Tired Day, New Things

I was startled to realize it was nearly 11 AM when I finally got out of bed this morning! I could just hardly wake up. And 
I've been dragging along all day. 

I've gotten a few loads of laundry done. Yay! The washer is back in service and doing a good job. I washed my hair. This task gets harder the more "unbendable" I become. 

I LOVE line-dried bed sheets!

Thomas & Melvin went to install a couple doors in Oakland, MD. Christopher is having a hard day. He's not feeling very well and isn't getting much done either. 

Yesterday we purchased a "new" car and repaired our van. The van has had a black hood and bumper for about four years now. Ever since one of the boys rear ended someone. Recently the black bumper was broken by hitting a small animal and needed to be repaired before it would pass inspection. 

I went searching for a "before" picture of the van and this is the best I could do.

The body shop said if we sand the hood they'll shoot some primer on it. So now the new bumper is white and the hood is once again white. 

The car was a $500 deal (Honda Accord) that we couldn't let pass. We've been wanting a little car that's automatic for this mama to run around with. We want to get rid of a couple other vehicles. The car needs some body work and painting but otherwise seems in good condition.

If you need a faith booster check out this video. A 23 year old and 21 year old coping with five children ages 2 and under. Cheerfully, with faith in God.

Day in the Life

A yellow butterfly flits past my window. Clouds cover the sun. A gentle breeze is blowing. I should be sitting outside but here I am in my air conditioned house typing away. Why should I SIT outside? Well, because I don't know what else to do in my present condition but I do need the fresh air and vitamin D that the great outdoors provides. 

I'm all alone today. Austin is out with the lawn care crew. Thomas and the three youngest went to wash a log house. It's one of a kind and Thomas hasn't found someone else to do it. He turned the log home care he had been doing over to someone else when he took on the overhead door business. But he says this one is special. Please don't ask me to explain.

My morning consisted of getting one more dress ready for nursing. I purchased a number of nursing dresses from the Facebook group "Dress Swappers". I'm cutting the necklines lower and the sleeves shorter and doing the sewing that this maneuver entails. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a low neckline, short, short sleeve kind of person. But these necklines choked me and the sleeves were long with elastic which I find very uncomfortable. They just needed some help. 

This is how the dresses came

How one looks that I've redone

I am also working on keeping the laundry going and I got another dress ironed. Most times if a dress needs ironing I pass it on to clothing recycling or to someone who doesn't mind ironing. If the dryer isn't going to iron it, I don't want it! But this one is one of my few maternity dresses so I'll put up with it for a period of time.

Only seven weeks left until my due date! Or six weeks if I go by the ultrasound. Who do you believe? Babies make their own due dates anyway. So we'll just take it as it comes. But I am definitely longing for the day I get to meet this little storm within me. She has enough energy, that's for sure!

I had listed some items on the local yard sale group on Facebook so I took some time to edit or delete some of those. Plus browsed a bit to see if anyone was offering something I need.

The kitchen is yelling to be cleaned up and it's time to feed my face some lunch. I'll see if I have anything more to add to my accomplishments by this evening. (Besides a nap. Ha)

Evening is here. I finished our laundry and Austin's. Cleaned up the kitchen and made supper. We had Cobb salad (basic recipe from Mandy in the Making) and cranberry jello salad (recipe found in this post). This was planned for lunch yesterday but then we were invited away. 

Christopher was home from work early enough to grill the chicken and everyone enjoyed the good food. 

I thought I would sit outside to eat my lunch but then it started raining. We've had rain showers off and on all afternoon. We haven't had an overabundance of rain lately so it's really good to see it coming down! I did think I would sit outside a bit this evening but now it's raining again.

My lunch- southwest pizza & lettuce salad

I started cleaning out a piece of furniture I want to use as a changing table in our bedroom but I didn't finish that task. Yes, most of my afternoon was spent sleeping. I told you it's not easy to be pregnant at my age. And I did say my brain is more lively than my body these days. Definitely happened to me again today!

Just Daily Doings

It must be a weekly thing right now to get an arctic blast. Today the temperature is 10° with a "real feel" of minus 5-14. Tomorrow's forecast says wind chills of -14. The guys went out and cut a load of firewood today. I guess they thought that would be a warmer job than door installation.

Plus Thomas is the man for the topic at Bible study this evening so he wanted some time to study for that. 

Austin and Matthew went this late afternoon to unload doors at the shop. Eight doors came in on this load. Melvin is busy with his hatchet at the cow's water trough. That's a sheet of ice he's thrown that you see between the rails.

I've been doing housework, reading and writing today. Fighting a headache so am not very active. Laundry and kitchen work are all I'm getting done.

The boys feel certain that their time for ice skating has come this week. If it weren't for Bible study this evening they would likely be on a pond somewhere. But maybe tomorrow evening or the next. It doesn't appear as though it will warm up until Saturday.

On Monday Thomas made a second trip to his mom's place in southern WV, taking Melvin with him. They didn't have quite as long a day as they did last week and feel certain that the water lines are repaired in the house now. The water source is a spring in a cave so they traced the lines back to the source and saw that there is a good bit of work to be done there yet. There are whole sections of the line missing. Which means yet another trip.

Thomas was thankful to be able to send Austin and Matthew out for a three door installation on Monday. They can do it on their own now which is a tremendous blessing.

Last evening the guys were all gone to Romney for another evening of work on the Kid's Club building. They report good progress. Will it be ready for Kid's Club to begin in March? 

A group from here, along with people from elsewhere, went to Honduras for a week of Bible school for the native children this week. This is the third year they've done it, I believe. 

In my last post I mentioned Melvin's thirst for reading. He gathered up the books he's read recently so he could record them. I snapped a picture of the stack. The fat book on the bottom is a (well read or used) Sherlock Holmes collection.

We ate a late breakfast today and a very late lunch so I made a peach cobbler for a light "meal" before Bible study. It's something quick and good. I don't know what they'll want to eat when they get home. I'm not going but even if I did, I wouldn't want to eat again when I got home. But they do! Long, hollow legs. Lol

My nose is running a lot today. Don't know if I'm fighting a cold? Or is it because I read of another mother's miscarriage? (That DID make my nose run sorely. I know that kind of loss too well.) Or because I cut up onions? Or maybe all of the above.

I've been reading a lot. Free Kindle books. G. A. Henty books. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Also On Sunday a friend gave me a magazine called Above Rubies. Very interesting family type stories/testimonies. She says the magazine is free.

Tell me about life in your world. Is it cold? Do you have animals to care for? Is your house warm? What challenges are you facing? 

Strategy

When there is more to do in one day than one is able to accomplish, what do you do? I strategize. (Isn't that a word? Spell correct puts a red line under it!)

The bathrooms need cleaning. Clean the toilets and the mirrors and be done. There are three bathrooms. That's a bit too many. Especially when you really hate to clean bathrooms. Hello. How did they get so dirty in the first place if I wasn't always leaving them till last?

Surfaces cleaned, add a wonderful pick-up to a room. And why is it so hard to clean surfaces? Because EVERYBODY in this house of seven will set things down on a surface that is empty rather than putting it in its proper place. So clean the surfaces. Even if it's hard. It makes the room look ten times better. 

Camera and bag, tool set, jacket, calf wormer, art project, toys, pencils, erasers. You name it, it gets set out and doesn't get put away. All these types of things I set aside on one surface for the owners to put in their proper places.

Laundry? Fold what's dry, already, for once! Empty the one hamper that's overflowing with dirty laundry and wash what's sitting in the laundry room too. Run those wrinkled shirts through the dryer with some wet laundry ('cause I really, really do not like ironing).

Grocery shopping. Get it done first thing so it's not weighing on my mind all day. Well, really the push that sent me out early was that the guys wanted to work on the vehicles. A vehicle on the road can't be worked on.

Matthew wanted me to check at Goodwill for a pair of jeans. I should have known better than to go in there. 30 x 34 jeans are just not to be found but books are magnetic, I think. Not good strategy, Mama!

Tomatoes? Well, just ignore them. It's cold today. The guys were working in their jackets and wondered why I have the door open. "Cleaning", I said. That totally explains it. If you're cold, clean your house.

The partial fridge clean out contributed to the millions of pounds Americans waste. So disturbing.

Ten quarts of applesauce from yesterday to can. Just get 'er done. All the pans and equipment to clean up too. Accomplished.

Dishes and meals. They just won't go away. And my mind is so deplete of cooking ideas. Everyone got their own breakfast. For the next meal I (finally) made a dish of zucchini, peppers, onions and canned beef chunks, seasoned with garlic, chili powder and cumin. A pan of cornbread, some fruit and milk completed the scene. Poor guys are fending for themselves with leftovers this evening.

Christopher needs a haircut. By now my back aches and I'm begging for help. Thomas so graciously does it, commenting on how it compares to sickle mowing. He took off a heap of red hair.

Then he started the first fire for the season in the furnace. It's the last day of September. 

Have you noticed that there are spiders in great quantity this Fall?

How are you addressing food waste?

Parting shot- 

Don't you just love these guys' creativity?

All in a day

Before the sun grew too warm, we picked blueberries. Maybe half the patch. I carried a handful in against my body after the pail left the patch.

 On the way to the house I saw the butterfly bush was in bloom.

And the Rose of Sharon.

 The crop for today. 3 quarts maybe?

 A few blackberries.

 Then it was kitchen cleanup time. Melvin cleared the counter. Christopher put dishes away.

 Washing fell to mother.

 Kitchen clean and ready to begin baking.

 Frozen zucchini in a pack on the counter to thaw. A few clean dishes left to put away.

 Pie crust in the making. Ice cream scoops work well for scooping shortening.

 Melvin prepares the apples, while listening to Tom Sawyer (audio book).

 Christopher mixes the zucchini bread.

 Batter in the pans ready for the oven.

Baking.

Peaches in the crusts. We prepared the peaches last week and froze them. Once in the pie shells they get topped with a sugar/flour/spice mixture.

First pies in the oven.

Christopher takes a break to stitch up a sheath for his wooden sword.

The last pies are in the oven.

 The kitchen is clean once again.

 Black beans are cooking with a pork loin for supper.

 Zucchini bread packaged and ready for the market.

 Melvin stitching a sheath for his sword (wooden).

 The second load of laundry that was washed today is ready to be folded.

 All folded...

 ...and Melvin carries it to the rooms.

 VBS begins this evening. Stephen needs the song on a large tablet so I work on that.

 Handwriting does not cut it, so I resort to the computer.

The last pies are out of the oven. I made a blueberry pie for my men with leftover crusts.

Christopher relaxing with a digital book.

At VBS. The children have gone to their classrooms and the committee is conferring. The SonShine Farm brightens the front of the room. I get to relax this week! They gave the regular teachers of the weekly Kid's Club a break this week. 

Back home I finish labeling the baked goods. Everything is ready to go to market in the morning. Ten peach pies, five apple pies, fourteen loaves of zucchini bread.

Praise the Lord for another day to serve Him by serving people! 

Do you feel like you're serving the Lord when you are doing the mundane tasks of the day?

That's the best way to do it!