Accomplishments

Given the correct tools, we can accomplish correct things.

I LOVE MY NEW LAWN MOWER. I absolutely love it. I mowed the lawn on Saturday and enjoyed every second of it. I actually mowed longer than necessary just to keep doing it :-)

Then I LOVE MY KITCHENAID mixer. I made homemade stromboli on Saturday for dinner. Can anyone say YUMMY in my TUMMY! It was such a big batch of dough I made two strombolis so we had one for dinner on Saturday and the second one for lunch on Memorial Day!

I also tried my hand at cinnamon bread today. Still learning on the bread front. I am not very good at it but at least it looked like an actual loaf this time. :-)

I LOVE MY WASHER AND DRYER. For some reason I have been very reflective of my ancestors this weekend. I was doing laundry and I just had to think that I bet my ancestors are both jealous and grateful that I have such beautiful machines to make that chore so much easier than they had it. I mean, how long would it take to do laundry by pounding the clothes on a rock, wringing them by hand and then hanging them to dry. Okay, I actually wish I had a clothes line to hang them outside, but 1) against HOA rules (why I don't know), and 2) not really enough room to do this properly in my yard. So for now I will just be extra grateful for my big dryer.

I LOVE MY YARDEN. So I got the two trellises that we got put together. I had a brainiac moment and I screwed them together. I have tried nailing them before and the hammer literally just bounces off of the wood. I needed the two on top of each other to make it tall enough. I first drilled a hole through the wood and then put screws in to hold them together. It is actually quite magical in my opinion. So now the grape vine is on a trellis. Still keeping my fingers crossed. Although the planting instructions said to put mulch on top of the dirt and my new lawn mower catches the clippings in a bag so the mulch was right at my fingertips. So the grape vine is also mulched. AWESOME!

Beanlings are coming along fine now that the pesky little snails and slugs are not bothering them any more. We planted an Early Girl tomatoe plant. The tomatoes are plentiful but very very small. Just a bit bigger than cherry. A little bit disappointing but live, try, and learn. The cilantro is doing well as is the basil and our little pepperlings. The orange tree is still loaded with little babies. Some are still as small as my little fingernail and some are now as big as my ring finger nail. So they are growing!!! New life outside is so exciting.

We are thinking about getting a pressure canner this fall. I am looking forward to canning some veggies. I will be blanching and freezing until we get enough for a canning batch. I am also looking forward to buying bulk pizza and spaghetti sauce from the store and canning it in smaller two people portions as well.

Always something new and interesting on the home front.

Domestically this weekend, I took down Spring (Easter, I just love my Easter stuff so I keep it up as long as I can) decorations and put up the Patriotic and Summer decorations. These will now last through September with one change in August. I will take down my fake rununculus and put up my fake sunflowers. Love to decorate and I love that my sweetheart puts up with it and takes down boxes and puts up boxes for me.

Then I actually was able to do a bib and burp cloth edging with crochet. I am so far behind on this project. I am already two babies behind in the ward with a new one due in 1 month. So after this set, I am now one baby behind and one on the way.

I am just feeling very blessed and thankful for everything and everyone today :-)

Memorial Day

I just need to express my thanks to all of the armed forces service men and women. I am so grateful for their service and warrior spirit that helps preserve the freedoms I enjoy and often take for granted every single day. May they and their families know that I appreciate them and I pray for them. Is it just me or do the pictures from Iraq show the young men younger and younger. They just look like kids to me now. So may Heavenly Father bestow His protective blessings on these young and older warriors.

I am also grateful for the brothers and sisters from ancient and latter days that have sacrificed so much for the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. My thoughts return to Adam and Eve, Lehi and Sariah, Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their sweet wives. I think of Ruth and Naomi. My thoughts turn to the apostles of the New Testament, for some reason I have a special love for Paul. Nephi, Alma, Helaman, Mormon, Moroni, Ether, etc. from the Book of Mormon. To Joseph, Hyrum, Emma, and all of the other pioneer men and women. These blessed souls sacrificed, toiled, labored, driven, persecuted and yes, even martyred for the cause of Jesus Christ.

I am proud to be called a Christian and hope someday to give these brave men and women a hug in gratitude for letting me see the love of the Savior of the World. I especially hope to be able to wash His feet with my tears if I am found worthy to do so.

COPPER TAPE VS SNAILS

So we put the copper tape around our containers. I planted my beanlings, lettuce, and cilantro. The next morning, all veggies were unmolested and unharmed. How could I know if the snails really tried during the night. Not a good litmus test in my opinion.

The litmus test:

Take a snail (if you can find one, does any one else see the irony that when I need to find a snail, they are nowhere to be found). So wait for snails to come out while starting the watering. Finally see a snail. Pick up said snail. Apologize to the snail that he is the unfortunate participant in a copper tape experiment. Put the snail on the copper tape. Watch the snail go as far as he can into his shell. Okay, so did he go in because of the copper tape or because I picked him up, one asks oneself.

Next test. Take same snail. Again apologize to snail that he is the brunt of this experiment and apologize if the copper tape hurt in any way. Place snail next to container with beanlings. Hope he can smell the beanlings or something so he will try to climb the container up to the copper tape.

Keep watering while periodically checking on snail.

Finally notice that snail is creeping up the side of the container. YEA!!! Go over and watch snail come to the copper tape. Watch snail stop dead in his tracks. Now snail stretches his neck out of shell as far as he can and tries to see if he can reach across the 1.5 inch tape to the other side of said tape. Nope cannot reach across. Watch snail slink along the tape and periodically checking with his feelers to see if tape is still there.

WOW!!! COPPER TAPE WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am no longer a snail killer! Just a snail repeller. We may actually be able to enjoy most if not all of our delicious fruits and veggies this summer!

YARDEN YARDEN YARDEN

It has been a while since I posted. I am at a stopping point today at work and before I start a new project I am going to quickly update on the yarden.

So since my beanlings were totally devoured to the dirt by snails, I got angry. You don't want to see me when I'm angry. (hee hee hee)

So I took out my six packs, put dirt in them, put new bean seeds in them and put the packets on our patio table. The snails are too lazy to maneuver the table legs.

Then what to do when they need to be planted in the containers. So my sweetheart and I went to one of our favorite stores. Armstrong gardens. They are so knowledgeable. They talked us into copper tape to repel snails and slugs. So we bought some. Update later.

We also bought a Concord grape vine. Keeping fingers crossed. We want the grape vine to do two things. 1) cover the back fence, 2) give us grapes so I can make grape jelly. YUMMY!

Getting Better

So after the second night of Benedryl the hard lumps in my leg are finally disipating to smaller lumps. The lower part of my calf is not nearly as tender. There is still redness on the skin and near the bite area the redness circle is larger but a lighter red than it has been. It is probably the venom starting to leave the lumps. I could actually take a small walk at lunch today without too much problem. There are no streaks of red going up my leg. I am very careful about that. I will probably take the Benedryl every evening until this is gone.

Good Sleep....

The Benedryl should have a "caution, dead to the world" sign on it. Honestly, medication hits me hard which is why I try to limit the amounts I use or need. I was so sound asleep that I did not even waken for an accident that happened just a couple of blocks from our home. A 19 year old hit a light pole by the high school. Then life flight was hovering over the house before it landed. No word yet on how sever the injuries were to the 19 year old. Hope the person is okay. It took a while for the firefighters to get him out of his car.

Anyway, my sweetheart was watching me because I normally would have jerked awake. But no, I slept through it!!!! This stuff is good that it helps but bad that anything could have happened and I would have been clueless!

Good news is that I am getting terrific sleep at night!

Bite Update

So last evening I took some dreaded Benadryl. It is what the pharmacist recommended. Since there are no OTC medications that actually say, "for use when you are having an allergic reaction to a spider bite."

Okay, so only 1 hour after taking the medication, the leg still hurt but I was sooooooooooo happy and sleepy. So I was giggling at EVERYTHING and was zonkered out by 8:30 p.m.

Note to self: Take Benadryl right before you lay down to go to sleep. Otherwise nothing else will get accomplished.

The knot in my leg has lessoned somewhat but my leg still hurts when I walk on it. Sure hope this thing hurries and heals. I am not a patient with patience.

SHEESH!

Yarden work

So I think I know how I got the spider bite. I am always playing in my yarden and such. I crawl with abandonment. I don't ever worry about the nature in my yarden, except for the wasps. I have been stung several times. Not fun, Not fun, Not fun!!!!

Anyway, the crab grass "stalks" got out of hand from the last rain. My push mower just rolls over them and bends them down. The weedwacker is tired of me using it to "mow" the entire lawn. So it has the battery retention of a flea now. So I was not to be left with crab grass stalks in my yard. I sat on the yard and slowly I have been scooching all over it cutting the stalks or pulling them by hand.

My sweetheart really believes and so do I that I probably got bitten when I was doing that crazy stunt.

So now we are off to buy an actual honest to goodness lawn mower this weekend. My sweetheart says he does not like the idea of losing me to a spider bite.

He is so sweet! I was hoping to hold out another year but I guess the spiders have spoken and I must obey.

Spider BITE

On Friday evening I thought hmmmm how did I strain my leg muscle so badly. Night Night....Nothing new for me.

On Saturday evening, I thought hmmmmmm must be a muscle bruise. This really really hurts. Night Night....Nothing new for me.

On Sunday evening, I was thinking wow, this really hurts. I am not sleeping well, and I can't even touch it. There is no bruise in sight and if it was a muscle strain it should be starting to feel better. Let me take a look.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

right behing my left knee, (why is it always behind the knee where it is really hard to see), is a big red blotch and what looks like a very small puncture wound. I push on it, OUCH, and it is hard as a rock underneath. Also the pain and rock hardness is traveling down the front of my calf muscle. It is really painful.

I think it is a spider bite. All of the internet sights say in 24 hours if this does not get better see a doctor. Okay, so 96 hours later, I figure if it was that poisonous I would either have a gaping wound (aka brown recluse bite) or be dead or comatose. I am non of those things, thank you Heavenly Father.

So now I will just try to take some antihistamine, don't like how they make me feel, and see if that can try to lure the poison out of my leg.

Life is an adventure!!!!!

Hide the Kitty?

Funny story....

I went to our utility closet and got out some stain stick, put the stick on the stain, then put the stick back in the closet and shut the closet door.

A while later, my sweetheart asked where Mini Moo was. I said I didn't know, probably down stairs in some sunshine on the floor. Didn't think anything about it.

About an hour later, I went to the utility closet to get some cleaning supplies to clean a bathroom. Out meandered Mini Moo. No meow no nothing. She came meandering out from behind the vacuum cleaner.

I hollered out to my sweetheart that I found Mini Moo. We laughed and laughed at that one.

Silly Mini Moo!!!!!

Happy Birthday to Me

What a glorious day for a birthday! I received many happy birthday posts from my friends on facebook. One of my sisters in ID sent me a beautiful necklace. The people I work with signed a card for me. It was very special to me. I got a happy birthday card and call from Mom and Dad S and they sang to me. Then each of my other sisters and their children and husbands called and sang happy birthday songs to me! A friend at church gave me a beautiful plaque and another friend gave me some ranunculas in a vase. That is not including the well wishes I received from many others. Addition to blog: Mountain Mama and my mom and dad called me later in the evening. I also received a facebook happy birthday from little dude and his sweet girlfriend, little dudette. What a plethora of blessings, my heart can hardly hold it in.....

My Sweetheart made me breakfast in bed and then made me a wonderful dinner that included ribs, salad, and cheesecake with chocolate sauce.

I feel EXTREMELY loved and spoiled today!

So Happy Birthday to ME!!! My personal NEW YEAR has started with a bang!

Temple Angels

In our ward conference, a sister from the Stake Relief Society Presidency left this thought with us.

"The work we do in the temple is witnessed by angels. Angels that witness our ordinances, like sealings, are not random angels passing by. The angels that witness these are our families, our future children and families."

Brother Olsen
San Diego Temple President