Making it Home

Swimming with the wolf

Warning do not swim with the wolf he thinks people are swim toys.  When he jumped in  he did this to me:

Here is some of a wet wolf:

Arthur wolf in his run, muddy:

We let him in the pool because it need salt to run and clean it.

God Bless, mj

How many men dies it take to hang a picture?

I had my daughter Kristi take this picture when we were at my sisters Tracy's house for a BBQ.   She and her hubby Andy just bought their 1 st home a few weeks ago.  She needed this picture hung.  Tracy, mom and I laughed so hard while the men were hanging the picture.  We kept saying how it would have been done faster if we girls did it.  And the boys / men kept making jokes about the "stud finder" find them!   Oh'boy men.  It took them over 15 minutes to hand the picture with ONE nail.  We love you boys, but we girls could have had it done in 3-5 minutes!

Here are the boy / men:

From left to right is my hubby Shannon, our dad and last is Tracy's husband Andy.

God Bless, mj

Dinner at my sisters

This afternoon we went to my sister Tracy's house to see it and have dinner.  Tracy and her husband Andy bought this house a coupleweeks ago, but have just finished painting and fixing it up.   The house is cute and big, I love it.  I love the color she painted it.  This is her 1st time owning a house.  There was only one problem . "How many men does it take to hang one picture"?

We girls were laughing so hard. We kept telling each other if we did it we would be done by now   !!

From left to right is my husband Shannon, my dad Mike, my b-i-l Andy.  Shhh, it took them about 15 + minutes !

Dinner was great.  It was Tracy and Andy , our parents, our aunt and 2 cousins and Michelle, Gill and the babies and of course us 4.   We thought that the babies would come with us because when they see us they always want to come back "home".   The grand-babies cam home with us .

We had a blast and can't wait to go again.

God Bless all, mj

The Start

My name is mj and I am Shannon's help meet.  Shannon is a Mr. Command Man, as described in Debi Pearl's book.   Some times it is hard to be a wife of a Command Man, if you are a strong dominant woman.   I am just about as hard headed as Shannon.  It took me years to give him the head of the household role and I do mean YEARS!   But it was all worth it!   To have him in charge of it all is such a weight off me. 

But some times there are problems.  An example is with our older daughter Shayna.  Shayna is a very good girl, but boy is she strong willed, I have no clue where she got that from .   The problem was Shayna spoke to me rude and then to her dad.  He and I talked to her about it but stopped when it was dinner time.  Shannon said he would talk to her again after dinner but did not.   That was hard for me because it was not resolved.  I wanted it done and over with.

It was hard for me to not say something about his not talking to her more.  He knew I wanted to say it, but did not.

This blog is a part of my journey of working everyday on being the help meet Shannon needs and God wants me to be.

God Bless, mj

hello all

Pictures

Here is a picture of my husband and  one of his fish he caught on one of his trips to Mexico, my hubby is the one in the red tank top:

Here is one from 2 weeks ago:

Have you ever seen a horse drink from a park fountain:

That is Kristi and Cody. It was taken last fall.

This next one is my father on his bike with his little dog George.  They ride around Vegas like this.  Aren't they cute!

Moose for sale.  As Shayna was listing some books for sale on E-bay her cat Moose was helping out.  Yup he wore some stickers that said 50% off and 75% off.  I think he thought he was worth more as you can tell he was not happy about his price .

God Bless, mj

Mom ,what one do you like ?

Kristi is a bad girl .  While we were out shopping she picked up on 3 guys, three!!!

Here is boy friend number 1, he's cute but kinda stiff:

Next we have boy friend number 2, but he is kind of two faced:

And last we have boy friend number 3, my favorite, he cost $74.36 just for 1 date, so he must be worth it :

Who says shopping at Sam's with a cell phone is not fun .  Kristi and I had a blast .  But really Kristi you need to stop picking up new boy friends when we shop.  LOL

Teenagers what can I do?!?!?!

God Bless, mj

Taco Soup

Believe it or not...IT'S SEPTEMBER!!  Those cooler temps are on the way!  I LOVE fall...it's my FAVORITE time of year!!  Along with those falling temperatures that invite us to pull on our favorite sweaters, collect pumkins, go on hayrides and build bonfires comes my desire to make wonderful, hearty soups and stews!  One of our family's favorite cold weather soups is Taco Soup!!  Oh...it is yummy, stustaining, it's even attractive to look at in your bowl.    I hope you enjoy it!!

Blessings from Ohio, Kim Wolf<><

TACO SOUP

1 lb. ground beef or chuck
1/2  med. onion - finely chopped
1 lg. bunch of fresh cilantro - finely chopped
4-6 jalapeno peppers (depending on your taste buds & stomach lining!) - finely chopped
2 15-16 oz. cans kidney beans (UNdrained)
2 14-15 oz. cans whole kernal corn (UNdrained)
1 15-16 oz. can black beans (optional)
2 15 oz. cans tomato sauce
1 pkg (1-1/2 TB) taco seasoning
1 c. water

~ Brown beef, drain; add onion, peppers, 1/2 of the cilantro and cook until onions and peppers start to get tender.
~ Mix everything together in a dutch oven OR crockpot.
~ Heat through in dutch oven for 45 min. - 1 hour OR in crockpot for 2-3 hours on low.
~ Top with shredded cheddar or colby-jack cheese, sour cream and corn tortilla chips crumbled like crackers.

Written Wednesday, not posted til Friday!

Well, we did it, we restarted school!

It's been a very strange summer for us – almost none of the things I hoped to do got done, mainly because it never stopped raining long enough to do them!

We did survive Pony Club Camp, and having the kitchen floor ripped up, and the sitting room carpeted. We took a couple of trips, though not very adventurous ones, until last weekend when we left the animals with a friend and went up to wild, wet Wales for a Homeschool Conference. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, and we came back refreshed, and ready to begin again.

I guess God knew I needed the help, because our close encounter with the notion of christian school had left me a little disconsolate.

So today, we had a kind of trial run day, since tomorrow we are off to see a friend, and then Friday we will hopefully have another run through, and then Monday we can begin in earnest – and then I shall feel like autumn is here.

Granny Square Tutorial with Pictures

Alright my friends, I am going to attempt my first EVER sewing tutorial!   I told you that I was taught how to make a granny square while I was on my Ladies Retreat.  It was so much easier for me to learn from the ladies teaching than it was for me to look at a book and try.  The picture quality is not wonderful, I just saw some of the pictures I took last night, but hopefully you will get the hang of it as easily as I did and you will be turning out some beautiful squares as well!
If you are a Newbie to Crochet HERE is a site to help you with basic stitches, you will see me refer to several in this tutorial... Chain, Slip Stitch, Double Crochet.

Step 1: Chain 5
Cool, you got that! Alrighty we are on our way!

Step 2: You want to turn that chain into a round so you will go to the first chain and slip stitch...
Now we have our center, we will build on from there! Woohoo!

Step 3: Chain 3
Here we are building out from the center and we will begin making a larger circle to build on from here

Step 4: Two(2) Double Crochets and chain 1
Alright, here we are in process of making our circle, so what we are going to do is we are going to double crochet 2 times and then chain 1.  The chain will make the space we need to help us along in future steps...

Step 5: 3 Double Crochets and chain 1 (3 more times) slip stitch to complete the circle
Now we have a circle!! Yippee... but wait I told you we were making Granny Squares right?  Ok, bear with me we will get to the square in a minute.
So to make sure we are cool to this point, counting the first 3 chains as one DC (double crochet) you will have 4 sets of 3 double crochets with one chain in between.... clear as mud??

Step 6: Chain 3 and then double crochet 2, chain 1, double crochet 3 and chain 1 in the same hole
If you will look at your round you will see 3 double crochets and then a hole/space in between each set of 3.  This space is where you will go into to make your next layer or sets of 3.  Does this make sense... I am trying!
What you are doing now is building your edges... we can't make this granny square stay a circle any longer, we are going to put some corners on it!

Step 7: Look for next hole, double crochet 3 and chain 1~ 2 times in each hole.  (You will do this in each hole till you meet back up with your first set.  This will form your first square. Slip Stitch to complete the square and now you are ready to build on. 

Step 8: Chain 3, double crochet 2, chain 1
You will notice that there is now a hole between each of the four edges, you are going to do almost the same thing in each hole... meaning you don't want an edge you just want a set of 3 dc's to fill the hole.
So dc three times and chain one and move to your edge.

Step 9: Double Crochet 3 times, chain 1, Double Crochet 3 times, chain 1 in corner hole.
Again, you are making corners for this square, you should be catching on to a pattern if I have successfully portrayed this to you.  So in each of the corners you are making 3 dc's, chain 1, 3 dc's, chain 1.  Simple!

Step 10: Slip stitch to join the square together

Step 12: All the way baby... go all around just as I told you, come together again, slip stitch and tie off your end. 
The lady who taught me only does 4 layers, but of course you can do more if you like. 
Now you want a bunch of these... so get to it!
I don't have nearly as many as I would like to have had done by now, but remember I am teaching myself to hold the crochet needle/hook in the proper way, so I am SLOW JOE right now. 
Once you get several made you can do all kinds of things with them...
Make them into an afghan by stitching them together, make potholders out of them by putting several layers together on top of each other and stitching, use them as coasters, make a pillow cover, make your dd a doll blanket out of a few... whatever you like.
I hope you enjoyed and understood my attempt of spreading the knowledge that I received this past weekend.  If you see a mistake, feel free to email me or message me and I will change it, and now go get your yarn and your hook and go for it!  If I can do it YOU can do it!

With Love From My Homestead to Yours,
~Chas~
Chasity L. Burrell
Senior Editor Homesteadblogger
Heritage Acres Farm