Our First Garden

Ok, second, but since the first one years ago didn't do anything, we won't count that one.

I was so excited this morning when I walked out to our garden and saw corn silks peeking through!  I've kept an eye on it since the plants topped the other day.  I just checked it yesterday and there was still no sign of anything coming through.  Things do seem to happen overnight here, though.

Our cucumbers seem to be the only thing really progressing.  We are already loaded with them!  Clayton says he doesn't like big cucumbers and wants me to pick them before they get longer than about 7 inches or so.  I have no idea about any of this, so I'm wondering if they will be ripe if I pick them if they are supposed to get bigger.  I don't know what type he planted.  Pointers, anyone?  I'd like to can some pickles too.

My okra is covered in ants.  I read that they don't harm the okra and that they do.  I'm confused.  I want my okra to make it.  If anything in that garden out there is mine, it's the okra.  I could survive on fried okra alone and never get tired of it. Want. Some. Now.

The tomato plants are HUGE.  They are so tall, but with no signs of tomatoes at all.  Maybe it's "a watched pot never boils" type thing, because I have been looking...everyday, several times a day.  Love fresh maters!

The watermelon plants are consuming the entire garden.  We thought we saw a watermelon last week, but can't find it now.  Maybe it wasn't.  I don't know.  I do know, we will have plenty of those as well.

Look at all our green :)

The Verdict is in!

I bought more loot today.  I think it's my goal to go to every Goodwill in every town I pass through.  I had to go to Lufkin today, so decided to stop in there.  I came out with a stash and wanting to go back in with some things I saw but didn't have room in my car for.  One was a wooden high chair.  It is totally what I want.  Another was a cast iron train set.  I did have room in my car for this, just not my buggy. : O  I'll be back.

I'll show pictures of all my stuff when I work on them.

Now, for the verdict:

At first I thought the only thing that was ruined from the flood was Morgan's dresser.  It's from Ikea, so it's particle board.  It saddens me, because it was still well built and very nice.  I fell in love with the size of the drawers and the drawers' frosted glass fronts.  I'm going to keep the drawers though and see if I can built another base around them.  It's hard to let that piece go.  No picture can do it justice, but here's a picture of it from Ikea's website:

It bothers me that this picture doesn't show what it truly looks like. 

Anyway, besides that being ruined, the carpet in all three bedrooms is also.  It wasn't that great to begin with, but it worked.  While Morgan is still in Dallas, the other girls and I are going to start ripping it up, starting tomorrow.  I know, you so want to be in my shoes.  Ripping up carpet isn't all that bad, but it is when it's wet and stinks up the entire house.  Not to mention, I can't stand touching wet carpet.  *shivers* (wet shoelaces do the same thing to me.)  YUCK!

I just want to make all this go away and go make something.

Better Day

The culprit

Well, that and a leaky valve. 

Last night was tough for me.  Even though the hose had busted, it wasn't the only problem.  The valve was leaking too, and by leaking, I really mean pouring.  Even though the valve was shut completely off, I had to stick a 5 gallon bucket under the sink to catch the water because I couldn't turn off the main water.  I had to stay awake to dump that bucket and it filled up about every 30 minutes.  I fell asleep this morning when Allison woke, and she took over. 

Forget waiting until Monday for the plumbers.  I called my Uncle Dudley and he came and fixed it for me.  Yay for Uncle Dudley!

Now, to suck up all the water in the carpets.  The chore isn't over yet.

In the meantime, I worked on one of my junking projects.

Would love to finish the rest, but I have water waiting to be dealt with. 



Such is Life

It is what it is.

For the past few days, the girls and I have been in Dallas.  We have a favorite hotel we stay always stay in while we are there.  It's just nice and clean with a lot of amenities at motel prices.  We did find out the hard way, though, that it's more expensive during the week than on weekends.  Go figure.  Still, it was a very comfortable stay, as always.

We planned to go to Reunion Tower, but it was closed for renovation.  No biggy.  Still loads of things to do.  We got there Wednesday night, so we just had our baths and crashed.  Thursday, we spent a lot of time running the roads trying to find a photo lab I had heard about that develops 120 film.  In the meantime, we stopped at Ritz in Plano, which is where Allison fell in love with a Diana F+ camera.  I've been wanting one too, so I got it for me her.  I've also been wanting a Fisheye 2 camera.  All I needed to hear were the words from Emily, "Mom, can I have a camera too?"  So, I bought me her the Fisheye 2. 

Ahhh, be still my heart.

We still had film to develop, so we pressed on to find that little hole in the wall of a lab.  On the OTHER side of Dallas.  Found it.  Dropped film off.  Pick up next day.  Yay!  Back to the hotel and time for some fun in the pool, pizza, and baseball.

The pizza here is something we look forward to.  It's delicious!  Always!

Later that night, we went for a walk in downtown Frisco.  We tried to get some shots, but we only a few turned out.  It was nice walking in the warm night air.

The film we had processed was from my Holga and here are a few sample shots.  We have a lot more, but since I didn't think to have them put on disc, I'm having to scan each and every one.  I'm loving it.

The bottom shot is an intentional double exposure of our basketball goal and our tubing raft.  Loving. 

We were going to go ahead and stay throughout the weekend, but I had a workshop to go to today in Conroe and something just didn't feel right about staying.  So, Friday evening, we left but took our time getting home.  Since we all had toy cameras, we would stop and just snap whenever we wanted to.  I'm seriously in love with the fisheye.  We had those developed today and did that old fashioned "oohing" and "ahhing" at the photo counter.  We can't remember exactly who took what, but here are a few examples of the Fisheye2. 

It's so much fun!

Once home, we crashed.

Then, this morning, we woke up to this...

Nevermind, I'm not even going to add pictures. 

Anyone who knows my  luck will know just what I'm about to say, I believe.  It has happened to me loads of times before.  I may have even mentioned the last time in this blog somewhere, I don't know.  I believe it is my destiny, Yep, you guessed it, to flood my house.

The very back bathroom in the house sprung a leak.  If you even want to call it a leak.  No, it sprung a waterfall under the sink.  I don't know how it did it overnight.  I can't even imagine it, but it did.  The cold water hose leading up to the faucet has a hole in it bigger than my forefinger.  I can actually stick my finger in it and move it from side to side.  It looks as if it's been chewed, but I don't have rodents.  Why me?  Why? 

Instead of losing my mind, I sat down and thought about what to do.  After a few thoughts and even a few tears,  Allison and I started moving furniture to the dry rooms of the house.  These dry rooms were my dining room, bedroom and laundry room.  That's it.  All three girls' rooms are flooded, the hallway, both back bathrooms, and the living room.  My bathroom and closet were flooded as well.  I'm guessing this is the reason I didn't have a good feeling about staying in Dallas throughout the weekend. 

So, cleaning it all is what we have done today, other than the short break we took to get the film developed and me writing this blog.  Needless to say, I didn't go to that workshop today.

I'm hanging in there, keeping calm.  It's not WHAT I go through, it's HOW I go through it. 

But, I am ready to move.





More Goodies

While in  Humble today, I saw a Goodwill store.  I am in flea market mode, so figured I stop in and check out what they had.  I must say, that was one of the best Goodwill stores I've ever been in.  I think I wound up with something off every shelf and still didn't get all I wanted to.  Needless to say, my buggy was completely full.  I only went in to see what I could find to upcycle.  I found more than I expected.

I may just start really shopping like this because I found 2 very thrifty finds.  Both of those finds were something I've been really wanting.

1.  Headboard for Emily's bed.  $12.00.  Can't beat that with a stick!  Of course, I'm going to refinish it one way or another, but here it is right now.  It's very sturdy, but when I got it home, I noticed a crack in it.  Nothing wood glue can't handle.  Loving it.



2.  Towel warmer.  I have wanted one of these forever, but would never spend the amount of money on what they sell for.  This one?  $6.99.  Works wonderfully!



A closer look:

LOVE this little tea set.  I see some typography in its future.

Hug Mugs :)

These little boogers have a major transformation coming up soon!

Metal and glass, not plastic, so had to grab!

Thinking this may turn towel rack, scarf holder, anything, really.  Wall mounted or tabletop.  We will see.

Love this little beauty!  Can't wait to show you its makeover.

$3 lamp.  Craft room bound.

The two items that make me smile:

This canister is along the lines of what I've been wanting in my kitchen.  I don't necessarily use canisters for what they are labeled for, but I just love this look.  The lid was taped to the canister and it was pretty heavy, so I thought it had the entire set inside.  The price tag was $1.99, so I snatched it in a hurry.  When I got home and tore off the tape, I saw it was only the flour canister.  I also noticed the lid must not be the original lid because it looks too much like a pot lid.  No worries.  I still LOVE it.

Normally, I would have never given this next item so much as the first glance.  BUT, today, as soon as I saw it, I didn't give grabbing it a second thought.  This is why - yesterday I read a blog (that I can't find anywhere tonight to give credit to) where the lady had bought these at a dollar store for a buck.  She separated each little rose and pinned them to a styrofoam ball, making rose balls for decor in her bathroom.  The roses are made of soap, so they have a scent.  I'm not crazy about the scent of these, but hopefully it will fade soon enough.  Still, I'm going to give it a shot and will post pictures as soon as I do.  They were gorgeous!
(will give credit as soon as I find the link!)

I'm one exhausted Mommy right now and we have school tomorrow.  Better get some sleep!

A Bag a Day

We have been in our home for a year and a half and still haven't unpacked everything.  Sad, yes, I know.  Have I mentioned before how we have NO storage?  I think I have.  I blame it on that.

Our previous home had storage galore along with a huge building, so there was room for anything, really.  The last 6 months we lived there, we really utilized the space we had in the building.  We had to leave loads of things behind because we just didn't have room for it all here.  I wish we would have left more behind, but it is what it is.

I'm literally suffocating due to things we have and no place to put them.  Things get moved here and there, but never there's never a permanent home for them.  So, I've decided to just start chunking.

To make it a little easier to get rid of things and not become overwhelmed even more, I've decided to get rid of a bag a day.  It may be things I simply need to trash, or things I'll take up to the local resale shop.  We will see.  Last night I started with things in the kitchen.  All this was trash, of course.  Cereal boxes that had less than a bowl left in them, things we bought/tried/disliked.  Just those types of things that were taking up precious space and would never be used. 

I got two bags out of that.  Tragic.

Why, yes I did take a picture of two bags of trash, thank you very much.

Feels great!

I found a possible home for one of my Canton crates.  Well, I know this won't last long, but it works for tonight.  I'm thinking of hanging them, really, but tonight it sleeps on the counter.

Canton Trade Days

Well, I didn't make it to my niece's birthday party, since the plans for Canton were already made.  Hated to miss it, but LOVED Canton!  I'm so glad we stuck with our plans for once and went.

It was miserably hot.  I don't even want to know what the temp was, but it was still over 100 when we were on the road home at 5pm.  We walked so much, misplaced Morgan for a bit with a dead cell phone, and were finally reunited with her.  WHEW!  I was so upset in thinking how in the world would we ever find her in that crowd.  She found us. 

We spent way too much money on water and soda and not nearly enough on goods.  The one place I really researched and wanted to check out was priced extremely too high.  The rest of the stores we went into were very inexpensive or decently priced.  I had found these right off the bat, waiting on Janet to get there and had them loaded in my car, preparing to fill my arms again.  No wagon, no cart.  Uh, next time for sure!

After an almost complete meltdown from the heat, we found a store we all fell in love with!  "Girls Gone Junkin'".  WOW.  If you love vintage, French country, shabby chic, it's all here.  Beautiful place.  Beautiful and wonderful ladies who run it.  I had a very hard time deciding just what I wanted...until I spotted IT!  THE most wonderful little find.  For. Like. Ever.  Period.

Not the greatest of pictures, but wait until I have the accessories to go with it, including the newborn.  The ladies in the shop told me when I use it for newborn portraits, to send them a picture to put on their website.  I gladly accepted.  I have quite a few little ones standing watch nearby, waiting for their moment to be born.  I can't wait!  Two are twins.  Girls. :)

I'd like to go back in July, but only if I'm able to spend the weekend.  It's hard enough to make it in a day, much less a few hours.  Was much fun, though.