It's Bean-Time!

Man a year goes by fast! It just seems like yesterday I was pickin' and a snappin'. Beans that is. Yesterday we had absolutely gorgeous weather with the temperature reaching only 84 degrees F but I unfortunately didn't get to enjoy much of it. Besides sitting on the deck snapping beans, I was inside canning. Two batches equalling 13 quarts. Canner takes 7 quarts at once but one was for eatin'. Canning one batch takes about 2 hours counting cooking the beans (hot pack), filling the jars, getting them in the canner, processing and finally the cool down to get them out of the canner. Actual processing time is just 25 minutes for quarts.


Even Asher helped with the snappin'. Of course we had to go in and investigate his beans or we might end up eating who knows what. We used bush beans, Kentucky Wonder this year.

These beans are out of our garden even though you see the Walmart bags. Once our buckets get full, we put them in the bags so we can keep picking using our bowls and buckets which are easy to spray with the hose to clean the garden dirt off.

This is a pretty good size sink, the best way to wash them in my opinion. Swirl the beans around then dunk a strainer in to fish them out then spray with water again. Easy peasy.

So here's the fruit of our labor. My labor. I was the only one canning. No one even came in for a drink while I was doing this... hmmm. I only had two casualties. Two jars fell from my counter with a crash and glass went everywhere. Good thing I guess the little fella wasn't under foot.


If you've never canned before, it's actually way less scarier than it sounds. Just get yourself a large canner, jars lids and bands, a jar puller outer thingy (technical name) and canning salt. You can either buy the fresh beans or grow them. Easy and very gratifying. I've got an awesome salsa recipe that you can can here.


Hopefully this is the first of bunches of more jars for the winter. We eat a lot of beans around here. It's just about the only green thing my kid will eat. We've got high temps of 105 Thursday, 106 Friday and Saturday! Thank God I won't be pickin' beans ;) at least for another week or so. Good water time temps.


Catch ya later,

WEEEEE! My curtains are in and up!

actually pretty heavy, picked up from JCPenny catalog pickup

Not too much in the way of words today, but if you all could see the great big smile on my face you wouldn't need to hear anything (or read). My mom would be so proud, ha ha. She would love these curtains, too. So here are a few pics I took this morning. I picked up the curtains last Wednesday so I've had to wait all this time to have them up! But I am so thrilled with the final outcome. Just come and look :)

I had to get one out and look at it.

I am so happy with this fabric. It is so pretty. I don't think I could've recreated this, not even close.

so cute!

They pick up on all the black elements I have in the kitchen and just looks so much more cozier.

I love them with my mother's copper she gave me

Yay!

Ahhhh

In other news, Asher is doing just great. We have a follow up appointment on Wednesday and his eye almost looks as though nothing happened. He still has some minor bruising but it has not hurt him in the least and he has been very good about letting me put in the ointment to help it heal fast. Click here to see what I'm talking about, if you don't know.

Playing his Mobigo game

The kittens are growing so fast! I'll post some super cute pictures soon and I also have a Cherry Cheesecake recipe I want to share. It is soooo yummy. See ya soon!

I did it!

I did it! I bought my curtains for my kitchen! You guys are not gonna believe the deal I got on my curtains that I was telling you guys about and asked advice for. I have great advice from all you friends out there in blogland and thank you all so much for your kind and encouraging words. I thought about sewing my own curtains for about 2 seconds and ditched that idea simply because there are so many windows and I had to face reality, I just don't have that kind of free time. If I did, I would be creating more art than I am.

I left you all last with them costing $29.99 on sale thru Saturday and I had a 15% off coupon, and I needed 10 of them. Well, I went in to the JCPenny Home Store tonight and thought I'll just look at them in person and make sure this is what I want and that they are worth the money. A lot of you mentioned that they were a fair price and I whole heartedly agree, but I love to get a bargain. So I walked in and the nice ladies there were all friendly and willing to help me so I felt comfortable to tell them I was looking for a better deal on the curtains. One mentioned the scratch off tickets they had behind the counter. She helped me by looking them up in the computer and I went off with her to look at the curtains but they didn't have my color, which I was surprised. I just figured they wouldn't have the ten that I needed. I asked her if she had any intuition about which scratch offs were "winners" as in 30% off which is the maximum you can get off and she told me she'd been pretty good the last few times she picked them out. We went back to the register and she offered me a scratch off ticket and BAM! It was 30% OFF! So she helped me order them and I don't even have to pay shipping because I can pick them up at the store! Ok, I know you are dying to know what they ended up costing... so (drum roll, please... dat dat dat dat dat...) $17.89 each! Can you believe that??? I am so delighted! These are normally $55.00 each! I am just so thrilled, it must be meant to be that I have curtains instead of pokey corners pointing out at me all the time :)

They are supposed to be in next Wednesday evening so next week I hope to be posting pictures of my new window treatments soon! I know they are going to just transform the look of my kitchen and I can't wait!! I don't think I could've even made them much cheaper than this. I'm so happy!!

Oh and one thing I'd like to ask of all of you. Please say a little prayer for my son, Asher. He has had a what I thought to be a stye in his eye for about 2 weeks now and it has gotten so bad and not healing I took him in to the doctor on Monday and she put him on antibiotics, oral and drops and wanted to know Thursday morning if it had not improved and then to get him into an eye doctor. It now looks kinda fleshy and has a hard knot under his eye, like where we get bags. Well, it's not better and I am so worried that it's a tumor or something terrible like that. It looks pretty bad and the thing that scares me is it doesn't hurt him. I've always had a lot of soreness with a stye. So we have an eye doctors appointment Friday at 11:15 am. I'm worried he may have to have it lanced, be put under, that it is a tumor or worse that he could lose his vision! I know... my mama worrying habit is getting the better of me and I shouldn't worry until he tells us what it is. But I can't help it. So please, just a quick prayer or special thought at that time that he is healed and it turns out to be no big deal.

Thank you all my friends! Here's some super sweet pictures of the twins.

Lightning - doesn't she look like a nautilus shell all curled up?

Thunder - he's more of a straight out sleeper, look at that cute fat little belly

Calling all craftiest creative ideas please!

So I've lived in my home for 7 and a half years and we have a great view of our lake and woods so I've never wanted to cover it up with drapes, blinds or curtains. Until now. I am tired of it looking like I'm getting ready to move. The edges look hard to me and pokey. ha ha I guess that is a word. These pictures are of my kitchen where I'm lucky enough to have 10 windows! Not so lucky when you figure up the cost of window treatments.

Pokey

For all these years we've suffered through the sun coming in and blinding us during this time of year when the sun is low all the way through spring. Our kitchen table is along the long wall of windows that are south facing and it gets hot, too. Since we have our big meal at noon, the sun has always been a problem during this time. I've finally had enough. Maybe it's the added aggravation of the twin kittens! (Which one by the way peed twice on the floor last night and once in the box that has trash bags in them!!! arrgh!!!) So this photo is what I've come up with to be a makeshift sun block for the 30 minutes we sit there and eat. Pretty sad.

Make shift tacky

less tacky but isn't working

Ok, so here it is a little prettier, but when the sun is coming in, it only shades the chair on the right. I absolutely love paprika color and I think it looks fabulous especially with the sun coming in gently right now, but my walls are very close to this color so I want more contrast. I have touches of black everywhere and a dark sage-y green and black countertops.

So I've been looking online and found a valance from JC Penny and I think I really like it and want to commit to it. I can hide a shade under it and pull it down as needed. Here it is.

Love this!!

I think I'm in love with the black and white, it's just a tad French-y looking and I kinda like that. I really love this fabric and I want it!!! Unfortunately, it is not big enough for my windows plus they are $29.99 each, and that is on sale! Normally they are $55. Oh boy. I cannot afford that. That would be $160.45 which really isn't that bad for the whole room, but it doesn't matter, because they are too short by 10".

This is Waverly fabric called Bluebell I think from what I read on the valance description So I thought to myself I could just buy the fabric and make some myself. I've made several sets of simple curtains for myself in the past. So I've been on a mad search for this fabric and cannot find it! Could it be Waverly made this fabric just for Penny's? Surely not! I hope not! Has anyone got any ideas on what to do next??

Long wall of windows

still pokey but cute with kitten on couch ;)

speaking of kittens, here's my attempt to keep them out of plants (below)

foiled!

If anyone has ideas on how to get ahold of this fabric, I'm all ears! I may have to settle for something similar, but I really want to try my best to get it. I may even try to make my own fabric with some fabric paint and a brush or maybe stamps? I'll take all the ideas I can get... HELP!