An early Spring! For me, anyways!

A couple of weeks ago, I learned that the USDA changed their hardiness zone map for the first time since 1990. I am now in zone 7a instead of 6b. This means I am in a "warmer" zone, and *should* be able to plant stuff outside earlier. If we have typical weather. But I don't think Oklahoma has the same kind of weather from year to year. At least it hasn't since we have lived here.

After I found out about my supposedly earlier planting dates, I went ahead and planted some tomatoes and peppers. I now have about 10 tomato seedlings. The pepper seeds were a couple of years old, and so far they haven't sprouted, so I am guessing I need to go buy some new seeds.

I planted four different varieties of tomatos: San Marzano,  Jet Star hybrid, and I couldn't resist trying to grow different colors of tomatoes, so I planted a couple of heirloom varieties: Black Krim and Cherokee Purple. Just because I thought it would be interesting to try purple and black tomatoes.

Today, I was able to pot up my tomatoes for the first time. Tomato plants will grow roots on any part of the stem that is under the soil. So I have read that if you pot them up a few times, each time planting it deeper in the pot,  it will grow a larger and stronger root system, which makes for a stronger  plant. I am going to try that this year. I also think I initially had the lights too far away from them, because they seemed "leggy" so when I potted them up this morning, I planted them almost to the leaves.

Today I also planted several herbs (seeds), some lettuce, spinach, and broccoli seeds,  yellow onions, red onions, and white onions. I planted the onions from seed, because I never seem to have much luck planting sets. I am really hoping I didn't wait too long to get those going though. We will find out eventually! I also will plant some green onions, but I might just wait and plant those directly in the ground when it is warm enough outside for me to go clean up the bed (this is the bed a stray cat has been using for a litter box, so I plan to remove the top several inches of soil and replace it, because that is just gross).  I do already have some green onions growing and some red onions growing that I planted in the fall (the red are from sets, the green are from seeds). I guess they will be ready around late spring?

This year, I decided to try using the jiffy pellets for planting seeds. This was the first time I have used the pellets instead of filling pots with seed starting mix/soil and the pellets were easier and less messy. I found it easiest to fill a dish with warm water and then soak the pellets in there instead of pouring water over them, because it seems to take quite a bit of water to get them to expand. They remind me of those little foam animals in the caps that I used to get as a kid, you know the ones you put in a bowl of water, and they "grow?" Once the pellets expanded to full size, I found it easy to use a toothpick to carefully move some of the dirt aside, drop a seed, and cover the seed back up. No mess!




We found a small greenhouse on sale at Atwood's and Jake helped me put it together.
I won't be able to put it outside with anything in it until it warms up, ALOT. But I am glad I have it in the house now, because it gives me a temporary place to put my plants.

 This year for my birthday, Brian gave me        "an early spring." He built me a seed starting station/ miniature greenhouse type thing in the garage. It is complete with weather stripping, a plexi-glass door, an adjustable grow light shelf, and a heat lamp.

The piece of furniture he used was actually part of his bachelor pad entertainment center in Orlando. When we moved into our house, he painted it white, and we used it for a computer desk, then we moved it into the garage and we used it as a potting bench/storage area for gardening supplies. Now it is a potting bench/greenhouse!

Brian also put the lights on a timer... so I can set the lights to turn on for 18 hours per day, then turn off! This is great, because I am sure I would be forgetting to do that!

He actually just completed it yesterday. It has been bitterly cold here this weekend (for a Florida girl, anyways), too, and we just got our first snow of the season today. I have not moved any plants out there yet, because I want to let it get a little warmer in there. We might need to add another heat lamp. I am waiting for it to get up to 65 degrees inside the greenhouse. When I checked it this morning it was up to 56. It is supposed to warm up this week though, and when that happens, the temp in the greenhouse should be warm enough. If it doesn't reach 65 in the next day or two, I am going to try putting hot water bottles in there. I don' think it will come to that, though.

In the meantime, I still have all my seedlings in the house on that greenhouse we bought:

So we have been busy with garden stuff even though it is still technically winter, but it is hard to find time to write and post pictures with a 2 year old and 6 month old. :-)

Turning over a new leaf (literally)

So, I have tried blogging in the past, but I get to busy with life to keep it updated. I am going to try this again, and this time change subjects completely. I still like to use coupons, and buy two papers every Sunday for that purpose, but I don't have the time or energy or patience to coupon the way I did in 2010. Plus, it seems harder and harder to get those kinds of deals now, thanks to shows like Extreme Couponing.

Now I am going to (try to) use this blog to document my gardening successes and failures. I am pretty sure I will have more failures than successes for awhile, but that is what this blog is for, so hopefully I won't repeat the same failures twice. And when I find something that works, hopefully I can remember it. I have thought about keeping a gardening journal and writing it on paper, but anyone who knows me, knows I will lose it haha.

This will be my third year trying to garden. The first year, 2010, I actually had what would maybe have been a successful garden- I had lots of healthy looking plants that were starting to bear lots of fruit/veggies but then, my wonderful husband, whom I love very much, accidentally killed it. All of it. Every last plant. That I grew from seeds. If you haven't heard the story already, you can read all about it here.

I did re-start my garden that year with plants that I bought, but it wasn't the same. I was unable to use my garden beds for several weeks because of the toxins in the soil. By the time I transplanted my sad looking tomatoes I was so over gardening and didn't care much for any of my plants. I did stick some bean seeds in the ground and left them alone, we actually got several pounds of green beans from my neglected bean plants that I watered once in a while. I also had three squash plants growing quite well until the lawn service mowed over them. Only one came back... and I neglected it, too. We got lots of squash that year from that one plant! We ate so much squash, it was a while before I could even look at squash again. Tomatoes don't do so well with neglect. I got a bunch of green tomatoes but the cold came and killed them before they could ripen (I didn't care enough by then to cover them up so I just let them go).

Last year, 2011, was even worse. Most of you know that my husband was in and out of the hospital most of the year (I think the grand total was 5 stays, for a total of 40+ days, 3 surgeries). I was so excited in January/February to get my garden going and seeds started. Then Brian ended up in the hospital again and again and I stayed by his side as much as possible. My seedlings all died from neglect.

Last Spring, we went to an herb festival right around Easter. I purchased 4 rosemary plants, 1 oregano plant, and 1 parsley plant. I really wanted basil, but couldn't seem to find any that looked that great. I planted all my herbs behind the rock in front of my house, and here is what they look like TODAY in JANUARY.

My 2011 herb garden, still thriving in January 2012!

Oregano & Parsley

Rosemary

Later in the year (can't remember exactly when) Brian found a really sad looking basil plant at Wal-Mart on clearance for $2.00 He knew how badly I wanted basil, so he bought it anyways and we put it next to the rock (behind where the parsley is). I wish we had a before picture, because this plant really took off and got huge. I mean HUGE. It was probably about 4 feet tall. I had so much basil, I didn't know what to do with it. It died when we got our first freeze last year (in October, I believe). I wish I would have dried or frozen some to use in the winter. I kept putting it off. And then it died.

That tall green plant is basil!

Last year was a really tough year on my plants. In addition to all the neglect due to time spent in the hospital, it was a REALLY hot summer. And it was REALLY dry. Temperatures regularly soared into the 110's. I remember our outside thermometer that was on our porch (so in the shade) read 119 one day. It truly was miserable. Oh, and did I mention that I was pregnant during all of this? Rachel was born August 17, 2011, so right in the heat of things (literally) I was too miserable to go outside and be more miserable in the heat. I did somewhat regularly water my garden for about half the summer, but due to extreme heat and drought, most plants (like tomatoes, peppers, and squashes) probably should have been watered multiple times a day. But after an astronomical water bill from just once-a-day watering, we decided it was no longer worth it. So we let everything go. Including our lawn and flower beds and herb garden - seems much of the neighborhood did the same last year, it is soooo expensive to keep everything green in that kind of heat and drought.

I am hopeful that 2012 will be a good year for us, and a good year for gardening as well!

Somewhat of a recap...

I am a horrible blogger. My busy life as a stay at home mom always seems to have a habit of getting in the way of new blog posts. Here is a little recap of what has been keeping me too busy to blog lately: 

In August, we had a barbecue at our house to which our whole neighborhood was invited. Several families from our church helped us out with this event by providing food and coming to help out. I cooked most of the 40 POUNDS of beef and pork myself (with the help of a whole bunch of crockpots!). I have to say, it turned out really, really awesome. One of these days I will have to share the bbq beef recipe with all of you, it is so so so good. But that is another post for another time.

I think the barbecue was a success. Although, we did not have a huge turnout like we expected, we did get to know some really nice families and found out that they are also excited to do something like this in the future. We will definitely host another one of these next year, but it will NOT be in August. I am pretty sure it was over 100 degrees that day. I am positive that is the reason we did not have a better turnout.  I can't really blame anyone who didn't want to sit outside in that heat and eat hot food. I think October will definitely be a much better month for something like this.

In September, Brian's parents came to visit (twice) and Jake turned ONE. We had a small birthday party for him at a local park. I made cake pops,

we ordered a doughnut cake,

and we also had a small store-bought cake and cupcakes for the occasion.

I can't believe my baby is one. He is almost walking now and into EVERYTHING. He is a super fast crawler, too. It is alot of work just keeping up with him everyday. C-A-T says it is alot of work just keeping away from him everyday.

I really can't believe that this was Jake a year ago:

Now it is October. I am excited that my mom is coming to visit next week. The last time I saw my mom was when she came out here last year when Jake was born. She will be here for 5 days. On the 17th, our church is having a fall festival and chili cook-off. I am definitely entering that. It should be fun.

I can't wait for Halloween. While it is definitely NOT my favorite holiday, we are planning to do something really cool this year. Our neighborhood gets ALOT of trick or treaters. It should also be cold(er) on Halloween. At least it seemed cold to me last year (I am a Floridian, after all). We are going to open our garage and have a "warming station" - a place where trick-or-treaters and their parents can come in, get some hot cocoa/cider/tea/coffee and even sit down for a little bit. Of course, we will also have candy!

This is something Brian grew up with in Detroit. I have never heard of such a thing in Florida (where a "cooling station" would probably be more appropriate) but I think it is a fantastic idea and another great way to get to know our neighbors and get involved in the community/neighborhood.

I am not sure how "successful" this will be this year, because one thing we noticed last year was that ALOT of people (ok, most people) now DRIVE their kids around trick-or-treating. Now, I do realize that there are SOME (but I have a hard time believing this about everybody) people who cannot walk long distances. But unless you are disabled in some way and it is not possible for you or kids to walk or if the houses are just SOOO spread apart that driving makes more sense, I just don't get it. A car would literally pull up to our house, kids would jump out and run up our driveway, then jump back in the car to go to the next house. And we live in a residential neighborhood where the houses are really close together. We even have sidewalks.

We are hoping that other families in the neighborhood will like this warming station idea (especially now that we have gotten to know some of them) and maybe next year, we can get one or two more houses (in various parts of the neighborhood) to do the same thing. Maybe this will encourage more community and people to get out of their cars to go trick-or-treating!

I can't believe November is next month! Brian has the week of Thanksgiving off. We are not planning to go anywhere but we have not decided what we are doing yet. Last year, we invited another family from church over that does not have any family nearby, either. We have not decided if we are going to do something similar this year or just take it easy. I also can't believe that as of Thanksgiving, we will have been living in Oklahoma for TWO YEARS.

We have big plans for December. but you already know about that if you read my last blog post. I can't believe it has been almost two years since we have seen so many of you. It will be great to be able to see everybody! I do have to say though, that while I DO MISS EVERYONE I do NOT miss Florida. At all. I really am looking forward to seeing everyone. I am not really too ecstatic to be visiting Florida though. I am actually kind of afraid. lol. Afraid of the humidity (we will see if I still think OK is humid). Afraid of the people who are NOT my family and friends. Afraid of I-4. and the Florida Turnpike and the 408 and whatever other roads we may need to travel on. I think I may have forgotten what a real traffic jam looks like. And you know what? I am completely okay with that. Really.

But I really can't wait to see everyone! And I REALLY can't wait for Jake to meet everyone! especially Sean, Charlie, Eli, Joshua, and Little! They are all going to have so much fun together! I just know it!

That is all for now, until I have time to blog again!

Guess what's cookin' at the Kilroy house?

I guess it is time to finally let the cat out of the bag. The Kilroys have an announcement and we hope it will be a huge surprise to all of you. I know alot of you have been wondering when you will get a chance to meet the one and only, Jacob Lee Kilroy, live and in person.

Well, we have been cookin' up some plans to make that a reality for you. That's right,  Jake will be going on a tour of Florida in December!!!!! Brian and I will be staying home, since we know you all really only want to see Jake. Lol. Please understand that while Jake would LOVE to meet each and every one of you, his time in Florida is very limited.

We will all be driving down to Florida and we will be doing lots and lots and lots of driving while in Florida. We will then have to drive home to Oklahoma. Did I mention we will be spending alot of our precious time in Florida driving?

If you would like to meet Jake, please take note of the date he will be in a city near you and contact us for more detailed information.

Cities and dates of Jake's Florida tour 2010 are as follows:

• Atlanta, Georgia                    Thursday, December 16
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida          Friday December 17
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida          Saturday, December 18 (Hammond Christmas party)
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida          Sunday, December 19 (a.m. only, for church)
• Clermont, Florida                   Sunday, December 19 (evening)
• Clermont, Florida                   Monday, December 20
• Orlando, Florida                     Tuesday, December 21
• Crystal River, Florida             Wednesday, December 22
• Crystal River, Florida             Thursday, December 23
• Atlanta, Georgia                      Friday, December 24
• Atlanta, Georgia                      Saturday, December 25

This is going to be a whirlwind "vacation" for sure, but this is the best plan we could come up with to try to see as many people as possible. Please understand that due to the amount of driving we will already be doing in such a short amount of time, we will be unable to deviate from our planned itinerary. Consider this a piece of stone.

Couponing comeback: spent $20.92 Saved $95.30!

I haven't posted in a long time because I have been really lazy about couponing and saving this past month or so. While it is alot of fun to see how much I can save it is still really time consuming for me to go through the deals and print/cut out the coupons I am planning to use. Not to mention, the best stores for couponing for me (CVS, Target, Homeland) are about 15-20 miles away and Jake hates ALL of them. He is a pretty miserable couponing companion- I have to spend so much time entertaining him and trying to keep him quiet it is really quite difficult to pay attention to prices and coupons while I am out with him. Even more frustrating (and this seems to only happen about 97% of the time)  I go through all that planning, driving, and hassle with Jake, only to find out they are COMPLETELY OUT of what I worked so hard planning to get. Then I come home empty handed with nothing but a wasted day (or two!) to show for it and I have to wonder if couponing really is worth it.

But today, I decided to give it a try again. I spent HOURS planning this out yesterday (I am really hoping I get quicker at this as it gets easier), printing and clipping coupons and deciding what to buy where. I started out at Target, the furthest one away, because there is a Chick-fil-a across the street from them that was offering FREE chicken biscuits this morning. So I brought my own coffee and started the savings off with a totally free breakfast. YUM.

I was planning on going to Target, CVS, and Homeland (in that order) and being home around 11 or 12 at the latest. (I started at 9). I have no idea what I was thinking. I think I completely forgot about the number one reason I haven't done this in a while.

My first trip to Target was AWESOME. I spent $5.37 and this is what I got:

• 1 Scrubbing Bubbles daily shower power sprayer on sale for $6.99, used a $3 off Target coupon and a $5 off manufacturer coupon. Yes, I actually MADE $1.01 off the purchase of this! I really wanted the Scrubbing Bubbles extend a clean power sprayer, but at such a good deal, why on earth would the first Target I go to have them in stock???? stupid me for planning on it.

• 3 cannisters of Gerber Puffs ($1.89 each), 1 can of Gerber wagon wheels ($1.89), and 2 packages of Gerber yogurt melts ($2.49 each). I used a $1 off the purchase of 5 Gerber food items Target coupon. I also used four $3 off the purchase of any or multiple Gerber products. (I got them in the mail because I had previously purchased a bad batch of Gerber rice cereal. I expected them to only replace the bad box of cereal, but they were WAAAY more than generous!)

• 1 jar of Vlasic hamburger dill pickles ($1.79) and 1 squeeze thing of Vlasic sweet relish ($1.19). I used 2 Vlasic coupons $ .55/1 I printed from their website.

• 1 bottle of Suave Professionals conditioner. I used a coupon to get one free, I have no idea why Suave sent me one in the mail, I must have signed up for it at some point? Anyway, I am NOT complaining!

• I am kicking myself for this one: 1 Baby Oragel tooth and gum cleanser for $2.99. I had no idea I had a $1 off coupon for this until I got home. (See, should have spent another hour planning this trip!). I know it is only a dollar but that is not the point. The whole point of this "game" is to see how much I can save and how little I can spend. I guess I feel kinda like I lost the game or failed or something. I could have had my total for the day UNDER $20!!!!

My total out of pocket at this store was $5.37 (could have been $4.37 GRRRR!!!!)
$1.97 of that total was tax. My total saved this trip was $22.49 just over 80%!

By this point Jake was getting really upset about being dragged around Target. He HATES Target more than anyplace he has ever been. I don't know what it is, but he usually screams the whole time we are in there. Maybe it is the lights or the Target sign, I have no idea. But, I had more Scrubbing Bubbles coupons and since this one was out of the Extend-a-clean, we had to go to another Target. I was thankful at least the other Target was right across the street from CVS (where I was planning to go next anyways).

At the second Target I bought

• 1 Scrubbing Bubbles extend a clean power sprayer for $6.99, again using a $3 off Target coupon, and a $5 off manufacturer coupon. Again, I MADE $1.01 on this purchase. But I don't know of any store that will just GIVE you money back in these situations, so I had to buy something else. 

• I bought a new binder for all my coupons. The binder was $4.29. 

After my coupons and the $ .05 discount for bringing my own bag, my total for this purchase was $3.93. Tax was $ .70 of that total. Total saved was $8.05 so, less than 50% but I really needed a new binder. My other one was getting way to small.
Next we went to CVS and big shocker here, but they were out of what I went there for. I didn't buy anything there and had to make yet another detour. I went to another CVS and bought

• 4 boxes of Scrubbing Bubbles toilet gel things. They were $2.50 each, and when you buy 4 of them, you get $5 ECB. I used two $1/1 coupons from the paper and one $2/2  peelie coupon. I also had $5 ECB that CVS emailed me for completing a short survey last week. My total out of pocket was $1.43 ($.43 was tax) I saved $16.16 and have $5 ECB for my next transaction.

• My next transaction was for Prevacid. It was on sale for $23.99 but they were giving $5 ECB. I was very excited when I scanned my card in the store today and it spit out a $6 OFF PREVACID CVS COUPON!!!! YAY! Love when I get an extra (great!) coupon for something I was planning to buy anyways. I combined this with my $10 off manufacturer coupon I got from calling them and requesting. I used my $5 ECB I got from Scrubbing Bubbles and only paid $5.04 out of pocket!  And $2.05 of that was tax! I saved $26! I guess that was worth going out of my way for!

After that last CVS I had to come home. Jake was tired and hungry and cranky. It was almost 2:00 when we got home and we hadn't even made it to Homeland. THIS is exactly why I don't coupon as much as I should. What a long day.

After Jake woke up from his nap we FINALLY made it to Homeland. I think this is the first time I have gone the first day of their sale and the FIRST time they had everything I went there for and did not have to ask for a rain check. Homeland doubles coupons up to and including $1.00, so those double coupons paired with great sales and rain checks from past great sales got me the following:

(1) Kraft salad dressing
(1) Texas Toast croutons
(1) Kraft barbecue sauce
(1) KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce
(2) Sweet Baby Rays barbecue sauce
(1) 9 oz pkg Oscar Mayer deli shaved chicken lunchmeat 
(2) 10 oz cans of diced tomatoes with green chiles
(1) box of Blue Bunny fudge bars (6 count)
(2) pre-sugared Kool-Aid powder mix cannisters

My total out of pocket was only $5.15!!!!! Can you believe that?????? And $1.05 of that was tax!
I am not even going to try to break it down because Homeland's receipts are even more confusing than Target's and I am not sure how to figure out what each item actually costs (other than writing it down as I shop, but shopping with Jake is complicated enough as it is, so no. Sorry.) Their receipt does say that I saved $22.60 and got 84% off!

Homeland only doubles one like coupon per transaction, I hear some cashiers will only let you double one like coupon per day so I am scared to do multiple transactions unless I leave and come back and try to hide from the previous cashier. That is too much hassle for me and I am scared of getting caught. I might end up going back later in the week though for more of those good deals (or more likely rain checks) because they ALWAYS run out of their sale items.

Anyways, today was busy and tiring but I am proud of all the money I saved and stuff I got. And the best part is, even though I only spent $20.92 out of pocket, I still have $5 ECB for CVS, and I have two $5 rebates I can submit for all those Scrubbing Bubbles things I got! So once you factor in the rebates and ECB, I actually got all of this stuff for $5.92! (Could have been $4.96 GRRRR)

Re-starting my garden in June

This (holiday for most of you) weekend started out pretty good but ended tragically for my poor vegetable garden yesterday.

Brian and I spent ALL DAY Saturday working in the yard. I think we started around 9? and worked till about 8. Of course, this is Oklahoma and Oklahoma gets HOT this time of year, so we were forced to take many popsicle breaks.

We have had this HORRENDOUS weed problem since we moved here. We had pulled weeds in the front last year, and earlier this year Brian had time to fertilize the front with Scott's Turfbuilder and weed control. He did not have time to do the backyard though. Let me just say, we had more weeds in our backyard than we did grass. It looked HORRIBLE. So horrible that I thought about taking a picture to show before and after, but I knew I would be too embarrassed to ever show anyone that picture, so I didn't do it. The front yard had a few weeds in it, but it didn't look that bad.

Well, starting a couple weekends ago, and ending on Saturday (with me putting time in during the week when I could) we got on our hands and knees and pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled. Finally we got all of the weeds out. Then Brian had to mow and edge and spray for bugs.

We worked soooo hard on Saturday that we decided not to go to church yesterday and spend some much-needed family time together. Brian is only home on the weekends so we can't get any projects done after work during the week. So it seems like all we do when we see eachother is work work work and more work. Poor Jake ends up having to watch Baby Einstein or play in his crib alot on weekends because there is just SO much that needs to be done. So we decided to devote Sunday to family and doing something fun together. We could not do that today (Memorial Day) because, unfortunately that is not considered a holiday in Brian's line of work. Memorial Day is just another Monday, regular hours, regular travel.

Before we headed to the park on Sunday morning, Brian had one last thing he needed to do to his yard. Fertilize. He used Scott's turfbuilder with weed control, the kind of stuff that looks like kitty litter. Some of it got into my vegetable garden on accident, but he didn't think it would hurt the veggies since they weren't weeds. I noticed my squash flowers open, so I went out and pollinated them. I saw the fertilizer on them but Brian said he thought it was ok so we just left it there and went about our family fun day.

We came home yesterday afternoon and I went to check on my garden (I do this multiple times a day, every day). To my horror, the leaves on the squash and tomatoes were completely wilted. They looked like they were dying! The onions, rosemary, corn, and chives looked okay.

I called Scott's and was told that stuff *could* kill anything that is not grass so that is why you need to take extreme caution to avoid any plants of any kind that you would like to keep. I was told I could try soaking my plants to get the weed killer off of them and depending on how much damage has been done, they possibly could make it. However, the weedkiller is toxic and Scott's advises against consuming anything from any plants that may have come in contact with it.

I was completely devastated. I started my plants from seeds back in March. It seemed to take forever (as well as alot of work and alot of money) to get the garden established. Just in the last week, I saw my first tomato blossoms, first squash, first zucchini. I still had not been able to harvest anything yet.

I was very upset and depressed over the loss of my plants. Working in the garden has become my favorite thing to do. I called Scott's again this morning and asked how long the "half-life" of the product used is. This is basically the amount of time the ingredients are still active in the soil. I was told it is less than 7 days, then I *should* be able to replant.

I called a local plant farm to see if they were open today and explained my situation. They advised I should pull EVERYTHING out of the garden, whether it appears damaged or not, and destroy it, as the ingredients used are very toxic. They said if the half life is supposed to be less than 7 days, that they would wait AT LEAST two weeks, and in the meantime, just water, water, water my boxes of dirt.

I ended up going to the plant farm today and buying 3 tomato and 1 pepper plant. I will just need to baby them in their pots until my soil is un-contaminated. I also bought some herb and flower plants.

As far as my garden goes, I am downsizing a little. I could not find squash plants so if I am going to do squash again I will need to start those from seeds SOON. I am going to soak some onion seeds overnight and start those in the morning (the onions I grew from seeds seemed to do so much better than the sets I transplanted), but I probably won't get to harvest those till next summer. I think I might just use one of the beds for now and save the other for cooler weather plants to be planted closer to the fall. Or maybe corn. I have until July 15 to get corn seeds in the ground- same goes for pumpkins.

The bright side of this is that Jake and I discovered an AWESOME plant farm not too far from here. I had something fun to do on Memorial Day (Jake, not so much, he did not like it when the sprinklers got him. He was good for the first hour or so we were there) for a couple of hours.

Then, I got to come home and play in the dirt. It was hot, so I came inside for an air conditioned popsicle break and started typing this blog entry when Brian came in through the garage door. Scared me to death to hear someone just walk into my house unannounced (the garage itself was open) but once I got over the initial shock, it was a nice surprise.

This Memorial Day Monday is ending ALOT better than it started :-)

I LOVE the bread store.

I was looking at this week's sale ad for Reasor's and noticed they have hotdog/hamburger buns ON SALE 2/$3. That is ridiculously outrageous considering I can go to the bread store 1/2 a mile away from them and buy the EXACT same thing for $ .60 each. There is nothing wrong with the bread from the bread store either. In fact, most are Sara Lee brand (I have seen those ON SALE for $1.99 a pack at Reasor's) at this particular store and the hotdog and hamburger buns I bought today are really soft and fresh and have a sell by date of June 8!

Plus, I just love the way the bread store smells. lol. It smells so good it makes me want to buy a ton of bread or anything, really. Kinda like how the smell of Subway makes me really hungry for one of their not-so-great subs.

Anyways, I just wanted to post this as an FYI to any of you who may not have thought to check out a local bread store for any of your regular bread needs. We have saved soooo much money at this place! I go there at least once a week.