Posted in Family updates
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Finally the rain has come. Not in time to save our garden but that is ok there is always next year. We of course are stepping back and regrouping. We are still getting requests from local restaurants, etc but unfortunately there isn't much we can do for them. We haven't been able to get the green houses up that we want, yet. We were able to save quite a bit of seed from this past season so we should be pretty good to go. I am working full time in the Crumb Stash, my best friend's new bakery. I am in charge of jellies and jams and general helping out. It has been a ton of fun to work together with her. I am also taking the time to finish my cookbook and a few other books that I have started. My web store has been moved over to Plunderhere.com. A wonderful little auction place that is growing by leaps and bounds. Family oriented and very friendly. Fees are nominal especially when compared to eBay. Miss Claire is enjoying 3rd grade. She has absolutely wonderful teachers this year and is excelling to her full potential in school finally. She has discovered reading for fun and can be found with her nose in a book no matter where she is. She has also sprouted so that she is almost as tall as mommy. Apparently daddy has blinked and didn't realize that his baby girl (almost 9) has started growing up a bit. However, one of the neighborhood boys hasn't blinked and has been coming by to show off bike tricks and tease Claire constantly. She hasn't a clue and just thinks "he is a pain in the butt." But it is an age old story that continues whether we want it to or not. Oh he is a 4th grader. This of course is a big deal within Claire's circle of friends. Which seems to have grown this year. After so many tragedies the last few years, I can really see my happy go lucky little girl has come back to me. She has finally come to terms with the loss of her grandmothers, her sister and everything that she thought would always remain. She laughs, jokes, plays, sings (bless her heart she sings as bad as her mother), enjoys life, is back to being very artistic. It is just amazing. There is always talk of how resilient kids are. I truly believe they can only be that way with love, patience and understanding. Someone once told me that if you treat children like they are broke they always will be. To point I think this is true but they will not bounce back with out the help and understanding of their family. Then there is Mr. Morgan. What can I say, almost 3 yrs old now. Rowdy, adventurous and extemely sure of himself. He actually made it through the night last without an accident. Potty training is coming a long pretty well. Had to explain to Mr. Mom that kids will not stop what they are doing to go potty. It's not laziness just a kid, that's why their are parents (or one of the many reasons there are parents). We have the wonderful job of making them stop to go potty. On other Morgan fronts, he is talking beautifully, no more baby talk unless he is trying to be cute. Superman is the ultimate hero, Carebears are pretty cool too (if he thinks you are being mean he will lift his shirt and do the Carebear stare). He has discovered books and loves going to the library to get a new book every week. Well, it's a Saturday morning and other than the library and taking some pictures of our truck so we can sell it we have nothing really planned. The house is company ready, mount washmore is more of a hill now and I am going to be lazy for the first time in I don't know how long. I am going to curl up with a book and read for a bit, maybe even take a small morning nap. Then we will go to the library. We will have a late lunch early dinner, of what I have no idea but it will be good. Possibly some steak fajitas. Enjoy your saturday!! |
Posted in Family updates
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We have been working to get Morgan back on a regular sleep schedule. Today we went ahead and kept him up with no nap. He fell right asleep tonight. I am trying to reclaim my house from disaster. Kitchen is almost done, living room and bathroom are near completion as well. The bedrooms won't be a very big deal those are mostly straightening. Once all of this is done we will be cleaning the carpets.
We are holding off any more outside work until after this weekend. Recovering from the holidays has been a chore. We have no plans for New Year's Eve, most years we hardly manage to stay up to see the new year come in.
Jay is adjusting to the cats being in the house. And I think he is even beginning to grow fond of them. This is a new experience for us. I leave the bedroom window open for them to go in and out.
One of my goals for ending the new year is to have my blog, farm website and partner site. This includes current pictures information etc. I am also updating my farm newsletter and adding a newsletter to my partner site. The partner site is called High Tech Homestead. We have just about solidfied plans for the farm for the new year. It looks like things are going to be going very well. I am writing up press releases for local newspapers and for some online places. Rankings in the search engines are getting better. I have also just signed up for a parnter page through google for the farm and will be doing it for the other sites as well.
I have accepted a position as a volunteer on the marketing board for Food for Everyone Foundation. That takes some time as well, I am learning the ins and outs of working with a non-profit organization. There are of course pros and cons to this type of business. But the rewards of helping others around the world are astounding.
Well, off to finish up office work and get my happy rear to bed.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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Well, there are just a few days left in 2006. First the first time in a long while I am looking forward to the new year. Webstie updates are almost complete, the first press releases are almost done. It is just moving right along. Our family is happy and healthy and very thankful for an excellent Christmas.
Well, I am going to slip back into bed for just a bit, then it is time to clean house and get it organized. Tomorrow will be the basement. Friday the rest of the outside. ;)
Blessed be!
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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We got through Morgan's teething, bless his heart that was rough. Just as we were getting used to sleeping again Claire came home last Wednesday very sick. Headach, sore throat, stomach ache, fever. Took her to the doctor the next morning surprise, surprise strep. She got worse and worse over the weekend. Turns out she had a virus on top of the strep, she ended up dehydrated. She had sores in her mouth and couldn't talk, eat and refused to even drink. She gave us quite a scare. We had taken her back into the doctor, she was given some pain med and cream to use. Today she woke up feeling fine, still tired but in much better spirits. She is staying home from school again tomorrow to finish recovering and we have had to postpone her birthday party.
Jay is looking at starting a new permanent job next week. He will be going to Louisiana to do post construction clean up. The area there that is seeing a huge boom in building is about 30 miles north of Katrina's path. There are houses and offices going up all over the place. So it will be just me and the kids until the end of the school year. We will have periodic visits when we can.
Morgan is speaking in 3-4 word sentences and we can understand about 80% of what he says. Right now a shoulder shrug or the plain word no seem to be his favorite responses. He doesn't walk anywhere, his little legs look like a pair of pistons going a hundred miles an hour.
I am working on my writings, which will be going up on the farm website soon. I have also opened a full fledged eBay store that is doing magnificently. This is our off season income for the farm. We haven't had a chance between illnesses, unexpected bills and what not to get our greenhouses up and going. However, we have been working the soil, by spring it should be a wonderful dark brown almost black. Granted with Jay gone it will be mainly myself working. Claire does a wonderful job when she does work, but she is only 8 yrs old, not quite ready to take on a full work load.
Some of the things we have been selling are quilt books, craft books, novels, fabric, we are starting to load up christmas items now. In the near future there will be home decor items, purses, herbs and spices, candles, soaps. eBay is giving us such a broader market it just absolutely wonderful.
Well, I am off to bed. I had a dress order come in tonight that is going to have me quite busy.
Everyone have a wonderful night!!
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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Claire's foot is healing nicely. Morgan is almost done with cutting his two year molars, thank God. We are having some really good success selling craft books on eBay. Quilts are picking up, slacking off on dresses right now. I might just switch to making flannel night gowns. Birthday preparations are under way for Claire's Halloween Birthday party. I have gotten into the habit of starting weekly topics on a couple of Yahoo groups that I own, CountryFamily and FrugalHomesteading. The responses to this has been pretty good.
I have some phone calls to make tomorrow about squaring away places to set up on the weekend with baked goods and crafts and then this spring I will set up for CSA drops and produce sales. One of the next things I will do is get my newsletter going again. And I need to finish updating my website.
Those last things will be finished once I complete the reloading of software. I had a hard drive crash over the weekend. I just hate reloading software.
Well anyway, off to relax a bit for the night.
If you are interested here are the links to the current eBay sales.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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We started off with the best of intentions today to get outside work done. I don't know exactly what came over us but a little while after we started a half hearted attempt at doing yard work we decided to call it quits.
We spent a good portion of the afternoon just simply playing with our children. We wrestled, played with Morgan's word cards, laughed as he pretended to eat the picture of the corn and the apple and would grin from ear to ear and say "Good". We talked and made plans, we relaxed. Something in the scheme of things I think we have forgotten to take the time to do.
I don't think it's a matter of what we didn't accomplish today as what we did accomplish. We enjoyed watching our children make up games together (remember there is a 6 yr age difference) and seperately. Even bath time became a fun event. I think we might start following this model of living more often. Get our work done as soon as possilbe in the day and then spend time just playing, relaxing and enjoying each other. It was such a wonderful feeling.
Well, tomorrow, actually today, is another day. I wonder what we will not accomplish then.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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I spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday driving daddy to different appointments, we did enjoy his stay here at the house. As of today he is back to work (tomorrow makes 3 weeks post triple bypass), light duty only, but for him it's better than sitting at the house. He has put his house up for sale and plans on moving down here to North Carolina by Thanksgiving and completely retiring.
Thursday my computer crashed. We are not sure if Morgan the Monster Boy had something to do with it or not. However, between getting it back up and running and my going out on the web to download somethings and getting infected with virii and spyware and all that jazz, my system should be back to normal by tonight. Which means the usual bailing wire and bubble gum to hold it together. I will have the farm website posted in it's new home by Sunday. I will also be listing a new homesteading website next week. This has been in the works and will be ready to go live here shortly. Tons of good information, monthly newsletter, quality homestead products and so much more to offer.
Well it's time to go make eggplant parmasean. A gift from my best friend Dori, of Soaring Eagle Farm, just over that a way in Dobson. :)
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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Well folks, daddy is home safe and sound. A few set backs while he was in the hospital but he is doing wonderfully now. Chomping at the bit to get back into the swing of things. I can imagine how hard it must be for him to have to take it easy and build himself back up. This is a man who has always worked a minimum of 80 hours a week, often times more. He has chosen to quit smoking forever and is urging the rest of the family to do the same. He is almost into the size pants he wore when he married mommy over 30 yrs ago. His outlook on life is something unbelievable, I have not seen him this positive in a long time. Claire wants to go and see Pa-Pa ASAP however we have all decided that daddy needs at least another week before taking on this exuberant child. And defintely a few weeks before taking on Morgan the Monster Man, the extremely active toddler.
As to Claire's first week of school she has done beautifully and decided that her teacher this year "rocks". Interactive powerpoint lessons, learning games tons of things to keep active 7 and 8 yr olds entertained and engaged. Mrs. Venable is an amazing teacher, I liked her right from the start at meet the teacher night. She stood and listened to me ramble about my concerns with Claire's education and addressed each issue. I will also be volunteering one day a week as class mom.
As for Morgan the Monster Man, he has officially hit the terrible 2's at 21 months old. Stubborn, defiant and tantrums over what seems like nothing to an adult. He is talking in 2-3 word sentences and has no problem what so ever expressing his wants, needs and desires. He has also been struggling with the fact that "Care" is back in school. So he walks with us to the bus stop in the morning and in the afternoons if he has woken from his nap soon enough.
Jay is changing jobs, this one a much better one at Vaugn-Basset furniture company. He will be sanding furniture. Right now it is looking like day shift hours. He starts this Monday. It will be a pay increase and a lot more potential with in the company.
As for myself, I am steadily plugging away at the farm website and hope to have that posted sometime tonight. I am also gearing up for a farmyard sale. Orders have been fairly steady coming in for the dresses that I make and for the baked goods.
We went to the local habitat for humanity home shoppe yesterday looking for a dresser for Claire, we didn't see one that would fit into her room so we are still looking. However, they had baskets on sale for 10 cents a piece. I picked up 36 lovely baskets to use around the house and for the farm sale. They had several racks of clothing, we managed to find 4 brand new shirts for Claire. These still had their original price tags on them. We also finally found lamp shades for the lamps my aunt had given us at Christmas.
That's all the general news on the family.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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My goodness steady soft summer rain all day. Maybe this heat spell will be broken. But the gardens were sure soaking it all up. Daddy had a set back due to a bad coughing spell but seems to be ok. I will be spending the afternoon and night with him tomorrow. It's hard on the kids for mommy to be gone and Claire just doesn't completely understand why she can't go help take care of papa too. I did tell her that once he is home and settled a bit I will take her to visit. Little man is going to have wait a few weeks until Daddy is definitely healed up more. We don't want him to accidentally jump on him and hurt him. At 21 months old he doesn't realize that when he runs and jumps or when headbutts someone it actually hurts.
But all will be well. At least the rains have finally come. We may not officially get out of the drought from one good rain but the break from the humidity will be wonderful.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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As always there is excitement around here. My dad had a heart attack last Friday. He went for open heart surgery yesterday and came through with flying colors. He will be moved tomorrow to a cardiac step down unit at the hospital. My brothers have stepped up and are handling things wonderfully. They really have grown up a lot. I get to be the visiting one instead of the one in charge of everything for once and I am loving it.
He had a triple bypass. His heart fired right back up and his blood pressure went to normal righ away. All good signs. He is of course very sore. But otherwise he is well. He got a special treat. All three of his children were there when he woke up and we were all on our best behavoir. How long that lasts is yet to be seen.
Daddy was also insistent before going in that we all go about our business as normal. He will be fine for now. We don't ever know what the future holds for us. But for now he is out of the woods.
Well need to get going on a lot of things. Will post more later.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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Posted in Family updates
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After a very brief illness of unknown origin we lost our 10 month old puppy Brownie. He died in my arms and went across the Rainbow Bridge at 1130 pm tonight. We will deliver the news to the girls tomorrow after school. I know it seems a long time to wait but we do not want them missing school and this devastating news would cause that. I will be adding Brownie's picture to our photo album here and updating our website to dedicate a page to his young life. We may eventually get another dog, however it will not be any time soon. There will be no replacing him in our hearts.
He was a rambunctious pup, with a ton of personality. We believe he may have ingested something. It is hard to say as his illness set in suddenly.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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The kids are up and eating breakfast, so I am sneaking a little bit of time on the computer before starting the day. They saw their Easter Baskets and were so excited that the Easter Bunny found them. We moved last summer and they were worried that Santa wouldn't find them and neither would the Easter Bunny. Even my 11 year old still believes. They kept singing "Happy Easter" so now even the 17 month old is saying "Happy Eas" no that is not a typo. LOL That was as close as he could get.
The best news came yesterday, it looks like my dad got my dh hired on with him. Which will work out so much better than the hit miss of his last employer. He will still be traveling but daddy is going to do his best to see that DH comes home every other weekend. So today I will be going through all the laundry and getting his clothes packed. He leaves 2 pm tomorrow. He will be working on the maintainence crew for the concrete company daddy works for.
As for our gardens, well we now have 4 beds in the front yard and I will be putting in the largest bed this week in the backyard. So far we have spincach, lettuce, sweet peas, snow peas beets and red onions coming up. Our broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts are doing beautifully even though it has been so dry. We planted more red onions, green onions, leeks, 2 varieties of raddishes, 2 varieties of green beans, eggplants, pickling and slicing cucumbers on Friday. I am going to have to re-do my poor carrots they were ravaged by the baby. He sat in the garden going, "Mum Mom. YUMMM" and left me with about 10 tiny seedlings.
The back garden bed will contain tomatoes, sweet peppers, okra, cantaloupe, water melon, pumpkins, mesculin, second plantings of green beans, peas, snow peas, lettuce, spinach. The herb garden is going to be enlarged I think I have about 15 different herbs to go in. I am also going to put all the hot peppers in a seperate mini bed and I still need to make a potato bed.
Well breakfast is over and the kids are waiting to dive in to their Easter baskets. I will post more later tonight.
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) |
Posted in Family updates
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DH made it to Fresno and is safely in his room. He will be ready to be picked up to come home for a day or so Saturday morning around 1 am. My oldest daughter Rebekkah is back from her best friend's house where she spent the weekend. Tired and late but it was not her fault. From now on I will go pick her up myself.
Morgan went to bed about an hour and a half ago. Just plain worn out. He loves to be outside and so we try to make sure he gets to be out and about as much as possible. His favorite outdoor activity is playing in the dirt now with cars. Cars, trucks and something to dig with.
Claire is ready to go to bed, tired but happy. She missed her big sister and is happy to have her home safe and sound. She is still happy and jolly, so maybe we will see more of the old Claire everyday. :) |