Plank wall makeover

The kitchen did not get done over the weekend but we're so close now I can feel it!  I ran out of paint yesterday in the home stretch of repainting the walls.  The timing couldn't have been better though because I could use a little break.  We've been working hard for over three weeks.

The walls look so much better!  I love the pine planks walls but the knots showing through the paint were finally starting to bug me.  I covered and filled them and the nail holes with sheetrock putty.  Jeff prefers it over wood filler.  He says it's easier to work with.  I then repainted the walls with Valspar's zero voc paint and primer in Garlic Clove (an Olympic color).  It's white with a hint of warmness.  It's been my go to white for the past eight or nine years and I still love it.

Here are before and after pictures.

I covered literally thousands of nail holes!  You can see the yellow knots and knot holes and some of the planks have cracks running through them.

Here it is after filling the holes and knots.

So, so, so much better!  It has a crisper, cleaner look now.  Next, we need to tackle the ceiling.  I'm sure that'll be loads of fun!

One of the nice thing about using sheetrock putty is there's no dusty sanding.  If it needs to be sanded after it dries just use a damp sponge or rag and wipe it smooth.  No mess!


We're getting into our new fall schedule (even though it's still summer...grrr) which includes getting up at 5:30 every morning to milk the cow.  It's not necessary to do it that early but the girls still need Jeff's help at this point and he's got to leave for work around 6:30.  Once Bonnie (the cow) learns the routine well enough to get to the stall pretty much on her own they'll push it back to 7am or so.  I can't wait.  I'm so sleepy all the time!

Yesterday was Evelyn's 6th birthday.  Normally I'd cancel school for the day but since it was only the second day and she still looks forward to school I gifted her with a little extra school work.  She loved it! She also helped Gracie bake sugar cookies which all the kids had fun decorating.

These are the very best sugar cookies in the world, by the way!  Way, way better than store bought.  I've had the recipe so long I don't remember where I got it but I think it might be my cousin's grandma Lil's recipe.  I hear they were legendary.

Cookies or cupcakes are how we celebrate actual birthday's when the party doesn't fall on the same day and it rarely does.  It's a tradition the kids always look forward to since we don't eat a lot of sweets around here.

We also decided at the last minute to pull out Jeff's great aunt Jewel's fine china and wrinkled bunting and fabric scraps and have a "tea" party with milk.  As you can see by Evie's face (the one with the heart on her shirt) she's feeling pretty proud.  It's fun that it takes so little to make a kids day.

Sugar cookies:
1 c. softened butter (no substitute)
3/4 c. white sugar
1 egg
2 T. milk
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
3 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
Cream butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl then beat in the egg, milk and vanilla.  In a separate mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture.  Chill dough for one hour or until easy to handle.  On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/8th inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters.  Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets.  Bake at 375 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes until just slightly beginning to lightly brown.  Cool before frosting.

Frosting:
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 t. vanilla or almond extract
1/4 t. salt
1 to 2 T. milk
food coloring, optional

Mix all ingredients well in a medium bowl and frost right away.  (It will begin to get dry and crumbly if you wait too long to use it.)

*Update:  TODAY is Evie's birthday!!!  not yesterday...  I guess we'll be making cookies again.  Am I a bad mother because I mix up birthday dates?  I don't think she'll be disappointed when I tell her.  Jeff and I have on more than one occasion celebrated our wedding anniversary on the wrong day.  I blame it on the aluminum in my deoderant.

Summer update

Wow!  It's been a long, long time!  I've had a few sweet people request an update on the goings on around here so I'll oblige.  Like most bloggers who take a break for whatever reason I've really missed blogging so maybe this attempt will get me back in the saddle.

So my last post was about becoming debt free.  I wish I had some great insight to share with you guys on how to get there but I haven't found anything new outside of the usual just tighten your belt and stick with it. It's hard.  Now, I love a budget and could live the life of a hermit eating nothing but beans but that method does not agree with Jeff at all and our relationship is higher on the priority list than becoming debt free so things aren't going quite like we thought it would.  Having said all that, Jeff isn't a big spender either and he likes a budget too, he just isn't nearly as painfully rigid about it as I can be so he works, unwittingly, to (try to) keep me flexible which is also more important because life is full of unexpected changes and being able to roll with life's punches is practically a virtue.  I don't have that virtue. (Just ask my poor husband!)  And, truth be told, most of my budget abiding-ness is really all in my head anyway.  Just dangle something like a new kitchen in front of me and I'll be all over it like a duck on a June bug while yelling budget-smudget!  I can't keep it together with an offer like that.

In short, we're still working on it but we have set backs and sometimes parts of the budget get put on hold but Lord willing, we'll get there someday.

Now, on to the fun stuff.

We've been enjoying what feels like the shortest and coolest summer in history after what felt like the longest winter in history.  The weather has been strange around here this year.

Gracie and Madison pretty birthday table for Gracie's 12th.  It's so nice having older girls that like to bake and decorate for all of our birthday parties.  They're like my right and left arms!

We've had a few changes in livestock over the summer.  The girls sold all of their goats (which helps explain the 5 foot tall weeds) and now are the proud owners of two cute little duckies.  The one in the water is wearing a duck diaper that my seamstress daughter, Gracie, made.  Ha, ha!

We now have a milk cow thanks to some of the most self sacrificing friends on the planet who took our cows for the summer to rebreed them and trained one of our mamas into a milker.  What a huge blessing!

We didn't really garden this year...the year the weather was pretty much perfect for gardening with all the rain and perfect temperatures.  We thought we needed to focus on other things...ppffft.  Isn't that how it goes sometimes though?

Madison, who has been obsessed with art her whole life, has recently started painting fo reelz and she's pretty amazing for self taught fourteen year old.  She's even sold a couple recently.  This one is not for sale...it's MINE!  Ha, ha! :) Seriously though, mine.  (I love her sense of humor with the cow tongue!) 

I've been sewing like crazy.  I'm probably addicted.  My favorite things to sew are dresses for the little girls and I don't have one single picture of them in any of their dresses I've made this summer.  I've got some other sewing/crafting projects up my sleeve that I can.not.wait to dive into but we've been super busy lately building the (real) kitchen.  

We developed a good sized mold problem under the sink which couldn't be easily repaired because, and I quote my husband, "That's the part that holds all the cabinets together.  I guess it's time for us to build the kitchen."  So we gutted the temporary plywood and contact paper kitchen and purchased all new cabinets and counters.  We bought them from a discount supplier which means we have had to put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, paint, and silicone into it ourselves which makes it all the more rewarding.  I've also been filling every nail hole and covering every knot on our pine plank walls which has been way easier than I ever thought it would be and makes a huge difference in the overall appearance.  It's not quite as rustic looking which was a look I was never going for so I'm glad to kiss that look goodbye!

We still have a little ways to go before it's finished but we're so close and it's only taken two weeks so far!  I'd like to finish it before school starts for us next week but we'll see what happens. 

Speaking of school, my little Evelyn will start kindergarten this year so I'll have four to teach.  Say a prayer for me, please!  Ha, ha!  

I guess that's it for now.  I hope to try a little harder to keep up with the blog because I have so much fun going back through old posts every now and then to reminisce.

      P.S. Will all of you sweet sisters in Christ out there please pray for one of my father's-in-law, Bob as well as Jeff's mom, Jackie.  Bob has been recently diagnosed with stage four liver cancer which is a huge blow to all our hearts.  I know in my head that God's grace is always sufficient for all things but sometimes it's hard for my heart trust the Father enough to lay some of life's burdens completely at his feet and this is no exception.  Thanks.

Homemaking

The big jar of flowers are flowers that I picked, the daisies in the bud vase were picked by my 2 and 5 year olds.  The two doilies they're sitting on were crocheted by my grandmother who taught me to crochet and I crocheted the the white blanket.  The sewing table I painted white was given to me by my mother who, coincidentally taught me to sew on that very machine.  The skirt under the table is one of the simpler things I've sewn with those skills.

I've been teaching my children to garden and two of them especially love it and soon we'll be feasting on the fruits of our labor.  I'm amazed at how much I know because the women in my life took the time to teach me homemaking skills and now I'm passing those things on to my children.  It takes a lot of patience on my part because it's always easier to just do it myself, but it's been rewarding to see them taking on more and more responsibility and with a cheerful attitude.  Just this morning, I had the freedom to go take a shower and leave things in the capable hands of my children.  When I got out of the shower, Grace was rocking the baby, Isaiah was playing sweetly with Evelyn and Madison was cooking breakfast for everyone!  My children are only 11, 8, 5, 2 and 8 months yet they are learning already how to behave lovingly and responsibly towards one another.  I can't tell you how it makes my heart sing!

If you have a love for homemaking and learning or passing on those skills you might like to take some time to visit Raising Homemakers.  They're having a fun giveaway right now that you might like to participate in.

I've been taking some time to really enjoy my family and all the things that are going on with the warmer weather and longer days which has somehow all but eliminated time for blogging.  I still intend to share the projects we do to build our little cottage and when I have a few more minutes to spare, I have a confession of sorts for you all.

Right now it's late and time for bed, so I'll see you all later. 

Have a good weekend!

☺

Introductions

I'm so excited to introduce everyone to my mom and my cousin who have just started their own blogs.  Hurray!

For those of you who've been with me for a while, you've already met them when they helped us build our cottage.  Maybe you remember this conversation momma and I had a few months ago.  And what about the story I shared with you about my cousin Rick.

 Meat Needle Bender a.k.a. my momma. 

(My little Evelyn is a clone of my mom.)

My mom is infinitely talented.  She's a quilter, crafter, painter, seamstress, sings, plays the piano and has an insane amount of beautiful flowers in her yard.  I've been trying for months to get her to start a blog because she has so much to offer and it's just so dang fun.  Well a few days ago she finally took the plunge and I'm excited to see what she has in store for us!  Please show her what a kind bunch of ladies you all are, and stop by her blog to tell her welcome.  I'll be showing you all the curtains I've made soon but don't expect to be wowed and amazed by them.  I'm pretty sure I have my dad's sewing genes.  If you like crafting or quilting, get ready, because she's on a major crafting/quilting kick right now.  She'll probably be in magazines some day. 

And now meet Rick.  I call him Ricky.  I don't know how he feels about that and I really don't care.  We were born on the same day and he's a few hours older than me but, growing up, I was always taller so we've always had a love hate relationship.  Now he's taller and I'm still younger, so the feuding continues.  I'm only being nice to him now because he's one of my husbands best friends and I really like his wife and kids. 

He's also extremely talented.  Aside from singing and playing guitar, he can take hunks of wood and carve, chisel or chainsaw them into really great pieces of art.  He wins awards and stuff.  He also builds some pretty amazing things around his house for his wife so I hope you all will follow suit, and go to Chainsaws and Chisels to heckle him.  And if you still have snow on the ground, please throw a snowball at him for me.  Don't worry, he's too polite to throw a snowball back...unless you're a guy...then you better run. 

Now I'm off to recruit more bloggers!

P.S.  Oops!  I fell asleep at the wheel and forgot to include their links the first time around!  Thanks Deborah!

Lazy days of winter.

Do you know what this is?

Yep, it's a chess set.

My eleven year old daughter took these pictures with my junky, on the fritz camera (which will hopefully be replaced with a big girl camera soon. I hope!!!)  Not bad, huh?  It was her first time too.

We've all been playing a LOT of chess lately...in between naps.

These two always have this effect on eachother.

Look at those little feet all kicked out.

I'd say she's pretty relaxed.

I've been working on making curtains for my bedroom.

It's a white on cream damask.

One of these days I'll get them finished and show you the final product.

The kids and I are getting anxious for spring since we started a bunch of vegetables and, hopefully, deer resistant flowers.  Is there such a thing?

And speaking of spring...everyone here in the Midwest knows that spring is tornado season so Jeff and I will be building a tornado shelter in the next couple of weeks. (I hope, I hope I hope!)  I don't want to risk being tornadoed off to Oz and have to spend the rest of my days living with flying monkeys!

??? daze ???

Aside from a couple of near death experiences over the past few days, things are moving along smoothly.  A couple of days ago, the kids and I were out running errands in the Suburban when at some point the hand held propane torch that also happened to be in the truck got stuck in the on position.  The kids were being noisy, the baby was crying and the radio was on so we only noticed the hissing sound once I parked the truck and turned it off.  After I got the kids and our groceries in the house, I went back to investigate the noise and noticed a strong foul odor.  Once I found out it was the torch, I quickly thanked God that none of the kids nor I were smokers.  We might all be wandering around with singed eyebrows, or worse.  (No lectures on the propane torch, please.) 

Then the next day, I talked to Jeff on the phone for a little while around 3:30 pm and a few minutes after our conversation, I called him back to tell him something I'd just read on the Internet about metal and condensation but he didn't answer the phone.  I tried a few more times over the next twenty minutes or so with no luck and just assumed he was on the phone with one of his parents or something and would call me when he was finished.  About two hours later, I realized he had still not called me back so I tried him again.  Still, no answer.  I started calling every couple of minutes thinking he's probably sawing and nail gunning a lot so he probably just didn't hear his phone.  After about twenty minutes of that, it dawned on me that he may have had an accident.  I realized that he had probably fallen twenty feet off a ladder after sawing off his hand and passing out from the blood loss.  Then I realized this probably happened a couple of hours ago when I couldn't reach him the first time, so more than likely, he's dead by now.  That's when I began to have a serious panic attack.  I told the kids, "Get your coats on and get in the car!  We've got to go get your father, RIGHT NOW!"  The kids naturally wanted to know why and what the hurry was and not wanting to scare them with the story of their fathers accident, I told them, "He forgot his wallet and might need to get gas."  Which was true.  Then I thought, maybe that's the problem.  He ran out of gas on our little country road and no one has passed by to give him a lift to the gas station.  Then I remembered he hasn't answered any of my phone calls over the last 2 1/2 hours so my mind went right back to the vision of him all broken to bits at the bottom of the ladder he was working on.  So I grabbed his wallet and the kids and I rushed out to the Suburban to find that the only door we could get open was mine.  All of the other doors where frozen shut.  I started the truck to thaw out the other doors and contemplated calling 911 to ask them to send an ambulance out to my husband.  I decided to call my parents instead.  I managed to choke out a few words to my mom about how Jeff hadn't been answering  his phone, that he's alone, and most likely dead so the kids and I were going to get him just as soon as the truck thaws.  To all of that, my mom calmly said, "Okay, we're on our way to Branson so call me when you find out what's going on."

The kids were all in the driveway crying about things like the subzero temperatures and 700 mile per hour wind gusts so I decided they should wait in the house for the truck to thaw.  I also decided to give Jeff another call and run back outside to try the truck doors again and noticed what a mess my house was and that everyone from Oklahoma was going to want to stay here for the funeral.  Once I got outside I opened my cell phone and pressed 3.  He's number 3 on my speed dial.  I don't know why or how that happened.  He's also the only person I EVER speed dial.  "Hello?" he whispered.  I gasped, then I yelled, "JEFFREY MICHAEL DIXON!!!!  WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?????  ARE YOU ALRIGHT?  I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!!!!"  He continued talking softly and acted like he had no idea what I was talking about and told me he was outside tracking the biggest rat he'd ever seen.  "EXCUSE ME?  I'VE BEEN CALLING YOU FOR HOURS AND YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ANSWERING SO I ASSUMED YOU WERE DEAD AND YOU'RE DOING WHAT????  I'M GONNA KILL YOU WHEN YOU GET HOME!!!"  Then I cried.  He chuckled sympathetically then said, "Hang on, your parents are calling me."

It turns out that when your phone is stuffed in your pocket under seven layers of clothes, the extremely loud propane heater is on, the radio is blaring, the air compressor is running and you're using no less than four power tools, you really can't hear a phone when it rings.  Now Jeff is no longer allowed to leave the house in the morning until I have inspected the duct tape that holds his cell phone over one ear.

My imagination occasionally gets the best of me but for good reason in this instance.  Jeff always answers my calls and even complains on a regular basis that I don't call him enough.  So naturally I assumed there was a very good reason, i.e. death, for him to not answer my calls.  I'm never calling him again.

***

Jeff's been hard at work trying to get the house ready for us to move into it.  Over the last few days, he's been nailing up wood planks on the walls.  I haven't been out to the house in a while, but from the pictures, the wood walls have really changed the look of the house. 

My dad keeps telling Jeff we need to stain or seal the wood.  I guess he likes the rusticness of wood.  I don't really care for that look myself.  I'm one of those people that loves wood, PAINTED.  Stained, sealed or raw wood is yucko to me.  We'll be painting it all white in the spring.

It looks like Jeff's been missing me.

I've been missing him too.  It's starting to feel like this has been going on forever. What's today? I'm not sure. We, meaning Jeff, has been working so hard for such a long time now that I'm having a hard time keeping track of the days. BUT, our projected date of moving in is set for January 2nd and 3rd. Will you all come help us please? We're old and frail and could use all the help we can get. We're so old, we've been mistaken for senior citizens. I'm not kidding. Last night, the kids and I ran to Lowe's to meet Jeff there about 45 minutes before closing time so we could get a few light fixtures for Jeff to install today and as we were going through the checkout line, the little, red headed, twentysomething, checkout lady looked at our two year old, Evelyn, and said, "Awww. Have you been shopping with grandma and grandpa today?" I was standing back a bit, holding fussy little Sophie, and thought maybe I misunderstood her and I gave Jeff a confused look. He turned to the lady and politely said, "What?" Then she said, "Have you guys got the grandkids tonight?" Mind you, Madison is only a few inches shorter than I am which gives testament to her age and there were FIVE children altogether. That means we didn't even look like fresh, first time grandparents to this lady. She repeated her question so confidently that she must have genuinely assumed we were the kids grandparents!!! Jeff let out a big, "Nooooo! These are our KIDS!" and I laughed so hard I thought I was going to blow a gasket! Her face immediately turned as red as her hair and she began apologizing profusely and saying something about how her dad has a beard. Once I finished my Tom Hanks, Money Pit, laugh, I said, "We're only thirty!" Jeff corrected me and told her, "Actually, we're 34." Like that was really necessary. My point in saying thirty was that's the general category you could put us in compared to the 70 something category she had us in.

Do you know the laugh I'm talking about? Have you seen that movie? I love it. Tom Hanks character, Walter, had just been through one ordeal after another with their money pit of a house and then this happens...which is exactly how I reacted to the grandparents comment.

10 daze

Yesterday, while Jeff and my dad worked on house stuff, my mom, sister and I watched the movie, Julie & Julia.  When Erin told me she brought it, I asked her if she had watched it yet.  She said no, but had heard it was pretty good.  I had heard that it will make you cry.

Now, have you all seen this movie?  It's a movie about a woman named, Julie, who blogged her way through one of Julia Child's cookbooks in one year, testing every recipe and then posting about them.  It's a true story that was turned into a movie.  Well, a few months ago, Kendra from My First Kitchen, had mentioned on her blog that she saw it in the theater and cried a lot during this movie.  In fact, she said it made her do the "ugly cry."  You can read what she said for yourself here and check out the rest of her blog while your at it.  (I love her blog and I don't even really like to cook.)  Anyway, this left me with the impression that it was possibly sad or something tragic happens, and I hate to cry so I had no intentions of watching this movie, ever.  But, since my sister brought it I figured I'd do my best to muscle my way through it.  Apparently I misunderstood where Kendra's tears were coming from though, because not a single tear was shed by any of us throughout the entire movie.  In fact, we did a lot of giggling and making comments like, "Oh, that is so Julia!" as if we actually personally knew Julia Child.  It is possible that my family and I are more familiar with her than most people because, while I was growing up, we regularly watched her cooking show on PBS on the weekends.  And none of  us like to cook.  What's funny about this though, is that the only reason we ever watched her show was because of my dad.  He doesn't cook anything, ever, but he does enjoy watching people cook.  I'd say a lot of people must, because there are so many cooking programs and channels dedicated to it. 

Anyway, Julia Child was a very unique person and Meryl Streep really nailed the role.  I enjoyed the movie enough that I would probably buy it if I came across it at the store.  I'm sure it's not a movie everyone would enjoy, but if you have a past history with Julia Child like I do, then I definitely recommend that you see it!  Just a little F.Y.I.


Today, we're all back at it.  Only ten days left till move in time.  Have I mentioned that we'll have open rafters in the house?  Is that the right term when it's actually the second floor floor joist that will be left open on the bottom?  The ceiling height of the first floor will be the usual eight feet and the second floor floor joists will be painted white. Which reminds me, I'm a little concerned about the knots in the pine boards bleeding through the paint.  I don't mind if there's a little bleed through and I don't want to have to shellac the wood first, so we're just going to go with a good primer and hope for the best.  It will hopefully look something like this ceiling when we're done.

courtesy of Better Homes and Garden

14 daze

This is the final countdown.  I think.  Our goal is to be moved in two weeks from today, December 31st.  Jeff wants me to post everyday until we're in.  I can barely speak in complete sentences.  This is going to be challenging.  In fact, don't count on it. 

Here's what I'm dealing with,

And this,

And hoping to accomplish more of this,

And this,

And, all the while, keep up with never ending tasks like this,

And this,

And of coarse there are the irresistible distractions like this,

and this,

and this,

And there just isn't enough of this,

Or this,

What's a girl to do?  Can anyone please tell me?

This one's for all the grandma's and grandpa's...

Monday was Madison's eleventh birthday.  She had a lot of fun receiving cards and gifts in the mail and baking her own birthday cake.  That sounds cruel of me to make her bake her own cake, but really I'm just lazy.  Besides that, she actually enjoyed doing it.  She even decorated it herself which is a lot like art and she loves art!

She used pink, blue and green icing on a chocolate background to make butterflies, flowers and blue birds.  It turned out really cute.

Seriously, it was cute.

Once she blew out the candles, we commenced with the present opening. 

                                    

Here's a list of what she wanted and what she received:

Ear's pierced.  Check.

Ipod Shuffle.  Check.

Clothes.  Check.

Candy.  Check, check and check.

Cash donations for the camera fund inspired by her mother's professional photography skills.  Check, check.

And lastly, not requested but gladly received, one digital recorder.  Check.

Then her daddy loaded up her Ipod, put batteries in her recorder and that's when the fun really began.  With the kids all hopped up on sugar they'd run into the bedroom to sing and talk and laugh into the recorder then they'd come running back out and Madison would yell (her Ipod still blasting loudly into her ears) at the adults in the room, "You've got to listen to this!  It is sooo funny!"  Then she would play back the insane nonsense for us to enjoy.  This happened nonstop throughout the rest of the evening.

Now, two days later, when I go looking for the kids I usually find them in a closet, nibbling on the remaining hunks of chocolate and pop rocks, speaking gibberish onto the recorder with music blasting from Madison's ears loudly enough for everyone else to hear, looking like this...

They've turned into a weird bunch of unsocialized, homeschooled, little freakazoids.  This wasn't supposed to happen.  This is exactly what I've tried to avoid by homeschooling them.  I hope this doesn't derail anyone's plans of homeschooling their own children.  You know you can learn 'em just as good at home as you can in public schools.  Sometimes even better.  I should know, I'm a homeschool graduate myself.  That's right.  You're looking at a bunch of second generation homeschoolers.

Thank you dear birthday gift givers.

the end.

*Please email me with any requests to use my pictures before you just snatch 'em up.  I'm more than happy to share them, I just want to keep it under control.

Thanks,

Celeste Dixon

Professional Personal Blogger, ppb

Happy Thanksgiving!

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away I thought I might take the time to share what I'm thankful for.

Hmmm... Thinking...thinking...I'm t h i n k i n g . Okay, there are just too many things to list so maybe I'll just name a few of the things I'm thankful for.

My husband.  You're a fiery, passionate man (whew!) and a wonderful daddy to all our sweet babies. You aredee best...even your imperfection is stupendous!  What's his imperfection you ask?  He sees me through rose colored glasses.  (sigh) I love him!

My children.  I have five of you precious little packages that look just like me and your daddy and even though you also act like us sometimes I still can't get enough of you.  You all make me want MORE of you!!!

My family.  I have the most wonderful parents that always give me an arm to lean on and two sweet sisters who gladly lend me their ears to blather on and on in.  I love you guys.  I even love all you Okie outlaws...we don't get to see each other enough, I know.  And a special thanks to yuns for my hubby!  Ya done good.

My dogs, Sadie and Chili.  Sadie you're my children's protective companion and I think you love Jeff as much as I do.  And Chili, well you're really gassy and you always lick my ankle just after I've taken a shower so I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Chocolate.  Oh chocolate.  What can I say?  You've always been there for me through thick and thin, through good times and bad times.  And now, because of you, I can no longer wear a size 6 and I have high blood pressure, but I will always love you...till the day I have a stroke and die because of you.

My followers.  All nine of you.  You know who you are.  You're the reason I'm here.  The reason I get out of bed every morning before my children do and run to the computer at the butt crack of dawn.  Ooops.  Did I say butt out loud?  Anyway, thanks for being my friends, I need all of them I can get.

God.  My God.  You're my father in heaven, the lover of my soul.  You redeemed me with the blood of your son, my precious Savior.  You painfully chisel away at me like your creating a diamond all the while drowning me in comfort and hope.  Without YOU, I'm just a worthless, empty vessel.

I could go on all day listing what I'm thankful for.  Those were just the icing on the cake.  I hope you all take time to count your blessings and give thanks to God too.

Oh, and Chili, I do love you...in some special way.  A way I just can't quite put my finger on.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

What??? There's a pumpkin shortage?

I just heard there's a bit of a pumpkin shortage and we're only a few days away from the big day when pumpkin pie is the center piece, the piece de resistance, the crown jewel, the cornerstone on which this holiday was founded!  I could go on, but I digress...except that I must first say, au contraire mon frere!  Which translates into, "Whatch you talkin' 'bout Willis???"  Just take a look at my freezer!

All that beautiful gold colored stuff is PUMPKIN from my garden.  We've been living in pumpkin-shortage-ingnorant bliss, eating homemade pumpkin butter, the likes of which this world has never tasted!  (And for you who are compulsive cleaners and are only focusing in on my freezers dirtiness, at least I have pumpkin.  Pumpkin for days.)

If this pumpkin shortage is old news to most of you, remember, we don't have TV so I don't always know what's going on in the world.  But I knew this day would come.  All the best economic doomsday sayers have been predicting a food shortage and here it is!  They've been telling us to drag out our rototillers and get them running again.  To be prepared to rip out our front yards and turn them into vegetable gardens because pretty soon seeds will be worth more than gold and you'll need these seeds just to buy stuff, like food.  Well, I took these soothsayers seriously and planted my garden.  Then I told everyone around me to get ready!  Start your gardening!  The end is near!  The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!!!  But did they listen?  No.  They did not.  And now, here we are, right smack dab in the middle of a real live pumpkin scare.  What, pray tell, are they ever going to do?

Seriously though, if a lack of pumpkin pie is anyones biggest burden right now, be thankfull.  And if you have bigger problems than that, turn them over to God and hang in there...then come by my house on Thanksgiving, I'll save you a piece of pie!

Please punish Jeff, not me!

*Just a note. This post has nothing to do with the house.*


*Oh, and Jeff put me up to this...I promise!*

My husband, who really is of legal marrying age, still loves to freak his mother out every chance he gets. I know, he's sooo immature like that sometimes. And because my mother-in-law has such a good sense of humor, I guess I'll oblige. Sorry Jackie...I love you...

Jeff wants me to show everyone what we ate for supper the other night...

Eeewww...I know. We had rare porter house steaks. Rare as in "Oh look mommy! Your baked potato is pink now!" said one of my children to me mid bite. It's terrible, I know. But it was sooo good! Really.

Jackie. Jackie!! Bob, will you pick her up off the floor, Jeff has more he wants me to tell her.

Mark, a friend at work, raised a few cows this year and we bought one at butchering time and split it with my parents and my cousin Ricky and his wife. So now we have a freezer full of steaks and roasts etc...which means it's time for me to learn to cook. We've had fully cooked steaks before and hate them because they're so tough, so we've been cooking them for shorter and shorter amounts of time to find out how we do like them and it turns out rare is dee-vine! Incidentally, they keep getting rarer to find out just how rare we like them. Justin, another guy at work, says he likes to cut off a bite before he even cooks it. Now that's rare! Don't worry, I don't think we'll be going that far. Wouldn't want the kids to become vampires or anything.

Anyway, the only reason we'd ever eat a steak this way is because we knew the cow. Well, the guy that raised the cow. Oh, and the butcher. Don't eat it rare if you don't know the butcher. We don't actually know him but we talked to someone real nice over at his place on the phone. That was good enough. We're trusting like that.

Besides opening our eyes to a whole knew way of eating, this experience has also taught us that 1/3 of a cow just isn't going to be enough for our family. We'd like to stock the freezer next time with enough beef to feed our family for a year which would most likely take one whole cow. So here's the other thing...are you feeling alright now Jackie?  Stay with me.  As I was saying, next year we plan to buy one of these...

We'll fence off an area on our land and raise it ourselves too. What??? Now you can't imagine eating another hamburger as long as you live? Oh sure, it's cute...now. But just imagine when it's grown-up and smelly, poopin' big ole cow patties, swattin' flies and slingin' snot everywhere. Does that help? No? I'm sorry. Forgive me? Here, will this make you feel better?

For those of you who've never met my sweet mother-in-law, Jackie, she's a golf coarse living, country club loving, city girl who'd probably rather be having a "spa day" about right now. And she doesn't care to eat beef. She says "it tastes like an ole dead cow." (See, I told you she has a sense of humor.) Don't worry Jackie, we'll keep the freezer stocked with rabbit too for the next time you visit.

**I'm so ashamed of myself I feel the need to apologize to my own mother. "Sorry momma."**