Flan you!!!

We were invited to Lacey's house for Mexican tonight (Nacho's!!) so I decided to do a mexican dessert.  Never did one before but wanted to try it out.  I decided to do Flan.  Flan is like a Mexican Cheesecake. A mix of Cheesecake and Custard.  Boy it turned out yummy!!!   The caramelized sugar did not turn out too great.  So I ended up sprinkling sugar and cinnamon on the top.  It was pretty good for my first try!! It would be better with the caramelized sugar on the top but I will have to work on getting better at that!! :)

Today was kind of a lazy day.  Didn't really do much.  In fact can't even remember what I did this morning!! LOL  Oh!!  I had to make the Flan then because it had to be in the refrigerator a certain amount of time.  Then I went to lunch at Pizza Hut with Grandpa, mom, Scott, and Bob (he left for Florida today I believe. If he didn't, he is leaving tomorrow.  He is Scott's uncle that we purchased the house from!!) and had to eat and run because the Flan was in the oven. Once I got that out, I ran up to Rural King because Scott said they had chicks up there.  But they are Cornish Crosses and those are meat birds. I do not want any meat chickens!! LOL  I will stick to my egg layers for now.  I am not quite the farmer yet!  After that, I ran to Grandpa's house for a few and talked with mom. Then came home and watered my young trees and berry bushes and the garden I actually have planted thus far.  Everything seems to be doing well out there.  I do need to go weed out there and in my front flower bed. Then I went to where Bob and Scott were packing up some of his stuff to take back to FL. So sat with them for a while during a rest and talked a bit.

Then it was time to run to Lacey's house for supper.  So we chit chatted while Scott tilled up her flower bed.  Lacey's house has a lot of potential to it.  Told her it takes a step at a time to make things look better.  Time and money.  Then we tore into the Flan (even Addison liked it!!) after finishing the Nacho's!!  With a storm moving in, we had to head home to feed the dogs and get them inside before the storm moved in.  We made it!! LOL  It is raining as we speak!!

Now it is off to bed!! Ahhhh ... can't wait to do that!! :)

Another fairly busy day ... again!!! LOL

Ahhhhhh ... yet another busy day down.  I woke up a little late this morning. It was around 9 am.   But I jumped out of bed and got busy right away.  Cleaned up the living room again (only swept it), the dining room and the kitchen. Then I french braided Addison's hair for school. I found out around 10:30 we were having family come for leftovers from last night for lunch (I totally love entertaining!!  It was Scott and I, Mom, Grandpa, Denny and Bob!) so I swept 2 of the couches from dog hair.  Then had to make some more spaghetti and sauce to make sure we had enough for everyone. Then cleaned up the dishes (they still have to be done) and put away the leftovers. After that was done (Addison had already been picked up by her mom around noon!) and everyone had left, I packed up the chickie girls (my 10 chickens!!), mom's mantis, and all my other garden items and headed out to the garden.  Got the chickie girls unpacked (put up an x-pen and set their carrier inside the x-pen and opened the door.) and got to work in the garden. I almost had 3 4x4 squares done when Scott came home (from helping prune some of Grandpa's trees) and said we are suppose to meet mom and Grandpa at the "Clown house" (aka McDonald's!!) for pancakes (the Mickie D's here has all you can eat pancakes for about $2 a person. Full house with the older folks!! LOL). So I packed the girls into the carrier and off to Mickie D's we went. It was fun watching everyone come in and everyone knew one another.  Scott's brother, Todd, and his kids, Laynee and Wyatt, joined us then the three ring circus began!! LOL  After all that fun, I came home and worked further on the garden.  Let the chickie girls out.  I am happy to say that the chicks know who I am!! One of the Rhode Island Reds (I call her Lucy ... she is our largest Red!!) got out of the x-pen and I didn't notice.  I was working some dirt and looked down near my foot and there stood Lucy!! LOL So got her back into the x-pen and finished up my garden that I could get done (got 10 4x4 squares done ... still have to rake the weeds/roots out then plant) before it got dark.  Then packed the chickies up and the garden stuff I took down there and tractor-ed them back up to the house.  Viola!  My day in a nutshell!!  I shall sleep well!! LOL  It is suppose to rain tomorrow so I don't expect to work much in the garden tomorrow but Thursday is suppose to be nice again so maybe I will get more done then!  Slowly coming along!! :)  Nighty nite!!

Busy Day ...

Wow!!  Woke up this morning at 8:30 and just now sitting down (@8:18 pm)!!  Mainly just cleaning the house.  Took me all day to sweep the place, steam mop the main house and stairs. Then I cleaned the kitchen and unloaded the dishwasher.  Then I made some homemade Focaccia Bread.  Turned out great!!  Needed some more Rosemary and Thyme on the top (they said with herbs, the less the better so maybe I didn't use enough.  But my first time making it so experimenting!!).  I think next time I will do some garlic salt.  I made some doughnut muffins too.  Haven't eaten one of those yet so not sure what it tastes like.  Looks pretty good!! I love baking and cooking.  I made so much spaghetti, sauce and bread that we had Grandpa, Sue, Gary and Addison over.  Addison's mom, Lacey, bailed out on us (  :P  )!! Even with everyone eating a ton of it, I have a ton left. We had salad too.  I love having people over for supper!!  Then after everyone was gone, I cleaned the kitchen again!! Dishwasher is running right now. So all is well here in the house.  Nitey nite!!

Rainy Days ... miserable me!!

Feeling blue today (therefore the blue text!!).  But I have a massive headache due to the rain going on.  Rain means mold and mold means misery for me!! 

Got a lot done since I last posted.  I got most of my dining room done, my craft room is a little more organized  I stuck most of the boxes in the closet for my craft room so I can slowly unpack that and organize it. My desk in there was clean at one point but now all this crap is heaped on it again so I need to re-organize that room.  The other bedroom (the purple room)is still a mess but looks a little better than it did.  Needs some storage boxes taken downstairs to storage and other boxes unpacked then the bed put together and viola! That bedroom will be completed. 

Finally got the birds a place to stay too. So they are much happier.  Especially Twinkie.  She ended up with the smaller white cage Zeus used to use for a living room perch.  So now she will get handled more (which doesn't really make her very happy!!LOL)so by doing this eventually she will be happier being with people and not so scared of strangers. 

My baby chicks are growing quickly!!  A couple of them are a pretty good size now. We have decided to purchase a shed and build that into a chicken coop.  Customize it for our needs.  Scott has a couple good ideas for it.  The shed we want is about $600 and then probably a couple hundred more to customize it for the chickens.  But it will be a nice large space so if we decide to expand into more chickens, we have the space to do it!! We could make a real nice coop for the chickie girls that way!! :)  PS  Decided to name my largest Rhode Island Red Lucy.  She is a large presence and has red feathers ... Like Lucy was a red head and a big presence in comedy!! I loved her goofy antics!!

Our pasture (we have decided to call the land beyond the front yard the pasture!! We have no backyard, all of our land is out front and to the side.  So an acre or two is the front yard while the remaining land is "the orchard", the front pasture, the side pasture and the far pasture!! LOL) is growing in nicely.  The grass is tall and there are some really tall weeds that need to be dug out. Mainly along the drainage system the ethanol plant had to dig out on the property. So they need to go.  Then it is mainly grass.  It is a real soft piece of property ... meaning the dirt is a lot of sand. So a lot of the time when you are walking across it, it sinks below your feet.  So that is a weird feeling. But I love looking out our window and seeing all that land.  What a wonderful feeling to look out and see all that land and know it is yours!!  I cannot wait to find the perfect horses to fill in some of that acreage!! LOL What an exciting thing to think about ... my childhood dream coming true. How awesome is that?!?! 

People think I am nuts when I say I am glad to have moved here.  Then they hear I have been a city girl all my life and say "Ahhhhh, ok!". LOL I have experienced all that comes with the city and have found it to be over-rated. I am not a big shopper so being close to extensive shopping is not a must for me.  And if I HAVE to have the different choices, I can drive 45 mins up the road to Terre Haute and have choices.  No biggie!!  Anything under an hour is good for me (although to talk to people around here, that is like trekking to the other side of the world!! LOL).

I really haven't missed much of what I had anywhere else I lived. We will see as time goes on though on how happy I stay (I think I probably will ... especially after building a barn and adding a few horses!! LOL).

Ta Tah for now!!

Lazy Day ....

Today is a lazy day. I spent most of my day yesterday in the garden.  My head is sunburned as is my arms. But I got a small part of my garden done.  It is gonna take me forever!! LOL  But it will be a nice garden when it finally gets done.

We went to watch Austin (Daren, Scott's cousin's son) play soccer on Sunday.  Daren had come into town from his job to visit his family and was there to watch Austin play too.  It was a lot of fun.  Austin plays for a team called Crawford County Chaos. They lost their first game but won their second day.  Addison, Daren's girlfriend's daughter and his step daughter, was there.  She took a shine to Scott and by the end of the day decided she needed to come stay at our house for the night.  So instead of two of us coming home, there was three of us!!  Not long afterwards, two more were added to our bunch.  Daren and Lacey brought Addison's stuff over and ended up staying for supper.  They had brought their two boxers, Boomhauser (Cracky) and Bailey (Fat) to play with our guys.  That was fun to watch!!  And they are sooo goofy anyway!! LOL But it was an enjoyable day.

Then the next day Lacey came to pick up Addison to do some errands but Addison wasn't ready to leave yet!! So she spent the rest of the day helping me and Scott around the house.  She came out and played in the garden with me.  Found out she hated getting dirty but yet she was out there burying her legs and feet in the dirt while I planted my garden!! LOL  Then she would come up to the house and help Scott do whatever it was he was doing up here.  Apparently she doesn't like her shirt wet either.  If she gets a drop of water on it, apparently she likes to change her shirt ... not a word was said to us about changing her shirt when it got wet several times!! LOL  And she is suppose to be a picky eater and won't eat anything ... she ate a half a can of Macaroni and beef for lunch and for supper 2 whole pieces of pizza by herself!! So she did real well.  Lacey came back over around 5 pm and we had some homemade pizza for supper.  It was good. Had really hard time with my dough last night though!!  Was driving me crazy! But it ended up turning up good.  I like cooking with gas too.  It is easier and faster.  And more even too.

Today I am tired.  Don't feel like doing anything but I do need to do something.  Still have a butt ton to do.  And I am tired of the house looking the way it does. And not being able to know where anything is at.  So frustrating!! LOL

Anywho ... gonna get off of here and do something productive for the time being.  So until later!! :)

"Big City" visit ...

We traveled to the "Big City" (Terre Haute, IN) today!! Actually Terre Haute has done a lot of growing since I last went there many moons ago.  We went to the Pet Food Center and bought the animals food today.  The dogs, cats and cockatiels needed food. Then we also had to pick up cat litter. While there, they had a Moluccan Cockatoo named Andy there.  Poor Andy was needing a new home because the previous owner was afraid of the bird and could not handle it.  Apparently he is good in his cage but when you go to bring him out of his cage, he can become quite the terror.  We told the girl checking us out about dropping him to the floor when he is nasty and not letting him near his cage.  She was not aware of that fact ... ahhhh, the things I could teach people!! LOL After the Pet Food Center, we went to Herbs & Heirlooms and Homebrew too!! That was a REALLY cool store with all sorts of neat stuff.  They carry incense, aromatherapy items, herbs, precious stones, and wine/beer making stuff. There is a lot of other things too but that is the short list.  I am sure you will hear more about it as I check it out in my future visits to Terre Haute!!  After that store, we stopped by Lowes and window shopped. Then we came back here, unloaded the car (Scott's) and took my truck to Rural King.  Scott was gonna get fencing to do the Dogs permanent fence but decided not too.  We ended up buying chicken feeders and waterers for the chickies. After that, we went to Walmart and picked up some groceries and a new steam mop for my floors!!  A mop just does not get it!!  It leaves a nasty water mark and film on the floors. It is quite frustrating to clean your floors only to sit down and they still look nasty from an angle.  Once we got home and unloaded the groceries, I went out to the garden and made 12 4x4 sq's for my sq foot gardening.  It is gonna rain sometime tomorrow so I think most of my work will be done inside tomorrow.  Besides, I think 12 sq's are a good start for me.  It is gonna take a few days to clean those out of roots and prep for the seeds, which I still have to find tomorrow!! LOL  Once I got that done, I sat down for about 20 mins and we decided to go enjoy some DQ. So we got shoes on and met Grandpa and Mom at the DQ and enjoyed some down time with them. The Carmel Brownie Blizzard is good!! Now I am back at home, my feet kicked up and my eyes feeling heavy!! LOL  Awwww ... it feels good to feel tired. I sleep like a baby now a days after working my butt off!! LOL That was my day in a nutshell!! :)  Not so bad!!  LOL

Mushroom hunting

I got to go mushroom hunting for the very first time today!  It was tons of fun!!  It was in a very hilly place so I did a lot of climbing!!  It reminded me of my days in Georgia climbing Kennesaw Mountain or even Stone Mountain (without most of the trees, etc!! LOL).  Was thinking being part mountain goat would have been a good thing to be during that time!! LOL  I guess the mushrooms we were hunting were called Morel Mushrooms.  Suppose to be really good eatin' if you enjoy that kind of thing. I found the first mushroom and I found the most mushrooms!!  And I was the newbie!! LOL Everyone kept asking me if I could smell them.  My nose does work VERY well.  I think I could probably train it to find them. They have a very distinct scent about them. I found a really nice Morel Mushroom hunting guide via Field and Stream Mag online.  But I enjoy my time out in the woods anyway.  I love trees and feel very connected to God when surrounded by trees full of life. It was lovely listening to the birds throughout the trees and the little frogs jumping when you rustled through the dead leaves on the floor of the woods.  The only tough thing about it was climbing through the rose bush thorns.  Apparently the Young Farmers of America decided that a certain rose bush (I cannot remember their name) made wonderful natural cow barriers and they used them for such.  Worked out fine and dandy until the birds started eating the fruit on it and then pooped the seeds out and the stuff started sprouting up everywhere!!  And apparently the only thing that kills those suckers are goats eating it!! They love the stuff Uncle Gary said.  I know I don't!! LOL I have tons of scratches on my arms from those nasty little suckers!!  Another draw back is the ticks!!  I pulled about 7 or 8 of those little boogers from my body after hunting.

Altogether though it was a nice day!

We got some plants from Mom and Grandpa today too!!  Was tickled pink to see those!!  Got 3 Goji berries, 3 Honeyberries, 2 Giant Blueberries, 3 Nanking Cherry bushes and 2 Japanese Maple trees!!  So excited!!  Have never had any of those fruits (except maybe the blueberries!!) so I will be excited to see the fruit on those within 1-2 years!!  Re-planted our Blackberry bushes today too.  Between our fruit trees, our berry bushes, the couple grape vines and the garden I want to grow, we shall be pretty set at some point!! LOL

Ahhhh, we are so blessed!!  Getting to use the land that God blessed us with ... ahhhhh!!  Life is great!!!

Been here for a bit now!

Sorry! I wanted to actually post from day one but with the move and trying to straighten things out, I am terribly behind.

All in all, the move was crazy!! LOL  It actually took two trips that Scott's mom actually helped with bless her cotton picking heart!!  She has been so good to us.  No one could have a better mom in law than me!!

After everything was here, it was a total mess!! LOL I did manage to get pics of the house before the "tornado" hit!! LOL The room here is amazing!!  6,000 sq feet!! 3,000 sq feet upstairs (the main living qtrs) and 3,000 sq feet downstairs.  A total of 11 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, two kitchens, two living rooms (the second one is fairly small though) and tons of room!! LOL  We are also proud owners of 13 acres of land!  We are so tickled pink.  We cannot believe how much God has blessed us in this move.  He is soooo good to us.

The house is slowly coming together.  Still have a lot of boxes to unpack and things to organize but it is all beginning to look much better than it did!!

Even got my garden plowed!!  Uncle Gary came over with a big tractor to mow some more of the yard for Scott and while he was here, he plowed me a big plot.  So I have plenty of space to grow my garden in now!!  Yea!!!  My seedlings did not make the move though.  I would say 75% of them did not seed and the 25% that did, I probably lost 15% of them.  So I have to get on the ball and get my garden planted so I can save that last 10%!!!

We purchased 10 chicks to get our egg laying begun as soon as they are old enough.  I have two Amercauna's, two Golden Laced Wyandottes, two Rhode Island Reds, two White Crested Black Polish Chickens, and two Buff Cochins!! I cannot wait to see them as older chickens!!  They are adorable as chicks!  But two of the breeds, the Cochins and the Polish, are ornamental birds.  The Cochins are good egg layers too.  I have to do more research on the Polish but I think they are good egg layers too.  But I have no doubt we will have plenty of eggs to go around!! LOL  We have our eye on a Chicken Coop but it is gonna cost us $1600.  It is large enough for 12-15 chickens. Pretty nice coop too.  I am hoping we can get it when we get the rest of our moving money back.  But we shall see.  There are a few things that money has to take care of!! LOL

That is the news in a nutshell thus far. I am loving living here. I will write more later.  I have been wanting to drop by and update this website for awhile but have been inundated with things to do. So I have finally stopped by to at least update the website!! We are here!!! LOL

Only two days ...

Only two days before we are out of here.  Can hardly believe it.  It snuck up on us really fast!!  Scott picked up the truck today and we have most of the backyard packed up and pretty much of the shed.  We hope to get the back two bedrooms packed which won't leave a lot to pack up tomorrow.  But most of the stuff to pack tomorrow is the big furniture like the living room furniture and the bird cages etc. But one more step to leaving the city gal behind!! I have had a break now so I need to get off my duff and start some more packing!!  Peace out!!

Wow!! Not long now!!

Not long now.  Count down is down to less than a week left! We have found out one fantastic thing though.  We are getting to go to a much larger house and even more important, more land!!  Wahooooo!  Scott's uncle has a house that he has decided to sell and we will be purchasing it.  We are so excited!! It will give us plenty of room for the kids (our dogs!!), our garden and one day for a horse or two, and maybe some water buffalo. Water buffalo are a totally whole different story I will tell one day!!  There is a reason to have them!! (Mainly for milk ... long story short!!)

It is a good thing we purchased the garden tractor we did as we will have 13 acres to tend to now!! We cannot believe it as our dream was to always own 10 acres!!  So God has prevailed and given us a tad bit more than what we have always wanted! It will give us more land to become more self sustaining at some point. We will always need to purchase some things (like meat ... I cannot kill something I raise!! Too much of an animal lover!!) but we would love to be as self sustaining as we can. It would be a wonderful thing!!  And fresh vegetables taste so much better than what you purchase at the store.  I had forgotten how good home grown tomatoes were until a couple years ago when I first started with just tomatoes.  And my garden has grown each year. I hope to have a very nice sized garden this year!! I think we will be doing the square foot gardening though. Give it a try and see how it works out.  I cannot wait to have all the yummy veggies we have chosen and fresh herbs from my herb garden!! I am quite excited with the prospect of learning to cook with fresh herbs and the herbs coming from my own garden!! I have never grown herbs before (except some lemon balm and chocolate mint!!) so it will be interesting!! :)

The house is huge too.  It is a 6,000 square foot house. PLENTY of room for the kids and anything/one that comes to our house!! LOL  Plus the really exciting thing for me is that I will get the chance to sponsor family get togethers now!! I didn't think about it until Scott said something about it and that made me totally excited!! We have never lived around family so never got the chance to sponsor a full family get together. So it will be so much fun to do that one holiday or summer get togethers!! Fun, Fun, Fun!!  And if my family comes to visit, we have TONS of space for everyone to stay at our house and be quite comfortable!! What an exciting thing to think about!  What a wonderful blessing!!

So that is the big awesome news for the moment!  As soon as we get there and get semi-settled, I will post tons of pictures of our place. And of family!  Will be tons of pictures! I love to take pictures and post them. And there will be so much to take pics of out there!! LOL And I am sure there will be tons of stories too ...  I look forward to participating and passing them on!! << wink wink >>

Final Garden Tally!! LOL

General Veg group - specific name group - how many seeds/peat pots planted 


Vegetables ___________________________________

Lettuce - Iceberg - 12
Sweet Corn - Early Choice Hybrid - 12
Cucumber - Poinsett76 - 12
Onion - Sweet Spanish Utah Strain - 12
Tomato - Spanish - 12
Pepper - New Mexico #6 - 6
Tomato - Crimson Fancy Hybrid - 6
Peas - Sugar Daddy - 12
Tomato - Beefsteak - 12
Pumpkin - Early Sugar or Pie - 12
Swiss Chard - Bright lights - 12
Lettuce - Black Seeded Simpson - 12
Radish - Cherry Belle - 12
Tomato - Roma - 12
Carrots - Short n Sweet - 12
Turnip - Purple top white globe - 12
Celery - Tall Utah #527OR - 12
Carrot - Danvers Half long - 12
Sweet Corn - Silver Queen - 12
Cucumbers - Milano - 12
Pepper - Sweet Banana - 6
Broccoli - Waltham29 - 12
Garden Bean - Greendrop - 12
Carrot - Nantes Half Long - 12
Lettuce - Garden Blend - 12
-Prizeleaf
- Royal Oak Leaf
- Salad Bowl
- Red Salad Bowl
- Ashley
Onion - Walla Walla - 12
Peas - Melting Sugar (snow peas) - 12
Cauliflower - Early Snowball A - 12
Sweet Bell Peppers - Red, Orange, Green and Yellow - 12


Herbs
__________

Chamomile - German - 12
Lavender - Verea - 12
Lavender - True - 12
Parsley - Hamburg Thick Root - 12
Parsley - Plain or Single - 12
Basil - Genovese - 12
Basil - Sweet - 12
Basil - Bush Spicy Globe - 12
Chives - Onion - 12
Chives - Garlic - 12
Tarragon - Redowski - 12
Rosemary - Officinius - 12
Dill - Bouquet - 12
Oregano - Vulgare - 12
Sage - Broadleaf - 12
Cilantro/Coriander - 12
Majoram - Sweet - 12
Fennel - Florence - 12



And we still have to start some garlic and potatoes!! Eye-Carumba!! LOL I wasn't thinking of doing it quite this large my first year in the country but Scott kept finding seeds he thot we needed too so it has grown to this!! A total of 7 little starter greenhouses and a few 6 packs of peat pots with garden soil in them. I also got a small bag of plant-tone organic fertilizer but it won't touch most of the garden!! LOL It is a small bag!! LOL

We are thinking about using some of our moving money to purchase a cultivator too as it would come in handy for the garden and other things. But we shall see!! It would be a nice tool for future gardens, etc.

I am so excited about this! I told Scott we needed to invest in a side of beef too when we first got there so we would not have to worry about meat for a while. Then with this garden, shoot, we will be pretty close to being self sustaining already!! LOL We bought a new Food Saver to make everything air tight for storage too. We have an old one but the last time I used it before Scott came home from his cruise, it did not seal properly so things were not air tight. We bought the pretty stainless steel one to match our other appliances. I already have the three air tight containers too. They have a new square one you can get too so maybe one day we will have that too but it is not a high priority!! I am just glad to have a new Food Saver so we can better protect our frozen foods so they last longer!! Initial investment is high but it will save us mucho money in the long run! That is the way I feel about buying a side of beef from a butcher. Initial expense is high but it saves us money over time! So I hope we are able to do it. The less expense we have to have after he retires, the better off we are.

True Countdown

Well, it is truly not long before we move.  Aprox 17 days!!  Yikes!! I really need to get a move on doing the packing.  I did get the chance to finally get ready for planting my garden.  I am quite excited.  I bought seeds this year to start all my garden plants.  Should have a decent garden if all goes well!!  We purchased seeds for 6 different types of lettuce, broccoli, 3 types of tomatoes, cucumbers, garden beans, sugar peas, 3 types of carrots, 2 types of corn, oregano, cilantro (coriander), rosemary, dill, lavender, chives, sage, tarragon, 2 types of basil and Chamomile. I am so excited by the thought of my garden!! And I get to actually do some herbs which I have never done.  Which means I will have to learn to cook with fresh herbs!! Totally psyched!! :D   Plus now I will get to add goodies to the dog's food to make their diets better because right now they are on crap food which I absolutely hate!  I am trying to talk Scott into investing in a side of beef so we don't have to worry about purchasing meat forever. That would be a major investment at first but major savings over time too!  Will keep our grocery bill down low!! Wahoooo!!  So stoked!! LOL Anyway, not long now!! :)

Not long now!

Just about 6 more weeks and dear hubby goes on terminal leave.  He has set it up for the movers to come pack us up on March 30th!  Eye yi yi!! Panic mode now!! LOLThat now gives me a dead line to get stuff done. Finally!! Now I have a goal to work towards.  We have to pull stuff out from the attic and go through that stuff and toss stuff.

Scott surprised me and ordered the Wii Fit Plus and the balance board.  Boy do I have a lot of work to do!! LOL  I have found out my balance sucks, I am definitely not coordinated, and I am obese and fit wise OLD!! LOL  Surprise Surprise!! Keep working at it and it will change.  It is fun but definitely challenging.

I am tired now that I did the Wii Fit for today!  Blah!  I did start a Wii Fit Motivation Group on Facebook.  I am surprised there isn't one already out there!  I am the only Wii related group on Facebook.  Surprised me!!  I do have 19 members now.  It is only 3 days old!! :)

Well, just wanted to check in.  The time is getting closer to turning into a country chick!!  Yikes!!

Just some thots ... January 24, 2010

I find myself wanting to blog but due to bills, we have temporarily lost our Internet connection until payday. The hard times of catching up bills on one income!!  We shall prevail as God has seen fit in the past.  It is tough not having Internet the most.  We also are currently without TV (which will also be restored on payday), which actually surprisingly is not so hard.  We purchased a Wii to satisfy my exercise urges and we find we have a lot of fun playing that together than sitting in front of the TV feeling our butts widening even more as the years go by!! LOL We only have one game thus far though which is the sports game that came with the system but we both are quite enjoying that game.  I tend to favor the tennis and boxing.  Tennis because I have always loved to play tennis; and boxing because it helps to get all the pent up frustrations out of my systems.  I have noticed that since doing the boxing on the Wii, I do not get the tight knots I tend to develop between my shoulder blades.  Although my shoulders do ache in other ways from using them with the tennis and boxing!!  

I am proud to say I have added yet another basic staple to our diet.  We both have enjoyed having English muffins around the house.  So I found a recipe on my favorite recipe site (www.allrecipes.com) to make them.  For my first attempt, they didn’t turn out too bad.  I was without cornmeal to use on the tops and the consistency came out more like a roll than a muffin (I believe I may have over-kneaded the dough) but it still tastes like a muffin (although a dough-y one!!) and is very good warm with butter and my homemade pumpkin butter!!  YUMMY!!  I am proud of myself.  I have been doing a lot of research to find things we enjoy eating and then finding a recipe to make it at home.  I am hoping to cut our grocery bill down by doing so.   I found a recipe for tator tots I am hoping I can make and freeze also for future use.  It would be a great break from our usual homemade French fries.  By cooking at home, it sure has killed it for me for fast foods.  I don’t mind an occasional meal out but it typically doesn’t taste as well as my cooked meals (or so I have convinced myself!  I would have to ask the hubby his approval rate on my cooking but thus far I have had no complaints!!).  I also want to make some potato pirogues and freeze those for future use with some Alfredo sauce!!  That would be so good!  I cannot wait to do my garden and do some preserving and canning.  I am totally looking forward to learning that from mom and grandpa.  New ways to be frugal and wise with the paycheck!  Hooray!! LOL

We have actually been doing so much better with our money since I have quit work.  Even Scott says it is better for us financially for me to stay home.  We tend to be more frugal with our money. And with me staying home, I can cook more and keep up on the house better too.   I have yet to start weeding through the attic yet though.  I do really need to do that.  I have no idea what I want to get rid of.  Some things I have a strong sentimental value to and do not want to get rid of it.  Other things I love and do not want to be rid of!! I think there are a lot of books to be rid of (not my Nancy Drew’s or Hardy Boys, etc.  Just children’s books I was looking to keep for my own children, which obviously didn’t happen or isn’t going to happen!!). Scott doesn’t want to be rid of his Christmas houses.  I want to keep my beanie babies. The camping stuff we need to keep (for possible future use since I have made contact with the Klann girls and they like to camp and white river rafting!!  We have an invite to join them next September!!). I am not sure beyond that what is up there.  Some Christmas decorations and tree, craft stuff (no way getting rid of that!!  Helllo!!) … I have ton’s of clothes but I do not want to be rid of those because they will be used (especially my sweaters since we will be in sweater weather again!!) and money will be tight too since it will be going towards repairing and adding to the house; the barn and chicken coop; the garden, etc.  Get the picture!?!?!  LOL   I think I have a couple more sets of dishes but Grandma Mitchell had given mom a set of them and mom gave them to me so I would not want to give those up (they are a pretty toile design too!!). Such the dilemma!! I do need to go through my appliances in the laundry room though because there are a couple mixers (with broken parts) I need to toss and that would give us less to store in there.  I so hate moving and hate it even more when we are moving to a smaller home!!  Eye Carumba!!  Last move, last move, last move (so I keep telling myself but I can’t be sure.  The gypsy blood seems to boil in my husband’s veins as well.  Although mine are beginning to cool down and I am looking to plant roots at some point.)  I have done nothing but move all my life.  I have no idea what it feels like to stay in one spot for long.  But I am looking forward to knowing that feeling one day in the future. I would love to go places and know people everywhere I go!!  Ahhhh … one day soon …. Not sure when or where but one day soon!!!

Anyway, that is all I have to blog for now.  I did attempt to make Double Chocolate Fudge pops tonight.  They are currently freezing as we speak.  Won’t know until tomorrow how they taste or turn out.  I know the mix tasted pretty good and was easy to make.  I love fudge pops!  So might be another thing I can make cheaply and enjoy at home.  We shall see!!

Toodles!!

The unemployed life ...

Oh my gosh!  I totally suck at this blogging thing!! LOL  Well, lets see ... I am no longer employed ... quit work as of December 18th, 2009.  We do not want to have to pay VA any state taxes.  We typically wouldn't but each year we have to convince VA that we do not owe them any state taxes.  Each year they think that DH's income must be taxed although he is not a VA resident.  Just so freaking frustrating!! But anyway, it has been different being unemployed again.  I thot I would really miss work but I don't as much as I thot I would.  I miss the people but not the stress of the day to day business.  I am managing to keep quite busy here at home.  With all the dogs and the day to day cleaning, I remain quite busy!! And it is only the beginning.  I have a lot of deep cleaning and throwing out of items before we move.

We went home to IL and got to check out the house.  Structurally, it seems to be in decent shape.  A few things have to be fixed and a lot of TLC work but it appears to be manageable!  Going to be a lot of work in clean up and such but again, it is do-able. Going to be tough for awhile though as we will be going to a house half the size if not more!! We already have plans of expanding both the downstairs and the upstairs but that will come in time.  Also have a plan of building a barn at some time too so we can have horses at some point too.  I want a horse to ride one day.  I am hoping within a two or three years of being up there, we will be in the position to finally own some.  We will have it hopefully as a working farm (for ourselves!!) at some point.  I think that would be so kewl!  Even have a possible name for it: Curly Willow Farm.  Mom has two curly willow plants that Grandpa started for her that I would like to transplant somewhere else on the property.  They are pretty! I think that would be perfect name.  I wanted something with Willow in the name.  I like willow's and was willing to plant a willow just so the farm would live up to the name.  So it was great that there are already two willow's on the place! But the dogs are going to love it!  They had a blast on the property while we were there at Christmas time.  They thot they had died and gone to heaven!! LOL We have our hands full with home repairs but I think we will be happy there.  Will probably live just as we do now ... hand to mouth but I don't care!  If bills are paid and we all can eat, that makes me happy.  I am not a person who wants much ... at least I don't think so. I am not a big shopper at all.  Unless it is for my dogs/cats/birds! Then I could go crazy!  Or kitchen/bathroom stuff. I can go crazy with that stuff too.

Speaking of kitchen, I made my own flour tortilla's tonight.  They turned out pretty good!  They were easy to make albeit time consuming but it made a butt ton of them!  Like 20-24!!  So they will last a while.  But I was happy.  My first try and all, they turned pretty good. Will have to find a recipe to make baked tortilla chips. That would really make Scott happy!! LOL  Once the tomato's, onion's and peppers grow in our garden, then I can make the homemade salsa too!! He will be in heaven!! LOL  Found recipes for homemade butter and such too.  So can't wait until I can try those out too.  I might just become quite the little cook!! Anyyyywho ... !!

Our trip to IL was crazy ... it took us 42 hours to get up there!  It snowed the whole time we drove up there from Williamsburg to IL.  And not just a light snow, it was up to 23 inches in WV!! We didn't start going above 45 mph until Indiana state line!! It was crazy!! But had tons of fun actually.  At least for me that is.  I didn't realize I had so many people following my FB posting either!! LOL Our first stop (and by stop, I mean parked on I-64 because of traffic/weather) was only an hour and that was around Williamsburg. Our next one was right before the WV bypass and that one was 2 hours.  The last stop was 6.5 hours on the WV bypass!! We ended up sleeping through part of that one!!  It was a REALLY long trip but for as long as it was, it wasn't that bad.  The trip home was the same amount it usually takes ... aprox 15 hours.

Well, that is about it for now.   Will post more as more things happen.

Love to all!