Yard-Saling and This Week's Hopefuls

Got this hand-pieced/hand-quilted full size quilt at a yard sale for $25.00!!  It was a splurge for me but an excellent price for anyone.  Not a stitch broken and only one small stain!

The loosestrife is in bloom this week!

The books getting packed for the yard sale was a children magnet.  Some books never made it to the yard sale.

We've caught (and admired) three turtles so far this year...ONE was even a snapper!

Contented Penny- still pregnant.

The yard sale this weekend was a success!  I learned a few things~

1) Todd and Deb read my blog!  (Hi Todd and Deb!)
2) A baked goods table is totally worth the effort. Chocolate chip cookies and pecan pie practically flew outta-there!  So did the jalapeno jelly. (I will be doing THAT again!)
3) My back can burn in just the amount of time it takes to visit with Todd and Deb (see #1).  (So much for me babying my skin!)

When all was said and done, I came back $128.00 dollars richer and a carload lighter.  I did sort a few of the best things to do one more yard sale at our local community yard sale in August (at which point I will have a huge baked goods table!) or to sell at the consignment shop but I got rid of most of the leftovers...which is a good feeling.  One step closer to an empty, tidy, organized Granary.

Even though Penny was due this past week- no calf yet!  Andrew is going crazy.  (Absolutely insane!)  Matt is wondering if he might have been off a heat cycle and she won't go until next month.  I, on the other hand, am absolutely fine with her being late.  I know with the yummy milk will come a whole lot of work so she can take her good, sweet time as far as I am concerned.

My foot feels so much better.  Days 1 and 2 were pretty bad (especially with being on my feet so much with the yard sale!) but it doesn't hurt at all anymore practically, I am no longer limping and the wound is as lovely looking as a wound can look.  I keep it dressed during the day to keep it clean but take off the wrap at night in bed for some fresh air.  Skin is an amazing thing.  God is an amazing designer.

This is the first week in many that I haven't felt overwhelmed with things that were so pressing and needing to be done IMMEDIATELY (garden, schoolwork, reviews, wedding pics, yard sale and everything NOW NOW NOW!) so I am very excited to have a less pressing, no commitment week ahead.  And by very excited, I mean VERY EXCITED.

Here are my hopefuls for the week~

* Work on walkways in garden
* plant the last little empty plot in the garden
* paint garden map.  Because I love doing that.
* lots of laundry
* empty the last of the lower right side of the Granary.
* Move clothing bins down there.
* order Seeds Family Worship cd's for Christmas gifts because they are having a SALE!
* Redo the budget because I haven't been able to save as much as I would like to for some reason.  Also-make a plan for a new grocery budget for the summer.  It should be able to be way less than $200 a month once Penny starts giving milk and the garden starts producing in earnest.
* Clean the office, bedroom, schoolroom
* Have kiddos clean their rooms
* make yogurt
* Get my license renewed
* get affidavit notarized
* put up a batch of strawberry jam
* get our grill tank refilled.
* finish the bridal shawl, for goodness' sake.
* write Opa a letter
* blog posts: Schoolhouse Review Crew science review, wedding sneak peek, Garden update.

How was your weekend?  What are your hopefuls for the week?

Busy Bee

Well, I am happy to report that everything I hoped to accomplish this week really WAS accomplished- and right on schedule!

Everything I had to get into the garden was put in the garden- including a great scattering of pumpkin and sunflower seeds!  Only one small 'bed' within the hay garden is left untouched because I planted everything I wanted to and still had it left.  Not sure what to put into that spot- but something must go in.  And a few rows for later plantings of lettuce and spinach.  I'll show it to you soon, not that there is much to see at this point.  Just a wish and a prayer, really.

Last night I put all the seats down in the van and began loading up yard sale stuff when a pencil impaled my foot between my second and third toe.  This is why you should not be like me and go barefoot all the time.  It was very surreal when I pulled out the pencil and saw a perfect hole going deep into my flesh.  I just stared at it in disbelief for a moment and then I went hobbling into the living room to Matt saying "You won't BELIEVE what I just did to my foot!  You won't BELIEVE what just happened!"  I think it was me letting out the shock of seeing something one should never see (a third of an inch INSIDE your flesh!) without totally freaking out. It didn't hurt for a minute and then...wow.  It hit.   The thought of stitches flashed for a nano-second, and then a flash of "Let me just super glue it!" and then I came to my senses and disinfected the wound, wrapped it in gauze with triple antibiotic ointment and called it good.  

Today I took a van full of yard sale stuff to my parents' house, got back and made a big bowl of potato salad for our community 'field days' (You know you live in a small po-dunk town when you get a postcard in the mail saying "BRING POTATO SALAD for us to use at the chicken BBQ!") and drove it down and dropped it off while a double batch of chocolate chip cookie dough was chilling and two pecan pies were in the oven.  The cookies finished baking just in time for pizza making. And all this with me hobbling along with the distinct, awkward step of a wounded woman.

 I am hoping to sell a few baked goods and maybe some canned things, along with all my other 'junk' tomorrow.  We'll see.  If no goodies sell, why then, I will have a very happy husband and children to come home to.

 But I am really hoping for a tidy sum in my pocket as well.  ;-)

Morning Choring

The weathervane I got Matt for Christmas is now up!  

Knowing that the sun and I don't mix without someone getting burned (me), I've been trying to be a good girl about my skin.  I think the fantasy of me being a super tan blonde bombshell in summer has finally, once and for all, withered up and died.  Missing pretty much all of the attributes needed to ever be that again at this point- I have given up the dream.  Though looking back, I did do a pretty knockout job for like a minute when I was a teenager.  Of course, since teenagers are their own worst enemies, I didn't even enjoy my success during that minute, because I was too busy being critical of myself.  But the truth of the matter is, I'd much rather have it that way then the other way around.  No one likes a bombshell who knows she's a bombshell.  :-)

Anyway- back to the skin.  

I've been trying to stay out of the sun between 12-3ish, the hottest part of the days...which puts my garden chores to be worked first thing in the morning and in the evenings and keeps me out of the sun during the "burning hours".

Besides it being just downright smart (who wants to work under the blazing hot sun in the heat of the afternoon?)... it has also been more pleasant than I had ever hoped.  

First things first, I always do a walk around in the fairy flower circle to see what's in bloom.  This week it is peonies!  Some of my most favorites.  (Notice I didn't actually pinpoint a favorite- SOME of my favoriteS.  Can't pin me down with just one flower or another- but peonies, they do rank up there.)  There, among the  busy bees buzzing from flower to flower and the birdsong overhead and the strung pearls of dew cooling my toes and glittering in the new sun, I find the day.  Who needs coffee?  Give me a flower circle any day of the week.  

Then it is off to plunk seeds into dirt and hoe in the silence of children still sleeping.  So tranquil.  

Then the littles and biggles wake up, one by one, and trek downstairs and it becomes less tranquil very fast.  :-)

The garden is getting done little by desperate little.  I had hoped to have it completely finished by last week but the rain every day thwarted those plans and now I am even further behind than before.  But it is NEARLY there.  Until tomorrow, that is, when a kind neighbor is coming over to till up a new spot for a new pumpkin patch since the old pumpkin patch is now a potato patch.  My plan is lots of pumpkins, in all colors, shapes and sizes with sunflowers scattered throughout..   I may try and sell some (flowers AND pumpkins) at the local Amish auctions, if all goes well.  I need another garden "patch" like I need a hole in the head but the pumpkin seed packets with little white pumpkins and cinderella pumpkins and gnomekin warted pumpkins were too tempting for this girl. 

Thanks to the rain last week also, I am trying to get caught up on laundry which has been at a stand still thanks to our dryer breaking.  I don't normally use it spring-summer-fall anyway, but when it rains for days and days I might throw in a load to get us through until the next sunny spell.  There was no "getting us through" all last week so it is laundry, garden, laundry, garden, meal, meal, meal for me and my days.

Oh yes- and this weekend is my Mom's yard sale which I always contribute to.  I have a ton of things set aside to sell (thanks to Granary organizing) but not one bit of it is priced.  Or even easily accessible.  

My hope is:

Tuesday- get completely caught up on laundry (until tomorrow) and work in garden

Wednesday- get the last of the garden things IN THE GROUND, including the spankin' new pumpkin patch. (Walkways to be finished later.)

Thursday- start tackling the yard sale stuff.

I think maybe next weekend will be less busy but then again- Penny (the cow) is due any day now so pretty soon there will be milk chores and butter/cheese/ICE CREAM making to do.  

Matt got his milking machine yesterday.  Today I am ordering loads of rennet and a new ice cream maker because sadly, my ice cream maker broke in the midst of my weekly homemade "Ice Cream Sundays" challenge last summer.  I loved that challenge.  Oh boy, did I love that challenge. 

Woodland Feast

We feasted on fresh nectarines, grilled pork loin, potatoes swimming in a sea of saltbutter and Matt's favorite~ blueberry pie, a la mode.  All trekked to a secret spot in the woods dubbed The Clay Cauldron for the spot of wet clay that can be dug and shaped and played with at the bottom of the creek trickle.  We hauled baskets and blankets and flowers and a lantern all (swiftly and secretly) yesterday afternoon as Matt puttered about, clueless.

It was a glorious feast among ferns and fungi, ending with a gift found in a hobbit hole and a game of hide and seek for all.  I sought.

We all decided a Woodland Feast for the Papa is a good Father's Day tradition for every year- but maybe next year we'll forget the 'surprise' part and use the tractor for hauling things into the woods too. It took some gumption to get a load to the woods and get back before the pork needed flipping on the grill.