• Blog - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: cursed journal edition

    Hello, hello! I’m feel a little thrown off this morning from the Memorial Day holiday yesterday. Today seems like Monday. Waking up late didn’t help matters any.

    But today is Tuesday… so that means it’s time to join Elizabeth and Bleubeard for T stands for Tuesday.deck box gardenI brought my coffee outside with me to check on the gardens. I won’t bore you with a bunch of pictures of mostly dirt. I have 10 tomatoes planted…4 yellow pear plants and 6 Thessaloniki(Greek heirloom)plants. My beans are sprouting. The cucumbers are planted. Hopefully the leaf lettuce seeds I planted will sprout soon form the galvanized bucket in the deck box garden.

    It’s misty raining so I’d like to show you my before and after on my cursed journal. After completing the journal I assumed I would leave the outside unadorned. The cover graphics and color was what made me choose this book in the first place. cursed journal beforeBut the spine left something to be desired. It kept bugging me as it sat on the bookshelf. Since my art space is currently out of commission…there wasn’t a whole lot I could do. Then my tea dyed curtain scrap came to mind. I could have the best of both worlds…pretty graphics and the ugly spine covered.cursed journal afterI decided to add the little bits of chain and charms at the last minute. charmedThey add a little movement and bling.  Now I’m very happy with the journal that caused me so much grief in the beginning.

  • Blog - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: gardening edition

    Hello…I’m back for T stands for Tuesday. Did you miss me?20140519_4885I took last week off to attend Little J’s all-district track meet. She did awesome! First place in her school for girls 100m run and her relay team finished a good 3 seconds before anyone else in their heat. She was the anchor, so this photo appears that she is running unopposed. What a great way to finish off her elementary school years! The meet brings together all 7 elementary schools in the district at one of the high schools…too bad it wasn’t the one she’ll be attending since that would be cool at that age. 20140513_4812If you look at the way the adults at the finish line are dressed, you’ll get an idea of the temperature that day. Real feel of 39°F.

    Anyway…I named this post gardening edition…so where the heck is the gardening?!?20140520_4894Here we have my tiny seedlings waiting to be strong enough to live outside. Notice the plastic barrier I had to erect around them…I’m sure you can guess who that is for.

    Mr. G and I worked outside most of Sunday prepping the garden.20140518_4858He built a gate for me this year so I no longer have to climb over the fencing. 20140518_4859The beans are planted…tomato cages are ready and the flags are blowing in the breeze both for decoration and deer deterrent. 20140518_4857My deck box garden is also ready for planting…my cherry tomato plants and cucumbers will live here.

    And where was Miss Gracie…20140518_4877Running from door to door begging to come out. Nope. Not going to happen. Not since she chased that squirrel up a tree. Too strong of hunting instincts for that one.

    Lots of things on the list today ending with an evening choir concert, so I better get at it!

    What are you doing today?

  • Blog - Kitchen

    Amazing life hack

    This is going to change my life…seriously. I didn’t believe it until I tried it myself.oil cleanerDid you know the best way to clean that nasty caked on grease from the top of your fridge or other surfaces in your kitchen is with oil!! fridge top cleanI don’t have a before picture since it would have been seriously embarrassing.

    Here’s a small example of what the top was like…eww...greaseexcept think 10x thicker….ewwwwww!

    I dipped a paper towel in a bit regular vegetable oil and wiped across the icky grease.wipeOk, now your thinking well yeah it looks great because there is a film of oil on top.

    But check this out…BAM...cleanTotally clean…smooth…shiny…awesome.seriouslyAmazing…right!?!

    After cleaning all of the items on top of my fridge in the same way I now have the prettiest fridge top in town. clean and prettyI did end up using a Pampered Chef scraper in a few spots with the oil where it was really stuck on.  Again….ewwww.  But now that I know this trick I plan to wipe it down on a much more regular basis so it doesn’t get to that stage again.