Wednesday on the Homestead

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Good Morning!!
It's a beautiful day here in the PNW! It was one of those mornings I felt the need to sit outside on my deck and enjoy the sunshine while enjoying my morning cup of coffee..


This week has been a busy week it seems. I've done a lot of walking and that always makes me happy. I had several phone chats with my children. One of my children just came back from a trip to Hawaii and was telling me all about it. Sounded perfectly wonderful!

I'm hoping to have one of grandson's out for a visit this summer and have been trying to figure out the details.  Having a young child fly alone is expensive! I end up being out of touch for these things and was in sticker shock when I saw the price. Since my hubby works for an airline and our young kids flew all over the place I didn't think anything of it. However the fee was always waived because it was an employee benefit. In any case, I'm still working out the details on all this.


Goals
Today I have a few regular household chores to take care of:

~laundry - bathroom towels and kitchen towels 
~kitchen clean up (counters, floors, wipe off the fronts of cupboards as needed)
~sweep & mop hallway and shake out rugs
~open up guest room and check that all is ready - one of our son's will be here this weekend for a visit. 

Also need to get dinner underway. I decided to do a crockpot meal and get it made and cleaned up early in the day so I can do other things.



For the Love of Books!
Last week someone commented on the books they were reading and suggested the book Emma by Jane Austen. It was a book on my list and I haven't read any Jane Austen books lately (and I do enjoy her books) so that is what I chose. It was also nice that it was a free Kindle download as well. :)

I read the whole book this last week and loved it! Very fun, very enjoyable and with a happy ending. Exactly the kind of book reading entertainment I like.  If classic books appeal to you and you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

I just downloaded (another Kindle freebie) Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. I suppose it could be considered a kids book, but I've never read it. I've seen the movie version more times then I can count (older Disney version when my kids were young).  I'm excited to finally read the book.



Projects
One of my projects has been to go through items in the house and try to weekly have something to take in for donation.  I went though my clothes a few weeks ago.  As I was doing this I would put my summer clothes that I wanted to keep in one bag and any other items I wanted to donate in another bag. It was still chilly out and I had sweaters and warmer clothes in my dresser and didn't have room for the summer items which is why I put them in the bag. 

Well the bags got shuffled around, moved from one area to another, one room to another and finally came the day for me to take the donation clothes in. For reasons I simply can't believe I didn't look inside the bags before grabbing the one for donation. I "thought" I knew which was which. I was in a hurry that morning.

Fast forward several weeks, and warmer weather is here and I decide to put my winter clothes away and bring out my summer clothes. I was so upset to see that I had accidentally taken my summer clothes in for donation instead of the bag of donations.  

I told one of my daughters I was talking to that I had become an accidental minimalist! :D  

I did find a couple pairs of shorts and a couple tank tops that I had overlooked in cleaning things up and I ordered a couple more tank tops from Amazon. But all in all I'm pretty bummed about this as there is no way I can or want to replace what I had. However I will survive! :) 

Good lessons to be learned in it all... check the bags before taking them in to donate, learn to be content with what you have (one of my favorite Bible verses, 1 Timothy 6:8 And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content)




Fitness and Health
I had the most beautiful walk yesterday! I decided I needed a little change up from walking my own local roads.  I went to an area near the Columbia River that has some trails and beautiful view points and set out. It was an easy hike. Very little elevation gain and so quiet! I met one other person out with their dogs and that was it. It's been designated as a bird watching area and there were birds everywhere!  The sound of birds singing was wonderful.  

As I hiked I took every little side trail to the viewpoints so I could take it all in. I looped around a couple side trails, that brought me back to the main trail and 4 miles later ended up back at my car (I have a GPS tracker app on my phone for hiking/walking that says how far I went)

I loved the totem pole at the trail head.

 
The views of the Columbia River were incredible..

 

I loved the fact that at the end of all the "Viewpoints" they had benches so you could sit and take it all in.

 

I took so many pictures because everything seemed so beautiful! :)  Hard to pull out just a few, but here are the last of them...

 I plan to go back there more often as it is such a peaceful place to hike. 

 




View from my Deck
I'm loving all the sunny warm days we've been having. I can feel summer on its way..






Today's weather: High: 79   Low: 55



That's all for this week my friends,
Crystal

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 8, 2019 at 2:00 PM

    Hi Crystal! I love your book recs! I can't seem to finish a book very fast! Do you have any tips on making time for reading? I try to read a few hours each week but I am impressed that you are reading so many great books! I always end up falling asleep when I read at night! Do you read for long stretches of time or have a set reading time? Thanks! Katie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalMay 8, 2019 at 2:15 PM

      Hi Katie! 😊 I like to read before I go to bed. Also I am not much of a TV watcher. I watch the news a few times a week.. so quite often reading is how I spend my evenings. An hour here, a couple hours there through the week and I can get through a book pretty quick.
      Crystal 😊

      Delete
    2. AnonymousMay 12, 2019 at 5:58 PM

      That is good advice! I'm not sure if your library does this, but I can check out ebooks online from mine and then it routes me through amazon to download my book. There is a pretty big selection and it's free plus the book returns itself after 2 weeks. My husband has been reading this way for a few years, but I'm just starting. Katie

      Delete

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