Our first egg!!!!

Yay, the first egg (and check out our ladies in the background!)

Do you know which egg is the one our chickens laid?

Just had to post it - last night one of our almost 5 month old Buff Orpingtons laid their very first egg! I heard commotion in the chicken coop, but lately they've been pretty loud at times so I didn't really think much of it. Matthew went out, and lo and behold he came back in holding our very first egg! It was little, and brown, but quite tasty! By the way, do you know how to tell what color a chicken's egg will be? They have a small patch on the side of their head near their 'ears', and that is almost always the exact color their eggs will be - pretty cool!

Nature's beauty

Poofy clouds ...

The sunrise behind our wind turbine ...

Ahhh ... Life is Good :-)

I sold our home!

A day after my horrible fiasco with my email account, I sold our home! Yes, you heard me right. And, you ask, is this a good thing? Selling our home? Of course it is! But, what home you might ask?! Well, it was our home for 5 months (while we remodeled our now gorgeous beautiful new home).

The home I sold was our 1987 Alfa Gold 29' trailer!

We've been using this 'home' for storage since we moved out of it in September 2007. Seemed like it was time, we knew it was time - we even just managed recently to get the items out of it that we had been storing. What kind of stuff do you store in a trailer such as this? Well, boxes and boxes of glassware - yup, drinking glasses, wine glasses, glasses of all shapes and sizes! I mean, how many glasses can one actually use?! We kept enough to fill our dining room hutch, but it was time to let a lot of it go. Even got rid of a set of Normal Rockwell mugs, a beautiful teapot and plates, 2 punch bowls with cups, and a mish mash of other stuff (some were sold at Relay for Life rummage sale, the rest to a Soroptomist Rummage Sale - I felt better as they are both good causes).

Anyway, we've been talking about clearing it out and selling it, but as I find often, everything happens in its own time. And, everything about selling this trailer just fell into place - getting rid of the stuff, and finding a buyer for it! I had just put a 'for sale' sign in the window a week or so ago, and it just so happened that someone driving by saw it, stopped, and I happened to look out to see them looking at the trailer - we spoke for a short time, and about an hour after that they brought me cash! I have to add though, that in between the time they said they'd buy it and they brought the cash, I spoke with the vet ... and all I can say is 'easy come easy go' - looks like one dog needs a biopsy, the other needs a ruptured cyst removed. But, hey, at least we have the cash to cover it (almost)!


On a last note - it's going to be so strange looking out the window and not seeing that old trailer out there. I can see the trees now, but that trailer has been there for years - literally! And, it's like selling an old friend, like selling memories ... hubby's parents traveled quite a bit in that, camping at a variety of Thousand Trails RV Parks, and the kids all have fond memories of Grandma & Papa and the trailer. It is just a 'thing', and we are still blessed to have those memories. (Besides, we still have the truck!)

Here are a few shots of our trailer driving down the road ...

Bye bye, trailer!

If it seems too good to be true ...

I suppose I shouldn't have opened my mouth so soon, spouted off about how great our SCE bill was - after all it came in 2 months in a row at just over $1! I knew, I just knew it was too good to be true. And, yes, sadly it was. Since we moved 3 years ago hubby kept thinking there was something we could do with the wind machine that hadn't been used for many many years. He thought and thought and thought - he figured we get a good amount of wind here, and that somehow it could be turned into energy. Well, the day finally came where that did indeed happen. We became proud owners of a wind turbine. The wind machine is no more, and now every time there is a breeze I can just hear the sounds *cha ching cha ching*. And, for 2 months that sound was LOUD because I thought our bill was a mere $1. I kept looking at our bill, wondering where the hidden information was, and finally I found it. I didn't realize that when we switched over to the wind turbine that we would be paying our actual bill only ONE TIME PER YEAR! The $1 we pay each month is just a tax portion, but the rest is just waiting to be paid, I'm not sure when, but when SCE decides. Thankfully, I'm fairly meticulous in my money management and had been putting away our savings in an account to help pay off the wind turbine so the money hadn't been spent, just put aside. I had proudly posted on FB that our SCE bill was super low, but sadly I now have to take that back. Our beautiful wind turbine is definitely saving us money, but not in the bucketloads I thought it was for those 2 months. Oh well, it was a fun 2 months, and we are still making a difference, savings some energy, and making a difference in our energy consumption and our environment. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, right?!

Did I really do that?!

I can't believe I did that! Did I really? And, it can't be undone? Really? Wiped out completely?! Of what am I talking about you ask? My family's email accounts - yup, wiped clean, irretrievable information, off into cyberspace. I cannot believe I did what I did. I was trying to save money, trying to simplify. I had decided we didn't need our family website, it was a pain to update, I only updated about 3-4 times a year, I had looked and looked and looked at how I needed to make my account changes, spoke with a customer service person on the phone, and still managed to screw it up! Oh well, I had been meaning to clean out my email inbox anyway ... hmmm, guess I did that didn't I! And, my 2 step daughter's, my son's, and my husband's as well. I'm sure there wasn't anything in there that was of any huge importance, but I also know that I won't really know what's missing for months. Ah, technology - the question is, how wonderful is it really?! The next question is ... will my step daughters and husband forgive me?!

Our dog, a lemon?! Certainly not!

Our Malcolm, dear sweet, lovable Malcolm, a lemon?! I spoke with the vet today because dear sweet lovable Malcolm is having some skin fungus issues (bleh!), as well as some other weird stuff. I'm at my wit's end with his skins issues because it's in between the folds of his neck skin and it doesn't get any air! I'm supposed to keep it clean and pray he doesn't scratch at it which makes it worse. At night when he starts to scratch at it, I launch myself out of bed to stop him, and after a few too many launches I just bed down with him on the floor (well, not exactly - I do have a tempurpedic style bed pad on the floor).
Anyway, talked with the vet today and she is baffled by our beautiful baby. He has skull atrophy, and it appears his whole front end is muscularly atrophied. She's really trying to figure out what's going on with his atrophy issues and skin issues (she even said she wondered if he had a brain tumor - yikes!). I don't think she meant it as badly as it sounds, but she said something about us kind of getting a 'lemon', but she said it didn't seem like it mattered because he's such a lovable dog. We think he's a hunka lunka love, but we are finding out that maybe he has some 'disabilities'. It doesn't really matter, it's just important that he found his way into our home and our hearts.

3 days of birthday - you can't beat that!

We had a great day of miniature golfing, ice cream, dinner and more ice cream for Matthew's official birthday celebration (the day before his birthday). The next day (his actual birthday), we were going to start with donuts, but being that we had overdone it on ice cream we had to wait a bit. But, not worries, we did force ourselves to get those donuts (and put candles in them for a birthday wish!).

We also got to watch some of the great Tom & Jerry cartoons - the old ones, not new ones - they're the best!

On the 31st, we got to have yet another day of birthday celebration with cousin Jackson - he turned 3! Check it out - he had to stick his finger in the cake first ...

... followed by his face! Now that's a boy who gets into his birthday cake!

Happy Birthday Matthew and Jackson!