Mornings......

It's still quiet here.....for a few moments at least. I need to get the kids up and moving. I need more coffee! I woke up this morning before the alarm clock and  as I laid there listening to the quiet....what a glorious sound that was, I wished someone would would bring my coffee to me.
Dh has been gone way too much lately and I've woken up by myself every morning. I miss mornings where we could sleep in just a bit and wake up together.
There are days too where I wish I didn't have to be so self reliant.......every once in awhile I'd like to be pampered too.
Ah well, enough self pity!
On the agenda today......church, home for lunch, and then prom dress shopping with my youngest daughter. Where oh where has the time gone? I'll post pics of her dress later!
Maybe, just maybe I can sew this evening.



What I'm so looking forward to this summer!

On the agenda today.....

it will be a busy day! I have to take my daughter to work and then pick up milk, then home for several hours.
While I'm home I'd like to try my hand at making Orange Curd.....like Lemon Curd just from oranges. It sounds yummy and I have oranges and eggs....oh my do I have eggs!
We're getting close to two dozen a day right now. I never thought I'd see the day when we had more eggs than we could eat! We can eat a LOT!
Then there's bread dough rising in the fridge that will need to be baked. I LOVE being home and getting to do these kind of things!
Oh and I'm going to try freezing some of this abundance of eggs. I've been told this is a good way to save them.....I may even pickle some. Pickled eggs sound yummy and I've never even had one! I need to rectify that.

And just to add a picture here is Miss Daisy........having a catnip treat. she is hilarious when it comes to her catnip!

Seconds after I took this one she literally sprayed dd with a catnip sneeze!

Homemade Yogurt!

Oh this is just yummy goodness in a jar! A mason jar! I have a thing for mason jars lol.
Tuesday I made yogurt from fresh raw milk. My mouth thinks it has died and gone to heaven. The kids love it.
From one gallon of milk I got 5 quarts of yogurt, two plain, two vanilla, and a maple.
The maple is divine with granola for breakfast.
The part that really got my attention though is the cost. I thought that I would be spending more per quart of yogurt than if I bought it. I did the math and would you believe that my yogurt made with raw milk is only twenty cents more than the cheapest store brand? If you compare it to the organic the savings is astronomical!
One of my daughters cannot eat store bought yogurt. We're not sure if it's the lowfat aspect or the sweeteners they use. But she is miserable every single time she eats any. She can eat my yogurt without issues!
It's super easy too. I have looked at recipes and blogs of people making yogurt for years and every single time I came to the part about measuring the temp and then wrapping it I gave up.
Then I found this site..
http://moneysavingmom.com/2012/06/homemade-yogurt-in-the-crock-pot.html

Talk about easy! So now I am happily making yogurt I feel good about feeding my kids! No extra preservatives or chemicals at all. Just milk, sugar, and some yogurt added. I did buy some organic yogurt to start my culture but the next batch should be made using my yogurt and then the cost will drop even more!

And here's my yogurt in the fridge.....in my mason jars!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.....

 
well this one is! Friday morning I got up to make my coffee and found piles of what I thought was bloody urine all over the house. Not just one or two.....multiple spots. So I started isolating pets to see who was having the problem. That took most of the morning because cats hide really well when they're being sick! I finally though figured out it was Ninja and she was throwing it up........

Ninja came a long way to live with us. She's originally from western Pennsylvania and started life as a barn cat. DD #2 brought her home after a miserable summer job experience up there. Let's just say she's not a barn cat anymore!

She enjoys spending her days getting loved on and finding the highest hiding spot she can curl up into to nap. Whether that's on my sewing machines or the top of a closet.....
At night she's either on my bed (weeks when dh is out of town) or on ds' bed.
 If I'm working on a quilt Ninja is there. She even helps me baste!She LOVES quilting!

So see? No more wild barn cat. Although she wasn't really still wild by the time she came home to us. 

Last month Ninja made a trip to the vet to be spayed. That meant an overnight stay. Ds was so worried about her! Then her incision got infected and back we went to get antibiotics. More tears of worry from ds. Then all the mess yesterday......

Oh boy.......I was worried. Throwing up blood....especially that much blood repeatedly can't be good. The first thing I checked was my sewing machine. The thread was in the same position I left it. Now see, Miss Daisy our other cat has a thing about thread.....did you know you can basically toilet paper a whole house with thread? Well Miss Daisy can and does if I am not vigilant! The only thing I could think of that Ninja might've gotten into was Legos. There are Legos everywhere. You walk on them, they're in the bathroom, the kitchen, I've even found them under my covers on my bed!

So off to the vet we went. With severe worries that I would be coming home alone. That we would be racking up $$$ vet bills for surgery to remove said Legos or even worse. 

Imagine my joy when he said viral! He said he had seen several other cats recently with the same symptoms. Odd since our cats are totally indoor cats and never, ever go outdoors. He gave her two shots and took a chunk of change from me and home we came. 

Ninja does not tolerate meds well. We learned that from her spay surgery. When we got home she refused to come out of her crate. I took the door off and put water near her. She spent the rest of the day sleeping. Then last night when I checked on her more throwing up......ugh! She still wouldn't come out of the crate either. So I figured this morning we'd be back at the vet. She obviously wasn't better.........maybe there was a Lego after all.

I didn't sleep well last night. I dreamed about Ninja all night. Ds didn't sleep well. He ended up sleeping with me because he missed his kitty. I kept her in the laundry room so she didn't make a mess all over again. 

I got up this morning and went to check on her first thing, even before my coffee or the bathroom.......I fully expected to find a dead cat. When she not only meowed at me but came out of the crate to be petted I about cried! I took her to my room and put her beside ds right away and woke him to tell him to look who had missed him. That first pic is them in just a couple minutes. She obviously missed him as much as he missed her!

So Ninja feels better, ds is happy, and I am one relieved mama!

An unexpected day at home!

 Yesterday was supposed to be busy, filled with piano lessons, youth for the girls and a few errands. Instead we spent the day at home. Youngest daughter is sick. I think it's just a head cold but she feels miserable. Then youth was cancelled. So we postponed the errands and stayed home. I love being at home! Really! I am one of those probably few people who could go for weeks without leaving home. I have plenty to keep me busy! The kids though, well the girls at least would be bored. They like going.....and going and going.

 It was rainy and gray all day. The temp I don't think ever got above 45. I got the wood stove going for the first time in over a week. Got some basic school done and then I got my quilting mojo back! YES!

My oldest is getting married in August and I promised a wedding quilt. We picked out fabric, and that is as far as I got! I did manage to make 2 blocks at the camper last month......2 out of 156......
I just have not been able to motivate myself to work on it. Instead I pulled out hexies and have been working on them!
But yesterday I sat down with an episode of Quiltcam on (Thank you Bonnie Hunter!) and I started piecing! I managed to get two whole rows completed and enough of the flying geese units done to make two more rows.
Today I will be out and about and right by Mary Jo's....yes I'm stopping! I love the blocks so far but I really need some more lights. Something sand color since this is supposed to have a beach theme..I'm seeing more jewel tones though.
What do you think?

Quilting, Baptisms, Snow......Hail!

Life has been busy....as usual! It seems it never slows down. But that's ok. I'm getting used to it. We finally had some winter weather.......in March. First we had snow and Reece thought it was great fun and ran around trying to get everyone to play with her......oldest son gladly obliged!





Then later the same day hail! The snowflakes themselves were huge and the hail while not as big as it is in the summer still stung when it hit you. The kids HAD to go out in it to check and see lol.  Youngest daughter even collected some.










Last but not least......daughter number 3 was baptised this month! Such a glorious day! All the family got be here for the event. We have prayed for this for so long now. I am not a crier but even I was choked up seeing her make this decision!

Oh and finally! Some progress on the wedding quilt.....not nearly enough but......progress is progress right? One whole row and another started. So many little pieces.......I need to declare a "quilting" day and work on nothing else.

I'm frustrated....

actually I am beyond frustration. I am just so tired of NO ONE in this house being able to pick up after themselves or do simple chores without constant supervision. My kids are not babies either! Two are teens and one is preteen.

Today I told 11yo ds to feed and water the chickens and gather eggs. An hour later it still hadn't been done. I commented on it. He went and gave them a tiny amount of food. It's cold right now.....there's snow on the ground for pete's sake. I plainly told him to give them extra. He didn't. He also didn't give them water or gather the eggs and supposedly we've not had any eggs for 3 days......hmmmm.
I went out to water.....not only are the waterers nasty because he doesn't clean them (don't worry I did!) BUT there were 3 days worth of eggs out there!

And the girls aren't any better.......I washed dishes for an hour today. I was out all day yesterday running the girls here and there shopping for a dress and a birthday present and so on. I even took them out to Olive Garden for lunch.
Today I cleaned out the cup of peanut butter they had sat on the counter.....3 days ago. I wanted to see if they would take care of it. Nope!

So here's the new House Rules:

I cook 3x a day...you eat then and I wash your dish right away
if you don't bring your dish you eat next time on a dirty dish....or you do without.....

No snacking...kitchen is closed between meals (that should get their attention!)

No Netflix

limited internet

and no fun activities because the taxi driver (me!) is busy being a maid!

oh and most likely they will loose phones ....I think that if I have to go behind my teenage children and pick up after them then I deserve a smart phone with a data plan! Sound like a plan to you? Does to me!

A Happy Day

This Saturday my oldest daughter graduated from college. Well she and her fiance graduated. It was a beautiful day. Not too cold and not too hot. My inlaws drove down to see her graduate. During this whole joyous event though my joy was marred. All I could think of was that there were 20 families in Connecticut who were mourning the loss of their babies. So as I watched my first baby walk across that stage tall and proud I said a prayer for those families who would never have the opportunity to see their children graduate anything. My heart still aches for them. I honestly cannot imagine the pain and horror they are going through.
I hugged all my kids that night and told them more than once how much I loved them.