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I've been trying to stock up on canning jars for the day when our efforts start to prove a little bit more profitable, and we have stuff to can. God has blessed me in that. I was given tons, which are on my shelf - the shelf that i really needed so that i would have some place to put my jars. Then today, i was in the Senior Center thrift store in Coldspring (which is one of my favorite places to shop), and i had given up on getting anything today and was on my way out of the store, when i saw this: Three dozen jars for $4.00! Rockin'! Oh here's a little tip i just recently learned: Classico spaghetti sauce comes in canning jars! They're not quite as big, but there totally usable and made by the same company that makes the canning jars that are actually sold for that purpose. Awesome, huh?

Recently, i've started looking into getting a job. You know, the kind you have to leave home to do - and then someone gives you a paycheck for doing it? Yeah, a job. James makes plenty of money for us to live happily at our little home. But we have a few lofty goals that we would like to put on fast forward. So, it seems appropriate that i find a way to bring in a little extra cash. James was talking to someone he knows about some possible insider job information, and he told this person about me, "she's steady as the mail." He has said this kind of thing about me before, so i asked him, "do you think i'm steady as the mail, honey?" "At work," he said simply. I laughed out loud, and i don't think he understood why. The information omitted speaks volumes. I guess i need to work on my home steadiness. Haha!

Believe it or not, i do have interests outside of the world of raising chickens. I know. Shocker! One of those interests is genealogy. For whatever reason, something inside of me is absolutely fascinated by the study of family lines and histories and whatnot. One item of interest that i have discovered is that in a particular one of my family lines (and incidentally a particular one of my husband's family lines - but that's a different point of interest and not yet fully explored), every one of the immigrants to the U.S. seems to have originated from a place called Canton of Berne, Switzerland. I have also discovered three (so far) near-the-turn-of-the-last-century publications, outlining lineages within my family tree. These books are old enough that they are out of copyright and now available FOR FREE on Google Books. Google Books has become an awesome resource for genealogical research for me. Sometimes, in these books, a footnote or an introduction will reveal interes...

The last few months, my life has been pretty much consumed by chickens. Sounds strange, i know, but we have goals and whatnot. And we've figured out that we have to focus on one goal at a time, or we have nothing but goals--and no accomplishments. Our new chicks (26 of them) have been in our wonderful outdoor brooder for several weeks now. But chickens grow quickly. They probably double in size every week for the first several weeks, and then they slow down a little, but not much. So we knew they were going to get crowded pretty soon. So we've been putting every extra dime into finishing the coop....actually, the most immediate goal was to finish the inside of the coop to make it suitable for chickens to live. Then we can deal with the outside of the coop later. Yesterday, we put chickens in the coop ! Oh what grand relief! In the process, i burned a chemical burn hole in my finger, cut off the center of the fingerprint on my thumb with a pair of scissors (which looks sma...

or not Today, my husband and i painted the inside of our chicken coop together. This is a level of marital that we have not attempted in a very long time. Turns out, we were fine. We had fun. If you're married, you may have learned the hard way when there were certain things that you and your dear loved one weren't quite ready to endure each other through. Sometimes, we have to work extra hard to learn to work together. Mostly, James and i have learned to let the other shine in his or her own area. But today, we painted TOGETHER, and it was nice. Now, there's a certain freedom in painting the inside of a chicken coop. No one's going to notice if i really glob it on (o.k. once he did, but i retorted with a 'do you have a problem with that,' and everything was o.k.). If i didn't paint with the grain, no one's going to notice. Basically the point is to simply cover the wood with paint so that the chickens can subsequently poop on everything that can ...

http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/ Be sure to click on the 'next page' doo dad at the bottom of each page, or you'll wonder why i posted this. Kind of groovy. =D