Sympathy for Mr McGregor

Growing up and reading the Peter Rabbit series by Beatrix Potter, I always of course sided with Peter and his bunny friends against that mean old Mr McGregor.  And still I'm not of fan of Mr McGregor and his desire to eat the flopsy bunnies in a pie when he found them sleeping on his compost pile.  I'm so glad they out smarted him.
HOWEVER, today I sure felt some sympathy for Mr McGregor.  I have been working and worrying over my summer garden since our terrible hail storm took the entire thing out.  We have a very short growing season here and having to start over from scratch is quite depressing.
So I was all giddy when I noticed that my cherry tomatoes were producing and that one this morning was dark orange.  I was all excited for my very first tomato of the season in a day or two.

UNTIL I got home from church today and noticed that a bird had not only ATE almost all of this tomato, but that it had also munched on the neighboring totally green tomato!  That's what gets me the most mad about these little thieves...they aren't even patient enough to wait until the fruit or veggy is even ripe!
We were hoping that with the hail storm knocking out all the apples and cherries this year that perhaps the birds would have moved on to greener pastures and we could have our second harvest.  Apparently NOT.  All the apples that weren't knocked out of the tree have damage on them, but there was still the hope that perhaps I could make apple sauce from what remained.  Ummm NO!  The birds and yellow jackets are eating them.  The other day there was a full murder of crows in the apple tree, all munching away on green apples.  No they're not at all ripe yet...normally they don't ripen until September.

So since I'm not using the bird net on the cherry tree this year...the cherries are toast from the hail.  I grabbed my net and put it over my poor little garden.  I wonder how many of those pesky thieves will get stuck still trying to steal MY veggies?

Giggle!

A while back a friend of mine gave me an awesome suggestion.  We were at a local festival and all these booths would give you free stuff in exchange for your contact info...I was passing on the free stuff because I get enough junk mail as it is and didn't want more.  But she suggested that I set up an email account just for the known junk mail.  Genius!

So I set up the account and right away started to use it to email folks who were mailing me stuff when I'm on the do not mail list.  That was annoying...they mail you stuff you didn't ask for and say to get off the mailing list to email them...so now they have your email account address.  :P  Now I've got them back.  ha ha

So I hadn't been checking my junk mail account and today went in there and find the following email. 

The upper right hand corner shows the name Google+ has an issue with.

The first thing that made me giggle was that they sent it 10 days ago...so the deadline to prevent the hold on my profile is already passed.  But biggest giggle came when reading that my non-action won't harm my ability to use the account just for what I wanted it for.  YAY!  It just stops me from using the account for the services that I had no intention of using.  bwahaha!

yeah, whatever.

I wonder if I should argue that "No, Really!  My first name is Nomore." 

daily life goes on

So Darly went on a mission trip with our church's youth group.  They had a ton of fun and barely worked at all.  She didn't miss us at all either and the kids didn't want to come home at the end...but that could have been because they didn't want to be crammed into the cars like sardines for two days. ;o)

While she was gone I took care of Oreo along with our own pets.  Once Oreo got over the fact that his people weren't coming right back he settled into daily life at our house pretty well.  Lilly tolerated him...a bit too much in most cases.  Other than being extremely jealous when Oreo got to go for a ride and she had to stay home she didn't seem to mind when he left at all.  Oreo was overjoyed to be reunited with his family and quickly shunned me when he was in his mom's arms.

I've been working on our vacation.  For part of it we would like to go to a few theme parks and I wanted to use our military discount to get those tickets.  So first I emailed the ticket office for more info on how to do that.  No answer.  Then I called...still no answer.  So thinking that perhaps our ticket office was closed due to budget cuts, I tried another nearby base.  No answer.  I tried their second line...no answer.  So I poked around and found another phone number for our ticket office...no answer!  (note, I left messages too and never got a return call)  So hubby went by the office in person.  Guess what, it was open!  SHOCK!  But here's the kicker... it is now too late for us to order the tickets through them as we needed two weeks notice!  I tried contacting them two weeks ago!  GRRR!

Luckily we can get the tickets in person at a location near the theme park.  I need to try calling again to see if they need to be reserved...but guess what...No Answer!  LOL!

Our window that we ordered back in June is supposed to be replaced here soon...we'll see what the new 2pm time actually turns into.

Oreo’s saga Part 1

Oreo is staying with us for a while.  His people are on a mission trip.  This blog post is from his point of view...or at least my interpretation of what his view might be.

 

Day one of my imprisonment…

Well at least I recognize this place.  I’ve been here two times before.  I STILL can’t figure out WHAT I did to deserve this banishment though.  No matter how much I whine and howl, my people ignore me…and the warden here either laughs at me or tells me to “Hush!”

Day two of my imprisonment…

The people here are idiots!  No matter how much I try they REFUSE to give me treats or human food.  They can tell I haven’t been eating my food.  The warden tried giving me some of this other dog’s food, but it is just kibble.  I can’t believe she willingly eats that crap!  Not only does she eat it…she went and gobbled up my kibble too!  What an idiot…she can have it!  Whining doesn’t help me at all.  Sigh!

Day three of my imprisonment…

Today was somewhat better.  But the warden still is refusing to give me any treats or human food.  I guess I better eat this kibble as it is all they’ll give me.  They have to hide my kibble from the dog who lives here, so they’re putting it in my bed…hummm breakfast in bed.  I could get used to this!  The humans have moved all the furniture around and it smells a bit weird in here.  The walls are turning funny colors.  The humans keep yelling at the other dog…she keeps getting in their way while they color on the walls.

Day four of my imprisonment…

The humans left this morning so they gave me a treat…YAY!  FINALLY!  But I got locked up…phoey!  Why do I fall for that trick every time?  The man came back after forever and let me out so I could go bark.  Later the warden came back.  The humans moved all the furniture back and made a lot of racket with that loud machine…then the warden made them stop …said her head was hurting.  Later the warden made the house smell REALLY GOOD!  So good my tummy was rumbling.  But the people ate almost all the yummy smelling stuff in another room.  THE NERVE!  But forever they gave me some…oh man that was good, I kept looking for more.  So I went and ate some of my kibble because my tummy was still rumbling.

Crazy Day!

This has been one crazy day so far and it is LONG from being over.

We start off with me waking up in pain...ugh!  So I just stayed up since I had scheduled a car appointment.  Ooops!  I should back up... YESTERDAY Darly left for her mission trip and we took in Oreo the dog of one of the chaperones going on the trip.
Actually they didn't leave for their trip until this morning at 5am, but since I didn't want to get up that early AND I was baby sitting the dog...we arranged a swap Kid for Dog last night.  So I woke up in pain and worried about my baby being on the road and to a whiny dog who misses his family.

Then I flip on the radio and hear that they are praying for Colorado...so I quickly go to a news website and see that some idiot shot a bunch of people in a movie theater.  I'm so sad, angry, confused about this.  I really hope that they come up with a better motive than what is leaking out that the idiot said "I'm the Joker."

Sigh

Yesterday a friend asked to borrow my ice cream maker.  So I ran that to another friend's house this morning so that friend one could pick it up.  Friend two was having a garage sale today and I found out that 3 people had stole items from her...one woman stole all the jewelry that they had for sale.  What is with people???

now for the car service rant...

I went online to my car's dealer's website to set up the appointment.  But I never received any confirmation of my appointment.  So I called the dealer this morning and he said that they weren't busy so I should bring my car in... he didn't bother setting me up with an appointment (even though I "had" one!)
So I get there and guess what?  They're busy now!  The service guy tells me that it is going to take about 45 minutes for my oil change.  (that I expected!)

After waiting for an hour and 15 min, I go find my service advisor (yeah, that's what they call them!) and he apologizes and says they're running behind, but he'll call back there in a few minutes to see how much longer it will be.  hummm why not call NOW?
I wait another half an hour and he comes to get me that they're done... no car wash... no vacuuming out my car.  Charged me $3.50 for telling them that my check tires light was on and miss-charged me for the base price on my oil change.  Oh and then I find out that my $10 rebate for this service will be in the form of a gift card.
Guess who WON'T EVER go back there again??? 

Needless to say that after all of that, I wasn't the best driver on the roads.  :p  I can't wait to get that service survey.

Glad to be home now, fed and caffeinated.

they're tyring to get more of my money

I recently saw an ad for this new Finish Power Up Booster Agent.  And it got me to thinking...  remember the good old days when all you had to put in your dishwasher to get nice clean dishes was regular old dishwasher detergent powder?  What ever happened there?
I mean somewhere along the way we had to start adding in rinse agent...and dishwashers started coming with a special place to put the rinse agent (btw: vinegar works just as well!)  But before we didn't need that and the dishes came out clean.
and now we have to add this new stuff too?  I mean in the one ad the woman complains about the spots on her dishes and the dishwasher repair guy says it is food that didn't get washed off!  WHAT?  Why isn't the detergent doing it's job?

Oh I know why... They're just after more of my money!  SIGH!

Whatever happened to the days when manufacturers put out a good product and stood behind it?  Now days you have to buy insurance (aka extended warranties) that the darned thing won't break in the first 3 years...and note: that's a limited warranty.

I know what happened... They're just after more of my money!

I saw in the news where retailers have won a lawsuit against the credit card companies that they can now charge the consumers the bank fees retailers pay for processing credit card payments.  In case anyone wasn't paying attention...consumers HAVE been PAYING these fees all along in increased prices for the items.  Now it looks like folks who pay cash are supposed to get a discount...we'll see how long that lasts.  Especially if folks stop paying with plastic and start running on the banks for their cash (oh wait...bank fees there too!)

Speaking of the bank...every time I go in there they're trying to sell me something.  Hubby got talked into opening an account for Darly...the joke is on the bank though because that account still has just the $20 that was required to open it.  Instead of seeing my picture ID the bank wants to see my bank issued credit card as proof of my account???  What if someone had stolen my wallet?  How does a credit card prove who a person is?  Oh wait, they want me to use that card to buy stuff and not pay for it so they can charge me interest. 

Why is it that in this country it seems to be crime to keep any of the money you earn?  Yes, I get that everyone is trying to earn a buck...but it seems that there are way too many folks who are earning it by cheating someone else out of that buck.  Is anyone out there still being honest? 

Random - I guess

I haven't posted cuz there hasn't been a whole lot going on here.

Slowly the roofs are getting replaced in our neighborhood.  Right after the storm there was a bunch of houses that got new roofs right away, but things have slowed up a lot.  There is one roofer who got contracts for most of the houses in our neighborhood...about 10 or so I would guess.

One of the other roofers actually came up to me and asked why all the houses were being done by this roofer and why we weren't having ours done by that roofer.  That was funny...he was on his fancy phone looking this other guy up and couldn't find him.

Well Mr.Roofer who has all the contracts has had shingles delivered to 3 houses so far...but hasn't started the work on any of them yet.  I'm confused.  I am assuming that he is waiting to do the work until all the other houses are ready to go, but I don't know what the hold up might be.  I sure hope that he gets out there and does all those houses soon as I don't want to be woken up every morning to the sound of pounding for the rest of the summer.  :p

We're getting Darly ready for her mission trip.  Yesterday they asked Darly to come and help with the make up class for 3 of the kids who had to miss the first two training sessions.  Darly is concerned with the youngest member of the team.  She says he has a short temper and gets frustrated easily.  I am hoping that his outbursts were just because his older sister was there at the training also.  They'll be working on different teams for the trip so hopefully he'll calm down as I found him to be a really good kid when I taught him a few years ago.  fingers crossed!

Darly has also taken up a new hobby/craft.  Card making.  She uses supplies found in the scrapbooking section of the store to make cards.  She is really good at it, so I'm encouraging her.  We've been blessed by several people who have given her a lot of supplies for her new endeavor.   She has been designing our Christmas Card fronts for years now, so this is really an extension of that.

We tried to have a garage sale a few weeks ago.  That was really a bust.  It was part of a community garage sale that our HOA did a terribly poor job of advertising.  Luckily several other communities were also doing a sale that weekend...however, with so much to choose from and the heat potential buyers were reluctant to leave the comforts of their cars to see what all we had for sale.  If they didn't see anything they wanted from the car...they just kept going.  And it also didn't help that hubby expected to make good money for our stuff...several people walked away upon hearing the prices hubby wanted.  I managed to sell quite a bit of stuff, but hubby balked at the very low price I got.  I didn't care as we have been putting this same stuff out at every garage sale for the past 5 to 10 years.  I just want it all gone!  Hubby now has most of it listed on craigslist hoping that someone will want to pay for this stuff.

That's about it.  sigh...terribly exciting summer so far.

TMD Ponderings

Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) occur as a result of problems with the jaw, jaw joint and surrounding facial muscles that control chewing and moving the jaw. These disorders are often incorrectly called TMJ, which stands for  temporomandibular joint.

What Is the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ)?

The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is the hinge joint that connects the lower jaw (mandible) to the temporal bone of the skull, which is immediately in front of the ear on each side of your head. The joints are flexible, allowing the jaw to move smoothly up and down and side to side and enabling you to talk, chew, and yawn. Muscles attached to and surrounding the jaw joint control the position and movement of the jaw.
http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/temporomandibular-disorders

I've suffered from TMD since I for nearly 30 years now.  And I've researched and tried a few things to try to help...

I believe that the beginning of my problems began when I got braces on my teeth.  I had some pretty weird stuff going on in my mouth and my mom wanted my smile fixed.  She shopped around for a while to find an orthodontist who was willing to even try to fix my mouth because I was too young.  See back then they normally didn't start orthodontia until a kid was in their teens and I was only 9.  Part of my messed up mouth was that I had buck teeth and a pretty bad overbite.  So bad in fact that my lower teeth when my jaw was closed lined up with the back of my upper pallet.  So for the first part of my treatment, the doctor wired all my upper teeth together and fit my back teeth with bands that would hold a neck gear.  This in part took care of my buck teeth (I had some other stuff done too, including oral surgery), but it didn't really line up my bite the way the orthodontist wanted.  So he decided to fit me with a mouth appliance that he came up with himself.  To make this appliance he had me hold a pencil in my mouth straight upward...so my lower jaw was pulled forward in front of my upper teeth.  I had to wear this thing at night with a head gear.  And yes, I drooled all over the place!  Luckily I only was tortured by this for about 6 months or so.  I am still not sure if this was because I was done with treatment or because my parents ran out of money to pay for it.

Fast forward to 17 years old.  And I wake up my jaw locked.  It won't open, it won't close.  Luckily my jaw eventually popped and worked so that I could eat and stuff.  But now I began my journey with a lovely popping jaw that still plagues me to this day.  My mother finds another orthodontist who says I have TMJ (what they called it at the time) and he decides that the best way to fix my jaw is to push my lower jaw back to it's original position.  He fits me with a mouth piece (that he made out of red plastic that they normally use to make retainers with) that has dents in it that match my lower teeth...to push my lower jaw back.  (I looked like I was constantly sucking on a red Jolly Rancher candy!)  My second bite plate I begged for clear plastic instead...and for that one he had me hold a pencil in my teeth pointing down!  After my jaw had supposedly been fixed (it still popped, but it didn't lock up anymore) the orthodontist wanted to fit my mouth with full braces and pull my lower jaw back forward to line up my bite again.  Since I was almost 18 and almost not covered my my parents insurance anymore AND the entire treatment made no sense to me, I declined to have it done.

Now we go to when I'm 27, I went into the doctor because I was having severe ear pain and thought that I might have an ear infection...even though I did not have any kind of fever.  Seeing no fever the doctor puts his fingers in my jaw joints and asks me to open my mouth...POP!  He diagnoses me with TMJ and sends me to see an oral surgeon.  This doctor decides to treat me with "muscle relaxers" at night to keep me from grinding my teeth and during the day I was supposed to do "biofeedback exercises" to make my body aware of my clenching.  My treatments went until my doctor was sent to a new base...and we were soon sent to another base right afterward.

A few months ago I noticed that my TMD was bothering me and that my jaw's alignment was such that I couldn't close my jaws together to eat properly.  It was fun eating soft foods so that I didn't choke on anything.  I started researching to see what the current treatments are as I knew that some treatments in the past for TMD had been utter failures.  I also did a quick check of my insurance coverage...guess what, neither our medical or dental insurance will cover ANY kind of treatment for TMD at all.  WHY?  Because doctors are still baffled as to how to treat TMD so insurance doesn't want to pay for any experiments.  Hummm they should look at my history. :p

I'm writing this because two days ago my right eye started twitching...it was becoming very bothersome and I couldn't figure out the cause.  I was talking with some friends and mentioned that the last time this happened it was when I was getting treated for my TMD with medication.  I thought the twitching was a side effect of the medication, even though my doctor said that eye twitching wasn't a side effect listed for that medication.  I haven't been on that medication since 1996, so I knew it wasn't the medication causing the eye twitches this time.  Then I went to rub my jaw and noticed the pain in my joint... ut oh!

Last night after having jaw pain and eye twitches for the past few days I decided to try taking a muscle relaxer.  (I have some left over from another problem)  I took just half a pill as a whole one will knock me on my butt pretty hard.  And that took care of the eye twitch...but I have been awake for 7 hours now and I'm still hung over from this stuff.  So I don't think that will be an effective treatment for me.  Bummer.

time for more research!

Hail storm recovery

Our house before the hail storm.  I didn't get a shot that shows you all the damage to it.

And here it is now (minus the ladder!)  We'll have to get that flashing painted.

The window in the upstairs bedroom there on the left was cracked and the replacement for it is on order.

Now for the garden.  See this link for the before shots.

 Lettuce & Spinach (although I don't see any spinach in this shot.)  They were tiny seedlings when the storm hit so they weren't all that hurt by the storm.  Doing well and about ready to harvest.

 slicing tomatoes, finally have flowers again.

 dark purple sweet peppers, they have some buds now.

 cherry tomatoes with flowers.

 small sweet peppers, there might be a bud there.

 egg plant, no flowers, yet

 roma tomatoes, no flowers, but the one plant looks healthy.

 green beans...these hadn't sprouted by the storm and still weren't sprouting about a week ago, so I tried digging them up...didn't find much so I planted new seed.

 pumpkins, weren't sprouted for the storm.

 squash, 2 1/2 made it.

the onions look pretty bad, but I harvested some and they're not too bad.  strong smell that mellows with cooking.  Great for broth & soup, which is all I can use them for anyway as hubby & Darly don't like them.

I have to say that I am VERY impatient when it comes to my garden.  Part of this is our super short growing season here.  We can't actually plant anything outside until Mother's day and to be safe from frost I usually wait for Memorial day and just buy the plants from our nursery.  I choose plants that already have fruit or veggies on them.  So the hail storm was for me a huge disappointment.  I have a friend who has offered to help me make a hail screen for my garden and I'll have to do that for next year.

Growin up

It is a bit funny how life kind of sneaks up on you and shows you things you didn't want to see (were hiding from) and one of those things is about how you're growing up.

We all can't wait to become adults but pretty quickly learn that there's a lot of yucky things that come with that.  Things we would rather ignore....like work and stuff.

But lately there have been a few things that have happened that kinda smacked me in the face with that entire growing up thing.  One is the recent hail storm and having to make the arrangements for getting the repairs done.  I guess it didn't hit me before because I just put it off and let hubby deal with it...note: he didn't deal with it either, so we are just now getting the roof replaced. :p

The other thing is happened at Church.  I don't know if you've noticed but in a Church there's a certain order to how things are done.  When you're in one age bracket you do a certain type of job that needs to be done at Church...but there are some things that you don't do because that's for someone older.  Probably because that was a job your parents used to do so you expect folks your parents' age to do them.  And then one day it hits you... YOU ARE THE AGE YOUR PARENTS WERE WHEN THEY DID THAT JOB!  ACK!!!!

The thing that brought this on is that I was recently asked if I would take home the communion linens and wash them.  ACK!  Who me?  Really?  um, yes YOU! 

There's one lady at Church who takes care of "everything!"  She cleans up the kitchen after service and takes care of cleaning up the communion supplies...all that grown up stuff.  However, one of the ladies in our church embroidered our communion linens and when everything lady tried to get the wine stains out of them, she used bleach on them.  Well that got embroidery lady upset because the embroidery faded.  Everything lady didn't know of another way to get the wine out of the linens though... so Sunday she asked if I would do them instead.

We don't drink wine in my house and certainly don't spill it.  So I really had no idea how to get the wine out...so I was nervous.  I didn't want to mess it up.  But I agreed to try.  I sprayed Zout on the wine stains as soon as we got home and just let them sit.  A few hours later I checked and sprayed them again.  That seemed to do the trick, so I ran them through the wash and then I decided to just hang them to dry.  I ironed them this morning and now they're ready to go back to church.

I guess I just didn't feel as if I was ready to take on doing this kind of job.  Course now that I've done it and it appears that I've done it right (we'll see when I return the linens) I'll probably be doing this job for a while.  I wonder if there's someone I can trade off with though so I'm not doing church laundry every week?

Hail Update

Yesterday after Church we were looking at our hail damage and trying to see if anything survived.  It appears that we didn't have a total loss on my plants...YAY  My veggie plants all have new growth on them.  I guess they were happy with the Fish Emulsion that I gave them the day before.

But we also noticed another loss... one of our windows (the ones we replaced in Dec 10) is broken!  So we filed a claim with the insurance.  We also added the grill and our plants to the list.

I'm sure the adjuster will give us some grief for not mentioning the roof, but hopefully he'll be fine once we explain that we didn't claim it because they've already paid us for it.

Speaking of that... the day after the storm we had two roofers approach me that morning and then two more roofers came that evening!  Our roofer who we almost had a contract with called and asked to come over that evening to sign the contract!  I think that he knew if he didn't shake a leg that we could just hire one of these other guys.

We've also had a few ads on the door.  :p

Hail! Not Again!!!

Last night my area was hit with a storm that wouldn't go away.  We were pummeled with hail for over 3 hours!

Roses & bachelor buttons

hail couldn't get down the downspout so it jumped off the roof!

more hail from off the roof, last night the entire step was covered.

this garden was full of color until about 8pm

the aspens that I don't like lost a lot of leaves but look okay

all my brand new pansies are gone, this garden WAS full of purple

this one should be okay

this little guy, not so much!

white, maple seedling -gonner.  red, squash -gonner

cream pumpkin seeds that hadn't sprouted...may still sprout, but I'm not holding my breath.  red, roma tomatoes -probably gonner. white, beans that hadn't sprouted.  green in next shot

first green, eggplant -gonner, second green cherry tomatoes -gonner, red peppers -gonner

red above, white peppers - gonner, tall basket thing, tomatoes - gonner

pummeled tomatoes

red, lettuce & spinach - might have a chance, bucket w/brick & rock is covering maple seedlings that might be okay.

more piled up hail

yesterday I was planning who to give all my apples to, today not so much

most are on the ground

the ones on the tree are cracked & bruised!

pine tree

the cherry tree saved the plants underneath

onions & carrots (gone to seed on purpose) -gonners

our grill - we don't really use that table much anyway

hubby measured the hail in the first wave, we got two more waves of hail after that with hail up to 2inches.

Blessings Galore!

Over the past few weeks a few things have happened that I am just so grateful for.

First, my daughter's theater group acquired space our costume closet, and props & sets shed to be moved into.  Before they were paying rent for two separate very inadequate locations that we were literally spilling out of.  We were constantly having to weed out items that we didn't have room for.  And because these spaces were so cramped we had a very hard time knowing just what we had so we often made or bought new when we might have already had what we needed.
The new space is HUGE!  It is very tall so we'll be able to build clothing racks up the walls that are 3 high (we'll get a rolling ladder like you see at big box stores so we can reach everything).  We'll also (and this is my favorite part) be able to store questionable things (is it a prob or a costume?) in a central area so if the director puts it on a list for the wrong committee we can just get it anyway.
The plan is to build the racks & shelves and ORGANIZE everything...and then CATALOG everything (getting software for this) so that we can possibly rent out our stuff to other theater groups in the area (there are a LOT of them) and possibly cover some of our rental costs.  I'm just thrilled that I'll be able to store our show's costumes at the storage space instead of all over my poor house!!!  YAY!

Oh and another bonus is that there are two bathrooms in the space!  YAY!  now I don't have to worry about choosing between a busted bladder and a dehydration headache!  oops and another cool thing is that the space is in my town...just a few minutes from my house!  YIPPEE!

Second, and this is so HUGE!  My Church finally was able to break ground on the location for our new building!!!  We've been waiting for this for a long time.  We had our ground breaking ceremony this past Sunday.  The ground was very hard, but we were able to dig into it and have a blessing on it.  Next we have to get a sign permit for our temporary sign and have the land surveyed for the location of the building (we have an approximation on there now).  Then come the graders to move the dirt around so we can start laying lines and pour a foundation!  W00t!

Third, Darly will be going on her first mission trip this summer.  I mentioned this before in my projects post...about the coffee sleeves that I'm making for a fundraiser.  But the blessing is that the trip is already half funded!  YAY!

latest projects...

I decided to try my hand at making these.  What are they?  you ask...  They are felted coffee sleeves.  Right now they are drying because they just spend time in the washer to become felted.

    Right now I have 7 made.  I'm making so many because I'm doing this as a fundraiser for Darly's Mission Trip.  She and 9 other youth from our Church along with 4 adults will be going to Gulf Shores AL to help with a VBS and School Supplies outreach that our sister congregation runs each year.  We currently have about half of the money that we'll need for the kids to go.  

Currently I have them in purple and teal, I also have a pink & brown yarn that I'll be making them in.

And here we have pictures of the plant box that I made from the pallets featured in my Achey Brakey Back post.  See, not very pretty, just functional.  Plants in the box are Roma Tomatoes, Green Bean seeds (you can't see them) Eggplant, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers (two varieties) and slicing tomatoes.  The red box to the left will be squash and the red box to the right is lettuce & spinach.  Then on either side of that are maple trees (a project that Darly & DH are doing to see if they can get them to grow!)

If you would like a felted coffee sleeve, let me know.  Right now I'm limited in my yarn colors, but as soon as I check out what kind the major sewing place carries I'll probably have most any color.

Achey Breaky Back!

I had to move my garden this year. The place in my yard that I had been using for the past 9 years is now completely shaded in by trees, so last year after attempting to plant my veggies where I had been able to before I had to dig them up and move them in an attempt to get something out of my money. This year I knew that the garden would have to be moved, but I learned from moving the garden last year that the best spot for the garden is one that gets a lot of wind and I had to do something to protect the veggies. I also had 3 mini-pallets that I had made a bridge for our Girl Scout troop out of sitting in my garage just providing a nice home for the spiders since our Girl Scout troop disbanded. So I decided to recycle the wood from the pallets to make a box to enclose the containers that I'm gardening in this year. First I had to get the pallets apart. Let me just say that while it may appear that pallets are put together cheaply they aren't! Those buggers are not going to give up and fall apart. All the nails were counter sunk into the wood. That meant I had to get up under the wood slats to pry up the nails. Luckily DH had a very nice pry bar that I could use for this task. Once I got the hang of using it, I was able to get the pallets apart. Unfortunately that meant that I had to put the pallets on the ground and bend over them to get the best angle on lifting the nails. After I reduced the pallets to stacks of wood, some that still needed the nails removed from...I moved my project from the front yard (because the pallets were stored in the garage and I didn't want rogue nails ending up in our tires) to the back yard...the final resting place for the box I was building. Back here I could use the retaining wall to lift the project up a few feet so that I wasn't bending over quite so much. Building the box wasn't quite as much work as getting the wood for it...the hardest part was finding straight nails (recycled from the pallets) and convincing them to go into the box straight. It went rather quickly and I was able to start planting! Next up, mixing dirt! I grabbed my trusty folding wagon to haul the dirt back to our old garden, because that's where our compost heap is and I wanted to put some of our compost into my dirt mixture. DH asked that I use up all the old potting soil he had brought from his mom's house so that it was out of the garage. I then added some soil that I had purchased from the store. Since I had so much bagged dirt, I decided to avoid using any of our good old Colorado clay in my mix. I think that my mixture should make the plants very happy out there. I might have to add to it as it was very fluffy and should sink some with water. I filled my containers and loaded them into the wagon to move them to the new garden spot...in the box. Oh it started raining while I was mixing up the dirt...the plants will be happy. Now it was time to transplant the seedlings into their new home. Since the soil was pretty fluffy, that went quickly...good thing as the rain was now coming down quite a bit. I got all the seedlings into their new home before the lightening. I also got the yard all cleaned up before DH could come home and complain about it. Tossed myself into the shower and put on my jammies. Of course DH reminded me that we were supposed to go to Church...so I had to change. But at least I didn't have to make dinner after all my hard work! My next project will be to get seeds planted quickly (today) for beans, squash and lettuce. Since they grow so quickly I didn't bother starting them early. Hopefully we have veggies all about the same time, but it will be okay if I have to wait. Now to figure out what all I plan to do with these veggies. DH is worried about the onions as he hates them. I plan to make veggie stock and maybe learn how to dry the onions and make onion powder? I don't know...I may just have a ton of veggie stock. :p

Mother's Day

a recap of my Mother's Day events for you... As you know I was uber busy with Darly's play for the past 10 weeks. So there was all of that plus her confirmation plus her regular end of our school year stuff! Perhaps I should move the end of our school year...just to make this time of year easier? IDK So I knew I wouldn't be able to send my mom her usual Mother's day present (Girl Scout cookies) because Darly didn't sell any this year and we bought our stash from the girls posted at the grocery store. *pout* So I racked my brain over what I could get for Mom. Let's see... well she could use this... but who wants that for a present? right sigh! so after getting a bazillion ads for flowers as Mother's Day gifts, I decided to get mom some plants delivered. Ideally it would be nice to just call up a nursery near her and have some plants for her yard delivered...but she really can't plant them herself anymore and my step dad is just as hopeless. So florists sell plants...I'll get her plants. My credit card of choice sent me a coupon where I would get a deal and get extra cashback. However, since I told hubby I wasn't going to use it, he cut out our address and put it in the recycling bin. When I dug it out, he had also cut out the coupon code. So instead I used the florist who is attached with our member card. For that one I log in and it sends me to the website...their florist is FTD. FTD has you enter the zip code for delivery and then shows you a list of what is available to order. Mom lives in Florida, so getting most anything shouldn't be a problem. I picked out a very nice basket...got 25% off for my member card and got it set up to deliver on the 11th at 4:30. Right away I got a confirmation email...the next day I got an email that they had shipped my delivery via FedEx with a tracking code. Check FedEx and yup, they set up for pick up. This was on May 9th. On May 10th my tracking still looks the same...no sign of pick up. Hummm I wonder if they just didn't scan it or something or if the computer is being slow. On May 11th in the morning it still hasn't changed any...but I was busy with the play that morning. At 3:30 my time (5:30 her time) I checked and FedEx has now deleted the expected delivery time as the package was never picked up. I contact FedEx and was told the shipping label was printed, but no package was ever shipped. So I contacted FTD asking for a trace on my package. Ignoring me FTD sends an email saying that my order has been canceled because the product I ordered wasn't available. WHAT??? How can I order something that isn't available... your site said it was in stock?!?! Oh and the email said I could order something else and get $10 off of it for my trouble. "Um... my original discount of 25% was more than $10 off!" Numerous emails from me were flying...all of them ignored except for the auto generated emails that say "we care about you...blah...blah...blah" Okay, now what will I do about Mom??? So I hop on Google maps and see that there are 3 florists in her town...one is right down the road from her house AND they have a website. I get her a bigger basket of plants for about the same price AND they can deliver it on Mother's Day! Wow! Saved the day! Click, click, click...DONE! I sent glowing reviews for that florist. Now for my mother's day... Saturday night we were up very late as we had to do the 7pm show and then had to get all of our stuff out of the theater. Kids were all excited and it took a long time to get all the costumes turned in. At one point I asked some kids to go & see if they found anyone else still in costume. We got all loaded up and home at 12am...but I still needed food for Darly's confirmation party. So we run to the store to get that...home by 1:30. Beat, we go to bed! 7am roles around way too early. Get ready and to Church by 9am. My brother's family made it not only on time but early! They took the boys over to McDonalds to play before Church. The service was wonderful! I'm biased, but my daughter's witness statement was the best! Well it was at least the best delivered... her acting chomps showing very well...she could be heard and she kept the audience interested. :D My Mother's day present? Um well hubby did the grilling and all the dishes for me. So Darly & I went shopping. I got myself some plants and some new hot rollers on Monday. Tuesday I found out that I had won a gift certificate for my favorite garden center so I got myself some more plants! :D Now to get some dirt and go plant all my prezzies! :D Oh and I need to buy groceries. :p

All Done!

Well we made it! The show is over. The kids were great! We managed to somehow get all our stuff out of the theater. Another CYT season is done! Today was Darly's confirmation. That went really well and I'm so proud of her! and now we don't have a lot going on until nearly the end of next month. I don't know if I'll be able to deal with all this free time! LOL!

Unfriended :(

I have Social Fixer on my Facebook. Among other things that it fixes about Facebook it also shows me who has unfriended me. At first when I decided to use that feature (I can turn it off if I want to) I didn't think it would bother me. But then today I noticed just a bit ago that I got unfriended. I know exactly why I got unfriended by this person. He had posted something and I commended with just one word... AWKWARD! Now before you get to feeling all sorry for me... he he ... this person who had the nerve to unfriend me is a teenager. I had only friended him because he and my daughter have been in a few theater shows together. He isn't in our theater group any longer. I mostly try to friend Darly's Facebook friends so I can just be aware of what they're up to. So the unfriending isn't a huge loss. What did he post that I thought was awkward? Something to the fact that his jock strap not only protects him but carries his confidence. hummm sounds awkward to me!

BLARGH!!!!

So currently we are working on Darly's play... Thoroughly Modern Millie Jr AND her confirmation*. The play runs from May 10-12th. Confirmation will be on May 13th. This week we had a Confirmation class last night where the kids went over their witness statements and how the ceremony will go. They also did a review of all that they have learned over the past two years. Oh I forgot that Tuesday I received an email asking us to come and perform one of the numbers from Millie to advertise the show to other folks who pretty much already know about the show. Since we were already booked with a ton of stuff to get done that day, we didn't go. Today Darly has her class showcase. This is where at the end of taking their classes the kids show off all that they have learned. In order to be in this theater group the kids are required to take classes. This evening should be fun to see all the cool things the kids have learned. Tomorrow rehearsal. (normally a day only used if we had to cancel a rehearsal due to bad weather...we didn't have any canceled rehearsals, but the directors chose to have this one anyway.) Saturday is Super Saturday. This is an extra long rehearsal where the cast will run through the show twice. I got a call yesterday that the directors were considering asking us to bring in the costumes so the kids could run the show in costume and learn their fast changes... a great idea. HOWEVER... waiting until 3 days before to spring this on us was so not cool. Our normal Super Saturday for costumes is to prep the costumes for the show. We iron or steam them, make sure they are all labeled and ready for transport to the theater. Some of the costumes aren't even made yet! The location where they will be doing the Super Saturday rehearsal is NOT set up with dressing rooms or even a back stage area, so it doesn't really give them an idea of how things will go. And doing this means we 1) don't get the costumes ironed (unless I do that all by myself today & tomorrow...which I am obviously NOT doing if I'm typing this out. lol) and 2) means the costumes have to be packed up and transported to the rehearsal and then packed again to go back to my house until we can move them into the theater on Monday night. Luckily, after I emailed all the directors and my costume committee about the possibility of this happening, the directors backed down. And Super Saturday will be our normal ironing session. Course that means that hubby will be hiding...but he joked about sneaking in a few of his shirts to get ironed. Next week we have Monday night - move into the theater. Tuesday & Wednesday rehearsal. Thursday 2 shows. Friday 1 show. Saturday 2 shows and pack EVERYTHING up and move out of the theater afterward. Sunday is confirmation! :D Just call me CRAZY! Oh I wonder if anyone remembered that we need to recognize the kids who are graduating this year??? *Confirmation: In our Church after a period of instruction our youth "confirm their baptism" and profess that they believe in God and accept Jesus as their Savior.

Dog Frustrations

I really need to ask a dog trainer about this…I’m hoping to get them to peek at this post. My dog Lilly is 10 years old this September. We’ve had her since she was 4 months old. I did put her into doggy obedience training when she was 6 months old and she really took to it well… we worked so well together that our teacher suggested that I put Lilly into agility classes. Lilly is a very smart dog and learns quickly. However, I had other things to deal with…like my daughter and life! One thing that we never really solved with Lilly’s obedience training was her pulling on a leash and her leash aggression. She was fine in the classroom with the other dogs, but outside of class she is a terror. I’ve read on numerous dog training websites that Lilly displays this behavior because she wants to be the alpha and is trying to dominate me. However, I don’t believe it. From the behaviors I am seeing in Lilly I truly believe that she is SCARED when she is on a leash. One sure fire way to get Lilly to poop is to put her on a leash! Now to admit my fault in this… Lilly is not exposed to other dogs…at all. She gets to bark at them through the fence, but that’s it. I don’t walk Lilly because she pulls like crazy on the leash…hurting me and herself. Things I’ve noticed… Lilly is scared of other dogs…especially of dogs larger than herself. With dogs smaller than herself she is okay, but she mostly ignores them. Lilly is scared of the leash…I’m sure the pain she feels from choking herself and that head halter forcing her mouth closed don’t help. Lilly is scared of car rides…she mostly goes to the v.e.t. and the groomer when she rides in the car…so she hates them all. Of course it totally doesn’t help that when we took Lilly for a walk the other day she was “attacked” by our neighbor’s dog who was off leash. (the neighbor’s dog just wanted to play with Lilly…but she doesn’t understand this.) I really think that we are most likely just doomed to dealing with this by avoidance for the rest of Lilly’s life. I mean we could spend the money on a dog trainer and get her over it for a while, but we don’t really have the time to continually keep up with whatever the trainer offers us. After writing this I did a bit of googling and did look at some Cesar's stuff... but it is so hard to read through other problems when they don't really apply to you. And there are so many differing opinions on how to train your dog. Like I mentioned above, most think pulling is a dominance problem and I don't agree. Cesar seems to think it would all work out if I did a better job of showing Lilly who the alpha is. (dominance again?) But I know she knows I'm the boss. I also know that it is very hard for me to not be nervous when we walk because I know that she'll freak out if we see hear or smell another animal. oye