Quick Note

Well the kids have been here for a week and it seems like they haven't had nearly enough time.  They are headed to their homes tomorrow by way of Portland Oregon.  I will ride along with them so as to see my Mom in California.  Handy Hubby will stay home and hold down the fort!  (He really just can't conceive of a trip where the goal is to just visit!)  I will ride the bus home and see how that is.  I will be home in two weeks and may or may not be able to post anything from mom's computer. 

On Friday the youngest and his wife took a pregnancy test and it was positive, fun for us to be with them at this very special moment.  This will be our first grandchild and we are suitably excited.  Hope everyone is doing well and at worst I will be back online October 4th!

The drive through Oregon and northern California should be beautiful this time of year - we are hoping to see some beginnings of leaf turnings.  Enjoy the rest of the month!

Slow Living August Look Back

Slow living August -

I've been reading 'Slow Living Essentials' for quite some time now and decided to take the plunge and see if I could figure this out! It's such a nice idea to stop and take stock.

Nourish – August has been peak harvest month in the garden. We had two weeks of corn on the cob with our meals, we are still eating tomatoes, the freezer is full of zucchini and summer squash, lettuce, onions, peppers, radishes and cabbage, now we are getting more and more green beans. Love eating food we know is raised healthy. We didn't plant enough this year (experimenting) to get us through the winter, but we will enjoy some things all winter long and that will help.

Prepare – Canning and freezing and my new foray into fermentation (hooray!) the harvest is better than we thought it would be and so we prepare for the cold that will be here before we know it.

Green – We have worked on composting this year more than last year, our kitchen trash has been greatly reduced.  We have been doing our own tree trimming this year and will be able to cut back on the electricity we use in the winter from the small heaters since the wood stove is so much more efficient.

Grow – Just putting in the peas and garlic, one for fall the other for next year

Create – Have begun a 'throw' out of monks cloth that I am doing counted cross stitch flowers on.  I have also been working on quilted curtains for the kitchen (to start) that will hopefully keep out the cold and heat in their seasons, help the wood stove in the winter and keep the fans adequate in the summer.  We nearly caved on buying an air conditioning unit for the bedroom this summer but managed to stay strong

Enhance – This coming Saturday will be the first meeting of the new quilting club that another lady and I have begun in our church. We are calling it 'home arts' club and hope that some of us older ladies can teach our skills to some of the younger ones!

Discover – I have had a surplus of zucchini this year (doesn't everyone?) and have had a lot of fun surfing the inter-webs and trying new recipes, I have new jam, bread and relish recipes in my cupboard and freezer,

ready for winter enjoyment!

Enjoy – I have been having a lot of fun with my genealogy work this month as I have found 2 more cousins (2 or 3 times removed) and have been sharing family tree stuff with people who don't start looking for excuses to get away from me. (like my kids!)

 This is the road to Grandmas farm.  I am thinking of using it as the cover for my genealogy binder for this side of the family.  So many memories.

Fall is here - I think.

You can feel it in the air, the coolness in the breeze, the need for a little extra on the bed at night - I think fall is here or at least close.  Why aren't I sure?  Because every year about the time I predict the demise of summer it comes roaring back for a week or so and I am depressed.  I love fall!  I am ready for fall, I want the trees to start turning, I want to break out light jackets, use my oven again, watch football and work on my winter hobbies.  I have enjoyed my summer and I think we have accomplished a lot this year on the property, but I am done. 

I have celebrated this Labor day weekend by contracting some kind of gastrointestinal bug, so we didn't get to church this morning (limits to things we try to share!) and I just have no energy this afternoon so I'm working on cleaning out my computer files.  This involves me going through every folder one at a time and organizing the files, making new files for things that have built up, separating folders if they have become overused or unwieldy.  I do this fairly often and have really been pleased over the past 2 years with the results. (saving time spent looking and searching through files and folders) Instead of a 'recipe' folder with a lot of saved documents or a bookmark folder with a lot of blogs and web pages that I can't remember why, I made internal folders so I have the equivalent of tabs like the recipe books.  Divided my Genealogy files on the computer into ever smaller family units (this one grows by leaps and bounds sometimes!)  I have been scanning over 30 years of photos (mine), and 50+ years of photos (relatives, in-laws, grandmas) onto my computer so I went through and grouped them by activity, so I have a file of 'Christmas' and within the folder are the years and whose house we were at.  This has helped keep it in control and made it easier to find things.  When someone asks for pictures of some event (like my cousin did for Grandmas 100th birthday party) I can go to the file labeled 'trips to Missouri' and then go through the individual years, rather than having to ask (or remember) what year it happened!  This is an ongoing project but at the end of it (hopefully this winter) I will have handed each of the kids a set of CD's with all the family photos on them and not have to worry about being fair (who got that picture - I wanted one of those!) or how much it will cost.  It will make a nice gift in a notebook with CD sleeves!  This also insures that they won't end up with a box of photos of folks they don't know or remember, labeling on the computer is a snap.  I have a few photos of Hubby's family that I don't know, he doesn't remember and his folks have passed away!

The other plus to this will be the 'what do I grab' issue, I will have all my photos and genealogy information (which I think is Terribly important!) on a set of CD's in my emergency bag that includes birth certificates, passports, insurance policy copies etc.  I also  have a CD in that bag with pictures of everything in my house including pictures of my drawers!  From an insurance standpoint it is a great thing to have in case of fire or flood or hurricane, you can prove you had all that stuff and there is no arguing about it!  Insurance adjusters love people who can prove their stuff existed, it makes the job so much easier!  I cannot tell you how many claims interviews I did where I would have to remind someone "of course you owned underwear?"  It is hard to remember things after a disaster - as you read this try to do a mental inventory of one of your kitchen drawers, then go an check - how many things did you forget were there?  If you can't remember/list them you won't get compensated after a fire etc.

This organizing chore takes several hours about once a year and I divide it up usually into smaller bits by doing 'bookmarks' one night and 'documents' another, but since my office is near the bathroom and I don't feel like moving around much I may get the whole thing done today!

This is also allowing me to stay inactive and not be too bored!!!
The kids will be here a week from tomorrow - I'm so excited!  I have so much to do!

Somehow this turned into a sort of 'brag and nag' thing - sorry, blame it on the stomach ache!