We're in the Country Now!

Here are some clues we are definitely experiencing rural living:

1. The picture above is actually Brookie, playing with her barn and animals while I am writing this post!

2. Big Fish asked me to mail in our application for the Family Membership to the Boyers Sportsmen's Association.

3. I currently have a chart in my kitchen that tells how to measure grain in bins and ear corn in cribs.

4. Seed catalogues have been ordered.

5. The bird feeder must be refilled daily.

6. Trips to the grocery store are called "trips to town" and should only take place about once a week.

7. Mr. Tom at the local feed store/hardware store told me I should be shopping there once a week instead of the grocery store!

8. I had to shoo away a woodpecker from pecking on the logs of our house (two times now).

9. We ordered a quarter of a beef cow from church friends.

And the last reason we know we are in the country:

10. Our family has had actual discussion about hanging a mounted deer head in our living room.

How fun this adventure is! We are loving our country life; praise the Lord for His care.

Off to be a Good Little Consumer

The kids and I are venturing out in the snow to add our stimulus to the economy. On the list today: pick up some wine for visiting house guests, find a pine wreath for the house, purchase a welcome mat on which to wipe muddy feet, buy groceries, etc.

One other thing I have to buy - a card reader for the computer. Due to the fact that we have a newer computer and an older camera, a simple cable is not doing the trick to get pictures up on this blog. I am so thankful Big Fish knows his way around technology! Someday, soon, dear blog readers I can show you some pictures of the house and our tree.

Since Brookie has decided that cleaning the windows involves licking her finger and rubbing it all over the glass, I must now go and introduce her to the finer points of housekeeping. Stay warm and cozy!

A Discussion on Firewood

I had a chimney guy come out yesterday to put a lock-top damper on our fireplace chimney. Today we are supposed to get some firewood delivered. Hopefully, we'll be able to cut and stack our own wood in the future. In many situations the wood needs time to dry and season. We would like to use our fireplace now! I can't even imagine how much wood is required to heat a whole house all the time.

Our new house actually has a furnace system that not only uses oil but also has the capability to burn wood or coal. We are attracted to the wood burning idea (especially since it uses the ducts already in place throughout the house), but we'll have to stockpile more wood!

How do you heat your homes? And how do you keep the air from being too dry in your house if you do burn wood? Does a humidifier of some sort do the trick?

We did discover that energy efficient items like the lock-top damper qualify for a bit of a tax credit. I think it's about 30% of the bill that can be refunded. Make sure you are saving receipts for your energy efficient things - even the light bulbs!

In other news: the camera has been discovered and batteries charged. We are now missing the cable that enables us to download the pics to the computer. Someday we might get it together! In the meantime, we're going to bake cookies! I would like to make the batter for two kinds today: gullets and maybe giant nutmeg cookies. I'm a bit behind on baking, but I did go through ye olde cookbooks last night. I have about half a dozen varieties that I would like to get done. Then, I have two kinds of candy to make. I'm thinking a little tin of cookies would be a nice gift for the neighbors. Best to get busy!

We're Home!

Now.....if I could just find my camera to take a couple of pictures of the progress! We are officially in our new (to us) house and working on unpacking. We have a lot to be thankful for, and we are enjoying the views of the woods around us. This morning I saw some kind of woodpecker from the kitchen window. We've hung a bird feeder and suet feeder and have sighted some nuthatches, titmice, bluejays, etc. Yes, the pesky squirrels have shown up as well!

Exactly five days after moving in we hosted Thanksgiving dinner for my side of the family. Dinner was actually the Friday after Thanksgiving, and there were 21 people in attendance. It was so fun to show our place to my dad's parents and his three siblings. I've started a guestbook to coincide with the beginning of life in the new house.

Well, blog readers, I'm back to the world of unpacking. We just hooked up to the internet yesterday, so I'm looking forward to "getting back to the swing of things" - as the saying goes! Hopefully, I'll be starting some crafty type things soon! I have some Christmas baking - cookies especially - to hopefully share as well! Cheers for now!

Hopeful-New-House No Longer!

We now own the house! I just got back to my parent's place after signing all the papers and unloading a pickup load of stuff. Busy times ahead as our belongings are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.

The next post I write should be coming from our new place. Hopefully, we'll get the ol' internet hooked up soon.

Come on for a visit. The door is open!! Just don't pay any attention to the boxes.

House Update

Well, we are in the final push! Tomorrow (Friday) at 10 a.m. is the scheduled closing on our hopeful-new-house! This past week has been a frantic scramble to get it all together. I think our mortgage broker has been doing most of the frantic scrambling!

Today I discovered I needed to take our down payment in the form of a cashier's check. Well, the bank with which we have our accounts does not have any branches in the area! We had to do some quick thinking and phone calling. It looks like Big Fish will be able to wire the money while he is in VA picking up our belongings with the moving company.

Did I mention that I had to get power of attorney to sign the papers for Big Fish and I? Just another detail we had to take care of this week. I can't wait for the big sigh of relief that will happen after the papers are signed!

As I told our mortgage broker, we sure do have a lot to be thankful for (even with our closing day being pushed around). As another friend in a very similar house situation described; we just have to realize that this is all part of God's plan!!

One wonderful event this week for which we are mightility thankful: the arrival of my brother! He landed in Philly yesterday from his job as a missionary doctor in Uganda. He'll be home for about 3 weeks; we'll get to see him next week! Brookie has been coloring lots of pictures in preparation for her uncle's visit!

Knitting News

I'm having a love affair with the cable! In my very limited kniting experience it is one of the most fun stitches to do. Check out some pictures of my latest projects; one of which includes a wonderfully chunky cable running right up the center of the scarf.

The rust yarn on the single needle is the very beginning of a hat for Brookie. This pattern I am teaching myself how to do a picot edge. I think the yarn color is so rich and yummy!

The last couple of pictures show Small Fry modeling his new hat. On this project I learned how to use DPN's (double pointed needles). This was a cute little pattern available for free on Ravelry.

We have received news that our closing date for the new house is scheduled for this Wednesday afternoon. Yippee! Now I just want to scramble and get my mom's kitchen curtains done. I'm working on the valance for the last window.

Follow Me

A new gadget (or widget) has been added to the right side of the blog. I don't really know the correct term; what is the difference between a gadget and a widget? You can follow me and stay on top of updates. Before I knew about following blogs, I manually clicked to each blog in which I was interested. This was a little bit of a time waster because often I was checking and re-checking blogs that did not have new entries. I love following blogs now, and I can really zip through and see who has something new. I hope it works for you!

Another area for my blog improvement is the banner. I would really like to make something personalized. This is a work in progress.

Today is a bank holiday (Veteran's Day), so we have no news on our closing date. Our mortgage broker is encouraging us with the idea that our closing should be early next week. We might be able to sleep in our new house next weekend!

Monday, Monday!

This is what happens to us when daddy leaves for the work week! Small Fry has to sit in a box to read his book, and Brookie has pj's on that do not even come close to matching. In mama's defense, daddy loves to see what fashion extremes he can go to in the choice of pj's including last night!

We have had a bit of great news just now; the second appraisal on our hopeful-new-house just came in the email! This appraisal is higher than the first, so we're hoping for a quick closing. We are thankful!

Today is project day. I've started to make some kitchen curtains for my mom. They're to be her Christmas present if I can get them done. She knows about them. Actually, she picked this awesome fabric!

It's a great little pattern on an almost wheat colored background. I have two regular size windows - about 40 inches wide or so and then a valance in the third window to make. Curtains are fun.....just a lot of straight seams!

The Waiting Game and Fabric.

Our family is waiting - learning patience - for the second appraisal on our hopeful-new house! We are supposed to hear something today, but the appraisal company is based out of CA. We east-coasters hope that we will hear something tonight. I've always wondered if people who travel a lot for work have problems with time changes!





I did something rather adventurous today: I took some of my handmade items to a local shop! (I know, I totally lacked a transition there.) Tapas, located in downtown Sewickley, takes artists' work on consignment. They took some of my things! I most appreciated the time the owner took with me. This really is my first time approaching a store, and she was most helpful with suggestions. I really, really need to find cheap fabric and I mean cheap prices.





I lament the fact that a certain large store (name begins with a W) no longer sells fabric. Any suggestions you might have for finding fabric would be much appreciated. Maybe my research will help you a little bit. This site has served me well. It has great sales, and free shipping is available on orders over $35. Etsy has produced some quality fabric from individual shops. It just takes a little time to find sales. I have even bought fabric on ebay!





I am hoping to find some fabric suppliers in the Amish country when we move a little more close to that area. Lastly, it's a great idea to make friends with your local fabric stores. Fabric does go on sale, and they might be able to help you locate and order specialty items. A local yarn store, actually, carries a line of Kaffe Fassett fabric that I love. I asked if they ever put the fabric on sale, and the owner said she could give me 15% off right there! It never hurts to ask........ Oh, one more place I found cute fabric on sale was IKEA.





Hopefully, this will help someone out there! And hopefully, we'll have a house update soon! And hopefully, all the links in this blog post work! Thanks, Amy, for your help in that area.

New (for us) House Update and Some Other Projects

Well, we have made it to one of the more crucial steps in the home-buying process. Drumroll, please.....the appraisal! We have had one appraisal already last week which came in low. This is not good, BUT there were some errors on that report. I won't bore you with all the details, but one example on the report documents the house as having 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Believe me, we actually want to find a house with more bedrooms and bathrooms than the apartment we just came from. We are a family of 4, people.

So, we have asked for a re-appraisal hopefully to correct some of those errors. We get that news tomorrow. I'll keep you posted!

One project about which I am so excited is my fleece. Yes, I know a guy who had sheep! He sold me a whole fleece! For $5! He had Cheviot sheep, and the fibers seem to be sturdy and useable for a variety of projects.

I have had the fleece hanging in a bag in my parents' garage for a few weeks. It really needs to be cleaned, and I just happen to know another person who can help me. I'm supposed to take the fleece to her place tomorrow to start the cleaning process. I don't know a thing about this - I know we need some sunshine and soap and scissors. This is going to be fun; come along and learn with me. I already have ideas rattling around for dyeing the wool. I want to try some onion skins for yellow and some beets for purple! Pictures to follow.

Today I'm designing a pattern for a simple belt/scarf. Brookie and Small Fry are down for their naps, so I'll see what I can get cut.

Here is another recipe that was super enjoyable (and used up some more of the apples of which we had aplenty!). Oooohhh, I've always been so amazed with blogs on which people linked to websites by just clicking on the word. I hope this works. Enjoy!

Separation Anxiety

I know a lot of people are thankful for Fridays; the weekend is often a time to relax or maybe do things around the house. Our little family is especially excited about Fridays because we are reunited with Big Fish! During our time of transition, while we are waiting to close on the house, the kids and I are able to stay with my parents. Big Fish travels up to work e-a-r-l-y Monday morning and stays at a place close to his employment until Friday afternoon. We have done this since mid-August.

Needless to say, when the weekend comes, we are quite happy. My parents only live about an hour and a half away from Big Fish's new job and where we hope to live, but we are trying to save a little on gas money - not to mention how tiring in would be to drive 3 hours a day. We sure have a whole new level of appreciation for people who have long commutes or are separated from the families for a lot longer time period.





Moving from Virginia, we are SO excited to be much closer to my parents. Little weekend visits will be such a breeze! I think Brookie and Small Fry are excited, too. They love their daddy!



Hopefully this weekend, I'll share some pictures of the apple crisp that was made yesterday. It is now almost gone, so it's a good thing I took some pictures already! I would love to share the recipe, too!