Beans, Beans......

Good for your heart.....

Hahaha!!!
As you all know by now, I am married to a bean lover.
Actually I am a beanaholic too!
My obsession goes in spurts tho.
Right now after eating like an old sow hog for the past several weeks, I am craving healthy foods.
I am craving a healthier lifestyle all around, this could be coming from my new position as a Cardiology nurse!!!
I guess I had better practice what I preach huh?
So today I have a pot of
15 bean soup on simmering with a small hambone left over from the Honey Ham that Robin brought from the Honey Ham store! OMG!!!
Talk about a good ham, if you have not had the privilage you should!
Luxury hams at their best!
I am sure this will be a yummy pot of bean soup too!
Sure is smelling good!

Now this is Danny's Christmas gift from me.
Yes I do think about him when I am Christmas shopping......
This was the gift that we teased him that he would never guess, not even after opening it!!
We were right!





I found this at Red Hill General Store and thought it would be so appropriate for a bean lover like Danny!
I have to say that their prices were so much better than at Amazon.
They also had the 3 tiered Tiffin Set just like this one for a fraction of the cost.
I may have to go back and get this one too!




Isn't it cute?
So Laura Ingallsish!
He loves it!
Didn't take him too long to figure out what it was!





We are going to get him a little one burner propane stove so that he can carry some beans, soup or chili, etc etc etc and heat it up out in the woods at work for lunch!
Here I go getting the Wife Of The Year Award yet again!
Sorry gals!!

I have been researching bean recipes online and there are so many websites devoted to the almighty bean! Toot Toot!
Robin has a very close friend and neighbor who has published this cook book all about beans too.
It's called Stretching the Bean!
I will be getting one of these soon.

Now I just have to share a funny story about beans with you......I may have shared this in the past but please forgive me if I have cause I have a poor memory any more.
Now my brother still says that I can remember things that happened before he was born and he is two years older than me!!
I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday
But I can remember this from when I was four years old as if it was yesterday......

I was staying with my Grandma Goldie, and she had taught me this little bean slogan.........
We were in her dark basement when she heard a knock on her front door upstairs.
She ran upstairs to see who was knocking.
I slowly meandered around in the basement and I knew that there was a gentleman upstairs, an insurance salesman.
I decided to come up the stairs.......
I started at the bottom in a chant that matched my every stomp of my feet on each step as I climbed each step stomping very loudly and shouting even louder.........
Beans.....
Beans.....
Good for your heart.....
The more you eat.......
The more you........
My Grandma slung that door open so fast it would make your head spin as I made it to the last step. She slapped her big ole hand across my little mouth and muffled my very last word so as to assure that the insurance salesman did not hear me shout
"Fart"
and when she released her grip on my mouth I shouted the rest of my little song.......
"Want"

I had no intentions of saying a dirty word such as fart.
Now my brother on the other hand always said that and I knew better, why I was a little lady!!
Grandma and the insurance salesman had to sit down to keep from rolling in the floor laughing at me!!!!
LOLOLOL!!!!
I got her good!!

Cabin Fever......

Unlike this beautiful American Goldfish....haha inside joke here....

I don't tolerate the snow and cold very well.

I know you guys think I do cause I am always wanting to be a homebody and do inside things such as sewing, quilting, crocheting, knitting, decorating, painting, crafting, etc etc etc.....but when I HAVE to stay in I do not handle it very well.

It has been soooo nasty here for the past several days. Yes we had a white Christmas, but Bah Humbug on that one!!

I did have a good Christmas and I hope the children did too.

Here you see Emma with her new American Girl doll that I bought her.

Don't they look alike??

Now I have to make her some clothes for her doll, maybe some matchy matchy ones for them both!

Colton only asked for money this year so that he could buy him a really good coon hunting light
he asked everyone for money and he ended up with over $336!

He shouldn't have any trouble seeing his way around the woods now!

Morgan is now 16 and she didn't really ask for anything other than chapstick and hair products!

She got a huge box of make-up and all sorts of other girly girl personals, a foot bath, a jewelry box and hair products! She was happy!

The best gifts...well it was a hit with the kids anyway.....were fleece throws with their names embroidered on them!

I found some really nice throws at Dollar General for $12 and used the new embroidery machine to put their names on them and they were a HUGE hit!!

Colton told his mom that was the best gift that he got this year!!

WOOT WOOT!!! I was just wanting to try out the machine but I guess it was a good item to practice on, Leslie even wants one now!!

I bought myself this feeder for Christmas.....I bought all my own presents this year cause he doesn't do things like that....urgh, why is it so hard to walk into a store and say to yourself.."My wife might like this!" or "This would be something she could use!"

anywhooooo

I have had the best time birdwatching in this storm.

I have had about 35 goldfinches at one time and up to 8 purple finch males.

Many many other birds too.

It really does my heart good to be able to see these from my windows.




So I have done enough whining about the weather, a husband who doesn't love me enough to shop for me and anything else that I can gripe about.
Now I am going to turn over a new leaf.
Another new leaf!
Since I will be starting to work full time next week with my new job, I plan to put that money to some good use.
I am going to hire some things done around my house.
I have been making lists and drawing out the plans.
I will start with getting "the boys".....(the men who put our roof and vinyl siding on a few years ago, and they are needing work in this tough economy)
.......to build the steps back up into the apartment over the garage that Danny tore down 9 years ago, so that I can store things up there out of my way such as Christmas decorations. This room will eventually become a sewing/quilting studio.
They will then close my side porch in and extend my great room for some much needed space.
After that I will hire them to build my glass conservatory on the side of my home.
I have always wanted one and I will have to hire it done myself in order to get it!!
Oh well!

Maybe while Virgil and Paul are building these things, Danny can get to work on my barn?
I also have great big plans for the inside of the house.
You know how I like white, right?
Well I do love my white floors, even though I can't get people to not wear their shoes over them, and I have found that I can clean them easily with a steam mop.
I love the white so much that I will and I say I WILL paint my kitchen cabinets white!!
Watch me!!
Danny doesn't want them white but he did not want the ones at The Fairy's Rest to be painted white either. After I painted them white he loved them!!
Have you heard the old saying "If Mama ain't happy, ain't no body happy!"?
Okay then!! Nuff said?
When he starts being of concern about anything that goes on inside of this house other than a full plate of food and where the TV remote is, I will listen to his wishes, until then my paint brush handle will be warm!
I started today with the bathroom cabinet...it's all white and purty and he hasn't even noticed it yet!!!!
Go figure!!
So each evening after work I will do a dab of painting as stress relief and therapy for my SAD! That's another self diagnoses!!
Then before you know it I will have a lot of painting finished and be all the happier person!
I hope!
Wish me luck on that one!!

A little o' this and a little o' that....

I have been doing a little whining about the snow.....

a little whining about the cold weather.....

(well, a lot of whining but who's keeping tally?)

a little bird watching.....

Wish it could be a lot but the bringing home the bacon gets in the way....

I am loving all the colorful birds that are at my feeders now...
Never saw a purple finch til this year.
I was pulling into the driveway one day and spotted one in my feeder and I almost ran over the garage while staring in total amazement!!!
Do you think Danny would understand?
I was driving his truck!!!


I don't think this little fella likes the snow and ice any better than I do!!

He looks as if he is puffed up pouting just like me when I have to get out and brave the elements to go to work......slipping and sliding on our skating rink slick driveway to the truck....fell one morning, no injuries except to my pride......I have to put the truck in four wheel drive and still can barely get out of my driveway and up my hill on the main road......

did I mention the cold?

It has been so cold that we had a "heat wave" today with temps around 30 degrees!!!!!!

We lost our 2 baby goats last week, apparently from freezing to death.

I don't even like to think about how horrible that was.

The temp was around zero for many days and wind gusts between 40 and 55 miles per hour.

The poor little babies just couldn't cut it.

I am this close to hanging up my goat farming license.

I know that it is not meant for me to have a spotted goat.

Just sayin.....

and that's all I have to say about that.

I have been gardening indoors!

My first attempt at forcing paperwhites.

This is what they looked like at 2 weeks after planting the bulbs.

Danny and Colton say that they are very pretty onions!

They are very very fragrant and it's a fragrance that I could really do without due to my many allergies but so far I am OK.

They are really really good for my soul!

I think I will try these again next year!

Still trying to get ready for HoHoHo to appear.

I have wrapped zero gifts as of yet.

I will do that tomorrow morning and make sure the list is all checked off, if not I will make a run for it to finish up. Then I will just sit back and let the fun begin.

Robin and Eric will be here for a couple days, coming in tomorrow before the next big winter storm that they are calling for on Christmas Eve and Day!!! URGH!!!!!

I hate winter............

Had an all day Christmas party at work today....well not all day but it was festive all day. Patients bringing in goodies to eat all week, Dr's gifting us for all our hard work!!! I made off really good too! Even got to do some at work shopping today.....we have a really great gift shop in the hospital and they had 50% off all their Christmas merchandise. We all took turns going down and the average loot was 3 bags each....of course I came back with 3 bags too!!

Makes for a really fun day!!

I have my house really clean cause I cleaned it ALL weekend last weekend and have kept it pretty clean this week.

One major thing crossed off that list.

Wrapping gifts, cooking and a couple embroidery projects to be completed for gifts and that's it for this old woman!!

I am going to sit back and rest and enjoy my last 2 weeks at my part time job...........cause I just got a new job that's full time!

What the heck am I thinking about these days?

It's a true brain freeze!

I just obtained a fulltime position as the Cardiology nurse in our office!!

I am excited about this....even though I don't really want to work.....the Dr is the nicest man any one has ever met!!! His patients are wonderful and the job is easy!

Wish me luck!

So that's another chapter in my little world!

I wish all of you a

Merry Merry Christmas!!!

One winter day......

When it is snowing, sleeting and freezing raindrops.......
and all is frozen over...... and you can't make it to work......

you sleep.......

or you get creative and make things!

Or you let your creativity come from within your embroidery machine......in other words someone elses creativity put to use....

and what a fine job they did!!!

Yep, we, along the rest of the Universe, according to our local weatherman, are under a wintry mix today and the world is all but standing still for us. I was off today anyways (Thank Goodness) but Danny was supposed to drive the tractor and trailer today with a load of something (maybe lumber??) and he thought he wasn't ready to be stranded away from home in this frigid weather. So while he sleeps I play!

fyi~ I love my new machine!!

It is so easy to use, I just took right off on it.

Could be that it is the same machine set up as my Baby Lock which makes threading it a breeze.

Could be that Danny already had it warmed up for me when I got home last night from work. He had took it out of the box and had it set up on the table.

He said "If you were just a little bit longer, I would have been sewing on it!"

hahahahaha

Now I think I will download some embroidery patterns from the internet?

Or take a nap??

Stay warm and safe!!

Just call BR-549......

.......and I will fix you right up! That is if you are in the market for a sewing machine or serger or if you are selling one of those items. Cause girls it seems that I have "trader" in my blood. I feel just like Junior Samples from Hee Haw! I know that most of you guys who read my blog are old enough to remember Hee Haw, right?

Yep ole Jr here has been wheelin and a dealin and has purged 4 sewing machines in the past couple months and gained ..........ssshhhhhhhh...two new ones!! My new Juki TL98Q....

themachinethatIloveandwouldn'ttakeafarmingeorgiaforquiltingandallaroundsewingmachine.

My latest deal has come down this weekend. I decided on Thursday to bite the bullet and list my Baby Lock Quilters Choice on ebay........remember the trip across the state last year to pick her up? Yeah me too. I did love her but I also didn't need her anymore and was really really jealous of my daughter Robin and her incredible Bernina embroidery machine and knew that I couldn't live much longer without a similar machine! So I listed my baby on Thursday and some nice seamstress from Hawaii needed her and purchased her on Saturday!! Well what do you know? I made exactly enough on my baby to buy me a new baby! Actually a new Brother!! (Not that I really wanted another brother cause the one that I already have has never liked me......my real life brother that is!) But I found this Brother PE770 Embroidery only machine and it's now on it's way to my house!! Yay I traded for myself a wonderful Christmas present that I didn't really even have to cough up any money for!! (I purchased my machine from QVC.com, it was cheaper there but hsn.com has the video for it)

The Elna Serger and two other Kenmores were sold in my etsy shop. I think I like trading sewing machines almost as much as collecting them! Maybe that's the indecisiveness of me being a Gemini coming thru? Hey at least it's not car trading. I used to LOVE the smell of a new car but I think I finally grew out of that one. Not that I wouldn't like a newer pick-up to pull our boat with but I don't think I have enough sewing machines sitting around to pay for that one right now. Even though I did make that great trade a couple years ago via Craigslist to basically trade one boat and one camper for a much larger and 14 years newer boat!!!!! I think I'll stick to trading sewing machines for now!

Now will someone please find me some time to play with all these new toys?????? PLEASE!!!! I beg of you! I will get my embroidery machine this week and maybe be able to come up with enough time to learn how to thread it before Christmas! I also have a "Black Friday on Saturday" sale item, a new Cricut to play with someday! I saved $140 on it and just "had" to have it too!! Got it for $59!! Now if I could trade something else around to get the money for an Accuquilt-Go Cutter????? Hmmmm.....maybe a coondog?? Imagine all the toys I could purchase if I could sell Little Ann??

So this leaves me with the Juki for quilting, in or out of the frames, and regular sewing if I wish. The Bernina for regular sewing, and yet one more Kenmore that has all the bells and whistles, more bells and whistles than my Bernina, that also sews like a dream. My Singer serger. And now my embroidery machine. I think I have all my needs covered pretty well. What do you think? Maybe sell the Bernina too?? hmmmmm?????

I think I will get off of here and go slap together a charm pack or something quick since I have the sewing fever really bad today and it is a nasty wintery mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain coming down outside right now. Maybe I can talk Danny into a cooking a pot of pinto beans and cornbread while I sew??????? I should be cleaning my sewing room back up cause it does not look like this right now!

I'll be back soon with pictures of all my new projects!!

Stay warm my friends!!

Well my dear cousin, this post is for you!

My dear sweet cousin Martha lives on the other end of the state of Virginia from me and she is a faithful reader of my blog. She must really lead a boring life!! Just kidding, she has a brand new grandson and her life won't be boring for many years!

She is also my facebook friend and left me the sweetest comment yesterday about how she really has missed my blog posts and what was I up to that I didn't have time to post any more. She also said that when she came to my blog each day it was like looking at a good magazine!!! OMG!!! I felt so honored! LOL!

So Martha, I have spent 2 days now knocking down the cobwebs and trying to assemble what one might see as a Christmasy home!

Just for you ;-)

We are sitting under our first snowfall of the year......and albeit beautiful and inspiring to help me get in the Christmas spirit.....I hope it's the last snowfall of the year!!

I had enough snow last year to do me for the rest of my life!

I did get a great amount of enjoyement from watching the feeding frenzy at my bird feeders tho!

I wish this picture could warm my heart but it doesn't.....


This one sorta warms my heart!
If the picture really captured the beauty of the lit tree I would be much happier.
I tried many settings on my fancy smancy camera but it still never looked like it does in person.
In this picture the tree skirt appears to majorly clash with the rest of the tree, but in person it's not to bad a match.




My nativity set that my mom bought me about 20 years ago.

My vintage Santa salt and peppers in front of a pot of Amaryllis. I have paper whites started too. I have to garden year round or I will go crazy!

Oh yeah......I must mention here that my dearest husband has agreed to build me a glass conservatory on the side of my house!!!!

I have begged for one of those for ever!

Of course I had the detached wood and glass greenhouse that was very very cold and very expensive to heat, that is now a hot tub room. The new one can be heated by our outdoor wood furnace!! Yay!!!! I can't wait!

You guys know how much I like to camp and I could not resist this to add to my Christmas Village!!! Too stinking cute!!!

So other than healing physically (shingles mostly gone)but losing it mentally (my job), I have been working almost full time hours for a couple weeks and will for a few more. I am not enjoying my job as much as I once was, maybe the holidays, maybe the winter weather, maybe the job itself, maybe just a mood that I am in????? Who knows?? I am just not feeling the love!

I am back to soul searching again and I have to decide what is right for me. Until then I am enjoying the extra money, but money isn't everything!

I am hoping the snow melts tomorrow so I will be in a better mood!

Danny even bought me the sweetest pair of cowgirlish cowboy boots yesterday and I don't even want to get out in the snow with them on. We bought each other boots for Christmas!! I have been wanting these for quite a while and I saw them, pulled out my size and slipped them on and they felt like they were made for me! I wore them home from the store all giddy just like a little child!!!! When I got home I realized that I had the tags hanging off the side!!! hahahaha

Now I just don't want to get them dirty!!!

Click here to see my new farmgirl boots!!

Hope you guys are having a great time in the snow, if you have it at your home, and that you are enjoying your holiday decorating!!

Talk soon!!

Funny Farm stories......

Remember my baby banties that were hatched out here on the farm?
Well they are purebred Black Rosecomb Bantams.

Mom and Dad are the dark black ones with the greenish tent on their feathers but for some super strange reason a few of the babies ended up with brown feathers on them.

Now how in the world did that happen?

The Mom and Dad were together in seclusion for ever, he was my only rooster on the place and she was the only banty hen that I had at the time therefor the only banty eggs were definitely hers. It had to be something familial that brought out the brown/red feathers in these. I have to say that I really like them though. A little bonus color!

However I have way too many banties now.

7 roosters and 3 hens.

Meet George and Martha!

These are my latest banties that
my dad's banty hen hatched out a little while after mine were hatched here.

This was his first year for having any raise themselves too.

Make that count ~ 8 roosters and 4 hens.

This is a horrible picture of my Buckeye rooster.

These Buckeyes are just amazing to have around.

Can I stress BIG chickens, no I mean HUGE chickens?

Gianormous chickens!

They are so friendly and have such funny demeanor's though!

But don't all my animals have funny ways?

Only one rooster and the rest hens.

I think 11 hens....hard to count them due to the overcrowded status of my henhouse!

These babies take up a lot of room.

Buckeye hen.

She stands almost 3 feet tall with her neck stretched out like that.

Look at those drumsticks!

And that cleavage???

My oh my what a good pot of dumplings they would make!

They are beautiful. Such a fiery dark red.





This big girl is "Old Crooked Beak"...how original?
She has a crooked beak but she is the same size as the rest of the flock so I would say she is able to consume her ration just as well as the rest of them!
It is such a beautiful Fall day out there today and I could not bear one more day with them cooped up. They were out everyday for a while after the garden was spent and they were so happy foraging around the yard and garden but then they found Danny's collard greens and decided that they liked them too.........hence why they were penned back up!
I talked him into allowing them to be out today!!
Woot woot woot they are happy today!!
It was so enjoyable to open that door to their run this morning and set them free! Like the last day of school for the summer!!
The buckeyes are the very funniest at that time....they do this barely above the ground levitation that is so comical. They look like like a big red buzzard that has swooped down onto some roadkill right in front of your car and they hoover there for a bit until you think you are going to run into them. LOL I was really glad that I could make these babies so happy that they would levitate for me this morning!
They are 5 months old now and should start laying most any day now, I have to make sure that they are happy so I can get my egg basket full!!








While wandering around outside this morning, I found this bucket with a rose in it that needed to be planted about a month ago.
I propagated this one myself from a clipping of my beautiful Autumn Dream, apricot colored climber! My first propagation of roses ever!!
Pat on my own back!
I think I will name this one "Becky" because I started her from a clipping on my birthday,
June 10th!!
As you can see the other 3 didn't quite make it. I am pretty sure that it was the heat of the summer that did them in. I had them all in the shade but it was still so hot that they cooked. Now I am afraid that it will be too late to plant this one and expect it to survive. Maybe I will call our local greenhouse and ask their opinion.
Danny loves this rose and said that he will build me a new pergola if I had those roses on either end of it. I guess if this one dies I can try to propagate them again next year. Since I do know how it's done now!
Any advise on November 12th Zone 6A rose planting?

~

And the winners are.........

You know that there is something great going on down on this farm when I use this ever so cute picture as my post header, right?

Yes the time has come......after my daughter gave me a weeks worth of speeches about how I have broken every rule in blog etiquette, how I should have no followers after my shenanigans, I should have no bloggy friends.........I am wiping tears right now......I am hoping that I will at least have 2 friends after all this delay and breaking of rules.

The 2 winners may still be my friends, we'll have to see!

~

But first.....

I have to tell you a bit more about what's been going on with me.....

this is another delay tactic..teehee

I feel that I have almost whipped the nasty old shingle virus.

I was totally pain free for the past 3 days and then I was awakened by the pain this morning.

Insert really really bad curse words here.......I am now off of work for 4 days, I thought they were going to be painfree-not sick with the flu-have a ton of energy to get the things done that I need to and the things done that I want to that are bottled up in my head kinda days!!

So far the pain seems to be subsiding and there for I am on the right track!

Woot woot!

I was lucky enough, even though I was lectured at each day about my blog neglect, to have my daughter in from Atlanta for a few days. We all had to go to work or school and leave her here by herself (See I even neglect my company, I am a bad person)

So she got really really bored or felt really sorry for me, or was really afraid that my house would be condemned by the health department, and she cleaned my house, did all my laundry and cooked two really great meals for us! She even took my truck and went to the feed store for me!! She also went to another county and did my banking!!!

Talk about an angel appearing in your life when you are at just about your lowest point!

THANK YOU ROBIN!!

We both really appreciate all that you did for us!!!!

~

Since my beautiful and very pregnant..hehehe...daughter did all my work that was bottle necked, I can actually get back to my blog friends now.

I finally drew two names out of a hat this morning!!

Drum rolllllllll...........

The winner of the Quilted French General Table Runner is....

Terri from Our Crazy Farm!!

The winner of the second prize that I added in so you guys could all feel the love that I really do have for all of you, that I have not mentioned what it would be as of yet is........

WandaM

Most of you don't know WandaM but Wanda is really my sister-in-law. I can only wish that each and everyone of you guys out there in blog land have a "Wanda" in your life! I could never say enough good about this lady!! She is truly one in a million! She is married to my brother...for that she deserves a big award ;-))) She will do anything for anyone at anytime no matter what! Period! I Thank God for her daily! My girls are so very fortunate to have her in their lives too!

We all love Wanda! Now after drawing her name, I am afraid that my measly little second prize will not be sufficient!!

I will finish up the loose ends on her gift today and get some pictures up then.

I am so happy to be able to gift these two incredibly lovely ladies who are so special to me!! Terri is very very special in her own way. I really wish we lived closer and could visit each others farms, have coffee, share meals cooked straight from our farms in our really cool farmhouse kitchens, have sewing/quilting visits, go to church together and so on and so forth......

I have another surprise under my hat......

I AM GOING TO VISIT TERRI!!!

Yes, Terri in Wisconsin!!

My wonderful hubby's idea this time too!

I've played around with the idea for almost two years now. She has shown me pics of her great little pump house guest cottage that she was preparing for me. I just seemed to never be able to find the time to get away from this farm for a trip that far away and could only dream about it.

Then one day a couple weeks ago my dearest coon hunting husband said he was going to raise some pups out of his special coon dog and that we would just load up a puppy and take it up to Wisconsin to Terri's boys!! What a great man I have, right!! I cried and cried!

This little trip will be sometime in the late Spring when all the snow has melted cause I am not a big fan of winter and minus twelve degree weather!! The deed has been done and we are expecting pups in a few short months but we won't be traveling til fair weather is here!

"Trent, I promise we will take good care of your pup and get him to you before he is grown! I can't wait that long to meet your mother in person either!"

So after drawing the names of these two very very special ladies in my life, I can say.....

IT'S GONNA BE A GREAT DAY!!

Thanks so much for all your entries, for your patience with me and for always being here for me when I need a little laughter or inspiration or motivation or a shoulder to cry on. You guys are the best!!!

I will get these items in the mail asap and on their way. Hey it just hit me, I will be able to see the table runner on Terri's table in person when we visit her and I will be able to see Wanda's item in use at Christmas!! Yay! I hope these girls are as excited as I am!

Now I am off to finish this project and get back to my decorating of my living room....well my whole house is actually going to get a transformation, one room at a time. This is going to be a great holiday season. I have wanted the painted floors to match for 9 1/2 years now. I finally feel as if I can decorate for Christmas like I have always wanted to do!

{{{SMILE}}}

Get ready there will be lots of pictures to come!

Another dose of "Man plans, God laughs"......

so here we go again.......Whilst in the midst of trying to recover from my extreme shingles, I was trying to get up the energy to paint, I/we mostly he, did get the paint slapped on those floors as you saw in the previous post. However the decorating came to a screech and halt when I came down with another bug......THE FLU!!!! Well that is my self diagnosis. It has knocked me to my butt since Monday night. I attempted to work yesterday but was sent home cause the fellow co-workers didn't want to catch it.....funny how another employee had it a few weeks ago and worked??????

So the decorating has stopped since Sunday. I did get several little things done on Sunday that I will show later, when I feel as if I can hold that big old camera without dropping it! My window shades came yesterday. Remember that I told you that Danny would be just jumping for joy when he was able to hang them for me? Ha, the joke was on me cause he really didn't mind. He hung the ones in the living room and foyer tonight. I really think I will like them, when I can actually see them thru clear eyes!! One of the front window shades did not come in but I called about it and it is "in route" so it should be here tomorrow.

I am really loving the white floors, I just wish I could enjoy them properly! At least I get to see them between naps on the couch! Please pray for my healing so I can keep this job. It's starting off pretty rocky so far, we will just have to see how this pans out!

My dream is coming true.....

this is just a sneak preview!

I have a lot of staging to do and I'll be back!

I APPOLOGIZE FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!

I do I do!

I do appologize for not drawing a winner out of a hat as of yet for the table runner.

I told you it would have been drawn yesterday but I need to explain a few thousand things that have been going on in my life for a few days now, then maybe you will all understand the delay.

I hope so anyway.

That's OK if you don't, because you guys are the ones who have a chance on winning something, not me!

teheeeeee

I think I will just drag this out for a couple more days and leave you all in suspense!!!

I think I will explain first........

Do you guys remember my best lain plans that were to come down this weekend around my home? You know it involved white paint and a huge sander?

Well...........the goods are down.....there is white all over my house right now. There is also a chaotic disaster in the rest of my house. I have an entire kitchen in my living room right now. Well not all of it is in there cause all of my pots and small appliances are in my bedroom. To say that it is a chaotic mess is putting it mildly! Very mildly!

I still have a dab of painting to do tomorrow, if all goes well and hopefully the puzzle will be back together by bedtime tomorrow night.

On top of all of this chaos.....drum roll please.........

my STUPID SHINGLES started rearing their ugly heads with a vengence last night.

I had gotten soooo much better but then the fatigue hit me Friday afternoon and I still moved appliances and watched as he sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded some more, then I crashed, out like a light. He made me get up early on Saturday to start painting thru the pain and I did so reluctantly. Of course I did not feel like packing our bags to go to The Fairy's Rest between coats of paint as we had planned, so we had to paint the floor leaving a path to the restroom, hence the need to finish a strip of paint tomorrow. I did not have it in me today to paint at all.

I did get a tad of dust cleaned from all the tiny surfaces in the kitchen.....there is still enough in the rest of the house to strangle a herd of cattle.

I can surely bet money that it will still be there when I feel better and can get around to cleaning it all up too!

Oh yeah and we were much later getting started on the sanding because I was asked to work Friday and I did. However, they did give me tomorrow off! I am so glad of that too!!

My kitchen floor is looking really good though!!!

We are not 100% sure that we are in love with the paint as of yet but we feel that for the most part it is way better than the last choice.

The problem is that it only has a satin finish and we both decided that we would rather have a high gloss or semi gloss finish. The floor paint that we used is supposed to be very durable so we have decided that we will need to wax it. I know, way too much work but I feel that is the only way we will achieve success with our painted floors.

I just won a used floor polisher for $40 on ebay and I am sure it will get some use on these floors. I have not waxed and buffed a floor for about 28 years!! That should really be a treat!

I will post some pictures of the new white floors as soon as the mess is sorta put back together!

Now do you understand why I have not had it in me to write down all the names and put them in a hat or a bowl or anywhere else and ask my dear husband to draw one out?

I will not make any promises as to which day I will anounce the winner but I will try to do it asap!! I wouldn't want to wait either, you all know that I am very impatient!!

Once again, I am sorry for the delay! To make it up to you guys

I am going to up the prize to include a 1st place which is the table runner and a 2nd place which will be a surprise and will be announced on the day that I draw!

Hang on, I'll be back soon!!

Putting up pumpkins and giveaway reminder......

(photo borrowed from Flickr)

Now I know that all you guys really thought I had this really great display going on out on my front porch but it's not mine. Mine looks way better!! NOT!!

My husband has some sorta phobia about me buying pumpkins for display purposes.

Says that there is no reason to buy a pumpkin that is not going to be carved into a jackolantern
or not to be cooked.

Says something about the fact that they will just sit there and rot away to a slimy mess and then we..ahem..he has to clean them up in the winter time and he is not happy with that task.

For the record I have never asked him to clean one of those shriveled little pumpkin faces up in the winter!!

Funny how I have had this conversation with other women and they all say the same thing about their husbands fussing about the same thing!!! Hahaha It's a girl thing I guess!

However he has won this fight.....you know I have to pick my battles with him and he has to win every now and again!! ;-)))

So I have resorted to cooking all my pumpkins that come onto this farm.

I reluctantly made my way to the grocery store yesterday, due to almost starvation, and stopped by the little road side produce stand between here and there. Instead of picking out one of those beautiful round orange globes that everyone else was sizing up and comparing, I went over to the ugly pumpkin bin.

The ugly, but oh so beautiful in my book, pie pumpkin bin!!

YUMMO!!

I bought 2 of those beautiful light orangey colored, far from round beauties just like the one shown above, behind the warty one and kissing the neck of the white one!!

While watching the Major League Baseball playoffs last night I roasted them in the oven, let them cool and scooped out all that flesh. I also had another small "pie pumpkin" that a neighbor gave me. I ended up with a huge bowl of yellow goodness.

Can't you just smell all the pumpkin cakes and pies and cookies and and and....

I had major plans last evening of making a small batch of Pumpkin Butter and canning it until I got on here and read this post

that is on Food In Jars blog about why Pumpkin Butter can't be canned any longer.

Now why doesn't our government just stop bursting my little bubbles???

I guess I will just stick all this pumpkin in the freezer like I usually do and enjoy it for a couple years just like I did the last batch. I froze a huge pumpkin in 2008 and just enjoyed a Pumpkin Cake the other day and it was wonderfullllll. I am not a huge fan of Pumpkin Butter anyway but I was craving it. As I am craving any fall food right now!

The Roasted Acorn Squash was wonderful that we had last night for our dessert during the game but it just left me wanting something more!!!

I am thinking a Pumpkin Pie today with homemade pie crust. I struggled for my whole life with pie crusts but I am getting better with them. I am sure that I will never top Leslie's Apple Pie that Danny was lucky enough to enjoy a couple days ago and he hasn't stopped talking about since. I will see how my pumpkin pie compares to hers in his book!!

She is an awesome cook especially desserts!

She learned how to cook from me!!!

hahaha

I am a little uneasy right now.............I have been suffering with ups and downs from this crazy crazy bout of shingles!! Talk about a roller coaster ride......I feel good, I feel bad, bad, good, bad, bad, good, good, go to the grocery store BAM before I get out of car feel bad and worse and then so good that I am so pumped and can't go to sleep til 3AM, then I don't want to get up and then I have a head ache due to my circadian rhythm being out a whack, feel bad again!

I CAN'T STAND THIS!!!!

I have to go back to work tomorrow too.

I will not take any meds tomorrow while I have to work!

I will not I will not, No Mam Mrs Dr Woman I will not take those crazy mess with your mind meds and go to work trying to take care of people!

I will start back on them tomorrow evening after work and finish my course but not during the day!! OK!!!

Now I have to get up and get something done....even though it is raining outside and I just want to go back to bed........ I can't do that cause I have to get some sleep tonight.

haha The sun just popped out oh so bright!! Thank You Lord! Maybe this will be a good day anyway!

DON"T FORGET ABOUT MY GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!!!

Tell your friends about it on your blog and I will give you 2 chances to win!!

Please leave me a comment saying that you posted about my giveaway on your blog so I won't miss you! The drawing will be this weekend when I can get the Birthday Boy settled down enough to draw a name from a hat!!

ps. why does my blog post bunch together like one big paragraph? I ain't got much learnin's but I got enough to know how ta compose a blog post divided in paragraphs! I have them seperated by several spaces and when I post them they will either be bunched into one or have several inches of space between them. HELP!!

Right on schedule....

I am seriously going to get this painting project finished in a couple weekends time!

(kitchen and living room floors)

I spent a lot of time online yesterday researching white painted wood floors and a large percentage of the folks, who would tell you how they got their great look, used this paint.

I have to say that I have never used Benjamin Moore paints and I found out why yesterday also. There are no dealers close by. Well I found a decorating specialty store that carries BM paints in Blacksburg that wasn't too far away.

They were super nice too!

They have already ordered my paints for me that will be in today.

I also put my order in at the rental company for a drum floor sander and an edger.

I sure hope Danny has fun with those two pieces of equipment!!!!!

The paint specialist told me that was the right choice for my project and that I do not need to put poly over this paint!! Those folks online did not either!

This paint dries in eight hours and that will speed up the process for us too!

I will pick up the sanders on Friday afternoon and let the fun begin when he gets home!!

Now......heres a little glitch in the plans......last night he got a phone call from a guy that he does some excavating work for every now and again. He said he has a nice job that is right over the hill from us and Danny can not refuse a job in this economy!!!

So we will try to get the sanding done on Friday and maybe we can get the first coat on before bedtime. Then the next morning I will get the second coat on and then leave for the day while he is working. There is another little problem with this.......this room is in between my bedroom and both bathrooms! There will be no midnight bathroom breaks with a wet floor!!

That could be a disaster!!

I had a really good morning yesterday

(the afternoon I crashed and barely remember much of it :-)

I made a lot of plans for other little decorating things
around these 2 rooms.

I ordered roller shades for ALL my windows last night.

Well 11 of them!

I decided against shades for the kitchen window and my bedroom windows.

both of these rooms are on the back of the house and I really don't need them there anyway.

I am so sure that Danny will just turn double flips in the air when these shades arrive and he has to hang them for me!!!!!!! I can just hear him now, all that excitement will be really hard for him to contain!!!

My house has super huge windows and they are so hard to cover with any window treatments. I have been thru all the choices except roller shades and I have not been happy with anything as of yet. I need privacy at times and I need sun shade at times and other times I just want the windows to be wide open and let in all the light that they can so I have to go with roller shades. The problem has been that for a custom made (all the windows are their own size made to fit the remodel) roller shade big enough for these windows they are way tooooooo costly.

I found them last week at jcpenny.com on sale for really cheap. I had a lot of planning and measuring to do and I was afraid that by the time I got around to ordering them they would be sold out or the sale would be off. I was wrong they had all 11 of them in stock, even my cockeyed sizes and they are to be shipped out today!

Please don't tell Danny, I really want it to be a surprise!!

I got nice roller shades for 11 windows for just over $200

but I saved almost $300 with the sale!!

I hope I like them as good as the 94 people who gave them great reviews!

Now I hope to get started on the valances out of a nice red and biege toile fabric that has been sitting there patiently waiting for me for a few months.

You all know how much I like toile fabric!

I am on a mission...

Hahaha I know, I know, I know you have all heard that little song and dance before, but this time, the Good Lord willing, I will achieve my goal! If he keeps me healthy, I know I am in recuperation from a disease and on a lot of medications at the moment but this too shall pass and I am thinking clearly now. OK? Ok!

Are you guys aware that it is only 68 more days til Christmas Day? Holy Mint Green Vespas!!

(I have always wanted a mint green vespa and that's exactly what I would look like on one too)

How did that happen? What have I been doing for the past however many days, don't make me count them because I will be depressed and go back to bed or go eat some gooey sweet concoction and get more depressed. Seems like they move Christmas up every year, closer and closer they are coming, at least at my house they are. Grant you I do love Christmas but I am never ready for it. I was barely ready for it for the past two years when I was a stay at home wife, let alone when I am a bacon-bringer-in! So I have got to get ready for this one, this one is special because it is the only one I will have at this age and at this stage of life, so it's got to be a big one! hahaha

My goal is to make all three of my grandkids a quilt for Christmas this year. OMG did I just put that in writing? For everyone to see? Did I really? Oh Lord please help me, I am hallucinating!

That is only part of the equation........... are you sitting down? Well sit down or you will be falling in the floor laughing you patooty off at me with this one now.......

Do you remember my white painted floors? Do you remember that I painted ALL of that myself? Do you remember that I did it in the dead of winter with 30+ inches of snow on the ground....Oh Dear Lord please no 30+ inches of snow this year, Please! Do you remember that I used a $46ish a gallon sealer for high traffic areas on my new white painted floor? Wellllllll........ Crapola, that was a HUGE MISTAKE!!! We LOVE the white floors! But the protective coating was a disaster. I can't even describe how wrong that was. The floor is showing every roller mark from the sealer, kinda yellowish brown color that is NOT dirt, let me clarify that my floors are filthy most of the time but even after some serious elbow grease they will never look good. This just breaks my heart too. I worked SOOOO hard on these floors too. :-{ They are so bad and they keep getting worse with time, can't explain that one either. Danny even mentioned how he hates it now and really questioned what I used.......blahahahaha .........Like he even knows the difference in flat and semi-gloss paint or a roller and a brush??? hahaha he hates to paint but he doesn't mind watching me! He said "We have got to do something about these floors!" Now girls they have got to be pretty bad if notices them. Trust me. He never notices anything that I do around here, what I wear or anything! OK?

So after a long lengthy discussion and an extremely pitiful begging spell from me for new hardwood, preferably cherry floors, "WE" decided to repaint them white! OMG!!!! Here I go again. Only this time he will be right by my side! Roller in hand too! We are planning to sand the surface down and repaint them and then cover it with regular polyurethane like I did my living room floors almost 8 years ago. They have held up very well but are now starting to show a lot of wear and we will paint them white too!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!

This painting....if all goes well with my little shingle episode...will begin on Friday and we will get the paint down and then put a coat of poly on and go stay at the Fairy's Rest for the night so as not to be in the fumes and risk having to walk on them. We will then drive back in the morning and slap another coat on them, leave for the day and back for another that night etc etcetcetc....til they are finished!! Sounds like a plan doesn't it???

Well this means that I will have to have new curtains for the living room and dining room, new throw pillows, a new table runner and maybe some chair pads for the dining room and and and.....

What am I doing on here wasting my time away???? I can at least make curtains and table runners and pillows this week while I am convalescing, right? Then I will take quilt materials to the Fairy's rest with me this weekend and while he is spending his birthday weekend hunting with Jesse, I can make quilt tops for the kids. No sweat!!!! Wish me luck again!!!

(the discoloring of the floors is not the typical yellowing that poly urethane will do either, it is just Yucky. That's the only way to describe it!)

Fall in SW Va

I let my wonderful husband talk me out of sitting around the house again today throwing my own little pitty parties and go with him to my parents house to pick up the wood splitter. My dad and Danny co-own the splitter and my dad used it for all his firewood back in the summer when it was so burning hot outside but Danny likes to use it when it is cool enough not to die with a heat stroke. I thought fast and grabbed my camera, I had a major pity party yesterday because I just knew that I would miss the changing leaves due to my illness that I no longer want to talk about ;-)

We had to stop at our local store for gas and I got this one of the church across the road.
We left my parents house and took the Blueridge Parkway home.
We are so fortunate to have this beautiful road that winds thru our county on the way thru the Blueridge Mountains!
We are also very fortunate to have the changing of the leaves that we get to witness every year.
Of course this is no Vermont, Robin!
Robin and Eric are in Vermont and Montreal Canada for the week. I have already received texts and facebook messages that she wants to move up there because of the beauty. I guess she will have better pictures than I do but I beat her to it anyway!
This is one of the overlooks on the parkway, the only one he would stop for.
Most of my pictures are from a moving truck and thru the windshield.
This overlooks Patrick County, home of The Fairy's Rest.
Behind us is the direction of our home.



People were stopped all along the side of the road for picnics today.
We used to do that every year but I guess we are too old for that anymore????
I love where these guys decided to stop along side the hay bales.
I am sure they had some good photos too!


I love this time of the year on the parkway.

This Buffalo Mountain. You can see it from almost anywhere in our county!

I plan to hike it one day.

The leaves have turned really pretty colors West of the Blueridge Parkway, which is shown in this picture and this is my side of the parkway too.

I also have a beautiful drive to work each day too.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!!

I have no idea who lives in this house but it was such a beautiful place that I just couldn't help myself. I could so live here. Couldn't you just see my Nubians out there on the hillside? That's my tractor up there. Fishing in that pond? The house looks all country and cozy.

Ahhhhhh a girl can dream now can't she?

The worst part of this dreaming is that Danny and I looked at the property across the road and almost bought it before we bought our place. That land was so flat, ours is so steep. It had a creek running right thru the middle of it, ours does have a spring. It had a PERFECT pondsite, our pond was barely able to be a pond. It had a riding ring, ours doesn't have a flat area big enough for a riding ring. It had a huge barn, ours...well you all know that story. It was 6 acres of flat pasture, ours 2 3/4 acres of steep billy goat pasture.

Now think about that for a while country gals..............

This is overlooking The Fairy's Rest!!

Can you see it?

My winter painting project?

Maybe!

Now this is the view from my front yard!

You do have to walk across the road to see it because of the neighbors fence line being overgrown with bushes. It is lovely over there!
See the Buffalo Mountain?

This is the opposite side of it, from the previos pictures.

My Buckeyes were really enjoying the beautiful fall day too!

I came home with another pair of banties from my dads today.

They are tiny little gray speckled beauties right now but who knows what they will look like when they are grown.

It was really nice to get out today and have a low key ride around the mountains and take in all the beauty that surrounds us.

Hope you enjoyed your little tour thru my county!