• Thursday, January 8, 2009 - Wonderful Opportunity for Writers!
Posted By SimpleFolk
Since I was a child, I have loved creative writing. This makes the project I've been working on the past few months even more exciting for me. I'm so pleased to be able to share it with you now.
The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine is now accepting submissions for its second Storytime Writing Contest! We have two creative fiction categories: adults (16 and up 2,500 words or less) and children (15 and below 1,500 words or less).
The deadline to enter is midnight March 16, 2009.
Grand prize winners in both the adult and child categories will receive prize packages valued at over $1,000, publication in the Summer 2009 issue of TOS, and publication in the Storytime 2009 Compilation E-Book. Eleven Honorable Mentions from each category will also be included in the E-Book in addition to receiving gifts from top homeschool companies.
There is no limit for submissions, but there is a $7.95 fee per entry. For a detailed list of prizes, official contest rules, to meet the judges, and to upload your story, please visit:
Sometimes I get busy with school and forget to spend a little one-on-one time schooling the littlest of my littles. What a difference it makes when I do. They are SO excited to have their own one-on-one School time with Moma. :) So much so that afterwards, I hear... "Moma, is it our school time now?" quite a lot. :)
Now don't get me wrong, they school right alongside the older children, while we are having school time they are coloring or learning the Presidents or writing their letters... but it helps a lot to spend a little time to work with just them, one at a time. What a blessing it is to me, to be the one who sees their children learn new skills, what a joy it is to be the one who is there helping them, teaching and nurturing them and watching them learn. There just is NOTHING like it.
Enjoy them being close to you, being with you, so much so that it is an ache in you to be away from them...
Children are a gift, given to US... from the Lord.
Cherish, Enjoy, Treasure every moment.
No, it is not always easy for me to do that either, but when I realize that the next time I blink my eyes that they will be grown, it makes it a lot easier for me to slow down, breathe deeply and know how incredible my life truly is.
I hope you have a great day and enjoy time with your littles, big, small and in-between. :)
My Cup Runneth Over...
Much to the delight of a certain seven year old that I know...it snowed! There's a blanket of fresh clean snow here in the woods. It looks just like a fairyland. Of course, he has been distracted all day, waiting for the school day to end. When "the bell rang" he was out the door! I've been making a list of things that I want to accomplish this winter. These snowy "home days" will soon be here and gone and I'll be putting on boots, grabbing gloves and heading out into the soggy spring land. In the last several months there were some projects left undone, letters left unwritten, clothes that need mending, and things that I just haven't felt well enough to do. These things need to be done now. I'm not sure why I have this surge of energy, but I'm just going to just embrace it. :-)
I have decided to get back into making soap. If I am to have any for Farmers Market in spring and summer (or for our own use and gifts for that matter) I need to get busy now. I've also been daydreaming about our raspberries. I'm sure that this stack of seed catalogs here on the table isn't helping my spring fever much, but, I do want to enjoy each season to its fullest. And I do love snow, too. Probably not enough to brave the cold to sled in it tonight as the boys are doing, but I think it's really lovely. Besides, my job is to see to it that they warm back up. I'll stay indoors, put some wood in the fire, a pot of hot soup on the stove and warm some biscuits in the oven for when they come back in. Oh, and maybe dream a little more of spring.
One day last week I remembered that I had bought some heavy cream over the holidays for Moma's Favorite Cookie, which I am GOING to post the recipe for! REALLY! :) Well, I thought with this much cream, it would be a good time to show the children how to make butter... well the easy way to make butter.
We pulled out the ole food processor. Poured in all that cream and turned it on... There were a few different stages that I told them we would see...
First of all we saw it just as a liquid, as it is as cream.
We would start seeing the cream slowly becoming thicker, until we had it at the whipped cream stage.
They all tried it at this point and sneered... sadly they thought it would taste like cool whip. Pitiful, huh? I told them at the enormous amounts of 'stuff' added to cool whip and this was so much better, and that we could add a little sweetner if we wanted whipped cream, but we want butter! Keep it moving, keep it moving...
FINALLY!
BUTTER! :) HURRAH! Please forgive the skunk stripes down my child's hair... our New Years Party got a bit crazy! :) haha Mmm... this butter is good, Mom!
We even took the buttermilk and put it in a jar to use later and washed the curds with ice water to help get all the milk off so the butter would last longer.
Now a solid. How crazy are we? Doing school when we are supposed to be on holiday? haha... so is the life of a homeschooler.
I hope you have a great day friends.
My Cup Runneth Over...
It's early here on our farm and still quite dark and still. My feet were warm until they hit the cool wood floor, so instead of just staying under the covers (as I considered) I put on a thick pair of wool socks and loaded the stove with wood. The house will be toasty when the boys wake. I pulled back the curtains and peeked out the windows. We're expecting some very nasty weather today and from what I can see, it's already starting. Ice and snow are on the agenda. I'm not surprised; today is my middle son's birthday and he almost never has nice weather for it.
Bless his heart, he was born in a blizzard thirteen years ago! Getting to the hospital during a Level 3 Snow Emergency (and being pulled over and quickly let go by a police officer) makes for a very interesting birth story, don't you think? That being said, he was my easiest delivery. I barely felt a pain or broke a sweat. In the words of my great-aunt, "It was so easy I wondered if I deserved him." :-) That tiny baby with thick black hair and huge dark eyes now towers over me and is still growing!
Because of the weather, our celebration with family and friends will have to wait, but I'm still baking the cake he requested, a Raspberry Lemon Cake. (Yes, much more suited for an Easter dinner, but it's his favorite nonetheless.) Let's just pray that the power stays on so it can bake! Our newest teen wants/needs a new pair of insulated Carhartt overalls for his birthday, so we'll go shopping later this week when the road clears. We'll just spend the day where it's warm and plan a BIG birthday celebration for him... in July!
• Monday, January 5, 2009 - A Simple Woman's Daybook
Posted By SimpleFolk
For Today
Monday, January 5,2008
Outside my Window...it's a gray, chilly day with little sunshine. A very typical winter day for our State.
I am thankful that...Spring is coming eventually and the sunshine will return
From the kitchen...Cinnamon Toast and Tea for Breakfast, Chicken Ranch Wraps for Lunch, Leftovers from the weekend for Supper
I am reading...the December-January issue of MaryJanesFarm.
I am hearing...Middle Son playing the guitar
I am going...to watch a "chick flick" this evening, probably Phantom of the Opera. (Or Phantom of the Opry as my youngest calls it! Hey, we're country folk!)
I am hoping...that the storm that's coming tomorrow won't bring much ice
One of my favorite things... lit birthday candles on a cake
A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week... Middle Son's birthday celebration
A picture thought to share for the day...
Please stop by to visit Peggy to peek into the lives of other "Simple Women," and to read the guidelines for creating your own Daybook!
Like I told you... I have been excitedly sewing again. I am so happy. :)
I decided the other night to make myself a new apron. I like the smock type of aprons so I went for that. This one is modified a bit from my original purple smock that I love. This fabric was my Grandmothers/Nannie Red's. I only had a smallish remnant and sadly the smock is a bit too short for me. I am considering what I want to do with it now... try and sell it in my Etsy or possibly wait and see if I can refashion it to make it work somehow.
I LOVE how it turned out... the colors are wonderful and vibrant and I adore the fabrics. I finished the edges with bias tape and made 2 pockets on the front... perfect for clothes pins on wash day or running out to the garden to pick a few peppers. The rick rack was a tribute to a dear friend of mine and I just love it. :) I hope to find the time to get back in the sewing room again soon... to make one equally as cute that I can wear. I LOVE my aprons, I love wearing them... I actually do wear them. Putting one on helps me feel ready to get to work. :)
Here is a little something a friend sent me about aprons, I was reminded of it when I saw it on a message board that I frequent...
Grandma's Apron
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.
And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron. I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron !
I have been bit by the sewing bug again, finally. I haven't been in my sewing room since the craft festival. I have thought about it, only to say, "No way". I don't know, it must have been all those nights of being in there until 3 am that helped me to shun my love of sewing for all this time.
So I had been thinking of making my children some colored pencil rolls. I thought they would be a nice thing to have to take along to church, on field trips, to have on hand when they want to sketch something... I also thought I would make them a bag to hold their pencil roll, their Bible, and a sketch pad... I still have to make those. :)
So Saturday afternoon, I seized my opportunity to go into my sewing nook.
And here is the outcome. The one above is Cameo's. She loves the fabric. I made 14 slots in hers... 12 is because colored pencils come in a 12 pack at the dollar store and then I wanted her to have a place for a pen and a pencil. It was a strange thing when I went to the sewing nook to pick out the fabric... I pulled most of the fabric off the shelf, sorted, folded some neatly and came to realize that the deer/elk fabric was the only boyish fabric that I own! NO JOKE! How sad is that! I know that there is some really cute boyish fabric around but I own only the half a yard or so I used to make these roll ups. So I had to make two different colored ties for Eli and Abrams so they could tell them apart.
I ended up making myself an apron after I finished the pencil rolls and I will show you pictures of that later on.
And if that didn't tickle me enough, I taught myself how to knit a little. Oh, am I awkward and silly looking right now... but I figure in time it will become easy to me. I know how to cast on, and how to do the knit stitch. I am so tickled. I have been practicing over and over and am so slow. haha. Next I will learn the purl and hopefully try and make something... hooray! :)
Have a great week friends.
My Cup Runneth Over...
Isn't it exciting how a new year seems to bring forth a clean new slate, all kinds of new possibilities are just waiting... everything seems a bit more doable. We/I feel that, "Yes, I Can" mentality. :)
In all honesty we can feel that way all the time if we are believers in the Lord Jesus. He gives us all the hope that we can ever need.
Our New Year's Eve was a lot of fun, somewhat quiet, but still very fun. The children and Shannon and I played games, had a new homemade pizza concoction I came up with, and ended up falling asleep before midnight...
Shannon was the only one awake at exactly midnight because he wanted to get up and pray. I woke up 7 minutes later. :) Pretty close...
Well, I am excited for the New Year.
And as for resolutions.... one of mine is, to treat each day as a gift.
That is of course why it is called The Present. :)
Happy New Year my Friends,
My Cup Runneth Over...
Sometimes I get busy with school and forget to spend a little one-on-one time schooling the littlest of my littles. What a difference it makes when I do. They are SO excited to have their own one-on-one School time with Moma. :) So much so that afterwards, I hear... "Moma, is it our school time now?" quite a lot. :)
What a blessing it is to me, to be the one who sees their children learn new skills, what a joy it is to be the one who is there helping them, teaching and nurturing them and watching them learn. There just is NOTHING like it. 
Poured in all that cream and turned it on...
There were a few different stages that I told them we would see...
Keep it moving, keep it moving...
Please forgive the skunk stripes down my child's hair... our New Years Party got a bit crazy! :) haha
Mmm... this butter is good, Mom!
Like I told you... I have been excitedly sewing again. I am so happy. :)
I finished the edges with bias tape and made 2 pockets on the front... perfect for clothes pins on wash day or running out to the garden to pick a few peppers. The rick rack was a tribute to a dear friend of mine and I just love it. :)
I hope to find the time to get back in the sewing room again soon... to make one equally as cute that I can wear. I LOVE my aprons, I love wearing them... I actually do wear them. Putting one on helps me feel ready to get to work. :)
The one above is Cameo's. She loves the fabric. I made 14 slots in hers... 12 is because colored pencils come in a 12 pack at the dollar store and then I wanted her to have a place for a pen and a pencil. 
It was a strange thing when I went to the sewing nook to pick out the fabric... I pulled most of the fabric off the shelf, sorted, folded some neatly and came to realize that the deer/elk fabric was the only boyish fabric that I own! NO JOKE! How sad is that! I know that there is some really cute boyish fabric around but I own only the half a yard or so I used to make these roll ups. So I had to make two different colored ties for Eli and Abrams so they could tell them apart. 
Isn't it exciting how a new year seems to bring forth a clean new slate, all kinds of new possibilities are just waiting... everything seems a bit more doable. We/I feel that, "Yes, I Can" mentality. :) 
