Thanksgiving was good, we had dinner at the home of our friends and neighbors Larry, Deb and Amanda. Good food and good company! Kevin had most of the week off from school, and besides the daily work, we have kind of been relaxing and spending time together. Thanksgiving night, we spoke with Sarah and each of the grand kids, also heard from Marcus in South Korea, Jay and Adam were here with us. Kevin was a little disappointed that neither of his biological kids called, but we have come to accept that some are more family orientated than others. I wonder what will be left of the traditional holidays when this generation of non committed young people grow up. If you don't aspire to have a family is there really a point to family holidays. Kind of sad in a way, but enough on that topic.

We still haven't banked the house, and we are suffering with drafts on the floors. I crabbily face mornings running to the bathroom with bare feet. I really need to pay more attention to the placement of my slippers. Kevin hopes to get the plastic on the foundation tomorrow. We are also going to get the rest of the upstairs windows tomorrow too. The snow is really pretty and Adam went out hunting in it yesterday. Today is the last day of deer season, but no deers have even been spotted and the guys never made it to Solon. It's probably a good thing since we don't have a deep freeze yet, maybe next year. Adam is still hoping to get a snowshoe hare.

We finally got a dryer yesterday and I was very excited until we plugged it in only to realize that the 220 outlet wasn't wired into the box. We had originally planned to get a gas dryer, but Larry had this one for sale cheap. Kevin made a call to our electrician John and he will be out next week. It is a little disappointing, also we got a washer with the dryer, but the pump appears not to be working so I will have to deal with our old, ugly but functional machine for awhile longer. Oh well, I guess I wouldn't appreciate the good things if everything worked smoothly.

Jay is starting to get stressed about Christmas, Thanksgiving annoyed him a bit. We usually just eat at home and I guess he was expecting leftovers and was pretty annoyed when we didn't cook. The problem is that Jay can't express his expectations and if we don't anticipate them in advance he usually tantrums to some extent. It wasn't bad, but he is still kind of annoyed, I also fell short for his Black Friday plans. I will definitely cook on Christmas, fill the stockings, bake cookies, he'll get it all!

I went to town today, didn't shop much, got a couple of small things for Tristen. I am getting Elliott a Hallmark recordable book, and since we have no Hallmark stores locally, I will have to order it online. Christmas isn't going to be full of material things, but then again, we don't ever really go overboard. This year we plan to go even less so. I checked into knitting classes while in town, Carol at the yarn shop charges five dollars for three hours of lessons. I begin this week and my first project is going to be a hat. I also found a great new designer retail shop bought a really nice pair of jeans and another sweater for eleven dollars. It was nice getting out of the house for a couple of hours.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! This has been an amazing year! Just a year ago, Kevin and I made the decision to buy this house. We were both working full time jobs, opposite shifts but we had Sundays off together. It's crazy looking at our life now, and thinking of how far we have come in just one year. A year ago, I never really thought about money, when I went grocery shopping, I tossed in just about everything. I never made it through a whole week without having to buy something else to make a simple meal. Truthfully, I rarely cooked. I purchased easy to prepare foods for Kevin and Jay, ate the worst junk during my half hour lunches at work, and came home at one A.M. exhausted but far too wired to sleep. I would slip into bed around four A.M falling asleep right before my husband got up to start his day. My life was shopping, Starbucks, my job, and eating out most nights that we were home together. We disliked Jay's program, but we accepted that there wasn't much else that would work. Our house was full of stuff, but it wasn't really a home.

When we first bought this house, we figured it would be several years before we would actually move here. I will admit that when Kevin flew out in December to close on the house, I was secretly, or maybe not too secretly jealous of him. He took a video, which was actually dubbed a cross between the Blair Witch Project and a National Geographic special.

We visited Sarah and family over Christmas, used all my vacation days, then I went to Florida again in March. Finally in May, I had enough days left to make it a week in Maine. We came out here in Mid May, no water, no electric, thankfully the weather was good.

I am so thankful that we traded in our middle class, hectic, material focused life for this simple, people based lifestyle. I love that I now bake bread most every week. I have learned to make inexpensive but delicious and nutritious meals for my family. We have met some really great people who "get" why we love it here. After living in the same neighborhood in St. Peters for nearly twenty years, we never once did anything with our neighbors. Here we have made friends. We have both stepped way out of our comfort zones and I would say we have learned to do many things that in the past we would have paid someone else to do for us. Kevin repaired broken windows, hauled water from the spring when the pump failed, and has figured out how to improvise when he needed something to do a job. I have cleaned up and restored cast iron pans that a year ago, I would have tossed out or given away. We tiled a mantle, paneled a wall, wallpapered two rooms. I who used to scream if I saw a bug, have learned to use natural methods to get rid of flies and spiders.We have learned to compost, and build a fire warm enough to make us comfortable. We had mice, now we have two cats. When we walk our land, it is our land, we don't write a monthly mortgage check. We have to think before we buy something, but really, there aren't many stores here anyhow. By the time we locate what we were thinking that we need, we have figured out another solution. I am getting great at shopping in resale, and thrift shops. Kevin substitute teaches to subsidize our income. Jay is getting ready to move into a house with room mates that he actually has something in common with. He will have a day program that will teach him skills and provide him with recreation. We are all happy, and thriving. For that I am very thankful.

Quiet week

This hasn't been a very productive week because I had a cold. Adam and I cleaned up the area around the house putting the barbecue grill, lawn chairs, ladders and a bunch of odds and ends away for the Winter. Thanksgiving is next Thursday, we will be celebrating for the first time in our new home. This year it will just be Kevin, Adam, Jay and myself, but we plan to make all of  the traditional favorites, Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, butternut squash, green beans, and a couple of pies.

We celebrated Kevin's birthday last Saturday. I made his favorite, chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. Most of the kids called Kevin with greetings and the grandchildren sang Happy Birthday to him. We celebrated with some of the neighbors, good music and conversation.

We went to Presque Isle on Wednesday where we went out to lunch before taking Jay bowling and to dinner. Bowling was candle pin, which was fun. Jay is doing well, and seems happy to have a busy schedule.

Today, I have been baking bread, cookies and a pork pie for dinner. It was pretty sunny today, though kind of chilly. We have a nice fire so it is comfortable inside. The weather forecast is that tomorrow we are supposed to have snow showers. It is hunting season and the guys want snow so they can "track" the deer.

Winter is just around the corner, our first snow was on Halloween, and we have had a couple more days with flurries, but none on the ground yet. We have sealed a few of the windows, what we did is used weather stripping on the windows and then on the North side we have added clear plastic on the inside. Kevin has also fixed the doors that were askewed so we can now close them. There are a few gaps, but I am going to make some of those draft dodgers to seal out the draft. I sorted through and organized all of our magazines, we have many that will help us plan for livestock and gardens as well as pass the time during the Winter months.

Jason is now living in Presque Isle, soon to be in Patten or Houlton in a house with a couple other men with similar disabilities. He is happier in the city with a lot more stimulation, and will be also attending a day program. This has been a hard phase in all of our lives, but I think this is overall a good chance for Jason to learn the skills that he will need in his life. The staff so far has been very helpful and caring and finally after nearly 31 years of looking for a good situation for Jason we may finally be making some headway.

This year we will be buying all of the ingredients for Thanksgiving, our goal for next year is to raise everything here on the farm. I would love to be able to also put together a meal for another family  to donate next year.

Kevin is working on repairing the sagging floors. He put jacks in the basement to help raise the livingroom floor. We have one beam that is sagging quite a bit, but he put a jack in two areas on that beam, You adjust the screw over several weeks until the floor is raised, this process is best with our house because the beam will gradually straighten out and it will decrease the possibility of the beam cracking. Over the next couple of months we will work on the other floors. Already the floor is more stable, my knick knacks don't rattle when you walk around.

We have added two new family members, Sophie and Lilac. Sophie is a two year old calico cat, and Lilac is an eight month old kitten. The first week was horrible, the dogs barked non stop at the cats, Sophie went through the bathroom drawer and was in the wall behind the tub. She came out on her own, I am guessing she was cold, or curious. After a week, everyone is settling down, I won't say it's perfect, but the cats aren't afraid of the dogs, the dogs aren't obsessed by the cats, and the mice situation is very much improved.

Our satellite internet has proved to be expensive and ineffective. It goes down whenever it rains, or snows. We cancelled the service, so now are using dialup, maybe a good thing less distractions. Dialup is pretty slow, but rumor has it that broadband is coming in the near future.

We attended a Halloween party here in the neighborhood, it was great fun. We didn't wear costumes, though a few people did. It was fun, we love the neighbors, a very nice group of people.

On Thursday, another of our neighbors whom we had not yet met dropped by with a warm apple pie. This was pretty much unheard of  in St. Louis. This is why we moved away from the city. In twenty years in the same neighborhood, we really never friendly with our neighbors. As one of the people said on Halloween, "out here, we are not just neighbors, we are family." Perfect.

Frozen water

The temperature went down to below 30 two nights in a row. We have spring fed water, and have not completed the trench to bury the pipe below the frost line, so we woke up to a frozen water line. The line defrosted once the sun was up and the water came back on. It drove home the need to get the hose buried so Kevin contacted a neighbor with a backhoe to see if he could dig the trench. His backhoe didn't have a small shovel so he referred us to someone else. The backhoe appeared on our property the following day, a call was placed to the owner who said someone would be here at 6:30 A.M. It was 7:45 when the person showed up. He looked at the dig site and said he'd talk to his boss because they couldn't get past the trees. It is 10:37 and still no word from the backhoe guy, although the backhoe is still in the driveway.

I still have no clothes dryer, so Adam is hanging a line on the porch for me. The problem now is it rains about every other day so I have to take the wet clothes to the laundry to dry them.

Kevin has been substitute teaching in the local school department, so he has a little extra cash coming in to subsidize his pension. Adam went for an interview at the Humane Society yesterday and has one at Subway today. Jay is still in Acadia, I am working on trying to get services for him, it is not the easiest process. I have been doing the usual housework, laundry, and cleaning. I made chicken pot pie yesterday, it was pretty good. I tried a new sandwich bread recipe, it was good sandwich bread, looked like a store bought loaf, with about as much flavor. I think I will go back to the honey wheat. I have been embroidering my jean jacket, just for something to do. It is coming along pretty nice, I have added vintage cotton lace to the pockets and my farm girl patch. I have an embroidery book that I am going to use to attempt some more stitches.

The Amish building

Wednesday, October 13,2010

Fall is definitely here, mornings are very cold in the 30's and 40's. Usually, Kevin has a nice fire going in the morning when I wake up. This morning he is working and decided it wasn't cold enough to start a fire. It's going to be 54 degrees today, so with warm clothes and doing some chores around here, it will be warm enough.

Kevin's Amish building is here, and a great help in organizing the house. He chose it unfinished inside, so it is 380 square feet of storage. The attachments for the tractor are stored in there as well as Kevin's books and some of his hobby stuff. It still has plenty of room for his tools. The building has a wide door for the tractor, and two smaller doors for the future radio room and the workshop. It has a small window and a skylight too. The walls are pine and the floor hickory. It was a good purchase and with time, we will be able to clear out the two small out buildings, making a pig pen and a chicken coop.

Yesterday, I painted the outside door going into the side yard, and also the front door. Adam painted the trim above and around the front door. The paint is a heritage green. It is about the color of pea soup, not really pretty right now with the white house. We will be painting the house a light yellow next Spring, so hopefully it looks better with the yellow, if not I will choose a different door color. The previous doors were black and were pretty dried out from the heat built up with the storm doors. The doors are probably original at least the front door with it's brass fixtures complete with old locks. I am going to clean the brass in the Spring and try to locate keys to fit the door.

The living room and kitchen are papered now, I am trying to come up with a display of family pictures, but that is not my strong point. I need to print out some pictures that my Uncle Robert sent to me of my great grandparents. It will come together with time. I saved the two old boards from the original front trim, I will repurpose these as sign boards for the walls, I will print lettering on them and will hang them around the house. Most of my craft things are unpacked, I plan to work on the craft room a little today. It was fun unpacking all of my boxes, looking again at all the old buttons and fabricthat have been packed away for so long. I found all of my scissors, many that I replaced when I couldn't find the old ones, so  now I have several pairs.

The leaves are coming down, the colors are still pretty but not as brilliant as they were a couple of weeks ago. Some of the leaves have made their way into the mulch bin, making some good organic material for the garden next Spring. We have defined the area where the garden will be, the Fall/Winter seed catalogs are here and we will spend time in a couple of months going through them while we plan out our garden plots. We have plenty of gardening books to give us advice on how to set things up.

Thomas and Rose were out the end of September for a couple of days. It was nice to finally meet Rose and to see Thomas again. We went to Amish country, Kevin took them out shooting, and we did some things around the house, tractor rides, and a bonfire.