I'm at Camp!

Hey everyone,

I'm at church camp with my  Sr. High Youth Group from Shiloh. You can follow our trip over on the church's blog www.shilohchurch.blogspot.com :)

Jennifer

.....How does your garden grow?

I've been wanting to update you on my garden for some time now.  I am just a little embarrassed about the condition of it.  Danita and I had been weeding it for what seemed like every night of our life and it was looking pretty good.  Then it rained every evening this week, and was HOT HOT HOT!  So the weeds have kinda gotten away from me.  Please don't judge my gardening skills before you remember the following:  

1. It rained every day last week

2. My house is under construction

3. This was a patch of grass 3 months ago.

Here is the corn.  We are using the no till method.  

OH Hey Dixie :)

Squash.  These guys are huge.

Peas.  Never done these befoer, so I'm not sure what they should look like, but I did see one was flowering last night so I think we are good.

Cucumbers.  We planted two types, and one came up good, one didn't.  Then I replanted the one that didn't and it looks awesome now.  There was one little pickle on there this week!

Cabbage - coming along nicely.  Something was eating them, but I think I got it under control now.

Tomatoes!  We bought these really small plants at this little greenhouse in Alfordsville.  And now they are huge!  So big they keep tipping over their cages.  We are going to have a bumper crop this year.  I can't wait to try to make tomato juice.  

Marigolds.  For some reason, these things grow like crazy.  Maybe its all the miracle grow I keep putting on the garden.  

And here's my eggplant.  So amazing.  I was so happy to see these little guys.  I can't wait for Danita to teach me how to make Eggplant Parm :)

Thats all for tonight friends.  Hopefully we can work on the weeds this week, but the weather is saying its going to be high 90's all week......I just love S.Indiana :)

You and Me Going Fishing in the Dark.....

Another new Southern Indiana adventure for me last night.  We did a little thing I like to call Frog Gigging.  I have never had frog legs, so there was a chance I wouldn't like them, but I am willing to try most things once.

So at dark last night, Joe, Jonathan and myself headed out to a local watering hole that they know of armed with a fish basket, a little tiny pitchfork (which they boys informed me was called a Gig.  Actually they said, STOP calling it a PITCHFORK, its a GIG!), two mag lights and a little bit of hope. The first frog we saw, Jonathan got a 'bead' on its head, Joe told me to stand really still and keep my light on his eyes.  Apparently thats the key to this game - blinding the frog.

Here I am with my flashlight on this frog, trying to stand still, while my husband creeps around behind the frog with the Pitchfork gig and stabs this poor defenseless creature in the back of the head.  All together we got 9 on the night.

This is the thing:  I stabbed a frog last night.  And I really didn't have as big a problem with it as I thought I would.  Now we are ready to move on to bigger creatures - turtles, squirrels, deer.....by the end of the year I might be hunting bear....you just don't know about me.

On another note, Happy Fathers Day to my Daddy :)

Things are a change'n

I could probaby write 5 blog posts tonight if I wanted to.  Heres a photo blog of what I was up to tonight.

(Disclaimer:  I started this Blog post on Thursday but had to end it abruptly when the boys came home.  We then spent a couple of hours drinking a beer and enjoying a beautiful cool evening.

First, I came home and found these.

There is a hay field behind our house, but we moved in last fall and never saw them cut or do anything with it so I thought they might just not do anything with it.  But apparently they do.  These little guys were speckled all over the hillside behind my house.  

Here is the little farmer doing his good works.  NOTE he is doing GOOD works because of the color of his tractor.

Then I spent a bunch of time with this little girl.  My Mother-In-Law's doggie Matti is staying with us too, and when Matti is at our house Dixie doesn't get far from me.  She get jealous of Matti real easy.

Here's Matti-Moo-Moo as I like to call her.  As you can tell, she is a bit older than Dixie, and doesn't put up with her crap very well.  I put them both to bed on my bedroom floor last night and I think Dixie must have been trying to snuggle Matti because there were some loud sharp barks from the big girl.  

Then I started on my next project.  I bought a big cabinet to put in my sewing room, but the paint job on it was horrible to say the least.  Not the color, just the paint.  It still felt tacky, and it was like the roller came off on the cabinet as they were painting so it was almost textured.   So I set out to strip the paint off.  I have never used paint stripper before so I was a little nervous that I would get some on my leg and all my skin would burn off.  That didn't happen, I assure you.  Here's one of the cabinet doors before:

During the paint removal:  It just bubbled up.

And after.  It also worked on taking the stain off, but I didn't realize that right away.

I did the three doors and then felt like the fumes were getting to me a bit so I quit, took a shower so my skin wouldn't burn off and then took a walk up Beck's Hill.  This hill is behind my house where the round bales were today.  I like to check the sunset to see what it is doing (as you can probably tell from my recent posts) and I always think how I would like to climb up the hill and take a picture of the sunset.  Being a farmers daughter, I know better than to walk through someones Hay.  But tonight there was none.  It had just been bailed, so I climbed the hill.  Here is the sunset:

It wasn't near what it has been the last couple of nights, but it still had great coloring.  I wish I could add scratch and sniff to this blog because the smell of the hay was so amazing.  It still lingered this morning when I went to work, but by lunch was gone.  

This one is a little blurry, but here is my house from behind.  I had never stood on this side of the walnut trees.   It was like being on the outside of the window looking in.  Note the little black doggie.  She couldn't climb the hill with me because of her shock collar :(

When I started back I saw these:  WALNUTS!

I am not looking forward to picking all those up in the fall.  

I will leave you tonight, Sweet Reader, with  a little black doggie.  Good night friends.  

PS - Someone left an anonymous comment.  Thank  you, who ever you are!  I love feed back on my blog, but I would love to know who you are so we could converse.  Please feel free to leave comments whenever you want! 

Stripes, Sunsets and Socks

Hello friends again....Two posts in Two days?  How did you get so lucky!  

Lets start with tonights Sunset.  Yes, it sorta looks like last nights, but it struck me with such beauty, I had to take another picture.  How lucky am  I that I live in a place where the sun looks like this as it sets on each day.  I can't wait to see what tomorrow looks like.  

Remember what the garden looked like a few posts ago, heres a reminder:  A big brown block of yard.

Here it is again tonight.  Tomatoes on the right, beans and corn on the left.  All green!

Now on to the stripes:  Heres what it looked like last night when I last left you:

And now: after another coat of paint, and taking the stripes off:  I am really happy with the outcome.  There are a few spots where the paint bled under the tape, but over all it turned out really good!!!  I think if I do all the walls the stripes are going to make the room small and dark, so I am going to do 2 walls.  The other two I'm just going to hang some cutesy art maybe from www.etsy.com ?  

Heres my other project.  The new dresser!  It got a new coat of paint and new hardware and it looks great in our bedroom!

I also painted that mirror on top to go with the dresser.  Doesn't it look like a set?  I wish I would have cleaned it off a bit before I took the picture, but I didn't.  Such is my luck.  

I also got all the drawers to fit.  They had been out in the garage and since its so humid here they were too swollen to fit, so they have been lined up in the hallway just chillin.....and now they fit!  I even sorted and put away all the socks - in two different drawers!  One for his, one for hers.  Now I don't have to dig through 40 pairs of his to find one of hers.  I also matched and folded ALL the socks!!!!  Way to go me - I know Joe-Joe is going to like that one :)  

Next up on the list - figure out what to do with the washer.  Every time I run it, water comes out below it.  I think its leaking.....but I have to do laundry.  I think I might have to go to my mother-in-law's and do some laundry tomorrow.  I refuse to go to the laundry mat - I did enough of that in Chicago!

I hope this is all not to mundane for you all.  I like to blog, but I always feel rushed because I do it at the end of the night.  Maybe when I get my house back together I can make more time to do it.

"The heavens proclaim the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge." Psalm 19:1-2

Mish Mash

There is a lot going on at our house right now.  The kitchen remodel is starting after a great trip to Ikea for countertops and a sink, 2 hours in Home Depot Saturday and then some fun appliance buying today (thanks Sears for your Friends and Family Discount Day!)  Well I guess I mean it started this weekend with these two measuring twice and cutting once.....

Here they are again.  They are gone right now, and I just like to look at them - especially the one with his back to us :)

And then continued with a long discussion on weather they had the dimensions of the new appliances wrong.  So it was decided that they would wait until the appliances had been ordered and shipped to go any farther.  I ordered them today!  It was a fun and scary experience for 2 reasons:  1. I dropped a lot of cash and 2. I tried to use my debit card and forgot we have a daily limit and it got rejected.  I assured the man helping me that there was money in the account and had him run it again and then remembered that we have a daily limit.  And then I felt stupid and gave him my credit card.  I am very happy with our choice to go with Sears and Kenmore appliances, and while doing dishes tonight by hand dreamed of what it will be like when I have a dishwasher.  

In other news, the garden is growing like crazy!  We are well on our way to having friend green tomatoes this weekend.  yummm....I can taste them already!

My hydrangea's are in bloom, and one of my rose bushes put off three flowers already.  Here they are:

I cut them ang brought them in the house so I could enjoy them.  Now I think I have a pest or a disease on  my roses - the leafs are getting eaten by something!  I am going to look into it more tomorrow - I just noticed it this weekend.  

I also started the stripes in my craft room.  I have seen lots of pictures of people who paint stripes on walls, and love it.  Lots of friends have been telling me I am too ambitious, but we'll see when the stripes are finished.  Tonight I only did one wall to see how it would go.  I hope to have the other two done before the weekend.  

Here's a picture of the wall when I got done doing the taping:

The stripes don't have a pattern and I hope it looks random enough.  The walls are white so when I pull the tape off the lines should be white in between.  Here's hoping. 

Taping the stripes took about an hour.  Then I took a break for dinner and camp back to it, and found a storm brewing outside the window.  I checked the Weather App on my phone and it said a really big storm was headed for us and would be over Jasper in 20 minutes.  So I waited, and watched.  What I saw was this:

The most beautiful sunset.  I wish my camera could do it justice.  I don't know how anyone sees something this beautiful and doesn't  think there is a God.  How much proof do you need?  He sure is a master painter.  I hope he gave me a little skill to get my walls painted.  

By the way, it did rain, but there were no destructive winds like they said there would be.  At least not while I was up.  They might be happening right now for all I know.

Anyway, here's the final product for tonight.  It will still need another coat of paint tomorrow and then I'll pull the tape off and post another picture.  I like painting, but the whole not getting it on the ceiling thing is hard.   I know Joe-Joe is going to roll in here later this week and the first thing he is going to say is "You got paint on the ceiling."  He always notices thinks like that.  

So part of me sorta misses the nice clean white walls that I had before.  And part of me loves the fact that I took a blank canvas and changed it.  And part of me just wants it to be finished so I can start sewing.  Long way to go, but hopefully I will have it finished by the time my mom and daddy get here in July.  

I mean, it will be done by July.   It has to.  There isn't a room in our house that hasn't been interruped by our new projects.  All the sewing room stuff is in the spare bedroom and living room, our new dresser displaced the old one and the vanity to other spaces, The new dresser drawers were too swollen from the humidity to fit so they are in the hall, along with all the clothes that came out of the old dresser.  The bed from the sewing room is now in the basement, and the big wonderful new cabinet I bought for the sewing room is taking up space in the garage.  And the plan for the new appliances?  The dining room for now.  

Whew!  this is a long post.  I just had so much to say tonight.  Stay tuned for other news from the Seger house coming soon. 

Praying that you founds something interesting in this post tonight, 

Jen-Jen