Raise the Song of Harvest Home

So I was a little bored yesterday... there are lots of things I could have been doing, but I just didn't feel like it.  I'm not sure I buy that whole "nesting" thing, I feel more like being lazy.  Anyway, so I went to the farm to ride in the combine and ended up driving it for a few hours.  It was great. 

When I got there, there was a front blowing through.  I was so afraid it was going to start raining hard and I wouldn't get a combine ride... last year I didn't get to at all and it was very sad. 

One of my favorite things to watch- corn falling into the head- positively mesmerizing.

Mom was combining and she let me switch with her.  Trent was driving the auger wagon, Fred had the semi, and Lee R. was in the grain truck.  One wonders where the Old Farmer was....  hehe.  

Getting ready to unload on the go- I was driving and Mom was taking pictures.  I'm not sure when Trent suddenly got old enough for this! Yikesabee, I must be getting really old!  

And then... we look over and there he is, kicked back with his cool shades and a magazine.  The tractor got too far ahead of me only once that I had to shut the auger off so as not to unload corn on the ground....  Hehe. Sorry Trent, have to tease you just a little bit! 

It cleared up again.  Such a beautiful sight.  Through a dusty, smeary, combine window.  *grin*

Such fun, I mean, when else can you talk about dragging your snouts and it make perfect sense? 

Blessing.

Autumn Leaves

The falling leaves
Drift by the window
The autumn leaves
Of red and gold

I see your lips
The summer kisses
The sunburned hands
I used to hold

Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I'll hear
Old winter's song

But I miss you most of all
My darling
When autumn leaves
Start to fall

I don't mind fall so much when it's beautiful out like today... but the last two grey, dreary days, no thank you.  Way too melancholy.

So far I'm not minding not working.  I've gotten to meet up with Amy and Natalie for lunch, and I went on a walk yesterday with Aunt Joanne. 

Randomly, I loooove going to OSF's Center for Health.  The architecture and decor are Prairie Style and the landscaping is just plain awesome.  *grin*

Blessings.

Done-ish

So at least one room looks halfway decorated.  :)  Probably because there's been a little bit more of a deadline.... haha.  Still can't say that I'm all that excited about the baby, but I am excited about how cute the room is!  The white against the green-blue just makes me smile... and the nine patch blocks... sadly, with the crib at the highest level you can't see the excellent box pleat in the crib skirt that took much math and measuring. 

Have I mentioned that I'm allergic to ironing??  I am.  I really should have ironed the curtains before I hung them up, but...  I did use my steamer on them, which worked great for the top half.  Not so much for the bottom half because, hm... steam rises!  O well.  The mobile makes me happy too.  Any thing that involves balloons, yarn, and copious amounts of glue is pretty awesome, really. 

My new rocker is awaiting pads.  The ones Mom ordered didn't quite match, but they were super cute- so now we need to decide if we should keep them or order different ones.  Right now it will be just fine with the quilt Grandma Beutel made.  Oh, and the highchair is just sitting here until it becomes useful... 

These are the shelves Bob and I had such fun hanging the other night.  They were left in the basement of our house so I cleaned them and gave them a fresh coat of paint.  The pictures are soooo cute, I got them on Etsy.  I especially like the little hedgehog one- it's called "My favorite book is blue."  Yes, please!  And the boy and girl duckies from my coworkers... hehe.  Hooray for ducks! 

 Hooray for wood floors.... that need a rug.  Unfortunately, area rugs are expensive.  And I'm not paying ridiculous amounts of money for something that will be in a babies room....that's shag... that isn't machine washable... and isn't vacuumable.  The one that I want that's fairly cheap and not shag and can be vacuumed and put in the wash is from Ikea.  Also unfortunately, they don't sell it online and I have no plans of going to Ikea in the near future.  *Sigh*  Anybody going that wants to pick one up for me?  hehe. 





Now for the rest of the house... only problem is, I'm having a hard time deciding if I want to do the same things as at the duplex or not... I'm very indecisive.
Blessings.



Kicking down the cobblestones...

So I've been kind of a lazy bum all week.  Which I love.  *grin*

I went to the doc on Tuesday and then returned some stuff.  Apparently Target has registry problems because I ended up with triples of a few things... which is no fun when people see their gift twice at showers, and no fun for me because returning things is never a smooth process. 

There were a few spots in our bathrooms where there was no trim and the old linoleum was curling, so to keep the new stuff from doing the same thing they told us to put in some quarter round.  Not hard, except that we don't have a miter box or a miter saw... so I resorted to the coping saw and a square... which worked great.  Except that the walls/vanities aren't necessarily square... it's not the best job in the world so don't look too close.  Ok, it's pretty bad.  But it will serve its purpose until we can get new vanities.  Which I want to do right now!  The counter top in one bathroom has a pointless overhang that I banged my head into.  Hard.  It hurt.  I had a bump for a day or so.  

Dang came for supper last night.  Otherwise, I've been trying to put stuff away and get it out of boxes and into closets and onto shelves.  We finally got some pictures hung on the walls tonight.  Poor Bob got the lovely job of helping me hang shelves in the baby's room.  Drywall anchors and I do not get along.  At all.  And he's been getting random opinion requests for what to hang where.  Hehe. 

So the other day I had the windows open and heard one of my favorite things... "Band, a-ten-HUT!"  Yeah, I like where we live.  :)  Although, it's very sad that T-town doesn't have a competitive marching band so I could listen to the awesomeness every day...

Blessings.

Footloose and Fancy Free

Well... it's over. Kind of sad so I'm trying not to think about it. I took in cupcakes on Friday, and the ladies that I work with the most took me out to One World for lunch. I left early because I had nothing left to do and I hate goodbyes.

Friday night was potluck. Aaron and Katie hosted at his parents house way up in the northern wilds. Hehe. Janelle and I rode with Dale and Meg and Maria because it would not have made much sense for Bob and Brent to drive all the way home and then turn around and go back the same way. Maria got to go to 'Grant and Hannah's eat pizza' so we got to see a little bit more of the Stark county countryside. Good times... and C and J's house is awesome... only slightly jealous. :)

I found my sewing machine last week so I got my quilt square done in time for quilt club on Saturday morning. And then my sister hosted a baby shower in the afternoon. The decorations were great- my Grandpa Schlipf's baby gown on the right with some of his crocheted shoes, and one from the trunk of Wyss baby things on the left, with some other awesome vintage baby things. So cool!

Bonsai san is excited to be a big brother.

Sunday was pretty quiet. We ended up going to Bob's parents for supper. Today I finally got the house clean, although, I've mostly been a lazy bum. *grin*

Blessings.

As our lives change...

As we go on, we remember, all the times we, had together....

So life seems to have slowed down a little bit.  Which is great.  There are still boxes sitting around, but now it's mostly things that we need to figure out where we want to store. 

I attempted apple cider doughnuts with apple juice instead of cider... yeah, they're good, but they don't taste like apple.  Which is very sad.  I guess I should have been patient and waited for cider.  *grin*

We finally got the garage swept out- hooray!  There were also a whole bunch of random shelves and hardware stacked in the corner... and a random pallet nailed to the wall.  Um... why would you nail a pallet to the wall?  We couldn't think of any logical reason.  Bob sawed it all into pieces and we're hoping the garbage men take it today.  One of our older neighbors saw that both of us were home and came over to introduce herself... and invited us to church... very sweet of her.  I really like our new neighborhood. 

The Beutel chili supper was Sunday evening.  They make good chili.  And lots of other good food too.  I made a butterscotch peach pie (out of the Farm Journal Pie Cookbook) and I'm kind of glad that there were leftovers.

This is my last week of work.  It's weird.  And very bittersweet.  We all went out for lunch today and Bob joined us. 

To quote Scarlett, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."
Blessings. 

For The Record

I can still touch my toes.  And hold it for quite a while.   Bob can't. 

*grin*

There shall be showers of blessings...

For some reason, I only ever hear Willie Nelson singing that song in my head.  From an old record.  Yes, I know I'm weird.

I'm really not sure if I'm ready for summer to be over.  I'm glad it's not stifling hot anymore, but I'm not looking forward to cold... at least this year I can park in a garage!  *grin*  And maybe, if we can find a cushy love seat or two comfy chairs for cheap or free, I can curl up with some cocoa in front of our fireplace.  Which we probably shouldn't try and use until we get it inspected and cleaned... hm... candles on the hearth it is... hehe. 

Anyways, it's been a mostly quiet week so far.  Tuesday night I hosted sewing club and basically forgot to invite half the ladies.  *sigh*  My brain is officially mush.  We've been feeling carpet tacks in the doorways, not good, so the carpet guy was supposed to come out and fix that Wednesday afternoon...  I had a doctor appointment and errands to run, so my poor Mom came and chilled all afternoon and he never showed up.  Slightly annoying. 

My coworkers had a baby shower for us yesterday... so weird.  And it makes me feel so mercenary... why, yes, you can buy me all sorts of baby things and then I'll be quitting in a week and will see you very rarely, if ever again.  Mur.  It was fun though, and the cake was wonderful.  I got to bring home the balloons too, which I love. 

Fallish weather makes me want apple cider doughnuts... I wonder if I will have time to make them anytime soon...
Blessings.

I've got my gear in my pack...

We spent the first part of Labor day weekend camping with our potluck.  It was great fun, but soooo hot.  I'm a big fan of camping when it's not 90 degrees.  Or in the mountains.  Or up north.  Ah well, we were with cool people so it was totally worth it.  I pretty much forgot to take any pictures... oops. 

One of our Christmas presents last year was thermarest sleeping pads for camping.  They're pretty much amazing, when you can sleep on your back.  Um... yeah, I'm not supposed to.  So we borrowed an air mattress from my parents.  It had an electric pump and since there wasn't any electricity at the timber we brought along our power inverter... that decided not to work.  Bob ended up taking it to Rollyn's and inflating it there.  By the time he got back, it had already deflated some.  Ahh.  Deep breaths.  Just slightly frustrating.  We started off the night mostly off the ground, but every time I woke up more of my body was in contact with the parched, hard, baked earth.  In the morning we were on a nice flat piece of plastic... so comfortable.  hehe.  Honestly, the worst part of the whole thing was probably my attitude because I slept pretty well (for camping) and I wasn't sore in the morning.  And I guess now I have bragging rights, because how many other people can say they've slept on the ground at 36 weeks?  *grin*

Saturday was rather warm... I spent most of it in a lawn chair just chilling and laughing at the kids running around.  Then the rain came through and we had to scramble to get everything undercover.  I was glad we'd already packed our tent and stuff up.  Mary and I went back to our house to get my veggies for the evening and freshen up a little bit and made it back to the timber just in time for the second wave of rain and the storm.  We ended up eating supper in the cabin and then moving to the Beutel cabin for s'mores later on. 

After church Bob and I headed over to Kaleigh's house for an Arizona trip reunion... Bob went, I didn't, but I've heard all about it.  :)  Mike was there, and Jomama... It was really good to see them all again, and see K's horse and mule.  hehe.  The weather was awesome.  I love how nice and cool it got.  

Monday I slept in and it was wonderful.  We got the baseboard all back on and painted- hooray for no more nail holes staring at me!  And some curtains hung... and the house clean and laundry done.  Then I decided that we needed another lamp in the living room.  The duplex had wall lights so we never needed lamps, now our house has no wired lights at all in the living room.  Which, in my opinion, is crazy.  I get the whole mood lighting thing, but it's really nice to be able to see sometimes... or all the time... like for cleaning, or reading, or just sitting.  I don't like dimness.  Anyway, we went lamp shopping and then got pizza for supper. 

And back to work today... as Bob reminded me, my ninth to last day.  Aaahhh.  Don't want to think about it.
Blessings.