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2012-02-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

So we are in that transitional phase that without the RV, we would be homeless. Or living in a hotel obviously, we wouldnt really live on the streets. When we move to a new place, I am sure at first that we will quickly find a lot of listings that fit us, and we will need to choose. How wrong I was...

The first realtor we called said, I cant find anything under 200 thousand. Sorry. Oh ok well, um. We called a new one, she said, you are wasting my time. Oh uh... So we called the retired army guy in Anchorage. We were trying to talk to realtors in the outer areas (the mat-su valley) because we want to buy out here.

This realtor is a good guy, he found some stuff but it really wasnt good. Amanda discovered some glaring errors in one place, and on top of that I had bad feelings about it. I always get a good/bad feeling, and as I pray for God to lead me I always listen to those feelings.

Next we talked to the realtor's favored lender. Well, a certain bank but also a specific loan officer. We called her, she found out what we wanted and she told us about a repossessed home that we might consider. We will be seeing the inside tomorrow, today we drove past and it is exactly what we want, it may be a little high... waiting to see, there is no sure price yet as it is bank owned. I mean, they know but we dont know. It is a 5 acre llama farm, fully fenced and gated, largely wooded with a nice home and shop. It will be higher than we wanted we are sure, but we simply cannot find what we actually wanted in our price preference.

Today we bought an SUV, it is an Isuzu Rodeo. Small, 5 speed, 6 cylinder, 4 door. Will get better fuel economy than the big truck, and we really need 2 vehicles. The children will start gymnastics this friday/monday as we now have 2 vehicles. Tad will start guitar lessons, Nathalie says she likes the ideas of music but doesnt want to commit. Because she doesnt like to commit.

It would be nice if we can buy this place, it is closer to Frank's work than the other country spots we had found, and it is literally right off of the main road that runs past the library and the gym. Oh, and really close to the grocery store.

So here is hoping that this place is right, and affordable!

RV Life

2012-02-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

This is a post all about how we live in a space that is about 120 sq feet. We lived in 3800 sq ft in Ks, on 6 acres. We also had 4 vehicles. Now we have 1 vehicle, we live in an RV park and we have 120 sq ft of space. These photos look pretty messy, but this is just life. Living stuff, it has to be out. I could clean up and put everything away, and take pictures but I will just wait till we move next. Because then, I have to do that. In this picture, you can see our kitchen table and benches, the left bench holds sewing machines and herbs, the left one is school supplies, books and games. The door can be opened for daily need items for school, we keep them just inside. The benches are otherwise opened by removing the cushions. We use the 50 lb flour bucket for an extra seat at the table. Nathalie's loft ladder and the couch can be seen here too. The TV cabinet behind the ladder is now a food shelf, we dont have a TV. The ugly curtains are because they help when we move, things fall out less easily this way.

We put up thermal curtains with sewing pins everywhere, windows and doors. There is a padded cloth decoration over each window/door so it is easy to pin thermal fabric or curtains temporarily, and when it is very cold out we drop these, and they save on propane/elec heating costs, they make our home an avg of 15 deg warmer. They stay down at night. You can see my dish drying area, a flour bag nearly empty and, well, my entire kitchen. The step stool allows me to reach all of the neat storage areas in this RV.

Back room, this is a toy hauler RV so this room is a garage. It has a door and 2 windows, and the back folds down like a ramp-thus the muddy footprints. Tads bed is back here, and under his bed you can see the edges of boxes. He has 3 low boxes that slide in and they contain his clothing. Their toys are all back here too, and trash waiting to go out. Tad and Nathalie enter our home in this room because our boots are big. We use the front door. The back left corner here has a bean bag, a shop vac and some other junk that will move to our storage unit tonight. We rented one for all the extra stuff we carried, this way the kids get a room.

This is from the outside of my bedroom. There is a door that closes right here, so you have to open it to get to the shower on right, toilet room on left. Just past that is a heavy curtain we can pull across which means the sink is in our room. The kids open the door to go potty at night and wash hands at the kitchen sink so that we have some privacy.

View from our bedroom, above kitchen/LR area and into Nathalie's loft. It continues back on the left side. It is a queen size bed with the cabinet and then a large "shelf" where her red back pack is. The cabinets are for her clothes, her stuffed animals live up here with her. There is little room left after them! Her little travel toys and a few art things live in the backpack.

Again from our bedroom, RVs are built with a large amount of cabinet space. My friend Amanda probably has the same amount of space in her regular house. They will remodel their home, that is continue, but in the meantime I dont think I have a lot less space, so if she can do it, so can I! You can see our tacky pinned up curtains, I wont take them down till spring. We like to have them at night, but we NEED the sunlight so we open them up (almost all) during the day, and then open the blinds.

Another shot of the kitchen. I am trying to use up the 25 lb bag of flour, because the 50 lb bucket is full as is the small 3 lb bin that I refill from the bucket. The 25 lb bag ended up getting torn, so we had to use it from there.

This is our bedroom. It is a pain to make the bed unless you are up in the pillow area. Most mornings I pull it up when I get up, but didnt today. You can walk around it, we get in from the bottom. It is a real mattress, not a temperpedic but something similar so it is larger and heavier, and more comfortable than what the RV came with. The whole mattress lifts up along with the plyboard underneath, but bc this mattress is heavy the shocks wont hold it up. So Tad holds it up, we get things from it, or someone does. Our knitting things and all of my extra fabric and sewing supplies are under there.

The shower, you definitely are confined within it but I am tiny, it isnt difficult. We can use it, and likely will soon. On our trip, we had to conserve water and we hated short showers. So much. As the showers at our current park are free, close and hot, we walk over and use them. This RV has frozen hook ups. As in, we cannot do a constant hook up for water and sewer. In the summer, you put sewer hose from your gray and black to the dump, and you constantly dump. Water, you put a hose to your city connection and thats it, full time water. But since they are frozen, we fill our 110 gal fresh water tank with water, and then monitor it from a panel that shows us levels of fill in freshwater, kitchen and bathroom gray water tanks, and the black water tank. Because we have no on site dump, we use what is called a smart tote (ours is 27 gal or Tad and I couldnt do it alone) and dump our waste into it (this is completely contained, nothing on us or ground) and pull it to the 1 main (not frozen) dump. We did this yesterday, took about an hr for 4 runs with the tote, Frank did the first run with me and then Tad and I did 3 while Frank and Nathalie hooked hoses together and filled our fresh tank. It takes about an hr as a family every 10 days or so.

Another view of our room, we brought our printer with us (frank's idea) which we have been so glad for. Great for school, taxes, Frank's job, many items. Oh and we can scan and email which is easier than driving somewhere to fax. These 4 drawers hold our clothes, then we use the closet of course and we have a lot of storage in the closet as well.

Our closet has stuff like this at both ends, 2 shelves in corners plus of course floor space, and a whole shelf all the way across. Things we do not use daily go in here, like extra towels. I do laundry about every 2 wks, because we can go that long. It is a long time, but the washer/dryers cost the same amount full or not, so we make sure we are full.

More cabinet space, lots of things go in here. We need a flow chart showing us what is stored where! would make life easier when we lose stuff. The cord you can see is plugged into a 12 volt inverter, giving full time power (even when going down road because only 12 volt works then) to the most exposed water pipes under the RV, these have a heat tape. The heat tape is what allowed us to have water even in the Yukon at -65 degrees. We can likely unplug it now, it only kicks on if the pipes get below 40. It isnt very cold or windy here, and we are sitting still. always warmer than moving breeze. Frank is going to drill a couple of holes so we wont see this cord next winter but for now, we have water unlike any other person in this park!

You can see we have a lot of windows, which is a must for me in the winter. I really need my sunshine. Tad is doing his typing program here, homeschool is really easy in here. The kids dont magically disappear while I am doing dishes! Just kidding... it was more me than them, I got distracted in a big house. Here, I really dont. You can see our library books as well, we stack them here. We have been going so far 2x a wk, we need a lot of books. We are depending wholly on the library except for a small trunk of books we brought that are in our storage room. We dont have space for all of our stuff with comfort so we moved them. The library is nice, and the kids love the variety of books.

Just another window. We shrink wrapped all of our windows, most RVs have single pane windows. This one does, and adding the plastic (sticky tape, plastic, blow dry) allowed us several more degrees of warmth.

We put in this chest, kept our spare tires under it during our trip and today the last one will move to the storage. We dont need them here. The chest includes a drawer for Tad's stuff, whatever he wants (Nathalie has a shelf in her room), one drawer holds hats/gloves and other winter stuff, and the other 2 are Frank's. Tools, flashlights, batteries etc. Tad's guitar is, well what he plays daily. He starts lessons as soon as we have a 2nd vehicle. This chest is in Tads room, or otherwise the back room of our house. We have only 4 rooms IF you count the bathroom as a room.

Another view of his room, this room isnt as well insulated. We are going to insulate the floor, when there is less icy water under our home. This radiator heater runs all the time in his room, unless we need to run some other thing that draws too much, so we switch it off for a couple of minutes. We run a small blower heater in his room at night as well, off of the microwave socket (unplug microwave to do so) and that keeps it warm. It doesnt have vents like the rest of the RV.

Oh see, thats darling! Nathalie doing her math in front of his heater, which she has switched on. It isnt cold in here, its probably 65 degrees.

Oh but see, thats a pretty picture! The oranges and apples on left are out of the fridge because our fridge freezes some things solid. Really bad for produce. We have 2 coolers outside and they hold our excess cold goods. no one steals them, which is neat. Other people have a small box freezer outside, which would be nice. I dont completely trust the coolers to not thaw too much, and let my meat spoil.

Ok so thats it for now. Lots of other facts and interesting things but will share more later. I PROMISE to try to blog, but I have to also pass my college classes which I dont feel up to right now. So maybe I can blog once per assignment... good incentive.

Yukon

2012-02-09T23:35:00.000-08:00

In this place I have seen what our Native people saw. It is unchanging except for the icy road and occasional telephone poles or a cabin. Very little electricity even runs out here, there is no one to use it. It is a raw, harsh beauty. The kind of beauty that can pull you in despite its dangers. It is an icy wonderland, I feel no sadness that I havent seen it in the summer. Winter and all of its sharp edges have always drawn me in. Even in -65 degrees this is my current favorite place. My previous favorite was a favorite for 13 yrs, so I dont change lightly.

The mountains, the trees, the snow, the wild animals are all part of the mystery of the Yukon. Even the name sounds remote, as if it is a name given by someone who cannot describe it. Upon our arrival in Anchorage, we all felt homesick for the place we had just been, this place. As well as the rest of Northern Yukon that we have yet to see. It is a truly amazing place. Had we been moving up here, free of any binds (the army) we would have stopped there and found a piece of land, built a cabin and stayed forever. Somehow the Yukon is untouched, like no one is willing to try to take it. I wouldnt take it, I would live with it.

Alaska!

2012-02-09T23:18:00.003-08:00

Saturday 27^th we leave Whitehorse and head for Tok. Drove all day many long hours, slow going because the roads are icy. Drove till 3 hrs after dark and spent the night at Buckshot Betty’s Café (Town of Beaver Creek), in the parking lot. She had RV hookups but none were working, there was fuel right down the road, they would open at noon. We went to fill our truck but their pumps were frozen. -65 degrees that night. Propane failed due to cold, propane stays a liquid below -45 degrees, we had to plug in a battery blanket (around the propane) to make our house warm up.

Sunday 28^th leave Beaver Creek and go 20 miles to next fuel station, they had fuel. Drove mostly without event to the Tok Cutoff road. Took many pictures of Kluane Lake which was beautiful. Stopped at a small fuel station and store and spent afternoon and night relaxing and not going anywhere.

Monday 29^th left the little lodge and headed down the Tok Cutoff for Richardson Hwy to Anchorage, Ak. We crossed into Alaska, many cheers were heard from the back seat. Once we came to the Richardson Hwy, we learned that the mountain range just inside of Alaska, is absolutely laughing at the Rocky Mountains in Canada. I mean, really laughing. These mountains watch people coming over the Rockies, huffing and puffing and say quietly to each other, we will kill them if they are struggling over the little Rockies! And yes. They tried. They did some work on our transmission. It took nearly 8 hrs to go around 200 miles. These mountains, were Wicked. I think (by map) they are called Wrangell Mountain Range.

At a stop off section of hwy, we pulled over for late lunch and the transmission threw up about 1.5 qts fluid on the ground. Because it is red, it looked like the truck was bleeding. The transmission was tired of the steep ups and downs pulling 27,000. Frank refilled the transmission and we tried to go forward, we had only 84 miles left to the RV park in Anchorage. We limped in slowly at around 8 pm and found that the park was crowded, dirty and full of weird people. I mean really scary.

At midnight, we experienced a fun marital fight happening next door. The neighbors came out screaming at one another, threatening to murder each other and the man was sobbing and crying. Then he asked the woman, yelled rather, why did I have to *&^%$#@ marry you!!! Then he spent some more time wailing. Doors slam. Insults hurled.

Morning came, I emailed Amanda and she found a RV park out in the country for us. It is on the edge of Palmer, Ak heading towards Wasilla, Ak. It is beautiful, and costs 350 vs 870 and we are allowed to use electric heaters. The other park allowed only our propane heater which is a wet heat, and doesn’t keep us warm enough. The wet part just means condensation inside of our RV whereas the electric heaters help to dry that out.

Tuesday we scouted the new RV park, and decided we wanted to come here. The lady assigned us a spot and we came Wednesday morning. The only drawback is that this park wasn’t ready for winter hook up living. So, the other RV owners who live full time do not have any running water. They use their toilets (not all of them) after pouring a jug of antifreeze in it, and then they dump it using a smart tote and dragging it to the main dump-the only thaw one.

We maintain water in our rig because we have tank and pipe heaters, and insulation. We shower in the shower house because that is the bulk of water use and we have to dump it in the smart tote wagon, pulling 27 gallons of liquid across snow isn’t fun. It takes us about an hour to dump our tanks and refill our fresh water by hooking several hoses together.

We like it here a lot, its cheaper and has nice neighbors. A lot of kind people who go out of their way to be a good neighbor. Our kids have made friends and snow tunnels, made forts and used the big hills for sledding. We will start looking at houses this weekend and hope to find some land.

So that’s it! Our big Kansas to Alaska trip in small print.Pictures of Kluane Lake to follow.

Alaska or die trying

2012-01-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

I took a lot of photos, we have been driving through Canada. I dont have photos right now for most of that, I took a lot of pictures of the kids playing outside but otherwise I was wishing for somewhere a LITTLE bit warmer. It was -45 while we worked outside, on frozen pipes in Fargo, Nd. Little chilly.

Welcome to the Rockies. I think. Its a fuzzy sign, this was the sign welcoming us to the Northern Rockies.

OH CRAP! We are pulling a 40 foot trailer, our total weight for truck and trailer is 26,000 pounds. That is 3 zeros. Holy cow. This was the one of the big hills, but this was just skirting the Rockies. You should see the snow/ice on the road when we are really IN the Rockies. Though honestly, the roads were far less steep while in them. For 2 days.

And so we start down the hill. I took a lot of photos while we drove, hoping that if I died my mama could have my camera card at least. Many times we had sharp drop offs on at least one side, semi's in the other lane and icy/snowy roads. Also, sometimes while we drove down these, we could smell our brakes burning! There were many signs that said "Brake check" before a steep drop, then another "Brake check" at the end of that slope. Then, there were many signs that said "Chains on" then another for "Chains off" some period of time later.

Oh but look how pretty! So pretty. There were beautiful things to see and take pictures of. Some I will put on here but most I will put in my photobucket. Which is sadly, password protected. My mama will have the password but... I dont know the rest of you.

I took a lot of pictures today, we are in Whitehorse-the capital of the province Yukon in Canada.

In order to not forget, I will post these days here. Its all really a blur.

1. Left home on Friday 13th, January 2012. Drove to Omaha. Spent the night in Walmart Parking lot. Walmart encourages this, and even sends out the security guard to check on you. They like the business.

2. Saturday 14th, went to Omaha zoo. It was cold but not too cold. I crapped out first. Another night at Walmart. This day we had a exhaust leak and thus some carbon monoxide, from the generator. Frank fixed it but out of fear I was awake nearly all night monitoring.

3. Sunday 15th, woke up, started toward Fargo, Nd. Drove through Sd without noticing much. Stopped at a Flying J truck stop-RV friendly-just outside of Fargo. Slept.

4. Monday 16th, woke to frozen pipes. We had just taken care of this in Ks. Made plans to thaw pipes. Did laundry in a truck stop. It was -45 degrees. We spent 8 hrs working on the pipes. Outside. In -45 degrees. We thawed and wrapped them. I think I suffered some frostbite again as did Frank. On our fingers.

5. Tuesday 17th, woke in Fargo, brake controller failed. Spend time finding new one.Took the kids to a movie. One more night in Flying J parking lot.

6. Wednesday 18th, made it to the Canadian border. More problems with brakes. Pipes frozen again. Stopped in Regina, Canada. Spend the night in a safeway store parking lot. Cannot shower due to pipes.

7. Thursday 19th, woke up early,our dump valves were frozen so we could not dump our gray and black tanks. Drove 700 miles to Edmonton, Alberta. There were no RV parks open anywhere closer. We arrived at 5:55 at night, wonderful RV staff settled us in. Showered at the park showers. Gratefully.

8. Friday 20th, officially the 1 wk mark. We are tired, worn out. Had fun so far but had a lot of little things going wrong. Wake up in the RV park and did laundry, worked on thawing the pipes (again) finding all of our untreated problems. Cleaned house.

9. Saturday 21st, did more laundry. Again had good showers. They cost 1 loonie (1 Canadian dollar-it is a coin) for 4 min. A nice, hot, 4 minutes. Insulated underside of RV. Its -24 and the RV guy seems pleased. The temperature feels great to us. Took the kids for a long walk to a frozen lake and a summer horse paddock full of snow.

10. Sunday 22nd, went to a local RV guy to buy a new water pump. Ours is now working intermittently. The guy is great, he should have come along for the rest of the trip to help us with all the injurious wrongs that our RV does to us. His name was Erwin, we liked him right away.

11. Monday 23rd, woke early to pull the umbilical cord. I was already attached to this RV park, these people, the electricity, the extra heaters I can run, the staff that interact with my children by choice, the beautiful weather. The people. The way they say "Eh" all the time. Hmm. Ok. So anyway, we pull out after an HOUR of getting everything put away, hitched up etc. We have NO TRAILER BRAKES AT ALL. I dont mean our brake controller failed, I mean, NO brakes. So back to Erwin we go.

This needs a new number right????

We spent all morning with Erwin, paying (to us) very little in return for help, warm shop area to use, an interesting time with a new friend. I was sad to leave and took his card to email him updates. He texted to check on us a few hrs later and we had a conversation that means he liked us too and would like to have had longer to hang out. We arrive in Grande Prairie Alberta, happens to be our new friend's home town. We spend the night in a Walmart parking lot.

Tuesday 24th, leave Grande Prairie and head for the Rockies. We are actually skirting them today but it is very We think we are going to get away with no problems today, it would be a first for our trip. But... no. We have a blow out. And have to stop, on the road. We actually stopped to check headlights and found that the reason a trucker flashed his lights at us, some time ago, (50 miles) was because we had a blow out. Because we have 3 axles we didnt even feel it. Several truckers stopped. My fingers have lost feeling. I ask a trucker, do you know what the temperature is? "Yeah, I think its about -20 before the windchill eh?" Well that isnt too bad. We roll into a RV park in Ft Nelson, British Columbia. It is closed for the day but we called ahead, they said pick a spot. Snow is well deeper than my knees. Pipes are frozen. Again. Easily thawed in a few minutes.

Wednesday 25th, regrouping time. Just stay put for the day, doing laundry, hanging out in a really neat town that I would adopt and live in. It was a marvelous, rough, sort of grubby looking tiny town with 1 small grocery store. The fuel station had a Chinese fuel jockey. His name was Sihng. Clean house, solve more small issues, fold laundry, it is -40 degrees here.

Thursday 26th, we head out early, cannot dump our tanks because their dumps are frozen. We leave and start toward Watson Lake, British Columbia. It is only about 250 miles, but we spend the whole day. We have one flat tire and we are nearly killed, I try to wave a trucker around but he continues speeding towards our RV. I know my children are buckled in, and know I might make it when I start to run but my husband will not. I am yelling at him, "The trucker is not slowing down!!!" Unknown to me, my husband sees this and is hurrying towards the front of the truck, knowing he isnt going to make it and the trucker swerves around. Last minute. Insanity. We continue on, there are no emergency services out here at all. In the dark, with drop offs and snowy roads I think of this for a bit. Then I stop thinking because that is bad. We stop for fuel at a station before Watson Lake which boasts cheaper fuel than Watson Lake. We find he was lying. Sleep at a small fuel station in Watson Lake all night.

Friday 27th, wake up in a parking lot. Okay. Now, I am tired of it. It is 5:30 in the morning. I am tired of all of this. We drive to Whitehorse, Yukon today. During the drive, our problem (minimum 1 a day) is that our propane runs out and we find our pipes frozen at lunch. We arrived to Whitehorse and find one RV park open, they offer only electricity (no dump no fresh water available) but showers are free. We shower here to conserve our tanks.

We have about 700 miles to go. Tomorrow we leave for Tok, Alaska. We hope to make it, its 400 miles but a lot of rough terrain and its -39 degrees. Fun fact-our hair freezes when we walk back from the showers. After Tok, we are about 300 miles from our destination. We know this last bit may take up to 4 days at if the roads are poor. Which, they are. They are riddled with frost heaves, often covered in snow, steep and windy. I am glad he does the driving! I learned to drive in the States, in South Dakota I believe. I mean, I can drive, and pull a trailer but I mean I pulled this beast. It wasnt bad, but I dont want to do it on ice.

Lots more pictures to come. Right now, I am tired. I am in survival mode. It is a fun trip, we are having a blast but I am one tired mama at this date.

Best and Worst Wednesday

2012-01-05T06:14:00.000-08:00

Best part about next week? We are moving to Alaska!

Worst part? I am leaving one of my best friends in the world here in Ks and my heart aches from that sadness.

Best part about my truck being broken? My husband is a mechanic.

Worst part? No matter what he (and other good mechanics do) the left front tire STILL pulls to the left causing uneven brake wear and poor fuel economy. Been working on it for 3 wks and still... a problem that he/they cannot understand.

Best part about homeschooling? My kids are still in bed.

Worst part? We havent started school... its late!

Best part about being able to sew? The savings, the tailoring, the perfect fit, fabrics and patterns that I love.

Worst part? Getting up, getting started or not having any clothes. Its a rough way to go.

Photos

2011-12-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

Pool table makes a great seat, and learning about fuel efficiency is probably a good science project.

This was taken when Frank first got home in Oct and he was helping me finish this bathroom.

It is a new camera, or was, and I am still fuzzy sometimes. Frank is playing with the kids here (read-knocking over their blocks!)

Tad laughing at Nathalie as her blocks are knocked off!

The shower partly finished, I tiled this shower completely. It is now grouted and caulked.

Very fuzzy, Nathalie in "new" high heals." I wore a size 7 years ago, and when I was 15 my aunt bought these for me. I wear a 7.5 now, and Nathalie discovered these in my "get rid of"" pile. She was distraught that I would throw out such a memory! She was right, I moved them back to the keep forever pile, in memory of the balls. She donned them and claimed them forthwith.

And they fit her! They are actually 1 size too big but they are pretty stretchy. She wears these with camo!

Fuzzy picture of me tiling, Nathalie took this.

Working on the new truck. This was taken a few wks ago, they all 3 were under there checking on Knock. He is our friend, and he lives in the dashboard. He just knocks and we sometimes feed him snacks.

I like all of their brown boots sticking out.

I think Nathalie was doing more watching daddy than she was working. But I mean, I would be too!

Winter sewing

2011-12-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

The army has packed the goods that we kept to ship to Ak, the things that I didnt sell. I kept out 1 sewing machine and 1 serger to carry in the RV with me and also because we dont have enough clothes for an Ak winter yet. I kept out a considerable amount of wool fabric.

Pants on the right are just pj pants for Nathalie, the piece was cotton terry, only big enough to make pants for her. She was wearing his pants anyway so I made new ones!

Pants in the middle are wool long johns for me. The only ones I own currently are boughten mens long johns and they are not very form fitting. This pair fits under my most fitted jeans so I will be much warmer. I have since then cut out a 2nd pr.

The last pair is my best. Tad told me that last yrs long johns "no longer fit in all areas." I said I could make bigger ones and he pointed out, that isnt the issue. The gender neutral fit doesnt work anymore mama... So, I made a tester pair of "boy" long johns out of some cotton and they came out great, I just used a strip of fabric in the center, no hole. These are a wool outer, thin cotton inner and have a hole on one side of the cotton, and opposite of the wool. He says they are a perfect fit!

Moving photos coming soon.

The new truck

2011-12-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

This is our new truck, it isnt new just new to us. It is a 1997 F350, my favorite truck in the world. It has been for years! We couldnt find one when first shopping, nor did we have much money so we bought the old yellow truck which served its purpose.

Our 5th wheel travel trailer is behind the truck, will post pictures of that later. Frank and Eric put the bumpers on the 350 yesterday, these bumpers are just mean! We special ordered them a few wks ago, shortly after buying the truck. They are real bumpers, not a brush guard. They will be effective in saving the front of the truck and possibly us (in case of an animal going through the windshield) if we hit a moose. There are a lot of moose in Ak.

Last picture. We have new tires and cleaned up the inside, its a 14 yr old truck after all. Frank and Eric also installed a winch on the front, to pull ourselves out in case we get stuck. Pulling the big RV.

We sold every other vehicle we had. We have gone from 3 trucks, 2 cars, 1 tractor and 2 regular trailers to one travel trailer and 1 truck. We have packed the RV mostly and are almost ready to go.

Leaving

2011-12-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.balancedpolitics.org/universal_health_care.htm

This is the best article I have read on the pros and cons of universal healthcare. It actually does present some decent pros. Most articles are either for, or against universal care. I am highly against it, for several of the NO reasons given here. Total loss of doctor/patient confidentiality. That is a pretty important part of our current medical framework.

I am in college and one of my classes has been topics in healthcare policy. I have learned many things through research on current and possible healthcare plans.

Other than that, I dont have any pictures because they are all on Frank's computer. I am finishing up 2 college classes (finals due the 19th-nearly there!), getting ready to go to our family's Christmas celebration in Tn, and getting ready to move to Alaska. We do not generally leave home for holidays but will this year due to all of my mama's other children being present, and us moving so far away.

Our house is sold (tentatively-these things can fall through), we have a signed contract and close in early Jan before we leave. We have our RV back, it was at a local shop being fitted with extra insulation, tank heaters and a inspection. Now are are further winterizing it ourselves.

We sold all of our vehicles (camaro, jetta, chevy 3500 and chevy s10), trailers x2 and our tractor. Much of our household goods were sold or given away, the remainder was shipped by the army or will go with us. We have a few things to give/sell to family in Tn that will leave next wk.

We paid a inspector to inspect our house, this is usually done by the buyer so that he/she can ask the seller to fix things. We chose the best inspector in the area, paid him to give us the list, we fixed the list and now hopefully there will be little on the list by the buyers inspector. We still have to have the septic pumped and the water tested.

I think we are all excited about the move, a little nervous (on my part) about living in a small space for a period of time. Even when we arrive, we plan on buying quite a small house that needs to be fixed up. We will continue to live in the RV while fixing the house. We are looking at foreclosures and short sales at this time.

The kids will have lessons in Ak, I have found teachers for dance, guitar, jujitsu and possibly art. There are many art lessons, but they are short and for large groups. Nathalie wants something a little more specialized. We will use the local library a lot at first because many of our books are packed and we will not have our goods delivered right away.

We are leaving a lot behind. I have left a lot behind in the past, this time feels farther. I am glad to move to Ak, there are less people, less rush. I was sad to leave my Sc homeschool group 3.5 yrs ago, very sad to leave my best friend who lived very close. Now I am sad to leave another very good friend living here. I have only a few good friends, and none of them live close except for Amanda and now we are leaving her.

We dont know where we will be long term, I dont promise I will even have this blog. It may go on the list of things to leave behind.

He's back!

2011-11-02T10:01:00.001-07:00

We have him home, he has been home since last wed night. I thought I blogged this fact but see that I didnt. He arrived home at 11:32 pm last wed night. We went to the ceremony and sat for 2.5 hrs with the few other families that arrived early, some didnt arrive until a couple of minutes before the guys walked out. I should not say guys, there are women in the army as well. I know, I was! To me though, it still feels like "the guys" because mine is.

We have spent a lot of time just being together. Sleeping in, hanging out. We have worked on the house and we also bought an RV. A 40 ft 5th wheel toy hauler. Its lovely. It will be delivered here on fri/sat not sure yet, the owner is delivering it as we bought the truck 2nd. Yes, backwards. But we found the truck 2nd, it is in Co and we will be picking it up sunday.

Still working on getting the house done to get it on the market, getting our remaining goods listed for sale (tractor, trailers, 2 trucks and 1 car), lots of mechanic work is being done by my amazing husband. The car and 1 truck have broken down, thank goodness they waited for him to get home.

I have lots of pictures but honestly I dont have time to post them. He is working some mornings/afternoons and while he is gone we work on the house, do schoolwork, college, housework, dinner prep etc.

I will post photos and progress later, we have only a few more wks before we leave to drive the Alcon in the winter!

Oh these are random

2011-10-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

Not many people photograph zip lock bags. Most people also do not decorate their yards with them. I wasnt doing either, well ok fine I took a picture of it but that was to show you that it was frosty.This was our first morning of frost and somehow there was a plastic bag in the yard. I didnt leave it there, that would be tacky.

Frost on the car. This was an early frost, earlier than other years past. It has been pretty cold some mornings!

Nathalie's vocano, there is a sandy area in the field and she created a grass and dirt volcano then took photos of it so that you could all see it.

I had a piece of purple stretch terry, my mom bought 20 yds of this, of 3 different colors. This is the last of 20 yds purchased 8 yrs ago. I made Nathalie some pj pants, and then made 4 wipes out of the rest. I sell these, give them away or use them. They are household cloth. The striped ones are "kleenex." I know that is a brand, but we use the word anyway. The stripey fabric was a pr of PJ pants that I have worn for 8 yrs, and they finally fell apart. I have mended/fixed them twice, and replaced the waist elastic last yr. This is all about recycling right? No. I miss my pants...

So he wasnt in a good mood and had some weird hair thing going on. This is a new jacket/pullover that I made for him. He loves the half zip, he uses it over his t shirts so he doesnt have to wear long sleeves. It is made of heavy weight waterproof/windproof Polartec fleece and has neat pockets!

The toggle and elastic in the hem allows for it to be pulled tightly, then add a coat and the wind going up a coat doesnt affect as badly. Since we are moving to Ak... The pockets are pretty neat, they look good and are very deep-the kids and I decided to seam up the sides halfway because it looks good and closes up the bottom of the pocket.

Nathalie's, once again not a great photo. The kids are super excited about upcoming events and are not into posing. Her jacket is a midweight-polartec waterproof fleece. Her doll has a matching one that I made.

Once again, the pocket and toggle. She says she needs 2 of these because we have it in lavender as well.

Nathalie was sewing during the same time, she was sewing and learning. We made patterns for her baby, dress, shirt and leggings. Oh and Nathalie made "sock" patterns which is basically 2 halves sewn up on one side, other side on a fold and its more like a baby's bootie only long. She makes them up to the knees so her baby is warm. The baby has on the socks here though they match her pants.

Cutting out her baby's dress, or possibly its a nightgown. Nathalie has a matching nightgown that I made 2 yrs ago. She still wears it despite the fact that it only reaches her elbows.

Her patterns and pieces all cut out. She has become quite the avid seamstress. She loves to sew and sews with or without help.

She learned to use the serger this summer working on a 4h project but is still more comfortable using the sewing machine. She is convinced the serger will eat her fingers or at least a thumb.

Finished product getting a trim. I still help with the neckline and she didnt hem the little sleeves. It was such a tiny hole. Using clear elastic was easier than making cuffs, so she just trimmed the sleeve ends.

We got new snow boots! These are Baffin, supposed to be one of the best rated brands for arctic wear. We want to be very warm. I can tell the difference in traditional LL Bean snow boots and these. These are almost like dirt bike gear boots. They are a bit stiff, though are easy to walk in. Heavy, and well padded. They have sort of a wool liner thing in them, 2 of them, that can come out if they get damp.

Kids boots are rated to -78 assuming they are wearing 1 pr cotton socks, and 1 pr wool socks. They are very nice boots, they should be for their cost!

These are mine, weird pic it was in the mirror. They look a lot like the kids boots. The site said do not size up, but I did by 1 size for each of us and I am glad I did. They fit fine with cotton socks, comfortably snug with 2 pr socks. They are a little heavy and will take getting used to but they are tall, warm and waterproof. I do not want cold feet, the few people that I have met who didnt like Ak, didnt like it because they had improper gear. We all have very good coats, wool long johns, wool outer clothes, lined pants/overalls, good boots and will also have good snow pants.

Nathalie sporting her boots while in PJs still, she is outside on a warm-ish day (60s maybe) in a short sleeve, jeans and these boots. She is in love. She says she loves the way they feel and they make her look bigger.

We are taking a short break on remodeling, my wrist and back need it. I have been sewing instead. Have completed many more sewing projects not pictured yet.

Janice

2011-10-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

Janice was my mama's best friend. She was her best friend for a long time. She was killed yesterday by her estranged husband who then took his own life. My mama is truly suffering right now from a deep hurt, both from the loss of a best friend and the injustice of life. Janice was wonderful, she was beautiful and caring. She had children and grandchildren. She was young and had a lot of life before her. I have no words to express the hurt I that I know my mother feels.

-In Memory of Janice.

Efficient cooking

2011-10-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

The photos are not related to cooking. I took a lot of pictures recently of a sunset, I will miss the Ks sunsets. You can sort of see Tad to the right of the photo.

The children are playing in my construction waste, bits of 2x4s, drywall, hardibacker, tile scraps. They set up little games for people and little animals and play their world for them. They spend their offtime doing this.

So onto the cooking. Between crock pots and a traditional oven/stove that is electrical-crock pot almost always wins. However, enter a gas stove top and it depends. They use a different measurement, and the price of gas isnt always the same. The biggest thing I have learned is this. If you have a fire pit/fireplace/wood stove and cast iron pots/pans/skillets-you are already prepared to cook in an efficient manner. My friend Amanda cooks this way for much of the winter. I have not known another person who could save money on gas/electric bill better than her in the winter, both for her heating and cooking. Her home stays very toasty and her stove top cooked meals are excellent and cost effective. This is the difference in frugal and stingy. I want a warm house and good food, not spend the winter frozen eating foods that use little stovetop.

We are moving to Ak, and we are making a lot of changes now and in route. We are selling most of our household goods and will be living on a much smaller scale. We have been recycling, gardening, preserving food, raising livestock, using washable vs throw away items and many other things for 8 yrs now. Not all of those things, the livestock was only 3 yrs. My children wore cloth diapers, and so would any subsequent children. I make most of our clothes, and try to buy on sale/used what I do not make. I recycle even our worn out clothes. The little things that I/we do are both for the environment and to avoid being wasteful of funds.

We are excited about some of our new ideas, we are adding on to the list of things that we already do and plan to drastically reduce the amount of money and space that we use.

Alphabettios

2011-10-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

I have to say, we have bought a lot of packaged foods since I began our property and home remodel. I try to stick with (mostly) healthy foods. I generally make my own pasta sauce and we grind our own meat. We grind it from goat meat (we butchered this) or we buy whole turkeys on sale and grind it. Sigh... I am really tired and not on top of my game right now! This is our cast of characters for Alphabettios.

In my opinion, these were pricey. 1.99 for a bag of noodles! It made a HUGE amount though! Nathalie wanted Alphabet Spagettios when we were in the store yesterday. She did have a bit of a breakdown when I refused to buy them, she wont eat them but she says the letters are cute. She loves tiny cute things and honestly, she thinks small foods taste better than normal-large ones.

I figured if a cheap can of alphabet spagettios (alphabettios) was .69 cents and its truly horrible for her, then I could spend the 2$ on alphabet noodles, 1 $ on pasta sauce and 1.59 on the lb of turkey and make our own. She doesnt usually break down in the grocery store... just as a fact, nor do I wish to condone the breakdown. However, she is really at the end of her rope waiting on Daddy's homecoming. So as a treat, I found these noodles.

Nathalie loves to cook and is capable of making meat sauce (homemade marinara on seasoned ground meat usually) and the noodles, she even drains them herself which worried me at first. She can make and bake bread from scratch-so this was an easy and fun meal for her.

Here are our noodles-I didnt see any other brand of alphabet noodles and the da vinci brand are actually pretty healthy. We normally eat whatever the Sam's brand of noodles are...

And here is the finished product! She loved it very much and while some people do not like pasta that has been frozen, we dont mind it. We froze it in portions for her. I wanted to can it, but I havent canned pasta. I have canned meat so I know the protocol for that, but I am going to assume that canned noodles should only be al dente. They would otherwise get pretty squishy I think. I will read up on how to can noodles, chicken noodle soup and spaghetti would be great to have canned for quick lunches. We are trying to move more into food preservation that doesnt require electricity, we freeze meat and many other things but would like to can and dry more in the future.

Last Bathroom

2011-10-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

This is the last one! The shower walls still need to be tiled, but I sort of wore out. I did lay the tile in this bathroom, I have photos of laying the backerboard and laying the tile but I dont have those for you yet...

I laid the tile, grouted then put the toilet back which did cause me some grief but here it is. No leaking! This is the 2nd toilet which I have put down alone! Its nice to have a toilet back.

More paint

2011-10-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

You are tired of painting? Wow me too. This is the hall, I mudded all the paneling lines in here, primed and painted 3 x. Then, the lines cracked. Only a few of them, but still. So Eric and his son textured it. Then I had to prime, and paint. It looks wonderful! They did great job. I cut in everything first after priming, I cut in light switches, outlets, ceilings and door frames.

I lined these benches and stools up, well the children did, for me to cut in at the ceiling level. These are benches that my grampie made when my mama was a little girl. I have the matching table.

This was the first roll, so I didnt actually cut in the center but everything else I did. This is the front door area, also was paneling.

Why is this photo here twice? let me get back to you. I am not going to try to delete it.

Living room vaulted ceiling, and my way of rolling it! I borrowed Erics ladder, in a previous post you saw me cutting this ceiling in. Then I sent the ladder home, not considering the impossibility of me rolling that high with no ladder. At about 2 a.m. this idea seemed good, and I am still alive so I was right.

A dizzying view, I hate looking up this way it makes me feel as though I am spinning. However, here it is. The rolled spots are still light from being wet, but in actuality its all complete just not dry. It was done in different stages.

I went into the kitchen to clean up, and I found this. Nathalie's way of covering the tea... She forgot to put it in the fridge.

A big red door

2011-10-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

It really does look more red-less pink in person. It is a dark red, I love red doors. I look poor in red, yet its one of my favorite colors. I hardly ever decorate but if I can paint something red, I will. Our door, as you see, was dingy and dark. The inside has been painted a cream color and our siding is light beige so the red compliments both. The old door handle was broken inside and secured with a screw... Other than that, it just looked cheap. I primed the door, painted 2 coats of red and put on a new door handle and lock assembly. The further I painted away from this side of the door, the worse I painted! the last coat was put on at 1 a.m. and I was pretty tired. It does need a 3rd coat on most of the door but it is much better looking!

Convo

2011-10-11T00:11:00.001-07:00

Husband: I should have done a prenup when we got married.
Me: Well I guess thats too bad.
Husband: Can I postnup?

Hmm...

Textured hallway

2011-10-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

Okay so this isnt textured, nor is it the hall and foyer which were textured yesterday. This is the kitchen, those who have been to my house know that there was some nasty wallpaper, and weird fake grape vine decorations on the wall. Now it is just painted a nice cream color! Really does lighten it up, make it look less 1970s. The cabinets are still dark and dated, but only 10 things at a time right?

Yesterday, Eric and the kids textured. I went to Lowes with Nathalie in the morning, to pick up what we would need and additional remodel items, Tad hung out with Eric riding the Harley and working on shop things at his house. I picked up a box of drywall mud and Eric (with the children's expert help-all 4 of them- mixed it with the right amount of water to make texture.

Why would I post 2 of the same pictures? They are not the same! It is just Eric's signature, "you really asked that question?" look and Tad gave several no-brainer questions out for the world.

"Dad!" Jeff alerts us to a forseen problem in the hall. We ignore him several times. Then Dad answers and goes down the hall, works on air compressor then comes back to finish mixing.

This hall is the one that I mudded the paneling lines on. 4 times. Sanded each time. Never could get it quite right. Primed it, painted 3 coats of cream color. It wasnt right still. Then some of the deeper lines cracked. Justina and Eric are expert at remodeling, they have done a lot of it. They both said texturing was the only answer. So here we are! I am so grateful that they had the tools, the time and the knowledge to help me (again.) seems they save me a lot???

I have a hard time getting pictures of Tristin, he doesnt pose much and he rarely smiles for photos. He smiles, laughs and jokes often just not when I grab a camera. He asked me 3 times yesterday how many photos did I possibly need!

Nathalie needs to get a closer view apparently, thankfully she didnt step in the additional mud. She managed to get mud on her new jeans though she didnt do any work!

Tristin helping dad mix, it has to be the consistency of oatmeal. Arguably different people like soupier oatmeal. So I would venture to say it has to be the consistency of the oatmeal that Eric makes.

Nathalie was gonna just climb into the bucket but Eric said she shouldnt this time. She also asked him what it tasted like, he told her Not Oatmeal! He said chalk, though I was surprised he didnt offer her a taste!

Now Jeff and Eric are working on the air compressor, it didnt like my house and it said no thanks to being helpful but they got it back on track. You can see to the right the first texture part. These photos are clearly out of order...

They mixed a small amount to start out with and then just mixed more. It didnt take long, the texture gun (I think it is called this) only uses a certain amount at once, then you refill it. It goes a long way also, such a small amount would spread over a huge amount of wall.

I believe Nathalie is giving me the evil eye here! What did I do??

Jeff steps in to help. He did all of the texturing himself. His dad helped him some, making suggestions but mostly he did it alone. He has done it once before but seen his parents doing it as well.

Aww look! I got a smile! I took about 20 pictures to get this one. He has a piece of candy in the side of his cheek, but its a smile! I didnt even sneak up on him to get it.

I taped off the door frames, well Jeff taped some last wk then we ran out, so I finished. I also taped off light switches and sockets. We took off their covers first. The floor has brown paper and plastic, but really the bits of mud that got on the carpet vaccum up easily.

The hall is hard because there is no space to stand back. If he steps into one doorway, then when he comes out he cannot get as far back from the next bit of wall. He did a great job staying even despite this.

Now Jeff is learning how to mix. He knew when it was too much/not enough water both by sight and mixing himself.

The drill here has a paint mixer on the end. I am glad Eric brought his as I forgot to get one. This is one of the things that we did have in the shop which of course we have no more.

If you look at both of them from the back you would swear that Jeff was the parent. He is already bigger than Eric! He will turn 16 in a few days. These two were telling me here how Mom is the expert at texturing. She wasnt here yet, she arrived from work shortly before the job was done.

Now how many people does it take to fix a garbage disposal? Really just one. Two of them are here to watch, one is here to help and be next to his wife, and the wife is the one who is the ultimate plumber.

She found a penny stuck in there, under something. I have tried to go fish and find what was in there, but without success. Partly because I hate garbage disposals and also because, I dont know what I am doing.

This picture is fuzzy I know, but I like to watch Tad and Jeff talk. Like his dad, Jeff needs his hands and facial expressions or I think he would be mute. When Tad is with him, he expresses himself much the same way as if it is contagious.

They used a flashlight, running water and a screwdriver. It took several minutes of messing around with it and Eric was ready to take it out/drop it down when she found the penny.

They also fixed some stuff in the bathroom, and Justina helped me figure out how the toilet flange repair should work. The flange is broken a little and I dont want to completely replace it.

I am so glad that they came to help me, the hallway looked quite terrible. Last night the kids and I (kids couldnt sleep) sprayed down the door frame parts that I didnt paint and wiped them down, the excess texture wipes right off with a wet cloth 2 min after I spray it with charlies cleaner. Today I need to prime and paint the walls in there and then it is done except molding. Then my bathroom still needs tile! Work is endless right?

Your mom

2011-10-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Tad will be going to Salina (about 25 miles away) with Eric. On the back of a Harley. I called it a motorcycle and my son gently corrected me. Twice. Apparently there are motorcycles, and Harleys. He needed a new jacket as the only one that fits from last yr is a bit thin and worn. This photo is washed out because one-I dont know my camera. 2- he has really white hair and skin and there is a white board behind him.

He really struggles to look mean. It is hard work. Both his military ID and passport photos make him look like a criminal. He is mean and scary looking. No, really, his military ID scares me. His jacket is made of windpro-waterproof and windproof fleece.

Oh okay here he laughs. I made a joke that I wont repeat here. I dont know what all of you guys are used to hearing...this boy of mine, he thinks some crazy things are funny. Like this one time...Just kidding. I will keep that one to myself.

Wow this kid has a lot of hair. No, seriously we were in the Post office yesterday and a guy walked in. Tad had his back to him. The guy says, "How are you ladies today?" About the THREE of us. Nathalie looked up at him with big eyes, Tad looked around at him and the poor man looked startled and I said, "yeah sometimes I mistake him with all that hair." Poor fellow. Tad doesnt mind, he understands that some amount of flack and trash talk will occur due to his style choices.

I dont think he is saluting me, though he often does. He does this sometimes in the morning, and when I say goodmorning back he says, "your mom." I think that here, he is saluting his father. Granted, he doesnt do it quite right yet, see a bit too much palm. But he is still saying hey to daddy. We miss you.

Oh and Tad says, "your mom."

Yes, I know, your mom sounds pretty rude. My son is 10, and very respectful and kind hearted. We do allow some joking, trash talk and just being silly in our house. As long as it doesnt approach disrespect, or transfer outside of our home towards other adults. We feel that its pretty normal, and within our home its kinda funny.

Great camera!

2011-10-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

The cut in ceilings that I was paiting, now all of my furniture is moved to the middle of the living room. Yesterday I painted the dining room, kitchen and part of the living room.

The right of the photo is the living room wall, the left by the chair and beyond is the dining room. Sadly there is paneling in part of the dining room.

"Mama, it would be easier to find your tools if you organized them by type."
"I cant understand you punk, speak english."
"Nevermind I will do it myself." Since the shop burned down, we have bought only needed tools. We will replace the rest of our tools in Ak. Due to having no shop, and needing the tools constantly we made the school table into our shop table in the house. The benches and chairs function as short scaffolding or additional tool/paint storage area.

Just showing the mess to you. We do clean the house, completely. We make it sparkly and nice! It is pretty well organized, partly because we dont have a lot of stuff and I clean up and organize each room that I finish. Right now the main house is being painted so its a huge mess!

View into the kitchen, and vaulted dining room wall. I painted this whole wall before I ran out of paint, part of the living room was painted and the other part, far right here, was primed yesterday. This is the first part of priming. The wall on that side only is super dark, the rest was white/cream.

Inside the kitchen. You can see the paneling, it isnt pretty but I doubt we will take it down/mud paint-there are a few options with paneling leaving it up or taking it down. The dining room/living room have several windows and high cream colored walls so it helps the darkness. The hall/foyer had to be painted, they were dark in daylight.

This wall in the kitchen had wallpaper. I do not know why someone was possessed to do that to one wall but it was horrible. I peeled what would peel easily, mudded and sanded edges, primed and painted. The cabinets are dark, and if we had/have time we will pull the doors off, take the weird fronts off, paint and put new hardware. A cheap way to lighten up the kitchen. We may have time to do this when Frank gets home.

Kitchen desk shelves, the desk is built in so I taped and painted here, I also painted inside that little wooden plate shelf around 2 walls of the kitchen... bit of a pain!

While Nathalie organized tools and tried to straighten our main house mess, Tad unloaded the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. They clean the kitchen better than some adults! They understand this means reload, wipe down counters, clean stove top, put away any extra counter top items and sweep if needed. I think he is pretty tired in this photo.

Nathalie, still making life easier. It really does, she makes it all set up so I can grab whatever I need. She also discovers things that are not tools, usually things that I set amongst the tools and lost.

The mess, and the primed wall compared to the original color. It will be a cream color when I get to lowes for more paint (friday).

Look at my sunset! If only work time was over... but it wasnt. We worked until 9, read stories and the kids went to bed then I worked on painting, homework (my college) grading their work, sewing and reading until 3 a.m.

Mudded holes from the violins hanging on the wall. We have hooks specifically for violins and guitars, they left huge holes!

I put paper down, I often dont when its just me but the kids were helping. I ran out of tape so they stopped at this point because I cut in the molding and windows. They cannot cut in yet.

'
Putting away cups. If you could look closer you would see boot prints all over the counter tops! Last night Nathalie suggested we eat elsewhere... I did walk all along the counter tops, and stools placed strategically around the kitchen in order to paint the area along the plate shelf.

He is cute isnt he...

This is the laundry room bathroom-we still have a grow light hanging in here. We will take that down/pack it. They are expensive! I took off wall paper from this room, fixed drywall, patched, mudded where needed, sanded, painted and it still look poor. The mud and wallpaper lines still just showed, so I textured it. You cant see the texture, nor can you see mud lines which you could in photos before I textured.

Same bathroom, needs it fixtures and socket covers back on. The previous owners painted the socket/outlet covers and it has been terrible. They are hard to remove and nasty looking so they will all be replaced. This room, and the laundry room next to it, had new tile put in by us last yr. I painted the laundry room also. These rooms along with many others need molding, caulk (bathrooms only) and outlet covers in order to be finished.

Nathalie doing seterra, a free geography download. They do all sorts of maps on here, it isnt their geography per se just a supplement. Nathalie was getting in some extra time trying to beat Tad.

Tad using his free time for DS, he can have 30 min a day though usually doesnt take it. Today he was playing "My French Coach" which I found on ebay for 20$. It is 60$ new! He loves it and learns so much from it, he cannot hear himself with head phones but he has a fine accent. They both sound good speaking French.

Thats all for now, I am off to tile the next bathroom.

Music and math

2011-10-04T12:26:00.001-07:00

(Overheard from the living room from my boy who is dancing hip hop next to his math book...with a pencil in hand)
"Last night a DJ saved my life, singin' ahh ahh ahh ahh stayin' alive! 7 times 120 is 700 plus 14 with a zero so 140 which is 840 saying ahh ahh ahh ahh -insert Italian rap- stayin' alive." He has an mp3 playing techno next to him while he works. His math gets done twice as fast. He is doing fractions.
(Heard later while he is playing Legos) "3x6 is 18 6x6 is 36, two 18s makes 36 so 18/6 is 3 and 36/6 is 6..." he continues. It all sounds like freestyle, or rap I guess. We dont listen to rap, never have but he does freestyle on his own. Anything music is appealing to him. It is amazing to me that I can ask him, what is 6x6 and he will stare at me. However if I write it into a "song" or he does, he knows the answer. Somehow it sets things to order in his brain. He asked for me to buy several Italian techno songs which I did, and he learned them! He learned the German, Italian and Chinese lessons on a disc that came with their French program. The CD was an example of the other languages they offer. Anything put to a beat in his brain is learned, I wonder if he will always have to rap his multiplication tables? Will he have to dance while teaching his children or can he stand still? I am not sure...

Legos

2011-10-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

Nathalie got new Legos in the mail. They are from daddy and me, but I think if you ask her they are from daddy. Tad got an electric guitar and amp, both for playing 1 yr + (and playing well) and for being a huge help this year. Nathalie chose Legos. She spent much time with a catalogue going over her choices, and we have some sort of village here.

And the boat, fisherman, and fisherman's son. There is another set too, it is in progress. Both kids love Legos and spend many hours building.

I snapped this with my new camera, not on purpose. I mean I did push the button on purpose but just to see what it would do. This is what I got, he is such a big person now! He will be bigger than me very soon. He is learning to beat box, something I would have minded a few years ago. He has an ability to copy any sound that he hears, sounds that are not really human. He can make the sounds that keyboards make, he does thunderstorm sounds, light saber noises, alien voices, the sounds of battle and now, beat box. I believe it was at my suggestion, really joking but partially serious. I do not mind how it sounds and it appeals to his musical mind. Nathalie is the puzzler for sure, she was overheard telling him multiple times that he was putting the wrong pieces in the wrong spots for the Lego build. She doesnt need directions for building or for puzzles, she can solve any puzzle and tie/untie any knot. Skills that I do not have... I can, however, beat box!

Cutting in

2011-10-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

I think someone else should come and clean the fan. It is wicked dusty. Eric loaned his ladder to me, not to kill me (when I fall off) but because I needed to cut in. He wouldnt want to kill me despite my mean jokes towards him Sunday night. They were funny jokes, I mean I am funny.

The kids were using the new camera, they took about 75 photos between the two of them. All of their mama standing a million feet in the air, at 9 p.m. cutting in the vaulted ceiling. I mean didnt they have ANYTHING better to do? No mama our lego sets are nearly all built and daddy said he wanted some pictures of you. If we take a bunch now we dont have to pay any attention later.

So here you go baby, these are all the pictures you are going to get. The ceiling is cut in all the way around the dining room and kitchen, and the kitchen is mostly painted! One more job off the list.

A game of spies

2011-10-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

"Tristin, you are not well camouflaged."
"But I am in a tree."

"Mama, Justina, can you see him?"

"We sure can punk. His shirt is orange."

"Awww man, we are gonna lose Tristin."

"Hey Tad, I have a good idea. I think it will work."
"I am sure it will. We will talk about it outside."

"Um, with the two of you things are not usually good ideas. You guys dont even make half a boy when you are together. What are you scheming?"

"Huh? Us? Nothing! Just playin' a game! Havin' fun. We are not doing anything wrong."
"Yeah mama."

"I did what? Broke my collar bone because I wasnt thinkin'? Huh uh... I mean, that was last year!"

I miss you

2011-10-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

I open up my eyes I miss you
Everytime I fall asleep I miss you
I wanna scream and shout I miss you
Every day It's all about how i miss you
Everytime I close my eyes I miss you
Every day I'm walking the streets to be near you
When I drop my beat I feel you
How can I help you start to know how I miss you

-Lifted, Uriah Shelton and Dash Mihok

Remodeling

2011-10-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

The first of (hopefully) many installments of remodeling photos. I have been without a good camera for a lot of the work I have done so far, the little camera that I was using for landscaping photos sort of quit on me. So, this is the kids bathroom, or hall bathroom. This is the one that Eric and the kids were working on drywall in. I finished all the drywall behind the toilet, around the shower and mudded/sanded and painted this bathroom. I have a few photos of that on a different camera card. Here, I am putting the toilet back down. Eric pulled it up, and set it in the tub. Then I laid morter and hardibacker on the floor, laid tile, grouted around the toilet area imediately (though not all finished tiling) and then put the toilet down. By myself. Okay fine with a phone call to a friend Amanda.

You can see this is where I ran out of morter. The problem with this is that it causes tile shifting sometimes, and the corners are not perfect because of it. People likely wont notice. Laying tile isnt hard, but it can be wearing and is time consuming.

Now it is finished, though I dont have a grout photo yet. The tile has to dry for 12 hrs before you grout. The rubber mallet and scrap of wood is for tapping down each tile after laying. The spacers keep the tile and equal distance apart for grouting. I did get the toilet installed AND it doesnt leak! I was very proud, I have installed toilets before but only when my husband was on site.

Another angle of finished. I am using my new camera and still getting used to it, some of the lighting is different than I meant for it to be, and also I am getting pretty fuzzy photos with the telephoto lens.

Now this is my bathroom-the master bathroom. For some reason the previous owners had a small stand up shower, and boxed in the other half of the tub/shower space with drywall and just wallpapered it. I guess it was cheaper? So we pulled out the shower, Jeremiah (Amanda's husband) and family came up and installed a nice tub for me in the space. He built a small shelf around it because there was space, due to drain issues, and it makes a nice area to tile inside the shower. I will be tiling these walls. The piece of backerboard here is waiting to be put down.

You can see the curve on the floor where the carpet used to come inside the bathroom at just that area. There were several layers of sticky tile on this floor, Tad scraped them up and threw them away. He has now finished since I took up the toilet and the backerboard is partially down for tiling.

I dont know why the ply board was painted in here, but it was. There is a problem in the corner by the tub with the drywall and it will require a patch. Tad did a lot of the work in here, he takes the vents out for me. The vents here are an older style and they take a lot of work to detach frmo their space, and some bad words are used by me. Tad just takes them up now without mentioning it.

Here the toilet is out. I cannot take the toilet up in 1 piece, I take the tank off of the back and then pull up the bowl. My flange is broken here, not sure if I need to take this one out/install a new one or if it is still usable. Eric will tell me tomorrow when he brings his ladder for me to borrow. I need to cut in paint next to vaulted ceilings, and I am simply not 20 ft tall.

The toilet had to go somewhere! The kids bathroom toilet was in their tub as well, now that shower/tub is being used. We bathed in here, or showered in the laundry room shower while the kids bathroom was being worked on. I plan on having mine done in about 3 days so the toilet wont live here long.

I have photos of the laundry room as well, the before, during and after. It still needs baseboards, but the wallpaper was removed, mudding and patching occured, the tile in there and laundry were done by myself and Frank last yr and it looks amazing, the shower we left alone. It is just a stand up shower, but there are 4 bathrooms here and 2 others have tub/showers. I painted the laundry room and bathroom.

For those who have been to my house, you know that paneling was used in excess. The maker of paneling should be shot. Some had come loose in the hall and foyer, and these 2 areas were excessively dark. The dining room has some paneling but not totally and it also has vaulted ceiling, french doors and it is open to kitchen and living room so it isnt so bad. Our bedroom has 1 wall of it which I will fix if I have time, but again there are windows and light walls as well. The hall and foyer were mudded, it takes 4 x and still the lines showed though I thought they were sanded well. This section shown is not yet painted because I had a wooden cabinet there that I had to sell first.

This is now the hall, it used to be like the previous picture without the mud lines! I still have some tape to take off of the door frames but it is a huge difference. Took 1 layer of primer and 3 of paint to make the difference, and it isnt perfect but it is so much better. Dark doesnt sell well, and we want to sell.

Another hall shot-bit fuzzy due to getting used to the camera. There were no baseboards in here, but I couldnt mud/paint all the way to the floor so we will put down baseboards.

This is the foyer, the wall on the left was actually a hideous gold print wallpaper from sometime ago. That was after I peeled 3 layers, the last one wanted to stay so I primed/painted over it. We are going to paint the door red-its on the list.

And here is our half wall when you first walk in, this was also paneling. The wall on the other side is a very dark beige color, this new color is called beige but its more like a cream. I will paint the guitar wall as well, the whole living room, kitchen and dining room will be painted this week in between tiling my bathroom floor and walls, homeschooling, college, making children's wardrobes, running errands to do paperwork (getting ready to cross through canada) and cleaning up from the shop burning down.

We are staying busy and getting closer to the end of this deployment! We are very excited about it... It is hard to be patient but at least I have work to keep me busy.

Landscape 2

2011-09-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

This is a very late landscaping post. I am super exhausted from all that we are busy doing, I would love to blog more but am always running behind. I started the work to sell our property in August, the first thing that we did was landscaping. This was the last, and hardest bed that I did. The 110+ degree temps didnt help.

It was educational, relatively fun except for the heat. I was very glad for a hardworking tractor! I ripped out the old rock bed here, it had a plastic thing along the side to create the bed which I didnt like, and grass had grown up through the old ground cloth.

I was able to get very close to the house, leaving just a small strip to dig out by hand. The plastic butcher board (for chickens) is against the window to protect it from any stones or debris.

This is the pile that the bucket left, I couldnt get any closer without damaging the porch so had to shovel this out by hand. Doesnt look too bad huh? Well, the grass roots, the burried ground cloth and stones were pretty wearing... it took 2 days for that portion.

I just dug it out and filled the tractor bucket and took it to dump it along the side yard. We fished out the pieces of ground cloth and the stones will keep the foliage down in the tree line for some time.

More digging... I did find that the ground cloth ran many feet into the yard. I gave up excavation at about 3 foot out from the bed edge.

The stripped bed, mostly leveled.

The corner that had to be dug out, you can see where I stated to remove the groundcloth from the actual yard and gave up, at the bottom left of this photo.

Tacking down the groundcloth with small pins, they are long and U shaped, they are not hard to put in. This is a heavy duty groundcloth, though I know now that the people who lived here before had no weeds because they used weed control chemicals, I end up pulling weeds because I wont use those. Yes, I know there is graffiti on my house. My daughter is the culprit-she found that the "guts" of old drywall will write on things.

Finished bed! We bought cyprus wood chips from a local lawn and garden place for 20$ per bucket scoop-tractor bucket. It was a good size bucket and all of our mulch cost 100$ total.

Another view, I tucked the ground cloth under to create a longer, better weed prevention. The RR ties are not complete, I need a small piece cut and the end piece shimmed up but the actual bed is complete-the hard part.

Since then I have accomplished a lot of remodeling, 1 semester in college, started homeschool, sold a lot of our belongings, finished paying off debt completely (this wasnt work so much as determination), made our clothes, oh and other things. We have had a good two months!

Remodeling update

2011-09-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

I am not on here a lot! Early on in this deployment I did well keeping up with posts, for my poor distant husband. He loves to see what the kids are doing. Change in computer systems and a broken camera, coupled with a larger workload has really hammered my blogging abilities. I have no recent pictures, this bathroom that the guys are working on is now nearly done! Eric came over and spent the day hanging drywall and an assortment of other tasks. He lets the kids help and along the way he teaches them which they love.

The bathroom pictured is one of 4, and only 1 of the 4 wasnt in some state of "torn up." This one is the kids bathroom. Tad and Nathalie both learned to measure, mark and cut drywall. Tad learned how NOT to cut drywall in case the razor knife slipped. He learned what his femoral artery is, and what % of chance he had of living if he cut it. The % was only above 0 because Eric and I are both educated in emergency medicine.

Eric did help with their scoring, but they both have the concept now and appreciate how careful the cuts need to be once they saw the mudding process. Tad has cut his piece with Eric's help here.

Now once it is folded back, he can carefully cut the paper at the other side and has his pieces. I didnt get any good photos of Nathalie helping but she did, in between her art projects. I didnt do much more than cook lunch, the 4 of us dont fit comfortably in a bathroom!

I have some good pictures hidden on my camera (that wont work) of my friends Amanda and Jeremiah (and offspring) here for a wkend. They came up to install a bathtub in one of the other 3 bathrooms. That leaves nothing but tile needing to be done in there which is wonderful! Tile I love to do, installing a bathtub-well I lack education there... Amanda had some great ideas and together they created something that will be easy for me to tile, and very attractive to us and the buyers of our home. I appreciate the help I have had from friends. Eric's drywall work allowed me to complete 1 bathroom altogether, and the next one nearly. I mudded, sanded and painted the one bathroom and laundry room-they are checked off the list.

I finished the drywall and mud, sanding and painting in the kids bathroom with some extra help from the kids and Jeffrey (Eric's son). I have spent the last wk mudding the cracks in paneling in my hall and foyer. They are dark areas-no windows, no high ceilings and thus the paneling is overwhelmingly dark. I dont like paneling ever but in the vaulted living room the bit of wall that is paneling is manageable. After 3+ layers of mud, I was able to prime the hall and foyer today. I was excited to be that close to done! My house goals were to finish all that I have listed plus the tile in kids bath. I have that and painting in hall left! Then I will move on to the tile in our bathroom and possibly the paint in the living room.

As for the outside, Tad and I have mowed and brushogged all 6 acres, cleaned out all but 1 barn. On the barns Nathalie helped but on the brushogging-the girl cannot drive! During those times she cleaned house, did laundry and cooked dinner. My 4000 $ (that we did for 200$) landscaping jobs are lovely and I am so glad they are done, they were my biggest worries because I hadnt landscaped before. I have good pictures of the other beds completed but once again... camera troubles. Tad will fix it tomorrow or I will buy a new one before I go farther in remodeling. I dont want Frank to miss one step in the work we are doing. He is sad about not being here and misses this time very much.

We are excited about our upcoming move, and the changes in our lives. As always, we want to remember and count our blessings until we are so full from them that we can make it over life's hurdles with patience and happiness.

Lost camera

2011-09-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

I lost my camera, and the other one is broken (my good one) and there is another little one that is both lost and out of battery. None of this is normal for me, I love to take pictures! I will give you an update and find my camera asap.

Because we are moving to Alaska shortly after Frank comes home, there is a lot of work to do. We have a lot of paperwork with the insurance company over the shop burning down. Also, we have to demo the site. For a small amount of money (that I made) a man in a town nearby collected the metal-which was the bulk of the shop rubble. He can turn it in to make money, and I didnt have to do all the work alone. We do get paid for demo, but we rather demo ourselves. Now I need to clean up the remaining chard wood (burn it) clean up any obvious trash (dump) and then figure out the ashes.

The landscaping-it is all done, and the beds are beautiful especially considering my lack of decorating abilities. Our friend Eric helped me with the beds and has one more job to do...I have to have a small piece of rr tie cut down which I am not capable of with no chainsaw.

The property otherwise-almost all brushogged, (Tad and I do this on the tractor) mowed (Tad), weed eating done (Tad and myself) and some hedging where the brushog cannot go (Tad). During this time Nathalie kept the house clean, laundry done and food cooked. We still have a little more cleaning and repair in the barns, but have sold most of our farm stuff and all animals save 2 crazy, wild chickens. A bantam rooster and his hen-they live off the land.

Have 2 rooms to clean out, pump room and jacuzzi room. The jacuzzi was sold long ago but has junk in the room. These things will go to the dump.

Rest of the house has been mostly cleaned and organized, we have a few more things inside to sell. We are selling a lot of our goods because we want to move to Ak without a lot of stuff.

Remodeling-I am almost done with one bathroom. Eric finished the drywall for me, now I need to finish sanding the mud which I did and paint. Bathroom # 2, Eric finished most of the drywall. I need to finish that, mud, sand and paint. Then I have to tile the floor. Bathroom # 3, Jeremiah-friend from south of here- did the bathtub this wkend, a job I couldnt do alone. It had many problems that came up which he was able to solve right away, they would have stumped me. We had a great wkend with his family, and and the bathtub is perfect. I now need to tile the shower walls, finish the drywall around the top, paint it and tile the floor. I pealed the wall paper from it yesterday.

Bathroom # 4 isnt gutted. We gutted part of the laundry room because the pipes broke. Gutted # 2 because it had carpet and no shower-just an old tub. New tub, new shower, but couldnt do new floor because the floor sagged. Why? Because next door our bathroom, # 3, had the main floor supports cut out underneath for the drain. Why? Because people make poor decisions-it wasnt us this time. We had to then gut that bathroom shower-learned there was empty wall space so a full shower/tub would fit, and so that made 3 bathrooms gutted partially. A lot of work, but he didnt intend for us to move so soon.

Now today is our first official day of school, didnt work out 2 wks ago so here we are! Photos later.

Landscaping bed 1

2011-09-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

We are finished with our landscaping except for a small piece of rr tie which I cannot cut myself. Due to my chainsaw being burned up in the fire. Oh, and my lack of desire to use a chainsaw. I am not fond of them. We obtained a landscaping quote, and it was unmanageable so some help from a friend for tree cutting and removal, Tad and I started a long 10 days of (literally) muscle pulling labor. This was our back patio. After some of the work, the weeds between these stones were over our knees. The bed along the house was an old creeping evergreen that had long since died, and under that was a myriad of ground cloth, weeds, and heavy small rocks.

This area is under the deck steps and it is north of the patio just mentioned, still on the back of the house. Dirt and weeds were growing nicely under here.

Why I didnt load the tractor bucket... I do not know. I had to dig out this bed by hand fully, unlike the front bed (not pictured and much more work), I couldnt scrape any of it with the tractor. I dug it out, put it in the this poor old rusted thing (the tire stays flat) and hauled it off (after sifting it for trash) to the tiny tree line we have. The rocks will keep down weeds there for a couple more years.

Mulch, we bought this by the scoop-bobcat scoop and paid 20$ a scoop. Our total landscaping needs were covered by 7 scoops so 140$ in mulch. I made a total of 3 trips to the small town 8 miles from us to pick this up as well as ground-cloth and pins.

Previous post to this one showed pictures of Tad and Eric trimming back this bush. It was much eaiser to work with the bush trimmed, and it will come back much nicer next year.

I laid the ground-cloth. It was at this point, after hitting my thumb with a hammer putting in pins, that it occured to me that I possibly had not googled landscaping enough yet. Maybe I should have read a few more articles. I felt suddenly unsure in this territory. Doesnt this qualify as something pretty, decorative? Purposefully artful in a way that doesnt produce food or functional clothing? This is not my area. Deep breaths. Saving 4000 $.

Once again, working by hand. My tractor bucket cannot scoop it out of the truck bed. I filled the bed with mulch, making sure I kept it below the rock edge and covered the ground-cloth evenly. I began to spread mulch around the AC and the trimmed bush, but these things had no proper edge. Back to the decoration issues.

The fatal error of this small tree was to grow inside of this bed. Tad did away with the small tree.

My little daughter does poorly in the heat, and cannot handle bugs. In spring and early summer, she works well in the yard but we dont often see her mid/late summer. She keeps the house in a constant state of clean, keeps the meals cooked and laundry done and brings us water regularly. This evening was a cooler than average evening, and there were no bugs so here she is happily sweeping. With a broken broom. The good broom was in the shop. Now its still in the shop I assume. Or it went where all good brooms go?

We found the square end shovel to be wonderful for removing the weeds. The dirt somehow piled up on these stones over the years, I do not know why but there were large piles of it on top of some stones and IN the dirt grew nice grass.

The under the stair area after work, I edged/weed eated the edges, scraped out the weeds and dirt and the children swept and clean farther back. oh and we sold our stock pile of 55 gal plastic drums so they are not longer cluttering that area. So I MADE money while I saved the 4K in landscaping costs...

Finishing up the clean up. The area around the AC and the bush now has a nice rock garden surround. I found enough flat paving stones on our property to go seamlessly from the edge of the patio stones, right around the AC and bush. I made this rock garden, on my own, and we will not eat it, it will not produce something useful so I did a very good thing, though it was outside of my comfort zone. My children were astounded that I could do something so, not useful. Tad said, it is a nice rock garden. I said, maybe if we water it it will grow rocks for us and we can sell them and make money. He said, oh you want me to pee on it? Wow. My children need more civilization.

Side view of my rock garden. I am so proud of it! The old plastic furniture was here when we moved in, somewhere in the back field or something. We drug it in and sit on them, or sometimes they provide tent holdings when the children build tarp tents.

And the final view. This bed was a lot of work, though nothing compared to the front (west) bed. This bed is one of the eastern beds, the next one over will be shown as soon as I get the photos up. The north bed is has three tiers and then a flat top portion with stones, flowers and it used to have weeds. We have eradicated those and mulched.

There was a total of 4 beds to work. I have pictures of all of them, and my total cost came to 200$ and some change including fuel to pick up the supplies needed. 10 days of hard labor for a 10 yr old and myself, I am not sure if that translates into 4000$ but either way, we saved it, we learned a lot, had fun, a pulled muscle, a deep feeling of pride and you know, despite the fact that the only function is pretty, I do like them...

Trees and tractors

2011-08-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

"

As we are getting ready to move to Ak, my "TO DO" list is long and daunting. Our friend Eric was on leave this week and helped us for 2 days. He says I am a slave driver, but we got a lot done! Eric and his family have helped us with many of the things we have here, barn building, house remodeling, plumbing, tree cutting, log splitting, probably some roofing, the list goes on. He helped us Monday with landscaping, we pulled out an old creeping evergreen in the back patio landscape bed that was dead long ago and he and Tad trimmed back a flowering tree next to that bed.

Then we carried all the brush and branches to the burn pit, and Eric and Tad cut down/cut up a tree. Eric cut it down and then helped Tad use the chainsaw to cut some branches. Eric has a saw that goes on the end of his weed eater, its like a tiny chainsaw. It is a wonderful tool that I think I need, oh wait I need ALL of my tools again!

Many low branches were cut, as I couldnt brush hog under the trees with low-hanging branches. Eric said that we could move all of the old dead trees (they were the parts that were too large for us to cut with our small chain saw and split with our tiny log splitter) to one big neat pile. We did this with the tractor, Eric (sometimes with the help of the children) attached them to the bucket with rachet straps and then I followed his directions on when to raise/lower/tilt the bucket, back up/go forward etc. He is a good ground guide. There were only 2 times that I covered up my ears. For me, covering my ears signifies fear or worry. I hate the sound of things breaking, cars crashing, loud people, I have always covered my ears even when what I fear isnt a noise. I did fear tipping over, because I mean-the tractor DID go up on one side but as Eric explained, it wasnt going to tip over. The tree would right it when the tree hit the ground, because it was wider than the tractor. Which is reasonable.

I still covered my ears the next time it happened. One log was so heavy, we couldnt lift it so I had to drag it backwards, and then turn hard right when Eric said and deposited the heavier tree in the pile of other trees. Then Eric flipped it over. Alone. Which made the tractor feel a LITTLE bad about her abilities!

Nathalie is always bummed that I wont let her use a chainsaw, not even the tiny chainsaw on the weed-eater, and she cannot drive the tractor. But people, honestly, she cannot drive a barbie car without hitting at least 2 trees. She did find plenty of things to do though, she manned the fire after getting the hose, helped with limb pickup and got to help attach trees to the tractor. Oh and ride on the brush-hog. No, the PTO was not engaged. That would be irresponsible parenting.

Wednesday will be shown in another blog post, Eric helped us (he and the kids did the work) finish most of the drywalling in one bathroom, and all of it in the other. Tomorrow I am off to lowes to get the tools and supplies that I need to finish the bathrooms and paint in the rest of the house. I have a good landscape post as well! I was given a quote of $2300 to do half of the landscaping that we needed done, so I spent $75 so far, and MANY man hours and am about 3/4 done with all of the landscaping. It will cost around $200 total so thats better than $4600.

Thats all in updates. I missed a lot, blogging has fallen by the way-side with the move. Am sorry for that!

Identity

2011-08-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of photos to show you of a yard work day with our friend Eric. I have uploaded them, but I am too tired to get them in order. We got a lot done, which is great because we are trying to list the house.

My TO DO list is longer than both of my legs plus my arms. I am hopeful that it will shorten, either by my hard work or my hard work and some good karma.

We have done school for 2 days, some book work was completed, 2 museums and much work.

Also, I just wanted to say this. Not to complain just to let you know.

If you have a tornado you may lose your children's birth certificates as well as their consular reports of birth born abroad. Someone may steal their social security card along with a few of your leftover belongings.

When they catch the guy, they will tell you he is in jail but we cannot give you the ss cards. They are by law his property. Justice.

If you do not have a shot record AND school record OR photo ID you cannot get a new ss card. You cannot get a mil ID for a child under the age of 10 (N), and homeschool paperwork doesnt count as school records.

You cannot get a birth certificate without a consular report of birth born abroad. I need both parents signature for this and it takes 8 wks. I have only one parent here.

I can get new passports because I have their expired passports, as long as I have birth certificates or consular reports etc. Which I do not.

So... I went on post and got a temp ID card for N, and a permanent for T. Because I do have shot records, and deployment orders. They put the date wrong on Ns. It is already expired. I have to go all the way back to base. But at least I can get an ID for her, for now. She cannot have a permanent until age 10.

I can now get SS cards when I get her card fixed.

I will send off tomorrow for a consular report, this will need signatures, so I have to have mine notarized. I spent 2 hrs today filling out paperwork and finding answers on this. So 8 wks from tomorrow, I will have this report and can get their new passports with the consular report. Then I can send off the consular report to obtain new birth certificates.

When everything comes in (bit by bit as some bits are needed for other bits so cannot be sent off for next bits and still other bits need the bits that the one bit has been sent off to get), I will have birth certs, ss cards, consular reports, passports and ID cards (T now, N temp but a regular one in a few mo) on my children! Hopefully in time to move. Because it is guaranteed that DEERS will lose their info, AGAIN and we will have to RE-ENROLL them in Tricare, which means we need ss cards, and bcs.

And to cross Canada, we need passports. That is easy for mine, I have my expired but for children under 16 even with expired its a whole new process... or a long one at least.

Now really, I am not complaining. It is a lot of confusing work but at least someone else will have a hard time "becoming" my child, at least some care is being taken despite the thief-criminal being able to keep our ss cards. At least I have time to get all of this done!

First day!

2011-08-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

This is our back patio-all of these stones were grown up in weeds, some of them were spiny and hurtful. We have been pulling the weeds, and scraping heavy piles of dirt (from using it as a seed starting spot for my pots which eventually spilled), and relocating all of this. The area around the AC and under the purple flower bush will be mulched today to prevent the problem again. (growing up of weeds in unwanted area). The areas in between each stone has been/will be salted with rock salt as you dont grow things between patio stones on purpose. No other landscape beds will be salted, just layered with ground cloth and wood chips so a new owner can always plant in the beds.
This is just one of our many outdoor endeavors in preparation for selling. We worked 8 hrs a day the last 2 days, Tad and I on landscaping/mowing/brushog and Nathalie on house cleaning, errand running/water fetchign and cooking/cleaning up from both lunch and dinner.

Tad's first time weed eating, we have a very heavy weed eater. It was a bit more expensive,we wanted a 4 cycle engine (no mixing, just separate oil and fuel) and we wanted it to edge. Its edging capabilities are amazing and it is easier to use than other edgers I have tried. However, being larger and stronger makes it heavier and Tad cant use it for long before his arm is numb. This kid will work until he falls over, I have to require breaks! He has cleared nearly an acre of weeds/reeds by hand with a machete and a hedger. Sometimest he hedger isnt usable and he has to do it by hand. We are getting the whole 6 acres mowed, cleared, cleaned, brush hogged, landscaped, trimmed, edged etc. It will look wonderful for photos and be a good starting point for new buyers.

In other new today is our first day back to school! The kids are not quite excited, its nearly 10 and they are just getting ready for the day. We have always schooled year around, we didnt this yr and they are having to adjust now. Our school day will start in a few minutes adn looks like this:

History: story of the world on disk, work book questions read/answered out loud.

1 history topic chosen by turns that is researched and read about. Today's was done during breakfast-Nathalie's first question was "where did dog tags originate and why are they called that.

Science: Apologia Zoology of flying creatures 4-5th grade. I read the text they do some fun hands on work book stuff. Tad gets to choose the science video today. (we have DVDs and also use Netflix/National Geo and watch sci videos/series)

Handwriting: brushing up on cursive, will be for first month of school.

Spelling: Sequential, on board with me.

Math: Mammoth for Nathalie (she is in 4th this yr and is 3/4 way through with Singapore 4th grade starting to struggle so backed up to do a few mammoth's to get back on track) Tad is finishing up 4B in Singapore.

Reading: Mcguffey

French: Rosetta Stone, some days we also watch a DVD from other sources.

Bible: definately not last, but we do this at night. We have our bible reading in the evening because we always have. We are right now in Egypt, Moses is leading his people out of Egypt starting tonight.

So thats it! We are off to start, and then we have chores ahead of us. Tomorrow we have post first, to get ID cards (Tad is 10), and passports updated to go to Ak. So school is tomorrow afternoon.

Vacation photos

2011-08-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

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These are all pictures from being on vacation with our best friends. There are many more pictures, this was mostly from the day that Nikki did henna tattoos on all of the kids. Tad loves Faith's hair and spent much time braiding and brushing it. Manny and Calob do not pose as often... I dont have a lot of pictures of them alone. Faith took many pictures of the other children-many of these are her work. We had such a wonderful time, it may have been the best time I have had in years. the only thing lacking was my husband, and we all missed him terribly.

where have I been???

2011-08-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

I have been on a mini roller coaster! I say mini, because I dont like real roller coasters and it has been a good few weeks. A lot has happened and we have been very busy. I will give you the update!

First, we flew to Ga to see some of my favorite people in the world. My children's best friends Calob (12), Faith (11), Manny (8) and Willow (5). And of course their mama and daddy, Nikki and Brian. Nikki has been my best friend since we were 14. She found good ticket prices and so we flew impromptu to Ga for a wk.

We had a blast! I havent had that much fun in a long time. Our kids crammed in as much fun as possible, we swam and kayaked in the river, gardened and canned, the kids built a real indian village equipped with a fire pit that they ate dinner on (fresh worms, eggs stolen from the chicken house and a pkg of hot dogs when we found out they were eating worms... ), tried to camp out but then it rained.

While we were gone (tuesday-tuesday) our shop here on our property caught fire somehow and burned down. This happened saturday, we were phoned by the woman keeping the goats and garden cared for. It was a big mess and I am so grateful that the firemen were able to contain it. It was a total loss on the shop and contents but we feel very blessed. The wind was going the right direction to save everything but a bit of fence, it rained during the following few days thus helping the firefighters (fire took 4 days of work to keep it from flaring back up), we had amazing friends who helped to save all 3 of my freezers full of food (elec was out from the fire-for several days I would have lost a lot of food), we have great insurance and we were not here so no one was injured. I feel like God has taken care of us in every way once again in a potentially harmful situation.

Next in news, we found out that we cannot stay at Ft Riley, and we have to move to a new post when Frank gets home from deployment. Very shortly after! As in, not even sure his things will all arrive from deployment in time to be packed by the army! We are moving some things alone, and we are moving to Fairbanks, Ak. We are very excited about the move, it is somewhere we have all wanted to go.

We had already began the process of selling goats, chickens and farm equipment because we planned on going to school with Frank next year. I am so glad now, because I am left with less work than I had before. The drawback is that we have quite a tight time-line to get the house finished and sold. We have 3 partially finished bathrooms, so it will be a lot of work. I am sure we will get it done, and things will go well. They always do, as long as we are patient and stay happy. Everything is brighter when one determines it is!

This week we have 4h showings at the fair. Both of the children showed sewing projects, Nathalie got a 2nd place ribbon for her skirt, Tad got a 1st place for his shirt. Tad got 2nd for his knitted hat and Nathalie got 2nd for her baked goods. Now they have their goats, and Tad has a bantam rooster. This year the fair rules are that we have to keep the goats there from yesterday (wed) all the way to sunday! So even if we do not have things to do at the fair during the day we have to be there most of the time regardless. So we are again off! This time to shave and tattoo our baby goats.

Conversations

2011-07-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

"Mama, can I take my baby chickens outside?" Tad loves his three bantam chicks, they were hatched by their mama but she was murdered by something and now we are raising them-er-the kids are raising them inside.

"Yeah but you are going to have a hard time keeping track of all three, what if one runs off." He looks startled and turns his head to the side.

"But mama, they love me. I am their daddy. That makes Nathalie... NOT the mama, the nanny!"

"Oh I see. You are their daddy." He nods and walks to the laundry room to collect his baby chickens.

"And that, my baby chickens " I hear him whisper "makes mama the evil head-master!"

*Note: we know that baby chickens are chicks, and baby goats are doelings/bucklings, baby cattle are calves. But we call them baby and the adult counter part. I think we actually say baby cows, which would mean female but we mean all cattle that are baby.

Landscaping

2011-07-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

On the chance that we ever have to sell our house, or on the chance that we hate looking trashy... we are landscaping! We have a beautiful garden this year, and almost no weeds. We have very few goats/chickens at this time, we are just having a good time with a smaller group of animals. This has given us some time to work on our property.

A local friend has been helping me, we are trading/cooperating in work areas. She is very helpful, able to work harder than a lot of men! Also, she is skilled in gardening and landscaping. This is her foot on the shovel. These tiered beds were here when we moved in, and now there are a lot of weeds grown up. We cleaned up and planted all 3 tiers with herbs/flowers that C (friend) planted at her house. She starts seeds more successfully than I do.
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This is a before picture, we have pulled weeds and thinned out some of the plants and flowers here and will continue. We will use mulch on ground cloth where we dont intend to plant which means we wont have any weeds growing in unused areas. It will look much neater that way.

We had Tad, and Cs son for help as well as N. But the only "man" on the property was tractor. We used him to haul some manure to layer in the beds. Also the tractor bucket was where C landed as she flew through the air to get away from a large lizard AKA Mr. Gardener.

Some simple things would make our property and beds look better, not having old rugs, blankets and hand-painted plastic lawn seats about. We will continue to clean these up, and get rid of them.

Nathalie was taking pictures, this is just a new little section of bed that has been worked and can now have herbs or flowers planted. There was nothing there but some rocks and weeds so we removed those bits.

Nathalie's toes and some more newly worked bed. This is a lot of work, T, C and I have been mostly doing this outdoor job. T also mows and brush hogs, drives the tractor around for me while I put things in/on it, and he helps quite a bit in the garden. Nathalie does well with picking, and doesnt mind the weed free paths but doesnt do well in heat or with the buggy friends. She likes lizards and frogs for friends, but finds more of the bug sort of friends in the garden and isnt interested in their friendship. Instead she keeps the house clean and food provided for T and myself.

More photos to follow as we get more landscaping finished!

Banana!

2011-07-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

We have a new game called banagrams. It is like scrabble because you have to spell words connecting them to other words. However, you have your own line. Each person draws a certain number of letters, turns them over and plays. You build your words/lines without any turns, everyone just works. When you need/want more letters you say "peal" and a number. The directions say peal 1 but we peal more. Once the letters are all pealed equally, you have to finish using your letters first to win.

I play this game at least 1 x a day. Sometimes by myself. We try to spell big words, and at the end if you are left with just a few letters you often have to re-arrange and take apart. This takes skill. My children are not great spellers, so we are using this game to aid the problem.

The photo here shows my daughter's game, she was playing with Tad. She went about the house collecting words and this is what she came up with, she doesnt know what humectant means but it was a good word! The reason that she spelled admitted incorrectly, is because she says idmitted. After this round I correctly her gently and she learned to spell/say it correctly.

I love that she has two bathroom words...Too funny!

No photos

2011-07-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

I dont have any photos. So if you cant read, x out for now and come back later. If you can but only come for pictures, refer back to my first.

Today we worked. Hard and a lot. Matter of fact, yesterday we worked. A lot. And hard. We pulled weeds that I allowed to get far too large. They are in an area that I cant get into to brush hog or mow, and they are in an area that I need. I did have something planted there that failed, and we are taking it back now. Also I weeded my garden perimeter which isnt fun.

I have 5 major areas that need landscaping. Maybe 6, I guess 6. Areas that once had ground cloth and landscaping stone laid, and now the cloth is no good. The weeds come through at a rapid rate. We (a friend is helping the children and me) are pulling the weeds, then pulling out whatever is in each bed (one isnt rocks, it is a funny sprawling used to be ever green something), laying down heavy duty ground cloth and cypress wood chips. They break down, and can be composted. They are natural, and dont have to be dug out like rocks.

It is a lot of work, but we need to get it done. The quote I have from the local landscaper is not manageable and I didnt think it would be. It is a job we must do, and I dont enjoy it. I think that I will be very proud once its done, more so than I would be from paying off a landscaping loan.

We also did school, sewed and cleaned house. Well, Nathalie cleaned house. The bugs are out in force now, so while she planted nearly all of the garden with me she now doesnt love to be out there. I wont kill her love for green things so instead she cleans the whole house. Truly. The whole house.

My kids are wonderful, they work hard and I am grateful for them. Now I am going to go play games with them. Bye.

Stormy sky

2011-07-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

We had storm clouds rolling in, I am not used to the little canon I have and I dont take great photos. The camera isnt any good if the subject isnt perfectly still, no, lets say its not good in my hands. My mama could take fabulous pictures with a broken camera. I did still like the pictures in which the subject was moving, because it looks like they sort of separated.

The hair pictures are proof that I can do hair. For years, my daughter went around with a nappy head or daddy did her hair. The few times I did she cried, and my husband tried to say to "be more careful" but honestly had she thought I was him she wouldnt have cried. She just preferred him so what can I say. I avoided her hair and just let it go if he was gone. When she was 6, we told her take care of it or we cut it off. Its now grown out again see??? She has let me brush it 2 after-baths in a row and tonight I took the opportunity to braid it. Its braided along her natural side part as I had no comb to part down the middle.

She is wearing her daddy's "I need my garage time" t-shirt to sleep in.

My girl

2011-06-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

My poor girl is the youngest and smallest swimmer each time she is in a swim class. This makes me so proud of her! Yet, it can be difficult for someone who hates losing, and hates failing. We dont think she is failing, we think she is amazing. However, I dont hand out free compliments for nothing. If I say, "That was a lovely dive baby, it was perfect," then why would she keep trying to improve?

"Mama, watch me dive okay and tell me if its good. Give me a number." We do a scale thing in our family, 1-10. I think we have registered a zero or two also...

"Okay baby go ahead." She sort of dives, but more or less lands once again like a cat on knees and hands. She comes up and hopefully stares at me from the side with her goggles so tight her eyeballs bulge. "Honey that wasnt very good. I would give it a 5 for effort but a 1 for performance."

"Oh. Why???"

"Because you flopped again." She gets out and comes to me drippy wet to wrap her arms around my middle. She has tried and tried today. "You will get it baby. I will help you some more."

"I am the smallest. Will I be better when I am not the smallest?"

"You are already better. You are amazing, just need more fine tuning and as you grow yes you will be even better." She tries again and this time, its at least an 8. Myself, the lifeguards and several watching/waiting children jump, yell and clap for her. I think it was worth being honest to see the happiness in her face when she finally got it. She will continue to struggle and work on it, but will put such effort into it.

Garden and worms

2011-06-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

My Nikon is still broken. My husband told me how to fix it, and I know it will work. And a few minutes ago I thought, I could fix my camera, or blog using the pictures on the other camera. You can see what I chose. However, the other camera isnt quite as good (I am SO grateful to have it all the same...) and so some of these pictures are not great. I am learning photoshop (thanks mama) but am not very skilled yet so basically, be glad I am here hanging with you guys!

This is poetic no? I am excited and pleased and happy with my garden! And grateful for my wonderful husband each time I pull weeds, water, and pick food. He helped us set up a beautiful garden before he left that is largely weed free, easy to care for and has such good soil our plants are thriving. Thank you baby... We have been eating lettuce for weeks now but yesterday we had our first tomato! It was so juicy and sweet, I think I MIGHT have drank the juice off of the cutting board. We have a lot of purple lettuce too and this is the first year that I have grown lettuce from seed.

These are my volunteer squash, the plants just came by without asking, stopped, picked a spot and settled. I kindly mulched, watered, weeded, spoke with and thanked them. Oh and then I picked the squash from their vines and thanked them again! I dont have a photo of my onions but we have those too and they are great steamed together with soy sauce, eaten on brown rice.

This fellow is nasty no? I found a picture of a horn worm a few days ago online and this is identical. I am not the authority so it may not actually be, sorry about the quality of the photos. It was discovered by D, a visiting child, and he wasnt at all squeamish! His sister, brother and T and N all marveled at the creature and touched him, some were nervous the he could bite (I have heard that horn worms can) but he was so fascinating.

He wasnt on her foot at all, he was on a stick that D was holding. As soon as D offered him the stick, the worm climbed on. He had such interesting sticky feet, sort of fat little tendrils for legs/feet. He moved pretty quickly and was easily distracted by movement, happy to move to a different stick/piece of leaf. I hope that this creature and his friends are NOT eating my garden because SOMETHING has been snacking on it!

Swimming lessons

2011-06-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

The kids are taking swimming lessons again at our local pool. This is our 3rd year to take lessons, there are 2 sessions offered and most people do only 1. We do both, because they graduate (if able) 2 levels this way. They graduated level 5 last yr (of 6 available before lifeguard training) but they havent swam all winter. So I asked the teacher to put them back in level 5, though its combined with 6. Neither is a good enough swimmer yet to have passed 6. They have the skill but their technique needs refining.

Tad is just jumping here, they can enter the water any way they like before lesson starts. There is one child in their level, and one in level 6 and they all work together.

Nathalie doesnt mind going off of the diving board but her diving skills are the area that she suffers the most in. She is getting extra help during the day for this, when we swim for fun.

A shallow dive, she has to learn to go just under the surface. Her problem? She keeps landing like a cat! On all fours, her knees and hands hit followed by her face, stomach and chest. 5 parents, 3 lifeguards and 4 other children were working together today to help her figure this out (she wont pass without it) and the level 6 boy happened upon a solution as a last measure. He put his hand by her ankles holding up a number of fingers and told her tell me what the number is by looking at it just before you dive. Keeping her chin down is the answer, and in an attempt to see the number she was able to accomplish the dive! We were proud of child I for the idea and N for being able to accomplish the task.

Tad is pretty good at the dive, sometimes he still goes in too far. He is a strong diver, but he also needs to work on form. Last year Frank taught them the shallow dive, or learned it with them. That is possibly why N struggles with it this year, he isnt here to help her remember how. He held onto her thighs and flipped her legs up in time, thus preventing the belly flop but I am not strong enough to flip up her weight.

His legs stay nice and straight, they want them together but it doesnt have to be perfect. A lot of people bend their knees (me) and thus "belly flop" their lower legs.

"I have to do what with my arms?" Tad of the teacher.
"You have to turn them in a circle and then..."It was here that she must have sneezed because he lost her.

"Oh help. I must have a breath. Why cant I reach the bottom as easy as everyone else does?"
"Because you are the littlest." Another swimmer.

That is true, she is always the youngest in her class and Tad generally is on the younger side as well. This year they have a swimmer in their age group (same age as T), but in years past they havent. They are very strong swimmers and dont seem to have fears. Caution yes, fear no. I am so proud of how hard they work in lessons. I think it is a wonderful skill to have.

Breakfast

2011-06-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

I was making breakfast this morning, with my loving son. Pancakes and bacon. This punk can put away some food! But, he is also a good and willing cook. This was our conversation.

"I love you baby."
"I love you too mama. Can I have a cup of coffee now?"
"Sure. Hey baby, lets go see a lawyer and make a pact and have him sign it with us that says you wont ever leave me. Ever."
"Mama I dont think thats a good idea. Plus I am too young that will later not hold up in court."
"You are gonna leave me? Why dont you just live next door?"
"Because I will need to go find a wife, and I want to see the pyramids. I will come home right after that. When I have seen all of Africa also."
"Thats gonna take awhile. We will have land, you can just live right there. And there will be some girl there, you know some nice girls now."
"What if things dont work out and I dont marry anyone that I know, and dont want to marry anyone close by. Its unlikely she would be like-minded anyway. I want a woman who wants lots of kids, cooks well and will homeschool. A lot of other things."
"You are really gonna leave me baby?"
"Mama can you pass me the bacon? Yes I am gonna leave you. These pancakes are good. Can I have maple syrup in my coffee?"
"No."

Storm

2011-06-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

I watched a storm roll in, I started in the front yard where it was pretty and sunny and then walked to the back. these photos were taken in a short period of time, and you can see how gray it is out back. Then came thunder, lightening, rain and hail. It was a lovely display.

Nightime

2011-06-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Its not hot

2011-06-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

"Do I have to stay outside and work? It is hot."
"Its not hot punk. Its quite cool. It isnt even 80 degrees. Why dont you pull some weeds? You like to garden."
"I am tired of gardening. Can I go in?"

"Because mama, there are things inside that I need to get done."
"What things?"
"Um. Well, its just that, I mean there were... well. Mama can I go in?"

"Sure punk."
"Well... can I play a game on the computer?" Pause. "Your look is saying no to me is that correct?" Pause. "Okay. I am going in anyway."

Just photos

2011-06-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some random pictures, I take pictures all of them time but havent been able to publish.

Nathalie was teaching school here, I like how she uses stuffed animals rather than baby dolls but the game is always called "doll babies." She will say, "I am playing doll babies school." They play safari, zoo, hospital, army, all with "doll babies." There will be an occasional regular doll thrown in and her lovey doll, Manny, takes part in most games. The favorite doll baby game in which Manny is the main character is "Manny the Genius." Manny is a old, cheap doll baby that I purchased for Tad when pregnant with Nathalie, and he gave it to her for her first christmas. Then, my best friend's son was born when N was 11 mo old, and his name is Emanuel. Thus-Manny doll or Manny the Genius.

This picture, is just because its beautiful. I was making pizza and the toppings are just so pretty!

Here we have "Science in Home School." Tad took apart an old camera and with a multimeter and some other tools, he learned how it worked, what part made what happen, the flash, turning it on and off. He spent about 2 hours doing this and Nathalie took part in the education though not taking it apart.

He has taken a lot of things apart, the first thing was a direct TV box when he was nearly 4 and he kept the parts under his bed for years.

Picture of me in the garden, I think Tad took this. We had been to the pool and I put a dry dress on top of my wet suit and somehow didnt have a good time gardening. It was hot and sticky and much of my skin was bitten by mosquitoes.

A fuzzy photo. T and N dont jump on the trampoline very much when Frank first leaves after R and R. They like to jump with him, they are now back into it. We are having such a cool summer, they spend a lot of time out there jumping now in between their chores. We do a lot of chores, and we do some school in the summer. When they have a break, they hurry to do something fun. Generally it is some sort of physical activity so they always sleep well.

My baby drivin'

2011-06-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Just an ol' diesel tractor...but I was high on that prairie, when mama let me drive...

Garden words

2011-06-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

So I finally have photos! I did some work on my computer, figured out the new system. It still isnt as easy as my old system, but there are things about Windows 7 that I like better than Vista. I dont like the photo part, but there are pros and cons. I know I will get used to this system and probably dislike the next upgrade!

I posted garden photos and the compose option on my blog wasnt functioning so I wasnt able to post any words. Not that anyone comes here to read stuff, its the great pictures right? These garden pictures are from 2 different weeks, some taken yesterday/day before and some the Monday before so there has been a lot of growth. And death. A hornworm ate and ENTIRE tomato plant, and something, I think mildew, has killed off some squash and pumpkin plants. But, it could be a bore/boar beetle (Sp?). At any rate, I have sprayed the plants with some organic stuff that is supposed to dissuade pests, but it doesnt kill them. I wont use something on my garden that we shouldnt ingest.

The tomato picture that shows the green tomatoes, well those are now red! Almost ready to pick. I have had a hard time gardening in Ks until this year. Partly because I had too much on my plate, this year we lowered our goat herd numbers and chicken flock (not by choice on this last one, something in our town is eating a lot of creatures-from kittens and chickens, all the way up to full grown dogs!). Now I have time to focus on the garden, and still enjoy my livestock, keep a moderately clean house, educated children, have time to enjoy the children, sew and cook.

More pictures of Tad driving the tractor in a bit!

More Garden

2011-06-23T07:13:00.000-07:00

My garden

2011-06-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Sad

2011-06-21T21:13:00.001-07:00

My camera is broken. As in it doesnt work. It is a Nikon D40 and if anyone knows what to do about an "error press shutter release" problem, please let me know. It has happened before and my user guide says "find an authorized dealer." Which I am capable of, but last time it just magically started working again.

I am using a camera that Frank didnt need anymore in Iraq and he brought it home for the children. It is a good camera and will do the job. However, my computers have a new OS and they dont work anymore (for me) to upload photos. We are working out these glitches, we as in Frank is working on it from Iraq. Thus, he has to work on it as my frustration level can allow, I tap out quickly with computers. I have to follow directions on this and that isnt easy.

So no photos, and no way to publish them easily. Its possible, just a long job that leaves me angry.

Then we have the computer I am typing on. The mouse/cursor keeps skipping back into the document that I am typing. Everyone (family members, friends and google) that its because my mouse pad is sensitive and I am touching it accidentally. People, I typed with 2 fingers randomly until it did it to prove I am not touching the mouse pad. Also, it didnt do this until very recently so why didnt this happen during the last 3 yrs if its all my fault? The driver is updated and functioning so that isnt the answer. If anyone knows how to fix this, please tell me before I run over my beloved pink laptop, on purpose, with a huge truck.

Okay, so working on the photo thing. I know my poor husband misses my blog. Last deployment, I was much better at this part. He is suffering and the problem must be fixed!

Goat show

2011-06-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

I like pictures of Drew and Tad. They are always so cute together, Tad likes to hang out with him. He and D are sharing a bag of cracker jacks while they wait on something to start. T isnt in show whites yet, because he is T and they would get ruined. Which, his pants are covered in grass stains...

Rachel was cleaning her baby goats neck and had climbed back out. Her babies were adorable and well behaved! She did very well showing, she was so confident and honestly her babies were better behaved than some much older goats.

Rachel, Tad and Nathalie waiting to go into showmanship class. This is a class that judged showmanship, not the goat itself. My children didnt know a lot about show, this was their first one and I dont think I really coached them well. it was a good learning experience.

Waiting in the holding pen to go in. Their baby goats were tattooed while we were there so they had green ink on them.

Walking around the show ring.

The judge stopped and spoke with each child, asked them some questions. Nathalie is trying to get her goat to stand the "right way" which the goat isnt very good at yet...

Tad and Nathalie are both very confident and have no trouble getting out there but did wish they knew a little more about what to do. Nathalie walked the wrong one at one point which she later explained was because she was going the RIGHT way and thought the lady wanted her to go differently. Which I did know she was confused, she started out clockwise then turned around and looked very confused, and it wasnt something the lady said at all. Nathalie just became confused and then was even more confused, because she found out that she made a mistake and she felt the lady told her to. Then Nathalie was upset because the judge said it was Rachel who made the mistake at the end, Nathalie would have been less upset to hear the judge say nathalie messed up on loudspeaker than her friend!

Poor lighting... my mama bought adobe photoshop for me, and I am still learning it. It is a lot of work though to edit all of my pictures that way and my edit program is no longer on my computer. My simple quick one that is, and I used it for lighting and red eye issues so now you get both.

The baby goats did better than I expected but were kind of a pain several times... they were tired and ready for sleep themselves by the time they did their final show. They are just walking around the ring here.

Once again, red eye... Tad won Reserve Grand Champion with his doeling. He would have you know that there were only 2 goats in their class and so he and Nathalie won Grand champ and reserve. Then they went against ONE senior doe and Tad then won reserve. I cant say it was "fair" per se, not cheating but I know their babies would have likely placed lower in a larger group. Not saying this baby isnt nice, she really is. Her mother is very nicely built and meets many of the standards that would make her babies good show goats. Nathalie's goat didnt have quite as nice of a mama and that did show. They both had a nice sire, and his height is such that the mother of this one (Nevada) may have given taller babies. That is her one true drawback.

So all in all a good evening was had, we enjoyed being with our friends and as usual being with Amanda gives me an opportunity to learn more about show. She has been to more than I have and knows a lot more about the qualities in a good show goat. I was very proud of the children for how hard they worked.

Computer issues

2011-06-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

I have some new computer issues and its now very difficult for me to blog. My computer system has changed, and I now have trouble loading pictures and posting them. It is a much longer process and I can no longer edit. This is largely because I dont know how to work the new system yet, not actually glitches in the system.

So here are a couple of pictures showing you that we are alive... Tad finishing his knitting project and Nathalie doing the dishes. They both are finishing up their fair projects, Nathalie has quite a long ways to go on her knitting and both have to finish sewing projects.

I just thought these pictures were sweet. The kids make their beds every morning, pick up their rooms, brush teeth, get dressed, a few other scheduled things before we get started on the day. I went in to check behind them and found all of Nathalie's babies lined up neatly and next to them, her daddy picture.

This is a very old picture of Frank in a uniform he doesnt even wear anymore. She loves it and for 3 years now has kept it next to her pillow. When we have a tornado warning, this picture goes downstairs with us. We dont know why this picture as opposed to one in regular clothes but it makes her happy.

I have pictures of the kids doing a goat show last friday night, but I havent had time to figure out this computer thing. They did well, though they showed so late I think we would show different breeds next time. They go by alphabetical order so the last category was around 11 pm. Too late for small people...

10 year old logic

2011-06-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

"Mama, can I put my money in the bank? In a savings account?"
"Yes baby we can do that early next wk."
"Will the bank pay me to keep my money there? I am saving for a pickup truck. I want to buy an old one and fix it up." This is a good idea when you are 10 and in Ks. He knows that he can get a farm license at 14.
"They will only pay you a little."
"Pennies make dollars mama." Hmm. Too bad more adults dont think about it that way, me included. A dollar here and there, mean less than they should. I dont want to be stingy, we spend money on memories sometimes, like a pool pass or a night out. I wont change that, but I would like to think more like he does. Pennies make dollars...

We do give allowance in the amount of 3$ a week. My children work an average of 3.5 hrs a day, though many days it is more. For Tad his personal desire is to do physical labor and Nathalie likes to be with us. We allow them to spend their money but we encourage good choices and so far they always save up with a purpose. They often choose not to buy what they saved for but save longer for something different. The bulk of their money has been spent on books and learning games.

Tailgate

2011-06-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

We are still on photos of the 2 wks. I am nowhere near done posting! I have taken very few pictures since he left, I will let mama take pictures when we go to Tn next wk. Somehow, the tailgate to our truck left. I dont know if it got tired of being yellow and went to a home where it would be appreciated and painted, or if the kids left it down when I was driving off (this is likely) and it fell off. No, this wont happen to most people because most truck tailgates stay on when you drive off. Frank is putting a net across the back, which works until our tailgate comes home.

The kids and I watched or helped with all that he did while home. Nathalie clung to the side of the truck for however long this took.

Tad stood at the back running back and forth for tools. Tad helped us organize the shop, which took 3 days including the time it took to cut/put up pegboard. Frank taught him more about our tools, which makes Tad more useful to all of us!

The lighting in the pictures is horrible, we were not using my Nikon. The camera does well in daylight but not so great after dark. Mama bought photoshop for me for christmas but I am not adept at it yet so I didnt edit these.

The net works great though I dont leave it on full time. My children probably learned their lesson, I lost it once and after that remembered to keep it up. Thankfully the time I lost it, we found it! We drove the route and it was just laying there on the side of the road. My children are grateful that we are the kind of parents who say, no big deal it was an accident.

beer break.

Or, is it that he drinks beer and has WORK breaks??? That is a good question. If he read this he could answer, but he only comes to this blog for the pictures.

This project didnt take long but I think there were about 200 pictures from just this event. There were several thousand photos from his 2 wks home, I edited and deleted and kept about 700 I think. I am sure there are more to come!

Perspective

2011-05-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

My children have a new very good friend, he may be their best friend together right now. They have had a few friends, and a lot of associates. Z may be their best, because he belongs equally to both of them. The three of them play so well together, surely they will have bad days but for now, its going nicely.

Many people say "two is company and three is a crowd." Obviously, my kids havent found this out! Today when Z's mom said, arent you getting tired of having Z around? (They wanted him to spend the night and he wanted to stay...) Nathalie said, "Oh no. Its so great to have three sometimes! We are only two and we love having three, its perfect because then we both have someone extra."

So there you have it, its all about perspective! Z and my children, together, chose to get into the public pool today. It has been cold (55-chilly for late spring) here for weeks and thus the water was frigid!!! Z stood by the side for a minute, but my two (first T then N) were the FIRST children into the water of the Enterprise, Ks Public Pool this year. They want a medal and a certificate. And they want to adopt Z. His mama said no. Twice.

Gardening

2011-05-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

This is our garden, we havent had great soil here. It is black and rich, but too thick. Years of putting the goat manure/straw on there, and a load of sand helped immensely. To further help it, Frank bought a book on lasagna gardening from the bookstore his first wkend home and we made some beds. We also bought some plants, not all of my seeds were successful. These are the lettuce plants, we have had 3 hot days here so far, but mostly very cool and the lettuce is doing well.

We also had quite a bit of old alfalfa, straw and brome hay that was no good and we used it to break up and line our rows. This gives us mud free walking paths as well as keeps the weeds down. All of these things are good for the soil and will make it looser and nicer as it breaks down.

See our bales lined up?I love the way the peat moss looks. Frank used the tractor bucket to get bucket loads of old manure. The new manure is fine for the garden because goat manure is green, means it can be used immediately. However, the older stuff is nicely composted into loose black earth and we have a large pile of it, that wasnt situated near the garden. Why? Because we didnt originally know where our garden would be our first fall/winter here. So we laid out newspapers thick and overlapping, wet them, laid manure/loose sandy soil/peat moss/composte and created garden beds.

It looks a little haphazard in some areas, but there is almost no weeding! It looks neat and organized for the most part and is growing better than our other years.

The old hay bales (this is part of the reason they didnt get used) had some horrible burrs in them, they stick in your hands and have barbs so when you pull them out, they leave something behind that hurts and irritates for days, so we were smart and wore garden gloves.

Frank hauled all of these bales from the barn, he is better lifter than I am... He is strong! I have to drag/roll the bales and he just picks them up, and loads them. It is very nice to watch!

Since he left we have made more beds, and the in between areas made hills and moved around the flakes of hay to accommodate. I have many vegetables planted and a lot of things have come up. We had a lot of volunteer squash and zucchini as well, we tried to transplant a few which are doing okay but the ones I left alone are 3x as large. I just fenced them in with squares of hay so we wont trod on them. The sprinkler actually reaches the whole garden, I repositioned it several times after walking the perimeter until I found perfect placement. I dont have to move it at all, I just turn on the spigot and set a cell phone timer.

We pick up newspaper in our plastic recycle bins, we recycle everything possible and have a nice center right in town. We take our recycle in and fill up a couple of bins with newspapers. In the summer they are for gardening, in the winter its fire starter. oh, and the kids get them for the comics and they read them, then we use them. Its a way to get free homeschool reading materials. Check our your local recycle center they may support your reading habit also!

Nathalie doesnt enjoy heat like me, but got her daddy's green thumb. I get her out early/late and she is a huge help. Tad will help me with anything, but we all know the plants will do better if she plants them-either the seeds or plants/transplants, and she takes very good care of them. She enjoys working in soil and is able to garden without us successfully now.

I just think this picture is pretty nice looking on the right half, it really doesnt need much more comment than that.

We have continued laying down hay flakes around the perimeter because its unerving to move the perimeter. If I mow around hay flakes, I feel less like I may kill a plant. The mower shoots out green matter which is helpful in composte, but not great when shot at tender bean plants!

Random fuzzy picture of mama. Oh and my mama bought the shirt I am wearing I DIDNT filch it off of her I promise!

Just another photo by Tad. He and Nathalie took turns with the camera. I dont care if there are photos of me, but at the end of the day I want both of them in the photos for posting. We try to have them take turns, Nathalie would rather take photos but she also wants to be in them... Plus if she has the camera much, we have A LOT of close ups of things like, a bug, a blade of grass, a ducks beak, a chicken foot. Etc...

This is a very poor shot of me after gardening, why it is in this set of photos I have no idea but I am not editing the html now so there you have it.

Our green thumb girl. She has enjoyed the garden more this year than ever before, it is much more user friendly. She likes to run, hop, skip and jump down our hay paths.

She has her own row of sunflowers and has many carrots and beans up already. She is even pleased by "her" onions though they are not her favorite foods. I have more updated photos of the garden now, will post those later.

First day flash-back

2011-05-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

These photos are of our drive home from the airport, and part of the next morning. We didnt get home until midnight the day he landed, so we dont have any home pictures of the first day. Frank had a camera in his bag, and the kids and Frank spent time taking pictures. Some of them (courtesy the children) were of passing semi trucks, sports cars, road-side flowers, etc.

The first picture back together. Apparently photos were taken by individuals in the airport, which I hadnt noticed. We waited for many hours, because a flight was coming into KC at 2:15 so we arrived (its a 2.5 hr drive) at 1:48. He missed the 2:15 flight...the next one came in at 5:45. So we waited. By 5:30 Nathalie was pacing at the gate, running from the arrival board to the door he would come out of. At some point while waiting, she turned around to the chairs where Tad and I were sitting and began to cry. She climbed into my lap and cried from, well I guess pent-up energy. The other people waiting for arrivals sort of looked at me with confused looks. Then when he walked out, they must have understood. He was, of course, in uniform and the kids and I all ran to him, Nathalie and I both crying. Frank hurried us out of there after hugging us and later said people were saying awww and snapping pictures.

Driving home... My heart was still racing at this point and driving felt shaky at first. The children already had possession of the camera!

Oh thats nice... this will keep the boys away right? Keep on with this look honey, it fits you...

I am pretty sure Tad took this photo of himself. He is proud of his long hair, though daddy constantly picks on him for it, in a fun way. Frank wanted long hair himself as a child and I remind him of that, he says its unrelated to picking on his son.

I assume Frank took this one, because it would be an odd shot to take of ones self. He looks studious here, but trust me, he just saw a cool truck or something and is distracted by it.

Aww... he is listening to me! Or not, whatever way is fine. It was so wonderful to have him home. The car trip home seems faster by far than the drive getting there. We all 4 fall right back into being us right away, no hesitation. Makes it harder for parting, but is wonderful for the 2 wks home.

Anyone who knows us knows this is a constant. If I cut my hair off short Franks hands would be lost. He twirls my hair awake, asleep, he moves over to reach my hair if I am too far away. It does me no good to sit next to him and eat, I will end up with hair in my food! This is one of the top 5 things I miss, what girl wouldnt??

Oh and I miss this. Him fixing the computer, and me being able to sit with him while he fixes the computer. He still fixes it right now, from afar. But it simply isnt the same...

Once again the children have the camera. I wonder though, how many of you can sit like this? I have been recently informed that many people cannot, I wonder why! We grew up sitting like this, or kneeling and then letting our feet go out to the side. My mom used to tell us to "cop a squat" (which to many people means pee outside, to her it meant sit down and wait a minute) and my grammie can still do this! She is 91...

He has become a computer geek...when he left he could fix computers as needed, I think now a new chip has been added to his brain and he communicates with the computers! On a cellular level... I am not even kidding. Its crazy, he can make them talk with each other and network, and a bunch of other things, and he speaks computer geek now. He asks me, what processor do I have? And something about 32 or 64 and ram and hardrive space and... and... and... thankfully its okay for me to just say, huh? And then he asks again and I say, huh? And that happens a few times and he raises his eyebrows and says, okay baby and then he figures it out himself...

Conversations

2011-05-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

"Mama I dont want to work right now."
"I am sorry N, you must. T is working, I am working. You get allowance because you help out, its the rule."
"But if he is playing and I am playing we still get paid. If he starts working, I have to stop playing and he likes to work a lot. He thinks its his hobby. I like to work some but not CONSTANTLY. I think this is a valid issue."
"Well you can choose to play when you are your own boss."
"By the time I am my own boss I wont want to play so I will have missed out."
Now I take a moment to think. Is this logical? Is it true that we make her work more than we would have because it is his hobby? She is correct, someday she wont want to play.
"Okay punk. go play doll babies."
"Do I still get money?"
"You get allowance yes. But he gets paid additionally for the extra work that I contract him for."
"Will you contract me to play?"
"Not unless playing is code for mopping the kitchen floor."
Deep sigh...

Night-time battle

2011-05-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

This was every night while Frank was home, though this was a battle before the battle. The kids set up battle in their room before daddy came to tuck them in, and they ambushed him. Then they all wrestle until someone wins. Winning means Daddy makes it to the hallway...The kids miss this and will be glad when he is home full-time so that they can beat him up and "win."

Smoking on the porch

2011-05-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

This was one of the nights that Frank was home. Some people hate the smell of smoke, especially if they are not smokers. I am one of those odd people who has fond memories of smokers and drinkers, the smell that they carried with them was to me, comforting. Cigarette smoke, pipe smoke and beer. I do not personally smoke or drink, but love the smell. I know a lot of people have the opposite feeling about it, but it works well for us! Its kinda of like onions or kimchi. Its love or hate. In this case, we all 3 love the smell of his pipe tobacco and beer. Nathalie is wearing a new dress from mama, so likely she shouldnt be wrestling in the grass but there you have it. Sorry mama, she is a punk what can I say???

Pizza

2011-05-21T09:50:00.003-07:00

Kinda like fuel. you cant go wrong with deep dish pizza, makes everything in life feel better.

Working with Daddy

2011-05-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Working with daddy, I think they are starting to look alike.

Childish touch

2011-05-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

Our shop is clean, we spent 3 days putting up pegboard and organizing tools on the boards, in drawers and on shelves. Its neater and more usable than it has ever been. Nathalie was helpful, but spent a lot of time adding a childs touch to the shop. It did look a little too workish, so she added her things to it. She spent many hours playing in a corner of the shop while we worked, we cleaned, made fuel, built things, fixed things and she play court with her trolls, doll house babies, my little pony and a naked kewpie doll. All of this travels in a Lego bin, on rollers, and has blocks of rough wood and bits of foliage from outside for the set up.

Fuel

2011-05-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

no matter how hard life is, a deep amber colored fuel that I made myself (ok fine we made it according to MY plan...) makes you feel a whole lot better. This is beautiful fuel no? So is .70 a gal when fuel is over $4 a gal here for diesel.

Early Birthday

2011-05-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

Range Day

2011-05-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Computer

2011-05-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sadness

2011-05-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

My husband was home for 14 glorious days. Well, I guess 15. He was on his 2 wk leave from deployment. As usual, we fall right into living as if he never left. He didnt even have jet lag this time, because he arrive late Wednesday night, fell asleep at around 10 p.m. and slept through to morning. Generally it takes a few days for him to get on our time schedule but he was sleepy enough that didnt occur.

I have over 500 pictures to go through and will post quite a few of them here, right now I feel like laying down on the floor (the carpet part mind you, dont want to lay on hard floor...) and just cry. We took him to the airport yesterday morning at 5 a.m. and dropped him off. I didnt want him to go, I wanted to retire right now and not ever let him go away from me again.

We did a lot of things while he was home, mostly work-ish things because its the kinda folks we are. We cleaned up things, took things to the dump (our dump takes metal for free and recycles it so all of our wires from hay bales, fence bits etc), got rid of stuff, ran the burn pit, made a lot of fuel, cleaned the shop which was a hideous mess and is now LOVELY and perfect and attracts ones desire to work in it. Oh just so many things... we had so much fun.

The kids played battle and wrestle with him, card games and board games, swung on the tire swing higher than mama can push, jumped on the trampoline, sat out on the porch at night "smoking" (Frank smokes a pipe and we call it "smoking" in plural) and talking. We made trips to town that I had been avoiding, went to a movie in the theatre (eww, ugh... dont like theatre), and learned a lot about computers.

More than I can list was done, and we are sad and slightly miserable today. We will move past the sadness and just enjoy the memories of the 2 wks. We only have half of the deployment left. I will post pictures, though I dont promise any more words right now.

Sunset

2011-05-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

New Mower

2011-05-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Sky

2011-05-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Storms

2011-04-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

The storms that have torn through the south over this last week have destroyed homes and many lives. More lives were lost in these storms than almost any other tornado(s) in history. I have cried reading the stories, I prayed during the storms because my family and my best friend live in some of the states that were hit. My best friend lives in Ga, and almost my entire family live in Tn. My brother's work place was badly damaged, but none of my family was injured or even suffered loss.

My prayers continue to be with these families, especially those who lost members of their family. Entire families were lost, as were wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.

Because we have a basement, we didnt lose our lives in a tornado. Because Ks has basements, the town of Chapman, Ks. had only one death and few injuries. I consider us lucky, and am grateful for our lives. I know that many of the people who died in these storms didnt have a safe place to be. I pray that they can get their lives back together and that this country will make us all proud and step up to the task at hand just as it has in the past.

Baby Girl

2011-04-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

This is one of our best friends, the baby. Tad loves her very much, she is the 6th in a family that we are friends with. They are the friends that are moving, and we are so sad...

I love pictures of boys or men, big strong people with callused hands holding a baby. My son is rough, he likes to wrestle and fight, shoot and jump about, run and yell indian war cries-but adores babies especially those of the girl persuasion. These pictures make me have tears...not just because I love these children and they are leaving, but because I have a son who is so tender-hearted.

I tried to capture this sunrise, but it wasnt very effective. I get up at 6:30 most mornings, some not until 7 and recently Tad woke me after 8-I know, the poor hungry baby goats. I normally get to see the sun rise, its already light when I awake but the sky is lovely with color.

I tried to post several blogs this week but either something is wrong with blogger or me (the more likely scenario being the 2nd option) and I couldnt get certain aspects of my post to work, and it was hard to read because of the problems. Will work on it more this wk.

Lotsa kids

2011-04-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows I had wanted a large family. I wanted a minimum of 6 children. It turns out that I haven't yet, but I still love to be around lots of children at once. My own 2 wish that we had more, and thoroughly enjoy large groups of well behaved children. I have babysat some who didn't fit with us, but mostly we just like kids. Today I was thinking about why I love all the children. I have kept a friends 6 children quite a few times the last few weeks. Mama is getting all shots and doctor appts out of the way, in case they end up moving. It looks like they will, they are in the military. I encouraged her to leave those with me who didn't have the appointment, some days I have all 6. That gives me a total of 8 children, and it makes me so happy! Today I stood in the door way wondering why. In the yard were jackets, shoes, socks, a few toys, some baskets and flower pots. The children had all moved to the Lego bin in the bedroom and abandoned their items. Some people wouldn't like the mess. I will indeed have them police up their items, but these particular 8 children (okay baby is 6 mo old) are particularly good at following the rules and cleaning up after themselves. I loved seeing all the jackets, tossed off in different spots, different sizes, some sleeves inside out. I love to hear their peals of laughter as they all run and jump and play. The dishes from lunch, the crumbs under the table, the crayons left out, the books scattered all over the floor, all of these things make me smile. It gives me a day spent in the midst of many. I can look anywhere and see their traces, my own children and I miss them when they are gone and we see these leftover statements of their presence. They clean up before they leave, they leave a house as well as they found it, but there are always foot prints of them left. And then you have the baby laughter, the 3 year old is so easy to amuse. He likes to be with me, and regularly comes to find me. The house is huge, and he will go from spot to spot calling for me in his baby voice. When he finds me, he has some fact to tell me. Today I came downstairs and he followed, the computer downstairs was left playing music. I turned around to him and begin to dance very silly, and he laughed. He laughed until he drooled! It wasn't impressive, my dancing, but he knew I was making him laugh, it was for his benefit. He laughed until he could barely breathe and then slid down the steps to "hold me" so that he could dance also. The nearly 5 year old is one of Tad's best friends. Today she fell and hurt herself and blinded by her crying stumbled to his arms as he ran to catch her up. He held her and kissed the multiple wounds on her head, arm and shoulder. In a moment she was laughing and telling him she loved him and he was chasing her, allowing her to win. He will be sad to lose his girl, he truly loves her. If these children move, I will be sad. I will shed tears. Their mama is one of the best friends I have ever had. I will never lose touch with her, but I will have to watch her punks grow up from afar. I do love them so...they have been a part of my life for nearly 3 years, I have watched the smallest grow from baby to toddler and bigger, and watched the bigger ones grow from kindergarten/preschool to 2nd and 3rd graders. Her youngest 4 wont remember life without me, and I wont ever forget life with all of them.

Our Home School

2011-04-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

I have had four people ask me about what we use for homeschool in the last week. Either friends or readers, so I am going to give you the list. I always said, no computer school for us except what cannot be taught without one (IE typing program). Then they got older, more advanced, and life got much busier. So now we use some! We have an armoir and 2 shelves that house homeschool items, they are neat and organized. We have free use of art supplies and coloring books (we buy dover-educational and lovely detailed pictures.) We have extra notebooks, neat piles of paper, extra pencil sharpeners etc. One shelf is entirely dedicated to French, workbooks, story books, CDs, DVDs, and flashcards.

Now for our schedule, we do these things every day:

Reading-Mcguffey readers. Nathalie is in 2nd reader, Tad is almost done with 3rd but has read ahead in much of 4th and 5th. These are not necessarily grade level as it only goes through # 6 and I know some highschool students that wouldnt comprehend one page in the 6th reader, it is a great and proven series. They read their lesson to themselves, then aloud to me and spell the words.

Spelling-spell quizzer on the computer, I enter their words from sequential spelling about 2 x a month. It tells me how they are doing as do they.

Math-singapore. Both kids in 4th grade in singapore. Singapore runs a bit ahead of most other homeschool curriculums and we like it very much. Nathalie is ahead (8 yrs old) and Tad is where he belongs grade wise in these books. I present math on the board, they do the work with help if needed, I grade it imediately to have them fix problems before they are out of math-mode.

History-Story of the World on disc. They listen to a chapter a day, answer the questions in the student book and we do projects and timeline that correspond from a friends curriculum that she wrote. I cant keep up with all of it, and dont enjoy unit studies but STO is a good program. It costs about $15 to buy the reading text, and I paid $33 to have it read to the CDs already-it was worth it time wise.

Typing-Mavis Beacon on the computer. The original no frills typing program, very few games or annoying, distracting, sound effects. In a very short time, Tad was able to type 30 wpm with a 2% error.

-free geography download for maps. They do whatever map they are on 3 x or until they get 100 % and then move on to the next.

French-Rosetta Stone on the computer, they do this unassisted and I already speak through level 3 of 5 on Rosetta Stone. I only have through level 2 (I used to have all before tornado) and I need to buy 3-5 for me. They also use Professor Toto and Muzzy, while these are for younger children my kids do well with it and remember it. They have a lot of other French learning items.

Geography and History with mama- I have this stuff in my head because my mama taught me. I teach them from my brain, from google and from tons of library books. We do unit studies and projects that I make up. I answer questions that a lot of people wouldnt IE the Holocaust. I tread lightly here, they dont get gore or depth but they still know.

Science-this is pretty much Tad's department. He has several DVD sets that Frank purchased such as Planet Blue. That covers a lot of biology, plant life, temperate zones, mountains, oceans etc. Tad has all 6 discs memorized. My mama bought the Planet Earth DVD game for him, we all play it, he knows it all. He checks out books on experiments, biology and chemistry. He likes electricity and he can fix cords that I cut, and understands wiring better than most adults. I let him lead our science program because he is a sponge. No curriculum would keep up and keep him interested, so we let him dictate. Nathalie and I learn from his research and projects, Nathalie does projects with them. They have children's books on anatomy, plant and animal life and many other science aids.

Handwriting-cursive, I have lined books and I write out their words nightly.

Music and art- purchased books to learn drawing, we work on these a few times a week. Music is guitar and piano right now. Nathalie was doing violin also but wasnt enjoying it so just piano for her now. Tad goes to guitar lessons weekly and he is performing very well. Nathalie takes lesson from me and I can teach her for a couple of years. We also learn music theory, music history and some latin.

I present math, hear reading and some spelling and see computer grades. Some computer school isnt boring, typing and map skills are quick, timed things that hold their interest. They love spelling so the computer program is fun, and anything French is fun for both. School takes us about 3 hours more or less. Nathalie struggles with reading speed though not level, so we are working on that this year. Other than that we have no problems to deal with. The kids will be tested this year, they will take IOWA tests. We have done only practice/prep and placement tests (purchased) in years past, nothing official. They test well above grade average, and we make sure we learn all state requirements. I check over our curriculum thoroughly to make sure we will meet and exceed these standards, it isnt hard to exceed them but I also dont want to miss some requirement for this grade level. So thats it! Today we did school downstairs, we have a similar set up both up and downstairs (computer, TV for CD/DVDs) though we usually work upstairs due to the need for a desk. I want them to have good posture. We will do the same curriculum next yr, just the next level in all areas.

Custom Order

2011-04-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

As its mostly women who read my blog, okay my husband is my number one reader but he wont mind...I am posting my custom order that I completed today. I made these while the children did school. There are 30 total, these would be considered liners or minis for a grown woman but perfect size for a teenage girl. Some of these are made from prints (back) that I have had for years! This is a very special custom order for a little girl that has been in my life for her whole life. A cute little bag for her things. When you purchase products from a store, they come in a bag or a box. This is just a cloth bag that can be washed, but its purpose is to hold clean things. Everything fits with enough space for about 20 more. Will get that done in a few wks, because a total of 50 means as many changes as a girl wants and plenty of laundry time. The little personal wetbag! This is good for traveling, or just bathroom use for ease. The order was fun because I know and love who it goes to!

My quote

2011-04-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

Just to follow up...on the not my quote. I have been reading a lot about debts, spending, economy and the future of our finances lately. Well, I guess its been about 7 months. I will be honest, we havent always made the best budget decisions. We are changing all of that now.

We are in the unique position of being able to pay off some things. I spoke to a financial adviser at USAA-our bank. This is a free service to military members. She helped with a budget, not that we couldnt have done this alone but why not use the free advice? I knew which interest rates were higher, but should I pay off this one or this one because of this and that. We have 2 debts that we want gone before Frank's return home. We are unique because he is deployed, yes there are many soldiers that are deployed, but we can use the additional hazard pay to get these debts payed down and apparently many people cannot afford this.

We have very little debt, our ratio is low especially compared to the average American. But we want none at all. We dont owe on our cars, granted they are not new or fancy and sometimes they break. But then we fix them ourselves. I want our children to grow up seeing good financial decisions being made, I include them in bill paying and discussing future finances IE savings accounts, having no credit card bills, avoiding even student loans if possible and planning ahead.

We will be buying an RV-travel trailer- and using it to go to school with Frank and for traveling otherwise. Vactation, family reunion, attending state fair etc. The children and I saw some lovely new ones yesterday, that we can roll into our house payment! I politely declined and came home. Oh they were nice! The one I loved the most had 2 bathrooms! I cant find that same one or a similar one used online. But can we make it with one bathroom and spend 25 THOUSAND dollars less? You bet we can! I am not even disappointed. Things are not as "shiny" now as they were 10 years ago. Several paid off debts later, and a lot of learning.

Now you know our plan. Get out of debt, stay out of debt. Keep raising animals and a garden for food savings (no we wont have animals if we travel to school with him but will again later) and find more ways to save and be sufficient. No more creating debts unless absolutely necessary.

I think individuals should look at their own spending habits as closely as they do those of the governemnt. Our economy is troubled right now, and there are a lot of reasons. Many of them I do not even know, I dont pay attention to politics. I think we should address the smaller close to home issues, even as we vote for and sometimes worry over the larger financial issues in our world.

I have two very good friends who have very good spending habits. I have watched them make excellant choices, and when they have extra they spend it wisely. When they dont have extra, they are paid up. They set a good example to their family and to their freinds. We are following suit! I think in this economy, its a good habit to learn and then stick with it even when things look up.

Not my quote

2011-04-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

I didn't write this quote, I hope it isnt stealing to share it with any readers here. The person who published this quote put it on a yahoo page, I cant give credit because there was no name. This was discussing the spending of the government:

"Yesterday, I spent 1000.00 on some really gorgeous earrings, but showed my husband my plan to save 300.00 on our food bill this week by not eating.

Somehow, he still can't get past that 700.00."

Wow. That really sums it up doesn't it?

It's Monday

2011-04-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Actually I think its Tuesday but I didnt think that when I typed the title of this post. It took several minutes for me to think of the title and it wont hurt any of you if I leave it as Monday. Look at these boots. That hurts me, this picture. Putting my babies boots on by accident and doing chores in them, and coming back and finding him boot-less wondering who stole his boots. They left the TV mama but they took my boots. Why are his feet so big? He wears a 6.5 in womens. In kids, he can only get a 4, or a 5 and a 4.5 in youth is a 6.5 in womens. We had to just buy gender neutral womens boots. The boot on the left is his last yr boot, 1.5 sizes smaller. The one on the right is mine, and its a size 8 though I wear a 7 in shoes. I just like the heel slip, so I really wear a shoe thats technically 1/2 size bigger than his. Thats so sad. He can eat half of a chicken in one sitting, and wears big boots. And makes funny big jokes. He is big. I made these jeans for him. I am not sure if I like them, he found them in the pattern magazine and asked for them. He is 139 cm tall, which in European patterns means he will wear a 134, 140 or a 146 depending on his width. He is muscular enough we cut it on a 152 but this skater jeans pattern is too baggy. He needs 146 in this but he loves them. He says they have "breathing space." Our poor little daughter... She misses daddy terribly and sits with her video camera (he sent this to her with videos on it) and watches him. He put quite a few videos on there from Iraq and mailed it to her. They hook it up to the TV and watch it, its clear enough sound wise that when I walk in from the barn and hear him I always feel startled. Its too real and close. She spent about an hour playing them over and over. He reads everything. He is deep into the 4th Harry Potter book right now. I read 1, 2 and 3 to them but Nathalie doesnt love them a lot and I told him he is on his own for the rest. He started it yesterday and is about 45 pages into it, he only gets to read it when school and chores are done. Thats all for now. The children and I just came home from looking at RVs. We looked at new ones (pull behinds, 5th wheel) but we will not buy new. I just wanted an idea, and people, it is a traveling house. I dont mean you can live in it tolerably, I mean it a single wide trailer just prettier. I liked them a lot. We are now studying craigslist looking for a good deal on a used one.

Sandy Sunny

2011-04-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

Raise your hands if you like sand in your pants! This was a fun pile, and still is, of sand but I didnt enjoy the clean up. Nathalie dumped herself, into the dining room floor. Took half of a vacuum bag to eliminate the mess. Tad said there was serious chaffing from the event. It was sunny enough that he thought it would a shirtless day, so he offed it and said it was "quite warm and cozy mama" and was a little too warm when the sunburn hit two hours later. We had the sand dumped the the garden. The company assured me that they could spread it, no problem. I said, well the ground is tilled so its sort of soft. No problem. So someone shows up, in a two wheel drive truck. Oh my. Okay. So Mister, you wont be able to back up onto the garden. Oh yeah yeah I can no problem. He drives to edge. Gets out, looks at it, "Ma'am, I ain't gonna be able to drive over this and spread it for ya." Oh really? Oh well, thats too bad. Okay well just dump it here please." So here he dumped it. Then he got out, shut off his truck to write a bill and then... "My truck wont start." Oh dear. Now he was probably shamed, so I quietly got the truck and tried to jump it. The battery cables were not tight enough for it to even try starting, I dont know how it started in the first place. We tightened. Then it started and he drove away, leaving this small pile (6 tons) of sand for me to move. I do have a tractor and can do the work, I had just wanted to not. There is a man who tills for me when Frank is gone, and he would likely spread it as well. For now my children are playing in it, making sure to only let it fall off the heap towards the garden, not the grassy side. Tad is burried here, truly. Nathalie lost her favorite tiny doll in this, after I counciled her on the fact that it would go badly to take kewpie out there, but it was her doll. Much tears were and will be shed over the doll. Nathalie burried Tad and then he couldnt bury her because he was indisposed. All in all, a fun day was had in the sand. Twice. Today it is raining and while I dont want it to be a gray day, I will be glad that there will be no sand on the floor, and no sandy handprints in the shower. Some of the goats tasted the sand and decided that the green grass was better. They come in this field side until I plant a garden, then they will not be allowed. I think Tad is putting sand in his ears here. Or getting it out, I dont know which. And lastly, can someone tell me what these flowers are that I have been trying to kill for the sake of an herb garden? I dont want to look them up. Thanks.

Goats and dresses

2011-04-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

Anna's baby. She kidded yesterday and had two bucks, quickly. We were on the way to music lessons, we were driving down driveway and Nathalie said she thought Anna had a baby with her. We looked out, stopped, climbed fence and she was cleaning the tiniest goat we had ever ever seen! He was a tiny baby buckling. She was cleaning him and pushing out a second at that moment. I had seen her fifteen minutes before we started down the drive-some goats take three days and Anna takes ten minutes. She spent a few minutes cleaning up the two bucks before dropping this doeling. They are all three very different colored, and I havent had an alpine of this color before. We havent named her yet. Lots of goats, only one dress but give me time. I am starting summer clothes! I enjoy this sewing season even if I dont love the heat. We had sun today for the first time in more days than I can count. I lost count in despair at some point, and maybe I just have a poor memory but I dont remember this many gray days in a row in Ks over the past three years. Some of the older girls, the poor little new girl feels a bit small with some of these that are already three weeks old! This is the weaning yard where they live, its a nice little yard with a comfortable barn. These babies are on bottles, and are super annoying. Bottle babies try to bite at you constantly and are always looking for a bottle. Well, not true. If they are full they are not annoying. The kids feed all but one feed daily, I do morning alone usually. If Tad is up he goes down with me. We do the last feeding (usually in the dark) together and then close them up in the barn. New dress! Amanda, friend in Hutchinson, Ks. made a dress for her this winter. It was a christmas present, and Nathalie wore it this winter with a jacket but its a lovely spring/summer dress. This is the same style but not as fancy. I made the pattern this morning. I used to make little dresses for her with buttons/snaps up the back but never up the front. I made jumpers with front buttons. Then I learned to work with cotton knit (stretchy) and have used it almost exclusivly. Nathalie was terrible about stains until the last couple of summers, and I have had this fabric for years holding out for when she was a bit older. Its a woven with a % of spandex and its wonderful! She likes the snaps, and it was easier to apply than sewing on buttons and doing button holes. She wants three more mama she says. Maybe. We will see. I think her brothers clothes from last summer will do fine right? Mama! No! I dont want to wear his old nasty clothes! Okay punk. Will make more dresses. Oh thanks mama! I am glad. I hate his old sandales and boots. I know it baby. But they fit. So hush up. We have mostly goat and Nathalie pictures from today because mostly Tad and I had the camera. The shirt he is wearing, while speaking of sewing, was made by my mama 16 years ago. My big (being relative) brother wore it when he was 10. Which makes him 26, and yes I am nearly 32 but he is my big brother both in size and maturity. He and I are both happy with this arrangement. I cannot imagine that Grayson was ever truly small. A view to prove its green! Oh how I love winter, the snow, the ice, the splendor of it all but spring is equally amazing as is fall. As each season, except summer, rolls in I remember that it is one of my favorites. Yes I know my trailer tire is flat. So is the back right jetta tire, and the left front truck tire. And yes, I air them up. And yes I even mended them but something goes wrong and I dont know what it is. So for now I air them, and keep them aired most of the time until Frank can get home because that is only a few weeks away, and then they will be frightened into holding air and wont stop again this side of December. Anna and small guy, he is so tiny! Such a pretty color also. Anna is such an attentive mama, she cares for both of them so sweetly. Here is his "big" though born second brother checking on him. He or Anna are constantly checking on him. He seems healthy enough just teeny! Oh now he gets a few moments to nap with no one nuzzling him, loving him, sniffing him, licking him, smooshing him... Oh wow! Nathalie... Honey you might stick that way and never look normal again. Phoenix doesnt want to be milked but if I dont milk her, one side is huge and engorged. Her buck doesnt drink enough from both sides. The bad part? She was WAY out in back field on the north-east part of our property. I had to walk her butt all the way up to the milk shed with her fighting so... It was insanity in a can. Yet, I got nearly a gallon of milk, got her hooves trimmed and trimmed up the back end of her. The hair (plug your ears here if you have an ick factor) gets all nasty when she kids and its stuck and just gross. The only way to get rid of it is to clip it, or to prevent it by shaving her before hand which I clearly didnt do. Nona's bucks. Nona is my pet, everyone knows that. But, for some reason Nona isnt well. She wasnt well last pregnancy, though it was mild. This time she was fine during pregnancy, but possibly having four was a bit excessive for her body. She became hypocalcemic (I think, though all symptoms didnt fit at first) and I am giving her meds for that. She isnt responding as well as expected. She is also being treated for ketosis, worms have been treated for though I dont think she had any worm problems. She is getting LA200 again, she had it after kidding for some mild diarhea and now she is getting it again for a possible infection. She is on probios, vitamens, minerals, extra alfalfa, herbal supplements and grapefruit seed extract. Trying to cover all bases and make sure she doesnt suffer any dammage from medication. She simply isnt well and I dont think that she should kid anymore. She has dried up completely for some reason, and cannot feed her bucks. One of her bucks died a few nights ago, we are not sure why but we were with him and I did try to save him. These two live with her, hang out with her, but get bottles four times a day with the little girls. We are selling them as bottle bucks now. Tad was taking pictures while I milked, Anna is nervous of us being around her bucks. I tried to get a picture of her head-butting the chickens but I failed. That was funny, the chickens take flight for just a second. And Anna again. She doesnt like being separate from them for even a moment. We put them in a kidding stall for the first couple of nights with a heat lamp and plenty of clean straw, water and alfalfa for Anna. I do this to allow mama some time alone with her babies and plenty of water/food without her having to go far for it. It gives her some much needed rest and healing without having to watch out for her babies. None of the other goats will be rough but she would be constantly looking for them so this helps her have a safe break. Our first baby of this season, Tall Boy. I think he is spoken for. Most of our bucks will be wethered (castrated) and be eaten or sold for meat. TB is a sable and thus we would like to sell him registered, he comes from good stock and sables are hard to find. I wouldnt register him if his parents were of poor quality but they are not, so we will sell him reg if we can find a buyer. What kind of blogger/farmer would I be if I left out the chickens? The local dogs dont leave them out. We have new "neighbors" several blocks away (we have no imediate neighbors and our driveway is the road leading to our house so no one "passes") and they have dogs. Dogs that are not at all contained. A dog that was referred to as Kujo (sp) by the next neighbor over, and I was told not to go near him. Well, since they moved in we lost over 20 chickens, during the day somehow between the many times we go out. I was stymied but this until I discovered the dogs on my property. We were not pleased and we called the police. So thats it in a nutshell. Its 10:30 at night and I am heading downstairs to make t-shirts for my poor son who is desperate for clothes.

History

2011-03-31T06:51:00.000-07:00

The best way for history to repeat itself, is for us to not teach our children what has occured in our pasts. -Me