I'm a cotton-headed ninnymuggins

I am NOT Mr. Fixit. It took me HOURS to replace a ceiling fan a few years ago (with B's help) 'cause I didn't know about the correct "existing electrical" box. But it works great now and I had the confidence last year to replace our bathroom light fixture--which was not to hard.

Friday I got a call that our downstairs toilet was leaking when it flushed. We had suspected IZ was "missing" when he used the bathroom, but we were wrong. Not knowing if there was any other damage, I thought we'd buy a new commode. Everyone assured me it was EASY to replace the wax ring seal and set the new one on the flange piece, which in our house is made of PVC and you put your bolts up through it to anchor the toilet. Sounds simple huh? Well, as one of my favorite phrases says, "Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool." and I am one!! Not only are my knees old, my shoulder's too big to squeeze in to the tight spaces of our half bath for "good tourque". But the worst thing I did was install the new wax sealing ring, that was probably the cause of our old one's problem, UPSIDE DOWN!!

SO tomorrow we'll go back to Lowes for a fifth time in three days and see about buying a new wax ring (and maybe some bolts). So far I haven't spent more than the $97 it would've cost to have a plumber install it--unless you can put a price on frustration.

I'm glad my Lord and my dear wife love me, not for my abilities and talents (or lack thereof). The attached pictures show me still smiling after Lowes trip #4 (for an extension to our water hookup). But aside from God's grace, and B's company, check what's in my hand that also helps me through this humbling exercise. (it rhymes with "car ducts") (=

One tomato, two tomato, three tomato.....

I tried to start some seeds this year in peat pellets. I must have done something wrong because they began to die before I had a chance to plant them outside. I didn't even get to the two pairs of leaves stage. Maybe next year? Funny, though. I started some flowers not long ago and they are doing VERY well. Go figure....

Last weekend, we (Ski, the younger kids and I) went to the Farmer's Market. The big kids were sleeping in. LOL I had heard that they had good deals on plants. Since my seedlings died, I needed to purchase plants because it is getting late. I had never looked in the plant shed there, so I thought I would try it out. I was in search of some plants for my garden at a better price. Almost as soon as I walked in, I found some lovely Roma tomato plants. I bought 9 Romas and 3 peppers and 6 zuchinni. What?!?!?! Am I crazy buying THAT many zuchinni plants?!?! I hope my friends love zuchinni!! Anyway, I paid half the price of plants at Lowes. They were selling them for $1.50 for my big, beautiful tomato plants and $1.50 for three smaller plants like my peppers and squash. Unfortunately, they didn't have any cherry tomatoes. Boo loves cherry tomatoes so I decided that I would grow one plant just for her. We did find one at Lowes and I also got some cucumber plants there.

Well, I thought I was done with tomatoes. Not so!!!

Yesterday morning, the girls and I went to a program at our local library. They had a seed wholesaler speak to us about gardening. It was very interesting. One thing I learned is that you do not need to plant two squash plants. You can just plant one!! But if you only plant one, you need some pretty flowers in order to draw the bees to your squash. Huh!!

Anyway, the guy really likes tomato plants. In fact, he has 150 plants in HIS yard!!!! That's a TON of tomatoes!!! So he really encouraged all of the new people to plant tomatoes because he thinks that they are so easy to grow. He was also really excited to see kids there. He wants them to be interested in gardening. When he left, he gave all of us, including the kids, a cherry tomato plant. So now I have 14 tomato plants!!!! Of course, the girls say that they are not MY plants. We are going to grow theirs in containers so we have only planted one of them in the garden. I need more containers and dirt for the others. My plant went into the garden.

Any ideas on where to fine cheap large containers?

Oh, and the librarian gave me some bean plants and a cucumber. I was going to put the cucumber in my tub with the others, but one of my girls wants it. We will see....

Increasing my carbon footprint--ttttthhhhbbbbppp!!

Ok, I tried. We had an old lawnmower that died. My friend who can fix tractors couldn't even figure out what was wrong with it. So I drydocked it in our garage (with a nearly full tank of gas of course) and caved in and got a reel lawnmower.

No, that's not a spelling error.

Since gas prices were going CRAZY, my sweet B thought we should look into a push mower. Hey. they look pretty impressive in the videos. So, since my young buck, N is doing the yard (with me breaking trimmers right and left--but that's another post) he liked the workout and used it all last summer.

The problem is if you don't spend inordinate amounts of time (and $$) on your lawn so it's like a shag carpet (and I don't), you get tall weeds, clover, and crabgrass, which, hey, I don't care. The reel mower however just bends the tall stuff and leaves it alone so you finish with the job and you have these lone tall grass shoots sticking up--especially if you have a hill, tree roots and other "imperfections" in your yard.

So you now have four options: 1) do the whole thing again 2) ignore it 3) follow up on the long stuff with the weedwacker/trimmer--which was what we did or 4) spend even MORE $$ and get another gas powered one.

Since, after much hassle, the State of NC finally believed we had six kids living in our house, we got our state tax refund (after almost two months of waiting). One of the first things I did (aside from replenishing our poor savings account) was to run out to WalMart and BUY A NEW MOWER!! (yes, I know, I still don't like WalMart but I've been checking prices and models since we bought the "earth biscuit mower" so I knew what I wanted and how much I was willing to pay).

We're still keeping the reel one. Maybe next year I'll start S on it.

Now I just need to figure out the easiest way to drain the gas out of the old one.

Here's Some Pics

These are for my mil who wanted to see the Clematis.
She bought this for me a few years ago and the year we planted it, I thought for SURE it died.

Well, look at it now!!













































BTW, the color is more dark purple than it looks in the two close up pics. Also, it is getting a little overrun with Black-eyed Susan down there so I should call my friend to come over and dig some up.

My Recipe Creation

Last week, I had a day full of shopping.
These are my least favorite days. First of all, I don't really like to shop. Secondly, when I arrive home after a long day out, I KNOW I will have to make dinner. Anyone who knows me, knows I am not really a planner. So, I rarely plan ahead for what I will make when I get home from shopping.

So, last week while I was shopping, I found some chicken legs marked down. So, when I got home, I did the following....

In my pressure cooker, I sauteed onions, garlic and zucchini. Then I put the chicken in and poured two cans of diced tomatoes on top. Cook for 20 min and eat. It was sooooo good!! I wish I had a bigger pressure cooker so I could have put more goodies in it.

Yes....Spring has Sprung

It is so beautiful right now. I thought I would post a little blurb since Ski did recently.

The birds are going nuts. We actually had a nest in our bathroom vent, but the babies have flown and we now have cages over our outside vents. I would have taken photos, but there wasn't much to see. We also found remains of two robin eggs in the back yard. The kids thought that these were cool.

We are enlarging the garden, but I don't have it started yet. I need to get some humus and then we can work on it. I have been to our Lowes twice and they didn't have any either time.

My Clematis that my mother-in-law gave to me surprises me every year. It dies back every year and, every year, comes back bigger. I have given up trying to train it up my mailbox without spending money so I bought a pretty, but inexpensive, trellis to get it halfway up. Hopefully I can get it the rest of the way up from there. I will try to remember to take photos when it blooms.

I am thinking about two gardening projects, but am also trying to figure out the cheapest way possible to do them both. So if anyone who is out there reading this has great frugal gardening tips, please share them with me!!

I ain't no pansy (but I like 'em)

Spring used to be my favorite season growing up. We lived for 7 years in the dairy country of NJ (yes it's not all toxic waste dumps--sheesh!). Our next door neighbor had a landscaping company so his property was AMAZING and fun to sneak around in. Down the street there was pond and woods everywhere with streams and creeks flowing through them. You could tell when spring was in the the air because everything started turning green and you could smell the wet earth. There were amazing creatures like frogs, crayfish, water striders and minnows in the water and every rock seem to have a cricket, worm or salamander under it.

My mom grew up on a (veggie) farm and her side of the family knows more about plants, flowers and trees than I'll ever learn. My sweet B loves gardening and I just can't help buying her a little plant or flower when we go to Lowes. We're slowly transforming our yard to be more garden-based and I love sitting outside looking at all the flowers and watching the birds for a few minutes rest after my runs. (BTW, did you notice my Nike Me dude is finally happy with me again? I stopped running for three weeks after my surgery in January and he gave me grief for a LONG time after. I'm thinking of running in a 5k in the beginning of May--we'll see).

Anyway, for those of you who AREN'T experiencing weeks of beautiful sunny 70 degree weather (deep breath........aaaaahhhhhh), here are some pics of some of the flowers we had around Easter (crocus--my favorite, and tulips B planted, and african daisies, and pansies I bought)