This and That

Wow, where has the time gone! I feel like the week has flown by! This weekend is the suppose to be the warmest weekend yet! WOOHOO!! Then by Tuesday it is suppose to rain, oh joy. I promise I will get out and take some pictures of the garden clean-up. It's coming along. I think Anthony and I will try and do the other beds this weekend.

Its been a rough morning as it is only 9:30 and I already have 2 dogs in time out. Yikes!

On a high note, I got to see my old boss yesterday. She flew in for a dog show 8 miles from my house. So I drove over and spent the day with her and then took her to the airport in the late afternoon. It was so good to see her and fun to catch up!

Alright need to do some house work and then I can go out and play with the dogs! Post more later!!!

Worms!!!!

So today was another busy day!! We went to get new licenses and find out what we need to do to get the cars registered, etc. Can I just say we were only at the DMV for like 20 minutes!! It was a true miracle! Then Anthony and I drove downtown as I have a job interview tomorrow downtown and I wanted to make sure I knew where I was going. It was easy to find, so tomorrow should be a breeze. (fingers crossed!) On our way home we discovered 'The Heights,' its our community center. It has a gym, pool and a library all in the same building. AMAZING!!! Needless to say, Anthony can cook me whatever he wants as I will be swimming it off in no time! However, I did realize that I have not been in a pool for over 5 years. YIKES, hope I don't drown!

We did survive another 'Meatless Monday,' yesterday. We did cheat, however, and go to a pizza place. Now this is not just any pizza place it is totally organic, and all their ingreidents are bought locally. I discovered this place on a website I got from the Natural Living Expo. Can I just say the pizza was DE-LISH!! So in my effort to save money by eating meat one less night a week I spoiled it by going out to dinner! Oops.

While at Lowes the other day, I found a sprouting tray for only 10 dollars, sprouts included. I figured I would try it and if it worked well, I would have an easy to use sprouting tray and if not well then I guess I would still have a sprouting tray. Below is a picture of my tray and Day 1 of my seeds! I will post pictures each day to show you how I am doing.



Next our my seed trays. I started peas, salad greens, parsley, pumpkins and broccoli. This is my third attempt at broccoli...if it does not work this time, I am giving up! I will post pictures of my sprouts as they come up.

BUT the biggest discovery of today was EARTHWORMS!! Anthony (bless his heart) and I cleaned out one of my garden beds and there were so many earthworms. Oh my goodness, I have never been so excited about dirt! The one bad thing we discovered about atleast this garden bed is that it was full of gravel. I am hoping that with some tilling and some more compost and dirt that the gravel will be less. I am going to rake some of it out as well, BUT, oh my gosh the earthworms, big ones, long ones, vigorus ones, it was truly amazing!! Everything I have read says that if you have lots of worms you have good dirt, so fingers crossed!! Pictures to come...

I think this is it for today, I am off to watch American Idol. Goodnight!

Healthy Planet/Natural Living Expo

Well, we went, we saw and we left. After Anthony got home almost 2 hours late from work we headed off to this expo, that looked interesting. We had picked up free tickets from Whole Foods, which was nice and as we walked in, I stopped, turned to Anthony and said, 'whatever you do, don't drink the kool-aid.' Well not but five seconds later this sweet lil' old lady offers Anthony a drink that looks like green goo, and of course being the nice guy that he is, he takes it. The woman waits for Anthony to take a drink...he does! He than turns to me and says, 'this is disgusting!' I nicely say, 'I told you not to drink the kool-aid!' Anyway lets just say he learned his lesson. We then spent the next hour walking through the booths and wading through the crowds of people. Now I do have to say, while I want to reduce my carbon footprint, some of these people are NUTS! There were vegetarians and vegans of which we steered clear of, especially the vegans. (Sorry vegans, just not for us!!) There were these spirit people that were doing some weird thing to these people sitting in chairs, definitely steered clear of them. (Although they were funny to watch!!!) Anthony seemed very interested in the acupuncture, but was to chicken to try it. I told him he should do it, but in the end I think he was just to chicken. I bought the dogs organic dog cookies and saw some different recipes to make my own which I am sure I will be trying soon. I spoke with a homeopathic dog clinic that I will be trying for Maddie and will take Kirby there for his acupuncture. They seemed nice enough. Lastly, we talked with a group that are trying to turn vacant lots in the city into green spaces. I really want to get involved, so I got plenty of information on how to join and will be doing so soon. All in all, it was a good experience, just had to be aware of the crazies!!!

Last night I started early peas. I am hoping to have them in the ground soon, I will start them inside until it warms up just alittle. The weather man says we are on are way to warmer weather, but who believes weathermen anyway! Today Anthony has off and we will be rotatilling!!! YAY!! Poor hubby.

Busy Sunday!

Yay for sundays!! Here is some pictures of some seeds I have already, there is many more to come. Also here are some pictures of my simple seed starting kit. The trays I bought last year, and I have been keeping egg cartons for the last few months to start seeds in. I started peas in these egg cartons last fall and it worked great so going to try it again.





I will be busy planting later today I think I am going to start pumpkins, lemon cucumbers, parsley and some thyme. Those all take a while to either germinate or mature. Also this year I promise to do succession plantings. I have not done this in the last two years, but everything I have read says that it is the key to success! The dogs are happy about the pumpkins as they love when I make their favorite pumpkin cookies!

Today is the Healthy Planet/Natural Living Expo of which I am so excited to go to. There will be veterinarians there, gardeners and many other 'green' booths. Poor Anthony he says he is happy to go, but sometimes I think he thinks I am crazy! Well, I am...but he is stuck with me now. I will see if I can take my camera in and take pictures as well as I will collect any information I can and ship it out west, you know who you are. I will post later about my discoveries.

Cat update: No cats last night, still haven't figured out who is feeding them, but she will be discovered! The dogs were quiet last night when I went out with them and Kirby was sad that there were no cats to chase away from the fence! He galloped to the fence where they have been and then turned and looked at me, as if to say, 'mom...where did they go???' I told him I had already done his job and that I was sorry I didn't save it for him!

For dinner: Artichokes with Holendaise Sauce, which I discovered I love! Then for dinner we had Sage Chicken with Cauliflower and Asparagus and the rest of the holendaise sauce. YUM! Oh and of course WINE!

New House

This is the front of our new house, very cute and don't worry we are going to paint the purple around the door, what were they thinking?? We have a small front yard and some older bushes, I will rip some of them out and put something its place not sure what though. There are planter boxes on the porch that I will be sure to fill soon.
This is the back of the house, the door on the side goes down to the full basement! As you can see I have a very small sun room!

Garden bed number 1! Needs some work, but I think will be great soon!!

Garden bed number 2! This is going to need a little more work, but I think is going to be great for my tomatos and other sun loving veggies!!

This is the whole patio area. Sorry Maddie Grace's butt is in the picture! I think this is going to be a great area in the spring and summer to eat outside and entertain as the house itself is not very big!

This is part of the dogs yard. We will be moving the bird bath to the garden area. Thats our neighbors car, they are very nice, but aren't as luck as us as they do not have a driveway or garage so they have to park on the street and I believe that there are 4 people living there. These are it for now, as we do some landscaping I will take pictures so you can see our progress!

Saturday

Well there is no dog show this weekend, (thank goodness) and my hubby is at work, so instead of unpacking some more I am curled up on the couch with the best pet in the world and my new gardening magazines. (Thank you friendly neighbor:)-) I know it is probably not the most responsible thing to be doing, but I can't help myself. I do have laundry going, so I am not totally failing at my job as 'housewife.' Speaking of jobs I do have a job interview next week, ugh! I wish we would win the lotto, however as my mother says, you probably have to play to win, oh well!

I have been reading gardening blogs like crazy and have learned tons, some people are so resourceful. If I only I was that creative...I more of the buy things type of girl not the re-use type of girl! I am trying...and hoping to get better.

We discovered Costco yesterday, can anyone go there and spend less then a $100 dollars, I just don't think it is possible! I try, but just can't, we don't ever buy anything that we don't need, but it always seems to add up way quicker than planned!

So far we love St. Louis!! We haven't seen a whole lot of the city, but there is plenty to see and do. What a neat place!!! I feel like a child at christmas!

Alright back to my reading, when I go out with dogs in a little while I will take my camera so I can take pictures. My garden space needs some serious TLC, but my hubby promised he would be the muscles and help me, you will definitely get the idea though. We did get the garage somewhat organized yesterday and put the jet skis in so that they are not out for the whole world to see.

One downfall that we discovered was that apparently the corner of our lot is the local stray cat feeding center. NOT ANYMORE!!! I couldn't figure out why every night the dogs would go crazy at the fence, so much that they have had to wear their bark collars as I don't want to disrupt the neighborhood. Well Thursday night, Anthony took me to Coldstone Cremery and when we returned there were probably a dozen CATS feeding from a bowl at the corner of our lot. So Anthony and I did away with the bowl that night and the cats scattered. We haven't figured out who is feeding them, but they need to stop!!! I will keep you posted on my stray cat fiasco, so far that is our only problem.

Spring is Here!!

HAHAHAHA well I wish. However it is here atleast in my house! As soon as Anthony gets home in about an hour we are going to plant seeds!! I am hoping that part of my seed order will come today, so I can do it all at once but I won't be sad if I have to get dirty twice! Today is suppose to sunny so I will get out and take some pictures. More to come!