Prairie Girl Wanna Be

It’s SPRING!!  It is beautiful this week.  Warm during the days, cool mornings and evenings.  Wonderful!

Hubby and I planted the garden this week.  We bought heirloom seeds this year from the Baker Heirloom Seed Company out of Mansfield, Missouri.

They produce heirloom seeds, the kinds our grandmothers used.  These seeds produce plants that you can take seed from and use in your next garden.

If you try that with the seeds you buy today you will NOT get the same type of plant you put in the ground.  That kind is called hybrid.  That’s my educational info for the day!

ANYway, we’re excited to see how these do.  We have corn, green beans, lima beans, banana peppers, green and red bell peppers, cabbage, yellow squash, zucchini squash, blackeyed peas, okra and tons and tons of tomatoes.  Then I have a section for my zinnias.  I’m very excited to how they produce this year.  Last year I only had three cups survive and I had huge zinnia plants.  This year I’m hoping to plant an entire row.

I know it’s work and I dread, dread, DREAD those 90 and 100 degree days but I love having all these good veggies to feed my family.

Talk to ya later!

Here’s an idea I read about in a magazine that I thought would be fun.

On a white table cloth you have each guest sign their name.  We will begin with Easter.  I will embroider on top of the names. 

For each holiday, you use the same color for all the names. 

For Easter, I will do all the names in purple.  For Thanksgiving I will do all that come and sign their names in a fall color.  For Christmas, either red or green.  That way you can separate each holiday. 

We dated it and for Easter I drew some flowers and grass to make it look like Spring. 

In the center, I will embroider the word “Celebrate” in large letters. 

I’m so excited!  It will be so fun for the children to look back and see their handprints that we traced around.

Talk to ya later!

Are you ready for THE easiest veggie recipe ever!!  Well here it is!

DO NOT tell what they are till after your family has woofed them down!

Trent was shocked when I told him he’d eaten squash:)

Here’s the plan:

1.  Buy a Butternut Squash.

2.  Peel it and cut it into pieces.

3.  Grate the pieces.  I cut mine small and run them thru the food processer.

4.  To this whole squash, add three eggs and some grated onion, about 2 T. or one small onion.

5.  Heat coconut oil (it’s super healthy!) or whatever oil you desire and drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture into the hot oil.  Fry till brown on both sides.

6.  Drain on paper towels and serve!  Easy Peesy!

We like ours with ketchup.

I like to grate the squash and store it in a freezer bag.  Then I use a third of it at a time to make just a few latkes.

This is so healthy.  You are getting a veggie with some protein and no bad fat if you cook it in the coconut oi. 

You can find coconut oil at Walmart or Earthfare or I order mine online from Vitacost.  It looks like lard but its good for your cholestoral and is supposed to help with weight loss. 

We don’t fry many things anymore but when we do this is what we use.

Hope you enjoy these.

Talk to you later:)

This was what you would have seen if you came in my back door a few weekends ago.  Not one boys boots, or even two or three but FOUR pairs of boots.

Our house has been the hangout for lots and lots of boys lately and I for one love it.

I asked God to make our home where they would want to come and He has definitely given me a concrete, no doubt about it, answer of “yes”!

Now when you ask, you best be ready cause you never know what your prayer might truly involve.

This one involves very big boys with very big appetites.   I love to cook for people who love to eat.  I can make grilled cheese sandwiches in my sleep now!  They love country cooking, so if I cook a big meal they seem to really enjoy it.  They never complain, they just eat and talk and laugh and leave:)

They have all learned to drop those boots by the back door cause its hard enough keeping the floors decent with one pair of boots clomping around but when you have multiples it is downright impossible.  So they trot in the back door, leave their boots and camp out here for an afternoon, a night or maybe even a weekend.

I tell them ALL to be careful as they leave and  I am continuously praying and thanking God for answering this prayer of mine.

Talk to ya later!

Either we are the best gardeners around or the worst!  Would you look at this turnip I found in the garden!

David planted turnip greens last year and after giving the greens away and pulling a few turnips we obviously forgot about them.  I went out one day to throw chicken “gifts” on the garden and found this huge turnip!

I thought it was hilarious:)

I had Trent hold it so you could see the actual size.

Look out!  It’s spring planting time and we begin next week.  No telling what we’ll do this year!

It’s always an adventure!

Talk to ya later:)

I believe when you are 89 you should have everything and anything you want.  To back that up, Mother has a candy jar that is continually filled with small candy bars.  She loves them!

I have caught her eating one after her breakfast!

For her birthday, back in February, we found this huge box of candy at the Russell Stover store.  You will see she is eating one piece as she opens up her other gifts.

I made her a quilt that is very bright because she likes lots of color.  She loved it but  I do believe the candy was her favorite gift!

She would have a fit if she knew I showed these pictures.  But I just love her and think she’s precious eating this candy as she looks at her quilt.

Happy 89th Ms. Freeda!  You’re the best!

Oh what a fun day I have had.  My hubby surprized me and had my 21 year old come and stay with Mother for the day so we could get away.  We had THE best time!

We have decided that we love small towns.  We love country roads.  We do not like traffic, people and confusion.  Soo knowing that he took me on the back roads of Tennessee and we saw some of the most beautiful scenery.   Hills and farmhouses and barns and cows and fences and more hills ~ now that’s my kind of scenery!

We went to two small towns today and walked around the “square” of each one.  We love hardware stores and found lots of them.  I love antiques so he took me to several antique stores.  (That is not his favorite thing so I didn’t stay long.)  But I love old books and found some at very good prices.

We ate lunch at the “Soda Pop Junction” in Linnville, Tennessee.  There is nothing in that town but it is so cute and we enjoyed it.

He has introduced me to eating at out of the way places instead of the same restuarants you get in your own town.  I love this because it’s something you will remember.  The people were very friendly so that made it more fun.  If you go out like this and people don’t say anything, ask them something about their town, their job, just something to get them to begin giving you information.  It’s amazing how much you will find out.

We went in a furniture store because it looked old.  It wasn’t.  BUT the owner talked and talked to us.  He told us tons of places to go and made us want to come back there to buy a freezer we’ve been thinking about purchasing.  We like to give our business to the small town folks instead of these chains.  You usually get better service and the prices here were as good as the big name places.

It was just fun getting out and seeing new sights and being with this husband that I not only love but that I like.  Do you know how important that is?  To like your mate?  I wish  I could get that across to the young folks that I know that are dating.  I want so bad for them to find that mate that they will enjoy for a lifetime.  I think our missing ingredient is that we do not marry our best friend.  We marry the one we think is cute, or romantic, or fun but we don’t take the whole package cause we think they will change and it’ll all work out.   This causes so many problems down the road.

I fully believe that I did not pick out this man and that is why our marriage is so good.  God knew I needed this man so he caused our paths to cross and caused David to pursue this relationship.  He gave David the insight and that is why we are where we are today.  My favorite days are days with him.  I love it when we have time and are not rushed.

I am so thankful for him and for our day in the country!

Talk to you later!

This is going back to fall but I’ve had a request to post this so post it I will.

This was our fall trip to Bell Buckle, Tennessee.

Everybody met at my house and transferred their stuff into my van and our designated Daisy Driver, Debbie, got behind the wheel and so began our journey.

We love for Debbie to drive.  She has a wonderful sense of direction which you need when you have four women in a car who only know they are getting away for two days with their friends.  One year we headed in the wrong direction on the wrong road before Debbie reined us in and asked who had the directions.  That was the year it took us hours and hours to make a 1 1/2 hour trip!  We don’t care though!  We absolutely love time with each other and time away from responsibility.

But since then we have given Debbie the title of Driver Extroardinare!

And she has lived up to it!

In the first pictures, we are getting ready to walk to the craft booths.  You can tell how much fun we are already having.

If you will look close you will see each Daisy has on her daisy pin that Emily gave to us.

We also wore blue jean and white on this day.  I think we were giving Danna some advice on how to wear her scarf.  But you can see we were excited and ready to go!

The next pictures are at the craft booths at Bell Buckle.  Danna found the neatest crocheted purse at one of the first ones. I had Emily pose at a booth that had Daisy pictures.  Very cute!

Bell Buckle has The Webb School in their town.  This school puts on a craft show each fall.  Along with that the town blocks off their streets (all their streets) and they have rows and rows and rows of craft booths.

You can find books, antiques, jewelry, junk, food, wood crafts, crocheted items, purses, luggage, holiday items, just anything you can think of and some things you can’t!  Their are over 10,000 people that attend this show each year so it is quite crowded.

We have learned to eat NOTHING on the street!  The last time we did that we all ended up sick.

Soooo we now bring our own food and as you will see in several of the pictures, the Daisies do know how to spread a picnic!  We tailgated one day and the first night we had our picnic supper on the floor of our room.  We plan out what each Daisy is to bring so it’s not hard on any of us and we love it!

The black scarves and headbands were a gift from me.  I found this very soft yarn and made each gal a set.

I told them to please never tell me when they get tired of these scarves because I love making them and they will hurt my feelings!  They say they love them!

Now Daisy Danna will have a fit when she sees this picture of her hair because she does not like her hair and we all LOVE her hair.

Sooo I had to take this picture of Emily fixing it for her before we left one morning.

These ladies are truly a gift to me.  They are fun.  They are honest.  They are loving.

When we shop we are all mixed up.  One time it’s me and Danna.  The next time I’m walking with Debbie and Danna & Emily are looking at something.  One time Danna & I were way ahead while Emily & Debbie plundered thru the jewelry tent FOREVER!  But we love each other.

We love the differences in our lives.  We love what we each bring to the table because we are all different ages and are at different places in our lives.  We learn something from each other every time we are together.

Sometimes we may be rough on each other ~ then we apologize and say we love each other and we are forgiven for being too harsh (that’s me ~ the mouthy one).

Sometimes we laugh till we can not talk and our stomachs ache.

Sometimes we tell something and begin to cry but we are not talking to an audience.  We are sharing with true sisters in Christ that support and love us and feel our hurt with us.

This is not a perfect group.  There is no such thing.  This is a group of real women, with real day to day ups and downs who choose to follow a Savior that lightens our load and loves us immensely and unending.  That is our bond.

We are very thankful He has caused our paths to cross in this life.

We’re having a very good start to 2012.

First of all, Mother is doing better than she did the last two months of the year.  They were not good months.

Hubby bought us 30 pounds of pecans and she has enjoyed shelling them for us.  He got them cracked and she worked on them every day till she finished.  We were thrilled!

I am back on the quilting wagon and tonight cut out yards and yards and yards of fabric into squares.  This way I am ready to lay them out and sew them into quilts.  I’m working on some baby quilts now so they are very easy to work up. I love doing this quilting.

I am also working on my bible reading.  I just have a hard time being consistent…in everything!  Last year my goal was to read thru the bible, which I did but I felt like I just “got thru it”.  This year I’d like to go a little deeper.  I found a “chronological” bible at the christian book store that I just love.

My last “Thru the Year” bible was a little to chopped up.  This one flows better and is easier for me to read.  I’m also using Warren Wiersbe’s commentaries and seeing what he has to say as I read the chapters.  That is really helping me understand everything better.

My biggest problem is letting everything else crowd out bible reading time.  I have done better in January.  Now I know that’s one month but you gotta start somewhere and my goal is to be able to say that at the end of each month.

We are having a very, VERY mild winter.  I am not enjoying this year as much as last year because I like burning wood in my stove and I just can’t do that if it’s not under 50 degrees.  Also our yard is mush.  We have had so much rain it’s just a big old mud hole!  BUT that’s okay!  On the bright side, the milder temperatures are easy to deal with and before we know it we will have temperatures so hot we’ll be wishing for this weather.

My chickens have taken a vacation.  My son keeps telling me they will begin to lay again as the days get longer but they have not gotten that memo yet.  I am ready for them to get busy.  I am having to buy eggs and it’s killing me.  I am so spoiled by these that I don’t like any others.  I found a lady last week fairly close to me that has hens so I bought FOUR dozen from her!  (We eat a LOT of eggs!).  I’m hoping that’ll get me thru till my ladies begin production again.

That’s about it around here.  Not much happening but we are thankful to begin another year with the folks we love.  We are thankful to be healthy and happy.

Hope your year has started off well and that 2012 will be your best year ever.

God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.              2 Corinthians 9:8

Here’s my last Christmas post ~ sorry I’ve been so late with them.

See my apron? 

It was Mothers!  I found it this last year and washed and pressed it and hung it up till the holidays.  I love vintage stuff and this is white with little wreaths sewed on the bottom.

I had Trent take the picture beside the stove so I would resemble Mother.  She was always cooking during the holidays and I miss that very much. 

You don’t know what you have till it’s gone sometimes and this year I remembered how much work she did cooking and baking for us and sure wished I could go to her house and eat with the family.  I am thankful she is here with us though.

Here are some vintage napkins I found at a yard sale, I think.  They are yellowed with age, have poinsettias on them and are beautiful.

I just love old stuff and we used them several times during the holidays.

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner.  Our two boys were with us and we invited a friend from church.  I love feeding people who love eating your food and Bill loved everything we had!  Made me feel so good.

That’s it for Christmas 2011.  Hope you were with those you love.  Hope you got what you wanted.  Hope you have a wonderful 2012!

My best advice at this point is to take inventory of what stressed you this year.  See what you could do so Christmas 2012 will be easier on you.  For example, I noticed last year that bread was a gift I really enjoyed giving so this year I began early baking, double wrapping it and freezing it.  I really enjoyed getting it ready to give.  I did some with labels, or ribbon or clear decorated bags.  That’s what I enjoy.  I like the little touches.  Makes me feel like I’ve put more of myself into what I’m giving.  Do what works for you. 

Also make your list now.  Who did you give to ~ write them down.  I know my main folks but I forget that I like to give to the postman and the neighbors and my beautician.  Then there they are and I have nothing for them.  That’s where my bread came in handy.  I loved giving it and from the response I got I believe they loved receiving it.

Remember ~ We don’t plan to fail…..we fail to plan.

Happy New Year from the prairie girl wannabe!