Books! So exciting!

I've been getting lots and lots of boxes of books in the mail lately.  I love books, especially in the fall, when the crisp scent of decaying leaves and apples and smoke remind you that it's time to wear wool, and snuggle in, and learn some new stuff!  I'm especially excited about the Dauphin's new books this year.  He's starting the Veritas Press Omnibus I curriculum.  I'm excited for several reasons.  First, it's academically rigorous, interesting, and engaging.  Second, it comes with a cd containing lesson plans, reading lists, grading recommendations, and a full text with sample answers inserted.  Third, I'm excited to read and discuss all these great books and ideas with my son and my husband.  Fourth, it's got a solid Biblical worldview, but it doesn't hesitate to deal with real issues.  Fifth, all the books look really impressive on the shelf, like we're super educated, hyper-literate and sophisticated people... fun to pretend, isn't it!?

My husband also ordered a bunch of books for our own benefit, and the one I've been reading, and kind of blown away by is Already Gone, by Ken Ham.  It's largely an ad for his Answers in Genesis curriculum (which by all accounts is pretty awesome), however, it raises some compelling questions about the young people in our churches and why so many leave after high school.

Finally, I ordered some really cool books on Newton, Marco Polo, and Leonardo DaVinci that have really interesting text, and fun, engaging projects for kids as they're reading along.  Great for reading over a Term and letting kids pick projects as they're interested.

School planning is going on swimmingly this year.  I took every spare minute for like two weeks and got the year scheduled by week number for all the kids in school this year, and that is: wait for it..... 5 kids schooling actively this year.  The Dauphin is in 7, Prairie Princess is in 5, Mini Me is in 3, Little Engineer is in 1, and my little Baby Jane (I'm giving her that nickname because she looks so much like my Grandma Jane), is starting to learn to read and write... yay!  I love my planner.... I am not infrequently found holding and petting it and looking through it's tabbed and color coded pages with a vague smile on my face.  I've never pulled off planning an entire year before, I usually just plan the first six weeks and hold onto an insane hope that I'll plan as the year goes on... which I do not do well, and certainly not for all the children!!!  This feat of super home school mom organization didn't come without a cost... the kids were so neglected (benignly, of course!) that they began to turn feral... it was a little like Lord of the Flies around here!  And the house looked, literally, like it had gone through a tornado, and the baby, no, toddler, has taken to becoming a muralist, and decorated every possible surface with crayon, pencil, and occasionally a pen or marker...

It didn't take long for him to trash the new, perfect house.... did it?

Aaaaaand, I only did like 2 loads of laundry in the time I did the planning, so the children were fishing through their dirty laundry hampers for clothing to wear.  Under no circumstances are any of you to think that I have it all together.  I do not!!!  But I do have The Book: a beautiful, organized, color coded, and Microsoft Excelled book to pet and hold and try to live up to.

A Child's Apron

Did you all know that Little Women love frilly aprons? Mine definitely do. My girls love to throw on a pretty apron with as many ruffles as possible and "play house" while cleaning the real kitchen or making their real beds. I guess it's like a uniform, but fun to wear! This little gem was a gift to a dear friend of Mini Me's. She's a sweet little blue eyed, pink cheeked cherub who likes to help in the kitchen, too, so I thought this was appropriate!

Isn't this just the sweetest little helper outfit you ever saw! Well, now my girls want them, too, and I've just closed shop in the sewing room in preparation for the move, but maybe for next Christmas? A little detail shot:

Here's a lovely post from Your Sacred Calling on little helpers.

Another Orange Post... Shocker!

Hi! Look, I'm making this pretty cushion cover out of my special Williamsburg yarn... I think it'll be perfect to bring the color in my curtains onto the couch without trying to get back the giant burnt orange velveteen couch that my husband's grandparents passed down to us and that I used to hate, but now wish I had again. I've been dreaming of recovering my couch, well, since I bought it for $75 at a garage sale, but I can't decide what color to cover it with. Charcoal? Navy denim? Brown? I can't decide. Whatever it is, it has to be washable, because my kids can be easily compared to hurricanes.

Anyway, the fabric is a little experiment by me... I checked out Barbara Walker's stitch encyclopedia and first tried the wool in a gorgeous, intricate ogee lace pattern... not good. The wool is just too slubby and variable in gauge to look pretty... then I thought of a beautiful fabric knitted in silk I saw once, and I turned to the section on twisted stitch patterns, found the twisted purl stitch, and came up with this:

I cast on 70 stitches, and just started up. The stitch is a good for a mindless knitting project. It would make a really nice pair of gloves in a very fine gauge, or a coat in a nice worsted... as the fabric is dense and firm... I think this stich is perfect for the varied tonality of this yarn, and see, it's gonna look great with my curtains!

Blueberries

We are locavores, when at all possible. We like to eat stuff that is grown around here, which is really easy in our area because we're very rural, but near a city, so there are tons of small farms and farmer's markets, etc. very near. Monday morning we went to Hartland Orchard and picked blueberries. We have the luxury, being at home to go in the morning on a weekday, which is the best time because it's cool, there are fewer people, and the bushes are less picked over, which is common on a Saturday anytime after the first hour a u pick it farm is open. Anyway, the people there are just as friendly as can be, and helpful, and eager to answer questions, which is wonderful. Soooo, here are our five pints of blueberries:

What to do with all those berries? Jeremy had picked up a bargain cookbook featuring food from Maine and I used a recipe for a blueberry crumble pie... yum.

The Prairie Princess made the crust for me and put it in the fridge this afternoon.

I rolled it out and fluted the edges and popped it in the fridge.

Busy, Busy Bee

Whoo! How busy I've been! I don't want to recount all the rigmarole we've been through this past week, but I thought I'd post a to do list for today:

1. Wash sheets and dry them on the line. The weather is begging for this and the sheets need a good washing desperately.

2. Wash woodwork. I've been taking down the plastic film we covered the windows with and opening windows to let in the beautiful weather.

3. Get out and sort summer togs and put away winter gear. Of course this is a multiple day job with all the people in our house, but I could get started.

4. Reboot house for dinner guests.

5. Gather night crawlers for fishing tomorrow.

6. Pack sandwiches and goodies for fishing trip

7. Have some old friends over for a fajita dinner, a bonfire, s'mores, and some card playing, hopefully!


Numbers 2 and 3 may have to be put off if we do indeed have guests, but it should be a fun, productive day!

St. Patrick's Day

Look at this pretty little vignette...

My stove, though not pretty in and of itself, especially since it always needs cleaning, still manages to catch my eye occasionally when I'm cooking.

But look what's on the stove...

A beeeeeeutiful enameled cast iron pot in my favorite blue! I got it half off. Yay for me! I got two actually, so really two for the price of one! Except they're different sizes, though both adequately commodious for cooking for my big family.

Now, look what's in the pot...

Mmmmmmm... Irish boiled dinner. Corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and carrots. Yum!

I had a little conversation with my sister recently about how noticing the beautiful in the mundane is part of being really happy. I'm convinced it's one of the keys to contentment in whatever circumstance you find yourself in. I think that the pursuit of happiness and contentment in my daily life has inspired me to make all the things I have to use a pleasure

Big Plans

I remember planning my life out when I was a girl. My dreams changed, but I was very particular and specific about them, at least till I changed my mind. My eight year old daughter pronounced that she wants to have 13 children and fill up a 15 passenger van the other night at dinner. The next night she said that she wants to sew all the clothes for her family in "Prairie Style" and weave the cloth herself and spin all the yarn herself. I think she's been reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Pretty much she's saying she approves of my ideals and choices, but she's gonna do it all better than I do it. Well, good plan, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to do it all better than me, too!

She's such a little even tempered thing, too! She probably could handle 13 kids no problem, she already mothers the youngest two children all the time. I have to forbid her to hold the baby during school because she'd much rather play with him than do math. I know she probably won't have 13 kids or weave all her family's fabric for clothing, but I'm proud that she understands what a privilege and honor it is to be a homemaker. She understands already how it is a hard job, but one that has scope for so much creativity and inventiveness, joy and challenge. It makes me proud to inspire her, cause she's gonna be quite a woman no matter what she becomes. I take pride in my roles as nurturer and inspirer, educator and nourisher, comforter and mentor. I know that the better I get at my job, the more I invest in the people in my life, and in the care of that which I've been granted, the more power my actions yield. The act of smiling in spite of the hard work, and even because of it, can inspire my girls to serve with joy, and to love being useful.

Ode to Orange

I've been a little in love with orange for a bit. It makes me happy, it looks really fetching with my favorite blue color, and it's a natural foil for my greens. Plus I happen to be one of those people who actually looks good in orange... so ha! I found this fabulous tea set at a garage sale for five dollars along with my harvest basket and a cute pair of froggy salt and pepper shakers. This is shot against the fabric I made my apron in. My orange, my blue, and oh, so beautiful to me.

And this is an after shot of my bathroom from grungy blog fame. My orange, my blue, and oh, so beautiful to me, too! I think it's an amazing shade, warm, wakeful, energizing, and perfect for my house and my family and my life. I still need to do the trim, I've been waiting till I could get the wall color up before I did the trim, which needs to be done really badly, as the previous painter did a not so thorough job of it.

Have a good day!

Some fun Stuff

I just heard about the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which I so want for Christmas. It sounds amazing. I mean, I want to make all our bread, and have been toying with the idea of making my own sourdough starter, which I still plan to do, but the idea that you just mix a few ingredients, let it rise for two hours without kneading, stick it in the fridge and just get bread dough when you want it and form a loaf and bake it. I'm sorry, but that's just amazingly easy for homemade bread. I mean you never knead this stuff, you soak the flour which is good for digestion, and I imagine that I could eventually use this same idea with my sourdough starter.

Also, I spotted this today. Little knitted moccasins in super warm alpaca. All my kids want them for slippers, so now I have to figure out how to make them in multiple sizes, but look how cute they are! They're super easy, too. I could probably use them to teach my big girls to do shaping and knitting in the round, since they're motivated to have them for themselves. Fun! Like I need more projects, though. I have way too many, seriously, waaaay too many projects going.

Finally, for fun, one of my fun chicken pictures..... guess what???????


Chicken Butt

Scrub-a-thon!

Yesterday, I spent over two hours cleaning a bathroom. Why, you say, would I do that? Well, the farmhouse's former tenants were three men who were working on a golf course by day and eating greasy food by night. Oh, and by the looks of it, they never cleaned the bathroom. Here's a picture of the tub after cleaning it...



it's not so bad! Now, when I clean, I usually start with the less toxic products and work my way up to the more toxic things. Yesterday I started with Green Works all purpose cleaner and a green scratcher (as I grew up calling those green abrasive pads) with a sponge on its back. I thought it was all rust stains and wouldn't come off, because I assumed that the bathroom had been cleaned some time in the past two years. Au contraire! These men thought that as long as only their feet touched the filth, it didn't count, I suppose! To my surprise, as I scrubbed and applied elbow grease liberally, the red gunk came off! I discovered that it was just an industrial layer of soap scum and red dirt! Well, at least the tub wasn't stained. I finished with Comet with bleach scrubbing powder. Toxic, yes, but effective! I still need to get a toothbrush and clean in corners and around fixtures, but it's miles better than this:

Et voila! A clean sparkling bathroom... sort of. Oh, bonus: I lost three pounds with all that scrubbing and sweating! No joke.

Apron Trend?

Um, I may have discovered a new "thing" I enjoy. I've always enjoyed aprons. I really like vintage fabrics... and occasionally I actually ask for aprons when people ask what I'd like for a gift. Women used to wear aprons all the time. They cooked, did laundry, cleaned, and took care of children all day long. These are all very messy, dirty jobs. Women often don't really do these things all day anymore, so aprons are considered necessary, but not fun. I do this stuff all day, every day. My wardrobe will attest to it, too. I have dozens of t-shirts that have little grease spots, or food stains, or minuscule tears from their rough use. I need more aprons. I have decided! Today, in my time wasting portion of the day, when I surf the Internet for pretty things and stuff I like to do and which chickens I want to order, I found this cute little post on Oodles and oodles. I need to make one of those! I do have a clothespin apron, but I usually have little helpers and could use another to share. I can use the leftover bias tape from my Evangeline apron and my yards and yards of muslin and figure one out that's Melissa sized. Because, you know, I don't have enough to do!

Speaking of chickens. I'm ordering some, as soon as we get a PO Box in Upperville. I've decided to order Ameracaunas (well technically, I suppose, they'd be Easter Egg Chickens) and Cuckoo Marans, I think. But you know, I know very little about chickens. I've done a little research and found out that Americaunas have blue green tinted eggs... FUN! Cuckoo Marens have chocolate colored eggs, (rurality)as well as being really pretty birds, and being rare, gentle, and supposedly being a good dual purpose breed of chickens, meaning good for meat and eggs. I also heard that the hens can be broody, which means they will sit on their eggs and hatch a clutch, which has been either bred out of chickens or just not learned as so many eggs are hatched in incubators now.

Kitchen's first Coat

Well, here it is, first coat complete:

I really like the Lowe's paint, Valspar. It covers nicely, has little odor, and I think gives you a lot of bang for your buck.

Somebody's excited!

A Good Start

Well, we've started on the farmhouse decorating. We went this past week and bought paint and a few dust masks and got started! Here we've started taking off that terrible wood grain wallpaper. There was some black mold under one corner under the upstairs bathroom. I'll have to see about the best way to deal with that. Any ideas?





And here we've begun painting the kitchen leaf bud green. When it was wet it was a little more yellowey than I had hoped, but I think it will mellow as it dries. I hope.

Homemade Tea Bags

OK, I'm a cloth girl... I use cloth diapers whenever practical... I use cloth tea towels instead of paper ones for pretty much everything... I try to use cloth to replace all of the paper products that we use and throw away...

Tea is something I enjoy a lot... I have a big box full of boxes of tea bags. My kids love to see me get out the big tea pot. Then they know that they get to have tea, too. My two year old even loves tea (well, warm milk with a bit of tea and honey). So, we use a lot of paper tea bags. I've always thought that tea bags are wasteful. All that paper, staples, industrialization, for one cup of tea.

Here is an alternative: a muslin tea bag that you reuse with loose tea. Brilliant! Also, way too obvious for me to come up with myself. That doesn't stop me from making some of my own, though! I'm going to make one big enough for a jug of sun tea, too. All wrapped up in a matching drawstring bag with a tin of loose tea, they'd make a really sweet hostess gift for a tea lover. You could even mix up your own tea from your herb garden and put it in a mason jar!

I've been wondering what to do with little leftover bits of fabric that aren't in a small enough print to please me in a quilt. Not that I have made a quilt out of all those scraps I've been saving for SOMEthing. Now, how to dry them without making little brown spots on the sink and counters? Clothes pinned over a house plant?

My tea bags

Here's how I made mine:

I gathered my materials: pattern, fabric leftover from Evangeline apron, some fusible interfacing, thread, awl, and rotary cutter, some white cotton yarn, and some cotton crochet thread. I cut six tea bags according to the pattern, and one that was 4 by 7 for sun tea, plus a bigger bag to hold it all in. I also cut a little label to applique. I fused the label and contrasting fabric to a bit of interfacing, and then cut to fit. I wrote on it with a Sharpie fine tip marker, I hope that'll wash OK!

I used a satin stitch on my machine to attach it to the front of the bag and used the same construction techniques as detailed in the pattern.

I think this fabric is so very pretty. It took me no time at all to finish this, waaaaay less than an hour, I finished it in between feeding the baby, sorting stored items in anticipation of the move, the measuring trip to the farm. Now I just need to get some loose tea!