Well, I've been pretty absent on here the last year because I was working 40 plus hrs off farm and ta boot it was 2nd shift, I  am a MORNING person! So besides sleeping til 11am and dragging myself(because I sometimes had pies to bake when I got home at midnight to go out for orders the next morning, the dogs always had to go out in the night and we had to really watch our older heeler, she was on meds for seizures and just wasn't doing well. She ended up abruptly loosing her sight in one eye and the other could barely see anything, we had to have her put to sleep as tumor was growing to an unbearable measure. I did a few cakes, donated a porch swing for the community celebration of my husbands hometown. We just opened our last jar of ketchup, still have about 8 qrts of juice left, spaghetti sauce has been gone, still have applesauce, all the jam is gone, ugh!!! Time to plant garden and start all the food canning all over again. We've had many calves born, sold a lot, lost twin calves, bought a handful of cows out of a bad situation and they r doing pretty good 8 months later. I've gotten my sitting room almost completely redone....I had to patch some of the plaster and lathe with drywall and I've stripped the paint of the ornate door hinges and we found the wooden replacement parts the go on the doors behind the door knobs. I got a new screen door and put it on the tenants trailer. My hubby has been soooo busy too. So, I decided, since I hadn't really seen my hubby in almost a year, that I would push my cake business, push the porch swings and I'm making the soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and lotions now too. I still work at the hotel front desk but only a couple days a week dayshift. I get to see my hubby! I get to go to bed by 10:30 most nights! I get to get up in the morning! Yea, me! I think my publisher is tired of waiting for me to finish my book though so hopefully I can get that buttoned up in the next couple months. And I think because I have a newer iphone now it's not letting me post pics so they will have to wait till I get on the computer. I am anxious to get start surfing all the blogs I've missed these many months.

Slowing my life merry go round from 220 mph to a nice 55 mph!

Ok, so spud the kitty I rescued last fall/winter, who lost his toes from being caught in string under tenant's trailer, has long been healed up after the vet removed the bones that were left sticking out after his little toes rotted off. My hubby and I each went through a lovely -2 wks missed work-only left bed long enough to feed and care for cows-in which we had to nursemaid a new calf that died at 4 days old---FLU! Omg, we were literally bedridden. I've had plenty of pie orders, through the winter but working 40+hrs 2nd shift at hotel really took a lot out of me. Since I'm a morning person it was a long past year working 2nd shift and not seeing my hubby much. I gave notice at hotel to only work 2 day shift days a week starting in April as I've started making soaps, lotions, creams, shampoos, and conditioners (which I am in process of getting my business ins. And copyright to my name so I can sell them too). But the second wk of April the front desk manager at hotel landed himself on a lovely 3-4 wk vacation that was not optional after a visit to ER. So I worked his shift for him every day til he got back. I'm late getting my last chapter of my book to the publisher, ugh! And now I took in 4 --2 wk old kittens so people would not take them to SPCA. Feeding was every 3 1/2 hrs but as of this past Saturday they are all pooping and pooping on their own and using litter pan, they also eat from a dish now(although still standing/stepping in it most of the time). It's time to get garden planted, we just sent 11 calves to auction and just had 6 born in last 2 wks. My hubby got us a used D17 tractor so I can learn to help with fieldwork(my request) as tractors we have didn't have breaks if stalled and we farm all hills. I drove it for the first time the other day and got to back up our used but new to us cullipacker(spelling), unhook and drive over and back it down slope into the barn and park it! Yea! You can teach an old dog new tricks, lol🙀😜 also excited because I tried my first ever cold process soaps, a dark chocolate/vanilla mocha soap and a neroli and Shea blossom and cedar wood atlas essential oil soap with what is called a Taiwan swirl. I also have made a face cream I have been dying for since I can't find the carrot face cream I used to get from burts bees. But I like mine better! I will share my website soon with you all. Just tired, half way through the 2 yr transition of the "change of life" and I will be very ecstatic when hot flashes are done. Finally took time to cut my hair as it was driving me nuts in my eyes long......oh, I guess I will just add some pics now to go with all this update.    Well, I will post them if I can figure out how from my iphone now. 

What's Up!

Wow! Busy is just the beginning. I feel soooo deprived of my time on my craft blog, facebook time, emails...um, since I have over 1000 unread I'll leave that subject alone, me time...what's that????? ha ha ha. Okay, so I've been busy working, making cookies (check out my cake site - cakesbychris.blogspot.com), putting/writing music to the song I have been writing for a special someone as a suprise - I have the tune, have some of my guitar chords figured out and playing those to record them and put them on the awesome program my nephew told me about 'audacity.com' where I will be able to record my voice, my guitar playing, and add other instruments and such, I just have to finish writing the music for all of it - whew! I have 242 little dirt pots for flower garden seeds ready for seed starting and 38 little dirt pots for garden plant seeds ready for seed starting. I long to just sit at my sewing machine and sew(I'm thinking of making a quilt for a wedding gift for this summer for a nephew)...plus I have mending to do. Ugh, where to begin...I just pick something and do it and hopefully I will eventually get caught up to myself --- lol---the reality side of me says I won't ever get caught up cause I find tooooo many 'things' I want to do. Oh, yeah, and my biggest news --- I got engaged on Christmas day --- WOO HOO! I didn't know if my shy farmer would ever get the words out! lol We just had the last of our calves born about a month ago and I just did pour on wormer by myself on all our cattle since my other half works so many hours off farm I didn't know if it would get done otherwise. I know I'm leaving news out but I'll hopefully be back to update soon.

Elevated Dog Dishes

Okay, I got sick and tired of the dogs moving their dishes all around and under the spare chair, etc., SO!, for Christmas I made them an elevated dog dish stand. It took me an hour and a half by the time I drew out my design on my wood to the time I put on my first coat of polyurethane. I did by new dishes to go in it but I used wood that I had saved from an old farm house that was tore down. I countersunk my screws and used the wood rasp/file to make a little indent by the dish hole to make it easy to grab the dishes out of the holder to clean and fill them.

Adorable Garden Signs

Okay, it seems like I am always doing work around the farm and home of 'stuff' that has to get done, well, Sunday I decided to work on a project just for me! :) I saw these cute little garden signs in a magazine, they only had 5 to go by of which 3 garden items I had in my garden so I used the shading ideas for those and let my imagination go for the others. Unfortunately I forgot to cut my board for my radish sign (which those aren't planted yet but still:) so, I have a pic of my little guy but he's waiting for his sign to go on. I love how they turned out....

Life Update

So, it's been awhile since I posted on here before today, since then I have had a full time seasonal job that ended in Jan. I have sewn items, completed wood storage boxes for my boyfriend's workshop, recovered a vintage bench that I saved from the dumpster, as posted below - worked to make our tennant trailer rentable, worked in my own kitchen, planted flower seeds inside for my flower beds, starting to get the garden ready, my dad died of cancer the middle of March(which I had not seen him in 4 years and because of a blessing of one of my dad's friends, my boyfriend and I were flown from PA(where we live) to Florida and I saw my dad - it was a fantastic visit, he was as full of life as he could be for being in the condition he was in - 52 hrs later he died. I've also been busy cleaning up in our barn tool room, taking care of our beefcows, and splitting and stacking firewood - thank goodness that is done for the year! I know there is more but - I just can't remember right now. Keith's off farm job requires him to work 24 hrs on site fracking gas wells, so it is total 29 hrs. he is gone awake time, home for about 18 hrs, and back to work to do it all again so much of the home and farm fall on my shoulders, but I am still looking for work again and Keith has had double hernia surgery last fall, bronchitis/numonia(spelling) in Jan/Feb and then passing blood in March/April - so he is still having testing and lovely stuff going on to find out what's going on. We will most likely have a new calf baby born by morning chore time, with hopefully all our momma cows expecting soon and kittens should be soon from at least 2-3 of our momma cats. I wish I had more time - I do get to watch 'girl' type movies on the nights Keith is at work - and I recently watched Julie and Julia - it inspired me to blog consistantly but to date I have not gotten there - so much to do and not enough time. I also watched the move 'Eat, Pray, Love'(I think that was the name) AWESOME movie for any person at all who has been through any type of hurt of the heart, whether it be a child, parent, friend, significant other, whatever - it was awesome. So, I will try and get more of my recent projects posted soon so I don't get to far behind.

Vintage wood Nail/bolt boxes turned shelving!

So, out in the wagon shed is a big pile of 'stuff' from when my boyfriend's parents sold there farm and bought a house in town. I hate having so much 'stuff' to organize and go through BUT I love the big pile of 'stuff' to be creative with. There are many of these vintage wood nail/bolt boxes so I thought I would make some shelving for the kitchen. AND the kitchen and I just spent 15 1/2 straight hours - yes, from 6 am - 10:36 pm(had to minus my chore time for the beef cows) in reformation. I had my first meal at about 10:50 pm - sat for 15 min. and went to bed til 5 am and started cleaning the kitchen back up. I wasn't able to strip the boards yet that are behind the shelving pictured here and that was why I explained some of my kitchen project - I will be posting pics soon of our kitchen. But back to the shelves...

Now, these were full of dust, dirt, old oats, old straw, nasty stuff. I used a paint scraper, a soft green dry scrub pad, a stiff paint brush, and the shop vac to clean these up. I carefully hammered in any nails or loosening dovetails. I also cleaned them all with liquid gold. I nailed them together with old, small nails from a time era when these would have been new(psss-the nails came out of the lathe boards that have been taken out of the house so far). I did use 3 screws to hang it on the wall, but I am so pleased with this. I have started putting on some of our 'older' items we have and I have one more I did to hang by the door for more items and keys and such. Now, once that wall is stripped and done natural it will all come together.

Tennant Trailer Renovation!

Okay, so, our tennants bought a home and moved out the end of January, 2011. I got busy right away. I wish I had gotten more before pics but this will have to do. At this point I am finishing up the hallway, the master bathroom closet, the master bedroom closet, and the small bedroom. Here is the progress so far, many many hours later...
Here we can enjoy the lovely trailer wallboard in the kitchen along with at least 3 different colors of paint on walls in the kitchen and dining area. YUCK! Also a lovely piece of hard, cloudy, non-see through plastic on one window for privacy, a rusty, sticker ladden fridge, drywall that needed patching, and a bay window in the dining area that needed the old drywall taken off, 2x4's replaced in the wall under the window and new drywall put up.



Now, I scraped, sanded, and spray painted the fridge an ivory, I used a tan(looks like dark coffee with cream) on the bottom walls in the kitchen and all the walls in the dining area, a creamy ivory on the top in the kitchen and around the bay window in the dining area, and a purple/burgandy paint for the trim boards(which were given to me a year ago and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them!). I bought ONE curtain(it contained 2 panels and a valance), and I made my curtains to fit the windows in the kitchen and dining area --- I really was going for a homey/coffee house feel. I had to sand and paint the fan vent sheild over the stove as once upon a time I think it was just stainless steel but it was mostly rust color when I saw it. I also replaced the hard nasty plastic atop the window with my good standby---limosine window cover(about $12 at an auto parts store and I have enough to do at least 4 or more lower windows in the trailer for privacy) As you can see in the second pic down - you can see the dog fence and everything outside, but you can't see in -in the day and at night anyone outside can only see shadowy type images when lights are on inside.


I also added an oak board under the window shelf as there a sad piece of thin damaged board under before I tore off all the wall under the window and replaced inside framing under the window. I also put new wood base inside the middle window for the inside sill(as I did for the living room and need to for the kitchen and bedrooms-not done yet) and I only had to paint the other two inside sill parts for a clean crisp look.


So, here is a small look at the hallway(which does not show the parts that had holes to be redrywalled) and the lovely bathroom with that lovely trailer wallboard, a curtain that didn't fit or cordinate, and a shower curtain that was of a different pattern altogether. The medicine cabinet was rusty, so I sanded and painted that too! I still have to hang the towel bar and split and sew the window curtain - again, I bought ONE curtain that had 2 panels and a valance - I used the valance for over the shower curtain and am making my curtain to fit the window. I tried to cordinate my color scheme with something that would compliment the floor tiles.

Okay, the hallway - from the end by the bathroom and washer/dryer area it is the tan from the dining room/kitchen - the hall to the bedrooms is the creamy ivory from the kitchen. I had to replace some of the corner molding and almost all of the bottom floorboard molding(which I made myself by cutting thin pieces of wood to width and length to compliment the best I could with what was there) Oops - I still have to clean the light covers and put them back on but I am still working on the floor in the hallway. I also made a really cool coat rack as there is not really a place to put coats.

Okay, now.........the master bedroom and master bath - okay - wow, there is that lovely tailer wallboard again in both rooms and an access panel of just plain greenboard! After Accessing the rooms I decided that the floors were really the only thing I couldn't change - sooooo, I planned the color schemes around those! Don't you love that peach counter in the bathroom too?!? NOT!
As you can see - I chose a foamy type sea green, a fancy boarder, and green sheer curtains for the master bedroom(I still have things on the floor since I am currently working in the closets for both rooms).

Now, for the master bath ---- I had black/white marble floor tiles I needed to cordinate around - soooooo, I painted the peach counter black, all the outlet covers, soap dish, etc. black, the handles, hinges, and edging on the cabinets black to make them pop!, again I bought ONE curtain that had 2 panels and a valance and used the valance to go over the other new shower curtain I bought, I used more of the molding to go around the room as I painted the walls all white but then sponged black on the lower half to pull it all together.


This is turning out so great. The old tennants have had to come get jugs of water still to date and LOVE what I have done. I still have to tar some of the roof, tar over the bay window, finish the floor in the hall, finish the two closets in the master bed/bath, and change the front door - whew! I will be glad when this project is done, But it is well worth all the time I have in it and with being creative and using what I have for much of it and buying on-sale curtains and making them to fit(much cheaper than buying curtains made for the trailer windows and shower valances) I ended up spending about $200 on paint, curtains, boarder and such.- we are hoping to have it rented for May!

Shopping Bag

Okay, I got this really awesome shopping bag from 'WidgetWorm' aka - my sister - her blog is listed on my site(one that takes the place of a plastic shopping bag - you know - the new 'green' bags), AND...well, I love it. So I thought I would try making a 'shopping' bag myself. I actually used my neighbor's 'green' bag that she brought over hot peppers in - for a pattern. I had blue jean material left over from the quilt I made and gave it a try. When I went to make the handles and turn them right side out after sewing them I decided I liked the looks of the 'inside-out with pressed seam' better than right side out. I think if gives the bag character. I stuck cardboard in the bottom for reinforcement. My next try will be to make a bag like my sister gave me.

Blue Jean Quilt

I had a lot of old blue jeans and decided to use some of them to make my boyfriend a quilt to take with him in the truck (usually a semi with a huge cement pump or cement tanks on the back - they cement gas wells and sometimes are on site for 6 to like 24 hrs. if they have to wait for the well drillers to finish). I thought it would be cool to use the back of the waist band for some of the quilt.

Me and Raggedy Ann Quilt

I picked up this cute - looks like new raggedy ann at a flea market this summer and thought it would be cute to make a toddler blanket with Raggedy Ann having a blanket just like it that snaps on to the toddler blanket. I love how it turned out. :)

Fire Starters

Got this great idea to make fire starters and basket them. I used rolled up newspaper, wrapped twine around each roll with four little twigs, then dunked each end in wax. I added wax dipped pinecone firestarters too. For decoration I waxed some autumn leaves. (not shown - for lack of energy to find them on my computer - a red basket and a silver basket)

Fun Kids Rack

Okay, I absolutely love this fun kid's hat/coat rack. I actually took the idea of the circles from one of my scrapbooking idea pages. :) Did I mention that I love it!!!! lol

Steampunk Stuff

Thought I would try a bit of Steampunk Stuff, I had some items laying around that looked like they would fit the bill, and wah-lah! I made a decorative book and redid an old wood item hanger 'tree'.

Wood Chimes

I had a bunch of dowels laying around and have been finding crafts to do with them. I made one set of John Deere wood chimes and 2 sets of IH wood chimes. One of the IH sets we will have on our porch, I have to finish putting our strings on ours.