Spring like Weather

Good Tuesday Morning! The calendar may say that it is winter, but we are certainly having more spring like weather. The temps are not dropping below freezing right now during the overnight period and the daytime temps are getting into the upper 40's most of this week. Those are spring temps and certainly not the weather we normally get in January.

We had a few days a couple of weeks ago that the weather was very cold as the wind chills dropped the temp to below zero, but for most of the month we have had much warmer than normal air. Snow has been flurries at the most. One day, I think we have had enough to cover the ground and that was all. I am thankful that we have not had the ice that several states have seen this winter, but I also do not like the fact that we have not had some snow.

I am a firm believer that the snow and cold are what kills off most of the germs and bugs that we see throughout the year. In winters that we don't get much snow, it seems that we have plenty of bugs in the summer months. We need the snow that we are so used to getting in the winter. We need the freeze to kill off insects and illnesses.

Time to get busy on the farm and ready for work. Take care and have a good day!

Fencing and other farm ideas

  As I am thinking of changes that I would like to make here on the farm, I keep going to this picture of a fence that lines the sidewalk at Cumberland Gap National Park in Kentucky. I am thinking that I could place a fence similar to this at the end of our driveway and make a nice corner decoration that I could add our address to so that ones coming down the road would know where our drive is as the house is not visible in the summer from the road. It seems that everyone misses our driveway and it would certainly be a pretty way to decorate it. I have a nice wicker bench that I could possibly add to it as well. A few flowers and a nice bush and I would be able to add a nice painted sign and it would be a very nice display.
   I have also thought about adding this to the area where I park. I have a nice graveled parking spot, but it is in the front of the house and I have a walkway to the car with a nice arch, but I think that this would be a nice addition. I like split rail fences and they seem a little old fashioned to me. I just that they are a sure sign of a farm that believes in old fashioned values.
  There are many changes I would like to make around here this year and I hope that I can get it all accomplished. My husband may not be on board with all of them, but if it is something that I can't do, I will have to hire it to be done if he does not want to do it. I want to clean things up a little and fix things that seem to be ran down and in need or repair. I also plan to do some painting inside this year as the kitchen and living room seems to really need it. I am tired of the yellow that we were fine with 7 years ago when we moved in, now I want a brighter color for both rooms as the house seems dark most of the time anyway.
 Enough of my chattering today, have a blessed day!

Monday Morning Plans

Although this is not the view out of my window, I am satisfied with the view that I am seeing today. It is cloudy, cool, and we had rain last night, but the forecast called for freezing rain and snow and I am thankful that we did not get that. This is actually a photo that my daughter and I took when we went to Virginia this year and it is taken at Cumberland Gap National Park.

Three states actually meet near these mountains and it is a beautiful picture of the Cumberland Gap valley that Daniel Boone led people through on his way to Kentucky. It may not be the most beautiful place on earth, but it would certainly be in the top 25 as far as I am concerned. I will be sharing more photos later this week.

Monday morning is upon us and I happen to have a rare day that I am off from both jobs. I will be home schooling my child today and I will be catching up on housework that I did not do over the weekend due to celebrating my anniversary. I am thankful that we were able to go celebrate a little bit and we are planning a cruise for the near future with my stepson. I am anxiously awaiting that!

Dinner on the farm today is going to be pork tenderloin. It is cooking in the Ninja cooking system right now following being rubbed down with paprika and some other seasoning. I am cooking it with soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. I hope that it is as good as the last one that I cooked. I had many spices to it as well. If it is as good as I hope, I will be sharing it on my farmerscookery blog.

Of course, I am also working on my #cleaningprogram today which includes a power hour of cleaning as well as some micro cleaning, which is just short 10-15 minutes of cleaning. My power hour is going to consist of cleaning the shower and cleaning in the bedroom today. My micro cleaning has already began with the kitchen, as I have put away some items that were left out during our busy weekend and I have also cleaned the sink today and picked up some areas in the living room that we had let go and left clutter in.

Clutter is a constant battle with so many of us living in such a small space. I am constantly complaining that i need more storage and I am currently working on getting some. I am going to possibly go look at storage items this week. I would love to go to Ikea and look but I don't think that is going to happen this week and probably not this month. Maybe when the weather breaks a little bit. I have a couple of friends that I am sure would go with me and I may invite them to take a girls weekend and go. We could have some wine and shopping together. For now, I will attempt to use what I have and make the best of it.

Have a glorious Monday! Do one thing that makes you smile today!

Wavering Faith

As I sit here listening to the news and enjoying the quiet of the morning, I am reminded of just how much God loves us. The book of Psalms has always been one of my favorite books in the Bible and I could not count how many times I have read that particular book. I know that God's grace can get us through any trying times that we might face. All Christians know that and yet, we allow our faith to waver in certain low times in our lives. I've always said that anyone that says they do not waver in their faith is not being honest because I believe at some time we all come to a point where we say "Why". The answer would be because God thinks we can handle it.

 I really did not plan for this blog post to start this way, but as I began to write the words began to flow so I quietly spoke with God and said that I would write whatever He needed me too. I have heard many stories this week from others sharing their faith for the correct decision in a certain circumstances. Each one mentioned praying and yet, wondering why something was not the way they wanted. Again, a simple answer, it is the way God wants it.

Twenty years ago today, God led my husband and I to the holy state of marriage. We were not going to get married in the middle of an ice storm, we were not going to get married in a nursing home, and we did not plan to have to plan our anniversary plans around the weather, but those were our plans. We had some problems getting our license due to technicalities and once we did, I just felt God saying, "Child, it is time". We called the man that I had chosen to marry us and made arrangements for him to meet us at the nursing home where my grandmother was and we called his parents and woke my mom up and asked my grandfather and brother if they wanted to attend our wedding. I believe that it was 4:30 p.m. and we were to be married in about 2 hours.

The staff at the nursing home was thrilled with our decision and said that we could have had a nice ceremony with decorations if they had known. Well, I might have told them earlier had I known. I honestly believe that our parents thought that we were absolutely crazy, but I knew it was right. I felt God with us and I knew that He had a reason for that certain moment. My grandparents were thrilled that we had included my grandmother.

I wore a beautiful teal colored dress that I had worn as a bridesmaid for a wedding just a few months before and my husband wore a pair of khaki pants and a shirt, (he is not a huge dressy kind of guy), It was a really nice ceremony in the hallway outside my grandmother's room and included just the parents, grandparents, and my brother and his family. My maid of honor and flower girl was my oldest child, that my husband eventually was able to adopt.

The weather outside was frightful and yet, I know God wanted us to get married that day and at that place. It is a unique story and one that I have reconsidered so many times, but I know it was God's plan. Life is not always planned out and things happen that we don't expect, but as long as God is in control we are fine.  Twenty years later, we celebrate our anniversary on a day that we are under a winter weather advisory with an ice and snow accumulation possible. Luckily, we were able to take a short trip yesterday to Bass Pro shop, which I had suggested and we were able to enjoy a nice dinner at Ponderosa. We were hoping to go to Outback Steakhouse, but I missed the road that it set on and was on the interstate again before I realized that I had gone the wrong way. Instead of blaming myself, I choose to believe that God was in control and did not want us to eat there.

To close this post, let me say "Happy Anniversary" to my wonderful, hard working husband.

Terror Around The World

With the latest news showing such a state of chaos in Paris following the carnage that two brothers carried out at a newspaper company and then a huge manhunt for the ones responsible seems just something that we would see on a movie or television. Not a scene that is really being played out in an area known for love.

It seems that each day as I turn my television on, I become more aware that terror is all around us. Planes disappear from the sky and hundreds are missing and presumed dead, a newspaper company is stormed and several people killed for the work that they were doing, hundreds of school girls kidnapped and threats of selling them or marrying them off to soldiers and others, school shootings, and all the other news worthy stories take on a life of their own as we hear about them. It is sad that we never hear as much good as we do bad.

Terror is rampant in the world that we live in. Whether you live in a large city like Paris or a small town in the middle of the country, terror is outside your door! You might say that it is farther away than that, but it really is not! Terror is in all parts of the world and just when we think that there is no way that it can take place in any other place and that it can't get worse, we discover that there is someone out there who wants to make a different name for himself and does a deed that we find absolutely irreplaceable and so hard to understand.

As you lay your head down tonight, please say a prayer for any one touched by terror today.

copyright carolscash2015

Snow, A New Home, and my #cleaningprogram

We woke to a nice white blanket of snow on the farm today. Mother Nature was kind enough to hold the heavier snow to the north of us and we certainly were thankful for that.  It was an answered prayer since I had to work early this morning and really was not looking forward to driving to work in the snow and slick roads.

Being that winter is in full force now, the calves truly needed a home to be able to get in out of the weather. I am thankful that my husband was able to get materials to make a makeshift house for them with the help of some lumber and an old truck camper shell that worked well for a roof. It might not be the prettiest and it might not be the perfect solution,but for the cold that is coming, it will work.

For the second day of my #cleaningprogram, I put away some of the snowmen that I had out for Christmas and was able to cover the attic door with plastic to help hold some of the heat in the house. With the wind chill supposed to be about negative 20-40 the next few days, we will need all the help we can get. I must say that the wood stove is roaring at the moment and I am quite warm. I was also able to work about an hour in my daughters' room and help her with some problem areas there. That was my power hour work for the day. My micro work was to clean the stove and kitchen counters, which I was able to do in about 10 minutes.

Well, home schooling has been accomplished and both blogs have been updated. Now I need to hit some social media sites and some article writing sites to finish my day. First I am going to play ( and win) a game of American Trivia with my daughter and nephew to finish some of the learning for the day.

#CleaningProgram- New Idea

Being an avid fan of the Today Show, I am beginning a new campaign that follows the same theme as their #startingtoday. I am always feeling that I do not get enough cleaning done in my home and I want the home to always be company ready in the new year. I have decided that I will hold myself accountable by putting my goals and accomplishments ( as well as any failures I might have) online for all to share with me. I also will be asking each of my readers to follow me and let me know if I have failed for a day.

This campaign will also aid my writing goals as I will always have a topic to write about. I am going to share my cleaning ideas and tips as well as just sharing what I have accomplished each day. I am going to try to set aside one hour each day to clean something. It may be something small that only takes a few minutes and it might be something that takes the full hour. I am going to call that period of time my power hour. The other things that I might do throughout the day will be called my micro cleaning.

I began this campaign today and I am happy to say that I have completed my power hour. In that hour, I vacuumed the living room, hallway, and half of the bedroom. I also mopped the entryway and half of the hall as that is all that had linoleum. I mopped the dining room after sweeping it. I have two loads of clothes being washed and dried. My micro tip for the day involves the microwave, I have a kitchen sponge that I like to wipe saucers and other small kitchen items with and to make sure bacteria is not built up on it, I placed it in the microwave for 30 seconds to help kill any bacteria that might be lurking on it.

I will be talking quite often about cleaning and organizing and may even start a new blog about this. However, for now, it is being written about here. I hope this helps all of the moms our there who find they can never seem to find time to clean. Try your own power hour! Try 2 micro cleanings and share this with us using the #cleaningprogram and sharing your comments here. The more involved we are with this, the cleaner homes we will have.

I am writing about this on all of my article sites and my blogs today! Look for me by the username carolscash!

New Year - New You?

Day 2 of the new year is upon us and I wonder if anyone has already broken their new years resolution. For those who resolved to lose weight, I wonder if they have ate anything that they should not have. For those who vowed to quit smoking, I wonder if they have picked up a cigarette? There is no understanding as to why we do not stick to our resolutions other than we are human. We are creatures of habit and until we change those habits, we will not stick with our resolutions.

As a writer, I am resolving to write more and not allow as many distractions to come my way. I personally, feel that I can do this except if I allow my family to stop my creative genius work. I know that many times I sit to write and yet, I am unable to as someone needs something or someone decides that they must talk with me at that exact moment. I have decided that I will set up "work" times and I am just unavailable at those times, except in emergency situations.

I also will do more to insure that I get more readers to the blog. I am going to be talking about life on the farm, but I will also be offering more homesteading hints as well as other helpful articles. I know that not everyone likes to read about the life we live here, but I have to keep this personal. I will be giving more information as to what will be here in a later post. Keep reading!

For all the other writers out there, let's encourage each other to keep writing by reading and commenting on others blogs. If you have an idea for something to write about and can't do it, recommend it to someone else. We are a group of writers that rely on others to keep the traffic flowing. It never hurts to help others.

Enjoy your day and smile!