Sunny Winter Days

Today I have carted the kids off to my dad and mom's house.  I have purposefully tried to get everything accomplished that I can think of so that I can have a few hours to write on my book, but now Adam is home early from work so I guess I will have to put off book writing until I get his lunch made and see what he is up to for the rest of the day.  Plans never go quite as smoothly as you previously expected, do they?  Tonight, however, we are going to go on a date, which we try to do once a month, so I am very excited for that!

Yesterday was one of our stay-at-home days.  Its hard to navigate the stay-at-home-days, because without a car ride to break up the monotony the kids can definitely wear this mama out.  But here lately I've started a routine that works out great.  Here's a few pictures from our day at home yesterday of things we did and saw.

-Some potatoes leftover from the garden.  We keep them in buckets in our garage and they stay fresh all winter long for us to enjoy at our leisure.

-I thought this would make for a cute picture of all our boots.  Not exactly what you would see in a home and garden magazine, but still lovely I would say.  A picture like this shows a family actually lives in their footwear, they don't just buy the boots for cute decoration.

-Our garden shed, which is currently a mess inside and in great need of some organization.  It is also in need of a mouse trap or two which I better get on top of pronto or we will have a new mouse colony on our hands.  Our outside kittens do not quite understand the concept of catching mice yet, but hopefully in the future they will get it.

-An amazing bloom on a bush by the side of our house.  I have not seen this bush bloom in the whole two years we have been here, and then about a month ago it decided it was time to unveil its true potential.  I cannot believe I have a budding flower on anything in the middle of December, but there you have it!

-Here is a picture of my bird feeding station.  My dad and mom put this together for me for my birthday this past year, which was a great gift.  I believe it is a 4x4 treated wood post, and my dad dug a couple of feet into the ground and set the post in without concrete.  It is very sturdy, and my mom picked out a lovely solar light for the top that puts out a soft glow each night.

-My husband, Adam, makes fun of me for havin these geese.  A cousin of his actually had them previously, and I asked if I could have them for my own because it looked like they were not getting much use.  They brought them over for us, and I have intentions of painting them some interesting colors and make use of my dormant art skills.

-Here is a picture of our garden.  The tall dried stalks in the background are okra, and the broken down stalks in the foreground are leftover from sunflowers.  In the middle I dump ashes from our fireplace as well as food compost, because they are all very good for your soil.

-Here is our pile of wood currently in our garage.  If we have a fire going non-stop, this will last us two weeks.

-A cast iron bell of a cocker spaniel, similar to our family dog Lilly.  I put this bell on one of our barns low enough for the kids to ring.

-And last but certainly not least, I got out some watercolors for the kids to play with which brought back some nostalgia for myself and my days in college where I painted almost daily getting my fine art degree.  It was a lot of fun to see the kids enjoy some time being creative.  I would have included my daughter in this photo but she was getting ready for a bath by the time I could grab a camera to take a photo.  Let's just say she got more paint on herself than on the paper.