Category — gardening

This is what I did today.  Our meeting was rescheduled, and I found myself with time on my hands and a warm, cloudy day.  What do you think?

Eric built the upper circle a week or so ago, and we ran out of blocks (we were using leftovers from the back wall).  I picked up another 39 blocks today and finished it.  I still need some more dirt to fill the bottom ring, and then to transplant some more plants from the back hill, but it’s almost done!  Yay!

Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but there used to be a huge evergreen tree there.  It was scratching the cars, the branches were curling up and the top was dying off.  We removed it quietly and replaced it.  I think it’s an improvement!

Whew, life has gotten a bit insane lately!  Tomorrow will officially be 8 solid weeks of at least one person in the house sick… and 7 weeks that my ears have been plugged up!  I’m hoping that with the sunshine that finally decided to come for a visit we will start to get over this crud.

That is the reason for my absence as of late – I’ve been sick, the girls have been sick, and the weather has been nasty.  Did I mention that we had snow last Wednesday & Thursday?  And today it’s sunny & 65 degrees.  Strange.  Oh, and last week was Spring break too – even though it felt much more like Winter.

So, now that the girls are both back to school and I’m feeling about 75% better, I’m getting back into the swing of thing and posting again.

So, the giveaway that we did for Milkshake swag a bit ago… the winner was contacted today (sorry for the delay!) and I hope to get that shipped out this week.  I have some bags to complete and taxes to finish up.  Oh, and Easter weekend services to finish up!  Should be an eventful week…

A couple of updates:

Gardening Fun – I found a great site this morning that actually helps you plan out your garden, and tells you when you should be planting all of those seeds (or, in my case, when I should have planted some of them!)  It’s called PlanGarden.com and they have a free 45 day trial that is FABULOUS.  I was able to diagram our little subdivision lot and put in the plants that we have already planted as well as those we are getting ready to get into the ground.  I was also able to put in the things we plan to add in structurally – something other sites I have found don’t allow for.

Another garden planning site I found (which is free) is WorldFoodGarden.com – they offer a service to plan out a veggie garden that fits into a pretty small space that will feed a family of 4 and more.  It’s pretty cool – it shown you how many plants of each variety will fit into a 1′x1′ square of space, enabling you to fit a LOT more than you would normally think!

So, yes, that is being added to my list this month as well.  I need to get the seeds planted!  We spent Saturday leaning up the yard from Winter, and garden area #1 is ready to be planted.  THe onions & garlic are already growing like mad, and the berries are starting to bud out.  Hopefully I got to the raspberries soon enough tis year and they don’t develop the leaf mold they got last year… I kinda forgot to get out there and take care of them last Spring.  oops!   The currants and blueberries did very well last year though, so we didn’t miss them too much!

Eric has also set a goal to have the garage and my office cleaned up this month… I’m almost tempted to take a picture of my office so you could truly understand, but I’d be too embarrassed!  Yes, it really is that bad.  At the moment is is a giant pile of papers, boxes and fabrics.  I think there is a cutting table, ironing board, desk and chair in there somewhere… I just haven’t seen them for such a long time that I’m not sure anymore.  I will be posting some fabrics on etsy.com over the next 2 months, as I go through them.

Selling fabrics?  Yes, I will be going through the fabrics for Mimsi Bags and culling out the ones that I want to keep and selling off the rest.  I’m taking a leave of absence – a hiatus if you will.  With the job at church and everything around the house I just don’t have the time to devote to it that I used to.  That and I have been having a few health issues in the past year that have seriously hampered my ability to churn out the number of bags that people have ordered at times.  Not major health issues, but enough to make life interesting.  Migraines being at the top of that list…

So, if you or someone you know has a desire for some fun fabrics, check back from time to time over the next few weeks.  I have a couple of bags to complete (once I uncover the sewing table) and then I will be measuring and posting fabrics.  I’ll let you know when they go up.

Let’s see… the rest of the list for April includes a minor kitchen remodel – basically a coat of paint, curtains sewn and some tile for a backsplash.  Depending on what the taxes offer up we may put down tile floors in the kitchen and bamboo flooring in the upstairs as well, but that remains to be seen.  I’m open to any tips you may have to offer for that!  Yes, we will be doing it ourselves.  The floors also means that the garage HAS to be cleaned out post haste – gotta have some place to put all of the furniture!

Well, that covers most of the updates!  We are almost healthy again – M still has a cough & I still have partially plugged up ears, but Eric & A are both doing well.  The cat seems to be healthy too – a good thing ’cause she doesn’t get trips to the vet.  Now that the sun us here we will be eating healthier again too – something about warm weather just makes a person hungry for fruits and veggies instead of soups, stews and breads.  I am getting back into the habit of baking our bread again – I had paused that for about 2 months as well.  I just didn’t have the gumption to do it.  Whatever the crud I had was (cold, flu, etc) it just wiped me out energy-wise.  Add in TWO double ear infections (yes, back to back – big fun) and the vertigo that came with them and moving wasn’t much of an option some days.  Seriously.  Not the most fun I’ve ever had, but (crossing fingers and knocking on wood) it seems to be on it’s way out the door.

Well, the island in the kitchen is taunting me again – I need to give Eric an excuse to buy me flowers!  Yes, we have a deal that if it is cleaned off he will bring home flowers to set on it.  Unfortunately I haven’t gotten many flowers for the island because I haven’t held up my end.  Bummer.  I’m trying to work on that too!  

Thanks for walking through life with us!  I hope Spring is visiting you as well, and if you have any tips for gardening or painting (especially cabinets!) or de-cluttering, I’m all ears!

Happy Easter!

What a wonderful group of elected officials we have these days.  Verbage that is so over-reaching that it is hurting us in the name of helping us.  Nice.  Almost makes a person want to move to another country where the gov’t isn’t as interested in controlling every aspect of your life… but I’m not sure that one of those exists anymore.

This is re-posted from an email to get the info out.

OVERKILL: HOW THE CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY IMPROVEMENT ACT IS DAMAGING AMERICAN BUSINESSES

FLY-IN, RALLY AND CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING
TO FIX FLAWS IN NEW PRODUCT SAFETY LAW

Washington, DC – April 1, 2009

Implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) is following a worst-case scenario for manufacturers, retailers and charities. Thanks to the flaws in this law, millions of perfectly safe products are in the process of being destroyed, costing U.S. businesses billions of dollars in the midst of one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history. Charitable organizations and thrift stores are being forced to pull inventory from their shelves at a time when American families need them more than ever. The supply of science supplies to schools is being curtailed. Youth model ATV and dirt bikes are no longer available creating a safety issue because more than 90% of injuries to kids on ATVs occur on large adult size models. Even libraries are at risk of legal liability for lending children’s books. All of these violations of common sense are being done in the name of “safety”.

From unrealistic compliance deadlines that made it impossible for industry or the Consumer Product Safety Commission to adequately prepare before the law went into effect, to the unprecedented decision to retroactively apply the new lead standards and phthalates ban to inventory already sitting in stores and warehouses, CPSIA is causing massive disruptions to industries across the board, particularly small and medium-sized businesses.

So far, Congress has ignored the calls of thousands of small businesses, charities, parents and teachers to fix the flaws in this legislation, refusing even to hold public hearings on the problem. That’s why business and charitable groups are organizing a fly in, rally and Congressional briefing on Capitol Hill to meet with Members of Congress, provide information and bring attention to the CPSIA crisis. Wide participation is anticipated in this unique event to call upon Congress to urgently fix the CPSIA.

Date and Location: April 1, 2009, 10:00am, Capitol Visitors Center, Room HVC201 A&B,
The U.S. Capitol

Speakers will include Members of Congress and representatives from:
· Charitable Organizations
· National Association of Manufacturers
· Small Business owners from various industries affected by CPSIA
· Motorcycle and ATV dealerships
· Publishers and Library Associations
· Product safety and lead experts (to discuss science-based risk assessment)

Confirmed Participating Organizations (as of March 16, 2009)
· Alliance for Children’s Product Safety
· American Apparel and Footwear Association
· American Motorcycle Association
* American Specialty Toy Retailing Association
· Fashion Jewelry Trade Association;
· Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association
· Handmade Toy Alliance
· International Sleep Products Association
· Motorcycle Industry Council
· National Association of Manufacturers
· National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops
National School Supply & Equipment Association
· National Bulk Vendors Association
· Specialty Vehicle Institute of America
· Toy Industry Association

For additional information, please contact the Alliance for Children’s Product Safety at 202-828-7637 and visit the web-site at http://www.AmendTheCPSIA.com. For those who can not attend, the event will be telecast on the mentioned web site.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This (among other things) just serves to make me wonder why our gov’t hates it’s people. We were once the land of the free, but we are quickly becoming the land of those that cannot do anything because it might turn out to be dangerous for someone… except of course that our gov’t likes to approve the things that truly ARE dangerous for us. One example… check out HR 875 – another “over-reaching” law that will put small businesses out of business, leaving big agri-business as our only option (you know, the people who grow the GMO crap from Monsanto. Oh goody.)

I’m not feeling up to the debate today, ut if you want some info on Monsano (the truth rather than what our fine gov’t tells us) I found a great video – it’s a long one, but very informative. Take a look at it here. Hopefully this one will be available for a bit – go watch it quickly before it gets pulled.

Want more info? Check out HR 875 (as in actually read it) over at GovTrack. Want another one to look at? How about S 425 in the Senate.

I guess the First Lady just planted a “Neo-Victory Garden” that may soon be illegal!  Well, it will be if the wife-of-a-Monsanto-employee-that-sponsored-the-bill gets her (Monsanto’s) way. Organic seeds contain contaminants you know… ’cause GMO seeds are just DNA (and we’ve been ingesting DNA since we were created, so it can’t be bad for us.)

Any thoughts? Please share…