Preparedness Challenge

Today I want to talk a little about emergency preparedness and the emotional toll. Death is never a good thing to think about, but it is a very necessary part of life and is inevitable. If we had a terrible emergency that took people’s lives instantly or almost instantly could you handle it? Not everyone will survive and you have to be able to help the people in your life, that are left behind and to somehow move on. Help loved ones through the emotional and real part of death? Are you prepared to do that? Have you thought about it at all? Not everyone will survive but hopefully you will take the steps to help where you can. I am going to continue to read all I can on it and try to get my mind wrapped around it. I have a hard time with death in ‘normal’ times, much less an emergency situation so I am hoping that I can find lots of resources to help me with this.

I also was reading a blog (can’t remember or find it now, sad L) about EP and the first “rule” on their site was ‘tell no one’ about your food storage. It got me thinking about a couple of “what if” scenarios.

They went something like this:

#1 - People know that I have a food stash and therefore will expect me to help them out.

#2 – No one knows I have a stash and I can then pick and choose who to help.

#1 – People will be vicious when there is food involved, or rather lack thereof. I am not telling people anymore about what I am doing, including some of my family members. Most of them laughed at me anyway so it is an easy transition. I just laugh along and don’t say much. I just continue to slowly get my food stores in to place so that it is there when it is needed.

#2 – see #1. I am going to have to work on myself in this situation because I am the type that wants to help everyone! I just have to come to grips that I won’t be able to and still survive & take care of my own family members.  

Don’t get me wrong, I am not going to hoard my food products, but sharing with everyone under the sun isn’t going to help anyone and I would run out very quickly. So I would have to have priorities and rules of my own in place, right? Have you thought about the ‘rules’ you will need to survive? I  admit I am still researching this subject as well, but thought I would bring it to everyone’s attention so it can be prepared for & thought about now.

Preparedness is about a lot of things, not just food and shelter and hopefully, this will get people thinking about how they will handle some of the unusual situations.

The little garden

Good morning!

This week around my little container garden I transplanted some potatoes. I don't know if they will survive, not sure if you should even do that, but we'll see. They were in a little bucket that was way too small for them. :( Anyway, here is hoping they will survive!

I also fertilized and watered my two little tangerine trees that I had received for Christmas a couple of years ago. They seem to be doing ok and even have a couple of little blooms on them. I don't expect fruit for another year or so though. We also had a surprise tangerine tree show up next to or old oak tree in the front of the house. No one even noticed the littel thing until this year. It has the sweetest fruit on it ever! Thank you little birdies for depositing that little seed. ;)

The strawberries are doing well although not producing, lol. They are a pretty plant.

My nephews and niece were on Spring Break last week so we went to the water park. It was fun and I got some good joint therapy in by swimming the lazy river. We packed our lunches and ate by the main pool and people watched. The kids went down most of the slides and had a blast. Back to school for them today though.

I have my grandson during the week now as my daughter had to go back to work. :( It was hard on her but I think she is adjusting and has a goal to work towards now. She wants to be a SAHM and be able to be with him every day. He is a good baby and a joy to be with. We also have a Baptism date coming up in June. It is going to be extra special because we are having a family reunion the same weekend so he will have extra family there that normally would not be able to make it.

I guess that is about it for now. No pictures today as my camera needs a good charging but next time. Click on the button below to join in the Ban Hop or just to check out what everyone is up to. Have a wonderful week!!

A very cool Giveaway!

Hi All,

We are sharing the great homesteading emag with you.  The magazine covers many homesteading topics for the entire family, young and old.  There are so many things for us to learn  as Homesteading enthusiasts.    We hope it will be a blessing to all who read it.  Lord willing, we will have an issue come out quarterly.  FREE DOWNLOAD  Click on the link below to view it in pdf format.

hcpemagspring2012read.pdf




For more information about the emag go to:http://www.homesteaddryingracks.com/emag.html



If you would like to join the celebration, HCP is having a HUGE give away.  Go to:  Homestead Drying Racks - Homestead Store - Blog

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Another project completed

Yay, I completed another car seat cover. This was for a little boy also and mommies baby shower was Saturday so I can post it now. I learn something new with each one. I lined this one with a white muslin and I like it. I also made a few button holes in the top so mommy can hang some toys for baby to play with when he gets bigger. :)

What do you think?

My camera isn't that good, sorry. I am still investigating what kind to get and saving my pennies.  :)

Enjoy your week!

Mom-isms and more...

So my mom & I were riding in the car today, out doing some errands, and I was talking about being at the water park in town earlier in the week. I was saying that I like ‘walking’ and swimming the lazy river because it was good exercise and very easy on my knee and joints. This is what the conversation was like:

Me: “I think I will go to AI again very soon and since I have an annual pass, it is free. Free is good”.

Mom: “Yep but if you wanted, you could swim in the lake and wrestle with the alligator. That would be good exercise”.

Me: “Uh, no”.

Mom: “I wouldn’t want to either. Alligators are evil I think. They were born grumpy too”.

Me: “how do you know they’re grumpy mom”?

Mom: “Just look at them, they just look grumpy…and evil”!

LOL, I love my mom and am SO blessed to be able to ‘hang’ with her. Thank you GOD!

Needless to say, (and much to my nieces dismay), we do have an alligator swimming among our lakes. He/she will come and go between them until she breeds or lays her eggs or whatever it is she is here to do.Everyone who lives on the lake has been warned.

We haven’t been swimming in the lake in years anyway, due to pollution and the jet skis mucking up the water. I guess that’s life in the ‘wild’ of our little 8 acres in the suburbs, lol.

In other news our owls had twins! Can you spot them in the tree?

Unfortunately they also killed a couple of Pileated Wood Peckers. (I think that is what they were anyway). Decapitated them, can you believe it? Mean old grouches! I guess they were offended by the color red. I think the woodpeckers had babies too which is unfortunate too. L I don’t know what to do about them. I suppose there is really nothing to be done. It is the circle of life, but they didn’t even eat them, just killed them.

Our Sandhill crane that was injured is gone. But this is good news as our neighbor knew someone who comes out and picks up hurt animals and is nurses them back to health. The mate is gone but I am not sure if she took her with him/her or not, lol. She said if she could, she would bring them back. I keep hoping to see them but haven't so far.

That is about it for now. I am hoping to have a garden update in time for the Barn Hop on Monday. See you there!

Soap Giveaway!!

Artful Homemaking is having an awesome giveaway! go over and check it out. Homemade soaps are so awesome and organic to have, right? I am going to check out the baby soaps for my little Kai! They have so many options and products!

http://www.artfulhomemaking.com/2012/04/handmade-soap-giveaway-8-bars-from.html

Click the link above (or the photo) to check it out and enter!

Here we go again...

Another week has slipped me by, lol. I have been so busy, just being busy! How was your Easter/Passover? Ours was delightful! The whole family came over and we enjoyed time together. The TV was off and it was ever so nice! My niece wanted her hair braided in little braids all over her head so my daughter and sister sat her down and about 4-5 hours later it was done! She has long blonde hair and is a tomboy and (being a pre-teen) would rather not brush it, lol. They did take a break for dinner, feedings and bathrooms though. ;)

We had a yummy spiral ham, scalloped potatoes, artichoke & tomato casserole and angel eggs! My daughter also made a great Easter cake. Everything was very yummy!

Saturday I sewed a lot. I made a nursing cover for my daughter (she left the other at the mall accidentally), 2 car seat covers and 3 table runners for my mom. They were all fairly easy but I had to make a few adjustments yesterday on the nursing cover when my daughter was here. She loves it though and it matches her car seat cover for her car seat. J

The garden is not looking so good. I don't know; I must just be one of those people, lol. You know the ones with a black thumb? I have one tomato plant that gave me five tomatoes and then just died. They were small paste tomatoes and were good though. I did try something though and so far it has worked! I have seen a lot of people restarting celery and green onions so I thought I would give it a try and it worked! I had tried once before but the green onions died, but this go around it looks like they took! Can you see them there in the dirt? There are six of them. One or two are doing a lot better than the others, but hopefully they will continue to grow. We don’t eat them too much around here but it would be nice to have when we wanted them.  

For the last week the weather has been absolutely beautiful! I went out this morning to a wonderful 65 degrees. It will get up to 83 later and hopefully the humidity will stay away. We are having to water though for lack of rain. We have well water so we aren’t as restricted as others but we are careful not to over water.

Potatoes

Tomatoes

The herbs seem to be doing really well. I use the herbs quite regularly in cooking. I made scalloped potatoes for Easter dinner and used the fresh thyme, yummy! I still need to get to the garden center and get some more herb plants though. I do so much better with herbs than vegetables.

The Strawberries are really growing big and looking so pretty. I love a plant that will reproduce from its self, lol.

Click on the button to read or link up to the barn hop!

That is it for around here. I hope everyone was a stupendous week! This post is linked up to the Barn Hop.

Have a great week!

Easter morning...

“He is risen! Hallelujah!”

"He is not here,

for He has risen, just as He said."

~ Matthew 28:6

This day...

March 25th, 2012

Outside my window...it is beautiful and a little windy.

I am thinking...of taking a nap.

I am thankful...for all my blessings this week!

In the kitchen...I am cooking chicken, cauliflower and green bean casserole.

 

I am going...give my grandson lots of kisses when he gets here.

I am wondering...how our injured Sandhill Crane is.

I am reading...nothing right now, suggestions?

I am looking forward to...Family Dinner today

I am learning….to better manage my time.

One of my favorite things...quilting

A few plans for the rest of the week: coffee with a friend, sewing and cooking.

Have a very blessed day!!!

Time for a Recipe!

These cookies are sooo good and if you haven't made them, then you should. I found the photo on Pinterest and followed it back to this website. They have some good stuff on it so check it out too. They easy peasy and yumm-mee!

Rolo Cookies

1 package chocolate cake mix
2 eggs,
1/3 c oil
1 package rolos (I froze mine)

Preheat oven to 350. Mix up the cake mix. Take about a tablespoon of the cake batter and make a little ball. Push a rolo candy down into the middle and cover it all up. This may take a little practice, but you need to get enough to go around but not too much either. I made about 50 cookies but some of them split open so those could have used some more of the cake mix around them. Bake for 7-10 minutes. When they come out of the oven you can dust them with powdered sugar. Makes about 40-50 cookies. :)

Now how can you resist that cookie!!!???

Have a blessed day!

I'm DONE!

Yay! I am finally done with this quilt. I love it! I had so much fun doing it too. I found the 'sew-along' on Randi's site, "I have to say" so thank you to her for the great sew along! :)

This one is 48" x 68" & my biggest yet. I haven't been sewing long much less quilting so I am very proud of this. :) Thanks for checking it out.

Have a blessed day!

The "Green" thing...

A friend of mine sent this to me in email so I thought I would repost on my blog...enjoy...

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books.  This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings.   Then we were able to personalize our books.  But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

 

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we older folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Garden Update

I can’t believe how long it has been since I have been on this blog. Sad really.

It has been really hot here (already). *sigh* I can’t imagine what it will be like in summer. This week it will be in the high 80’s with no rain in sight. The humidity will be ugly too. Now that you’ve had a weather report, let’s get to my little container garden.

My tomatoes are lacking also. If anyone might know why, please let me know. They are pretty but for some reason they look like they are getting ready to give up.

The herbs seem to be doing really well though. I have used them in quite a few recipes lately; especially the Thyme. That has got to be my all time favorite herb. The Hunan peppers (in the back) are coming back too. I thought they might be long gone, but they are making an effort. I still want to get more herbs. I just love them.

The lavender is making a great comeback as well. If you look closely, it looks like it is getting a few tiny blooms.

Radishes aren’t doing so well, but it is probably too hot for them. The Oregano still needs to be ‘cleaned’ up and I am going to do that today. The Strawberries are alive and producing small little berries but they aren’t really sweet so I let the birds have them.

The green beans are doing pretty well. You can’t see it in the picture but the vine is going all the way up to the top of the trellis. I can’t wait to get beans!

That’s it for around here. Click on the badge below to join up to the Barn Hop! There are so many interesting things to read about and learn!

Have a blessed week!

Today...

~TODAY~

March 4th, 2012

Outside my window...it is overcast, rainy & chilly.

I am thinking...of the coming week.

I am thankful...for all my blessings this week!

In the kitchen...I will be baking

 

I am wearing...a tee shirt and shorts...and socks

I am going...to bake lots of goodies today.

I am wondering...when I can make a trip to Joann's.

I am reading...a book on the History of the LutheranChurch.

I am hoping...for my headache to go away.

I am looking forward to...the week.

I am learning….to better manage my time.

I am pondering...life...

One of my favorite things...family days.

A few plans for the rest of the week: A doctor appointment, sewing and cooking.

Have a very blessed day!!!

Quilting progress

This weekend I did a lot of sewing. I have two quilt tops that need a little more touching up before I can baste them together with the batting and backing. I am still not sure if I will be quilting them or if I will take them to a Long Arm Quilter. This is what they look like so far...

This is my "Brick Wall" top and it will be backed with the purple and green swirley fabric on the bottom ...

This is my "Birdie" Quilt top and it will be backed with the crazy reds and blacks...

I'll bind with this brown...

These are the crazy reds and blacks...

This is the whole sha-bang for the "Birdie" quilt. I am thinking of tying part of the quilt withe the brown embroidery thread but if I change my mind and quilt it,

I will use the green thread.

I also made a car seat cover for my grandsons car seat. He doesn't have all his shots yet, so this will help keep people from touching him and breathing on him, lol. Here are pictures of that project...

Not bad for a first timer. (I used this tutorial). She loves it and that is what matters!

So that is what I did this weekend. I finished the Brick Wall quilt some time ago, but have just now gotten around to getting the back of the quilt. I am still not sure of it, but I think it will be fine. I had to add the border to the Birdie quilt and did that this past weekend. I am pretty much happy with them so far, just need to get them basted and finished.

My friend wants me to make her girls a couple of quilts and I still need to work on a Tee-shirt quilt for another friend, whew. I have a couple of other projects in the wings also, but more on those later.

Barn Hop!

Well, it's that time again. Time for the weekly Barn Hop! Click on the badge below this post to join in or just read along. It is so much fun!

Here are my veggies! 

Can you spot my tomatoes? There are four of them nestled in there.

remember what my chives looked like a couple of weeks ago?

Rosemary looking better after a trim!

Lavender looking good!

Basil!

My favortie, Thyme!

My mom's fav, Radishes...

Green Beans, week of the 20th...

green beans today...

Strawberry this morning...

Strawberry plants...the birds and squirrels love them, lol

Our lone little Azalea blooming on the patio!

So join up here or click on the badge below to join up!