On The Homestead

For the last three weeks I have been waking up at 5:45 each morning.

I wouldn't say that I qualify as a morning person....I am more of a 7 am person, so this is a change for me. 

But...my friend had started walking and she kept talking about how good it was making her feel, and how she had so much more energy and...blah, blah, blah...anyway, I decided to give it a go. 

Since Penny was born I just haven't felt super productive. At first it was because I had a new baby. But...well...my baby is about to be 2 next month. So then I started thinking that I had something wrong with me, so imagine what my Google search lead to...thyroid problems, low blood count, pre-menopausal?! The more I thought about it the more I realized...I could totally blame this on my kids! I pick up after 8 little hands.

All. Day. Long. 

(Most of the week it is 10 little hands) 

And..and Penny is a stage 5 clinger. 

Don't even get me started on the week I had to hold her hand while she ate every meal. It was a doozy. 

So I thought to myself...Self...because addressing ones self is always important...you need more time. 

So I made more time. 

At the butt crack of dawn. Trust me it is not pretty, but it is effective. 

In three weeks time this is some of what I have accomplished with my extra time. (Besides not so jiggly thighs.)

  Estate sales have become my new friend. I love them. 

I bought this beauty from a recent estate sale I went to.

It smelt like Old Lady and I am sure that at one point Blake thought about whether or not he needed to ship me to the nut house when I brought it home.

But I was insistent.

I was going to make it pretty.
Mind you, it would just take a lot of paint to do so. Luckily we have no shortage of paint at our house.

Ta-da! See I told you.

Bunch of naysayers.

It has found a much needed home in our bathroom.

Before we were using a shoe shelf...shudder..to hold the stuff in our bathroom. Because, for lack of a better word, the storage in the bathroom is craptastic.

Collective sigh.

Better.

Some other gems from estate sales?

Bottles and an old iron.

An old piano stool,

that rocks my world, and makes me feel like I should be playing dungeons and dragons all at once.

For realz. 

Tell me these claw feet with glass don't remind you of something...

something like this, by chance?

I spray painted this little guy.

Evidently I didn't have enough of a garden feel going on in our house.

I also have given baking bread a go.

I used this recipe from Pinterest.

Have mercy.

I tried a cinnamon raisin variation the other day but I liked the original better.

Not that that has discouraged me. I am going to try jalapeno cheddar next week.

Speaking of jalapenos...our garden is coming along quite nicely. One morning I went out and weeded for 2 hours. Granted that makes it sound like our garden was overgrown...because...well...it was. 

So far we have only gotten 3 zucchini off of our plants but there are some tomatoes, jalapenos, carrots, and squash that are all trying to grow.

I also just got the mother load of apricots from a friend of mine.

Since I have already made apricot jam this year, I decided to go for apricot fruit leather.

I am not sure about this.

If it ends up being nasty I will either force feed it to my kids or I will throw it away. The apricots were free so I wouldn't feel so bad.

Evidently because I am long winded today I will leave you with this:

because sleeping with our glasses on is also evidently something we are doing around here.

In case anyone cares:

I have made this, this, and this--all are really good.

I have made this, this, and this--just OK. 

Curry and Canning

Those two things really have nothing in common.

I have thought it through and the only thing I can think of is the letter C. Oh, and that they both involve cooking of some sort. But if we are being honest, and I think we are, we should all agree that those are some weak similarities.

Now, I am not expecting a standing ovation but if you feel so inclined I won't stop you...after all, one can never have enough praise. 

But I made the Chicken Tikka Masala.

Quite frankly it had all the makings of a disaster. After all I had special ordered spices

and made my own Ghee. 

At one point in all of the times I had made Curry Blake actually said "How about you don't make curry anymore? It just never turns out very good." 

With that vote of confidence I decided to give it one more go. Because I am nothing if not determined. It was a somewhat lengthy process.

In the end it was worth it. It was by far the best Chicken Tikka Masala that I have had outside of a restaurant.     

For Mother's Day this year I got a canner. 

Most people would probably not be happy about this. 

I was ecstatic. 

I have wanted a pressure canner for ages. Since I had sent some not so subtle hints I was pretty sure I was going to get one. Blake came through.

So far I have canned pinto beans

and garbonzo beans.

I also thought that I would can some hominy. Until I looked up directions online and found out that you have to use food grade lye to do so.

I might still try it. 

I guess I have to decide how much I like my skin first.

The same time that I picked up the dried beans from Winco I also bought a lot of pineapples. They were on sale for $.99 each. I was going to cut them up and freeze them but then I had a moment of clarity and looked up how to can them instead. They turned out really good. 

I can't say the same for my apricots. They are mush city. 

Oh well. 

I am still a work in progress.

I'm Loving It

A couple of months ago my mom gave me a recipe on how to make cherry pie filling. 

Today since we only went to church for a half hour I figured it was a good time to make that pie filling. 

Nothing like being productive. 

Until, I realized that you are suppose to have something called Clear Jel. And, and...wait for it...you can't buy it in the store. So after looking around on the internet I found a website that sells it. 

Best part? They sell so many other awesome spices that I started whooping and hollering at the table, and you would be correct if you thought that Blake thought I had lost my marbles. 

Who gets that excited about spices? Well, you are looking at her.  In my order I got: 

Cardamom pods for this recipe I am dying to make. I also got fenugreek seeds, fenugreek leaves, adobo spice (for this), dried lemon grass (for this) and vanilla bean sea salt for the top of Blake's cookies that he makes.

Mostly I have had to stop buying the Dried Young Coconut from Costco because I consume it by the bag full. If you haven't tried it you should. It is like a little slice of Filipino heaven.

Speaking of food...I must have a serious problem...

I have made this street taco recipe twice in the last 2 weeks. 

Doubling it both times.

We eat it with cilantro and onions a little lime juice and cheese. 

They are delicious. 

Although, I do add Cayenne pepper to mine while I am cooking it. It gives it that little oomph. 

If you care. 

Which you might not.

Not food related but awesome none the less:

The Plaid Barn is a cool website if you like crafting.

Or if you just like to hoard craft things. 

They only sell one thing a day but it is at a reasonable price. I have bought a few things from there including

Buttons.

Makings of clips/earrings/bobby pins and some other stuff.

And in an attempt to look a little more rounded, 

I also just finished the second book in the Beyonders series. I liked it. I thought it was a good follow up to the first.

I also think me and these shoes could be friends. 

They like me even if I have one to many street tacos and can't fit into my jeans. Or if I sit and look lovingly at my buttons and not at them. They are cool like that.

Spring Breaking It

Last week started off spring break for our kids. Although technically we all had the cold/flu for a week previous and they stayed home then too...So more or less it was just an extended vaycay. Mostly we relaxed. The kids got to color with markers which is a big deal. Most of the time markers are off limits at our house. Canon ends up marking up himself, constantly. And Penny ends up looking like she has a teal Hitler mustache. The kids got some new clothes. Including Penny's new kicks. They rode some bikes, then scowled about taking pictures whilst riding bikes...Then proceeded to make faces and ask "Does this look pretty?" One of my plants got a much needed replant, along with a pretty new pot. We also ate a lot of Oreo Birthday Cake Oreos. We can't stop our selves, although, I did managed to make these brownies with them once. Foolishly we thought it would be funny to sing Happy Birthday to the Oreos, in celebration and all...What was suppose to be a one time occurrence has now turned into a regular thing at our house.

It seems only logical.

In An Effort To Become a 50's Housewife

My sister and I canned all day yesterday and here are the fruits of our labors. We made salsa. Spicy pickles. Jalapenos and carrots. Pineapple pepper Jelly. Which looks like urine in a jar but tastes awesome. Salsa Verde. Apple cranberry conserve. And pickled garden vegetables. (Which look nasty but we are hoping taste good.) Time well spent.