Friends in the South

My heart goes out to the families in the Southern US who are trapped at home due to the weather and out of work due to it.r
I pray your warm weather returns soon so your lives have their normalcy back!!

Favorite things Part 2

Oil Lamp

Tin back splash

 Cookbooks

 Buffet 1

Buffet 2

Some of my Favorite Things Part 1

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite things around my home.
I LOVE antiques. I have 2 antique buffets in my kitchen that store my kitchen goods.
I love Pampered Chef cooking tools.
I collect reproduction tin pictures and cans.
I also collect cookbooks. I have many cookbooks that my family no longer wanted and have gifted to me. I have some cookbooks that were my great aunts. My grandfather has a couple of cookbooks that were my grandmother's. I have baskets and recipe boxes full if recipes that have been handed down to me or from recipe exchanges.
In Part 2 I will post some pictures of my treasures.

I encourage you.....

.....to read one another blogs....to  glean from others knowledge.....to know every phase of life you are not alone......to visit places you typically can not go to...to enjoy your few minutes of online time. :)

MLK day

I am enjoying my day having housework done already and thinking of what I will fix for supper. I've been taking notes in my farming notebook for whenever we find the perfect place for us. I found a beautiful home online For Sale By Owner with land and fencing already up. But I know we're not quite financially ready to take the plunge yet.
We're looking for a 4-5 BR 1.5+ BA house with some acreage. I really want a farm house and have found 3 contenders so far. Each home has 20+ acres of pasture and woods. Hubby has promised kiddos if we find a place with enough land we are going to clear an area big enough for a baseball field that won't get in the way of the animals we want. I'm also looking forward to gardening.
I'm also hoping by the time we're ready to purchase a home i'll be able to stay home and not be working part time.

Relaxing Sunday

I was able to sleep in this morning which was rather nice. Hubby started housework which I'm just about finished with. I just need to go take care of our clean laundry when I'm finished with this post.
The boys are waiting for the Denver/New England game to start. When I'm done the things I need to get done I plan on reading my Better Homes and Garden magazine and catch up on reading your blog posts!!
Hubby is refereeing basketball today and I'm sure once he gets home he'll be asked to go plow. We have just over an inch of snow so far. I love lazy Sundays at home!!

A Little Research

I've been researching the how to's of hobby farming.  Seems none of us have farmed before I figure some research may be beneficial. One if the first things I've read was to set goals. I know I definitely want to have a Hobby Farm and start off small. I would like chickens for eggs and meat. I would like to raise pigs and a cow for meat as well as dairy goats. I'd like to have a small garden at first to have some veggies for the family.

In need of Natural Remedies PLEASE

This Fever/Flu has begun it's nasty grip in our family. 2 kiddos and Hubby are sick tonight. I noticed 2 other kiddos seem pale. I called my Aunt before the holidays and her family uses GSE as a preventative but do you have suggestions of what things to use and for what ailments??
For regular cold we've been using Cold*Eez as it's homeopathic. I would appreciate suggestions for fevers, flu, cough,colds, sore throats, etc....

Pause in the Day

We've had some crazy weather here in Maine this past weekend. Yesterday morning hubby and i decided to go to Dunkin for coffee and munchkins for the kiddos but due to freezing fog we had to turn around and go home because the roads were a sheet of ice. There were several accidents around and our interstate was shut down in spurts.
Hubby tried heading out to referee a basketball game but due to an extremely icy hill the Suburban slid into the snow bank breaking a brake line. Thankfully our other vehicle was just fixed!!
I want to share a cute picture of a gray squirrel that came right up to our kitchen window during the freezing rain.

Enjoying the Morning

I'm typically not a morning person but getting up with the kiddos to get them ready for school I enjoy. The 2 hours from the time the 3 get up until the youngest 2 get on the bus I truly love. Sometimes this will be the time I dig through cookbooks or search through recipes online to find something new to make for supper.
Most mornings the first hour I watch our local news and read all of the new blog entries on my reading list. I love reading about your days even though I may not know each of you in person!
Today I need to plan a grocery list so I can go shopping tomorrow morning. I need to search through some recipes as I try to do a new recipe once a week for our family. Plus I've ran out of coffee and i LOVE having coffee every morning.
Before I head to work today I need to run and buy some milk. I've been promising the kiddos homemade cinnamon buns and just have not made them.
Time for me to finish up the housework and get things accomplished before heading to work!

Strength

Sometime's life's trials are overwhelming. Sometime's I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs. But thankfully God sends me reminders. HE's here with me walking beside me holding my hand through this. I may not understand the why's behind the trials but I know it's to turn my eyes upon Jesus and ride this trial to its end even though this  has no end in sight yet.
Ride the Waves my friends, keep enduring the trials as I am there with you.

Vacation is Over

This past week has been pretty busy. The wheel baron on my SUV let go but I'm under the warranty so thankfully it was fixed for free. Having that fixed we found out we need to have the brakes replaced but it will wait another week or two.
The kiddos had an extra day off from school yesterday due to the rain freezing on the roads. The temp hot up to 50 yesterday and today it's in the teens with some wild wind. I've noticed our friends in the South are freezing like we are today.
Here's a pic of our driveway after having all the rain yesterday: