Pet chickens

Matthew loves to jump. He is pretty much always in motion as is any 2 year old. Jumping is his favorite activity though. So we got him a trampoline. The girls love it too but Matthew especially enjoys the trampoline. This is an action shot and one of the few shots in which they are getting along.

A well-loved trampoline

On Fridays, we have been going to the Stratford Ecological center for a nature class. Since Jenna is in school, only Matthew and Sarah have been going to it. They both love it! They feed chickens, plant seeds, pet pigs, goats, and cows, and help with farm chores. The kids love the farm. Jenna and Sarah have informed us they want chickens. Sure! I think the neighbors won't mind if we put a chicken coop in our backyard.

Sarah petting a pig

Matthew with some chicks

Sarah feeding a chicken

Since Jenna has read all of the Little House on the Prairie books multiple times I thought I should find something else for her to read. Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are probably too scary. So I decided to give her a Beverly Lewis book. Jenna is now reading The Thorn by Beverly Lewis - I know it is an adult book but Jenna is a voracious reader and I can't keep up with her.  She has not missed a point this entire year of school and has earned E's (E = A) on every assignment. She reminds me of someone....now who is it?....oh yes... me!  I was a super nerd in school just like Jenna. Although I had glasses and braces to round out my look.

Fall semester starts today so my break from teaching has ended. This upcoming semester I have two online classes and one independent study class. The independent study course is one I have never taught before but should be fun. It is an advanced Oracle class with JDBC. I'm excited about teaching this course!  I'll also be doing something different in one of my online courses. I'll be using Adobe Connect (similar to Webex) to give live lectures to my students. I'm excited about doing these lectures for my online course and think it will enhance their learning. Unfortunately I have a mousy voice so I'm not sure how I'll sound over the lecture but hopefully I'll command respect or something like that...

76 points on Quiddler today

How do you measure success?

For the past 5 years we have hosted and lead Bible study at our house and for 3 years we have made dinner for our Bible study. We have had regular attenders and they have been faithful. This year we decided to recruit more people. I sent 50 letters to neighbors, acquaintances, and other members of the church inviting them to our new study on Francis Chan's crazy love. I was excited that we could have some new people and maybe lead new people to Christ. I wanted to do something crazy and make an impact!

It hasn't happened. We didn't get any new people to come. Which makes me wonder - is this what I should be doing? How do you measure success when leading a small group?

I'm pondering this....

In other news:

We carved pumpkins from our garden and the girls had a great time. I also made pumpkin bread using those pumpkins and it turned out fantastic!

Carving pumpkins

 Both girls have decided to quit ballet for the year and do gymnastics instead. Since we don't want to overschedule our kids, we told them they could be in one activity. They both chose gymnastics instead of ballet so we are trying this now. I hope they both like it!

Jenna at gymnastics

Books I'm reading:

1. Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. Our Coo* book club is still on this series. After this book we will pick up the final book in the Mistborn Trilogy. 
2. The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan. This is the third book in the Heros of Olympus series. It was released Oct. 1 so it is brand new! And very good!
3. Silverthorn by Raymond Feist. This is book 3 in the Riftwar Saga. Every book gets more exciting. I love this progression. 

78 points on Quiddler today

She can can

I took the canning class one week ago and didn't waste any time buying a canner and trying my hand at canning. As soon as I got home (well I unpacked first), I bought a canner from amazon. This is not a pressure canner, just a boiling water canner but it worked great! The class gave me the confidence to do this on my own. Today I canned: mustard relish, strawberry jam, and dill pickle relish with the leftover cucumbers from our garden!

My new canner

 The mustard relish recipe was the one I made at the canning class during Ohio Outdoor Woman camp. The recipe is:
1 quart chopped jalapeno peppers (plus 1 red pepper for color)
1 quart cider vinegar
1 quart yellow mustard
4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt
The flour, water, and salt should be mixed separately as a thickening agent. The jalapenos should be chopped with seeds removed (I used my food processor to chop them). Put everything in a pot and boil for 5 minutes. Then process in a water bath for 15 minutes.

Mustard relish on the stove - the house smelled heavenly

Washed all the jars and had them sitting in hot water before filling them

 My canner came with a kit that included a funnel. This was very useful for filling the jars. Having hot mustard splash all over you is not great.

Me with my mustard relish!

 I made two batches of homemade soft pretzels to eat with the mustard. Erik absolutely loves the mustard relish. I think I'll be making a lot of pretzels :). Two of my jars did not seal properly. One was a larger pint jar (the rest were half pint jars) and I didn't fill it all the way. Many recipes talk about headspace and apparently that must be important. I'm not sure why the other jar didn't seal.  However all my jam and dill relish jars sealed. This means they are safe to store and don't need refrigeration. I'm so excited about this!

My successful canning experience

My exciting canning weekend came at the expense of our camping trip. We had to cancel our reservations for Halloween weekend at cross creek because Sarah was very sick on Thursday.  I took her to the pediatrician and her fever was 105°F. That is scary high. She was vomiting and listless all day. I was worried for her. Of course today she was jumping around like nothing was wrong. I'm amazed at how fast she bounced back. We missed Halloween weekend but Sarah needed to heal up.  Lately Sarah's favorite food has been biscoff spread. She often wants biscoff sandwiches instead of peanut butter and jelly. To help her feel better, Erik made her a biscoff smoothie. It was actually pretty good.

Erik making a biscoff smoothie

My friend Lynn who has fought breast cancer this year found out the cancer metastasized to her brain. Her surgery was on Thursday and went really well. Apparently she is already home! From brain surgery!! Thursday was a day of prayer at our house. Praying for Lynn and praying for Sarah. I'm so thankful her surgery went well and Sarah is better.

52 points on Quiddler today

I'm an Ohio Outdoors Woman!

You might be an outdoors woman if....you spend the weekend fishing, shooting a bow, shooting a gun, and canning.  Yep. That's me!

This weekend Michelle, Susan, and I went to Becoming an Ohio Outdoors Woman. It was amazing! I can't wait to go again next year. There were 100 women at the retreat weekend to learn outdoors skills like fishing, boating, backpacking, cooking, hunting, etc. We could each choose 4 courses to take over the weekend. Susan, Michelle and I picked different courses except for Archery. Michelle and I both wanted to be Katniss (from the Hunger Games if you didn't know).  All the instructors were experts in their field and were wonderful to work with. Most were men volunteering their time - who definitely have a sense of humor to work with a bunch of women shooting guns for the first time!

Michelle, Me, and Susan

 My first course was 1:30-5pm on Friday and was Fishing for Fun. We learned the proper way to cast a fishing line and two ways to tie knots. I caught 7 fish! I couldn't believe it. They were all bluegill and apparently loved the meal worms I put on the hook. I also learned how to filet a fish. It was easier than I thought and after fileting two crappie fish, I felt confident I could do it on my own. The filets actually looked like the tilapia filets I buy at the grocery store too!  I won a tackle box from the course and got to keep my fishing pole. Now I can fish all the time!

My first fish!

 Saturday morning 8-11:30am, Michelle and I took Introduction to Archery. We used a Mathews Genesis bow (a compound bow). This bow has a 20lb draw weight. To hunt you need a bow with a 40lb draw weight so this bow was only for target practice (darn - those squirrels are always eating our birdseed, I think the bow is the answer!). Archery is something I really enjoyed and could see myself taking up this sport. I was paired with a woman named Margie (we shared a bow) and we hit the target with relatively good accuracy. For my first time I was excited to shoot so well.

Gina or Katniss? I can't tell

 We also had the opportunity to shoot a crossbow. The crossbow had a 125 lb draw weight so the instructor said he would cock it for us. Well we weren't having that! Both Michelle and I tried to cock it ourselves and we did! The crossbow was powerful and accurate. It had a scope that made shooting it with good accuracy easy even for me.

Michelle as an archer

Margie and I with our arrows

 Saturday afternoon 1:30-5pm I went to a canning class. This class had me searching for canners on amazon as soon as I got home. I love cooking and with canning you get to keep the food you cook for a long time. Yipee! This was the only class I took with female instructors. They were fantastic and had been canning for years - even canning venison!

In the class we split up into four groups. One group canned salsa, one did applesauce, one canned freezer jam, and my group made mustard relish. We got one of each canned item to take home. During the class we also got to try different foods the instructor had canned previously.  When I got home, we ate the strawberry jam. Yes, all of it in one sitting.

Canned salsa and mustard relish

 Sunday morning I took a shotgun class. The instructors showed us the proper stance and different kinds of shotguns. I shot both a semiautomatic shotgun and an over under (not sure what the technical term for that type of gun is, that's just what the instructor called it). I only used the semiautomatic a few times. I really liked the over under gun. It had more kickback but seemed easier for me to aim. Although aiming was not something I was very good at. We shot clay pigeons (although they looked like frisbees not pigeons) and I only actually hit 4 (probably 10% accuracy). For my first time shooting that probably wasn't bad.

Me shooting clay pigeons

Putting a bullet in the shotgun

This weekend gave me confidence with some of these outdoor pursuits. I really felt like I could do them after the training I received.  Everyone was so friendly too. I met so many great women and made some friends. Both Friday and Saturday night Susan, Michelle and I played Quiddler so that made me happy obviously!

However, as you can see from the error below, Quiddler online would not let me play the word "texting". Hello Quiddler? Update your dictionary already!

79 points on Quiddler today