Cabin Crafted

Category: General

  • Collections

    I don’t generally post more than once a day, but I couldn’t resist this one. As I was reading a blog that I follow, http://divineknits-infiknit.blogspot.com/ she had a post entitled “You collect what…?” a discussion of the various types of collections that people gather and what each of these types of collectors are called.  That post sent me back a bit.  As a kid, I collected postcards when we traveled which was not varied and involved an annual trip to a mountain retreat and a spring or fall trip to the Outer Banks for a camping.  Then in my late 20’s, I took up snow skiing and those trips were more varied, we wore knit caps on our heads then instead of helmets, and I started collecting the little souvenir pin badges from each ski resort and wore them on my knit hat.  The postcards are long gone, the badges might still be stashed in a drawer, but I no longer buy them when we go to a different resort.

    But I do collect, functional but beautiful things now.  I do not want clutter about our home, but I love handmade items, so our home is a collection of hand thrown pottery, functional items.  All of our dishes, mugs, service pieces, canisters and crocks to make pickles or hold cooking utensils are pottery.  As well as candle holders, pitchers and platters.

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    I also collect baskets, many that I made, or were made for me by a friend that I crafted with, several that are ones purchased by artisans in organisations that are attempting to aid poorly compensated artisans to a fair wage. But they don’t just hang around, they are used lovingly to gather produce or eggs from the farm or to store fiber and yarn.

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    And I can’t forget the fiber and yarn that I spin and knit into beautiful garments to wear or gift.

    Life is good on our mountain farm.

  • Today’s Frustration

    It is snowing here today and that snow reminded me of one of my first blog posts a few years ago. Perhaps you actually got to read today’s post after it was published and before the blog gremlins made it disappear.  Thus today’s frustration with modern technology.

  • A Blog is a Blog

    Blogs take on many forms I have realized as I read more and more of them.  Some are religious in nature, some trying to promote someone’s business, a few are story tellers, many are online journals.

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    I tried journal writing beginning the year I moved to the mountains, alone, to help supervise the construction of our retirement log home on a small farm and to unretire from education and reenter the school counseling field for another 3 1/2 years until my hubby had finally sold his practice, retired and moved into our home with me.  For three years, we had visited back and forth across the state, hard on the cars and our emotions.  I thought journal writing would provide me with the necessary outlet, but I couldn’t get my thoughts down on paper fast enough and looking back at my efforts, it was mostly a pity party and complaints.  I had retired from Virginia Beach City schools as a school counselor in 2004.  This was just about the time that the state mandated testing set in motion by No Child Left Behind was starting to have teeth, affecting whether a child could graduate with a diploma or just leave school after 12 years with a Certificate of Attendance.  The Testing Director for the city at that time had met with all of the counselors by school and told us that if there was a mistake made, that it would be our names in the paper, not his.  I was dedicated to my job, a good counselor, a stickler for details when it came to record keeping and I also ran the Advanced Placement Testing program for our school, being responsible to the students, their parents who paid dearly for those tests and to the College Board, who took their exam process very seriously.  That meeting was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I decided that since I had enough cumulative years and age to retire from the school system, that I would quietly go at the end of the school year.  I was burned out, stressed.  For the next two years, I worked a part time job for a non profit organization, but the third year, it would no longer be part time, and our house was under construction, thus my move.  I was hired by the adjacent county’s school system as the lead counselor in a high school, again in charge of AP testing, but now also in charge of the Standard’s of Learning (yep SOL) testing for the school.  My stress level again rose, the paper journal writing was not doing it for me, so I started using a feature in Facebook called notes.  Then your posts in Facebook were limited to a set number of words.

    About 3 or 4 years ago, I discovered blogging. This was the outlet I had been seeking, a place where I could journal, be creative, and put down the info quickly enough to get my thoughts on paper, you see, I type much faster than I could ever write by a factor of 4 or 5.  My blog is my journal.  I do publish it in a few places and yes, I like to see if anyone is reading it, but it is really for me, my journal writing outlet.  Blogging helped me through the years until I retired with my hubby permanently and has continued as a creative outlet, a place to publish knitting patterns that I create, a place to write about the life on our little homestead, a place to share the new things we learn.

    What is a blog?  It is personal to each and every blogger.  I love reading those of others and I keep adding more and more to my daily list to check for new posts but I shall continue to blog as my personal journal.

     

  • Crispy morning

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    A wintry mix,

    Crispy grass, slick deck, mini icicles;

    Fog, rain, ice pellets, and snow and snow for tomorrow.

    Hope my kids on the bus tomorrow are safe.

  • Power of Suggestion

    Yesterday as we drove down Main Street in the nearby town, the Cajun restaurant had a sandwich board on the sidewalk with the day’s specials.  The soup of the day was Hungarian Goulash.  I know that Goulash means soup or stew and that if you look in a dozen cookbooks, you will find a dozen different recipes, the internet is flush with variations.  I had not taken out anything to thaw for dinner and seeing that sign, my mind started pinging with desire, not to go to that restaurant, but to prepare a dish that my grandmother used to prepare for my Dad and his brother; my Dad prepared for my siblings and me; I prepared for my children; my daughter prepares for her family.  Our recipe never written down, is a simple stew of ground beef, onions, paprika, tomatoes (or catsup) and kidney beans (sometimes whatever beans are available).  Two of my children don’t like it.  I love it and so does my hubby.  He even created a mantra to remind me how he likes it: “Stew on rice, Goulash with rice, Chili no rice.”

    On our way home, hauling our trailer with hubby’s motorcycle from it’s servicing, we stopped at the local grocery, purchased a package of ground beef and dinner was already planned and later enjoyed.  The amazing power of suggestion.

  • The Liebster Award

    Recently, one of my blog friends, A French Yummy Mummy in London nominated me for this award, to recognize and promote blogging and bloggers. I am very honored to have been nominated by her. The award requires you to answer 11 questions about yourself, ask 11 questions of bloggers you tag and tag 11 blogs you read and encourage those 11 people to tag 11 more bloggers with questions.  Here are the 11 questions that were asked of me.  I am thrilled to have new blogs to read and follow and hope that you enjoy some of the ones I tag.
    1.     Why do you blog?
             It started as an online journal, I type faster than I write and I had been encouraged to journal to relieve stress.
     
    2.     What makes you happy?
             Having my grandchildren visiting.
    3.     Where do you live?
            In the rural Southwest Virginia, but I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
    4.     What is your favourite food?
             Chocolate, dark and rich.
    5.     How do you relax?
             I knit, spin on an Australian made spinning wheel, organically garden, and watching my silly chickens when I let them out of their pen to free range, or take long walks with hubby and the dogs.
    6.     If you could jump in a plane right away, where would you go?
            There are many places I would like to see, I have never been outside of the USA except Canada and Mexico, so my list would include the UK, Greece, and Australia.
    7.     What helps you to write?
             I only write when I am moved to do so, but getting comments on my blog encourages me to continue. Often my blog revolves around a photo or several that I have taken related to our homestead farm or one of my crafts.
    8.     What was 2013 main highlight so far?
             Celebrating with most of my extended family for my Dad’s 90th birthday and the baptism of two of our grandchildren the same week in the same location.
    9.     What are your plans for 2014?
             Adding more critters to our homestead and traveling more, if we find someone who will house sit for us and deal with those critters.
     
    10. How do you see yourself in 10 years?
    In 10 years I will be a very senior citizen and hope that I am still active and independent then. 
    11. And finally, what would you do if you won the lottery tomorrow?

     

    Each of our children have incurred educational debt and I would give each of them enough to pay off their student debt and pay down or make a down payment on a house of their own.

    Now here are my questions for my nominees and though I read many blogs each day, several are so widely published that the authors would not participate and several are ones that French Yummy Mummy also tagged, so my list will not be 11 long.
    1. Why do you blog?

    2. If you craft, what is your favorite crafting, if you don’t, what might you like to learn?

    3. If you had the means to go anywhere in the world for dinner, where would you go?

    4. What would that meal be?

    5. What is the favorite book you have read?

    6. Where do you live?

    7. Are animals part of your life, if so what you do have?

    8. What is the highlight of 2013 for you so far?

    9. What do you hope to do in 2014?

    10. How do you relax?

    11. What is the best job you have ever had?

    Now for the blogs I read and wish to nominate for this award.
    http://sarahwilsondogexpert.com/
    http://smilingthroughtearz.com/
    http://cjtittle.blogspot.com/
    http://c-knit2gether.blogspot.com/
    http://rockthekasbahafrica.blogspot.com/
    http://shellysm.blogspot.com/
    http://bluedollarbill.blogspot.com/
    http://mommytarymadness.blogspot.com/?wref=bif

    If you have not previously read these blogs, I hope you enjoy them, and thank you Muriel for the nomination.

  • It is football season, isn’t it?

    When we began our property search, we had no idea how much 10 acres really was. I had grown up in what is now the suburbs of Virginia Beach, on a couple of acres surrounded by other properties of several acres and a river on one edge of my families land. It was then a Burrough of a county, more of less rural. As I grew up in that home, many housing developments were built along the road back to our home and when I was in high school, the area consolidated to become the City of Virginia Beach.
    While looking for land, we started with the idea of about 10 acres and looked at a log home development in southwest Virginia where each lot was 5 to 10 acres. It was not what we had envisioned. The plot we ended up purchasing for our log retirement home ended up just a fraction under 30 acres.
    A year after the purchase, I moved to a university town near where we were building and took the lead counselor job at the high school in the adjacent town. After a year on that job, I was asked if I would consider taking on a counseling intern for a semester and after refusing the first time I was ask, I accepted the following year. My first intern was from the region I had moved from and he was a city kid and a football player at the university. He said he had no concept of how big 30 acres was. I could relate to that, as we had tried to visual it in suburban blocks in our neighborhood. By this time, I was living in our new home and had the idea to relate the size of our property to something that he could relate to, so I told him that our land was roughly 22 1/2 football fields with end zones. This amazed him and his reaction amused me.
    >Google house

  • Confidence Restored

    One of my flaws is a reluctance to try new things. The anticipation of a new experience often causes several days of anxiety, loss of sleep and weird dreams for several days in advance of the experience. About 11 months ago, hubby convinced me to begin horseback riding lessons with him. He had taken one set of 4 lessons first to see if it was something he wanted to pursue. The only riding I had ever done was in a close ring or on a controlled trail ride where the horse follows the horse in front of it with the experienced guide being the only person in the group that really knew what they were doing and even then, I often chose to take a hike while hubby and a couple of the kids rode instead. I entered the lessons with some degree of anxiety and reluctance and was assigned a fat little paint that you practically had to put a mark in the ring to see if he was even moving. From him I moved on to a gray gelding that became my go to horse. I got comfortable with Doc. I advanced through the skills with a level of comfort in control and even with a bit of goading by hubby, started cantering. Each new skill brought anxiety and then exhilaration as it was accomplished.
    We decided that maybe it was getting to be time to start looking for our own horses. We went to look at one Tennessee Walking Horse, who was a nice ride, but so very thin we were concerned about his health and as his shots were not up to date, he couldn’t be boarded where we ride. More looking found another Tennessee Walking Horse, a young mare, up to date on everything and reported to be a good ride, but a bit difficult to get out of the field to tack up. We were in the process of getting info on her and arranging a time to go look, taking our instructor with us, when we had last Monday’s lesson. I wanted to ride a different horse and chose an Arabian mare. She was friendly and easy to catch and tack, but by the end of the lesson, my confidence was shot and I was truly questioning even riding again. I wasn’t thrown, bucked, or ridden into the fence, but I just didn’t have control with her and constantly felt off balance. We even cancelled the visit to look at the mare.
    One of the things we did upon starting to ride, was to join a local Horsemaster’s Club. This was to give us more riding time, a discount to ride without an instructor, and to learn more about the breeds, problems, and management of owning our own horses. The club hasn’t been too active, but it did have a scheduled mounted meeting tonight to work as a group on riding skills. We RSVP’s and got our horse assignment via email with instructions to have our horse tacked and ready to ride at 5:30 this evening. I was given one of two horses, depending on how one was after the Pony Club mounted meeting just prior to ours. I didn’t know either horse to catch them in the field or to ride and my anxiety kicked in big time. One of their horses is a young mare that is still in need of training and she threw the owner’s daughter a couple of months ago, seriously breaking her arm. My dreams, when I slept the past two nights have involved that horse. My confidence was shot and my anxiety level was high when we arrived today. The mare I was to ride was pointed out to me by the center owner and she was as far away from the riding arena as she could be and still be on their property. I walked up the hill, easily caught her and walked her back down the hill. She tacked up easily, but didn’t want to leave the stall for the arena. Again, my anxiety mounted. Once on her, she proved to be a comfortable ride with a lot of spirit, but other than getting her to stop, easy to control. She trotted fast and even that was good. My confidence has been restored, just in time for tomorrow’s lesson. I will again get to ride Daisy, but this time, it was suggested that I grab a halter and drive to the top to walk her down and ride her back up after the lesson. I can do that.