sweating...clouded brain...nausea...trembling...yes, it can mean only one thing. We are about to be....visited...by....the....INSURANCE INSPECTOR.
::::intense music::::
I didn't expect the INSURANCE INPECTOR....
Nobody expects the insurance inspector!
::o.k. if you are not a MOnty Python fan just roll your eyes and continue reading..it will make sense eventually.::::

Our insurance lapsed. I know. Bad bad bad...But finances are really bad right now. Well I got the policy back up and running but now they want to do an inspection. This would probably not be SO bad except one of the results of a wild lifestyle as a teenager is that I am terrified of people in authority. Yes! Every morning I have to drive past the police station while taking my husband to work and you can hear me muttering to myself.."maintain. maintain."
When we owned a restaurant the mere shadow of the health inspector made my stomach churn event hough we always passed with very high marks.
So the idea of an insurance inspector coming NOW, when Marc has been sick and is only now getting around with the combination of crutches and a wheelchair..when projects are many and not moving ahead to fast AND when there is no money to buy the supplies let alone HIRE someone..
Well then. You see my dilemma.

Can I admit to you that I am overwhelmed with my life right now? That selling out for whatever we can get and buying a small condo seems very attractive? The ongoing dilemma of the home restorer- you know it will be gorgeous eventually but can you function long enough to make it happen? Can you really handle one more winter with cold air blowing up through the cracks in the sunroom floor? Or listening to the resident raccoon moving about between floors?
Or the ominous, impending visit of the inspector?
I am just kicking back this weekend. I just don't feel capable of handling one more thing, of deciding one more thing, of juggling one more thing..or of fixing one more thing. Maybe in a coupel of days I will have my sense of humor back but for now I am just tired. Exhausted. And ready to throw in the trowel. :(

First of all..let me say this. I am BACK! I have computer, cable access and all kinds of coolness to write about. Whoohoo.
Second...I don't have time to write about all of the coolness right now because I am neck deep oin projects..but one of the projects I am neck deep in is a very worth cause. Helping to eliminate childhood hunger. No, not my kids..they are still hungry all the time..I really do feed them though..don't let them fool you.
No, seriously, there is a Nationwide bake sale. Read about it at my other other blog, Baking Delights and then leave a comment and let me know that you will consider participating. Hey..you know, if you don't bake you can dip oreos in melted chocolate and sell those..

Not too much happening around the house. We ahd to replace some doors, could only afford 2, altho we need 3, because we are actually having someone DO it..The framing needs to be redone and there were other things so Marc felt better about having someone actually do it rather than us doing it. I am looking forward to the new doors. I hope they will look o.k..They are both raised panel exterior doors with half glass. I know I will like it in the laundry room because there is a steel door back there, no window, nothing..:P blech. I am not 100% sure about the kitchen because I have a french door there so it is all glass.
I am getting so much less done this summer than I planned. MArc has been in hospital for excruciating pain in his knees. They had him on morphine until they sent him home. We got the mri result yesterday ..there are several problems, but as we are dealing the the gov't (V.A. Hospital) it is hard to say what or when they are going to do something.
In any case...
We have lost no more chickens (yay!) and they are starting to look like real chickens. We got them outside last week and they are enjoying pecking the ground, altho I am hoping we don't lose them in the mud. More and more rain here in Texas!
I am trying to draw out plans for what I want added..and am reading a book about restoring green. I really am interested in rain water collection and solar power, as well as passive solar heating...Thinking of maybe a green house with a paver floor in the back behind the laundry room which would also function as a mudroom..and you know, with only 4300 sq feet, I need more space to clean, yeah right.
Have the front garden mulched and altho it looks bare it looks quite nice with the imaginary front steps. :/ With all the rain Marc's maple tree is shooting up and has grown more this spring than in the 3 years before!
Guess that is all for now..I am stilla round and you can keep up with me on my homeschool blog at Homeschool Central OR my cooking blog (the OTHER one) at Baking Delights. I try to post in those regularly. Have a great summer.

We have 2 computers down and I am doing most of my blogging at the library..hopefully this will be a short term issue however I wanted everyone to know I was not sucked into a vacuum caused by breaking through an old floorboard and opening a portal into another dimension where I found myself battling evil using a heatless paint remover and a spackle knife.
I know you are relieved.

Wll, so far we have lost three chicks. Hopefully there will be no more casualties. I talked to the people at the hatchery and they thought it must be a shipping thing..and offered to credit my account. I told them no since the three that died were three extra that they had given me over what I ordered.
I couldnt sleep...I had to write a letter ..you know, an official one..to a credit card company that is harrassing me for a bill that I paid, and then I had to copy it to my lawyer and the credi bureaus and ..well you know. If you see an offer from First Equity Credi cards..run..run very fast.
I have been thinking how hard i is to restore an old house but even more difficult when you are trying to restore it and at the same time be ecologically responsible. I mean, 0 VOC paints are awesome but the cost is prohibitive when you are talking large, old houses. ANd there are other things too...I don't know..I am jsut thinking out loud this morning. Waiting for Marc to get up so we can head for the gym....
I would like to do a rain barrel..I would like to have another vegetable garden.but where? We have so many big trees and so much shade..and then there are the horses..and they dont seem to understand the difference between greenbean seedlings and grass. Silly things
When you have an old house that you are restoring you are all ready doing soemthing ecologically responsible..the ultimate in recycling if you will. I do try to get vintage items when possible, and so I guess I am saving a few trees there..some oil and gasoline because the items are usually local if possible. And old houses are more green anyway..Think about it..the new shoeboxes are created to make it cheaper to use airconditioning but the old houses are designed to make sumer liveable without air copnditioning at all, even in Texas. We don't use it. Sometimes it gets hot, unbearably so, in the middle of August..but we are good most of the summer and when the heat gets too bad we just sit and pant.
I know that when we are done we will have a home that we can be proud of..we will have accomplished a BIG thing...but I just have to say....
It's not easy being green.

This post is dedicated totally to the memory of my dad..
Being Father's Day and all, despite the festivities at church and surrounding my own husband, awesome Dad of 8 that he is, I needed to take a few quiet minutes and contemplate the richness that was my dad...And maybe I can have a few moments of private, quiet tears, if you don't mind...Thanks.
Dad was one of the old breed of men that could do anything. He knew everything and could make anything run. He knew the best voices for all the characters in Uncle WIggly and he knew how to build a pint size china cabinet ( I still have it..bright red..)He built a playhouse that was the envy of the other kids on the block. He painted my room pink..he made my first child a cradle that is so beautiful he was offered 500.00 for it when he stopped for gas on the way to bringing it to my house..and that was 26 years ago. He taught me all the important stuff..how to swim..how to bait a hook, how to spit on the worm before you cast into the water with just the right flick of the writst. He taught me how to whistle, how to ride a horse, how to drive and how to be secure. He told me I was the most gorgeous creature on earth and the reason I did not get dates was because boys were scared of me.
He taught me my multiplication tables, and how to measure area..he had much beter control over me than my mom ever did but I only remember him spanking me one time..we both cried.
Working on the house reminds me of him because he was always building, fixing, or making..He would have loved this house with all the potential it has..He would have runhis hands over the heart pine floors..looked carefully over the layout of the house...he would have listened to the house's history and intuitively known what to do and how to accomplish it.
So when I am nailing or painting or something I feel close to him. I talk to him in my mind sometimes, trying to remember bits of information he gave me, how to toenail into a stud, how to use danish oil, when to use the amber shellac..I have his old tools, the primitive things that were high tech in 1930...hand augers, hand saws, hammers of various sorts...
This house connects me to my dad even though he never set foot in it. I work with painstaking care, not just because it is important to me to do a job well but because I would want him to be proud of the work..
I miss him so much. My life is full, I have a fantastic husband, 8 wonderful kids, a son in law that I cherish, 2 grandkids that I adore...but there will always be a hole in my heart that i shaped like dad.
If your dad is still alive then spend all the time with him you can..even if he is cranky and irritating and hard to deal with...once he is gone..he will be gone..and you will never be loved in quite that way again.
Thanks for letting me have this little cry..I needed it today.

I mmissed this yesterday at My Life As Anniebut I like the concept alot and so here I go...


Appetizer
Fill in the blank..The best thing about where I live is: It has always been my dream to life in a big OLD farmhouse. Sometimes it is frustrating because of all the things that we need to do in the restoration but I know that someday it will be so worth it! I love that we have a creek for the kids to play and swim in, enough property for horses, chickens and goats, and that we have big old trees for shade. I love the big porch and the gian kitchem..I love that I have 4 ovens...I love that the house has history.
Soup
Create a new name for deoderant
hmmm... Sweat Be-gone


salad
nothing..I have promised Marc to never again do anything to the computer but turn it on, type and turn it off.
Main Course
If you were to win a superlative award today beginning with the words, "Most likely to" what would the rest of it say?
Most likely to forget to milk the goats because she was caught up in a blog fog

Dessert
What two colors do you like to wear together?
Red and burnt orange. What can I say? I am an autumn

The chicks are here. We got 30 of the. I had ordered 25 females and 2 males and they threw in an extra 2 of the barred rocks that I ordered and a rare breed that I have no clue about.
BUT...all is not well in mudville tonight. Two of the chicks have died in the past two days and I am really bummed about it. I can't figure out why..I mean, the last bastch we got all of them lived...anyway I am praying that this is it...

the dog is enjoying looking at them..and no, he isnt the cause of the premature demise of our future omelet creators.Unless it is his breath.

They are so cute...I am so stressed about thier survival. ACK!
I have and am having computer issues so I dont know how good I will be at daily writing..
We are hoping to get some of the downed trees cut for firewood this wekend and also maybe some preliminary work on the steps. The guy came to measure doors today..We are having hem installed ebcause Marc is concerned about the way the doors fit..our exterior doorways were put in without much thought..it is almost like someone threw a dart, blindfolded and then cut a doorway around it with a butter knife..a dull butter knife.
I have been riding the horses daily..trying to get them back to being easy to handle so the kids can ride them..
I made chevre from all of the goat milk I had piling up and that was good
My tomatoes dont seem to be doing much...of course the horses have been standing on them, maybe that is why?
have a great week

we are preparing for chickens.
Last summer our chickens perished in the heat. There were several hot days and the chickens had to stay in their pen because they had been bad about getting over to the neighbors.
And the neighbors were not pleased. Well, actually, the neighbors loved getting the fresh, organic eggs that I took over several times a week. Thier adult son raises pit bulls and was afraid the chickens would somehow hurt one of the dogs (perhaps by choking it?).
Anyway..they certainly had the right, so after 3 years of free ranging our chickens got locked up in the pen and over heated.
It was sad.
I guess that I will clip wings this time, altho with the preditors we have it seems unfair...I do know that when the afternoon temps go over 100 I am releasing the chickens to the yard..This is not a subdivision..it is mostly acreage..and they have chickens on the OTHER side..I don't know..I try really hard not to bother people but sometimes...
Anyway.
So we are getting 25 females and 2 males..Barred Rocks. I really like heritiage breeds and want to use them when possible. Barred rocks are excellent egg layers and since they will (hopefully ) breed we should also have fresh organic chicken. That will be a new experience for me, I am thinking that they will go to a nearby town to be butchered, plucked and bagged for 2.00 each. Huck/Thoreau says he will butcher them but I am not sure he has the stomach for it.
So...a busy weekend. We are a host house for a couple of kids from Uganda who are singing in our church this Sunday..then the chickens come in early monday and I have an appointment for a check up (yes another one) at the Veterans Hospital a little later on monday.
I will so be glad to have chickens again. They should start laying in time for holiday baking. With 25 of them I guess I will be giving eggs for CHristmas gifts.

I got my new Victorian Homes today in the mail..and all I can say is...
Page 39!!!
If you don't get it in the mail..pick it up att he store..and if you cant do that..you are out of luck because they have a lousy website.

O.k..time for some goal setting. Ready?


By the end of summer:
1. I need to finish the faux grain down stairs..I only have about 5 more feet to do..how pitiful is that.
2 Finish the hall bathroom.
tile around shower
countertop
trim
new door on closets
trim around mirror
paint ceiling?
Sew curtains
install new sink
install new faucets/toilet flush thing in brass color
3.Finish Office Bathroom
patch
paint
paint trim

That really isnt that much but since it seems to take me forever to do anything I am stopping there for now.

It has rained so much lately that out entire property is mud..the floors are covered in silt and the horses are knee deep in the nasty stuff. WEll not really..but it is muddy. It is hard not being depressed by the lack of money, and all the stuff that needs to eb done, and the fact that we really cant afford the horses but noone really wants to buy them either. I keep praying that if we are supposed to be here things would break and we could do what needed to be done ad if we are supposed to move to the farm in maine things woul d break and we would be released to go...I am so tired of feeling like I am treading water.
Whine whine whine....

We have a nonpaying tennant. Really. There is a raccoon that lives between our parlour ceiling and upstairs floor. There must be alot of room there? Well for the last 4 years he has only once in awhile been noisy but either he is now too fat to get out and is stuck OR he has decided to expand his space but he is being really noisy and it is driving me nuts. I KNOW we need him out of there, btw, so just don't say it. :P

It is on the holidays that I appreciate owning an old house the most. I sit and wonder at how many other people celebrated a holiday and how they did it..what were they eatng ..how did they feel?
Because my huband and I are both vets, both the children of vets and have one son (so far) in the active military, we are what you would call patriotic. Memorial Day has come to mean little more than a three day weekend and the scent of grilled burgers to many people...but to people who lived when this house was new, and even for years thereafter, memorial Day was a day to contemplate, to remember and to appreciate....and to mourn.
Memorial Day was first established in 1868 to remember the soldiers that had falled during hte Civil War. It was then called Decoration Day. My house was not built then but the original site where it was located had been platted for a year.
In 1910 it was popular to send postcards in memory of the day...My house was being built when this was mailed:

And this company of vets stood in formation in rememberance:


By 1920 my house was built and had been lived in long enough to see one of the builder's children go off to fight WW1 and not return.

With one son in the military I wanted something to let everyone know..and so I bought an antique WW1 star flag with one star..signifying one son serving:


And here are assorted pictures of people taking a moment to remember...over the past 90 years since my house was built...



This is what my house looked like about the time of WW1:

and during the next years I know many prayers went out for loved ones....
Men being buried at sea during ww2

Korea:


Thank you so much...all of you. You have given much and will not be forgotten. As prayers have gone up from this home in the past they will continue in the future...Semper Fi.

Not a whole lot of time right now..big surprise?
I have decided to do the trim in a creamy white..The room is narrow, altho large for a bathroom, and I do not want to introduce too many colors..This particular bathroom is the nicest and the one that company woudl most often use.
I got brass switch covers yesterday, and we will be switching to brass faucets when we replace the sink.
The thing is that I really think I want to do the ceiling in a dark green. It is 10 ft so it can take the color without making hte bathroom appear hobbit-hole like..I just wish I had thought of it BEFORE I did the walls. :/

So...do I paint the trim in the hall bathroom off white, a darker shade of the wall color, a lighter shade of the wall color, a contrasting color OR faux wood grain?
PLEASE leave an opinion in the comment box? I am frozen with indecisive nerve synapses.

I am editing because I cant get my own comment box to work...
The bathroom I am talkign about is the hall bathroom that I just finished venetian plastering...You can see it here:hall bathroom

It is kind of a grayed down robin's egg blue, with a mottled effect...which sounds much worse than it actually is. It looks good. The colors int he border are the same blue, a brownish purple, a mustard/gold, forest green and white...the vanity is currently white as is the tile in the shower. I am planning on putting on a tile counter with aqua inset tiles.Maybe.

I have had a couple of great ideas in the past 24 hours. First I was sort of thinking about wanting a garden, saving money, being more *green* and such..and I realized that we could build a slightly raised garden at the back of the house by the laundry room, and run the grey water from the laundry to it...But wait! There's more! I also figured that we could lay in pvc pipe with holes drilled in it through the garden and have a pretty nifty irrigation system. Then I realized that, with the bed ebing raised , it had a base and we could add a green house frame, so that in the winter we could cover it with plastic and have vegetables all winter. It is south facing..
I was kicking around all of that and spoke to Marc about it and he suggested that in the winter we could pipe in the heat from the drier as well to help it stay above freezing. WIth 6 kids here and all the dirt we do alot of laundry..I am excited.

The bit that sticks out is the laundry room..We have an area for quite a large garden.

The other thing is that I need to solve a fly problem at the milking barn. We built the barn with 3 stalls and a plain milking area, and 2 doors, one on each end. In the middle of the barn is a sliding panel that seperates the barn into 2 areas with small grazing area on both sides. The does have favored one side and has several layers of mulch/hay/manure...and maggots. Ew.
So I am going ot get some diatimacious earth, turn it into the area, close the area off from the does and then plant my garden there for this year...In the fall the does can eat what is left off the plants and I have an awesome fertile area that I dont have to till....
In theory.
I will take pictures and let you know..of course.

I think we have decided that Maine is not going to happen for us, at least not for awhile (goodby snowy winters, goodby 125 acre field, sniff) and so we are moving ahead and planning on doing as much on this 2 acres as we can. We will continue the restoration of the house, but add into our work more research on solar panels (they have cool presss and stick solar panels now!) and other things to bring us more and more off grid, less and less dependent on what we must buy rather than procure for ourselves. In this is the restoration of the upstairs fireplace...and the installation of a (hopefully) field stone fireplace in the sun room area. That room, which has windows on the south, north and west, gets COLD in the winter...and a full fledged fireplace suits me better than a wood stove. With a fireplace in the den, and one in the kitchen/dining area (both areas can be closed off from the rest of the house) we can concentrate most of our living in those areas in the winter.
Marc hopes to get the office bathroom walls ready to be painted this next weekend and once the downstairs is done we can regroup as to what we want to do next.
Ethan harvested soem fresh cilantro out of his garden yesterday, and Shiloh's cukes seemt o be doing well. I told the kids this morning that for the summer we were going to concentrate on homesteading activities (plus math) rather than normal school days...
they were ecstatic. :)

I finished the glazing! I dont have much time right now but I really love the effect. The bathroom is somewhat a slightly greyed down robin's egg blue, with a lovely mottled effect. I really really like it...Did I say I liked it?
This weekend is a bust. I have an appointment to have some medical testing done on monday a.m. and I have to spend Sunday preparing for it physically. (Don't ask). So I am hoping that Marc willt ake pity on me in my weakened Camille like state and offer to patch up the holes in the wall in hte office bathroom so I can get started painting on it.
I have almost decided to throw caution to the wind and go with wooden counters in the kitchen. I know they will wear, I know that waater will warp them..I know..I know..but I love them so much. If you happen to be reading and you have gone with wooden counters, not butcherblock but wooden counters...would you leave me a comment and a link to your site and promise to tell me everythign i need to do to find the right kind of wood and install them? Please?

A Blog Challenge!

I am going to send out a challenge of sorts. If you are blogging about the restoration of an old house, then do a before and after of the biggest/most intense/best job you have finished. Link to it in the comment section here...and also link to this post on your blog..Let me know that you are doing it. Next Thursday, 5/24, if anyone participates, I will post all of the links to all of the pictures and stories of the *Big One*.
In your blog let us know what you did, how you did it, why you are proud of it..whatever information you want us to know.

Mine is the front parlor. When we moved into this house the walls were multi colored. They had been painted yellow and then someone had gone back and used texture to fix holes. Only they didnt bother to paint over it. There was an off off off white carpet throughout and the entire house smelled of rodents. ew.Any way...I stenciled the design on the parlor walls and faux finished the woodwork. I stained and shellacked the oircutre ral trim and Marc installed it. I still need to make curtains to finishe hte room but I am happy with the results so far.

I have been thinking about where we were and where we are and decided to encourage myself, and impress you with soem pictures of the actual progress...

The reception parlour then (2003)


and now (2007)


The downstairs hall then:


and now



And the front parlour then:


and now..



See, when it is all laid out like that it seems like we have atually accomplished something..It is just that in the every day, dealignw ith cracks, holes int he floor, countertops that are ugly..and seeing the new corian counters and shiny floors in other homes..well you know..it is tough..I want it to be done..yesterday.