April

Book Review: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Hubby used to drive an hour to work and an hour home. Because of that, he used to listen to books on the drive. This was one of the books he “read” and he just about “ran off the road” laughing. Not really, but something just cracked him up. He told me and told me I needed to read this book. Since we had it in audible, that meant I had to listen to it. Listening to books isn’t quite my strong suit, so it took me a while to get through it. I started it in September of 2018, then didn’t touch it again until February 2020. I finally finished it.

This is such a good book. Seriously.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

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Book Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I started reading this book. I never made it all the way through. It’s interesting. I didn’t remember a lot of what I read… nor do I remember watching the movie. What the heck? I remember Professor Umbridge and I hate Professor Umbridge, but… oy! I couldn’t even remember watching this movie. Hubby would say, oh yeah, or this and that… but not me.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

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Crazy Weather… Coronavirus Day 47

I mentioned the other day that the weather has been crazy! Well, that’s no joke. But what’s really interesting is… we haven’t heard a whole lot about tornadoes lately. I’m scared of tornadoes. But they seem to be fairly scarce these days. I can’t help but wonder if they got wind of Coronavirus. haha. There actually was a tornado that hit down south… some people weren’t allowed into a tornado shelter because they didn’t have masks on. That’s not right. But that’s neither here nor there. I wasn’t there, it just made the news. I can’t do anything about it.

We had a tornado hit local here last night though. In fact, in the area near my old house. So after we got the all-clear, we decided we needed some ice cream. We went the LONG way to get ice cream and went to check out the area. If the tornado actually touched down, it was in the middle of a field. 

But then the sky blew up. It was flipping nuts! It looked as though it was absolutely ON FIRE. I’ve never seen such a vibrant orange sky. It was crazy.

With the way this year is headed, I can’t say that anything much surprises me these days.

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Planting the Garden – Coronavirus Day 42

This weather has been nuts. I swear, it goes along with this year. This year has been nuts. Wow! So weird, in fact I put my sweatshirt on backward this morning. Oy! But, it’s the perfect time to plant a garden since we’re all sitting at home with nothing to do. And that’s just what I did yesterday. I started the garden, planted it once, that didn’t work, so I’ve proceeded to grow seeds in the greenhouse. Update on that to come shortly. But, when the first set of seeds didn’t work, I added more soil, tilled it up a couple of times… AND… now we’re ready! Ready to plant. Except the weather isn’t cooperating.

It has rained at some point every day this week. Yesterday morning included. BUT then…

So first off…

My friend Janet talked about planting corn on her Instagram stories the other day. She mentioned an Earthway Precision Garden Seeder. I went on the hunt to do a little research and kind of fell in love. I was trying to find one locally so that I could get my corn planted… I might be itching to get my corn planted. (more…)

Homeschooling 101: Planting Seeds… Coronavirus Day 38

Once upon a time, we were in a science class in grade school. We planted beans and corn from seed and watch the germination process. Jump forward 20+ some odd years (I don’t know how many) and I decided to do that with the little. It was a time of the Coronavirus Pandemic when schools were closed for the rest of the year and we had to homeschool. And when I say homeschool, our school district wasn’t prepared for that. Eventually, they sent out daily work, that wouldn’t harm the kiddos grade, but would help it should they do it. But after we did that work, we did our own education as well. This time… science.

Since this spring we got into gardening, why not do the germinating thing, right? I had seeds waiting to be planted in the ground. Mainly corn and green beans as I attempted to start other plants in the greenhouse.

Corn prefers to be started directly in the ground. Beans on the other hand don’t mind being started indoors, but in my luck, they still do better directly in the ground. (more…)

Adding Soil/Fertilizer… Coronavirus Day 36

I gave up on the seeds in the ground. Grandma swears I should give it a little more time. And truthfully my dad always says I’m a little impatient… but they’ve been planted since March 30 and here we are April 18th (that was Saturday this all went down) and no signs of anything. The seedlings I planted were for cooler weather. Not cold… there’s a difference. But they prefer the cooler weather of April, May, and possibly June versus the summer heat of July and August.

3 weeks and nothing. So I pulled the tiller out and said screw it. Hubby started “feeling sorry” for me because I really wanted more soil from our manure pile, but we don’t have a front end loader. I wasn’t in the mood to try and bucket it as we did back in March. And truthfully he’d been wanting to rent this machine because it comes with multiple attachments including one to work on the brush in timber. (more…)

My New Greenhouse… Coronavirus Day 36

Some days I have great ideas… and other days I have ideas that make you scratch your head wondering where on earth I came up with this. Today’s project might be one of those… WHAT?!?! moments. So between the gardening and landscaping this year… I’ve really gotten into plants. I bought a lot of the flowers that I’ve used for landscaping, but the vegetables for the garden are a different story. I really wanted to grow my own plants. After garden planting #1 went awry, I decided to try the little miniature greenhouses. You know the little starter kits you buy at Home Depot (<– I used that one… not an affiliate link, just a link to what I used) or Lowes and I even found them at Dollar General.

Those starter kits are addicting. So I accidentally took over my kitchen table. Whoops. That was when I went on the hunt to see how much it would cost to make a greenhouse. There are kits you can buy but this was a DIY Greenhouse that we decided upon. This round anyway :).

My New Greenhouse

First things first… you need to decide how big it is going to be. Where you are going to put it. And buy the materials. Since I already had the trailer on from taking scrap to the scrapyard, it was the perfect time to get the materials. We decided on a 12×16. So here’s the material list: (more…)

Starting Vegetables from Seed… Coronavirus Day 35

I got a little excited back at the end of March trying to get plants in the ground. In case you wondered… none of them germinated. None of them came up. I decided to give up… although Grandma told me to give it just a little more time. But I don’t have high hopes. So I decided to go the route of starting them indoors and then transplanting them. What do I have to lose at this point? I still have time to try this method and if it doesn’t work, try planting directly in the garden again. I guess that’s one good thing about starting early.

I still haven’t given up hope on finding potato starts, but I’m not finding them either. Fingers crossed I find some… but…

Back to the day at hand…

Starting Vegetables from Seed.

  • You’ll need a good potting mix. Typically I try to use from our soil pile, but I actually bought seed starting potting mix. 
  • Seed trays that include an outer tray, inner tray, and the clear plastic dome.
  • Seeds (of course)
  • Water.
  • Optional: Seedling markers.
  • Optional: Seed Dibber or pencil. Helps measure how deep to plant the seeds.

First things first, you’ll want to put the soil into the individual trays. (more…)

The Day I Drove My Husband Nuts… Coronavirus Day 34

Honestly, why am I recording all of this? Because someday I’m going to look back and see this and remember. Truthfully, maybe I don’t want to remember some of this. This Pandemic is nuts. It sucks too. But I’m trying to make the most of it. Plus, I can’t seem to sit still. It’s not like I went a lot of places before all of this, but the thought that I can’t has me stir crazy. Stir crazy enough to go all over our place looking for scrap to haul off. Not because I want the money, but because I want the crap gone.

Once I was done with our house, I went off to my parents. In fact, the more I think about it, I might be driving my dad nuts too. (more…)

The Coronavirus Easter… Day 30

I’m pretty sure most people would agree this wasn’t the Easter we planned on for 2020. Everyone talked about the Roaring ’20s but I seriously doubt this Coronavirus is what they had in mind. Honestly, truth be told, this is probably the Easter I don’t care to remember. Not because I want to forget the true reason for this season. In fact, Jesus is what is getting us through this. Him and God. Otherwise, this would suck a lot more than it does. I love that a lot of churches were broadcasting Easter Church services online because we’re not allowed to congregate at Church right now.

But Easter with my family this year could have gone better. I seriously think I’ll just leave it at that. 

At least the Easter Bunny was able to make it through to our house. Whew!!

What made it “perfect” was the fact that the little said that she loved this day and couldn’t wait until next Easter. That right there and Jesus are the true reason for this! (more…)