Sorry y'all...

I'm going to just post over here now. I know this can be a lot of trouble, but I need to learn how to use Wordpress for something else we're doing. This is a good way to do that.

Take a look at these!

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

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The barn modifications are getting along! I can't say they're done, but they're definitely getting there!

Luke's joined the milking crew!

Also, I may eventually blog exclusively here, just so you know.

Weird

What's with the glasses? They look like they're supposed to be in one of those movie theaters that's playing some 3D movie.

However....


... here they're rather funny!

Seed block pictures

I realized that I haven't posted pictures of the seed blocks we did Thursday. Daddy and Kyle have also done a lot of work out at the barn. Hopefully I (or somebody) will get some pictures of that soon. Until then, here are the seed block pictures:

We planted the tomato seeds in large seed blocks which we made with one of those really big cans of pumpkin.

This week's menus

Tonight we are having Honey and Apple Cider Glazed Pork Roast, with left-over onion-mushroom casserole.

Tomorrow we're having a light dinner night with salad (possibly with grilled chicken if I'll thing to do it), fruit, and maybe some fresh bread (if I'm not too lazy).

Wednesday I might fix ham and bean soup using some of yesterday's left-over ham.

Thursday: any ideas??? I can't get any help around here. Maybe sausage jambalaya (got that, Daddy. You might want to think of something if you don't want it.)

Friday: Grammy's night

Saturday: Grammy's night

Monday we might have a beef roast (I'll do 2, one for tomorrow) with potatoes, carrots, and bread (?).

Tuesday, if I do 2 roasts Monday, we'll probably have Blue Plate Special. Kyle's been requesting this, but I haven't been able to fit it in the schedule.

No grilled meat this week. :( Oh, well. If there's one thing I've learned by making out weekly menus, it's to be flexible... not the easiest thing for me to do, but I'm trying.

Quick thought

Doesn't the hand that rocks the cradle rule the world? If it does, then why are the feminists so eager to gain power in the world outside their home?

A day in my life

The morning started as usual: wake up, get ready, strip bed (that's something we don't do everyday, but it's sheets day), check email and blog feed, go downstairs to empty the dishwasher.

The morning continued as usual: empty dishwasher, wash dishes, make latte, wash more dishes, try to think of ways to use up excess milk.

The morning still continued fairly normally: Think of a couple of ways to use milk (custard and chicken feed), curdle milk for chickens, wash more dishes, finally sit down to eat breakfast, listen to Mama read Supper of the Lamb aloud.

The morning was still more or less normal: Clean up breakfast once Mama finished the chapter, wash dishes, get dinner going, wash more dishes, decide to make custard.

This part's a little abnormal: Make custard, wash those dishes, Claire and Kyle get back from milking, wash milking dishes, finally go back upstairs and make up bed.

Back to normal: Get to set down for a few moments to read blogs, lunch comes up to the big room, eat while watching the new "Mansfield Park" (Aunt Carol recorded it for us!).

Sorta kinda normal: Lunch lasted a long time (movies will do that), clean up lunch and check on dinner, sit down at the computer (for too long, but there's no need to go into that), get ready to pull dinner together.

Not quite normal: Daddy gets home, decide to put dinner off until 6:30pm, look through stash of books in the library (trying to figure out things to put on Paperback Swap), eventually make it downstairs to start getting dinner ready.

Pretty normal: Get rice going, grab a couple of boxes of butter peas out of the freezer and pressure cook them, somehow manage to get dinner ready by 6:30pm, eat and clean up dinner.

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Now, I know the tenses are probably all messed up, but I don't feel like checking it right now. That's a pretty good synopsis of my day though! :)

How do you build a library???

We went to the Nashville/Franklin/Murfreesboro area today, and while we were there we stopped at two Barnes and Noble and a Half-Price Book store. I love book stores. However, I didn't get anything. It's not like they didn't have anything I wanted (they had a lovely set of LOTR and Hobbit, and 1776, and the Iliad, and the Odyssey, and the Aeneid, and ... well, a lot of stuff), but everything was exorbitantly priced or they didn't have it in hardback (which is ideally how I will build my library) or they didn't have a set (I would love a set of the Iliad and Odyssey like this). Maybe I'm just too picky, but I'd sure like to have a library of nice books! I thought that it was very strange that both Barnes and Noble stores we went to only had Narnia in a single volume (that's something else I'd rather not have). I have a lot of things on my Amazon wish list right now because I am looking to replace some of my favorite paperback books with hardbacks, and I can't seem to find some of them anywhere but Amazon.

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For the publishers:

Is anyone out there a publisher in need of a few ideas??? Probably not, but I'll give some anyway:

Daddy Longlegs and Dear Enemy, by Jean Webster, need to be published as a set or at least by the same company. Oh, and make them hardcover please!

Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, by Louisa May Alcott, need to have the same treatment.

Old-Fashioned Girl, by Louisa May Alcott, was published in '95, but if you could... I don't know, maybe make a box set with the above two books, this one, and the Inheritance, all in hardback of course. You'd have at least one buyer (if the set wasn't too expensive)!

Oh, and you know what would be really cool? An entire set, boxed (?), and hardcover of the ancient Greek mythology/plays. Perhaps you could sprinkle in a little of the Roman stuff too (the Aeneid?).

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I'm not trying to completely overhaul my current meager "library," if you can call it that. I'm merely trying to replace, with more lasting books, some of my favorites, and to add some, mostly non-fiction (my current "library" is horribly deficient in that area), books that I have more recently found interesting and good. I have several sets of paperback books that I have no intention of replacing with hardcovers (either because those books are not really worth replacing or it would just be stupid to try). I have the entire Mandie series (we came from the regular world, you know), including the newest that's supposedly and entirely new series about her college days (I know, I know, sounds great doesn't it). I'm only interested in them now because I want to see who she ends up marrying. I have all the books in this series. I have this trilogy. I have this set, although not boxed, and I'm actually looking to complete the set with books by the same publisher. I have this book, but I'm thinking about looking for the novels in separate books. Hey, at least I'm not in the market to replace a certain hardback book I once received with a leather bound one!

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So, if anyone can give me any pointers on library must-haves, or publishers to stay away from, or anything along those lines it would be much appreciated.

Also, if anyone happens to have a like new copy of this and just wants to get rid of it, I would be happy to take it off your hands! :)

It is finished!

Really, this time it is completely done! Binding and all! Sewing starts Saturday (?), hopefully!!! Oh, finishing that is like a breath of fresh air (well, I usually get that feeling when I finish something, but this thing has been going on for three years)! I don't know when, or if, I'll get pictures up. Right now it really needs washing.

That's my Granddaddy!!!

Mama posted about his letter, so I don't need to repeat any of the details. I just had to link to it though! Granddaddy comes out with some pretty surprising things sometimes!

The real question now is: "Why are they requiring even the retirees who want to serve another year (good grief! The Methodist churches I've been to have been desperate for any kind of help/work/assistance/committee member they can get!), and who have served many years before this, to take this class???"

Perhaps I can see it for fresh seminary students, but even then I don't think this sort of thing should even be thought about for pastors! If the "pastor-finding committee" (or whoever) thinks that a prospective pastor might have a problem with this kind of thing, does that not immediately disqualify that prospective pastor as unfit for the role of leading a congregation? I certainly wouldn't want someone like that leading me, my family, or my friends! But now I'm just ranting, so I'll stop.

Long post with a few pictures

Saga of the Rushed Dinner

Last night I had my menus fairly planned out. The meat was thawing, and the side dishes were more or less planned. I had read over the recipe for the main dish (a delicious, but very rich, cubed pork loin recipe) earlier, and knew that I had plenty of time. I made the mistake of not having my side dish recipe, scalloped potatoes, printed out. I spent nearly a half hour that should have been used in cubing the loin trying to print that recipe! Around 4:45 pm, I decided to just wing it, and hope it turned out okay. Of course, we had decided to have dinner around 5:30 pm, so I was doing my best to speed things up. Have you ever noticed how things all go wrong right when you really need them to go right? Well, it did last night. I knew a 5:30 pm dinner was out of the question, but I thought that if I hurried enough a 6:00 pm dinner might just be attainable. I dropped a potato in the compost bowl, which was full of kefir and whey, so that made a rather large mess. I try to be a clean cook. I don't always succeed, but I try anyway. Then I sliced a couple of fingers (not bad enough to bleed, just to frustrate) using the mandoline. Finally I somehow managed to use the chef's knife (don't ask me how, I don't know) where the blade caught another of my fingers. Really, I'm usually very good with knives! I've decided that I don't work well when I rush. I did manage to have everything on the table by 6:10 pm I believe (although the potatoes could've cooked a bit longer). And so ends just another day in paradise, or another cooking experience. I can only hope that it was a learning experience too!

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Now for a little update:

I'm still working on the quilt binding. I'm still reading a theology book (Mother Kirk, by Doug Wilson). I'm finding it interesting, but one that I'm unable to read through quickly. It appears that we will be doing seed blocks inside this year. Daddy's set up our green house tables to be able to support a light. All the animals are doing fine. The cat disappears at will, but has been back that last few days. The dogs are still tremendously fat from pig left-overs (We had pig feet on our front porch for the longest time! I couldn't help hoping that those Jehovah's Witness people would show up again!). They also had rib bones from Saturday's dinner. Oh, Daddy fixes the best ribs! The cows are surviving as are the chickens. Clarabelle has been giving up to 2 gallons of milk a day, but the milkers have gone out rather late too. Chuck is so big now, but we can't think of weaning him yet! That would necessitate two milkings a day! Here's a few pictures:

What a greeting that would have been for the Jehovah's Witness!

That's probably 47, our best-looking and best-tempered cow.

The seed block table, newly rigged up with a light. Now, at least, we won't have to worry about bringing them inside when it gets too cold outside!

DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

All the hand quilting is done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm working on the binding now. That will take a little while, but the end is in sight! I now feel motivated to finish it completely.

Off to the binding...

I am learning a new language....

.... or trying to anyway. Being the most "tech-savvy" person constantly at home (that's really not saying much, by the way), I got recruited to create various websites for the family. I can now read a tiny, little, itty-bitty amount of HTML code, which I guess is something. I am going to leap into style sheets soon, and hopefully I will conquer it. Maybe, in the next five or ten years, I will be able to put out a nice-looking, well-flowing website. By then there will be something much better. (You always have to close something computer/internet related with that statement. Nothing lasts very long in technology; at least, I haven't seen it if something has!)

It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.
--- Clive James

Hardware: the parts of a computer that can be kicked.
--- Jeff Pesis

To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.
--- Paul Ehrlich

Technology has the shelf life of a banana.
--- Scott McNealy

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. [I've got to remember this one]
--- Thomas Alva Edison

Our Old House

This was an awesome house; we hated to leave it. We'll probably say the same thing about this one. We did so much work! I couldn't find good pictures of Kyle's room or our room.

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Living room.

Totally nice deck.

Can you believe that Daddy designed this? The siding guy who came once it was all done was amazed with how square it was; they compared it to the Great Pyramids.

Wonderful playground.

Oldest Child Thought

You know, it's rather difficult to live by the standards I have for my younger siblings. I've thought this before, but it just hit me hard as I was tempted to snitch candy from a bag of Claire's (I've gotten onto Kyle for doing that sort of thing before). So, I've decided not to tell them to do (or not to do) anything, and that way, when I feel like doing (or not doing) something, I won't feel like such a hypocrite. Right??? Wrong. Fine. I'll try to live by the same standards I have for them, and I'll try not to nag and boss them. In other words, I'll try to remember how hard a time I have upholding the standard, and not expect so much for them.

BTW, I'm going to try to get some pictures of our old house up soon. The back porch/deck, the playground, the living room, our room, and Kyle's room mainly. That's nearly the entire house, but those are the places that had the most improvements done to them. Daddy SO TOTALLY improved that place!!! Now, if I can only find them, and then figure out how to use the scanner on this printer thingy, and then figure out how to upload them onto this here blog, and then....... :)

Tim Hawkins on pig slaughtering

I couldn't help posting this in the light of our latest slaughtering adventures!

A quick note

I said I'd give my opinion of Nicholas Nickleby, so here it is. I thought that it was a rather tedious book. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but I have read other books that I enjoyed much more. Of the Dickens books I have read, this is probably my least favorite, but A Christmas Carol comes close. A Christmas Carol has the advantage of being short though.

Any suggestions for non-fiction books?

A little whine

I can't quilt and read at the same time!!! It's too difficult to hold a needle and thread, the quilt, and a book, so I'm having to choose between finishing the endless quilt and the endless book! I have to choose the one that means the most to you... ummm... I mean.... that makes it appear that I'm doing something rather than just lazily sitting around. So, it's either quilt and watch a movie, or read classic literature. Neither look very good.

Observations

• Flan is better served warm.

• A little coffee enhances the flavor of chocolate.

• If your an author, you somehow have full authority to make up, misspell, and twist words.

• Microsoft Word is sometimes just plain ornery.

• Milking is no fun when it's freezing outside.

• It just doesn't seem right that it's snowing way south of us.

• Slivered almonds burn very easily in attempts to toast them.

• Chicken spaghetti made with yellow rubber (a.k.a. Velveeta, processed cheese product, etc.) is not good at all.

• My last few months in the kitchen seems to have changed my views a bit. :)
  

Ugh!

I think I'm going to have to read some sort of book on literary analysis next. You just wouldn't believe how that prospect enthralls me.......... or not! Still, I'm absolutely sick of reading books and not being able to ascertain whether or not they were actually good! I don't think even a book like that would help me very much to reveal how to figure out the world view or slant of any particular book. How could it? It has to have a slant too! I have finished reading The Wars of the Roses, but all I came away from it with was the desire for more! It seemed to ask for a sequel, but I don't know if the history in it was very good or not. I certainly don't know if the world view was good! That sort of bothers me, but.......

I'm in the middle of Nicholas Nickleby, but I'm finding it quite a bit more tedious than the other Dickens books I have read. Somehow, my opinion of Dickens books improves one I am done with them, so I defer final judgment of it until I am through, and, even then, just to say whether I liked it or not.

Friday and Saturday

This past Friday and Saturday some of the wonderful folks from our church (plus a family from GA who are working on getting up here) came to our place and helped us slaughter and butcher the rest of our pigs. We could not have done it without them!!!! Thank y'all so much!!!

Friday afternoon Daddy, Kyle, Luke, Lingo men, and various members of the Fish family slaughtered the three pigs, and hung them in the smoke house. The walk-in cooler is currently out-of-commission, but it was cold enough to leave the halves outside overnight.

Little Smoky was the first to go (Daddy thought he might be smarter than the others and runaway after the first shot).

They had all three done by 4:30pm, at the latest!

Friday evening Mr. Draper, and the Evans' pulled in. After everyone had eaten, there was some conversation, and refreshed our butchering memories with the Meat Man (he could not only use someone to redo the videos, but the website too!) video.

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Saturday morning Mama, Mrs. Evans, and Mrs. Fish started making a batch of soap, but I am not allowed to post any of the pictures Claire got of that process.

The men went out around 10:00am or so and started butchering.

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A few of us were happily occupied inside, where it was warm!

Sausage-maker extraordinaires!

The packaging table was kept pretty busy most of the time.

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Cuties!!!

I've got it

Mama took me to get my driver's license permit this morning. We were only there an hour, and everything seemed to go smoothly. I've kind of got a Hitchcockian "that was way too easy, what's going to happen next" feeling. I filled out a form, answered every question on the test correctly, passed the eye test, and had my picture taken. Really the only problems we encountered were: the computer wouldn't accept a Morrison address with Grundy County (Easy enough to fix. The mailbox is in Warren County anyway), and one of the ladies there couldn't read the school name on the diploma because of the fancy font. They also wouldn't let me keep my head covering on, but that was no big deal.

We also cleared up the stuff about the graduated driver's license: because I'm getting my permit when I'm 17, I'll just hold that until I'm 18, and then go directly to the regular, unrestricted driver's license. If I'd gotten my permit when I was 15 (holding it a minimum of 180 days), I would have had to apply for an Intermediate Restricted driver's license when I was 16, then, when I turned 17, I would be allowed to go to an Intermediate Unrestricted driver's license, and by the time I turned 18 the state would have decided I was ready for a full-blown driver's license. Thankfully, I get to skip all that in the middle now.

This is all that was necessary to obtain the permit:

• My diploma
• Mama's driver's license (as long as it had the correct address on it, which it did)
• A certified birth certificate (I guess to prove that I was actually born???), and
  
• My social security number

Now I'm going to have to find some way to get 50 hours of driving time, including 10 hours of night driving before 10:00 pm, this year!

General update

Okay, then, since my last post I have finished Our Mutual Friend, and started The Wars of the Roses by Allison Weir (it was just one we had, don't know if it's good or bad.). I ended up enjoying the book Our Mutual Friend better than the movie. The movie was fairly close to the book (besides leaving out a great deal of the "Society" scenes, and making Eugene less bored than he seemed in the book), but it was more graphic. It had a few more disgusting parts in it that weren't in the book too.

Anyway, I am only at the beginning of this Allison Weir book, but so far, though sort of interesting, I'm not too crazy about it. For some reason, I tend to stray away from women authors when it comes to nonfiction. I don't particularly know why. It may be I don't like this book because of the first chapter where the authoress kept referring to the fourteenth and fifteenth century women as having been regarded as chattels and heir-bearing machines. She said this or things similar to this several times, and I just got tired of reading about how "poorly the women were treated" and so on. The parts about how the kings had to go to war with France just to keep the people and Parliament behind them are fairly interesting.

I have also done a great deal of quilting. See! I haven't quite forgotten my goals for this year! With quilting comes hours of stitching monotony unless, of course, you get to watch a movie! Which I have been doing (too much, judging by the way my head feels this afternoon). We watched the 2005 "Pride and Prejudice" and "National Treasure" yesterday; Kyle, Luke, and I watched "How the West was Won" this afternoon.

We've been making Claire practice the Psalms and hymns that we've learned in parts at church. Once she can play them, the rest of us can practice our parts.

I bought a planner a while back to use for the organization of my menus. I recently looked through the front pages that are used by students to write down stuff about where their classes are and who is teaching that class and so on. It also had a page for Morse code, Braille, and sign language alphabets; along with these however, was a section entirely devoted for emoticons!!! Mama, Claire, and I looked over some of them; these were some of our "favorites" (to laugh at):

O:-) meaning angel (if y'all already knew all this, please pardon me. This is completely new to me, except for the smiley :) or ;) or :( frown)

%-( meaning confused

:-& meaning tongue-tied

|-O meaning yawn

Looking these things up on Wikipedia brings up a few more than my little planner. I like these too:

',:Y meaning concerned duck

~:> meaning chicken

Just thought that was weird.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll get a post up soon that has a lot of pictures for those of my "readers" who don't look at this blog unless there are photos.

New Year's Resolutions

Usually I'm against things like that (on no other basis except that I can never seem to keep them), but this year I decided to test myself again. I have a couple of goals for the year 2008:

• I am (hopefully) going to finish a quilt that's been in the works for about three years. To try to make it more certain that I accomplish this I am not going to sew anything else until that's done. :(

• Also, I hope to become better read this year. I intent to expand my knowledge of certain authors in fiction (C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, etc.) , read up on some of the more "modern" history, and perhaps add a little theology. I'm going to try anyway. I'm working on Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens right now. I've never been too much of a Dickens fan, but this one seems to be alright as did A Tale of Two Cities. They're still nothing I'd put top of my list though.

There. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish these things this year, especially now that I've declared them to the entire world. Then of course there's all those things that are normally on people's lists of resolutions:

• Eat better

• Be nicer to everyone

• Go through all the junk everywhere

... to name a few. Unfortunately, I have no desire to eat better than I do. I hope I am nice to everyone, but I know I'm not. I've been labeled, and labeled myself, "mean" too often to not know it! I am continually striving to overcome that, whatever it may look like. A desire to get rid of junk? Of course! I'm all for it! Having to go through it all before it goes to the appropriate place (trash, Goodwill, Ebay, etc.)? "Ummmmmmm......... weeeelllll........... you see........ I... uhhh.... ummmm......... I.... uh.... think.... I'm busy. Yeah, that's it! I'm busy!" Not much desire to do that either. It's got to be done sometime though, and better now than when crunch time comes!