Tomatoes ~ Clothesline Day ~ Hot Peppers

 One of my extreme clean projects (craft binders) landed on the kitchen table, and it made me realize, I need the table for tomatoes.  Yikes.  

Tomatoes, although we are getting black rot on some, are rolling in, so I have set up a small camping table for the extras, as they are not all turning red at the same time this year. 

The sound of locusts outside, reminded me to wash our bathrobes while I still had good clothesline weather.  Plus, they were on the bathroom door, and I need that door taken down to paint anyway.  Eventually. I didn't get a photo, but that clothesline was full.  I washed all the towels, clothing and anything else to beat the rain.

Speaking of laundry, my washing machine is now acting up.  I am getting codes, and it will stop completely.  We got it running again, but it is 14 years old.  It may be the next appliance to be replaced.  

So, what would eat jalapenos?  I have one plant almost eaten completely down.  Never, ever, have a seen this activity.  I went back out and did a good look-see to check for tomato worms too.  It could have been done by the last horn worm I removed.  I didn't see any other activity out there.

It's not a great year for my hot peppers.  Plants are smaller, peppers are smaller, and I had several rotten hot banana peppers on a few plants.  My cayenne didn't make it. No habanero this year either.  Just a weird year for them I guess.  My husband said someone took jalapenos to work, from their garden, and they too, were not hot.

We got a bit of rain last night, but not enough in my opinion.  It will be another hot day today.

Saying Goodbye to Goat Supplies and Other Tidbits

 In the process of swapping out the old and new refrigerator, I found a tote with more goat supplies I was keeping.  We have already given away the milk pail.

I guess I was hanging on to all of this, just in case things got very bad in this world, and we needed to invest in dairy goats again.  We decided to let it go.   The "zebra" goat coats were sewn from old pajamas from the kids.  I made them myself actually.  The other was made from old sweatpants.  I guess you could say this is my only purge this week.  

We are still enjoying fresh cucumber salad, cucumber salsa, and I tried a new yellow squash casserole (which lacked flavor).

The green/wax bean plants were yanked.  We enjoyed some of the freshly picked ones.  It's too late to fall plant them.  We had a good harvest this year.  We got 37# this year.  I gave some to the kids, we ate some, and froze some.

After several weeks, we finally got 90% of the flower beds weeded.  I still need to weed the herb garden as well.

I don't know why I started going back to the library.  I had books due back (crochet, cookbooks) before I even had a chance to look at them.

It rained, but not a really good soak.  I took advantage of the day and became the zucchini Houdini.  I have more squash to deal with yet.  

Breakfast was Chili and Cheddar Egg dish, and some local blueberry sausages.

I boiled some eggs for snacking or light lunches.

I used some zucchini for chicken teriyaki, and some yellow squash, so I made homemade teriyaki sauce for that.  My husband was bugging me for zucchini bread, so I baked 2 loaves, and one went to work with him, and I made BBQ beans with the last of the freshly picked beans.  We have leftovers for days here.  

The sun is out today, and back to the 80's.  Yesterday, it was an oddly low 70's day.

I can't believe it's Friday already . . .

The recent rain gave the garden a sip of glory, but not a full drink so to speak.  There is a good possibility for a good soak tomorrow.   The gardens are doing well, and my green onion is springing back to life.  I check it daily, as those squash bugs can lay eggs in a hot minute, and I have to keep the sensors on my motion sensors out there clean, and make sure they are charging.

I started weeding the herb garden and flower beds, but it will take several days.  We did not mulch the flower beds, as we had plans to expand one flower bed (for easier mowing).  It is on the back burner for now.  

  

I'm still working on the utility room, by washing up hats, scarves, gloves, sweaters, and coats, and drying them on the clothesline.  Anything I haven't worn for the last 14 years, is going in a donation box.  That all came out of one coat cubbie, including more sweaters that I put to dry inside on hangers.

One coat cubbie scrubbed clean.  These are the only coat closets we have in the house.  No linen closets etc.  Each one has two hooks in the back.  We installed rods to hold coats, jackets, rain coats, and sweaters.  These were installed by the last homeowner, and have no doors on the cubbies (other than the one we installed recently.  There are small cupboards above and below, and I am going through every single one, purging, cleaning and re-organizing.  It will take some time, now that the garden is producing.

I have found some "are our serious?"  items found way back in a corner, and some "what were you thinking" items, ha ha!  I have added two more plastic storage drawers to the garage project.  I cleaned another upper cupboard, and now have an official storage (out of sight) for our paper towels, napkins, and toilet paper.

(There are about 50 more of these to take off the walls upstairs, ha ha!  Kids!!)

On the upstairs updates, I bring down anything that the kids left every trip up there.  I am almost done cleaning out what was left in the other closet, but progress is being made.

I'm compiling a trip to town, with several lists, and two donation drop off locations.  I found a home for 3 binders that had craft instructions for any type of handmade craft.  I saved pages from magazines, printed stuff, and kept free patterns and instructions from the craft store  (elementary classroom parties, teaching crafts at MOPS etc).  I knew that if I took them to donate to the thrift store they would toss them out, so I inquired with the recovery place, and they were excited to take them.  They do a "creative" weekly, so I am happy I found a good home to donate them.

I'm still adding to my lists, and dreading the trip to town.  My hometown has road construction at every (literally) entrance into town, and adding many round-abouts (we all feel are ridiculous), and we all have to go many miles out of our way to get to and from places in that town.  It will be bad for the next 30 days.  The town is a hot mess, and we try to avoid it as much as possible.

I have placed a few online orders, but that is becoming a joke too.  I may share my experience with that in another post.  I can't believe it's Friday already.  

Tuesday Tidbits

 We did get rain over the weekend, followed by some cooler nights, so I had to give the garden a few days to dry up a bit.

Grab a cup of java.  I tend to get chatty some days, ha ha!  It's probably a boring post as well.  

On the inside of the homestead, there has been much work being done on the utility room purge.

The Before. . .

Pattern purge.  Oh my....had several binders of craft instructions from when I took part of MOPS.  Ha!  That is a group of Moms with preschoolers.  Good gravy!

Two cupboards above cubbies were cleaned and lined.

Painted the added trim.  I used leftover door paint from the kitchen bathroom repairs/renovation project.

Broke out the label machine to properly label binders.

Saving these to possibly help organize the garage, when we start that purge/re-organization project.  Here, all those years I thought I was keeping my yarn organized.  Ha!  I was creating more space to store more I think.  Not anymore.  My focus, is to use up that yarn this summer. It was mostly all cotton yarn.

The yarn filled an oversized shopping bag!

I revisited the binders.  It was long over due.  I found I had re-printed some patterns, thinking I lost them and they were just filed in other binders.  

I think I tossed out about 4-5 of the binders (they were all recycled binders from the kids when they were in school), purged a lot of craft and other patterns, and put about 4-5 in the donation stuff.  I have more to purge, so the binder project is not over with just yet. 

There is one binder that is all Christmas crafting - magazine pages, printed patterns, old magazines etc.  It will take the longest to purge.  I loved to participate in the kids classroom holiday parties, and always made something new for the kiddos.  It's time to purge/toss!  

I emptied, and removed all those containers of yarn.  

The Pharmacy door trim was painted, and door installed.  I completely cleaned the cupboard above the coat cubbie , and my pattern books are being moved to there.  All the kids games were removed and put in the donation items as well.  I can't work in that room all day long.  It has no windows, and is off of a hallway, so it gets very little AC in there.  A fan helps, but it gets pretty warm when you are zipping around working.

I have much more to clean, but making some progress in there.  That cubbie with the new door needs purged and cleaned.  

Today will be a hot one in the 90's.  I need to check my raspberry bushes first thing this morning, and get some tomato plants weeded.  The rain may be returning.  I say "may" because the forecast changes constantly here.

Garden ~ Kitchen-ness ~ Utility Room Purge (the room that holds way too much ha ha!)

 

Our 4th of July started out very foggy, but the remainder of the day was in the high 80's, and sunny.  We spent the morning tying up tomato plants, until the heat index turned 91°F.

  Those tomato plants are not all of them, I have a main tomato patch as well.

Our zucchini plants are about 5 feet wide this year.  Never in our life, have we seen them this large.  Don't mind the weeds, I'll get those when the ground is a bit more dry out here.  You can see the small whirly-gig, and can compare that to the plant.  Amazing!

  

I'm still trying to resurrect the green onions.  Golly they took a hit with the heat and recent drought.  I was hoping for the rain to help, but it will take some work to bring them back to life.

I like to keep healthy snacks prepared for hot days.  Some days we don't feel like eating a large meal, so I whipped up some hummus, and added spinach this time.

One of our favorite breakfast casseroles with chili peppers and cottage cheese.  

 

Craft containers on a shelf in the utility room - the purge/extreme clean has started.

 

I dumped out 3 containers, of the "jewelry" making craft supplies.  I went through them to either toss, donate or keep, and filled a bag to donate.  However, I think one daughter wants to look through it first.  Keep in mind, we have 6 kids, and that was years and years of crafting with them.  The girls really used these, and there was a mess in the bottom of each container.  I found a small set of screwdrivers, that will go to the garage.

All of my patterns were put back into a binder, but my binder ring in the center broke.  I'll revisit that project when I have a new binder, but the patterns are all in there, and in their properly marked section.

Moving along and tossing out. . .

There is nothing to harvest in the garden, but the rain is speeding that process up for us.  I know that I will be very busy out there when it dries up ha ha!  However, the rainy days are speeding up my indoor progress.  

Sorry if these cleaning/purging posts are boring.  It was a long time coming.  The big purge/clean.  This is a long post, so you may want to grab a cup of coffee, ha ha!

 My indoor purge/clean up is moving along.  I checked off another area off my clean it list, so that leaves two more areas.  

I will need the assistance of my husband for the last two, as it involves putting some tools and fix-it items away.  The garage will get a complete do-over this year.  It's just not on the "do it now" list.

Anyway, at one point in my early life, I was really into freelance writing.  I had articles published and kept articles in files.  I still had poems I wrote at a kid growing up.  I tossed those.  We got a chuckle out of some of the poems, but I can't believe I still had those.

In that box, and I kid you not, was a bag with brand new rolls of crepe paper for our youngest daughter's grad party (that never happened).  It was still in my office when we packed up the entire office area in the kitchen to cut up the floor and repair it over a year ago.  

It's all been boxed up to donate, tossed, or filed in the right place. 

Like I said, I didn't want to handle stuff twice, so I am cleaning/purging it all as if I was moving.  I ask myself, "would I move this to a new home" and it really helps the deciding factor.  Toss it, donate it, sell it, or give it away free.

I have "divorced" myself from so many craft supplies, and to be honest, it feels great.

I have heard from the recovery place, where I donated my craft supplies.  The women are knitting blankets to gift family when they visit, they are making jewelry, and they used wall paper samples to cover binders.  I'm so happy they are enjoying the supplies and finding uses for it all.

Stay tuned!  We both finally had a conversation about this bookshelf.  I bought it almost 12-13 years ago for $15 at the thrift store.  It was used for craft supplies until now.  It is solid wood, so we decided to keep it and paint it with whatever paint we have on hand, and put it in the spare bedroom upstairs.  

Just ignore the dust, but look at that new growth on Mom's cactus!  I will give it a shower when it gets watered again.

Our youngest daughter has left her career as hair stylist/nail tech.  It became too difficult in the financial world, and she has already started a new job and loves it.  She may go back to hair down the road, but in this world and day and age, you need a steady partner in your life to support that sort of job.  We are proud of her regardless.

Rain and Storms and Rainy Day Indoor Cleaning/Organizing

 Thankfully my husband got the AC back up and running.  Whew!  We will have to replace it next year for sure.  

It's been raining, hot and humid here the last few days.  We are thankful for the rain, but could do less with the tornado warnings or watch alerts.

I took a quick look at the garden, and I will definitely need to tie up tomato plants on the next dry day.  Everything is looking good however, other than the popcorn and spring planted garlic.  Some of my newly planted Gladys in the flower bed are now coming up too.  I'll definitely be busy weeding and tilling on the next dry day.

The upstairs AC was installed, and we are pricing new units for next year (don't want to end up without AC again).  

I brought down two trash bags full of stuff left from one daughter, and there is more to bring down.  I'm starting on the flooring in that room this week ( or next week ).

A dozen crocheted hats were spilling over on a bookshelf in the living room.  Along with the recent scarf I finished, and a few crocheted flower pots (still need the leaf coasters made).  Anyway, that was all put away, but honestly, I think the finished items take up more space to store than the yarn itself ha ha!  Oh boy.  

We actually talked about a camping trip, and we even sat down to check dates.  It didn't happen.  The next 3 weeks are all booked at all the campgrounds we go to.  I will have to do some looking around at other ones maybe, but for now, camping is not happening.

I apologize.  I think I accidently deleted a comment on my post for the garlic scape/radish spread.  I must have been coffee depleted while working on the blog.

On a roll until we had no AC!

 Success!  If you were reading my blog, do you remember my new list of 7 areas (these are all in plain sight) to clean up/purge/ put things back in their homes?  All of our set backs were making me depressed, so I dove full speed ahead into my list.

I have now checked off 4 of those 7 areas, and it has been heaven to wake up and start my day.   I would otherwise get side tracked, or be outside.  Anyway, my kitchen is back to neat and clean, and tidy.  I filled the truck with more donations (can't believe I found more stuff).

I even washed the tablecloth!

I have gifted these a few times, and they were well received.  They are sturdy, and hold notepads, you can buy at Wal-mart or the Dollar Tree.  I glue a magnet to a pen, so the pen stays on the fridge too.  I will not glue magnets to the pens until I gift these (so the pen does not dry out).  You can get the full instructions:  HERE (on my S.C.R.A.P. Blogspot).

In the process to clean off the kitchen table, and my computer desk area, I had craft projects that needed to be finished, and put in craft show totes (or boxed up for gifting).

I finished that pair of crochet wired beaded earrings.  I finished a pair of crocheted candy corn earrings, I finished the wedding penny (and created packaging for it), and I finally got the magnets glued to the backs of the small clip boards (for fridge shopping notepads for gifting).

My Word on my computer stopped working, so I used an Avery template with 2 x 2 stickers I had on hand, and put them on cut pieces of card stock for the packaging.  I also had the resealable bags and safety pins.   It felt great to get all of this done and put away.  I was temped to make a few more of the wedding penny crocheted flowers, but put those supplies away until the list of "7" areas are done.  

By the way, the penny flower can be given with other poems about a "lucky" penny.  It doesn't have to be a "wedding" penny.  That is just what I needed it for.  Pattern is free on YouTube.

My husband intentionally took the weekend off but, he needed to mow.   Today, all I wanted him to do, was install the upstairs AC.  Instead, he insisted we remove the main window unit downstairs, hose it down (literally, and have no idea why), and put it back in.  However, the unit will not work, as he got something wet he shouldn't have.  He's tried to dry it out, and what not, but to no avail, we are roasting in this house.  

I won't be working so hard today, and maybe not tomorrow.  I may be opening windows and buying some fans.  We don't really have the cash to buy a new unit after the $4400.00 we spent to repair the truck.  Lord have Mercy on us, more so my husband, because I'm not a happy wifey right now.

Toodles, and Happy Sunday!

This and That

 

We have been getting rain, so I'm not doing any garden work currently.  I weeded out the larger weeds in the rose bed, but the rest will have to wait until the the rain stops.

I have been successful with my new to-do list (the 7 areas to tidy up).  I have now crossed 2 off of my list of 7.  My husband hasn't noticed.

Speaking of my husband, there is no sign of the long work hours ending.  He promised me a "date" night, which was taking the motorcycle out and dinner out.  Didn't happen.  They held him over at work.  We are all tired of it.  He has been forced over every night.  One night he was to be home by 8pm, and ended up home at 9pm.

I'm considering going back to work.  We never see each other, and there is no sign we will be getting our projects finished.

I still have a list for us when these hours stop, but I not able to vision any of it being accomplished.  I'm still upset half of the garden was not planted.  Nothing we can do about it.  I probably sound like a broken record.  It can be very depressing at times.  

July is almost here, and the coop materials have not even been bought yet.  We still need more supplies for the raised beds.  The solar fence is still in the box.  I never got my potatoes planted....

I'm getting burned out crocheting.  I have been using up some yarn, and making hats for winter.  I went on Etsy, and was shocked that some people are selling hats for $50-70!!!  What??  And here I was worried that $18 or so was too high.  As for that, my husband said he does NOT want me to do any craft show this winter.

I also saw knitted dishcloths being sold for $7.00!!  What??  I've also noticed that everyone is selling something, and no one is buying.  I read that the area garage sales were a flop as well.  They said "no one was into it" this year.  Well, no one has the money.

I'll be back when I have something more positive to post.  I have just been drained of all positive mojo so far this summer, and feeling like we haven't accomplished anything is mentally draining.

This isn't "throwing in the towel" on homesteading, but the thought is there.

Garden(s) ~ Getting though the days. . .

 I'm cleaning up my blog, and making a few changes.  It was time to lighten the look and make things more simple.  I got rid of the side bars and that bold flower background.  I hope it is a bit more pleasing to the eyes.

The vegetable garden weeding continues, but it's not as bad as the previous years.  The squash plants are looking great, and the cucumbers are too.  I did notice that our National Pickling Cucumbers are much larger plants than our Marketmore 76 plants.  The green beans are looking good, other than a few were trampled early in the season.  No, the fence is not up yet.

I've been pretty successful with rotating the vegetable garden weeding and up keep, with the flower beds. 

I started on the rose bed finally, and boy it is a mess.  We have tried everything but roof shingles to keep the weeds out.  I may get my husband to try that this year after all these trials. 

 We have tried everything from mulch, to black plastic, to weed sheeting to piles and piles of cardboard.  Nothing has worked.  It's the flower bed from h-e-double hockey sticks.  Anyway, my garden sleeves worked great for this garden (so far).

I can't even begin to tell you how drained I am, but seeing so many projects unfinished around here.  It can be so depressing.  I decided to write out a list of rooms that are driving me nuts, and only the areas that I can clean up myself without my husband's help (trust me, there are way more of those projects).

I already checked off one area on my new list.  The new list has 7 areas.  The plan is to focus on this new list each day, and not stress over other things.  When these 7 are checked off, I will re-access, and write a new list if necessary.

Here's what I got done in the way of the list . . .

-put two folding chairs that were in the hall, back upstairs

-brought down a box of trash left by one of the girls, and tossed it all out.

-washed bedding that one daughter borrowed here, dried it on the line and put it back in storage.

-loaded two boxes of items into the truck to donate.

-cleared off the kitchen island, wiped it down and wiped down the chairs.

I can't say I will be that productive every day, but it's a good start.  

Happy Homemaker Monday

 

The weekend went fast.  Thursday night tornados hit northeast of us.  One daughter's family and several friends were in it's path.  All are okay, but there was a lot of damage done.

I am joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay a Home Mom.

The weather . . .

Mostly 80's for high's this week, with possible rain this weekend.

As I look outside my window . . .

It's cloudy.

Right now I am . . .

Drinking coffee.

Thinking and pondering . . .

Canning this season.  It's been on my mind.  What is the most favorite condiment you like to can for gifting?   Not sure it'll happen, but thinking about it.

Did I mention our handy-man quit on us?  He won't even come tend the hens anymore either.  We even have unfinished work from him, and have no idea what's going on.   I have chicken people to contact, but we may be doing everything else, from here on out, ourselves now.  It means it could take longer with my husband working so many hours.

I have a lot of unfinished crochet/knit projects right now.  I'm considering frogging them all and storing the yarn for now.    I do need to finish a few, but some were for craft shows, and that is just now on the homefront right now.  Maybe not even for a few years.  Anyway...those unfinished projects are in the boxes I need to move.

A chaotic home is a chaotic mind (for me anyway), so my focus is to really tidy up/purge etc so we can wake up to a happy home (happy mind).

Listening to . . .

The birds outside.

How I am feeling . . .

Somewhat better, but my throat is still scratchy dry.  The stress of my husband's work hours can really weigh a person down.  Garden work is full swing this week.  The rain brought weeds.

On the breakfast plate . . .

Not sure just yet.

On the lunch plate . . .

Leftovers.

On the dinner plate . . .

Not sure yet.

On my reading pile . . .

On my TV this week . . .

Nothing special.

On the menu . . .

-possibly chicken sandwiches
-turkey roast, veggies
-leftovers

Looking around the house . . .

The living room is a hot mess.  There is so much that needs to go upstairs yet, but I've put it off until the gym flooring is installed.  I'm thinking I'll move it up there anyway.  It could be a while for flooring.

To-do list . . .

An all week list, in no particular order:

-laundry
-check garden/till/tie tomatoes, weather permitting
-wash down west wall kitchen cupboards
-wipe kitchen windowsills
-clean East window blind
-sweep/mop floors (still haven't found a vacuum I like)

-pay bills

-order propane

-tidy up computer/desk area

-grocery shop

-purge remaining craft supplies/move the rest upstairs

One Extreme Clean Pick for the Week:  Clean inside cupboards under kitchen sink.  This job may flow into next week, depending on how much time I need to spend in the garden(s).

From the camera . . .

Devotional, verse, thoughts . . .

Prayers for those who lost their homes/were hurt due to the recent tornadoes.