Snow Day Update

We got some light snow through the morning then it started to sleet/freezing rain for a while. I measured 8" around 3:00 this afternoon. There's a crusty, icy layer on top of the really dry snow. We actually didn't go out to play in it today since it was sleeting most of the day. We'll go out tomorrow but it'll be a challenge to build a snowman with dry snow that is topped with a layer of ice.

We had a fun day inside where it was warm and cozy. Jon and the kids worked on puzzles at the dining room table.

They threw baseballs back and forth.... luckily soft baseballs.

Jon's outfit was so fabulous that I had to take a picture of it. I asked him to pose. Don't you love it?

I spent the whole day in the kitchen baking, baking, and more baking. I'll do a whole post about it tomorrow. Time to give the kids a bath and get them into bed.

It's the little things....

 Something that is very, very important to me is my marriage. Marriage is something that God created to happen between one Man and one Woman and I feel so very blessed to have a wonderful husband to be married too!

   Though I think marriage is super important to me, I have hesitated to write about it much for a couple of reasons: 1. Some parts of marriage are intimate and I don't ever intend to talk about that on this blog.
2. I don't nessarsarily feel qualified, I am not the perfect wife, we don't have a perfect marriage.

Neither reason has changed but there have been a few things that have prompted me to want to write more on this subject. As I have visited with others, some who have been really struggling with their marriages, I have seen the need for encouraging others in this area.

   I am still not perfect, and I often don't know the right thing to say or do but I am trying to always grow in my role as wife and if I can encourage anybody else in that area than I want to do that too! In doing some thinking on this subject lately, I have come to realize that having a happy marriage often relies on little things. We are faced with little unimportant choices each and every day, but what we chose will often ulitimately effect our marriage.

   I can chose to smile, even when I am feeling blue or have a headache. I can chose to reach out and touch even when I am busy. I can chose to trust his decisions even when I have a different idea for how something should be done. I can chose to pray for him that he will do what is right. I can chose to serve him even when I might feel like being served. I can chose to laugh with him . I can chose to do things on the schedule he wants and respect his needs. There are so many little things we can chose that can strengthen our marriages.

   This year it is one of my goals to find some way each day to do something that please Ken. Something beyond making his meals and doing my normal housekeeping. I am trying to think of something each day specifically that I know he will appriciate and doing it. I have to admit I haven't remembered to think about this each day, but I have been trying.

    This next month I decided to help me to be more accountable and hopefully to encourage others in this journey as well, I am going to try to post something each day about Loving him day by day. Most days it will probably be an idea of something to do (everything here will be for family friendly reading- you will have to be creative in the other department!) or it might be a verse that I have found encouraging. I am hoping that you will encourage me also in this walk!

      "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh." Ephesians 5:31

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program To Bring You This Special Weather Report

This was the radar on weather.com last night before I went to bed! Woohoo! I have never seen a radar this blue while living here.

Charlotte was so excited to look out at all the snow this morning. (Sorry for the dark picture.. it was 7am)

Evan went from room to room looking at all the snow. I love his hair sticking up.

This was the view of the backyard as of 8am this morning.

Just about 7 inches of snow overnight!! I'm a little sad that I was sleeping during most of the falling snow.... but I'm thrilled about 7 inches of snow!

Right now we have a bit of sleet like Jon told me it would.

Stay tuned to your local Blog station for up to the minute.... well, up to the hour... well, up to the day weather updates. Now we will return to your regularly scheduled programing.

Its Strawberry Shortcake!

Bought this beautiful Strawberry Shortcake panel from Cottage Patch the other day. Couldn't resist it really.

Put a matching 2" lime green as its first border, a 3" lite pink as its second border, and finished it off with a 5.5" red fabric with green dots.

A lite dotted pink as backing fabric and went back to the lime green for its binding.

Even had enough fabric to make a matching pillow!

Simple & lovely.

Measurement : 42" W x 52" L

Made up of 100% American cotton

Price : RM160

Status : SOLD!

Skateworld!

Good evening Stockpot Fans! This is Becky's husband, Jon, guest blogging tonight about my trip with Charlotte to Skate World! Charlotte's Preschool rented out the local skating rink for the morning and we had a wonderful time...but it wasn't without suspense...drama...cake...and a happy ending!

Here we have Charlotte in roller skate pair #1, notice the look of terror in her eyes. This was Charlotte's first attempt at skating and the wheels on these skates were too fast for her. She could barely stand on her own and really didn't like skating at all.

A friendly passer-by took this picture of us while Charlotte struggled to stand. And now that I see it in real life, my Steeler shirt did not look good with my favorite pants, so sorry about that. Please do not hold Becky responsible for my poor fashion choices.

Now we have the second pair of skates, notice the cheery disposition! The wheels on these skates were much stiffer and Charlotte Loved to skate. Although she preferred to hang on to the rail she was quite at ease skating all by her self. At times I offered her a hand to hold and she said "No thank-you, I can do it myself!"

After some Videos games, and failed attempts to get a ball and stuffed animals out of the claw machine we sat down for some snacks! It was a fun morning and I hope the whole family can go to Skate World next time!

Make sure you check out my blog "Miller's Movie List" to see what movies I've seen lately!

http://millersmovielist.blogspot.com/

Also make sure you read the Winter Storm Update below!

WINTER STORM 2010 UPDATE

Did the title sound dramatic enough? You should see the local media frenzy surrounding our winter weather that is on the way. They're still forecasting 8-11" which to anyone up North would be just a regular ol' day..... here in the South, it's cause for panic, grocery store raiding, and super slow traffic.

I've been downright giddy today waiting for this storm. Getting ready only required a tarp. For what you ask? A Chihuahua who only stands about 8 inches tall. After the snow stops tomorrow, we can lift the tarp and reveal grass underneath that he can use to go to the bathroom. The tarp will be heavy but it's better then trying to get to the grass with a shovel.




I want to chronicle the snow by taking frequent pictures of this view of the backyard.

This picture was taken today at noon.

It's STARTED!!! This picture was taken at 5:30 this evening after it had been snowing for only about 20 minutes!

**Stay tuned to this blog station for the current updates on this major winter weather event**

I like impersonating news casters.

I'll be blogging a lot this weekend about snow and other topics that I've gotten behind on.

Saving money with mending.

As I have been trying to clean, organize and declutter around here I have found a bunch of clothes that needed mended! It amazed me a little just how much there was! Mending is something I definetely consider worth doing ( I am curious how many others do much in the way of mending?). I like it for a couple of reasons: 1. We can wear something longer and not have to spend money on anything new. 2. We eliminate something else from heading to the dump.

Here are most of my finished products! Jonathan has the largest pile with 6 pairs of pants and a shirt (there was also a coat that isn't pictured and I need to do a few more pairs of pants!), I wonder what it is with 8 year old boys that make them so hard on their clothes?!

   This did take me a few hours (a little bit of time here and then a little time there- I don't often have long stretches of time to work on things like this) but having all these clothes serviceable again is totally worth it.

 We had a lot of worn out jeans to mend. Obviously these jeans will never look wonderful again but something we do is have "good" clothes to wear to church and other times out and about and we have "everyday" clothes to wear when we are just going to be around home or going berry picking or something like that. Even if the clothes are just going to be worn around home it is nice (and more comfortable) for them not to have big gapping holes so I do a very simple patch.

The way I do it is to simply cut out a piece of denim (from a sacrificial pair of jeans) that is bigger than the hole. I round the corners. Then I stick the piece on the inside of the jean leg, line it up and then pin it in place. Then comes the wrestling match with the pair of jeans and the sewing machine! I am thankful to have an arm on my machine but you still have to do quite a bit of manipulating to get it so there is just one layer under the foot feet at a time! But it is possible and once you get the hang of it, it doesn't take to long. The finished look is obviously not that polished but it works just fine for us for jeans to wear around home while gardening, playing, building tree forts, you know all those rough and dirty jobs. :-)

Another "mending" job was actually more covering up a stain. Mara had worn this dress to church and ended up leaning into a stamp pad in class. I tried to get the stain out and it was pretty light but I still thought it would be better to cover it up if possible.

We chose a dark green ribbon to go around the seam line and it covers up the stain pretty well. That was a very simple fix!

Do you have any favorite ways to mend or fix up clothes? I would love to hear your ideas!
For more frugal tips visit Life as MOM.

The Weather Outside Is Going To Be Frightful!

And I couldn't be happier!! We're in the path of a winter storm and they're calling for 8-10 inches as of this morning. It'll start snowing tonight and continue through tomorrow night. I'm so glad most of the snow will fall tomorrow because I love seeing it fall. When I wake up to snow, I feel like I've missed the best part. We don't get much snow in North Carolina so seeing it fall is special.

Yesterday's high was about 60 degrees. We played outside and soaked in the sun. Tomorrow's high isn't supposed to reach 30 degrees! Quite a change in 48 hours. I love living here though because we get the best of both worlds. We get a mostly mild winter with an occasional bit of snow. It never sticks around long enough to get gray and yucky from salt.

I went out to the garden yesterday and pulled some carrots and parsnips before the ground freezes again. I'll post pictures of those later.

Until then I'll be checking weather.com as often as possible and jumping up and down as I see the storm getting closer!

Business card giveaway!

   This weekend is my first Bridal Show of the year. These are always a lot of work but they are fun too. I get a booth where I display a sample of my work (In fact I am waiting for the flower delivery right now) and also I have my portfolios available for brides and grooms (and mothers and friends) to browse through. I love getting to visit with them, listen to their dreams for their wedding day and answer questions.

  Obviously I want them to remember me after they leave too so I try to make sure that they get a brochure and business card to take with them. Which brings me to my giveaway today. UPrinting has generously offered to give 500 full color business cards to one of my readers! Check out their Print Online website to see all of the neat things they have available.

  Business cards can be used in many ways. Obviously they can be used for your own business but that isn't the end of what they are good for.

   Have you ever thought of having personal business cards? Some friends of mine had some made that have their names and contact information on them (along with a graphic and I believe maybe a verse) and they keep them handy in their wallet or purse so that when they meet somebody new and want to exchange information they don't have to go hunting for a scrap of paper and a pen, they can simply whip out their "business" card and hand it to them. They are very active in church and try to reach out to others and this has been very useful for them. I think it is a great idea!

   The same friends recently had some printed out for our church as well. It is handy to have something small like that handy to give to someone you invite to church or invite to have a bible study with you. Bloggers can also use business cards to help promote their blog. Do you have an Etsy shop or something of that nature? Business cards can be good for that too. Do you tutor, teach music or art lessons, baby-sit or anything of that nature? Business cards would work well.

   This post is actually making me want to get a bunch more business cards!! I could have like 5 different ones to chose from depending on who I was talking too! (At present I have a tendency to give my bridal ones to the music lesson people and then they wonder why in the world they have it later!)

Okay, now for some details....

• You will win 500 cards.
• You can chose from 4 different sizes: 2 x 3.5”, 2 x 3”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.5 x 3.5” (skinny card).
• You can chose from 3 different papers: 14 pt gloss cardstock, 14 pt matte cardstock or 13 pt recycled uncoated cardstock.
• They are full color on both sides (Check out all the cool options here!) with 3 day printing.
• There is free shipping!

How to enter:

• For your first entry please leave a comment telling me what would be your favorite way to make money. Maybe it is something you already do or maybe you would love to have your own photography business, sell your homemade things or whatever. I would love to hear your ideas! Entries that don't answer this question will be disqualified.
• For a second entry I would like to say thank you to my faithful readers. So if you are a follower of my blog, subsribe in a reader or have Proverbs 31 Living in your blog list on your blog you can leave another comment telling me how you follow my blog.   OR if you are new here, you can become a follower of my blog or subsribe in a reader or Proverbs 31 Living in the bloglist on your blog and then leave another comment telling me what you did for a second entry.

This giveaway is open to those in the US. (Sorry international readers!) and comments will be closed on February 4th after which I will randomly chose a winner.

And the winner is: Marine's Wife.

Happy-Sunny Quilt

Its finally done . . . my happy-sunny quilt! It took awhile as I hand-stitch the petals of the flowers. I decided to make 6 blocks of flowers & 6 blocks of pin-wheels of different bright, happy colours.

Put a yellow sashing in between them and did small multicoloured squares of the same fabric used for the inner flower petals.

Couldn't decide on its final border . . . Initially thought of something bright and loud, but went with lite green flowers in the end. It had a soothing effect somehow.

Polkadot in earthy tones for its backing fabric and found a bright yellow fabric with lil' red ladybugs as its binding.

I'm SO,SO,SO happy with this one!

Decided to forego the 'face' on the flower tho'. Remember the original design (check 'sneak peek' posting) ?

Measurement : 43" W x 54" L

Made up of 100% American cotton

Price : RM200

Status : SOLD!

Berry Night

While I was looking for jam in the chest freezer, I noticed we had a lot of frozen berries from last summer left. I decided to make it Berry Night....plus I was feeling lazy and didn't feel like making a regular meal.



Charlotte helped me mix up some blueberry pancakes . I defrosted the blueberries most of the way before adding them to the batter since last time the frozen blueberries caused the batter not to cook fully inside. They turned out great this time!


Then I mixed some strawberries and blueberries to make a fruit crisp for dessert. It turned out okay but I'm not going to post the recipe since I need to tweak the recipe.

Evan loves blueberries..... I mean LOVES blueberries. Here's Evan saying "Blueberry".

What really works for me

 While I was growing up my family tried to live a pretty healthy lifestyle. There was no nicotine, alcohol or any other drugs in our home, My Dad and brother raised our own meat, milk and eggs (we all got to help in that process a little), the majority of our produce came from our organic garden and we had a pretty low-stress family life. Doctor visits were very rare and for the most part any sniffle was treated with time and good old fashioned remedys. That was a really good start for life!

  When I got married I was of course suddenly in charge of the meals in my new home and in charge of being "nurse on duty". Home life was in many ways like growing up but we didn't raise our own meat or animal products. I did have a garden every year (except one when we moved during that season) but most years we were a long way from producing most of our produce. My in-laws did give us a grain grinder so I slowly learned about all sorts of whole grain foods.

   As time has gone on I have become much more interested in health matters. I guess that is only natural as my parents had many books on the matter and I enjoy reading and then my Mother-in-law is basically a health food guru, and many other things in life have caused me to learn more about health matters.

   In many ways this learning has been very fun as I like to read, I love to experiment (like stopping buying cleaning items and making everything instead) and I have a high desire to live to the highest potential possible for God's glory. However sometimes I just end up feeling frusterated! I hate to admit that but it is true. Sometimes on a certian subjects I can get as many different ideas as books I read and then some more when I talk to my chiroprator, mother-in-law, mother and a whole bunch of other people. I hear No dairy vs. any dairy vs. raw dairy. Then there is the whole debate about which fats are okay or wether you should eat any at all. It goes on and on and on....

   Sometimes I wish I were like some of my friends who follow recipes as written (using white flour and all the sugar called for), drink pop and eat whatever they feel like on a regular basis. I feel amazed that they don't even seem to ponder whether that is the best for their bodies. They don't seem to have those questions about what is really right concerning how to eat. This post doesn't really have a conclusion as to what is the perfect diet, I am not sure if that is possible to know. To be honest I am still trying to figure things out in that area.

  However I do know what really works for me. I might not have the answers in black and white on how exactly I should care for mine and my families health, but you know what? That isn't really what matters most. This life is only temporary. We aren't going to live forever no matter how well we take care of ourselves. So though I still think living a healthy lifestyle is something that pleases God (since we are taking care of the body He gave to us) I think also realize that our major concern needs to be that we are making sure that we are ready for our eternal life.

   And you know what really works for me? There is no guessing! We have one book that comes from God and in it He tells us all we need to know to be prepared for eternal life. If we look at all the books that people have written on religion we might get as confused as I sometimes feel about how to live healthfully but when we just simply read and follow God's word in the Bible we can prepare for life forever with Him.

"The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:8

And life in heaven someday....... That works for me!

  

My First Knitted Sweater.. Complete!!

I picked this particular sweater pattern because it mentioned in the description that it was so easy that it could be a child's first knitting project... Perfect!!



Gosh, I love that boy. He was very excited about his new sweater.

The sweater was knit in 4 pieces and then sewn together. I had to pick up stitches around the neck and then knit in the round for a bit. Both of those skills were new to me but neither was as hard as I expected it to be.


The pattern is called "April Showers" in the book "Knitting the New Classics". I'll be using this pattern again and again since it has adult and kid sizes as well as a cardigan version.
I used Lion Brand "Homespun" yarn in the color "Colonial". I knit for child size 4 and followed the pattern exactly except I only knit 2 inches for the neck ribbing instead of the 3 inches it called for since I didn't want it to come up too high on his neck.
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I'm so happy to have completed my first sweater. It feels like a great accomplishment. I've already cast on purple yarn to start the same type of sweater for Charlotte!

Eating from the pantry menu

I am still having fun with my eating from the pantry challenge. We have been able to use up some stuff that has been hanging around for a while and freezers and shelves are looking a little roomier.

 We have also been as a general rule eating pretty yummy and healthy food. I am happy with this experiement. We actually still have a lot of food around so I think February will be another month of trying to not buy very much but rather do a lot of eating of what we do have.

I had hoped to share actual dollar amounts today but I don't know where Ken has the reciepts right now and he is busy so I will try to add that up and share it later. I am pretty sure I have done fine with my goals.

One of our favorite meals from last week was a Mongolian recipe that we tried.

It is called Buuz. (I wasn't sure how to pronounce it so I said it the same as Booze, it made for some interesting conversations.) It is a steamed dumpling.

At the same meal we tried their special tea with milk. They also add salt. We weren't so sure about the salt part but we liked it with honey and spices (more like chai tea).

 I shared some of my other cooking from last week in my post about Pumpkin. Another of our successes in using up something was I used up a bear steak that had been given to us. I grew up eating all sorts of meat (goat was normal, we also ate duck, goose, pheasant, guiney, quail and squirrel) so eating bear shouldn't have been any big deal and eating bear burger wasn't, I have done that several times, but I had heard bad reports about Bear steak and so wasn't to excited about using it. I soaked it in vinager overnight (It helps tenderize wild game- it works good with venison) and then mixed it with some beef steak and made "Mongolian" BBQ. It worked fine. Ken really liked the meat.

Here is our menu for this week:

Monday:
Breakfast: Pancakes
Supper: Bean soup, cornbread and jello with lots of raspberries in it.

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs and Mince Nut bread. (I have a bunch of our home canned mince pie filling so I thought I would try this.)
Supper: Fried liver, potato wedges, coleslaw and peas,

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Hashbrown Casserole and applesauce.
Supper: Meatball Soup, garlic bread and fruit.

Thursday:
Breakfast: Baked Egg Puffs and prunes.
Supper: Mara is cooking Spaghetti and Fruit salad.

Friday:
Breakfast: Fried Eggs, Toast and Fruit.
Supper: Chicken, Baked potatoes and broccoli.

Saturday:
Breakfast: Coffe cake, cheese and Oranges.
Supper:  Goat broth gravy on brown rice and green beans.


What was your favorite meal from last week? I would love to hear, it might give me some ideas for future menus!

This is linked to Money Saving Mom.

Peter Rabbit Tin!

It's Peter Rabbit& Friends! My friend A has such wonderful collection of decoupage paper and has put it to good use indeed.

The background colour on this tin is a very lite green. Nice, really.

So what do u think?

Size : Large

Price : RM95

Status : SOLD!