Tornado Alley and Parker’s Party of 3 and 1/2

Over the past week we have had HORRIBLE weather in  West Tennessee! Tyler has officially become a standby weather man, and I am now a photo journalist on the side! Last week we had lots of water.

This weekend was even WORSE! Flash Floods and Tornado Warnings all around, and yet the Parker’s (Sister, bro-in-law, niece AGP, and baby Ross who will be here Sept.2) hit the highway, saw a truck chained to a house trailer, and a mudslide between Clarksville and Medina! We loved the surprise visit:)

This is an outdoor shed, flipped and squished in my in-laws neighborhood.

This is Main Street in Humboldt, Power out for several hours!

Even though the weather was terrible outside, inside we were safe and happy. AGP and I love to bake together, at 4 years old she can crack eggs better than Martha Stewart!*Please note the night gown that has sprinkles matches the sprinkles she decorated her  strawberry cupcakes with.Hands on hips telling her Daa-Daa, “I need more sprinkles”. She’s precious and e had a fabulous time together. Martha fixed my sewing machine (again) and made Baby Ross some boy burp cloths, Derek thinks lil’ Ross needs lots of boy stuff to over power all the girl things in their home! All is well, and check out these beautiful smiles!

Garden Growth

Here is an update on the garden process. This past week I have eaten the radishes! They are wonderful, it’s so neat to eat something that you planted and grew!

This was taken a few weeks ago! I am so excited how well the garden has come together! Here is the latest garden photo

And here are some of the delicious radishes 🙂

I’ve been reading several blogs like creative canning and food in jars. I’m looking forward to growing more goodies and creating yummy goods for friends and family!

We will see what happens.

Adventures with Lulu

Look at this!!! Lulu is an english bulldog and she’ll eat anything, obviously. But what is this???? It’s a purple Jack, wrapped in hair with a rubber band around it… WHERE DID SHE EAT THIS? And yes, Tyler used his bare hands to dissect it. NASTY.

and there you have it… the purple jack, she’s worse than a kid!

It was gooooood, check out that tongue.

Garden…

So here it is!!! I made the bed all by myself! I only broke one drill bit and stripped two screws. I’m sure the neighbors were entertained that afternoon by watching me wrestle these boards, call my dad, try a different position, call my dad, then TA-DA! Next to fill it…with what? There is a lot of different types of “soil” . So I took our wheelbarrow across the street to a new building site and loaded it up 5 times and pushed it up our STEEP driveway, never noticed that. Then I quit and waited for my husband to get off the golf course. He finished the dirty work with 3 or 4 more loads. That filled it half full. Yesterday we went to Lowe’s and purchased 10 bags of top soil, around $1.30 a bag and two bags of MANURE! We spread the top soil and manure over the top of the garden, added fertilizer and lime then mixed it all up. I planted short rows of radishes, lettuce, onions, cabbage, broccoli, spinach, artichokes… I think that’s it! Let’s wait and see what grows.

Please excuss the nasty yard. The Scott’s man came the other day to spray it! The neighbors will be Happy 🙂

Just a few loads here…took a camera break.

Now that’s pretty!

Compost It

Since I have decided to plant a raised bed vegetable garden this year I NEEDED  to make my own compost, right? I didn’t want to spend $100 on a fancy compost bin (what if my garden doesn’t grow?), so I did some research and found how to make one, from a trash can! That’s right, I purchased a plastic trash with an attached lid for around $13.00. All I had to do was to drill a million holes in the sides to let the air in and out. Then layer the bin with compost such as kitchen scraps like coffee grounds and vegetable peelings, this is your wet layer. The second layer is your dry layer,  shredded newspaper and yard clippings. There you have it, COMPOST. I am going to stir my compost today.

I’ve Made It!

After completing the china cabinet face lift I was thrilled with the results! I was perusing through one of my favorite blogs, Younghouselove.com,  I thought hmm, maybe I could submit this, they would probably never reply, but MAYBE. Two days later Sherry herself e-mailed me back saying,  “Holy Bananas” I think that’s a great reaction right? Yes, that’s right a little write-up and photos of my newly redesigned china cabinet will be featured on the younghouselove website. Talk about making it to the big league of blogs! I will update when it hits to web, she said they are overloaded and it would be around 8 weeks!

Much Love

Hardly a Headboard

 One of my best friends Karen Lynn just moved into a place and wanted to give it some style. She had this wicker headboard and tried to spruce it up with some black paint…

We knew it NEEDED to be upholstered, by us! We met half way between our two cities at a great fabric store and purchased the remnant fabric and batting for under twenty dollars! Next stop Lowe’s, we needed staples for the staple gun I borrowed from my father-in-law’s tool box (I’m keeping it)!

This project took the two of us to hold the headboard. We spread out the batting on the floor, placed the headboard on top, stretched the batting around the back and stapled! Since the fabric has stripes we worked hard to get them centered and straight before we stretched and stapled the fabric on! This took us 30 minutes and only 20 bucks!

The finished product looks great, we hung it on the wall about two feet from the ground. Makes a dramatic statement.

We had some assistance from Karen’s sweet Darla Mae.

It’s simple, right?

Here we go!  A great perk of being a teacher is “The Snow Day.” Last week we were given 3 days in a row! I knew I would go stir crazy if I didn’t have something to work on. This is the beginning of the China Cabinet Face Lift.

For the past two years our dining room has been empty, then had just a large table that we purchased for $250 from World Market, when it was closing in Memphis. We were actually on the way to Hot Spring, Arkansas, so we had to stuff it in the back of the Tahoe and drive it around all weekend. I HAD TO HAVE IT. Next, we needed chairs, which i purchased at a junk store for $10 bucks a piece! We sanded, and sanded and then sanded some more. FINALLY, we had a local painter paint them, and we had the chairs upholstered. We ended up around $100 a chair. This was a splurge, but they are beautiful and unique. I’ve actually had trouble finding chairs cheaper that weren’t fake leather or that weren’t the same look that every other person had!

Back to the cabinet! Our closets are overflowing with china and serving pieces,we needed storage. I found this cabinet on Craigslist  for $75 (first Craigslist purchase) and had Tyler and his parents go with me in the snow and slush to load this cabinet up! I sanded, primed on 3 coats, and painted one coat of paint! I used the fabric left over from my chairs to line the back and there you go! A young-looking  China Cabinet. It’s not fancy, it’s simple. For only $115