December 1, 2015

The Holiday season has been upon us and continues to reign.  Thanksgiving was all about preparing for family to come to our house. We got the front door painted, the last touches on the front hallway, the stairwell painted and family photos hung (finally.)  I prepared wreaths for our children to take home that matched their decor.  Our youngest got one in royal blue and black, with a Santa Guinea pig (her favorite pet.)  Our oldest received one in purple and silver with Jack Skellington, and our middle received one in red and black with dragons.  Our Thanksgiving meal consisted of many entrees grown right here on the farm:  string beans (we prefer Roma beans), creamed potatoes (we grow Corollas), sweet potato casserole (we grow organic covingtons), corn pudding (we found an organic silver queen this year) and okra pickles.    Other items on the menu included:  pumpkin pie, pecan pie, coconut pie, dressing, smoked turkey, spiral ham, homemade cranberry sauce, homemade rolls, fruit salad, beer (made by John), turkey cupcakes, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things.  In addition to the regular holiday happenings, my husband has been working on our photovoltaic system, and now has it functional.  We are currently running the barn/workshop totally from it, as well as wall sockets, lights, basement outlets/freezer, and smoke detectors in the house.  We have finished out our solar panels on the tractor shed roof, as John was able to repair another couple of panels.  We also picked up five new family members, as our black Australorps have not been doing a good job at laying eggs, so we went and got five buff orpingtons that are about 28 weeks old from one of our neighbors.  Despite the fact that it is cold and daylight is dwindling, we are now getting four eggs per day.

November 14, 2015

I just finished a chair for my Mom's office/bedroom.  She has an old lawn chair in the corner with an electric massager in it.  She likes the massager and uses it, so she wouldn't let me remove it from the room.  Not only did the lawn chair look out of place, but the massager is not very attractive.  I decided that if I found a chair and made a slipcover for it, she could put the massager on the chair and put the slipcover over it, leaving only a pretty bedroom chair in the corner of the room.  I found this chair at a thrift shop for $5.  I loved the curvy arms, as I was going for a cottage style since the twin bed in there has a white Mary Jane Bedspread with a wreath hanging over it that my mom likes.    I used a Matelasse bedspread that we already had and was sitting around unused to make the slipcover.  I needed a bow for the back to help it fit the chair nicely and did not want to go in to town just to buy a ribbon.  I checked my fabric stash and I had a white sheet that I had already sacrificed for something else, but it still had the top of the sheet with a ribbon trim, as well as a little excess fabric.  I decided it would work for the bow.  Here is how the chair turned out.  It looks so feminine.  The back of the chair looks great, too. All for $5 and some work.