Mother’s Day

It’s not Mother’s Day in England this weekend! That was a few weeks back at the beginning of April. Strange how we have a different day here in the US, and yet Father’s Day is often the same Sunday in June here and at home in the UK. 

I’m planning a lovely Mother’s Day lunch for my mil (and me) on Sunday. I’ll share my menu with you next time. Today I thought I’d share some of my favorite photos of my sweet Mam. I wish I could share this special day with her, like the rest of my family got to do back in April :-)

 

 

 

80th Birthday (2005)

   

And of course my ALL TIME Favorite . . .

. . . . her wedding day!

Garden Update

It’s midweek already! I’m busy planning my Mother’s Day lunch menu, and I think I’ve finally decided on a menu (which I will share later).  But I told you I’d show pictures of the garden, so I will do that in this post . . . . come see how things are growing!

First of all, remember the ‘pizza garden’ I planted while the work was still being done on the yard? I forgot how small it looked until I went looking for the picture. . . .

  What a difference huh?! I’ve had a few snips of basil and cilantro from this pot. I love that it’s just outside the back door and I can pop out and ‘snip’ whenever I like :-)

 

 

We’ve had our first harvest of the season . . .  of course it was radish. These little guys are fully grown in about 25 days! We just pick a few each day and chop them up on our salads.

 

Beets are coming along nicely, next to the radishes.

Corn is getting big too!

Squash! These ones are Acorn (the two larger ones on the right) and the one at the bottom (smallest one) is zucchini, and the one next to that is a Patty Pan Squash. I had two Patty Pan but one didn’t make it so I put a zucchini one in it’s place.

The Acorn Squash already has flowers on and tiny little ‘acorns’

 

We planted potatoes! It may have been a little late, but they’re growing well. Jason is thinking of pulling them out though as the bed is infested with ‘Morning Glory’ weeds!!!!!! I love this flower but it is evil in vegetable beds

Trees are starting to bear fruit :-) We have a ton of peaches on two trees. I hope the manage to ripen.  I hope they all ripen.

   

Plums!

Pears!

This is MY grapevine that I DIDN’T cut back last year!! It looks great but the grapes are tiny!

 

Jason is training this vine‘the right way’, and I must say the grapes are much bigger because of it!

So, there you have it! Things are growing well for the most part, although we are having some issues with the soil. Jason tested it and it was deficient in nitrogen still AND the acidity is high. Our peppers aren’t growing well at all. We’ve added fertilizer and we have some lime to add this weekend.

How is YOUR garden growing?

Spot the difference!

Not completely the same photo (or angle) but focus in on the house behind our fence….. spot the difference?

I’ll give you a clue! In the second photo, can you see their back porch?  Ha! Spot the difference now?  We bought a new tree :-) A whopping 20 ft Elm tree. We ended up buying it because the guy that’s been doing our back yard was delivering this to Cheryl next door to replace some trees that had died in her backyard. Only, this tree cost nearly double the quote he gave Cheryl, and she didn’t want to purchase something so big at this time.  We want big trees out back, 1) for shade and 2), to hide the other houses behind us, SO I called Jason that day and asked if he thought we should get it? After all, it was sitting right there on our doorstep – more or less! So we got it.  We love it. . . .  BUT, we just wish we’d asked them to place it a few more feet to the left! To block out there upstairs game room (their house is the same model as ours, so I know that’s the game room) ;-)

Brrrrr, it is so cold today. I can’t believe it was about 85 degrees here yesterday and today is only 50! Thankfully the cold front won’t last long, in fact tomorrow we are supposed to get back up to 75 and by Friday, high 80’s.

Here’s a close up of the tree, although a little blurry. I’ll try to get better pictures of it next time.

  

Things are growing in the garden! I’ve been out and snapped some pictures. . . .  I’ll be back tomorrow with an update.

Spring Garden

Well, not the kinda ‘garden’ pictures you were probably expecting to see – I need to get back out in the veggie garden and take some pictures this weekend! Things have been growing a little slow out there so I haven’t blogged about it for a week or so.

These ‘garden’ pictures are the Spring Garden Tee that I finished knitting a few weeks ago and wore for mil’s birthday lunch. I just wanted to share them with you but as you can see it was really very sunny and the lighting is terrible. Anyway, I’ll still share them with you, cos this is one top that I think turned out really cute. I’m seriously considering knitting another one, I like it that much :-)

     

 

The pretty little flower was a gift from my friend Sadie a few years ago. She makes the prettiest felt roses :-)

I’ve been doing really good with my healthy eating and exercising. Hope to post more about it next week… and update you on the garden too.

Have a great weekend!

My Healthy Den

I’ve posted over at my ‘healthy blog’ this morning. I still like to post there so I can look back and review what worked for me and what didn’t!  I’ve decided to try Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred again!!!

I must be crazy. It is pretty hard. I did day one yesterday and my legs feel like jelly this morning! You can read my full post HERE.

Saturday!!!

Wow, did I really not post all week? It doesn’t seem like that long ago I posted, but it was Monday?! My sis will be wondering where I am! This week just flew by, and it was a short week. No school on Friday because it was Good Friday. 

Kiki and I decided to color eggs, like we do every Easter. I figured Friday was a good day, then we can eat them today because we will be eating out tomorrow. Not sure how long hard boiled eggs last in the fridge but I usually like to eat them within a day or two.

  

We’ll be spending the day at Grandma’s house (my inlaws) tomorrow. After we’ve seen if the Easter Bunny has hidden any eggs, and left a basket ;-)  And I’ll also make a nice brunch for us! Hope you all have a lovely Easter Sunday. Be blessed. xxxxx     

Eat This, Not That!

I’m sure you’ve all seen the books like this. . .

a guide to eating healthier, by making smarter food choices! This is my take on ‘Eat This, Not That – the pizza version :-)

Friday is often ‘pizza night’ here, well it used to be for Jason and Kristen, I was always watching what I ate and didn’t even want a slice of Dominos or Digorno, or whatever it was they were having. But of course sometimes I did, and I always felt like I was eating something really greasy and very unhealthy! Last week I bought some ready made pizza crusts so Kristen could make her own pizza, I got them from Target, one pack was whole wheat, the other was a cheesy one, she really liked making her own. This past week I went one step further and bought frozen whole wheat pizza dough from Whole Foods Market. Once it was defrosted in the fridge we could roll it out and top it with whatever we liked. . . .

   

Kristen’s (and Daddy’s) was topped with Italian sausage, turkey pepperoni shredded and fresh mozzarella.

Mine was much more colorful (imo), I topped it with shredded mozzarella (just a small amount) then added red onion, yellow bell pepper, fresh mozzarella and a little basil from my herb garden :-) Next time I would add fresh mushrooms too, but I had none in at the time.

oh, and I drizzled it with some really nice olive oil I just bought.

I didn’t take a cooked picture of mine, but I have to tell you it was absolutely delicious, even Jason liked my veggie one. I can see this becoming a Friday night staple here. Next I want to make my own dough(preferably whole wheat)  so I can calculate how many ww points is in the whole thing, toppings included.

So, right now, I’m choosing to eat this. . .

not that . . . .