Is the Grass Always Greener?

For all you homeschoolers out there, I just want to share a little something that's been on my mind. Something I learned a long time ago. And I thought of this while I was feeding the goats and ducks.

I know you all have heard that old saying "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Well I'm here to tell you that's just not true.

The Goats have a great big fenced in area and they can eat to their hearts content. They are also allowed to come in the shed where the ducks are. I was picking green things for the ducks to nibble on when I was bombarded by all 5 goats. They wanted what I had in my hand and they were trying to knock me down to get it. Even though they had a smorgasboard of green things out back.

Do you see where I'm headed with this? We tend to do this with our Homeschool. We tend to think that "their kids" have it better, they are smarter, more talented And "their Mother" must be a wonderful, patient, loving teacher. And you want what they have in their hands.

GET OVER IT!!!!

Your kids are where they are suppose to be. God placed them with you. They have different talents. My Kids are not Einsteins by no means, but nor are they dummies. They have talents and skills that a lot of other kids don't have. Just like a lot of other kids have talents that mine don't have.

If there is one thing that you need to come to grips with, it would be this........Don't, or if you already are, quit comparing your family to someone else's. Stop trying to measure up to someone else's standards. It will surely damage the foundation of your homeschool And your Family!  It's God's standards that you have to live by. So if you want to compare, Go To HIM.  Read His Word. Come to think of it, I need to counsel with Him a little more than I do. Go to my other blog "Living for Today" to find out what I mean. http://www.homemakingmomma.blogspot.com/

By the way, the goats?.......I sent them out to pasture.

Cleaning out the Laundry Room

WARNING!  This is not for the already organized neat freaks out there!

Ok I know this is a no brainer for everyone, but I just had to share. I've been wanting to do this for a long, long time, but never got around to it. It got done only because I passed the torch of doing most of the laundry to my oldest daughter. And She finally had enough of being bombarded with mountains of clothes. Which we call Mt. Never Rest. Where I would just put up with it and grumble and moan while I was sorting out everyone's mess. Everyone always stayed clear when I was in there.

Are ya looking at the floor? No Clothes! Yay! Before, there were clothes piled every where. We set a new rule that everyone must bring their dirty laundry in and sort it out in each basket. This is to be done every day. Guess what, it works!! Now that my daughter is up in NY visiting her Grandparents and I'm left with doing the laundry alone, it has been such a blessing! Thank you Shiney! Your a doll !!!

And by the way I forgot to take meat out of the freezer last night. Goulash is my best friend on nights like this. I just pull out already cooked hamburger from the freezer. Defrost in the microwave, and there you have it! It's an easy one pot meal!

Quack, Quack!

Did I ever mention that we raise ducks, goats, and peacocks.....well we do. And we are having trouble with a predator getting our ducks. We once had 18 now we are down to seven. So this morning when I had discovered that we had lost another one, I stormed back home to go put my work boots on. Johnny said " what's the matter?" It's not gonna happen again! I said. We are not going to lose another duck. He smiles that sheepish grin, "and what are you going to do about it?" I'm gonna move them!

So off I went, on a mission to save the world from evil predators. Remember I said we had goats, and they are little trouble makers all their own. So the first thing I had to do was to baracade them out of the whole area using 3 large cinder blocks and a large board. Franny Nanny almost escaped, let me tell ya when you have those shiny little horns pointing at you the last thing you want to do is make her mad! Well that was done. All 5 goats locked out. And I was already panting.

The next thing I had to do was to separate the peacocks into the smaller pen, that wasn't so bad.

Now on to the ducks and geese. Did I mention geese, yes we have 3 geese. I wanna tell ya this was  not an easy mission. How to catch 7 duck and 3 geese all by myself?  I have to say I'm pretty proud of my self. This almost 40 year old heavy, over weight champion can waddle and quack with the best of them! After numerous times of running around in circles under rope that was tied across the pen {to keep birds of prey out.} coming close to clothes lining myself, being splattered by mud, tripping over the feeders all while the goats were peering in through the baracade bleeting and blatting at me. Or should I say Giggling and laughing at me. I finally caught every last duck!

Now onto the geese.....while I was chasing the ducks the geese had managed to get out in the larger fenced in area. Did ya ever wonder why that say a goose honks. Well I can verify, they do HONK! Ya have to picture me with my hair pulled back, my work boots on and carrying a very large stick to try and coral them back into their pen. So now I'm ready for what I think is going to be a big fight and they pretty much called it quits, they let me catch them. I was so relieved. While I was chasing the geese, burp, one of our miniature goats got into the goose pen. { I won't tell you what the other mini goat's name is, let's just say it's another bodily function.} I coaxed her out, that was pretty easy.

After all that I have to say I'm whooped and it was at least 9oo degrees in the shade.
Slim in 6 you are nothing compared to doing the Quack, quack ,waddle, waddle!

The lighter side of me

I decided to blog about my homemaking life. It's called Buckets and Bows for two reasons.
Reason #1: I make gift baskets and that's what I call them Buckets with Bows.

Reason #2: I am not afraid to carry a bucket and I've been known to get dressed up a time or two, but without the bow, I'm not a bow kind of girl.
So this blog will be about baking, homeschooling, creating, laughing, and just plain having fun!

So with that out of the way. Tonight I am making a deep dish pizza.

Pizza Dough:
7 cups flour
1 packet active dry yeast
1Tb. sugar
2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. oil
2 cups warm water

In a large bowl add 2 cups of the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, oil, and water mix well. Then add the rest of the flour to the mixture. Stir until it forms into a ball. Then knead, not very much though you don't want to over work your dough. Let it rise for an hour in a bowl.

Then you take your dough and spread it out. Load up your toppings starting with sauce. Then do it all over again ending with the cheese. Fold your dough into the center, just like your making a bowl. Bake in the oven @ 425 for about 25 min.

I added a bowl of chopped fresh garden veggies tossed with Italian dressing. ooooo LaLa. We usaully have pizza on a Saturday night because my hubby grew up having it on that day. And it really upsets his apple cart when we have it on another night. Ha! I felt like disturbing his apple cart tonight, just for fun.