Across The Range

-43 C tonight with the windchill. :P Folks, that is cold! The front came in this morning and it has been miserable ever since. There has been a bit of snow with a 30-50 kph wind so it feels like you are getting sandblasted when you walk outside.

I cleaned out the jeep tonight (pulled it into the garage) and had "help" from Nathan. "Aren't you going to get this done faster because you have help?!" I couldn't help but agree with him even though we didn't set any records. LOL!

Friday I primed the baseboards at Graham's and then this afternoon I painted them. So, hopefully tomorrow I'll get them up and then I'll just have to touch up a bit of the spaces between the wallpaper and ceiling and the room will be done! Next I hope to start working on a scrapbooking room here which is going to be a lot of fun. I decorating with a coffee theme and I'm also going to put up a bigger map because I enjoy geography. You'll have to name and locate a country before you can come in the room. j/k Haha!

Nathan, Tim and Gabe were here for a few days after Jared was born. A busy household and more often than not there were three shadows following me around. One question followed by about a thousand. "Why?" What?" Know What I...?" "Did you do that when you were a kid?" I went on the treadmill and they wanted to come. I start walking and they see the one side of the dollhouse which is "upstairs" in the backroom which of course is facing the other direction. So, I'm trying to look behind and answer their questions. Gabe is on the mattress and starts asking about the washer sitting there and wants me to also watch him as he moves around on the mattress. (He is finally getting my name. He used to call both Erin and I, "En in." LOL!) Nathan is sitting in front of me reading a book wondering about this and that and by that time I'm taking more panting breaths trying to keep up with the treadmill and three busy minds. I finally turn off the treadmill and Nathan asks, "Did that wear you out??" Yes...oh, yes, but it more ways that you think. Haha!

We played Memory and Gabe kept picking up pretty much the same two cards. He didn't have a clue what was going on but he was enjoying being a part of the game. He had more fun trucking my teddy bear and stuffed lambs around via rock truck and scooter.

Gabe seems to be rather intrigued by the baby. He always tries to put Jared's little hat back on whenever it falls off. They took a couple pictures today of him holding Jared. A couple were the ones you always manage to see with the two-year-old smiling and the baby crying. LOL!

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Dad and Mom are here...and they brought the baby too!

-Nathan(5)

Happy snowy Saturday everyone! :D It is pretty outside right now with an overcast sky and snowflakes gently falling. Perfect weather to curl up in a blanket, sip hot chocolate and read a good book. Looks like we are in for more winter weather over the next few days. We've had some windy days the past week or two and the jungle gym blew over again.

Last week we weighed Dad's calves at Graham's. We sorted them into small, medium and large groups so they'll be even groups when Dad sells them. Cattle prices are going down, feed is going up, etc. so we aren't sure when/what we should be selling and what kind of plan we should have. Erin and I weighed our calves at home here. The scale isn't working right now (it bounces around from -100 LB to + 100 LB when nothing is even on the scale) so we had to load the calves on the horse trailer and weigh them over the gravel scale. I'm really happy with the gain I've been getting on my calves as I've always had lower gain that expected. With the low price though I don't really want to sell right now but I don't want to keep for a lot longer either. The joys of owning cattle. :P :D

We finally got our meat back about a month ago from the butcher shop. Erin took the calf in the beginning of Oct. and it was supposed to hang for 21 days. It was the beginning of Dec before the regular cuts of beef were ready and then a couple more weeks before the jerky and patties were ready. They are short on employees and felt bad about how long the whole process took so gave us three extra bags of patties and didn't charge us for processing the jerky. So, that was nice.

Erin and I went to a newer fabric store in town. The lady that owns it used to work at Walmart and she was always nice so I don't mind supporting her...well, as long as the prices are way higher than the other fabric stores. :D She has discontinued patterns for $2 and, if you buy a piece of fabric, $1 which is a very good price here. Granted you can only get discontinued patterns but they aren't that old because I recognize them from some of the pattern books that must have been recently replaced.

I got a color copy done of the Paula Vaughan cross-stitch I started years *coughs* ago. Last night I colored the parts I've done which should help me to pick up where I'm more quickly. When you have larger areas of cream, tan, and grey it can be trickier to tell exactly where you are at on the pattern...at least that is the excuse I'm using. :P :D This is the longest a project has ever taken me and I want to start doing a little bit at least each week. It will be my first and last Paula Vaugh.

Last night I started working on a design for my quilt. After many years of use my log cabin quilt is falling apart...literally! I've had the fabric for a while and knew I wanted to use the Bear's Paw pattern for part of the design but also wanted to incorporate some other patterns. I came across one of Mom's quilt books the other day and found a couple other patterns which will work quite nicely. :) I'll be using Bear's Paw, Lone Star and Tree(Flying Geese pattern) and might see if I can find another pattern or two that might fit in with the theme. I love the log/rustic look (my dream place is a log cabin nestled back in the mountains :)) and was so excited when I found these fabrics because they are exactly what I was looking for and fit my tastes just perfect. :D

I was going to catch up on my post replies but decided to post an entry instead. :D

Our iron went on the fritz again. The last one we bought started working funny so Mom took it back to get a refund because it was still under warranty. This one now hasn't even lasted a year but since it was replaced they wouldn't give the normal warranty, only what was left on the first iron. Anyways, it was past the warranty time so Mom had to go and buy a new one. Now water comes out after you've been ironing for just a little bit even when only the steam option is selected. Annoying to say the least. So, I'd like to know what brand of iron do you all use? How long has it lasted you?

Yesterday the wind howled so we didn't have to weigh calves at Graham's. It was nice to have the day off "work" so I could get caught up on several projects around here. I cleaned up my room and organized it a bit. Erin was impressed. LOL! I put together the bookshelf that I bought at Canadian Tire a few weeks ago. I'll be moving it into my scrapbooking room eventually but for now I have it squeezed in between my rocking chair and hopechest along the wall. Erin and I have been working on sewing for some friends of ours. I've been working on the dresses and Erin has been doing the jumpers. The zipper for my last dress has disappeared and it is driving me crazy because I can't find it anywhere. Mom and Erin have found it to be quite humorous since that is not the type of thing to happen to me. The last dress is almost done except for this zipper and then the collar which has to be sewn on afterwards. I wanted to get this package all ready to go and now it is going to take another trip to the sewing store which will be at least a few days if not longer. Bah!

Graham bought some chocolates down last night when he came. There was half a box of hard/caramel chocolates...they were good! No, I didn't eat them all. :P :D I don't like soft chocolates like those creamy strawberry ones or having to search the box trying to find a hard chocolate amidst the soft ones and finding out your attempt was not successful.

It seems I had some other news to mention but it has left me. Probably will come to me as soon as I shut down the computer. :P :D

Erin just came in with my CD order from Marshalls! It actually came yesterday but we couldn't find the mail keys. They had a deal on if you ordered their three newest CDs.

I was working on a sewing project but the iron quite working last night so I couldn't do much more today before needing the iron.

Just listened to the last two HSAIR shows last night. Erin watched them with me and I "interpreted" it through certain parts because she isn't on HSA and doesn't know the people there. Anyways, it was fun to relax and laugh. :D