5 weeks from today

We move into the new house exactly 5 weeks from today. Here is one of my favorite parts of the house, the huge garden! I was hoping to move there in time to harvest the corn, but I guess the current owners are going to get to enjoy that bounty. I guess that is only fair since they planted it.

Coffee anyone?

This is my most recent crochet creation. I'm currently working on a cactus and a bathmat for the bathroom at the new house.

I've been meaning to post pictures of the new house, but I've felt hesitant for some reason. I love the new house so much and I guess I'm afraid I'll jinx it by posting pictures. Logan says I'm being silly and that I need to trust that all will work out. The house passed all the inspections, we have final loan approval, as do our buyers up here, but all this stuff with the economy has me nervous! I think I will begin posting a picture a day this week. And work on my trust!

Happy Fall

I meant to post this Monday but I've haven't been feeling great, so I'm a little late. On the first day of fall every year we go to a local orchard, pick apples, get apple cider donuts (YUM!), and come home and make an apple pie. We did this again this year on Monday.

Logan really enjoyed picking apples this time, he even climbed a few of the trees to get the good ones.


After picking apples and getting our donuts we went to feed the animals they have there. We had a great time feeding these little bantam chickens. They were very sweet and took the corn right out of our hands with out pecking at all! I can't say that all the chickens there were that nice. Anyone recognize this breed? They really were very nice.


The ducks were a lot of fun to feed. We nicknamed this one king duck because he was WAY bigger than all the other ducks and couldn't be bothered to beg like the rest. Even when we threw food right to him he didn't eat it. Obviously it was beneath him to eat hand outs.


For you horse type people out there.

Logan feeding the silkies. He loves silkies and can't wait to have a few. They weren't nearly as nice about taking the food, my finger hurt for a few hours!

Beans

This may seem weird, but we've never eaten beans in our house. I decided a few weeks ago that we needed to start incorporating beans into our diet. So, I checked out multiple bean cookbooks from the library and started reading recipes. My goal is to make a new dish involving beans each week for at least the next month.

I've made 2 recipes so far. The first one involved dried pinto beans, ground beef and rice. It was ok but a little bland. Apparently pinto beans need a lot of spice. It was the first time I'd ever made dried beans and that part turned out good.

Tonight I made a southwestern style pasta with black beans. This time the beans were canned. This dish was awesome! We all really liked it. It had a lot of spice in it. I'm not sure how practical this dish would be in a situation where we would be using our food stores, but it could serve as a special dish to make things more bearable.

Since beans and rice are supposed to be a complete meal, and beans and rice are both easy to store, I want to experiment with different types of beans with rice using different spices.
Since I am trying to build up food stores it seemed important for us to learn to use and eat beans before we were forced to. Beans are cheap and easy to store for long periods of time. What I did discover is that I also need to plan on storing different spices to make the beans more palatable.

If anyone has any favorite bean recipes they'd like to share, I'm all eyes!

Eggs

Here are the eggs I've made (except the one I gave to the egg lady). Some of these are for Twinville if she ever sends me her address...

If she doesn't, who wants some eggs?

21 day challenge

Verde is hosting a really interesting 21 day challenge. The idea is that things are going to fall apart in 21 days (actually 19 now) and we need to prepare. What would we do? Where would our focus be? What would we buy? The idea is for this to be more than just a thought exercise, but to be taken seriously. With things up in the air for us right now, I'm doing some but not taking this as seriously as I otherwise would. Unfortunately, the news this week makes me think I really should be taking this seriously. I just need things to hold on for 2 more months!

Wendy has written some great, thought provoking posts in the last few days. If you haven't visited her lately, I recommend you do so! I used to have deep thought provoking ideas, I actually used to blog about some of them. But the last 5 months have taken so much out of me, I'm not sure I'm capable of thought provoking anymore. Good thing we have Wendy around!

What it looks like today

The bumps look different today, I hope this means they are starting to heal. They look much more like chigger bites today I think. It is still really, really itchy!!

What is this?

Sunday evening I noticed some red, itchy bumps on my leg. By Monday I was covered from toe to waist in these bumps. They are extremely itchy!! I've even had to take an anti-histimine just to be able to sleep.

I thought it might be flea bites, but don't think so anymore, there are just too many of them. Mark thinks it is poison ivy, but I've never seen poison ivy look like discreet bumps. A friend said maybe chiggers, which is seeming most likely, but I'm just not sure.

Anyone have any ideas? We did go hiking Saturday so the timing fits with poison ivy or chiggers. All I know for sure is it is the itchiest thing I've ever experienced, sometime to the point of pain. And I can't sleep for long because of the itching.

FINALLY!!!

We sold the house!!!

We got way less than we wanted but it is done. We had inspections Wednesday and only a few minor things came up. Mark fixed all of them but 1 which will need a contractor.

We don't close here until October 27, so I'm going to be nervous for the next 6 weeks, but I can't imagine anything going wrong now since inspections are done (well, actually I can but I'm not going there).

We close in GA on Nov. 1 and move in Nov. 4! It seems so far away but I know we're getting close now.

I'll post pictures of the house in GA later. It made it through inspections too.

What kind of shoe are you?

You Are Clogs

You are a solid and down to earth person. You seek – and almost always achieve – a really sound balance in your life. You are stylish yet comfortable. Mellow but driven. Excited yet calm. You are the perfect mesh of contradictions. No matter what happens, you have the ability to stay well grounded in your life. People know that they can truly depend on you. You should live: In Europe You should work: At a company dedicated to helping the world

What Kind of Shoe Are You?

Boy, how boring am I? This describes me well I hate to say. I'm very reliable but not very exciting. I guess I'll be a good survivalist though.

Werner the Weiner Dog

The dog is done! This project was a bear! I much enjoy doing the smaller projects.

Here is Logan walking his dog and eating a muffin.

A close-up of Werner.
Logan loves his dog.