Pick Your Family

I forgot to tell you yesterday that along with Wyatt's birthday, the three year anniversary of the blog is coming up.
February 16, 2007 was the first post.
It's fun looking back on those old posts, and some of them even make my eyes a little wet because I started the blog to keep my family up to date with how our grandparents were doing.

Looking back I also see how really whitetrash we are.
If you had to compare your family to a t.v family who would you be most like?
The Conners, The Simpsons, The Ingalls or The Griffins?
I think we would be most like the Conners with a little bit of The Griswolds mixed in.
There would be a different dad instead of different kids in every episode.

I forgot to take the garbage out and I need to go fold the laundry.
Ciao'

I have to make this quick because the equine manicurist is due to arrive at my house in roughly an hour 15 minutes.

#6 arrived safely in Iraq yesterday. He said it was a long flight and he couldn't sleep on the plane so I'm sure he's good-n-tired.

He should be the one blogging instead of me, but he has terrible grammar and that would drive me crazy so I guess he should just stick to sending photos home.

Don't you HATE it when someone ends a sentence with a preposition?

ARRRGGGHHH!

Great game last night.

I guess.

I don't know Jack about football.

I cleaned my oven and went to Costco yesterday and after dinner I made fresh coffee soap.

Here's a picture just in case you missed it on facebook.

This afternoon I'm going to make some tomato soap.
It takes the stink off.

Wyatt got a hair cut yesterday so the option of him joining a boy band is officially off the table.

His Birthday is on the 16th.

Any party ideas?

He wants a paintball gun.

Maybe I'll take him paintballing.

Is that a word?

Paintballing?

My Sister and her family are going on a ski vacation at the end of this week, maybe I should just have her take Wyatt along.

That would be a great gift for both of us :)

I need to go on a diet, I'm wearing my fat girl underpants again.

Yakety Yak

Ahhhh.... It must be the fifth of the month.

I can always tell when it's the fifth because the gate on my driveway turns into a revolving door.

A revolving door manned by my extremely obnoxious dogs.

The fifth of the month is rent day, the day all the trailerpark folk meander down to make their monthly donation to the farm and it's upkeep.

The day my dogs all go a little horse.

Speaking of little horses, the farrier comes on Monday to do the donkeys feet and I'm crossing my fingers he will decide to buy the "modular home" that's for sale up there.

How great would that be.

I could have the best manicured donkeys in Beavercreek.

I was telling you the other day about my sheep that are dropping like flies, but did I tell you what I decided to replace the sheep with?

Yak.

I have been doing my research, and not only have I learned that they don't talk back, but you can use their yak hair to make stuff.

I could make yak hats, yak blankets, yak slippers, yak scarves, yak rugs, yak mittens, if I really wanted, I could probably even make yak soap!

I think I'll stick to yak hats.

So, if you hear of anyone trying to offload a yak, I'm the girl to call.

Not Really Like Little House

I got alot done yesterday, kind of made up for the day before.
I don't have anything exciting to post today, so I'll just tell you a story.

It was 1977 and we were living a comfortable suburban life in a nice home on the Willamette River just outside of Portland Oregon.

My father was an insurance adjuster and my mother stayed home, but was far from being your average homemaker.
~My crazy mother is a topic for another day~
We lived in a small friendly neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else and the kids all played and rode bikes until it was time to come in for dinner.
Sounds good huh?

I guess it was to good to last.

My sister and I had an idea that there was trouble in paradise as our Mom had moved out of the house a time or two, but the big surprise would come wrapped in the decision that our parents made to save the marriage by moving to a small Island in Washington State.

The plan was to build a log cabin on five acres in the woods, and really the only hitch in that plan was that we were not a family of builders.
My Dad built a boat in the garage once, but it wasn't a houseboat.
After doing some research our parents bought a house that would be delivered on a truck and put together like Lincoln Logs.
Once it was figured out what we were going to live in, the question was where would we live while we built it.
Somehow it was decided that living in tents would be a good idea.
We had one large wall tent where our parents slept and then each of us girls had a tent of our own.
We hauled water in jugs, used an outhouse enclosed by trees and showered and did laundry at the trailerpark in town.
There was no power, no generator and no t.v, but about halfway through the summer we had a telephone installed.
It hung on a tree.

As fall started to turn cold and the house wasn't ready for us to move into we packed up again and moved to town.
My Mom and Dad, the three of us girls and two dogs moved into a one bedroom one bathroom apartment.
To this day I'm not sure which was worse, the apartment or the tents.
At least in the apartment we didn't have to drive anywhere to shower and we could turn on a light.
We ended up moving into the house by Christmas, but even then we only had wood stoves for heat AND for cooking, we had to climb a ladder to get to our bedrooms that were separated by sheets hanging from the ceiling and our phone was still on a tree.

It wasn't too long before my parents ended up divorcing.
My Dad left the Island and moved into a nice apartment in the city with running water, electricity and an indoor phone.
My Mom stayed in that house in the woods for a few more years and then sold it and moved onto a boat.
Of course there was a LOT more life packed in to those years then what I have just told you, these are just some of the highlights ; )

Please Hold

Ummm, so yeah, I didn't get the cupboards done yesterday.

Or the rug shampooed.

But, I did take care of the barnyard menagerie, talked on the phone all day, took care of some insurance stuff, did the dishes, got dressed, made soap and made dinner.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but I'll tell ya... It wears me out.

I have decided I am the family switchboard.

Mind you, I'm ok with that job, I love my family and EVERYONE else that calls too, but holy ring a ding ding, my phones are wearing out.

Between the phone and facebook, how's a girl supposed to get anything done?

So today I need to take Wyatt's project to school, do some grocery shopping, get the old crock pot from the barn and re-batch some soap, VACUUM, and do a load of laundry.

I think I'll reroute my calls through Ernestine today.

One Ringy dingy.....

Lovin From The Oven

I'm not blogging this morning because I'm cleaning out my kitchen cupboards and shampooing the rug.

But, before I go I have to tell you something.

Last night, Maria over at ~ Ramblings from the foothills ~ pointed me in the direction of

~ The Southern Plate ~.

Let me just say this...

O.M.G.

Last night I made...

And...

You HAVE to go check out her blog, AND she is just now publishing a cookbook that I will FOR SURE be buying.

The macncheese is under her 20 best of 2009 and the dessert is chocolate cobbler.

These are her photos so you know it when you see it!

Farm Report

What did you think of the Grammys last night?

I loved lady Gaga and Elton John, holy cow they were amazing together!

We took #6 to the airport yesterday where he took off for a week in Houston and then it's off to Iraq.

It all just gives me an oogy belly and I don't want to talk about it yet, but my eyes may have been a little wet as I drove away.

I think the guy from the mobile spaces may have buggered up the pump in the barn yesterday.

He came down asking if they could have their outside water that comes from the pond turned back on.

I told him no because I have spicket issues, but he said he would fix them if I would let him turn the pump on.

It turns out #6 had already told him no for all kinds of different reasons, but he didn't tell me that #6 had told him no.

#6 had even disconnected the wires so no one could just come down and flip the switch.

So "Bob" (his real name) goes in, knowing he's not supposed to turn the pump on, twists the wrong wires together and long story short I think he fried the pump.

A-hole.

We had two sheep die from old age last week.

It makes me sad because all of our sheep are really old and now they're all probably going to start dropping like flies.

The fist one to go was my favorite, "Ewe."

She was so friendly and would eat out of my hand and wasn't even afraid of the dogs.

The second was The Dawnald.

She had really funny wool that came down over her eyes and even after she was sheared it still looked like she had a comb over.

I think the next one to go will be Whoopie.

She really is the black sheep because she's our only black sheep.

She has a new found bravery that I think comes from knowing she has one hoof in the grave.

I have decided I will be replacing the sheep with Yak.

My favorite "other" blog post of the week.

Click here to read it.