Last week flew by once again.

The weekend held much drama, thanks to our van.

It all started when the van began acting up. I’d have to put it in neutral at stop lights because if I left it in drive the engine would rev and lurch the van forward; sometimes even with the break pushed all the way down. It was scary. The kids and I decided to drive through the car wash. Half way through the ride, the van died. Thankfully, it started back up before it was time for the track to dump me out at the end. Unfortunately, while vacuuming a few minutes later, it died again. It took someone jumping it off three times to get me going again. We prayed all the way to the car doctor. Right as we pulled in the parking lot, it died again. Thank you, Lord, for getting us all the way there! Did I mention it was 101 degrees that day??

The kids waited patiently for a friend to pick us up.

Thankfully, the van was repaired in a mere two hours for only $130!! That was such a blessing!

Unfortunately, the next morning, we loaded all of the kids into the van to go swimming and not only would it not start again, but we also had a flat tire!

Once again, thankfully, my husband had a kit to plug tires and all the van needed was a new battery. Two hours and $80 later and we were on our way to the pool. I’m quite thankful to have my van back. Did I mention it will be paid off in a matter of months. That makes me love it and want to take extra special care of it THAT MUCH MORE!! :)

We’ve had some cooler weather lately, so I’ve been catching up on some much needed work in the gardens. I found an old Lowe’s gift card while cleaning out my wallet, so the kids and I bought some cabbage, broccoli, a blackberry bush, and some fall flowers for the front beds. While working on garden stuff, I sorted through all of my seed packets from the spring and found the ones I had purchased for my fall garden. Beets, brussel sprouts, celery, and carrots. I also plan to try one last round of potatoes and sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, you never know what kind of weather we’re going to have in Georgia, so I don’t know exactly when our first frost will come. It could be in three weeks and it could be in two months! I may also experiment with a long row of wheat, but I haven’t decided just yet. I got a creative idea from the Square Foot Garden book on how to store my seeds. Did you know there are “sell by” dates on seed packets? Well, apparently it’s a marketing ploy because the dates are usually within the purchase year. Seeds are actually good for anywhere from 2-5 years depending on the seed and how it is stored. Interesting!

Happy Weekend!!

~audrey

We certainly enjoyed our long Labor Day weekend. We spent two days hanging out at the grandparents’ houses. Everyone enjoyed meeting our new kiddos and it was a treat seeing my niece and sister-in-law. The children are doing incredibly well. Baby is just precious and Little Girl is sweet as pie and gets along wonderfully with the boys. I promised to take her to the store this evening so she can pick out a girl toy. We have nothing but Legos, tools, and guns in this house and she’s a girlie-girl all the way!

I forgot to add to my last post; the biological parents have given their consent for me to homeschool Little Girl while she’s in our home. That NEVER happens! What a blessing!

Today was basically the ‘start’ to our week. We had co-op this morning and a case worker home visit this afternoon. My poor hubby is sick in bed and I have a leader meeting at church tonight. I’ll have to plan on putting the kids in bed early!

We have a busy month ahead of us. Between my mom’s back surgery, two family birthdays, co-op, field trips, and planting our fall crops, we should be ready for some rest by October! I sure am looking forward to fall!! Even just the few mornings we’ve had in the upper 60′s with the windows open for a few hours, makes me look forward to cinnamon candles and Christmas music.

Happy Tuesday!

~audrey

Some of you may have seen the post I wrote on Wednesday…only to delete it a few hours later. It was entitled “Everything Has a Season”. I quoted Ecclesiastes and wrote about our plans to take a break from foster parenting. However, a few hours later, the agency called with a placement. I turned it down and then called Josh to tell him about it. A few minutes after I hung up with Josh, he called back. **Keep in mind, the husband is usually not the emotional one that takes action based on feelings, etc, etc…** Josh said, “I don’t know why, but I feel like we’re suppose to take this placement.”

Let me back-track a little…. Josh and I had decided over the weekend (last weekend) to take a break from fostering. On Monday morning we received a call about a placement. Four year old girl and one year old boy. We turned it down. When the call came on Wednesday, it was for the same placement. Something happened with the other foster parents, they dropped the children off at the agency and quit. It didn’t have anything to do with the children. There was a chance the children would be going home the next day. They needed a place to sleep Wednesday night…

Soooo, I called the agency back and said we’d keep them Wednesday night. The children are absolutely wonderful. WONDERFUL. The little girl is precious, well-mannered, courteous, and gets along well with my boys. The baby is a doll. He doesn’t quite walk yet, jabbers all the time, laughs every time someone looks at him, and sleeps wonderfully. I called Josh when the case went to court on Thursday.

I needed to know, “What happens if they don’t go home?”

“They’re staying with us.” He replied without hesitation.

They’ve been with us for three days now. I use to dread the weekends when we had foster children because there was so much added stress, knowing they all had to stay content and busy, but not with these children. We got up this morning, made pancakes, the children are all playing nicely outside while I clean the kitchen blog. We’ll put the baby down for a nap shortly, and head to the pool when he wakes up. When the children went outside after breakfast, Josh was holding the baby and he said, “Obviously God intended for these children to be in our house. I can’t believe how perfectly they fit.”

Now all of our plans have changed from a week ago and we’re ecstatic. I don’t know how long they’ll be with us, but we intend to enjoy every minute.

~audrey

I have no earthly idea why I’ve been so drawn to farming and homesteading. If you had told me ten years ago that I’d be homeschooling a brood of boys and looking at farm land so I could have chickens and goats and a milk cow, I’d have laughed and choked on my latte!

I thoroughly enjoyed my large garden this year, even if 50% of my efforts were for nothing thanks to those cursed vine-borers that killed my entire crop of squash and zucchini. We now have three tiers on our worm farm that consistently composts our organic kitchen waste. I’m preparing for a small fall garden in the backyard and I just found all the right county ordinances to tell me I am allowed to have chickens in my backyard! Do you know that three hens will give you about a dozen eggs a week? They don’t require all that much space and they’ll thrive on eating the bugs and such in your own backyard (in addition to their feed of course). To be honest, my sweet old neighbors (on all sides), don’t even hear well enough, nor spend enough time outside to likely even notice the addition of such urban farm pets.

I’m not real sure how my husband will feel about this addition, but I think I can warm him up to the idea by spring. We could build their coop through the fall and winter months; there’s hardly anything to it! And by March, we could head over to the Tractor Supply Store, or preferably a local organic farm and pick up a few baby chicks.

I recently purchased a really great book called, The Backyard Homestead

It has a wealth of information on becoming more self-sustainable.

Again, I have no idea where this urge has come from. I’ve even resisted going to the doctor lately, which isn’t really like me. If I’m sick, I want medicine and I want to feel better now. Joshua and I had fevers on Sunday and Monday. My throat hurt terribly and my glands were so swollen it hurt to talk or eat. Instead of rushing to the doctor only to be told it’s likely just a virus that would pass on its own in a few days, I headed to the store for Vitamin C, Echinacea, and soup. We started drinking extra water and going to bed early to give our bodies all the time they needed to fight this off the natural way. Go figure, it’s Wednesday morning and I’m feeling 75% better with nothing more than what I just listed and a few doses of Tylenol.

Unfortunately, now Owen has a nasty, crusty, green nose and a low fever. We’ll fight his the same way and all be healthy enough for a visit to Nana’s by the weekend.

I know it’s only Wednesday, but it feels like Friday already. We’re starting to have cooler mornings-in the upper 60′s/low 70′s- so the boys have been heading straight outside in the mornings. It’s refreshing to hear my children playing outside again on a regular basis after sheltering ourselves from the sweltering heat of a record-setting Georgia summer. Fall is just around the corner. I can feel it in my bones and smell it in the morning air.

How I love fall.

Happy Wednesday!

~audrey