Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Oh, Hey There!

I've missed you! No, really, I have! Oh so much has been going on, and on top of everything, I have been experiencing the most sickly year I have ever had! My kinders have been sickly...like for real sick...over Christmas, 8 of my 18 had the flu. They've passed around horrible stomach bugs all year, strep, colds that never end, terrible ear infections, Fifth's disease, pink eye...oh the horrors of kindergarten! It has never been this bad though. We have a new cleaning crew, and I have to wonder if it isn't coincidence that germs aren't going away anymore. Fortunately, so far, I haven't had the bad stuff...just a general feeling of ick. Yes, I meant to say ick, not sick. It has not been fun. And along with the sickly kinders, who by the way have allergies out the wazoo, SPRING FEVER HAS HIT. Me, my intern, and the kids. In full force.

I am dying to get in my garden and work. According to The Farmer's Almanac for this year, my area has had its final hard freezing spell of winter this week. Now, I did not use that trusty resource last year, and guess what? My garden produced a total of 2 dinners worth of potatoes, about 10 meals of fried okra, an occasional tomato, 2 quarts of green beans, two carrots, and about a half dozen sweet potatoes. That's it. And last year, it snowed in May. May 7 to be exact. The day after I put out my tomatoes. I cried. I so hope the almanac is on the money this year. I want need to be out there, nursing my plants and filling basket upon basket of beautiful produce that I can practice my canning skills on. It isn't supposed to rain again until Sunday, so I am planning to be out there tomorrow evening, planting cucumber and green bean seedlings. I also have some turnip and pepper seedlings, but I don't think that they are quite ready to transplant. I did plant my potatoes and onions about 10 days ago, and the onions have started to sprout, which is definitely exciting!

What else has been going on? Well, Lefty had her last ever cheer try-out two weeks ago and made it. She was named captain of her squad!!! I was asked by the other senior mom to be the President of the booster club and Treasurer for the squad. The other senior mom is Vice-President and Secretary. It's gonna be a busy year. Boo decided not to try out for cheer this year, but did try out for dance team. She was a nervous wreck, but I had no doubt that my tiny dancer would do just fine. That will be a new thing for us; we've always been a cheer family, so competitive dance team will be a new adventure. The Boy tried out for his basketball team and didn't make it, BUT he had better luck trying out for track. He is in his first year of being able to do school athletics, so it's a pretty big learning curve. Also, baseball season starts next week for The Boy. Things are gonna be oh so busy for the next two months. Lou tried out for her middle school band and chose to play trumpet like Lefty. I hope she enjoys it.


As for me and my man, we've just been following the kiddos from this to that. We haven't done any more craft shows or anything, although I scouted one out last weekend that is a definite possibility for November. I have gotten a little discouraged. Things have been very slow. Like non-existent. I sold two wreaths last month, and that has been pretty much it for 2014 so far. Kinda sad. However, one of those was for a church a few towns away, and it turned out fantabulous!
Speaking of churches, we have been visiting a new church. We went alone the first week, then last week, we took all four kids. They seemed to enjoy it. Boo asked to go with us this coming Sunday (when she is going to be at her dad's). I am glad she wants to go.

There is so much more for me to go on and on about, but I guess I can save some for other posts! Weather for example. My new addiction. A diet (or the lack thereof) update. New cooking adventures. The four new florals I made. School. Theatrical performances. A band performance with the Beatles. Spanish Honor Society. Faith.  I truly could go on and on. But I will wait.

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Friday, March 22, 2013

Nearing the End

The end of Spring Break 2013. It has been a busy one!

  • Doctor visits. One on Tuesday, for me...I'm not sick, I will fill you in on that one in June. Today was one for Lefty. She has these weird 'bumps' on her legs...apparently they are due to some sort of auto-immune issue that she is having bloodwork done to determine the exact cause. Doc thinks they are harmless. God, I hope so.




  •  Gardening (when it hasn't been precipitating winter weather)


Planting seeds in my seed starter kit. There's a lot of seeds in there.

Found 5 onion sprouts coming up already!!! 

  • Spring cleaning. We managed to get the kids to cull 9 bags and 4 boxes of crap to get rid of out of their rooms. Can you say Hoarders? It was just a matter of time before someone had us put on the show for an intervention.


  • Couponing!!! I have saved $101.15 this week using coupons, and I only bought items that were non-perishable and that we would have bought anyway. Nothing in excess and nothing that we don't normally use already.
  • It was also important to me to keep working at my path to weight loss. I have been eating frozen diet meals for lunch, and thankfully they are yum! None are more than 320 calories, which is awesome, and I am always full after.



The rest of my break will be spent working on school stuff, finishing up the cleaning (we fired the cleaning lady...will post about that later, gator), hitting up a talent show that Lefty has insisted on doing, and trying to just chill a bit. Hopefully, I will manage to get some blog-surfing in too!

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Monday, March 18, 2013

It's Spring Break, Folks!


Spring Break. Music to a teacher's ears, body, spirit, and soul. Once it is here...and gone...the countdown to the end begins. At my house, it also is the chance to get things done. Anytime I have a break from work, it seems that I have fantastic and lofty intentions of getting everything ship-shape and in order for the hectic months ahead. My list of things to do this week is very long. Boo. I did get a good start on being productive Saturday, by working all day in the garden plot, but now Monday is halfway finished and I have done nothing  else on said list.

Something that I have spent a couple of hours working on today though that is not on my list is gathering coupons and making yet another list...a grocery list. YUCK! I hate grocery shopping. It seems like the shopping lists in this household never end. As soon as we go and get everything on our list, another is started. Anywho, I tried couponing a couple of years ago, and quite frankly, I sucked at it. I either forgot to have my coupons with me, or forgot that I had them at all. Also problematic for me with couponing was that our newspapers no longer include coupon inserts in the Sunday paper. Those crazy cool couponers from the extreme coupon shows manage to find stores that double coupon values, but alas, none of our local stores do. It seems like an operation in futility to me, but I will try anyway. If I can shave a few dollars a month from our necessity shopping bills, maybe I won't feel so guilty about them. I am heading out in a bit to do the first round of shopping with my newly clipped snippets of paper, and I will most definitely let you know how it goes!

Tomorrow, for Spring Break Day 2, I will have to do something productive in the morning, because I have an appointment that will take all afternoon. The reason for this appointment will be another post all on its own, so I will not go into detail yet, except to say that I hope Hubby goes with. I am excited beyond belief about it, and a little bit nervous too!
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Monday, March 11, 2013

Growing a Garden part 2

Saturday was such a beautiful day! It was pretty overcast for most of the day, but not hot or cold. There was a chance of some heavy rain moving in after midnight, so I knew I had to get out in the dirt and plant some stuff. My Nanny (my grandmother) told me that potatoes had to be planted by March 17, so with rains coming I knew it was time. Besides, my fingers had been itching to get dirty ever since the boys started setting everything up down in the gardening zone. I got out there around 12:30 p.m. and the next time that I looked at my watch, it was 4:45! Needless to say, I worked my tail off.
Before
We'd brought in several loads of dirt, and Chris spread it around some before I got out there. He also brought down a tractor scoop of dirt from last year's dirt pile to use in my potato spot. The Boy was here and there off and on while I worked too.

Three rows of potatoes and two rows of sweet onions.
And this takes up just about one tenth of the garden plot. :-)
So while I was out there working, I decided to mark off the potential rows and areas that I will be able to plant. When I came inside, I drew it all out and made a 'garden map' to help guide me as I 'grow.' As of right now, I am intending to plant:

  • potatoes
  • sweet onions
  • green onions
  • strawberries
  • blackberries
  • jalepeno peppers
  • green beans (pole and bush)
  • okra (tons of it!)
  • tomatoes (tons of those too!)
  • watermelon
  • cantaloupe
  • cucumbers (wayyyyy less of those)
  • cherry tomatoes
  • turnips
  • herbs (parsley, basil, cilantro, thyme)
Sounds like a lot, eh? Please excuse my handwriting, but here's my little garden map...
Obviously, it has spinach on it, which I did not list.
I will be planting turnips by the cherry tomatoes, and herbs where the spinach is shown.
So Saturday night, as I drifted off crashed into sleep, I heard the rumble of thunder over my little garden. When I woke up (barely able to move with my sore little legs) on Sunday morning, the little garden was swimming. As soon as the rain stopped, I went down to check on things, scared to death that my taters and onions had floated into the creek behind the house. That happened once to my Nanny and Pap, and they had to start over...from scratch! Guess what? A river had definitely run through it, but they were all still nestled into their rows, nice and snug. Hooray!

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Saturday, March 2, 2013

Growing a Garden part 1



As I have mentioned a time or two before, I have gotten hooked on gardening. My first semi-successful attempt was last year, and it was a little bitty baby garden. It was a bit of therapy for me during a really dark time in my life. My garden brought me out into the sunlight every day. I would soak up the warmth of the sun as I worked in the dirt and gave new life to tiny seeds and seedlings. It helped me. a. lot.

Gardening was so good for my spirit, that we decided to grow it a little bigger for this year. Our kids enjoy working it with us, especially Boo and The Boy. They all love it when we prepare meals from food that we have grown ourselves. It is funny to see how much they like to monitor the growth and production from our little plot. It must be good for them too. The initial plan was to double it in size. I think the footprint that was made today ended up being about triple what it was last spring.

The plan that we had was to build up the area where the garden will sit, and to enclose it, as we have wild animals that enjoy our produce as much as we do. Since I have a weak back, we knew I would not be able to help build the structure that our plot would require. It is times like these that I am glad my teenage daughter has amazing guy friends! We recruited two of them (my favorite teenage boys in the entire world, I might add) to help Chris today. Neither one of them asked what we needed when asked to come help...they just said sure thing, and were here ALL DAY today. On a Saturday. And they worked their butts off. And asked if we need them to come back to help again. That's good kids. We did pay them. Oh, and I did cook lunch for them too.
Asian honey glazed baked chicken...yum!
Chris and the boys made a lot of headway today on the garden space. It looks awesome!
One load of dirt is not gonna cut it.
Getting started...
Unloading rail ties from the trailer.
I told those kids to bring their muscles!
They called to tell me that they are sore tonight :-)
Dixie loves the new place to explore!
 Hungry guys coming in for food...and a heater!

After lunch, the enclosure goes up!


Oh my stars! I am drooling over this already!
No thumbs were injured in the building of this structure

 How much help are these little girls?

My honey! I love this pic :-)
Checking where the ground is level with the base of the enclosure
 Cat roping was the half-time entertainment for the day.
(Aren't my red rubber boots just presh?)

A long day's work 

These girls were no help at all.

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