Categories
Farm Life

Celebrating our January heat wave!

After weeks of gloomy skies and single digit nights, we finally saw the sun today! 44 degrees honestly felt like 75 to my sun-starved psyche.

So this evening before dark, my husband hooked up the hillbilly sleigh–an old pick-up truck hood padded with horse blankets and strapped to the back of the four-wheeler (yes, I know, we’re insane). From then on it was a whirl, ride after ride swooshing down our curvy snow-packed lane,with us spinning halfway around the ATV on each side and oh, we had to hang on tight to jump the ditch into the fields and then: heart in your throat time!  Somehow I still managed to scream plenty. FUN times! Scary times. Reminded me of all the times hubby and I used to goof around like that in our dating days, with his dad and older brother. Hilarious wipe outs galore.

Family bonding of the best sort!

After the wild rides were over, we gathered wood and kindling and built a cozy fire in the grill pit. Though the temperature had dropped to 28 degrees, we were plenty warm inside! I’d thawed a stack of KC Strips and we happened to have half a bag of large marshmallows to roast.  Meat and sweets! I ran inside to put the tea kettle on for hot drinks, when the UPS truck rolled up the drive bearing my Christmas order of Black Currant tea from First Colony Coffee! Happy!

If you’ve never sipped a hot beverage in 28 degree weather, let me say you are missing out! Mmm. And the still night air, so crisp! And snow everywhere…made the steamy, fruity essence that much sweeter!

Oven baked fries will round out our winter frolic here in a bit, eaten inside, of course, with frosted mittens and snowsuits hanging in the laundry room to dry…

And I’m off…

Categories
Home Home Schooling

January Planning

09houseSnowGot a yen to organize thy household? Well, step right up. There’s nothing wrong with a little “New Year’s” motivation…and with single digit temps and snow everywhere, there’s not much to do outside. Wish you could see the curvy path I’ve tramped through the snow to the chicken barn each morning and night the past two weeks…it’s not quite a tunnel yet…*smile*. The chickens won’t even venture forth in this weather. They peek out at the bright snow and blink.

So, I’ve been having fun printing off a slew of great organizational helps at donnayoung.org this morning. For instance, her month-on-a-page household planner would be a great way to track monthly bills and “mental notes” in a binder from one year to the next. Need a greeting card registry, or a telephone number chart? How about refills for your yearly planner? She has several sizes and choices. She also has chore charts for kids, homeschool planners of every kind. We discovered her site this past fall, and have really been blessed by her generosity. Everything there is free, AND, it’s a Christian website!I personally like her “checklist” for a semester at a glance–it’s all on one page and what a way to see how much you’ve accomplished and how far you have to go!

So how is your New Year shaping up so far? Cold like mine?

Blessings,

Mary