In This Crazy Life...

This morning I got up when Kev left for work, you can see from the picture that none of the animals wanted to get up. I dropped the recycling off and headed back home to do a little cleaning.  I had to do something with the green beans we had, so I decided to go ahead and can them.  Step 1- Wash them and snap the ends off.  Step 2- Cut them into small pieces.  Step 3 - Boil them for five minutes.  Step 4- Let them sit in ice water for five minutes to stop the cooking process.  Step 5- Fill the jars.  Step 6- Process the jars in a water bath for 20 minutes.  I got four pint sized jars of green beans.  I did the same blanching process with the squash and zucchini that was taking over my crisper.  But I froze it instead of canning.  I absolutely love doing this type of stuff!! It brings back memories of my dad's mom. They lived next door and had a huge garden. I would always help her in it. I remember canning all sorts o

Kev's dad planted a huge garden this year and we are benefiting from it. Every time we see him he has a bag of tomatoes, squash, and zucchini.  Sunday we went out there to pick green beans. The plants were loaded down. Here's our bags.  I was generous and shared with our friends. We still had tons of squash and green tomatoes at the house. I plan on trying to can some of the green beans. That will be a whole post in itself, so stay tuned.

Perla loves to go outside now, especially at night. She starts meowing to go out at about 9:00 and she doesn't usually come back until sometime between 2:30-5:00. She hits the screen door against the glass on the sliding doors in the bedroom. She even knows what door to find us at. She loves to bring home little surprises. This is one of the baby mice. The one she brought the other night was torn into. I hate to think that she is eating them. She has brought the baby snake, a frog, a lizard, and two mice.

Well since we FINALLY closed on the house last Friday, we bought a car this Friday. I no longer have to drive my grandmother's car. It's a 2012 Acadia fully loaded. It even has two sunroofs and a TV in the backseat. Plenty of room to put ALL the camping stuff and the dogs! Yes, it does have black leather and I know ALL about black leather seats, my Altima had them, but these are COOLED! It blows cold air up my butt!

Eight months later and the workout room is finally finished! Well mostly we still need to mount the TV and a corner shelf under it to place DVDs on. We started by taking everything out and putting down a plyometrics foam floor we bought at Academy Sports. Must protect the knees when jumping around. Laying the floor. Once the floor was in, we put up my ballet barre. I would eventually love to mirror this whole wall. But for now this huge mirror, given to us by my aunt, will have to do. I do want to paint it before we hang it. That's why its still just propped up against the wall. I'm not a fan of the gold.  The dread mill  treadmill and weights against the opposite wall from barre. Corner where the TV is going to be mounted along with shelves, so eventually the table will be gone.  So really the workout room is not technically "finished", but its functional for now. One thing I have learned with building a new house, there is always somethi

I got a new job!! I'm packing up and moving schools. My new title will be reading teach and I will be at the new STEM Academy that my school district is opening next year. I'm very excited to join several of my teacher friends in being apart of this endeavor. We still have 6 days of school. I know right. everyone else got out last week. I'm taking a car load home everyday. This pile is teacher resources. Math/ Science pile 1 Math pile 2. I took home 10 boxes of files and paper today. I still have all of my books, literacy resources, and book shelves. I have definitely acquired lots of things in the last 12 years.

We spent Memorial Weekend working in the yard. Saturday night we made a trip to Tractor Supply tostock up on weed/poison ivy killer, spider spray, and seven dust. after laying around for a few hours Sunday morning, we got started. Kev sprayed for spiders first. I've seen way too many for my liking in and around the house. I mean we do basically live in the woods. While he did that I sanded and spray painted two lounge chairs I bought from a friend. This is the before slightly rusted and a red table. This is the after. I found these cushions at Garden Ridge. Talk about overwhelming, they had twelve rows of cushions and a back wall full. I'm not kidding you. I've been looking online at a few places and there really isn't much variety and any one store. These are the pillows that I made for the chairs. I need to make a few more. We also cleared out several small trees in the back yard. We have four huge burn piles. We can actually see parts of the lake