Pioneer Woman at Heart

I was astonished this morning.  As I put our United States flag outside, I asked my younger two girls if their school taught them the meaning of Memorial Day.  We watch parades, we see the flags, but do we teach our kids the real meaning?  The answer to that is sad.  My children have not been taught in school.  If it were not for free printable worksheets, free books from the library, and quality time with my kids, they would not be taught. My 2nd grader said, "we got coloring pages" and my 5th grader said her teacher "mentioned" it in passing but there was no real teaching involved.  With the state test taking and requirements, teacher are not teaching kids in school today.  They are being taught to pass a test, and in doing so, have bypassed history and other teachings in the race against statistics.  So if you are a parent and you have relied on the schools to teach your children about Memorial Day, and you have asked them about it and they...

Who says you need electronics to have fun?!

This one is for my 8 year-old's Hope Chest. The other kids could not make up their minds. This is an "in progress" photo, but you can get an idea of the the pattern. This is a ripple pattern from a very old library book that was discarded. I think the older patterns are much easier to read and follow.

What a mouth full that title is. Yesterday my clothesline got a workout.  From early morning until almost 7:00pm it dried clothes, winter coats, zip-up jackets, scarves, gloves, mittens and anything else I found on the girl's floor (or under the bed....long sigh). It will be nice to pack away the winter clothing - clean.  Everything that was washed and dried, and did not fit anyone went straight into the Goodwill pile. As for the part about the uninvited night time guests?  The one dog I call the "couch potato" was the one to alert us.  We aren't sure if they were scoping out the barns, trying to steal gas, or peeping in the windows, but the dog's barking ran them off pretty quickly.  I'm sure this is sign of the times and hooligans back in the area.  Times, like they are, bring hooligans through the woods into back doors, stealing what the can, then selling them to whoever for whatever cash they can get.  We were already warned by a neighbor tha...

Stand by, because this spring clean project may take me a lot longer than I anticipated.  I remember now why I never wanted a two-story house.  Now we have one, so I better get in shape so I can climb the teensy stairs daily.  There is always a "treasure" hidden somewhere causing a foul odor.  Like today. I have dropped all the dirty clothes and sheets to the bottom of the stairs, washed 3 loads of it, scrubbed mattresses, and put a reused shower curtain up for a closet door.  The upstairs is one main area, like in most old farm houses.  Someone, over the years, built a bedroom wall and door in the opposite end, creating a second bedroom.  Both have long closets, but no doors.  Luckily I still has a tension curtain rod, an old plain cotton white shower curtain, and believe it or not, still had hooks.  In no time I had the closet covered.  Now I need to replace all the tiny kids clothes hangers with adult sized, vacuum and shampoo the...

The steel cut oat recipe, my mother e-mailed me, was a huge hit!  It cooked up in less than 7 hours, so I won't be making in at night, as the recipe suggests.  The kids ate it as an after-school snack and said it tasted like Apple Crumble!  We are keeping this recipe, as well as the squash muffin recipe. The recipe came from the Kroger coupon magazine that gets mailed out.  I'll see if I can locate which one and post it later. Today I am trying a new Crock pot beef stew recipe, however I am jazzing it up.  I added frozen tomatoes and corn from last years garden, which were the last two bags we had.  I am going to jazz it up with dried and fresh herbs from my garden in place of using beef broth (which is full of sodium).  I'll probably bake the squash muffins and make a salad too. I am amazed at how little goes into the trash while I cook.  The styrofoam trays are washed and dried for crafting, and what doesn't go in the compost gets fed to t...