A New Leaf

I did something yesterday that I haven't done in months.... I got on the scale!! While it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, it was still bad. So now its day one of getting healthy. There's really no excuse, its not like I'm working. LOL!! I'm not one of those No Carb dieters. As a bio major I know you need carbs to remain healthy. My problem is moving! But like I said, there's no excuse. So I've promised myself that I will move, in some fashion, 30 minutes a day which I can split up in 15 or 10 minute intervals. No eating after 8pm at night and I truly need to get back to drinking more water during the day. I find myself downing a liter at dinner time because I'm so thirsty. I'm also going to eat breakfast, which I did while I was pregnant and have since gotten out of the habit. Nothing drastic, just sensible changes.

Not much planned for today. We got the majority of the cleaning done yesterday so I'm going to focus on the guest room today and getting this darn sewing done. The Man will be heading out to help our friend again. I think he's gonna stop and help my grandfather as well. So it will be Gabbie and I today. Hopefully she will take a couple good naps ;) Tomorrow we are going to wrap up the Airstream clean up. Its been rough and I know its not 100% (that would probably require a professional, in my opinion) but it will be ok for Poppa and Step-Mommie when they get in. I still have to wrap up their laundry as well which I'll be working on the remainder of the week along with washing sheets and good stuff like that.

As for the rest of the week, I believe there will be more peach butter, more cleaning, more sewing, and may throw in a couple craft projects. Who knows, only time will tell!

Milestones

It has been a busy week here. Miss Gabbie decided to crawl and is now into everything. To top it off, Friday evening she stuck my finger in her mouth and, to my surprise, I felt a tooth!! I can't see it yet but I can feel it and it has broken through the gum. Of course in turn she's a bit fussy. She's ok during the day when her attention can be diverted but the past couple of nights have been rough. I haven't slept much!! I feel so helpless when I know she's hurting. Its horrible but its something I better get used to. So if any of you mom's have any helpful hints on making teething as pleasant as possible, please feel free to pass them on.

Friday Gabbie and I spent the day with my Mother and Grandmother. We did a bit of shopping and had a blast!! I wish I could have bought some things but I know exactly what I want when we have some money rolling in!! We went to Old Time Pottery and let me tell you... I could have spent a fortune!! I love all the fall stuff that they have!! The Man got some down time while we were gone to study for his test coming up in September. In turn, I got "me" time yesterday. The Man is helping a good friend with some home maintenance projects and Gabbie went to her grandma's. I was going to work on my sewing but I found this project while surfing and just had to make one.

The one on her blog is a bit fru fru for me (I'm not much of a flower person)so I had to find something else to stitch. I came up with this...




I took the angled view so that you can see the different colors in the tree, it's not solid orange! The Man even liked it!!! It was pretty easy, I just drew the outline on the pegboard and dove right in. I want to make a couple more to swap out when the seasons change! It was fun too. I watched a couple good movies and it was done.

So now I still have sewing to finish but I know that I can get it done. I will be working on that today and tomorrow. I should probably get going, need to get a bit of cleaning done since I didn't yesterday. Until next time!!

A Sense of Accomplishment

Good Morning! Don't know why but I feel good today. The past couple of days have been full of accomplishment. Yesterday I bit the bullet and went to the health department to get Gabriella and I on WIC. Not my finest hour but the benefits will help us immensely. It was funny. You always hear horror stories about how the staff are rude and stuff. I guess they realized that I wasn't the average joe because no one was rude to me. The head nurse who filed the paperwork for us was extremely helpful. I had lots of questions and I guess it was obvious that I had no clue what I was doing. The nurse helped a lot. We talked about the colorful people she encounters on a daily basis and I confessed that I never thought I'd be in my current position. She assured me that's what these programs were there for; people in my situation that need a bit of help. It felt much better after talking with her and the other staff. They answered all my questions and told me exactly what to do when I got to the grocery store. I commented on the large amount of food that we can get and the woman replied "That's where your tax dollars go, use them." Very true!!! So I came home with my head a bit higher. I know that we won't have to spend too much at the grocery store now although coffee and creamer are not on the program.....darn!!!!

Another accomplishment was Tuesday when I took this 27 pounds of peaches.....

And turned it into this.....

6 pints of spiced peach butter and 16 half pints of peach preserves, minus the ones we ate. Yep....accomplishment!! So my totals for the season thus far are 16 half pints and 15 pints of sweet pickle relish, 13 half pints of blueberry jelly, 1 quart of blueberry juice(for more jelly), at least 10 quart bags of tomatoes, 30 quart bags of sweet corn, 42 quart bags of Dixie lee peas and its not even apple season yet!!Not bad at all! And let me say that the peach butter is out of this world!! Can't wait to eat that this winter. Next on my list is freezing butternut squash for Miss Gabbie, applesauce, and of course, apple butter!!! Thank God that we have a local apple orchard where I can buy all in bulk!

I wonder what I'll accomplish today?! More yard work I think. Mother wants The Man and I to help her mulch her house now. So I think we will be packing up Gabbie and heading to her house for the day. It will be nice to get out of the house, something I don't do very much anymore. I think tomorrow I'm going to try and wrap up these sewing projects. My in laws are coming in next weekend and I have to have a BUNCH of stuff done by then. I'm just about finished with the purses for my sister and cousin-in-law. Then I have a couple little things for them to use up the rest of their fabric. Gonna do some zippered make-up bags and little things like that. Then I have several projects for my niece, Emily. Although I better just focus on the main one and then move on after that. I'm getting carried away!!! I want to make her all the things I wanted to make for Gabbie when I was pregnant!!! I just couldn't because I was pregnant!! Like I said, I'm going to start with the main one and as soon as its finished I'll move on to the next. I have a funny feeling that everything I make for Gabbie, from here on out, I'll be making another for Emily. I'm still trying to figure out if I should do all Emily's stuff in pretty, light, and feminine or bright, fun, and cheery. What do you think?

Speaking of Gabbie...look out world, she's about 2 steps away from crawling or walking which ever happens first. She's pulling her self up and all that good stuff. We have to lower her crib because I found her half standing up in it this morning! YIKES!!!! She's scooting along though and getting into a lot more than I'd like. Time to baby proof the house. God give me strength and patients with this!!! Every day she does something new, learns something new, develops something new. Its truly amazing to watch her learn and discover. She never fails to amaze me.

Well I better have one more cup o' coffe and get going. Lots to get done and then we have to go to Mother's!!! Oh, I think I hear a tractor outside. Looks like we will have hay bales when we get home. I'll make sure to show you! Until next time!

Before and After

Well, once again an unplanned event came up. Friday evening The Man decided he wanted to join Mother and Step-Dad on their trip down to visit Mabel. So we woke up extra early and headed down to Birmingham to surprise Mabel. She, Mother, and I spent a couple hours shopping while the guys and Gabbie played video games. We had a great steak dinner on the grill and some awesome extras courtesy of Mabel. It was a great day until the drive home. Its a 3 hour drive and for some reason it seemed so much longer than that. We finally got home at midnight. Needless to say we spent the majority of yesterday recovering.

Here are the pictures I've promised. First the Before of the yard





And After....





It's amazing what a days hard work will do. Now for Friday night's shots.






We basically just sit around a fire, if its not 100 degrees, eat, and drink a couple cold beers. I've spent many nights like this since I was a child and fortunately, Gabriella enjoys it just as much as I do. She loves watching the fire and spending time with her family.

Today I plan on cleaning, laundry, and hopefully finishing up some sewing. I also need to spend a couple hours applying again. Neither of us have heard anything and we are both starting to get truly discouraged, especially The Man. Some days I wake up and I can't believe we are in this situation. I hope and pray that something comes around soon. Well, I better get going. Until next time!

Random Home Improvement

So Mother came over the other morning and instead of working on cleaning the house, she wanted to tidy up the outside. Mother can't stand being inside so I really wasn't surprised by this. I was surprised, however, by what she wanted to do. She wanted to do some major work, which we did, and lay down some mulch, which we did, alot of mulch!! I don't have the pictures uploaded yet but I'll get the before and afters up asap! Needless to say it looks great! So, that's what we've been doing the past 2 days and because of that don't have much to report.

Tonight we are at my grandparents house for dinner and a fire. I plan on taking pics to show you all just how we spend our Friday nights around here. Tomorrow its cleaning since I didn't get any done as planned! Oh well....that's my mother for you. I just wanted to check in and let you know what we've been up to. Hopefully I will have some pictures to post tomorrow morning. Until then!!!

Good Morning!

I'm just a posting fool!! I was up early and figured I'd show you another quick creation inspired by Step-Mommie. Isn't it cute?! Love that fabric! I learned one valuable lesson with this one: if you don't drop your feed dogs then it doesn't turn out quite as planned. Oh well!! I won't do that again!

So I'm sitting here, snuggled up cause its 63 degrees outside and we have all the windows open. I've got a cup o' coffee in my fave mug and yesterdays mail that I can finally read, yes, it's a poultry catalog. What's in a poultry catalog you ask, well poultry. Babies! Yes you order specific breeds of chickens, turkey, ducks, etc and when they hatch, they are shipped to you. How cool is that!!! So I'm dreaming about my future chickens and drinking coffee in the amazing weather. Its a great start to, hopefully, an even greater day.

Mother should be here soon so I'll leave at that. Until next time!

Finally Finished Something

Well I've been working on my sewing projects, among other things. I finally finished one although the rest are coming along pretty well. This was something that I thought of one night and just had to make one. As you know our bedroom is getting a makeover and the dresser needed a little color. I'm not about to paint it so I decided to make a runner for it. To the fabric pile I went and I pulled out a charm pack that Step-Mommie gave me. Our room is red with hints of turquoise and although there is no turquoise in the charm pack there is plenty of red. Plus I love the fabric. It give the room a bit more of a country feel to it.

It was the first official thing that I've quilted. All my other quilts have been tie. I also did a self-binding quilt, which was a first as well. Its not perfect but it does the trick. I don't have any before pictures but here is one of the bedroom now. I'm glad that I'm a Goodwill addict cause I wouldn't have had all this random stuff laying around. Add in some paint and a couple of nails and you get a some-what cute bedroom. I'm changing the window treatment but to what I don't know yet. Definitely something different, too much floral. On the opposite wall is the dresser and a wing back chair that desperately needs to be reupholstered or at least slip covered. The sconces are our IKEA buy. The Man was constantly rolling over and knocking the lamp off the nightstand. I told myself that sconces would be great but couldn't find any that were in our price range and not ugly. I had found some on IKEA's website but they weren't available to ship. So when we went to visit Poppa and Step-Mommie we grabbed 2 and they were 10 bucks each!!! You can't beat it!!!




Here are some pictures of Gabriella I took the other day. I just have to say that she takes my breath away. She's so beautiful.







She's already such a country girl. She loves being outside and loves playing in the garden, especially the peas.




Speaking of country, our bee keeping mentor came out to The Farm yesterday to help us catch the bees up. We have been seriously neglecting them for quite some time now. Luckily for us, they were doing just fine. It turns out that we will have a honey crop this year after all!!! YIPPY!! Come October we will be harvesting about 30 to 40 pounds of honey! I'm so very happy that our hive is doing well. The hive has grown significantly since last year and we may be able to split it in the spring. And to think that we were contemplating getting rid of them. So glad that all is well in bee land!

Well, I think that's about all for tonight. Mother is coming over in the morning to help me get some serious deep cleaning done, so I better get to sleep. Until next time!!

PS I can't figure out how to "comment" back on my posts, so thanks to all who comment. I'm still trying to figure out how to get back to you but I'll get there!