I Am Tired.

I've thought today that I should change the name of my blog to I Am Tired. I most certainly am very, very tired. And relieved.

This week has been pretty exciting in my life. We had tornadoes on Tuesday, literally all around us. It was a charged kind of night in more ways than one. On the way home from work, I learned that there were tornado warnings everywhere. There had been a tornado outside of Greenfield and it was heading east. We're East of Greenfield. The sky was ominous to say the least.

My heart stayed in my throat for most of the evening. Jordan is in Creston and there were two tornadoes that touched down there. Alyssa, Ross and Abe were in town in three separate places. Aly and Abe finally made it home before Storm Number Two hit, carrying huge hail! Actually they were walking to our house when all of a sudden huge balls of ice started falling from the sky! You should have seen our yard COVERED by golf-ball sized hail.
 Incredible.                          

Thankfully, no one sustained injuries. Many of our neighbors and friends have lost some property and live stock, but our neighbors are safe.

I am hoping to have a night very soon during which there are no storms, no lightning, no thunder and no radios going off warning of impending danger.

Cause. I. Am. Tired. 

Worms, Dogs and Sundays.

I thought some of my worms had died. Today, I spent some time stirring the almost wormless trays and cleaning out the stinking water basin, and I found that the worms had migrated up to the top tray! I still think we might have lost a few due to the compost getting too wet. I guess there is a learning curve to creating a worm farm. Terry used some of the 'worm tea' on his tomatoes! (We'll see if it's as magical and 'they' say it is!)

I'm hoping stirring up the trays and getting them not so wet and compact will be good for the worms. They have certainly eaten a lot of stuff! I'm a little disappointed in how slow they decompose stuff, though. If I didn't live with a household of carnivores, we'd have to have four or five worm farms to keep up with all our veggies waste! Hopefully we'll get in a groove with it. I was able to free up one of the trays, so that seems like it is good news. That and it doesn't stink. Well, the 'tea' stinks, but the rest of the compost smells like dirt. Which is offensive to some, I suppose. I like it.

Poor Molly. She is dejected. I have misplaced my shedding brush and she looks horrid. She has all this matted fur under her top coat, so today I almost shaved the back end of her and then washed her good. She looks kind of like a goofy poodle only goofier because she ISN'T a poodle. Poor dog. I'm hoping to find that brush soon! She has probably gone and found something stinky to roll in (like the 'worm tea' Terry put out on his tomatoes). That would be just like her. Lovely.

Today has been nice. I've puttered and I'll scrub a couple of rooms, but for the most part, I'm having a nice restful Sunday. Tonight all my kids are going to be here for supper. Yes. They all live back at home, but we rarely see everyone together. Tonight is LASAGNE!!! (I know how to get my boys to come home. lol)

Random Thoughts

I just spent some time going over my older blogs and the statistics Blogger provides. Evidently there are 3 people in Belgium who have found my blog. I thought that was interesting.

Sometimes I get pretty overwhelmed with my job, and it seems to sap my creative energy. Last year, I made a pact with myself that I would work at maintaining that creative flow. Last summer I started working on my garden - trying to reclaim its beauty. I've continued this year (when it isn't raining or a bazillion and 4 degrees outside) to work toward that goal. Last year Terry and the boys built a deck on the front of our house. This year, I pulled plants I want to save from another area of my garden to plant around the deck. It's so pretty!!

 This clematis I planted last year. It's made it to the top of the deck and is getting a lot bushier. I love its color!  The coreopsis daisy that is behind is one of the plants that I reclaimed. My good friend Donna gave me a couple of starts from her garden years ago. I divided it up and planted some around my deck. Lovely.

This is a beautiful lily that I planted last year. I think it was on a clearance shelf a the end of the year! It's it beautiful!! The varigated sedum behind it is one of the plants that was here when we bought the place. You don't often see this variety. I've divided it and shared it so many times!! 

This is Ben's Tonka truck. About 25 years old and has lived outside all of its life! I plant flowers in it ever year. This year I put in some rocks and then some moss rose. It's a nice reminder that he lives on.

Coral Bells, hosta, sedum from my friend Donna, more hosta, creeping geranium and creeping phlox. Oh...and the angel guiding the little boy? Precious.

 More of the clematis in completely full bloom. Such beauty. And, of course, what garden isn't complete without a random stuffed animal thrown in for good measure?

My co-worker Denise gave me this hibiscus last year. She actually gave me two, but the white one didn't make it. Might have been the chickens pecking at it. This is actually about a foot and a half. I'm anxious to see how this grows this year. It had the most beautiful hot pink blossoms!

More to follow, I'm sure. My goals this year in my garden: 1) to get the water flowing right; 2) to finish the pathway 3) to add a little 'patio on the lower part of the garden. 

We'll see how that goes. I'm less than ambitious most days. ;-)

Homemade Chenille Blanket

I have been having fun on StumbleUpon.com, that's for sure! It's given me some great resources for crafting. I'm becoming quite a Blog Junkie!!

One day in my happy stupor, I ran across this great site that gave a great tutorial on making an heirloom chenille blanket. Well, I had to make one! I do, after all have a pseudo grandbaby coming any day now! http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2kPxsp/homemade.tipjunkie.com/go%3Fid%3D421

Here's how my turned out. I love it. A lot.

Sock Monkey Hat and New Years

I really love StumbleUpon.com. I've enjoyed a lot of the creativity I see from folks out there. Recently, I stumbled upon a Sock Monkey HAT!! Well, I had to try it. I found a pattern off of Etsy.com from Shelley Tudor. (http://www.etsy.com/shop/sockmonkeykook?ref=pr_shop)She does a great job explaining, and quite frankly, she is about as friendly as could be, so it was even better to buy the pattern from her!

I found some wool yarn at Joann's, and it was even better because they were having a great sale on it. I think it took about 1/2 a skein to make this little lady. I had fun making this one, and turns out that I'll be needing to figure out how to make BIG sock monkey hats, because my adult children want one. This should be interesting! 

I plan to give this to an adorable little girl whom I cherish. Her parents may object to her wearing such a thing, but I will never know. ;-)

I am not making any New Years Resolutions this year. I plan on keeping my Post Cancer Surgery Resolutions, though. I will keep crafting and sewing and crocheting. It just makes my heart light. 

Happy New Year!


Addendum to my blog post: I figured out how to make an adult sock monkey hat! I used Catie's pattern as a model for my adult hat (http://doahdiddy.blogspot.com/
2010/03/sock-monkey-hat-pattern.html ) although I still needed to add to it. Maybe people in Iowa have bigger heads than everyone else. ;-) Abe is happy with it. There are some things that I will need to change, though...like the way I place the ear flaps...I made it weird so he is actually wearing his hat backwards. He doesn't know, but  I would feel better if the next wearers of my hats were able to wear them normally. 

I wish my gramma was still here. She could be a GREAT resource. 

Crafting is just about the best thing ever. At least today.

Crafting on a Weekend

One of the things that I was reminded of when I was recuperating from surgery last summer was that in the recent past, I have neglected my creative side. It's easy to do, really. By the time a mom chases after her family and puts in a full day of work, it's easy to get bogged down. I realized that I need those creative outlets, or I get kind of dry on the inside, so I made a resolution to make sure I spend time on the weekends creating. You've seen some of the ideas I've had with my house. (and no, I'm not done) But I thought I would share what I did this weekend.

Project #1

I saw some Coffee Cozies (or sleeves) when I was using StumbleUpon.com, so I decided to try my hand at it. You probably can't tell by the photo, but this little sleeve has the most adorable pleats ever. Just sayin. Here it is dressing up a disposable cup. I need to tweak the pattern just a bit, but I like my first one. Too bad I don't generally drink coffee out of disposable cups. :-) It's supposed to save the planet or something by re-using these sleeves instead of using the disposable cardboard sleeves from the stores. Personally I think you should bring your own cup, if you're worried about the environment, but that's another discussion.

Project #2

My husband gifted me with an early Christmas present last week: a Cricut Expression. I have been having a blast getting to know my way around the thing. I put it to good use with this project! I cut out letters, and circles of cute paper and then "Mod Podged" the paper to the wooden disks. I think the finished project turned out really cute!

Project #3

It was only a matter of minutes after making these alphabet disks that I realized if I was going to gift them, I should really make a bag to put them in to. So, looking through my piles of fabric, I found cute little girls stuff. I wish my sewing machine would have worked well...sometimes it decides to get fussy...Fussy machine and all, I think this turned out okay. 

Too bad Christmas is this week. I'm in the mood to get more stuff done! (And Darin, the vacuum cleaner cover is a moot point.)

ciabatta bread

I like Stumble Upon.com. I not only waste a ton of time going from website to website, but I have stumbled upon some pretty great finds. A few weeks ago, I found a recipe for "One Minute Ciabatta Bread" from LifeHack.org.

It's simple. You put 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. yeast, 2 cups of water and 4 cups of flour in a bowl. Stir until everything is mixed up and then cover. Set it aside for 8 to 12 hours or so. When I'm ready to bake, I dump the dough onto my stone pizza pan, and put in a hot over until it's done. (25 minutes...but I make sure the top is a nice golden brown.)

I LOVE this recipe. I'll often mix up the recipe early in the morning, and then bake it when I come home. It's great with soups! The bread is very similar to a sour dough recipe, without the constant worry of feeding just one more thing in my house!

Try it...you might like it!