Hey all you coffee drinkers, your lawn needs you

I knew that title would get your attention.  I too would have clicked on the link without hesitation thinking "maybe she's going to tell me there are wonderful benefits to drinking coffee, so I should drink more."  Sorry to say, that's not the purpose of this post.  In fact, I have been researching lawn care and specifically organic lawn care. 

I'm guessing those of you who don't give a rip about organic living or lawn care are rolling your eyes.   Stay with me for a moment.  I need your coffee.  lol. 

We leveled our lawn a couple of summers ago and had to reseed it.  I did not know that when seeding grass, it is ideal to mix the topsoil with a compost of some sort.  You could snap an ankle on our lawn right now because it is so hard!  I need to aerate it, but I just can't bring myself to buy a pair of spike bottomed sneakers and walk in circles for hours a day. 

I heard that coffee grounds were good for composting.  I wondered if they had any benefits for lawns? Hey, we drink a couple of pots a day (oh common, you would too if you were home with 4 little ones!)  I should check this out!  I was pleasantly surprised at the answer. 

Here's what I found.  Coffee grounds are GREAT!  Here's why:

• they can be worked into soil to improve aeration and drainage
• coffee grounds, make great mulch.  Gardeners report trees, shrubs and flowers responding very well when mulched with coffee grounds
• earthworms go crazy for coffee grounds. Some people think they even become addicted to coffee for the same reasons people do. Worms tear through coffee grounds like any compost. They will eat through the equivalent of their own body weight every 24 hours. They are nature’s roto-tiller
• coffee grounds provide your lawn with both the major nutrient group N-P-K and the macro nutrient group in a slow release form.
• you'll save a few dollars by not buying all that commercial fertilizer
• they are high in nitrogen, which is the same nutrient that is lost in the greatest quantity when lawn is mowed

Here's what my lawn looked like on 5/30/12

I took my can of used coffee grounds out and just flicked them all over this area.  (I've since read that you should dry them out on a tarp or something first as they spread more evenly.)

Can't wait to see the results!

Do you have laundry nightmares?

I'm still trying to figure out how we could have so much laundry. 

We have been blessed with wonderful hand me downs and gifts of clothing.  Figuring out how much we actually need for each child has been a process.  I feel so blessed by those who share their clothing with us, every year is different though.  Some years we have too many, so we've had to go through them all take what we need and then have the privilege of passing on what we don't need! 

I have found that the more clothes the kids have, the quicker the drawers get emptied. If they have a drawer jammed full, they tend to have a harder time making the decisions on what to wear too.  There is a happy balance here and we're still trying to figure it out. 

I won't say that I haven't found folded clothing tossed into the dirty laundry baskets before.  This turns the mother into a 2 horned beast frothing from the mouth with CRAZY eyes.  I think they are getting smarter and unfolding them first now. Ha ha. Those little whippersnappers.....

I do have a confession to make in all of this.   I tend to attack the laundry like a rabid beast one day (probably after finding folded clothing in a dirty laundry basket) and then am so sick of laundry by the next day that I focus my efforts elsewhere.....for like, 4 days. 

That could be a leading contributor regardless of how the clothes end up in the laundry room.  We have about a 3-4 load-a-day obligation, so 4 days off at that current rate = 12-16 loads. 

In case you are wondering what that looks like......

Things didn't seem that bad, until a certain child was out of unmentionables and I couldn't quite figure out why....the laundry wasn't that backed up.  Were they just throwing them away?  Well, I found out when I got in detective mode..... the closet became a morgue for the take-offs each day and I wasn't checking the closet for the dirty clothing, I was emptying the basket in the room. 

They brushed up on their laundry skills needless to say. 

This was just one isolated event. I can not blame them for the continual laundry disaster that happens here at Mt. Dirty Duds. 

In my pursuit to delcutter the other day, I decided this mountain is coming down.  I had the faith of a mustard seed.  :)   (Matthew 17:20) I was going to move this mountain! 

In just 1 day I did most of it.  I had 2 loads left for the next day.   I'm proud to announce that today my laundry is completely caught up. 

2 Timothy 1:7 says  For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 

I have no excuse.  I may have tendencies to put things off and procrastinate, but He gave me a spirit of self dicipline.   If I have that within me....laundry should be a very small issue that I can deal with and not have to make excuses for.  

Blessings to you today as you tackle something you've been making excuses for.  Remember, if you are a child of the King, you have a spirit of power, love and self dicipline. You can do it!!!!

Stay tuned for my home made laundry detergent findings!

Vegetable Gardening

Vegetable Gardening isn't something I'm pro at but 3 springs ago I had my handy hubby build me (2) 4x8 garden boxes to plant veggies in.  Our yard isn't all that big, so we wanted to put the boxes in an area that isn't used all that much right along our property line.  On the pavement.  (sounds interesting doesn't it?)  I didn't want to go digging up our already small lawn for a garden and the sun hit that area all day long, so I decided the pavement was just the place for it. 

We put gravel on the bottom for drainage then top soil, lots of manure, peat moss and fertilizer which eventually got us this: 

I learned a few things after this first year.   Like Tomatoes and Sweet peppers are very sensitive to cold and over watering.  Yes, they did produce, but I ran into some near death experiences with them. (they were nearly dead before I figured out what I was doing!)

You should have seen me...I had hand drawn maps of my gardens with little x's where each carrot would grow and everything!

Last year I didn't bother with 1/2 of what I planted the first year.  At the time when we built these boxes, we thought it was plenty of room.  Most of the suggested garden boxes online that we saw were 4x4's so we thought we were really doing ourselves a favor by making (2) 4x8's.  To feed our sized family...they should have been 12x30!  (OK, maybe not...but these feel small to me now)

Broccoli brought us little white worms that had to be picked off.  Not my cup of tea.  I didn't figure this out till some of my plants were nothing but nubs.  This link will give you some great info on how to grow a successful crop.

Carrots need very fine soil to grow in so they don't grow into mutant carrots.  Guess what we got.

Cukes did grow in these boxes which really surprised me because they need lots of space to roam, but they did well here.  (for the amount we wanted anyway!) This year I will plant more than normal so I can make Lady Ashburnhams.  The cukes and onions get expensive when making these.

Tomatoes....well, they tend to gross me out.  Ha ha, call me a wimpy gardener or a tomato snob, but if my tomatoes grew mutant looking I didn't want to eat them.  I gave them all to my mother in law. She said they were some of the sweetest tomatoes she had ever eaten.  My friend Jill taught me how to prune these properly.  You have to cut the sucker shoots off.  This made all the difference for my tomatoes! Thanks Jill!  Check out this great resource for growing tomatoes.

Green beans grew great!  I'm still figuring out a system for them.  They need poles or something to grow around.  I've been using a homemade bamboo and string system.  It's a mess.  I don't like doing it that way.  I'll have to concoct something different for this year. 

My all time favorite thing I grew over the years (which I didn't plant NEAR enough the first year) were Sugar Snap peas.

I think the first year I planted maybe 12 seeds in a row.  Last year I did 2 rows of 24 and this year I have sowed 4 rows of seeds hoping for a bounty from those little babies!  (great snacking food for the kids.  They love them and they love picking them!  Bonus!!)

I am no expert gardener, but each new year I get to try my hand at growing our own food.  I love this concept.  What a financial savings too!  I wish we had more land, I would have a great big garden.  I am loving learning how to can foods and make my own jams and pickles.  Something my mom did when I was a kid and now I know why.  It is just down right yummy and satisfying. 

Clutter, Clutter go away.....

I hate clutter.  Can I just be that honest to say I reallllly hate it.  I like organization.  Guess which one I'm good at?  Nope.  It isn't organization.  You'll know that by the myriad of posts saying "I was late for...." or "we flew out the door...." My name is Becky and I am a procrastinator with a side of just- stack-it-there. 

So with that said, today I'm focusing on decluttering.  Again. (Seriously I should be posting this every other day, because that's about how often I have to attack it!)

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with where to start when it comes to decluttering my home.  You know, you look around see a stack of paper, stack of dirty dishes and stack of dirty kids...all in one room. Where do you even start?  There's so many offending areas!

I had to go back to my old standby.  Flylady. 
I go on binges of Flylady every so often and it feels so good to be in a routine and the house looking and smelling great.  But, I don't seem to have a lot of "stick-to-it-ness" because after about a month of hacking away at the same old thing....I get bored and I want to do something different like craft or read or blog.  And then I start all over again at the same place.  Catastrophe mountain.

Anyhoo, can't focus on the negative for too long.  I had to start somewhere.

27 Fling Boogie
Ok, so the name is a little off the wall, however, the idea is a great one to get a hold of. 

Here's what she says to do:

"This is a tool to help you declutter your home. Do this assignment as fast as you can. Take a garbage bag and walk through your home and throw away 27 items. Do not stop until you have collected all 27 items. Then close the garbage bag and pitch it. DO NOT LOOK IN IT!!! Just do it. Next, take an empty box and go through your home collecting 27 items to give away. As soon as you finish filling the box, take it to the car. You are less tempted to rescue the items. If you have two of any item and you only need one, get rid of the least desirable."

Man, the house got put back in order fast!  (I did add a third step - go room by room and anything that does not belong in that room, go put it where it does.) And I set a timer.  I could pick up this house all.day.long.   if I was willing. I'm not.  I went through the whole house for the flylady steps but I only worked on the downstairs for my added step.  (again, time restraint). What I did in that 30 mins though was great!  I threw in some laundry before I started and away I went.  I ended with a wash-some-windows celebration. **sarcasm** I really dislike washing windows.  (I have to do it when the toddler isn't watching me....or she will "help" me after I'm done.)

Let me encourage you to get rid of your unwanted's, undesirables and your unneeded's today.  You can bless someone else with stuff you don't need and feel great about an uncluttered home! 

Remember, stuff does not create lasting happiness.  That's God's job.  :)  Too much stuff leads to unhappiness, big bills and a big ol' mess.  Get rid of it!

I want to live like that...

Some things are better left to the professionals

Toward the end of winter I was out tooling around one day.  I had to apply the brakes as the car in front of me was apply theirs! A huge batch of snow came flying off of my roof onto my windshield.  (that's when you really wish you had of taken the time before you left to properly sweep off the van....but it's so high up there...my clothes would have got all covered in snow!)  I flipped the wipers on and it was heavy....a little too heavy I guess because when they finished wiping.....they stopped in the upright position. 

I have seen others with this issue in the past and wondered how they could stand leaving it like that.  Why wouldn't they just try to fix it. Push down on them and see if that works......

It doesn't. I tried. 
I didn't go all wild on them or anything, but what I did do was cause the passenger side to flop down right in your line of sight.  Perfect.

I've driven like this for a couple of months now because we just couldn't justify adding any bills to our household when work was so slow this winter.  We'd have to take care of it when things picked up. 

My superman couldn't wait that long.  The other night the 6 of us piled into the van and were headed out to get some essentials.  Superman waltzed over to the side of the van and put his arms out in true superhero fashion and then this hunk of a man is throwing himself at the windshield hanging onto only a lone wiper!  REALLY!  I was there!

This is why carpenters hire mechanics and mechanics hire carpenters.... I mean, he darn  near tore the wipers off! 

The next minutes I can't say that I was not singing the national anthem with my own words that may have gone similar to this: " Oh say, I can't see!  I could once but for thee.  You've pushed them way too far aaand broke my old car.  The rain drops will fall and I now will have to caaaaaaalllllll a mechanic the next daaaaaaaaaaayy because of your forceful play!!"

He was not edified. 

We took wrenches to it next.  Not good.  Long story...we ripped the gear thingy right off of it.  There are noises now when we turn the wipers on.  They don't wipe. 

So if you see me driving down the street and it's raining and my head is out the window...it is because God gave me my own set of wipers...their called eyelids. 

Oh!  I almost forgot  to say....we got the wipers to lay down. 

Permanently. ;)

Apparently she was hungry.

My husband rolls over and says, "It's 6:45, we should get up."  Then it hit me.....he must not have gone down to the school this morning to clean! AHHHH!  (we clean a school in case you couldn't figure that out. lol)
I flew out of bed so fast that he wasn't even able to get out of bed before I was running down the stairs and out the door complete with my uncombed rats nest and unbrushed fangs (and that's just what someone would think if they happened upon me right then! The stink of some gnarly beast with a decaying carcus in their mouth....not something you want to encounter first thing in the morning!)

I got it all done...faster than I ever had before....Phew! 

I was invigorated though, once I got home and wanted to clean.  (There's just something about cleaning an old building with old bathrooms that realllllly make you want to rush home and disinfect your own home!)

So, I decluttered a bedroom, cleaned 2 bathrooms, swept, mopped, did dishes, did several load of laundry and then I got the bug to cook!  So, I made a batch of bread, 2 batches of banana bread, a batch of lemon cranberry muffins, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  All before 1:00pm. 
It felt so good.  And tasted it too! 

Later, my good friend stopped by.  We chatted, laughed, laughed some more and then my 21 month old comes walking to the front door (we were on the porch) with a cookie.  Hmmm, I wonder who gave that to her?  My eldest daughter comes to the door snickering as she passes me the container where the cookies and muffins were.  She said "ummm, mom, apparently she was hungry." 

The tops of all of the muffins were bit off.  Every cookie had a chomp out of it.  All of that baking....now in her tummy.  Needless to say she wasn't all that hungry for supper. 

I lightly scolded her.  The cookie seemed to lose some of its flavor.  How could you get mad at this face?

There's never a dull moment around here....and for that....I'm glad.  Enjoy your day!!!

 

Renovations Abound

You know when we purchased this old house, we had some great ideas and dreams we wanted to accomplish within it.  We've been here for 8 years now and we have done a ton of work to it. It's funny, it doesn't look that different, but it's a lot warmer!!!  Let me show you a recent project we tackled.  We're still in process, but soooo close.  Check it out.

 

This is my oldest daughters bedroom.  

 This was the "spare" bedroom/storage room. (complete with tiny bathroom where that door is)

Our house was 3 apartments at one time and when we bought it it was still a 2 unit home so there was an upstairs room only accessible through it's own staircase at the back end of the house. 

We started out this renovation by just putting a doorway in between the two rooms (this was my bad idea.  I was pregnant and hormonal, and my husband is Superman and will tackle about anything that I ask him to!) We had a baby on the way and he wasn't messing with my insisting idea that we should have a nursery for her.  (LONG story there....we have 4 kids....they will all share rooms now, lol)

Once we got into the renovation, we shook our heads at how ridiculous this would look, let alone all the time we would have to put into a "patch-job" renovation when it really need to be gutted, floors leveled, roof fixed around chimney, insulated properly and new wiring....oh...the wiring. 

You know, even though my husband is a carpenter by trade, the process of renovating is still very painful.  Did I mention our house was built in 1910?  Lathes and plaster all throughout.

Y.U.C.K.

 Doing carpentry by day for a job and carpentry on home by night does not lead to a project getting done very fast either. My sweetie has been plugging away on this project for 1 year and 9 months so far. (needless to say, our baby is not needing that new nursery now...lol...she's almost ready for a toddler bed! HA!) We're seeing the light though!! (feeling giddy inside just thinking about it!)

(And my carpenter superhero says inside work is done in the winter and outside work is done in the summer, so that is another reason why (along with $$) it has taken so long.)

Ok, so the TV is a little cumbersome. 

We have cable and electric outlets on the wall for a flat screen some day.

Our headboard is an old door. I just love it!

Oh be careful little hands what you touch...

When dropping off my kids at school this morning, the youngest started to protest with screaming.  The door opened and screaming kid alerted stares.  I saw the Head Master standing on the front steps when I was walking toward the school and I sort of gave an exaggerated smile and a slight roll of my eyes and sarcastically said.... "I love my children. I really do."   His reply (which I've heard from many other parents who have been there, done that) was "One day you'll look back at this day and wish it back."  I don't know why I was stopped dead in my tracks today about his comment, but he was absolutely right.  One day I will look back.  Will I look back with shame and regret or will I look back and have fond memories?  I thought about this all morning. 

While the older 3 were at school and the youngest in bed for a nap I decided I should take some time for God.  In that quiet time with Him, the question arose, "Lord, where do you want me to minister?"  One obvious answer was "right here at home". 

When it was time to pick up one child from school for a Dr. apt, I thought about this.  My kids are at least one of my missions fields.   How well am I doing?  (to which many faults and failures pester my thoughts)  So, I decided there's no time like the present.  Talking kindly to my kiddies I tell them how much I love them and smile at them.  Touch their arms.  Rub their heads.  The  Dr. comes in, we have a checkup and get chatting about our responsibilities as parents.  I told her what the Head Master had said and she fully agreed.  She also said, "a lot of what your children learn comes from you as parents anyway.  How you respond to situations, how you react."  I replied "yes, I've heard the saying 'it's caught not taught.'"  We giggled about it all, got a sticker for being good and out we went. 

On our way out, I was trying to entice a smile and a cutesy "thank you" out of my toddler for the receptionist who gave us stickers.  My other child ran ahead.  He was pushing on the emergency exit door to go out (we never go that way, I don't know why today he thought we would).  I said, no, we're going this way.  He decided to pull the handle of the red "door opening mechanism" on the wall.  It was the Fire Alarm. 

Guess what conversation floods my mind as I choose how to react to this situation.  Yup.  Just that fast, I'm being tested.  Will I get angry?  Will I yell?  Oh how embarrassing this all is.  I slowly backed up to the window where stood the Dr., the receptionists and the nurses....all looking at us.  I mouthed the words "I'm so sorry" at the window and took off for the van.   I decided I should calmly explain why this was wrong when we got to the car.  My son (may I just say he is only 4) knew once the alarm sounded that he had done something really wrong.  He said I'm so sorry, mom.  Mom, I'm so sorry, I thought it was the door opener.  (you know, like the automatic buttons for handicap doors)

I am so glad I didn't freak out.  (yes, this is an occasional reaction of mine) He really didn't knowit was the fire alarm. 

I think today 2 of us learned a lesson.  For me....I am to cherish the moments of raising our family - it is my mission field.  For him....be careful little hands what you touch. 

To those who were inconvenienced by a false fire evacuation....we're so sorry.  

Maybe you'd like your stickers back.