Updated Garden pics!

Pomegrante bushes

Basil and what’s left of the tomatoes and parsley

And the beautiful pommie tree by my front door.  It’s in the neighbors yard of course but its still so pretty!

 I can tell fall is coming.  Allergies are here and I don’t have to keep the fan on us all night! YAY!  Well, about the fan anyways.

I have had a very busy weekend.  We started our fall garden. YAY!

David cut some pomegrante and tried planting a hedge of them over the weekend.  Two lived but two have died and we transplanted the volunteers from our garden into the dead ones bowl and they are looking very healthy.  This is day 5 so we’ll see.   I love pomegrante season.  My neighbor has a bush that she always lets us pick from. It will be so nice to have my own though. 

 They are more heavily mulched now of course.

Here is the first row we planted.  In that row there is two rows of radishes.  Its a little over a ft wide so its easily fits two rows of radishes.   We also planted two rows of green beans, pole and bush type but I haven’t gotten a picture of it yet.

They are already starting to come up.  Its sooo exciting.   Now here is alittle rant.   PET owners. PLEASE keep your dogs and cats inside YOUR yard.   We woke up this morning to find pot holes in our rows.  Our neighbors dog came and trambled the row.  Its VERY discouraging to spend hours preping the soil, planting and using a lot of TLC only to have it trampled to death within minutes.  It is not a little mishap.  It’s one that could have been avoided.  This happens every season.  Also, our garden is NOT a liter box for your cats.  Please keep your cats liter box cleaned or something.  We have tried to be friendly and neighborly about this but it has come to the point where if we find your animal in our yard we will take it to the pound.  I know we are not the only ones that have had trouble with this.  So if you own pets, please concider what their roaming around can cause.   Thank you.

So, this weekend we also pulled out a closet in the bedroom.  This was a very hard task to do.  A) because the previous owners built the closet into the ceiling.  Smart on their part because they wanted a sturdy closet but very bad for us that wanted it out.  Don’t worry we still have 2 closets in the bedroom

So this is before.

 and this is after (but before my sprucing up)

 I’ll have to update you on what that now looks like.  I have a couple homemade quilts hangin up.  So pretty and more baby-room looking without having to have a baby room!  She still sleeps with us in the “master” bedroom.   Its so nice to not have that crib blocking the clothes closet and having to move it everytime you need to get in.  Especially for the preggo mom here. ;)  I can’t tell you what a relief it has been to have it and a more organized room. 

Another yard sale this weekend!

I am also pulling a plug for my used items blog that also has the homemade dresses on it.  My friend is also going to use my blog to sell some of her gently used second hand clothes.  Two stay-at-home moms bloggin’ away goods for your sweeties.  It does help us pay the bills so before you go to the thrift store or second hand store, see if there is anything you could use.  Save the ebay hassle too!  For all my stuff if you buy six items or lots you recieve free shipping!

Ok, its almost dinner time and I should actually make something.  EEK! Where has the day gone?

 Or didn’t you already know?

Me at 12-13 months

 Yes, I am wearing a crocheted shrug in 100 degree weather… I was modeling it and decided to do the baby picture while I was at it.  It actually looks cute with that outfit don’t you think?

Oh, you REALLY wanna know how far along I am? Let’s see… um… 23? 24? weeks?  Who keeps count?

Now for the best news ever!

EMMA IS WALKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, Grandma, She took her first 5 steps today.  Food, great motivation for the get-up and go girl.

 My husband recently asked me, “Why do you go through all the trouble of selling our junk? It would be so much easier to just take it all to the thrift store.”

I quite agree, it would be so much easier.  But, I went through the process of taking pictures and listing the items for sale.  I knew we would be happy for it by and by.  

So, the other day when I was doing my walmart shopping I came across these sheets-

I knew we’d need sheets before the year was out.  The ones I had purchased for my hopechest were on their last leg.  I have mended them to the best of my abilities but they are about ready to give up the ghost.  We have one other set of sheets that were given to us.  They work so nicely and so well but I am not always able to get the sheets washed and put back on the bed before the day is out.  It is nice to have 2 sets.     The sheets were on sale.  Marked down $20 from their original price.  It would still mean forking out $45.00 for sheets and I had to swallow pride to do it.   But I knew that it was a good deal for Egyption cotton and 400 thread count.   And if these sheets last 10-20 years, it will be so worth it.  Do you think they will last? 

We had about $10.00 left over.  So I went to the fabric dept… yes, that dreaded but wonderful place.  I purchased enough fabric to make Euphemia a birthday dress as well as a new skirt for me. 

Isn’t it wonderful how God provides for all our needs?

 Just can’t do it.  My idea.  It was a cool beans one but I am a mom, a stay at home wife, and a seamstress… I love blogging but I just cannot keep up with the daily life and daily posting.  So, I will still have a contest at the end of this month but I am going to continue writting like I was before. 

The decluttering is done for now, Thank God for giving us patience, endurance, and perservance to do it all.  There is still much to be cleaned out but until the bigger things are advertised and sold we are at a stand still.  My house was once filled with boxes of stuff.. now it is filled with packing boxes. LOL.

It is the begining of the school year for most.  Our time has not yet come.  I know I shall look forward to the planning and schooling part but I cannot stand teaching.  If we were all so easy that we could pick it up like that I would have no problem, however we are not all Einsteins.  I would also miss the moments like this—

 and this…

Deep in thought and play.

  Hubby and I were talking the other day about schooling.  I made it clear that I believe homeschooling will be the best thing for our children but I know that it is not what I want to do.  It is the right thing to do.  He pointed out a instance that Susanna Wesley went through;
” One day Susanna was teaching a difficult rule of grammar, and Kezzy could not understand it. Patiently. Susanna went over it again and again.  Then noticing a shadow, she lifted her eyes and discovered that Samuel had been listening.  Shaking his head he commented, ” I wonder at your patience, Sukey. You have told that child twenty times that same thing.”  Susanna smiled.  “If I had satisfied myself by mentioning it only 19 times, I should have lost all my labor. It was the twentieth time that crowned it!”  (Taken from Mother of John and Charles, Susanna Wesley by Charles Ludwig)

How true it is! It not just area’s of schooling but in the daily teachings of life! THe most daunting and repentive thing we will teach will be the most useful to them later on in life. 

 This Maid has been very busy so today she stopped and reflected by she was so busy… and she stopped to smell the roses…

 And admire God’s gift to the desert…

 And the little things we take for granted…

 In Hubby’s recent readings of Patrick O’Brian’s books (Master and Commander, Far side of the World, Etc)  He stubbled across this quote which we thought to share with our readers.

Not far into the second book of the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian, Stephen Maturin becomes acquainted with a young widow named Diana Villiers, who lives with her aunt and three cousins in the vicinity of the residence that Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin occupy. At a ball given by Diana’s aunt, Mrs. Williams, Stephen and Diana are engaged in a conversation, a portion of which revolves around Diana’s forceful comments:

“…You must know that married men are the worst enemies women can have…They offer what they call friendship or some stuff of that kind - the name don’t matter - and all they want in return for this great favour is your heart, your life, your future, your - I will not be coarse, but you know very well what I mean. There is no friendship in men….Listen, Maturin, I speak openly to you, because I like you; I like you very much, and I believe you have a kindness for me - you are almost the only man I have met in England I can treat as a friend - trust as a friend.”

“You have my friendship, sure,” said Stephen heavily. After a long pause he said with a fair attempt at lightness, “You are not altogether just. You look as desirable as you can - that dress, particularly the bosom of that dress, would inflame Saint Anthony, as you know very well. It is unjust to provoke a man and then to complain he is a satyr if the provocation succeeds…”

“Do you tell me I am provocative?” cried Diana.

“Certainly I do. That is exactly what I am saying. But I do not suppose you know how much you make men suffer. In any case, you are arguing from the particular to the general: you have met some men who wish to take advantage of you, and you go too far. Not all French waiters have red hair.” ………

~Post Captain By Patrick O’Brian page 50-51 ~

Typed out by David.

Still decluttering… but for my Emma’s adoring fan’s…

It’s Tuesday!  I am actually still just watering the garden away and plucking here and there. It would be foolish to plant anything right now so it’s been a lot of weeding going on around here.   But yesterday I did spot this-

  Our first Cantelope!!!!!!!!! But then this morning Emma brought me the darling thing… It’s only the size of a small baseball.  Way to early to pick.  I was terribly dissapointed but I couldn’t stay too upset for long because she gave the biggest grin like,  “I helped you out Mommy! Its the size of a tomato! I know its the wrong color but hey aren’t they all suppose to be that big?”

Sniff. Smile.  Children are such a blessing you know that?

So, this weeks gardening post is how you should teach your children the difference between a cantelope and a tomatoe… even when your cantelope (volunteer) is growing in your tomato pot.  It’s still confusing for them.

So sorry I haven’t kept up. This weekend was our declutter sale. Also known as a yard sale.  We were successful in the fact that we no longer have boxes and boxes of STUFF. But it mostly went to Goodwill.  Seems as if everyone is out of town right now.   But that’s ok.  We are still decluttering (if you can believe that!) and I have hardly a chance to sit down and write this.  The only reason I am on my computer is that I am listing some of the books and knicknacks.  Golly, how does one accumilate SO much stuff in a matter of 2 years!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the more reason to go Amish.