A Garage Becomes a Home

1. 

 Next week (this week in 8 minutes) we close on the sale or our house. So it is moving time! The garage is not truly done but there is a roof to go over our heads, 2 windows in (2 more small ones should arrive for the attic on Monday and then we can put them in too), and the main doors are in. It seems like we could use days that are twice as long as normal in order to get everything done but I think it will work out just fine.

We are not waiting until the day before closing to actually move stuff but rather have been working on it gradually over a period of time and now have been doing it much more heavily. Our house is beginning to look rather empty. Above is one of the rooms at Ken's office that we are using for storage.

 Here is one of our pretty windows. Do you know how much I love windows???

 Last night Ken and My Dad got the Sheetrock put up in my future honey room/ Bedroom for now. That was after the kids and I tried to put it up on our own on Tuesday. Holding Sheetrock up on 10 foot ceilings and screwing it in proved to be a little to much for the kids and I to handle. We did manage to mangle a piece of Sheetrock pretty badly and bang ourselves up a little bit before we gave up. Ken and Dad did it so quickly and smoothly - it was lovely to watch! The kids and I did manage to do much of the framing of that room so that at least was something.

 Jonathan put up a bunch of shelves today to store a bunch of stuff.

 I cooked our first meal in our new home - with all the doors open since I was using the camp stove. We are going to make a counter top outside for the use of the camp-stove in the future and indoor cooking will be on electric griddle, etc.

 We had stashed our deck furniture off in the woods to be out of the way of the excavators who will be working soon. Megan thought we should use it there. It went fine for some of us but others (the two oldest males) ended up falling over in their chairs because the chair legs sunk into the ground. It caused for some amusement and chaos at the lunch table. :-)

 BLTs were enjoyed by all. Meals have had to be simpler and not always quite so homemade with the busyness of this summer. Hopefully that can change soon.

 The 3 youngest kids are having attic bedrooms and they have been having a blast fixing them up. It feels rather like working on a fort but one that you get to really live in. We have been letting them do nearly whatever they want (they can pound nails, improve and decorate to their hearts content) and they love it. Above is Jonathan's closet that he fixed up with dowel rods. Later Aaron made a closet using a stick he had whittled and Jonathan thought that looked better (we like our homemade, rustic things) and so he switched it out so he didn't have boughten rods for his clothes either.

 Part of the boys room.

 Megan especially loves the decorating. She requested a plant to add to her area.

She pounded many a nail and has things hanging up all over.

I will plan on giving a full tour after we move in but this is a little taste of the adventure we are beginning.

The Re-purposed and Upcycled Life {A Book Review}

 Don't you think it is fun to take something that is old and seems rather worn out and then figure out a new purpose for it - to make it new? I love doing that with stuff but there is one far greater than I, Jesus Christ, who loves to do that with people. How cool is that?

  When I heard about "The Re-purposed and Upcycled Life - When God Turns Trash to Treasure" by Michelle Rayburn I was pretty excited about getting to read and review it. This was a concept that I had thought about many times and I was looking forward to reading someone else's take on the subject. The book did not disappoint my expectations.

  Michelle has a very fun and interesting writing style but she is able to also write in a way that encourages you and makes you think. Besides getting to read her thoughts in chapters with titles like "Junk in the Trunk", "Silver Hairs, Chin Fuzz and Fringe Benefits" and "Only You Can Prevent Frustration Fires" she also has a section at the end off each chapter called "Getting Personal" where she might share some scripture references that she encourages you to read, she may ask some pointed questions for you to think on and answer and she might propose an activity to go along with the lesson that she was trying to share.

  It was really good for me to think more on how God can use us - not just in spite of the problems we have but he can also use the bad things, the struggles, the trials in our life and make something beautiful out of them. As Michelle shares: "One of the most precious things to come out of a difficult experience is a beautiful testimony."

  Have you let God work in your life to Re-purpose and Upcycle it? Have you come through your trials stronger and more like what God wants you to be? Wherever you are at I think you would enjoy "The Re-purposed and Upcycled Life."

"Disclaimer - I did receive this book free for purposes of reviewing but the thoughts expressed are my own and I received no other compensation."

Re-purposing Bed Sheets Week 2 (Menstrual Pads)

 Menstrual pads. What an exciting topic, don't you think?!?

It may not be exciting but it is part of life and I have found that cloth pads (which I use as well as a Diva cup) are more comfortable, cost less and produce much less waste than a regular throwaway pad. I have also heard that they are better for your health.

 After planning to make them for several years I finally got it done this year and was disgusted with myself for putting off such an easy project for so long.

I choose to use all re-purposed stuff in my pads which made them free. Flannel (which is where the old sheet comes in!) is a very nice top layer. Absorbent terry cloth is good for the middle - old wash clothes and towels were put to work there and then I read that fleece would work good to work as a barrier cloth on the bottom - I used old pajamas for this. I works good to have Velcro or a snap or something to hold it in place. I used some old Velcro from some pants we had made into rugs.

  Cut your terry cloth into the size you like your pads to be. Layer it up as thick as you think you want. Zig-zag the layers together. Then sandwich the terry cloth in between the flannel and fleece that was cut a little bigger and with wings on it. Zig-zag around the edges to hold all that together and then sew again around to hold the terry cloth in place. The last step is to add the Velcro and then you are all done. It is truly very simple and you can make a bunch of them in an afternoon. After use just wash well in hot water.

Here is a link to another person's method of making them. You can find many instructions online.

The County Fair ~ A Neat Thing for Homesteaders

 We recently had our county fair. Like normal, the kids and I entered various things in the open class. We love taking things to the fair but I started asking myself why I am so committed to the fair even during a super busy Summer. Well there are quite a few reasons......

•  We enjoy making things and making things is something that I like encouraging my children to do and so this is a fun way to showcase some of the things we have made. 
• The fair motivates us to complete projects. I sometimes have the tendency to start a lot of things and forget about finishing them and the fair helps me to get things in order and get them finished (so that I can enter them of course!)
• Entering things in the fair has prompted us to try different kinds of crafts. For instance my girls are right now enjoying using knitting looms because I bought them when I noticed there was a category for things made on knitting looms at the fair. That is just one example.
• The fair is a neat place to be inspired by what others in our community are making. This year I saw some beautiful knitted projects that made me want to get out my knitting needles and give Fair Isle knitting a try. We also have some opportunities to connect with others that love to create too. I remember one memorable time at the grocery store when Mara complimented a lady on her handmade coat and then we got to visiting and we said who we were and she so sweetly said that she had wanted to meet us after seeing our name on things at the fair. 
•  We earn money. For the kids this is a big motivator. I also find it pretty fun. It isn't like you get tons of money per ribbon a first usually only wins from $3 to $8 per item and seconds and thirds are even less but when you enter quite a few things and get ribbons of some color on most of them you will end up with a nice check. This year I received $88, Mara $45, Jonathan $5, Aaron $9 and Megan $17. This year was a kind of disappointing one for the boys (that happens sometimes) but they have had other years when they have gotten quite a bit more.

 The kids enjoy getting the premiums so that they can have more spending money or sometimes they have given it away to missions. For me it is my little personal fundraiser for South Sudan African Mission.

    I have thought though if you were struggling to make ends meet how helpful the fair premiums could be. For instance in the horticulture department I entered very little this year - only a few herbs and some hollyhocks which were perennials that I could quickly and easily pick. They still won $14. That would have been enough to pay for 1/2 of my seeds that I bought this year. With a little more effort I think I could easily win enough money to pay for my seeds each year. Also the money could go to help pay for things that you want to make. This summer the kids and I made some pottery projects (we had been given the clay). We took them in town to a little shop to fire them and glaze them so that we could use them for eating on. I paid $15 to have that done. We entered several of them at the fair and the winnings from our pottery was just barely short of paying for what we had done - and of course we still have the things that we made for using.

 Anyway - those are a few thoughts on why we like entering things in the fair. I would love to hear your fair experiences!

A boat that Jonathan made and entered this year.

Are we Listening to Jesus?

Having visited with different friends in the last few months who had either divorced or were heading that way made these verses really jump out at me when I read them.

  "Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?" So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Matthew 19:3-6 (After this he does go on to say that they would have a right to divorce in the case of sexual immorality- but this is not the problem in so many divorces today.)

Are we still listening to Jesus?

Do we treasure the special, God designed relationship that we have with our spouse? Are we committed? Even when it is hard?

It is my hope and prayer that you and I and everybody else would start putting God's word and His will ahead of our own feelings and desires- in this and every other area of our lives.

School is in Session {Though not in the Traditional Way}

Plenty of kids to change one tire.

   We have been doing a lot of learning around here. But not from textbooks.

There are so many other ways that kids can learn and often they learn even better by the hands-on, being there in first person, approach.

Here is some of the learning that has been going on around here:

 ~ One day last week when the kids and I were out at the land our tire went flat. The boys were quite excited. At last the would get to try jacking up the van and changing a tire. So they got the van jacked up by themselves (Megan helped too) and learned how to take the tire off and replace it (I did end up doing most of that work but they watched). That was a bit of practical learning that could definitely come in useful later in life.

 ~ The kids had a garage sale. As we have been preparing to move we have been going through things and we had a accumulated quite a few things (though nothing terribly exciting -most of our stuff is second hand so be the time it is sold it is 3rd hand) so I told the kids that if they wanted to run the garage sale (including set up, pricing, manning it and cleaning up) that they could have a large portion of the profits. The younger 3 took me up on the offer. Garage sales are a great learning tool. They can practice simple spelling and art in the making of signs. It is also a good time to practice good manners with greeting people as they come and working together.

 Being the cashier is a great time to practice adding skills (if we would have had more variety in our prices we could have upped the need to practice adding even more.  The kids also practiced using percentages as they figure out how much money they had taken in and then the percentage that would go to each party. Jonathan who says he doesn't like Math - had fun using it over and over again (he kept adding, dividing and announcing the current earnings of everybody).

 ~ Dominoes have been played which is a great method for practicing counting by fives and lots of adding.

   Mara helped me do flowers for a wedding which is great training should she ever want to be a florist in the future.

The kids have done a lot of work out at our property. They are now experienced roofers, can run power tools and swing a hammer when needed. These sort of skills they will likely find useful the rest of their lives.

  We will wait until after the move and Labor day before we actually pull out the school books but still I say- School is in Session.

   Do you try to really encourage your children learning throughout all of life?