JANUARY PARK PICNIC AND PLAY

Monday morning , always an interesting time with the grand girls as they come off a weekend.
I got chores done and then took RL to pre-school. She was in a better mood by the time we got to school.
I am doing a Suja juice 3 day cleanse and am starting this morning with one of the juices to drink on my way home. It was the non-tastiest of the three daily juices but I didn't think it was all that bad.
I fixed the oatmeal like the meal plan said when I got home and that was good.
After I ate I started a load of laundry and then made the snack balls the meal plan called for so I could have them for a late morning snack. This little green tractor that was given to g-son when he was probably younger than IR has lasted through 5 kids now with IR.

I put away laundry and washed another load before we left early to stop and get the girls lunch on the way to pick RL up.
It is a mid 60's day and sunshine but the breeze makes it feel a little cool.
At the park we found a picnic table out in the sunshine and down out of the wind for the girls to have their lunch on.

The girls really enjoyed playing on the pay ground after lunch.

IR discovered she liked to slide. Her face doesn't show any enjoyment but each time she slid down she would jump up and run right back up to the top.

They had fun running around as there wasn't many kids there at all today so they had free run of all the play ground.

It didn't take them long to tire out at the speed they were running around and RL went to sleep on the way home and took a good nap. IR had slept on the way to pick up RL and wasn't interested in going back to sleep.

She helped me with more laundry downstairs while RL napped.

I drank my lunch time juice and then had some Jasmin rice with a vegetable salad for lunch.

I also made the afternoon snacking granola while I was in the kitchen.

I gathered all the furniture covers, bed covers and throw rugs into containers to load in the Honda and take to the laundry in the morning if all the big machines are available.

Daughter and d-in-love came in from school just in time for us to get the chores done early so we could all go to the wrestling match at Apple Valley.

These hens and rooster that I moved into this new house are happy as they can be today.

G-son was operating the camera today and didn't wrestle . He was afraid this morning that the boy that is wrestling in his weight class would be over weight today and he would have to step in and he had a really hard fall over the weekend and landed on his tailbone so he didn't think he would be able to wrestle if he needed to.

We watched his team lose their first match tonight badly. I have no idea what happened to them but Rugby who they beat badly earlier in the season really beat up on them today.

Hubbie and I brought IR home with us as daughter went to basketball practice and son-in-love picked her up here.

I drank my last juice of the day and then fixed some green lentils and roasted vegetables for my supper.

I am anxious to get on the scales tonight to see if I lost any weight today.

Thankful for the blessings of this day and for the love of our Savior Jesus Christ.

God Bless and Good Night

BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY

Slept in this Sunday morning and woke to bright sunshine streaming through the bedroom window.
I did chores and then had breakfast . We cooked the corn on the cob to go with the beef stew that has been in the crock pot all night. Hubbie also went ahead and made the cornbread and sweet tea .
Church was good today, Pastor Craig gave a cooking demo to illustrate a point and it was a perfect way to make sense of what the sermon said.

We came home to have lunch with #1 son's family and Aa's family. It was such a pretty warm day the kids all wanted an ice cream treat and went outside to play.

BB is a good brother and pushes his sister on swing.

I would have loved to have heard this conversation !!!  Something must have been funny because right after I snapped this picture they all laughed and jumped down !!!

Everyone left and hubbie and I went outside to get some work done around the house. Our first project of this year was to get this new (to me) chicken tractor set up and get some occupants in it to eat the greens I planted here last Fall. I put 4 older hens and a rooster in here tonight hoping they won't try to fly over this fence.

This is the other chicken tractor that we have in the garden and we moved it over some new greens today .

Notice that big red rooster on the outside of this lot . I am hoping he will not try to get into the orange landscape fabric lot with an older rooster in there.

As I walked around the house this evening I noticed these Daffodils already starting to come up. Proving it doesn't take many warmer days to fool things into believing it is Spring.

It was after dark when I got inside after moving the hens and roo into the new house so I only snacked for supper.

I am starting a 3 day cleanse tomorrow that both Re and d-in-love tried this past week and couldn't either of them do it because of the foul tasting juice you need to drink. We will see how I do with this. Only difference with me there is a meal plan with it and I am going to do the meal plan also and they were only drinking the juice so maybe that will make a difference.

Hubbie and I relaxed for the evening thankful for a beautiful dry sunny  Sunday.

Thankful for all the blessings of this day.

God Bless and Good Night

SUNSHINE AT LAST

Heard the wind whipping this morning as soon as I woke up. I had trouble getting to sleep last night for some reason so I was slow to get started this morning.
Watching the wind whip the tall leaning pine tree that is threatening to fall across the power lines into our garden got me moving much faster turning all the chickens and guineas out of their houses and feeding them this morning.
Hubbie loaded my Honda and we were off early to market.
The sun is shining this morning and it feels so good not to have on raingear.
Market was really slow again today I made about $55 today at least to best Thursday but there still was very few customers in today.
I left a few minutes early once again and went to Ingles to get supplies for tomorrow's lunch.
I got home and hubbie had just gotten in the house from cutting up firewood all afternoon.
We got unloaded and then I took a short rest before getting the evening chores done.
This has been a nice quiet Saturday evening and it has given me a chance to catch up my blog post finally but I still need to look over each one before I post it so maybe that can happen tomorrow evening.
Another storm is moving across the country but hopefully it will stay north of our area giving us a dry week for the first time in I can't remember how long.

Thankful for the blessings of this day.
God Bless and Good Night

MORE RAIN FOR THE FIRST FRIDAY IN THE NEW YEAR

Woke to the sound of pouring rain once again. This is becoming a very familiar sound.
We got the kids all breakfast, g-son's tongue was hurting worse this morning and he didn't eat hardly any breakfast.
I got chores done and then took RL to pre-school. She came in with a really bad mood but by the time we got to school she was happy.
I stopped at Ingles for gas and a couple things on the way home.
I had my breakfast and then did some ironing before hubbie, IR and I left early to stop by the Amazon returns place on the way to pick up RL.
We didn't find much today and when we came out the rain was really pouring and there was a lot of standing water on the roads everywhere.
We slowly made our way over to pick up RL.
We made a stop at Burger King for the first time in the new year and both girls ate a good lunch on this rainy day.

We came home and thankfully found a package on our back steps that contained our new internet modem from At&T.
The girls were as excited as we were to have there internet TV and tablets back to working so I went right to work on getting it all hooked up. I tried to do it the way the way the tech told me to when I ordered the modem but the password wouldn't work that he gave me so I wound up having to call for help. The first lady I talked with didn't  know enough to help me but thankfully she connected me to someone who did know how to help me.
It took a couple hours but thankfully I got things all up and running, the only other stumbling block was my wifi extender and d-in-love figured that out when she came to pick up RL.
After RL left hubbie went out to do his part of the chores and IR went to sleep for her only nap of the day.
I took my turn outside when hubbie came back inside and then we had supper.
I almost had a headache and realized I has gotten so engrossed in getting the internet working again that I hadn't eaten any lunch.
Anyway thankfully everything is back to normal.
Son-in-love picked up IR to go have dinner with his brother Ben while daughter coaches the team in a game tonight.
With the rain still coming down outside after emptying another 1 inch this evening I decided not to even bake anything else for market tomorrow. I don't want a lot left over to have to give to the chickens and anytime the weather is bad there isn't any customers through market.
I worked on catching up my blog post tonight and getting photos downloaded .
Thankful for the blessings of this day.
God Bless and Good Night

MORE RAIN AND POLK COUNTY WRESTLING MATCH

Up to a regular hectic Thursday morning with all three grands to get fed while I get chores done and then get loaded for market. I dropped RL off at her pre-school and met hubbie and IR at market.
It is raining this morning mostly lightly but it is also pretty chilly so market was extremely slow as expected. Connie, IR's other g-ma came after her at 10:30 and then hubbie left to get his errands done and get home.
I left early when I got things caught up on my laptop with the wifi at market and the market got colder and empty of customers and most sellers that braved today were already gone. I made a whopping $35 today but I am thankful for that much as most of the vendor neighbor's didn't make that much I'm sure.
I stopped at the bank, the PO and Aldi on my way home. I got home at 2:30 and had a salad for a late lunch then did what chores I could do this early and then hubbie and I headed down the mountain to Polk County middle school for g'son's wrestling match. He bit his tongue badly at practice yesterday and we're not sure he will wrestle today or not as one of the older boys lost enough weight to drop into g-son's weight class.
It was still raining all the way down the mountain but thankfully only lightly.
We met Deb, RL's other g-ma and d-in-love there and we all went in to see what was going to happen.
G-son didn't wrestle today and he looked really disappointed but he also looked very pale so I don't think he ate anything today as he hardly ate any breakfast this morning saying his tongue hurt so badly.
RL found a little friend to play in the bleachers with and this little girl fell right into hubbie's arms along with RL as they shared some snacks.

Apple Valley won the wrestling match and we headed up the mountain thankful that the heavy rains were still holding off.
We made it home at 6:30 and finished the chores by flashlight.
The rains began just as we came inside and I already dumped 1 inch out of the gauge from last night and today's rains.
Hubbie and I got bored really quick with what was on TV and went to bed early.
Thankful for the blessings of this day and for traveling mercies this evening.
God Bless and Good Night.

BACK TO SCHOOL AND WORK

Up to a cloudy dreary morning once again. I wonder if this would be what it's like to live in the rain forest !
Red Sky in the morning, Sailors take warning !!

Back to the regular routine with school starting back today and all 3 g-kids here for breakfast early.
G-son had his waffles and chocolate milk and he and daughter left for school.
Hubbie fed RL and IR while I got the chores done. RL was happy to get back to school thankfully. We were afraid after being out for almost 2 weeks she would really be a pill this morning but she was in a great mood and went into her class all smiling and happy.
I came home and had my breakfast then hubbie,IR and I made a trip to Fletcher feed for some chicken feed. We decided to go today instead of wait until Friday in the rain.
We made a stop at Sam's Club to restock our supplies after the holidays. They had some amazing clearance deals on toys so I got a couple birthday's covered.
We came home and got everything unloaded since the rain is suppose to start later today.
The three of us had lunch and then I worked on cleaning shelves and getting the rest of the Christmas décor down and packed away in my containers. I always give the shelves and the things I return to the shelves a good cleaning before I put them back out.
IR took a good long nap on the cool cloudy afternoon which was good for her to get back on a napping schedule.
When she woke up we loaded all the filled containers up in the back of hubbie's truck and hauled them down to the storage shed to rest for almost another year.
IR was in a wonderful mood after her long nap and loved playing around outside while we worked.
Hubbie did his chores while I played with her and then I took my turn at my chores. By this time it was raining pretty hard so my new raincoat got a trial and I really like it .
Winter storm Fisher is bringing us more flood warnings rain.

And as he heads across the country he brings more substantial rain totals for our area to start 2019 off just like 2018 ended.

We had supper then watched the news. Son-in-love picked up IR as daughter has a basketball game at North Buncombe today. IR and son-in-love went home to watch UNC / Harvard and IR is becoming a Tarheel fan quickly.

I baked 2 pound cakes and did weekly paperwork and paid bills this evening.
Without internet bedtime comes earlier for both hubbie and me.
Thankful for the blessings of this day.
God Bless and Good Night

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019

A photography friend of mine has set a tradition of taking a sunrise picture each New Year's morning for the last several years. Today's was really pretty as the sun tried it's best to push through the clouds.

Got up at 8am to put the 12 pound pork shoulder in the oven to cook for 4 hours.
I got chores done and had a quick cup of coffee and a protein bar and went to Walmart to get some collard greens for today's lunch. On the way I saw the power company still working on the power problems and some of the red lights were still not working. Daughter said their power didn't come on until 11:30 last night. They had the road closed where they were working but I couldn't see what they were working on around a curve in the road.
There were no fresh collard greens anywhere to be found so I came home with some frozen ones that will have to do this year. Apparently there is a shortage of collard greens this year for some reason.
I came home to find IR here with hubbie while daughter had basketball practice. I worked all morning in the kitchen getting blackeyed peas, collard greens, corn bread and an apple crumb cake made for our traditional New Year's Day lunch.

This is the long standing southern traditions and what each thing means.

Re is from Ohio and she always had sauerkraut ,mashed potatoes and sausage so she brought mashed potatoes and sauerkraut over to go with lunch so we had all the northern and southern bases covered.

Everyone made it today except #1 son who was working on one of the few non -rainy days.
The only ones of us who made it until midnight was Re's family. #2 son and Tif worked until 8:00 delivering mail so they went to bed when they got home, #1 son had to get up and go to work and g-son had wrestling practice at 8am so they went to bed as soon as they got home from here last night, daughter and son-in-love went to bed when they got home last night around 9 because their power was still out and hubbie and I fell asleep but the neighbor's fireworks woke me up so I actually was awake at midnight but went right back to sleep.
Today is a very nice warm mid 60's day and it is nice to be outside in shirt sleeves today. The kids all enjoyed playing outside after lunch .

After everyone left I did more un-decorating while hubbie worked on getting my new chicken coup set up out in the garden .
I did chores after we hauled another load of containers back to the storage shed.
On this New Years Day the temperature has been more like spring than winter.

The monthly rain totals for last year are out and every month the rain totals were above normal.

We watched the news then I got all the ornaments off all the trees and got most of the decorations down. #1 son came up after some left overs and then hubbie helped get the trees all put away and change out all the rugs and furniture and bed covers . Sad to see the bright decorations gone for another year but it does seem like it has been a long Christmas season this year.
We worked until 9:30 then we both took a short break before bedtime to get back on track on an early schedule tomorrow morning. Hubbie watched TV and I wrote my blog post. Still no internet .
Thankful for the blessings of this day and looking forward to what God has in store for me and my family in the new year.
God Bless, Good Night and Happy New Year.