Feeling Green

We've been trying our hand at actual gardening this year & I'm happy to say it's been pretty successful! I always used to think I had total "black thumbs" as I went through quite a few houseplants as a kid. I didn't try any more until my dad passed away & I got some from the funeral & a couple he had been growing. I managed to keep all those going until we got cats.
Last winter, I found some seeds on clearance at Walgreens & figured, at this price - why not?
So, we got carrots, cherry & heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini & morning glories. My best friend had some strawberry plants that had some established runners she gave to me. They almost didn't make it & they didn't bloom at all, but hopefully next year They did send out runners of their own, though! We planted two gardens. Both turned out to be way too small for the plants we planted! We already have plans for next year's garden to be in a new location (at least partially) & much longer.
We have a 4x4 kit we put together & in half we planted the carrots & in the other half we planted the tomatoes & strawberries. This one is in the back yard where it gets some shade. For the rest, my hubby built a little 2x1 garden & put it on the south side of the house with a trellis. We planted the zucchini, cucumbers & morning glories in here! we even encouraged a wild, flowering vine of some sort that's technically a weed. It's flowers look like little white morning glories.
one zucchini plant alone would have been too much for this space! The zucchini plants overshadowed the cucumber plants & killed them all. The morning glories just barely made it & have only just this week begun to make blooms. I haven't even seen them open yet. The zucchinis did pretty well, though some sort of brown beetles got in there & laid eggs. I think that crop, sadly, is done.
The carrots have done alright, but they've been stunted because of the landscaping fabric we used under the garden. The strawberries, as I mentioned, never bloomed. All they've produced is runners. The cherry tomatoes have done awesome & we've been really thankful for that because our daughter eats them like candy! Before they started ripening we were buying little boxes of grape or cherry tomatoes at least once every other week I think! Now, we have more than enough for her appetite, cooking & gifting. The heirlooms have been slower & we're still waiting for them to really ripen & hopefully get bigger than they have been! There are only a few so far.
Yesterday, I started a new project & Paul helped me finish it today which will help us with a lot of things, if all goes well... We made a compost bin! I found this site, which details how to make a compost bin out of a plastic container and I followed the directions to do so. I even lucked out & had an extra lid to keep underneath it! :)
Here's our new compost bin! I'll try to post some pics of the gardens later. :)

Blogger rotated it. I have no idea how to fix it. Grr.

We also, by some miracle, had one carrot plant that bloomed & produced seeds!

We'll just have to wait & see next year if they're viable or not. I plan to mix them in with some store-bought ones, since the site I read about saving them warns against in-breeding, so we may never actually know. :)

A chance to win cloth diapers

Paul & I (mostly I) are considering cloth diapers for #2 (due Jan 25th) so I'm entering for my chance to win some here LINK! :D

Hopefully, I'll have a real blog entry for you soon. ;)

Just a little something...

SO, yesterday my daughter took FOREVER (ok, like 2hrs) to actually go to sleep for her nap. Once she finally did, though, I finally decided what to do with the time. I'm hosting a craft night on Thursday, so I cleared off the dining room table. It had collected all manner of unfinished projects of mine & hers, crayons, coupon clipping stuff, etc.
At the bottom of it all was a project I'd almost forgotten about. I was frustrated that it wasn't working out the way I wanted it to, so I'd set it aside & it had involved using the exacto-knife. I'd let my hubby borrow that & haven't seen it since. Grr. So, I was about ready to scrap the whole thing.
I looked at it again once it was unearthed & thought... I could do this differently. I still needed the knife & I found another that was more of a skinny box-cutter than exacto, but it worked well enough. So, I sat down & with what remained of her roughly two-hour nap & finished the project.
I had found this Gandhi quote & decided I wanted something to hang up in the house to inspire me/us. I'd decided I wanted a nice nature picture to go with it & wanted one I'd taken. I eventually settled on a photo of the sky with some light fluffy clouds I'd taken. I printed letters in a font I liked on transparency paper. I was hoping for a fun layered look. The ink didn't dry on the transparency paper (must have printed on the wrong side)but that allowed me to use it as a stamp on the back of some scrapbook paper & use that as a guide to cut the letters out & then glue them in place on the transparency paper.
Well, that was tedious & frustrating & then some of the letters were coming off, Gandhi's name hadn't printed & that's when I set the whole thing aside.
When I found it again, I noticed that I'd been careful enough cutting the letters out of the scrapbook paper that it was still fairly readable. I figured, I'd cut the rest out & go with the negative space & totally scrap the transparency paper. I did that, stuck the pages together, cut down to size for the frame, used a sharpie to outline the letters & fill in the missing parts & then found this big die-cute flower my friend gave me & glued it on to fill up some of the space & voila!

So, if I do something like this again... not cutting letters out of anything!! I'll use my alphabet stickers, stencils or stamps!! You can't hardly even see my photo at all now, but oh well.

5th anniversary reflections

Saturday was our 5th wedding anniversary (7/7/07!) and May 23rd was the 5th anniversary of Dad's passing. I've been thinking about that time and what I expected to happen in five years at that time... and what has or hasn't happened. While we were planning the wedding, we were also planning to renew our vows at our five-year reunion. That's not happening... maybe at our ten-year, or even seven, given the date. ;)
We had hoped, originally, to have our wedding at Robert Allerton Park near Monticello, IL in the Sunken Garden. It's gorgeous... perfect... popular and EXPENSIVE! So, that didn't work out. We gave some thought to doing it for the vow renewal, but we're not much better off financially than we were to begin with, and we didn't plan for it, so ... yeah. Not happening. Our other thought, to save money & what-not... was to just flash-bomb the place! Maybe we could get everyone to make small donation as a gift & they wouldn't be too mad at us. ;)
Well, we found a deal to get reservations at the fancy Chateau next weekend with dinner & breakfast included. So, that's going to be our celebration.
I had wondered where we would be in five years. What kind of home? Before my dad passed away, we wondered if we'd be able to afford to buy a house after five years or not. We were able to buy just over one year after our wedding with my inheritance. Though, we had to take out a mortgage to pay the taxes on the inheritance!
We wondered if we'd have kids yet, one, two or three? Boy(s), girl(s) or a combination? Now, we're here & have a 2.5yr old daughter & another baby on the way! :)
What jobs would we have? Paul had just started as a temp worker through an agency at State Farm. I was working at Walgreens & Heartland Comm. College library & taking courses at Heartland. Our original plan was for Paul to work full time to support us while I worked part-time & took my courses to get my teaching certificate, then I would get a teaching job & support us while Paul went back to school to get his teaching certificate.
Well, after how long it took to settle my dad's estate, I'd lost my job at Walgreens. As time went on, I was not interested in dealing with all the red tape & parents that come along with teaching. I didn't know what to do. Paul got hired on directly at State Farm & discovered that it really was a good job w/benefits to have. I got a new position at the college working in disability support. I soon was working with their new program from adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities. I really loved it. We got pregnant with Amber.
After she came along, I went back to work, but was all out of sync with what was going on with the program after being gone for so long. With budget cuts all around, my boss decided my hours would be cut... knowing that meant I'd have to go because we already weren't breaking even with the child care. So, I became a stay-at-home mom. I started working very part time (just a few hours a week) for a friend of mine who's disabled & needs helpers. I also started babysitting Jamie this last year. Paul got a new position that was a great promotion, so we decided we could afford number two. Now, we're expecting again. :) My pregnancy symptoms made it too difficult for me to keep up with helping my friend & Jamie didn't need much babysitting over the summer.
So, that's where we are now. Not exactly what we expected, but still good. :)

Happy 5th of July

Lol! I started a blog entry yesterday titled "Happy 4th of July & a Q" but the title is all the further I got! Oops!
I was going to wish you all a happy & safe 4th. Hope it turned out that way for everyone! How did you celebrate?
This year, we went to our friends' house for a cookout, which was happily, indoors! It's been way too hot to spend time outside, though I was prepared. I'd scrounged around & found the only pair of shorts I'm willing to go in public in that still fit over my slightly bulging belly... barely. I'm thinking I'm going to have to head to Goodwill soon & see if I can find any that fit better. I also was covered in sunblock. Oh well. :P
We had a great time, ate lots of (too much!) good food & watched the kiddos run around wearing each other out. amber laid down way late for her nap. I usually try to lay her down between noon & 1, and usually, if it's after 3 when she goes down, she's cranky the rest of the evening regardless. It was after 3, but she did pretty well last night. We had a good discussion about fireworks & how she didn't need to be scared of them, even though they're loud & amazingly enough, she went right to sleep & we didn't hear a peep from her despite the whole fireworks show!

Now, the question I was thinking about...
So, I have a huge family on my dad's side. He was the oldest of six & only one of those six didn't have kids, and my dad's the only one who only had one. So, I have well over a dozen cousins, especially if you count the step-cousins & such... now, the majority of us are married (or in a stable relationship) and having kids of our own. It's a lot of people to keep track of!
We aren't all particularly close. Dad's siblings & now some of their kids & my grandpa, too, are constantly getting in fights with one another. I've mostly removed myself from the drama. It wasn't conscious at first; I just knew I dreaded most of the visits Dad said we needed to make to maintain the relationship bank (as he termed it.) Once I was an adult & working on college & so forth, I didn't make as much effort. When he died suddenly in 2007, they all came together for me & were very supportive. It wasn't completely drama-free, but they were respectful & helpful.
Don't get me wrong, I love my family.... just not the drama. So, in the 5 years since his passing, I've been more conscious in distancing myself. I'll talk to any of my family members, regardless of whichever other family members they may or may not be talking with, but I don't make much effort to put myself out there. There are some I've made more effort to keep in touch with because I've been closer to them through the years (&/or they use facebook more!) and others I've been particularly frustrated with and made less effort towards contacting them.
I didn't mean to make this such a long thing, but felt that a little more background would be in order.
So, the situation I'm wondering about... I have three step-cousins. I'm not really related to them by blood at all, but they're close to my age & the middle of the three was a good friend in HS as we found we were rather kindred spirits. We've lost touch & come back together a few times in the following decade, and now she actually lives almost walking distance (if the weather were nicer!!) from me. We've tried to plan a get-together quite a few times & she just tends to be too busy. I was about to lose hope, but my aunt says she's not blowing me off, that she really is that busy & they don't even get to see her that often either.
She just had her first baby a little over a week ago. I'm trying to retain my optimism that she wants to have a relationship with me and I messaged her asking her to let me know when she feels up to having visitors. I haven't heard back yet. I decided to make a gift for her new daughter. Another one of the pillows with the birth stats. I've seen pics of the nursery, so I picked colors based on that.
My question comes to this... her little sister had a daughter close to two years ago (or three?) and I can't remember if I got her a gift, but I know I didn't do anything handmade. What do you think? Should I make her one as well & just try to ignore the awkwardness of it being years late? Should I just go with making the one I've already started & say that I'd be happy to make another if her sister (or any other family members, for that matter) wants one?

Inspired, but exhausted

I talked in my last post about how I was starting to feel inspired to do stuff again. I was looking forward to Amber's naptime to get stuff done! Then her naptime rolled around. I got her laid down & came back downstairs, ate some soup since I was still hungry after the salad I had for lunch... and sat down for a minute... laid down... slept her entire naptime. -_-Zzzzz Guess I needed it!
I did get to do a little bit of scrapbooking while my hubby took her w/him for grocery shopping. :)

Still here

I've been suffering with the symptoms of my pregnancy & the progesterone supplements they put me on. I haven't felt up to a whole lot with the fatigue and morning sickness. Just ten more days of the supplement and no exercise rule!
Amber & I went to the OB today & heard the baby's heartbeat. Took a bit to find it, but it was a good 170bpm. :) Everything was looking pretty good, so I don't have to go back in for four weeks.
I've been wanting to update a few things though. One was that I finished the other birth stats pillow! Here it is:

We've had a lot of other adventures. I'm still recovering from a sunburn I acquired last Thursday. So glad we finally went out & enjoyed the company pool, though! If the weather gets back down in the double digits (instead of triple!) I'll be sure to take kiddo back out. This preggo mama can't handle that much heat. It doesn't bother me that much when I'm not pregnant, and luckily she didn't burn at all despite a lower spf sunblock (50... mine was 70 & 100, she did not inherit my skin or red hair!)
We've been to a bunch of birthday parties. I fell bad that I haven't been up to my usual gift-giving, I didn't even get a card made for the last one!
I've been on Pinterest again the last few days & starting to feel inspired again & ready to get making again. I have been working on kiddo's scrapbooks some. So far behind!!