I Have A Confession.

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I hate video games, they are limited in my home. But I have fallen victim to one.

Most people would not consider this a game, but I do. It's a ridiculous waste of my time and it's on this screen I am looking at right now, and that makes it video.

www.FloorPlanner.com

Yup, we leave it open on the PC and, at various times throughout the day, we stop by for a few moments and add on to our dream home.

It's educational in a way, you might say. True, but it's also sheer fantasy. This dream home has about 30,000 square feet, and that's NOT counting the 20 foot wrap around covered porch with complete wrap-around deck above.

But, if you need a fun distraction through the slower winter months, have at it. It's free for home use and you can have 3 plans saved.

Don't let the small size of the grid fool you. We quickly pushed the limits and found the grid expands as you build on, and on, and on....

Yesterday we went to can the last of those pears and apples I'd not gotten too. And they were way too far gone.

So the horses got some nice treats, and the compost pile is a bit larger. And my back porch is emptier.

Michael has just about gotten his school work done and we are heading out to sew with friends and practice dancing.

Here was last week's get together.





One young girl was in a wheelchair all last year. She's out of it, and dancing for her is slow and a bit shuffly, but she is having a wonderful time.

Ashlee and Elaine, at my place last week. Working on an overskirt. I had to sneak this photo!





And Leah, helping me fix my dropped loops in a knitting project for my daughter.





And would you believe this amazing sewing job! Ashlee is just learning to sew, and she was so happy with her progress on the skirt, that she went and got herself a pattern and is sewing this cute sundress, all by herself! I am ecstatic to see her discover a talent she did not know she had.





Last week I also began to try to work on this truck again.





Typical beater-type truck: can of starting fluid, and a pair of pliers to be able to open the hood, since the handle broke off.





It's so bad to leave a vehicle uncared for, but I have not been able to get to it. The tires badly need to be moved as they are developing severe flat spots.





So we got some handy old mobile home skirting sheets that I keep around for this kind of work.





And we needed to see about draining the old gas out of the tanks, as it goes bad if not used. I turned on the key to see how much gas we were going to be dealing with in the two tanks, and found that I had no power at all.





Time to drag out the charger again.





Put your red on positive, and the black on negative, then plug the charger in.









And don't let this fool you. For some reason, the charger reads full at first, then it slowly drops over the next hour or so, then begins to come back up again. I'm not convinced I have a correctly functioning charger...





Underneath the truck, I find an exhaust pipe that has broken off the muffler which is help up by baling wire.... bummer.





I do locate the two tanks, and follow the hoses coming out of them up to this little unit, of which I have no idea what it's called. Generally, I'll look this up, but I have no time at this moment, as I am desperately trying to get off to sewing again!





And that's where I THINK I will need to be working if I drain the tanks. However, I've got to get the electrical problem fixed first, and the (hopefully) charged battery is sitting on the truck cab floor, waiting for me to grace it with my presence.

Seamstress by day, grease monkey by night...

~Faith

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Doll Bed; Michael Goes Shopping.

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My young man is growing up. He wanted to go shopping for a hat the other day.













Dear friends came over and we thrashed our few sewing brain cells into finishing off a set of drawers and beginning my bodice. We've got a review coming up on Tuesday where we will all critique each others' Civil War re-enactment clothing to help refine our details. We are scrambling.









Fabrics that make me feel happy....





Preparing the board for cutting out the doll bed.





Look, Ma! Mattress and pillows!





And a reversible quilt!





Tossed templates...





Needed to borrow my dad's scroll saw for cutting out the head and foot boards. So headed to my folk's house and the work sheds.





I got sneaky. I decided that Michael and I do a lot of projects together, so I stepped out and sort of disappeared so these two would work on it together.





My dad is a good one to do things with, as he does them well. So you learn a lot.





A plaque that I helped my older three kids make for my dad about 20 years ago. The handsaw is missing at the top.





Working now on the scroll saw.









And I had more apples to pick. These will join the pears on my kitchen floor. Then I'm going to drive off a cliff.





They are looking pretty!





Their garden, almost put to sleep for the year. It looks Waaaaaaay better than mine.





Now ready to be sanded, glued and nailed, and painted.





And my work for the evening. These were just the last of what I could reach without climbing.





I have no idea what to tackle next.

~Faith

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Apples, Apples and Ginseng!

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With all the extra goings on, it's taken me a little while to get through the second batch of 3 gunny sacks of apples, but they are now cleared from my kitchen floor!

Leah came by and helped for the day. She is always such a sweet addition to our lives.

She and Michael found a semi-comfortable place to anchor the Apple gadget to and proceeded to knock off about 1/2 of our latest bounty.









With a fan to blow away the flies they got pretty quick at it.

And I ended up inside mostly prepping all the canning stuff. These went mostly to apples in light syrup...





And apple pie filling.





I wish I could say we got it all done, but it actually took us several days to complete the project. Michael went after them with the juicer





These all went toward applesauce. We are currently up to 34 quarts of it. Later on, I'll take some of that and cook it down into apple butter and can that.





I had a problem with my first batch of applesauce yesterday. All the jars overflowed and I had to reprocess them. But the rest went fine.

Michael and I got a special treat yesterday. We went for a visit with some friends of ours who are buyers and sellers of ginseng. We got to participate in seeing what they do, even being able to take part in the sorting.

I've got to tell you, that's a LOT of ginseng, and I can't imagine even being able to find and harvest all that these people do. It was about a refrigerator full, and that's how much they get every single day.





Michael took these with his little camera. They sure came out yellow. That's not the actual color of the room.





Ginseng is closely regulated by the government concerning harvest. The earliest you can harvest a root is if the plant has reached three years of age. This can be told by the rings on the neck of the root. They are VERY slow growing. Some of these roots are barely an inch long.

Their main market is China. So many Chinese buyers come here to inspect and purchase what has been collected. Interesting stories.





Being a fan of classic automobiles, I was not hurting to be working next to this beautiful car.





If you don't want to see a yucky picture, stop reading now!

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FINALLY got this guy! He's been evading traps for weeks!
You'll never guess what Michael did with him, when I said to take care of it.

He let him go in the woods next to the house...

Well, well, well! Our replacement rooster chick seems to have finally developed his crow this morning!

Tomatoes today. Pears tonight.

~Faith

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Pain and Dance Practice!

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The awful truth about this tooth. I have no idea how it's going.

I went to my dental appointment. It all went fine and I left a couple of hours later with my mouth numb and a temporary crown.





The temporary crowns look a lot nicer than they used to! They used to be stainless steel, I think, but these temporary ones look like real teeth. I could live with this!

While running around, buying a new tire, some chicken feed and such, I began getting a headache. Then it spread to my eyes, then my cheeks, then my lower jaw and front teeth...

And then the anesthetic wore off. By the time I got home, I was holding the entire right side of my face and rushing for aspirin.

It did not help. I took more and called the dentist. I could not get to him. A series of unexplained things happened and I was on my own until 10 pm when I finally got a call from his wife. Might have been due to the sobbing on the last two calls I left.

By that time however, I was very calm. Very tired, very sleepy, VERY calm, and dizzy. You see, I found the pain pills that I'd been given when I ran my fingers through the Skill saw last year.

Mind you, I never used those pain pills then, but I sure needed them for my face! I have not felt that calm in a very long time. What bliss. My friend suggested I leave those with her.

So I am on antibiotics, because I'm thinking I've got an abscess. I will keep you updated, you poor people.

We had a few days of clear weather so we got nearly caught up on mowing and spraying. That's what we did most of the day yesterday, after running to the pharmacy.

Then we ran to town for our Civil War Dance Society's practice at the park pavilion.

We were a few minutes late, pulling in at the same time as this energetic and happy group.





And they had started on time! How punctual of them!





Here are a few shots I snapped in between dancing.

















Running through some steps with just two couples.





It was warm and muggy, due to the rain arriving about the time we began. Nothing was evaporating.





Probably about 30 of us were there and we had so much fun. The plan is to do this for a few more Thursday evenings until the bulk of us have these dances down pat.

We have one particular young man who knows how to lead, really well.





I have no idea if this in instinctive knowledge, or if he learned it somehow, but it sure helps. I have never danced other than a few square dances for elementary school P.E. and a very sad attempt at a three week long jazz dance class, so I know nothing. Having a guy who knows how to lead you through the dance, is AMAZING! I'm going to ask if he can give lessons to all the men and boys.

Rain all morning, so looks like we'll do schoolwork and catch up on housework til it's time to go clean the office. Then it's Friday Fellowship time.

I've got three more bags of apples in the kitchen. Need to find time to turn them into canned sauce, pie filling, and apple rings.

~Faith

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