Hidden Pictures

Do you see it?
That's the stinky ol' codger that is chasing the Steller's Jays out in the holly tree for his breakfast this morning.
He/She is also the stinky Stinkerson who thinks my chickens are his evening snack.

So...
just how do you get rid of these birds?

And i don't mean 86 'em, but can you put something up like flashy foil strips or limburger cheese that will offend him enough that he goes and snacks on rats, snakes, and voles?

I certainly don't want his antics ending up in a scenario like The Man In Black and T. Boone Chickens.

A Little Under The Weather

Hi! It's that time of year again.

The aches.

The pains.

The sore throat, tender ears and headache.

Is it just the change in pressure (weather is turning to rain around here) or is it a cold coming on?

Today started as any other day, but about half way through Math this morning i realised i needed so Pajamas-All-Day-Long Soup--for the sheer fact that it's broth is so comforting on my throat, if for not the reason that it is just a darned fine soup for Fall.

And since it's getting to be cold/flu season, i thought i would share the recipe. It comes from a dear friend i see not often enough, whom i met through the breastfeeding support group at our local hospital.

You'll need:

3-4 cups chicken broth

1 cup thin egg noodles (my friend is Jewish, so i think the noodles she is referring too can be found in the "ethnic" section of the grocer--fat noodles work, they're just more labour-intensive for the poor sicky.) :o)

tofu or chicken, to your liking

a 10 oz pkg of frozen spinach

an egg, scrambled

and 2-15+ cloves of garlic, depending on whether you feel under the weather or not.

Bring the broth and minced garlic to a boil. Add the noodles and cook till done. Add spinach and bring back to a simmer. Add your egg, stirring the soup while pouring, then finish off with your tofu or cooked chicken. If you're dealing with a stuffy nose or sinus issues of any kind, i've also added a mess of red pepper flakes to the pot (a mess being whatever you can typically handle in spicy food...for me, that's about 2 star or 1 tsp.) ;)

Now, i know, you're thinking "what kind of loving wife would willingly ingest soup made with 15 cloves of garlic and greet her hubbie at the end of the day oozing such rankness." My hubbie made a comment once...i asked him, "Would you rather kiss someone with extreme garlic breath, or would you rather miss the kissin' for a few days while your wifie pooh recovers from the crud?" If you have a tender lovin' hubbie, you know what his answer will be.

Of course, he is right.

After drinking a pot or two of this soup in a few days, you could theoretically knock off Dracula himself all the way in Old Transylvania just by whistlin' a few bars of "Pennsylvania 6-5000" from your couch in your living room.

I Can't Keep Up

Well, more news on the home front.

Something that is definitely going to have to have lots of discussion behind it.

In the past couple weeks, the Tudor house sellers have lowered their asking price, removed the house from the market, re-listed the house, and now have agreed to a boundary line adjustment to include more land with their house. They've asked their agent to contact us so they can get a look at our offer. Hubbie scares me, because i think he'd just say yes in a minute, but at the same time, he realises that he will pretty much be MIA from our home this Fall and Spring due to the seemingly impending flooding.

We shall see.....and if God is reading this, maybe he could give us an unmistakable sign--like winning the lottery or catching neighbours trying to set our house on fire or something BIG and certain like that! :o)

Via Papale = Molto Buon

Last night's movie was amazing to me. I haven't ever seen or heard something that put the world's history, religious history, art history, and architecture into a production so cohesive. It was really, truly thrilling--like being back at college all over again!

Then again, i am not a cradle Catholic, so anything about the history of my chosen faith i am very excited about. Moose, a Catholic since conception, said it was a little too restrictive for him...that an hour long format didn't allow for more information to be presented. That he would have like to have seen more historical info on the popes of the time provided so that when they talked of the making of the Via Papale, it didn't make it seem like they were just vain individuals serving as popes. I say, you have to consider the period of history--that maybe the popes were vain individuals and that is why our faith survived. Just depends on how you look at it i guess.

The movie begins with the history on the Sack of Rome in 1527, when the Pope Clement VII was elected and made a secret treaty with the French ruler. This made the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, furious, as he was in a war with the France. Charles V was formerly known as Spanish Emperor Charles the I--somewhere in history; a Medici pope must have made this change, as Charles V was a fellow in good standing with the Medici's. Hence why he was so offended by the secret agreement between P. Clement VII and France. People of the time were also up in arms about the demolition and rebuilding of Old St. Peter's Cathedral, which was the original monument and burial place of Saint Peter--hence Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation was born--at the time he was questioning the validity of a Church that would sell indulgences to fund a new St. Peter's Basilica while the old shrine looked and was "just fine", if you can say "just fine" about an Italian religious monument to that degree (and i would like to apologise now for a severe case of "Mom" brain this morning, hence this post will not read like a graduate thesis or anything remotely like it.)

With the discord of the day, Charles V was able to gather some German mercenaries into his Army and they attacked Rome in what is called "The Sack", that lasted intensely for 7 days, but had repercussions lasting many months. P. Clement V was essentially a prisoner for 7+ months in the Castle Sant' Angelo while Charles V army burned priests alive, nuns were raped, orphan children murdered, faithful citizens mutilated, raped, tortured, sold, or murdered, Roman (Vatican) treasures plundered, etc. No stone left unturned, basically.

From here, the movie takes you on a century long journey highlighting only the 6 most influential popes during that time: Paul III (Farnese family), Sixtus V (Peretti family), Paul V (Borghese family), Innocent X (Pamphelij family), Alexander VII (Chigi family), and another that escape my memory just now (that dreaded Mom brain! That'll ensure that you need to see the movie if i've piqued your curiosity enough.) Hee hee

The basic premise of the movie is that these 6 popes were committed to reviving not only a Rome that was basically on continual life support after the sacking, but also a faith that was being vanquished under the revolt and incapacitated by Protestant Reformation--their feelings were that if Rome died, so would the Catholic faith. Their vision was to recreate a territory, a Holy land as it were, through Papel procession from the Castle Sant' Angelo to the Coliseum and back, highlighting various religiously important areas, etc. Over the 100 years, cathedrals sprout up as not only memorials to the families that these 6 popes came from, but to serve as a form of urban renewal to show the faithful and the world's rulers that Rome was once again a powerful city ruled by the popes, and therefore by extension, God himself. The movie takes you on a journey through the mid 16th and early 17th centuries, highlighting the cathedrals built and the Via Papale, that up until the 19th century with the formation of the Italian gov't (rather than the Vatican-ruled Italy), the Via Papale was a sacred avenue, a tradition, a religious path, a soulful route...now almost completely vanished by the restructuring that Mussolini's gov't completed in the 1920's and the renaming of city blocks by owners/sellers of the late 19th - early 20th century.

All in all, it was an impressive flick for only being a little over an hour long. And the beauty of the cathedrals and the landscape outside is a wonderful "pilgrimage" for those of us who haven't been to Italy. It was also a wonderful night for our church, as the two theatres were practically sold out. At $15 per ticket, our $600K debt is going to take a beating, for the first time since i've been a parishoner at St. Phil's. Hooray!!! Once that is paid, we shall be able to have paid faith formation positions and viable renewal in our parish!

http://www.lostroadofthepopes.com/ --they are open to discussions for using this work as a means of fund raising for parishes!!

more historic info of the time can be found at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/

Exciting Night For St. Phil's: Update

Tonight is an exciting night for our church.

One of our parishoner's sons has made a movie, Via Papale, and is opening it locally tonight with ticket sales benefiting our church's debt reduction (a huge remodel in the 1990's that still hasn't been paid down.)

The movie looks incredible from the trailer you'll find on it's website. It sold out before we could acquire tickets (must remember to do things in reverse order next time--get tickets, then find someone to entertain Ri for a few hours.) :o) They had such a great response that they've added a second showing later in the night. What an exciting night for the family, eh?

WOO HOO UPDATE: Their second showing is actually a second screen at the local theatre, so we've secured our kid-sitter and are able to attend! Will let you know tomorrow what it was like and whether it would be a rental or a great addition to the personal DVD library. :o) If nothing else, it will be great eye candy with all the sites in Rome and the Vatican that i haven't seen in person yet. Hooray!


Just hoping that it is popular enough that it can be picked up and shown nationwide. It's what we as Catholics need--more historical info on our Church. And actual movies we can see at the theatre that aren't R rated, eh?

Watch the trailer, if you're so inclined! I think you'll really like it.

Fall Is In The Air (aka the ramblings of a homeschool mom)

This was Monday night's sunset over the Olympic Mtn Range. I love this time of year, normally, but i guess since we had such a busy start to the Summer, i'm feeling like we didn't spend enough time outside in the garden. That is never a good thing.

This week, we are feverishly working to catch up on homeschool projects from the new books we just received. I love the history book--it has some really creative ways to get kids interested (makes me wish i would have waited to start history with Ri.) We are going back to complete a role playing exercise, and while i won't say too much about it now (relatives involved may be following this blog), i will have a post about it around the beginning of next week.

The homeschool options is really becoming a great fit for our family. We can wake up at our own pace, and still have school started and finished mainly at 9-12. We read still throughout the day and sometimes work on our projects. But the morning struggles and the outside influence and the peer pressure on kids these days we are not missing. Especially once Ri got a few months into school last year, she would have terrible rages at night--rants as it were, i suppose. I don't know if it was because she didn't get enough individual attention through the day, if she was bored, if it was the inconstitancy of her teachers' rules, if she felt too much pressure or uncomfortable because the teachers always greeted her with a smothering hug and some "you're always a good girl" comment, or just the influences of other children (you know the little things like the girls idolised Hannah Montana and Ri was practically the only girl in her class that didn't watch Hannah or wear Hannah or wanna be Hannah. She was the only one without a DS. She didn't have sleepovers--except with her grandparents. And she didn't watch all of the High School Musicals or Transformers or....Etc.) But this year, we haven't had these power struggles THANKFULLY!

And i know we aren't the only one's with this problem, because yesterday at Irish Dance, i talked with a few of the parents, who oddly enough are mostly homeschoolers too, and they said they've experienced the same thing--calmer kids = lots more enjoyable family time + tons of giggles. I can't imagine how Ri must have felt in a classroom of kids that were raised so differently than her. In a class of kids who's parents loved school because it's a sort of daycare rather than a place children are supposed to be gleaning knowledge. I know i felt crabby at most of the world last year after the first playdate of the year. Seeing how other stay at home mom's skirted their duties and just purchased prepared meals for dinner all the time or hired maids and that left their "me time" intact for new clothes, nail appointments, and new hairstyles, etc. Kids are parked in front of the tv and parents have no idea what they watch. It's hard being the odd (wo)man out. It's preposterous that when you sign up to bring a treat for a school activity that other seemly adult parents poke fun at you because they are sure you'll be prepared to bring something homemade while they are going to have to stop by the store and get something because they always forget until 7am the morning they are supposed to bring the treat. It's shameful and infuriating when people, who can afford a sweet ride, skirt responsibilities such as paying tuition or remembering to help their child bring their homework or special sharing item. And it's very embarrassing when you kindly decline an invite to McDonald's for a playdate and the next day you show up to an interigation squad about why you weren't there and when you share that your family doesn't eat McDonald's (we have fast food burgers once or twice a year, if we're foolish or lazy enough) and you're answering all these lifestyle questions and people, who don't even know you, take pot shots about your lifestyle because they read a quick story about those kinds of people who eat organically, recycle, knit, hug trees, and scrub otters. Because everyone chooses the lifestyle they are going to live by checking a box and subscribing to all the ideas, rule, and regs contained within. Right? :o)

I feel so completely empowered this year--Ri has really become a completely different type of student. She doesn't whine when it's time to go to a lesson or start schoolwork. Bedtimes are more regular, even with her dad working so late. When she says she's tired in the middle of the subject, i explain that she still needs to finish no matter how tired and give real life experiences like what Daddy or Mommy do when we might still be tired. It's refreshing to see how quickly she is realising the world is bigger than her. Now to teach her to find her place in it. Oy!

That's enough rambling for this morning...sorry to talk your ear off.
We're off to start another fun filled day of school. Hope you all are enjoying your first full day of Fall!

Retail Therapy

What can cure the blues faster than anything?

A sweet find at the local thrift, eh? Hooray!

Tiger Toes and i went to the library today to collect some more books on zebras, since that is the first animal she will be studying. Then we headed to the new Goodwill that just opened up in an old grocery down the street from us.

Lots of stuff there...and it's a brand-spankin' new store, so everything is so clean and orderly (can't last forever though, eh?) It's an annoying store, mainly because of our area, in that there are many different cultures here and not all get along. The store will be sharing space with a Hispanic grocer, so it's rather on the smallish side for a Goodwill--i've seen bigger Starbucks.

Tension in a thrift store is never a good thing either. We have many Asian cultures and Hispanics in the area that like to buy everything in sight to send to friends and family back home. Each person shopping in the respective families has a cart, most are filled to the brim with junk. This means you have to fight for a spot in the aisles and if you find a set of something, you have to grab it all right away, or they could rush in and grab the rest. Our area is mostly low to low-middle income earners so as you can imagine, nothing is really of any value at our chain thrifts--those pricey items getting shipped up to Bellevue or some Eastside community where people will pay over $$ for glasswares or etc or sold to a collector or an antique agent. The saving grace is that there are a few of the older families in the area that still have their cool wares from when they moved their families into Normandy Park or Des Moines (little waterside communities in neighbouring us.) And most Hispanic or Asian families aren't big collectors of Fire King or Pyrex. They tend to go for the flashy, modern stuff! :o)

Today, thankfully we had hit the book aisle first thing and Ri had found some Magic Tree house books she didn't have yet that would keep her occupied while i waited and looked...and waited--and after waiting my turn for 5 minutes in an aisle where two Hispanic ladies blocking the glassware aisle with their carts and debating to purchase a 2 dollar film camera or not, Ri and i were able to scour the shelves. I found a couple of Pyrex dishes that i will wait to debut here at another time, namely because i can't find them on any of my Pyrex info sites (i've called in the big guns though, and once i get the collector's guide from the lib, i will take a picture and share.)

We tried to get a good look down the plates and dishes aisle, but there were too many stalwarts holding their ground, digging through seemingly nothing but 99 cent dishes. After excusing ourselves past someone who made a comment about the store being too crowded (imagine that, on grand opening day! Huh?) and some colorful coloquille Spanish cursing, we hit a pocket of "ladies" that were just unkind. A couple gentleman tried coming down the aisle and these women scared them off. Ri and i waited & tried standing our ground as politely as possible, asking if we might squeeze in to try to find any of my coveted Franciscan Desert Rose plates--these were the type of biddies (wink, wink) that knew what they were looking for too. Only to them, it's not a crap shoot whether they find something or not, to them failure to procure is not an option and i was a pest! Oy! After getting the whale eye from these gals and a whole hearted "These aisles just aren't big enough for rude and impatient people," (yeah, i agree, and they aren't big enough for 3 bossy cows to be taking up precious sq. footage with their 3 shopping carts, "laying claim" to the aisles like they were staking out a homestead, but i still waited politely for 3 minutes before i asked to sneak a peek as i scrunched by.) Trying to squeeze Ri, our arm load of books, and Pyrex dishes past them, we rounded the corner of the aisle where Lo! and behold Thee awesome find today was an eight piece set of the 1950's Fire King Mother's Oats milk glass cup n saucer set in the Bonnie Blue (aka Bachelor Button) pattern. I couldn't help but gasp and a whispered "Fire King" was allowed to escape my filter between my brain and mouth. I think i gave those ladies whiplash. Ha! Anything Fire King i love, especially since my acquisition of a couple of the tulip patterned milk glass cups and saucers. While i was scooping them up, another lady came over to me and asked if she could see one. "Good glass and plate, huh? Not so pretty, huh?" Sly! But, sorry, too late! Even better, i didn't have to pay antique store prices for this set--only $2 each cup/saucer pair! And you can imagine my surprise when i got home to research and found a complete set like this goes for 4x as much as i paid for it. Yee haw!! I'm also very excited because i found a really useful Fire King site for you, incase you have pieces that you need help dating.

The blue flowers will look swell with the Blue Orchard Noritake plates i got for our tea set earlier this year.

At the library, i found the beautiful pattern underneath the cup in the picture above--it's for a quilted floral tablecloth, backed with cotton flannel from the Feb '09 issue of Crafts n Things. I can't wait to make it, however it's going to take some time just to acquire all the fabric. 2 "sets" of fabric, one of 13 different styles of green and blue backed florals, and one of 13 different styles of pink and red backed florals!! Then a different one for the border! Sheesh! It will all be worth it though.

It's a Potluck

In reading one of the blogs i follow, this morning i found that a blogging friend of her's is hosting a potluck--a recipe exchange of sorts. So i thought i would participate.

Her blog is here.

My recipe contribution is here.


Sorry i haven't been much for posting regularly...where are the days when i could post 2 or 3 times a day?? :o) I'm patiently awaiting the arrival of tomatoes, that are ever so slightly pink now, with canning jars and recipe at the ready for homemade pasta sauce. Also trying to harvest more potatoes, but the longest garter snakes i've ever seen are deterring me from digging around in the hay-covered plots. Damned my childhood rearing in AZ that trained my pea brain to run from snakes...that i can't even co-exist with a measely little bug and mouse eating slithery thing, with miniscule teeth at best, without automatically running awayas i'm afraid and confident he'll strike at any minute. Just proves that maybe i'm not quite cut out for this "farming" lifestyle i'd really like to be a part of. :o)

Also, trying to focus on homeschooling schedule right now, especially since Tiger Toes is trying to declare mutiny! Yesterday she bellowed while thrashing about on the floor, "But Momma, it's just that...that...History is sooooo, so, so.....YAWNY!" :o) Spoken (much to the dismay of my history buff hubbie) exactly like her mother at age 7 when all i wanted to do was read about animals and do math too. I hope that exhibiting disipline myself will be enough to help her learn it.

Also, things around here are getting quite desparate, as flood season draws nearer. It's not something that has caught the ear of the nat'l media yet, but just give it till Nov or Dec and you could potentially be seeing footage on the boob toob that you'll liken to that of NOLA post-Katrina. Moose (aka, Hubbie my hubbie--i've reverted to calling him Moose, as this is my pet name for him and it helps remind me to be as kind as kid gloves to him now) is on the front lines of this potential problem for our city...and this was in the local news today. The first picture they show in the article are the apartments i used to live in when i first moved here to Western Wa, after i met Moose. We used to go walking every day on the trail built on top of the levees there on the river. The surrounding land is farms, you'll see--what the Valley looked like 50 years ago, before the construction of the H. Hanson Dam, when it was okay if the Valley flooded. If you read the article, when you see the info on Mayor Suzette Cooke and her city engineers'...Moose is included--he's the city's Environment Engineering Super who is dealing with what can be done with the levees, the stormwater, floodwater management, usw. So you can imagine how spent he is already--and the floods haven't even come yet!!

He shared a few more daunting facts with me last night that i am not certain are public info yet, so i shall refrain from posting them here. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that a wall of water, rushing down from the mountains and into the Green River, spilling over the levees and infiltrating a city that has the 3rd largest warehousing district (square footage wise) West of the Mississippi really isn't a good omen for a city who's sole livelihood relies on these companies with their massive sq. footage. Literally, the more and more he deals with this, i feel our family is threatened. Not by the rising flood waters, as we live on the top of one of the hillsides in the city, but that we are a heart attack away from a drastic change in our lifestyles.

God help us!

Home Again and At Peace

We're back from Idaho again. Love that state! Love the drive (especially when there is someone there to help you with the whole 350 miles!!)

Took a detour last night through Seattle just to hear Tiger Toes squeal with delight as we went through the tunnels along I-90 on Mercer Island. It's a good thing we don't live in Boston, i tell you!

farm out along I-90 Central WA

Downtown Spokane

Pend O'Reille River, ID

Poppa, Tiger Toes, and Daddy

Tiger Toes having splashing contests with Daddy, Poppa, and Achoo

Sailboats on Lk. PdO

Hubbie getting fresh with the stuffed turkey while i was trying to take a picture of the beautiful countryside.

the purdy country i was trying to take a picture of...Eastern WA along I-90
wheat, potato, corn, mint and alfalfa fields for as far as the eye can see

Central WA farms with Mt. Stewart (N. Cascade Range) in the background

Lake Washington

I-90 floating bridge on Lk. WA

Downtown Seattle peers out from First Hill (aka Pill Hill because so many hospitals are located there)

This morning, we woke up and hit it.....

You know that feeling you get when you wake up and everything seems right with the world?

That has been our day today.

No rushing around, pulling hair, fighting tooth and nail to get some body to get ready for school.

No rushing about, feeling like housework or yardwork or errands needed to be completed by someone else's schedule.

First day of official school came and went...just like that.

Rules of the road were instilled last night and early this morning.

Math, English, and History all were completed between 9 and 12 today.

Including 15 minute breaks of play between each.

While still wearing pajamas.

Laughs were had, creativity stirred.

It was good!

Especially after we ran into former classmates at the grocery later today who were sharing all the different schedules for school they were keeping and the running around looking for uniforms and such. Whew!

And now, we're off for Irish Dancing...and that is good too!

Views out the living room window this morning

this is what math looked like this morning.

learning some, some more math equations

aah to be a kid again, eh?

Pictures Worth a Story

Mt. Rainier 09.09.09

friend's garden

aren't you glad you aren't a chicken?

thrift store book haul, 09.09.09

Tommy really needed his coffee before the trip to ID this wk.

Remembered

image source: Wikipedia

To the thousands of unknowing souls who went to work in NYC or got on an airplane thinking 9.11.01 was just like any other day, those who gave their life to help recover those preyed upon 8 years ago today, and for our country that was visiciously attacked.

R.I.P.

Done

Well, the deal is done and it didn't include us getting that house, as you can imagine.


Otherwise, i would have been posting on here, like, every 5 seconds saying, "I can't believe we got the house!!" and jumping up and down like a true "Jenny" and "Oh my Goodness, i can't believe we got that house?!" with head hung low and wondering what we just got ourselves into.


I can sum up the whole shebang in one word....Grrrrr. You know, as the operative sound in greed. :o) Basically, the owners of the home really think that their vacant circa 1994 home with flooding issues, two boilers, no usable property, stained carpet, no washer/dryer, kitchen appliances circa 1940-50, and possibly all original 1929 electrical wiring is really worth their asking price of 430K. Well......


So the owners also want to work with the developer who contracted to purchase some of the home's original acreage first; to close their land deal with them: the developers who have let their closing date on the purchase agreement expire, the developers who haven't followed up with the City since last year regarding their permit ap, and the developers who are probably going bankrupt since most developers in the area are doing the same.


Huh. I guess the owners might not be "a bird in the hand" kinda people. Personally, i'd rather a solid contingent 400K offer with an actually sale of a house to back it rather than a defaulted 800K that some developer has leveraged out of thin air, but then again, i wouldn't know what to do with that kind of money. :o)


We did get some work done on the house though. The dining room is cleared and finished!

I wish the rest of our house could be this cool!! Then, maybe i'd feel better about walling off the property and staying. :o)

Today, we are going to head to Idaho and pick up our Tiger Toes. She's been enjoying Achoo and Poppa's company, but it's time to bring her back to the real world. :o)

I'll post some pictures tomorrow of some of the wacky and wonderful things around here the past few days...and then we'll meet again next week.

God bless!!

Tuesday

Does anyone else think that Tuesday is a Charlie Browniest kind of day? Normally they are so ho-hum here. But today is a big day! This is the day the sellers of that house we like look at our offer. Hmmmmm......

Because we have 10 years worth of stuff hanging around our house, we almost hope they say "Forget it!" ;o) Isn't that horrible.

And today i have a junking date with my WW leader, of all days. But we haven't had any time to hang out in a while, so i'm going to go ahead and follow thru with the plans. Gotta get a box packed before i leave though!!

Also, the return of the Tommy Dispatches are here.

When Ri left for the first time to visit her grandparents by herself this past Spring, she gave us a snuggly to keep us company and remind us of her. That snuggly is a fuzzy black bear named Tommy. We kept taking him with us places and taking his pictures, then blogging about it so she could see all the fun he was having and all the help he was to us. Then sometimes in the mornings she'll email Tommy or call and want to tell him something.

This time, while she is away, she's charged us with Tommy and his faithful sidekick, Annika, the polar bear. They've been having all kinds of adventures (mostly to Lowe's.) :o)

If you'd like to see what kind of silliness keeps our Little One from missing Mom and Dad too much, you can check it out here.

Homemade Cleaning Products

Homemade Liquid Starch from Martha:
1 TBS. corn starch to 1 pint h2o. Refrigerate
To use: let warm to room temp and shake well.
(???: wonder if you could use a mint or lavender sprig or another kind of herb to add "fragrance"?)


All Surface Spray Cleaner
2 cups hot h2o
2 tbsp borax
1/4 tsp castille soap

add first two to a bottle and shake, then add soap.

Mildew and Germ Killer
2 c. h2o
25 gtts tea tree oil
25 gtts lavender oil

This cleaner has antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties.

Happy Labour Day!

Hope everyone is enjoying their 3-day weekend.

We are packing up.

Yesterday, we went out to breakfast with my parents and they whisked their granddaughter off to Idaho for an intensive week of spoiling. After, our realtor came over to have us sign our first offer.

We're not holding out hope, because needless to say, we are well under their asking price.

The owner of the Tudor lives in a completely different area of our region and for her region, the asking price is normal. But in this end of the Sound, it's too steep. But i can't blame a person for trying.

However, in good faith, we are painting the couple rooms that need attention in our house and boxing up; should the offer be accepted, we have 5 days after that to put our house on the market or our agreement is nullified.

Today we are painting the dining room/den (we use it as a dining room) a nice minty grey-ish green. We should also be hearing from the realtors about the offer we made.

Tomorrow, depending on the news, we'll either be repainting to remove the rag rolled paint effect from our bedroom and hanging curtains or we'll just be hanging curtains. :o)

I hope you all will be having a relaxing day of margaritas and munchies! Please have one for me!?! That's what holidays are for right?

Then again, it is Labour Day.

Another visit

First, i'd like to thank you ladies for your encouraging comments. And especially Thank you for not telling me that you think we are completely crazy to try to raise a family in a 1929 home!

Last night, we met out at the house again to have the other members of my inner circle, my parents, give their thoughts. They gave a thumbs up to the area, and shared some of their reservations and some really good advice and insights, just like any awesome parents would. And for that, you now see why a 30-something gal would take her family to see a home that she and her hubbie are considering acquiring. :o)

You know how you're really excited about something with just a few reservations, and then once you've started taking a legal step to procure it, your brain turns on the breaks--"Whoa, Partner." That's where we are. We've got to get our home cleaned out and in selling condition in just a few weeks, and hope it sells in 60 days, all while trying to negotiate land from a seller who's anxious now because the developer with the other property in front of the house just missed a closing date for the property in front of the house. We've got ten days to get the inspection done on the place and decide whether it is really something we want to get into. However, did ya that roar of the big 747 owned by the Chinese airlines that just flew by our house still making it's ascent into the sky...that's a pretty positive motivator to get outta here. I'd be surprised if they couldn't hear that puppy taking off from here all the way in China. The other night, it was the neighbour's nonstop belching and flamboyent use of "thee Mother of all curse words" that was like a cattle prod to get me going.

It's days like these where i wish i wasn't a pack rat! :o)
Have a great day, Ladies!!

Hubbie's Sold, So We're Gonna Go For It...

not much posting here, sorry--i supposed i should have been a little more organised and announced a "blogcation", however, i didn't think it would be so hard to put up a post or two upon my parents return home.

We have been pretty busy--lots of visiting and hearing stories of their wacky and wonderful trip to Brasil. I can't wait to see more pictures, but i am trying not to hound them about it, because i have a feeling my folks took so many pictures that they truely haven't looked at them all yet, and they'd probably like to get them in some order before they start showing them off.

Ri just started soccer in a new city and i am so ***thrilled*** with the coach and the team. Really laid back coach, 1st year coaching because his sons had a monsterous type A coachs last year. His 10 year old son is helping him as the "asst. coach". We even discovered one of Ri's classmates from last year is on the team. To hear the coach's kids telling the soccer-stars-to-be what good jobs they are doing and the parents introducing themselves, it just a whole different feeling from the last 3 years she's been on teams. And now, Hubbie will get to sit on the sidelines instead of coach, so we'll be able to delight in our little soccer player together!

And Hubbie has decided that he would like to get serious and put an offer on the Tudor home. Oy! So lots of clearing out and painting to be done here, which totally doesn't jive with my blogging schedule--or my canning schedule. Grrr. :o\ But, if we can get a nicer house and a bit more land, it will be a good thing in the long run. So...onboard i go, and i hope to be able to post at least once a week or so. Regardless, i'll still be reading all of my favourite blogs you ladies have created, so we'll be in touch.

Happy Rest of the Summer! And good luck with your canning, creating, and acquiring!
Fondly,
Whit