The Key to the Rest of Our Lives

Here it is!  This is what we have been dreaming of for years ... the key to our "forever" house.  The place where we will grow our own food, raise happy and healthy children (hopefully), and some animals too, entertain friends old and new, laugh and learn together, and much, much more ... and it all starts here with this key!

We took possession on Friday and decided that, although we won't be moving in for a few weeks, we would spend this first night in the new house!  The boys got to work right away exploring our backyard.  One suggested it would make a good baseball field and off they went, stopping briefly to examine the little stream (boys do not possess the ability to walk by water without at least stopping briefly ... it's a well documented fact!).

While looking around, we discovered deer tracks by our back door and are anxiously awaiting the first sighting -- boy, is that deer in for a surprise when it realizes that 4 kids and a dog have moved in!

The boys really wanted to play hide and go seek in the empty house, so everybody joined in and it turned out to be a ton of fun!  It turns out that Laurel is a surprisingly good hider!

The sunset was spectacular for our first night's stay.

6 sleeping bags in one room ... sounded like a good idea at the time ... not much sleep was had by anyone.  But it will be a night that we will remember for a long time.

So, here we are at the beginning of a new journey and we are all very excited.  There is much work to do, but no longer will we have the excuse "when we get a new house".  The house is ours, and I have the keys to prove it!

Recycling Socks

This is our sock pile (*sigh*).  The sad pile of lonely, mate-less socks, socks that have holes that I have no time or desire (translation: I'm too lazy) to fix, and the socks that don't have feet that fit them anymore.  The pile seems to grow and grow and grow (along with my annoyance with it)!  It would be so easy to throw them out, but it seems such a waste.  There must be something that old socks are good for ... but what?

We have tried cutting them up and using them to stuff little cushions (when the boys wanted to learn how to sew) ...

we made a toy for the dog (he really does like it despite the indifference shown in this picture)...

... but we still have quite a pile.

Well, since the arrival of winter, there has been a regular complaint around here when playing outside ... snow getting on wrists because of mittens that don't stay tucked into coat sleeves.  Could my ever-growing, towering pile of socks actually be the solution?  Some years ago, a very experienced mother (now she is a great-grandmother, but not my own) told me how she used to send her kids to school with socks on their arms under their coats and mittens.  At the time, I didn't really see the point, but as I pondered our current challenge, I remembered these wise words and it all made sense.

So I went to our pile of socks and, as I considered how I could tweak (just a little bit) the sage advice I had been given to suit our needs, I pulled out some of the longer socks and started cutting and sewing.

After measuring the socks so that they would reach almost to the wearer's elbow (that should be long enough to keep out the snow, no matter what they are doing outside!), I sewed the socks right onto the cuff of the mitten.  It was so simple and easy -- but the advice from generations past usually is, isn't it?  The owner of the mittens was so pleased that I quickly had requests to do more.  So I improved 3 more pairs of mittens (with plans to do more, but that was all I had time to do before supper)!

And on the weekend, during our sledding outing, I didn't hear one complaint -- not one! -- about snow getting in under the cuffs.  Hooray!

So, one challenge met, but my sock pile still looms.  I still have the bottom of all those socks, plus the smaller ones that needs a new purpose.  I found this mat which is supposed to be made entirely of socks -- I love the look of it!  But it presents two problems ... the first - our sock pile is much less colourful (some dye would fix that, if I was so inclined, I suppose); and the second problem - I'm not sure that I have enough socks to make it -- now there is something I never thought I would say about old socks!

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Things That Make Me Happy # 22

Strolling around the Internet one day, I came across a blog post entitled "100 Things That Make Me Happy". What a great idea, I thought as I scanned the list, so Fridays (or Saturdays, like today) are now dedicated to things that make me happy!

Things That Make Me Happy!
# 22  Purging Our Home

This is a picture of all the boxes of toys, books, knick knacks, games, kitchen utensils etc. that left our house today in the yard sale! Wow, who knew that we had so much stuff in our house ... stuff that we don't need!  And even more amazing, is the fact that our house still contains everything that we do need, and more, and we will not miss any of these objects!

When we first started thinking about having a yard sale, I didn't think that we would have enough to make it a decent sale, so we invited some other families to join us -- more families would also be more fun!  I knew that we had a pile here and a box there, but after looking at our goods all piled together, I was shocked!  We had way more than I thought. How does one accumulate so much without realizing it?

Maybe it's because it enters our homes -- yes, OUR homes because you  know it happens to you too --  little bits at a time. What's one more piece of paper, or toy, or book, right?  But it adds up fast and when you see it all together like this ... well, it really put things into perspective for me.

From now on, I'm going to be very mindful about what comes into our house -- we are off to a good start by not buying anything from the other families at the yard sale, yeah us!  I am going to ask myself some simple questions like:  "do we really need that whatever it is?" or "do we have something that would or could do the same job?".  I'm going to do better at saying "no thanks" when people (in kindness, I know) offer us things that we might not need.  And I am going to try harder to re-purpose the things that we have, both to keep them from being thrown out, and to keep new things from entering our home.

I still feel that there is more that we could eliminate from our house, but we have taken a HUGE step forward.  So today, I am celebrating our successful start and our home is feeling lighter and more peaceful already.

Do you have any suggestions for keeping the possessions in your home to a manageable number?

The Happy Homemaker

Right off the top I want to say that I usually reserve this space for subjects that are positive.  I try to write about the good things that are going on in my world, even if some days it seems very hard to remember the good things.  But today I found myself extremely annoyed with the plight of homemakers and I thought I should share.  So please forgive this little rant for today and join me in tipping your hat to homemakers.

I arrived home from our NB trip to find that we had been chosen to fill out the National Household Survey.  When you're a form lover, like me, this is exciting news!  But when I got to the questions about work, my enthusiasm fizzled out.  When asked how many paid hours I had worked during a specified time, my answer was "0" -- no big deal, right?  Then it wanted to know why I hadn't worked during that time period.  Was I temporarily laid-off, on vacation, ill, on strike or locked out.  No, no, no, no, and no -- hmmmm, something's missing.  Was I going to start a new job soon?  No! -- my annoyance is growing.  Was I looking for work?  NO! -- Stop the bus!  Why is there no option for me?  Nowhere was the option of staying home -- homemaker, stay at home mom, home manager ... whatever you want to call it -- an option.  How can it be that my chosen "career" has been totally dismissed as unimportant and unworthy?

Now, I'll be the first to tell you that keeping house is not my forte, in fact, if your coming to visit it's best to call ahead.  But I do feel strongly that what I do is important and meaningful.  Just to be clear, I do NOT want to imply that the work that mothers who choose to work outside the home is any less important or meaningful.  Their strong feelings lean in a different direction and I respect that.  But I should also be respected for my decision to stay home.  I will never win the contest for the tidiest house or the tastiest meals (although I do make a mean loaf of bread) or the cleanest kids, but I have chosen -- yes, chosen -- to stay at home and that, I think, deserves some respect.  Now would it be asking too much to have a little box to check that says: "mother, teacher, cook, cleaner, mediator, chauffeur, hug giver, story teller, fixer of wounds, playmate, encourager and bed time tucker-inner"?  I didn't think so.

There, I'm done.  Thanks for your indulgence.