The Cottage on the Hill

A Wise Woman Builds Her Home is hostessing a big giveaway of Vision Forum gift certificates! Here's a chance to build up your CHRISTIAN BOOK library! Vision Forum has so many other great things, too. DVD's, music, toys, kits! The winners are going to have an easy time using up their gift cards!

I saw this book in my latest catalog from Victorian Trading Company and just HAD to research it more. I popped on over to amazon.com to get a better look and read reviews. It is now on my Amazon.com wishlist. The most I've ever been able to crochet is a chain. I tried it as a child and could never figure out how to do anything more beyond a chain. I preferred sewing and cross stitch embroidery. Both came more easily to me. However, this book has inspired me to perhaps try crochet again.

Oh, we all hear about Donna Reed or June Cleaver in the vintage housewife blogosphere , but no one talks about Morticia Addams! Ok ok ok , hear me out! Feeling very poorly the other day, I lay in bed and started watching reruns of the old Addams Family series. I started to think, "I wish I was more like Morticia ." It made me chuckle, and ponder as to why! Certainly, it is not for her darkness and love of all things gloomy and dreary, but a few characteristics did stand out: 1. Morticia and Gomez have an equal and loving.....and sexy relationship. I noticed in other vintage TV shows, the spouses seem to talk down to each other, though very subtly. The husband puts his all knowing foot down, the wife uses her feminine whiles and trickeries . Morticia and Gomez actually discuss on equal plains whatever the issue is. While other TV housewives seem to have a more platonic relationship with their husbands, Gomez and Morticia are obviously madly in love with each othe...

As they pop into my head, here goes: 1. I don't own Crocs and don't really plan on it, either. 2. I am very weak during pregnancy with bouts of strength (like moving and lifting 4 studded snow tires for my truck into the back of my truck!) 3. I want to live for a season in a travel trailer with my family. 4. I like to chicken scratch embroider, though I haven't done it in years. 5. I LOVE Indian food. 6. I am desperate for back and foot massages every day....and I never get them. 7. I want a whirlpool tub. 8. I've been watching reruns of the Addams Family. 9. I hope I'm having a girl. 10. I love vintage stationary.

I made Bettina's Apple Sauce Cake from A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband with Bettina's Best Recipes for breakfast this morning. It was so yummy and so comforting. I love how the butter-based batter cooked up. Usually, the cakes and quick breads I make are fruit puree or milk and egg based. Always one to tamper with a recipe, though, I did use a bit less sugar, omitted the dates and nuts to make it more palatable for my children, used shredded apple rather than apple sauce, and accidentally poured in more vanilla than was called for. I also used white whole wheat and spelt flour. It still came out so yummy!

My childhood memories are dappled with reminiscing about that old kerosene heater we had. Granted, we had two of the rectangle ones, not the round ones like mine above, but I lit mine last night for a warm, comforting, familiar glance into my past. I remember curling up with my cat in front of the heater. Our old house was often so cold! I remember getting dressed in front of the heater. I devised a way to modestly change clothes so I didn't have to leave that warm glow. I remember evenings where the only light came from the kerosene heaters and the dials on the radio because my parents were trying to save electricity. I bought a kerosene heater recently when the threat of an early winter storm sent out warnings of loss of electricity. We didn't lose power, thankfully, but I decided to light the heater last night anyway. Oh, what fond memories it brought back. What comfort. What WARMTH!

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea with Raw Manuka Honey When you are pregnant.

Isn't this a great 8 week ultrasound picture!? Usually, I just see a jellybean in there, but this one came up so clear! Head, cute round tummy, arms and legs all tucked. And when I saw that heart beating away so strong, I just lifted up praises to the King! I have to say, it felt SO good walking into that familiar office and then seeing my little one so healthy and well. He or she was probably asleep because they didn't move about. I remember seeing my first bouncing around like a mexican jumping bean! I'm looking forward to another ultrasound at 12 weeks. Praise be to God for this amazing miracle, this LIFE growing within me!

Shhhhhh.......don't spread it around, but I have to admit that I am secretly hoping for twins! I doubt I am pregnant with twins because I figure I'd feel very VERY sick if it were twins, but twins sound good to me. I'll find out November 1st. I decided to stick with my usual OB and birthing hospital and he always performs an ultrasound on the first visit. I know there are those who believe in as few ultrasounds as possible, but I like seeing my little jelly bean as soon as possible. I also found a house in Amish country for sale for an unbelievably affordable price. (I know, first thought is what's wrong with it.) It's a cute Cape Cod style cottage with nearly 10 acres of land, a barn and two car garage. 4 bedrooms! I don't think it is going to happen, but we'll see.

Have you ever had any unusual or out of the ordinary pregnancy symptoms? I have the usual fatigue and nausea, food and smell aversions. But, this pregnancy, I'm also experiencing claustrophobia! I can't stand when people crowd around me. I don't like being in small spaces. Even taking a shower drives me bonkers because I'm in that enclosed space! It bothers me, but it is also kind of funny because I know how ridiculous it is. Thankfully, it is only temporary and this baby is so worth all the oddities that occur with each pregnancy. As a side thought, it is also kind of ironic that I have claustrophobia this pregnancy because our little cottage is too small for us now and will be uncomfortably tiny once the new baby arrives. We're praying and trusting in the Lord to provide us with a larger home one way or another. So, I'm curious! Please share your unusual symptoms!

I am unexpectedly, but happily pregnant again. Ok, well, I'm not happily pregnant. Well, I am, but I'm not. LOL! What I mean is I am happy to be having another baby, but I have to admit, I don't like being pregnant. I'll take labor and delivery over 1st trimester symptoms any day! Ugh! Adding to the difficulty is trying to decided where to birth and who will attend? Should I stick with my usual OB (who's pushed inductions the last two times? Thankfully, I avoided them!) Should I go with a team of midwives who deliver at my usual hospital (the same hospital that has a really crappy recovery, is overcrowded now and ripped off my insurance company)? Should I go for a midwife and deliver at a hospital that has a poor reputation, is far for my husband to get to should he be working out of town when I deliver, but my sister had a good birthing experience there? There are no independent birthing centers here and home birth is not an option. I don't know. It...

Do you remember those book lists that were put out listing the 100 books you should read? I wondered today, if there were such a list called 100 Books to Read to a Child Before Kindergarten, what books would be on that list? I asked on my Facebook page and got several suggestions: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Millions of Cats The Very Hungry Caterpillar Good Night Moon Pat the Bunny Guess How Much I Love You Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See Are You My Mother The Little Engine That Could The Poky Little Puppy Llama Llama Red Pajama Leading Little Ones To God My Aunt, a dedicated educator offered this list: The Dr. Seuss books, The Winnie the Pooh books, Corduroy the Bear books, Paddington Bear books. The real Grimms fairy tales (edit as you read to be developmentally appropriate) - not the Disney versions. Same with Anderson's Fairy Tales. Mother Goose. Where the Wild Things Are. Harold and the Purple Crayon. Owl Moon. Click Clack Moo. So many books, so little time... books b...

This video's emphasis on the "green" method of lighting in a poor area. But, what strikes me about this video is how happy they are with something so simple. Something many of us would shrink at the thought of, they are excited about! I see their houses and think, "what a way to live! Who am I to complain about my little cottage?" And yet, they seem content, organized. So little means so much to them.

I saw this image on facebook as an idea for a use for all those recalled cribs out there. I LOVE it! As a matter of fact, I have a recalled crib with one broken side sitting out in my storage shed. I'd love to do this with it, but I simply do not have room in my house for it.

When I was a little girl, my cousin and I were spending the day at Grandma's house. Grandma didn't keep toys at her house for the grandchildren, but that didn't stop us from having enormous amounts of creative fun. One game we liked in particular involved simply a broken phone, a calculator, a pen and mail order fliers from the weekly coupon inserts. For hours we'd pretend to take calls from customers, filling out the order forms and filing them carefully. Oddly enough, I was praised for my phone skills when I entered the working world. Today, I introduced the game to my oldest after we finished homeschooling for the day. He loved it! And then there's the accidental bad mothering turned good that happened last week. My 3 year old needed occupation, so I gave her the only sheet of paper I had on hand to draw on. I was busy with one thing or another when my 5 year asked for paper. Not wanting to be interrupted again searching for a piece of paper, I handed him...

Oh, for a fireplace. Our little cottage is sorely lacking in one. It just seems fitting that our little "hobbit hole" ought to have one! Of course, affording the installation for a real fireplace is well beyond our means. My attention turns to the electric and gel fireplace units you can get. I keep hoping their prices drop, but no such luck. Even our local Big Lots store sells them at a price I cringe at. So, I started brain storming again. It isn't so much the heat I want or need our of a fireplace as the ambiance. And ever since I visited a friend's house when I was first married and saw she had placed a grouping of pillar candles within her real (but unusable) fireplace, I was hooked. I loved it! Simple, inexpensive, easy, and lovely! So, how can I achieve that? I'm wondering how much it would cost to build a simple box fireplace out of wood (with some sort of flame proof interior) and surround it with a lovely mantle and surround? I'm thinking...

We have Netflix and aren't really looking into getting rid of it, personally, but I have heard from some of my Christian friends that they got rid of Netflix. Many of them had the same reason: You couldn't browse through Netflix at all without getting an eye full! It's a pain weeding through all the garbage to find the few good movies. Even their Faith and Spirituality section was loaded with assaults on Christianity. I agree with them! I remember a couple of times browsing through Netflix on the Wii and coming across DVD covers that were scary for my children or embarrassingly indecent or even outright disgusting! Netflix doesn't seem to have a filter for such things. There are other options, my friends. Here are two resources to get more wholesome and more Christian programming. http://www.christiancinema.com/dvdrental/default.php http://bluebehemoth.com/

Caroline's Kitchen/Dorthea Lange http://vi.sualize.us/view/randxm/7d76aaa575922aa2d5b561389076eba1/ I have to admit that I love that my mother and I have an open door policy. No knocking or doorbells needed. We just open the door and let ourselves in to each other's houses. Of course, we have the common courtesy of notification first, for the most part. Though, "dropping in" is welcomed, too. I think it is a beautiful and comforting thing between my mother and I.

I want this pattern.