How is it going? I like it and LOVE the platform. Who knew that so many of the things that I had to do manually before, that took up minutes of my work time, could be done simply by pressing a keyboard shortcut? Once I learn it all, we will be talking HUGE improvements in lines. Right now, I'm working on the basics, but I have flash cards that I will learn 4 new shortcuts a week. I should have them all learned by my 3-month probation/newbie/trainee time.
This week I start drying veggies. I plan on having a well-stocked pantry this winter where I can throw together a soup with what I have dried without wasting a ton of veggies. When they are dried they take up less space and you can use a handful at a time as you need them. Now is the perfect time to start because harvests are coming in and if you need to buy, you can buy really super cheap. I found my camera, so I can do a tutorial on drying. There is a little more to it than just throwing the veggies in a dryer if you want really nice and healthy looking dried.
No apples this year. I am a little upset and relieved at the same time. Last year I was begging people to take apples. This year I will be picking them from the roadsides. It's all good. I will have plenty for what I need to do. After taking a long look at my freezer, I think I will take my cousin up on a deer this year as well. What venison I have left I am just going to throw out because it's old, but I am out of canned venison and we use so much of that. I think anyone who dislikes venison should really consider canning. It is by far the best way to preserve it if you are slow eaters (like us) and it tastes so much better, not dry, etc.
Other than that, life has been pretty blah. I've been focused on work more than anything.
Dean has been working at my parent's house for the last week. Working toward his driver's license. He refuses to save up his money to get it, so Grandpa said that in return for getting the place ready for Labor Day, he will take Dean down to get his license. It's just as well. Dean still has to work for me to pay off his ticket and the pastor wants him to work for him as well-probably wants to send a little guidance his way, which I have no problems with. Sometimes I can talk until I'm blue in the face, but when someone else talks, Dean seems to listen. Besides, after he pays me off, his car needs a tune up, heater core and new tires before it is ready for him to drive. No, I'm not paying for any of it. First of all, driving without a license was stupid--he can pay that shit himself as well as the license, so he knows how much it costs to get it and maintain it. That goes for the car as well. I gave him the car, its a nice first car, but he has to buy the stuff to fix it up and he is going to do the fixing (while Curt teaches and supervises of course). This way he will think twice about lighting up the $200.00 worth of tires he will have to replace, neutral dropping the $1,000.00 tranny or redlining that $800.00 motor. That, and it is essential for him to know how to do basic maintenance on his car. I can't believe what people will pay for an oil change and tune up. Its so easy and takes only an hour or so to do. I want him to at least know where his fluids go and how to do a tune up and oil change, rotate tires-etc. If he takes care of this car, it will last him 100,000 miles yet easy.
Oh, we are doing some maintenance on the house. i think I mentioned the central air that is going in. We are doing all the labor while the furnace guy tells us what to do. This way we are getting it done for $700.00. I might lose my closet downstairs though...kind of a bummer. We also took down all the seats and railing from the deck. As soon as Curt gets caught up in the shop, he will start ripping the plywood we can salvage from the old railing and my BIL will come over with the tractor and help us replace the support beams that go into the ground. While I was planting flowers this spring, I noticed the supports had rotted under the soil line, so instead of a 4 x 4 post, its rotted down to a 2 x 2. After we figure out how much lumber we can reuse, we will get the railing done and I want stairs to come off the deck so when I want to go into the house, I don't have to trample through the basement, up the stairs, through the kitchen to do it. If the UPS guy comes, I can just walk off the deck. Every week now, I have been buying 10$ Menards gift certificates as a savings for when we need to purchase. That $10 is the money I would normally spend on junk food, so I'm killing 2 birds with 1 stone, cutting out junk food and gaining stuff for my place. So this year is deck, furnace and central air and hopefully a roof. I'm really pushing for the roof THIS YEAR.
Next year my 10$ a week will go for saving up for
paint for the house and barn and to start buying things as I find what I like for my kitchen. For those who have seen my weird house, my kitchen is actually on the second level, with the bedrooms on the first. I hate it like that. I would like my kitchen to be downstairs where my root cellar is, utilizing the walk in closet in Dean's room as a pantry with access to the root cellar from the closet. As it is, I have to go into Dean's room, through the closet to get to any of my canned stuff and the spare fridge. Stupid. Imagine walking through a teenagers room and closet to get to your root cellar. Yeah. I would like to try to do all these improvements with my own saved money so we don't have to refinance or anything. Being able to do it on our own makes it so much more achievable and buying things as I can makes the whole process less daunting too.
This is a boring post...eh. I'm pretty darned boring this week I must say.
-Supper tonight was chicken and veggie soup made with chicken breasts, mushrooms, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower in the crock pot. For dessert, I made rosettes thinking that by making those, there was less calories because there was less cake-I used grapeseed oil as the fryer and drained them really well. I crushed some fresh strawberries and left them unsweetened, using powdered sugar as a garnish lightly sprinkled on top. I think I lightened up strawberry shortcake considerably by doing this and I like the crunch of the rosettes much better than the super sweet angel food cake anyway.
-Emma sat on the potty tonight with no results other than painted toes and makeup.
-I made some cup wraps that are aromatherapy. I also have some sound module buttons coming so I can make some for Valentine's day that say "I love you" when you push the button. I also experimented with aromatherapy coasters (not the rice filled ones-regular flat ones) and aromatherapy book markers. Its a work in progress. So far, successful.
-Tomorrow is my official day off. I plan to weld and get some more stuff in my shop.
-Last night I crochet my first hat of the season. Its my own design. I like it, but it needs tweaking. I'll work on it more tonight. I got the idea from one of my Workbasket magazines from 1961 and a pirate hat I had bought Lucas a while ago.
-Speaking of Workbasket magazines, My aunt in Colorado had a whole bunch of them, but what caught my attention was 1950's. She was throwing them out and put out a email to whoever was interested. I jumped all over the 1950's. They came in the mail Thursday and it looks like I have the whole decade! They were my grandmas magazines, so they are even more special. Anyway, I went to a friend's house. They own a thrift store/liquidation store. I rarely get to go there and look, but there is so much stuff it takes a long time to see it all. Anyway, I was looking on this shelf, past the stuff to the front and waaaaaayyyyy in the back I saw some little magazines all stacked up. I started moving things around so I could see what they were and viola! Workbasket magazines spanning from 1960 through 1976! Steve said that those were sitting back there for ever and I could have them for FREEEEEEEE! If you've never seen a workbasket magazine, they were super cool magazines. There was patterns for knit and crochet, sewing ideas and patterns for that, recipes and craft ideas and more patterns and how tos... Some of them even had iron-on transfers inside and they were just this tiny little magazine packed full of cool information--not to mention the vintage patterns. As you get into the 70's, they are a bit lame clothes-wise, but the 50's and 60's are my favorite, especially the ads. Evidently in 1950, you could order baby parakeets through the mail to be delivered to your door. There are patterns for hot pads utilizing asbestos cloth, ads to buy asbestos cloth and the most classic commercials ever. "Are you ugly, unloved, lonely? Do you struggle with unsightly facial hair? Well we have a solution just for you!" So fun...
holy cow it sounds like you have a lot going on to me :)
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