5-31-13

6:30am

Well so much for sleeping in an extra hour the first

day the kids are out of school.

The power going out around 6:00am woke me up.

It came back on shortly after but I couldn't

go back to sleep when the clocks were all goofed up.


12:00pm


Went to a church sale and a couple of garage sales this morning.

1 rose scented candle $1.50
1 christmas tree scented candle .50 cents

My youngest son picked out three t-shirts
and 2 pairs of shorts. $1.25-$1.50 each.

I found three rolls of beadboard wallpaper
identical to the wallpaper I already had 
for $1.00 each!

An over the bed mosquito netting $1.00.
I plan to either use it over my hammock
or in the garden to cover veggie plants if need be
to keep pests out.

Stuffed tree frog for diaper cake .25 cents.
a set of training wheels $1.00.
I know, what do I want with a set of training wheels?
I would like to mount them on each bottom side
of my solar heater box so I can move it around.
Especially if I use it for a solar dehydrator.

And lastly my son spotted a 20 inch bicycle in
someone's trash in yuppyville.
I even turned the truck around to go back
to it because I didn't see it but my son did.
Some days I have better luck at curb crawling
on trash day than I do at yard sales, lol,
in the higher end neighborhoods!

To make sure it wasn't a bicycle put in an oddball
spot by a child I noticed the bike was sitting
between the recycling bin and trash can 
along with wood and other trash out at the curb.
So to me that said trash and we put it in the back of the truck.
It's a VERY nice bike, practically new and
shows hardly any wear.  No rust, no scrapes
and even has the little nubbies on the tread of the tires!

Stopped by Kroger on the way home
and got groceries for the next week.
Found some marked down bakery bagels for .99 cents
and a couple packs of beef cube steaks
for $2-$2.50 for 2 in a pack.

Got McDonalds for lunch and brought home.
Now I'm ready to lay down and rest for a few.
My head feels stopped up with pressure
and I have drainage down the back of my
throat causing me to cough.
I'm sure it's allergies.  They say the pollen count
is much higher this year than last year
and possibly will be the worst year ever!


---

5-20-13

7:55pm

I've been looking for one of these doohickies

and finally found one at hubby's work.

It's a lawn and garden hose sprayer.

I have a homemade fertilizer for lawns that I want to try.

Don't know if it works or not.

2 cups water

1 cup beer

1 cup epsom salts

1 cup ammonia

and you could also add in 1/2 cup regular dish soap 

or baby shampoo.

Mix together and put in sprayer.

Spray on grass.

Wait 2-3 weeks and reapply if necessary.

BEER applies energy for the microbes in soil and feeds

grass roots.

EPSOM SALTS are magnesium sulfate

which creates chlorophyll for greener and thicker grass.

AMMONIA has nitrogen.

DISH SOAP  Helps your homemade fertilizer

stick to and be absorbed by the grass.

In your vegetable garden you could use a 

regular misting spray bottle for tomatoes and peppers.

Mix up a gallon of water with 1 tablespoon of epsom salts

and shake til dissolved.

Pour some of this water into your spray bottle

and mist on the leaves of your plants

to make them healthier by producing stronger stems,

greener leaves and be able to produce more blossoms.

Do this when they start to bloom and

again after producing young fruits.

1:25pm

Starting to hear the clock, tick...tock...tick...tock!

In about an hour the kids will be home from school

for the Summer.  Well all I can say is I won't have

to get up at 5:30am for awhile.  Ok 6:30am wake up

time to get hubby up for work.

But hey, an extra hour is an extra hour of sleep!


Tomorrow or maybe this weekend
I'm thinking about putting tulle (it's what I got to use)
over top the gutter garden to keep mosquitoes
out of the water.  Then I might flip flop some of my plants
by putting the tomatoes and peppers on the left side
and herbs and other things on the right side.
Tomatoes and peppers love the sun.
I have noticed that in the late afternoon I start
to lose the sun to some shade on the right
side of the garden.
Plants that produce "fruit" need at least
8 hours of sun each day.
Plants that are grown for their leaves
need about 6 hours a day and could
use a little shade near the end of the day.
The potatoes to the right of the garden should be ok
as they get at least 6 hours of sun each day.
They are doing good since planting.
When they get about 6-8 inches tall
then I'll put another layer of leaf mulch 
in there covering the leaves up about 3/4ths the way.
I will continue to do this til this all Summer
into Fall.  Their soil needs to stay moist all the time.
This morning I sprinkled a tiny bit of
coffee grounds around them.

4:40pm


I got my compost bin made.
Right now it is only half size so I can access it
during the Summer.
In the Fall I'll add another fence around
the top to make it twice as tall so I can put leaves, grass clippings
and any yard or garden waste in it for the Winter
to break down.

---

5-29-13

3:05pm

91.4 degrees outside.

This thermometer probe is in the shade.

3:45pm


I found a couple packages of chicken breasts
marked down at Kroger.
I paid $9.07 before mark down would have cost $15.38.
I saved $6.31 by shopping the mark downs.

There was a total of 6 large chicken breasts
between both packages.
I divided up the chicken and put 2 breasts
into gallon zip freezer bags along with some marinade
and put in the freezer.
There are 3 different kinds of marinade,
Italian dressing, soy sauce and kickin BBQ sauce.

Each bag of 2 chicken breasts should be enough
for at least 5 servings @ .60 cents a serving.


9:50pm


One more day of school and this evening
I started feeling like crap.
Stomach started throbbing with a few extra
bathroom trips.  I keep trying to chug along
because to everyone else it's just another day
and moms aren't supposed to be sick.
Taking my medicine and heading to bed.

5-28-13

1:20pm

Got up early and went to Indian Lake yesterday

to visit the in-laws and have a cook out even

though it was very chilly and rainy.

By about 11am the rain stopped and the sun came out.

Still was chilly outside all day but got a fire going

to stay warm.  Father-in-law smoked a large roast

and we cooked brats and hot dogs over the fire.

Father-in-law took me for a ride on his bike

for the first time.  That was fun.

And we made a couple trips to the boat docks and

lake side by way of their golf cart.

It was lots chillier out by the lake, brrr!

It was nice visiting everyone.

My father & mother-in-law, brother-in-law,

brother & sister-in-law and a couple nephews

all live at the lake.

We got up there about left around 8:00am and got back

home around 8:00pm.

I was just too tired to post anything last night

and was so ready for bed after our drive home.

My mother-in-law gave me a big bag of 

goodies to take home that she didn't want.

-5 boxes of cereal

-2 pounds of elbow pasta

-1 pound shell pasta

-2 pounds spaghetti

-2 pounds rice

-2 pounds pinto beans

9:35pm


Check out this air freshener I saw hanging
from a car's mirror at hubby's work.
I had to do a double take to make sure I read it right, lol.

Every year these two ducks make a stop
at my elderly neighbor's home.
Tonight was the night they made their appearance.

5-26-13

7:30pm

Went down to the flea market this morning.

Returned home and hubby washed my truck

to make it all pretty for our little road trip tomorrow.

Stopped by a yard sale on our street.

-roll of tulle $1.00

-bath and body works scented candle .25 cents

-16 ounce jar of modge podge .25 cents

-a bag of 9 two ounce craft paints .75 cents

-clip on sideways cell phone holder .25 cents

I got the tulle to use on my seedlings.

I noticed that a squirrel or birds were digging in one

of my planters so I covered those baby plants

with tulle.

I repaired my second bird bath with some silicone

on the bottom of it.  I noticed last year it started leaking.

I have added it to my bird and squirrel 

feeding area.  They now have three birdbaths.

Two for the birds and the one on the ground

for the squirrels to drink from.

Went to hubby's work earlier.

He had to use their air compressor 

to loosen some lugs on his car.

Gotta watch those tire places!  When they use their

air impact wrenches to tighten the lugs they make it almost impossible to get tires off with a tire iron!!

While there I got a couple of screens.

Sometime I'll work on getting them cut down

to probably half size to put in my solar air dehydrator

to use as trays.

I might remove all the screen from the inside

of the box and put it on the outside that way

I can add wooden railings for all the

dehydrator trays I'll be making to slide in and out.

While the screens on the box are metal

I will be using plastic type screens to make

the food trays out of.  You don't want to use

metal screens for your trays because some food's

acid content might react to the metal screens.

5-25-13

8:10am

This is crazy.  Earlier this week it was almost

90 and we had the air condition on for two days.

This morning when I awoke it was 41 degrees out and

I turned on the furnace.

I don't know what the low temperature got to.

Hubby woke me up around 7:30am

asking if I wanted to go to the flea market.

I had to pass on it.  But we still need to run over

to the scrap place this morning sometime

and then will head over to hubby's work

sometime today so he can replace rear brakes

on his bosses car.  Trying to make some extra cash

here and there.  $100 from the last scrap trip

plus whatever from today's scrap haul

then $100 for putting rear brakes on.

Vacation is 3 weeks away.

Last year we turned in some of our Speedy Rewards points

from Speedway to get a free $100 gas card for our trip.

This year we only have enough points

to get a free $50 gas card.

It would be nice to have extra spending money

for gas, food and whatever

for our trip from side jobs and scrapping metal

than to have to take it out of our bank account.


2:00pm


Hubby got the brakes done on his bosses car.
While he was doing that me and my youngest
son walked the entire complex.
My legs are sore.

Once back home I worked on getting
the water reserve hooked up to a float valve
for my rain gutter garden.
It is all set up and ready to go now.

I drilled a hole in the upper part of the gutter end cap
and installed the float valve through the hole
and screwed a nut on it to hold it in place.
I added some silicone around the float valve threads
and then pushed the water tube from the
trash can onto it.
Next I adjusted a wing nut on the float valve
as to where it should sit on the water when full.
When the water goes down in the gutter
then it will open up the float valve to 
allow water to flow into the gutter from
the trash can.  It automatically shuts
off once it gets to the water level I set it at.

I've now got green beans and carrots coming up.

Radishes on left carrots on right.

Green beans.

Need to go lay down.  My head is hurting.


8:30pm


We went back over to hubbies work this evening
to get rid of a couple things in their bulk
pick up area.  Then we stopped by Kroger
to get some things to take to Tony's family
Memorial Day cookout on Monday at the lake.

While at hubbies work we stopped by a dumpster
before leaving because we noticed someone
had put things beside it.
I don't know if I had wrote about wanting to try 
and find a dresser to make a solar dehydrator or
a sun dryer for fruits and vegetables.
Well anyway I found the perfect thing to make
one out of this evening.
It's made out of solid wood, has screens on
all sides and the top and even has a door.
It may have housed a critter/reptile at one time
from the looks of it but I knew when I first saw
it what I wanted to use it for and it could be cleaned up.
I could even put plastic on the sides next Spring
and make a mini greenhouse out of it
for my seedlings or use it with plastic sides
to make a solar dehydrator and hook it up
to my solar can heater.
I know I was just so excited over my find
and hubby probably thought I was nuts
for wanting to bring it home.
To me my box I found
was pretty much already made except
that I would have to make screened shelves
for it which would be no problem because 
hubby has old screens with frames at work
that they don't use that I could make them from.
The screened box comes up to my neck
so I'm guessing it's about 4 or so feet tall.

Check out this solar air dryer that someone made from scratch.
Once you see that air dryer then you will 
see why I was so giddy to have found this
screened box tonight.

10:30pm


Time for bed. 
Early rise tomorrow.  Going to the flea market.
Hoping it's warmer tomorrow morning than
it was this morning.

5-24-13

5:50am

Right now it's 45 and feels like 39 degrees.

Supposed to be 64  today.

Tomorrow night it's supposed to be

39 degrees.  Brrrr!

Heading out to some yard/church sales this morning.


11:45am


Yard sales were kinda crappy today.
It was very windy and chilly out!

Laundry room sign .50 cents

Windex Outdoor.
Hook up to hose to clean windows with.
goes for about $9 in stores.
Paid $4.00 for new bottle.

Plastic clothespins .50 cents.
I use these for clips for chips, bread, cereal, etc.

Plant bracket hanger .10 cents

Candle .25 cents

Spandex girdle type top .50 cents
bra $1.00
jeans .50 cents

Cell phone $2.00.

Plant probe $2.00 talked down from $3.00.
It tells you the soil moisture, amount of light
a plant gets and the PH of your soil.
This will come in handy for my vegetable garden!

3:00pm


I don't see where we are going to make our high
for today when it's 57 degrees out and windy.
Still BRRRRR!
Don't think it would be so bad if it wasn't for the wind.
I have a pullover and a button sweater on today.
Was wanting to work on my water storage today
for the garden, not.  I got as far as just strolling
through the garden to check everything out
and raced back to the house to get warm.
Most of my green beans have come up 
since yesterday.  Radishes and cucumbers
are still continuing to come up.
Need some heat for
my tomatoes and peppers not this cold stuff!
I sprinkled a little epsom salt yesterday
around the base of the peppers, tomatoes
and zucchini plants to give them
a dose of magnesium sulfate.
Epsom salt is a natural fertilizer
which doesn't cost a whole lot.
They sell it at the dollar stores for a buck!
You can add it to soil when planting, 
add it to water to spray plant leaves or to water the plants
and/or sprinkle around the plants with it.
It helps with photosynthesis which is
when the plant turns the sunlight into food to help it grow.
It helps your plant to produce more flowers,
fruits and vegetables.
And it helps cell structure and enhances a plants greenery.
You can also use a spreader and add epsom salts
to your grass to make it thick and greener.


6:30pm


Went to the Prepper store tonight.
Stopped in to get a free refill for the air cartridge
in our paintball gun.

FYI
Here's a tip for any prepper prepping for disasters
for lets say things like Hurricane Katrina where they had
floods and there was all kinds of sewage and diseases
lingering in their water and you could get infections
from cuts or what not and there was no help right
away for these people for many days or weeks.
Everyone was pretty much on their own to fend for themselves.
Did you know you can obtain antibiotics
or penicillin WITHOUT a prescription
and be able to stock up on these for disasters.
You can!  The same prescriptions that your
doctor would normally prescribe you can
be found in your nearest pet store!
Now you can't overdo it with antibiotics
unless you REALLY need them
because your body will eventually become
immune to them if you use them too much.
You would have to do your own research
to find out correct dosages and allergic reactions to 
other medicines for specific problems though
and only use them in cases of emergencies
like a disaster where there are no pharmacies 
or doctors to turn to.
Anyways, if you go to your pet store
and get fish antibiotics they are same
thing as people antibiotics usually prescribed
by a doctor!
Like I said these would be for emergencies only
to have on hand for any preppers!
Any other time you would want to see
a doctor first for sickness and get a prescription.

Below is a list of aquarium branded medicines which contain commonly prescribed human antibiotics: 

FISH-MOX which is Amoxicillin 250mg (http://www.drugs.com/amoxicillin.html)

FISH-MOX FORTE which is Amoxicillin 500mg (http://www.drugs.com/amoxicillin.html)

FISH-FLEX which is Keflex 250mg (http://www.drugs.com/keflex.html)

FISH-FLEX FORTE which is Keflex 500mg (http://www.drugs.com/keflex.html)

FISH-ZOLE which is Metronidazole 250mg (http://www.drugs.com/metronidazole.html)

FISH-PEN which is Penicillin 250mg (http://www.drugs.com/penicillin.html)

FISH-PEN FORTE which is Penicillin 500mg (http://www.drugs.com/penicillin.html)

---

5-23-13

1:00pm

Mom wanted to go to Kohls so I went with her

then we stopped by the thrift store just for something to do.

I bought my one son an entire wardrobe

of Summer clothes for $20.50

which included 5 shirts and 7 pairs of shorts.

He can also share the shorts with his brother.

The shirts will be too big for his brother to wear.

I also found some more stuffed animals

for the diaper cake I am making.

I have spent around $8.00 towards this diaper cake so far.

The diaper cake is to be Nojo Jungle Babies themed.

I got this plastic laundry hamper for $2.92.
I thought it would  perfect to plant
some more potatoes in since it was a good size
and had ventilation holes already in the sides.
I could do sweet potatoes but it might
be too late to do that.  Maybe next year.
So for now I could pull a couple of potatoes out of the
potato tower and plant it in here.
It would give them more room to grow
since I have 9 plants in the large tower.

9:45pm


It's that time of year again that as the weather
warms up you will start noticing more and more
coupons in convenience stores.
I find many at Speedway over the Summer.
Just this past week I snagged a bunch
of Gatorade coupons from Speedway.
They were for $1.00 off 2 thirty two ounce bottles.
This week at Kroger they have the Gatorade for
.88 cents each times two is $1.76 minus the $1.00 coupon
makes it only .76 cents for both bottles or .38 cents each!!
Hubby and the kids like Gatorade
so I'm stocking up!
Be sure to watch out for those coupons
even if you use them at other stores
that have a better price.

5-22-13

8:20am

Gathering around the water cooler.

Blackbird to squirrel:  "Hey, you gonna eat all that?"

Decisions, Decisions!

A piece of bread or a leftover piece of apple pie???

Smells like food.

Hoping to get a few blueberry plants.
The groundsmen at work were asking
the guys if they wanted any because their blueberry
plants are growing like crazy and they now have too many.


2:05pm


Here we go again.
Hubby's being sent home from work because
he has overtime.  This sucks.

Anyways I was checking out my garden.
Wanted to show you a few things I found
since yesterday.
Radishes and cucumbers have started coming up!
There was absolutlely nothing yesterday but dirt and I got
a surprise today of all their little sprouts popping up.
They were planted 5-18, 4 days after planting.

Yesterday

Today

Wild animals keep getting closer and closer to me
in the garden!
Was changing the water in the birdbaths
when this little fellow stopped by
for a piece of pie.  He couldn't have been
but a couple of feet from me!

7:00pm


This evening I started working on my
water storage container to use on the
self watering gutter garden.
I drilled a hole near the bottom of a trash can
about 1/4 inch wide then inserted a rubber grommet
with some silicone around the edges
whether it needed it or not.
I didn't want it to leak.
Next I inserted a 1/4 inch tube through
the hole and siliconed it all in place
so there was no leaks.

Inside trash can.

I'm gonna let this sit overnight
and tomorrow if the weather permits
I will add the float valve to the gutters
and attach the tubing from the trash can to it.
Then lastly will fill the trash can with water.
Might go put it out in the yard tonight
to catch some rain water since it
looks like we might get some overnight.
When the water level of the gutters in the
garden start to go down the float valve
will open and allow water to flow into
the gutter to a certain level.
This is why it is self watering.
I won't have to go out to the garden
and add water to those gutters myself.
You can always attach a garden hose from the house
to the float valve but ours leaks so don't
think that would be a good idea
to save water.

Once I get it all put together you'll
get a better understanding of how it works.


8:25pm


My leg is starting to heal.
Turning some yucky colors in the process.