Goodbye to a Dear Friend

Nancy Deason Jenkins, 65, of Springdale died December 3, 2009 at Springdale. She was born September 15, 1944 in Rogers to Mauriece and Letha Dell Reeves Deason.
She was a member of Fellowship Bible Church of Rogers and she also attended First Baptist Church of Lowell. She had been active in Women’s Ministry Leadership at Fellowship Bible Church. She had done numerous workshops, speeches and classes for women of all ages influencing their lives forever. She was the founder of an Aid Organization for Chinese orphans with a missionary trip to Bejing. She was a member of Springdale Kiwanis Club. She was a 2008 candidate for Springdale Mayor. She was passionate about Springdale and its future. She did extensive advocacy work for homelessness, mental health and insurance reform. Nancy never met a stranger and helped countless people, touching the lives of many through the years.
Survivors include her husband Dr. Travis Jenkins of the home, to whom she was married June 24, 1963; Two sons Adam Jenkins and wife Mary of Lexington, Kentucky, Nathan Jenkins and wife Sara of Knoxville, Tennessee; one daughter Susanna Taha and husband Tarek of Rogers, Arkansas; two brothers Darwin Deason and wife Katarina of Dallas, Texas, Dale Deason and wife Beckie of Decatur, Alabama; one sister Donna Buck and husband, John of Elm Springs; five grandchildren Sarah Taha, Isabel Jenkins, Dylan Jenkins, Donovan Jenkins and Miley Jenkins.

December 2

Yesterday I managed to nearly finish a pair of longies. I did also manage to get rid of a huge trash bag of clothing and old shoes. It was wonderfully freeing. I look forward to throwing away more stuff. I did go through everything very carefully and salvaged anything that could be used for crafts or sewing projects. I also took out any clothes that could be used as rags or oil cloths. By the end of the week we will have a nice bag of items to donate.

My daughter is nearly finished with a doll that she has been making for the nature table. We will get that finished today and some pictures posted later.

Off to cook breakfast.

December 1

It has been a while since I posted anything. Turns out it is not so easy to homestead, homeschool and blog. But here I go again. Back in the saddle so to speak.

We are taking the month of December to finish up craft projects that were started over the past year. Or in my case several years. Today we worked on a nature table doll and are almost done with it. I also have several new projects that are simple to do for Christmas decorating. I had both my girls make lists of what they need to finish. I started a list but we do not have that much paper. I have way to many UFO's to count. I am hoping to overcome my startitis. I love to learn new things. So I tend to start a lot of new things. It is not that I never finish anything it just takes me a while once the newness wears off. I have started dolls, quilts, pants and skirts. This is only the sewing stuff. My knitting basket is another story. So I will be posting throughout the month the different projects that we finish up.

I have also decided to organize my entire house. I have no idea why but the bug to simplify always hits me hard this time of the year. Maybe it is a reaction to all the holiday shopping. I actually rarely leave the house from Thanksgiving to the New Year. Thank goodness for a well stocked pantry. Makes me get all excited about the seed catalogs. I think I will pop over to rareseeds.com just to dream for a bit. Feel free to join me.

Check out this Blog!!!

For all my knitting and sewing friends. This is a great cause:
http://ibol.wordpress.com/

More Blocks

Here are some more blocks from the Oh Fransson Quilt Along. I do realize I am very behind but this is my first quilt and I want to do it right!

Tree Huggin' Tuesday

I was visiting one of my favorite blogs this morning and she asked how many of her readers tend a garden spot. So I thought I would share some photos of part of my garden spot. It is raining rather hard here this morning so there is some parts missing as I can not photo them from the shelter of my porch. I do my own version of intensive gardening. I am slowly digging up my yard and adding things as I go. Right now we have about 75 tomato plants, asparagus, pole beans, cucumbers, cabbage, watermelon, cantaloupe, purple hull peas and potatoes. I also have raspberry and blackberry growing along the fence. Oh yes and various herbs that are trying to take over. :-) My spot is not very large yet. My goal is for my entire front yard to become edible. I do have a variety of edible flowers planted too. I was inspired by this garden. The plan is to add chickens in the next few years and goats in the future too. I must say it is an absolute joy growing my own food. Most of my neighbors think I am a little off for digging instead of tilling the ground. But I figure once I get it all dug up there will be no need for a tiller so why buy one now. Not to mention I have lost about 2 inches of arm fat this summer. Now when I wave as the neighbors drive by my arm is not still waving 30 minutes later. I've been working on my little garden spot since we first moved here about 4 years ago. I do love my garden!!!!

Our Nature Table

I am a Waldorf Mama. I have finally got around to starting a nature table with the kids. I figure ya gotta start some where. Ours may not be the most beautiful out there but we are incredible proud of it. The shells came from a visit to a local Mill. We found the wasp nest on the porch last year. I knitted the little snail to go with a shell we found in our yard. The poor butterfly met it's match with one of our cats. We have added a walnut shell since this picture was taken and my oldest daughter is working on a fairy for our table. This is a lot of fun. I am glad that I did not wait until I could make it perfect. Because honestly it would have never been done if I waited that long.:-)
Enjoy!

Fabric Friday

Some yummy goodness that I got in the mail from one of my very favorite enablers. I cannot wait to get started on a quilt made with the owls. I have been looking at Quilt blogs and admiring all the nice blocks made with that print. I am also going to make a quilt with the Far Far Away by Heather Ross. Of course I should probably finish my first quilt. :-)

My Quilt

I have some pictures to share. I have finally got going on the quilt along that OhFransson! started a while back. Life got put on hold with the death of my Grandmother and the end of a homeschooling year. This quilt will be my first and I am very excited about my progress. These are pictures of the blocks cut out and ready for sewing and the finished blocks A. I hope to get going on blocks B & C this weekend. My better half has been on the pager for work and using my sewing desk for his computer. I will be happy to get it back.

Checking In

Life has been busy. Hope to add more soon. In the meantime enjoy one of my all time favorite songs

Fabric Choices

Yes? No? Maybe? These are some fabrics that are on the table for the Quilt Along.

A Quilt-Along

I am going to try something new. I have decided to participate in a Quilt-Along that Oh, Fransson is hosting. I love her website and all her wonderful quilts. This will be my first quilt and I thought some hand holding would be nice. Later today I hope to post a picture of the fabrics I have chosen. Honestly I do like any reason to riffle through my stash.

Vacation

If I were to ever go on a vacation my dream would be here. Most of my favorite knitting designers are on that page as teachers. No wait I was wrong all of my favorites are there. The cool thing is it is right around my birthday. So all I need to do is win the lottery so I can afford it and find a friend to go with me. Let's see most of my knitting friends are due to have babies in August so that will not work. Not to mention I do not play the lottery. I bet I could come up with a way and then I would actually have something cool to blog about.

Apron Giveaway On Another Blog

I spend a lot of time over at Not Quite June Cleaver. I love her recipes and her aprons. I hope to save enough money soon to make one my own. In the meantime, I will continue to enter her wonderful give aways hoping it might be my lucky day!! So pop on over there and check it her out. You must peruse her archives cause seriously her recipes are wonderful. Then you must checkout her store.

Winter Meals From Our Summer Garden

I honestly did not think it would be very easy to start the 100 ft. challenge in winter. We have very little left from our summer gardening efforts. It turns out that this is the best time to do it. I am able to see how much I could feed our family by putting up our food. We had a nice stew to eat from over the weekend. It was made from local grass fed beef. I used tomatoes that I had put up. I also added purple hull peas that were from our garden and corn from the farmer's market. Today we are having fried chicken. I plan on the side being green beans from the garden. For desert I am going to make either a mock pumpkin pie with our homegrown butternut squash or an apple dessert with apples given to me by a neighbor. I also found out that I can get steel cut oats locally grown and milled. The mill is right down the road and we will be going to it for a field trip for the kids when the weather gets nice. It's amazing what opportunities open up when you open yourself to a new way of looking at things.

100 Ft. Diet

This is how I will be spending my time now. I am very excited about this challenge. I am committed to growing more of our fruits and veggies. We live on .75 of an acre and I am excited to see how self sufficient I can become on our little plot. Tonight for dinner we are having homemade pizza. The pizza sauce is made from tomatoes that I put up last summer. I will use cheese that I made from milk I buy from a local farmer. I am very excited about my little start. I encourage everyone to join in!!!

What the Heck Have I Been Doing

Well it has been forever since I posted. I am currently doing some spring cleaning and getting my projects organized for the year. I have to organize sewing projects, knitting projects, homeschool projects, and gardening stuff. In the meantime go check out this wonderful blog for some cool urban homesteading.