Weekend Warriors

Thank God it's Monday! No really. I mean it. I needed a down day. We had such a busy weekend! We:

• fed children
• fed babies
• fed baby goats
• baked 2 coffee cakes
• washed the laundry
• changed diapers
• vacuumed floors
• hung 2 windows in our shed
• framed out the 2 new windows
• cut down trees
• took hubby to emergency room for using chainsaw on his leg (long story, he's fine, small cut, one big running stitch)
• went to a Geoff Moore concert after hubby returned from E.R.
• built dividers in shed for the goats
• built a gate for inside the shed for goats
• built a holder for salt/vitamin/mineral block
• cleared brush
• installed 20 T posts for fencing
• installed 200 feet of fencing

So, it was a great productive weekend. The goats now have semi-permanent housing, and mostly secure fencing. Today was a down day. I stripped wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom. Yep. It's what I do to relax.

Eating Better for Less

I'm a numbers kind of person. I love them. When I'm doing something that keeps my body busy, but not my mind, I often run numbers through my head. I figure out how much it costs in gas to go to the grocery store, how many gallons of oil give as much heat as a cord of wood (still working on that one), I do my budget in my head, then figure out how much I spend annually on certain things (a fantastic eye-opening exercise by the way). 

A huge amount of my figurin' time is spent on budget related items. I'm always trying to figure out how much I'm spending and how to spend less and the largest flexible area of our budget is for food.  So when I came across this post, I was definitely interested. The thought that I could spend less money for nourishing food is huge. The thought of spending less money for nourishing food that I could spend less time cooking? Oh, I can't even put it into words! Ok, so maybe my family won't go for eating kale, oats and milk every day, but it is definitely food for thought. (Sorry, had to do it.)

Birthday Boy!

I absolutely cannot believe it's been 11 years. Eleven years ago today, my third child was born.

My little Zach. So much of our lives changed when he was born. Having him was our first step away from the cultural "norm". We had finally realized that we didn't want to be past childbearing age and wish we'd had more children. (Thank you Pat Sarver, wherever you are, for teaching me this.) Zach was our first homebirth. (I got into an argument with my obstetrician when I was 32 weeks pregnant and we found a midwife who agreed to attend our birth.) After Zach's birth I finally left the corporate world behind and became a stay at home mom. We began homeschooling.

And now here we are, 11 years later. The time flew by so swiftly and I know that no matter how hard I try to slow it down, the next 11 years will go even faster. I don't know exactly when he stopped being a little boy. He still asks me to come tuck him in at night though. I'll enjoy that for as long as I can.

Happy Birthday Zachy Bear!

Adding on

We welcomed two new additions to our home this week. These little beauties are sisters and are a Nubian/Toggenburg mix.  Nubian goats are the ones with the adorable long floppy ears. Toggenburg goats have more erect ears. Since these are a mix, their ears are really long, but they stick almost straight out. Kind of like an airplane's wings.

 

They'll grow into full sized goats, and hopefully next year they'll give us baby goats and lots of milk. We don't have names for them yet. For now they're sleeping in a pen in the garage (for safety), but during the day we let them out into a fenced in area put up just for them. They don't like to be left outside alone though, so my middles have been spending lots of time out there with them. 

Summer List

I'm already a week and a half into summer, and I feel like it's going way too fast. So much to do, so little time.  So I'm going to try to make a list of things to do this summer and check them off as I go. Maybe it will make me feel like I'm accomplishing more.

• Paint Josh's bedroom.
• Read A Charlotte Mason Companion
• Reread Teaching the Trivium
• Stain the front porch
• Clean out the basement
• Make skirts for Maddie
• Organize my recipes
• Paint the upstairs bathroom
• Finish painting the hallway and guest room
• Go to the beach with the kids
• Learn how to use my camera better
• Make a quilt for Maddie
• Learn how to make yogurt and cheese
• Learn how to identify the plants in my yard
• Learn how to play the violin (this has been on my list for 7 years now)
• Learn how to play the piano
• Learn how to draft a pattern
• Sew aprons for Maddie and I
• Get a laptop for the kids for schoolwork

As of right now my list is nowhere near complete yet, but it's late and that's all I can remember. The good news is that the first one is done. Yay me!  I'll try to keep it up to date with what I get done and any new additions to the list.  Looks like it will be a very busy summer!