Cheep!
So…
I got eight of these:
Then I made the mistake of calling the feed store and ended up with one of these:
And now I have a total of nine of these:
“The Plan” was to keep three for egg layers…the rest would be butchered for meat. Mom said I wouldn’t be able to do it and she’s right. (See? I admit that.) I cannot keep all nine though. I’m standing by that…really.
I think two are roosters. In the last picture it’s the one with its head up the highest (red in color) and the black one in the very front. They cannot stay no matter what.
That would leave seven. In theory I could have seven, but I don’t think I want seven. As I decide to keep them ‘for sure’ they get names. The pale yellow one is Lucille. The black and white one to the far left is Cora. I know the youngest one (in the middle picture) is staying, and she has attitude. She is two weeks younger than the rest, but she can definitely hold her own. She is an easter egger-she should lay blue or green eggs. I haven’t decided on a name for her yet. One of the rhode island red hens likes her belly scratched, but I haven’t named her yet either.
It has been an experience having baby chicks around. I’m ready for them to get out of the house though…but I have another month of them being inside. I do enjoy them a lot though.
A New Year
I’m sitting in my living room drinking a hot cup of tea, with the Christmas lights on and a candle burning in the fireplace. It is all quiet except for the furnace running and the occasional jingling of Gurney’s tags.
I should be cleaning, but I’m just sitting here.
I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions because I tend to break them quite efficiently and quickly, but I do like to set goals and try to keep them.
This year:
- To create 300 ‘projects’. Since buying this house I’ve found that I work on the house and rarely do anything creative. There are rules that go along with this. A project has to be something creative, so it can’t be something like painting the walls or remodeling the bathroom…no ‘renovating the house projects’ count. Some cooking can count such as fancy cakes-baking cookies on a whim does not count. When making multiples of things, like mini food, I can count them each if I choose to (and I’m sure I will become desperate and choose to). All rules are at my discretion and subject to change.
- To keep a daily journal. I have always thought this was a good idea, and yes, I could do that here if I chose, but some things just shouldn’t be broadcast to the world-contrary to some of the things I read on facebook every day. So instead I printed out an additional copy of the planner I will be using at work. It is one page a day, lined, with the date at the top.
- To eat healthier. I am not going to say lose weight, exercise more, etc. I know I should do those things and occasionally I do start exercising more, but I know from experience if I watch what I eat, I will lose weight. I find that lately I eat out way too much though. I need to start planning ahead for a lunch at work that won’t make going out so tempting. In the past couple years I have cut out aspartame from my diet entirely and high fructose corn syrup almost entirely.
- To write more letters-real letters. I know some people think it is silly when you could write an email or even instant message instantaneously. There’s just something about a letter you receive in your mailbox on actual paper.
I think four goals is a good start.
I’m convinced that 2010 will be a happier year and a productive year for me…so here’s hoping.
Nesting
I’ve been in a nesting mood lately. I’ve been finishing up projects and starting new ones. I’ve been in the mood to cook and bake.
This is my favorite project that I’ve finished lately. The fabrics are all pink and many have pink ribbons as well for breast cancer awareness. My grandmother died when I was eleven from breast cancer and that has had a big effect on my life-though probably not as much as it should.
Today dad and I are going to fix some holes in the house. There is one in the kitchen where the electric comes into the house. In the craft room the floor boards along one wall are just gone-when I ripped up the carpet in there, you could see that there had been water damage, but the floor was never fixed. Those two things weren’t a huge issue when it was warm, but it is thirty three degrees right now. I’m also going to have him take the air conditioner out of the window. Finally if we get to it, we might insulate and drywall the utility room. There is so much to be done to this house, and I can picture it being great, but I don’t have the time or the money to do it all now.
Lack of motivation.
This weekend was a lazy weekend. I really don’t have time to be lazy, but I could not find the motivation to do much of anything.
The kitchen is clean and the laundry is done, that’s something. Right? (It doesn’t seem like much if you would’ve seen my weekend ‘To Do’ list.)
Mom and Dad went to the camper this weekend, so anything I could’ve done on the house had to be something I could do myself. Saturday I could’ve painted, but I didn’t. Today it rained on and off. Tomorrow I am working. Ah well.
I have been working on this piece of embroidery for a friend, and I’m really ready to be done with it. He wanted a patch and I wanted to practice satin stitching-but I’m all practiced out. The holidays I decorate for are fast approaching and crafting holiday things is so much more appealing. I think one more week and I’ll have it done if I work at it. Here it is in progress:
Totally not my style, but he also seems totally thrilled with it. The black pen lines are where I traced it, the red pen lines are where I have corrected my tracing. A couple places like on the teeth, you can see a single stitch…I used that as a way to move from one area to another without knotting off and starting again. The eyes and very outer outline will be in black thread with a metallic blue mixed in. The teeth, the tear drop at the top and the circle below it will be gold metallic thread. Everything else left to fill in will either be light or dark blue. It is 4.5 inches tall. Lots of fiddly little lines…
After I finish that I am not sure what I will work on. I have quite a few projects in mind-but house things need done and holiday gifts need made.
I am so ready for Christmas. I have said that to Mom a couple times, but she says she is not. I want to get away from the whole lots of gift giving and that being the ‘point’ of the holiday. I want to decorate and bake and spend time with my family…gifts…eh. Half the time when someone asks me what I want, I can’t tell them. Generally if I want something a. I will buy it myself; b. I am too cheap to buy it myself nor do I want anyone else to buy it for me; or c. I will figure out how to make it. Mom has also wanted to know what I want for my birthday…I don’t know the answer to that either.
And it is late so I’m off to bed.
Moss Update
Today it just looks like nasty mold, I am going to get it out of there and hope it doesn’t pop up again.
Als0-hackers really need to find something more productive to do. While I am sure they are very smart people, my ftp site at work is not a good storage solution for German dubbed movies.
And I made a new header, it doesn’t link back to my homepage, but I’m not in the mood to read php and css tonight to fix that and the blue font color. Tomorrow maybe? Maybe this weekend? I also need to get Mom’s genealogy site going and Dad’s home health care blog started…but alas, there’s never a good time.
Growing Things
I put together a small terrarium yesterday with a glass jar from a candle that was rectangle shaped.
I added dirt and moss and apparently something else:
I don’t know what that is, but it doesn’t belong in my terrarium-as neat as it does look.
Winter Is Coming
I think if I spent half as much time on my blog as I do reading others’ blogs, this could be something great, but instead I spend hours upon hours looking at the posts and pictures that everyone else makes.
I find that I take so few pictures of actually interesting things though. I used to, but now…I have pictures that could be titled ‘What the windows look like when the rotting wood was removed’ (see fig. 1), ‘This is what it looks like when you stick the camera in the cistern, and what on earth is that brick wall for?’ (see fig. 2), and ‘This is what the door looked like when I took off the old lock’ (see fig. 3). But do people really want to see those things? I mean, I would if they then told me how they fixed it (which I also have pictures of!) so maybe there are other people out there as crazy as I am?
I do make pretty things sometimes though, and one day the things in those pictures will be pretty (well maybe not the cistern).
I spent all of Saturday and Sunday working on the house. Working on the front windows to get them winter-ready and I painted outside things (windows that didn’t have rotten trim) that needed painted. I also replaced the handle and lock on the back door (so now it had two locks that have keys! and! I don’t have to knee the door at the point the lock is to get it to lock) which makes me really happy.
I have a whole list of things that need done before winter such as insulate around the windows; insulate and drywall the exterior walls in the utility room; insulate around the circuit box in the kitchen; insulate the incoming water supply to the house; paint the eaves of the house; fix the craft room floor; mortar the fireplace closed; mortar the outside foundation; insulate the inside foundation; install gutters on the backside of the house and stain/seal the fence. I don’t know when I will find the time to do all of those things, but it needs done. September is already booked.
I enjoy this sort of work to a degree-it is satisfying work-when you are done, you feel like you’ve accomplished something and you can see that you have accomplished something. I don’t plan to do this forever. There will be a day when things are finished enough that I don’t spend every weekend fixing, painting, going to Lowe’s or halfway wondering what kind of a money pit I have gotten myself into. I do realize that it is a house and there will always, always be something to do, but I also imagine there will be a point where those things could be put off for a weekend and I could do something else instead-something I really enjoy.
In the words of George R.R. Martin though-Winter Is Coming.
Patchwork
Today was one of the hottest days of the year so far-so I decided to quilt. Really, I decided to sew and Mom said ‘We should go to the church so you can layout your quilt,’ and after that I decided to sew it together-which took all afternoon, evening and part of the night.
Here is the quilt with all of the ‘rows’ sewn together, the next step is to connect the rows to each other:
This is the edge of the quilt that was hanging off of the bed with the fabric that I used to pick all of the colors (conveniently the fabric is called ‘Emily’s Memories’ and I absolutely love the pattern). There will also be a thin border of black to frame up all the blocks:
This is the biggest quilt I have ever assembled, and it is a real headache to move around every time you need to iron a row. I will have it longarm machine quilted as my machine is not made to do something this large.
*The pattern is called ‘split rail’. Traditionally it is sort of a zig zag pattern, but I made it scrappy, so you don’t see it.
Candle Repair
I went to Ikea last week to get some candles.
I really wanted the tall ones they have, but I’m cheap and I won’t pay $16 for a candle, no matter how big it is.
I did find some pretty dark red and orange ones though (and those are the accent colors in my living room).
In their ‘As Is’ section though, I found two of the really tall ones for $3 each-they were broken though. One about six inches from the bottom, the other about ten inches from the top.
I turned them into this:
Cake!
Yeah, I know the previous post was about eating better, but you have to have cake sometimes.
Last weekend Mom and I were asked to make a birthday cake for a little girl’s first birthday.
We decided to experiment with the types of things you see on tv. These decorations are made from gum paste, but now I think fondant might be more appropriate:
The design is based off of the mural we painted in her bedroom which is based on a quilt set from Pottery Barn Kids (not in production any longer).
Addi enjoyed her own personal cake:
July is my month to do birthdays at work. I put it off as long as I could (sparing a couple days) and I decided to do fancy cupcakes:
I have been missing zinnias this year as I never got them planted, so I made fake ones. 24 fake ones.
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