What I've been up to....

These are not necessarily in chronological order.

1. I am proud to announce that my white bread took 1st place, my strawberry preserves took 2nd place, and my molasses cookies took 3rd at the Genesee Country Village Agricultural Society Fair.

2. We butchered pig on Columbus Day- it was a successful endeavor.

3. Our party was great. Hanna won the apple recipe with her apple cake recipe which she should post in her comments here, and Kara came in second with a caramel apple pie, the recipe for which she should post on her blog and linky up here. They both received prize bags with a loaf of the aforementioned prizewinning white bread, a jar of the preserves, and a bottle each of strawberry and peach wine.

4. We bought a new-to-us mini van. A 2005 Toyota Sienna. This is a nice little story about trusting God and waiting on the Lord, so I will share it. Last year, we wanted a mini van. So we tried to sell our Jeep. No one wanted to buy the Jeep. We found a nice little Honda Odyssey in our price range- still no one wanted to buy our Jeep. Now, we could have erred on the side of excess and bought the van anyway. But, instead, we took it as God saying, "wait." And so we did. A couple of weeks ago, we thought that it might be time for us to have a van now that our family is about to expand. We put our Jeep on craigslist, sold it almost immediately, and found a mini on craigslist that we were able to buy the same day! And- they that wait upon Lord shall have power doors, leather interior, and heated seats.

5. MOPS convention. It was great, but I was grumpy from sitting on my butt for long periods of time and then walking like four miles to get from place to place INSIDE the resort. Yes, resort. That was cool. It was the Gaylord Opryland, and I would recommend it. Highly.
And, God had things to say to me even through my airplane induced swollenlegandfeet grump I had on.

6. Hats. I have crocheted two super cute earflap hats for my kids. Check out the links section here and go to the earflap hat pattern link and see the hat pattern I used. I will post pics of my own at a later date.

7. We started using our woodstove in the last week. I really love our woodstove. Oh! And remember all the smoke troubles we had last year? Well, we added about 8 feet of pipe to the roof and so far, so good. We ordered 7 cords of wood, and have seven more on the way.

8. Our first was this week- October 11th. I pulled all the onions and peppers and pumpkins that were left in the garden, and still have beets, parsnips, carrots, broccoli, and brussel sprouts out there. I'll let you know how those fair.

9. And last night, I did a cheesemaking workshop at the LeRoy Library- and it was awesome! We made lemon cheese and mozz.

10. I forgot my best friend's birthday- twice. How do you even do that? Well, her birthday was on Monday and I forgot that, so she said if it would make me feel better I could pretend that Friday was her birthday. Well, today's Thursday and I so have not sent out a card or gift yet. S0 I suck. So.....sorry Kara that I suck as a BFF.

Well, that's all I can think of for now, I may add to this post as I think of things of interest.

XOXO
Joce

PS I am looking for two things: local sweet potatoes, and a cast iron tea kettle to put on my woodstove to humidify my home.