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Showing posts from October, 2012

A Day on the Ranch

We worked cattle earlier this week. Here's the truth about that. I like to imagine waking up before dawn to work cattle looking like this. But in reality it felt like this... For those without first hand experience of working cattle, it is nothing like the romanticized ideal that we see in movies or read in heaving bosom books. At least not in my twenty seven years of experience. For me it always involves swearing, a lot of it. Somebody almost always ends up crying. Me. There is yelling and dust and dirt and tension. You can cut the tension with a knife. There are moments where you hold your breath, and you pray to God very sincerely that the cattle just do as they are suppose to the. first. time. Then they do! And you inwardly do a happy dance, thank you Lord Jesus dance. Then the next moment comes and again you hold your breath and pray fervently. This continues for the rest of the day until the last calf is loaded and the gates to the pasture closed tight. This is how wo

Easy Halloween Decoration

I was outside with the kiddos the other day, following a huge wind storm. We were picking up fallen branches, and I got to thinking some of them would work really well for a project I had in mind. The twig got pushed aside for a couple of days and then I'm watching the Today show and lo and behold, Ms. Martha Stewart had the same stinkin' idea. Ok, it wasn't like it was rocket science, but just for the record I had it first! It's pretty simple and straightforward but I like it. I took a hurricane lamp and filled it with rock filler. I placed a battery operated candle inside and placed the twig behind it. Now, Ms. Martha spray painted her twig black, which would be a nice touch. I'm just not patient enough, plus I kind of like the natural look, so in the twig went. Next I cut out various shapes from construction paper. Bats, stars, moon, cats, you get the idea. Then my daughter got in on the action and we too black thread and threaded it through holes we made in t

Homemade Finger Paint

I made a really fun, fairly simple finger paint recipe from Trish Kuffner's toddler book recently. My three year old was driving me crazy and was underfoot. She had seen a commercial for finger paints and decided we should have some too. I opened up Kuffner's book, and tada... She had several recipes for finger paints. So here's how it looked going through the process. Overall it was pretty straight forward. It takes about ten minutes of stirring for the cornstarch and water mixture to come together. Just stick with it, it will come together! I was a bit nervous that because I was using food dye, it would stain little fingers, but it doesn't. I don't know if its the drop of dish soap that makes the difference, but it washed right off the skin. I just stripped my little one down and let her have at it, so I can't say if it comes out of clothes or not. :) I did as the book suggested and put little dollops of the uncolored mix in mini muffin tins and t

Repurposing Projects

This time of year, when the weather starts to cool and I feel the need to snuggle in, I start getting all crazy with crafting ideas. I picked these crates up the other day outside the dumpster at our local John Deere store. I told politely asked my husband to grab them after checking to make sure I could take them. I am not sure yet what I'm going to do with them, but I've got a couple ideas. Maybe paint them and hang them for shelves, or use them as toy bins, maybe even laundry hampers for the girls. Really there's a million uses for a nice crates like these, so I'll come up with something. They're around 2 1/2 x 1 1/2 feet. Nice solid wood! I'm super excited about these! If you have any ideas or have done something similar, let me know how it turned out. And now I have a confession to make. I am as bad as the retail stores, as one season comes in, I am already moving onto the next one. Fall weather has finally arrived here in the Midwest and as much as I l