Farm Friday (OK, not really....)
I know that normally I do a fun, random posting about life on the Farm on Friday.
But today, I'm writing a very short post because I have such exciting news.

As of this morning, (actually, as of about 10 minutes ago because I just made the online payment)....

WE HAVE ZERO CREDIT CARD DEBT!

I am no expert, but really, we just made a commitment to spending less, saving more and paying off the debt a little at a time and wala!  Paid off.

Thank you for allowing me to shout out my news!
Happy Friday and Happy Easter everyone!

Ace of Cakes Ain't Got Nothin' on Me.....
This weekend the Big Guy and I headed down to my Grandpa's house for an early Easter gathering.  Well...it was billed as an "Early Easter", but really?  It was to meet my Grandpa's girlfriend, Lois.  She wanted to meet all of us.  Grandpa asked....we went.  My mom even flew in from Montana!


Because our family gatherings have been pot-luck style since about 1982, I agreed to bring dessert.  I decided to make a rainbow cake!


What started out as individual cakes tinted with a boat load of food coloring.....

Ended up as a frosted tower of sugar goodness (no, the frosting isn't funfetti--those are crumbs from the cake....clearly I still need practice).

And when sliced, it looked like this.....

My goof ball husband.

When I served the first slice, the room gasped and a really-loud, "WOW!!" was heard by all.
I'm serious!
They gasped!
They wow'd!


All for a cake!

Thankfully we didn't need to worry about a sugar coma.  My grandpa tests his blood sugar....so, if anyone was in real trouble, he would have known what to do.  I hope.

Farm Friday:  Something Unique....
When I got my new job, I remember getting my hair cut at my little hometown Aveda salon.  When I told my stylist where we were moving, she said, "I LOVE old farm houses.  They have so much character."  I sat there, nodded and thought, "yeah...character...sure.  But it's in the country."


Today, I totally understand what she was talking about.


Take this photo for example:

You may be looking at this and thinking...."why are you showing us a photo of a hardwood floor?"
Well.
It's not the floor.
Nor is it a wall.


It's the ceiling of our living room.

(pardon the dust....we're still hanging the trim...)

Yes!  The ceiling of our living room is made of real cedar planks.  And I have to tell you, there are days that I sit on the couch and just find myself looking up at the ceiling and thinking, "that's just cool..."


Shhhh....don't tell the Big Guy....but I think I may actually like it here.
I guarantee you I'll change my tune when summer hits (NO A/C....sigh)

My Only Fur Comes from the Cat....
I was in Chicago last week for a work trip.  I stayed at the very swanky & very, very, very expensive Fairmont Hotel.  


I totally love going through the drawers and snagging the free stuff in a hotel.  As I was reading the hotel "book" (you know...the book with the room service menu, hours of operations, etc) I noticed this:

Yeah.
I'll just be over here eating the banana bread that I brought from home and drinking water out of the tap.

Farm Friday:  Shoveling Dirt is Dangerous....


I came home earlier this week to see my husband, the Big Guy, out in the front yard with a spade shovel, a 5 gallon bucket, and a pile of dirt that had been scraped up earlier this winter from the driveway.  He was scooping up the dirt and putting it back into the driveway to help fill in some of the deep tire tracks we've created in the soggy, gravel driveway.


Here he is....talking about who knows what with one of his friends hard at work.

As I looked out the kitchen window I couldn't help but notice that my husband was wearing a gun holster, which--yes--contained a handgun.

Scooping up driveway dirt is a dangerous job.
Thankfully, I've got my husband to protect me!


And for the record, my husband's hobby is a gun collecting.  
They are all locked in a gun safe and are stored unloaded.
We take gun safety seriously.
  

And I Thought I was a Picky Eater....
You know that dinner wasn't very good when:
1.  You eat half of your serving, and instead have a bagel with peanut butter
2.  Your husband doesn't want to keep the left overs

3.  The farm dog doesn't even want to eat it.
Curious?  It was this, but I used tri-color-veggie pasta rather than spaghetti.

Farm Friday, edition 4….
Exhibit A.
My homemade laundry soap.

Yes. I make my own laundry soap. If you want to see how to make it…you can read about it here. Total cost for the laundry soap? About $1.40 per batch and each batch makes enough for 28 loads or so. I’ve been doing it for about 2 years now!




Exhibit B.
The bag that held the extra soap that didn’t fit into the bucket I keep near the washer.

Exhibit C.
A hole in the bag.

Exhibit D.
The mouse poop that was discovered near the bag of laundry soap, which now has a hole in it.

Yep.


Two weeks ago the Big Guy says to me, “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think we have a mouse.” My reply was, “How do you know? You realize that there is never such a thing as ‘a’ mouse, right?” He said he saw one in the basement and thinks that the mouse got in when they carried in an old love seat that had been out in the garage for a few weeks prior to our move.


He set traps, and the next morning I had a text message that read, “Got ‘em”
“Em” being plural. There were two.
I said to the Big Guy, “I hope they didn’t take ‘love seat’ literally and procreate.”


We reset the traps, and caught nothing more.


On Sunday, I was taking items down to the basement for storage. As I set down some empty totes near the shelves in the laundry room, my eyes happened to catch a glimpse of Exhibit D.


I. FREAKED. OUT.


We reset the traps again.
Really, though….eating laundry soap?


I hope that they got sicker than a dog eating laundry soap and got the hell out of my house.