Wednesday Walk

Would you like to go for a walk in my garden?

Here's a view of my side yard which I intended to be a serenity garden.  (Odd because the brick house next door belongs to my VERY LOUD Puerto Rican neighbors.  Good people.  JUST REALLLLLY LOUD). 

The serenity garden isn't very serene.  Not because of my neighbors - but because it's overgrown with weeds.

It's downright embarassing.  But in my defense, we had nearly two weeks of intense heat and humidity and I just couldn't get outside. 

My poor cherub is being swallowed by a volunteer trumpet vine.  I better dig it up or it'll be taller than my house in no time!

My pricker weed thistle plant is starting to brown up.  If you let those hard, crusty pricker weeds grow, they get about 5-6 feet tall and get lovely thistle purple flowers on them.  I always get one in this patch and, since it's on the side of the yard, I let it grow.  The flowers attract yellow finches.

Unfortunately, I didn't see a single finch this season.  But the bees love it as you can see here.  My yard was FULL of bees tonight which is so encouraging considering the colony collapse issues out there.

(Mr. Bee is atop the flower mooning me and my camera in case you can't spot him).

My rose of Sharon are doing wonderfully, bursting with lovely lavendar color.  They're the first thing I see when I pull my car in back - a very lovely "welcome home".

And there's BIG things happening in the yard.  Check out the size of thes squash leaves!!  My foot is next to one to give you some perspective.  Yes, I wear old lady gardening shoes.

And my hibiscus have popped.  They are the size of saucers - or, my hand.  They're happy faces smile at me as I round the corner to head to my car for work each morning. 

And that's our walk today!

GratiTuesday

This Tuesday I am grateful for:

Squash blossoms and little baby squashes starting to form.

Five varieties of tomatoes starting to color up.

Raspberries coming in faster than I can pick them.






Add it up:  Spinach with e-coli, salmonella in eggs, Wisconsin's recent tainted turkey recalls, pesticide laden apples...and so on... It is truly a blessing to have a plot of land that I can grow my own food on.

My yard is chemical free and prospers well enough for me to gorge on all the fresh veggies I want - with plenty left to share. 

I joke that my yard is the size of a postage stamp.  But it's amazing the amount of nutritious, healthy, un-fooled-around with food you can grow on a postage stamp.  And for that, I am grateful.

I'm linking this post to the Gratituesday link party.  Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Domestic Goddess?

Wow. Blogs can really go neglected when you're not looking!  What happened?  My main computer monitor died and I don't like the way my laptop sorts pictures. It was just too much of a project to learn the new photo sorting system.  Ugh.  But I finally got a new monitor and I'm back in business!

So what's been going on while I've been out?  Well, I got engaged! 

 

Actually I got engaged on May 14, 2011.  But we didn't say anything to anyone because I really wanted my dad to be the first to know.  He always says he's the last to know anytime anything happens to me or my siblings. 

The Conductor did a marvelous job picking the ring.  I didn't go with him because I think an engagement ring is a gift - and a gal doens't dictate what kind of gift she wants.  But he did ask for guidelines.  I told him I wanted a thin band (so my short fingers don't look fat) and that I'd like a band with some curvy lines (as opposed to a boring, straight line).  I also said I'd like gemstones of varying sizes, not just one big honking one.  And I said no pointy gemstone cuts since I didn't want to freak about the stone catching on fabric. 

And he nailed it.

So, we went out to eat not too long ago.  And the Conductor spilled some food on his shirt.  We're engaged - but not married.  I don't do his laundry. 

Yet some part of me stupidly felt the need to show him what a great Domestic Goddess I am by getting that food splotch out.  I told him to leave his shirt and I'd clean it.

He protested.  It's silk, he said. 

So what, I replied.  I sew.  I know fabric.

But it's dry clean only, he said.

Don't spend money on dry cleaning, I said.

Really, it's no big deal.  I'll clean it myself, he said.

Nonsense, I said.  It'll take me mere minutes.

So he reluctantly left it.  And, while cleaning, I found another bowling-style shirt that he left at my house that also had food splotches on it.  Perfect!  I can clean him two shirts at once and dazzle him twice with my mad laundry skills.

I put both shirts in Oxy Clean, soaked them, and hung them to dry.

And that's when I went from being a Domestic Goddess to being a Domestic Dumbass.

He's only ever dry cleaned these shirts.  I macihine was dry clean only garments all the time  - but that's because I get them from thrift stores.

Bowling style shirts alternate colored panels with ighter colored panels.  So as soon as the water hit them, the colors ran.  And after they dried, they were not soft as silk.  They were stiff as cardboard.

Add to that, the blue one is a Bobby Chan shirt that retails for about $50; the black shirt is a Nat Nast that retails for closer to $100.

Even better, these are two of his absolute favorite shirts.  You can totally see how good he feels when he's wearing them.

And the topper - the blue one reminds him of his late grandmother who told him he looked as handsome as Charlie Sheen in it (before Sheen went psycho, of course). 

Moral of the story:  If you have a guy that knows HOW to do laundry and doesn't MIND doing laundry:  DON'T BE A HERO! 

Measuring Tape

I love Menard's hardware store.  I willingly fall for their get-you-in-the-door gimmicks.  One that I particularly love are these measuring tapes.  They are FREE after a mail in rebate so I always pick up a few when I go in.

There's nothing more annoying than needing a tape measure and not being able to find one, right?   I figured I could label each one and keep them around in each place that I typically need one.  Smart thinking, no?

I was so touched that The Conductor seemed to be on the same wavelength as me as he spied them and commented, "Wow.  You have a lot of tape measures!"  His tone implied that he was impressed by the forsight I showed by having so many on hand.  I was about to proudly imform him that I got them all FREE, when he enthusiastically continued,  "You could put one in each room of your house!!"

I wanted to jump up and scream, "Yes!  Exactly!"  But before I could jump up with excitement, he sarcastically added, "Orrrrrrrr you could just pile them all around the toaster oven."  His back was to me but I'm pretty sure his eyes were rolling. 

 
Sigh.  So much for being on the same wavelength.  I finally got around to labeling them in such a way that I'll know just where to put them away when I'm done.  (As opposed to storing them in a pile by the toaster oven).
 

The one on top is for the utility closet, which is painted lite green.

Next is the one with the dress, for the hallway outside the sewing room.  The tape with the cars obviously goes in the car.

The back porch which always has a bug or two on it gets one.  My last name is Thomas, and like the train, I'm also a really useful engine so that one goes in my errand runing purse.  The last one goes in my step stool/tool carrier painted the same shade of Oriental blue.

But watch.  Now that I finally got them labeled and put away, I bet that smartypants Conductor won't even notice they aren't clustered around the toaster oven anymore.....

Me Time

Happiness is



a sweetheart

that totally gets it

when you tell him

"Yes, I have the night free

but I really need some me-time."

Little Orange Dog

Today I had to put my poochka to sleep.

I rescued her from the Humane Society who picked her up as a stray in Tennesee.  She lived about 14 years, about 7 of them with me.

She was known for two things.  One was her ever-wagging tail.  My friend's elderly father couldn't get over her waggely tail and remarked that you could tape a fan to it and she'd cool the whole room down. 

Her tail was wagging right up until I had to leave her. 

The other thing she was known for was being a dope.  Chakra was a good dog, and a sweet dog.  But she was also a dumb dog.  Her most famous move was getting her cord wrapped around the silliest things. 

Like the planter box:

And the walkway railings:

She also got her cord stuck around a small flag holder I have in the yard.  It's about a month too early for planting in Wisconsin.  But in her honor I planted two orange primroses by the flag holder.  They're perrenials so they'll be a pretty reminder of my pup every spring. 

Little orange flowers for my little orange dog. 

So Much for Lent

It's just about the third Sunday in Lent.  What I hate about Lent is all the people that treat it as the time for taking a second stab at the diet they abandoned three weeks after New Year's.  The thing you give up, or, alternatively, try to do more of, is supposed to be something that is a SACRIFICE.  Something that pains you so that when you're tempted you pause for some reflection and inner growth instead.

I gave up thrift store shopping.  And, boy, has it been hard.  I wear thrift store clothes, I furnish my home with thrift store decor, I use old sheets as muslins for sewing, and I find lots of raw materials to re-do, reupholster, and re-paint.  To stay away from the thrift stores is a Sacrifice, indeed.

We're a whole month from Easter and already I've failed.  I went to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore today.  And I came home with this:

But let me rationalize explain. 

First, The bagged stuff is actually on it's way TO Goodwill.  (See - I can purge every now and then!)

Second, spring is coming fast and it's time to plan the garden.  I've always wanted raised beds but new wood is Ex-Pen-Sive.  So I wanted to find some scraps.  And I did!!  I found enough pieces of NEW wood, already cut in equal measures for THREE raised beds. 

The drawers are for a future project that will help me eliminate clutter.  And the picket pieces are for a quickie craft project. 

The particle board is for a spring cleaning project that I'm already halfway done with. 

And the last piece only took me 10 minutes to put into place.  Watch:

Here's my current pull-out cutting board. 

Nasty.  The wood has been pulling off in chunks which, of course, has nearly gotten in my food many times.  I flipped it over to use the underside.

But you can see that, in the divet used for pulling it out, food scraps collect and are impossible to get out.  I especially like when pie crusts get caked in there.  Yick!  I've been hoping to find a suitable replacement and I finally did, today!

It was a little wider than the original so I just laid the old one on top centering it over the pullout divet,  and drew some cutting lines.  Two quick passes over the cutting table was all it took.

Back in the kitchen I cleaned both sides with a mix of baking soda and vinegar.  If you remember 4th grade science, vinegar makes baking soda get all bubbly.  It's about the best, albeit stinkiest, all-natural cleaner for surfaces like wood that are porous. 

And there you have it.  My brand "new", Lousy Catholic cutting board.  So....