PRO-Crastination

I'm telling you now, in case you were wondering if you should entrust me with a project that you might like completed at some point in the near future...the answer is..likely no. I am a professional procrastinator. (next to my friend Jessie...she would argue she holds the title...it would be close).

I am not sure if I mentioned, but recently...and by recently I mean in the last year...we moved kids around in the rooms.  Twins were sharing a room...and now Agent P and Monkey share the room with the bunks and Mini P has her own room.

And good like I am with all projects...I forget that I actually have time constraints. Ages 5-15.  But, I moved a little of this and a little of that and VIOLA! Rooms were changed...

Or that is how I wished it went.

As I moved dressers and whatnot, I decided to just throw a coat of paint on the walls. One wall is nearly unreachable due to the loft, so really, dark brown is perfect. And frankly I can find a girl color to go with dark brown.

So. Pink.

I painted around the closet, door and main wall...

Got her some new girl things to hang so that her room looked more girlie.

And then...

Ya know.

I stopped.

But I have to tell you. I stopped at a point that when I walk down the hall..I don't actually notice it too much.

Of course you are thinking "what a genius"!  I know, I know...I admit, it was genius!

Now, I can walk down the hall and not have her room scream "YOU DIDN'T FINISH PAINTING YET!!!".

Funny, she hasn't really noticed, nor has anyone else.  

I may get to it...eventually...hopefully before the paint goes bad.

But, I have to paint around a window plus move the loft and paint in a very narrow spot - about 2 feet in depth and I'm just not looking forward to it. 

I will let you know when I get a round to it :)

Cheers!

The Naughty List

Yesterday, little miss Mini P put me on the naughty list.

Time out is what I would have preferred if I was to be in trouble...time out..in a hot bubble bath with a movie playing while I was left alone in solitary confinement for 3 hours.

But since Mini P decided to take discipling into her own hands yesterday, (delivering a swat to a brother who wouldn't listen to her), she got sent to timeout AND had her computer time taken away.

Well, she didn't care about timeout, but her computer time? That sent her through the roof. She screamed and hollered and talked to herself about the unfairness of it all, stomped and screamed some more...then made a drawing of her feelings...because hollering and screaming just weren't helping to relieve her feelings about the injustice of it all....

It says "MOM" at the top.  The 2 people in the middle - 1 is Mini P (on left) 1 is me (on right-can't you see my snarling face???).  She says "your mean".  I'm saying "you do not get vg" (video game - which is what she thinks her websites are that she is allowed on - mostly all educational).  

At the bottom it says "not Ainslie, mommy"

Apparently, I've been told. :)

Cheers!

Eating off the land

We have a small garden in our back lot, past the pool. 

Not big, just a few things - zucchini, dead tomatoes, strawberries, some chile plant, watermelon (which seems to be vining on things and basically dominating entire raised bed), peas or beans of sorts, near dead cilantro, squash, cucumber...I think that's it.  

BUT, it has been low on production. 

Here is what I had to feed the family for the week:

Yup.  2 small carrots, some beans (peas maybe? green beans?) strawberries and a cucumber.

Livin' large aren't we??

Last year I couldn't keep up with the zucchini. This year I was prepared with a plethora of great recipes to keep up on dinner varieties. 

I've gotten about 4.

So, frustrated with my lack of food going on MY land, I decided to take the kids to an orchard and pick some of THEIR food. 

I enlisted some help, because we tend to over pick and have trouble carrying it all.  So, help we got! (Really what I think we got was 2 more people picking...thus multiplying our load even more, but whatever!)

Hey, someone has to test the peach...you can't just 'pick' and hope the variety you are picking is your favorite.  You must sample.  It's a rule.

This guy ate 2 apples and 2 peaches while at the orchard...the boy loves his fruit!

So, we started in the apple orchard and moved on to peaches.  As usual, I am pretty sure we got too much:

Peaches

Apples

Because the 6 people in my family need this much fruit for the week.

Thus far, I have frozen 2 batches of peaches for cobbler or pie (about 5 peaches per batch), I made a cobbler and we subsequently ate it. I have canned 3 pints (I think that is what size...) of cut up peaches, 3 pints of peach butter (like apple butter...but with peach), 3 pints of peach syrup or something that might serve as a syrup since I have NO IDEA how to make syrup and at the end of the day I made it all, I was DONE and just added some pectin and called it 'syrup'. 

I currently have another batch of peaches cooking for another round peach butter and syrup. To add to the chaos, I bulk order ground beef and chicken - and the beef was scheduled for pick up in the midst of this and I had to package 40lbs of ground beef into 1.5-2lb food saver bags, seal them and freeze them.

Pretty sure I'm not cooking dinner tonight...the kitchen is a PIT. 

Hope the family loves peach butter and syrup...
Cheers!