Interview Update

So Friday's interview was a bust. Pretty much not going to happen. But still waiting for the "Dear John" letter. Very disappointing.

But there's another interview this week with another company.

So it continues.

Good bye Grandma Great

Grandma Great Louise passed away last night. She was 97 years old.

I remember her best for her handmade blankets and kitchen items that she gifted me & my husband when we got married. Every year we'd get a new batch of crocheted warshrags and scrubbies. They were simple gifts that were greatly appreciated and enjoyed.

When she stopped making them because her hands hurt too much there was fiber craft revival amongst the daughters and daughters-in-laws. No one wanted to be without these wonderful items that made kitchen duties more pleasant. She shared her patterns and admired our results.

We love you Grandma Louise. rest in peace.

Connecting....Connecting ....Connecting!

4H is on the schedule for this fall! I'm so excited. I was worried about finding a group of homeschooler to connect with in our new home. I know they're a lot of homeschoolers in our new area, but it's sometimes like trying a game of clue to figure out who, what and where.

There's now 4H. Science is now full of possibilities for hands-on activities. And the group is large, 60 kids!

Making Tarn!

Lots of our old tshirts aren't making it into the garbage! Instead they're getting recycled into t-shirt yarn, or tarn. The best method, easiest way to make tarn is North Jersey Mom's way.

I'm using my tarn to make a Mason Dixon Dizzy Rug.

3 more loops to get it to the size I need. And several more t-shirts are required. A very easy pattern so far.

How Many Pounds of Stuff do YOU Have?

How much are you willing to pay to move your stuff from here to there? $0.50?  $0.35?

Sigh.

We've only lived here 3 years and I can't believe how much things have accumulated.

Interviewing Progress

The 3rd interview is done. And it doesn't appear this job is for him.

And another application was received yesterday, and submitted, from a new prospective employee.

Shaklee

Last year right after doing the kid's school physicals we joined Shaklee. Primarily it was because of my son's blood test results. His IG results were 5000.

We've known since he was 9 months old that chemicals in products gave him migraines. The poor little dude's forehead was scratched bloody that his pediatrician and I were brainstorming what else we could do for him. In addition to having him on Nutramigen formula (we're an adoptive family) and donor breast milk  it was suggested switch to cloth diaper & use hypoallergenic laundry soaps & household cleaners. It was November and I remember groaning because this would mean starting this month long experiment over the holiday travel season. I called my mother or the down-low on cloth diapering. And I joined Melaleluca. After a month it was so obvious our little fellow was feeling much better. He slept better, his forehead healed, and he actually smiled.

Fast forward to last year. We were no longer we part of Melaleuca because of the mandatory monthly minimum orders were so costly. And my stockpile of soaps I'd ordered to fill those monthly orders had run out. His blood test results also indicated that the store bought organic, hypo-allergenic free laundry soaps & household cleaners weren't helping.  I needed to do something and quick.

Fortunately my friend Liz was a Shaklee distributor and there was a promotional for the Shaklee Get-Clean starter kit. We decided to give it a one year test. We threw out all the old cleaning products and started using Shaklee exclusively. We also started all our children on Incredivites & the Optiflora Probiotics. And we started hearing encouraging feedback about our son from family and friends. He has become remarkably light hearted, smiling, friendly, social, and interactive!

His blood test was yesterday. I'm impatient to see the results. I know it will be better because I can see it in him. There will probably be more changes we'll have to do to bring his results even closer to normal. So far our experiment has been successful in that we see a huge improvement in his overall well-being.

Update! His IG score this year was 3263! That's a 1700 change for the better.
Yes, this improvement is directly and solely because we started using Shaklee cleaning products. We'll have done more allergy testing to get to the bottom of the rest since this number is still very high. We do know how that he's also highly allergic to grass, weeds, tree, mold. Mildly allergic to cats, dogs, and dust mites.

Modern Inconveniences

We just, just, got our electricity restored after Monday's very brief and very powerful storm. Yes it's Friday night. Five very long and intermittently hot days.

I couldn't wash clothes. So I went to the laundromat. I did 15 loads of laundry one evening. Ugh. I haven't used a laundromat in 18 years. It hasn't changed much.

I discovered that washing dishes by hand isn't so bad. In fact I think I'm going to keep that habit going because I like not having dishes pile up in the sink. Smile.

I enjoyed getting to know our neighbors better. It's amazing that we live so close to each other and yet have so little contact. We shared our generator with the neighbor's on one side. And lent another generator to their neighbor. Yes we're geekly that with with generators. The Mister has two. I will never again tease him. His generator saved my year's supply of organic chickens.

It isn't necessary to have a large screen TV. The little portable dvd player did an admirable job of entertaining my crew of five, at least until the battery died.

I learned that I should probably always make sure my cell phone has charged at least once in the past day. That way when power goes out and the generator's not yet fueled and running I won't have to sit with the hand-crank emergency radio charging it. It takes for-never to charge  that way.

Hot water is possible no matter the power loss when you have a gas water heater. Yay!

Water is possible if you're not on your own well. We had a hose running over the fence for our neighbors behind us since they live in unincorporated and have a well.

Today's Funniest Moments

We're having a garage sale and I'm chatting with a lady who walked by pushing a stroller with her baby. My 4 yo comes out and starts bopping around while this lady and I are chatting. The lady's baby starts to cry. The lady turns to leave. 

And then dd says loudly to me, "WOW! That was the scariest baby I've ever seen!" 

A little while later another lady with a 2 yo is standing there and my same dd comes up to him and starts chatting. The 2 yo says something to her. She look at me totally astonished, "He can talk!" We fostered a little 2 yo boy this year for 10 months and he couldn't talk yet so that's where that came from.

Family Funnies

During a recent trip to Walmart with just the two youngest children, Cupcake age 4 & Mountaineer age 6. While careening the cart around the corner on 2 wheels fighting to hold the 100 pounds of kid upright while  looking for smore fixings for the 4th, Cupcake comments, "Mommy you are so silly!"

Mountaineer pipes up, "Cupcake, you musn't call Mommy silly! Here's how you talk to Mommies." And then in his most cherubic-like voice, "Mom, you are SO beautiful!"

Awwwwwwww........

And  yes, I finally did find the graham crackers which weren't on the end cap with the 'mellows & chocolate.

Internship

The Mister starts a six week internship today with a local financial crisis planning company. It's a very different field than his previous project management job in telecommunications.  Finance has been a huge interest for him, a hobby of sorts, for years. It has the potential to be an interesting job.

Internship = no money. But he's still getting his severance so it's all good. Why an internship? The president of the company and my husband will be working together to see if his skills and financial savvy are a mutual fit. At least that's all I understand at the moment.

They know we're moving in 8 weeks and they're interested in my husband telecommuting from our new location and expanding their business into that area.  Right now out of state/country clients skype into the office for their consultations.

It's was a weird morning here to see the going-to-work routine again. I'm glad though for the opportunity for him to work. Unemployment really does a number on a guy's confidence and self-esteem.

There was a job application last week to Edward Jones that he's excited about too. If there's an interview from that we'll be thrilled.

Thinking Hard About Making Money

Hubby's unemployment has all the rest of us thinking of ways to make money to help. It's really a two-pronged approach, making money where we're at and how to make money in the future from the farm. These ideas aren't to replace Dear Hubby's income. He's faithfully still searching and applying for jobs daily.

Next weekend we're having a huge garage sale. Each of our 5 kids wants to sell some of their own stuff too and make a bit of cash. We'll use colored stickers to keep straight who sold how much so they get their money.

Craigslist for selling bigger items has been wonderful. So far we've been able to sell furniture, baby items, and dusty exercise equipment.

It's far more fun to plan for "when we're at the farm." :) My parents & I like to dream. Farmer's marketing, bee keeping, teaching classes on preserving garden produce, and u-pick raspberry & blackberry &  blueberry patch are a few of the ideas we've spent not too little time discussing.

One of Dear Hubby's job applications this past week was very exciting to him. It would be a supreme fit. Please pray.

Farm Funnies

My daughter and I drove to Grandpa's farm Friday. Late that night we were woken up to a horrendous caterwaulering in the barnyard.

"WHAT is that? Is it a coyote?"

Nope, it's a couple of barnyard cats mating. 

"Oh. That sounds painful!"