Christmas 2010

At the end of last year's school year I agreed to help our area Girl Scouts and I just haven't had the time to blog. Christmas time and a new camera gave me the kick I needed to post these pics. I hope you enjoy them.

Let me take you to... Strawberry Fields Forever

Click play...

and enjoy the music
while I show you what happened to a few strawberry roots in a bag.

We put the roots in the ground last year, early in the summer.
We didn't put much thought into them.
The bag of roots was around $5, if I remember correctly.
I planted them where tomato plants had been. I found out that's not a good thing. I'm crossing my fingers all goes well.

These are the pics I got before I covered them with bird netting.

Okay, now I'll let our pics speak for themselves...

Saying y'ello to yellow!

I'm not sure if it was the gorgeous weather today or the fact that my allergies finally let up this afternoon but I'm feeling pretty sunny.

As a matter of fact, I've been feeling sunny since the first warm up of the year. I've been stockpiling sunshine, tucking bits of it away in a tidy little file here on my laptop.

What better a day to share it than today?
So, say y'ello, yo and hello, to yellow!

Whether you coat the walls with a shade of buttercup...

Add various bits of that primary hue in accessories...

Paint a piece of furniture lemon...

Throw on a buttery pillow...

Or change the mat in a favorite frame to the color of a sunbeam...

You can't go wrong with yellow if you want to brighten up a room!

Yes, these days it often gets passed over for blue, but what would a beach be without the glorious sunshine?

So...

What's for dinner?

Dinner?
Yep, that's what we had tonight and yum! So good! I wanted to post some of the recipes that I make that are vegetarian. I hope you find some that you can use.

You don't have to be a vegetarian to enjoy this meal. Not only is it delicious but it's a good break for your budget, too.

Bread Rolls
Ingredients:

2 (.25 ounce) packages highly active dry yeast 2 cups warm water (110 degrees to 115 degrees) 1/2 cup sugar 2 teaspoons salt

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided 1 egg 1/4 cup vegetable oil 3 cups whole wheat flour

Directions:

1.

In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 5 minutes. Blend in sugar, salt and 3 cups all-purpose flour at low speed until moistened; beat 2 minutes at medium speed. Beat in egg and oil. Stir in whole wheat flour and enough remaining all-purpose flour to make a soft dough. Knead, I use my mixer with the dough hook, about 3 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise until doubled or cover and refrigerate overnight. Punch dough down and form into dinner-size rolls. Place on greased baking sheets. Let rise until doubled in size. Bake at 375 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. Serve warm. If desired, dough may be kept up to 4 days in the refrigerator. Punch down daily. These are much better the second and third day. They never make it to the fourth day, lol.

pasta Fagioli
Ingredients:

1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes (32 ounce) cannellini beans and juice 1 bunch of spinach, washed and cut 3 cubes of Not Chicken 1 cup of water mozzarella, to top

2 tablespoon dried parsley 1 large head of garlic, diced 3 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/2 pound whole wheat elbow pasta olive oil

Directions:

	Cook beans or use canned beans. Cook pasta. In a few tablespoons of olive oil wilt spinach and saute' garlic. In a large stock pot combine all ingredients and let heat. Sprinkle cheese on top and serve.

Makeover - Walmart bathroom accessories

For those of you that I haven't scared away by my previous post, I am posting one of those projects that I didn't get around to posting during the time I took off to work on insulating our laundry room...

As a lover of words and white, these really caught my eye.

The thing I didn't like about this set was the toothbrush holder. Most kids' brushes have very chubby handles and we like to stow a travel toothpaste in the brush holder. Since our cabinets are childproof it allows the children to access their toothpaste without getting into the cabinets. ;)

I found a set of plain ones at Wal-mart for $1.50 each.


They aren't exact but they are plain and simple, although I don't love the white plastic pump.

I cut out a few words in cricut vinyl on my cricut cutter and stuck them on my cheapo finds.



They've been on there for about a month. They haven't peeled or lifted one smidge. Pretty good, in my opinion.

We painted the bathrooms, too. In this bathroom, the walls were khaki in color but the warm weather inspired us to paint it a beachy blue. I also tackled the icky ceramic soap and toothbrush holders that were set into the wall.


Ah... it's nice what some drywall, drywall clips, and joint compound will do to big square holes. I still have plans for above the toilet but for now this is the shot I'm posting. ;)


I hope everyone that tours the house will love it, too. Maybe enough that we get a contract? :)

The meat we eat...

As a Christian, meat eater, past ovo-lacto-vegetarian - that means I didn't eat meat but did eat eggs and milk, past hunter, and a person very disturbed by the movie Food, Inc., I decided to order an info book of what supposedly goes on with animal farming from Peta.

I must admit that I am a bit biased against Peta's tactics, but I figured their booklet might be worth a read.

After being brought to tears by the booklet, I had to stop and evaluate how true I thought it to be.
Growing up in a farming community with food processing factories all around, I knew that much of what I read was true. In fact, when I was looking to order chickens I could choose to have their beaks cut before shipping. Yikes! I've had friends that worked at a certain factory. I won't mention the name brand but I can assure you that they've previously mentioned some of these things to me. I can't say that the entire booklet was true. I'm no expert but I found nothing that I knew to be untrue in the booklet.

If you are a Christian you may find these scriptures informative. Just remember to read them in context and not take the scripture for face value. Always find out who it is being aimed at, when it was, etc.

Genesis 9 (King James Version)

¹And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

²And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

³Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

⁴But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

⁵And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

Romans 14:6-20 (King James Version)

⁶He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.

⁷For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.

⁸For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

⁹For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.

¹⁰But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

¹¹For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

¹²So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

¹³Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

¹⁴I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

¹⁵But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.

¹⁶Let not then your good be evil spoken of:

¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

¹⁸For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.

¹⁹Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.

²⁰For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.

These are just a few scriptures on the matter and I pray that I haven't messed up one line or word.

I feel like Christian vegetarians, Christian vegans, and Christian meat eaters sometimes twist these scripture to put the bible on their side. From what I've read, when it comes to eating meat it is a choice that God gives his people - Not a choice we should make for ourselves and then judge others about.

On a personal note, I feel that everyone who eats meat should have to kill the animal they eat, at least once. I don't mean this to be cruel. I've hunted animals and there comes a respect of the value of life when you are the one taking the animals life.

I found Peta's video that contained some, not all, of the material that was in the booklet. I thought it was worth sharing. Even if you eat meat you may take issue with the treatment of the animals in the video. You may not want to watch around young children, etc.

I have to admit that I've planned a week of vegetarian meals. I'm probably more in my comfort zone than most since we eat meat about 2 times a week now and I go through cycles of being disgusted by meat... strange... I know.

Blessing to all...

Cluck, Cluck!!!

Yep, that's right we have...

No, not sparrows and if anyone guessed nuggets, for shame!

Baby hens a.k.a. pullets!

You see, this is called a chicken tractor (minus the wire in this picture)...

It may not be a carpenter's idea of square but I designed it and built it myself.
Okay, my hubby did help a bit. After all, I couldn't unload the 4x8 sheet so luan alone.


So, what exactly is a chicken tractor you ask?

In a nut shell, it's a home for chickens that you can move around. Chickens will eat weeds and yard bugs, and leave you one of the best fertilizers you can get.
Like any fertilizer, too much will kill your vegetation so being able to move their area around is ideal... Voila! chicken tractor.

We've never had chickens so this has been a big to do.
We figured if we can give some hens a happy home, give our kids a fun pet, collect high quality eggs, and get all the yard benefits, why not!

We do plan to add on to their area but for now they have plenty of room.

It's been said that navy is the new black.
I say...
Chickens are the new cat!

Easter Rewind

As usual the first stop for Easter decor was Goodwill. I picked up some fabulously tacky gold ceramic 1980's eggs, a primitively carved wooden bunny, and on old jug. The moonshine jug, as I refer to it, was an awesome score at 2.99.

After some white paint and a letter "E" the ugly duck egg turned into a beautiful swan... egg.

How funny that weeks after my mantle scape we made a last minute decision to visit a farm for Easter festivities. No fancy bunny in a proper Easter bonnet here! This bunny came out of his tin roof cabin to greet us. He even had an outhouse, the door roughly carved with a crescent moon. I think he may have been the previous owner of the old moonshine bottle. I noticed the empty one in the background. ;)

Ahh, but those tacky gold eggs did inspire our art lesson. (I teach a free art class for a small group of homeschoolers.) We studied a bit of Russian history and Faberge' and his wonderful eggs. Then, the kids recreated their own with gold paint and scrap embellishments. The picture above is of just a few of the ones that were made.

Hope you all had a great week!

Clue #3!!!!!

Being Tennessee born and raised, I think of this photo as more of a dead giveaway than a clue...

Guesses? Anyone?

Clue #2

Let's play a game!

So, who wants to play a nifty little game?
You get nothing if you win but the good thing is that you lose nothing if you don't win.

This little game is called guess what I am.
Everyday I'll post another picture and you can have fun guessing what we are building.

Takng a break...

If you haven't noticed that I've been gone...

I'm officially announcing that I will be taking a break from blogging but I'll be back soon. We are working like mad to get our house on the market. :)

A new use for an over the door shoe organizer

Do you have craft supplies all over the house?

Do you have bits and bobs that get forgotten about?

Well, read on...

After many years of searching all over the house to gather my dispersed art/craft supplies, I've finally gathered them in one place.
This is no small feat. You see I am a homeschooling mom of three, a Girl Scout leader, scrapbook wanna be, and I teach a free art class out of my home. Yikes!
I have everything from plaster to charcoal, from jewelry making supplies to embroidery stuff, from oil pastel to fishing line! I organized the hall closet just for craft material. The fact that it all fit is all due to this nifty little thing.

I've had these things in bags and bins but the bags got forgot about and the bins took up too much space. I was racking my brain when I caught sight of my closet door, laden with shoes a plenty. My shoes are now on the floor but I did get the craft supplies organized and all in one place. Pretty simple but it works well. I did want to point out one thing though, put the labels on the lower row above the openings. If you put them on the clear part you can't read them because of the way they hang open.


Oh, and we're currently snowed in so my shoes get to stay in the floor for a bit longer.

The South's version of snowed in...