Here it is, my unabashed plug for my iPhone.
It can tell me, that while I am waiting at the Seattle airport to collect friends, the friends were sent to Spokane. (5 hours away by car).
It can keep me informed and even entertained… Thanks Spell Tower.
It can even make calls, “Honey, I am going to be a bit late”
To kick off The Teen’s birthday, we got up at O-dark-thirty and went to iHop for her birthday breakfast.
An act of love, as I may not exactly be a morning person, which I believe the bags under my eyes attest to fairly well.
Today is her real birthday, but her calendar is so full with fun activities, that the family dinner and celebration will be tomorrow.
The Teen is doing great!
As much of our move was to give this sweet girl a better life, all I can say is…
“Yay God!
Thank you!”
My Loving Spouse is so very, very excited. Our Friend the Farmer has asked him to go hunting with the boys. The thing is, when you ‘go hunting’, shouldn’t you actually ‘go’ somewhere?
From what I understand, and trust me, I realize that I don’t really understand hunting in the country yet, (or hunting anywhere for that matter). Here is ‘the plan’. Cross the street, move the cows, go into the field and hunt the goose or rather the geese. I might actually have it wrong, it could be move the cows, cross the street, go into the field and then hunt the goose/geese. I don’t think they even need to pack a lunch.
Now, I have seen hunters in action in England. Okay, the hunters weren’t really ‘in action’, they were actually heading into the pub for their ‘after the hunt’ pint, but still they were looking sharp, as English hunters are known to do. See exhibit: A
So, it was only natural that The Teen and I gently inquired/grilled My Loving Spouse as to what he was going to wear, when he goes hunting.
Wool pants? – no
Tie? – no
Hunting jacket? – no
Tweed cap – but of course!
Exhibit B: My Loving Spouse on a recent mole hunt
He’s looking good and they’re crossing the street.
Watch out geese, your goose might be cooked.
Our warm and cozy family room is just that, warm and cozy, plus it is looking good! The decision to add a set of French doors came about from the whole notion that a warm wife, might just possibly be a saner wife. My Loving Spouse is a big fan of my staying sane and a few weeks ago when the weather outside was at 19 degrees and inside about 20 degrees (Fahrenheit, for my British friends), he knew he had a problem. The heat from the wood stove was going everywhere in this wonderful, big old house, except where I was, which was our cozy, cold family room. His first idea was to hang an old quilt in the double doorway. I’m sorry to say, that he got ‘the look’ from me and quickly came up with a classier solution.
The doors have not only made it warmer, but have enabled us to use our home differently. The big winners are our dogs. Previously, they were banned from the house as they’d run all over, find the cat liter and eat it. (I know it is gross, but this is our reality!) With doors now to close, the dogs evenings are spent curled up by the stove. Happy hounds!
We bought new French doors, and hard as it may be to believe, we even bought a tool My Loving Spouse did not already own. The tool cost less than $5 and made chiseling out the wood for the hinges much easier. I knew we needed the tool as soon as I learned it was called a ‘Butt Marker’ and yes, I burst out laughing at Lowes’s!!! A ‘Butt Marker’…. all I could think of was how I’ve spent most of my life trying to make sure my butt didn’t mark anything!
The ‘Butt Marker’ in action.
Our ‘Grand-puppy’ Starbuck gives My Loving Spouse some help with the installation.
In…
Staining the doors to make them match the trim.
A trip to the workshop to dig around all our old bits and the new doors are adorned with wonderful old door knobs and plates.
Stunning doors that look as if they have been here for a very long time!
Now, I just need to paint the room, find a rug, fix the windows….
I dropped my first egg. Darn it. It was one of those days. I was in a bit of a funk and the egg just slipped out and went…splat.
I’ve applied for the same job twice and finally got to the interview process last Friday. This job makes me excited, and I think it would be ‘right’. Aid at the Developmental Pre-school serving and helping the little ones and the teaching staff. A way to come full circle from the days my little one was struggling. One of the interview questions was, “Could I run fast enough to catch a 5-year-old running away?” Could I catch them? I am a trained expert in this field, as I am in juice clean up and crowd control. I was impressed as well, at my ability to get in and out of those tiny little chairs we had to interview in. However, they said they’d ‘call’ and they didn’t.
In an effort to be productive, I started to varnish the new French doors. Unfortunately, I was ‘under instructed’ from My Loving Spouse, who had said, “It is just like painting. You can do it.” Yes, well it turns out to be not just like painting and a lot harder. Luckily, he walked in just as I was mucking it up. Upon hearing that I was having a ‘ bad day’ and needing to get me off the whole ‘varnishing is easy’ job, he had a brilliant idea. “Why don’t you go get Jubal and plow the driveway?” This was a good on many levels:
Yep, worked like a charm. After plowing the driveway and getting Jubal back into the barn without incident I checked the eggs again. The girls did not disappoint me and there were two more eggs! As My Loving Spouse was admiring my plowing job, I managed to drop my second egg. However, this time if fell into the deep soft snow and all was fine!
As I have mentioned, the Queen’s realm was lacking the majesty it deserved. Isn’t it amazing what a little paint, cleaning and organizing can do for a room? I, the Queen am happy in my new realm and smile whenever I go in the laundry room.
My special paint, ‘Someone screwed up half price blue’ is clean, inviting and easily worth twice its price. The shelves that I have always loved and brought with us, have not had a home in our new house, but they did just fit here in the laundry room, at least after I bent the floor heater a teeny tiny bit and hammered them into place, then they fit. I needed a way to organize everyone’s clothes, (because I do wash them, but I don’t deliver them). I was too cheap frugal to spend a lot of money on fancy big baskets, so I modge-podged apple boxes with newspaper. Being that this is Washington, apple boxes are easy to find. I felt a little funny modge-podging them, as really, who does this? BUT, I liked them and after all this is my room/realm. Then I remembered that my mother had wall papered waste baskets to match the wall paper in different rooms and this thought was oddly NOT comforting. However, I continued to modge-podge away anyway.
My all time favorite of the laundry room is my ‘new’ detergent holder. A very old-fashioned aluminum cooler that I found in our garage and ear marked as ‘mine’ and ‘do not throw it away’ because it is cool and I’m going to use it for something. It does not have a lid, so for this use, it is perfect.
We got the arctic wind to stop blowing through the laundry room by picking up two cast off doors for a few dollars from The Habitat for Humanity store. Adding these missing doors certainly makes the room warmer and cleaner. This space will still someday (God willing) become part of the Master bathroom so I didn’t want to spend very much money on it. However, we spent less than $80, and it was well worth it and the Queen of the Laundry is pretty darn happy.
True confession, even though I gave many, many, many away, we still have some pumpkins left! Stored in the barn for future uses is a small pile of pumpkins. Well, you don’t just throw away something that the cow and the chickens will eat. Yes, the ones out in the yard are a bit frozen. However, if I stomp on them a bit then Elsie Gump will still eat them, she likes her pumpkin broken up, frozen or not.
I did find one more use for my biggest pumpkin. It is the official horse-feed-line-divider. The horses’ hay needs to be kept in two piles or Dolly as ‘head of the herd’ will try to drive Dixie off of the food. I’d have to say, that as a horse-feed-line-divider, my mighty pumpkin looks a bit less than impressive and gets rolled around a bit when the trough is empty, but all in all, it does seem to be doing the job.
My Sons may have originally led the crowd in the eye rolling department whenever my amazing pumpkin patch was mentioned, however now they love, love, love left over pumpkins, some saved especially for them. Why? Two words… target practice… and really big ‘splats’, which is more than two words, but you get my drift. The day after Christmas my two were out setting up pumpkins on fence posts. I didn’t know which we’d run out of first, shot-gun shells or pumpkins.
When they were young, I was the one primarily playing catch with them in the yard, so when they said, “Mom, do you want to try it?” What’s a good mom to do? I have to say, that I may have been slightly under informed at exactly how this particular gun might work. No one told me to hold on tight or that it would try to knock me down. I’m sure there are a few girl friends back home who will be very impressed that this footage even exists. Hopefully, this link works, if so, make sure you stay with it to the end, as it is the look on my face which I find priceless. Ellen & the shot-gun
Yes, I got the pumpkin and yes, we still have a few pumpkins left.
Happy New Year!
With respect to The Teen, (who loves all things Chinese), I am dubbing this “The Year of the Egg”. We’ve been feeding these hens, (the Luciles and the two Lucys) ‘laying meal’ for months now, and they haven’t been laying anything… until Sunday. After church on a whim, I checked the nesting boxes and found our first egg! It was sort of exciting. It was also sort of small, but My Loving Spouse told us the first ones would be.
Encouraged that this was now the beginning of a long egg laying season, I checked the nesting boxes again the next morning to find not one, but two eggs! This clinched it, our hens are ‘normal’ or as The Teen said, “Our chickens were not defective!”
In three days, we now have 7 eggs, almost a whole egg carton!
What a great way to start the new year!
Our chickens are settled in and producing, it seems like a good sign for Glory Farm.
I am looking forward to sharing our egg abundance.
I wish you all an abundant and blessed New Year.
In the all important ‘big’ picture, the laundry room will someday be moved and the space incorporated into the Master bathroom to make it… masterful. However, for now the Queen of the Laundry (me) has had an awkward, tired, COLD and depressing room to work in. We needed to make a change. Some of us didn’t really understand the need for this project as they rarely go into the laundry room. I knew I could do most of the work myself, but I need them to move the dryer vent and disconnect the old sink.
After I got them to spend a bit of time in the laundry room, they quickly (well…not quickly… more like eventually) came to the same conclusion that it needed some help. Luckily for My Loving Spouse, Number Two Son was here to help should there be any issues under the house that he couldn’t reach, and assuring us all that we’d be connected to the ‘real’ world during all work as he is an expert at maintaining his connection on his iphone.
Down through the trap door in the ‘master’ bathroom to reach the plumbing, dryer vent and have a good look around.
Now this is what real loving looks like.
Thank you Sweetie….
See how great his new hip works? Actually, this was a great find, as not only was he able to move the dryer vent, but he really did have a good look around and saw he can ‘easily’ get to all of our plumbing. The plans to improve and update our plumbing are now in the beginning stages, while I tackle the painting and clean up of the laundry room.
As you can see, I have all the needed supplies paint roller, rag, paint and diet coke. I’d set out for the hardware store with a beautiful gray/blue paint color firmly decided on for the new, bright and cheery laundry room. However, I did find a color, I liked even better.
It is called, “Someone screwed up Half price Blue”.
Goodbye old Laundry room!
We are slowing getting plugged in. Of course the colder weather (it is currently 28 and lightly snowing) has something to do with it.
Our diesel truck gets plugged in to keep the “core heater warm” (and no, I don’t really know what I am talking about but it does make it easier for My Loving Spouse to start it). The only thing The Teen and I need to understand is we must unplug it prior to our driving it.
Our Hen House has a heat lamp in it, keeping Lucile, Big Red, Left-Over-Lionel and the girls warm and cozy. The light shines at night through their window and it looks to me, as if they are all up late reading.
One day in the fall a sweet farm friend said something about winter and horses and water and freezing and trough tank heaters. I said, “Hun?” Later, I asked My Loving Spouse if we needed trough heaters and he said, “I don’t know, I don’t think so”. Well, the real answer should have been, “Heck YES!” All the water freezes in inch thick blocks that have to be broken open for the animals….often. Out in the farm-yard we had/have lots of stand pipes (water pipes that don’t freeze) and lots of electricity to various out buildings. The only slightly small hitch is that the stand pipes seemed to have been disconnected to the water source a very long time ago and the electricity should have been. My Loving Spouse took one look at the electrical and pulled it all out, completely rewiring the barn this summer. (Barn #1 not the other buildings…yet). So we didn’t have the trough, the water or the electricity in the right place and we needed to re-position our fences, so that the horses and the cow could use the same trough. Moving the fences wasn’t too hard and I managed to handle that on my own, score one for me. 
The only way to fill the trough at this point was with not one, but two hoses. These hoses had been ‘winterized’ (hung up dry so no water freezes inside them) by yours truly, so score one for the hoses as they were frozen anyway. The day I tackled this, it was of course 19 degrees and the animals were thirsty, so outwitting the hoses was a necessity. I drug all the frozen hoses inside the house and crammed them into the shower and ran the hot water on them. This did work to thaw them, so score two for me. 
Score ten for My Loving Spouse, who then showed up on his lunch break with the tank heater, thawed out his wife, filled the trough with the now thawed hoses.
The only other item currently to get plugged in came in the form of my Christmas present. Which just goes to prove the newly adapted old saying…warm wife, happy life!
