I’m beat. Dead tired. And I blame it all on Ben because he woke me up at 5am yelling, “What were you thinking? Why is she up there?!!” He was dreaming. I kept laughing and then couldn’t go back to sleep because I was congested and now I am sure I will need a nap today. So with that, I will leave with you pictures of our growing garden. It is so peaceful outside in the early mornings as I do my daily watering.
The morning was a perfectly peaceful time spent eating my peanut butter & jelly (with condensed milk) sandwich and watering the growing garden outside as the girls continue to sleep soundly in their beds.
In the stillness of the morning, I ponder and thank God for…
1. Ben’s new job, which will only be 20 minutes from home.
2. The closer we are to Fall, the closer we are to babycakies 3 coming.
3. The days starting to get shorter.
What are you thankful for this morning?
p.s. I am hoping to have a shop update on Wednesday morning sometime… finally.
We love this gardening thing. Two raised beds are jam full with wonderful things growing. Every night, we spend a bit of time outside watering the beds and my plants as the girls play. Summer nights in California are just wonderful.
Now, we cheated as some plants already had the starts of what would be glorious pickings, so we had some tomatoes perfectly ready to be picked. I love tomatoes! We also picked some basil and we already had fresh mozzarella waiting. We drizzled some olive oil and indulged.
The girls really loved it. We let True try the mozzarella, despite her being allergic to dairy (she breaks out in little hives), but she loved it. We had to stop her once the red dots appeared on her face. Actually, both girls loved the tomatoes too, though I am not sure they were so fond of the basil. The basil had a bit bitter flavor. We need to find other varieties to plant that may have a much more appetizing flavor. Any suggestions?
As I look at the pictures, I am starting to crave it. I tell you, it’s a dangerous thing to have a pregnant woman looking at food pictures. You never know what I may have to send my husband to the store for next!
We also have a bunch of bananas, not from our garden, but a lot that I bought for church last Sunday. But the car wouldn’t start, so I couldn’t go, and now I have tons of super ripe bananas. Anyone know any good banana nut bread, cupcake, muffin recipes? I need something to do with all these bananas!
Vacations are always busy, especially when little kids are involved, but it was fun and now we are home. Ben and I had such a good time in New Orleans and you could see our pictures here. I liked calling our time our Four-niversary, cause we celebrated our fourth year of being covenanted together. We had an extraordinary time and thank you for allthosewho helped in guiding us in what to eat and do whilst trekking through the vibrant city.
The girls had a grand time with their Grandmama and Auntia Suzi while we were gone. Their days were filled swimming outside and at the nearby pool. There were lots of funny stories about them waiting for us when we got back to San Antonio. One thing I will not miss was the excruciating heat from San Antonio and New Orleans. I mean 100 degrees at 9 at night is just crazy, I am so thankful that the evenings in southern California go back to 70-80 degrees. I am a just plain wimpy when it comes to hot weather, I am a cold weather person.
So I am getting back to reality slowly. Ben is still on vacation so we have been working in the back yard and finally, surely but slowly, filling our garden. There have already been numerous trips to the nearby nurseries and we are busy little bees. True loves getting dirty, but Brave, not so much, maybe in time. We haven’t the tiniest clue what we are doing, but we are reading books and articles. Ben has had some fruits and veggies he has been growing in pots for a few months now and they are starting to bear some fruit. They look so good. Heirloom tomatoes are just yummy.
Over a year ago is when Ben first started this project and it just completed a couple weeks ago. One bed is already full of tomatoes of all varieties and tonight we will be working on another bed (I think it will be full of peppers). One bed is for me to put some seeds for flowers that can be cut and taken inside and another is for more vegetables. Anyone have any suggestions of what to plant in my bed for some pretty flowers? I am really new at this gardening stuff, so I haven’t the slightest clue. I need help and I can’t wait for their Grandmama to come visit as she has the greenest thumb around. She is a genius in the garden.
I have everything that I want in my head, now I just need to figure out how to do it. We have bought things for one little corner and we just have to plant it. So far I have: bougainvilleas, roses, lantanas, rosemary, and lavender to plant in one little corner of the yard (there still is so much more yard to go). I will share this little portion when we are done. I just want this overgrown, messy, colorful look. Does that even make sense? I want it to look just full and lovely, a sort of organized chaos.
This gardening thing is so intimidating that we don’t know where to start, but I guess it will be trial and error. We are reading what we can, but really, I guess just doing is the way to learn. I really hope I have a green thumb. Nevertheless, Ben and I are pretty excited and we are so overjoyed to have found another hobby that we love doing together. We really are a nerded out couple as we love to do everything together from flea marketing, watching sports, painting, and now gardening. Being together and doing anything together is just the greatest.
Even the girls are outfitted with their own gardening stuff as we found them vintage wheelbarrows from the last time we went to the flea market. Thus, every evening we (minus Brave cause she likes to play on the concrete) spend some time getting dirty in the garden.
I better go, as I have to get dinner ready before we head back to do some gardening. By the way, anyone know any good gardening blogs? I am sure you all have a nice list to share!
Soon, I will share some polaroids of our trip and update my last two Polaroid Tuesdays that I haven’t been able to do. Tomorrow will also be the last day of Ben’s vacation so we are making it a special day of just the two of us together (thanks to my baby seester for her babysitting services).
What’s on the agenda? Visiting the L.A. Gift Show, some antique shops, maybe catch a movie, grab some yummy food from this place to bring back the New Orleans memories, and the grand culmination of it all… we are finding out if babyCakies #3 is a girl or a boy. Eek!!! We are excited! We can hardly wait for the name game to begin. I can’t wait to share the verdict with you all first thing Monday morning (who knows?!! maybe sooner)… I promise.
Happy Thursday (evening) and probably the rest of the week!!! It is nice to be back…
p.s. I will get to my mound of emails first thing Monday morning (at least I hope). So if I owe you a reply, know that I am super, super behind.
I have a large growing pile of fabric scraps. I refuse to throw them away because I am sure they can be used for something. I have been seeing different types of interesting necklaces made of buttons, beads, and fabric. Then, I figured why not make one out of my scraps...
I think it made my white shirt a little less boring. This was so quick and easy to make.
How to make a recycled scraps necklace (which is very similar to the straps on my braided tablecloth bag):
1. Take your scrap fabric, I cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand.
2. Take 3 of the torn pieces and tie the ends together with a rubber band.
3. Braid the 3 pieces together and tie ends together with rubber band when done.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for more strands. Remember you can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, just weave more into the braid.
5. Once all the strands you want are braided, gather one end of each strand together and straight stitch together with sewing machine. Repeat for the other ends of the strands. Snip off any excess.
6. Gather ends of the necklace and sew together (snip excess) or a ribbon can be sewn at the ends to be able to tie the necklace closed, but I just sewed both ends together.
7. Voila! A nice way to make use of all your lovely scraps.
Sorry if the directions get you a little lost, but it really is easy. I promise. Maybe I should put some in the shop. Please share any other good ideas you may have of things that can be made with scraps. I would love to hear (read) them!
