Shoulder

Pray for Rob...his shoulder is hurting pretty badly. We watched the DVD of Frosty today, while Rob sat with a bag of ice on his shoulder.

Yesterday was a wonderful day spent with family, friends and a gourmet dinner, finished by quite a few great desserts...I should mention my brother-in-law's tiramisu and my husband's sweet apple pie, totally made from scratch. Yum! I'll share photos when I get them off the NEW memory card...having some trouble with it!

For those of you like us, who don't have cable or satellite and use "bunny ears" (Rob hooked up a piece of solder from his welder that made reception REALLY good for PBS, we love watching Nature together on Sunday evenings), you'll want to check this out:
https://www.dtv2009.gov/

Piano

We got my grandma's piano, but when we left Ft. Stewart, we had it directly shipped to my parent's house, because we didn't want in storage while we hunted for a house. So, over 2 years later, it's still there. Today, Hannah and Olivia started piano lessons, so hopefully, we'll move it into our home soon! They are both SO excited about playing piano, they both wanted to go first!

I recently watched Expelled, a movie by Ben Stein, about those who believe there was intelligent design (i.e. the Creator, God) being fired from their jobs for suggesting such things, while those who think that we were all created from a cell that was hit by lightening (i.e. the Big Bang) are thought to be more sound. Most schools are teaching children that we all evolved from something puny, no scientific evidence, just lots of theories, even Darwin admitted that nature is too complex and beautiful to have happened without intelligent design. So, whether your children are going to school (make sure you are involved and know what they are teaching) or homeschooling...this is something that will spark great discussions! What makes more sense to them? Ask them how a seed knows which plant they should be when they grow up? Yesterday, Hannah and Olivia went to a princess party...

Later, they expressed interest in playing Scrabble, which was really fun, but we didn't finish the game! That's one of my favorites. We've also been playing lots of Chinese Checkers.

Bread

I just read through each and every comment...10 from the "Snow" post. I really enjoy them! So, thank you to everyone who comments! When we get a nice snowfall, I will take lots of photos to share! So far, most of it melts when it hits the earth.

Olivia read the Little Red Hen this week. For one lesson, she had to "retell" the story, which she did with this sweet drawing she made! We love the flexible schedule homeschooling give us...we also really like being directly involved in what our children are learning! I'm not the best teacher, but anyone can do it....really! We have been baking lots of bread lately.

If anyone wants to join in on the raw milk, check out the Double O Farm! This is where I've been getting it.

I wanted to share this layout, designed by Chris (a friend through the scrapbooking world): Can you find my little picture there? Hint, it's a tiny version of this:Be sure to check Chris's awesome blog out, she just posted some pretty Christmas tags that you can download FREE and print out! P.S. AMR stands for www.allmomentsremembered.com!

Snow

It's not a lot, but yes, we've had some big beautiful snowflakes falling around here!!!

Hannah is standing beside our rain barrel. Rob put a piece from the gutter to make it go straight into the barrel and a screen on top so leaves and bugs are filtered out! We watered our garden all summer with 2 of these 60 gallon barrels!

Green

Join the giveaway on Wayfaring Wanderer's blog...what a great way to open up discussion on ways to recycle, reduce and reuse. I dislike wasting things. My girls have been saving everything - e.g. we went to the library for storytime and they brought home the little Dixie cup that held pretzels in it, to use in their sandbox!

What am I doing?

• I bring cloth bags (or reuse Trader Joe's paper sacks) to the store
• We've been recycling here, but now give it to my parents, they get PAID per pound of recyclables!!!
• I use cloth napkins (thanks, Dad! He gave us a set of 16, I think, for a Christmas gift 2 years ago)
  
• We don't throw good stuff away, we give it to Goodwill if we don't need it
• Instead of using cleaning chemicals, I use vinegar and water for most things!
• I try to buy stuff as local as I can, at least American-grown or made

5 things I could do:

• Compost, I need to make a bin, any suggestions?
• Bake 2 things in the oven to waste less gas later (I just baked a pizza and delicata squash at the same time a few days ago)
  
• Drive less, walk or ride my bike MORE
• Use reusable sanitary napkins (I have been wanting to do this for a long time)
  
• Next baby, go cloth!
  

I still make ATCs (artist trading cards, just 2.5 x 3.5 inches):

Anyone want to trade?

Leaves

We went to my parent's house to rake leaves. What fun and a great workout!
Mom gave me this geranium on the day Hannah was born...this summer I took a cutting of it, planted it in soil and it was doing well, new buds and blossoms. Then a frost, I should've taken it indoors a few weeks earlier. It may make it...

Pens

Drawing has always been one of my favorite things to do. When I learned how to write, slowly it became something I enjoyed just to see what different kinds of fonts I could come up with...so of course, I have a fetish with pens! My parents gave me a lovely Cross fountain pen and the next year Rob gave me this cool Minka fountain pen....so of course later, I married him!

We're going to take Lusy for a walk now...it's only 6pm, but it's almost dark outside.

I'm glad we have freedom of speech in America! Here's a blog I've been following for a while now: http://moms4sarahpalin.blogspot.com/ Very prolific!

Fraud

Well, I am a happy person, so no one is going to change that! However, I do know of someone who is guilty of fraud, who is going to be the leader of America in a few months...and he will get absolutely no respect from me. I truly fear he is possibly the anti-Christ.

I think we're going to move to Alaska. At least there we'll have a governor who is honest. We've always dreamt of Alaska, we both love salmon, snow, nature and animals abound. There are a myriad of Orthodox churches there, too.

Mini-pies

To make a pie crust, I take 1/2 cup of butter out of fridge and put it right in my food processor, add a cup of flour and mix well, then add a tablespoon or two of water until it is the right consistency.

Roll dough into balls and place in mini-muffin pan, then use wooden tart-shaper to make them into pie crusts! My 24 mini-muffin pan and tart-shaper are both from The Pampered Chef. Oh, and all this month, stoneware is on sale!!!


1 cup baked squash (I used butternut, but you can use pumpkin, too)
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
I would've added nutmeg, but I didn't have any left...
you could also use allspice!


Puree, then pour into unbaked mini-pie crusts.


Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees fahrenheit.