Daybook Entry for 3-29-10

Time for another 'Daybook Entry' :) This does seem to help me post more. I never have anything big to share on here so this lets me share little things all at once.

Outside my window... It is beautiful today!!! Even this morning during animal chores, I only needed a sweater. I LOVE SPRING!!!!

I'm thinking... About Passover today. Tonight starts the beginning of Passover and we are doing a Passover dinner and going to read the symbolism of the first Passover vs. what Jesus did for us on the cross. Really excited about this:) This will be the first time we do Passover (it is part of dd's school curriculum with the study of Old Testament times) but after reading a lot on it, I'm hoping it can become a new tradition for us.

I am thankful for... Jesus. I don't usually talk about my faith much, but I need to. In not doing so I'm showing my family, friends and others that I don't really value it much. This needs to be what is on my tongue most all the time, not just when it comes up. I truly want to put Christ first in my life.

In my kitchen... Going to be doing some cooking and cleaning today. In the Bible, leaven is used to sybolize sin and for Passover the Jewish people clean out their homes of all leaven (yeast, baking powder and soda). While we (as Christians) believe that Jesus now cleans us of our sin, I thought we'd use this as a 'hands on' way to show getting rid of our sins. It'll be a good excuse to buy fresh 'leaven' in about a week and to get my cabnets clean:)

Creativity this week included... Mostly crochet. I finished my mom's scarf (just in time for spring!!! LOL) I forgot to get a pic of it done though. I also made another scarf in the same pattern, but different yarn and am working on another in a different pattern and yarn. Should be able to get this last one done tomorrow and I'll take pics soon:)

My reading indulgences... Still about Passover mostly. I really don't read a whole lot for myself, mostly because we read so much for dd's schooling. We almost always have a book on tape going in the car (this helps when most car rides are at least 20-30 mins long). We are finishing up 'Rainbow Garden' by Patricia St. John - all of her children's books in this series are wonderful:). We are also reading on the ancient Greeks, mythology and their gods/godesses. And we have daily Bible reading as well. I think dd is actually in the middle of reading two different books for herself as well:)

Around the house... Vast difference from the last post;) It is a mess and I have a lot to do today to get ready for tonight's dinner. I need to at least find the dining table, LOL!!! Probably will need to clean the kitchen some so I can make the dinner;) Okay, so time to get off of here, I guess :)

Hopefully I'll have some pics (if I remember) of tonight's Passover dinner and some of the scarves, and maybe it's time to do an update on all the animals out here as we have some that have grown and some that are new:)

Have a wonderful day!!!

Some pics (and a SNAKE!!!)

Well, I am finally getting to posting some pics (and at the end is an explanation of WHY I am actually getting to this). This is what I've been up to the last couple of weeks...


This one is of my limited embordery scissor collection. I've had more scissors than these, but I loose them pretty quickly:) And look Marianne...I've still got the ones you gave me for Christmas!!! LOL Actually I keep pretty good track of those being that they are my favorite:) Notice that they are all 'wearing' their 'fobs'. I have NO idea why they are called scissor fobs, but I guess that is what the pretty beading is called:) The top one on the right side (the green and blue one) was made by Monique of 'My Mark Designs' and I won it through a give-away she had on Facebook. It is really, very pretty and goes with my 'Rose Tudor' scissors perfectly. The rest, I made and I love working with the pretty beads to make up things to match my scissors. The one on the bottom left hand side actually goes on the zipper of my purse. It doesn't have scissors that it belongs to (YET anyway;). This one is a project that I started at the beginning of the year. A 'new year' project:) I'm about half way on it and it is another part of the 'Saltbox Scripture' series from Little House Needleworks. This one is "Blessed are the Merciful".

Here is a pic of a scarf I've been working on forever!!! I made my mom a blue scarf for Christmas and she really liked it. Said it was the first scarf she's had that didn't cause static, so she wanted another, but pink this time. Well, since I'm still learning how to crochet (I just used double crochet stitch in the first one) I thought I'd try something different. I've tried a couple different ways and I pulled them all out. They were okay, but just not what I wanted. So I'm now doing one row with double crochet and the next with triple crochet. It is finally working for me!!! :)
Here is the surprize I found this morning!!! My early morning routine is to get up with dh a little after 4:00 to make his breakfast/lunch and see him off. Then I stitch/crochet for a short while and then go back to bed. When I got to my room, this guy/gal was climbing out of a (rather large) hole in our wall. I didn't think to get a pic then (as I was freaking out!!!). But after he/she crawled back through the wall (hissing at me the whole time) and I called my dh and started looking in the basement to see if it went there, I did manage to calm down enough to get a picture. Our basement is one of those that you don't like to spend much time in and we've had to pull out most of the sheetrock because of mold, so that's why it is such a mess. Aparently that is exactly what this guy/gal likes!!! Well, I couldn't just leave it there, so I grabbed a couple broom handles (that my dd likes to play with - no broom, just the long handles;), and pulled it down into a trash can and put a box on it. I knew that wouldn't hold him though, so I put it into a cooler....

Do you think this will hold him? LOL :) I know they are pretty strong though, so I keep going down and checking to make sure it is still in there (I did unplug the drain hole in the cooler so it would have air). I have looked on-line and I think it is either a Kansas Glossy or a Western Rat Snake. Couldn't tell the difference between the two and wasn't going to open up the cooler to get a closer look. I know it isn't poisonous. It was trying to mimic a rattler, but I got a good look at its tail and there isn't anything there:)

Well, you now know why I couldn't go back to sleep (and why I may NEVER be able to go back to sleep!!!) and so I was up to put a new post on here!!! :)

It's already 8:00am here now anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter anymore that I couldn't go back to bed;0) I hope everyone is having a great day. Time to get something done for the day!!!

Daybook Entry for 3-19-10

Okay, I'm going to try something new for me in an effort to actually end up posting once in a while:) I stole this off of someone's else's blog and she called it 'Daybook Entry'. Not sure what I'll call it yet, but an update is an update, right? :)

Outside my window...It is cloudy and cold again. In for a snowstorm tonight and tomorrow, hopefully that will be it for the year!!!

I'm thinking...That I need to get off the computer and actually get something done today.

I am thankful for... The weather the last couple of days. It was beautiful yesterday!!!

In my kitchen...Not as messy as usual;) I do need to finish up the dishes and maybe try (again) to make some gf bread. I've not had much luck with that yet.

Creativity this week included...Cross stitching, as usual, and some crocheting. Working on an exchange for a stitching group on the cross-stitch and working on a blanket for us with the crocheting. Pics to come.

I am going...to our LNS tomorrow!!! At least I will be if the weather holds out.

My reading indulgences...Mostly reading on Passover right now as that is coming up soon. Also started reading another Amish fiction series.

Around the house...Not too bad. Spent most of yesterday cleaning. Need to finish up a few things, but it is realitively clean. The house is never clutter free though as it is so small and not enough room for what we have, but it is what we have:)

Well, enough for now. I'm hoping to do one of these once a week and may have a picture post once a week as well to help with keeping up:) We will see.

Updated pics

Finally getting around to putting up the pics from the last post:) Here are a couple pieces I've been working on. I love the bird, though I did change several of the colors to ones I liked better.

This one was done as a Christmas ornament exchange. I think this is the first ornie that I've finished and I like how it turned out. If it hadn't been such a pain in the hiney to stitch (it was stitched on 32 ct, over one) I might think about making another for me:)

Here is a pic of my crocheting basket. Just various beginner projects, none of which I have finished.

This is the colonial style dress I made as a play dress/costume for dd. It is a little wrinkly here and it turned out too big on her, but it is cute and worked for her 'enrichment' class dress up day. This was quite a project for me as I hadn't made more than a skirt since high school (and then I had a teacher to tell me what the pattern meant:) Other than the zipper (which I could go back and fix, but won't) it turned out pretty good.

Lastly, this is one of our new cows. We have four, but I couldn't get them all to pose for a picture at one time:) This one was the closest and the best picture. They all have slightly different markings, but are pretty much the same. This one is named 'Spot' (for the spot on his rump). There is another that has a spot on his rump too, but has a black face and there-fore is named 'Black Face'. Another has a pure black back and is named (wait for it, we are so cleaver with naming cows;), 'Black Back'. And the last is named 'T-Bone', first because we are mean and second, because he has a big white 'T' mark on his back. We only name them because we need a way to tell them apart when they are little and get sick (that way we know which ones to watch and which ones need meds). We don't have enough to go to the trouble of tagging yet, so for now naming them will work:)

Nothing much new going on around here other than getting ready for Christmas. I am actually going to get Christmas cards sent out this year and got new pics of dd too:) I am also stitching some ornies for gifts and something for dd too, though she doesn't know about that yet.

Hope everyone is staying warm (we AREN'T!!!) and having a good holiday season:)

Been a long time:)

Okay, I know I said I'd do better and blog more;) I usually am waiting until I have pics to share before I write and well, I'm not good with remembering to take pics, and so I don't post.

Today, however, I'm going to just write a post with no pics so that I will at least get an update on here.

I've been busy, busy here lately, but for the next couple of weeks it looks like things are slowing down, which I really like:) I'm very much a 'home-body' and so lots of running makes me a little crazy:)

I've been sewing (a costume/play dress) for my dd, running to lots of activities for her, learning to crochet, doing a bit of stitching and looking at all the fun Christmas crafts I *might* get around to doing at some point. We also have taken our Jersey bulls in for slaughter and have 4 new (about 3 weeks old) Holstein bulls. They are really cute and I will get a pic soon before they get too big. I had forgotten how much work the little ones take though, as they get sick pretty easily when they are that young and aren't with their mommas. Between making sure they are all happy and well and bucket feeding a couple times a day (not to mention the 'clean-up' they require), they alone keep us busy.

I've also started helping out at our Awana meetings in the 'Cubbies' group (they are all the 3 and 4 year olds, and are so very cute:). That has been a lot of fun and as I'm already at the church with dd, it helps the time go by quicker too. Our Awana meeting is about 20 min away from home (as it just about everything else:), so it doesn't work out for me to come back home during the meeting. And this is much more fun anyway:)

Hopefully I can get some pics taken of some of the projects I've been working on and can then post them soon. No promises though:) hehehe

Wet!!!

We got a little rain a couple of days ago:) We really needed the rain but it seems like we either get nothing, or a LOT. We got a little over 3 inches and this is what it does to our place...
The above picture is of our river, I mean drive way. This isn't as bad as we've had it, but it's pretty close. All the water from the farmer's fields to the south and west of us (and maybe a river to the south of us, but we think it's too far away to be where this is coming from) flows through our place on its way to a river to the north of us. We know it's connected to a river somewhere because we get fish and crayfish left over after the flooding.

This pic is of our front pasture just to the north of the drive way (which is also still in the pic). About 2 acres of fast flowing 'lake'. Below you can see that at least the duck is happy about our new landscape:)

Yep, that's one happy duck!!!

Our drive way is now fairly dry with just a couple puddles left and the front pasture is mostly just extremely muddy, though some water is still flowing through. I actually like having the flooding (our house is safe, so I don't have to worry about that), because we have ducks (other than ours) and other water birds come to visit. And dd loves to look for the fish and crayfish and whatever else she can find in the water. She just wears her mud boots and stomps around in the water. We make her wear the mud boots because we don't know what is running off the fields (and we don't let her in the water at all if the fields have been sprayed within a couple days before the flooding).

I still need to post about some sewing and stitching I have been working on. As soon as I get that small quilt done and the small stitching project I am working on done, I'll post those:)

Progress

I think I've decided that, like gardening, I am horrible at blogging:) I have gotten some things out of my garden this year, which is an improvement over last year, but it is still very over grown with weeds (which is why you won't get a picture of the garden, hehehe). Here is a picture of the tomatoes and some volunteer sunflowers I picked yesterday. It is great that the sunflowers take care of themselves (and re-seed themselves) because I think I've proven time and time again that I cannot keep flowers alive!!!
I arranged the sunflowers with some 'wild flowers' I found during my morning walk. I think they turned out nice:) In the back ground of the picture is our dog 'Gracie'. She is a bit spoiled and lazy:)

I also have a new pic of our 'boys'. WOW have they gotten big (at least for Jersey bulls) and mean (normal for Jersey bulls). We are just about ready to send them off to be 'processed'. I thought that would be hard on me as when they were little I bottle fed them and petted them. However, the older and bigger and more aggressive they become, the more ready I am to have them gone, hrmm, in the freezer:)

I hope to have some progress pictures on stitching and maybe a small wall quilt to show off next time. I'm trying to get a few things made and ready to start up an Etsy shop. We'll see how much time I have though:)