Everbearing Strawberries..

planted in my Strawberry pot...

Garden update...

Our garden is beginning to look really good after Don spent a couple hours on Wednesday morning getting it rototilled back up before the rain began again and kept us out of the garden for yet another couple of days. Although, together with friends we were able to take advantage of the day by measuring the garden {its 25'x25'}, determing how many rows we will have and what to plant within them before going and doing some shopping for more plants and seeds.

The photograph below was taken earlier this morning and as you can see we've quite a large area to fill! Once the ground dries up a bit more {hopefully, by tomorrow!} we will rototill it once more and the planting will begin. Come on, I'll show you some of the plants I've been nursing!

Several days of rain last week, followed by a partly cloudy, windy day may have

kept us out of the garden for a few days but assisted Mother Nature with doing her part of the job.

Do you see that shadow of a tree in our garden? {Don't worry! It only covers the garden area for approx. an hour in the late afternoon! The majority of the time its really a really sunny spot!} Anyway, that is created by one of many maple trees that we have on our property and I'm so very grateful to say that they are almost done tossing their seedlings everywhere!

I had the most beautiful Mother's Day day! Don helped me clean our neglected home from mid-morning to early afternoon. Then, Amber and Chris took Nancy {his mom} and I out to do some bowling. We were wonderfully surprised by a free Mother's Day dinner! {which I brought most of it home for lunch on Monday as we had company coming for dinner} Early in the evening our friends arrived and we enjoyed a wonderful grilled dinner, each others company, spent some time soaking in the jacuzzi and later, playing cards.

On Monday, I worked for hours raking to remove those "whirly-gigs" and then, spreaded the Garden soil mix out over the garden area that were hoping to rototill up today. I spent a good portion of the early afternoon planting a few plants like my Everbearing Strawberries in my strawberry pot and starting some seeds: Radishes, Carrots, Peas, and some Squash in the seed starter trays. An overnight warning of frost had us scrurrying in the evening to bring all of our plants inside. By Monday evening, I was so hungry and worn out, I feel asleep after eating in front of the TV, and waking before 11 to catch yet another weather report. I stopped to turn back up the heat before retiring to bed and sleeping for another eight hours! It must be all that fresh air, exercise, and sunshine! I feel great! but knowing my own tendencies to burn myself out quickly, I took the day off yesterday to just soak up some sun...

with my bathing suit on....

and just enjoyed the sunshine, the clouds floating softly by...
listening to music on my ipod...

After showering, making dinner, I fell asleep early again... knowing today will be another busy day! We'll be renting a rototiller and tilling up the soil once again. A trip to Richard's Garden for some more plants and hopefully, we'll be all set and ready to plant soon!

My FIRST Blog Award...

A few days ago, I received a surprise!

My friend, Christine, from http://junkitup.blogspot.com/ awarded me with

the Kreativ Blogger Award.

Can you believe I've been blogging for nearly five years

and this is the first award I have received? Thank you, my friend!

The rules are simple:

Place the award on your blog along with a link to the person who awarded it to you.

List Seven Things You Love:

{Here's my list:}

God

Family

Friends

Art

Creating

Animals

Nature

Then, List seven blogs you love and let those people know you’ve given them the award.

{Since I'm aware that this award has been around for a few years, I want to find some friends who haven't received this as of yet, and then, I'll edit this post to list them.}

Lianna @ http://llamatales.blogspot.com/

Linda @ http://redplaid3.blogspot.com/

Lisa Renea @ http://tatteredtiara.blogspot.com/

Sue @ http://ozzigirl.blogspot.com/

Dymphie @ http://papierenavonturen.blogspot.com/

{Okay, I've two to go and I'll post them at a later date...}

Annie @ http://wwwanniesponderings.blogspot.com/

Thank you, my friends!

Planning a Veggie Garden...

Don and I had been discussing planting a vegetable garden , so when our friend Jason telephoned us while we were visiting with friends to inform us he was sitting in our driveway with his equipment, Don rushed home and preparations were made to get us underway. Jason rototilled up a good 20'x20' area for us behind my studio.

Since we've not planned or planted a garden for many years and our lawn hasn't been treated for weeds, we decided to clear the area of all the sod, grass clippings, and weeds and relocate them to assist filling in a low-lying area in our rear acre.

The photo above was taken after the first day of working to remove the sod...

and on day two, Don rose a little earlier than me to get started once again.

and after day two... approx. a 6'x8' to clear out yet.



We purchased eight 1.5 cubic foot bags of garden soil to mix with several bags of top soil we previously purchased and will be mixing it and spreading into the soil by rototilling it again. We also, purchased few flats of veggies: some bi-colored corn, some Better Boy tomatoes, and some Everbearing Strawberry plants and I've been going through the pages of some of seed catalogs for ideas of what else we may desire to plant. I'm thinking a trip to Richard's Garden is in the near future... it's going to take more plantings than that to fill this thing!

Our family and friends have been excellent in answering our questions, providing us with their knowledge, and advice, and we even enjoyed a good home-cooked meal for us at the end of a long day of working on Day 2. {Thank you! [you know who you are!] Don and I so appreciated the gesture!}

On Day 3, I stayed out of the garden! Gotta give these old muscles and blisters a rest and time to heal up} so after removing all the dirt we've dragged in over the past several days, I've began Spring cleaning inside our home. I'm happy to say it's clean and I can soon get to tackling some of those small jobs like ..... packing those winter clothes away! Yeah!!!!

Alexxis' 3rd B-day

I'm playing "catch up" today...

trying to update with some photos of some of our recent events.

Amber & Chris made an excellent choice to have Alexxis' Birthday Party at a nearby local park. The weather turned out perfectly; a little on the cool side, but the kids didn't seem to notice while playing at a nearby playground. We utilized the grill, the shelter house, and the trash cans! It was a nice change from all the house cleaning, party preparations, and clean up once the celebration event was over.

I couldn't help but giggle as Alexxis sang, "Happy Birthday, dear Alexxis..."

along with the other children, as she blew out the candles on her Tinkerbelle cake...

Here's the birthday girl with some of her friends and cousins,
{and of course, her partner in crime, Alex}

Alexxis' grandma, Nancy or Saunders, made both of the birthday cakes
and her talent with frosting just blows me away!


{the path through the forest is crumbled oreo's}

and here's Tinkerbelle... the belle of the ball...

look at all the detail!!!

Didn't she do a fabulous job?

Timing is Every Thing!

I'm certin that we've all heard at one time or another, that parents are people who carry pictures where their money used to be. Well, now it seems that not only is it the wallet that they have the ability to effect, but times and dates on the calendar as well.

Everyone who knows me knows that I've been preparing for a May 2nd

Craft Show for well over 3 weeks to a month now. I've talked to or at least mentioned it

once to every one I know. {Yes! It is even posted on my blog!} But let's leave it to our children NOT to get the message!

So, what happened?

I believe John Lennon said it best , "Life is what happens while you're making other plans."

It seems Amber scheduled Alexxis' 3rd Birthday Party on May 2nd @ 1:00

and Kayla's, our oldest dgd, Senior Prom was in the evening of May 2nd!

Anyone want to guess when our "loving" children informed us of these facts?

{If you guessed "last minute"; Ding! Ding! You're a Winner!}

So, Don and I have spent the past week going back and forth, trying to decide what the heck we're going to try to do. We considered setting up my Craft booth @ 9 a,m.,

both of us working the booth until 12:45 p.m. Then, perhaps, I'd be able to leave to attend Alexxis' b-day party, and he'd stay to attend to my booth until I returned at 3 p.m.

to assist with tear down or we would not to attend the party at all.

At 4:00 p.m., Don would need to go into relieve his son, Shawn,

{Kayla's dad} so he could be with his dd, and dh would stay until closing @ 7 p.m.

Just when we thought we had everything figured out, the telephone rings...

{I won't bore you with those details, but if you've read this far, are you seeing a pattern here yet?}

To further throw a wrench into our plans, during the last week of preparation time

for the Craft show, the packaging and printed materials never arrived. So rather than attending and appearing "non-professional' and 'unprepared' I opted not to attend.

I cannot even begin to tell you how disappointed I was with that decision.

I felt as if I'd let myself and all my blog readers and friends down.

But please know this.....

I'm not throwing in the towel on this idea just yet!

I am going to continue creating

and I'm going to find a way to sell my creations yet.

There's always the possibility of opening an Etsy store, and I've access to a few other possibilities. So if I learned anything, it was that "Timing is EveryThing!" and "to be prepared for the unexpected!"