Adventures of a Michigan Housewife

Quite the Catch Up!

2012-05-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. Life is always crazy around here. I really should just get used to it! Happy Memorial Day Weekend to everyone out there! Okay, now that my random holiday wishes are completed, I'll get started.

The wooden stakes are there to mark where we wanted to put the garden.

Over the last month, I've experienced my "good knee" getting injured over Cinco de Mayo (my doctor suspects the injury is of the "runner's knee" variety and has me doing all sorts of exercises to help) as well as caught a terrible cold. (Okay, there's been much more going on than that, a KOV event, rescuing an injured baby goose, and such, but these are the things that really kept me from being active out and around).

Me putting in one of the flower gardens over Cinco de Mayo

The only form of a covered porch we have. Storage ATM

I was beginning to worry that I was NEVER going to get my garden started (not to mention update my blog!) Well this picture heavy post will serve as a memorial to those days being past! First, I want to show everyone what it is we are starting this summer out with in our yard. Thankfully, our rental home has a really nice, large yard, but it needs lots of work! With all the craziness going on in our lives, we just haven't had the time to really dedicate to making it the nice haven we really love having our yard be!

Yes...this is the same pile of sticks from March. Just smaller.

You'll remember me mentioning (if not see my March post) that when we first moved in, there were so many trees (junk and quite a few dead) surrounding our yard that grass didn't even really grow! Thankfully, that pruning paid off and the grass is evening out (even if we still have some "bald" spots). Now is at least the fun part of the process! Making it beautiful! So far I have two flower gardens! There was already one in front of the house, but it was filled with some kind of ground cover plant that smells awful!

Our little table looking sad and not set up for a party yet.

The ladder I use to hang the small wind chime and squirrel feeder.

Kyokin in the other back corner of the yard.

So I've been working on clearing that out (boy is it stubborn!) and replacing it with flowers. I completely forgot to take pictures of this (I have a feeling there will be more than enough pictures in this post!) garden (or the growing other flower one for that matter), but so far I've replaced the ick weed as I like to call it with pansies, snap dragons, and some gorgeous orange/yellow/red flowers. My husband thinks they are a variety of marigolds (which they may be) but I don't recognize them as such yet :). The snapdragons and pansies were clearance flowers (I got them the Saturday before Easter at Home Depo for $1.00 for six because of frost damage) that I brought home and nursed back to health. Looking at them now though, you'd never guess it! The other flowers are recent additions from Joe Randazzo's (if you live in Michigan, you definitely need to visit them!) where they were $.89 for a set of four. The other flower garden is in the backyard near my bird feeder so that I'll take prettier pictures. Most of these flowers we either $2.00 flower sets or clearance as well. I know. I'm cheap. It's part of how I save money as a housewife! I have a picture of me working on getting the flower garden put in, but not pictures of it now that the flowers are growing and blooming like happy little plants! I'll have to work on that! I have pictures of different individual plants on my smugmug, but not of the whole garden. I have also planted two rose bushes (as well as transplanted a third that was placed on the side of our house in a terrible spot!) and the blueberry bush (after having the leaves eaten off by a puppy we had rescued and were holding temporarily) has moved outside as well. My lilies I planted outgrew their pot (big surprise! Those are the ones I felt sorry for when they were outgrowing their bag at Meijer) so I moved them into the flower garden out back. As far as potted plants go, I have some onions I'm growing out front (they were starting to go bad so I figured I'd try learning how to collect onion seeds) as well as flowers my wonderful friend Amber gave me. Out back, I have four five gallon buckets growing potatoes as well as a potato growing sack growing them, three herb/indoor flower pots I'm working on getting started, and one outdoor flower pot I'm trying to get to bloom. Oh, I still have my giant ivy my mother in law gave me. I had to move it since it outgrew my kitchen window!

The biggest news I have today is that we finally got our garden put in! I'm so ridiculously excited about this! This garden is probably double what we put in last year! (Thankfully we left walking room in it!) We learned quite a bit last year from our gardening blunders and are excited to start again. For goodness sake, we even made an actual chart depicting what was planted where (some of last year was guessing game until the plants came up!).

The view of the garden from our bathroom window.

Four of the potato planters in front of my herb pots.

Bare rows. Mostly for seeing the change in the coming weeks.

Today was the first day I was actually physically up to going outside for a long period of time and doing any work (remember that cold...I'm still coughing :( ). We were outside working at 10:30 in the morning and didn't finish until around six in the evening. We did take a roughly 45 minute break for lunch when a sudden thunderstorm hit and drowned us with rain! My husband started by "peeling" the grass off of our selected ground while I tried desperately to save the tomato cage we converted last year into a cucumber trellis. It almost didn't make it. To be honest, I don't think it'll make it next year. At least it's surviving this year! About the time I finally got new yarn on the trellis and it was standing steady, DH (how I'll refer to my husband from now on) had finished uncovering about 5/6 of the grass. This was when everything suddenly got dark and we heard thunder. We just made it in the house with the dogs as the rain started! It made for a perfect lunch time. After we had eaten (the rain had stopped as well) we returned to work. He continued with his task of uncovering the garden and I took my trusty hoe and began to carve out rows and plant with the lettuce! I didn't make it very far (the third row) before I realized I was going to need another trellis of sorts for the sugar snap peas and honey dew. I quickly tossed one together (we'll see how it holds) and continued on. When he got the dirt uncovered for me, DH took a break and played with the pups.

The baby cucumbers and their revived trellis.

After I put in the "squash" row (which I left extra spacing for!), I switched and began working on the other side. We have a down spout on our gutter that will drain into the garden and I wanted to make sure my cucumbers and tomatoes were near it. I put in my cucumber plantings, put up their trellis, and went to grab the first of the tomatoes, at which time I discovered I missed a whole set of baby cucumber plants! I quickly added the extra cucumbers to my cucumber line and began my tomato planting with the cherry tomatoes. The reason I started my tomato planting with the cherry and roma tomatoes is because I knew I only had a limited number of cages (we really expanded our garden this year) and I also knew that Beefsteak tomatoes can be staked up instead of caged. I wanted to make sure all my plant babies were taken care of!

The corner of the garden with the cucumbers and tomatoes.

Since I mentioned, Randazzo's market earlier, I want to point out the good deal they gave me on baby plants. DH and I have started going there once ever two weeks to pick up fresh veggies (they have such good prices and variety) and the last time we visited, we looked at their plants too. (We always go to the location at Newburgh and Warren.) Both of my rosebushes I bought there were only $3.00 (not on clearance) and I got flowers as well as my plantlings. Now, for plantlings I got the following: 8 sugar snap peas, all of those cucumbers in the picture minus one, 4 Kale plantlings (something DH wanted to try), and 24 (yes I really mean 24) tomato plants all for $9.00. I don't know how you'd beat that. Especially since they seem to be really great plants. I feel like I won this year! (This should be taken with consideration of the dying of my own starters. This is the first year I'd try to grow starters indoors. I didn't realize they needed wind agitation to help strengthen them. Next year, we'll keep a fan on them!)

The corner opposite the tomatoes. Peas and Kale can be seen.

While planting my tomatoes, I discovered something. I HATE cages. Last year DH put them all in for me. This year, I tried to do it on my own. Not only did I fail miserably at this, but DH has made me promise to share my predicament with you all because he thought it was far too funny for me to keep to myself. I'm still weak from being sick and since this was later in the day, my body was quickly getting fed up with being pushed to it's limits.

Baby Kale plants.

Each time I went to push a cage down, it would become stuck. In an effort to finagle with the cage, I would shift and focus on pushing the suck leg down with all my might. Each and every time this led to the ground suddenly giving way under the leg and me wailing myself in the face with the rest of the cage which had in turn become "stuck". I feel really bad about the language my poor neighbor's experienced during this ordeal before DH took over the caging. I'm not normally one to cuss, but the shock of being smacked in the face repeatedly can do some pretty surprising things to a girl. I finished up my tomatoes with just enough room for a row of carrots! I was really worried that even though we tried really hard not to over plan this year we had and I wasn't going to be able to fit them in! Now, I'm sure by now you've all noticed the newspaper scattered in the garden. I've read online that putting newspaper down can help lower the amount of weeding that is going to be necessary for the garden. We put this in a "walking" space to try and hopefully it'll save me lots of work later. So far however, the initial watering of it was a pain. If I moved my hose too quickly, the breeze it created would blow it around. In the end, we may have wasted some time and newspaper, but even if we end up picking it up and throwing it away it was worth it.

Baby Peas.

The garden aside, T moved out (thus why I won't be mentioning him in further posts). I've also rearranged the living room furniture again (I'll have pictures soon don't worry ;) ). We have a rental home inspection at the end of June (it was originally suppost to be last week, but God was watching out for us and let it be rescheduled!). In preparation for this, we're going to just rearrange everything to the way we now want it. For example, T's old room is going to be fully transformed into an office/crafting room. (This way my ladies aren't all forced into a "Sweat shop" to hang out and sew together). What I was trying to turn into a garden room is going to instead change into the guest bedroom. We are also finally putting the time into our basement. DH is going to have a tavern/bar area again. He's also going to finish out the pantry/root storage area down there as well. Something new we've added to our basement plans is we want to put together a spot down there to grown plants in during winter. Our goal is to try and have some fresh veggies all winter long. I don't know how well it's all going to work yet, but we're excited to try! We're thinking of putting it somewhere near the studio (yes I said studio. The boys put in a youtube/basic photography studio over the winter for KOV). All in all, I think this will be a good summer and I'm excited to get my house arranged and share it with you all! Now, to finish this all off on a nice note, I'm going to share a recipe that many folks have been asking me for lately! I found this apple tea cake recipe on a british forum, but I had to translate all of the measurements for us "lame" Americans ;) . Tomorrow I'm going to the Wonderful Miss Amber's home to enjoy some BBQ with her family and I'm going to make this with peaches instead of Apples (I'll let you know how it turns out!)

British Apple Tea Cake

2 Apples

2 TBS lemon juice

2 TSP cinnamon

1 C sugar

1 C butter

1 C flour

4 eggs

Topping:

4 TBS butter

4 TBS sugar

4 TBS flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and line pan. (I just greased mine and it worked lovely.)

2. Peel and core apples. Cut into segments and toss the apples in lemon juice and 1 TSP of cinnamon. Set aside.

3. Take 4 TBS of butter, flour, and sugar along with 1 TSP of cinnamon and rub together to make a crumb mixture. Set aside.

4. Place the eggs and remaining sugar in a bowl. Beat until light and fluffy. Melt 1 C. of butter and pour into the egg mixture. Sift in the 1 C. flour and fold carefully until mixed.

5. Pour your batter into the pan. Carefully lay the apple pieces on top of the batter. Top with the crumb mixture and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Cool for 10 minutes before moving to a ire rack to cool completely. (Or serve out of the pan if you are leaving it in the pan like I did.)

Science Diet Review

2012-04-17T11:48:00.001-07:00

Well, some of you may know that I am a bzzagent (meaning that through bzzagent I sample products and review them). A while back I posted on a testing I did for some awesome mascara!

Today I'm going to review the new Hill's (R) Science Diet Ideal Balance Grain Free food for dogs.
I was given a 3.5 lb bag of the dog food through Pet Food Direct to try out with my dogs. Let me get the review for them first. They seem to be on par pricing (a little more expensive when you add in shipping) but the delivery was extremely quick and the website's interface was amazingly easy to navigate! If I could ever think ahead with enough foresight to order dog food online (or if our dogs didn't seem to vary their consumption as much as they do) I would actually think about ordering through them on a regular basis.

Look at how nicely they packaged the food for me!

A closer view of the food bag so that you know exactly which bag to look for in the stores.

Now on to the actual food :) . Harclave, my older and smaller dog, is super picky. One of our favorite stories of him, yes I'm going to carry on for a few moments, is from when he was a puppy and we moved into our first place. We did what every excited newly married and new puppy parent couple does when it was time to transition him off of puppy food, ask the folks at Petco what food they recommend and inform them that money is no object when it comes to our puppy's nutrition. (A word for the wise, my dogs are still and will always be puppies to me. I just can't accept that they're growing up ;) ) Okay, maybe not every couple does this, but we did. We figured that he was our practice child (and we have always wanted children) and as such we should be ready to make sacrifices for him! The folks at the store walked us over to Eukenuba (we now jokingly refer to this as pukanuba in our house now...) and sang it's praises to us. Excitedly, we bought the big bag (did I mention this was our first puppy?) and ran home with it. We spent hours doing online research on how best to mix the two foods (is it one part to one part or two parts old to one part new) and finally began trying to help him move to a "big boy" food. At first we thought him separating the old food out of the bowl, eating it, and leaving the new food was just part of the process. Eventually he ran out of the old food to do this to. He was also going through an attitude phase at this point (he pooped on the couch in protest of guest leaving one weekend. I don't think he was finished with their visit) so we were already a little stressed at his lack of cooperation. As he started the hunger protest, we started the digging in our heels response. "He'll eat it when he's hungry enough. " "Some of the forums said that the transfer to adult food from puppy food can be really hard for stubborn puppies so we should just wait it out." This went on for a few days. Finally, one night when we were sitting watching tv, Harclave drug his food bowl out of his room (we kept all of his stuff in the laundry room so he'd have "his place") looked at us, flipped the bowl over knocking the food out, did his puppy huff (it's his trademark) and stormed into the laundry room closing the door behind himself. We weren't sure if we should laugh or cry at this defiance. We threw in the towel and went back to Petco and got a different food for him. He's been stubborn about his food since. (His favorite tends to be Kibbles 'n bits with the little fake green beans)

Harclave was our worry from day one. Kyokin, our newer larger puppy, will eat anything. (and I mean ANYTHING...puppy training was hard with him) So, I bit the bullet and did one of the worst things a pet owner can do when introducing their pets to a new food. I didn't mix them, but set two bowls side by side with the different foods. (Please ignore my messy floors. They needed a good sweeping the day I did this)

On the left, Kibbles 'N Bits (not his favorite one though) on the right, the Science Diet.

The dogs were too busy playing at first, so it took some time to get their attention. My younger kitten (kitten follows the same rule as puppy), however, was exited to get a nibble.

Shoo Fana! Not for kitties!

Finally, I got them to settle down enough to come and see the "surprise". Harclave, the alpha dog, walked up and sniffed both bowls. He then proceeded to eat from both. He didn't seem overly excited about the Science Diet, but he also didn't hate it.

Harclave doesn't like having his picture taken while eating.

Kyokin took it as a treat. He was really excited and after each bite he tried to do a trick for more. I don't think he quite got it. (He's also never experienced a new food since coming to live with us.)

Kyokin eating.

The only two down sides that I found in this food was that it seemed to make the dogs thirsty and their poop very stinky (weird thing to complain about I'm sure, but I'm the one cleaning it up outside!). (Since there were no upset tummies with this feeding method, I kept to it so I could monitor a preference if they showed one.) After each meal, they would race to the water dish and chug down water (something new for them.) Kyokin eventually figured out it wasn't a treat and his eating became balanced like Harclave's.

All in all, they liked it (didn't seem to love it) and it is definitely better for them then the Kibbles 'N Bits. Science Diet has a really cool food comparison tool on their site if you click here. The fact that Kibbles 'N Bits isn't even listed doesn't seem like a good sign. After talking about it and reviewing our budget, my husband I decided that maybe we should upgrade their food. We had been talking about it for a while, but Harclave's stubbornness had kept it from really progressing pass the talking stage into an action stage. That's when the sticker shock hit us. The cost is only slightly less than our specialty at the vet only cat food we have to buy (our older kitten has problems with urinary tract crystals). We had already discussed that we would be alright with paying up to 1.5 times more (meaning what we pay now in addition to half of what we pay now) for food for them, but this price would more than double.

We are a single income family (*points up to the michigan housewife title*) and we do very well for ourselves, but I just couldn't justify to myself spending that much on dog food if there wasn't a medical reason to make it necessary. I don't have anything against the Science Diet food, it is just too expensive for our taste (maybe if our dogs had fawned over it more and made a choice of it over their previous food instead of eating a balance of the two we would have felt more obligated). I know there are several folks out there who will accuse me of not loving my dogs sufficiently, but when I looked at the market, there are several "healthy" options that are priced better suiting our finances. We are still planning on "upgrading" their food, we just have to find the right option for us!

Overall, my final review is this:

The food seemed good. My dogs didn't love it, but they did like it. It did lead to thirst and stinkier poo, but it wasn't terrible, just something that I noticed. For us, this food it out of budget.

Busy as a Bee

2012-04-04T07:28:00.001-07:00

Well, things have been hectic around here! I think things are going to slow down a bit (at least a little) soon.

The plants are coming along (slowly but surely), but today I do not have pictures of them :(. I haven't had a chance to take any and to get them ready, so we're going to have to suffice with two slideshows with pictures from other events I've been to recently!

The first is the hockey game I attended last Friday. Talk about a good time! I grew up in the South (yes, there are hockey teams where I grew up...they just aren't amazing) so I'd only been to one hockey game previous to this. Some of our dear friends are on a hockey team and it was their final home game of last season!

This was also the first time I've been able to try my hand at hockey photography. I had to resort to a 1600 ISO to cope with using a zoom lens (I was sitting in the stands cheering them on), the speed of the game, and the lighting. I had a total blast. My husband painted himself up with a friend and I sprayed silver glitter in my hair (one of their team colors). It was a good way to begin the weekend!

On Saturday, we headed out to the NERO Detroit Larp. They needed some NPC help (which my husband was able to provide) and I took some pictures for them. We stayed there for about six hours. It was pretty nifty.

Sunday was Game of Thrones of course! I also (on Saturday) finished Dance with Dragons. My hubby (who hasn't read the books yet) was kind of sad that the season opener was more set up than action, but I'm not sure what he expected :D. My only complaint about Game of Thrones and such is that they air during spring and summer. I wish I could find a good show for us to watch during winter. It seems like all the good tv comes on when it's nice outside and the shows during winter are bland (which doesn't help keep you distracted from bland winters).

Monday, we attended a memorial service for the mother of one of our closest friends. Even though I'd only met her a few times, she was such a kind and amazing woman. I'm really sad I didn't get to know her more. It's strange to think about how people come into our lives and how they leave. Think of how many people you have a short conversation with on the bus, at the store. We are such social creatures. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this, but I think I'll leave it there. It's been both an amazing and sad week so far. I think I'm pooped.

Getting Ready for Warm Weather

2012-03-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

The weather here has been simply amazing! Warm days, chill nights, and we even had a thunderstorm last night!

Miss Fana approves of both the extra bird feeder outside the window and of the warm weather.

With this warm weather has come a bee that found it's way into my bonnet. My house must be perfect now! (well not really perfect but clean and tidy). There nothing to chase away the winter blues than to rearrange furniture and tidy things up a bit. So, my little family has been working both inside and outside to get things ready for the hosting (because we host quite a bit during the summer) that is soon to come!

The fire ring we put in outside is very nice!

As far as the outside goes, we've put in the feeders (squirrel/bird/and a humming bird one new this year) and filled them. We also have started to move the patio furniture out. I've got my sitting spot for pictures early in the morning :) Below are the first fruits of my morning picture taking :D

My first squirrel friend.

My first bird friend.

A word of advise, if you are having problems with squirrels in your bird feeders, try hanging the bird feeder up on one of those smooth hook poles. I watched, in dismay, as the one I had was too high for Mr. Squirrel and his climbing attempts led to him sliding down the pole multiple times. (I feel bad because he was trying to get into the squirrel swing).

My husband standing in front of the pruned stick pile.

The biggest thing of work we've been doing (well the boys have been doing) is trimming trees. See, our back yard was lined with junk/dead trees that kept pretty much all light out. What little "grass" there is out there is mostly mold and moss. In preparation for my garden though, these sweet boys have been thinning and cutting down some of these trees (with the landlord's permission of course!) Turns out that fire pit is going to get used a lot!

The spring wreath I made to replace the fall one.

I finally made a new wreath for my door. I think it turned out amazing! If anyone is interested, maybe I'll do a wreath tutorial some time :) I think they are a lot of fun to make and the one above cost $10.00 when I had finished buying all the supplies (versus the $50 I've seen nice big ones go for).

The painting I bought as a kid at a garage sale.

Inside, we've started room by room with the spring cleaning. This started with my bedroom (which is in the very front of the house creepily enough). I finally got around to hanging wall art up on the walls. In the process of this, I realized how blank they still look so I guess I'm going to have to get more prints up in there.

A view from the bedroom door.


The plant stand in the corner of the room.

The view from in front of the plant stand. I'm hoping to put a real nightstand there.

As you can see, I moved my plant stand (that poor fellow moves all the time..and to think I garbage picked him!) into the room so I could have plants in there. I also rotated my bed so our feet are facing the window instead of one of our sides. I think I like the new layout and flipping the mattress made it feel springy again (since the arrangement is still so new it feels slightly like a hotel room). All in all, I think we'll be really happy with these changes.

The door way and beginning of the living room.

The next room we've perfected has been the living room. We put my magazine holder by the couch (previously another of my "floater" furniture pieces) and I think it really fits there nicely.

The end of one of the couches.

The end of the other couch.

Kyokin and Harclave each have to have opposite ends of the couch.

The Sailor Moon posters were birthday presents from
my Sailor Moon themed birthday party!

The table in front of and the tv.

Not too much has changed in the living room overall. It was really more of a straightening and moving some stuff down stairs (I am not looking forward to getting to there with the cleaning). The animals seem to like the new layouts quite a bit though. I also finally remembered that I was given Easter decorations a few years back! This is the first year since I was given them that they have made their way out and about the house!

The plants are doing well (I'm planning on updating about them on Friday so they have the chance to grow a bit more!). I can see the beginnings of flowers peeking up in the lilies. I also discovered that the front garden bed has a bit of a mystery plant peeking up. I feel like my weekend was very productive! I hope everyone else had a good (and warm) weekend :) I'll see you folks again soon with my plant baby updates (and some pictures of coasters too!).

Spring is coming!

2012-03-09T12:11:00.002-08:00

And I can feel it. I am sooo ready for the nice warm weather (and to get my garden back up and running!) I think I really miss the greens around me when winter's here. Snow can be amazingly beautiful, but this winter has stunk in that regard :( It's felt like just mud and cold :(

Our indoor "garden center" so far we're just using the top two shelves of this shelf for plants, but we hope to have two shelves full of plants growing soon!

In anticipation of the wonderful weather that I'm excited for, we've started seedlings (and potted plants) indoors! We took our extra room (that doubles as a sewing/craft room for me) and have started setting up shelves (well one shelf but now that we know it will work well, there will be more in there) in front of the window and are growing our own baby plants! I think this weekend we'll be adding another plant tray to the group of plants in front of the window.

Our seed starters! We have baby plants starting to come up.

A close up of some of the baby seedlings.

This year will be exciting because not only are we doing raised bed gardens, but I'll be teaching T. He's really excited to learn about gardening and to help me :) (no more weeding by myself!). I think it's going to be run. Our big obstacle right now, minus building the raised beds, is figuring out where and actually doing the pruning of the trees. I'll post before and (hopefully soon) after pictures of the backyard. It's HUGE, but it does need a lot of work as far as being pretty goes. I'm excited because in addition to increasing our garden size this year, we're planning on two flower beds! One in the front of the house and one in the back. I LOVE flowers (well truth be told I really love all plants).

The lily plants I felt sorry for at Meijer.

When we were at Meijer, I (like always) had to browse the garden stuff. I found some blue berry bushes that looked just amazing. I had to buy one. I just had to have one. My addiction to blue berries doesn't play into this at all *shifts eyes from side to side*. Right next to them (yes a picture of the blue berry bush will be in the post soon...just wait will ya ;) ) were some bags full of lily bulbs. These poor bulbs were trying their hardest to grow. Look at how curved they are from growing in that little bag :( . I had to liberate them. My husband is a very understanding and very doting man. He let me buy them, the blueberry bush, two pots, and potting soil! (Of course, it was all around 20 bucks...big spender me ;) ) So these pretty babies are going to grow in my bedroom and brighten it up more! One of the coolest things about our new house are the windows (they stink in winter though). They are everywhere!

My baby blue berry bush. See I told you I had a picture!

Well, now that I'm starting to garden again, I WILL (I'm not allowing myself to flake out anymore) be more regular with my posts. Also, BzzAgent presented an opportunity for me to test out the new Science Diet dog food, so I'm sure I'll be sharing those stories/feelings/findings with you all soon as well. I'm excited for spring. I think maybe this weekend I'll get my squirrel feeder (I haven't set it up since we moved) and bird feeder (if I can find a reasonably priced one I like) up and filled. See you soon folks!

Winter Blues

2012-02-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted >.>. There's been a move and a very hectic life! Merry belated Christmas and Happy belated New Years! (as well as all the rest of the holidays in there I may have missed) I've been working on helping the kiddo staying with us prepare for his G.E.D. and helping to finish a rulebook for my husband's game.

All that aside, the Knitting Ninjas (find us on facebook :) ) have moved to trying our hands at quilting! My husband and my birthdays are close together (January and February) so that's put a slight damper on us all meeting more, but soon it should become regular once again :)

I haven't been taking many pictures since the weather has all but decided it has no idea what it would like to be. (We've been having spring one day, fall the next, spring again, then winter for a few days) The ones above are from the Cedar Lake Outdoor Center in Chelsea, Mi. Such a beautiful place! Once upon a time, winter used to be my "free" time. It was the time for family, friends, and relaxing. I have to admit that this has been one of the busiest winters I can remember! I'm ready for spring, even if only for the change to (hopefully) constant weather. I'm going to work on once again, making my goal a post a week (maybe every other) so you should be reading me soon ;).

Now, I mentioned that I had been helping T (what I will call the kiddo) and in the process we've been reading Great Expectations and I've made some quizzes! (Feel free to use them for refreshers/home schooling just if you use them in a public place please give me credit :D)

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-14

(We skipped chapters 15-20 on the quiz. I have the notes and can type up the quiz if it is so desired :D)

Chapters 21-25

These quizzes were designed to help with remembering and reading comprehension. Now, don't take offense, I'm offering these free of charge since, to be quite literal, I have no formal education. This is this Michigan Housewife's attempt at helping to educate :). If these are a hit, I'll provide more. Please comment and let me know what you folks think!

All in all, I hope to be here more often! Good luck and see you all soon!

Maybelline Product Testing!

2011-11-17T10:54:00.001-08:00

Well, Thanks to being a BzzAgent, I got to sample the new Maybelline products! I've waited to do a review until I had used them quite a bit (because in my opinion first opinions of makeup aren't always the ones that last). So, let's get this party started!

I personally tested the lots of lashes mascara and the peach kiss baby lips lip balm.

My first thoughts on the lip balm was that it wasn't flavored. I'm not entirely sure why I thought it would have some flavor (maybe it was because of the name) but it didn't. That right there is the downside to my baby lips product. It has a very "lotion" taste occasionally. That being said, the more I used it, the more I really did come to enjoy it. One of my best friends commented when I shared some with her to try that the name Baby Lips wasn't appealing to her. I do appreciate the tinting. It's very pale so it's more along the lines of when you wear sexy underwear just to feel sexy, but it's still nice.

The test between the make up and no make up.

As you can see in the above picture, the lip lip balm does have a really nice sheen. (Please forgive my overgrown eyebrows >.> We're in the middle of moving and I haven't had the chance to really mess with them). All in all, the reviews I've had are good. The Baby Lips balm doesn't get sticky (a pet peeve of mine when it comes to lip products) and it really does seem to make my lips softer and smoother. The size and design of the tube is really nice as well. It's easy to keep track of and to find in my purse or pocket and it is quick to apply and makes me feel all pretty! ;)

Now, on to the Mascara. I'll start with a disclaimer. As you can tell by the side of the picture that has no make up, I already have long eyelashes, they just need more definition in my opinion. I was a little nervous about testing mascara because I knew I would be forcing myself to use the product instead of my normal product for several weeks to get a good opinion of it. The applicator looks like a pink cone almost. That seemed very odd to me and that best friend I mentioned earlier. It was almost scary.

The comparison between my old Mascara and the new.

But, I really did like it. The Lots of Lashes Mascara was the smoothest formula I've used yet. You know how most mascara (at least in my experience) tends to resemble a thin sludge before you put it on? Not this one. It almost looks like an ink. That being said, it is extremely light when you put it on. I may be the only person who's experienced this before, but I really hate when my eyes water just after I put on mascara because my eyelids are adjusting to the weight and feeling of it on. (That is why I normally stick to water proof) I didn't even have to worry about that this time! Lots of Lashes also didn't go on clumpy. I didn't have to use my eyelash comb and seperate the lashes at all. It was an astonishing feeling! The last big seller for me was the fact that it didn't make my long eyelashes look nasty or fake. Very few mascaras can sit on long eyelashes nicely and this one did. Will I make the switch? I'm thinking so. I might keep some of the Maybelline Falsies around in case I want that wispy look, but I'm pretty darn impressed!

Now, don't think I'm just tooting their horn because I got to test them. I will point out the bad things, but I was extremely pleased with these products. I'll also admit right now that even though I really love make up and am enthused about it, I don't have the most experience with the application of it. This was the perfect product for me to test because these are things I wear most regularly :D and this test has inspired me to wear them more often ^.^

Want to try them for yourself? Head on over to Maybelline's Facebook Page and like them for a free coupon! I hope this answers your questions and helps any one curious about these products :) Feel free to comment with further questions or email me and I'll be more than glad to assist!

Kyokin

2011-10-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Puppy Kyokin

Well, we've done it again. :P Just kidding! We did finally find the pup that's going to be our little Harclave's companion and friend. Everyone, meet Kyokin. He is a black lab/bull mastiff mix. He's going to be a big baby one of these days, but he's such a sweet heart that I'm not worried about it in the least!

This does bring up house training and *shudders* teething again though.
Harclave was not easy to house train or get through the teething stage.

Harclave for those who don't remember.

These last few days have been filled puppy love. We've also added another kiddo to the house. (We really are growing these days). Fana and I are massively out numbered now :P With all this growing, it's time for us to start looking at moving. We're in a month to month lease (well technically there is no lease at this moment but that's for another day) so we're looking around and saving money. I'm hoping that since we're moving anyways we can be moved by Thanksgiving (we host every year).

It looks like we may actually be moving to the Jackson, Michigan area. It's about the same drive for my husband (if not a little shorter) and it's a cheaper area where we can rent a bigger house to fit us all. I'm excited and a little anxious. Moving is always a big deal. There are more of us to do the packing this time around, but that does mean more stuff as well.

The two of them playing in the back yard.

All in all, things have been busy, but a good kind of busy. I'm sure there will be more surprises around the corner! Tonight the Knitting Ninja's of Michigan are over running my home to throw a birthday party for one of our own :) And Halloween is just around the corner! The only thing that gets me this year is that I didn't get pictures of our pumpkins before the frost destroyed them :( but maybe we'll sneak in some carving time and make some more!

Well, Happy Fall everyone! :) And I'll be back soon with more updates!

Bzzagent

2011-10-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I recently discovered a product test site called Bzzagent. It's very confusing on the surface, but I'm still learning my way around! Today I got invited into my first test group. It's for product called Smarterer.

I've taken a few quizzes now and I really like it. They have quite a few different quizzes and "challanges" that range from topics like Facebook and Twitter to topics like Php and blogging. The interface is extremely simple to use and I really like how it rates you as you take the quiz with other people. It even allows for you to share your score directly on facebook or twitter :) It's got my recommendation! So I suggest you folks all check it out :)

In other news, Saturday was another larp event. It was cold and windy but everyone had lots of fun. I'm kinda sad at how cold it's gotten and how quickly. Yes, I'm excited for snow, but I don't want to have it in October! My ketchup turned out really nicely :). Sometime this next weekend we're going to try and finish our halloween decorations and carve pumpkins so I'll take some pictures when we're finished for you all!

Fall is here!

2011-10-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

Things have been crazy around here. I've been running like a headless chicken! The garden is still producing a small amount of produce but is slowly dying off with the light frosts we've been having. Tonight (hopefully) I'm going to try my hand at home made ketchup. Wish me luck folks!

The best part of this time of year here in Michigan however, is the leaves! We joined some friends camping last weekend (we were only able to stay into part of Saturday) and look at the beauties I found on the walk! I really love this time of year. The colors are so vibrant and dazzling. To celebrate, I've made a new coupon for my photography! You can get $5.00 off an order of $10.00 or more at Ashley Di Iacovo Photography by entering the coupon code FALLPROMO . This coupon is only good until October 26, 2011 so take advantage of it while it's around!

As far as outside of photography and cooking goes, things have been just as busy. My knitting group I'm part of has turned into a huge success! (And to think I was so terrified of getting one together) and I love hanging out with each of the girls. Our home has a new resident :) and things are moving smoothly with that as well. All in all, things have been going well it's just been super busy. Until next time folks!

To Delight and be Delighted in

2011-09-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Captivating. This book is an excellent read for woman! I can't recommend it highly enough. At one point, they discuss that deep down feeling all woman (at least as far as my knowledge goes) have to "delight and be delighted in". The words were easy to read, but the concept ended up being more difficult to understand. I passed through taking my notes, I'm reading this and keeping a journal with a good friend, and thought no more of it. That was until this past Sunday.

My husband spoiled me and took me out to take pictures this past Sunday. We made our way back out to the Parker Mill Park. If you are in Michigan, you should really visit this park. If you are there during the right time (Sundays 1-5 during the fall it seems) you can get a tour of the mill and see how it worked when it was opened. We were lucky enough to find the mill open. Normally we take our dog with us out on these "Picture walks", but it ended up being a good thing we didn't have him with us this time.

Now, after we visited and went on the mill tour, we once again got rained out. The skies thundered and rain poured on us. I'm really beginning to feel like it's tradition to get rained on when we go out to take pictures. As we, with a few other people, ran under the car bridge (there's a walking path that passes beneath it to get to the other side of the park) we found a heron snacking on the fish the rain was washing down stream. It was amazing! We spent an hour or so under the bridge taking pictures as the storm refused to let up. The majesty the bird had while eating was spectacular. This was the first time I've ever seen a heron before. Once the rain began to lighten up (only slightly) we continued on the path in the rain.

Here are the pictures from my trip

The first thing we found when we arrived at the pavilion, (It's a really neat set up, the pavilion is designed with plants growing on the top.) was a massive rainbow spreading through the nearby trees. Much to my surprise rainbows are in all actuality very difficult to photograph. (I've had very few chances to try and capture rainbows on film to this date). As the rain stilled, my husband reclined and began to write in his journal. I moved to and fro around the small pavilion, called Poppy's Place, taking pictures of spiders and flowers and the beauty surrounding me. I couldn't help but to drink in each beauty in it's own turn. It was marvelous. It was glorious.

I took my time taking pictures of these little marvels and when I had collected a few, I would return to share them with my husband. Being surrounded by all these little blessings filled me with joy and sharing them with my husband only furthered that. It was then that I understood what the book had been talking about. I felt so happy looking at what was around me and in turn I was even happier sharing it and seeing the joy on my husband's face. I think this is what the book meant. It's hard for me to describe in words, but the fact that I was able to share something so precious to me with him and please him with it as well felt inexplicably good.

I just really wanted to share this with you all :) That being said, my impatience is driving me insane. I can't wait for my Scentsy shipment to be shipped and I'm still waiting for my ion bracelet to be shipped. Overall, I'm disappointed with this purchase. It was free, so that is the plus side still, but when I ordered there was nothing stating a time range before the product would ship out. Normally, this means that the order will be processed and shipped in a few days. Two weeks after I placed the order and had heard nothing, I contacted the company only to very rudely be informed that there is a 10-14 BUSINESS (yes they capitalized it) day processing delay. That in it's own wouldn't be upsetting, but the manner and tone the response was given really soiled the transaction. This Friday will be their fourteen business days, so we'll see if they redeem themselves, but I have this bad feeling I will be contacting them via email once more.
So, if you are ordering one of these, it might be better to find a different place to order from than http://www.powerbands.tv/ . I most likely won't be ordering from there again.

Well, that's it for now. (At least all I can think of). Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Weather, Weather, and more Weather

2011-09-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I believe the zucchinis have produced their final fruits. The other thing I learned this week in gardening is that honeydew plants are cousins of cucumbers. So that cucumber disease that I couldn't find a treatment for online spread to my honeydew :( I've gotten a handful of melons, but I don't think I'll be getting many more. The tomatoes are growing well as well as the bell peppers and jalapenos finally started taking off.

The weather around here has been crazy!

This is from a storm near my mother in laws house. We kidnapped her puppies so our little guy would have playmates for a week. It ended up being alot of fun for us and the dogs :) But when we went and picked up the pups, she was going on day 2 of no power. That being said, adding extra puppies to my schedule (it's already been pretty packed) made internet and pictures all but impossible. For the pictures it didn't really matter though. It's been drizzling rain here. No cool lightening or thunder where we live, just rain. I'm sure the garden loves it though!

That being said, I have been working on reading Captivating and taking notes. It's such a good book! Other than that, I've been working on LARP rulebook pieces. I finished a pair of socks. The yarn is really awesome. It's a Hobby Lobby home brand, but it's a wool mix (I tend to be allergic to wool occasionally) that I can wear! They are so nice and soft and warm. I'm going to have to pick up more yarn so I make me some more! My current knitting project is a pair of Norwegian mittens. My hubby picked me up a book called Norwegian Handknits that's full of awesome designs. The only sad part is that it looks like my first pair of mittens will be too small for me. Well, it's a good Christmas gift in the making then, right?

I just got a group of my good friends together and we're making a knitting circle. I'm really excited about this and we're going to meet for the first time next Wed. I hope everything goes well because this will be fun if it does :). One of my friends is going to pick up Letters to Juliet (I think that's what it's called) for us to watch while we craft!

Now, I did want to take a minute and mention this. I've recently discovered Scentsy and the woman who's introduced me to it is super nice. I'd like to take this chance to direct you to her and encourage you to look around. her website is here. She does a scent of the month club to let you sample things and is over all just really nice. I'll let you all know how we like our products (we loved our samples) when they come in!

Well, I know it doesn't seem like much, but besides running around this has been what I've been up to. Today we're getting NomNoms (awesome cupcakes by us) to take to my husband's step brother and I'm sure we'll visit with them all for a little while before coming home. Next weekend we go to the Ren Faire so I'll take lots of pretty pictures to share ^.^ Have a blessed and safe week everyone!

Maybury State Park

2011-08-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

We took a break this past weekend. We've been so busy lately that we have barely even slept (or at least it feels that way). So Saturday, after the cable guy came earlier than expected, we decided to take a day adventure out to Maybury State Park here in Michigan. You can find out more information about the history of the park here. It was simply beautiful!

One of the trails we walked on.

All in all our visit was cut short, but we really enjoyed it. About 20 minutes into us walking the winding trail near where we parked, we started to hear rumblings of thunder. We decided to continue on the shorter trail and head to the car. About 10 minutes later, we came across the site above (near the old water tower consequently) and it started to very lightly sprinkle. We found a pavilion and restroom. As we got our poor puppy, (he was exhausted. He hasn't been on walks like this in a while) something to drink, we waited out for a bit. Once the rain calmed down to a light sprinkle again, we headed to the nearest map. We headed in what we thought was the correct direction and passed a couple walking their large dogs who were very upset to see our little one (he's half Shih Tzu and half *insert crazy name* poodle). We got to the next map (not more than a 5 or 6 minute walk) to discover we had gone the wrong way. As we turned around and headed in the correct direction, the storm began to pick up. The pavilion that we would need to pass again seemed to be our best bet. What did we find when we got there? The couple with the large angry dogs were there (and shooting us dirty looks!). At that point, we knew we were maybe 10 minutes walk from the car. We continued on. As we walked quickly, a crack filled the air. Turning, to our horror we saw a tree branch fall to the ground we were had just passed. The rain was so heavy at one point that it was better for me to remove my glasses and walk than to try and see through them. Our clothes were soaked through (and so was our poor little puppy). At about 8 minutes into our walk, we got to an empty pavilion and waited for the storm to calm down a bit. It was on the outskirts of the walking trails and had no tree cover to speak of. (It was cold). Once it was lightly drizzling again, we continued to our car. I feel bad because we walked by the Rice family picnic sopping wet. My tank top and pants were stuck to me and I felt ashamed to be seen like that. Finally seeing our car and getting there, we discovered my husband had left the sunroof down! (That shows you how little we were expecting the rain and storm when we went in!) All in all, it was a fun, scary, wet experience. Now now, before I get lectured on anything. We are not normally risk takers. The storm was fast and hard hitting. Everyone is safe and fine (Thank God!). I'm excited to go back (on a nicer day hopefully) to take more pictures. With as fast as everything happened, my camera was in it's case to protect it more than it was out to take pictures. As always, what few other pictures I took can be found here.

In regards to the garden, the green bean and cucumber plants are no longer with us :( They produced like troopers though so I'm glad we planted them! We are starting to get some red tomatoes (although for the most part they stay stubbornly green!). Corn is beginning to form in our squirrel planted corn plants and the honey dew is getting larger! We also discovered that the jalapeno plants we thought had disappeared and died actually have baby jalapenos. Hopefully in the next week or so I'm going to take updated garden pictures for everyone :) Until then, Stay safe!

Busy Busy Busy August!

2011-08-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

July has come to an end. Kind of sad, isn't it? With August comes the beginnings of harvests and to me (I grew up in Texas *shrugs*) the beginning of school and fall. My mind has been a flutter with thoughts of Carmel apples and pumpkin picking. The rest of me however has been occupied with friends, work, and food preservation! I've made stewed tomatoes, brined pickles, plum sauce, frozen zucchini, frozen green beans, frozen corn, and dried zucchini. Yes, I know it doesn't sound like much but add in my half-brother's passing (rest in peace Jeremy :( ) and all the day to day work I do as a housewife and I'm impressed with my accomplishments.

I think one of the more exciting parts of this past weekend was finding my dehydrator! I've been wanting one, but they add up in cost quickly and I wasn't 100% sure I would even use it all that much. I have fallen in love. We found my dehydrator at a garage sale brand new and never opened for (now get this) five bucks! I was extremely excited to take it out and play with it all day Saturday (we had other errands we were doing while we were garage sale shopping and then guest for dinner). When I finally did get a chance to open it, I pulled it out, read the cleaning instructions and tossed the book aside (not literally). I cleaned it and started slicing some of the zucchini in my fridge to put on there. I looked in my Ball's Canning guide for their directions on zucchini drying and began. After I had started the process, I then took the time to read the instructions for the machine. It was a special edition one (apparently packaged for Wal-Mart specifically) and it came with a starting jerky maker set. I'm not that brave yet, but one of these days I will be!

I got an order for some more of my blushing peach jam! I'm really excited :) I love making it (and eating it). Two jars are ordered and the rest will go in the pantry for now. I still have to find raspberries for it though. When I was out and about picking up tomatoes and things to preserve, each place I went was sold out. I'm going out to look some more tonight.

Things I learned this weekend about food preservation:

1. Two people cutting up 10 lbs of tomatoes goes a lot faster than one
2. About two ears of corn blanched equals a pint bag half filled in the freezer.
3. 5 or 6 hours of dehydrating time seems epic when you are excited and anticipating the process, but in reality it's really not that long.

As for my garden (I really need new pictures up >.>) we went ahead and bit the bulled and pulled our potatoes up. We had the mole living in a burrow in them (it finally made it's way to the garden) and between the June bug problem we had and the hail from the storm earlier this year, the plants themselves weren't looking too spiffy. We got 5-10 lbs of potatoes from our little plants (even with the pulling up early and everything else that happened to these poor guys) and there were still lots of tiny little baby potatoes we could have had if we had let them keep growing. Oh well! We're excited with what we have and I'm planning on turning them into freezer french fries (the kind that normally cost an arm and a leg in a store that you bake in the oven to eat!). We also thinned out our green bean plants. Some of them were looking worn so we went ahead and pulled them up to make room for the ones that aren't as beaten up. The honey dew melons look like little fuzzy green baseballs! I love them! I can't help but rub my fingers over them when I'm out in the garden at least once. I hope it doesn't hurt them! The main reason for the garden work however was that our tomato plants out grew their cages! We had to buy stakes and tie them up over the weekend. I didn't know they would/could do that! I guess we should chalk it up to another lesson learned! Of course, after we spent a few hours in the garden, another severe storm rolled through! Thankfully we didn't get any of the hail they had predicted with it. I still have more pickles to make and a few beans to freeze and the french fries to prepare, but besides that, I think one of the next things I want to try is home made hot pockets! In the Ball's Canning Guide they have directions for making ham and cheese ones, so I'm going to try and adjust it for peperoni ones! Wish me luck folks :)

I don't think there's much else really worthy of posting about (I'm sure after I finish this I'll thing of 101 things I should have said but that's just how it goes) so I'm just going to wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Hello World

2011-08-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

Some of the tomato plants are now taller than I am!

Well, I'm back. I went to a funeral in Texas this last week or so for my half-brother. He will be missed. :( When I came back however, my garden had grown quite larger!

I had to add more growing room for the cucumbers.

My husband and I are starting to think that maybe the "suggested" planting guidelines are a bit inaccurate because everything is just growing everywhere! Is this much growing normal or are we just extra blessed this year?

Baby Honeydews like this are popping up everywhere!

There's lots of catch up work to do in the garden. I think it'll be good for me. I've had quite a bit on my mind and not alot of time to go over each thought. The trip was nice enough, but I had forgotten what a drive it is. On the way home we saw tornado touch down. (We were in the Texas panhandle so we were able to see from far enough away to not be in danger) but that was the most excitement we experienced on the trip.

A growing cucumber. I'm not sure why some of them do this, but I think they are still good to eat.

I've updated my gallery with a few pictures from the trip, so go and check it out!

Updates and a coupon :)

2011-07-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I feel terrible. Every day life has taken a nose dive into the deep end it feels like! I've been busy as a bee. Over this last weekend I did Senior pictures for the daughter of a woman who works with my husband (well isn't that a mouth full?). They turned out extremely well! I've also been working on getting a shop set up for my photography! Now you can buy prints of my photos :) To celebrate with you, my wonderful blog viewers, I have made a coupon just for you! Visit my photo gallery and store front here! After selecting your purchases, enter the code michwife11 and you'll get 10% off your entire purchase! This coupon expires 10/31/11 so enjoy it while it's here!

What my harvests are beginning to look like!

The garden has gotten huge! It doesn't seem to stop growing these days! (this makes for a happy me!) Both my zucchini plants and my tomato plants (the non hanging ones) are getting to where they reach near my shoulders when I walk into it! This heat wave here in Michigan has made spending time out in the garden a bit harder (plus I have to water every single night! and twice a day for Lulu), but the plants seem to love it so I can't really complain too much. I've been freezing green beans and zucchini. I even made zucchini bread (at the request of a friend) and zucchini and ricotta tart! (This recipe can be found on Rachel Ray's website and is divine!) This is the first harvest where cucumbers have been high in number so I think tonight or tomorrow I'll be working on making my first batch of pickles to store. I think my green bean plants are coming to an end in their production, but we certainly have gotten quite a bit of them if you ask me! Once this heat wave ends and I'm not so busy (my schedule exploded a bit for this week) I'll go out and try to get some pictures of how large the plants are getting. It's a very pretty and comforting (for me anyways) sight. The only complication we've had lately are June bugs (nasty buggers) and the zucchini near the potato plants are having blossom rot issues. I guess that's it for now! I'll be back soon I'm sure :) Good luck everyone and have a great end of the week!

More produce!

2011-07-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

This is an older picture but look at how big it's all getting!

I'm really done with this whole "being sick in summer" thing. It stinks and it's keeping from being out in my garden as much! (as well as from updating this).

I really like to look back at a little more than a month ago you can see how far things have come! The cucumbers were tiny for example! Then if you look at a little less than a month ago you'll still see how fast they've grown. I find it surprising and shocking. It's nice that it grows fast!

An adorable baby cucumber. I love how cute these are!

Even with me being sick (I caught what my hubby had over the fourth), things have still been crazy busy! Just this last week (on days I was feeling somewhat good enough to go outside) I moved the sage and rosemary inside. They are now sitting on my desk next to me. The reason for moving the rosemary was that it never could seem to be happy in the garden. At least in a pot I can monitor it a bit more closely and move it to accommodate it. The reason for moving the sage was that we have discovered a HUGE June bug infestation! They were devouring my sage plant and with the dill and cilantro next to it getting so big it was having a hard time recouping. (The infestation isn't gone, but we are spraying plant leaves with a soap based organic spray to keep them from eating the plants. We also put out a June bug trap (a jar with about 2 inches of oil inside with a solar light pointing in and surrounding it since they are drawn to the light and will then die in the oil) ) At first we thought we had slugs since all the research I had seen was pointing to that. We put out our beer traps and tip toed outside with a flashlight in the middle of the night to catch the traps in action only to find no slugs but June bugs over everything! Keeping our porch light off at night in the backyard also seems to make a huge difference. Our mole/groundhog also finally did the evil unforgivable act and has tunneled into the garden. As much as the traps appall me, I may let my husband put one in. I don't want to kill whatever it is, but I also don't want it in my garden :( I'm going to put up more of the pop bottles on poles (my husband was playing with them and didn't put them back in correctly or the same spots so I'm thinking this might be why the sudden "ohh garden" from the creature) and hope that it decides to go on it's merry little way!

My first harvest of green beans.

My garden is producing produce! (see what I did there?) I'm so excited! I've always enjoyed cooking with fresh ingredients, but having my own grown veggies definitely rocks! My first harvest was enough for my hubby and I to eat with two meals, my second filled a Wal-mart bag half way full (I ended up sharing with my friends down the street and gave them half) and my third has added even more to that. I think I'm going to start freeze canning them (I sadly do not have a pressure cooker :( to regularly can them yet) so that I don't run the risk of losing them! They are really yummy!

My first two zucchini and three cucumbers!

Even the zucchini and cucumbers are starting to come in now! I'm extremely excited :) We used the zucchini in this Rachel Ray recipe. We first made it last year when it came out in the magazine and fell in love with it! It's a very good recipe and I highly recommend it! The cucumbers I'll be turning into cucumber sandwiches today.

My First Quilt.

I finally finished my quilt (in between being sick) and started my husbands. To see more, visit my Crafting Blog: Something Crafty This Way Comes!

Overdue Update ((July 2, 2011 storm update!)

2011-07-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long overdue nature of this update. My hubby took time off for the 4th giving him essentially a five day weekend. Of course, he ended up sick for the entire time and I ended up sick towards the end of it. So finding time and motivation has been a little difficult :( .

July 2, 2011 a big storm moved through! They had predicted rain for us, but nothing like this!

Hail falling in front of our house.

A picture of the melting hail.

The wind was blowing rain and hail so hard at points that we couldn't see out our front door! The hail was on average golf ball size. Of course, not thinking fast enough or of pictures, I didn't grab my camera until the worst of the storm was over. Half way through the storm we went out and tried to do save work on the garden. All of our potato and zucchini plants were flattened to the ground. Thankfully we had just put cages around our tomatoes and the honeydew so those were a bit more protected.

Here are some pictures of the damage from the storm:

Our onions were pummeled and many lost shoots to the storm like this one did.

The types of holes the hail left in the cucumber leaves.

You can see some of the holes in the zucchini leaves. The zucchinis had to be tied up to support them.

There were downed branches everywhere when we drove around. Here's one at a local gas station.

There were whole sections of town without power (thankfully we missed that part) but some people are still cleaning up the mess this storm made! There were no tornadoes in our area, but sirens did go off for other counties near us I believe.

The sky took on a weird butter/green color after the storm.

After the storm the sky was a weird butter/green mix color and everything was cast in this creepy light. My husband loved it because he said it felt like special effects. As night fell, another part of the storm moved over us (but didn't hit us) so we got quite the lightening show for once!

Lightening from that night.

Other than illness our long weekend was good. We spent a lot of time together. We did light fireworks off in the backyard (because what would the 4th be if you didn't?) My husband bought some mammoth smoke bombs for the larp (because they are really long smoke bombs) and decided to test them. He is a fireworks pro and has done this man times, but as he lit it and threw it, the smoke bomb (let me repeat smoke bomb) exploded and set his clothes on fire. Thankfully he was not hurt he just lost a shirt and a pair of shorts. (they were new, but at least he is okay, right?) The rest of the evening went smoothly.

With us being sick and not much to do, I did get to finish my quilt! Now I've started my husbands. I'll be posting more details on that at my crafting blog http://somethingcraftythiswaycomes.blogspot.com/

Here are some pretty fireworks to leave you all with! Until I feel better and take pictures of the garden to update with, be safe and have fun :)

Fountain Fireworks

Getting Ready for the 4th of July!

2011-06-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Things have been crazy around here. I've had a bit of a bug (sick when I eat or drink but otherwise fine) that finally seems to be going away and we've had a friend in the hospital. I finally got to get out to my garden to take inventory and to really look at it! Lulu is so much happier now than she was before! Look at this picture!


Look at all the new baby tomatoes!

I'm excited. the one tomato I've been nursing on her (you can see it in the background) has some pretty serious blossom rot. Is it bad that when I look at this guys I see fried green tomato blts?

At the end of the yellow blossom you can see the beginnings of the first baby zucchini!

While on the topic of baby produce, I've found my first baby zucchini! I'm very excited to see these taking off so well! I haven't dug around through all of them yet to see how many "baby" zucchinis I have, but with as many flowers as I've seen, I should get a good turn out!

A Honey Dew Blossom

The Carrots

My honey dew is growing like crazy! It keeps sending out little vine tendrils like the cucumber plant does, so in order to contain it, I'm considering putting it in a upside down tomato cage so it can grasp onto something and grow up a bit instead of just out. I'm not sure. This is the first time I've grown a melon. I just watch it grow up, up, up, fall over from the weight of itself and do it all again with the little vine tendrils just laying next to it straight. I'm going to do more research, but that's my best idea at this time.

The carrots are so happy! I'm really excited to eat them! Well, I guess I can say that about my entire garden. ;) Me (being the strange person I am) can't help but look at carrots and be reminded of cilantro. The leaves just look so similar to me!

Alona is beginning to have leaves bud!

Our little rose bush is finally growing leaves of her own! I'm glad. I was really worried about her. She wasn't in the best of shape when we brought her home from the store and then I was worried that she wasn't getting enough light, but she's growing.

Our friend who was in the hospital was mugged and attacked early Monday morning. He's out of the danger zone after the surgery to see how bad the skull fracture was and to fix it, but he sadly has no health insurance to pay for this and (since he was mugged and his car stolen) now has to deal with a stolen identity, and a slew of other very hard things. We're working on getting a charity/benevolent organization together for him to help him. I'll update you all with more once that happens. In the meantime, This is my crafting blog and the craft I put together to cheer him up while he's in the hospital. I'll post again soon everyone! Have a safe and happy holiday to those of you here in the US and everyone else, have a great weekend! (if I don't post again before that)

Attack possibly solved, first "fruits", and an update!

2011-06-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

Well, we're leaning toward it possibly being a gopher or something similar that ate our poor pinwheels (if confused see my previous post!). This morning we went out to the back yard to get ready for company and there little raised "tunnels" all over the yard towards the house (no where near the garden thank goodness!). The good news is that we already have the pop bottle on stakes in place. This keeps gophers and tunneling creatures away because they don't like the vibrations. :D So it works for bunnies and tunnels! We did reposition our bottles (and may be adding more). We have one of each of the tall ones at each long side of the garden and then I moved the small one to the center of their little tunnels under Lulu.

The salad made from lettuce grown by us! With cheese added of course ;)

We finally got to eat something from the garden! I am so excited :) Our lettuce was finally big enough to go and pick it all and (I chopped it up because I was excited) make a salad. It was really yummy! Some of the lettuce had a really nutty flavor when we ate it and when I was cutting it and then other types in there had a bit of bite. It was really good. I also pulled up one of my spring onion plants to go in there because I figured it was a good time to celebrate :-D.

Baby Corn Plants

As I was replanting the lettuce (the kit we bought came with lots of different types of seeds and you're suppost to harvest and replant as desired) I decided to weed around the area as well. As I was pulling things up, I found that the squirrels have been planting some corn kernels from their feeder in the garden and now they are growing! 0.o I didn't even think that would be possible! I identified the baby plants and planted the new lettuce around them. I'm excited to see how they turn out!

My cucumber plants

The cucumbers (and honey dew for that matter) are growing like crazy! I'm trying to train them to grow up the string but they're a little set against it. Some of the cucumbers (just like the honeydew) already have little buds.

I had originally meant to take pictures next to a ruler for this post, but maybe the next post. I'm so excited by how big it's all getting! The zucchini is starting to flower (I also had flowers on some of my basil) and the potatoes are flowering. It looks like Lulu is going to be getting a few more tomatoes soon (the food and compost really helped her) and even the pepper plants are looking up. Eating the salad was so much fun and it felt good to enjoy all my hard work. This weekend is nice (so far anyways) and I'm hoping at some point we'll go out to a park and walk around with our dog so I can take pictures :)

A picture that almost includes the entire garden. Before I moved the pop bottle stakes.

A view from above where the lettuce is planted.

I hope all of you have a blessed weekend!

An Attack!

2011-06-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

In between 2 am and noon today, there was an attack on my poor garden!

Evidence One

Evidence Two

In the long run it's good that none of my plants were hurt. I am very sad however to see that my pretty little pinwheels have been eaten. We aren't sure exactly what caused this, but we're working on finding a way to keep them out.

I also tied back my zucchini leaves to give the pepper plants more room to grow.

A view of my garden from the door.

The good news in all this is that plant food and compost seem to be helping. Our tomato plants no longer have blue leaves and everything is growing once more.

Lulu's tomato is growing :) I'm so excited to eat this tomato!

That's all for this update folks :)

Father's Day Weekend

2011-06-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Well our original plans were to go camping, but when we checked the weather to finalize (it was a bit of a spur of the moment plan) it showed nothing but storms all weekend. So we decided to instead stay home and spend time together. Of course, the rain didn't come, but we did get work done in the garden!

Left section of the garden. You can see the green beans, cucumbers, some tomatoes, cilantro, rosemary , potatoes, and dill here

Middle section of the garden. You can see the dill, basil, potatoes, tomatoes, green bell peppers, onions, and honey dew melon plants here.

Right section of the garden. You can see the zucchini, bell peppers, onions, garlic, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and lettuce plants here.

I think the best news of all we found while working in the garden was this!

The potato plants are starting to bud! Flowers means no more burying them all!

My photobombed cilantro picture :) Isn't it growing well!

All in all it was a great weekend. We went to Howell, Mi and the outlet mall there Saturday to find shoes/clothes for my husband. It was a nice day (once it stopped being humid and I changed from a dress into some pants) and we had Olive garden for dinner. Sunday we played video games with one another and then did our garden running. We came home, worked in the garden and smoked a small brisket! It was delicious! The work we did in the garden was: 1. Add in the cage and strings for the cucumbers to grow up 2. Tied small stakes to all the tomato and pepper plants in hopes of making them stronger 3. Added more dirt to the potato piles 4. Planted Alona, our new rose bush 5. Added organic plant food and compost to Lulu, the hanging tomato, and the entire garden. I hope everyone else had a nice father's day!

Sad news and updates

2011-06-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

Well, our lettuce patch had an accidental incident with the person our landlord hires to mow, so we're most likely going to have to replant the lettuce :( The good news is that the garden is still doing well :) Here's pictures to prove it!

Lulu's first baby tomato!

My dill plant :)

Green beans, cucumbers and the herbs. Look at those green beans!

zucchini

A close up of a potato plant

The weather's finally cleared up a bit, not too hot, not too cold, I just haven't been out taking pictures of wild life as much. I finished making curtains for my mother in law :) I think they came out really nice! She also recently found me some old sewing books (some of which have bra patterns and such) so I'm sure I'll be playing with that soon too :) Over all, things have been busy with the LARP (our online event ends tonight) and just life. My house is a mess and I'll have to fix that soon :/ but we're looking at trying to go camping this weekend! Just have to figure out who will watch our puppy!

Extra Water = Happier Garden!

2011-06-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well giving the plants a larger dose of water last night seems to have done the trick! Here are more pictures of it!

My cucumber plants

A close up of my potato plants

A back view of my potato plants, aren't they lovely?

A close up of a cucumber plant

On the left, my green bean plants, on the right more tomato plants

Going left to right, top to bottom: Cilantro, basil , honey dew, bell pepper, sage, dill

left to right in rows: zucchini plants, bell peppers, carrots (too small to really see) and more tomatoes. In the very back right is my lettuce.

A close up of Lulu (my hanging tomato plant)'s new flowers. I think she's up to about six!

A close up of my zucchini plants

I'm so proud of how well my little garden is doing! I also really like and would recommended the weather channel website's garden watering app. It's really handy and since I check the weather daily anyways it really helps!

Larping and Garden work :)

2011-06-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were out at Ford Lake all day running Kingdom of Valin: A New Dawn. The Larp It was alot of fun and we had a really good turn out! See Pictures Here. So today my husband and I just sat around and relaxed. We visited his dad and then worked on the garden. We added some pepper plants (jalepenos and bell) as well as some tomatoes. We planted garlic seeds and watered it! Lulu has more flowers! I think we're up to about six flowers! I'm really excited for my "crop" to come in! We've decided that maybe we weren't watering our plants enough. My husband watered them for a long time last night and today most of them have doubled in size. I'll be planting pictures of it soon! All in all, it was a great weekend, but I feel like it's gone by too fast. Oh! For the Larp I made some amazing cucumber sandwiches! Here's the recipe/instructions:

Cucumber Sandwiches

2-4 cucumbers sliced thinly or cut into small chunks (this depends on how large your cucumbers are or how much of their flavor you wish to taste)
2 packages of cream cheese
1 package of ranch dressing seasoning

Slice your cucumbers into thin slices. I also like to slice them into strips after this as well.
Mix your cream cheese and ranch dressing packet with a mixer until smooth. (I don't think the mixer is completely necessary but it makes things faster).
Mix the cucumber slices into the blended mix.
Refridgerate (or keep cool) for a few hours.
Slather onto bread and serve!

My recipe does make quite a bit (It was enough to make sandwiches with two loaves of bread with the mixture spread very thinly) but it does keep really well and remains tasty. People have requested it before :) I hope this helps y'all!