2020 Reading Challenge and other tidbits

 

My book arrived.  I just hope it isn't one I already read from the library over the years ha ha!  I hope to get some reading done ASAP.  I need a mental break from life overall.

We are getting some very nice weather this weekend.  Possible high 70's degrees on Sunday.  Crazy!

We are still seeing beautiful colors around the homestead.

When something goes out of the freezer, something goes back in.  Keeping things stocked, with a world of uncertainty.

A head of organic cauliflower and a few yellow squash (organic) were blanched.

Called my Mom.  Didn't talk long, as she was babysitting.  Got caught up with dishes, folded laundry, took scraps out to the chickens, and other mundane tasks.

I put together my barter, now I need a date and time to get it to her.  I hope she likes everything.  She is the family member who had 4 boxes of canning lids shipped to me.  I decided to include a set of homemade cards and a jar opener.

I ordered (and surprisingly received already) a manual coffee grinder.  I realized that we buy organic whole bean (have a cold press), and no way to grind them if the power went out.

I printed a few crochet patterns for winter projects.  I still have some printed recipes floating around the kitchen that I want to try.  If they float around long enough, they may get recycled.  I think I save too many recipes, ha ha!

I'm getting crochet time in most days, just before dinner and sometimes after dinner.

Someone told me that canning supplies will not be made until next March, but I have already seen jars with lids in stores.  I hope lids appear before another shutdown or whatever happens.

I hope everyone is staying calm as they can be, and healthy right now.  We are doing well, although considering I just poured homemade Kahlua in my coffee, I can't really say we are all "calm" here ha ha!

What a year....

What's been going on here?  Well, I realized when I was short of one box, I could go online and order them for free from the USPS.  It's been shipped, but my books have not arrived.

Dirtiest election year ever.  With so much uncertainty for our country, there could be the possibility of my husband losing his job (as well as many other Americans).

There is voter fraud.  It's real.  Friends of my best friend (of many many years who I email every single day) went to vote.  The wife was told she could not vote, because she had already voted.  She said "no I didn't vote."  She had to verify that the ballot that was mailed in was not her signature.  

Haven't started on the bathroom renovation.  My husband has had no time and also no motivation.  He's been working 10 hour days and more overtime is possible next week as well.

No word on the car.  I think my husband has been too busy to even think about calling about it.

Chainsaw parts are delayed, but a friend is loaning us a chainsaw for now (husband just has to go pick it up).

I made headway on my daughter's cardigan while watching the news, but had to turn it off.  I couldn't take anymore of it.

I started to put together a new crochet set to sell.  Made a list of items people requested, and the first things that need restocked.

I've been mentally exhausted by dinner time, so I switched up the dinner last night and made a one dish baked casserole with asparagus in it.  Forgot to take a photo.

I made a batch of Einkorn flour peanut butter cookies.  It was just what we needed at the end of the day.

This and That

I totally forgot about the tomato stakes until I was loading wood to the porch.  I hauled the cart out there, filled 'er up and put them away for the winter. 

I then hauled the cart to the house, and filled it with dead hanging potted flowers etc.  Those were dumped and porch is bit more cleaned off for winter.

King had a seizure last night that lasted 3 minutes.  I will have to watch the dogs very carefully today.  No rough-housing.  Poor pup.  We believe he ate something poisoned when that daughter lived in the apt.  There were people putting out food to entice loose dogs to get poisoned.  He never had seizures until after he got out loose at the apt.

Barter and other randomness

 

I'm putting together my barter for my husband's cousin.  She is the one who found me canning lids and had them shipped to my home.  I bought a red plastic basket and found this cute "canning" decor.  She'll get a jar of home canned tomato soup, home canned ketchup, and some other items I haven't yet decided on.

There are two brands of whole dried elderberries being recalled, and one is certain batch numbers of organic starwest botanicals.  I received an email, but thankfully it is not the batch I bought.

Tuesday was a much less stress over housework kind of day.  So thankful for that.  

I had one daughter home early and the other home later.  We moved front porch furniture (some) into storage and hauled the wood we split to the porch.  

The chainsaw parts have not arrived yet, and there has been no word on my car (going on week 4 of the car).

I haven't found any copies of my "Teabag Tidbits" newsletters.  Yet.  I may have them on a flash drive.

I put a basket of snacks on a small table on my porch.  I also added bottles of water.  I put a note in it for the UPS, FedEx and USPS.  Yesterday UPS came, and it totally made my day to see his smile and watch him take a snack (even with 3 dogs howling).

Teabag Tidbits

Did I ever mention, that years ago I wrote a free newsletter when I was homeschooling?  I also belonged to a writer's club.  Well, kids moved on, and we moved.  Anyway, it was one page, front and back, titled "Teabag Tidbits."  

I will have to dig one out, as I will be looking at my stories hopefully today.  I had so much fun writing the newsletter.  I would copy it and put it in libraries where they had a place to put them. 

Good Advice

It's day two of National Novel Writing Month.  Over the years I lost my mojo.  I'm digging out old stories I wrote too.  Should be interesting.  Not sure I will do it this year, but it's day 3 now.  

I loved to hand write letters too.  I used to correspond with my Aunt. We'd send a letter, sometimes a surprise box and other fun snail mail.  She passed away, I no longer had letters to send.  No fun snail mail.  No surprises for her grandkids.  

She would send me teabags.  I would send her jars of jam/jelly.  She'd send the jars back filled with goodies.  She'd mail me her hand written recipes, and I would send her something hand crocheted or other surprise.  I do miss those days a lot. 

Anyway, once in a while I will post a "Teabag Tidbits" post, with my latest teabag saying.  Today it got me thinking about my passion to write. My laptop broke down a long time ago.  I just haven't had the motivation to spend the cash for a new one, since all the kids are out of school, and we don't fight over the desktop computer.

I remember a website that was called something like "write on" and I won a contest.  I can't remember what I won, but that was fun to do too.

Today's economy is forcing so many print publications to go out of business (or go online with a fee).  I do miss my library for research, and I don't see that happening for many months to years at this point.  

Back to writing, I am looking forward to reading through some work, but it will be limited, so I can still be caught up with the house, splitting wood (parts for the chainsaw are to arrive today), and other stuff.

Happy Homemaker Monday

I can't believe November is already here.  I rolled in with a bang of cold weather.

Sunday, we were up super early due to the dogs on regular time and us on daylight savings. We could have used that extra our of sleep.  My husband and I started back up on purging the garage.  We got a lot done.  There is much to do yet, but it is much better now.

Rehomed the king box spring to our good friends, dog bed steps will go to humane society or Goodwill, sent photos of some wall lights to family to see if they could use them (new in boxes), threw stuff out until our bin was full (more to put in it after trash day).  Some will be burned.   Found tools we thought were lost, found a home for the horse feed bucket left behind by one daughter, found a brand new wheel for my garden cart, will be rehoming a child's rocker to our grand kids, toys my son left behind are going to my nephew...such a good feeling to get that much done in just half the day.  We were done by 1pm, as far as we could.  We'll resume another day.

We got snow about the time we delivered the box spring.  The cold returned for the day, and the sky turned dark.  I literally did dinner prep, put on jammies, and picked up the crochet hook.  Hubby turned on football.

Today I'm joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom.

The weather outside is . . .

Woke up to 20 degrees, high of 47 today and low of 36 degrees.  We are to be up in the 70's by the weekend.

How I am feeling this morning. . .

Actually I feel rested.  Although the dogs got me up early yesterday, I went to bed early and got extra sleep.

On my mind. . .

Election day.  It's causing a lot of anxiety.  I think I will bake some cookies and deliver them to my Dad.  I have not seen him since the beginning of the plan-demic.  I will have to wait for someone to be off work to do that though.

On the breakfast plate . . .

Right now I am . .

Blanching organic spinach.

On today's to-do list . . .

-bake a breakfast for the next few days

-blanch/freeze spinach and chard

-make homemade garlic breadsticks

-sweep/mop kitchen

-wash bedding and any other laundry

-clean one shelf in my refrigerator

On the reading pile . . . 

Stay tuned.  Book has been ordered.

On my TV . . .

Football lately.

On the menu this week . . .

-homemade pizza with home canned sauce and veggies

-crockpot pork chops, mushroom sauce, green beans

-spaghetti with Kamut noodles, peas and homemade cheesy breadsticks

Steel cut oats with apples (breakfast)

Breakfast casserole

From the Camera . . .

New Christmas ornament!  It's not small, but cute.  I wanted to get at least one made, to see if they would be too big for a tree.   I just need a hanger.  I will be making more, after I finish some current projects.

Looking around the house . . .

We now have 2 Christmas trees up.  On daughter put hers up in a corner in the living room (one she used in her apt.).  It's cute, but I think the dogs will get to the ornaments.  I guess we'll see.  I'm not in a hurry to get ours up just yet.  

New recipe I want to try, or one we really enjoyed . . .

I have oodles of new recipes to try.  Stay tuned.  

 Something I want to share . . .

(from Learning Herbs)

On my prayer list . . .

America, our State, the election, Youngest, my Dad's upcoming surgery, our close friends, and any personal request.

Supplies are hard to find

We started our Sunday on the hunt for dog fencing supplies.  The wooden posts are out of stock everywhere.  We located 3, but even with my insistence, my husband did not buy them (hmpf!).  I may talk him into going back today.  We'll see if I'm successful.

I was also on the hunt for a metal watering unit for my chickens.  I literally bought the last one.  I was told by one store that there is a metal shortage, due to the shutdown, and they are all behind in production.  Makes sense.

We were lucky to have breakfast with Youngest and the family of her passing boyfriend.  Gosh, we had such a good time.  I really miss them.

After that we went to vote.  The process was pretty quick.  The line moved continuously.  We decided to vote early.  Overtime is in the books for next week for my husband, and my car is still in repair.  It was better to vote early, than have the chance to not get to vote at all.

We stopped at Home Depot and picked up some door seals to prep for winter (needed replaced).  We looked at flooring for the bedroom.  Not much in stock to choose from sadly.  We picked up solar batteries for some of the solar lights, but need a special kind for our driveway posts.  I may have to order them online.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so we got to splitting wood, but slightly after starting the chainsaw malfunctioned.  Go figure.  Parts are ordered.  We are coming into a nice, warm week, so hopefully the parts arrive early and we can get back at it.

Again, we have ideas for what to get done today, but planning anything is impossible these days.  We need a trailer, that we already put a call in to borrow, to pick up the fencing for the dog fence.  It's pretty heavy stuff, so that's on the "plate."  Not sure if it will be delivered today or not.