It's Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

.

I tell you what, I really needed a break, so I took a vacation from a lot of things, including blogging.

Once the spring and summer adrenaline rush was passed, and I slowed down a little, it got to where I felt like I was in molasses and needed to rest. Autumn has arrived just in time.

Our adventures lately included not getting any income from my missing husband at all. Last I heard there is a warrant out for his arrest until he comes up with the money he owed. So life has been a bit tougher financially. Wouldn't you know, my big car insurance bill came due. Anyhow, we have received help from our church family, and we have found another temporary cleaning job to get us through this crisis. But it's been a bit exhausting for both of us. We really needed some time off, and I'm trying to hold back on the things we are doing so I don't end up in a padded room.

We had to repair our electric fence, which meant a new battery and charger unit. Ouch!

We got to spend some time ministering to others. I'll try to get to sharing some of those pics. They make me smile!

Here is another view of our Autumn skies. I love blue with big puffies.





On Friday we drug out the framing for our sukkah and put it together.

















Sukkah means portable dwelling, in Hebrew. We built one as part of our learning in history and taking part in Sukkot, one of the Lord's festivals.

Getting ready to staple the fabric to the sides.





And here is the main part all done. We have yet to put the pine bows across the top, where we strung rope across to hold them.





Sadly, all week is to be cool and showery. Not much fun for an outdoor, week-long celebration with friends, which is what Sukkot is supposed to be.









Who IS that masked man?

~Faith

.

Adventures: blurred.

.

At least that's how it feels. No photo evidence lately for what we've been up to. Except for the ones at the bottom of this post.

I've been helping a friend in a wheel chair get an electric wheelchair. I spent our last sewing day working on Miss Ashlee's underskirt and over skirt. Sure wish I had pictures of that day. It was fun!

We have been pulling out monster weeds from the garden, working on photography items to sell on ETSY. I spent the day today doing yard work, making some edibles, and house cleaning for some friends who were out of town to see a doctor.

We are getting into the swing of school work again. Why does that always seem such an odd change?

This was an evening of playing with the black light.





Reminds me of something, but I can't remember what.

And here is a photo for a theme my sister and I decided to do last week. "Weave".





Hey, I'm only just warming up!

~Faith

.

Rosh Ha'Shanah

.

I rarely get any photos when I host a party. I get too involved in cooking and readying.

This was the first Rosh Ha'Shanah party I'd ever done, much less hosted, so it was all new to me, and to all our guests. Many dishes I'd not only never prepared, but had never even tasted before.

The themes are sweetness - so we had many sweet dishes; fruit - to celebrate bountiful harvest; and joy - in anticipation of the joy of the future.

Here are the only pictures I took, when I finally remembered to pick up my camera...

I love to involve everyone, so some of the ladies created this lovely platter filled with fruits, many of which are unusual to the palate. There were no pomegranates to be found anywhere, but we had gogi, medjool dates, starfruit, kiwi, jicama... quite a few things.





And a quick step back to take a shot of all of us squeezed at my table.





Worn from polishing 1000000 square feet of formica...

G'nite!

~Faith

.

Angry Villagers

.

We decided to try to burn the seed heads off our weeds in the garden. After so much of the garden had died, due to the fusarium wilt, as well as much of my time being spent in the kitchen, learning more about the wonderful world of canning, our garden looked like this:









The seed heads of the weeds are what is scaring me. There are some vicious, thorny weeds in there and they are LOADED with seeds.

I don't know if we spray them, if the seeds die too, or if they will drop and be fine. A friend wondered about burning them off with our propane torch. Nice idea, but I can't afford to go get the tank refill.

What is a girl to do.....?

I know! Build a torch!

You can find almost anything online. We learned a lot about torch building. One thing I SHOULD have thought of but didn't, was using a green branch, instead of the handy, ever-so-movie-torch-like, club you see here. Aesthetically pleasing, yes, but also catches fire all the way up to your fingers, if you don't watch it.





Also, the staples in the staple gun were not long enough to do the job. But you need to use 100% cotton, so you don't get any nasty burns from having melting globs of fabrics fall off and stick to your screaming flesh.

And Tiki Torch type fuel is good. Clean burning. You can use oils of other types, like motor oil, but that will give you smoke. Don't use more flammable things like gasoline.

We began by stapling the folded old t-shirt to the club.





Then the fabric must be pulled very tightly as you wrap. If you don't, you will have too much oxygen in there when burning and it will be brighter, but shorter lived. Rather like a flaming ball dropping at your feet.





Stapling every few inches, all the way around, we wrapped as though we were peasants, ready to invade Notre Dame.

Seth gives ignorant approval.





Then the staples began falling out. So we grabbed God's gift to humanity, baling wire.





Completely unprepared for this endeavor, we had only enough to pour over the torch to barely soak it. The actual instructions call for soaking the torch in a container of oil for 10 minutes. It was very thirsty.





Oooooooo! Scary villager!!!





And this is how we discovered that this method is extremely ineffective for this purpose.





The seed heads were too green to burn as well.





This garden may never dry out before those seeds drop, so our next approach is to go out with scissors and bags and trim them off.

And now you know how to NOT build a torch and eliminate seed heads.

I'm sure I can use a torch for more fun projects however. Stay tuned!

~Faith

.

A Civil Sewing and Critique Day

.

Tuesday several of us that are in the Civil War Civilian Society met for sewing at a friend's house. We are alternating homes each week.

I love this dress form, and I love the dress, too!









Afterwards we trekked over to the meeting where we were to all bring our attire and have it critiqued so that we could have a good idea of what needs work.

Here are some of the gowns.

A very good representation of a 'tween' dress.





A lovely little girl's dress, though the pantaloons are apparently a bit long, and they did not have eyelet lace then.





The seamstress that did all four of these daughters did a very good job. There was very little needing to change for them. The oldest sister also has little to do.





Only her necklace needed to be made choker length.





These sleeves are amazing, and we discussed how to make them.





Lovely gloves, but lace gloves needed to be fingerless.





How to combine period correct with modesty? A challenge for low-cut ball gowns. You might be able to see the added fabric that covers her shoulders.





This very colorful dress, is still correct, but the laces and grommets are not to show. They will be adjusted so they are hidden better. Also, the fabric is bunching because the bodice is too long. This will be shortened.





Everybody standing around discussing the clothing.









I have not finished my bodice yet, so I just quickly pulled on my hoops, underskirt, and overskirt for quick inspection on if the hoops were the correct size, shape and length; and if the skirts needed shortening.

This dress was a find!!! 75 dollars at a flea market and period correct! Not to mention gorgeous! We were all ecstatic for her.





Some of the boys, awaiting their critique on trousers, shirts, vests, cravats, and frocks.







~Faith

.

Magical Transformation!

.

Yes, I get to cross something off my list! I've been needing to go through my poor houseplant rack for 2 years. We did it last night.

Again, I forgot a before picture. But I used to have about a dozen plants on it. However, with all the outdoor work, I kept forgetting to water these poor neglected plants, so most of the are dead, and the rest are looking poorly.

Here we are, beginning to untangle all the vines...





One of them, all it's little arms neatly coiled until I decide I have enough time to make a few decisions.





What a mess!





Well, it's definitely neater! LOL





Not really appealing, but for now, I'm just happy to have it all up off the floor!

The canner calls...

~Faith

.

I Seriously Need A Cellar.

.

I've got stuff all over the place.

















I ended up canning til 3 a.m. this morning, trying to get all those pears off my floor.

Remember these?





Well, they've been sitting on my kitchen floor for 2 weeks. There are still two boxes in the back porch, seen above, but now my floor looks like this, and I've got one more 7 quart load going in the canner right now.





Ooooh, I just got to blow my air horn into the phone on another unwanted sales call. I have my number on the registry, but these guys like to break the law and call anyhow. So this usually works for a few days.

I feel like I just cleaned my right ear....

~Faith

.