April 2017 Reading List

Healing Hearts Collection by Beth Wiseman

Healing Hearts

A Change of Heart

A Choice to Forgive 

The Immigrant Brides Collection

Capucine: Home to My Heart by Janet Spaeth

The Angel of Nuremberg by Irene Brand

Freedom’s Cry by Pamela Griffin

Blessed Land by Nancy J. Farrier

Prairie Schoolmarm by JoAnn A. Grote

The Golden Cord by Judith Miller

I Take Thee, a Stranger by Kristy Dykes

Promise Kept by Sally Laity

The Blessing Basket by Judith Miller

Clutter Busting Challenge April 2017

I'm purging 19 items.

My purge pile:

Porcupine Meatballs

1/2 cup uncooked long grain rice

1/3 cup chopped onion

1 ½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper  

1 pound ground beef

1 (15 oz.) jar of spaghetti sauce

Reserve ½ cup of spaghetti sauce. Mix together beef, rice, spaghetti sauce, salt, pepper, and onion in a large bowl. Shape into 2-inch balls and place into a baking dish. Pour reserved spaghetti sauce over top. Bake 350 for 1 hour.

Redoing Shawn Jr's Old Bedroom

It’s been 3 weeks since our 24 yrs. son and his fiancé moved out. I did quite a bit of work on his empty bedroom already. I wanted to share pictures before I started to painting. The pictures are a bit dark since I took down the blinds and curtains. I won't be redoing the floors but will as a future project. I dusted the walls/ceiling, washed the walls/ceiling/woodwork, scraped paint spills off the baseboards, and took out a ton of staples in window frame, along with scrapping duck tape and glue off the window frame. I puttied and sanded the holes in the walls and wood puttied and sanded the window frame. I scrapped old paint off the closet and door hinges, took down the hardware for the curtains, and took off the electric outlet/switch plates. I sweep the floor, washed the baseboards, and woodwork again. Our home is over 100 yrs. old with horse hair plaster. I'm going for progress not perfection.

I’m really proud of this project because it’s the first time I’ve done all the work myself. My husband usually helps but he’s busy with the camper. I’m doing the room as a gift for him as in no work for him to do and he’s going to use the room as his hobby room. The walls will be a white chocolate color which is the white we’ve been using through the house and Adirondack green color that had been used in our youngest son’s room. I plan to lighten up the green because it’s really dark.


 The view to the left of the door. Our son did really well about not putting tons of holes in the walls. It's an old house so cracks happened.

  













The view from the closet toward the door.

The view from the door to the window and closet. All our second floor windows go down to the floor. In the family room and exercise room on the first floor the window frames are 1 1/2 feet from the floor. It's cool but a bit scary 15 yrs. ago when we first moved in and the kids were young.

 A close of view of some of the holes I had to fill with wood putty. The people who owned the house before us put tons of holes and staples all over the window framing. We've been here 15 yrs. and are just now fixing it. Procrastination. :)

The floor which I'm not fixing at this time. The pictures aren't great (too dark).

 The view toward the closet.

My Spring Plans

We have 6 weeks till Memorial Day, the unofficial start of Summer. My plan for the rest of Spring is to work doubly hard on doing projects and deep cleaning. I want to enjoy my Summer with minimal effort besides cleaning and maintaining. I plan to have everything I want done by the end of May. The beginning of June will be all about finishing up our planning and camper repairs. Whatever doesn’t get done around here will probably wait until end of July or August. Our 2 young adult children that live with us will be taking care of our home while we are away. I’m going to get as much done as I can to clear my Summer for fun and spending time with my husband and family.

I’ll be painting our son’s empty room and the family room. I need to paint my grandkids toy boxes which have been a Big Frog sitting in my barn for 3 yrs. I need to clean up my yard, set up our outdoor furniture, do minimal flower gardening, and plant the vegetable garden. I’ll clean up the shed, barn, and basement the best I can since we have camper project supplies going on. I’ll be helping with whatever my husband needs help with for the camper. I want to sand the camper walls to prepare to paint although we may not be able to actually paint until after our trip.

I have the photo box project still to do along with planning and preparing for our celebration and trip. I need to workout regularly in my exercise studio, take walks nightly, and get back to losing weight. I need to look nice in my celebration dress and we will be doing a lot of walking and hiking on our trip. I don’t want my arthritis to have a bad flare up so I need to workout regularly rather than end up overdoing it.

What project do you need to clear out before Summer?

Green Bean Casserole

2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup

1 cup milk

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

8 cups cooked cut green beans or 2 cans of cut green beans, drained

Stir soup, milk, pepper, and beans in 3-qt. casserole. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 25 min. or until hot. Stir and serve.