Relaxing at the Beach

    Our electric finally came back on July 9, and I spent the 10 cleaning house and washing clothes up for our trip. On July 11th we pulled out with the fifth wheel heading for Myrtle Beach, SC. Picking up the 3 grand daughters on the way. No parents, just us and the girls. We were married 34 yrs on July 1st, so all our kids are grown. Now we can spoil the grand kids,lol. We are going to be here for 10 days. hopefully we can keep these girls pacing our activities,lol.

The 3 girls and grandpa.

Feeding the local goats.

Bicycle ride along the beach front with grandpa leading the pack, and grandma watching the rear.

The swan checking out the goats, and trying to get in on the bread toss,lol.
We also went to Ripley's Aquarium. The highlights were seeing the huge sharks swimming over head, and posing with the mermaids.

Hallelujah!! We Have Power!

     Hallelujah........... Hallelujah...............Hallelujah........! 
Oh , sorry about that. My excitement got away with me. We have been without electric and running water in an all electric home for almost 10 days. In 90 to 100 degree weather. We finally got our power back on this evening. Now comes the clean up. Shoot! Now I'm not so excited.

Where's Rosie when you really need her?

Update On The Storm Damage

       Well, we have been a full 6 nights without electric or running water. We hear it should be back on by Saturday. I sure hope so. The days have been horribly hot, and its even worse at night trying to sleep. Thank goodness for the insurance to cover food losses,etc. Luckily we didnt have much physical damage. We have gone without electric before in winter,  but never for more than a day or two. This has gotten me to thinking even more on alternate forms of power, such as solar. We have plenty of sun, lol.

Homemade Banana Cream Pie

   I feel like I have died and gone to heaven. I just ate my first piece of Banana Cream Pie made with real homemade filling.Not my traditional boxed pudding. It was fantastic. I found this recipe while searching for info on menu making, and landed on  Colleens Recipes. You can find her site and this recipe her  site HERE. I am sure I will be trying a lot more of her recipes.

Storm Damage

    We  live in West Virginia, and were hit by the severe storm on Friday. Thank God, it was only high winds, and not a lot of damage done in our area.  That storm hit like a freight train.  You could hear the winds howling, and all I could think about was people saying tornadoes sound like freight trains. The wind was blowing so hard it was bowing trees almost to the ground. Some wouldnt give though, and snapped in half, like one of our neighbors ornamental trees. We also had hard rains but they soon subsided to a nice soft rain after the winds died down. I understand there were some tornadoes that touched down in areas around us. One about 45 min to our west, and another about 20 min to our west. We spent Friday cleaning up the  broken branches out of our backyard. The neighbors trampoline from 3 houses away was blown just beyond the fence behind the backyard. After losing ours to the trees 2 yrs in a row, it finally made peace with the garbage man.
      We have been out of electric since it hit Friday. Right now i have enough generator power to have a few moments on the laptop. We are trying to be conservative with the gasoline for it, as lines in stations are 30 cars long in some stations. We run the generator to run the fridge and freezer for about an hour then shut it off for awhile. With some running out. We spent an hour in line Saturday for enough gas for the motorcycle so we could go to a restaurant. We have an all electric home, so we are even out of water.
   But i had a bright idea hit me yesterday to fix some of the water problem. We have another water well on the property that hasnt been hooked up to the house. So we went to Tractor Supply today and bought an old fashioned hand pump, so we could at least pump some water as we need it to flush toilets, bath etc. Thats the problem when your all electric. and well water. If there is no electric then the water pump wnt run either.  It works like a charm tho, if you dont mind hauling buckets of water 50 feet to the house  :)
Tammy

Harassing Phone Calls From a Telemarketer Re:My Last and Final Notice On My Credit Card Account

   I wonder how many of you are getting harassing phone calls from telemarketers? You know the kind that like to come in at inopportune times, such as when your eating dinner, sleeping, etc. Years ago i had all my phones put on the "do not call" list. Not that it did a lot of good. There is one especially obnoxious telemarketer company that really has me angry. For 2 years we get calls almost every day, sometimes 2-3 times a day from one particular company. The message is always the same.
    " We have an important message concerning your credit card accounts." and  a short message about pushing a certain number to speak with them, then " this is your last and final notice". Yea, I wish!!
     I even got these at a time when we had canceled all our credit cards. A few times I pushed a number to speak with them, and preceded to threaten them with legal action if the calls did not stop. Guess what, they still continue. Sometimes they wont give you a number to push to speak with someone. it will say press a certain number to get their service. Which I dont do, because then they will probably bill me. So I hang up and call the number back that shows up on my caller ID. Sometimes this works and I make threats again, other times i get a message stating that this caller does not accept calls. I have also wrote down some of the numbers, but they are always different.
      Todays call was different. This time when I called the number back I got a message from a man saying since I called this number I must also be receiving harassing phone calls from this company. It is not a true return phone number. Some how they are routing their calls to look as if they are coming from innocent phone company customers. Further harassing us, and intruding into our personal lives.Telemarketers  from reputable companies  are bad enough, but these people need charges filed against them and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I called frontier to complain, but the only thing they could tell me to do was to hang up on the call and then immediately dial *77 to block that number. Even tho I explained I could spend the next two years blocking all these numbers, some of which are private numbers they are using. And still not accomplish anything. I told them it is outrageous that we pay our phone bills every month on time, and have to put up with being harassed. Oh sure, i could change my number and pay to have it unlisted. But i have had this same number for 34 yrs. I know they have the means to track these guys. But i guess not the interest. If there was a class action law suit i would jump on it in a minute!

Menu Planning

        I have decided to give menu planning a try. I hate the age old question of "Whats for dinner?". Trying to scramble at the last minute and get food on the table. I don't have a lot to cook for anymore. My kids are grown, but I still have 2 sons at home and my husband. That's a dramatic drop from the 7 I was cooking for.
I have been doing a lot of research on the different methods. Some create themes, such as Pasta night, or Crockpot night. I thought this sounded interesting, but I kinda hated to limit myself to certain meals on certain days. To be honest there are days its just "fend for yourself" night. But they are all adults, and there's always left-overs. They also know how to cook. My Daughter-in-law told me the first time my son tried to make mashed potatoes. Mashing them before cooking is not a very good idea,lol. But when he was little, I was younger, and had more energy. I took care of everything for them. A behavior that I have also gotten on to my husband in the past. When the boys were teens, if a car needed fixed, he did it. He didnt want to take the time required to teach them how to do it. On hind site, that wouldnt have been a bad idea for the girls as well.  But I digress.
        The method I opted on required me to start a folder on the computer. I listed  all the meals I fix for my family. I then started separate files for main meals, soups, sides, breads, and desserts. In each file, I numbered the dishes. If I found a recipe online I wanted to add to my mainstays, then I copied the address, then pasted into the next numbered slot. That way when I am trying to work up a menu, I can just click on the link for directions. Once we try these new meals, then I will probably print it out and slip it into a notebook I started for recipes I have printed off the various sites on the web. If we dont like it, then out it goes.
    Some people also plan their menu's for a month at a time, or  just for a week. Since I shop weekly, I decided to just do a week at a time. In my notebook, i will write my initial plan for the week. Then when completed, I plan on using a dry erase marker to transfer it to the new board I created with scrap book paper. I still have to get a magnetic frame so i can stick it on the fridge, but for now I slipped it into a plastic sleeve protector. Then you just write on the plastic over the designated days of the week, and wipe off later. Some people even frame these in regular frames and stand them on the counter. The meal plan I write on paper with stay in the notebook, and eventually I can just rotate these and save lots of work.
    By the way, I still plan on a few "fend for yourself" days, meaning empty slots on the menu  :)

Cutting strawberries Back For Production

      While doing a search on other garden questions, I found several articles about mowing over your strawberries when they are done producing.This is done with June bearing plants and within a week after crop is finished. This is done to increase production next year, and I believe to control runners somewhat. This is my second season for these strawberry plants and they have grown by leaps and bounds, and extending out of the raised bed I have them in. They are nice and healthy looking but produced very little. In the 2 ft x 25 ft bed I have them in, I was only able to pick a few  now and then to eat fresh while I was in the garden. So I just spent about 45 minutes outside in  52% humidity and 86 degree heat trimming all of mine back to within about 3" of the crown. Other sites say you can safely mow them, but to stay at least 1" from crowns. Since mine were in a raised bed, I had to hand cut them. Then I threw them to the backside of the potager for the start of a compost pile. Heres to an abundant crop of strawberries next season.

Dave's Killer Bread

     You have got to check out this guys story, and try the recipe. I have never been into eating whole wheat bread before. To me it just seems a little heavy, and just not pleasant. However my husband eats it almost every morning. I seen this guys story on TV the other day, and looked up the recipe online. I occasionally make bread , so I was ready. I have only tried whole wheat one other time, and it was not good. This time, the bread raised fantastic, and even though I forgot about it while in the oven, and it got a little too brown on top, it turned out fantastic. Even my kids ate it. And they turn up their noses to brown bread ( 22 yo and up). I made it according to the recipe from the link below, except I did have to add a little extra water. I also brushed the top with thinned honey, and sprinkled on oats. Figured I would be a little creative :)
Here ya go:

Recipe can be found HERE.

Knit Picture Washcloth

   I have been practicing my knitting skills lately. Still working on that pair of socks I posted earlier, but I got bored. So I started a knit washcloth for Valentine's Day. It is the "X and O" pattern from :
http://rachelsknittingcorner.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-do-you-block-your-patterns.html

I am definitly NOT going to try out for any speed records in knitting. I spent 3 evenings on this cloth. It did turn out very nice tho. I have some simple ones I made about 5 yrs ago, and they still look good other than a slight fading. I cant say my store bought washcloths last as long. Hand Knit cloths for dishes or washing hold up very well, they are great to try out new stitches, and are great quick, portable projects. They are also very soft, but have a slight scrubby, exfoliating action going on. What more could you want for a cloth. Mine is made from 100% cotton Peaches N Cream yarn.

See the cute "X"'s and "O",s along the borders?  I love this pattern.

Doggy Diaper for Small Females

   My adult kids have two Yorkies and two Maltese that have all but one,come into heat at the same time. They were out of disposable diapers to cut to fit. I think they really wanted to just save the expense. So they asked me if I could make them diapers like I made my DGD's for their dolls. So I got busy and drafted a simple pattern. So far I have made 3 of them, and they fit the dogs from 4 lb thru 7 lb. Be sure to check the measurements it prints out  against the ones I noted on pattern to be sure it prints the same size.

Doggy Diaper Pattern

First time knitting socks

   I am currently working on a pair of socks. I have knitted off and on for many years, but nothing too complicated. So far these are working out pretty easy. I hope I can say the same when I get to the heel.

My First Burlap Stocking

     I just completed my first burlap Christmas stocking. I have never sewed with burlap before, but it was surprisingly easy. I created this one from some ideas I compiled off the web, and a little of my own. This is a little more taylored. The other two I have plans to add some ruffles to them. I also plan on making a tree skirt. I cant remember ever having one before. I am going to model my skirt after the gorgeous one created on      u-createcrafts.com Their skirt has to be the prettiest I have ever seen. Below is my new stocking:

Lysol Clean Flip Washable Covers

      I hate to buy things and throw them away. It seems such a waste of money and precious resources to buy the disposable cloths for those little mops. I had a coupon for $1 off the Lysol Clean Flip mop. I decided to purchase one  because my Swiffer mop had a broken handle. I decided very quickly I was going to make over some towels into washable pads for it. I thought at first it might be a little time- consuming, but actually they worked up very quickly.I tried to find some inexpensive microfiber towels, and maybe if I had looked at Big Lots or something I could have, but I was shopping with hubby and as usual, he was in a hurry. So I picked up a package of 5 barmops from Walmart for about $6.

After doing some measuring and comparing the best way to cut one from each towel, I came up with this:

Its hard to tell from this pic, but there is a blue border on this lower edge. I measured up 4" from the inside edge of the border, and the same with the left edge.

I trimmed off the blue border, and the left hem first.Then from the remaining 4" strip on the left, and the 4" strip across the bottom, I was able to get 2 more panels (for a total of 3) the length of the mop to lay down the center for extra absorbency. As shown in the center pic this will lay across the center of the panel from left to right  as shown in the main panel in pic two. The pic below is showing the main panel with the left side down at the bottom now.

The pic below shows the left edge of the main panel being folded over the center paddings about 3/8" Then this edge and the other 3 edges of the center padding will be zig zagged to hold securely. The same will be done to the other raw edge of towel.

Now fold over left edge to meet center padding stitching( approx 2"). Do the same with the right edge. Stitch the folded edge down with straight stitching along the edge. Be sure about double or triple stitch this and reinforce the edge where it will be pulled alot to pull it on and off the mop. Do the same with the other 3 corners.

This is the final product:

You can easily flip the edges of the mop up by pushing the rounded disk edge, and these easily slip over the edges of the mop. I didnt bother prewashing my towels, as I am always in a hurry, It may be a big mistake if these shrink much int he wash. So you may want to prewash before cutting. I only made two, so I will wait to make more until after these are washed.

UPDATE: I just used my first one and washed it in warm water and dried it. It came out beautifully. No shrinking, and washed perfectly clean. Now I can finish the rest of the set.

  

Beautiful Dames Rocket

      I had a few plants last yr, towards the back of this end of the bed. I wasnt sure I liked them. I even pulled a few out last yr. But this yr a bunch sprouted up in shades of purple and white, and look so nice near the purple iris's and the bright pink azalea. My huge weigela  just to the right of the azalea, and looks just as beautiful. I think I will let them stay.

PS: I edited the title as I at first thought these were phlox and later found out they are really Dames Rocket.

AreThese Tomato Seedlings?

I planted several different heirloom tomatoes last yr along with a couple early girl. I had so much problems with tomato hornworms and stinkbugs, I got very few fit to eat. Needless to say, a LOT fell to the ground. Now this same 4'x8' bed is full to the brim of these little seedlings. They appear, and smell like tomato plants. I dont know what to do with them. I thought at first they were marigolds, and was going to just leave a few sturdy ones, but now after they have gotten bigger and I smelled the leaves, I am pretty sure they are tomatoes. I hate to destroy them, but there is no way I have room for a few hundred tomato plants,lol. I didnt know the seeds would survive winter.

Hidden Dangers in Food!

           I thought the only time we had to watch for razor blades, and other dangerous objects in food, was only on Halloween. Well this evening, I learned that is definitely NOT the case. I always buy the little 6 , snack size packs of Sun-Maid Raisins for in my husband's lunch and my 5 year old grand daughter to snack on. I have bought these for years. A healthy, quick snack. But this evening my grand daughter grabbed the brand new pack off the counter and wanted me to open it and give her a box. I did so,as I turned to walk away ,she  suddenly brings something to my attention, asking : "whats this?". I looked at her little hand and couldnt believe my eyes. She had a raisin that was slightly mashed and pressed onto and wrapped 3/4 the distance around  a 1 inch long piece of wood that was about 1/8 inch wide. Had she just popped it into her mouth without noticing, there could have been serious injury.

Robot Baby Blanket

      My 21 yr old daughter just completed her first major sewing project. She is a nursing student right now and wanted to earn a little spending money. She made this gorgeous flannel and flannel lined satin baby blanket and matching burp, that she is now offering on Etsy.

    The set turned out beautiful. Take a look and see what you think.

My 4th Grand Daughter

   We just welcomed a new grand baby to the family in January. She is now 2 months old. Her name is Braylee. She weighed 6'4". A tiny little bundle of Joy. She is the first child to my youngest son.

Wintersowing for 2011

   It is such a warm beautiful day outside today ( a warm 65°) , I decided to get started on a little wintersowing. I am much later than last yr. But this yr I have no intentions of sowing over 200 containers either. I want to see how things filled out from last year. With perennials they frequently dont show their true glory until yr 2 or 3. Mostly what I sowed today are the fantastic seeds sent to me from Renee's Garden about a month ago (see link in side bar). I participated in a group grow last yr sponsored by her.It was a lot of fun. I got about 15 containers sowed this afternoon. It didnt take long as I saved a few bags of last year's containers. So I didnt have all the cutting to do.
   I also sowed some more rose seeds I had saved. last yr I got two wonderful rose bushes this way. I expected some weird looking thing with flowers no where near the parent, but I got a wonderful surprise when they bloomed. What a cheap,easy way to make more roses.
  Traditionally, winter sowing is started on Winter Solstice. But I avoid the cold weather as much as possible. This is such an easy method to start seeds. Mother Nature takes care of most of the gardener's duties. Give it a try and drop a line to let me know how it did.