Time To Say Goodbye

It is time for me to say goodbye to Homeschool Blogger. DD is now in her second year of college. Our lives have changed and continue to change. I am grateful for finding a place where I could share things with other moms and families. It was nice to have friends who understood what I was doing and going through.  I cherish each friend, words of advice, and sweet comments I received. 

I am entering a new season of life. I am able to focus more on me and my maturing in the faith. I don’t mean for that to sound selfish.  DD was and had to be my prioirity for awhile. Now that she requires less of my time, I can do other things. I will continue to blog, but it will be at Homestead Blogger. One of the things I am getting to spend more time on is gardening and learning how to become more self-sufficent.

If anyone wishes to visit my blog at Homestead Blogger, here is the link: www.homesteadblogger.com/blackberryfarmgirl. You will see that I am using the same template and that I ahve simplified a few things. Although I loved blinkies, it took too much time to continue putting them on my blog.  I have learned something of value while blogging that i would like to pass along. You can spend so much time decorating your blog that you get no blogging done. LOL!

I will leave this blog up for awhile, just in case someone happens to stumble across it again.

God bless all of you homeschool moms and families! You are a special people that helped bring about change in this country. You will always have my strong support.

 

A 1st In 40 Years

Getting A Cast

Exactly one month after turning 40, I had a cast put on my foot. This is the first cast I have had in 40 years of life.

Almost 3 weeks ago, I turned my foot over walking up to my parents’ house. This is a common occurence for me, so I didn’t think anything about it. I turn my feet all the time. 2 days late my foot began to hurt and swell. I stayed off of it most of the weekend and by Monday it felt better. I repeated the same process the next weekend, but this weekend things changed.

I was on my feet more this weekend getting ready for DD’s birthday dinner. The pain started getting a little more noticeable. By Sunday morning, it still hurt a great deal. I didn’t get much relief from the pain as I slept either. So, DH decided it was time for me to go to the doctor. I agreed because it was starting to get to me.

I went to a foot doctor Monday morning at 11:00. They took x-rays of my foot. They believe I cracked a bone in the arch of my foot. He told me I could go for a MRI to confirm it, but the treatment he would recommend would be the same regardless. Since I dislike being in enclosed spaces and am scared of the MRI machine, I told him to go ahead and treat it. He put me in a soft cast which I have to wear for 2 weeks, which will make bathtime interesting. I also have to wear a soft boot which comes up to my knee when I am up on it, however he told me to stay off of it as much as possible. So needless to say things will be very interesting around here for the next few weeks.

This isn’t the first bone I have cracked. I cracked on on my ribs when I had bronchitis real bad. I have never completely broken a bone or required a cast before. Now that I am 40 it happens. LOL!

I hate being immoblie. It isn’t going to be fun. I hope I won’t be to big or a burden on DH or DD. I hope I don’t turn into a shrew. I need your prayers added to mine during this time.

Lord, I pray for patience and courage. I pray that I can face this time of healing with dignity and grace. I pray that I can let the housework go for while I heal. I pray that I heal quickly so I won’t have to another cast put on for an additional 2 weeks. I pray that I let my family know how much I appreciate what they are doing for me. I ask these things in Your Son’s name. Amen! 

  

 

Taking A Birthday Break

DD’s birthday is this coming Tuesday. She will be 20 years old. We are having a family dinner here tomorrow night. So I won’t be posting again until Monday. I will be using all of my time doing cooking, baking, and cleaning prep. So until Monday!

A Recipe from the Farmhouse Cookbook

This is one of my daddy’s favorite desserts. It is another easy, simple recipe that is perfect for a hot summer day. It is just as good any time of the year.

Cherry Yum-Yum

♦The Crust

12 graham crackers, finely ground

6 tsbp. butter, melted

1/4 c. of sugar

1/8 tsp. of salt

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine cracker crumbs, sugar, and salt together. Stir in melted butter. Firmly press mixture into a pie dish or a small shallow casserole dish. Bake in oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Cool completely.

♦The Filling

1 – 8oz. package of cream cheese (softened)

1 – 12oz. container of Cool Whip

1 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring

Combine the sugar, the Cool Whip, and the vanilla flavoring in a mixing bowl. Cream them together until it is a stiff mixture. Cut up cream cheese and add it to the bowl. beat until smooth (until there are no lumps of cream cheese to be seen.) Pour into pie dish or casserole dish with the prepared crust in it.

♦The Topping

1 can of cherry pie filling

Pour pie filling on top of the cream cheese mixture.

This recipe can be easily adjusted to anyone’s taste. We happened to like cherry. I have tried strawberry pie filling before. It was alright but there is just something about the taste of strawberries coming out of a can…well, they just don’t taste right. I am sure peach or blueberry would be good as well as apple. Pumpkin not so sure about, LOL!

Cherry Yum-Yum is also one of those dishes that go over real well at a covered dish dinner. Last time I made it for Chapel it was gone within 15 minutes time.

Try it and enjoy!

 

A Tour Of Our Home

Part 3: The Living Room

Our living room is a very large open area. Its length goes from the front of our house to the back. We have made 2 different areas in it by using our sofa as a room divider. This is a view of our conversation area from the kitchen. The sofa is on the media side of the room.

DH’s preferred spot to sit is on the sofa. He is on his feet all day long at work. He likes to come home and put his feet up. DH works in a furniture factory. He reupholstered the sofa for us on a discontinued frame.The trunk beside the sofa was made by my daddy as another Christmas present. Here is a closer view.

The next picture is a view of our front door. You can see part of our hugh picture window. The white chair was once DH’s granmother’s. The green chair belonged to my great-granddaddy. DH reupholstered both of those as well. The side table was given to us by DH’s parents.

The next picture is a view of my desk and our bookshelf. You get another look at the green chair and our picture window, too. I bought the desk from Walmart using the money I got for Christmas from my in-laws. DH is upholstering a desk chair for me. When he gets it finished, I will share a picture of the finished product. The bookshelf was built by daddy for a remodeling job he was doing. The client called him back a few months later to remodel again. He tore all he had built out. He brought all of it home with him. When we moved in he said we could pick out what we wanted.

The next picture is the view from my desk. As you can see, I can still see the tv and I have plenty of room to spread out my scrapbook materials when I scrapbook. The ottoman behind the sofa is one of two DH upholstered. The ottomans are the companies to his and hers chairs DH upholstered as well. I will show those toyou in a minute.

Here are the 2 chairs I was talking about early. They are positioned in front of our bar. I hope eventually to build bookshelves underneath the bar. The chair on the left DH built to fit his body frame. The one on the right he built for me. It has more padding in the back so I sit up more allowing my feet to touch the floor. For you see I am only 5 foot 1 inch tall. My chair is where I put my feet up and rest. The little table in between the chairs was built by, you guessed it, my daddy. You can see the sliding glass doors to the left that lead out on to our deck.

 

Opposite our chairs is our entertainment system. We have had it for along time. I believe we bought it at Lowes Hardware. It houses all of our tv viewing equipment; tv, vcr, dvr player, converter boxes (we don’t have cable or satellite), dvds, etc.  We postioned it here so I could view tv while cooking or baking, if I so desired. To the right is DD’s telescope, with all of our pillows in front of it. You can see the second ottoman. Here is this view.

If you look closely, you will see one thing is missing from this room. Any guesses?….. There is nothing on my walls. I don’t know what to hang on them. Family pictures, landscapes, mirrors,I just don’t know. If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them. We don’t want to put any holes in the wall until we decide what we want on them.

So that completes the living room tour. Stay tuned for  Part 4: The Master Bed and Bath.

 

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