I had been putting it off for some time. I certainly couldn't use it, that's for sure. Meet, my sewing table.

Somehow, someway, my table became a catch-all....a catch-all that "caught all" fairly quickly too. With that being said, I am throwing caution to the wind and I have decided to be brutally honest here. The photo you are about to see is where I was supposed to create things. Instead, I hit a brick wall each time I walked by the table. Something definitely had to be done....

Before:
A real mess that was slowly, but surely growing.....

After:

A might better I would say. There is still too much clutter on the table but I can see that there is a table. (Don't look at the pattern sticking in my "to do" box, Janette!) I even vacuumed afterwards! I threw away 2-30 gallon trash bags of , uhm, well, trash and precious cloth scraps that I had been holding on to for far too long! A couple of weeks ago, I made the curtains you see in the photo and all that the room needs now is a fresh coat of paint. Now if I could figure out how to keep little kiddos from drawing on my rotary cutting mat in INK!

OK, that was the cleaning part. Now comes the flood part.

We are accustomed to having to call for emergency services from time to time since we live near a busy intersection but nothing prepared us for what happened the other night.

Imagine Scott and I sitting on the couch, trying to watch LOST. Then, the familiar sound of a car crash broke our concentration from figuring out what year Kate and Jack were actually in this time. We walked out on the porch, scanned the yard to see where a car landed this time. This time, it was two houses away and we saw sparks flying in the distance....or what we thought were sparks flying.

As it turned out, when a car runs over a fire hydrant, at night, the car lights reflect on the cascading water and give the appearance of sparks. (Oh, and just to let you know, the person was not injured in the car accident)

To make a long story short, here are some scenes from that night:


This was the beginning of our "flood" experience. Believe me, it is very sobering to suddenly see a river of water rushing towards your front door.

Here is the water just touching the siding on the front of the house.

We watched helplessly as the water rose and rose, closer to the top of the foundation of the house. At one point, I pulled the couch out from the wall to see if the water was coming in. Thankfully, it didn't.


It's hard to tell, but this is a river of water that was washing down one side of the house.


Here is the threshold of the basement door. Notice the water pouring out of "Mr. Slither's" escape hatch. (Mr. Slithers is the black snake that I'm petrified of, that lives in the basement and leaves his skin lying around in my path each summer)

This is a photo of just after the water slowed down (thank you Mr. Water Company Employee)

Almost a foot of dirt was washed away from this side of the driveway. The gravel came from across the road somewhere....

This used to be full of mulch if you can believe it. Now the mulch is long gone. you don't even see it in the back yard- it washed down the hill, through the woods, and into a local stream.

Here is the far side of the house where the water rushed down and uncovered the downspout from the gutter. There is still some mulch here but we have a nice little ditch there now that wasn't there before.

Overall, I had no idea that millions of gallons of water could flow that quickly from a fire hydrant. I also learned that, (thank goodness) a water company employee lives fairly close to my house.


Something tells me that we will be hauling mulch in the near future.....