Homemaking on the Homestead

  This week has been busy! Hubby survived his surgery and is being a fairly good patient..   the soft food thing is getting to him.   But he is healing and still has more work to be done.   The cleaning and organizing continues.   The upstairs is done now!   I have my bedroom to tackle and then I am done!   Yea!   The most exciting news is from my son.   His fiancée Doneza has had her VISA approved!   They will be spending the month of November with her family and then the two of them will be flying home the beginning of December.   Then it will be the holidays and planning a wedding!   We are so excited!!    My daughter Hannah and granddaughter Elizabeth both are recovering from the swine flu.   But according to Hannah.. it is not as bad as the media is making it out to be.   Which does not surprise me because I think the whole swine flu thing is a lot of hype and you could not PAY me to get vaccinat...

  Saturday was the College Plus meet up here in the Northwest.   College Plus kids often meet together in various locations.   Sometimes it is a group and sometimes just one on one.   The students get to know each other on the CP forums and then will start the planning if there seems like enough interest.   This time those who gathered were mostly from Washington State and there was one student from Oregon who joined as well.      Four kids arrived at our house on Friday night.   They were coming from Eastern Washington and had about a 5 hour drive and wanted to arrive early.   They stayed the night at our house.   In the morning I fixed everyone English muffin breakfast sandwiches and orange juice.   Emily , Leanne and the 4 of them left and headed into Portland and met with the rest of the people at the Portland Rescue Mission for a morning of volunteering.   Some did yard work or organizing supplies and other vario...

  My son, Richard, left last Thursday for Manila .   He arrived safe and sound after 20+ hours of flight time.   He met up with his sweetie and they are having a great time.   She has her interview later this week so we are all praying it goes smoothly.   Then they fly to her home town and he will spend the month of November with her family before they both head back here.      I have been doing a little pre baking and cooking for this upcoming weekend.   My daughter Emily is having a College Plus get-together for those that live in the Northwest area.   They will be doing a service project for most of the day on Saturday.   They will be volunteering their time at the Portland Rescue Mission and then heading back here to our home.   I will be serving them lunch.   Right now it looks like about 14 people plus my family.   I think it will be a lot of fun.   So far my menu plan to feed this crew is a big pot of ch...

. I started this quilt about 2 months ago and finally got it finished last night!   I am happy with it but boy do I have a lot of room for improvement in this skill!!   LOL..   This is the first pieced quilt I have done.   Usually I just do squares (checkerboard style)..   But this one actually has two different quilt blocks.. one is “rail fence” and the other is “double four patch”..   The quilt is named: Blue Winter and I found the pattern on line here:    http://www.claudiasquiltshoppe.com/Absolute2BlueWinter.htm   I am looking forward to trying another quilting project soon.      The front:   The back:    

  I have had a few people ask about my schedule.   Sooo.. I thought I would share.   I must say a few things first..   One, I don’t have really young kids to teach anymore so my homeschool demands are not what they use to be. My three in school are 15, 13 and 11.   Also my daughter Leanne is 18 and working on her college degree from home, but she also helps me with the homeschooling. So she handles some of the paper correcting and helps with some subjects. Tobin also helps with the schooling.   He handles the math with the kids and has done this for years now.    I am also not a person who requires a ton of sleep.   I sleep 6 maybe 7 hours a night, typically.    So here is what it looks like..    I get up somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00am ..    I have some quiet time, make my coffee, and do most of my web work, check in with my message board, writing, make blog posts, pack orders from my country store, mak...

. . I have been in a cleaning and organizing mood lately. It seems to happen every fall. The weather changes and the focus is no longer the outside, the garden, staying cool.. but I start thinking about fall décor, pumpkin spice candles burning, baking and cooking.. that is when I suddenly notice how neglected my house has been through the summer. Of course knowing I have 10 to 15 College Plus students coming to my home in a couple of weeks for a CP gathering may have also given me some added inspiration!  LOL..   Currently I have attacked my dining room/sunroom and hallway.. that also included a lot of my supplies for my soap making and packing and shipping supplies. I got them organized and moved around, dusted and cleaned off shelves, vacuumed in corners and ceilings, mopped floors, etc..   Now those areas are just clean and fresh feeling and look so much nicer. Today Emily and I are going to tackle the living room. It is...

There was lots of excitement in my household this week.   My son Sgt. Richard Miller finished his military time (5 years) and returned home to us on Thursday evening.   He is now out of the Army and heading into a new future.   Richard picked up his brother Jacob in Washington DC and together they began their cross country trip.   The first stop was to see their Auntie Deb bie and cousins in Illinois .   They both said they had a great time there visiting with everyone.   They left Illinois and headed home.   They were here in Washington State 3 days later.   There were lots of hugs and excitement when they arrived.      After all the hugs and excitement the first thing my son wanted was to chow down on some of mom’s homemade lasagna and French bread!     Richard’s future plans include college and marriage.   He is marrying a very sweet and beautiful young lady.   Here is a picture of the two of t...