Here We Grow!

I’ve decided I like to garden. It is rewarding to plant something and see it come to life. I mean sure, I grew a couple babies and continue to watch them grow, but it just takes SO LONG to see if they turn out well. One season with a garden and I get results much quicker. It is fun and frustrating and definitely a growing process. See what I did there? Stick around, I’ll be here all day!

Last year I started with this lonely flower box and one little veggie box.

Definitely small…and lonely. So we did this!

Zippercow built the awesome fence to keep little hands and a busy dog out. He used leftover pieces from last summer’s fence project and it turned out beautiful!

Then he made me another veggie box!

And I got to bust out some power tools for the first time and made a couple boxes to put raspberries in. Those are my yard sale raspberries. I plan to buy more next year!

I’m so incredibly excited to have everything finally growing. It was a really rough start (seems to be the theme in our home this year) and I had to regroup and replant most of it, but now we are reaping the rewards of our hard work!

Mmm…Spaghetti Squash.

Cucumbers!

Chamomile, tomatoes and beans (not pictured) oh my! We also have some green onions and bell peppers growing too. I’m so excited about all of it. Now I just have to maintain and harvest it!

Oh, and we can’t forget the flowers!

I think the Zinnias (top right) are my favorite new flower of this season. They seriously last FOR-EV-ER in a vase. I’ve had some in my window sill for a couple weeks and they still look great! The lavender is great for that too.

*Sigh*

I definitely found a new hobby. And I love it.

So…what’s growing in your garden? What is your favorite thing from this season that you are growing? And if you aren’t growing a garden, tell me why, I love to hear from everyone!

Do Be Dobe Do

I love writing my blog, in fact I get great satisfaction from it. But sometimes I just don’t know what to write, you know? Okay, maybe you don’t, but I like blogging so much that I often think “I should do a post about that!” then…. you know, life gets you going and  so much time has passed that it doesn’t seem relevant anymore. I know I’m greatly inconsistent with how often I post, but I hope to be better at it. Practice makes perfect permanent (so they say) and I am going to try and post in a more consistent manner. Hopefully they won’t seem like mindless ramblings (one can only hope) but really, that is how my brain operates so why not share with the world, right?

I am currently busy getting Little Moo ready for the start of school (second grade peeps, it’s craziness!) and doing what I can to help with my littlest brother and my soon-to-be sister-in-law’s wedding. After that I hope to be working on a lot of projects around the home and will be sharing with everyone the good, the bad, and the crazy!

I’m very excited about how my garden (messy as it is) is coming along and that will be in my next post. For now just a pretty preview!

 

Little Moo Turns 7!

Our oldest son, Little Moo (I don’t know that the term “little” still applies, but we’ll go with it) just turned seven. For the past ten years I have worked with children from ages birth through six and I have enjoyed that I have a number of tools in my arsenal to care for young children. But now…now we are in uncharted territories and we all get to learn together!

I was feeling sentimental and thought I’d share some pictures of Little Moo through the years. Sure I could share the professional photos taken over the last 7 years but I really wanted to show him as he is, a wonderful little boy.

As you can see, he’s not so little anymore. While he can be a challenge some days we love him more than anything and look forward to growing with him!

Everyday Things

It is amazing how little every day things can make us so happy. Obviously I could be talking about stolen moments with your children or husband (which do make me very happy) , but actually I’m talking about things.  That probably makes me sound materialistic, but I mostly mean those little things. Like new socks. How awesome are new socks?! That can make my morning!  Or a blanket warm out of the dryer. There are so many little things that can really make our day, we all have them, and I bet a few of ours overlap. But how many of us sit down at our desk and think, “this is SO AWESOME!”?

This kid.

We had been searching for awhile for the perfect desk for his room and found it yesterday. We put it in his room, wiped it down and he spent the next hour “setting it up”. My Little Moo is a quirky kid, and I love that about him. He often gets excited about things that most of us overlook or take for granted.

And guess what, the desk came with extra prizes!

A used folder and half used legal pad that appears to have been bent. He didn’t care, he immediately ask for a pencil so he could write on his new pad of paper at his desk.

It  is even better  when those little things lead to memorable moments with our loved ones. So pay attention to those little things, let them make you happy and enjoy your day!

Some Days…

Some days just don’t start off right. What should have been a slow and relaxing start to the morning just didn’t start off slow or relaxed. Nothing major, just aggravating. Thank goodness Little Moo only has two more weeks of school left! I should know on such mornings there is no such thing as just doing something “real quick” successfully. I should know this, but do I listen to myself?

Ab-so-lutely not!

At a slow point in the morning I went out to move the sprinklers “real quick” and came back to this

Littlest Moo found the cupcakes left over from last night’s BBQ. And, you know, helped himself. I’d had enough this morning, but instead of yelling or getting angry I took a breath and said screw it, and went for my camera.

 

The damage had been done, so I let him eat his cupcake. How terrible would it be to yell, throw them out and no one got to enjoy a cupcake? Some days it is just not worth it, and it is best to just go with the flow. Our morning included an extra cupcake snack!

Enjoy your Monday like a delicious cupcake, attack it with excitement and have no regrets!

No Thank You Means No Too

I was the cranky lady today. My neighbors might thank me, or just think I’m overreacting and being bitchy. But I. Hate. Solicitors. The kind that call while I’m making dinner and make me hang up on them because they wouldn’t take my polite “no thank you” as a conversation ender or the door-to-door salesman that convince me I NEED this item they are selling. At least some people are professional about it, the Schwan’s truck came by once, I politely said “no thanks” they gave me the card and said they won’t bother me again, but feel free to call if I change me mind. Today’s encounter inspired this post.

At about 2:15pm (about 25 minutes after I got Littlest Moo to sleep) someone rang the doorbell. I answered and a man I did not know offered to sell me wholesale meat. He asked if we would like to get steaks for $3-$4lb. I told him we don’t usually eat steak (mostly because I can’t ever bring myself to pay more than a couple dollars a pound for any meat) to which he asked if I would be interested in chicken or pork. I said “No, I’m not interested” he said if it was easier they take credit/debit, food stamps or checks. This did not make me feel better. He did not have a company shirt/logo, a beater white truck (also without any logo/business affiliation) with a woman driving (possibly wife/girlfriend?) chain smoking with a dog hanging out the window. Yes, unidentifiable person, please let me give you my personal info with the promise of “discount meat”. I told him I was not interested. He persisted to which I replied, “I do not buy anything from people who come to my door”. He pointed down the street and said, “Your neighbor does” I told him, “That’s fine for him, but I don’t”. He asked if I would talk to my neighbor about the quality and he could come back and ask again. Now I was getting frustrated because I had politely said “no” multiple times and he would not take no for an answer. I repeated my statement about not buying things from people who come to my door and went back inside. He really bugged me. He had no visible affiliation with ANY company and didn’t even offer a business card but had the gal to harass me about not wanting to buy out of the back of his truck.

Shortly after I had to go pick up Little Moo from the bus stop and saw my opportunity. He was walking away from a house who also said “no thanks”  and I did something I have always regretted not doing. As he walked back past me I said, “You know, this is a no soliciting neighborhood” He of course played stupid and asked “Oh yeah? Where does it say that?” I pointed to the entrance to the community told him there is a no soliciting sign on both sides of the entrance. He looked at me, seemed offended and asked “Have you had a bad experience or something?”

No, I love it when people wake my sleeping toddler, interrupt my day and tell me I must not care about my family if I don’t buy their $1700 (or more) vacuum or go to their church. I simply replied “No, I just don’t like it when people come to my door”. He got in his vehicle and they sped down the street past the kids walking home, not stopping at any other houses.

Here is the thing, I don’t mind people coming to the door, I love to visit with neighbors and friends, stop by anytime!  And if a neighbor kid (the ones I see frequently and are polite) comes by selling overpriced candy for some school something or another I will buy if I have any cash and I would NEVER turn down a Girl Scout! But if you are pushy person selling your wares, politics or church STAY AWAY!

Getting Back On Track

I don’t normally post my coupon deals on the blog, but I’m going to share this one. Is it the very best deal ever, probably not, but it has given me the kick start I needed to get back on track.

Lately I’ve been discouraged by couponing, discouraged budgeting, discouraged saving money, discouraged by…life.

Some might call that depression.

They’d be right.

I’m picking myself up though and going to trek on. This is the deal that got my spirits up

All of this cost $110.91. All of it was on sale AND I used $46.10 in coupons to get the total out of pocket of $64.81. Since it was ALL on sale the savings were even greater, but Fred Meyer doesn’t keep track of total saved on their receipts, so I know I saved even more, just not how much exactly. I spent less than $1 per box of cereal, the cake mix was free and the frosting and brownie mixes were $.20 each. The most expensive things were the soda and peanut butter.

The cashier made a comment as to knowing “how you couponers work” and that she doesn’t use coupons, it isn’t worth her time. She smiled but said somewhat rude things, which was disconcerting. But I don’t care, I saved a bunch and I now have enough cereal to make it to the next school year and a pretty good stockpile of cake mixes and such to make it to the the fall for sure.

But this goes beyond just saving on some groceries. For me it is a step back into saving and rejoining life (or at least the one I want to have) The money saved on groceries helps us to pay off Zippercow’s medical debt, and allows us to add to our savings to protect our financial future.

I’M BAAACK!!!!