Monday, September 12, 2011

2011- NOT Back-to-School Blog Hop: School Room

Not Back to School Blog Hop
I might be doing the 2011 Not-Back-to-School-Blog Hop a month late, but that is okay.   We honestly are NOT back to school so the Hop still applies to us.

The end of summer is always crazy for us with activities and harvest.  

This year on top of the harvest I added in a Thrift Sale, the recovery of that Thrift Sale and at the same time as harvest we moved our school room upstairs to a very full office space.

I am GETTING THERE.  I am typing this from my new Hubby's desk in the schoolroom.   I have moved nearly all the furniture at least once, laid carpet my mother-in-law gave us years ago, cut that carpet to size and spliced it so it runs wall to wall.  I moved furniture back and then began moving our school books and cabinet contents into our room.  I *think* I only have science, preschool and this year's books to move into a space.  I also need to move my filing cabinet contents back in and thought I might try to purge while I do so.

I am so close I can taste it.  I am so thrilled and can't wait until I am done if for no other reason than the fact that everything will have it's own place and I can clamp down on children picking up and moving anything they get the whim to pick up and move.   I am normally a very organized person and tend not to lose things but this whole dishelveled process has included kids who see new things they can play with and carry off.  I find myself looking for items that I KNOW were RIGHT HERE.  I know people in my life who do this all the time and I must say losing things about drives me over the edge!

We are so close I *think* by Wednesday of this coming week I might be able to have our *official* FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

Tuesday is co-op day.  We are not actually members but I am teaching a botany course and they have allowed my kiddos to attend classes while I teach.  YAY!

Here are some pictures of the current state.  
I will link back here when I get my final pictures taken and blogged. 
This was the view seen from the entrance to our new school room.  This mess is actually BETTER than it was.  I was very PROUD of how clean this was!  It's already better.  :)  Gracie is sitting on the new carpet.  Underneath this new carpet are peel-&-(not so much)-stick tiles that were going to be the catalyst landing me in a padded room.  The carpet will be SO MUCH warmer on our toes this winter too.  :)
Making a circle around the room.  This wall is to the right when you walk in.  I will be placing cork boards and perhaps a white board on the wall to the right of the small desk. From the left:  The tall bookcase is filled with theology books that must remain.  I have obtained the bottom shelf for my school books and have put speakers for our cd player on another shelf, to the right of that is my white school file cabinet, to the right of that is the huge computer desk that *I* used in highschool and college, then our "workboxes" (aka: storage drawers) and the small student desk.
At this time I don't have a better picture of the back wall but when I sit at the desk (HUBBY'S DESK) this is what I see.  The shelves up high have baffled us since we moved here.  They are mostly for decorations but I had all these 3 ring binders that we obtained for free and I needed a place to store them.  Here they are.  Very visible to ME, not in the line of sight to others and although I need the ladder to reach them I at least know where they are.  In the middle of that shelf is a 10 key calculator, an old camera and to the right are meaningful decorations that mostly pertain to Hubby's Seminary Graduation.
So, this area is unfinished.  The right finds a file cabinet.  I think I might put preschool stuff in here? The two book cases (super tall and very short) are more theology books that cannot be moved. The other bookcase I am storing my Scope & Sequence printouts and books, music books, foreign countries materials and the top holds my oversized papers (construction paper, 11x17 paper, paper rolls, etc.).  On the far left is the new place for an old antique radio that Hubby's uncle refinished when he was in highschool.  It stores black and white family photos.
Outside that door is a 4.5 foot tall kitchen cabinet we obtained.  It used to hold books and now sits empty waiting for the perfect thing to be held within. To the right of the door is a student desk where the school computer will go.  Under that desk to the left are storage boxes that can hang on the wall.  Hubby was very excited about these free finds but I am unsure if I want to use any of them so for now they rest there out of the way.   The large shelving unit to the right now holds board games on the right and the shelves below are items that are either listed on Amazon or Ebay or items that NEED TO BE listed.   To be honest most of it is items that NEED to be listed!  Once we settle in and once I get the thermal shades made for this room I will begin listing items again.... right now, I'm a wee bit busy!
There were times during this process where I COULD NOT walk through this room at all.  I am so happy to be sitting at the school desk upstairs typing in a nearly completed room.  :)

What does your schoolroom look like?

This post was linked to the Not Back-to-School Blog Hop.  Click HERE to view more posts about school rooms.
Not Back to School Blog Hop

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Tomato Processing Time

We have two tomato patches.
One down the hill (where this happened) which is pollenated by super docile big fat, fluffy bumble bees.

We have another patch near some bee hives.  
Beyond the weeds between the hives and the brick wall are my tomatoes. The snow fence was an attempt to get them to fly UP and over instead of straight toward my tomatoes and it *kinda* works.
 A bit too close to the bee hives.

This is what I wear when I pick from those vines.

This year I don't think I will be making any sauce.  I just don't have TONS of tomatoes like past years.  That is okay though since I still have juice and sauce from last year and since I often crave tomato CHUNKS in the soups I make.  This year I think I might just process them all as tomato chunks.

So here is how I process my Chopped/Stewed Tomatoes: 
  • First I pick.
  •  Then I wash and sort out the ones that need more ripening time.
  •  Then I SHOULD put these out on a table but what happens most often is I get distracted or too busy and they ripen in their pail!
  • Then I cut off the bad parts and cut them into large chunks.
  •  Then I stuff them tightly into jars.
  •  Then I add water if there is air space (minus the 1 inch head space).
  • Then I stick a chopstick down the sides to let the air bubbles out.  
  • Then I process them.

Now here is the most frustrating part for me.   We use heirlomes which are high in acid.  This means I SHOULD be able to hot water bath my jars. But that means hot packing (hate) and then super long periods of time for the water to boil (hate) and then 45 minutes (some books say more) of boiling time in the water.  REALLY???  My last batch I attempted to do this and after 2.5 hours of waiting I still DID NOT have a rapid boil.  So I popped my canner lid on and pressured it!
I think I will be pressuring from now on.

I made chili the other day and they were still mushy.  How on earth do the canning plants get the tomatoes to still have texture after processing??  Hmmm.....

Anyway, between purging my house, moving all our school stuff upstairs and trying to make sense of it all, laundry, normal house stuff and tomatoes.... I've not had all that much time to blog like I would like to.  :(  Sad me, sad you.

What have you been up to lately?

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Busy...

Friday's highlights:
  • History and Andrea Carter Circle C Adventures while still in bed,
  • Shower
  • Vacuum 1/2 of house
  • Strip and remade 2 beds
  • mail out, mail in
  • meal prep x 3
  • 10 loads of laundry washed and hung to dry
  • cookie school lesson with kiddos.  Otto READ HIS 1ST RECIPE!
  • dressed stuffed cat in preemie outfit at least 10 times
  • dishes, pots pans, dishes again
  • swept kitchen floor x2
  • 4 loaves of bread
  • two phone calls to fix double charges to check card
  • a little purging
  • movement of things that must be stored for a bit longer (boo)
  • and much more...
Today:
  • Grammy is here.  :)  She took boys to LAURA INGALL's Day in Pepin WI!  I hope she took the camera.  (oops)
  • Took the Alien who talks Alien-talk non-stop to the trash collection site.  Finally got rid of all the boxes from my thrift sale on August 18, 19, 20 and a little trash too.
  • Had great ambition to finish the school room but hit a wall.  :(   Alien girl is in nap and I must go suit up in bee paraphernalia so that I can go gather MY tomatoes from near the bee hives.    
  • Then I NEED to finish the school room while the boys are NOT HERE to move my stuff!
MAYBE??   JUST MAYBE???  We can start school officially next Wednesday??

Monday is more of the same.
Tuesday is errands galore in the *big town* and our first co-op class!   :)
Wednesday?  Just maybe, Wednesday MIGHT be the first day of school up in the new schoolroom??  MAYBE??

What have you been up to?
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