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Then, NaNo hit.  I’m hosting write-ins at the community center again.  Thursday we had a kick-off party.  Going from a haunted house right into NaNo has meant a crazy week.

To top it all off, one of the times I was checking out of the new Walmart, I got a one dollar bill in change that had “where’s george” stamped on it.  I had seen one or maybe two bills marked liked that before, it’s been some time ago.  I just ignored them.  I didn’t want to get caught up in a new thing.  But curiosity got the best of me this time, because it is a bill-tracking game.  I was curious to see where it had been before.  I must have been only the second person to have it since being marked because it only had two hits on it.  But anyway, I was hooked.  I bought a stamp and started marking bills.  I will only have so many bills I can put out in circulation every month, so it may be ages before I get any hits on them.  As I am proof, not everyone who sees a marked bill will enter it into the system.  I’m hoping more people are more curious than I was, especially if they start seeing quite a few of them.

Well, off to improve my word count….

So, I take no joy in what is going on in Libya right now.  I don’t think the country was in good shape with Gadhafi, but I don’t think they are better off with what they will end up with.  But I can’t help thinking they weren’t following our example in how we handled bin Laden.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.  Are we prepared to pay for our “success”?

One thing I hear often is, What do I write about?  This one is a little hard to answer because I’ve never had a problem sitting down to a blank page and just writing about anything or even nothing.  I think these people would benefit from prompts.  You can surf the net for hours to glean writing prompts, there are plenty out there, or you can come up with your own rather easily.  Let’s start out small.  Take out a sheet of paper and along the left edge write out numbers one to seven.  Now, jot down seven topics or ideas you would like to explore or work through.  For example:

1.  Life

2.  Job

3.  Hobbies

4.  Love

5.  Books

6.  Dreams

7.  Movies

Now, you want to assign each topic to a day of the week.  When it is Monday, you would write on topic one or two, whichever day you consider Monday to be.  You can even set a goal of a minute of writing time or one sentence.  If you don’t have a habit established, or find it hard to write, start out small until you get that habit established.  Once things seem to come easier, then try expanding the challenge a little — such as moving up to two minutes or two sentences.

Timing your writing can help if you tend to write excessively.  Some people give up journaling because they get so caught up in it they can spend two hours or more and end up neglecting other things.  A good thing to do is to set a timer for thirty minutes and when time is up, quit.  You can schedule two or three sessions a day so you can pick up where you left off.  By limiting yourself it helps you prioritize and do more meaningful writing — get to the point, in other words.  Those who write for hours tend to babble and don’t accomplish much.

So, for a writer, timing is your friend, though it is often a love-hate relationship

I did manage to sell two baby blankets and one pink cupcake purse, so it was a very profitable day for me.  Unfortunately Mom didn’t sell anything.  Mom was making jewelry in the 70′s and once she got into it again she’s pretty much making the same stuff she used to.  Times and fads have changed and that kind of thing just isn’t popular any more.  I mean, it will appeal to some people, but you have to diversify and learn to do new things in order to appeal to a larger group.  She did have some cute halloween themed bracelets geared for girls, and I don’t know why those didn’t sell.  She even uses glow in the dark beads, but that hasn’t had much effect either.  I don’t want her to get discouraged because she has a talent for it, she just needs to expand her repertoire a little. 

Back in Huntersville at Traditions Day the beginning of the month, I saw a lady doing bobbin lace.  I had never heard of it.  She had a pillow that she stuck pins in to make a design framework and then worked strands of thread into weaves around the pins.  Each thread was wrapped around a thin round stick of wood that was weighted at the other end.  That was called a bobbin.  It looked really interesting.  i bought a book mark she made.  Well, I found out you could get a starter kit online.  I actually found it on ebay and bought it.  I’m eagerly awaiting it’s arrival so I can try my hand at bobbin lace bookmarks to add to my craft bazaar offerings.  Hubby had to order a book from amazon for his next college class, and so to get free shipping I also ordered a beginner’s bobbin lace book.  Now I just need to get some pins.  I’m so excited I could just bust!

In case you are wondering, I consider there something to be seriously wrong when you can get a sunburn in October!

http://divabookreviews.blogspot.com/2011/10/giveaway-one-grave-at-time-by-jeaniene.html

Anyway, I thought I’d share pictures of the house we looked at.

front view

 This is the front view.  It’s up a bit, which is good because there is a little creek across the road.  Hopefully that means it’s out of the flood plain.  Since the river is a good bit away I would think it’s okay.  This house is the same style as the other OLD farmhouses in the area, all circa 1850s.

All the farmhouses started with a basic two downstairs rooms and two upstairs rooms.  They added on as they had money and materials, and need.  Often they added a wing that started at the middle of the building and stretching out, ultimately forming a “T”  I have even seen some that added another addition to the back of that that ultimately formed an “I”

side view

 This particular farmhouse had one room added to the back, flush with the side of the building.  This is where the kitchen and bathroom are.  You walk from the kitchen into another room, and from that room into a wide hallway that has the stairs and the bathroom is at the end of the hallway.  On the other side of the hallway, straight across from the other room, is another room.  I would suppose that was used as the livingroom.  The people who had this house put a pair of sliding glass doors on the backside of the livingroom looking out into the back yard.

part of the yard and outbuilding

 As with the other farmhouses I’ve seen in the area there is a little outbuilding behind it.  This one also has what looks like a root cellar at the bottom of it.  The top is dividing into two sections.  One could be a shed for tools and the other a lockshop for hubby.  What you can’t see from these pictures is there is another building that has been aded recently behind this outbuilding and it might make a good fiber studio for me.

I do admit that if we got this house I would want to build on to it.  We HAVE to have a library.  We have too many books not to have a room completely dedicated to them.  I’d also like a dining room, or at least a slightly larger kitchen.  This one had the stove kitty-cornered and i didn’t see that as being very space efficent.  I’d also like a slightly larger bedroom for us, because I want a whirlpool tub!  I wouldn’t mind having a water bed again either.  Hubby liked the waterbed really well too.

Across the road from this house there is a little meadow, and then the creek.  I think that meadow would be perfect for alpacas   I do like the color of the house, think it fits in well with beekeeping.  So that’s my dream.  The couple that own this house have had it on the market before.  The day the realtor took us out to look at it he said a family was moving in to rent it and they have a stipulation for 60 days notice.  So, it has evidently been on the market again for awhile.  I’m hoping this means we would have time to potentially get it if there is any chance we might have of buying a house.  It would probably be a couple years, though.  *Sigh.*

We went down the road to Huntersville to check out their Traditions Day. Huntersville was formed around the trading post that sprung up from hunters and trappers congregating here to trade their wares. From 1822 until 1891 it was the county seat. The whole town sets aside this day to reflect on their heritage and they have various demonstrations going on of old-time activities. There were three blacksmiths. There were two cider presses. There was one apple butter maker. General Robert E. Lee was roaming around, and I got a picture of him trying his hand at apple butter making. There was a lady spinning wool, and she brought some of her sheep. She had two shetland sheep (the smaller ones) and two Icelandic sheep. There was another lady making bobbin lace. She had a series of thin wood dowel-looking things with knobs on top that she tied a piece of thread to. She had a series of pins and using the bobbins to as weight she would weave around the pins. I got a bookmark she made.

Robert E. Lee stirring apple butter

Huntersville was commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War. There is a Civil War cemetary out behind the old one room schoolhouse. The Daughters of the Revolution have placed new headstones on most of the graves. They had a dedication ceremony at the cemetary today.

There are lots of old buildings still standing: the jail, which was built in 1883 and used for about ten years before the county seat moved to Marlinton; the Presbyterian Church was built in 1854 and it was used as a hospital and headquarters by soldiers during the Civil War; the one room schoolhouse, which had two floors, was built in 1880 and didn’t close until about 1970.

Hubby got four pints of apple butter. You have not had apple butter until you have had this. The guy has spent years perfecting his art — the kind of apple used, the wood used in the paddle, and the mixture of spices. We made sure we were there when the guy put the spices in. Oh, the aroma. Hubby was in heaven, again. I also allowed him to buy a half gallon of apple cider that was fresh pressed right in front of us by the local 4-H Club. Hubby took a sip of that and had another, ahem, fulfilling experience right then. Poor hubby. He sure does love apples, but apples do not love him. This could be an ugly evening.

Many people were disappointed with the weather today. They said last year it was eighty degrees. I know that the people manning the coffee stations were cold and miserable, but summer weather is wrong this time of year, in the mountains. It was a little cool, but if you are walking around and talking and experiencing everything, you stay warm enough. I rather enjoyed being in the brisk weather. This is fall in the mountains. I love it. Now if I can get hubby to clean out the crock pot I’ll finish the perfect autumn in the mountains experience by making chili….

We looked at a little farmhouse today.  I loved it.  It has almost two acres with it.  All I want is a little homestead with enough land for a few alpacas, sheep, goats, jersey wooley bunnies.  I want to have a spinning and weaving studio.  I have a loom in my brother’s basement.  It belonged to our paternal grandmother.  I’d love to put it to use.  I don’t think hubby would ever be happy with this.  He wants acres and acres.  He wants a working farm where we raise basically everything we need to live on.  I try to get through to him that you can’t do that anymore and that his physical condition is only deteriorating and he can’t keep up with that kind of work any more, not 24/7.  Not to mention he turned 46 yesterday….  Realistically the most we could have is a hobby farm and I would want to focus on producing fiber to be spun into yarn that I would then make into socks, caps, shawls, rugs, blankets, etc. that would be sold in a little shop on site, and our miniature animals would be a tourist attraction.  Kids love to see and pet alpacas.  If hubby gets his schooling done so he can teach, this little farmhouse is only about six miles from the local middle school.  I think it would be nice.  On our way home I think I’ll stop and try to get a picture of the place to share here.

Well, hubby has his dream meal last night.  I made his sausages and apples.   It turned out better than I thought it would. I’m not a fan of sauerkraut, but this was good. Hubby managed to find some really nice, firm apples growing wild around the place and they cooked up nicely. Hubby talked about “the perfect bite” as a comment in a movie we’d seen years ago. He declared that the perfect bite for this meal was some sauerkraut, a piece of sausage and a piece of apple. He was right.  I also made some pumpernickel bread in the bread machine.  I was guessing on settings and I set the crust too dark.  But other than a brick-like outer layer, it tasted pretty good.

hubby's birthday dinner

harvested apples and black walnuts