Wow, This Might Actually Work

Gulp, I guess I'm talking about FlyLady. I've been doing better in the past week with keeping my kitchen sink clean, but I've also been on vacation from work. However... I have been driving into town every single day (about 3 hours round trip) and I'm not home until around 5pm.

After I posted my last entry, I had some more work to get done:

1. I washed my SUV. Outside only, but I did wash the windows on the inside with the damp towel. Hopefully next week I will have the energy and desire to vacuum. It seriously needs a good vacuuming. I also need to scrub the plastic floor mats. Ds2 tosses out the driver's seat mat for some reason unknown to me. I have really nice ones that came with the vehicle, but I like to keep them covered with plastic floor mats to protect the carpeted ones.
2. I washed the dinner dishes. Processed the milk.
3. I did the house blessing by myself tonight. I didn't do the one that ds2 usually takes, the washing of the boys' bathroom mirror and doors. I did sweep and vacuum the kitchen floor, pick up the living room (it took a full 20 minutes to tidy up!) and vacuum, and I emptied the garbage cans. I also picked up a few pieces of debris from my bathroom floor (every little bit helps) and emptied the cat litter box.
   

Now I have to fold my clothes and put them away, and put my bedding back on my bed. I'm starting to think it might be nice to have one more set of sheets for the bed...

I feel like I really accomplished a lot today.

Until next time.

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Some Success At Cleaning

I had one of those days again. One of those days where I felt like getting something done. Here's what I did:

1. Cleaned the right side of the counter on the stove side. I didn't take *before* pictures, but trust me, it was covered to the edges with all kinds of things. Like jars with curdled milk waiting to go to the chickens for several days, some things that should have been thrown away in the first place. Now look at how beautiful it is. I even bleached the surface and scrubbed the rust rings (caused by laying cast iron skillets on the surface) with baking soda.
   
2. I decided to once and for all put my mind at rest as to whether I'd lost a check for $280.00 or not. :-P I asked my employer if the check had been cashed, but she had not gotten back to me. So I went on a search mission. I FOUND IT!! Stupid to lose that much money! You would think I was so rich I didn't have to worry about money at all. Sheesh! I had filed it away with some receipts.
   
3. Signed the back of four checks and prepared the deposit slip so I can get that money deposited tomorrow.
   
4. I went through 2 or 3 boxes of paperwork and threw most of it away.
5. I'm currently washing my bedding.
   
6. Disinfected all the milk jars. This means I washed them first, then soaked them in bleach water for 10 minutes. I must have done close to a dozen jars.
7. Removed everything "dead" from the middle refrigerator. I ended up with a two gallon bucket of rotting food for the chickens. They LOVED it. I even wiped the shelves that were messy in that fridge. I had hoped to get to the other fridges, but I figured getting one done was good, too.

Now it's time to go milk. I'm hungry. Ds2 is making tacos. One of my favorites.

Until next time.

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I Love Disco

I know, I'm weird. At least, that's the impression I get from most people when I tell them that I love disco. Even people my age. They act like I'm saying I like liver or something, for heaven's sake.

Of course now disco is referred to as "oldies" from the 70s and 80s. I used to listen to a radio station in the morning and the DJ grew up in the big city in which I grew up and he'd reminisce about things that happened when he was a child and teen. He used to roller skate, he used to enter competitions even. He would be teased about wearing a scarf. I always laughed a lot in the mornings. The other DJ was about 15 years younger and he was always appalled by the dorky things the older DJ did. Anyway, the radio station changed their DJs around, and they put the older DJ's cousin in his slot. The whole atmosphere of the program changed, becoming more focused on partying and playing pranks on people. I stopped listening around the end of November. That's when I started listening to KLOVE. Ds2 had been listening to this station for at least six months, but I was really reluctant to give up my "oldies".

After listening for about two weeks, the music started to grow on me, and I started to find some favorite songs. My first favorite song was by TobyMac, Made To Love. Then the next favorite which quickly became my top favorite was Nichole Nordeman's What If.

Ds2 ordered some CDs last week, some of the Newsboys and TobyMac's Welcome to Diverse City. Track 7 on WTDC is TobyMac's son Truett aka Trudog. Oh my gosh. What an adorable song. Trudog is very young, maybe 3 or 4 years old. Adorable baby voice, just very cute.

I was reading TobyMac's bio, which mentions his "hip-hop roots". OH yeah. I love hip-hop as much as I love disco. I know, I'm weird! I just love the music, love dancing to it! I think my favorite track on WTDC is 11, Burn For You.

Until next time.

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Face Cozy

Ds2 thought I'd crocheted him a face cozy.

I am having the dickens of a time trying to do Fly Lady. I tried and tried yesterday to get the kitchen cleaned up. I just couldn't stay focused. I did declutter two drawers. The bottom drawer has been catching and sometimes you have to jerk real hard on it to get it out. Well, I took it out and discovered that each metal piece on the bottom only had one screw each left. So I put more screws in each side and put the drawer back in place and it works great. I also took the top drawer out and found that the metal piece with the roller just needs to be replaced altogether. The roller wheel is broken and the metal piece is bent. That's why that keeps messing up. I have one more drawer in the kitchen to investigate. It's the other bottom drawer, and it gets stuck like the one I just fixed. It just takes a few minutes to fix these things. And then the drawer doesn't end up getting demolished from being jerked open and closed. I also have new handles for all these drawers. The ones we have now get hung up on my clothes. I found some new handles last year in June... I am one major procrastinator! Actually, what ended up happening is my MIL found a box of 10 drawer pulls at Home Depot on clearance for around $3 and they are the kind without the edges that catch and I want to use those. Now. If I only knew where I stashed them...

Anyway, back to the decluttering of the two drawers. They both had a lot of lids in them, some of the containers we don't even own any longer. So I threw most of them away. I do have a container with miscellaneous sized lids in case I run across the jars somewhere. The bottom drawer holds plastic grocery bags and the kitchen dish towels and wash clothes. The drawer is almost full of the latter two items! I love have plenty of dish towels and wash clothes. Of course they are all ratty and old, but they still work great for pulling out a new, clean one to dry dishes. So we are really making some progress. Progress being that they are actually clean, folded and in the drawer instead of stashed in a pillowcase somewhere.

Now... I set my timer for 15 minutes yesterday to clean the kitchen, and I could not stay focused. I am wondering if I need to lower my expectations and just try FIVE minutes.

I also confessed to my dear sister (who has been FLYing for years) that I am doing FlyLady. But I told her, "Shhhh, don't tell anyone, not even yourself!" Because I have this stupid thing about if my sister is doing it,then I can't be a copycat and do it, too. And I don't want her to be right that it is helping her. And I don't want to end up failing while she's successful.

I also have to finish up the bookkeeping for the little company, I have to complete W-2's, W-3's, 1099-MISC and 1096 forms today. Then I'm finally done with that until February.

I'm scheduled to work tomorrow, I'm trading days this week. I might even take off a couple of days.

Until next time.

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Baby Sweater Finally Finished!

Ohhhhh... I haven't blogged since Monday... first an update to the freezing cold weather I complained about in my last blog entry. I mentioned the frozen water pipes on Sunday, and how cold it was on Monday, but never mentioned the fact that we still didn't have water by noon that day. As it turns out, our well pump froze and cracked. The cast iron part of it cracked.

My M&FIL showed up on Tuesday morning early with a new pump and helped us get it installed. We had water again by 4pm. What a blessing for them to help us out. No fun being without water. Their pump also went out on them, but they live about 100 miles north of us.

It's been a busy week. On Wednesday I bought another sewing machine. It's a Riccar and I found the original receipt in its wooden cabinet. It was purchased for $156 by one Margaret Edwards on March 19, 1966 in Torrance, California. Coincidentally, I paid $75 for the machine, the wooden cabinet it sits in, plus lots and lots of sewing items. I will definitely be photographing all those items for a blog entry one day soon. The machine is currently in a shop, waiting to be overhauled. It costs $79.95; the guy cleans and oils and go throughs the machine restoring it to brand new.

Riccar still sells sewing machines and vacuum cleaners. I found their website has manuals to their old sewing machines. I was really impressed by that (many companies seem to abandon their products within a few years and finding a manual can be impossible). The manual was included with this machine, so I wrote to Riccar to let them know I could scan this manual for their collection. I got an email back that said this, "We would really appreciate if you can forward that so we can place it on our website. Hope everything goes well with your tune up; unfortunately most parts are obsolete due to the age of the machine. Thanks so much."

AGH. Well, I haven't updated my friends, but one of them is sure to tell me, "Told you so!" if it turns out this machine has anything broken. I don't think it will though. I think it is going to be a fine machine and a great blessing. The Walmart special will need to go back. Plan B is to haul out the old Singer my mom gave me years ago and pay to have *it* rehauled. But I really don't think I'll have to resort to that, at least not now.

Thursday was a blur... Friday another blur... and now it's 9:30pm and I'm still up. I did manage between last night and tonight, to finish the baby sweater! I plan to have it packaged and ready to ship on Monday. My sister's baby is 10 months old, and they live in Texas. I hope she will be able to put him in it for a couple more months at least. I made it to fit a 12 month old infant. I was almost done with it by November 20th, but then we had a bit of a crisis situation, so I was unable to pick it up again until just last night. Between last night and tonight I crocheted the buttonhole band, and the collar. Sewed on the buttons, tucked in beginning and ending pieces, finished the toque, made the pom-pom, sewed the buttons on the toque and the chin strap. It's really quite a sweet looking little outfit. I started this little sweater on September 30th. Geez, almost four months. But I took a 8 week hiatus. Too bad, my sister could have gotten a lot more use out of it... maybe. I will ask her to photograph the baby in his new little sweater so I can post a picture here.

Note to self: Never attempt to crochet with this yarn - Bernat Baby Coordinates Sweet Stripes - again. It is horrible for crocheting. The little strand of shiny material around the yarn gets hung up in the crochet hook every single stitch. It might work okay with knitting.

I wish I could be as prolific and as good a knitter as these ladies over at the Sweater-A-Month KAL. I will definitely be visiting this blog over the next year!

OH, and ds2 and I FINALLY got hoof trims done today. One of my milker's front hooves were so long she was being forced to walk crooked. Poor dear. Oh my, oh geez. I think the last time I did hoof trims was on October 2nd! That is far too long to wait between hoof trims. I usually try to get them done every 6 to 8 weeks. It is much easier to trim and keep the hooves in nice condition doing them more often. It has been sprinkling a bit for the past couple days, so it was actually easier to work on their hooves since they were kind of damp from walking on damp ground.

Until next time.

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4 Degrees or 16 Degrees?

Dh tells me I can't go only by that one thermometer hanging on the chinaberry tree, that I have to have a look at the other thermometer on the porch. Well I say the one on the porch is near the house, so it's of course going to read warmer temps than the one hanging on the tree. ;-) The one on the tree says it is FOUR degrees out. The one on the porch says 16°F. There's one more thermometer, the one on the milking shed, but it has the red line, mercury? And it is hard to tell what it says exactly because right where the red is risen to, there is a thick metal band right over it.

I went out to feed early. Usually I feed at 8am, but I fed at 7:15 because I was thinking about taking an early nap. Yes, I'm tired already and it's not even 8am. I figured I may as well feed early, then I could come in and take a nap. While I was out there I decided to bring in one of the toolboxes that has screws in it, so I can put in my shelf. Can't decide whether to nap... or caffeine myself. I should probably nap because there is this really NASTY sore throat/cold thing going around. I've been exposed to two people who have it really bad and I want to give my body all the help it can to stay well. That means I should also be taking my vitamins and cod liver oil, which I've forgotten to do for the last several days. I also meant to bring in a couple of bottles of water on my way in. Brrrr, it is SOOOOO cold out there, my fingers were aching (only on my left hand though, I had located a glove for the right hand), my face was stinging and my nose was beginning to run. Maybe I will go have a short nap.

Until next time.

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Weather Report *8* degrees!

Yesterday morning our coldest temp was EIGHT degrees. We had frozen water pipes, but nothing burst. This morning I was up at 5am and the pipes are totally frozen this morning. Yesterday we had water trickling through, this morning, nothing. That has to be one bad thing about being so clean and tidy, no water in glasses sitting about for hand washing and face washing use when there is no water! I did find one jar with about an inch of water in it, next to the stove. Luckily someone had been cooking recently, probably last night and brought a jar of water to pour into whatever they were cooking... so I was able to wash the sleep from my eyes. It is currently 61°F in the house. Brrrrr. I'm sitting at my computer with a sweat jacket on, with the hood pulled tight around my neck.

So I've been kind of busy in the past week. Haven't had much to blog about. I usually try to think of something to blog about as a writing exercise, but didn't force myself last week.

I didn't shine my sink for several days. I remembered, thought about it... but didn't. Last night, ds2 and I did our "30 Minute House Blessing". We are seeing the results of spending just TEN minutes ONE TIME A WEEK, in the living room...
We found that last night, it only took eight minutes. So we are making progress, slowly but surely. Also, vacuuming took the full ten minutes previously, but last night took only eight. Next we shine mirrors and wash doors. I tackled the back porch door, the inside part of the door was really dirty. These pictures really don't do justice to the new sparkly clean look. Even if you click on them to see a larger image, you probably won't be too impressed. Trust me. When you turn the light on in the entryway now, you are nearly blinded by the shiny clean backside of that door.



While ds2 vacuumed, I swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Then we emptied trash cans (only three in the house - we need more!!). Since it doesn't take anywhere near 5 minutes to empty the trash cans, we're incorporating scooping the cat litter boxes. I finally got a cat litter box set up in my bathroom, and am making that part of my morning routine, to scoop that box every single morning. When I grabbed the trash from my bathroom can, I also picked up a few more pieces of trash off the floor. I need to start doing some 5 Minute Room Rescues around the house. And more decluttering. After we emptied trash, we brought all the laundry we'd washed into the living room and dumped them onto a sheet on the floor. Folded and put everything away. Ds2 says he understands why people fold clothes -- he says it's relaxing. Okay, never really thought of it that way. Actually folding clothes ALWAYS makes my back ache... but he's a great help with getting clothes put away. I still have a huge pile on the couch that need to be tended to.

I was awake early this morning. Before 5am. I decided to do some decluttering in the kitchen. There's this three basket hanging thing we keep over the sink for housing metal lids and the milk strainer. There are a lot more lids in there, than we have jars for. Plus, all the canning jar lids are in there, and we only have two or three canning jars out right now! I got these metal boxes with a plastic lid from Walmart and the larger one is going to house the canning jar lids. That will keep them clean, too. The smaller one is going to house the odd shaped jar lids that we seldom use, but sometimes need. I've also cleared out this one cupboard that is just a big mess all the time. I've been wanting to put up another shelf inside that cupboard because there is a lot of wasted space at the top of the shelf. We keep things in that cupboard like the long wooden spoons, long Kitchenaid spatula. So when those long things are on the floor of the cupboard, you can't put other things in there, because they topple over. It's awful. But I'm going to make it better. A few months ago I got this really nice piece of oak wood from Home Depot for only fifty-one cents in the cull lumber section. Would you believe it's EXACTLY the right size for the shelf in that cupboard? Wow. Thanks, God. That was a nice surprise. If it weren't so dark and freezing cold outside, I'd go find the screws for putting it up right now. I have the drill and four screws, but I'm going to need a few more screws. 8 more to be exact. I even have the shelving pieces to hang it. Then I'm going to put that shelf up in that cupboard with just enough room to slide cups in there, and the wooden spoons and long spatula can lay at the back. Ahhhhhhh... can't wait to make that shelf more usable.

I am very hungry. I must eat something. I am finishing up the bookkeeping for the small company. Just have to complete W-2's today. And prepare some reports for the guy that does the taxes. Then I'll be done. I have a website I need to update, and minutes for the board on which I serve. OH. And HOOF TRIMS. Which have still not been done!! And the baby sweater that is half sewn together. AGH.

Until next time.

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Lemon Tree

Our lemon tree is producing this year! How exciting! We have about five lemons on the tree right now. The fire ants are busy eating the other blossoms though!! Stupid fire ants! I must remember to get out there with AMDRO and get rid of them.

Until next time.

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What Kind of Flower Are You?

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

Hmmm... it says, "Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

I guess I do try to make people laugh. But I don't think of myself as a prankster.

Wait a minute. I took this quiz earlier this year. Back in September. I was a violet then: "You have a shy personality. You tend to hesitate before trying new things or meeting new people. But once people get to know you, you open up and show the world what you are really all about."

THAT is actually more like me. I don't think this quiz works very well.

Until next time.

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My First Buttonhole!

Okay, actually maybe this wasn't my very first buttonhole EVER, maybe my first buttonhole was for my very first sewing project, a skirt. There I am, 10 years old in 1973. Not sure what the goofy look on my face was all about.

ANYWAY... so I worked a bit more on the curtains this morning. Anything to procrastinate and keep from working on the bookkeeping. I really have to get to it this weekend... or... maybe only the 1 hour's worth of bookkeeping needs to be done. But I really need to stop procrastinating in case my job decides to allow me to work one more day a week. Really could use the money!

I decided I definitely needed sashes to be able to tie back the curtains. Also, the top valance bar was hung lopsided (I futzed with the picture so it wouldn't look crooked). Probably because the curtains aren't perfect is the reason I couldn't sleep last night. I finally slept until 8:30am. I think I'll make myself a kefir shake this morning for breakfast. I digress. I rehung the bar but now I see that my curtains are lopsided, too.

Back to the title: Buttonholes. I feel like I got a lot of machine for $65. There is a setting to make automatic buttonholes. I guess this is standard issue for sewing machines, but it sure wasn't back when I was in my twenties. It feels like a stretch to follow the sewing machine manual because they are using all these terms that don't mean anything to me like, "the front bar tack will be sewn first, " and "attach buttonhole foot and push the outside frame back until the sliding insert is in the front."


HUH?

But I muddled my way through and say, making buttonholes is pretty fun!!

So here are the sashes themselves. Pretty simple. I had two squares leftover after I cut the panels for the bottom of the curtains, so I cut the squares in half, sewed them together, folded them lengthwise and sewed down the edge. Reversed the sash, then sewed the end together. Then sewed in the buttonhole and I also don't have a seam ripper tool, so I used a box cutter to cut the material. Now I see that I forgot the last step. Reinforcing the buttonhole with a Straight Stitch. I'd better do that. We seem to be hard on things in this household.

I decided against those cup holder things to hold the sashes. As I just said, we seem to be hard on things in this house. They would be pulling out of the wall within weeks, so I just used a long drywall screw.

Here's another picture of the curtains now, complete with sashes. See how you can see under the sink area? That is what the other set of curtains is for. I'm also going to paint underneath the top cupboards - the area that is white will become turquoise, as will the white alongside the window. But not this weekend.

And, I've decided! I want this to replace my old falling apart dish drainer (besides it is pine green and the drainer thing on the bottom is clear:


It sells for $29.99 from Target via Amazon.com. Amazon wants almost $40 after shipping and tax. I don't know if I want to spend THAT much, but I *do* have gift certificates worth that much left. Although I am tempted to buy a stainless steel dish drainer. They have one at Amazon also, for $50. Probably the shipping will be high. But it would last longer than these Rubbermaid ones seem to do. I have replaced mine twice since we've lived here, about four years.

Until next time.

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Insomnia

I don't experience insomnia very often. I used to experience it a lot more in my "dieting" days, back in my thirties. But it is rare nowadays. I looked back through my blog to see if I'd blogged about having insomnia, and the last time I mentioned it was on July 28, 2006 Insomnia Strikes. It usually seems to be nutrition related. My stomach does feel funny. Not quite like I'm hungry, but kind of like something isn't right. Kind of like I feel hungry, but not. Hard to describe. I drank some kombucha, thinking maybe it was a bit of indigestion. My "diet" has been dismal lately. Why today I even ate a Twinkie and drank Dr. Pepper! I am not eating many traditional, whole foods, instead I'm relying on quick foods. Also, I sometimes wonder if it's not a low blood sugar thing going on.

I went to bed late as it was, 11pm. I slept until 12:30pmam. By 1am, I was up and on the computer for a while. I realized I was hungry and I ate a bagel with cream cheese. I drank some milk and went back to bed and just laid there. Finally at 2:45am, I decided to just get up for a while. I washed three loads of dishes and I shined the sink. Wiped off the stove and the counter to the left of the stove. Started to declutter it just a bit. Need to work on that area more tomorrow. It is definitely a "hotspot".

Tomorrow Today is a big day for me. I can't just stay up, I'll be exhausted. I am finally starting to feel a bit tired, so maybe I can go back to bed and try to sleep again.

Ds2 is going to help me do hoof trims and we will hit the house quickly for half an hour, doing that Sunday house blessing thing. The house stayed pretty neat all week long. Usually when we clean up, we don't do another for like a month. I can already see, if we hit the house again today, we will get a little bit more cleaned up. I'm actually feeling kind of excited about it.

I have to remember to wash clothes tomorrow.

Until next time.

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Ooooh, Lookee What I Made!!

I'm so excited, I'm so happy with my results!! Look, here is the new aqua colored paint and the old curtain. Ick, nasty, ugly aqua, yes?

I got the paint from Home Depot. Five gallons of "OOPS" paint for $15. Someone's paint that got made into the wrong color. I actually bought it because my dh was building a new shed, so we could turn the "milking shed" and into an actual milking parlor. The paint looks like a very soft green color, like Crayola crayon seagreen. But once it dries, it becomes more of an aqua color. At any rate, how can I shine my sink every day, when the curtains are so ugly?

So today I became obsessed with replacing the curtains. I found out quickly that Walmart has about two choices for kitchen curtains, the one in the picture, and another one with other colors that don't match my paint...

I went to one Walmart and perused the one dollar per yard shelf. Like for an hour. I didn't have a paint chip, and was going by memory. I know what I envision the color to be, and what the color actually is when I see it again are not the same color. I asked ds2 to take a picture with his cell phone and send me a picture. Oh... he couldn't find his cell phone. Then he finally remembered it was in his pants and his pants were soaking in the washer!!! Agh!!! Hopefully his cell phone will dry out!!

Anyway, so I looked and looked and looked and looked. Nothing seemed like it would be the right color. Finally I made myself stop looking (and wasting time) and did the rest of my shopping. I had to go to the next small town to make a pickup, and there was a Walmart there. These are the only two stores with fabric in them unless I want to drive 50 miles, so that's why I went to Walmart instead of JoAnn's or Michael's.

At the next Walmart, the choices were even slimmer. Ugh. Nothing but ugly material for $1/yard. I couldn't even find anything that caught my eye for $2/yard.

By now, I'd asked ds2 to take a picture of the window sill with the digital camera and email it to my phone. It was a dismal picture, the green looked almost white, so it was absolutely no help at all.

On the way back to the first town, it struck me finally that I had my employer's digital camera in my purse, with pictures of the window sill!! When I got back to the first Walmart, I had a brainstorm. I went to the Kodak photomaker machine - which I've NEVER used before - inserted the SD card and within a minute I had a picture printed out of the window sill!! It took longer to pay for the photo, than it did to make the dang thing. The guy behind the counter said they have to scan the picture, put it into an envelope and then ring me up. Maybe they think people will try to print out pornographic photos or something and so they scan every photo that goes out so they can bust them? Or maybe they think the photo will be a professional one, with copyrights (again with more busting)?

Back to fabrics. I started looking again. By this time, I'd given up on the idea that I'd be making two sets of curtains for $4 (I'd figured I would need 4 yards and was trying to buy $1/yard material). I was ready to accept the fact that my material would cost no more than $2/yard. I found some material that I liked, but it was so pretty I figured it was in the wrong area. I was right. It was $3.96/yard. So I gave up on that one. I finally asked the ladies if they would help me find something. They were really trying to help me. One lady kept finding turquoise colors that I just didn't like. One material looked like something I'd make pajamas out of, not kitchen curtains. Another was too "sissy" - my guys would refuse to cook again if I put that in the kitchen. Another was turquoise camouflage, ugh. She found material after material, and I didn't like them. She was so cool, because I apologized for being so picky and she told me, "Oh no, you HAVE to like it. This is going to be in your kitchen, so you need to REALLY like it."

Finally I hit upon the idea of taking the first material I'd seen that I liked, and making a valance at top, just a straight piece, and then the bottom sections would be a matching cream color, with a straight panel across the bottom of the valance color.

Can you see the adorable nursing calf?

Now, remember the picture I had developed? The color in the photo matched the blue in this fabric PERFECTLY. I thought the contrast would be beautiful. I also love that I could bring some more colors into the kitchen, like granny apple green, and barn red, and maybe even some cow things.

My next problem was that I was planning to sew all this by hand. Yes, the whole time I was searching for material (at least THREE hours), in the back of my mind I was realizing that I probably wasn't going to have enough time this weekend to sew curtains by hand. I began entertaining the thought of buying a cheap sewing machine, even though money is *tight*, and can't afford to buy even a cheap sewing machine.

But by now, I'm committed to putting in these new curtains. And I have been wanting a sewing machine for YEARS. So, I bit the bullet and bought the cheapest Walmart special available. A Brother Machine, $65.00. Can you believe you can buy a sewing machine for only SIXTY-FIVE dollars?

Also, my fabric ended up costing SIXTEEN dollars, not FOUR, and not EIGHT. OUCH. BUT, I love it, and I've spent most of my life buying the cheapest thing possible, just to save a dollar and in the last few years I'm getting really sick of getting ugly stuff just 'cause it's cheap. I had a major fit of guilt once I left the parking lot, and called my mom. My dear mother, who enabled me by saying she wanted to buy me something nice for Christmas and could she give me the $65 to pay for the sewing machine? So I was able to get over the guilt fairly easily.

I had to feed the goats and milk once I got home. And then process the milk. I'm at a place in my cycle where I'm just in a mood, real cranky, alternating with feeling depressed. I was hungry, but wasn't about to take the time to cook. I had CURTAINS TO MAKE!!

So I had a plan formulated in my mind, and set about making it happen. But first, I had to figure out the sewing machine. THAT took me longer than making the curtains! When I finally got the bobbin filled, the thread threaded, and started sewing, it was 8:25. I was done with my curtains by 9:35pm! I made two valance pieces at the top, and two panels at the bottom.

I bought enough material to make an extra set of matching curtains for under the sink, where I removed the doors since the one had fallen off and the pressboard was damaged, making it impossible to put the one door back on. So I decided to just remove them altogether.

Now I MUST get into bed. I have a big day tomorrow. Two big things on my TODO list. Hoof trims and then end of year accounting for the little business for whom I bookkeep. (Will I ever figure out how to say that correctly?)

OH, did you want to see the finished product? By the way, the photo I had printed out does NOT match the window sill in person. But the fabric still works to make the paint color look nice, instead of ugly.



Until next time.

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Hogging the Bed

I was reading one of my books on the American Pitbull Terrier a couple of nights ago and found that they can grow to weights of 75. LJ was 74 last time we weighed him, and he is not even one year old yet. He is one muscular little boy. He is long and lean. That is our bed he's lying on -- it is a queen-sized bed -- he dwarfs it! It looks like maybe a regular-sized bed.

He is not so happy when I come to bed, and make him move over. Sometimes he even grumbles at me. When he does that, he gets OFF the bed until I give him permission to get back up.

He continues to be THE BEST dog I've had in my entire life. He remains friendly and loving with people, even when the meter reading guy comes onto the property, he's right there nuzzling the guy's hand.

Until next time.

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Coyotes Yipping

I was awakened this morning before my alarm clock went off with the yip-yip-yip-yodeling of coyotes nearby. Times like these make me VERY, VERY happy for my pack of dogs. What you say? They cost a lot to feed? Pshaw! $40 a month is nothing compared to the nice feeling of knowing they aren't going to dig their way into my property and try to kill all my chickens or young goats.

LJ sleeps in bed with me and he also woke up, head alert, ears perked. I've trained him to not bark while in the house, so muffled sounds were coming from his throat. He kept jerking his head back and forth, trying to get a better listen.

The sounds the coyotes make is just freaky. Even worse when you are outside, it can make shivers run down your spine and raise the hair on the back of your neck.

Finally we both got up and I let LJ out the front door so he could investigate with the girls. Soon the coyotes left and LJ was at the front door ready to come in.

I feel tired already.

I did put a roast in the crockpot so that we have a headstart on today's dinner.

Until next time.

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FlyLady Entryway

I worked today so I didn't have much time to devote to FlyLady, although I did spend 15 minutes like she asked, in my entryway. It already felt difficult to get motivated, but after eating dinner and sitting down for thirty minutes, I felt I could get up and tackle it. I didn't get a lot accomplished, but I did *do* something in that area for 15 minutes. Then I set the timer for 15 minutes more and cleaned the dinner dishes, and shined the sink.

I'm very tired tonight. I was almost falling asleep while driving home. Our steer broke loose and were running around our entire property. Ds2 got them to go back to their corral and secured the area they broke through.

This was when I just got home. I drove my truck over to park it where I usually do, to see that our Nubian buck was loose! Weirdness!

Until next time.

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Challah Bread Sandwiches

One of ds2's favorite meals is Challah bread spread with yogurt dressing (1/2 yogurt, 1/2 mayonnaise), topped with cucumber slices and cheddar cheese. We ran out of blocks of cheddar, so he improvised with shredded. I was up early in the morning on December 31st around 3am. By 5am decided to put this bread together for him in the breadmaker for a surprise. Coincidentally he woke up and had to get a drink of water, and saw the bread recipe book open to Challah Bread. :o)

Until next time.

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Front Porch FlyLadied

So FlyLady said to go spend 15 minutes on your front porch. PUH.

Since we enter our home via our back porch and don't really have a front porch to speak of (only steps leading out), ds2 and I decided to tackle the front porch.

We finally started working on it this morning about 10:00am. We set the timer for 15 minutes, and we hadn't even made a dent. But now we were on a roll. Set the timer for another 15 minutes. Uh, little dent. 15 minutes more.

We are finally done at 2:00pm. Here are some before and after pictures.

We are SO PROUD of ourselves!!!









I'm going to put some things on my "to do" list for the porch. It isn't 100% decluttered, and I never did get around to wiping down the door. There are several panels on the porch which need to be replaced. Ds2 says he will do that at some point in time. Then I want to scrub the porch and paint it to protect it.

Do you see those giant clodhopper shoes in the last image? I have tripped over those SO many times. I am so happy they have a home now!!!
Until next time.

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Happy New Year!

Oooooohhhh... ouch. My stomach is burning. I just had a bean and chili burrito with salsa that the neighbor brought over last night. The salsa has red chili peppers in it, the dried little ones that are whole. Green onions and purple onions. Tomatoes, of course. Good stuff.

So I was just about to blog about the "projects" I had planned for today. Continue the gravitation from the sink area. I was going to clean under the sink and maybe try to clean off the pipes which are so ugly and grungy looking. Then I was going to tackle the counter on the right side of the oven. I also promised myself I'd clean a path in my bedroom so I don't have to almost fall and break my neck when I get out of bed in the middle of night.

But then I got a FlyLady email and she says to clean my front porch. Only in our case, the entryway is our back porch. Boy, does it need some attention! I did pick up some clothes that were on the floor by the washing machine that were covered with dirt and sand and washed them last night. But the porch needs a LOT of attention. The email said to spend only 15 minutes. I'm hoping ds2 will help me tackle this, since we'll get 30 minutes worth of work done if we both work for 15 minutes on it. It would sure be nice to sit outside on the couch like we used to be able to (can't now, it's really bad off). I should take before and after pictures...

I also really, really need to get hoof trims done. At very least, for my milkers. Hopefully I can persuade ds2 to help me with that, too. I also need to do the finances and get the mortgage check written.

Until next time.

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More FlyLady Stuff - Enough Already

FlyLady has something she does on Sundays called "The Weekly Home Blessing Hour". You are supposed to set your timer for ten minutes and do each of seven things. Vacuum, Dust, Mop, Polish Mirrors and Doors, Purge magazines, Change Sheets, Empty all trash. Okay so since we are just starting, we have to just follow along instead of trying to catch up. We omitted dusting, purging magazines and changing sheets. Ds2 and I tackled tonight's event together. The living room floor was a mess - the cats have been tearing up a roll of paper towels for the past few days... so you can imagine... We set the timer for 10 minutes and both worked together on the living room. Next we set the timer for 5 minutes and ds2 washed the boys' bathroom mirror and the boys' bathroom door and I tackled ds2's bedroom door. Then we tackled ds1's bedroom door together. Next we set the timer for 10 minutes and tackled separate jobs. Ds2 vacuumed the living room and the area between the boys' bedrooms and the boys' bathroom, while I swept and mopped the kitchen.

Then one of our neighbors called to say they made some food and wanted to bring some over for us. They butcher and roast pig for every holiday that they can, it seems. :-) They brought over some roasted pork, homemade salsa, two tiny limes and some corn tortillas. I drove out to the front gate to get the goodies and was standing there appreciating the coolness in my short sleeved shirt. Since we'd been working steadily for some time in the warm house, I was sweating. It felt so good out there, but when the neighbors showed up they had on knit hats, mittens and jackets. Heehee. They probably wondered if I was a bit nuts. When the wife called, the vacuum was going and I couldn't hear her very well, so she probably wondered what was going on, lol.

When I got back in, ds2 had finished vacuuming and was on his laptop. The last thing we'd agreed to do together was take out the garbage. There were only two cans to empty, so I just did it myself. I also folded most of my laundry, but haven't put it away yet.

Then I washed some more dishes, put the night's milk in the freezer, and washed some more milk jars. I decided that I'd worked enough and forced myself to stop.

I don't want to burn myself out. We put a ham in the oven about 3pm. It has to cook for six hours. We just put potatoes in the oven at 7:30pm so the ham and potatoes should be done at the same time. Now I just need to make one more thing, a vegetable and then we're set.

I am already feeling tired, but am trying to stay awake to see the New Year in.

Until next time.

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Cleaned The Window Over The Kitchen Sink

I'm not fooling myself into thinking this FlyLady thing is working. I know it has to do with my cycle. Typical "burst of energy" which comes every few months (rather than monthly like it used to when I was younger). But I can hope that I can cajole myself into doing one little project. Yesterday was a big project -- changing out the sink faucet. Today I decided I'm going to clean up the kitchen, and one more little project every day (or even every few days). Today my extra little project was to clean the window over the sink. Ds2 cleaned some of this area a few weeks ago, but it had been splashed and dirtied, and was covered with cobwebs again.

The window sill was disgusting. I tried to take a picture and it's probably best that I couldn't manage it. I took off the curtain and it's in the washing machine as I type. I am going to see if I can get a matching curtain to put in front of the sink to cover the pipes below. The one that goes in the window will fit the bottom part just perfectly, but I'll have to hem it up just a couple of inches. I have seen that in people's kitchens before and so I think that will work just fine to not have cabinet doors there. Ds2 thinks the cats will scratch it, but we'll just have to see if it will work out or not.

This is kind of fun posting my success.

Now to work on whipping the kitchen into shape. I wonder how long that will take if I really focus on it. I also need to give some attention to the refrigerators and "dump anything dead" and wipe up any spills. As far as I can see, the refrigerators still look fine, but I'm going to give them a look-see, just in case. That's one of my problems, is seeing a little bit of a problem and thinking it's not worth the 10 seconds to clean it up, I'll wait until it gets worse. Problem is then I wait until it's so much worse that it takes hours to get it cleaned up again.

I did sit for half an hour and watch an episode of Twilight Zone "Dead Man's Shoes". For all the years I've watched TZ, I am just amazed that it was one I'd never seen before.

The picture above was taken later in the day. I scrubbed and scrubbed on the window sill - until I was removing paint even, but I could not remove the dirt and grime embedded in the little cracks and crevices. So I decided to paint the window sill with the green "oops" paint we got from Home Depot a few weeks ago (5 gallons for $15). It could be construed as light turquoise... I just don't know if I like the green color there... it is the only paint I had on hand, so I thought it would look nice. Maybe I can find some material to match for making curtains and the curtain for in front. The curtains there now definitely do not go with the green paint, actually looks pretty gross.

Until next time.

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