What I did this week

I was looking at the blog Farm Dreams and she is posting weekly her goals and what she had done for Indendence Day Challenge. I really liked it but since my garden is so little and our storage situation bad (No basement or garage), I am not likely to start this challenge. However reading it made me probe myself, and what things would I like to try to do every week. I do have a list, so here it goes:

1. Make something-
This could be something from fabric, clay, wood, anything.

2. Plant, Harvest or Grow-
I hope to continue to plant, it's hot here right now and not a good time to plant. However in
another month or two we start a second planting of summer things.

3. Do something good for the enviroment-
We recycle every week, but we do not have a compost bin yet. I would also would like to find a
cheap way to recycle rain water (we have no gutters) and use the water on the garden.

4. Exercise-
I lack it.


So here is what I did this week:

1. Make something:


I made myself a skirt that looks hideous. Not the patterns fault but my big booty's fault.
Then K pointed out I owed her a few skirts so I whipped this up for her in an hour and half. She timed me. Complete with headband. She loves it and has worn it a few days in a row now.

Here she is again with Marshmellow


2. Plant

I planted four sweet pepper plants and a jalapeno this week. However after a week of them being in the garden at full sunlight, they look sun scorched. I did plant one in a pot on the back patio sitting along side a tomato and believe it or not the tomato and the pepper are doing a TON better then the rest of the garden. I guess there is to MUCH heat and sun down here. I wonder how many pots I can put on my porch next year?


3. Something for the Enviroment
I didn't do anything. However I have figured out a way to put a hose attachment on our air conditioner condenser thing and use that water in the soaker hose. (Our air system has a pump that will kick on after the air is done and pumps out the condensation into our yard.) It soaks one area of the yard and actually puts out quite a bit of water in the summer. I also want to set up our compost bin this weekend, but the heat may have us staying in. 90's again.

4. Exercise
I walked for three hours at the zoo on Monday but not much beyond that.

Eating Vegetarian and Gardening

It has been over a week and almost going on two weeks where I have not prepared a meal with meat in it. I am thrilled, as I have wanted to go vegetarian for years, although lack the follow up to it. I will miss BBQ burnt ends, but since I don't make them and only eat them a few times a year it's not really an issue. We are not going vegetarian for the obvious reasons but instead are tired of buying meat, and the impact that meat eating has on the environment. There is a lot of land that is dedicated to growing feed for cattle and other animals that could be used for actually growing real food. I know I have lived in farm country. I can tell you what winter wheat looks like, corn, wheat, and soybeans. I know when it's about ready to be harvested.

What pushed us over the edge of meat was actually the economy. We are making changes now, we don't have to but we can only see things getting worse. The more we are not dependent on stores, truckers and in turn oil the better. We are increasing our own food production from our little 4 x 8 garden to as much as my shady yard will provide. The prospective area in the yard is very limited to the south side of the house and is in partial shade later in the afternoon the closer you get to the front yard.
It would help in my urge to provide most of our foods if we would stay put long enough to see a garden be fruitful. We had the most beautiful strawberries in our last home. I wish I could have taken them with us. Here strawberries grow but they take up so much space that I need to find an alternative way to grow them in a small area that does not cost anything to plant them in. I have seen some really neat stackable containers but in order to get enough plants in them it would cost me well over $100. I just can not justify spending that much money to grow your own fruit.

It is also so hot here already. They are calling for us to hit the 100 mark weeks earlier then usual. We have already gotten to 102 heat index this last weekend, and with it that miserable out I don't feel motived to leave my airconditioned computer chair.

K is really having a hard summer so far. She loves to swim. We have not put up our pool because we found that you are supposed to have a special pool permit, fencing that goes up 6 ft and alarms on your doors. Now I don't feel that is all necessary for a blow up pool, but we do have little neighbors living next door and our pool is big enough that it does need to be hidden. So we are applying for a permit to put up a fence. Crazy. We built an interior of a house without a permit but here we need a permit for a fence and front doors.

In the meanwhile K has found a way to satisfy her thirst for water.


This is her and our neighbor taking part in the small K method of cooling off. Much more water saving then bugging mom to slip and slide. Now if only I can get her to use the water on the garden we'd be in business.

It's done...

finally it is done enough to put it on the market. The wood floors still need done but the rest is finished minus, a few knobs, a stair rail in the basement and a light there too. So here's the pictures of our one room school house, gutted and turned into a 2 bedroom 2 bath home.

Happy Birthday to me!

It's my birthday... I used to always have these expectations, someone else would clean the house, cook dinner, bring me flowers, a cake etc. It never happened. I was always grumpy, crampy (I always seem to be menstrating!) and just plain not fun to be around. Then last year the worst happened. (OK it could have been MUCH worse but still.)

I sat in the very cold house in Scatterville watching them pump 3 feet of water out of the basement. There was no heat because we turned it off for safety. So it was pretty bad. At the same time it was also one of the best birthdays ever. I was surrounded by my friends, and I have the best friends in the world! They bought me flowers, chocolate, wine and made the best chocolate cake ever! They were the best gift I have had, just being surrounded by the love.

So this year, I have been thinking about my problem with birthdays, and I have determined that it is my way of looking at them that makes them so bad. So I expected nothing, absolutely nothing. I knew that R would be in Dallas all day at a conference and I would not have a car. Well already my day has been wonderful. My children are the best ever!




I woke up to an I luv Yoo poster on my wall, and another one Happy Brth Mom. There were little paper chains sprinkled all over the floor. My daughter has been an angel, she woke up with me and then started to do the laundry, and then put all the clean dishes away and reloaded the dishwasher. She had made me a birthday card and two paintings.

W woke and brought me a handmade card that said I love you mom. With a heart chocolate taped to it. T made the card above for me. I am also expecting my Dad to come up today so he can be with me on my birthday. I'm not sure I have been with him for my birthday since College! Yes I think it's been 20 years!

So here's to expecting nothing and getting all the love in the world.

Life in the eyes of a 7 year old

after many many months of losing the cord, the charger, the battery and the camera itself, we found all the pieces to my old camera that has been given to the kids. Here are the pictures that K took.

The next Big House Project

We will be tackling another bathroom here at the new scatterville. I got sick of the yucky peed on carpet that was remaining in there and ripped it out during Thanksgiving break. Yes most people head to the mall... I start demo work. :) So this is the before. I always forget to post before pictures. Notice the lovely vinyl tiles,
the wallpaper (I hate wallpaper), and the ducks!

Begining to look like the holidays

My little Ikea santa gnomes look great strung on some wooden bead garland in my kitchen window. They make me happy.

Letterboxing in November

It was so nice in November that we decided to head to a local park to
Here are the kids and I with a discovered box.

Stamping our books
A lone crane we found on a pond there.

Our Halloween pictures a bit late

K in her beautiful Fairy Princess costume. She picked out all the fabrics and where to put them. It turned out magical.

T dressed as Zorcon the conquerer. Not sure who that is but it made him happy. Made mom happy because it was basically the same costume as W's with modifications.


W the bad dude. Yup, he said, I'm a bad guy!


And here is the whole family right before he headed out for Trick or Treating, we made a killing in chocolate that night and am sad to report that we have since run out. Thankfully my friend Sue came down from our old scatterville to visit one night in Nov and brought Harry and David Truffles. Yummy!!!

Talk like a Pirate Day..... Arrrrrrrrr

We celebrated in style this year! Our homeschool group had talk like a pirate day at the park and we all got dressed up and even had a treasure hunt to look for hidden booty! We all had a blast and to our suprise there were several school classes at the park when we arrived. The kids were all taken back by the swords and hooks and eye patches we wore, especially seeing moms with them on. They were all very curious and wanted to play with us.

Letterboxing

We went letterboxing with our homeschool group last month, it's almost time for our next adventure. Here are the pictures someone took, looks like K was hiding during most of them, actually she was up at the front of the group with a few other girls.

Here we are at the parking lots listening to the instructions to find our first clue. I believe T is sharing all of his wisdom with us here.

The path in the park had some very narrow areas that led down to Fossil Creek. Someday it would be much fun to wade down in our crocs and see if we could find some fossils of our own.




We found the letterbox and the book. We each got to stamp our letterbox books with the Fossil Creek stamp. We are quite excited to go again, and this time we will have our own stamp.


T heading back out onto the trail. He enjoyed the hunting.

Trip to Dallas World Aquarium

W sitting in a tank well... he climbed up and said take my picture!


I am so in love with my new camera. Not only will it stop motion on waterfalls (forgot to load that picture) but it takes great pictures of jelly fish!



This is our very patient family waiting for W and I to get our move on. We are usually the ones holding up the movement. Well W is I am just usually with him waiting....... always waiting.....

At this point R and K have moved on and only W and I are on one side of the tank... T on the other, making faces at me to hurry up. I love this one, he's holding his breath like he is actually in the tank. Always funny that one.


Are they not the cutest three kids? We love going to these kind of places and we take our time and explore them all. We are not the family rushing from one exhibit to another, we are the ones that stand in the way of everyone else taking in every fish, stingray, turtle, or broccoli. They fed the saltwater fish broccoli while we were there. This tickled K cause broccoli is her favorite veggie.



This was by far the coolest tank. I only wish the manatees would have come closer so we could have gotten a picture of them. They were so beautiful and gracefull. We enjoyed the giant turtles and catfish.