Getting Stressed Trying to De-stress

I have had this gimpy neck for like three days and I am in major pain. I guess not surgery pain, but the drama queen in me is coming out. I have not wanted to exercise or do anything that might make it worse. I worked out on Tuesday morning and right after that I got a crick in my neck. I tried to continue with life, but it was just not happening.

My sweet hubby got talked into a gift certificate for a massage by two awesome ladies who dropped the hint on Valentine's Day that he should get me something. Thank you ladies! Anyway, I decided to use my gift certificate for a 30 minute massage.

I thought I knew which salon the masseuse worked at then realized after about 5 minutes of standing in the salon where I thought she worked that I was at the wrong place. So I showed up 10 minutes late to my massage all stressed out thinking that I might miss my one opportunity of getting this gimpy neck to stop hurting. She was very gracious, after I called my husband in a very peeved way (because it was all his fault you know. . . poor guy) and asked him to call the salon and tell them that I was running late.

She started to work on my neck, back and everything else and I immediately relaxed. After the massage was over I thanked her, talked to her for about an hour and a half afterwards and left thinking I needed another massage to de-stress. I woke up this morning with my neck hurting worse than ever! Agh.

I promise to post about more encouraging times another day! "Momma told me there would be days like this."

Works for Me Wednesday - Cheap Soil



I posted on this last year, but it was kind of after the season was over. At my local Wal Mart, you can get bags of soil, rocks, mulch and many other things that have holes in them for 50% off. There is a place that they put all of the busted bags outside of my Wal Mart so all I do is drive by every few days to see what they have. Oftentimes, too much has leaked out and it does not make it worth it to buy them, but most of the time they just have a hole and cannot sell them. Last year we got a bunch of Miracle Grow bags of soil that really made our vegetable garden awesome.

I checked with Home Depot and they do not do this. They send theirs back to the supplier and are compensated for the broken bags. Happy Soil Hunting!

Make sure to check out other Works for Me Wednesday posts on my favorite-check-it-every- day-blog, Rocks in My Dryer.

Monday Menu

Monday - tonight we had teriyaki chicken legs from an awesome Year of Crockpotting meals blog; I'm telling you girls that if you do not have your crockpot out once a week you are doing a disservice to yourself!!! We had Minute Rice and green beans sweetened with splenda with a touch of butter
Tuesday - Gretel had an Asian open-house last week. I have really been into Asian food lately (this is really strange to someone who is a meat and potato kind of girl), but I have a friend who is from Malaysia who fixed spring rolls and I am going to call him for the recipe. What he made before is very similar I believe to this spring roll recipe. Not sure what I am going to make with them, probably some form of chicken stir fry.
Wednesday - Pancakes, bacon and oranges
Thursday- baked beans and Bratwurst on the grill - great idea 3 Blondes and the Law
Friday - Pepperoni Bread from Kids Meal Crowd Blog
Saturday - running a 5K; Yay! Should be fun. . .I better fix myself something yummy to reward myself, right! :) Perhaps, Chicken Parmesan with a salad. . .that sounds good right now!!
Sunday- Last week we had tostadas with refried beans and taco meat with salad fixins. It was perfect. I just need to make sure to defrost my hamburger meat ahead of time so I can fix it quickly.

Update from last week's Menu.
  • The steak night was superb and it was because of the great company we had! Yay for friends! Thanks for not looking too closely at the inside of my house. You guys are best!
This last week a friend sent me a comparable coupon site to The Grocery Game called CouponMom.com. It is free and awesome.

Do you want me to fix your jewelry or your toilet?

At one point in my life I had three jobs, two part time jobs and one full time job. This does not include my kids or husband which are both at the very least part time jobs. Juggling all of this eventually made me CRAZY. I would get a phone call and she would say, "Hey this is Christy" to which I would reply, "yes and. . ." I did not know if she was from my part-time business of selling jewelry or from my part-time job at our apartments. Things were beginning to get out of hand. . . but I had to persevere for as long as possible because my hubs was finishing up seminary and we needed to keep the balls in the air. So I persevered until the end of seminary and now I am growing my hair back. Fortunately, this was only a season of life and I have since moved back to some version of sanity.

I am not sure why, but my hubs said things naturally follow an order of calm to chaos. If you clean up everything in the house, it will come undone pretty quickly (as you might know). Well, after almost two years of being in a state of calm things are slowly, but steadily moving back to chaos. I started out having my kids in public school and me working part time from home. The next year, I brought one of them home with me and have been juggling him and my part time job. Next year, guess what. . . I believe we have gravitated to the "chaos season" once again. Hansel and Gretel are both interested in being home and mom is still working that nice quiet part-time job she once had.

Are you with me? Multi-taskin' momma is about to be hairless again. :)

Can't wait to find my camera!

It's either in my car (which still has Easter stuff in it) or my mom accidentally took it home with her. Either way, I really hope I find it because I have something really cool to show you. I know, you are thinking it is my abs of steal or better yet, my buns of steal. I assure you that it is not a picture of either, it is something crafty that I have been thinking about for a long time. Something I found in a magazine that I wanted to make. So if I find my camera I will show it to you. Are you going to check my blog every 30 minutes to see if I found my camera? Probably not, but I will post about it by Wednesday at the latest. Until then, ta ta!

Menu Plan Monday-March 31st

Monday's are doozies. They are about to get more interesting with the evenings being filled with baseball practices and games. My priorities are definitely mixed up when I am running out of time to blog ;)

Monday - All American Meat Loaf from The Ultimate Southern Living cookbook, mashed potatoes, green beans and crescent rolls
Tuesday - sausage and biscuits, eggs and orange juice
Wednesday -Pulled chicken sandwiches from Organizing Junkie's menu - yummo
Thursday - bratwurst, green bell peppers and onions, french fries and banana pudding
Friday - Gretel's open house (eating there)
Saturday- steak, baked potatoes, garlic bread, salad
Sunday - leftovers

Update on two things I have cooked from the last couple of weeks that were phenomonal:
Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo-pulled this randomly from Allrecipes and boy was I glad!
Black bean chicken chili (recipe to come)-Woah, this got better and better as the spices and everything meshed; it was awesome!

Enjoy and have a great week!!!

Go Fly a Kite!


I am really not "telling you off," I really mean it. Go fly a kite with your kids. This is the most simple fun we have had in a long time. Easter morning the kids awoke to an Easter Basket overflowing with some candy, but mostly cheap toys. One of the cheap toys ($1.00 at Wal Mart) was a kite. Easter afternoon we had our naps then awoke to a semi-windy day where I promised the kids some family fun. We went to a local park where we set sail our kites and baseballs. It was a fabulous time with lots of photo ops.

So, the next time you are looking for some cheap thrills, grab a kite and go fly it!!! I promise you will have a blast, until at least Sponge Bob and Hello Kitty take a nose dive to the ground! Share some of your cheap thrills with me! Also, visit Rocks in My Dryer for more helpful tips including cleaning your shower as well as using up Easter Eggs.

Menu Plan Monday or Wednesday-March 26th -Better Late than Never! :)



Gretel is out of school this week and I am going to try to keep Hansel still going on his school. We need your prayers. I think Gretel may be a little distracting this week. She and her paper crafts for her bears look a lot more fun than spelling words and subtraction with regrouping.

Yesterday was quite successful as far as food is concerned. I put a roast, potatoes and carrots on overnight, turned it off and stuck it in the fridge when I woke up and put it back on when I got home from church. I made my sides while it was warming back up. I really have never done that before, but I knew that I wanted something yummy for my family to come home to. On the menu was an odd assortment but it filled our bellies and satisfied our need for an Easter lunch. We also had greek salad (we make ours with kalamata olives and pepperoncini's, crusty bread, pineapple mango salsa as well as a fruit pizza.

While Easter is a beautiful celebration of Christ and His resurrection, my pastor husband and I celebrate that we are still alive too after all of the busyness. :)

So here she blows for this week:

Monday - tonight, no small group so we can have a leisurely dinner; We will have bratwurst, french fries and pineapple/mango salsa
Tuesday - pancakes, sausage
Wednesday - White bean chicken chili/fritos/cheese/banana pudding
Thursday - helping with Bible Study at friend's home (ordering pizza?)
Friday - steak, potatoes
Saturday - 1st baseball practice and probably eating out at Sonic or something
Sunday - always taco smaco's, if not leftovers

Celebrating Easter with Like-Hearted Friends

Below is what I posted last year the night before the Easter Egg Hunt. Tomorrow is the day of our Easter Egg Hunt for 2008 (I guess it is turning out to be annual :)). We combined forces with another church this year and it is going to be awesome.

Last year we stuffed 3,000 eggs. This year we upped it to 6,000 stuffed eggs and 1,600 resurrection eggs to be made by the kiddos. We have 640 hotdogs and buns, 40 2 liters donated by Pepsi and 504 individual bags of chips!!

What a joy to be able to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior with another denomination of believers. I wish life was like this all of the time. . .all working together for the same Lord. We spend so much time trying to "one up" the other and make our church out to be the best when in reality THE Church is the bride of Christ. Not First THIS or Fellowship THAT but THE CHURCH is the bride of Christ!! What a glorious day it will be when He comes back for us all.

This year, I planned with my same friend from last year as well as another Type A friend and boy we had a great time. We all laugh about being Type A and I am glad that we can laugh about it rather than cry. They are some of the most amazing people I know. We all have little kids and battle illness, schedules, jobs and just being a mom but when we all work together we can accomplish amazing results. These are the spiritual and non-spiritual things I am celebrating today in a nutshell an eggshell:
  • First, my relationship with my Lord and Savior, who rescued me from the mud and mire who gave His life for mine (not an equal trade, by the way)
  • my awesome family who values relationship with each other (obviously they are not teenagers yet)
For the EEH:
  • all of the donations and at cost things we got
  • the smooth communication with so many people working together
  • my friends who have helped out and the fact that we are all still friends
  • the two church's spirits and all that they have accomplished with their hard working hands
  • the use of the fairgrounds (free) and the fact that we have an indoors as well as outdoors
There are so many things to be thankful for this Good Friday,
but mostly His death and work on the cross!
Thank you Jesus, may we honor you in all we do and say!

Friday, April 6, 2007

"Twas the Night Before the Easter Egg Hunt"

Twas the Night Before the Easter Egg Hunt
And all through the house
not a creature was stirring
Not even a spouse.

The Easter Eggs Were Stuffed
At the fairgrounds with care
In hopes that good weather and children will be there.

The weatherman has said that the degree will be high forty
And I am thinking oh Lordy Lordy!

As you can see, we are preparing for an Easter Egg Hunt. Myself and a friend from church were both burdened for the kids in the community that they would have a place to hear the real reason why we celebrate Easter. The downtown area in our community celebrates the holiday by putting hay on the concrete and hiding the eggs under the hay. That sounded a little scratchy and not so fun, so we decided not to join them this year.

This planning process has been such a faith stretcher for me and my friend. We are both Type A so it made it interesting-both very detail oriented-down to making special eggs for the 1 and 2 year olds so that they would have candy that they can really eat.

We received donations for a lot of the supplies. We have a friend that works for "Ideal or Flowers" bread company who donated hotdog buns, Walmart gave a $25 gift card, a local butcher gave us hot dogs at cost. Also, our church gave us a small budget to work with for missions. Not to mention, our precious people at the church stuffed almost 3,000 eggs with candy. They also donated 1,000 eggs to make "Resurrection Eggs" for the kids to make their own version. Isn't that amazing. Next year my goal is to not have to pay for the chips or the chocolate candy that we are having for "dessert."

What a joy to see all of this come to fruition. One of the biggest faith stretchers was to find the location. Obviously, we have no church building since we currently meet at the middle school. We needed a place with an indoor area as a rain contingency and craft area. We also needed a place with plumbing! My friend suggested the fairgrounds. We were told that we may could get a discount, but we would have to go to the board meeting. So she and I show up scared to death because we don't know anyone and who knows what goes on at a fairground board meeting. We let them know that we were doing this for the community, not just for the people in our church and they said we could use it for free since it was a community event. That was a green light for us that we were headed in the right direction. So we have 300 hotdogs, almost 3,000 stuffed eggs, 1,000 "Resurrection Eggs" to be taken home, and some great Story Tellers lined up to tell the story of Christ and his last week on Earth and the hope that we can have in Him.

What an awesome day today preparing for all of the kids. I need to get some rest because tomorrow we get to see how the First "Maybe Annual" Easter Egg Hunt turns out. I will update you soon.

What are your best Easter memories as a family?

Among the First Responders

It is 6:54 am and my day has already been pretty eventful. While I was working out at the gym this morning, in my Boot Camp class, we heard a sound like thunder. My friend looked at me and we dismissed the sound as someone being careless with the weights or a little wild in their exercising. A few seconds later, "the funny desk guy" comes in and tells our "not-so-nice boot camp instructor" that someone just ramped the curve and hit the building next to us. My "not-so-nice boot camp instructor" flew out the door (I was glad to see him finally get some exercise) and flew to the accident.

My friends and I got to be the "first responders" by huddling up for prayer. I am assuming the guy went into a diabetic sugar shock and ran off the road. He was responding when we left, but was pretty beat up. I guess that would be the case since he ran into the side of the building. I am grateful that he was alive as I am sure he is too. God was quite merciful to him as well as to us, by him not running into the gym with all of us working out. So that would be my praise today that I got to be "among the first responders" at an accident as well as keep my life.

As I go throughout the day today I want to keep that response of prayer and be apart of what God is already doing around me. Thank you Lord, for Your mercies are new each day.

Help Me Rhonda!

Whoever this Rhonda girl is, maybe she can help! I absolutely love my life, but do you ever feel like maybe you bit off a little more than you can chew? I do every day and as the Lord continues to mold me and guide me I know that He will have to be the one to get me out of bed each morning to live this life of mine!

I do all of the things that I love. . .spend time with my kids including all day with one, help with my church, hang out with my hubby (this list in no particular order), cook, exercise (this list is definitely not in order) and chat with every person I meet along the way and I mean everyone. But when you add all of this up, it can be quite overwhelming.

Especially Spring time. I have two kids that are going to be playing ball. One has had evidence of that on her face (it was purple and green and looked like an easter egg. . .I will let you guess). It just gets really busy. So what am I doing to make sure the insanity does not get to me. . .oops I may be too late?

So this is my sure-fire way to keep my game face on and be ready for the chaos.

  • I am resting in the Lord. . .casting all of my cares upon Him because I know He is big enough to handle it.
  • Taking a nap.
  • Taking frequent baths.
  • Reading a book that is fun.
  • Delegating (another word for bossing)
  • Praying the Sinner's Prayer all day :)
  • Exercising through the stress. . .taking out my aggression on the gym, not my husband :)
  • Staying in the Word to encourage me and bring me back to the big plan
These are a few things to remember as life gets wild. Gotta run . . .the hoodlums are coming in.

What do you do to keep life spinning, but without looking like a screaming banshee?

Menu Plan Monday-March 17th

I had to stop putting the days of the week because my husband refused to check my Menu Plan anymore because he said it was inaccurate. Every now and then I change up the order on my menu according to what amount of time I have and what I feel like eating. This is my "non-days" of the week menu, but in the order in which we will "probably" eat them! :)

Dinner
  • Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches, Black Bean Dip
Black Bean Dip How To:
1 can black beans drained
1 8oz. can tomato sauce
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp. chili powder

Combine beans and tomato sauce in a saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Put beans in blender with cheese and chili powder. Pour in bowl. It will firm up. Top with cheese. Yummy with fritos, warm tortilla chips or pita chips.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

****taking green jello to Small Group
  • Gravy, Biscuits and Sausage
  • Shrimp, Fish, Sweet Potato Fries
  • Take-out Pizza at Fairgrounds getting ready for the Easter Egg Hunt
  • Easter Egg Hunt-who knows what we are going to eat for dinner. . .probably pizza or leftover hotdogs! :) I have frozen bratwurst if worse comes to worse. :)
I hope you have a beautiful and meaningful Easter week. . .remembering His work on the cross, His death, burial, and amazing resurrection! He is risen indeed!

Discouragement Setting In?

December 10th marks the day that I started working out 4 times a week very early in the morning. Let's count them together one. . .two. . .three months of working out consistently. Two days of cardio and two grueling days of strength training at "Boot Camp." Guess what? I have gained weight. I have probably gained 2-5 pounds. Currently, I am "training" for a 5 K which is about 3.1 miles. In the fall, I ran a 5K out of shape and this time I want to not only run the 5 K, but to be ready for it physically.

Now, nothing is more discouraging for a woman who is dedicated to exercise than to gain weight. At this point I am having to look at the other positive perks of exercising and not give up.

The list below provides my benefits of exercising (outside of weight loss).

Physical
  • I have a lot better endurance than I used to. . .this morning I ran for 2.5 miles with a group of women and felt like going more. (This may not be big for some people but it is really good for me since I am used to working out on a treadmill or elliptical)
  • able to pick up heavy things like my kids and have fun swinging them around!!!
  • everyone says that muscle weighs more than fat so maybe there is hope for my weight gain.
  • my grandmother has osteoporosis and we have the body type that is prone to osteoporosis. Strength training fights osteoporosis.
  • more energy, especially in the morning to early afternoon.
  • makes you choose a little more wisely during the day with your eating because you know it takes a lot to work those calories off.
Mental
  • helps fight depression
  • gives you a better self image which is a great benefit to your marriage
  • gives you determination to reach your goals (making a choice each day to get out of bed and exercise
Spiritual
  • take the time to see the beauty of God's creation when running outdoors
  • helps you rely on the strength of the Lord when working out is tough
  • listen to music while I run which has been good for my soul
Social
  • get to see my friends a lot during the week
  • able to meet new people through a running/walking club
  • continue to develop friendships with people I already know, but also have an interest in exercise
With all that being said, I need not be discouraged, right? There are many other benefits to exercise than weight loss. One of the websites that I get info from and my mother-in-law introduced me to is called sparkpeople.com. I sign up for information from Spark People and it keeps me informed on exercise, healthy dieting and motivating stories.

I would love to know how exercise has helped you or what you do when discouragement sets in. Share your hints with all of us. Happy Exercising!

How to give life to old chips!

I thought of my Works for Me Wednesday post in the middle of the night last night! Exciting life I have! :)

This works especially great for tortilla chips and really I have not tried other kinds of chips. If someone, not naming any names Hansel and Gretel forgets to clip the tortilla chip bag (which by the way is a staple at our house) then we revitalize them in the oven. All you do is put the tortilla chips on a baking sheet and turn the oven to be about 350 degrees for about 5-8 minutes and voila you have yummy Mexican Restaurant quality tortilla chips. Hot and fresh! Hope this works for you to save you money and give life to those old chips in the pantry.

If you have more revitalizing tips for me, I would love to hear about them. As always, check out Works for Me Wednesday to learn more tips to save time and money! Have a great day.

Menu Plan Monday-March 10th

My kitchen is a mess and so is my house. Not a great way to start off the week. BUT, I will have recessed lighting in my kitchen thanks to my honey-do!!! He is one crazy guy!

Monday – Spaghetti, Salad if they’re lucky, rolls

Tuesday – The Pork Loin that I keep forgetting about! Zucchini, and rolls

Wednesday –Pancakes as always ( Help, I am addicted to Peanut Butter Chip Pancakes! I need INTERVENTION!), Sausage

Thursday – Hmmm…I need something in the crockpot because it helps my brain so much. I think I will throw a whole chicken in the crock pot in the morning and then break it up for chicken and cheese quesadillas for dinner. How's that sound?

Friday – Bratwurst (on sale and have a coupon), Apples and Sauerkraut

Saturday – chicken pot pie (use leftover chicken meat)

Sunday – Taco Smaco Salad!!!!

It's A Nomal Occurrence, I'm Late for the Ultimate Blog Party

Hi, I am Desiree', the writer of this blog. I have two kids, one whom I homeschool and the other goes to a small Christian Montessori school. My husband is a preacher-man (My homey and I above). I work for a non-profit Christian organization from home. We live in Arkansas so you might be get some funny soundin' words on here like "push the buggy-instead of push the cart." Also, you will just about always get a Works for Me Wednesday by Rocks in my Dryer post as well as a post on Menu Plan Monday by Organizing Junkie from me. I love to find practical information that helps me in the things I do every day.

Interesting things about me:
  • I have a cardboard phobia (cannot hear the sound without my skin crawling)
  • I get up at 4:45 am 4 days a week to work out at the gym
  • I take a nap very regularly (I will not admit to how often), probably has something to do with the gym thing! :)
  • I am a thrifty girl, I will not buy anything unless it is on sale or clearance.
  • The things that make me sad and want to shout are mean people and people who are fakes.
So that's a little bit about me. I am so sorry I was late. Please excuse my delay. I will be posting about the Easter Egg Hunt that is beginning to consume me and to explain my tardiness.

Glad you popped in on this Ultimate Blog Party by 5 Minutes for Mom!

Saving Money

Sorry if you clicked on my link about Saving Money or Gardening. That was a topic that I talked about last week. You can definitely help me out in that category too because that applies since we garden!

Yesterday, I was thinking about what I wanted to write about and I was thinking it was going to be about controlling the masses of laundry that accumulate in this house. I was out browsing a bit and I found this awesome post and comments on what others do to make it through their laundry in a week in a way that keeps their lives sane and house picked up. So one dilemma solved and onto another.

My husband and I do a lot of things to save money. One of the small things we have done is to buy those little weird shaped light bulbs that take half an hour to warm up to get to full brightness. (I do not complain about those in the morning at 4:40 when I wake up and walk into the bathroom!)

Another thing that we do, which is really difficult for me is to use the envelope system in the areas where we spend too much. That has helped control spending quite a bit. I would love to know what you do to control spending and even save in your home. It can be in the house, on cars or any "light bulb moment" (no pun intended :)) that you have had in saving money.

By the way that is a picture of me and my family in Branson, Missouri on vacation. . .one of the things that we would like to do again this year if we can save the money! So come on with all of your awesome ideas.

Menu Plan Monday - March 3rd

Yay, it is Monday and I get to plan my menu. This week I am trying to be a bit better on the health side of things. I just did my BMI on a website and it thinks that I need to be back at my teenager weight. The nerve! So, minus Monday's fish sticks and french fries I think it is fairly healthy. Oh and forget that little thing about the Spanish Flan too, ok? :)

Monday - Fish Sticks, French Fries, Coleslaw. . .we have small group tonight and need something simple. Fish Sticks were on my Grocery Game List this week. Cheap and Simple = Monday!
Tuesday - Saffron Rice, green beans mixed with Worcestershire, butter and brown sugar, rolls Simple Whole Roasted Chicken,
Wednesday - pancakes, sausage, fruit kabobs
Thursday - Sarah's Musings had this recipe up this morning for her Saturday meal and my daughter is a feta lover and will LOVE this meal. Mediterranean Greek Salad, I may try the Souvlaki as well, that looks pretty tasty. Thanks Sarah!!!
Friday - Homemade Pepperoni Pizza
Saturday - can we eat pizza again? Probably not, guess I will go with Chicken Quesadillas and Spanish Flan, and Mexican Layer Dip,
Sunday - Trusty, Rusty Taco Salad!

Have an excellent week (hopefully eating at the dinner table with your family.) We really try to go this route, but sometimes on Fridays we plop by that ole tv. I thought maybe this week I would put our fun place mats out. What are some things that you guys do to encourage eating at the dinner table? Make sure to check Organizing Junkie for more fantastic menu plans!

Keeping Communication and Encouragement at the Heart of the Home


Valentine's Day has come and gone. . .the pressure if off of the guys and the moms can get back to normalcy. This year, we used Valentine's as an opportunity to kick off some good communication and encouragement in our home. I purchased these mailboxes at Target before Valentine's Day and we decorated them for Gretel's class. It was a really fun thing and now we are using them at home to give each other mail.

I don't know about you, but I love getting mail, especially sweet notes from my kids. We each have our own mailbox and the love just continues. If you have ideas on how you have improved communication and encouragement in your home, I would love to hear from you.

As always, check out more Works for Me Wednesday ideas at Shannon's blog, Rocks in My Dryer.

My Garden Plan

I have been working up to this for awhile and decided to just put all of my thoughts down. While my husband and I love people and ministry opportunities we desperately need to recharge our batteries sometimes. We have found a few ways that we enjoy recharging. For me it is definitely gardening. Even though it is quiet time away from phones and computers I enjoy visiting with my neighbor who gardens as well. We have a vegetable garden, a water garden as well as a couple of flower gardens. My hope this year is that all of my gardens are even better (and more) than last year.

So this is the plan to get there:

·
Plant seeds to grow indoors

While I have bought some starter material from Spend Mart Wal Mart, I have also been perusing the internet to find inexpensive containers to start seeds. This site has a lot of great ideas for seed containers and this is a site linking to a really cool garden girl that I have started reading regularly. The other dilemma I have is not enough places to set up seed starting areas. I am contemplating clearing off a couple of shelves and buying some fluorescent lights like this guy.

· Get soil tested at Co-Op. There was a big write up in our local newspaper about the tests that the Co -Op offers as a free service.

·
Need to plant hostas in the shade around two of my trees. I plan on ordering them from Burpee and they will be delivered when time to plant.


Another favorite of mine is herb gardening. It is really easy as long as you have a good spot. Also, you have to keep in mind what herbs need space and which ones know their boundaries. Mint is especially bad about getting in the other herbs bubbles. We have to put him in a round pot every year so that he will mind his manners.


I would like to not only add to my herb collection but to dry them to use throughout the year.

My neighbor came over yesterday and she asked if I would like to share a truckload of dirt. That would probably be a really good thing too because dirt is expensive, especially good dirt. It would be really helpful to improve the quality of my soil. So one more point to add.


· Get better dirt!

I am sure that as the Spring keeps a comin' that I will be adding to this list but this is a great start for kicking off the planting season. Don't ya think. So what is your plan to beautify your outdoors as well as give you a recharge this Spring? I would love to know.

Menu Plan Monday-I am Back!

Took a bit of unpaid bloggy sick leave last week! We ended up eating out like three times this week and we never do that. Between having stomachs that felt a little off and no menu planned things were wild. So, I'm back and hope to not be down again. . . . for awhile at least!

Monday - Chicken Quesadillas on the George Foreman
Tuesday - Roast, carrots and Texas Toast
Wednesday - Omelets, biscuits. . .maybe some gravy for my gal. . .my gal likes her some gravy!
Thursday - Either a Sonic stop or moochin off the in-laws until Sunday
Friday - moochin
Saturday - still moochin
Sunday - Taco Salad or Chili

I missed you Menu Plan Monday! I will be with you till the very end.

Spring's A Comin'


. . .I know it is because I signed my kids up for T-ball and baseball today. They start their first practice around Spring Break so I know Spring will be here before we know it. I can't wait, I tell you! Between colds and being stuck in the house I am itchin' for the warm air to curl between my little barefoot toes.

My kids are ready to practice their ball skills. They ran outside to get a head start on the season and were back in within 30 minutes with frozen hands. Not quite flipflop time yet kiddos! :) Soon, very soon, though.

Sick Cravings

I have a lot of sick cravings like bags and bags of chocolate covered peanut butter and mounds of chips and dip. But what I really mean is . . ..what do you crave when you are sick? Obviously, you probably do not crave much when your head is stuffed down inside the porcelain throne with stomach issues. But, when you have a run of the mill cold or even the after-effects of the flu, what do you crave?

Personally, my mom, although incredible in many other areas, was not a homemade chicken soup kind of girl. She specialized in Campbell's Chicken Noodle and Ocean Spray Cran Apple Juice. So, that's what I crave when I am sick.

This past week, my girl and I were honored guests of Mr. Flu Bug. My hubby managed to escape him and was nominated as doctor, cook and fetcher to my daughter and I while we visited with Mr. Flu. Prince Charming made many trips to El Kroger to make sure that our habitat was well equipped. While I am better, my girl still has fever and is on the mend. I wonder what she is going to crave when she is an adult and gets sick. Probably M & M's .. .just kidding, I don't feed her that when she is sick! :()

So what do you crave when you are sick? Inquiring minds wanna know.

Saving Money on Gardening


I really wanted to post on the wonders of Mucinex, Dayquil and Nyquil, but I figured you might already know about those things and they might be already working for you.

This is my newest passion that I will be delighting you with. Every year I spend a small fortune in half grown flowers. To me, part of the joy of gardening is seeing something beautiful come from an itty bitty teeny tiny seed. So with my frugal genetics (which are few and far between) combined with my need to see the seedling I decided to ring in the Spring garden a little early this year. . .INDOORS. I bought six flower seed packs that are all perennials (6.00), a Jiffy seed starter container (10.00) and a seed disperser(2.00). This bought me 72 flowers that I already planted and probably another 72 with all of the seeds that I have left. I was thinking of starting another batch after these leave the nest. :)

I want you to look carefully at the picture of the one of the peat pots. It has about 56 million plants in it. That is not what the seed disperser is supposed to do. I still have not decided if that was "user error" or not, but if you ask me it did not work properly. Only about 2-3 seeds should go in each peat pot. Go figure!

My hope is that my garden will be a Spring wonderland of color, beauty and cheap flowers! :)
Check out other great Works for Me Wednesday ideas at Rocks in My Dryer.

Under the Weather

I want to post but my mind is foggy. I have something. . .I think it's the flu. This is going to be my third day in bed. My tissues have taken over the house. I can't wait to feel better. Promise to post something grand when I feel better.