A Short Post!

I plan on staying home all day today! I feel like I'm on the go every day and am very much behind on housework. Monday I was out all day at the sewing class and yesterday I was out having coffee then went to get groceries in. By the time I got home and put the food away it was time to go out for Kristen again! So, for the rest of the week I will be making a concerted effort to stay home once I've taken Kristen to school. What with the rising prices of gas, I really should stop driving around so much and organize my days better.

So, not much to blog about today. I did mention yesterday my new 'palm tree' that I bought for the balcony. Here's another picture of it. It is a silk plant because I'm not sure I can keep tropical plants alive out there (I don't have a very green thumb, and where I want this sitting I don't think it will get any sunshine because of the roof on the balcony.



So I will have a mixture of artificial and real plants out there, which I don't mind at all. I still need to get the tiles for our bistro table, but that will probably have to wait til my next 'errand run' maybe at the weekend. I wish you all a happy Hump Day :-)

A Fun Day!

I loved the sewing class yesterday. It was a lot of fun and I bought myself a new Brother Sewing Machine too :-) I think I'm going to like sewing much more now. . . and it's so much faster than knitting! You can check out a few photos at my knitting blog - just CLICK HERE!

I'm off out for coffee this morning with my friend Cindy. It's been a few weeks since we got together so it will be nice catching up. Then I will head to the grocery store and come home to do some housework. I plan on staying home the rest of the week (no library duty again this week) so I can get on top of laundry and other things like dusting and vacuuming . . . ya know, THAT housework stuff I'm supposed to do each day ;-)

I'll try to make another post later today - notice my tropical palm tree? I'll share more pics of that later too. Have a great day.

(A Wet) Lazy Sunday Afternoon!

I heard thunder early this morning, around 4am. Woke up at 8 to pouring rain still! There's a cold front moving in and a high of only 66 forecast for today. Right now it's very windy outside too.

My in-laws were on vacation last week and I'm not sure if they got home last night or arrive today, so due to the yucky weather this morning I decided we wouldn't go to church! When Jason woke up (at 10am!) and I told him, he breathed a sigh of relief. He was out all day yesterday playing a golf tournament. He didn't get home til 9.30pm. It was a lovely sunny day yesterday and despite the fact he had a nice time I'm sure it was pretty tiring being out all day too. So, today we're all having a lazy Sunday at home.

Three Blind Mice Melts! That's what we tried from our Shrek cookbook this weekend. Actually I made these for me and Jason fora late lunch on Saturday afternoon - Kristen had already eaten! You mix an egg with 1 1/2 cups of cheese (add a dash or worcester sauce) and put it on top of a toasted english muffin with some ham. Then you broil (grill) them to melt the cheese. Kristen did try one and we all thought they were pretty yummy and fast to make. I think this week I'm going to get the ingredients for Molten Lava Soup (yes, it's really just homemade tomato soup!). Kristen wants to make it so I'm going to try and let her do as much as she can to help. The nice thing about the homemade soup is that it has carrots in it, so Kiki will be getting some good veggies too, not to mention the benefits of tomatoes :-)

Well I'm off to enjoy my Sunday, need to make some lunch for us 3! I'll leave you with 'Pretty Boy Boo' after his grooming last week.

Where will you be tonight?

Here's where I will be relaxing tonight - IF a storm doesn't roll in. Jason and I sat out the other night and I took the camera out there to try and get a picture with just the garden lights on. It might seem a little dark but if you click on the picture to enlarge you may be able to see a bit more detail.
The pictures I was originally taking were coming out almost black, until Jason came out and showed me how to use the 'night time' setting! My camera is a Fuji S5100 but I have no idea how to use it other than to point and press - might be a good idea if I read the manual! So, this is where I will be starting off my weekend ;-) It's so cosy and quiet out there, I love it. I did get a bistro set this week but the table is one of those square ones with tiles in the top, but the tiles didn't come with it?! I only learned that once we opened the box. So I have to go to Lowes tomorrow to get 4 tiles to place in the top of the table. Then I'll take pictures to share.

I was busy in the kitchen this afternoon making some Chewy Granola Bars! Actually I wasn't THAT busy - these took all of 10 minutes to mix together. It's a recipe from Allrecipes.com and is mainly just oats, flour, honey, butter and sugar mixed with chocolate chips and raisins. I've given them a try already and they do taste nice. Only problem is I made a smaller batch than called for in the recipe (you can scale down the recipe on the website) but it didn't say to change the size of the baking pan. Now that I think about it, I should have done that, because these are pretty thin and won't hold themselves together. So although they are very tasty, they are very crumbly too - and not that chewy I might add. I think I will try another recipe next time. I've seen a few that have marshmallows in them, which I think will do a better job of holding them together.

What I do like about these, and any others that I make at home is the fact that I know exactly what's in them, how much sugar etc and no other artificial preservatives etc. I'll let you know what Kristen thinks of them next time.

Speaking of Kiki, it's time to head off to pick her up from school - and I only just got back from picking Boo up at the groomers! It's been a run-around day today, but hopefully I'll have a quiet night. Happy Friday to you all.

I'll be back. . . .

. . . . it's 5.55am and I'm sitting with my laptop on the sofa! The coffee pot is gurgling away and I just got up for our final school day this week. I didn't post yesterday and I know if I didn't jot something down now some of you will be wondering where I am ;-)

So, just wanted to say "I'll be back later, with a longer post, and of course some pictures". I'll be taking Boo to the groomers for 9am so I will try to post once I get back from Petsmart.

TGIF!

Swamp Weed Anyone?

Still on the subject of food (I hope I'm not boring you!) This is the book Kristen and I bought at the book store on Sunday :-) It has some really fun recipes in it, and in my quest to have Kristen keep trying new things (I'm convinced one day she'll discover something she just loves) I thought it would be fun for her if she helped me cook more. Not just baking cookies, which honestly she doesn't really help me with much, she just always wants to eat the chocolate chips or 'lick the spoon or bowl'!!

So, yesterday we decided we'd make Swamp Weed! If you enlarge the picture below you will see that is actually guacamole :-) We didn't have ingredients to make fly larvae so we might try that next time. I cut the avocados in half and took out the stone then I gave them to Kristen and showed her how to scoop out the flesh. While she was doing that and then chopping it in to bits in a bowl, I chopped the tomatoes and onion and cilantro etc. Then Kristen mixed it all together. She kept saying she didn't like the smell and she didn't like avocados. Honestly, I don't even think she's ever tried avocado? Why do kids say they don't like something when they haven't even tried it?

So, here's the first taste test. Did she like it?

Well she gave it two thumbs up. SO, she doesn't like guacamole but she does like Swamp Weed!

Actually that was short lived, I put it out on the table an hour later with dinner and when she scooped up a bigger bit with her pita bread (I baked triangles in the oven to make them crispy) she announced that she didn't like it after all?!! Oh well, more for me cos I LOVE guacamole, urm, I mean swamp weed ;-)

Yesterday being Earth Day , I tried to do my bit when I called in to the grocery store for a few things. I bought 5 of their reusable green bags. I have to admit I've been pretty naughty for a while and just let them use plastic when packing my groceries - but no more! I will make a concerted effort to cut down on plastic bags, in fact I won't need to use them any more. I have these bags (which actually were filled with my groceries in this picture, but you just can't see them) already back in the car ready for my next trip to the store. Anything I can't fit in these 5 bags I will ask to put in paper bags :-)

It's overcast today and a chance of a thunder storm looms.

A Not So Smooth Smoothie!

I've been really impressed with Kristen's eating lately and my quest to get her to eat more healthy things is going well. I'm sure I'm not the only mom who struggles to get healthy food down their kids. Kristen wrinkles her nose at ALL veggies except broccoli and she even complains if I cut up an apple and make her eat slices of it (which I don't do as often as I should!). The only fruit she says she likes is watermelon! I blame myself for not being consistent when she was younger. If she told me she didn't like something I believed her and never really offered her that food again! Even before she could talk, if she made a face when I fed her something I assumed she didn't like it and moved on to something else for her to try, never thinking to offer her that same veggie or piece of fruit again.

But this past weekend after I'd made the pancakes (and yay, she's been eating them for breakfast ever since) she's somehow been more willing to try other things. I'm always talking to Kristen about good food and eating healthy and I mentioned to her that we should try smoothies so she can eat some fresh fruit in a way she might like it. She was eager to try this. On Saturday we got the makings of a banana and strawberry smoothie. Some bananas, frozen strawberries (I like using the frozen ones so it makes the smoothie cold and you don't have to use ice), Horizons Organic vanilla yogurt - we added milk to the blender and voila, a yummy smoothie. Kristen loved it :-)

On Sunday, she announced that she wanted for breakfast "some pancakes and a tropical smoothie"! I'd bought frozen tropical fruit also so this time I blended the mixed fruit with a yogurt and instead of milk I used orange juice. This is the tropical smoothie you see in the pictures, and as you can see Kristen quite liked this one too. She got 3/4's of this drank then told me next time I make it I shouldn't use orange juice because it was a bit too 'tangy'. I have to mention Kristen doesn't like orange juice on it's own.

Well to cut a long story short, we went out Sunday morning to the book store and then headed to a place to have lunch. We had to wait about 10 minutes for a table but all of a sudden Kristen said she didn't feel well? Before we even got a table we decided to leave and just go home. Two minutes later Kristen throws up in the car (thankfully we had a plastic bag near by)!!!!!! We get home a few minutes after that and she just lays down on the sofa. I instantly knew that the orange juice in the smoothie had not agreed with her. I'm assuming it must have been too acidic for her stomach? She ate some toast and drank some water and about 15 minutes after that she was right as rain again!

So, we may skip the smoothies for a little while! She ate a banana all by itself yesterday (which I packed in her 'disposable' lunch to take on her field trip) so I think we can say we are still making progress :-)

And, I'm happy to report that she had a great time on her trip and thoroughly enjoyed seeing The Wizard of Oz. She couldn't stop talking about it when she got home!

A Determined Soul!

It's Monday again! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We've had a fun time. Not all relaxing, but most certainly all good. We (or mainly Jason) were busy in the yard again on Saturday.

The soil saga continues! The plants don't seem to have done much since Jason added the 'bone meal', which puts nitrogen in to the soil, so he made the decision to pull up one of the beds, get rid of the organic soil that was in it and just try planting something directly in to the soil underneath. He's not one to give up easily! In fact he very rarely gives up on anything. So, to do all this he needed a new 'toy'! Here is is using it. . . ..


It's a Rototiller! This churned up the garden soil really good, he then put the wooden beams back on each side but leaving them only about 2 inches high. He wanted to do this so the grass wouldn't invade the garden bed. We bought a few more tomato plants and peppers and after Jason had tilled the soil, I planted them in it. Now we wait again! In the mean time I also took out some of the herbs I'd planted in the organic soil and put them in terracotta pots. For now I will just have a little herb garden on the patio, until we see how well things do in our own soil.


I bought an outdoor area rug one day last week and put it under our new patio furniture. It really finishes off the space out there. I also bought more 'butterfly lights' from Target and put them up. Jason and I sat out there for a little bit on Saturday night after we'd watched a movie (Feast of Love, starring Morgan Freeman). It was a little cool by 10pm, but I took a throw out with me and snuggled under it. There was a big bright moon shining too - it was lovely. We were out there first thing Sunday morning too with our coffee :-) I placed a lavender candle on the table and I light it every time I go out there. There's also a couple of little lavender plants (not real) on there that I got from Michael's last week for $2 each! You may be able to click on the picture to see better?


It's Kristen's 'Field Trip' today at school. They are going to a theater in Austin to see Wizard of Oz. Only one parent can accompany each class teacher so I can't go! Some mom's opted to not send their kids cos they said they didn't want them to ride the school bus!!!! OK, each to their own, I guess! I personally don't want to 'wrap my child in cotton wool', so much so that she can't experience things like field trips! That's not to say I won't be a little worried until I pick her up at 3pm! I'll be praying for a safe trip for them all.

I'm happy to report she did like my 'wholewheat healthy pancakes' and we've been trying out smoothies too - more on that tomorrow!

Have a lovely day, I'll be around to read blogs and catch up with everyone that 'took the weekend off' :-)

Yay, it's the weekend!

I really do look forward to the weekends these days. Getting up at 6am all week is no fun for me, and it's still so dark then too! The past couple of days has been very cloudy but still warm, getting up to 78 degrees yesterday!. It's just strange having such high temps but not seeing sunshine. We have no plans for the weekend but I need to get productive and do something, I'm just not sure what yet? I have some stuff to finish off in the yard, or I could buy paint and start our bedroom? I haven't decided on a color yet so that might have to wait another week or so until I'm really 'inspired'.

Yesterday, my Paula Deen magazine finally arrived. This was a replacement issue that I had to request weeks ago when I'd seen the new issue in stores but hadn't received it in the mail .

I got a subscription to this for my birthday back in October and I look forward to every issue. This one was worth waiting for. I really do like Paula Deen and the magazine is not only filled with yummy recipes but has great articles in too. A lot of times they are about her sons and her family which I think adds a great personal touch. Anyway, I had a lovely time reading it yesterday and I discovered that they have set up a new website where you can get recipes from previous issues. It's called CookingwithPaulaDeen.com I had a browse through that yesterday too. I especially liked the 'steak tacos' they mentioned in the magazine. They said the recipe was on the site so I looked it up. You can CLICK HERE if you'd like to see it too. I think I might try these one day soon. The corn relish sounds very fresh and yummy. If you want the recipe for the corn relish, go to the home page and search recipes, it brings it up seperately!

Healthy Options!

On Tuesday I picked up this magazine in Walmart. It's a new one from 'Taste of Home', called Healthy Cooking. Of course I'm all in to healthy cooking right now and trying to get us all to eat more veggies etc so I was all over this :-)

Yesterday I did a little baking in the kitchen. The magazine has a recipe in for some healthy pancakes. I made those first, and sampled a couple myself. These are primarily for Kristen because she usually has Pilsbury Pancakes for breakfast! And I want her to try a more healthy option.

These are made with wholewheat flour and are obviously 'different' to the pancake taste Kristen is so used to (why or why didn't I just make healthy ones from the get go!). I thought they were ok, but not very sweet, but I could get used to eating them, if I actually ate pancakes for breakfast - but I don't! I'll let you know what Kristen's verdict is when she's tasted them.

After making the pancakes I did some 'healthy' cookies. I've decided not to buy any more cookies from the store (for now!), but instead I'll try to make some healthy versions once every week or two. I don't mind Kristen having a cookie each day if it's full of 'good stuff' like whole wheat and oats. So I found the Sun-Maid recipe that I'd tried before and made those again. I did try these a few months ago but not sure if I ever blogged about it because I didn't have enough oats and they didn't turn out quite the way they should - still tasty, but a little flat.

These ones turned out pretty yummy though :-) Kristen isn't very keen on raisins (big surprise - not) so I split the mixture and tried half with some chocolate chips for her and did the other half with raisins. Oatmeal and raisin cookies are one of my favorites, so I shall be indulging in one or two myself ;-)

I don't have to do library duty today. Jean, the director has found another girl who will share Thursday mornings with me. So this week I don't need to be there, but I'll cover next week. After that we are only going to open one more month on those days and then probably close during the Summer. Hardly anyone is calling in during the week, so I think Jean just plans to open it up on Sundays when there are a lot more people around.

It's book club tonight, I always look forward to that :-) We read Beach Road by James Patterson this month. It's the first book of his I've ever read, and I can say with certainty that it will probably be the last! I just wasn't that impressed with his writing style, or his story line for that matter!

My New Little Corner!

As promised, here's pictures of our new patio/deck furniture. My plan was to replace the lounger I was sitting on last weekend with this set, but it's actually a little too large to fit in that corner. We tried all ways to put it there, from L-shape to angles. . . but it just didn't look right. Jason suggested we try the other corner of the deck (something I wouldn't think of because I get so set in my ways I thought it just HAD to go where I'd pictured it). So what do you think? Cozy huh? I LOVE it, and it's my new favorite place to be. Especially as the days are warming up nicely now, and most mornings are sunny like this.

Believe it or not, this set actually came in pieces and Jason had to assemble the arms and backs of the chairs and sofa, and screw the legs together on the coffee table. After we'd got it all set up we sat out on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed the fruits of our labor ;-)

The first picture is taken from the right side of the chair, and the picture below as you can see, is facing the set and looking out in to the cul-de-sac. It was hard to get a good picture because the sun is out front in the mornings, making the picture look a little dark. If you click on it, you may be able to see a little better. I should also try to take pictures in the afternoon when the sun is at the back of the house.

Right behind me. . . .is this mess! I have plans for this little alcove - I'm going to add a little bistro table and chairs and add candle sconces to the wall. So next time Jason and I have our 'date night' at home I'm going to make a special dinner and we'll dine 'Al Fresco'

The patio set actually came with two chairs, but I haven't put both of them on the deck. The bakers rack out there makes it a bit of a squeeze to have the other chair there. Until I decide where I shall put the bakers rack I have kept the second chair in our bedroom.

I still haven't painted our master bedroom yet. . . I'm starting to feel the urge to do so!

Trying out delayed posting. . . .

It's Monday night as I type this (6.27pm to be exact). I wanted to post more this week so I was hoping to get in to the routine of typing a post in the evening and having it upload after midnight (so the date is correct for that day's posting!). Sadie sent me the directions a little while ago so I'll try it out tonight. I'm only mentioning this in case something goes wrong and the post is all messed up tomorrow? If it works out ok I won't mention it any other time I use it ;-)

Judy asked if the recipe for the Kooky Cupcakes was on the ice cream cone box - the answer is yes. I was going to take a picture of it, but I looked on line instead. If you go to Keebler.com you can find the recipe. I couldn't get a direct link to the page because the url didn't change, it just constantly says keebler.com no matter what page you're on! So when you enter the site via the cute little door in the tree, you will see 3 main options 'Crackers' - 'Cookies' - 'Other Goodies'. Click on Other Goodies. Ignore the box of cones on the shelf but go to the 'Recipes' box shown along the bottom of the page - click 'other goodies' again, then click inside the box that says 'choose a product' then click 'cones'. Then click Get Recipe. Another list pops up and from there you can click on Kooky Cupcakes!

Phew, that sounded a bit long winded, I should have just taken a picture after all!!

Jason continues to do well on his healthy eating lifestyle, although we do tend to side-track a little at weekends. He seems to lose about 3 or 4lb during the week then gain a couple back again after the weekend, so for the most part he's still losing maybe 1 or 2 lb a week - so it's all good (at least he's not gaining!). Tonight for dinner I made a yummy Spaghetti and Zesty Bolognese. I didn't get a picture of it I'm afraid. Usually if the camera is upstairs when I'm dishing up dinner downstairs - well, pictures don't happen! But you can CLICK HERE to see it and get the recipe.

OK, not much else to write about and I have no photos so I'll not make this post too long - it's always boring if there's no pictures to look at (imo) !!

Pictures in next post, I promise!

Kooky Cupcakes . . . and other fun stuff!

It's hard to find time to blog when you're having so much fun! The last fews days have gone by so quickly. I thought I might have blogged again after Thursday, but here we are on Monday morning already. So, I better start the week off as I mean to go on. . . . and that's with a blog post!

Kooky Cupcakes? Well that's the name given to these cupcakes on the ice cream cone box and Kristen insisted all last week that we try to bake some. It's basically cake batter cooked inside the cone instead of a paper case! You wrap foil around the cones while they bake so they don't get too brown and you stand them up inside your muffin tins. I only made 6 of these but the recipe says it will make 24!!! I just made plain cupcakes with the rest of the recipe and put them in the freezer - to be taken out now and then for Kristen to have as a treat.

So here's the cakes just out of the oven, cooling. As you can see some of them were just about to spill over a little, but they were ok.

All you do next is pipe on frosting so they look like ice creams, and add sprinkles. It's that simple.

She's ready to give it the taste test :-) And yes, it got two thumbs up.

Yesterday we celebrated Grandma's (my mil) birthday and I made a special birthday lunch for her after we got home from church. I didn't take many pictures, but on the menu was :

Grilled Teryaki Salmon, asparagus, green beans and boiled baby new potatoes. I did teryaki chicken for Jason cos he doesn't like fish of any kind. I didn't have to make different desserts though - every one enjoyed the double-chocolate strawberry shortcake I made (you can click on the picture to see the recipe)

Have a great day, and I hope to post more this week (haven't I said that before?)!! We bought some new patio furniture for our deck, I'll share those pictures later this week.

I'm Still Here!

Gosh, is it really Thursday already? And no post from me since Sunday! I'm sure a few of you are wondering where I am or whats up. Well, nothing is up, and I'm still here :-) Just the days whizzing by as usual and the feeling that I just didn't have anything to blog about.

I still don't have anything to blog about really, but I thought I'd make a quick post as it might be a day or too again before I write anything else. We have no school tomorrow which I'm really happy about. Getting up at 6am every day just seems to wear me out! I'm ready to have a rest by the weekend, so a day earlier is even nicer. Kristen and I are planning on going over to her friend's house so they can play and I can catch up with her mom, Brandi. We see each other for just a couple of minutes each day to pick up the kids, but haven't gotten together for a while to have a nice chat. I'm gonna stop at the grocery store and pick up some sushi for us for lunch. The kids will probably have chicken nuggets, I know for sure Kristen would not even want to 'sniff' at the sushi!

Oh, about that soil. . . . . . we got the results back last weekend. But let me tell you first, that my genius of a husband had already figured out the problem :-) He was out there looking around at the beds, which as you've seen from the photos, half are still filled with dead weeds etc. What he noticed was, there were actually 'live' weeds growing in some areas. And it seemed that where the weeds were growing was in the same spot he'd planted pinto beans.

He then went and looked up some info on pinto beans, and found out that they actually put nitrogen in to the soil. Jason figured out that the organic soil must be low on nitrogen so he went to the store and bought some Organic Bone Meal to add to it. Later that day the mail came and the results for the soil. . . . and yes! that is exactly what it said too “very low in nitrogen”. So now we’ve added the nitrogen and we’ve planted a few more plants but I don’t know how long it will take for us to see if things are going well. So far it’s hard to say, but it’s only been a few days.

Weather is forecast to be nice, warm and sunny this weekend. It’s mother-in-law’s birthday on Saturday and I’m making dinner for us all on Sunday to celebrate. So I’ll be quite busy getting ready for all that until then.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

It's a hard life. . . . .

. . . . . but somebody has to do it! :-) Of course I'm joking - I have a wonderful life, and I know it. Yesterday Jason took Kristen over to his friend's house in the afternoon, and as you can see from the photos, I made the most of it.

I took a bottle of 'fizzy' up on the deck and sat and browsed the 'Taste of Home' cooking magazine that I'd just bought. It was so relaxing and peaceful.

And I was joined by my handsome little guy who kindly kept my seat warm while I was setting up the camera!

Jason called later in the evening to say he had decided to stay the night so he could have another beer. So I had a very quiet and relaxing evening too, watching Bridget Jone's Diary and knitting. I went to bed around 11pm and got up at 7.45am this morning. Jason and Kristen arrived home at 9.30am in time to get ready to go to church. We've had a lazy Sunday afternoon , just the way I like it. Usually I will try to go grocery shopping today so I can come straight home from the gym on Monday mornings and start housework, but today I felt too lazy! I'll go to the store tomorrow morning after the gym, which is not a bad thing really, it's the quietest time of the day, hardly anyone is in there at 8am :-)

I hope you've all enjoyed your weekend too.

Yard Work!

Not much to chat about today, so I thought I'd share a few pictures of the front garden/yard I was working on this week. I took a break from it yesterday as my back was really starting to ache, and I don't want to over do it and hurt it beyond repair! Usually just a couple of days rest helps it feel ok again.

As you can see from the photo below I've added a border around the flower bed under the dining room window. This will help keep the grass from growing over the edge and it makes it look much neater.

The flower bed extends forward down the side of the front patio and curves around a little in to the front yard. Hard to explain but I think you can see what I mean from the pictures. I'm hoping the marigolds fill out and make a lovely colorful border along the edge. I still need a little more mulch to finish off covering the soil, and a few more plants are needed to go along the side too.

I also added a border around one of the trees in the yard, which I didn't get a picture of yet, and I have one other tree to do. I'll try to get a picture once it's all finished.

I hope you ladies took note of the BSE reminder yesterday(doesn't that come around quickly?). Take two minutes out of your day (if you haven't already) just to do that quick check. I did mine last night. :-)

BSE Reminder!

. . . . about that soil!

One thing I keep forgetting to mention when I post, is about the soil 'issue'. Yes, it's still an issue, because since we added the manure over a week ago and put in the tomato plants, peppers and herbs that we bought at the grocery store. . . . well, as we would say in England, they simply "look crap"!!!!!

It's as if the life is being sucked out of them. They look pale, the leaves are withering, they just look 'sick'. It's got to be the soil! I'm not over watering them, or under watering them. We've had no frost since we planted them, the days are warm. So last week Jason took some soil, put it in a small ziploc bag and I mailed it off to some place he found on the web that tests your soil. We will get to the bottom of this if it's the last thing we do. I mean honestly, how can you buy organic soil and not have things grow in it? We're hoping they tell us something is just slightly off with the soil and that we need to 'add' something to balance it? Whatever the results (unless they say it's normal that is) Jason will take it to the garden center that sold him it and let them know - see what they have to say about it.

I know I mentioned the parsley was doing good, but we think it's because it's a hardly plant and managed to get it's roots down in to our good soil before the organic stuff killed it off - that's why it's now thriving. I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

Yesterday I went out and bought more flowers for the front yard and some edging to put around the border. We were forecast for thunder and rain, but didn't actually get any, so I was able to do a little planting. I will try to get the mulch added today, and I'll take pictures when it's all done. I've skipped the gym the past two days because bending down doing the garden is causing my back to ache a lot. It's never been the same since I had Kristen and I find it difficult sometimes to bend over without it 'tugging' on one side. I don't want to hurt it more by trying to lift weights. I'll use my yard work as my workout this week ;-)

No sun again today but it should be a warm day, up to 82 degrees. I'll put on some laundry then get out in the garden to work.... hope you all have a lovely day.