Eager beavers, smoky squares, and scorched chickens

It's pretty late, but I feel I must conjure up a new post.....stale blog entries are such eye rolling affairs, aren't they?!

What's new? We had a beautiful day today, thank God, after a rainy weekend. The girls have half days Tuesday through Friday this week cuz of conferences. I went to Jessie's today, and it was pretty gratifying. Even though she struggles some with math and telling time and counting money, she's one of these eager beavers who loves school. (Yessssssss!) She's a great reader and has a good imagination for telling stories. She works hard and wants to do well. God had mercy on me to give me one like her, cuz things are a lot more up hill with Zach. But we're rolling along okay with his homeschooling. I'm still quite deliriously happy with my curriculum choice.

I got my antique quilt squares in the mail yesterday, which I had ordered from ebay. There were 2 sets of 40 quilt squares. They are smoky smelling, dirty, and fragile looking. One set, though, had been sewn together by hand! I was really impressed!!!! Now I'm just trying to figure out how to clean them. Plus, one set has been sewn together quite haphazardly, with really loud color combinations of feed sack pieces. Don't quite know what to do now.....but I did have fun on Saturday turning some old shirts and pants I had been saving into 6 inch squares for a quilt for the couch. I even arranged them on a blanket and pinned them. Now, I just need to sew. So do I make a mad dash a half hour away to Mom's sewing machine, or go old fashioned and sew by hand when I get the chance?

Don't try this at home: Canning pots are not stock pots. I tried making chicken stock with two chickens in a canning pot today, without the wire insert. Well, the part of the chicken touching the bottom of the pan actually scorched!! I still made dinner from this and nobody complained (yay!), but I knew it wasn't 100% okee dokee.