A Day On the Farm

I don't waste time on Pinterest :). I learn self-reliance and save money :). Haha... That's my excuse anyway ;). And I even have proof! Below are pictures of my growing celery. I just chopped off the bottom of store-bought celery, put it in water for a week (which helped produce 2 roots) and just potted it on Friday. It's grown even more since then, but I didn't take anymore pictures. Either way, I'm totally excited. It's the nerd in me coming out :).  I'm also growing a green onion from the root part too now.  Before long, our table will be covered with plants.  I'm still excited about it though. 

This next one is from today, while the other were from 2 or 3 weeks ago.  You can see the green onions also in the picture below.  Pretty awesome stuff!  Oh yeah, today is actually August 31.  You can ignore the date this blog says it was posted...  That's when I started it.  I don't know where the time has gone.

So earlier this month Jeremy and I took all the kids out to Jeremy's parents' farm.  Mostly it was to get the kids out of the city and let them run around.  Experience new things.  See what it is to do a little work and reap the rewards.  And wander around up creeks and explore.  I think they had a blast.  It was a full day.  The pictures below kind of tell their own story, but I'll narrate a little bit :).

Here are the kids trying to get close to the cow.  The cow wasn't very trusting of them and kept running away.  It was a minefield of manure, but the kids didn't seem to mind.  Haha...

We had them pick raspberries so they could enjoy them on ice cream later on.  The goal was for them to do a little bit of work and help out.  Here are Desiree and Autumn.

And here's Emily showing me one of hers.

We took a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jam with some veggies and fruit and cookies.  And Jeremy's mom made them some waffle cookies, which they all loved.

We also collected chicken eggs, but I didn't take any pictures of that.  Angie did, but I never asked for them...  They learned that eggs are dirty fresh from the chicken.  You have to make sure you clean them and your hands!  And Samuel, please don't rub the warm egg on your cheek!  Ick!  Haha...

Then we took them on an adventure to a nearby creek.  Autumn spent a lot of her time collecting water bugs.  Saria, Benjamin, and Desiree explored further up-river with Uncle Jeremy (well, after this part where we went under the bridge).  Samuel was not interested in posing for pictures (you will see).  And Emily just tried to keep up.  Sometimes it's hard being 3.  But she is small, so she could go under fallen limbs and trunks better than most (and most especially better than Aunt Hila, who was trying to keep up!)

Desiree wanted to pose in the water.

Sam's thrilled to take pictures.

Once back on the farm, the kids got to jump on the trampoline for a bit.  Then they got to feed the cow.  So here are copious cow-feeding pictures.

Emily is our little poser.

Angie fed the cow too.

And once she was being fed, the cow was happy to let the kids pet her, if they approached her calmly and slowly and one at a time.

We took another picture after this one...  Neither one was very good.  I posted the one I thought I looked slightly improved in.  Ugh.

And Autumn celebrated her 9th birthday a few days later.

 

As for the rest of life...  Still house-hunting.  Not finding much these days.  I applied for another job.  We'll see if I get it :).  I'll keep ya posted!  And I'm looking forward to a lovely 4-day weekend (well, 3 left now).  I will be canning some peaches with my mother-in-law at some point :).  Happy Labor Day!

The Sound of Silence

It's been an eventful week.  Which would seem to belie the song title I have chosen for this particular post.  But it doesn't, trust me :).

Things were hopping at work last week.  I think I mentioned in the last post that a co-worker had quit, and since she had trained me on a lot of her job, I have been continuing that, only without her awesome help.  Let me just say:  the time flew.  Which I appreciated.  But my stress level went up a tad bit too.  Which I didn't appreciate so much.  Rushing to meet deadlines, playing inter-departmental politics.  Yeah, not so much my thing.  But it all worked out just fine in the end.  And, until further notice, I will get to work half my day on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in the back.  And I enjoy that, because there are fewer interruptions. 

We had found a van that we went to look at last Saturday.  We were prepared to take it home if we liked it.  We did.  The girl wasn't ready to let it go.  She needed it for one more week.  Okay, so after I was grumbly about her being flaky...  I got over it.  And we agreed that we would purchase the van at the end of the week.  Sounded risky, but we figured if it didn't happen, it wasn't meant to be.  But the girl was very thoughtful in that she contacted us a couple times during the week to let us know how progress was going on her end with the things she needed to do (she is leaving tomorrow to go to Taiwan for a year to teach English, which is why she was selling the van).  But, that meant we were still without a second car.  Which meant I was still driving Jeremy's car to work.  And that was all well and good and all of that.  Until Tuesday -- which had been a very stressful day at work for me.  I headed to the parking lot a block away from where I work, thinking about how I was voluntarily going to work the next morning at 6:30 (sick, right?  But I had a big deadline I had to meet by noon on Wednesday, and I was freaking out a tad).  And I was texting Jeremy that I was headed home (he's on days this month).  I got in the car and turned the key.  And heard nothing.  Nothing.  It was the sound of silence (hence the song title post :)).  Seriously.  A dreaded sound when what you want to hear is the engine start.  Well, I quickly realized I had disobeyed my morning directive to myself to "remember to turn off the lights when you get to work."  Nice.  It had been a cloudy morning.  Not really enough to merit lights, so I have no idea why I turned them on.  But lesson learned.  Seriously.  So I called Jeremy, who of course could do nothing, as he was home about 11 miles away with nothing but a bike.  I remembered AAA, but who wants to waste a call out on something someone else can help with?  I thought of my mom, and then got a grip and thought, "Hila, there are still people in the office."  So I called my boss who sent (actually, this person volunteered) someone out who happens to have to jump her own car off all the time.  And then another nice employee came over and helped us too.  So, though I did shed some tears (it had been a stressful day), it all went just fine.  But by the end of that, I was done.  D.O.N.E.  So I skipped walking with Sue.

Wednesday was laundry day.  And Thursday evening we went and got the van :).  Yay!  Here are the pictures :).

Try parking that thing in our tiny parking spot.  Ugh.  It's a chore and a half.  But beyond that, I really like it.  It's a smooth ride and has lots of room.  And we're hoping to put at least another 100k miles on it :).  It's a Honda, so at least it has a reputation for being able to do that! 

And then today.  Today was mostly lazy.  We had nothing planned, except going to look at another house.  Which we did around 1:30 today.  Nice house.  Still needs some work.  Again, the basement isn't finished.  But we wouldn't need to finish it in order to have all that we want.  We probably would eventually, but it isn't a priority.  It has slightly less acreage than the other, but more than our minimum.  And one of the coolest things, to me, is all the storage!  Some of it is in these random nooks and crannies that are just so stinkin' nifty!  A kid's dream for hide and seek...  Anyway, I really like this house.  I liked the other too, but the more the week has gone by, the more I have realized how much work we'd need to do from the word "go."  So we've been discussing a lot lately.  It's a lot to consider.  Of course, I don't anticipate that the house we looked at today will be on the market for long.  But we aren't willing to rush into anything.  So we will move forward prayerfully and see how we feel.  These are important decisions, after all.  But!  If we do get a house, and you find yourself in the Pacific Northwest...  Consider yourself invited to our abode :).

So Here's the Thing...

I have way too many projects to be sucked in by Pinterest now.  I have avoided asking friends for an invitation to the site.  But someone on facebook invited me.  And I clicked on it (after studiously ignoring it for 3 whole days, believe it or not!).  And now.  Now I know why I shouldn't have ever clicked it.

There are self-reliance ideas, people.  You may not be able to guess it (considering how I still don't have my 72-hour kit compiled and I don't have even close to a year's worth of food storage -- not that I have anywhere to store it...), but I'm really into this self-reliance stuff.  You know what sucked me in tonight?  Gardening stuff.  Specifically how one can grow new celery by using the base of the store-bought celery.  Let's just say they had me at "never buy celery again."  Hahaha...  So then I started reading up on growing an avocado plant from seed.  And then I read up on how to use egg shells to start seeds -- and then, when it's time to plant outside, you plop it, egg shell and all, into the ground!  And, yeah... You get the idea.

Here's the problem:  I can't do really try some of these fabulous things (or it's pointless to) at this juncture, as I have no yard.  Harumph.

But here's the solution:  buy a house!  Of course.  Which brings us to one "project" I could be working on right now.  Making a pros and cons list of the house Jeremy and I went and looked at today.  Yes, seriously.  We looked at a house!!  It's way exciting.  I mean, I do a lot of online house-hunting.  Like, daily.  But this was the first house we looked at.  It's not far from my mom's, so Sue and I walked by there on Tuesday as part of our exercise walk.  I'd seen pictures of it online, of course.  Only outside shots though.  Which can mean the inside is scary.  Anyway...  It's not exactly what we want as it stands.  But there's a fabulous word called potential.  And that's why I even considered it in the first place.

See, Jeremy and I have a list of what we want.  Mostly they are not negotiable.  Here they are, in no particular order:

• a minimum of .2 acres.  To my Alabama friends, know that I envy your sprawling lands, even within city limits.  It just ain't so here in Washington.  At least not where I live.  Within city limits, it's hard to find a yard bigger than a postage stamp.  Oh, they're out there.  But they are hard to find.  Well, hard to find if you have the next restriction:
• within 2 miles of where Jeremy works.  This is because he bikes to work and he would like to keep that up.  I am fine with that for several reasons:
• it saves on gas (which saves on money)
• it is allowing us to survive being a one-car family at the moment (and possibly in the future if there is another unplanned-for event...)
• one day I hope we have a baby (or 4).  And when that day comes, I won't work.  So my opinion is that his commute is what matters.  Because I won't have one.
• It will probably shorten his commute time which means more time with his family (aka me :)).
•  minimum of 1500 square feet.  We want a family.  We want them to have room to roam.  Which is also another reason for the acreage.  (That plus we want a garden.  A nice one.).  We also want room to have a dedicated area for our aforementioned food storage.  I get excited just thinking about this.  Am I a dork, or what :)?
• kitchen size must be reasonable.  It's weird, but a lot of the kitchens in this town -- at least in the older homes -- are teensy tiny.  I don't understand it.  I love the kitchen.  And we want room for things like canning.  You know, because we'll need to do something with all those garden crops :). 
• price.  Yeah, we have a price cap.  Who doesn't?  We aren't interested in buying more house than we can afford.  Even if it meets every other requirement.  Our opinion is that that is bad math.  
• Miscellaneous things that we are more flexible on:  would prefer 3 bedrooms and at least 1.5 bathrooms.  We would prefer not to live around dogs; we simply aren't fans of obnoxious barking.  Jeremy likes houses with eaves.  Many of the older houses here don't have them.  We like uniqueness.  Neither one of us cares for the "cookie cutter" homes.  Quiet area with privacy.

So this house we looked at meets the absolute ones.  And even seems to be away from dogs that are outside dogs.  It has .3 acres.  We were so excited to see that.  And when Sue and I took a look at it and walked around the yard...  Well, it has a ton of apple trees -- that produce!  I was excited by that fact alone.  I like free food that grows in my backyard.  When Jeremy and I went back today, we realized  there is also a pear tree, a cherry tree (that needs some serious help so it can produce more than the 3 shriveled cherries that were on it), and a plum tree that isn't on this property, but we think it's on County right-of-way or easement property, and therefore we don't think anyone would care if we picked them.  And blackberry bushes, but those are pretty prevalent around here.  The house is listed as a 2 bedroom 1 bath.  That is the big sticker.  We can easily fix the bedroom thing, because the basement isn't finished.  So we can put in rooms down there.  But adding an additional bathroom will take a little more effort.  And probably be more costly.  The finished square footage is actually about 500 too small.  But.  It has that unfinished basement that is the same exact size.  So once we finish it, we would have 2100 square feet.  And a really cool thing, in my opinion, is that there is storage built into the basement walls.  Hard to explain, but I'm thinking it's a perfect place for a lot of our food storage.  Plus it has a concrete sink in the basement.  Okay, so totally not a selling point, but I think it's cool, because it reminds me of my house in Panama that had a concrete sink on the patio by the washer and dryer.  There is a detached hugemongous garage that we could use for our back-up vehicle and all our yard stuff.  And a million other things (trust me, it's huge).  It has eaves.  The kitchen is very reasonable and even comes complete with a pretty new refrigerator (freezer on the bottom).  And it's probably a 5 or 10 minute bike ride from the house to Jeremy's job.  This home feels less secluded than the other one that I really liked (but that is being sold).  But the street is quiet and the houses around it seem to be well cared for.  And we can add privacy by planting stuff.  There is a fence around the whole yard (not the garage), but it's not a great one.  It's a very short chain-link one.  And we've checked out the County data and everything seems on the up and up.  This is a woman selling who just lost her husband and she is now in an assisted living center.  She and her husband bought the house in 1987.  And they've maintained it.  It doesn't have a dishwasher, and it does need to be updated.  But the house itself is sound.  Jeremy checked out the foundation and the attic and the roof.  It's a solid house with solid beams.  So anyway, we are excited.  Oh, and the price.  The price is more than right.  But there will be work to do.  We will need to re-wire.  We will need to replace some windows, including enlarging some.  We will need to finish the whole basement.  So the question becomes:  buy the house at this price with the knowledge we will spend money to make it all that we want or wait for something more expensive that requires less time and work.  We are sleeping on it.  And praying about it.  And waiting for our pre-approval letter, which the bank didn't send, but which we need for when we make an offer.  We called the bank today to see about having them send it.  They were supposed to email it, but haven't yet.  And maybe this is one of those things that will keep us from buying the house before someone else does (it's already had 3 offers), in which case we will know this isn't the right house.  But we are excited nonetheless.  And learning.  And dreaming :).

Wow.  What a novel!  Sorry.

The other thing I should be working on (and have been a little)?  The Marvelous Monday Meals cookbook.  I'm going to have that thing done for Christmas this year daggumit.

Oh, in other news...  Due to the sudden and unexpected resignation of a co-worker (which is very sad, because she is my friend and she trained me on doing accounts payable stuff), I may or may not be changing jobs.  We'll see what happens.  My boss wants me to apply for it -- and I probably will.  She'd still be my boss.  But others may apply and have a larger skill-set that I don't have.  So we will see.  It does mean I'd work 40 hour weeks again, though.  And that's a bummer.  But I can work 4 tens.  And still have my 3-day weekends :).  So, I'll keep you posted.  And if you made it this far without falling asleep, you should give yourself a cookie :).  I'd give you one, if I was there :).