Thank God for a Warm Home!!!!

Well the frigid temps have reached Southwest VA. This morning I left to go to the grocery store at 8:30, the temp in my car was 22 degrees. When I got back home from the store it was around 9:30, the temp in my car was 18 degrees. Yucky, yuck, yuck!! Too cold for comfort. At least its not as cold here as it is further up North.

I was just Thanking the Lord for having a nice warm home to come home too. Also for the fact that our wood stove is back to working order and no longer smoking the house up. Now I feel like curling up in the recliner with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book or maybe crocheting. My mom gave me a book on learning to crochet for Christmas. I'm trying, not so good yet. But I'll keep practicing.

Hope you all stay warm and remember to Thank God for your warm homes!!

Wood Heat!

We heat our home almost exclusively with wood heat. We have baseboard heaters in a few rooms that we turn on occassionaly and we also have a propane heater on our wall in the living room. We have not used it much this year because we need more propane.

I have never really minded wood heat. I mean its so much cheaper than running electric heat and the heat seems to be warmer. But it is a lot of work. You have to cut and haul wood, split it, carry it inside and then get a fire started (I have trouble with this) and then maintain it so it doesn't go out. Even though it is a lot of work I've always kind of enjoyed it.

That is until the past few days. This whole winter we have noticed that it hasn't been drawing as good as it used too. We really didn't think anything about it until this week. Everytime we tried to build a fire it wouldn't burn and smoke would come into the house everytime we opened the door. Travis took the pipe off and there was some creosote build up in there so we removed it and cleaned the trap from the chimney outside. It still didn't work. I told him maybe something was blocking in the chimney, he seemed to think the weather had a lot to do with it, because it had been really rainy and windy. Well today we tried building a fire and it started smoking even more. I went to town for a little bit and when I came back Travis said it had smoke rolling out of the whole thing. Our house was so smokey. So he went on the roof and had a long pole that he ran down in the chimney and discovered the problem. A tree limb had feel into the chimney and then creosote build up around it causing a blockage in the chimney. This is why it wasn't drawing and smoke was entering the house. He was able to knock it all down and remove it from the trap on the chimney.

We are so thankful that we didn't have a flu fire. I know we could have very easily had one. Now we are going to make sure the chimney is clean every year before fire season. By the way I don't mind the wood heat again, until I have to build a fire again.

Snow Day and Monkey Bread!!

Today we have a little bit of snow. Right now its just a little dusting, but its still snowing a little bit so we may get some more. Colton was so excited because they closed school. Emma was mad because she loves school and didn't want to miss. She kept saying I can still go, Colton doesn't have too. She couldn't understand that everyone will not be going to school today. She finally got over it once she seen the monkey bread.

I thought monkey bread would be really good for breakfast today since the kids were home from school. I had never made it for them before but knew they would love it because they love cinnamon rolls. I was right they did and it was so quick and easy to make. It was a really good treat.

Monkey Bread:

1/2 c. chopped pecans (I didn't have any of these)
3 cans refrigerated biscuits, quartered
3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. melted margarine

Sprinkle pecans over the bottom of a greased bundt pan. Roll biscuits in mixture of sugar and cinnamon to coat. Arrange in pan. Mix brown sugar with margarine. Pour over biscuits. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn onto a plate. Enjoy!!

TGIM-Thank God It's Monday

Bet you never heard anyone say that before! But today my kids went back to school after Christmas break. I love when my kids are home, but after being off for two weeks, I was more than ready to have them go back to school. Christmas break is different than summer break, because they don't get to go outside and play as much, because its too cold. They got on each others nerves so bad all they did was fight and fuss. They defiantly needed to get back into their normal routine. Me too.

Last week Travis was home and we started painting our dining room. We painted over the dark paneling that was in there. We painted bone white and it looks so much better it made it so much brighter. I am planning on finishing the other walls today. They shouldn't be as hard to paint as the paneling was. It was a real job. We have plans to paint most of the walls in our home. We are going to paint our dark kitchen cabinets white and put new knobs and hinges on them to brighten up our kitchen. We also want to paint our living room walls, not sure what color yet.

We have been married for nine years and I have never really took any initative to decorate and make our house nicer and more homey. I guess I've always thought I didn't want to put too much into it, because we want to add on sometime. I thought we would have been able to add on sooner, but now I am content with not being able to have a bigger home. Our home is very small. Two bedrooms and one bathroom, living room, kitchen, dining room, and laundry room. I would love to have a larger home. But I am learning to be content and thankful for what we have. We are lucky to have a home and 10 acres of land. There are many people out there that would love to own their own home. So we might get on each others nerves, and we may not have too much privacy, but at least we have a home. You know what they say- Love grows in small houses.

I know that eventually we will either be able to add on to this home or build a new home. But now I'm trying to make this home a better place for us. We will have what we want in time, but for now we will make do with what we do have. So I'm going to start decorating. I'm wanting a primitive country theme. We remodeled our bathroom a few years ago and did it in a primitive americana theme and I really love it. I'm getting excited about decorating our whole house and know that I will have to do it one step at a time to not spend to much money. So enough babbling on I need to get busy painting. Wish me luck on my decorating.

Save Handmade Toys!

You will notice the cute little teddy bear on the side of the screen. Please click on this and read the story. I'm sure most of you have heard about the government trying to pass a law to make toy manufacturers do more testing on toys. This is a good thing to prevent toys with lead paint like from China entering the US. But it will also have bad affects on small toy makers that make handmade toys. So the little man that makes a few hundred stick horses a year to sale at craft fairs, or the old lady that knits handmade booties to supplement her social security, or the stay at home that makes homemade hair bows for little girls will be out of business. They are making the testing so expensive that these small businesses and everyday people trying to make extra money will no longer be able to do this.

If you care about this matter click on the teddy bear button and follow the directions on the site. We all need to let our voices be heard. They are also not going to allow children toys and clothes to be sold at thrift stores. This is going to hurt lots of people, including me. I get lots of my kids clothes at the goodwill and thrift stores. Please do something. We can't let this pass. Thank you.

Way to go HOKIES!!

We were so excited last night VA Tech Hokies won the Orange Bowl against Cincinatti. It was a very exciting game. This was one of the only games that Travis got to watch this year because of his work schedule, so we were very happy it was a good one. We live only 45 minutes from Blacksburg were VA Tech is and we love Hokies football. What a great way to ring in the new year. GO HOKIES!!!

The picture is of Darren Evans the game MVP. He had a really great night.

Happy New Years!!

I hope everyone has a very happy New Year. I pray that you have a safe, healthy, happy, and prosperous 2009. May all your dreams and goals for the coming year come true. Happy New Years and God Bless!!