6 Weeks of Bronchitis

Well, the week after I came home from helping my daughter and son-in-law with their new baby I got sick. At first I thought it was just a sinus infection, sore throat and on again/off again low fever. Two rounds of antibiotics and 6 weeks later I am now on a z-pack and waiting for test results. Its crazy, I can sleep for days at a time, still coughing up infection. I am so ready to be well again. My garden is suffering. I have completely lost all my snow peas and lettuce. The cilantro has gone to seed (otherwise known as coriander), and only the tomatoes and green beans are producing. I just don't have the energy to go breathe the humidity heavy air and take care of them. Its doubly annoying because I finally got hired and have gone back to work. I hate the idea of missing training because I am ill. I don't even have enough energy to do much in the way of posting. We will see how the test results come out tomorrow.

Life altering moments

Its been a couple of weeks since I posted. We were waiting for the arrival of our first grandchild, a precious little girl named Maggie. She is simply perfect. She was born last week after 33 hours of labor. Momma and baby are both doing well.

I was incredibly blessed with the opportunity to be in the delivery room when she was born. It was, without question, the most amazing experience of my life (short of knowing Jesus). Her little fingernails looked like she'd had a french manicure just for her appearance! I do not know how anyone could not believe in God after seeing a baby born. Its the most amazing thing.

Being a grandmother is quite different from being a mom. I was told that by several lovely grandmothers, but until it happens you just don't really understand. I stayed with my daughter, son in law and the baby for a week, and it was such a good time. They were able to rest, I got my baby fix (for the moment), and they are ready to settle in and have some family time.

While I was gone, DH faithfully watered the garden plants for me. The volunteer pumpkin has taken root and is beautifully green, the yellow squash is up, the tomatoes are surviving and the Roma tomatoes I planted from seed are up. They will need more thinning. Tonight I picked a few buttercrunch lettuce leaves, baby snow pea pods, baby radishes, and a scallion. They made a nice little salad.

I am sorry to say my broccoli all bolted, and the spinach is not thriving either. The cauliflower is barely hanging on. I think one of my tasks this week is to replant those sq ft areas. Maybe beets, carrots, and potatoes. We will see. The mint has taken off tho in the pot.

I have had an opportunity pop up that will mean I go back to work, assuming that it is approved higher up the chain. If that happens I will be back to balancing everything again: work, home, quilting, church, etc. Its not that I can't do that, its just a busier life than I prefer to have :) Still, one needs insurance and a regular pay check comes in handy!! DH is trying to determine what his next venture in life will be, and while he does that I am going to go back to work. Should gasoline climb much higher we will have to reconsider, since this would be an out of town, 40 mile round trip undertaking. For the moment I am focusing on being thankful that I had no job for several years and now I may have 2! When God provides, He provides abundantly.

This week I will be: watering the garden, weeding the garden, completing the beading on a sweater and sewing in a modesty panel on a wedding dress, finishing one quilt on the machine now, and finishing another by Thursday, starting work on Wednesday if everything works out. It will be a busy week.

Couponing

I recently attended a class on how to save money on groceries and household products. I thought I knew a lot, but let me tell you, there is always room to learn some more! Andrea Charles, of A Smart Shopper, was the speaker and she brought a slide show. It contained pictures of her "storeroom", info about coupons, and lots of information about drug store savings. I highly recommend visiting her site, because we could have spent an entire day going into more detail than she had time to tell us. A few important things that I learned:
1. Buy on sale
2. Use coupons
3. Use store promotions
4. Shop drugstores

Also: Kroger will double a coupon up to .50 cents. They also do not provide rain checks for items on sale that are not itemized in their weekly ad. Wal-Mart will give the same deal on their store brand that another store offers (Kroger soup = Wal-Mart soup) along with matching prices on name brand items.

Be proactive - you will save money if you stock up when things are on sale. though I didn't have a coupon for it, recently during the mega sale at Kroger I found organic cold cereal for .99 a box. I bought 16. Yes, we feel a bit run over by cereal at the moment, but I don't have to worry about breakfast for a few months. Also we found coupons for pasta ($1 off 2 boxes) and the pasta was on sale for .49 each. You just can't beat FREE!

Coupons CAN work in your favor. Here is an example:

Jiff Peanut butter regular price $2.99
On sale for $1.49
Coupon .35 cents off/doubled $.70
---------------------------------------
Final cost to you: $.79

Yeah, its addictive!

Always get the coupons in the Sunday paper*. If you know someone who takes the paper, ask for their coupon inserts. If necessary buy a copy or two for yourself. I have started purchasing them, taking out the coupons, and offering the paper for free to other shoppers. Cut them all out, because if you catch a sale, have a store coupon, a manufacturers coupon, or possibly both (yes you can use one of each on a purchase for more savings) then name brand shampoo might be cheaper than your usual brand.
*There are no coupons on holiday weekends.

Every month there is a magazine called All You. You can only purchase it at Wal-mart and it has a LOT of coupons in it. On the cover it will give the total coupon savings for that month. Its worth the money.


Now what to do with all these coupons? Andrea has hers in a small-ish note card box, separated by type of item (dairy, meat, condiments, etc) and keeps the ones with the closest expiration dates in the front of each category. After checking her pantry, the sales flyers to see what is out there, and her coupons, she makes a grocery list, pulling the coupons and putting them in a section at the front of the box titled "Use today" or Use at Wal-Mart", etc. She also uses websites that track the coupons (when they came out, what weeks insert had the coupons, etc). Really, go read her site! Its amazing.

In the meantime, the garden is growing. I looked out the window the other day and there was a big, fat groundhog in my yard! So, I did a quick search & found out they dislike peppermint intensely. I don't have peppermint but I did happen to have a bunch of spearmint that my Mom had pulled. So I laid it around the bag garden to ward off the critter. So far it seems to be working. We will see...

All this plus customer quilts! Life is good, even tho it is a bit uncertain right now.

Busy Busy!

Lots of things going on this month. Just got back from a great weekend in Tennessee. We have a cousin getting married and there was a bridal shower. I am so fortunate that I married into a family of people I really enjoy. Now we add another who is just as sweet and kind as the rest of them.

There was also a shower for my oldest daughters best friend. She is a sweet young lady and she is marrying a very talented and upstanding young man. So I got to spend some time with the friends I have made in Richmond. Janie hosted the event in her beautiful new home. Her girls were very gracious, the food was yummy, and I learned a wonderful new recipe for frosting cupcakes! One smaller size cool whip (8 oz I think) mixed into one can of frosting. OMGosh! Its great!

After the shower got to spend the afternoon and evening with the oldest daughter and her hubby. We don't get to spend enough time with them, and so it was nice to just sit and visit. Plus there were baby presents to open - always a plus :)

Today I made more detergent. Turns out that my bucket had developed a leak and I have clothes soaked with detergent... I am going to spread them out with other loads and not have to use more of the batch I made today. Everything I made (that didn't leak onto the kitchen floor) is in the new bucket. Now I will have to mop the floor to get the soap up, but then again, no cleaner will need to be used.

Picked up the comforter from my daughter. Now we can decide on a paint color for the bedroom, and start getting the rooms moved around.

In the meantime, I have also been out to the garden. Picked some more whirly-gigs out of the containers, and checked on the beans. They are just now peeking out. The peas are about 5 inches high, and the radishes are taking off great guns.

What a Weekend!

The weather has been lovely!! Saturday we spent most of the day dealing with outdoor tasks. Hubby mowed the yard - no small task since its rained so much it was getting tall and shaggy! I cleaned up the back patio and worked in the square foot garden. It was full of oak tree whirly gigs! There was a bit of grass in there too. Then I made a trip to Wal-Mart and, using my gift card from my SIL, I purchased flowers and top soil bags. I set up the green beans (4 bags of 6 bush plants) and 2 pepper plants in the top soil bags. I have 2 large pots and 2 small pots of flowers. After that, I watered everything with a diluted mixture of Miracle Grow. Mostly I did that because the topsoil was a lot of sand, and I want to be sure they get a good start.

According to the Farmers Almanac, one of the best days to plant is the 4th of May. On that day we are not supposed to have storms, so I will get more top soil bags and set up the rest of the green beans, the cucumbers, and the tomatoes. I also want to set up a new trellis system for these plants that involves pvc pipe and 6 inch netting. Its like working with tinker toys, you make a 3 sided box with the pvc, poke the 4th side down into the ground, and spread the netting over the top. This is fairly low to the ground, about 12-18 inches. on the corners you use a 4 pipe connector so that later you can add another tier as the plants grow. I think this is so ingenious! Also, I have the bed ends of a baby bed with slats, so I can use that for cucumbers or yellow squash. I have been learning a lot of tips from the My Square Foot Garden site. check it out!

Now, for a little non-personal life update: They just announced that Osama Bin Laden is dead. They have apparently verified this with DNA testing (using some of his relatives to compare it to). I personally am opposed to the death penalty but I have to agree that there are times when someone who is *really* bad has to die. I felt that way about Saddam Hussein and I feel the same way about bin Laden. I hope this will provide closure for families of the 9/11 disaster, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, and all the others who have suffered under the activities of this terrorist.

Houston We Have Seedlings!

Well, thanks to Mother Nature for all the rain. Now the spinach is perking up, the broccoli and cauliflower are nice and green, the radishes are all sprouted, as are the dill, scallions, cilantro, oregano, rosemary, thyme, and basil! The strawberries actually are flowering and putting out little berries! I am so excited :0)

We have been moving and setting up my quilting studio this week. Heritage Quilting Studios will officially open next Monday. At first I am just going to get my moves back by doing family quilts. Then its on to samples and hunting down decorators. I am getting excited about this venture. I believe that I can make this profitable enough that I can quit sending out resumes. Honestly, I wonder if there is anyone left out there who hasn't read my name off my resume! After 3 years of hunting, I am ready to stop waiting on someone else to recognize my potential and just utilize it myself.

We are having all kinds of bad weather lately. I will be glad when spring finally settles in and things are a bit more stable.

Early Garden Doings

It's beautiful today! Light wind, sunny skies, its just a nice breath of spring. We went to church this morning. Though I really dislike penitential seasons (Lent and Advent) I understand why they are necessary. We are almost through Lent, and every Sunday that brings us closer to Easter. Usually this is just something that happens, but this year I feel a real sense of anticipation. God is doing something in our lives, I just haven't quite figured out what it is yet :o)

The square foot garden was my project today. I have turned all the soil, added compost, and planted early crops. Mom had a baby bed that I used to make a trellis. I took the sides, tied them together and set them up in the north corner for the sugar snap peas to climb. There are 2 kinds of lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, and radishes in the garden. The herbs are in pots, as are the strawberries (though that may have been a mistake. There might not be enough room for them.) I won't be putting anything else out until May. Then the green beans, tomatoes, white and sweet potatoes, peppers, carrots, squash and cucumbers will get their start. I have 2 medium and one large dog food bags for the potatoes to grow in. I'm going to get 40 lb bags of tops soil for the other veggies.

Yesterday I dried red, yellow and orange peppers. They turned out well. I should have something else in the dehydrator, but I am not sure what yet. I want to do a bunch of onions so I don't have to purchase dehydrated minced onion.

As for now, I think I will just enjoy this beautiful day.