Life's Small Blessings

2012.. WOW the changes

2012-01-16T16:43:00.000-06:00

Okay.. first... last year I was a bad blogger :( I feel so bad that all my pictures and the amazing things we did around here never made up on the Internet. I know I had a good reason but it still really annoys me personally!

A few months ago I was diagnosed with scoliosis in my neck, so the constant headache and migraines had a source and my not wanting to go near a computer screen unless absolutely necessary had a founded reason. I can say I am having great results with treatment from a wonderful Chiropractor. I'll try a post sometime about it.. but I think it's time to get to the heart of this post... where we are in 2012.

Yesterday after spending the day at my parents I realized just how far my family has come since I started this change.

We no longer do things because it's acceptable or the norm but think about everything we do.

Let me explain.. This is a list of the changes we've made and the steps getting there

Canned soda's thrown in garbage - Thrown in can/can - Homemade Soda using a soda stream, buying syrup in bulk or making our own syrup

Throwing EVERYTHING IN THE GARBAGE! - composting anything possible and buying things in compostable packaging if the same price as those in non.

Paper Plates, napkins,plastic silverware, and plastic cups all disposable - No more paper plates, napkins, plastic silverware, plastic cups.

Paper towels - took a ton of old clothes that don't fit and were well used and cut them up into rags, bought a 5 gallon bucket to throw them in after used... great for all spills :)   (still have 1 roll on hand for dog mess's just in case it's way to gross)

Toilet paper and Kleenex - It's a hard one I have made a bunch of what I call "Girl wipes" out of old flannel sheets, we have ones specific for blowing noses (rags work to) and others for going number 1.. number 2 is still tp... can't get on the band wagon for using them for that...   We have a small lidded trashcan with removable liner we us for them after they have been used.. they wash great and feel even better! Pads are also flannel..

Things we've added:

Aquaponics systems - growing food and herbs inside all year. ( I have 5 green peppers on the plants right now and lots of basil)

Dehydrating - We had a smaller one that we were using to make jerky and dry herbs. My parents gave us an industrial sized one that will do up to 15 lbs of food at 1 time :) I have dried apples into apple chips, and lemons (they look like stained glass) basically anything that is going out I can dehydrate to save :)   I bought 4 lbs of garlic and am getting ready to dry it for homemade garlic salt (need a way to get Iodine back in our diet since we never use plain salt.. by making our own we can use table salt and cut out the MSG and other things that are added) Also, we were giving some ground deer meat to make jerky out of :)

Canning - We canned a lot this year... if our Garden actually has a good year we will need to triple the amount of jars :) I love homemade Salsa and pickles :)

Buying in Bulk - This is our latest project. Sam's Club is our new Best Friend :) Don't know how to store 25 lbs of flour... do what I did.. go to the dog food isle at Meijer :) The Dog food containers are all now food safe, Free of bad things, seal better then Tupperware and need I mention the big one is on wheels? Yippee I wheel my flour around my kitchen and love it!!

Bread and Noodle Making - I make all of our own Bread and Pizza Dough... for those that say theirs not enough time... have you really tried it? 10 minutes to make the dough.. let it rise an hour and boom cook for 20 minutes and there you go.. do it in between commercials or cut out a TV show I dare you :)   Corey has helped me make homemade noodles and ravioli.

TV - We have Bunny ears only and only use them for Football and bad weather to see whats going on.. You'll be amazed how much the mom I wants go out the window cause they can't see all the junk and advertising they don't know what they are missing :) We also use Netflix

No junk allowed - I'm a mean mom.. there is now a no junk allowed policy in place.. basically no junkie toys.. they break, mom gets stabbed in the foot and spends 3 hours using peroxide to clean the carpet :(

No Carpet - Only 2 more rooms to go on this change.... it's so much cheaper to use a broom and doesn't cost near as much to replace! I can add the exercise we get and in emergency's we do have a shop vac.

No Junk in rooms - Every on of the kids had choices about what they really want.. then we paired everything down, rooms stay clean mom's feet stay safe.

Homemade Christmas - We made (mainly I made Home made presents.. this will stay around. I learned how to knit and worked on Christmas presents.. this year we may add Dehydrated items and make little gift baskets :)

Family Christmas - The Big present for the kids/ our family was a punching bag, exercise and a way for my ADD/ADHD'ers to get out some aggression... and can I say it helps mom too :)

Those seem to be our big changes the ones I can see, and measure.. but there are so many more.
There is so much I want to accomplish this year, from more garden space, more canning, more dehydrating...

Free Sample anyone?

2011-08-24T00:18:00.001-05:00

Okay so about a month ago I got into Free Samples/Cuponing.

I haven’t done much couponing yet but I have jumped in feet first to the Samples. I’ll post a list below of my favorite links.

I have found that Facebook is a great site for free samples. Most have you like the product or the company and then fill out a simple form. Others you take a survey or watch a video and answer questions.

You do have to pay attention some samples are full size and others are sample or 1 time trial size. That and they have a tendency to go fast!

I figure if I spend an hour a day requesting samples it may pay off.

So here’s what I have received so far. (not what I have requested.. these have actually hit my house :)

Full Size Products:

Full Size of Tide Stain booster and a 1 load trial of Tide Acti lift and $2.00 Coupon (This was on Facebook and if you fill out the survey after using it you are entered in a sweepstakes for more free product and a washer and dryer)

Pro Glide Razor (Hubby Loves this surprise!)

Always Pads and Tampons

Carefree liners

Swiffer duster

Truck drivers magazine

Lotion

1 Coupon for a free package of Jiff Single Serve

2 Coupon for 1 fre 12.6 oz bottle of Panteen

I know there was something else from Procter and Gamble but can’t remember what it was

Sample Size:

Shampoo and Conditioner X10

Perfume x5

Lotion X 8

Misc other X 40

I plan on updating this as I go so we can see weather this really pays off or not… If anyone has any other great freebie sites let me know.

On Facebook check these pages out! They give updates through out the day of free samples available and of those only available for a limited time.

The Frugal Family (Also on Facebook)

FreeFlys (On Facebook)

Coupon Pro

I’ll add more as I find them.

To add to this… it is fun to receive free stuff in the mail almost every day! My Hubby keeps asking what’s next LOL

No More Microwave

2011-08-24T00:10:00.001-05:00

So this week after deep cleaning a lot of my kitchen I started thinking about our microwave. Do we really need it? How much power does it use? Is it good for us? So I started looking into it more.

After reading a few of the other blogs I follow who have actually tested their power consumption with their Microwave the consensus is that they do zap a lot of power. Then if you add in that ours cooks funny and always takes at least 5 minutes to warm up 1 plate and their are 5 of us. Why not use the stove and get them all warmed up at once?

Microwave products are not my favorite. Most have a ton of additives. Not to mention they are more expensive then making it yourself.

So do we really need this big piece of electricity hogging equipment?

My thought is no. My hubby is a little on the edge with this idea. So instead of getting rid of the microwave completely we have put it on a shelf in our laundry room that we don’t use. After 6 months we’ll see how many times we’ve pulled it off the shelf. I have a feeling it will be never but we’ll wait and see. So far we’ve gone a week with out using it. If after a month it’s never been used we’ll either donate it or trash it.

(I forgot to post this.. oops! We have been microwave free for 2 months! We only took it out 1 time and honestly it wasn’t worth the work of hauling it into the kitchen :) Honestly I think our food tastes better and doesn’t get over cooked as fast! (ecept when someone forget to set a timer :)

Super Crunchy Home Canned Pickles?? No Way!!

2011-08-23T21:36:00.001-05:00

I have had an aversion to home canned pickles.. I honestly could NOT stand them. Most of the time they tasted like sour mush. Last Year I did a ton of research and have found an almost always (so far every batch has been perfect, but I know at least one will flop this year it’s a given LOL) way to get that crunchy Pickle.

1st always cut off the blossom end even if your doing spears. Most sights say this has some enzyme in it that can make your pickles soft.

#2 and a big step. Take your cut up Cucumber, Onions, Peppers, Garlic and even dill if you want place these in a bowl. Mix in canning salt and Ice. I use my hands and mix Ice and salt all the way through and then cover with ice again. Let this sit for 2 hours on the counter covered with a clean cooking cloth (I have dedicated ones for food use only).

#3 after 2 hours rinse off with cold water and remove any left over ice.

#4 pack these in jars and cover with your brine. Water bath or pressure cook for recipes recommended time and you should get a good Crunchy Pickle

Never Heard of this before? What would it hurt to try it with one batch? I know I’ll never do it a different way again!

Back to the blog!

2011-08-23T15:17:00.000-05:00

Okay so I've been away for a while.. I miss blogging but everything around here has been going non stop. The girls are back in school so I am hoping to get caught up and dedicate at least a half hour a day to make this what I want it to be... I have so many cool and exciting posts and recipes to get up and going along with pictures! So please bare with me on this as I start to flood the news feed :) I have updates and pic's of Panty hose in the Garden to our new pathways, Home made reusable makeup wipes/ sponge alternatives, to alternative toilet paper... and Many recipes for our family favorite recipe section... Hugs to all!!

Me :)

Crazy around here

2011-07-26T19:17:00.000-05:00

Things have been crazy around here so my blogging has sadly been a bit off. We are once again moving the house around.. I think this time it's going to fit better. All but 1 of the aquaponics have been moved. And we have added a light structure above them. Instead of mounted to the ceiling. This has made things take off like crazy. I am hoping for some indoor grown tomatoes before the end of the year.

Our Garden was doing okay until some beast of the 2 legged variety decided to tear through our Corn and pick all the cuecumbers growing in the big garden.

Thankfully I have Cucumbers growing in front also. Our Watermelon are Golf ball size And we have a few but not many Green Tomatoes. I have started saving seed this year to in hopes of a cheaper garden year next year.

With all the issues we have been facing with the weather and the 2 legged Varmits we are honestly doing okay. I just wish we were doing Awesome like last year... Trial and error that's the way it goes. Next year we shoudld have the septic fixed and then we my break into the back yard for more Corn space... we'll see... i just wish I could find an easier weed fighting stratagey. It feel like every year and all year I am pulling the same weeds!

Fresh food in a lower waste house

2011-06-29T22:25:00.001-05:00

Recently Corey and I have started towards our goal of a lower waste house hold. It’s amazing to how much weight I’ve lost and how much healthier we’ve felt. Not to mention the fact that the money we have is going as far as we need it instead of not coming close.

The Food Changes:

All bread is homemade. I make Bread 1 to 2 times a week.
All Pasta is homemade. The taste POP’s
All pop is made in house. The Soda Stream was a wonderful addition.
Making fruit cordials and Ginger Beer instead of kool aid and other drink mixes
I make homemade Ricotta cheese
Only 1 meal a week has premade frozen or boxed products in it.
Fresh Garden fair.
Local butcher only.

So here’s my favorite recipe using a bunch of these things.

Homemade Ravioli stuffed with Fresh Basil, Fresh Ricotta and Sausage.

Ingredients:

Half Gallon of Milk
3 to 5 Tbsp of White vinegar or Lemon Juice
4 Cups Flour
5 Eggs
Water
1/2 pound sausage
6 to 8 Fresh Basil Leaves (more if you want a stronger taste)

1.Start the night before and make your Ricotta

Bring half gallon of milk to a boil on the stove in a non reactive pan.

(non reactive being stainless steal not Aluminum)

Stir like crazy to keep it from scorching. Temp should be at least 120 degrees.

Add 3 tbsp of White Vinegar or Lemon Juice. Keep stirring you’ll notice curds starting to form. Turn off heat and keep stirring until you notice the yellow whey separate. The drain in cheese cloth to remove all the whey, don’t be afraid to squeeze it out. Refrigerate Cheese.

2. Make your dough for the Ravioli. (this can be refrigerated for up to 4 days)

Take 4 cups of flour (plain flour is fine you don’t have to get expensive flours!) Put in mixer bowl if you have a good mixer with a dough blade. Add 4 eggs and mix until it forms a ball. You can add a little water if it’s to dry or an egg yoke.

(If you don’t have a heavy duty mixer then on your work station put the flour on the counter and make a well. put beating eggs in well and then mix dough together. Knead a bunch until it’s really soft. Wrap in cling wrap or a zippy bag and refrigerate over night)

3. Cook sausage and let drain. Refrigerate.

The Next day

1.Take about 6 to 10 Fresh Basil leaves (more if your a Basil Nut) and roll them up then slice.

2.Send them, your ricotta and half your sausage through the food processer to evenly mix and break up chunks.

3.Flour your work area. Then take your dough and break into workable sizes and roll out as thin as a piece of paper. You want it this thin because it will double in thickness when cooked.

4.Slice into strips as thick as you want your ravioli. Then place balls of your mix evenly spaced then take egg wash (egg beaten with a little water) and wipe it around the edges. Cut into squares and seal with a fork.

5.These can be put on a tray in the freezer for 2 hours and then in a bag in the freezer. Or they can be cooked fresh. About 5 to 8 minutes in boiling water. Toss with a light sauce such as butter and Garlic, white wine, lemon butter or Pesto and the flavors will pop!

Panty Hose in the Garden?

2011-06-29T21:05:00.001-05:00

Yep, I use a ton of Panty hose in my garden!

Weather they are to small or have a run they can be used.

Here’s a list of way’s to use them.

In the garden

Tie them together and then string from post to post to support climbing plants like Cucumber's, Pea’s, and Watermelon. They are so soft that they support the plants with out cutting them when the wind is blowing.
Cut the toes off and then cut 1 inch off at a time to use as ties for tomatoes. They give and stretch with the growth of the Tomato and still keep from cutting the plant.
Tie around the berries to guide them where you want them to go.
Tie Rose’s to the trellis

Harvest time

Cut off the leg and fill with Potatoes, onions or popcorn and hang to dry.
Dry corn and other seeds by hanging in the stocking.

I know there’s more ways we use them but can’t seem to come up with it right now. I hope this helps. Why spend a ton of money on specialty Tomato ties? In my experience they end up either cutting the plant or the plant grows around it, or the most likely thing they break in the wind. So let’s reuse something with many purposes and takes up very little space!

Soda Stream

2011-06-16T23:17:00.001-05:00

I follow a lot of frugal blogs and the buzz this month is about the Soda Stream a way to make Soda at home. No more lugging home pop cans and bottles, not to mention no more plastic bottles in the landfill! Is it as good as it sounds? So far I’d say yes.

We purchased the striped down basic version of it. I’m a simple kind of girl. That and there’s less to go wrong. I love the Soda Stream!

We did purchase an extra set of Bottles. I’m a Cola addict (Actually my migraines are a Cola addict :) And hubby can’t have Caffeine so having the 4 different bottles makes it so I can have 1 dedicated to Cola and dedicate other’s as Caffeine free. The carbonation lasts longer then regular soda. My Cola sat out for a good 4 hours and was still extremely fizzy and not flat at all when I took a sip.. Amazing for me!

A few special notes about them from me.

Warning!! Make sure you have the plastic bottle screwed on completely if you don’t water will go EVERYWHERE!!!!!!

When you first use the soda maker use exactly as directed.

Then try these few tips.

Make completely sure the water is very cold.

I only push the button until 1 buzz. 3 buzzes is way to much carbonation in my opinion.

As soon as you carbonate take it off put the lid on and shake gently. Then add your syrup put the lid on and shake gently again. (be very carful opening. The first bottle I made had so much fizz it fizzed over)

Syrups.

Cola: So far I’ve found the Cola you need about 1 and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 lids full of syrup. 1 lid full tastes like when you get to the fountain and the syrup bag is almost out.

Orange: Use only about 1/2 a cap otherwise it’s extremely sweet and overly strong

Cranberry raspberry: Love it just how they say

Dr. Pete: Good the way they say

Energy drink: Add a little more then a cap full and it really tastes like Red bull only with more carbonation :)

You can also use fruit juice and homemade cordials and add to your carbonated water. I’m looking forward to making homemade ginger aile

I don’t know yet how much we are saving but I do know we used to spend about $50 a month on pop. ( I had a tendency to loose my cans around the house and they would go flat) So this I am hoping should pay for itself pretty fast.

Corey told me Bob and Tom in the morning on the radio really love it also. In our area the kitchen store in the outlet mall, Kohl's, and Macy’s all carry it. At the Kitchen Store it’s $15 if you exchange and empty tank for a new tank. I don’t know the cost at the other stores yet.

I hope you found some good hints and info in this quick write up. Feel fee to leave a question if you want.

Candles

2011-05-14T02:43:00.002-05:00

Okay, so if your like me you probably have a bunch of half burnt or almost all the way burnt candles lying around, not to mention broken ones. So why not use them?

This doesn't take much time and can even be fun.

First thing first, you'll need a few things:

Old Candles, bits of wax even those wax melts work

Candles jars, Mason Jars work to!

Candle wick and ends.. check out ebay for good prices on bulk.

Something thin like a skewer to go across the candle jar top to hold wick straight

Tape

Basically the night before put any candles that you can't get loose from their jars into the freezer. The next day they should pop out easily. If the jar is a funny shape you might have to take a knife or screw driver and break it into pieces in the jar.. save jar you can reuse it.

Place all pieces into a pot ( you can leave the wick and metal piece they will be easy to scoop out later.

Melt on low heat in a big pot until melted. Add any scent or coloring ( we had half a purple candle in ours so it turned everything lavender)

Take wick and measure and cut to fit in jar with a little over hang

Place melted clippy (if you can't get the wick though, dip wick in wax and wait a second then it should slip right through with out separating the wick strands.

Place in jar, wrap around skewer

Pour in wax

Let cool!

One still hot the other half way cooled

Candles and wick

Jelly Jar candles

Votive candle

The top of a poured candle

Enjoy your candles. We love having these around for emergency's and I get more for my money on the wax melts we buy to scent the house!

Our Garden

2011-05-14T02:29:00.000-05:00

I haven't really posted many pictures of our Garden. Part of that was due to a lack of camera last year. But I have some of what's going on now. :)

Mushrooms popping up thanks to all the rain

Strawberrys in full bloom

I'm not sure what his is. It's very invasiv and we can't seem to kill it off!

Potatoes popping up in three diffrent places!

This was planted 3 years ago at the original end to the garden. They never once grew... until now!

The front Rose Beds and one of the new Kitchen Gardens this is the all onion bed

this is the next area

Add caption

Longways down the fron Rose and Kitchen beds

This is in our "Canning" Garden. One of the 3 raised beds. Rose helped transplant the Strawberries out of here. This will now have tomatoes in it.

Potato Buckets new this year at the edge of the "Canning Garden"

More of the front

Kyera helping out.

So that's the first set of Garden photos I hope to post more and maybe even the drawings Corey made up of the layout of our Gadens.

Rain Barrel Excitement!

2011-05-14T02:18:00.000-05:00

First I want to say thank you again to Jan @ Thanks For Today for her Sustainable living project. You can follow the link and read more about it. It was so much fun to join in and read about what everyone else is doing to help the environment and work towards self sustainability. There are people at so many different stages.

Other then a TON of inspiration, I ended up winning the grand prize ( I never win anything!). I Fisker's Rain Barrel. I posted last year pictures and instructions for our homemade rain barrel and we use it a lot! So to have an actual one we thought would be interesting.

It installed a little harder then the homemade one. You have to cut the pipe and get the black diverter squeezed on to the pipe and then the other end goes to the bottom of it. Honestly though the hardest part was getting the lid all the way on. I had to squeeze and bend in order to get it on fully. Otherwise everything else worked really well. Just make sure you have spade bits and a hacksaw around. We have these on hand but I know a lot of people don't.

It's rained since installing and works wonderfully!! My husband is in love already because we can now fully water both sides of our front gardens. This saves us from running a ton of hose all over the yard. We don't have to worry that someone left the hose on and the water is still running, and our bill will be sky high. We will only have to pay to water the canning garden this year. I figure this will save us at least $15 a month. Not to mention saving mom from tripping over hose's :)

My worst nightmare is now my favorite thing!

2011-05-14T02:15:00.001-05:00

I will be the first to admit I have always HATED LAUNDRY!! I'm sure you can see my tag on my blog stating that I blog to keep from doing the laundry.. to true!

In my house you never know which person is going to have a skin reaction to a certain laundry product. We can go months and then suddenly boom! Can't use the 2 big containers of soap any more someone broke out in a rash. So it always feels like when is the bottom going to fall?

Then no matter what we used I could always smell a little sour smell. I'm sure it's probably do to our water but it really annoyed me. It's like the soap was masking the sour water smell.

Add to that the loading unloading and folding and ugh. GO through all that for laundry that didn't smell clean..

Well, these last 2 weeks it's all changed! I love my laundry and can't wait to do it.. granted I'll be glad when there's less of it.. but wow.

The first thing i started doing was making my own laundry soap. It's not hard...

I take a few bars of our homemade Cold Process soap that is not overly supper fatted. ( why waste oils and moisturizing soap on the laundry?

Grate this and put in a container then mix in enough washing soda to cover the shreds so they no longer stick together ( I have used baking soda also with good results) Cool thing to the kids can help!

Add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup to your wash.. that's it.

You can add up to 1/2 cup of white vinegar if you need softener
( I looked at our softener the other day.. OMG the first ingredient was sugar, then clay, then dye, then fragrance) WOW maybe I'll just throw some sugar in the wash :)

*Note* You can add Borax if you feel you need it. We don't because we try and use our laundry water in the garden and the Borax can build up and become toxic.

The second change for us was a laundry line. Yeppers, the girl who hated dong this growing up is now doing it willingly as an adult.. who'd of thunk? I'll have to do a post on my clothes pin bag made from recycled jeans later this week.

The kids had to get in on the action.. hope this continues!

Colty had to help!

So proud of his wash cloth!

Now our clothes smell nice (the sour smell is gone) and we are saving money not to mention the kids want to help. And I can still pin laundry up 2 items to a clothes pin just like when I was a kid :) Some things you never forget.

Aquaponics Tables

2011-05-05T23:14:00.000-05:00

We've had our Aquaponics Beds on folding tables since we started them a few months ago and they were working great. However 2 days ago my husband noticed that the table was dipping in the middle. This was due to the weight and probably some water damage from a bed that had slowly leaked one night when I was gone.

Well with 200 lbs of rock, water, and my seedlings all at risk Corey new he had to do something and fast. So we sat down and talked about what I needed when it came to the beds. One of the things I had learned is I need to be able to get around all the long sides. It was really hard to replant when I drained the tanks. Because I'm short and couldn't reach the backs of the doubled up tanks.

So we took some measurements and came up with these tank stands. I will be loosing my small bed for a while, which is okay until I starts seeds again next year.

The other goal in this room will be to set up a seed starting area instead of the wobbly book shelf :)

So here are some pictures of the 1st 2 of the 6 bed tables we have to make. We hope to have at least 3 done this week. They are made of a mix of wood we had either given to us, or left from other projects. We will have to buy 1 4x4x8 because we are out of them. So our total out of pocket cost will only be $6.00 and we get our folding tables back :) Not to mention the risk of a flood has been diverted!

Colty helping daddy

Main Base

Adding legs

Two down 4 more to go!

I will post picture of the room as soon as all 6 tables are made and in place. Then the next step will be figuring out a seed starting table :)

Weekend Garden happenings

2011-05-05T23:06:00.000-05:00

We had a great weekend out here and really accomplished a lot! All of our Strawberries have been transplanted into the Rose beds in front of our house. Thanks to my daughter Rose! Between the 2 of us and a little help from hubby we moved over 100 Strawberry plants.

Corey, the kids and myself started working on the walkways in front of the house. Our goal eventually is to put in more brick walks with Irish Moss growing in between them. Right now though we had to do something because the Lawn Mower can't get between the boxes and beds and all of our hand me down Weed whackers are having issues and at a friends house for possible repair?

So Corey tilled up the soil, we laid a heavy layer of Newspaper (Thanks mom and dad!) and then a layer of Wood Chips! All the kids helped and we had a lot of fun, including rides in the wagon of course!

We were also able to get 2 more of the front beds filled ( I can't believe Rose filled this cart up all by herself!!)

And planted one of the beds with Leaf Lettuce, Carrots and Leeks.

I hope to plant the other bed here in a few days.

Check out some of the cool start ups around the Garden

This Asparagus was planted 2 years ago at the original edge of the garden.. we never had even a hint of growth on these until now??

Potatoes I guess we missed a few again. oops!
We really have a blast doing this as a family! The time flys by so fast!

Jean repair

2011-05-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

Patching Jeans... Not something I love to do, but I do have to have something to do while watching TV I can't keep my hands still. So with the weather my head has been so crazy I can't do my Counted Cross Stitch, they all blur together and my crocheting does the same. So during our movie night tonight I figured it was time to save my husbands overalls.

Corey is a Truck Driver and it never seems to fail that all the keys in his pocket wear through on the leg of his jeans. When he sits and drives they rub back and forth creating a week spot that eventually turns into a nice hole. With Jeans costing $50 a pop and them being okay every where but one spot it's time I stated patching them. I wish we could buy his at a cheaper place and every once in a while we can.. but it takes an hour of digging before we can find even 1 pair of 30X36 in all the racks. :)

He told me he didn't care what it looked like as long as I patched it. I can say I didn't do the prettiest patch but it will hold. I did a double patch, one from the inside and another on the outside covering the hole. This and the fact that he is now carying his biggest set of keys on his belt loop should help keep this pair around a while longer.

The Hole

Getting Ready to patch

The Under Patch and the start of the Top Patch

Patching the top

All Done

Not the prettiest patch I've done but the most functional.

I do recommend keeping old Jeans around, there is so much you can do, from patching things to a quick quilt to emergency pair of Jeans for a naked Ken doll :)

Where have all the socks gone??

2011-05-04T23:56:00.000-05:00

Okay I don't do many posts about the dogs but here's one I just have to share.

About 6 months ago we installed a screen door with a doggy door on it. Our Yorkie Teddy just couldn't seem to figure out how to ring the hanging bell on the front door like our other dog thus creating messes in the house. Teddy (fondly nicknamed Igit by my husband) loves the doggy door and uses it very frequently sometimes just to poke his head outside and see what's going on.

I should also mention like the rest of the family each of our dogs has an issue or two. We adopted both fully knowing this and willing to work with them.

Teddy likes to pick up anything the kids throw on the floor or random things out of laundry baskets/ around the house and give it to you when he sees you. I remember the first time a friend of Corey's came over and Teddy was so happy to give him a pair of my underwear... Big red face here.

But this is about socks. We've always had an issue with non matching socks and though we have embraced this and the girls purposely have mismatched socks, I noticed the other day my sock basket had really dwindled.. I mean it was about half the normal amount full. Rose and Corey were outside cleaning the dog run when I heard laughter... it seems that when Teddy goes outside he takes one of his presents with him... there were a bunch of socks, a towel, a few dog toys and a roll of toilet paper and my missing pot holder. I now know if somethings missing check the dog run.. I can just see the next time mom asks Rose why she's not wearing any socks... the dog stole them and left them outside... oh boy!

Our life is never boring around here!

(I've been trying for a week now to get a pic of Teddy with a sock.. This week though he's been attacked to a dish sponge go figure!)

Attack of the Fungas Gnats!!!

2011-04-27T01:17:00.001-05:00

Ugh.. I don't know what it is but EVERY year I get these darn gnats. This is the first year I was able to find out more information about them though. These little buggers can kill a seedling off in 2 days and an almost ready to transplant plant in about a week.

Normally when they started flying around I was able to spray and get them killed before I lost all of my plants. This year it's a little bit harder. They have invaded my aquaponics systems. I have all my seedlings and almost ready to transplant plants in my grow beds. I can't use any of the normal pesticides (and Corey and I agreed starting this year everything as close to organic as we can get) Yet I also can't afford to loose all 150 plus seedlings!

So I'm doing a 4 step approach. 1st thing I did was get the mosquito dunks. They are safe for plants and fish. These went into the fish tanks. I researched them ad the BT is commonly sold in jugs for Aquaponics.

Then tank by tank I am taking all the plants out, pumping almost all the water out into the fish tanks (the fish love bug larva) and then adding enough rock to get rid of any standing water spots. The Fungus gnats lay eggs where it's wet and the larva live and grow in the moist environment where they eat plant roots and fungus.

Then I am replanting the seedlings. Please note a few things. First make sure you get the roots into water. Second if your seedlings are really small, immediately transplant into another box, they can't take the 30 mins out side of their watery environment and will litteraly melt in front of your eyes.

I have also hung up one of the sticky flying bug traps over the beds to help catch the adult gnats. I realize this could take up to 6 weeks to get them all gone.. but hopefully I'll have saved my plants. So far the beds I've fixed are doing really good.

So if you see little white things that move like crazy when you blow gently on the surface of your dirt or other growing medium strike fast or you could loose your seedlings

More info and picture of fungus gnats
http://www.umass.edu/umext/floriculture/fact_sheets/pest_management/fungnat.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus_gnat

Spring has sprung around the house!

2011-04-26T17:26:00.000-05:00

I am running a bit behind on my Spring things to do list. We really didn't get to start on much of my list until this month so I'm a bit behind.

I have finally reached Blog Spring cleaning, mainly because it's so wet outside and continues to rain that I'm skipping ahead on my list.

One of my big Blog cleaning things to do was to fix the name/title on the top... So now you can see my "Spring Title" I hope to have pic's with my title in them for every season we go through :) Remember I said "I Hope" :)

My other 2 goals, organize the Tags and put up more pictures. It's all well and good that I describe everything but I need to get pictures up so you can see what I"m describing. Last year we didn't have a usable camera for much of the year, but we do now. So please bear with me if something seems out of whack over this next week. I hope to have everything Spring Cleaned... but if there's a break in the weather... you know where I'll be :)

Excitement

2011-04-26T01:29:00.000-05:00

Okay I'm dancing up and down over here. I'm just that excited. After much talk Corey and I are putting up Laundry lines :) I know probably not what any one was thinking.. but for me I just can't wait to use it. My mom is probably reading thins and rolling her eyes :)

I know I complained a lot growing up about having to cart the wet laundry to the line (had to haul it up steep stairs and hope we missed any landmines :) But I am looking forward to the smell and feel of line dried clothes. That and what can I say.. if I had to do it, why shouldn't my kids? He he

After talking with Corey the argument went something like this... It will smell better, won't heat up the house, will save money on electricity, will be outside work.. will be physical work... all sounded good in his book. So this week our laundry lines go up. With trees every where and garden every where else we did have to get creative to find our spot.. so if you drive by our house yes those are the holey jeans I patched waving in the wind in our side yard, next to the swing set, where the whole world can see them :)

Can't wait to let my laundry wave in the wind :)

It's that time of year again.

2011-04-26T01:18:00.000-05:00

Yes! The weather is getting warmer and we can stand to be outside with our overalls and sweatshirts on! This means it's garden time again. After reading from a lot of sources about the prospect of a global food crisis it's really starting to hit home. Thanks to a blog I read our new motto is to "Garden like you can't go to the store."

Really the way we are looking at things, are we going to be able to afford an extra trip in to town for groceries with the way gas prices are? Are we going to be able to afford veggies with the gas prices going up and shortages added to that we could really see some things go through the roof price wise? How safe are the foods that we will be getting? Will they use more pesticides and hormones so that they don't run the risk of loosing more vegetables?

And then again everything could be just fine... but do I want to find out the hard way or be prepared?

This year to help us prepare for what could happen and save money and eat healthier either way we are adding at least another 100 square feet of garden space. There will be at least 3\4 raised beds added to the front yard. The side yard will be done in raised beds and we are expanding to part of the back yard.

We now have 7 Aquaponics beds, 4 of which are in full swing and growing like crazy. After the plant starts get put out in the big garden we will reseed with more that will be left to grow in the house to supply us over the winter.

Simple Changes BIG Budget Impact

2011-04-26T01:14:00.000-05:00

As a stay at home mom I can say honestly I miss working outside the home. No I don't miss the crazy boss or the why is your kid sick again. But I miss the feeling of accomplishment and the time spent away from my kids and husband and house.

But I'm very practical and have looked at the math up and down and backwords and forwards. If I were to go back to work even making the $13 dollars an hour I was making as an admin assistant when I left my last job I would be loosing money...

After you add up the Daycare, Gas, Second Car, Higher Insurance, Lunches, Dress Clothes, Shoes ect.. we would loose an extra 5 to 8 hundred dollars... instead of bringing home that amount. Then you also have to think about your employment record. Saying I was unemployed because I was a stay at home mom is better then saying I was fired from my last 4 jobs because of my kids. With everyone in this family having a medical issue I always felt disjointed and missed more work then I ever wanted.

So I'm a stay at home mom. This year I am making it a point to not only educate myself more about Green/Zero Waste/Urban Homesteading. I am also trying to implement simple changes that will have a big impact on our Budget.

This has really opened my eyes.. Some of it was a real shocker to both Corey and myself.

Take Laundry Soap. We use the cheapest stuff running us about $7.00 a month for soap and $4.00 a month for Softener.. So a year is $84 to $100 for Laundry Soap and $48 for Softener

I can make a 10lb Loaf of plain Cold Process Soap for around $15 depending on the price of oils. (averaging on the high side) After curing time I have enough soap to grate and then dry for powder to get us through at least 6 months of Laundry. Add a box of washing soda at $2.50 every 3 to 6 months and there's our detergent. $40 at the most for a full year. Softener I've been told you can use white vinegar which I already use as a cleaner around the house and for pickling so we ALWAYS have this on hand. I just saved at least $84 or more a year in laundry supplies, not to mention all the bottles and dryer sheets that won't be thrown into the landfill.

Yes grating soap takes time but come on, grab a grater, a bowl and throw in your favorite movie or TV show and you can get at least half if not all 10 lbs grated. Leave it in a couple of trays to dry out and it didn't take any time away from you.. you just used the time you were already wasting... for something productive :)

My next big realization in the last 2 weeks.. we buy tons of ready mixes.. more then I thought, from Pizza dough, to muffins, to pancakes , to waffles. I can make all these things with my sour dough starter that's already sitting on my counter, the flour, sugar, powdered milk, oil and eggs we already buy in bulk and have on hand.. so why am I spending so much on packaging and preservatives when I could be making it myself?

My husbands newest realization has been in the form of cheese. We always bought the big bag of co jack shredded cheese from Wally World. for about $8.00. This month we spent $14 on a huge block of Co jack that had weight that was 3 1/2 times the weight of the bagged cheese. I put it in a container and have been shredding it as we go. Corey realized his stomach is not bothering him anymore. We are also using less cheese because it really melts and gets all gooey and tastes like cheese. So for the extra 3 min it takes to grate cheese were saving money, packaging, and not getting a ton of preservatives. (I use the tiny grating part so it spreads out easily)

Snack/Cookies I bet you have some in your pantry right now. You know like a bag of Chex mix and some yummy cookies... We don't. Do you know for the price you pay for the big bag of Chex mix you can make 2 Gal sized Canisters of it? And make it as spicy or as sweet as you want? We make a batch of Chex mix, a batch of Puppy Cow/Muddy Buddies, 2 batches of Cookies and a big batch of Garlic Cheerios (generic of course). We have a canister or tub for each and can see when were getting low. Most all of these take some of the same ingredients, like butter, garlic salt, season salt ect.

Bread another way to save money. It sounds like it would take a bunch of time but it really doesn't if you plan it out right. One evening you mix your dough and kneed it really well. Leave to rise over night. In the morning kneed again and separate into rolls or loafs. Bake before or after lunch or dinner if you don't get home till late. Once again you save packaging, and preservatives going into your family and you save money. We make rolls instead of loafs, they seem to take up less room in the freezer and they are a grab and go snack for the kids. One day a month we make enough for the whole month then freeze. Another day we make breakfast rolls for the month. The have Cinnamon, sugar and sometimes nuts in them.

It sounds like a lot of work but honestly I enjoy it and the whole family helps. Its another way we spend time together as a family

Wow so much to do!

2011-04-15T02:50:00.000-05:00

Wednesday was such a wonderful day! Corey and I and Colty were able to get the Right side of our front Rose beds cleared out.

This side has been much neglected the last 2 years since it didn't have anything except 3 Store bought Rose's and a few flowers in it. I can say that it would get fully covered in weeds and stay that way because nothing of great importance was growing in it. Well, this year that's changing. Last fall I managed to clean out a small area to plant Strawberries in, but the Violets came back with a vengeance and are suffocating out my Strawberries. Never fear though. Corey and his trusty shovel have been out working hard and almost all the Violets are out :) Not to mention thanks to the girls and Colty half of it already has wood Chips down :)

After working out there for a while Wednesday when Corey got up, we enjoyed a picnic lunch in front of the house. This was such a nice treat. Colty and Corey cleaned up the table we were given last year, while I made sandwiches on our fresh Sourdough Rolls. While enjoying our break we saw a few Finches enjoying the new swing set and sigh... the first Wasp of the season.

After lunch we watched Colty play on the swing set while we continued working in the front beds. Then when the girls got home Corey went back in for his nap and Rose and I started deep cleaning the kitchen...

It's been a wonderful week and so beautiful outside. The Rose's are blooming, the Onions and Garlic from last Fall are in full growth and the flowers the previous owners planted are all smelling wonderful. I'm really looking forward to the Poppies this year, they have multiplied again :) I also enjoyed finding that the bulbs I planted last year had babies :)

I plan on trying to get pictures up this weekend as long as the Snow/rain stay away. Happy Gardening and hope everyone else is enjoying Spring :)

Big thanks to Friends and Family!

2011-04-07T22:54:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to take a second to thank our friends and family who have been a wonderful help to us. Most people wouldn't be thankful for a ton of used buckets, windows, doors, wood and mop handles... but we are!

I can't thank everyone enough for embracing this part of us and thinking of use when you come across these things! You have saved us a lot of Money and Time and this make our lives easier. We appreciate it so much and don't know what we would do with out your support.. even when we seem nuts :)

Things we have been given and what we've done with them so far

Privacy Fence Pieces: Made a 5X3 Foot Compost bin, Built our 5 New Raised "Kitchen Beds"
Concrete Border: Put a border around the Front Rose beds to help keep the weeds and lawnmower out
Mop Handles: Trellis system for Peas
Fencing: Fenced around the garden and around the roof of the Garage to keep the birds out
Blue Barrel: Installed a Rain Barrel that we use to water the Roses
Buckets: Potato Garden
Newspapers: Varies, Lasagna mulched the front Kitchen Beds and feed the worms
Bi Fold Doors: Made a Craft Counter Top for my beading
Misc Wood: Soap Mold, Shelves, Raised Beds and more to come.
Misc Cabinets: Craft room Organization
Old Tractor Tire: Pumpkin Planter
Old Tea Bags (Unused) : Worm Food
Windows: Cold Frames to be completed this year

I know there's more but that's all I could think of right off hand.
Thank you all for supporting us in our adventure!

The Year of the Potato Buckets!

2011-04-07T22:29:00.000-05:00

I am looking forward to this weekend and praying it rains only a little. We are planting our first trial of Potato Buckets. I have really severe Carple Tunnel that I try and work around, so digging up trenches for Potato's every Fall is really painful. Corey's a great help, but a lot of them have to be dug out by hand so you don't accidently cut them. Not only does this take FOREVER... (we've dug for 4 hours before and only harvested 1/4 of our Potaotes) it also takes a lot of room.

So thanks to my father in law, we have about 20 5Gal buckets that were originally used for Pickles :) This weekend our goal is to get these fully cleaned drill some drainage holes, fill with woodchips, soil and worm compost and plant our Potatoes in them. I've read were other people have had wonderful harvests doing it this way. I'm just praying for a decent harvest and easier harvest then usual!

This also makes more room in the garden for the PopCorn and Sweat Corn to be planted. :)

Cucumber Fence

2011-04-07T22:22:00.000-05:00

I talked with Corey today and after much debate we figured out where to plant the cucumbers. With over 200 seeds and wanting to can our own pickles/relish for the year, along with saving seed for next year we need a large amount of room. (any one who knows us knows that Rose and I are pickle nuts, not to mention our family fav dinner Rueladin has pickles in it, so does our meatloaf and loaded hamburgers)

So the idea is that we try growing them in the front Rose beds over the rough sawn cedar fence. My only worry is the new neighborhood kids walking down the side walk and grabing them or ripping out the plant. I had an issue last year where they were stealing Great Grandma's Rose's off the bush... We'll still grow some in the actual garden to (just in case) but our main supply will be up front.

If anyone knows of a cheap and easy trellis system that we could make or reuse items to make please feel free to let us know. We have many more plants that have to be trellised this year. (my fav on so far was using the metal mop handles and string) :) It worked great last year and we should be able to use them again this year..

I'm so excited and can't wait to see things grow!!!

I LOVE April!

2011-04-07T02:39:00.000-05:00

April.. what an important month for us. Until recently I never really realized how important this month was for our family. This is the month we prepare for our gardens, finish projects inside that need done before nice weather, and figure out what all needs to be done outside.

I also get to play in dirt again (huge smile). I can't explain how good the feeling of dirt on my hands makes me feel. It reminds me that I'm still alive, that I have something to give, and that God's miracles are all around. I till or dig in this dirt, plant something and take care of it and in turn it takes care of my family. :) What a wonderful blessing to have this opportunity!

If your looking for seeds please check out this seller on ebay they help provide free vegetable plants to residents near them that have been hit hard by the economy. Wow! If every nursery and seed place would do this we could really combat hunger in the US. So far everything I've ordered from them have out preformed the name brand stuff that I normally buy and a whole lot cheaper!

Today we finished the 2 towers of the swing set. so the only part left is to build the frame for and hang the swings. Monkey bars and slides are all up. I'm glad we went with this unit, a friend had her newly built one from Lowes blow over this week. And neither of our towers so much as rocked in the 50 mph gusts :)

Colty keeps running up and hugging me. He's so happy :) It really makes the work and sometimes frustration worth it :)

I also managed to plant our first of 5 "Kitchen" Garden beds. The Egyptian walking onions are planted along with some red onions, the borage was transplanted, the Cinnamon basil transplanted and a few herbs and a LOT of Onion seeds were planted. It was so nice to get dirty and get thing sin the ground today.

I even spent the time this evening to organize our seeds. In an effort to make things easier I bought little zip lock bags and opened all the seed packages and put them in their own bags. This was no small task! With 38 envelopes of green onion seeds, 10 of carrots and so on.. this took a lot of time, but I'm hoping it will save time while planting and create less mess outside. Not to mention less seed waste since I'll be able to SEE any left in the bag. It was amazing how one big box of seeds now fits in a tiny box :)

It is supposed to rain all the rest of the week, so we'll probably keep painting in the house and get some minor things done, then next week finish the swing set and get more boxes filled.

Things to do this month:
Fill all garden boxes
Till back of garden
Replace Garden Fence
De weed and prepare front beds for Strawberries and Cucumbers
Move Strawberries
Transfer Rose to Gma's house
Turn Compost
Plant, Plant, Plant

I'm looking forward to a very productive Garden Year!

Garden Planning #2

2011-04-04T17:10:00.001-05:00

Update on Garden 2011...

I'm doing an update on the garden and our planning not only as a normal update in my blog but because there is an event on a blog I read that is giving away gardening things if you update your blog about what your doing to reach a sustainable life style. You can check it out more here : http://thanksfor2day.blogspot.com/2011/03/gardeners-sustainable-living-2011-win.html

This is one of the blogs I read and enjoy!

So basically so far this year we have all 7 Aquaponics beds going strong, Tomato's and Peppers are about ready to transfer, eggplant and luffa are close behind. (did you know you could start Pepper seeds in a aquaponics bed?? Even when everyone says they don't like that much water?? who knew!)

We have a flat of walking onions growing and hope to transplant that into our newly filled "Kitchen garden bed" out front by the end of the week. Since it's raining the other 4 of the "Kitchen Garden" raised beds won't be filled until at least next week. Were moving Strawberries out of the garden beds and putting them up in with the Rose's. The only inedible flowering things that we will grow any more are: Rose's, Daisies and the flowers Harper had already planted around the house. All other growing space will be used for edible plants only.

We have 4 raised beds put into our Large Garden area. This area will now be used as a "Canning" Garden. Most everything is this garden will be canned this fall. We ae also trying to grow Pop Corn again. This is such a yummy treat and tastes so much better home grown then store bought!

So this is where we are at. More raised beds to go in to make things easier on me and the strawberries moving to the front of the house and the new "Kitchen Garden" that will be used as an every day grab for the kitchen and the spices that I hope to grow and dry myself in the Dehydrator.

I love this time of year the weather frustrates but I can see my Gardens take place and grow in my mind :)

Well, Check out the other blog for great info and your chance to receive an item and work towards self sustainability!!

Life's Small Blessings are everywhere!

Animal Update

2011-03-04T22:55:00.001-06:00

This is the first time that I can really say our Christmas presants are still going strong 2 months after Christmas. The tank and the animals in it have brought us and our guests great joy. The kids have learned a lot about Tree Frogs, Fire Bellied Toads, Salamanders and Anoles. We have had 2 fatalities. 2 Tree frogs literally bloated up and died. They belive this was just caused by age of the animal,( they don’t always know the age of the frogs they get in.)

We about lost 1 Anole. Snowman was our first anole and it seems that he was a solitary animal. He decided if the crickets didn’t come to him that he was not going to go and find them. We found him shrinking and barely moving at the bottom of the tank on our weekly check. This was very scary for all of us. Corey and I took him in the next day, the store was really great and gave us a refund… not that we cared.. there was an animal we loved fading fast.

One of the guys (we’ll call him C) who we talk to every time we go in and has helped us get our big tank set up took Snowman home, kept him safe and eventually he plumped back up. C put him back in a tank and sold him to a family with a little boy who knew they were only going to have one Anole. He told the family that he was named Snowman and the little boy loved the name. So Snowman is in a good place and is still Snowman :)

It’s wonderful that they allowed us to follow up on Snowman, not just left him to die or wouldn’t tell us what happend they kept us in the loop the whole time. It’s wonderful working with a local non chain store pet shop!

So here is updated picture of our critters.

For all the other Iced Coffeeaholic's out there.

2011-02-25T19:54:00.001-06:00

Late in my teens I was introduced to "Iced Coffee" by my grandparents. Over the years I can admit I have become a Starbucks Junkie. I used to pick up a cup on my way to work and even get up 15 minutes earlier so I could run through and pick one up. Well, after a major financial crisis for us we had to do some huge belt tightening. That meant for me, no more Iced Soy Venti Extra Caramel Drizzle Caramel Macchiato's.

Until I did some thinking. I now have a daily supply of Iced Coffee that I can drink at any time, with less calories and at way less cost!

What you need (there's always a start up cost)

Carafe with sealed lid (if you have one without a lid the Coffee will not last as long and it will take on funky flavors)
12 cup Coffee maker
Coffee
Filter's
Milk or Soy Milk (I'm allergic to milk so I use Soy)
Your fav. Coffee Syrup (Walmart has started selling these, and even the sugar free one's )
Ice
Caramel Sauce (if you want)

Basically I make a full 12 cups of my favorite cheap Coffee.
Let is cool to a point where there's not a lot of steam coming out.
Pour some Syrup and/or sugar into craft (you can omit this if you don't like it sweet)
Pour in warm Coffee
Place craft in refrigerator
You can use it now over ice if you want or wait till it's cool.
In large glass pour 1 cup of milk
A few ice cubes
Pour in Coffee
Top with your Favorite Toppings

And your done. When you break down the cost one week of Homemade Coffee's cost less then one Large chain brand Iced Coffee.

The trick is when you get low make more :)

.

Seedling Watch

2011-02-08T13:59:00.000-06:00

So far so good on the seed starting this year. I'm crossing my fingers that everything stays kosher and there are no little bugs flying around to kill them all off. We've put them in a room upstairs that stays very warm with Grow lights set up. It's wonderful to watch the tiny plants emerge and grow. My 4 year old gets very excited when he sees a seed turn into a plant.

We have over 30 Peppercini Plants, about 10 to 20 each of our diffrent Bell Pepper Plants that we are trying this year. And a ton of Tomato's. I am dissapointed in the Siberia only 2 have Germinated. I was hoping to see if they really did produce Tomatoes till it was 38 degrees outside.

The 1st Aquaponic system has produced a ton of Leaf lettuce and Green Onion Seedlings that have been growing like crazy. I'm amazed at the root system I can see developing in the grow bed.

Pepper Seedling. I use plastic wrap over the top instead of plastic domes.

I am a littl worried about the Tomatoes being to spindly. They have their own grow light but it is about 6 inches above them. I am planning on raising the tray closer to the light today to try and get them so that they plump out and not up.

I still need to start the Loofah and some other Tomatoes. But so far so good.

Aquaponics this should be interesting...

2011-02-04T19:15:00.000-06:00

My husband was looking around on his Facebook the other day and saw something really neat. A friend of his had pepper plants with full sized peppers hanging off them; he called them "Winter Peppers"

After asking his friend more about them he found out that he was doing small scale Aquaponics.

(Aquaponics is basically using fish to feed plants, plants to filter the water for the fish and even feed the worms to feed the fish. ) A type of self contained cycle that needs just a little humane input.

When Corey came up and started talking about it I was curiouse.. but not excited.
Then I did research into it... for those that know me that normally means somethings going to happen.
I looked at my husband the next day and said "are you really sure your interested in this because we have an empty room..."

The next thing I knew he was setting up a day for his friend Matt to come out and help us get one set up. I kinda had an idea how to do one, but the mechanics of it I had not grasped fully yet (plus all the ones I saw online were huge scale) He kept telling Corey it's really easy. He was right.

After looking at what we had, he and Corey and another friend ran into town and were able to get the rest of what we needed. And then the set up. This took all of a half hour and that's with us talking and joking around.

Basically there is a 3foot long tub (called the grow bed) This has a layer of Pea gravel up and over a pipe with holes in it.

Grow bed with pea gravel over the drain

You can see on the upper right hand corner the water gets carried into the grow bed by a cheap $9 fountain pump with neb tubing attached (we have a ton of nebulizer tubing around the house, just cut off the ends and it's the same size as aquarium tubing.

LOL I just realized the camera put a date on the pic and it's wrong I just took these today ... oops
As you can see there are to fitings to make it water tight for the drain pipe. The pipe fits in and is not glued in so we can take it out and clean it if it gets full of roots.

It drains directly into the tub we are pulling water out of. Right now we have 2 dozen gold fish. I have heard that you can have an inch of fish for every gal of water.

There is an air hose on the side running from a $5 air pump (asthma tubing again)

And the black pump in the corner is the fountain pump that puts the water into the top tank.

That's all it is. 2 tubs, 2 pumps, Pea Gravel, water pipe and fish.. plain water.

(a note about the water. You can use plain water however let the system run 24 hours to evaporate the chlorine. The uckys in the water are okay but the chlorine can kill the fish)

Now your fish create a nitrogen rich enviroment that is then filtered through the plant roots. This cleans the water for the fish and feeds the plants.

The kids are really enjoying watching the fish and before the bed was planted helping wash the gravel.

We are planning on making another one and seeing the diffrence between the goldfish and minows. They both cost the same but do the plants grow better with one type or not? Not to mention if the minnows reproduce then we'd be growing fishing bait.

Yesterday we planted lettuce, spinach, onion, basil and sage seeds in our grow bed.

The lettuce seed is already Germinating ( I need a better camera in order to see them)

So it's exciting and we'll see how it goes if all works out well you'll be seeing a few of these in the room up stairs.

Email Address

2011-01-28T17:40:00.000-06:00

I was asked for an email address today to reach me at. So if you wish to email me directly you can at LifesSmallBlessings@hotmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you!
Cher

Looking back on last year......

2011-01-27T21:15:00.000-06:00

I've been looking back through picture's and things from last year. And realized that at the time we didn't feel like we accomplished a lot, and yet we accomplished so much more then we thought.

Last year we made the can bin


Can bin made from a blue barrel and a roofing boot :)

We made and installed a rain Barel


Rain catcher :)

Put in the porch and walkway


All the bricks were on sale and the black lining it was reused from the flower garden.

The bathroom was torn out and is almost done.


The bathroom torn apart.

Lined the Rose Beds with brick recycled from under the house.

Started putting in raise beds. We are now using old pieces of privacy fencing for the next sets of beds. We are trying to compete with the crab grass. We have lined around the beds and the walk with woodchips from the city of Champaign that we recived free. Thanks to a friend with a dump truck!

We started worm composting. Left over worms from fishing have increased to over 200 worms! And lot's of compost

We put in a new floor that was found on sale and of course we did it ourselves. This got rid of the last of the downstairs carpeting that was making us all sick.

We had a bunch of new experiences. Like Corey going over the road and returning home. Now he's driving local.

We had fun with some great extra helpers :) SO thankful for my family when Corey was gone! Josh wasn't afraid to wear PINK :)

We had our first big Onion harvest over 100 total this year!

My Rose's took off in full bloom this year! I learned that covering them is not always a good idea.

Great Grandma's Rose

This year I started old fashioned soap making. There's a huge learning curve and you have to be really carful since your using lye. But so rewarding! We had enough soap to give away at Christmas and for us to get through the year!

Another special helper! My brother is not afraid to wear his helmet around here :) It means so much to the kids to have these times with everyone!

Our biggest Tomato ever 2lbs! I couldn't belive it and it was so juicy!

This was our first harvest of the year.. There was so much more afterward! Tomatoes, Green Peppers, Bannana Peppers, and Cucumbers.

Colty after we finished muclching the front bed with woodchips. These are his fav. Daisies. He helped save sees so we can plant more this year.

Though Corey is still trucking he's local now Yeah!! I am so proud of him!

Another of Colty's fav flower!

We started growing Pumpkins in an old tractor tire. Thanks to a local produce farmer we now know that we planted our sweet corn when we should have planted our pumpkins :)

Sweet Corn.. We had a 6 point buck that would jump our little fence and bed down in here at night.

Though I can't find the picture we also made a 4x3 foot compost out of privacy fence wood. Just in time for the leaves and pumpkins to go in. Though we didn't know it, were not only composting but feeding the deer through the winter. They have been coming up and eating out of compost.

So even though we feel like we haven't done a lot this last year I guess we have.
Now to start on 2011 what new things will we do this year.....

Well so far I've been making Origami Pot's to start seeds in...

We also have more beds to put in.
Were growing some new plants and even trying out some new growing ideas. After looking back on 2010 I am really looking forward to the rest of 2011...

Excited

2011-01-20T00:36:00.000-06:00

Lol with a title like that your probably thinking it's something major... it's not for most people but for me it is.

Tomorrow night I get to ride with my husband as he drives his route... okay, most people think, yeah riding in the snow, in a Semi that hasn't been taken care of well (his place of employment believes in total break down instead of upkeep) and a seat with no air ride .....that's fun?

For me it is. Tomorrow night there will be no ADHD, there will be no Alzheimer's, No Asthma, no Overactive Immune System and no hug and kiss and saying "boy do I miss you". I won't have to call and talk to Corey on the phone at 11 so we can touch base and make sure were on the same page for the next day and for the weekend. Trying to plan a garden over the phone is sooo not easy!

Tomorrow night it's the two of us :) We get to talk, catch up and enjoy the open road and the sights around us. I get to meet a few of Corey's Fav. warehouse guys for this run and well relax... Tomorrow night I get to just be me.. and what's even better is I don't have to talk.. if I need quiet there will be quiet if I need to talk we'll talk.. and if we stop at a rest area to run in and get a pop or something, I get to hold my husbands hand with out a little person getting mad :)

It may not sound like much but I sooo look forward to these nights. They don't come often but when they do I cherish them!

Second big excitement was a day with Gma like no other!
I have not had a day as good as Monday was with my grandmother in so long. She was still lost... but she wasn't.. I know that doesn't make sense but she was Happy.. joking in a good way :)

We played 3 games of Spite and Malice and she "won 2 games :) I never thought I'd cheat at cards so my grandmother would win, but it made her day. After cards I was folding Newspaper pots and she asked if I would show her. She was so into it and even understood most of the directions. She only had an issue with one part but even my 9 year old had issues with it. :) We made 22 pots! together!   Then when my mom txted me gma told me I should have said "gma put those bottles away mom's almost home " She was joking.. and as I came out of the bathroom at one point I could hear her saying "Colty quit climbing the ceiling" :) These were funny, not mean jokes.. I had a piece of Gma I hadn't had in over a year.   And we talked.. It was nice, it was calm and except for a few minor things that were off.. we had a good day!

Third .. My husband and the support he has been showing me. Over the past few years he's worked on being and showing his support. During the good and the bad. Tuesday there was bad.. and when my stomach clenched and I was worried.. he told me go! You have to go, I'll take care of the stuff here and have the kids watch a movie while I take my afternoon nap... What a Blessing to me that he's supportive.. I was able to help and was relived at the outcome instead of worrying all day/night.

My other big excitement this week was a huge weight lifted and Blessing was a family discussion. My Parents, Grandparents and my brother and myself had a family dissucion. I've been praying that this would happen and that it go well. There are so many personalities, generations and ideals that it was hard telling how it would go, but everyone talked, everyone shared their feelings, and we are working toward a more freezable schedule and way of working together. :) There were moments with Gma that were very hard, but things I had dreaded saying turned out okay. I'm so praying everything works out. I know it's no where near perfect, but if we can give peace to our family and take some weight off those who are over weighted it would be awesome!   And my dad wants to take the kids camping! All of them :)

My big smile for the day was "puppy" asking pa for a hug and pa giving "puppy" and Colty the biggest hug and smile I'd seen in forever :)

and to add to all this a nice night with the kids :) Bit and I picked out pictures because she's the "Star of the Week" She had to take the big picture from the wedding with everyone in it :) She has pictures of the Great Grandparent's, my parents and our family along with a few from here and there when she was little....

So this week so far hasn't been a bad week. I've been truly blessed with a week worth thinking about and Small Blessings every where. Sometimes it just takes picking out the good moments for me to realize why I do the things I do :)

Night all!

Rosy ~ Posy: Maple Snow Candy ~ Recipe

2011-01-18T22:22:00.000-06:00

I think were going to have to try this over the weekend since we are expecting 3 to 5 inches again :) rose has been reading little house on the prarie also!

Rosy ~ Posy: Maple Snow Candy ~ Recipe: "Every winter I make a special batch of Maple Snow Candy for the kids. A delicious little treat of candied maple syrup that nobody can resist..."

My Crazy wacky way of looking at things.

2011-01-13T21:11:00.000-06:00

So I've really begun to realize how different I am. I think it really hit home today when our portable Ping Pong table net and Paddles arrived. I laughed and said "well, this is one way to get junk to quit piling up on my Dinning room table" And in less then 10 minutes my table was cleaned off and the playing began.. (should I mention the 75 Ping Pong Balls flying through my dining room?)

I really wish I had a video camera! The balls were flying every where and all the kids and myself were laughing and diving for balls...

One would say, but there's dirty dishes in the sink, laundry that needs done and dusting to do, not to mention I've had the paint for the dinning room ceiling for over 9 months sitting there...

I guess my wacky way of looking at things says... there is a chance to laugh and spend time with my kids. To see them laugh, talk about school in a non threatening way and get them to interact with each other in a positive way... the other stuff can wait. (these moments are not always easy to find with a child who has ADHD with some other issues rolled in)

I can say my house isn't "dirty" but it's defiantly lived in. I clean my floors everyother week, sweep them every other day (unless they are horrible). We try and wash dishes daily, and well there's always laundry (I have 3 kids and a hubby LOL). It used to bother me until I did some really hard thinking.

You see growing up for me wasn't hard per say, but there were a lot of things that shaped how I look at things now. Then after Rose was born I ended up in a situation iI would never wish on anyone.

I learned that any day things can and will change.. I 've continued to see it as I have grown up these years.
I've learned that having "things' isn't as important as having time and love.
Hugs and kisses and I loves you are a must a million times a day (Colty has taught me this repeatedly.. and reminds me when I forget)
Being frugal and saving money can be fun.
Almost everything has a secondary use, you just have to think on it.
Share your knowledge
Everything can be gone tomorrow, would you rather loose dirty dishes or the smiles and laughter?
Family and Friends are very important in your life, make them that way.
A good relationship with your husband is worth your weight and his in Gold.
Something home grown or homemade is worth more then store bought (and will usually last longer and work better)
You can get through anything as long as you have your family.
God things are real.. they happen, you never know when, you never know how, but they do.
There are blessings every where around you.. don't be so worried about how the world perseaves you but about how you and your family feel about themselves.
Laughter is truly the best medicine.
Try when you can to be there for the older memeber's in your family.
And when all else fail's turn on some music, crank it up loud and just dance :)

So I've come to my crazy wacky way of looking at things, and thankfully my husband likes and even gets a kick out of them. He's definatly impressed with the portable Ping Pong Table Idea and I belive there will be a battle this weekend to see who's the family Ping Pong Table Champ :)

So I guess I'll embrace my crazy wacky way of life. I wouldn't change it for the wordl. Now to go make some News Paper Pot's and watch a movie with Colty. Night All!

How To Fold Newspaper Pots For Seedling Using Origami (Origami)

2011-01-12T15:03:00.000-06:00

How To Fold Newspaper Pots For Seedling Using Origami (Origami)

The whole family can do this! Great way to make a seed statin pot and reuse materials you have on hand!

Yea! Seeds are here!!

2011-01-11T20:21:00.000-06:00

I can honestly say this time of year makes me so excited. I'm like a little kid I look at seed Catalogs and start seeing Seeds out at my favorite stores :) I'm like a kid in a candy store. We buys seeds in a different way. We can't afford to buy them all at one time so we do it in sections. (I tried some seed saving last year and am doing research on it for Tomato's and Peppers this year )

The first section is Tomato's and Pepper's. These are one's that have to be started in the house any where from 10 to 6 weeks before the last frost. This year I found a website with decent prices that had a variety of Seeds that I couldn't find any where else. One is for a Tomato that will produce fruit until it's 38 degrees outside... This could be a real winner for winter sustained Tomato's under a hoop house :) Yummy!

Our second round is normally must have crops. Onions, Carrots, Peas, Squash, Corn and Pop Corn. These are have to haves in our book.

Third is our new upstarts. Like eggplant, loofah, cabbage ect.

Last year I did a bit of seed scrounging and one of the local retailers had all their seed packets for 20 for a dollar... Oh yeah I was all over that sale. 38 packages of Green onions (A must in our diet) 12 packages of Carrots, my squash and zucchini, and even pumpkins. It was pretty much picked over but I was really happy with my seed haul!

Then our very last is if we have a failure and have to buy plants. I hate doing this, but last year when all of my seeds failed (I used peat pellets and nothing grew bigger then a tiny blade of grass) we had to buy plants and move around some very welcomed volunteer plants.

Last year one of my Aunt's had a big success with homemade Newspaper Pots.. Wow what an idea! So this year that's what Corey and I are doing. Nope we don't subscribe to any newspapers. We get our local for free, but it's tiny. So I'm thankful my Parents and Grandparents get the big paper and have been saving them for me.

I found a few videos on You Tube, bought a few Foil pans (instead of black trays. This way I can use them on the grill when it's time to can and cook my tomato sauce and won't ruin my other pans. it was only a few cents more for them and double usage :) and I did spend 84 cents on a hard plastic cup. (We have no glass cups and all our $1.00 for 4 cups from wall mart are weird shaped and squishy)

So after some playing around working on the pots I have found I can get between 12 and 15 pots on a tray :) so for the 100 to 150 seeds I need to start it won't be to bad and we've seriously cut our growing budget from the $50 for pot's and dirt and all down to $10.00 or so :) What a way to start out the growing season! So the extra $2.00 I spent on loofah seeds didn't make me cringe :)

Good luck to all my seed starting friends and if you know of any good ways to save seeds or a great blog with info please let me know! It would be wonderful not to have to buy seeds anymore!

I have been so blessed with all the ideas and things given to help us in our gardening efforts.

Salted Caramel Choco-Beer Cupcakes

2011-01-04T03:41:00.000-06:00

Salted Caramel Choco-Beer Cupcakes

These nlook like a must try!

Garden Itches

2011-01-03T22:34:00.001-06:00

This week we had a day that was 58 degrees!!! Now of course were back to the 30's. But it brought about thoughts of our Garden. I can tell you I'm just itching to get in there and get my hands dirty. I have planty of homemade soap with scrubbies in it to take care of the dirt :)

Colton my 4 year old is also feeling the itch. He's been talking non stop about the Garden. What he wants to plant and filling up buckets with woodchips and getting the Gaden Cart back out.

Most people look at me and tell me I'm nuts, it's only January!
But honestly my first crop will go in the last week in March and will continue to plant until the end of May. The thing most people who do not Garden on an at Home large scale don't realize how much work is envolved.

This year we are esablishing raised beds in our garden to try and compete with the overzealouse crab grass and hay. These all need to be screwed together, filled and fertalized.

I have been growing my worm composting over the winter and now we've added cricket compost to the mix. Our outside compost has been reduced by over half and we have tons of Newspapers to add to it. We are trying to get some manure in there also. This all needs to be mixed up and then eventually spread out.

We need to finish spreading wood chips as our walk ways so that the weeds don't grow and the garden cart can get through.

There is debate on putting in 2 to 4 beds in the front yard for Herb Gardens that would be dedecated to herbs and onions. (because of our fencing and Rose beds this area is hard to get a mower into and only Corey can use the push mower... this would mean less work for Corey and less worry for me if he were to have to go back over the road.

Our list of things to plant has grown again.....
This year we are planting

Luffa (new to us will be used for Christmas gifts)

Eggplant (new to us.. neither of us have ever eaten this but have heard it's great on the grill)

Sweet Corn (still kinda new planting wise.. Thanks to Bob Kliese's advise we hope to plant at the right time this year!)

Pumpkins (new last year .. again Bob Kliese gave us advise about when to plant and how to keep the squash bugs at bay)

Head Lettuce (New to us. We have shied away from this to do the chance of magor bug damadge giving it a try this year)

Cabbage (New to us. Same as lettuce)

Leaf lettuce (Always does good for us)

Carrots (last year we lost them all to the Jungle)

Garlic (first harvest last year was really tasty!)

Onions (at least 4 diffrent kinds! I have 38 packages of green onion seeds!!!)

Leeks (also new to us but I have been reassured it's just as easy as Onions)

Cucumbers (at leas 6 packages of seeds (We hope to can enough pickles this year to have them around for snacks all winter and give a few to family at Christmas) Estimating 50 Quarts )

Tomatos ( At least 4 types.. Heirloom, BeefSteak and grape and one I want to try called speckled Romans these look almost like Peppers) Total pants will be about 50. (Need at least 130 Quarts of my Salsa/sauce to get us through a winter)

Peppers (At Leat 40 Plants mainly Green and Red Bell Peppers. 4 Bannana Pepper Plants and 2 Jalepeno Plants) This will give me enough Peppers for the Sauce and at least 10 Jars of Hotter Salsa for Corey and Tommy

Peas (Probably 2 to 4 beds of these. We love to eat these as we work in the Garden and on Fresh Salads as something crunchy)

Pole Beans (Have yet to have a succseful harvest of these. Will try 1 more time.)

Caulaflour (Debating on this one we may try this next year. I hate trying to many new thing sin one year. If they all fail it feels like a lot of wasted space where we could have grown a guarenteed Crop.)

Potatos (looking forward to trying these in the 5 Gal buckets my father inlaw was able to get for us. I belive we have 20 of them. Will probably also plant a small bed of them and see which gives us a better harvest)

Strawberries (We have already started the move last fall into the new beds but will have to finish the move this spring.) Am going to try my hand at either a Strawberry Brandy or Cordial this year and Strawberry Jam. And of course one Strawberry Pie for my Grandmother.

Yellow Squash (only2 plants this produces way more then we and our neighbors can eat)

Zucchini ( Only 2 here also, these just produce like crazy and we can't give them away.. but I can make a ton of Bread :)

Pop Corn (Two diffrent varieties the normal popcorn with the yellow curnels and Strawberry Pop Corn that produces small red curnals that have a really nutty taste when popped)

Asperagus (We had planted a bed but only saw shoots the first year. Am going to plant a raised bed in hopes this will stay weed free and they will grow okay)

Black Berries (We planted a store bought one last year only to have it die. Am hoping to get one or two starts of wild ones from my Aunt and Uncle)

Rasberries (Planting another one this year. The one we planted last year had 1 piece of fruit. Hoping this year it will grow bigger)

Grapes (At Least 2 Vines. We planted 1 last year and it did great... unitl it had to be moved to make room for the new bigger compost bin)

Watermelon (something ate the seeds last year so trying again this year)

Herb Garden. Chives, Garlic Chives, horseradish, dill, oregano, 3 diffrent types of basil, Mint, Apple Mint, Spearamint and Choclate Mint just to name a few.

Looking into Elderberries, Peach tree, apple tree, pear trees, and a few more. Corey wants me to look into Hops fo making Wheat Beer.

I know I probably forgot a few LOL

So there is much planning to be done and not as much time as one would think to do it. My goal this year is to plant on time unstead of late May. And to get as much as possiable canned and dried instead of it going to waste.

Things still needed.
More wood for frames
Pitch Fork
Manure
Seeds and plants
Dehydrator
Food Processor (mine died while grinding soap for a rebatch)
Blue or White Barrles for water system
Hose's
More Worm's
Good Weather :)

So I'll say Goodnight as I start going through my first seed catolog of 2011 :)

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T00:18:00.000-06:00

We are celebrating the New Year with Kyera and Colty.. Sparking cider for them and Jack and Cokes for us (Thanks to an old bottle from Dad's house) Colty does not want to go to bed now LOL.. Loved the kisses and hugs after the Ball dropped! This was by far one of our nicest New Years.. except of course the one where I remet Corey 6 years ago! Wow does time fly by!

I still can't thank Heather and Krissy and Mike enough for that night!

I hope this year is filled with all the joy and blessings you can manage to count and then some.
I also hope everyone does something special for someone else this year!
May this year be wonderful for everyone Loves to all!!!

Cher

Troubled Kids are a blessing in disguise.

2010-12-30T12:48:00.000-06:00

I know the title sounds like a weird post but as I've said before this is not just about being frugal but about those things I count as Life's Small Blessings.

I was taught growing up that "Lost Boys" were meant to be in my life. These were boys that were troubled or had issues.. That my mom always made a point to be there for. Dad would talk about Sandi and her "lost boys" and I never really understood why she did it until I became an adult.

I can say that now my husband says the same about me, even though he's just as caring about my" lost boys" as I am. And wouldn't have it any other way.

You see there are many different types of people in this world non of which are "normal". But there are so many troubled kids with the way the world is changing. These kids need love and understanding, they need time with adults that show they care and can mentor them and show them it's okay to care. These kids may seem like a bunch of trouble, they are normally undisciplined, have attention issues, and are basically unruly in every way. Most people shy away from these kids or say that they should just go away.

Not us. These children are a blessing that most people underestimate. Most do not freely give hugs, smiles or good words, so when you receive that I truly feel you are receiving a blessing. Taking a little time out of your day, a day or more a week to spend time with a child who needs a little extra love and care won't hurt you.... it will heal you. Corey and I have been blessed with 6 lost boys in our lives since we have been together. These boys have reminded us how to laugh at ourselves and how to share love and caring with people outside of our home. They have brought us smiles and laughter and knowledge along they way. They have also taught our children acceptence of other people.

Right now we are blessed with one young man in our life. He suffers from Turrets, attention disorder, and Bipolar to name a few. His teacher at school did not like him and most people shied away from him. He rode by our house one day on his bike and asked to help work in the garden, our friendship with him has grow leaps and bounds since then. This year not only did we spend family time with him working in the garden, just like we do with our kids, but he showed up as we were carving pumpkins and though his hand shakes, between him and I we got the extra pumpkin carved and he was so happy. I don't think I've ever seen such a big smile! Since then his mother has asked us a few times if he could hang out with us while she ran errands that are hard on him to deal with. This has been a blessing to her those few hours of calm. Supporting a single mom is a blessing to me because I've been there and the help I received was always needed and welcomed.

Corey has worked with him on how to be a man, it's good to hug your mom, please and thank you's matter. And guys do say your sorry. When our guy had an issue at home and punched some drywall he came here to calm down. Corey talked him through it and offered to show him how to repair the damage he had done. We try to teach as we go. Yesterday, I spent an hour showing him how to care for and touch the animals in our terrarium. The laughter I heard when Hop jumped from wall to another was wonderful. He has helped Rose with homework, showed Colty how to throw a football and helped Kyera fill buckets of wood chips outside.

I can't say it's always easy dealing with a "Lost Boy" And there are times when we have to explain to our kids that certain behaviors that they have are not acceptable, but our kids have enjoyed and learned from these young men also. They have learned acceptance and understanding along with patience.

We don't go looking for our lost boys, they just show up on our doorstep... we love each one unconditionally for the amount of time they are in our lives.

We are always careful and on the look out with them because of the issues they have. And we never leave them alone with our kids or in our house, we are cautious along the way.

But so far the blessings have way out weighed the burdens.
I'm not saying go out and find yourself a lost boy or girl, but next time you see that troubled kid, think more about them, their issues may not be of their making but of those in their lives and if they stop and talk to you, take a moment out of your day, give them a smile, and truly talk to them. You never know it may be the start of a friendship you never thought you'd have... It may just be a blessing in your life.

Every lost boy I have met over the years has a special place in my heart and they always will.

A few pictures....

2010-12-30T11:14:00.000-06:00

I promised Pic's of our Animal Freinds and of the new tank.. I had a few from before the transfer and managed to get a few today before the batteries ran out in my camera.

One of our Tree Frogs


This is the 75 Gal. Tank on the old TV		Stand Water Jugs Stored underneath.

My Buddy Speedy he loves to be rubbed.

Another Tree frog on the tank glass a favorite Hang Out

The King of the Tank Herkamer

Salamander named Forrest

More of Speedy

Tree Frog

Tree Frogs

Can you see 3 Tree Frogs?

Now can you see Three Tree Frogs?

My Buddy Hop. He always manages to get on my hand at least once when I'm cleaning!

Hop on the wall

Speedy did not want off the leaf during cleaning.

Snowman.. he's shy

Speedy wanted attention while I was cleaning

Snowman

Red Bull Swiming

Red Bull (Female)

Bandit I love his coloring!

Snowman Hiding

Hop Changing colors again

Forrest and Bandit

I removed the filter that they hide behind so you could see both Kilgore and Forest

Forrest out and eating

The bottom coloring is so pretty!

Eating

This is the filter we use in the tank

Everyone hanging out while I was cleaning leaves off

Tank with Fogger going

These are the little Crickets we feed the animals. They crawl into the toilet tube and we can pick it up and shake it into the tank. This makes it really easy to feed the Animals. The only issue we have had is when non of the Crickets decide to hide LOL. The orange balls are a liquid source and the brown powder is food for the Crickets. This "Gutt Loads" them so they have more nutrients for the animals. There are 50 in this Critter Keeper.

The Tank with the Fogger running. This helps put humidity in the air.

The next few pictures were taken in our 10 Gal Tank before the transfer to the 75 Gal Tank

RedBull and Herkamer

Right now our tank it home to 4 Tree Frogs

Hop
Fred
Little Fred
Beauford

3 Fire Bellied Toads

Bandit
Herkamer (Alpha Male of the Tank)
Red Bull (our Female)

2 Paddle Tail Salamanders

Forrest
Kilgore (Colty named him after Corey because he wanted the Salamander really bad)

2 Anole's

Speedy (our Newest Anole that likes to be petted :)
Snowman (very shy and small)

1 Zebra Fish named Fishy (He loves to eat the Salamander food)

The Toad's Frogs and Anoles Eat live Crickets. We have been fortunate to find a bulk supplier for them :) a Thousand little crickets don't look like much but they get us through about a month and a half right now.

Our tank is set up with one filter and about a quarter of the bottom of the tank is water. The other half is gravel. We are expearamenting with a small spot of Peat moss to help hold moisture and bedding for nests. Plenty of plastic leaves, and vines to climb and lay on.. and one big piece of drift wood. We hope to add another piece and connect the two for more upper climbing area for the Tree Frogs and Anoles. They also love to gather on the ledge between the tank and the screen lid so it's always interesting weather or not they try to escape. We run a full size bulb and a heat lamp and have added a Fogger which really helps the humidity. We are contemplating getting a humidity /temp control to control the fogger and heat lamp durring the times we are not home.

All of our water samples have been testing perfect at this time. Once every other week I do a half to 3 quarter water change and take all the plants out and wash them off. We only use Reverse Osmosis water it the tank and fogger. We have had an issue with water spots in the inside of the tank and were told to spray the tank walls with water and clean with a razor blade. This worked beautifully today!

We just recived a gift certifacte to our favorite pet store! So more animals and stuff on Friday :)

Being frugal it's tempting to find the store with the lowest prices.. that doesn't make you have your water tested.. But here's the thing. At the store we go to everything is 1 to 2 dollars more then the big chain pet store but.. we can pick their brains and call with questions anytime for free and they are all extremely knowledgeable on all animals. ( We brought our first tree frog and Fire Bellied Toad home and the Tree Frog went swimming and the Fire Bellied was climbing the side of the tank... a worry for us because they should have done the oppisite. Called and were reassured everything would be okay. This was when we knew wed never go anywhere else)They go through classes on each animal at the store.

As long as we keep the receipt and packaging if anything goes wrong with something it's replaced at no charge. (We had a heat light bulb that after 3 months had come unglued from it's socket) This was replaced at no charge. We order our crickets through them and get a discount. If theirs an issue getting crickets in we receive a few to get us through for free (They misplaced an order for our 1,000 crickets and we went in to pick them up. They are rushing them in and gave us free crickets to tide us over until they arive)
It's also very reassuring to know the names of everyone your working with. We really feel like they are working with us and not against us. They will tell us no that's not a good idea.. but they have a better idea for us. They know what animals we have and will make sure we don't put animals in the tank that will not be agreeable with each other.. this way we don't waste money and animals are not getting hurt.. A plus for all of us! A good relationship with your pet store will really help you if you decide to do this.

We have been told that were the first family they have had go up to a 75 Gal Tank. Most stick with a 20. When we started the little tank for my son for his birthday I never thought we'd be going this big.. now my husband has been hinting at a 120 Gal Tank... wow what we could do with it... (and yes we do have the room)... but that's a dream that will wait for a looong while. (I want to make sure this stays a family hobby and not a mom is stuck doing it all hobby.I'm hoping to convince him to do the barking Tree Frogs in our empty 20 Gallon Tank for right now :) We are keeping our extra filter and lid and 10 Gal Tank around. This is ready for us if we were to have animals having issues or a sick guy. Also so that when I deep clean once every 6 months I have a holding tank that is suitable for everyone.

So that's our family Christmas in a nut shell. We didn't do the 90 Gal tank.. we did 75 Gal instead. (the only difference between the 2 was about 4 inches.. but an extra $100 for the extra 4 inches tall)
The kids so far have no unused Toys or broken toys:) And we have enjoyed so much time together both at the pet store and crowded around the tank at home. The kids help feed the Animals and the Crickets. They all received books on Amphibians for Christmas :) (Thanks NaNa!) And it's all they want to read and talk about!

As I have said before this may not be something for every family, but if you are considering it, it's not as much work as you might think, and it's rewarding in so many ways!

Christmas Family Style Part 2

2010-11-30T22:19:00.000-06:00

Our "Family Christmas" has turned into a huge hit with the kids. I never in my life imagined they would embrace this as much as they have. They are enjoying making things for the family for Christmas.. I can say my family will be one of the cleanest out there :)

After a lot of thinking Corey and I made the decision to go ahead and pick up the big gift today... Yes it's not going under the Christmas Tree.. I had mixed feelings about that... but knowing that it takes a week of diffrent things and watching the tank before adding animals and knowing that Rose would be leaving the day after Christmas until New Years and the other two and I would be gone for 3 days starting the day after Christmas this seemed like a logical thing to do.

I didn't want it to sit empty for to long.. so we talked to the kids yesterday and told them we were meeting up with Santa today at the Mall so that we could pick up the big family presant.. It being big and glass it would be safer this way :) They were so excited...

When my brother and husband bought it in all Colty could do was stare and say WOW MOM WOW!!! He can't wait to go see Santa Next week and say thank you! Wow a chance to say tahnk you to Santa :) How cool! I never thought of that :)

Rose was speachless for the first time since she was born!!! And Kyera just kept going "This is ours? From Santa? Really?

I can say other then the Family Christmas two years this has already been the most fun Christmas EVER!!
I can't wait till they pull the pictures out of their stockings :) Colty will have bubble stuff for the bath tub and the girls are getting winter hats and gloves :) At 1.50 a piece it was awesome they each will have three hats (some are also reversable) and three pairs of gloves 2 long and 1 short :) They can have fun mixing and matching while staying warm :) And their won't be a bunch of broken non used things at my house :)

I can say the tank is awesome and it was great hearing Colty tell us about the animals and how things work and how you have to set it up :) He's really learned a lot about animals and their care.. for a 4 year old to know this much about them is awesome! This truly feels like Christmas to Corey and I because it's bringing the Family together and teaching the kids all sorts of things!

I will post pic's of the tank fully set up later on after Christmas.. and picks of Colty and the girls with it..

Ramblings

2010-11-23T01:21:00.000-06:00

As we get ready for the Holiday where we are often prompted to share what we are Thankful about I honestly have to pause and take a minute. It's been a wild ride this year. Job ups and downs, starting our frugal living (which has by no means been a piece of cake) Alzheimer's has played a prominent part and so have major and sometimes scary surgery's for my Best Friend/Grandfather.

Like most first year marriages Corey and I have had our ups and downs, learning to live together again after so long apart has been interesting. We've come through so much and yet there is so much further to go.

Family dynamics, as always for us. never fail to throw us for a loop at least once a month.. As always life progresses at a pace we are not always fond of. Yet, it still moves.

I love to find life's small blessings every day and "God things" you know those things that can only be explained as awesome and amazing in our lives. And yet there have been times I've struggled this year to find them... I pray next year that I can find the time and the strength to look for those everyday instead of when I'm having a rough go of things...

So as I sit here and write feeling sad at the slow loss of my best friend, I need to take this time to truly count the blessings that I see in our lives.

We are blessed with AMAZING Friends! If I haven't told you recently how wonderful you are I'm sorry! We are abundantly blessed with amazing people in our lives that love us and care about us, who lend a hand or s shoulder with out even asking they just do.. they see a need or that we are overwhelmed and they fix it.. and I can't thank them enough!

I am blessed with the oppertunity to help take care of my Grandmother who has Alzehimers.. This doesn't feel like a blessing at some times but when I look outside of the disease and how it makes her act.. I am blessed to be able to do this to serve a servent... It's not easy but on those days that there is clarity it's wonderful.. I also know that looking back on this I will be happy with myself and that I did my best to help instead of runing away from it.

I have been blessed that my Grandfather is still with me. Though seeing everything and going through everything has been hard I am blessed that he is still with me for yet another Thanksgiving. This is truly a God thing to me!

I have been blessed with an amazing husband who makes it so that I can go and help take care of my Grandparent's. A man who will laugh and cry with me and is more understanding then I give him credit for. We may have our ups and downs.. but the support I have from him going through all this has been amazing.. i don't think I could do all of this with out him.

I have been blessed with a new start and new relationship with my Mom.. this to me is a huge blessing that I hope continues.. For everything there is a reason.. This year has brought us closer together then even I could have imagined ever possiable.

I am blessed with a Brother who can and will make me laugh :) This has been a huge help this year.. and when the bug hit's him he even shows movement.. those moments spent with him just being us has done wonders for me this year.

I am blessed that Corey has a job... this sometimes feels less like a blessing when things are all screw up and when they are aggravating.. but it's a blessing all the same.

I am blessed that we were finally able to get PeeWee in with a specilist and she's doing better with the ADHD....

I am blessed that Little Bit is becoming her own person and is very helpful with my grandmother.

I am blessed with a wonderful 4 year old son who may worry about Great Grandma stealing his food but is more then happy to talk to her and give her hugs. Who acts like the perfect gentlmen at resturants and knows just when mommy needs a huggey.. He's also been so wonderful at adapting to the strange way our lives wok right now.

I know there is more but these are truly the things that stand out to me.. Life's small blessings that I often take for granted..

May your Thanksgiving be Blessed and may we all see Life's Small Blessings everyday and not just on the Holidays!

Chrsitmas Family Style...

2010-11-15T22:25:00.000-06:00

So the year before Hubby started Trucking we did a family Christmas.. This year we have decided to bring it back and it's here to stay.. We will no longer have a consumerism Christmas in our family. Yes Santa will exsist but he will be there to bring us closer as a family.

Our last family Chrsitmas brought us the Wii.. with only kid freindly games allowed and movement of course encouraged it has brought us some wonderful family times.. and the adults and kids love playing together.. I don't regret it at all..

While this is still being played with.. last years toys were broke within days, lost within hours or taken away after a few months.. Are we teaching our kids anything? Are we wasting money? Are we becoming closer as a family? The family Wii Christmas my answers were yes, no and yes... Last years Christmas answers were no, yes, and no...

So the family Christmas has been adopted and will be here to stay. This years theme is Terrarium. Yes an odd theme but after thinking about it a good one. Instead of spending a bunch of money on junk we are buying a bigger aquarium and expanding our family of tree frogs, lizzards, fish, and Fire Belly Toads. With a 90 Gallon tank that will fit on a tv stand my parents gave us almost 5 years ago that was of course theirs first, we can save a lot. Then with the sale at our local shop and the deals they are having it will still be cheaper then what we would have gotten for the kids.

Each child will receive in their stocking one small item tailored to them, such as flash cards for Colty, a doll outfit for Kyera for her AG doll and Knee socks for Pewee. They will also have bright pictures of a few animals.. such as a tree frog or anole or fire belly toad and that child will tun one picture in and they get to pick out one of that animal at the pet store. Since we can only add 3 new animals to the tank at once this will make it so each gets to pick something different every time :)

How does this add to my family? Well instead of watching TV were watching our guys, were talking about them and were learning about them, we ALL help feed them.. and yea mom is the one sticking her hands in their to clean it LOL But we are spending time as a family and building memories with our kids..

I was so happy when Corey suggested another "Family Gift" from Santa.. because Christmas is not about the gifts but about the time spent as a family being a family and showing our love, it's about the sweet children and their smiles and about the true gift of love... This to me is no small blessing but an abundant one!
r

and update on the goings on here

2010-11-15T22:06:00.000-06:00

A semi quick post...
Things have been progressing a lot around here. The more I read the more I learn. Home made soap is curing fast, we've made a new compost about 5 foot across and 3 foot deep! Out of recycled fence pieces from a friend, and have enough left over to make raised beds with. The Jungle is cleared and the land tilled. The weeds are burned, and the worms are producing TONS :) of Compost on our 7th bin full! I found the Garlic that had been lost in the jungle and replanted :) It's all coming together even during this hectic time of family surgeries and Alzehimers. We WILL be Ready for next planting season.

My husband has realized the enormity of Gardening large scale and has consulted a local produce farmer for dates to plant things :) I've also heard the grumbles about his friends not always understanding that it's not "easy or fast" work and they don't get that there truly is 3 seasons to gardening, the prep/plant, Harvest/plan, Healing/action... A lot of people thing it's till and plant but there is SOOO much more then that. And i'ts so worth it!

Things do suffer here and there. I have dust on my shelves, there is always a small pile of dirty dishes to do and yes large piles of laundry.. but I have hugs, kisses, giggles, and shared "family" time :) Yes my bathroom has been under renivation for 4 months do I care? no! I have a sink and toilet in it that works... yes it needs mudded and the other peices of drywall up.. do WE care? Nope..

Watching the family grow and work together in a day and age where age separation is a constant where children do not fully participate in families... seeing my kids work and play along side myself, my husband, my brother and my surrogate brother, and the little boy down the street that begs to help.. is worth every minute of Green Board showing... I thank God everyday for my husband that puts our family time as a priority and not showing off and making ourselves look better.. a man who understands and does not question frugality but embraces it hole heartily... who puts his family first in his time.. I truly am Blessed! With out him I would not be able to help with the family issues. I would not be able to go 3 days a week and more on the weeks there is a hospitalization... to be with my grandpaesnts and help my mom cope with Alzehimers in their lives. I would be working full time and not teaching my kids the value of family that I feel they should have. THANK YOU HONEY!!! We may never be rich with money but we will always be rich in love :)

On a break

2010-10-18T15:18:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted much in a while even though much is being done. Right now we are prepareing for Spring.. Funny I never realized that a garden had 3 seasons.. Spring planting.. Harvesting and then Healing. Right now we are working on the healing and getting some new ideas put in place.

I promise to continue the post on frugal weddings but it will be a while. Right now my life is taking many different directions. I plan on writing more this winter since right now is crazy.

To help save money and prosue a frugal way of life I have started making homemade soap. Though this seems like a huge undertaking even scary it's been fun and iteresting.. this will also help my family not spend to much on CHristmas presants.. We love to do little homemade things for family and this will be one...

The other thing that takes up time for me right now is my Grandparents. I love them dearly and much has happened.. I am now Spending Tues, Wed, and Thursday helping do light tasks.. dr. Apt.. ect.. to help take care of them. They live with my parents who both work so this is inabling my mother to work at her job as a pastor.. It helps also to save money in cost for care. Grandpa has many health problems and my grandmother has Alzehiemers.... This has been a learning process and a test in patience :) I am blessed with the ablitlity

Frugal Wedding Flowers

2010-09-03T16:57:00.000-05:00

Back to my list of frugal wedding how to save money. Next to the dress and the place and the food what is the next huge expense? Flowers.. My modest budget of $350 was going to be enough for the bouqets and boutonnieres and that was using the mot inexpensive flower a daisy and red rose as the other flower.. that's it. Nothing for in the church or on the tables. I was sticker shocked.. especially since that was the quote from County Market!!

If our wedding had been this year I could have provided all the flowers growing them myself. But last year we were not as far along garden wise. So what to do? Not decorate the hall and church or figure something out.

That's when I started my internet hunt. There had to be some way to save money on flowers. And I figured it out. Bulk Flowers.. I bought 350 Roses for $200.00 :) I did research and realized I needed a dozen Rose's per bouquet and 24 Rose's for my own Bouquet. Then we needed Rose's for the reception and for the church.

I ordered from www.abacoflowers.com

They were so wonderful, even when my debit card company didn't want to release the money. They worked so hard and the shipment arrived and the flowers were wonderful. Just a tip here you need about 4 5 Gal buckets to put the flowers in so they can get water and either a refrigerator or a very cool room otherwise order for delivery the day ahead not 2 days ahead.

I bought ribbon, floral wire, floral tape, pins,burlap, those green spike water holders, beads that expand in water and enough green/blue old fashioned canning jars to fill the tables. Total I spent $250 on Flower arragements :)

In the church we made burlap bags that said FEED on them and placed 3 Rose's in Green waer holders inside the bag ( I could not have gotten this done with out my cousin, her friend and my aunts!)

It was so pretty seeing these lining the pews as I walked down the isle.. simple, fun, inexpensive and pretty :)

The bouquets my maid of honor and yes oddly enough best man made the night before :) We did not trim the ends until right before the ceremony. They were transported there in our old canning jars with the water beads in them to keep them hydrated.

Check out how to do them on You Tube! There are tons of videos there. I do suggest a trial run with Rose's like from walmart to make sure you know what you are doing and you'll like the result. That way you don't order flowers first and decide you just can't do it.

I was blessed that my best man had been in FHA and had oddly enough learned how to make boutiniers. There are videos on You Tube about how to do these also. Make sure there is no fruit in your refrigerator and place these in ziplock bags and they work out wonderfully :)

So that's how I did our wedding flowers for a total of $250.00 our cost :) Will post the rest of the pics later my internet is running slow :(

Changes

2010-09-03T10:37:00.000-05:00

We have been so busy around here I have not had the time to blog. So far we have finished cucumber harvest. Some not so nice squash bugs killed off the pumpkin vines so the pumpkins have been harvested and our sitting out front.. I love the scarecrows Rose and Corey made with the backdrop of corn stalks :) Double uses get me every time:) It's been very warm here so my time outside has been limited to say the least. We have planted the first of 3 4X4 Raised onion and Garlic Beds.

The surprise happened when I started to get the 8X4 bed ready for strawberries I plan on transplanting to there. I put in some of our wonderful worm compost and ended up growing 4 cucumber plants :) This is a nice surprise.. I don't know if they will produce or not but I can't wait to find out. If they do I'll have to remember to set seeds back to plant them at this time again next year.

My father in law was a huge money savor for us and was able to get us about 20 pickle 5 gallon buckets for our Potatos next year :) I was so worried we would have to plant in ground again! So excited to try the bucket trick.. no more killing my wrist harvesting Potatoes :)

So things are coming around nicely. We have plans for an in-ground worm bin for next year.

But my biggest reason for being slow not only on the prodgets but on the blog is the simple issue of Colt being the only child home. Both sisters are in school as of this year and he's having sister withdrawal bad. I have been lucky to do dishes, and fold laundry at this time. I am hopeing like everything else he will adapt to life with out the girls at home. He enjoyed yesterday when we harvested another crop of worm compost.. the worms were doing the "butt dance" according to him and a few tried to run away.. across the table.. we also found that we were growing snails.. how cool! I know we were building a little eco system but wow!

We have tried one batch of popcorn and you should have seen my husbands face! He's never had homegrown popcorn before and is not a big popcorn fan... But umm I belive we'll be planting an extra bed of popcorn next year :) His smile was so big and hearing " I could eat this everyday" was awesome...

I'll try and moble blog some of the pic's of our flower Gardens.. I believe I am being paged by a dragon at the moment.. time to go play :)

Oh Deer

2010-08-20T01:07:00.000-05:00

I've said before that we live in a small rural town in IL.. how rural? Well I've been trying to get a picture.. and will continue, but the other day when my husband went out to pick tomato's in our garden, that has a chest high fence around it. he came very close to a 6 point buck. In the garden... we've seen a few things knocked around in a path and the fence looked like it had been messed with.. well it seems the deer like where we've been digging out dirt between two types of corn and staying in there... then jumping over the fence to get back out... It makes me smile to know we are giving comfort to such a grand animal.. Even if a few things get squashed. Poor Corey though his sweet corn is being knocked over... I'll get pic's up of the "deer trails" in our garden ASAP!

Monday morning 6am wonderings..

2010-08-16T07:39:00.000-05:00

So I've been up to my normal blog reading this morning. I subscribe to many frugal living and Homesteading blogs that I draw great inspiration and laughs from.. The problem is I get inspiration and my husband ends up on the perspiration end of things :)

This one blog I read was talking about how older things were built to last and newer things aren't.. she also talked about the skill set most people have today versus way back when...

Think about it.. in and old house most everything could be repaired and the people living in the house could do the repairs.. why? Because they were shown how.. and then did it themselves...

In this day and age there's TV, computers, game systems you name it.. so when our kids are kids are they learning the necessary skills for day to day life survival on their own?

Will they be able to fix it themselves or pay like crazy and hope someone fixes it the right way for them?

Corey and I hope we are passing on the necessary skills for our kids, and this "House that Harper Built " (more on that another time) has been a good learning tool.

To have to replace things that he "repaired " because they weren't done right, we have in turn been teaching our kids how to do things like, put in a sub floor, put in laminate wood flooring, take down drop ceilings, install drywall and toilets, sinks ect..

We have done all the work ourselves, most of the skills Corey and I had been taught at one time or another.. (I can't thank my dad enough for the skill set he taught me!) the other stuff I have gleaned info off the Internet.

I know I am an oddity around the family. I think I have amazed my father in law.. he always asks my husband "who's helping you?" Cher, is, she knows how to do all of this... hmm

The joke in his family is his dad buys power tools he wants for his wife on anniversary's and mother's day. I've already told my husband and father in law.. that's fine but I'll be the one using them.. and coming up with ways to use them... I don't think I'll be getting any power tools for anniversaries from my hubby :(

I guess where all this is going is.. before you pick up the phone... can you do it yourself even if you have to do a little reading? The other thing is.. turn off the electronics and tell your kids to hand you the socket wrench.. when they ask why show them... encourage your kids and yourself to learn a new skill every month.. do it together if you can.. this is what being frugal is all about.. doing things yourself the way they used to be done... Not zoning out killing zombies on the TV.. what???

Now I'm off to dehull popcorn, work in the gardens, hopefully process tomatoes and finish our composting bin thingy Corey came up with at 10 pm last night and next Monday I should be mudding and taping the bathroom :)

Spend time with your kids and teach them something.. they are our Life's simple Blessings!!!

Tomatoes have blown up!

2010-08-13T19:32:00.000-05:00

I wish I would have had the forethought to take pictures of all the tomatoes littering our kitchen... or the ones still on the vines outside almost ripe... My question is why does it seem they blow up on the worst and hottest days of the summer?

I've decided next year to plant a set of plants every few days instead of all at once... I'm wondering if I plant one of each type of tomato and pepper and then 4 days later do it again if I could in turn make waves of produce instead of a huge wave that I can't climb out of?

I've lost about a basketful of Tomatoes this year either to bugs or to harvesting them and being unable to use them.. there were a few times we didn't have jars and just couldn't afford them or I was extremely busy...

At least I was able to talk Corey into trying to compost again... The last time we tried it wasn't very organized and lets just say it's now a very well producing weed pile :(

Between this and the worm bin I hope we can compost and not waste as much as we had been.

Yesterday I taught my nine year old daughter how to wield a knife like a pro.. at first I had her going slow but she picked up the pace and we were able to finely chop up 2 1/2 gallons of chopped tomato..

I had hoped to process salsa today but with an asthma attack last night saw the need to take Colton in today for a check up. With the Dr. being over an hour away we wasted much of the day.
So tomorrow after a visit with my mom and grandparents I hope to process a few batches...

So with another 30 tomatoes staring at me in my kitchen I'm ready to call a truce with the Tomato Craze and spend time with the kids instead... if one rots over night it will go in the compost.. I shouldn't get upset that I missed just one.... time for kid time!

Will continue next week posting on frugal wedding's and ideas that we used... also more on this years harvest and savings.. we also have the Can recycle bin, and my hopes of a big outdoor worm bin... (I'm sure my husband is driving down the road cringing right now.. knowing that I'm on my favorite blogs getting ideas... "it's only a few cinder blocks and a big hole and a pvc pipe honey and we've been offered 100 cinder blocks for free if we can go to town...." at least now he won't fall asleep while working night shift :) See being frugal has it's advantages.. and having an ox for a husband makes it even better!

See simple blessings are every where :)

Ideas

2010-08-11T03:06:00.000-05:00

Before I go on to the rest of the wedding I want to put a little bug in your ear.

If your a couple who has been together for a while you may very well have all the dishes in the world you need... and other such things that people give at weddings..

Instead why not ask family with gifting parts of your wedding?

A friend of ours suggested it one day. She asked us what do you really need for your wedding?
My answer at that time was the cake. I had tried making one myself which turned out great but with everything else I was doing I was worried about time. She and her other half took care of our cake as a wedding presant.

My grandparents helped with the photography and the dinner.

And my praents paid for the DJ

There were other bits of help along the way...

But with all this help we made the cost as low as possiable on everything and as more post go up you'll see how!

The Photographer www.timbrya.com

2010-08-11T02:52:00.001-05:00

Photography is important to any wedding.. and yes those beautiful pic's of those special moments will stay with us forever..... but.... think before you get a photographer... do you like those staged photos where everyone looks like they have a stick behind them??

I sure didn't, Corey and I wanted fun and carefree, someone who would understand and get into our theme who would make it about us and not everyone else...

The other issue we wanted to tackle was the cost... Do you know that photographers will charge you loads and then not even give you the negatives??? We looked at a friends picture's.. they were all staged... they were on a dvd but password protected so they couldn't copy them... they spent over $2,000 just on the photography not to mention the photos.... Um nope we couldn't afford that...

What we could afford was a guy who took the pictures (free engagement photos) and gave us the disk.. yep all the negatives... and you guessed it under $1,000

If you live in Central IL. Please check Tim out, he is an awesome fun loving guy and his pictures speak volumes... just check these pic's out...

Tim found a close by place that was so much fun between the wedding and the reception.

His ideas were endless and all fun and all with us in mind...

The funny thing is this would be something we'd do on our own at home LOL

Corey and I

The ham of the night Colty

My favorite on from after the wedding!

Tim took the time to get to know us, I hope your photographer does the same! Check out the small guys, honestly they do some of the best work out there!

http://www.timbrya.com/

or Tim Brya Photography on facebook!

The dress

2010-08-11T02:22:00.000-05:00

Ah the dress, the most important thing to a girl on her wedding day and I was no diffrent... :)
Except I was diffrent. You see between Corey and myself we have 4 kids... not what I would consider a good case for wearing white... however, had I wanted to wear white I would have... I just didn't want to.

With a Western Wedding theme... since we live in the country and my hubby is an ex bullrider...so boots and jeans just fit us!

My dream dress was a deniem dress with a train that I could put up when it was time for the reception. But it had to be pretty and I love the corset backs on the dresses now.

I checked with every store imaginable and was laughed at many times.. though a few offered to have the dress died blue.. I wanted deniem...

And my budget for the dress itself.. was $500.00
Here's what I found.

I did pay $100 for alterations also.

You can find this dress and many more at

Satinandspurs.com

They carry old fashioned dresses and deniem dresses... for less then the big wedding stores.. with a little imagination and someone who can do alterations it can be your perfect dress to.

The Alterations I had done... Shorten the dress, and put corset stays in the back so the back tied up instead of zipping up.

This dress is being reused by my close friend. I'll post a pick after the end of Augast. She fell in love with it also.. so now she has something borrowed, and blue :)

Frugal wedding

2010-08-11T01:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, it's hot outside.. which means I can't be outside.. going stir crazy.. so with not wanting to think about weather the heat will cause a harvest issue... and in light of my soon to be one year anniversary.. and my oldest on a wedding kick. I decided to do a few post on a frugal wedding.

Frugal wedding sounds kinda like a joke right?? I've seen the budgets for our friends and about feinted.
Honest our $7,000 orginal budget sounded modest by far.. now what if i told you it cost Corey and I less then half of that..

Your thinking.. it wasn't very pretty, she settled on a dress she didn't like... it wasn't tailored to them... or their parents paid for everything... uh nope.

I will be including links for things I think are important so follow along and I hope you pick up a few ideas to help lower your cost.

Rain Barrels How to :)

2010-08-09T18:50:00.001-05:00

Sunday was a great day, had a wonderful visit with family who admired our newly installed rain barrel....
They were even more impressed that it only cost us $5.00 out of pocket.. granted we were gifted with a few items and had the others laying around. If you can get the barrel used it should still only cost you $20.00 at the very most.. ( I love $20 and under money saving projects :)

It was very easy to complete and took Corey and I about 15 minutes.. that included wading through the mess in the garage to find necessary things.

What you need...

A barrel.. we used a barell that had stored windshield wiper fluid from a lube place. It's a big Blue barrel:) This was given to us.
A jig saw
A saw able to cut through metal down spout
A flex able tube
A spout that will attach to our hose and turn on and off.
screws
caulk
Pencil
spade bit and drill

Basically you need to get your barell and find out where you want to set it. Because there was a walk in our way we moved ours off to the side instead of directly under the down spout.

Make sure to rinse your barell out if there was any chemicals in them before. Ours had held wiper fluid so we made sure to rinse it.

Take your flex pipe and gauge where you need to cut on the downspout to reach your barrel. Remember this should be higher then the top of your barell.

Cut your down spout using the saw. Attach pipe with 2 screws.

Take flex tube, put the end on the barrel where you want it and trace around the bottom of it. Take jig saw and cut out hole... Make sure you make the whole tight.

Take the flex pipe and put through hole. Caulk around.

Next take your spigot and find the matching spade bit. Cut hole for spigot, lay a bead of caulk around spigot and put through hole. Screw on. The caulk should flow out around it to form a seal.

There is your rain barel :)

Please let us know how this works for you and if you have any ideas to make it better. We are always open to suggestions!

Our total cost was for the spigot, we had the flex pipe originally at the end of the downspout to direct water away from the walk way. We are planning on building a total of 6 of these to help water our gardens outside.

Happy Water Gathering!!

Smoked Tomato Sauce/ soup

2010-08-08T02:06:00.000-05:00

Okay a quick post...

Do you have ton's of Tomatos and don't know what to do with them? Don't really want to heat up the house right now cooking, then canning them? Are you grilling outside? If so check this out....

What you need:
Cookie pan or broiler pan
thin racks, cookie or even the ones from your toaster oven
Foil
Small grill proof bowl
Charcoal
Smokeing wood if you have any
Tomatos
Green Peppers
Onions
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Balsomic vinegar (if you want a little bite)
Freezer containers or bags

Take cookie sheets or deeper pans that will fit on your grill, also a small grill safe bowl or glass container.
Line cookie sheet/pan with foil and place a cookie rack on top.

Take tomatos and core (remove top stem and any other green part) then cut an X across the top but not all the way down. Place these cut side down on your rack. If you want you can dip them in olive oil and favorite spices.. or sprinkle salt and pepper over them. Fill your rack and make sure the tomatoes are touching.

slice peppers into big pieces, cut onions into rings and peel garlic. Place these in the bowl with a little salt and fill with water (this adds to the sauce and keeps them from burning... you may have to refil this while they are cooking if you notice its low)

Now on your left over hot coals or gas.. place pans and bowl on grill racks... Add wet wood for smoking if you have it. and a little more charcoal if you need it.. just not to much. Close grill

Check grill every 10 minutes or so until Tomato skins are coming off or turning brown/ black.. Peppers and onions should be well cooked and soft.

Remove from grill

(Hint: If you have either a pan or tray bigger then what you put on the grill, line it with an old towel and place hot pans on it to take inside)

Process all Tomatos, onions, peppers and garlic in a food processor or blender.. add some balsomic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and any non burnt drippings in the pans.

Place cooled sauce in freezer safe contaners/bags

And there you go and awesome smelling/tasteing sauce or soup! It's easy and fun.. and won't heat up the house. My kids love helping with it! And best of all now you have a way to use all those Tomatos and those coals that are still hot and dying down!

Today's blessings for us:

Kisses and loves from Ozzie the dog :)
A special delivery of Sweet Corn from a family in town. 3 1/2 dozen. (we cut off the corn on 2 dozen and froze in freezer bags. The others are for tomorrow :)
Figured out where the outside compost will be going
Talked about the front yard and decided the grass will be leaving it :)
Colty promised to pick up a toy before he even got it out :)

What a day! Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.. and eat grilled chicken with this sauce and cheese on it!

Today's small blessing's

2010-08-07T00:40:00.001-05:00

I called the blog small blessings for so many reasons. My main reason was that since we started our new way of thinking and of life, Corey and I have been very blessed in so many ways.. but there are still tough days... those days I encourage my husband to find the blessings that are hidden in them. Can you find the little blessings hidden in your day?

My small blessing today...

While taking pictures of things for the blog I had a butterfly land on my favorite purple Rose's.. Colty noticed and had a big grin!
Watching my son yell to his dad one more hug! and then him closing the car door with a hug smile on his face.
Seeing our elderly neighbor sitting on the stool in the garage watching the kids.
Colty helping with the worm compost
an unexpected visit from a friend and her daughter... finding out once again that I'm not alone in my struggles with a child who has ADHD.
Katie letting the dogs loose and Rose who was supposed to be helping find the dogs found a baby toad and handed it to me...
Finding out my in laws will be coming out Sunday... where as before that rarely happened.
time curled up watching a movie with Kyera

Life is full of little blessings even on a bad day.. I hope you are able to find yours!

Worm Composting 101 :)

2010-08-06T15:39:00.000-05:00

Okay... sounds nuts right?? I sure thought so until I did a LOT of reading up on it... There are many sites dedicated to it.. but with everything on the Internet it needs to be taken with a grain of salt... use your imagination and things you know when you read these. You can look under "Worm Composting" "Worm Tea" And "Vermiculture"

There is no exact science to this, it's different for everyone because you have to do it the way that's right for you. One funny tidbit from our family before I go more into this. We started our worm compost in April as a family project while my husband was over the road. In May he had to go into his grandmother's crawl space to change furnace filter's and found a "Worm Ranch" that had been his uncles over 30 years ago.

So even though it may not be well know it has been around for years!

It's really pretty simple and you can make one from things you may already have lying around... or purchase for under $20.. You don't have to have one of the $100 systems that are our there. My system can be added to at any time for $5.00 or less :)

Our worm "bins"

We started our worm composting with $20 and a little knowledge from the web.

To build a worm composting system. You need. At least 3 plastic tubs of any size.. they just have to be the same size as each other, the more worms you want, the bigger the tubs you need. Also, Use colored bins, they help keep out the light which will help your worms be more active and keep the moisture from evaporating as fast.

Rubbermaid bin

You need 2 Drill bits. One that is a little bigger around then your worms, the other can be a small one for air holes... make sure it's not big enough for your worms to go through because they will try.

Non color print newspaper.. unless you know for sure that they use soybean based inks instead of the normal colored inks that can be toxic.

Dirt. Can be any untreated dirt from outside, though do check for bugs, and other life before adding it.

A piece of card board that is about as big as your tub, that will fit in and is not colored.

Some thing for risers... this can be clean cat food cans or wood pieces that are laying around

A place that is cooler and protected to keep your worm bin

And don't forget you need worms! From what I have read it's better not to use your normal everyday worms if your wishing to make a lot of compost and or good compost. I recommend Red Worms. I have heard you can use Night Crawlers but those are so big! Can you imagine how big your bins and holes would need to be?

You can by worms online by the pound, but we bought ours one container at a time from the fishing department at a store and from our local tackle shop. We used them for fishing and what ever was let were put into our bins :) I love double duty things!

So once you have everything together it's pretty easy.

First take all of your bins, and wash them out really good.

Next, Take your big drill bit and drill holes in the bottom's of 2 bins... DON"T PUSH ON THE DRILL! This will crack the tub and make it useless. Let the drill bit do the work.

Bottom of bin

The next step is to take the smaller bit and drill holes around the top of the side's and on one lid.
once again let the bit do the work :)

Next shred up your newspaper and get it wet.. When you remove it from the water squeeze it out a little, then loosen it up and put inside your bin.. you want it kind of Airy.

Add your dirt and your worms.

Paper's and dirt

Then wet your card board and place it on top..

To feed your worms remove card board and pull back a little of the paper, put in your veggie and fruit scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds or washed out, and ground up egg shells. Then recover with Newspaper.
(If you don't cover the food scrapes up, you can end up with lots of buggies and icky smells! Every time you feed them put it in a different spot in the bin. You'll see things in all sorts of stages of decompose.

Place lid with holes on a riser in the container without holes.
Place double stacked tubs on riser where you are keeping your worms.

Now after the worms have been eating for a while and most of the dirt has turned into worm casting.. there may still be newspaper left. Add another bin with paper and dirt but no card board. Place riser in it and then put your already working worm bin over it. Then only feed the new bin. Your worms will start to migrate through the holes down to this bin. After they have you can go through your top bin and remove stragglers and you have worm compost. Perfect for making work tea or fertilizing any of your plants!

A few things to note.
Worms are ornery.. they will go in search of other places and may end up in your bottom nonholed bin used for catching water and worm castings that come out. So check this bin regularly.

Don't be upset if you see mushrooms or little tiny bugs.. your building a miniature ecosystem.

It takes our worms 4 months to make a tub of compost because we only have about 30 worms right now. The more worms the more compost.

It is a huge surprise and so cool the first time you look in your bin and see baby worms! They are so tiny, but it goes to show you really have a little world in your big one :)

This is a fun thing to do with your kids and can be kept in a cool closet or some where else cool. In our house we have ours in the kitchen where our broken dishwasher used to be. :)

Worm bins together.

And don't forget this is a great way to teach your kids how to take care of something, about ecosystems and about composting. Not to mention it's really fun!

My 3 year old and the "wormmies"

Have a wonderful day, and if you have any questions feel free to ask. I'll answer what I can :)
Remember to count life's small blessings... they add up fast!

Cher

Blog

2010-08-06T03:07:00.000-05:00

Okay, so just a small intro before I really get into this. My husband, I and our 3 kids and 2 dogs live in rural IL. I can walk a circle around our little town in less then 15 minutes.. :) There is a bank, a post office and a gas station.. that's it.

We sit on a corner on 3 lots... so we do have a bit of a yard :)
The house we bought 2 years ago was "redone" by a man who had no clue what he was doing.
We've slowly begun the process of reworking the house. Between this and the economy and job losses, we have decided it's necessary for us to think about survival.. actually not just survival but thriving.. on our own.

We also worry about food safety, the chemicals in most foods and about just how safe our food supply really is.. are we obese because we eat butter and sugar or is it because of the chemicals in and on our food.. preservatives.. what are they preserving? Why weren't people way back obese?

We have found many simple ways to not only save but to adjust our lives... before we buy something we ask these questions...
1) can we make this.. better and for less?
2) do we really need this?
3) Can we grow this?
4) What will we do with it if it breaks?
5) Is it better to buy cheaper.. or will it break right away? would it be better to pay a bit more?

Before we throw anything out we ask?
Can I make anything out of this?
Can it be recycled?
Can it be given to someone who needs it?

The one thing I have learned to never turn down is old towels.:)
So I hope this will be a place to find recipes, ideas, directions and what not on doing things frugally, old fashioned ways of life put into today's world. I hope like us you learn that life's small blessings are often the best things in our lives!

Look for posts about our home made worm farm, home made Rain barrel's and more coming up! :)