Quiet Life Homestead

Monday

We have chances of rain almost every day this week.  The temps should slowly start climbing back up again.  I haven't checked NOAA yet to see our updated forcast but will soon. 

Today we will be homeschooling (of course), cleaning the kitchen (its a mess, I was lazy over the weekend), I'll be listening to the messages that Wisdom Farms suggested on cottage industries, laundry, more tossing of unwanted/unneeded junk, quilting (?), and I really need to get those patterns out and start looking them over.  I've decided that there won't be a "perfect" time to begin, that I need to just do it. 

I went on realtor.com yesterday and did find some cheap listings (in a town an hour from Charlie's work!).  I'm going to grab my Oklahoma map and start a search in this surrounding area and see how far out we have to go.  I don't mind a fixer-upper, but would like at least an acre so we can have a few animals.  I keep telling Charlie that if he'd just remember the number to his account in Switzerland (joking here ) then we could get any house we wanted.  My mom suggested we try to get a loan for this place, but we don't know yet what we're going to do.  Please continue the prayers and advice.

The five of us ate almost the whole 11lb ham yesterday!  Okay, it was two meals, but, golly, I thought I'd have more leftovers to work with.  I'm learning that leftovers, especially of meat, are a very good thing.  What I'll probably do is cook some beans and add the ham to them.  I have some bean mixes plus lentils, navy beans, black beans, and pinto beans, so all I have to do is decide which I want to make.

Something I'm going to be doing a little every day is going through all the quilt books and magazines I have and seeing which ones I want to keep.  The rest I'll probably donate (magazines anyway) I think my Mom and Staci have all the same ones I do.  I'm going to keep the Australian ones - my favorite!  There just seems to be so much excess everywhere in our home that it feels like its holding me back from doing just about everything.  I'm thinking that maybe if we had less stuff we'd be able to get more accomplished.  Another area I need to work in is my cookbooks.  I hardly cook out of them (although I want to) but I have too many.  Also, I've been tempted to give Bethany a lot of these things for her hope chest (which she doesn't have yet), but isn't that just a transfer of location?  I haven't technically gotten rid of it, I've just put the burden on my daughter who already has way too much stuff in her room.

The good news is we've already inherited all the stuff we should for hopefully a long time.  Now we can go through our belongings and see if we really need all we have.  I already know the answer to that, I just need to act upon it.  Here we go!

Vicki

Leftover ham

{ 10:11, Monday, April 9, 2007 } { Posted by lindseyinal }

Thank you for the lovely comment about my Easter sewing. The hardest part of sewing (for me) is just getting in there and doing it, without feeling guilty of what I might be "neglecting." I think I just need to fix in my mind that my sewing is important in the grand scheme of my homemaking. Today I am working on a pair of boxers for my husband. They're desperately needed, so no guilt there :D

As for your leftover ham, I recommend picking off as much from the bone as you can and putting it in the freezer for split pea soup or ham and potato casserole (I should post a recipe for that on my blog) to eat in a week or so and just put the bone in the crockpot with your soaked beans. A good bit of meat will fall off the bone that you weren't able to get at with your fingers and knife and that should be plenty for flavoring your beans. I like to put some of the meat in the freezer (as I mentioned) because otherwise we can get kind of burnt out on the same meat for 3 or 4 days in a row.
Tonight we're eating leftover veggies from our Ressurection Day luncheon, in the form of creamy vegetable cheese soup. I have leftover broccoli and cauliflower that should be quite nice in that.
Blessings!
Lindsey in AL

****Saw the recipe on your site. It sounds really good, thanks for posting it.
Vicki

Edited by Keeblur on Monday, April 9, 2007 at 03:52

Decluttering

{ 02:26, Monday, April 9, 2007 } { Posted by SongofJoy }

That's exactly where I am in my life - needing to go through and get rid of things we really don't need. I have so many piles around the house of things that were just easier to pile up than make a decision about. :( Let's pray for each other to get through this!

Blessings,
Carol

****Sounds good. Let me know how it goes for you and I'll post my results as well!
Vicki

Edited by Keeblur on Monday, April 9, 2007 at 03:52