Men At Work

Is there anything better than a man at work? 

He can be in a suit and tie, scrubs and mask or jeans and a sweaty tee. 

Nothing is better than a man at work. 

Except if he's YOUR man and he's working for YOU.

Spring has hit us hard and fast this year at 500 Dollar Tomato.  So many things to do but the garden always has top priority.   We needed to expand the garden this year, hopefully for the last time.  Expansion equals physical labor and while I may have endurance and persistence on my side, what I do not have is strength.

Period.

I am, my friends, a pussy when it come to physical labor.

All these gardens, these trees, this home...none of it would be here if it wasn't for the one man in my life who listens to what I need and gives it to me.  Mostly because I ask for it and (more astonishingly) because I don't.

He does it because it he knows it's important to me and therefore important to him.  He's invested.

Happy wife?  Happy life.

So the long awaited garden expansion project happened this past weekend.  SM had already "double dug" a new strip of ground a few months ago.  This new patch of clumpy clay now needed to be tilled.

SM rented a Mantis from the local hardware store to do the job.   After lots of kicking and starts and stops due to the grass matting up, SM tamed the beast.

The next day was "move the fence" day.  What a pain in the tukus!

Thankfully the sky was overcast as SM pulled stakes, yanked fencing and pounded the stakes back into their new position.  I helped as much as I could but the simple fact of the matter is that this was man's work.

Once we were attaching the fence it became a team effort with SM stretching the fence and me tapping landscaping staples through the fencing into the cardboard and into the ground.

Have I mentioned before that there is just not enough cardboard in the world?

You can never have enough cardboard.  Or newspaper for that matter.

Monday morning found SM and I again tag-teaming with me trying to hold the newspaper on the ground in a stiff breeze while SM shoveled compost onto the new strip.  The newspaper would act as a bit of a weed and grass suppressant.

"Look at you go Frontier Girl!"  SM says encouragingly.

"Ha!  If I was born in the frontier days I'd be dead by now."  I responded.  "You'd be on your third wife.  And 14th kid.  Plenty of hands to help you on the farm."

"This is a huge-ass garden for just two people."  SM observes, shovel in hand.

"Tell me that after all the plants are up and mature."  I respond.  "And remember, you're looking at two gardens here.  One for Summer, the other one for Spring and Fall (raised beds).

I plan on buying a few loads of pine bark chips and tossing them onto the cardboard to create walkways. 

You can't believe how big it all feels now.


"You rock Squeetie Man."  I raise my hand to give him a high five, which he returns than swats me on the bottom with a "You're welcome.  Now get in there and make me some dinner."

Spiffin Up

I'd noticed that our mailbox was looking pretty fugly lately.  It had to be at least 7 or 8 yrs old.  I mentioned to SM that, along with spreading some new mulch to the landscaped beds, I wanted to spiff up the mailbox area of our yard.

"Why?  All you ever get is bills in the mail.  That's nothing to celebrate."  SM points out.

"All the same, it is a reflection of the home don't ya think?"  I ask.

In our HOA free neighborhood mailboxes come in a shapes, sizes and price points.  From those boxy green plastic things to the fancy wrought iron posts and boxes, you can find it all in this neighborhood.  I didn't want to spend a lot and when SM priced mailboxes anywhere from $10 to several hundred dollars, I knew that I'd be re-purposing some things. 

We went to Walmart and bought a $10 grey metal "rural" (? what makes it rural?) mailbox.  I got out some of our beige house paint and slapped that on.  It looked better already.  What about the house numbers?  I looked up and down the street.  Some had the reflective stick on type, some had the nail into the post type.  All were hard to see.  So I decided to go big.  I took some of our house numbers as a template and used a magic marker to outline them and then painted them a deep green to stand out against the beige box. 

Meanwhile, SM pulled up the post and discovered that the bottom was rotting out so off he went to the big box store and paid $6 for a new pressure treated post.  He then salvaged some of the old cedar post to create a mount.  I painted the post the same color as our shutters.

I went out and trimmed back the Knockout Roses that were insanely out of control.  Keeping in mind that I'd like to be able to manage all this, I dug out one of the roses and all of the zebra grass. 

I had asked SM to dig out an evergreen bush in the backyard that needed to be moved in order to make way for the strawberry bed that we hope to put in soon.   I figured we'd try to salvage that bush and use it in the front yard instead.

Because the ground was heavy with wet clay, SM tackled this over 2 weekends.  He went out again yesterday and I saw him digging and straining.  "Why don't you just bring the truck back here, tie it up and yank it out."  I asked.

"I could strip it and kill it."  SM said.

"It's got to go one way or the other and you'll never be able to dig that entire root ball out and drag it around yourself.  Lets get the truck to do the heavy lifting.

Mission accomplished.  Was that ever easy!  SM then muscled the bush into the new hole he'd dug.  I gave it a good soaking and a haircut.  (We'll see what happens.)  Toss on some fresh mulch and it looks much better already.

Even KiKi seems to like it.

So while it may not be the fanciest mailbox on the planet I do think it spiff's up the front a bit.  Now if only we didn't have all those weeds in the yard.  (Although the dandelions do add a nice touch of color.)

And You May Find Yourself...

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"


Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground


Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads

"I think 2012 is going to be the year we invest in the house." SM declares. "I really love this neighborhood." He says as he looks out the window.

"So we're staying put?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

To those of you who might not know (or didn't read my post a few days ago), SM and I have had discussions on the idea of ditching the suburbs in favor of a country lifestyle for years now. And I do mean years.

Why country? It's how we grew up.

We both lived in small towns in Ohio and when we graduated from school, we found there was no work to be had. SM could have worked in the coal mines like he did after high school. I could have found work as a waitress in my hometown but the pickings were very slim.  It was the early 80's and the US was in a recession.  Like many of our generation, we migrated to the jobs and lifestyles that the big city had to offer. We chose our career paths.  And we chose to incur the debts that go along with modern living.

With age comes wisdom. Everyone middle aged or older hits a moment in their life when they realize that the simple life is best and you try to adapt to a more "down-sized" lifestyle.

Unfortunately when you change your mind midway, you discover that the umbilical cord that ties you to the cash you need, that provides you with your chosen lifestyle...Well, that cord can only be stretched so far. Money rules.

You must feed the beast that you created.

Since becoming self employed 5 years ago, SM can work from anywhere. I'm the problem now. I work in an "elective" medical field. Patients choose to have the work done.  So I need to be where my peeps are. And my income matters to our household survival, so ditching my chosen field would be financial suicide.

If we were younger we'd be more likely to take the chance on a major upheaval in our careers. Not so much now that we're in our 50's.  SM chose self employment because of age discrimination.  (Please don't tell me that anyone still believes that potential employers don't consider how old a new employee is. Hard to prove legally, but we know it happens all the time.)  He has good months and bad months financially.  Nothing consistent.  But overall, I think we're both happy with the arrangement.  SM depends on himself.  He can work or not work, it's up to him.  But the groundwork is there.  As he gets older, I would think that this would be quite liberating and allow for a lot of flexibility. 

As for me, while I do love what I do, I've placed a 1 hour drive time limit (one way) on how far I'm willing to travel to work.  We live at the 45 minute mark right now.  As the big city grows, the suburbs expand and country life gets farther and farther away.

When we moved here 14 years ago, we were in the country. Cows mooing and roosters crowing. We're on the edge of the burbs now. They're planning a shopping center a mile away. Another big subdivision has been in the works for the past few years just waiting for the economy to turn around. But we both acknowledge that our neighborhood, with it's 1/2 acre lots and wide streets, is a far cry from true city living. Our neighborhood is a bit special.  So we're staying.  Granted, it could be better.  But it could also be a hellva lot worse. 

Now living in the burbs is not all bad. I don't need to list the conveniences, they're obvious. Thankfully, we don't have an HOA. We have a bit of privacy along with a good sized patch of land.  I'm not the only one in the neighborhood slowly converting my back yard into my own local farm.

Why the garden?  It's pretty simple.  It's because we know we face a future of limited funds. Believe it or not, the government now categorizes us as low income. Our house is now our biggest investment, our savings account.  Any Social Security we get in the future will be eaten up by the high cost living. 

And I'm not blind.  Food is getting more and more expensive.  But that is the one expenditure that I have some control over.  If you want quality, grow it yourself.  And I have some land. So make it produce something, will ya?

So if we're going to stay here, then it's time we make some improvements and invest in our home.

With money being tight the past few years we've opted to only do what has HAD to be done. Looking around the house now, I'm sorry to say that it's seen better days. Toss in the damage that 3 dogs, 1 cat and 2 adults can do day in and day out, and the house is looking like I do first thing in the morning when I roll out of bed.  Just a little rough.

So we're hoping to unstick ourselves from our habit of pinching every freakin penny and "Suck It Up", the house needs work.  So $pend it.

We need to:

Replace windows and flooring.  The windows we hope to do ourselves, with some help from a hired handyman.  The carpet and vinyl flooring (no tile for us) we'll need to hire out.  (*We tiled our guest bathroom and while it came out nice enough, we both don't like how cold the tile is.  Seriously folks, does every house have to have hardwood or tile floors and granite counter tops?  Here's a hint...HGTV is selling you a bill of goods that you can never pay.  Practical is my new middle name.  If it's not functional, than "Goodbye!"  I've heard from friends that granite counters and tile floors are both a big PIA.)  

Update our master bathroom.  Our shower stall is broke down and busted.  Pretty nasty if you ask me.  We have a fiberglass tub that we never use.  We'd like to rip out the tub and create a large walk-in shower area.  Re-surface (or replace) the cabinet and replace the counter top with a recycled glass composite material that's durable enough that I can't hurt it.  New lighting.  Replace the toilet and paint.

Expand and hard-top the back deck.  One of my favorite places is our back deck.  I love hanging out there when the weather permits.  It's an awkward space though.  There's no room for a table and chairs and the seating areas are split up.  We want to expand it out a bit more and SM wants a lower "sundeck" area that's not covered.  When we moved here, I had an awning fit over the deck as our intense summer sun heated the house up something awful.  SM has never liked the fabric awning though and has wanted to hard-top it for years.  We've replaced the deck wood a few times since we've lived here (the sun is THAT bad).  I told SM that I'm done with that.  I hate to buy the "artificial" wood but if that's what can survive the elements than that's what we're putting in.

Backyard / Landscaping  We're expanding the garden yet again.  (Does it ever stop?)  There are some areas around the garden that I just don't want to mow anymore.  So we'll be laying out the landscape fabric/plastic to kill the grass and toss lots of pine bark mulch over those areas.  Towards the back shed there's a long strip of grass that runs along the back fence line.  I discovered that the shed (that SM moved last year) creates a wonderful shaded private oasis that's nice and cool in the late summer afternoon.  I told SM that I'd like to salvage the wood from the back deck and build a "floating platform back there.  I'm thinking of a "secret garden".  You know it's back there but you can't really see it.  I could plant more perennial flowers and make it quite lovely.  Maybe toss a hammock back there.

I'm sure most of this will shift and change as we get into it. I'm also sure that I'll be dragging my feet when the reality of the cost to do these projects hits me in the face.  I just have to remind myself that it's OK to spend the money.  It's our best investment.  And we really DO love it here.

Bring It On

November already.

Hard frosts and holidays.

Apple pies and antacids.  

While I'm no "prepper" I have been "preparing" and the house is positively STUFFED with good things.  SM was in Hendersonville NC last week and called me at work to ask if I wanted more apples as he was driving by plenty of orchards.  "Hell, Yeah!"  Straight from the farmer and packed into my storage boxes in our garage.  We added Granny Smiths and Pink Lady's to the Honey Crisps we'd already bought.

My upright freezer is stuffed with fruits and veggies from the summer.

We've been opening some of the canned salsas and tomatoes that I put up.  A pop of the lid, a quick sniff and we're in love.  This is the reward that I'd hoped for.  Homemade goodness in a jar.  I must admit that in my more fearful moments I was concerned that this canning thing wouldn't work and I'd kill both of us with my newbie efforts.  So far so good.

Very Good!
 

Post Paint Recovery

It pretty much rained all last week.  I haven't had time for any other projects since putting my head inside of a paint can.  Boy, am I glad that's done.   Now I can pay attention to other things.  Like myself.

SM and I went to the Farmers Market this morning hoping to find some eating apples.  I'd already put up about 30 quarts of applesauce last month so I'm done with that.  But I was hoping to score some nice, crisp Pink Lady's to store out in the garage for the next couple of months.  I'm a big believer in An apple a day keeps the doctor away

The market was winding down.  Lots of open vendor space available.  I noticed a new vendor selling ostrich and goat meat.  Interesting combination.  Prices on veggies were a bit higher than I thought but then again, the season is over, so most of what is being offered isn't locally raised.  

Lots of apples though, most priced at 99 cents a pound.  The Pink Lady's were tiny this year.  I was disappointed at the offerings until this nice lady offered me a slice of Honey Crisp (her "favorite apple").  Wow!  Now that is a great sweet/tart apple!  Funny how even apples have good years and bad years (taste wise).  I asked her if she sold by the case.  Yep!  $18 and I got the last case they had.

I asked who I should pay and she pointed out an old man at the front of the table.  I went up to him and said to him "She sold me a case for $18."  His head was down and I couldn't see his face very well under the brim of his hat.  His right arm was tucked into his shirt. (My light bulb went on.  Stroke?)  

He didn't say a word but stuck his left had into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills.  I kid you not, with the fingers of his left hand alone he took my $20 bill and gave me $2 back wrapping everything up nice and neat!  

We opened the sun roof and rolled the windows down on the drive home.  Brrr.  The leaves are starting to change.  The air is as sweet and crisp as the apple I munched on.  Yum.  I just love Fall. 

We got home and I considered what my chores were for the day.  I decided instead to take the day off.  I am on vacation after all @;)  I took a 2 hour nap this afternoon.  Bliss!

Taking a day off around here still means cleaning the house and doing laundry.  For some reason SM is pestering me for an apple pie but gld  had a nice apple tart on her blog that looked easy enough for a girl on vacation. 

I'm off to the kitchen now.  Enjoy your weekend!
 

Pandora's Box

I like warm colors in my house.  Makes me feel all happy and snuggley.  It seems that the gold colors I'd selected are pretty popular.  My friend Deb stopped by and told me that mine was the 3rd kitchen that she's seen that went "yellow" this year.  (I wonder if we're all wanting to surround ourselves with happiness and warmth.)


That must be the reason why the "Have a Nice Day" smiley is yellow.

Tuesday morning I was singing Here Comes The Sun as the kitchen started to transform.  By Wednesday morning I was singing Yellow  It's amazing that this same color in my north facing rooms looks completely different than in my southern exposure kitchen.  Lemon yellow to a rich gold.

I started my massive painting project on Monday morning.  It was cloudy and I was in the mood so I dug in.  I got the front entry way and my (and the dogs) lounge/TV room completed in one day.  It took about 8 hours and it wasn't too bad as I was only going a shade lighter than the existing color.  Pretty easy.

I decided to attack the kitchen Tuesday morning.  It rained all day.  It took me 3 hours just to tape everything and another hour to cut in.  All those freakin windows!  All that wood trim!  Argh!  I worked until 6 and called it a day.  A long day.  (It's amazing how good a glass of wine tastes at the end of a day like that.)

Wednesday, I started up at 6am and could really see how different the kitchen looked.  I had to apply a second coat as the green still showed through.  Touching up, stripping off the tape, putting everything back in place.  Another full day.


Now I know why some people just up and move into a new home every few years.  When you have an older home, (and mine is only middle aged) and you decide to update one little bitty thing, (like paint), it suddenly shows off how bad the rest of the house is.  

The kitchen walls are fresh and bright.  The sink is stained, the floors nicked up and discolored.  The wood trim needs cleaned and restained.  Some of the trim is scratched up by the dogs.  If I replaced one piece it would stand out and look out of place, so I leave it alone and say it adds "character". 

SM and I agree that we need new curtains and a new rug.  I'm thinking I'd like to do a tile back splash too.  Along with replacing the sink and floor and..."Oh no"...What have I done?  I've opened Pandora's Box.

All in all though, we like it a lot.  The kitchen looks and feels much bigger and  the color brightens things up so we really don't need much light on at night.


Tomorrow I hope to start on the living room and hallway.  That will also likely be a 2 day project.  Then hopefully some outside yard work this weekend.


Man, the time is just flying by!

Curb Appeal

It's that time of the year again.  Turf Wars.  Grass growing season. 

Here in the South, you reseed and grow your lawn in the fall.  Some try it in the Spring only to watch our Summer heat turn their baby grass into cornflakes within a month. 

So the men around here (I swear I've never seen a women do it) engage in the yearly ritual of lawn improvement.  This equates to de-thatching the lawn, spreading new seed, fertilizer, and straw and then assuming the twice daily waterings necessary to get the lawn to grow. 

SM and I gave up this practice years ago.  To each his own.  I have noted that all of the guys out there working in their yards gave up their chemical lawn service this year.  "Why?"  I asked.  

They ALL said that they still had weeds after being with their service.  Plus the expense.


It begs the question though, "Why bother at all?"  I mean, it's an endless cycle.  You really can't alter what Mother Nature commands.  "You will have weeds!  Your grass will die!  Your grass will turn brown!"

All this week, I've driven to work waving at "J" as he stands there with a hose in his hand watering his front yard.  Then, as I'm coming home, there he is... standing there watering again.

I roll down my window to tease him.  "You're in the same position I left you in this morning...standing there with a hose in your hand!"  


"Yeah, but it's evening now and I can do this with a beer."  As he raises his other hand in a beer-salute.

"J's" grass is super green, artificially so.  Mine?  Pale green with brown patches.

I hopped on the mower yesterday afternoon determined to "skelp" it.  You see, we leave it high during the Summer months because it handles the heat better that way.  Not that long ago, we had 2 weeks of nothing but rain and when the lawn finally dried out enough, it was like mowing hay.  On top of that, we got fleas.  (I haven't had fleas in 3 years.  CRAP!)  I blame the tall grass for that!


So I hopped on the mower and lowered the blades 2 clicks.  I took it slow, sneezing as the grass/dirt cloud enveloped me.  Then I went to buzz the front yard and the boys were all out tending their lawns.  You can't help but compare mine to theirs. 


"I'd like nothing better than to kill all of it."  I muttered to myself, eyeballing the existing front landscaped beds, wondering if there was anyway to tactfully enlarge the beds with more trees and shrubs in order to get rid of the grass.


We don't have an HOA (Thank God!) but social pressure exists none the less.  I live in a subdivision.  I can't change that fact.  The status quo must be maintained.  So for now, while I can let the grass and weeds do their natural thing (brown out and die), I still don't want to turn my front yard into something that would impact the resale value.


"How many times do I have to tell you, we're NOT moving!"  SM 


"Oh, we're moving alright.  Maybe not in the near future, but someday."  I reply


"Where to?" He asks, exasperated.


"Out in the country...Into an RV...Maybe a nursing home if you're not careful."  (Grin)

Going Dutch

I don't own any cast iron pots or pans.  Somehow I've made it through (almost) fifty years on this planet without ever experiencing the bliss of cooking with cast iron.

Seriously.  What's the big deal?  

I'd mentioned to SM a few months ago that, besides an apron and a good cast iron skillet, I really wanted to invest in a good dutch oven.  I see them from time to time being used on some of the food shows that I watch.  I kinda like the idea of a "one pot" dinner and the fact that I can take it from stove top straight into the oven appeals to me.

I came home this week and look what SM got me.

"I had the choice between red and blue.  I thought you'd like the red better."  SM said.

"You're right.  Somehow food coming out of a red dish seems more appealing."  I told him.  I lifted up the lid.  ""Wow.  That's heavy!!"  For some reason I wasn't expecting it to be THAT heavy.

So it's been sitting there on my counter looking pretty all week.  I have visions of soups and stews, roasted chicken and pot roasts dancing in my head.  I might even fry something!  All I've been waiting for is cooler weather.

Welcome to October!  We've had an extended summer so far this year, but today the north wind is blowing and the house is buttoned up tight.  We're forecast for brilliant blue skies, winds gusting to 25 mph and a high of only 64 today.  Brr.


We're hoping to spend some quality time on the back yard this weekend... weeding and trimming our way through the massive growth that this summer has given us.  It a mess back there.  


So we will need hearty sustenance to help us get through.  Any good ideas for breaking in my new dutch oven?  Favorite recipes?

All About The "Yum" and Other Comforts

Our last few days have been quite cool and overcast.  Ohio Weather we call it.  (evil grin)  A nice taste of fall.  Don't get too excited though.  We'll be back in the mid 80's in a few days.

Since the weather has been cooler,  SM asked me to make some stuffed green peppers.  Sure!  I always have leftover meat, so I also made meatballs.

Funny thing.  You know how you use rice in the meat of your stuffed peppers?  Well, I love meatloaf and meatballs and since I went gluten free, I've just been opting out on using the breadcrumbs in the recipe.  It made for a denser, dryer texture (particularly with the ground turkey)...but whats a girl to do?

Well, the meat (and meatballs) with the rice in them were so moist and light, they were out of this world.  A true light bulb moment!  I used ground turkey and a roll of Jimmy Dean pork sausage (ground beef too if you want), 1 egg, katsup and Worcestershire sauce (and lots of it).  And from now on I'll be adding rice too.  I don't really measure anything, I just mix it all together.  It'll be really really loose.  But it firms up and stays moist after cooking.  Yum.

SM also finished off the banana bread (see post from last week) and wanted more cake, so I used the same basic recipe and substituted apples and walnuts and doubled the cinnamon and also added some apple pie spice.  TaDa!  Apple Spice Cake!

I noticed that it didn't need to cook as long as the banana bread (less moisture in the apples) but SM reports that it's still moist and "Yummy".  I expect that I can use this basic recipe and make carrot cake too.  I'm curious what will happen with chocolate.

SM was in Hendersonville (in the mountains of NC) a few days ago and picked me up a few more apples straight from the orchard.  He has no idea what they are but they taste great so who cares.  $8 for a peck.  What the heck is a peck anyway?  No leaves turning yet, though.  He's also loving the new car.  (drives great.)  A neighbor teased him the other day saying that SM "didn't look like a mini-van man to him."  Oh well...hauling kids or hauling crap...you're still "hauling".

The cooler weather made me check out my winter clothes situation.  I wear scrubs to work so that's easy but my "at home" clothes were falling apart.  I haven't bought new clothes in several years.  My sweat pants (and "sleepy" pants) that I hang around the house in, have holes around the waistband and I'd already tossed a pair of jeans that had to be 6 years old at least.  And now that I'm older and my waistline has become one with my hips (freakin menopause) so my whole shape has changed. 

So I NEEDED to go shopping.  And I hate clothes shopping!  I have to be IN THE MOOD.  You know what I mean.

A friend told me that Kohls was having a big sale Saturday, so I dragged my sorry carcass over into the melee.  I don't bother shopping at malls anymore (they don't make clothes for the mature, tightwad woman) so Kohls has become my "go-to" department store.  I can usually find stuff there.

WOW...were they busy!  Women and clothes EVERYWHERE.  I mostly needed pants so I concentrated on that.  Kind of a search and destroy mission. 

I found 2 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of "sleepy pants/ active wear pants", 1 pair of shorts from the 1/2 off rack.  (When did shorts get so "short"?)  I also bought a couple of shirts and another super soft "throw blanket" for this winter.

Quite the haul, if you ask me.  I spent 1 1/2 hrs in there and walked out with my mood intact and a back seat loaded with bags.  I noticed a lot of women buying kitchen stuff so I think there was a lot of Christmas shopping going on.

When the price is right, people come out in droves.  Even me.  

So food and clothing has been taken care of.  Now what about shelter?  We're investigating window "repair" rather than "replacement".  We've got a guy coming out tomorrow to give us an opinion on the sorry state of our windows.  More on that another day.
   

My World...

"I'm out of my egg mix"  SM announces.  It's about 7:45am.  He's had his morning wake up coffee so stimulating conversation is about to begin.

"Oh,yeah?"  I respond.  On the floor, doing my morning stretchy thing...(it ain't yoga.)  "How about some oatmeal?  Or I could run to the store.  I think the store has eggs for a dollar."

"That's a pretty good price.  No don't bother.  I'll stop by Bojangles and get some breakfast biscuits."  He offers.

I secretly think  he wants to get the Bojangles biscuits, but I'm having none of that. 

"Nope.  Let me run over there and I'll get a couple dozen.  It'll just take a few minutes.

I've been up since 5.  I'm a morning person.  In bed by 9 / 9:30 up around 5 am.  2 miles with the dogs. A couple of glasses of diet Mt Dew and I'm ready to go.

I'm off this week.  My birthday week.  For the past 10 yrs or so I've always taken the last week of April off.  It's a perfect time of the year as spring in NC is usually over by May 15th with temps climbing in the 90's and me hiding in air conditioned splendor all summer, only emerging in the early mornings and hanging out under shade trees in the afternoon.  It's hard.  I love being outside.

So off to the store I go, forgetting about the school traffic.  But it's OK.  I admire the old houses along the way that have been there for years with huge lots dedicated to huge gardens.  Comparison shopping.  SM and I have talked about chucking it all and living in the "untry".  Problem is we like where we are right now.  45min drive to work but enough in the "burbs' for all of life's conveniences.  Like a grocery store 2 miles down the road.  With eggs on sale for a dollar.

Ha.

It's 1/2 a dozen eggs for a dollar.  16.6666 cents each. Ahhhh! What a rip off!

I buy a dozen of the "other" eggs at a 1.39 and head back home.  It's still better that Bojangles.  Even when I drop the eggs.  I don't think I've ever done that.  Add some JD hot sausage and some frozen pepper mix and my Baby has his egg mix for 4-5 more days. 

Mission accomplished!


My World

We bought our house 12 years ago.  Good bones, only one owner and built by the crabby old bastard (2 doors down and hates Yankees) who knew what he was about when it came to building a house. 

Does the house need updating?  You bet.  But, other than a new roof last year (insurance paid for... can everybody say $Ka Ching$ ?) and carpeting here, tile there, we haven't really put the big bucks in the house.  Yet.  But it's coming.

What offended me more than anything was that there was NO landscaping.  Or at least not the kind of landscaping that a house like this deserves. So for the last 12 years my need to make it pretty cost a penny or two.  But we did it all ourselves.  I'm way too cheap to pay someone for something I can do myself. Or make SM do for me.  (evil grin)

We built the deck, put in mulched beds with shrubs and trees that are native to the area.  We did have an awning put in over the deck and I surprised SM by having a shed built while he was out of town one week.  But all & all we made it ours.  Our home.  Take a peek.

So why didn't we have a vegetable garden?  I think we truly felt it was a waste of money.  Trying to set tender roots into the compacted clay we call soil around here seemed ridiculous.

But how many years have we complained of lousy tasting fruit and vegetables?  And the prices!  No wonder we're all fat!  "I can't afford $3.00 cauliflower! So lets make pasta instead."

Well, since my conversation with Dr T this past winter, I've been doing a bit of google-ing.  Call it whatever you want.  Square foot, intensive, raised bed...

What it's really about is finding solutions to the problems you have to achieve the goal that you want.

A challenge!

Ha!  I accept!