In the zone...

I am in major moving zone over here. The count is 10 days till we pick up the key and 11 till we are moved in completely. I am so incredibly excited!! The house is about 70% packed up. I still have the kitchen and clothes and random bits here and there. All the current utilities are set to shut off and new utility companies have been called. Our internet will shut off on the 8th so I will most likely be without for several days and then its on to dial up. lol I will try to continue my blogging but it may be very picture unfriendly with only a few here and there. :) I have lists galore; things to buy and things to fix and things to do. I can honestly say that this so far has been our most organized and easy move. My goal is to have all boxes out of the house on moving day so that the loaders can easily go from garage to truck and only have to get the furniture out of the house. Bad news is I hurt my back so this last week has been slow going.

I will try for a few more posts between now and the move but cannot guarantee anything. :) I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!!

Homemade Memory Game

We have been creating a lot of the gifts we are giving for Christmas this year. Most of the family is getting boxes of home canned goods, homemade elderberry syrup, and homemade fruit cordials. I will probably throw some breads or cookies in there and the kids have been having fun making mixes in jars. Layering all the ingredients is a lot of fun. The kids are getting a variety of things, some store bought but most made by me or made by another WAHM. I enjoyed shopping online on Hyena Cart this season and supporting other Mothers working at home. Tonight I completed one of Marah's Christmas presents. I am really excited with how it turned out and I know she will really enjoy it!

Supplies I used:

Wooden circles from craft store

Ink pads

Rubber Stamps

Heat Embosser (to set the ink)

Tin for storage

The only items I needed to buy were the wooden circles ($2 for 20) as I had all the other supplies on hand. You could also use paint or permanent markers to draw the designs on the pieces. My ink pads said for wood they needed to be heat set so I am hoping the embossing tool was hot enough to set it. So far so good. These are definately not small child friendly though as they are about 1 inch in diameter.

We are moving!!

We had talked of moving in the spring or summer. We needed to re plant the garden with grass and wanted to get the garage in order prior to moving. There are still a few boxes from the last move out there! I want to toss them but Joe says "What if there is something important in them?" lol so we will go through them. After some issues over Thanksgiving (overflowing shower and a house full of guests!) and the way our landlords handled it we decided to start looking now. We thought it would take months to find a place as I am not going to settle. Luckily we had that option I know some don't.

What we wanted:
a little more space inside
garage is nice but not required
at least 3 bedrooms
washer and dryer (as we don't own any)
landlords that will allow us to keep our chickens and possibly add more
either a garden all ready set up or landlords that will let us dig up our own
must be in our set budget
a fenced area so I can let the kids out to play without worrying the little ones will escape
A larger lot than we have now

I am please to say that we found one with everything on our list! It has one fully fenced acre, the house has a small area I can use for a sewing room and give Madeline the third bedroom back. She has decided she does not like sharing her room ever since she asked to be moved back with the other kids. lol There are black berry bushes galore in a field next to the property which is an added bonus for me! The rooms are much bigger than they are now so there will be more space for kids sharing rooms and such. Its also in much better condition than the current house we are in which will be nice. Nothing like feeling air blowing in your electrical outlets when its cold outside. We never noticed this before so it may be just because we are having such a cold snap (teens!) but its been rather hard to heat the house lately. It is a little farther out than we are used to. A good 25 minutes east of where we are now. The school Joe sees most of his clients in is between our current home and the new home so that's a plus. He's closer unless he has to go in to the office or to juvenile hall. It will give us a taste of how far out we really want to be. We have grand plans of living in the country, we both grew up in small towns and rural areas, but its been a long time for us. Perfect to rent and find out if we really will like it rather than buy and find out we don't! The other news is no cell phone service and no internet except satellite or dial up! Not sure how that will work with blogging and my online shop but we shall see. Monthly runs into town with the laptop maybe in order for me when I stock my shop.

Here's a satelitte map of the area. Won't tell you exactly where but its by a river and off the main road on another smaller road. :)