Wow it is hard to believe that on Friday July 4th Roger was back to his normal self (still tired though) and we all enjoyed going to fireworks...

Jennifer and Katie~

Dylan~

Katie~

Dylan being his normal silly self rolling down a hill~

Jennifer, Chris, Dylan and Katie~

And this is my favorite picture, my Beloved Roger~

We had a wonderful time at the park and watching fireworks~

We stopped on the way home to look at my Mom's new apartment, it's real nice. Just the right size for her, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom nice kitchen, dining area and living room. Granite countertops and a real cute fireplace.  It also has a washer dryer hookup which is real nice she won't have to be lugging laundry to a laundry building. There is also a nice outside patio quite large so she will be able to put her table and chairs out there.  She seems to like it so far.

We are hoping that Monday we will be a little more back to normal here. Yesterday I spent the whole day doing laundry, hadn't done any in almost a week!  Roger may be going into work but not sure, will have to wait and see how he feels in the morning.  We are both still very exhausted and just taking things easy, today I am doing nothing but relaxing, reading my Bible and just being with my husband..what a wonderful day this will be..

Thanks for all your continued prayers..

Blessings, Joann

Let's see...My past week or so has been filled with picking & preserving the bounty from our garden.  My mom came for a visit over the weekend & this morning we all met at a restaurant for breakfast to wish them a safe trip.

I'll probably not see them again for a couple of months.  It's a bit strange not seeing her anytime I want.  We still talk on the phone alot, so it doesn't seem like we loose touch, so that is good.  While she was here I showed her some of the things we'll be using for school in August. 

We've checked out a couple of properties, but none that just really seem right for us.  I'll never give up hope though!

I've gotten lots of food put up:

whole kernel corn, tomatoes & ro-tel are what we've done most of lately.  It's alot of work & time but with food prices these days it will really pay off.  The food prices are actually getting me worried lately.   Some things have jumped so much it's ridiculous.

I have been looking into buying a grain mill.  I've wanted to do this for some time but did not know where to purchase the wheat berries.  Well, I've found that the health food store is now carring them.  You buy it by the pound.  --To those of you who buy this already, what is a normal price?

I've gotten my old clothes on & I'm about to get started in the canning game for the day!  Rotel is on the menu!

Hope you have a great Sunday!

If you've never heard of Kombucha...let me just fill you in! Here is a link to some basic info on kombucha, but bottom line, there are sooo many health benefits. I drink kombucha tea (or k-tea) for several reasons....

-metabolism, appetite control, weight-loss

-digestion

-liver function, detoxification

-immune system booster

-sleep better

-much less painful menstrual cramps

to name a few. It's so simple to make, inexpensive and it tastes good (kind of like sparkling cider) All you need is plain old black tea and white sugar! Now we don't usually use white sugar in our home, but the kombucha seems to like it best so I do buy it just for this.

Though it's often referred to as a mushroom, kombucha is actually grown with something called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) and with each brew, a new scoby is "born". You can keep these babies or give them away to friends and family (which I've been doing a lot lately!) Then each of those babies will produce new scoby's that can be passed on! So it really is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only giving continual health benefits, but giving new cultures to be passed on. How cool is that!

The next time I make it (Tuesday) I'll try to take pictures of the process to share with all of you.

I took the girls to the parade.  They decided at the last minute to help with the church's float, so I took them.  It's about 30-35 miles from our house, so we got up early and got some chores done then left.  The Parade theme this year was REMEMBER WHEN... and our church's float was small (just a pick-up truck with several walkers walking by it).  They had signs that said "Wise Men still seek Him"  and 3 wise men in the back of the truck with a wooden camel.  They got lots of cheers, I guess, through out the parade, so they knew people appreciated the thought.  My kids handed out flyers with the rest of the walkers... they has small children's booklets and magazines to hand out and a few adult flyers as well.  I just watched from a friend's house which is the very corner the parade starts and while we saw all the floats, many weren't in sync until after the first block. 

After the parade, I quickly ran into town with a friend's keys to her store and picked up as many empty boxes as I could fill in our mini van for the BIG FIRE CLEAN UP!  I so appreciated the boxes, that means I can start right away (and we did this afternoon), just removing dirty items from the immediate house and have them out of the way for the cleaners.  I packed up my cookbooks and then boxed up all the food they told me to throw and I also inventoried it all.  My girls packed a few boxes of items they did not want to have messed with when they are away at camp.  

We are to record our time cleaning and boxing items and we can work off our deductible.  The insurance adjuster told us to keep track of times.  He does not have the exact rate we will be paid at, but it will be between $8-10.  I figured if we got the rate of $8, we need to work off 132.5 hours.  So far, we've logged 16.25 hours.  Not much, but it's hard to do much when they say you can't clean until the cleaners come.  But some things like laundry and boxing up items we can do (now that we have approval).  I have four pages of inventoried items from my spice cupboards.  The adjuster said I'd likely have to take a price shop and get some prices on the items and then figure the cost... by how much was left in the packages.  Full, half, 1/4, etc.  I am really hoping that turning in sheet with prices will be adequate.  Rebuying everything right now seems just over my head.  First, there is no where to put it, and second, I just want the house clean before I think about restocking the cupboards.   I will say however that fried potates with no seasonings aren't as grand as one might think... LOL.  I really should buy a little salt and some garlic or a couple seasonings... but then again... maybe I just shouldn't fry anything!!!  That's bad for my health anyways!  

I am feeling a bit better today.  I was thinking about how overwhelming this process is really turning out to be.  And yet... I recall that recently I was stunned by the doctor's diagnosis of depression.  As I was thinking of the garden... if you are gone 1 week, it takes nearly 3 weeks to catch up with weeding... things just don't stop growing!    As I looked at the house and noted my past couple years worth of keeping house (little was done when I was dealing with my daughters illnesses, our hard sheep year, and my depression)... I realized I kept the family areas clean... as clean as say... there wasn't food stuck to the furniture, but dusting was done every couple of months rather than once a week... I had lots to catch up on... and if it worked out like the garden... even though I am getting my energy back, trying to keep up and catch up at the same time was still going to be a lengthy process.   Now I am offered help.  I was at first mortified that they are cleaning EVERY little piece of my home, but I am beginning to be grateful for this opportunity... I mean how often does one get a full cleaning and professional cleaning help when one does spring cleaning?   I simply have to humble myself and just admit that I need help to get back on my feet... and Wow, God already provided that help!  Even before I asked.  How great is that?  God is sooooo good to me sometimes that I know I hardly deserve any of this (I don't deserve any of it!), but oh how grateful I am to be His child!    

Warmly, ~Melissa

When I was growing up, summer school meant that you had flunked out of your regular classes. For us, it just means business as usual!

Bottom line, when I've given the kids the summer off in the past, behaviors, attitudes, and retention of materials they've learned all go down the drain. So now, we take a couple of weeks off to re-group and then dive right back in.

We'll be starting back our new school year in one more week and I have to say...I'm so excited! We'll be starting a new Weaver Volume...#5, Interlock with the littles, Spelling Power, Rod & Staff English 5, and continuing with MUS Intermediate.

This year looks like so much fun with so many interesting topics....I'm really looking foward to it!

Just tell me when you get sick of updates...   :)    Atira had only one fit last night and Bobby was still awake (though I'd been asleep for an hour) and he helped with it and witnessed the violence of it for the first time.  The key seems to be letting her cough through it and then get her calmed down as quickly as possible so she doesn't start again.  She laid down on her bed (propping up does seem to help) and I talked to and prayed with her, rubbing her back, and she fell right to sleep.  Slept peacefully all night.  The most remarkable thing about this all is how normal they are during the day.  They drag a little bit, a little tired, but it's not even as bad as a cold aside from those fits.
        We're thinking of going ahead and catching a fireworks display somewhere tonight, but because of the pertussis we'll have to avoid people and won't get to hang out with our dear friends like we were planning to.  I know the kids would enjoy it (duh) and I'm kinda sick of sitting around myself!  I can hobble around pretty good but that foot does start to throb if I'm on it for long.  I poked around in my garden yesterday and overdid it.  But my plants missed me!
        We called the Martins to come pick up the Brownie goat.  Just can't get used to her milk and although, like I said before, we feed it to the babies and it frees up the tasty milk for us, we decided it was just that much more work.  I really prayed about whether to sell all the goats, sell some... how to not "give up" but still practice wisdom in knowing what I can handle right now.  At first I had my mind made up about what we should do, but as I prayed it became less and less clear and I really wanted to know what Bobby and my older kids thought.  Well Bobby insisted we stick it out and keep Gran and Dessy.  The girls felt stronger than I expected about keeping their two doelings.  We talked about means of management and quickly came to a workable solution.  The biggest blessing for me was realizing that I'm not in this alone.  Most of the time I assume I'm the only one commited to homesteading (though the kids love the animals, of course) and the whole burden is on me.  But this goat discussion taught me that I was wrong.  And boy, sometimes it feels so good to be wrong!   If you know Bobby you're probably amazed that he had an opinion on it at all... he's a very laid back guy that usually takes the "whatever" approach, espeically to "my" projects.  The fact that he holds an opinion on this subject is enough for me!  The rule is:  If he cares at all, we do it his way!
          We're going to sell the two almost 3-month old wethers ("August Leggo Larry" and "Log" - aka, Auggy and Loggy the Lunchmeat brothers) at the swapmeet this weekend (or at least try).  We were going to raise them and butcher them this fall, but I don't see how it's sensible.  If we had an area for them to browse, it'd be different.  But it's not cost effective to be buying hay.   We were given two cable runs that we hooked up for Gran and Dessy which freed up the corkscrew tethers.  We'll put the two doelings on them.  Farra and Atira are commited to tackling this with the knowledge that if it gets to be too much work for Momma, the doelings go.  I think we have a workable plan and I'm feeling very good about it.
        Now, about those chickens we were offered...   
        A friend of a friend lives near a farm that raises chickens for Tyson.  Tyson came to pick up their birds and ended up not taking about 3,000 birds the farm had raised for them.  This friend of a friend saw an opportunity and bought about 2,000 birds at 50 cents a piece.  He's going to get them to butchering size and will sell them for 75 cents each in 2-3 weeks.  My friend wanted to know if I would want any and how many?   Well, I'm the only one she's talked to that has freezer space....  but gosh, look a few posts back to see how my first butchering experience went!  I would have to hire someone and by then I'd be paying about what I'd pay in the store... for the same cage-raised bird!  They're talking about having a big butchering day and my friend and her husband are going to do about 100 birds themselves.  It's tempting...  but I think we're going to pass.   Bobby liked the idea of getting cheap food, but when I asked, "Well, are you willing to help butcher?"  he decided it wasn't such a good deal after all.
        And that's what's going on at the Willie Farm today...