A Little Life Update

 Life has been so full since my last post that I'm not sure where to even begin.  First off... I am the proud great aunt to another nephew.  Meet Henry James.  He was born Tuesday and let me just say he made quite the entrance. So much so, that he is being called our miracle baby. 

Mom was having trouble with delivery so she had a choice to keep pushing or have a c section.  She made the decision for the c sectiion, and boy are we glad she did! When Henry was born he was silent. Dad later said he was lifeless. Chest compression were immediately started and he was wisked away.

 Dad was busy reassuring mom and baby was in the next room. Dad could hear chatter and heard someone say, "he's gone." He said that was the worst moment of his life.  He heard this, but really didn't know what was happening. A few minutes later he learned they were saying gone from the room, not from this world. Praise Jesus!! 

Our little 8 lb 4.5 oz little guy is in the NICU and doing great. He is now breathing room air and for the past 24 hours has been bottle feed. They have done numerous test and everything seems fine. It won't be until he continues to develope and meet milestones that the full extend of any damage due to lack of oxygen will be fully known. I would appreciate any prayers that little Henry continues to grow and develope without any developmental delays due to his eventful birth. 

In my spare time (ha!) I have been working on Megan's little house. I don't want to speak poorly of my beloved neighbors, but they were slobs! Oh my, have we been cleaning. 

And painting. 

The new shower has been installed and soon Chuck will be able to finish the rest of the bathroom remodel.  The flooring crew is over there this afterrnoon finishing up trim work. 

All of this brush came from overgrown trees along the driveway and in the backyard. There is still a ton of yard work to complete, but it's looking so much better. 

In fact, we have been in such a go, go, go pattern that I haven't been documenting the changes as much as I wanted to. We have a time line of delivery for the new refridgerator and couch this week, so we have been hustling!

There is still a ton of work, but we can now see progress. 

Let's see what else has been happening.  We spent a couple of days in Kentucky for a funeral.  Great Uncle Vearl was 92 and had lived a full life. It was such an uplifting service as Vearl as recently come to know the Lord!  It makes the loss more bearable knowing your loved one will spend eternity in Heaven.

Megan will be starting a new job later this month.  She has taken a position at the company where her dad works.  She is referring to it as her big girl job. 

As you can tell, life has been full.  It's a lot, but I'm trying to enjoy the ride. I know that big changes are coming and I want to soak all of this up. 

Wendi 

August Vibes

It's that time of the year when the flowers are looking worse for wear. 

I think I'm starting to feel that way also. Life is spinning right along at warp speed plus it's been hot. We've had rain, thankfully it's cooled things down. Sad thing is that there has been some flooding. Feast or famine, I tell you!

It's that time of year for back to school. I spent some time helping my very pregnant niece set up her classroom. Then I planned out some "school" for my three year old great-nephew. Early childhood education is my favorite!

Little man is getting so big! He'll be with me until about the first of September before his mom is on maternity leave. 

My garden is producing well. This was all from one morning. 

Chuck made me a stand to dry produce. My potato harvest wasn't very big this year. 

I believe I mentioned that our beloved neighbors were moving. Megan went over with me one evening to watch the babies for a minute. She kept saying, "this place could be cute." 

The next morning I am barely out of the shower when she pops open the door and says she's on the phone with the bank. 

All that to say that our baby is a homeowner!

She'll take possesion as soon as the neighbor can get moved out. They are working on it and hope to be out this weekend. I'm not sure they'll meet that goal. 

Then the real run begins as we will doing a mini flip. I'll take you along as "we are balling on a budget" as Megan says. It could be interesting. *smile*

Just to show you Megan's sense of humor... this is the notice she put on the neighbors door as they were closing on their new house. 

My neighbor called me and said, "tell my landlord she's mean." lol

My already busy schedule will be a little more packed for a while. So, if this little spaces remains quiet you'll know I'm ripping out flooring, cleaning, painting and doing all the other fun things that come with making a house a home.

Wendi 

$5 Pantry Challenge: Week #4

 I'm participating in the $5 Pantry Building Challenge hosted by Patsi at A Working Pantry.

 This is what I added to my pantry this week. 

The Peanut Butter was on sale for $1.89. The smoked sausage was on sale for $3.29 and there was a digital coupon for $1 off. The notebooks were 35cents. The peanut butter will be added to my pantry to save for making fudge for Christmas. The smoked sausage will be added to the freezer and the notebooks will be stashed in the office.  I use spiral notebooks often for things like budgeting, grocery list, and really anything I need to make a list to remember. 

My total this week with tax was $4.93.

I'll meet you here next week for Week #5 of this challenge. 

Wendi

Pantry Challenge Week #3

 I'm participating in the $5 Pantry Building Challenge hosted by Patsi at A Working Pantry. 

This is what I added to my pantry this week. 

The black beans were on sale for 89 cents each.  The pasta is 16 oz packages that were on the clearance rack for 81 cents a package. The peanut butter was also on the clearance rack for $1.44.  I've never had honey peanut butter, but I hope it will be delicious for dipping apple slices into. 

My total spent this week was $4.84. 

I'll meet your hear next week for Challenge #4 of this challenge.

Wendi 

Making Hay

It's been a making hay while sun shines kind of week. Lots of fresh produce from the garden needed worked.  I started with the cabbage. 

 We had boiled cabbage, creamy cole slaw, shared some, and made Aunt Wanda's freezer slaw.  

Aunt Wanda was the sister of my mother-in-law.  She's been gone 12 years and it brought back such great memories reading her handwriting and thinking about her. She was a wonderful lady and I loved her dearly. 

The canner has been getting a work out. Megan made Salsa Verde using produce from the garden.  

I am officially done with green beans for the year. 

Mom and I have canned 82 quarts this season! Tomorrow morning I will pull up my remaining beans. 

Next week school starts, which means I will be watching my great-nephew once again. I made a large shop and worked on stocking my freezer.

I purchased two large packages of ground beef (they both were on special with $5 off each package), one package of chicken breast, one package of chicken tenders, and a large bag of shredded mozzarella cheese. 

 Out of that I was able to package up 10 packages of hamburger, 2  packages of 3 pattied hamburgers, 3 packages of chicken tenders (about 8 in each package), 8 chicken breast (packaged individually), 4 mini meatloaf (cook and flash frozen for Chuck's lunchbox), 14 meatballs (cooked and flashed frozen) to be used as a quick addition to sauce, and 9, 2 cup portions of mozzarella cheese. I've very happy with the addition to my freezer!

I've also been working on my latest furnitue flip.  I removed the paper this afternoon and will be able to stain it this weekend. 

The never ending fence project continues. One coat of paint is on the back of the gate. This is a tendious project with the rails. 

More pickets have been added! Chuck will have all of the pickets we have available back in place this weekend. 

I keep reminding myself that some projects take time and I need be patient and appreciate any progress. I've very happy with how it's turning out. 

It's been a productive week and I'm happy with the things that have been accomplished. 

Wendi 

$5 Pantry Building Challenge: Week #2

 I'm participating in the $5 Pantry Building Challenge hosted by Patsi at A Working Pantry. 

For this weeks challenge I am adding three jars of spaghetti sauce. 

My local grocery had them on sale for 3 for $6.00 with a $1.00 off digital coupon making them 3 for $5. 

I'll meet you here next week for Week #3 of this challenge. 

Wendi 

Joy in the Ordinary

 Some ordinary, yet joyful moments from my week. 

We are going to call this the finding joy in the heat addition. Last night at 7:30 it will still 90*. Whew!

The garden continues to produce well. I used some of the first cucumbers to make refrigerator pickles. A nice, crisp cold treat. 

The chickens continue to lay well. I love, love seeing a bowl of fresh eggs on my counter.

Most of my afternoons are spent floating in the pool. 

We are officially calling the garage "project central." As of today all of the pickets we purchased have been painted. Now Chuck will work on installing them.  Once that is complete we will remove more pickets to replace. 

My table flip is complete. The chairs are currently being flipped. As if I don't have enough going on I recently picked another piece of furniture to flip. 

This time it is a very nice buffet. There are some things happening behind the scenes that I'm not ready to share yet. Soon.

It's suppose to be another hot day. I am heading out to deadhead flowers, check the garden, and then I need to clean before I head out for a hair appointment. 

Look around, really look around and you will find joy... joy in the every day, joy in the ordinary. 

Wendi 

$5 Pantry Building Challenge: Week #1

I'm participating in the $5 Pantry Building Challenge hosted by Patsi at A Working Pantry. 

For this weeks challenge I am adding marshmallows to my pantry. My local grocery had their 10.5 oz store brand on sale for $1/bag.  

I picked up 5 bags. 

With tax my total was $5.35.

I imagine some of you might be thinking that's a lot of marshmallows, what can you do with all of those. On the dehydrator they went!

When complete I ended up with 4 half gallon jars. I was a little bit surprised! Generally, when I've dehydrated items they really shrink. The marshmallows did not! They stayed their original size. 

Besided the obvious use of adding to hot chocolate, there are so many uses for these! They are great in baking as they don't add additional moisture to your baked goods.  They can be added to brownies, cookies, or fudge. They are delicious added on chocolate ice cream to give it the Rocky Road effect. Or they can be added to your favorite granola or trail mix. They can even be used in makng Rice Crispy treats! I've never used them for that purpose, but I will be giving that a try.  Really, the uses are endless. 

I'll meet you here next week for Week #2 of this challenge!

Wendi 

A Little Gardening

The weatherman is saying rain is possible all weekend and then we are suppose to be very hot again next week. Armed with this information, I knew I needed to tackle some outside things. The tiger lilies were spent, so I started by removing the stems. 

That, my friends, is quite a job! They'll look limp for a couple of week then the foliage will bounce back and green and lushious again. 

There are two window boxes on the front of the house. The picture doesn't do them justice, they are simply gorgeous!

I use this sweet geranium to block the gas meter. 

As I moved around the house checking out my flowers, I dead headed and removed those pesky weeds!

A peek at my hanging baskets. I have two of these on the back porch. 

I made sure to fertilize everything well. I'm giving my flowers a little boost before the extreme heat hits next week. 

Next I ventured out to the vegetable garden. 

I had tomatoes to tie up, and some produce ready to harvest. 

Thankfully by this time it was late in the evening. The garden was shaded, there was a nice breeze and Chuck joined me to pick green beans. 

I have a shirt that says, "gardening is my therapy." That is a true statement.  It gives me joy to see the beauty.  I hope you enjoyed a peek into my garden space. 

Wendi 

Let's Catch Up

Well, Hello Friends! It's been just a little bit since I've visited my little space on the web. Let's catch up!

I've been spending most of my time painting. 

So far I've painted approximately 140 feet of post and 2x4's along with 115 pickets. We won't even discuss how much more I have to go. 

Megan turned twenty!!

We've had plenty of rain and it turned HOT! Which means the garden has been going crazy. 

Between my garden and my moms' we ended up with a little over three, five gallon buckets of SNAPPED green beans. That resulted 60 quarts canned. 

I don't know if I mentioned that my great-nephew, Ben, is going to be a big brother. His little brother will be here in about two months. We hosted a small sprinkle for my niece on the 4th. 

My oldest niece made the banner. We're encouraging her to start a side hustle. 

And if I don't have enough going on I'm working on some furniture flips. Let me tell you that removing black paint is the pits! It took a bit, but I got it done. 

Our annual 4th of July picture. 

Excuse my awful hair. I'm growing out a cut that I dislike.  Ugh. 

I hope everyone is doing well! 

Wendi