Prairie Girl Wanna Be

Here was what kept me sooo busy the month of August! 

I have not posted, I have not cooked and I haven’t done much cleaning.  This was my biggest undertaking yet and I do not plan to ever, ever do it again. 

All during the year, I wipe down my cabinets as they get spills and cooking stains on them.  In the fall, I go into a huge, house cleaning mode and I scrub them down along with my kitchen floors.  I’m talking scrub brush, harsh cleaner and lots and lots of water.  Each year as I do this, I see how old they have gotten and all the bumps and nicks.  I have always wanted to sand them down completely and re-polyurethene them. 

This year I bit the bullet and did it!  I thought if I made it priority I could get it done in a week. HA! HA! HA!  Now, I am a fast cleaner and fast worker.  I inherited this from my mother and grandmother but this is one project that did not go fast.  I just got sick of it and I did not make it priority so it stretched in to a 3-4 week project.  BUT I LOVE IT!  Oh, I’m so so pleased that I did not get in a hurry and mess it up.  I took my time and I am happy every time I look at these cabinets. 

Nobody else will know the difference because I went from dirty wood to clean wood but I know and I’m fine with that.  I think we oughta love, love, love our kitchens and our laundry rooms cause it seems that’s where we spend the most time:) 

ANYway, here’s a tour of my work along with the outcome.  Hope you enjoy.         

Here’s a shot of the kitchen with ALL 28 doors off.  I haven’t removed the 15 drawers yet!

Here’s my trusty sander.  Worth EVERY single penny I paid for it believe me!

I went through at least 25 packages of sandpaper.

So you can see the difference.  Here’s a stack of doors before I sanded.

Here’s a stack after sanding.

And here’s tha sander!

David took this picture one night.  I roped Todd into helping me and we got these doors up in record time.  I put the hinges on the doors.  He hung them.

Do you see why I couldn’t cook or clean.  Everything was such a mess!

What a team!  He was not thrilled to do this but he did it to help his mama:)

Here’s one corner completed.  It looks sooo clean to me!

These are my new knobs and hinges.  I’m having to buy a few each week because with so many doors and drawers it is quite expensive!

Everybody is happy with these because our old ones would never stay on right.

Here’s the top finished.  We still have the left bottom to buy hardware for but I am so pleased and so so glad it’s done!

Talk to ya later:)

It’s the 25th!  You know what that means, right? 

FOUR MORE MONTHS till Christmas!  Now don’t act like that!  This will be a great year if you will get busy.  Even if you have not done one thing you can begin right now. 

1.  Make your list.

2.  Divide by four.

3. Begin right now buying ~ this week.

Also don’t forget about stamps and cards and those extras you want to buy.  Try to get your cards as soon as possible then Christmas stamps usually come out around the middle of October.  Also begin now planning your Christmas picture if you do one.  We have a hard time getting all the teenagers together so we have to start now so we’re not rushed last minute.

If you like to just do something small for lots of folks, go to the Dollar General.  They have tons of little items that you can buy. Or you can make goodies ahead and freeze them.   As early as September or October you can make cookies; wrap them in foil; put them in a Christmas tin and freeze them.  In December, you are ready to just hand out what you’ve made.  

Go ahead and make out your goodie list and begin buying butter and freezing it; sugar and flour, cocoa and spices.  This will keep December from being so hard on the food budget but you will be able to make those things your family enjoys each year.

Here’s some gift ideas ~ you can expand on this and make it pricey or you can just do this and it will be fine.  It’s NOT about the money!!!!  It’s about remembering folks you love:)  

   things with team logos on them - t-shirts, purses, mugs, license plates, sweatshirts

   a box filled with office supplies, stapler, pens, pads, paper clips, post it notes

   a box filled with tissue paper, wrapping paper, tape and scissors

   a box filled with writing paper, stamps, pens, envelopes

    a box filled with cooking utensils, pot holder, kitchen towel, kitchen timer, spoon rest

    a box filled with scrapbooking papers, scissors, markers for those who scrapbook

    a bucket filled with car wash stuff - sponge, windex, detergent, armor-all - this is great for teens or men

    towels/washcloths - 2 of each make a nice gift - add some pretty soap in the box

      I know the “thinking” can really get us down so I’ve tried to help out here. 

                      Hope this will lighten your load:)

I enjoy your comments so let me know if this helps:)

I’m taking time out of showing you what all my projects have been this summer to tell you about our family reunion.  I apologize right up front if you are reading this and your picture is not on here.  I just could not post all of them.  I’m so thankful to everybody who came that day.  You made our reunion such a special memory and I appreciate you taking time out of your day for us. 

First of all, I have one brother who is ten years older than me.  To all who know him, except his “back home” family he is known as Edd.  To me he has and will always be Eddie.  Because he married when I was nine years old I was alone most of my childhood.  I always wanted a house full of children and I guess he did too because we both ended up having four children each.  I think my parents were always bumfuzzled that they only had two children but ended up with eight grandchildren:)

My father went to be with the Lord, January 2001.  We have not been able to get all of Eddie’s children and all of my children together at one time since Daddy’s funeral.  They live in another state and with everybody’s jobs it has just not worked out. 

This year it worked!  We got all his children and grandchildren, all my children and grandchildren and we had almost a whole weekend with everybody.  It was great!  Mother just loved it.  We opened it up on Saturday night to the extended family and I fixed pinto beans and cornbread.  Yes, they came anyway!  You would have to understand what a great meal we southerners think of this two foods.  It is enough for us.  Do you hear me?  Just pinto beans and cornbread is an entire meal.  What is funny is that this is what Mother grew up on and she never tires of it after 87 years.  I did add coleslaw and sliced onions and had two desserts, banana pudding and peach cobbler.  This was strictly a down home dixie meal! 

Here are some pictures of the fun.  We sat Mother in a chair and began to take family pictures of her and she just loved it!  She cut up and joked with everybody and just really enjoyed herself.  I am so thankful to everybody who came.  I know it’s an effort to get out and go sometimes and we live kind of away from so many but it meant so much to all of us.

There was lots of hugging!

Cousins, cousins and more cousins!

 Gettin’ ready.  See the huge white roaster on the counter?  That’s FULL of pinto beans.  I put them in it the night before, covered them with water and the next morning it was overflowing.  I did not “figure” right.  ANYway, they freeze so we are set for quite awhile on our Tuesday bean nights:)  The red pot is half full of slaw.  This dishpan is full of cornbread.

This was one EASY meal to prepare!  I loved it and so did they:)

 Here’s my brother with our uncle who we love.  He is one of the kindest men you will ever meet…(in fact they both are:)

Todd loves Charles but he had him a little scared at this point:)

I love these next two pictures.  As a little girl I did not know how everybody was kin because my parents loved their in-laws so much.  Here is Mother with my daddy’s sister and brother.

And here she is with two of her brothers.  Mother has lost an older sister and an older brother this year.  This is very hard when you are 87 and you lose those you have always had.

We fixed sack lunches for the children and they ate on a blanket in the yard.  You can see folks sitting around in this picture - there were more than you can see.  We had folks inside, outside, front yard and back yard!  It was wonderful!

Jennifer drove six hours to get to this reunion and she was not disappointed.  Mother was in rare form!

Now this was a shot with Mother and her great grandchildren.  As you can see, Benjamin was not cooperating at all.  His mama finally got him to stand there and we got as many shots as we could.  This was where the best quote of the day came from ~ Benjamin said “Y’all, there’s something wrong with me!”  He will never live that down!  He will be reminded of this at every family reunion from now till he’s 40 years old!

 Here’s my brother’s family.  He has three sons, three daughter-in-laws, one daughter, two granddaughters, and one grandson and another grandbaby on the way:)

They were very color coordinated thanks to my sister-in-law who thought ahead.

Here’s our crew except for Bekah’s hubby.  I don’t know where he was when we did these but I’m sorry he’s not here and that I didn’t realize it at that time.  I was a little distracted that day:)

 Now she will have a fit but this is my cousin Pam kneeling beside Mother.  She captured the entire day photographically.  It was wonderful!  She took 374 pictures!  Tell me she wasn’t busy that day! This is her mother, daddy and aunt behind her. 

Here’s Mother with her children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren and all the in-laws:)  God is so good.  We are so thankful:)

Talk to ya later:)

Here’s where we are this week.  Don’t ya just love the beach?  Now I don’t want to live here but I just love to come here for a vacation.  We have been blessed thru some church friends with a week at a beautiful condo right on the beach.  We are so enjoying some alone time.

Here’s my hubby the morning I fed him b’fast on the beach.  He loves yogurt with granola in it - that’s what he’s eating.

I love watching the gulls.  They can’t stand to get their feet wet and they just scurry everywhere!

Here we are eating at “The Hangout”.  It was good but they think a lot of their food and we were not pleased with the price:(  It was fun anyway, though.

Here was our food…at least it was pretty!

People are so nice.  David was taking a picture of me beside this old cab and this couple stopped and asked did we want our picture made together.  The same thing happened the next day at another restaurant.

We love the balcony.  David has his quiet time early in the morning.  I choose to study later in the day.  We have so much time that I catch myself doing so much more bible study when we are away.  I need to do better at home!  I’ve done 18 chapters this week in my little “Experiencing God’s Peace” by Elizabeth George that I bought last year.  The chapters are short, they have all the scripture in the book and it is very easy to do.  Why do I put this off at home!  I have got to learn to stop and study more instead of always being busy!

Now can you guess what this is….it’s David’s own concoction….its….  a tarball on the halfshell!

We didn’t really see any oil in the water but we did see some little bits of tar on the beach.  They even had a member of the Coast Guard checking our feet as we came off the beach to make sure we weren’t bringing tar into the condo.

It’s been fun but now back to home and the real life! 

Talk to ya later:)

These are scarves Mother made to send to the Ukraine. 

We had three teams from our church go on mission trips this year.  The team that went to South Africa had to mail their boxes ahead so we sent 30 scarves in them but she got 50 made before the Ukraine team left. 

This is such a great ministry on both ends. 

First of all, the people their have nothing and this means more to them than we can understand.  We can buy scarves any color and ever how many we desire.  We can make as many as we want and not even think about the $3 we spend to buy the yarn.  But these people are overwhelmed when you hand them this scarf and tell them it is a gift for them. 

Our missionaries came back with story after story of women crying when they would give them a scarf.  One woman took out the clasp that held her hair and gave it to one of our men for him to bring back to Mother for making this gift for her.  Can you imagine??  I have no clue what that is like.  I take so much for granted. 

The other end of this ministry is Mother.  She needs to be doing something to occupy her mind and her hands.  She needs to feel productive.  She needs to have a purpose each day.  I am so thankful that this is something she can do, that she enjoys doing it and that is filling a need in both her life and the lives of others.

 “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.  And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Talk to ya later:)

Don’t ya just love to see a man work!  I’ve told David many a time that there’s nothing more attractive than a man behind a vaccum cleaner or standing at the sink:) 

Seriously, my man works entirely too much.  I do not like to see him working in the house because he works so hard at his job and when he gets home in his shop.  He has an excellent work ethic.  He has an excellent balance in work also.  He works hard but he likes to get out and have fun too.

Now back to the subject of corn.  I am having a problem with my hand and will have surgery in September to get it working right.  I can do certain things if I hold it right but I have to do some conserving on it.  My right thumb has totally locked up on me and the worst part is I can’t crochet!  ANYway, my hubby shucked over 200 ears of corn so I would not have to shuck, silk AND scrape off the cob.  I knew I could not do it all.  What’s best, is that he does things like this without being fussy or having a bad attitude.  He just does it.  I continually thank God for this man. 

I blanche it first by dropping the shucked and silked corn into boiling water for about 10 minutes.  I learned after I did all this that I didn’t have to do all this.  I could freeze it in the ear, in the shuck and cut it off as I need it but this is how I did it this year.

Cooling in the dish drain ~ waiting to be scraped off the cob.

Because we love creamed corn or fried corn or whatever you choose to call it I scrape the majority of ours off the cob.  I do this as my mother did.  We have a wooden scraper that has a blade in the center - a very sharp blade.  You just run your corn down the “trough” and it cuts the corn off the cob and drops it in the dishpan. 

Corn, corn and more corn waiting their turn:)

After scraping it goes into freezer bags.  I lay them flat to freeze.  Then I can stand them up side by side or stack them and they don’t take up much room.

Here it is - we got 23 pints of corn!  Yeehiii!!  We will love this in the wintertime.

Ms. Freeda’s Creamed Corn 

1 pkg. frozen corn (about a pint)

2-3 Tablespoons butter

1 t. salt

1/4 cup sugar

Melt butter in skillet.  Add corn, salt and sugar.  Stir till smooth.  If too thick add about 1/2 cup water and cook till nice and thick.  If too thin add about 1/4 cup flour and cook till nice and thick.    She also put it in a casserole and baked it in the oven ~ oh my goodness!! It is wonderful!

Talk to ya later:)

This week I will try to show you what all I’ve been working on this summer and thereby neglecting my blog.  I can’t seem to do too many things at one time.  I have also gotten a new camera and refused to read the directions so I have not known how to get my pictures from the camera to the computer!

I don’t like reading directions.  I don’t like learning how to do something that is technical.  It may seem silly but I just don’t like it.  I feel stupid when I’m trying to read that stuff and they make it so complicated. 

Enough of that.

Here’s how I did my tomatoes this year.  I got this from heavenlyhomemakers.com and it made my canning go so much easier.

After washing the tomatoes, I just cored them.  NO peeling!  Just core and cut them in big hunks.

Then you pack them into a food processor.  I bought this thing last year and have not used it much but let me tell you it is worth it’s weight in gold!  Just the time it saved me on tomatoes was unbelieveable.

I know you’re wondering what happens to the peeling.  But it is processed so fine you do not taste it plus you get all that nutrition that is in the peeling.

Process them for about 30 seconds?  Just till you get them like you want them.  I wanted them crushed so I can use them in recipes and everybody won’t get large pieces of tomato.

Then they go into a big pot and are heated thru and thru.  I cooked mine for about three hours cause I wanted them thick - like tomato sauce.

Now aren’t they pretty!  I love looking at those jars on my counter.  I usually leave them out for a day or two just so I can see them!

I’ll use these for spaghetti sauce, chicken stew and chili. 

Soon to come….putting up fresh corn:)  I know lots of y’all know this but it’s fun to post and as I said I’m catching you up on my projects this summer.

Talk to ya later:)

Do you have a favorite cousin?  Well I know we’re not supposed to show favoritism and I love all my cousins and believe me there are many, many of them but I think it’s okay to have one you feel especially close to.

This is my cousin, Mitzi.  Don’t you just love that name?  I always wanted something to name and I was gonna name it Mitzi.  I never had a dog of my own and I only had a kitten for about a week so I never had the chance to name anything but if I could have I would have!

Mitzi is closer to my brother’s age so I looked up to her because she was older and sooo beautiful.  I remember going to visit my aunt and uncle in the summer time in the country.  One year we were sitting outside and Mitzi had on slacks (yes that’s what we called them).  I just could not understand that.  I was a little girl, who wore shorts and went barefoot as soon as it turned warm and I couldn’t understand anybody wearing  long pants unless it was winter.  That was my first time to hear of somebody being cold natured and that’s the reason she had no problem dressing warm in the summertime.

I also remember her wearing button down shirts - this was when they came in style the first time:) - I remember a light pink and a light blue and she had those pencil skirts to match and penny loafers.  Now can you see why I was in awe!  Who would not be mesmerized by that! 

She also had bubble gum in the console of her car…all the time!  I thought that was being rich!  To have bubblegum whenever you wanted it was just too much to comprehend.

They always had horses at their home… Honey and Champ.  Champ was the horse who would drink a soft drink from a bottle.  Mitzi’s brother would give it to him and the horse would turn up that bottle and drink it!

 I never remembered my pajamas when I went to her house so she always loaned me a soft blue nightgown.  I can still remember the sweet, smell of that a night gown and those clean, hung on the line sheets.  We would talk and whisper at night and always get tickled about something. 

What a precious memory this sweet cousin of mine gave to me.   How special I felt when I was visiting in their home.  How I looked forward to summertime and going to stay with them even if it was just overnight.

I know I must have driven her crazy.  Imagine having a skinny, little cousin following you around and talking nonstop!  I never felt in the way.  I never felt unloved.  I never felt like I was a bother. 

I knew there was something special about that home.  God was in that home.  The family that lived there loved Him with their whole heart and it overflowed to anyone visiting them.  It could not be contained.

I am seeing that I now am giving memories.  I am giving memories to my grandchildren.  I am giving memories to anyone that comes into my home that I reach out to and care about.  I can give them a bad memory by being distant and only meeting their needs or I can go beyond myself and reach out in love and meet what God would have me meet in their lives.  I can share Him in big and little ways. 

If He’s truly in my life… if I truly love Him…then I should not be able to contain that love.  It should overflow to any and all who come into our home.

I love my family. 

I am thankful for this family where God placed me. 

I am thankful for my sweet, sweet cousin.  For her loving me and giving me such sweet memories.

Thank you Mitzi:)

I am so excited!!  I have gotten a ton of shopping done for Christmas this past week! 

My younger boys are very hard for me to buy for and I always end up buying for them last cause I don’t know what to get.  I was able to get several things for them that I think they will like and it just lifted a huge load because I didn’t expect to get them anything this early. 

Our four youngest always take me the longest cause we do more for them.  Mother is so easy cause she loves clothes and candy.  I love buying for her.  David also takes me a little longer.  But if I can narrow this down to just a few things for each of them then I will enjoy it so much more.

I tried to buy three nice things for each of them last year and it was a mess!  I ended up spending more than usual cause I didn’t want them to open a box with a piddly little gift in it.  I would have done better to have had ten things for them to open that were less expensive!  Live and learn:) 

Soo this year I will go back to my traditional plan and they will have little things and a couple of big things and we will have a special time for togetherness.  That’s what I love anyway.  I want all my children together under one roof for a full day.  I love it when they spend the night too.  There is something about night time coming and everybody tucked in to bed and then getting up in the morning and being together.  I just love it.

ANYway, this is your monthly prompting.  You have five months left. 

Five months from Sunday will be Christmas day.  Have you done ANYTHING?? 

Well then, get to work!  You gotta make it priority or you’ll just put it off and put if off and next thing you know it will be December 1st and you’ll be stressed cause you won’t have the money, the ideas of what to buy folks, or the time. 

I’m tryin’ to help you here so get busy girls!  Make that list; buy for at least two people by this time next month.  You can do that and if you do you’ll truly have a…..

Merry Christmas:)

This is not only an awesome tasting cookie that my family loves, it’s a healthy one!  Just don’t tell anybody:)

I posted it last year but it’s worth doing again and I don’t think I showed you any pictures. 

When I first made them I left out the coconut cause my boys don’t like coconut.  I left out pecans cause my boys don’t like pecans.  THEN I decided to just try it the way the recipe calls for it and would you believe it …they like them better.  I just never told them what I’d put in there and they gobble them up like crazy! 

We take them on camping trips because they travel very well.  They don’t fall apart easy or crumble.

So here goes.  They are very big.  In fact, you are supposed to use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to measure them out on the cookie sheet but I make both large and small ones.

COWBOY COOKIES

 3 cups whole wheat flour

1 T. baking powder

1 T. baking soda   (yes, Tablespoons)

 1 T. cinnamon

1 t. salt

3 sticks butter

3 cups sugar or sucanat (I use organic sugar)

3 eggs

1 T. vanilla

1 heaping cup chocolate chips

3 cups rolled oats

1 heaping cup coconut

1 heaping cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350.  In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time and add vanilla.  In another bowl, mix dry ingredients together and add this to butter mixture.  Add oatmeal.  May have to stop mixer and stir this in by hand because your batter will be very stiff.  Add choc. chips, coconut and pecans.

These are large cookies.  For each one drop 1/4 cup of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart.  Bake until edges are lightly browned - about 17 - 20 minutes.

As you can see, these were not the biggest ones.

Look at all that good stuff in there!  I’m telling you, do NOT make these if you are counting calories cause you will have a lot to count!

But remember, they are healthy!

YUMMY!!