Catch Up

My parents are on their way back to Minnesota today, and I'm back!  We had a good visit, but it rained EVERY DAY!  We are on our 6th or 7th day straight of rain, heat and humidity and I am so ready for fall.  I still have not planted the fall garden and the lawn is about 8 inches high, soggy, mushrooms sprouting all over, yuck!  During a few hour break in the rain mom helped me bring peppers in, I thought the end must be near, but I still have a lot out there ripening.  We did bring in quite a bunch the other day that needed to be frozen and/or canned.  All of the bell peppers were frozen, the Anchos hung to dry, and the jalapenos were canned.

I was lazy and raw packed them into rings instead of scorching and peeling since there were so many.  I got 7 pints of jalapenos to add to the rest of the stash in the pantry.  The verdict this year is that 3 plants is just not quite enough, so I'll plant 4 from now on.  If you remember, 9 plants was way too many, I was harvesting about 100 a week, 6 plants was still a bit of an overload last year so I dropped it to 3.  Yes, we eat a LOT of jalapenos, probably 2 pints a month LOL.  3 years later, I think I have it dialed in finally.  

We pulled the plants, so this brings the total of jalapenos for 2011 to 10 lbs, I think 15 would be about perfect, and of that I squirreled away 11 pints and 4 half-pint jars for the year.

Of course, we had to use up some of the bell peppers fresh! 

everyone knows of my favorite dish for the garden, stir fry

Mom also has finally decided I'm worthy of some family photos!  Really nice ones that I had never seen before, like this gem:

Isn't that cool?  That's dad on the right.  I also had him list a string of cars he owned starting with his first one, and wow - that's a fun list!  Needless to say, I have some good material to get me started on my next project - wait for it - 

- I have decided to (gasp) start scrapbooking, you know, in all my spare time :)  Yet another hobby I used to laugh at and say I would never do...what's happening to me?!  I also got filled in on a lot of family history I didn't know about, and random fun facts about the family and my parents specifically.  Of course it would be great if mom would pen a history for me but I'll settle for dumping boxes of "stuff" on my desk to sort through myself LOL :)  Hopefully one day I'll have some nice things put together for our family and my brothers' families to share, with actual captions so we know what the heck we're looking at.

Honest, someday soon I really will be planting my fall garden, but it has to stop raining first!  Next up I'll post about our annual air show fun, not interesting to everyone I realize, but it's our livelihood LOL...

I have gotten back into knitting the past week and have sorted through my seeds for fall, so I'm slowly making the change to the new season....

Look, it's a mom!

Even better... it's MY mom!

She got here just in time... after raining all weekend the sun is now out and I need some help in the garden :)

Dad will be here on Thursday for a long weekend and I'm sure we'll do some fun things but for right now I'm looking forward to turning the kids over to her for a few days :)

Sunday News!

Ok, I'm ready to spill the beans!  A while back I alluded to something that was causing a bit of stress, but that we were all "a-ok" - well, here's the big development...

FOR SALE!

As of Friday, our house is officially on the market.  It may seem as a bit out of the blue, but I'm a person that tends to stew on things for awhile quietly, but when a decision has been made, things need to happen right away, I call it "ripping the band-aid off".  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this house, I mean LOVE it - you should have seen this place when I first set foot here back in 1994, suffice it to say that it is completely different now than it was, and 100% of it was DIY sweat-equity.  That being said, I have also been a landlord for about 17 years now (I was here way before hubby entered the picture), and I'm just kind of ready to get all my eggs back in our own basket now.  Being a landlord provided us with much needed income to make the place into just what we wanted and needed, however we have some long-term plans for military retirement that most of you know don't include living here in Virginia.  For the past few years I have been content to sort of "ride out the market", feeling sorry for those that had to sell in these times, but I'm sure that you all have been hearing lately about the fact that now predictions are for this housing market to be this way for another 10 years or so.  I'm thinking that interest rates might not stay so low, however, so now is the time to try to attract a buyer while we still in no hurry to depart the area.  We have several years left before hubby's done with the military gig, but when saddled with multiple mortgages up until the end we lose the ability and freedom to even look seriously or move on a future property for us.  The best thing we could do on a future property would be to secure it a bit before retirement, as we all know it's easier to qualify for a mortgage when gainfully employed:)!


So that's it, in a nutshell - we've been busy doing things around here like the neglected weatherstripping, putting a few things into storage that were crowding the house a bit, etc.  I've also had to back off the gardening a bit by getting rid of some things that look high maintenance and spending more time on the perennial beds and such.  Now, we just need to find the few people out there that are both looking for a house AND can afford a house, no small feat in today's economy.  We are lucky in that it appraised well, we aren't underwater, aren't looking to get rich, and have steady rental income and a great tenant already in place.  We are actually hoping an investor type buyer will be interested and are willing to sign on as tenants ourselves, which would equal instant monthly profit for the future buyer.  That would be the ideal, since I could continue to enjoy my big garden and house we love without the worry about having to stay past hubby's "time's up!" day because of the house.  Bottom line, we'll spend a bit more monthly to live, BUT we would be truly free to look at our future options and act on them if the right thing came along.  Clear as mud?  LOL...


Until who knows when now, my day consists of getting the kids out the door and immediately getting dressed and ready, house picked up by 8 am "just in case" I get a text that someone wants to see the house... then I have to round up my dog's, the neighbor's dog and we go to the park and get lost for awhile.  Between little maintenance items last week, I've had the realtor here to do the appraisal, photographer to do the pics, Miss Utility to spray lines so they can spike the sign in, whew!  One nice thing is that I really like our realtor, and I'm very comfortable with her.  I've never sold a house before and it's all pretty intimidating, so a good realtor is a must - we did purchase the house without a realtor and I did most all of the paperwork, and I'm not doing that again - that only works well in a good economy when people are banging down your door to buy (I don't see any banging!).


So now you know :)... and I am very envious of all of you that are already firmly entrenched in your "forever homes", but I understand nothing comes easy so this is our first step.... now where are the buyers?!

It's finally Friday!

It's been a busy week, and I'm glad that it's Friday evening!  Before I head out to finally tackle the garden, I'll purge some of the highlights of the week here :)

Loch's open house at the Math & Science Academy was this week, and he was eager to show us his new school.

Here's their garden, ready for fall planting!

Posing in front of the school

Showing off the school's new t-shirt design, and check out the dolphin, it's covered in money!

They have a gazillion class pets in his classroom, some kind of bearded dragon, 2 other unknown lizards, turtles, crickets (for food, I presume), fish and...

Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches!  The masking tape made me laugh - when we went to tour the school last spring the teacher told us all about how the huge cockroaches escaped last year and had to be rounded up, I guess this is the new solution :)

Here's the "chore board"... check out the upper right hand corner :)

Other events - I got started on my list of maintenance action-items... 

Here's the new pair...

Turns out my days of 20/20 are over, not only did I need glasses, but I am now going to be sporting multifocals - I imagine I'm in for a nice surprise when the glasses are in and I first pick up a book again!  Wow, glasses are expensive.  Of course the eye doctor quoted about $600, I almost choked - then I hightailed it over to BJ's (our equivalent to Costco), they were cheaper than anywhere else and I was able to order virtually the same pair for $196.  Still expensive, but at least now I will be able to see.  At $600 I think I'd stay blind!

I might have mentioned it's still been in the high 80's and 90's still here, no longer!  Yesterday the temp fell 20º in 20 minutes!  We were leaving music lessons hot and sweaty, when the winds picked up to about 35 and the cool air just started blowing in fast.  I felt like doing a happy dance in the parking lot!

what a difference!

My eye appt prompted me to go ahead and get my haircut (for the first time since last November!), which prompted me to go home and "wash that gray right outta my hair", that culminated in eyebrow tweezing and a home pedicure.  None of those things will help my blood pressure but they sure improved my outlook!  

It's 65º outside right now and after dinner, I WILL go outside and see what the garden has for me, I have really neglected it for about 10 days, and from the back door I can see what looks like red confetti all over the beds... cherry tomatoes I'm sure!  Oooops.....

Hubby will be happy to know...

...turns out that doing things "my way" isn't such a great deal after all!  (be advised this post has nothing to do with plants!)


Some of you may have gathered a little info about me from my blogging, such as that I'm a Type A, a little (okay a LOT) OCD, go-go-go, sleep is a waste of time, why put off tomorrow what needs to be done an hour ago kind of gal.  This little old personality of mine worked out well when I was out in the workforce, enabling me to be on the directing end of things instead of the following end, but is really not a very helpful trait as a mom - moms need patience, need to answer endless questions, and lots of "coaching time" for little ones to succeed.  This is something I've always struggled with, and probably the only reason I didn't homeschool my kids to be honest, I know my limits.  So turns out this personality is also causing a few health issues for me as well - nothing earth shattering but stuff that definitely needs attention.  Namely, my blood pressure...


A little background - for most of my life I've always been the one with the low 110/60's readings and so I never was faced with reigning in the stress level in my life, I thought "why should I?", stress makes me really productive!  Then about 3 years ago I was diagnosed with borderline hypertension.  "Borderline" made me nervous since I'm not overweight, am active, yet have a family history of this sort of stuff.  But at the age of 38 I refused to take the "mild" hypertensive diuretic meds prescribed to me and discussed with my doctor doing it another way, and he gave me a 6-month go-ahead to try.  I started watching my diet and adding lots of good fats in the form of fish, nuts, olive oil, added some red wine... basically the "Mediterranean Diet", bought a treadmill to get some more aerobic type measurable activity other than my daily gardening and running around, went on a bunch of supplements such as grapeseed extract, niacin and some others and did well and journaled great numbers for a year - up until I kind of "forgot" to keep on going!  So now, imagine my non-surprise when I decided to start taking my BP at home again and am finding numbers consistently in the 135-145/ 85 range.... not good.  I know now that no matter how good my diet is, family history is a factor and I'm going to have to admit defeat and take the next step, ugh!


In the big scheme, a prescription isn't what I'm wrestling with anymore, it's this one big thing... how do I eliminate stress?  I'm smart enough to know that this is a huge factor with me, probably enough to make the difference if I could just let go of it!  I don't even have any real stress to be worried about, compared to many other people with bigger problems than the ones I face.  I just happen to thrive on it!  I love and live for deadlines, fixing financial woes, worrying about the kids, college (seriously, and they aren't even 9 yet LOL).  What am I supposed to do without anxiousness and worry? Who else suffers from this love/hate relationship with stress or truly enjoys it?  I hope I'm not alone out there :)


So... my completely "Type - huh?" husband is going to love this revelation that I'm having, that not only do opposites attract, but their way is actually much healthier!  :)


In the meanwhile, my suppressed anxious girl inside had to take action, as is my way with everything, and scheduled a complete cardiac evaluation/physical next week, which led to the eye exam scheduled for tomorrow, which led to the mammogram, which led to the research on supplements to help with the lovely feeling of early menopause, which somehow led to me scheduling my kids' dentist appointments... get the picture?  Yep, I need help LOL...


It's still 89º every day, so I'm waiting for the weekend to deal with the fall garden, we are hoping for temps in the 70's in between the rain forecasted.


p.s.  you know I can't blog without at least one photo, so here it is!...

This was this morning, I expect they will be "boots on the ground" any time now...

Bad Blogger

I have been a bad blogger this week!  Lots of things going on coupled with the fact that they don't really have anything to do with the garden have had me skipping out the past few days, but I will give you a little update - however boring it may be!


Loch has over an hour bus ride now.  I don't even know what to say about that other than we might as well live out in the sticks!  I had longer than that when I was a kid but we actually DID live in the country, not a city with half a million people as we do now.  I can't say much though, since it IS worth it that he is going to the gifted program and the district does provide transportation, so although I can get a little peeved that I had to reschedule after-school activities for later in the evenings, I really don't have anything to complain about and will just accept it.


The chores here the past week have consisted of maintenance type gardening and general sprucing up, rather than fall planting.  Here is Finn, using my little pruners for the first time, snipping off dead hosta flower stalks:

poor guy had me saying every 10 seconds "watch where your finger is!"

Our big Master Gardener Fall Community Festival is this weekend, so I've had meetings and baking to do for a bake sale.  Here's yesterday's start to a "15 pumpkin bread loaf" day!  Kitchen was HOT last night.

Speaking of hot, it's just gross here again this week.  Rain, high humidity and temps in the high 80's again all week, heat indexes higher, yuck - I want fall to come back!

For everyone following Mama Dove's Hurricane Irene adventures, you can now rejoice!  The babies are here!  I can't believe they (or rather Mama Dove) made it through all that, as well as being relocated in a dog crate in driving rain - doves are amazing parents.  Every other bird flew to greener spaces that weekend but Mama, she would not leave.  Even though Mr. Dove wouldn't go into the covered and lashed down dog crate, we saw him huddled below the deck where she was throughout the storm, unbelievable.  

So that's the news, or lack of anyways!   :)

Reveling in the quiet!

Miss Angela reappeared like an angel this morning!  She looks as excited to see them as I am to send them off!

Here's the whole gang this morning, my driveway is the bus stop so the noise level climbs early in the morning around here. (Loch is missing since he left a little earlier on the "short bus" to the Math & Science Academy LOL)

Every year I forget how great this day is, bye Finn!

Now what?  I'm completely surprised at my lack of plans today, but maybe that's a good thing to take the first day and just revel in the peace and quiet...