Progress

 I made progress clearing out some of our excess today and spent the better part of the day working on my project.  What a mess I've made of the whole house while trying to clean up!  I just hate that.  Getting started is the hardest, but I think trying to tie up the loose ends is the most challenging.  If you don't get it organized, you've wasted your time.

Have you ever put something away in a safe place?  Then later when you need it you're unable to remember where you put it.  I have many times.  I makes me so mad at myself!   I suspect this will become an ever increasing occurrence as I grow older. Going through all of this stuff, I ran across several things that I had put away then forgot about.  Good to find these things but sort of aggravating as well.  I found several little spiral notepads that I like to keep in my purse. I had forgotten that I found a good deal and bought a pack of them.  I have bought several more having forgotten about my good deal.  I ran across several packs of thank you notes, a pack of felt tip pens and so on.  I also found the instruction manual for the phone, old cell phones, the ceiling fan, several pictures.  I could go on and on.  All the more reason to finish going through all this stuff.  I can see the top of my desk now!  

Funny how things find a way of happening to slow down the progress.  Today I was on my belly on the floor trying to vacuum under two heavy pieces of furniture. I just started  to notice the vacuum sounded funny.   I had to pull it all apart.  No everything looked okay.  So I turned it back on and it still sounded strange.  So I took it apart again.  After further investigation it appears the hose was stopped up.  I took it outside so I could see and it took me a while to work the contents loose.  But I finally got it fixed.

Since I was outside I decided to go to the barn and pick up the eggs and turn out my little bantam chickens.  They don't get out as much because I don't want the big chickens to hurt them.  But, they are getting big enough now.  They were out for the first time yesterday, but would not leave the hallway of the barn.  While I was at the barn Harland came up on the tractor with a load of logs. As he drove up he was telling me that I wasn't going to be happy.  He explained that earlier this afternoon as he was making a trip toward the barn he saw a hawk take one of my chickens.  I love letting them free range, but it is just becoming a common occurrence to lose them to predators.  Even if I had been at the barn with them I wouldn't have been able to stop it.

                  This looks like my little bantam bard rock rooster.


It's been a tough couple of weeks for our animals.  We lost Clabber a week ago, he would have been 30 years old this April.  We lost Lucy one of our older cows.  Harland found her Sunday morning.  She just laid down where he put out the hay. I found an old record of the cows  She was born in 1995, so she was about 16 years old.  Today, my chicken.  Hope this will be the end of this for a while.

                        This was Lucy with her 2009 calf.
                                              

                 This is not my Silkie hen, but she looks like this

On a happier note, I have a white silkie chicken that has been sitting on some eggs.  Hopefully, we will see her hatch some chicks in the next week or so.  If they make it they should be here when Charlie and Bella come to the farm in March.  Charlie likes the chickens.  She likes to help me pickup the eggs and she likes to hear the roosters crow.  I was looking at some pictures of her with the chickens and thinking how much she has grown and changed since they were take.  She called me yesterday to wish me a happy birthday.  She didn't have a lot to say, but I can hear in her voice she is growing up.  Bella jabbered at me for a long time too.  I can't wait to see them again.  We will get to see them in February.  I want to have my project finished before they come in March so we will have plenty of time to play.  If I stay after it like I did today, I should be done.

To Snow or Not to Snow,

Harland will tell you that I am not fond of snow on the ground.  I hate driving in the snow or ice.  I especially hate trying to get in and out of our driveway when it is on the ground.  I find it troubling to hear of all the terrible accidents and injuries due to bad roads.  It's nice to have 4 wheel drive, but some folks think having it makes them invincible on the road. 

When I was still working it seemed snow and ice always came at the most inconvenient times.  Especially when snow came in January.  Since January 31st was the end of the physical year for my employer, it was somewhat frowned upon to hold on to vacation hours until last of the year. Everyone can't be off work the last week of January. But you needed to hang on to a few hours in the event there was a weather emergency.  A true catch 22.

When I was a little girl, we lived in Indiana and Illinois.  I remember that we had a lot of snow.  I am not sure if it now snows more or less than it did then or if it was just my little girl memory of the weather.  We lived in the country, pretty far out on a long dirt road.  If you have never been to that area of the country, let me give you a brief description of the countryside.  It is beautiful gently rolling black dirt farm land.  In the summer, you can drive for miles and miles and all you may see are rows and rows of crops, usually corn.  But, in the winter, the fields are bare.  When it snowed and the wind would blow it piled the snow against the fence rows along the road in deep drifts.

                                                                                                     (Good representations of my descriptions)

                       

 On those occasions when there was a large accumulation of snow, my dad would have to park his car on the paved road and walk the few miles down the dirt road to get home from work.  Then, walk back to the car to go to work.  At the time we were living in eastern Illinois, but near the Indiana line. I was probably in the first or second grade about that time.  On one particular afternoon after a lot of snowfall,  daddy was preparing to go to work and I decided I wanted to go spend the night with my grandma, his mother.  They lived just outside of West Terre Haute in west central Indiana.  After
much ado and my insistence momma and daddy gave in and said I could go.  Momma wasn't feeling well and wanted me to stay with her. But, I was determined.  I could go, but daddy said I had to walk to the car, he would not carry me.  I remember being excited about getting to walk with my dad in the snow.  Of course once I got to Grandma's there would be lots of playtime in the snow with my cousins.  They lived next door to Grandma.

So I was bundled up in my warmest clothes, snowsuit, rubber boots, extra socks, coat and gloves.  Yeah you've seen this picture.  I was bundled up where I could barely move.  After we set out walking toward the car, daddy's instructions were for me to follow directly behind him and step into his footsteps he made in the snow.  He says he doesn't want me to fall into the drifts.  Okay daddy, whatever you say.  I remember thinking I don't want me to fall in a drift either!  You know it was hard with my little short legs trying to pick up my boots and step from one of his footsteps to the next one. We hadn't gone very far before I was tired.  It was about 3/4 of a mile to the next house on our road.   I made it about that far before my feet were freezing and I was crying to be carried.  So daddy ended up carrying me the rest of the way to his car.  I was cold and still crying, but I was happy.  I was on my way to grandma's house.  Now I realize how terribly hard that must have been for him.  Then he still had to go work all night.  He probably knew the outcome before we took our first steps out into the snow. 

  Remember this picture from A Christmas Story!
                                 

We've had a lot of fun here on the farm in the snow.  We have lots of good hills here to slide down.  When the girls were young Harland would get the old tractor out and pull the us around on the sled.  He would sling us around in a circle and we would laugh until we couldn't catch our breath.  Good times, good memories!  Last winter (2010) when we had that great snow on Christmas day, all the girls and their families were here.  Harland built a fire in the pasture in front of the house.  We pulled everyone around on the sled with the four wheeler and slid down the hills.  Charlie was bundled up.  Once again, so many clothes you can't bend an arm or leg.  But we pulled her around in the wagon.  She was precious.  Again, these are precious memories.

So far this year we haven't even had a dusting of snow at our house.  The next few days are fore casted to inch the daily temperatures into the upper 60s this week and dipping only a little later to the 50s over the next 10 days.  It has been a mild winter so far.  I am not complaining, but the rain has the barn yard a mess with sticky mud.  I can hardly keep my rubber boots on walking through it.

So, this has even me asking, where is winter, where is the snow?  

Measuring Up

Once upon a time in one of my first attempts at cooking I used chili powder in my spaghetti sauce. I was probably 15 or 16 years old and trying to help my mom by cooking supper before she got home from work.  I don't know why I thought spaghetti would need chili powder.  When I realized I had botched the job it was too late to start over and of course the family had to eat it.  Needless to say, it was not good and I did not get compliments on my cooking.  But what's important is I did make an attempt.  You have to start somewhere.

I enjoy cooking now, but I haven't always.  In the early years of our marriage, when we were both working and trying to raising our family I didn't enjoy cooking.  What I mean is I didn't hate it, but it was not something I took joy in doing.  It was hard getting something quick and good on the table in a reasonable amount of time.  I was learning to cook long before Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meal cookbooks.  I made a lot of hamburger casseroles.  Harland and JoCasta loved them.  So I relied on them a lot.  I could pair the casserole with a salad and had a pretty good meal on the table.  Trouble is, while there are tons of casserole recipes there are only so many times during the week you can get away with serving it up.  Chili burger casserole, burger pasta casserole, chicken casserole, you get the idea.

It wasn't I was afraid to try other recipes, the problem was time.  Then if it doesn't turn out well... well what do you do then.  But as time went on and a lot of calls to Harland's mom and my mom, I eventually practiced several dishes enough that I started gaining some confidence and receiving a few compliments on my cooking.

It was always a problem when asking for assistance from my mom and Harland's mom too.  Not because they didn't want to help, but because if I wanted to know how much milk to use when making biscuits, they could not give exact measurements.  That is not something you can tell someone.  You have to show them.  But I was in Alabama and they were in North Carolina.  So I had to learn by trial and error and never became the kind of cook to make sure I accurately measured everything.  Maybe I did the first time I would try a recipe, but then I would just wing it.  That's the way I learned it from them.

Then there is a matter of different regional cooking style.  My family is from Indiana.  Meat and potoates and bread for every meal.  If you had beans it was Navy or Great Northern beans.  Harland's mom, was a good old southern style cook.  Pinto beans, fried chicken, gravy and biscuits.  If you wanted to learn how to make chicken and dumpling from my mom, that meant you had homemade egg noodles.  I still don't know how to make them.  Harland's mom made chicken and dumplings southern style.  That means drop dumplings.  I learned to make drop dumplings because that is what Harland was raised with and his preference.  But I still want to learn how to make homemade egg noodles.

Harland and I often talk about the first time we went to the grocery store after moving into our first apartment.  On the way home he asked what were we having for supper. I said beans, fried potatoes and cornbread.  He said, what else, I said well I can heat up another vegetable. He said so what else, I said what else do you want?  He said where is the meat?  I said the beans are your protein.  And he said, bleep, if I wanted protein, I would just eat peanut butter.  But, now pintos, potatoes and cornbread are one of his favorite meals (and without additional protein).

                         Zucchini Patties-Recipe Below

All of my girls will tell you they are not accomplished in the kitchen.  But, as time goes on they are venturing out and trying new things.  Occasionally they will ask my advise about a meal that they enjoyed while they were still living at home.  Cooking, no matter what style you chose just takes time and practice.  Once you realize that everyone has had a recipe not turn out well, you don't feel so bad when yours doesn't either.  The important thing to remember is at least you tried. Eventually, the act of cooking has become something I enjoy doing. I don't know exactly when that happened!

Harland and I thought it was important we share at least one meal together every day with our kids.  We still do eat together every evening.  The kitchen table was where we gathered while we shared the details of our day.  I hope these are the things my children look back and remember and I hope it will be an important part of raising their families too.

Hoarding, Really! Really?

Yesterday I made two trips to our local grocery store to pickup several good cardboard boxes.  My intentions are to do some purging of 'stuff' in our house (bedroom first).  I called the store the day before and requested boxes be saved and was advised I should be at the store early because their truck comes in around 7 am.  I was motivated!  I got up early, fixed breakfast, dressed and made my way to the store.  Proud of myself, I was there by 8am as was advised.  Yes, the truck had arrived and employees were stocking shelves, but no, you need to come back around noon.  Are you kidding, I called and was told to be here at 8am!!  We will save you boxes.  I did go back and get the boxes, but that took the wind out of my sails.



So... I would tackle the job tomorrow (that is today).  I was thinking about it.  I thought about it all day in fact.  However, I was unable to move myself in that direction. Okay, maybe I am not so motivated you say.  But, in my mind I am. I really want to get rid of all the excess.  This 'stuff', it's not just in the bedroom.  It's all over the house.  It's in the attic. It's in the storage building.  It's in the garden shed.  I even have stuff in the barn I need to toss. Why do I find it so hard to pick up that first item and put it in a box?  I see it.  It's in my way.  At times we trip over it.  It's collecting dust.  It-is-overwhelming! 





I have a box now. Just put it in the box, right.  That should be easy. But, for some reason, I can't wrap my mind around it, it is not easy.  I don't want it anymore, right.  Not really.  So why?  Am I a hoarder?  I look up the definition of hoarding...

1. The acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value.
2. Living spaces are cluttered enough that they can't be used for the activities for which they were designed.
3. Significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding.

Well, as I have described, we certainly have a large number of possession that are no longer useful.  It is obviously causing some distress and I am impaired to the level I cannot pickup the first item.  We are somewhat cluttered, but not so bad that we can't live in our space... yet.  Hummm!   I can't compare myself to some of the poor souls I have seen on the popular reality series, Hoarding, Buried Alive.  But, I am recognizing that if I fail to act on this problem, we could be moving in that direction.  You should see the storage building and the attic.



So where did this problem begin or better yet when did I recognize it.  Well it began along time ago.  When the girls were still living at home.  Clean up your room, I'd say.  Where do we put these clothes, they don't fit anymore, they'd say.  Pack them up and put them in the attic.  We will have a yard sale, I'd say. Awesome, right?  No!  Never happened!  The girls played softball for several years and have a lot of treasures they collected, trophies, equipment, etc.  That's special, you can't get rid of that, right? There is more...Harland's mom and my dad passed away.  Their 'stuff'.  Precious memories, so we have them now.  What do we do with it? The girls took items special to them, put the rest it in the storage building.  We will go through it.  No!  Never happened.


 It's getting late in the afternoon today, yesterday is gone.  Can I just get that shelf cleaned off. That one right there, with the books I have already read.  No.  I can't reach it.  I have to move these clothes first to get to it. The ones I went through several weeks ago!  Okay.  I can move those clothes.  Get a box, take the clothes out of the baskets and put them in the box.  Now, put the box in the jeep.  You can take it to Goodwill.  Good you did it!  Good job!

 

Back to the shelf.  Yes it is still there, closer now.  Go ahead pick it up.  Go on pick up the book.  You're reaching.  Ah, the phone is ringing! Saved.  Conversation...Yes, I am home, yes I no longer work for Lowe's, I retired. Blah, blah, and blah blah blah. Goodbye. Hang up.  Back to the shelf.  Box is on the bed.  There, get that book.  The one on top that is so dusty.  Get it.... put it in the box.  Wait, did I read that book.  I don't remember it.  Flip through pages.  Yes, yes, I read that one.  It's in the box. Progress!  Next book, no I don't think I read this one though.  Put it to the side.  What about these diet books.  Do I want to get rid of them. I will think about it.  Put them to the side.  Oh yeah, I read all these Nora Roberts books.  In the box!

You're probably tired of this right.  Me too!  I am exhausted.  But I finally did fill the box and get it in the jeep.  Where have I been going with all this craziness?  I finally remembered the words, "Just good enough"!  A psychologist shared these words with a group of patients who had undergone gastric bypass surgery.  I was one of those patients.  On the road to gastric bypass surgery we shared not only obesity, but many of us share the same OCD tendencies (that was just tendencies, not OCD behavior).  Including, our inability to move forward when faced with what seems like (to us) overwhelming tasks.  What I call a closet perfectionist.  Unless we can see ourselves performing the task perfectly, we would rather not even attempt it. Once we get started, we can push forward.  But taking that first step, pulling down that first book and putting it in the box is the hardest.  Learning we are not alone in our imperfection was relieving to me.  Practicing 'Just good enough' principles... touching that first book and clearing the first shelf will me get started.  It's not easily practiced, but it helps. Tomorrow I will be trying to focus on just another small piece, but on my way to tackling the whole of this project.

Thanks for hearing me today.  Wish me luck!


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