I am not a fan of them. Nor is Wade. When we moved into our house, we did not want to spend the hundreds to upgrade the doorknobs and said we would do it eventually. Several times we priced it out and figured it would cost about $300 to replace the whole house.
Instead, I read a blog about a lady that just spray painted the. I decided to try it.
They turned out AWESOME! Surprisingly, they have not chipped either. I did go over them with some steel wool before applying the paint.
Wade was gone and the girls were complaining about being board so I made up a tray of various ingredients from the pantry.
I had oil, water, vinegar, sugar, salt, cornstarch, flour and baking soda and food coloring. I gave the girls a dump cup and several small clean cups for mixing.
Away they went making different potions and concoctions.
I also am attempting to grow herbs again. I have been successful at chives and that is it. Wade uses them all the time to cook…I would love to pull them out of our own garden.
I say this every year, but here we go again. This is like my 14th year planting a garden. Hopefully this time we will actually get some produce this time! We got some dirt from the soil supermarket. This was a first for us, as we usually get bagged dirt. Wade heard it was “cleaner.” Clean or not, dirt from the soil supermarket is cheap…and we will buy from there again!
Not exactly a before picture…this was after moving almost a yard into the garden. (And no we never did level the garden out).
The random cabbage is Sydney’s. Never in a million years would I have thought that we would be able to grow cabbage. Every 3rd grader got a cabbage plant to take home and grow. The biggest cabbage gets $1000 for their school to start a garden. Sydney’s plant had 2 in it and now, even after the frost, we have 2 cabbages growing. I can’t wait for April to turn these in! (And in the fall we might try to grow some on our own!)
After our luffa experiment last year, I figured out that the bees did a great job of pollinating (as much as I hate the stingy things!!!). In an effort to attrack {{{cringe}}} more bees, we bought flowers to put in and around the garden. Not sure if these are the bee attracting types, but it is worth a shot.
I also broke down this year and actually bought tomato plants to start. I did start a bunch of seeds as well, but the plants will get us started and they already have fruit…so that means I have succeeded in some ways! 🙂
Stupid me for thinking Daisy would stay out of the garden this year. I had to put up the fencing again…she was already knocking down my mounds!
One of the things I have thought is that this area of the yard is very shaded in the afternoons (one of the reasons we picked this lot…we have a wonderfully shaded backyard in the heat of the day!). I am going to experiment this year and put some pots of tomato plants on the patio that will receive full sun the majority of the day.
I bought just cheap plain white pots and some red and yellow plastic spray paint. I must have done something wrong because the paint scratches of EASILY! I am so disappointed in it.
One last thing…we planted onions…and lots of them. I found a bunch of 1015 bulbs at Home Depot and was pumped to try my hand at them! I love 1015’s (an onion that A&M came up with) broiled with a little sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Yum!!!
Wish us luck!!!
Wade took all of these pictures as I helped the girls. Recipe HERE.
A couple weeks ago we bought some flax seed after hearing my co-worker talk about making power balls. The girls LOVED them! I am not sure who ate more, me or Wade. The girls and I made more today. It is a great [mostly] healthy snack.
1c honey
1c peanut butter
1/2c flax seed
3c oatmeal
1c chocolate chips
1/2c nuts
1/2c dried fruit (we skipped this because we didn’t have any)
Mix well and enjoy.
If you have been following my blog for more than 6 months, then you have seen the drama over our outdoor adventures. For example the first phase of our playhouse here, and then the second part here, and the mistakes here, and then finishing up here. I never did post the final pictures of it. So here they are. I will borrow a wide lens to take pictures of the inside later.
The girls were excited that they have a door like Punky Brewster. Yes…cause my girls have every episode of Punky memorized.
There is electricity (an extension cord) running from the garage out to the top of the playhouse. This plugs in the AC unit–YES it is HOT in Houston and I don’t want the girls dying of heat stroke–and it also gives them light in the playhouse.
And in case you were wondering…I will NEVER be a roofer! At least not in Houston!
Lately we have been going low-carb. But I have a SUPER sweet tooth, so this has been very difficult. After 2 weeks I needed SOMETHING sweet. The latest Martha Stuart magazine had some great recipes in it and with a little modification, are very low carb. I attempted to make this beautiful meringue cake.
I put it in the oven and started on the syrup.
I took it out of the oven and this is what it looked like.
Oops. I think a couple things went wrong. First I used one of those rubbery bunt pans and put it in a water bath. I should have skipped the water bath using that pan. The second, I think I actually over mixed the meringue. It had stiff glossy peaks but it had only been about a minute and the instructions said 3-4 minutes. Lastly, I used splenda instead of sugar (no carbs in splenda).
We did try it then chuncked it in the trash. Maybe next time.
When Wade and I got married, a good friend of ours gave us a silver bell and told us that we had to get one each year. So far so good. The most difficult years have been 1999 and 2000. But we managed to find them online. Do you have any ornament traditions?
