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....... :)