Why do mornings come so early? ~Amber

Why is it only 50 out? ~Amber

What happened?????

I tried to get on yesterday afternoon and blog about what I was doing, but about half way through my reveal, I noticed that my "save now" button was stuck on "saving" So, I opened up a new tab and tried to access my other blog, only to met with "NO WAY LADY". Ok, ok, so it didn't say that. Just the polite, we're sorry for the inconvienience, come back later, something about maitenence or Amber talks to much...you know normal stuff. Anyway....I'm back today to discuss adventures of my day off!

As I was thinking of things we needed for this impending family vacation, I thought about a first aid kit. With 4 kids going half way across the country, I think it's a pretty good idea. So, I got to thinking about his caboodles box my girls got years and years ago. We've used it for hair ties, girly "needs" holder, we've put the curling iron in there, and the hair dryer too. As of late, my husband has been putting the "extra's" or "leftovers" from work in there. Gloves that didn't make it on my hands, creams and ointments that didn't make it...well, to their appointed destination, alcohol pads that were given in too many number, and forgotten; stuff like that. So, I thought long and hard about it (ok, like 5, 10 minutes tops) and thought it would be a great first aid kit. It's large, and it's portable. It can be our main first aid kit if something happens here at the house, and if we go on a long trip, we can simply pick it up and take it with us.

Upon opening the box I was met with a huge variety of pocket stuff. Things that over the past few months had, as said previously, migrated home with me; and other things we've inherited. Seeing this I realized I needed to bust out the individual plastic bags that make the clicky noise when you close them. (Is that politically correct? LOL) I put all the gloves in one bag, and all the packs of various ointments in an other. I also had some alcohol pads that I put in a sandwich baggie. No reason to leave it all willy nilly inside right? I can see one of the kids running with the box, and just as they reach whoever needs it, they trip, and fall, and all the alcohol pads come spilling out all over. I can also see one of them flying through the air, and the corner of one of these tiny packs landing in the injured persons eye, and them becoming even more injured. Naturally, this would then require said injured person to roll around on the ground looking stupid, screaming the tripping child's name and how stupid/dumb/idiotic they are. So, at least if they are all in a bag, there will be no eye gouging.

So, I did it. I put together what we had, and it looks pretty good. My next step is to get to the store and see what kind of cheapy bandaids I can buy.

Clothes Pin Holder!

So, last night, as my sister is sitting on the computer doing her homework, I decided to go play around with the sewing machine. I had thought about a week or so ago, making a hanger for the clothespins, I just didn't know how I was going to go about doing it. After sitting at my sewing table, and looking around at what I have, I gathered together the following:

a cut of denim leg (knee down of course)

about 6 inches of velcro

and 2 colors of scrap material

I ripped the seam out of the pant leg (that was painful-holy cow!).

Then I folded the scrap material into thirds, and sewed them together making a sorta strap type thing. I made two of these "straps". Then, on one end of each of the straps, I put 3 inches of velcro, with a space of about 3 inches between the peices that fit together (this is the part that goes over the clothes line and hangs).

After putting the velcro on, I sewed the straps to the denim on what would be the back of the bag. (It was at this point, that I actually went to bed for the night, because I had to work today. So, I took a creativity break. LOL)

I then turned the bag inside out, and seemed up the side and the bottom. (This step happened when I got home from work today. I had about 15 minutes before I had to go pick up my 12 year old from school, so I decided that I would finish my bag! After all, I'm a horrible horrible procrastinator, and knew it wouldn't end well if I didn't finish it right then!)

I cut off the excess bottom material, turned the bag right side out, and POOF! Amber made a bag!

I took it outside this afternoon, and put it to the test. It works great!

We can move it down the line when we hang clothes, no more running back and forth to get pins. Also, when my grandma had a clothespin holder, if it was knocked hard enough, it would fall off the line and guess who'd have to pick it up? (C'mon first two guesses don't count) With the velcro, it's pretty secure, and won't spill over unless it was deliberately dumped. (3 inches of velcro is a strong hold!)

I have 100 clothespins, and it holds all of them, with room to spare.

I'll take pictures tomorrow (tonight was church night, so I didn't get much done between work and leaving)

And my husband thinks I'm crazy for keeping all this material! :-D

Grocery Day!

Well, yesterday was grocery day. Not that I needed a lot of stuff, but I still had to get a few things.

I only bought one thing with a coupon. A thermal wrap. Everything else was just basic supplies. We have a bunch of meat, and so I just had to make a menu with what we had. It's summer time (we live in Florida, it's been summer for about a month now, anything over 85 and it's summer) so it was time to clear out the "wintery" items in my cabinets. (or is it cupboards....hmmm-anywho)

This week we are having pork chops, sloppy joes, bbq pork, chicken and rice, whole baked chickens, spaghetti, and then tonight we had french toast. We had all the meat for every dinner, and most of the side dishes, so really all I needed was to buy fill in stuff. I use Sweetbaysupermarket.com to make my grocery list. I can make a grocery list of everything I want to buy, and it will tell me how much I should expect to spend at the store. Also, Sweetbay takes competitor coupons-bonus!

So, back to the actually SHOPPING part. Like I said, I didn't buy much, just mostly "staples". Bread, milk, Dr. Pepper (ha ha) and then spaghetti sauce, and garlic bread. Once in a while I like to clear out my supply of food and start over fresh. Since it's summer time, (as I said before) it's time for some summery food after this week. We'll be moving into salad night, sandwich night, probably a few breakfast nights peppered through the season. Then of course, corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes (when they rippen), green beans and bacon.....yummmmmm. But enough of that, I don't want to make myself hungry again, we just got done eating!

I took new pictures of my garden. Got a picture of my 6 year old to show just how tall the tomatoes are getting. You'll have to excuse the stray cat who thinks he owns us, and the 10 year old who had "better things to do"

The picture with the girls is of my big boys, and of course my hand (with the terrible angle of my arm) is of my roma's. I'm very happy that my garden has done so well, in such a short amount of time. I'm excited! Here is a picture of the whole garden, and of course the wonderful clothes line my husband made for me two weeks ago. We use it every day. With a family of 7, we use it a couple times a day, and it saves us a lot of money not running the dryer. I want the kind that fold up like an umbrella, but I'm not willing to pay as much money as the stores are selling them for, so I'll probably hit up the flea market the next weekend I'm off. They have yard sale weekends, and I'll just have to go have a look see.

Happy Mothers Day!!! Hope everyone has a great day today. ~Amber

The Garden

I really need to get out there and take some pictures. The tomatoes are coming up nicely. I'm going to go ahead and say that one of them is around 5 feet when I stand it upright. The big boys that I planted have all grown to over 4 foot tall, and are not being supported any more by the cages. My romas are still contained, and starting to fruit! It's nice to see the garden working so well this year. I learned a lot since last year, and also because of last year. I think I have at least one tomato on each plant! It's very exciting.

It rained today, and my beans LOVED it. A couple of the plants grew runners overnight, and well, they did just that. However, I need to do a little research, cause I planted the girls "We grew beans in class" plants next to the trellis (honestly I didn't think they would make it) and they are growing! So, I just wonder if I'm going to have green bean flavored lima beans, or lima bean flavored green beans. Guess we'll find out later!

We transplanted Stephanie's canteloupes. She started 4 plants from seeds-in the middle of the yard. I don't quite understand what exactly she did that for, but what does matter is that they flurished, and transplanted them to the garden, where they have continued to flurish! Ironically they are living very well where my summer squash plants died a horrible death. I don't know what happened, but they didn't like living in my garden, so they went to the big garden in the sky. All 6 plants. I was bummed, cause we eat summer squash a lot, and this would've saved us a lot of money. However, I think that with the amount of canteloupe Stephanie should get out of her 4 plants, maybe she can sell them at a produce stand, and buy us summer squash!

I got a tospy turvey for my birthday last year. I was waiting for cucumbers to plant in it, but I'm thinking maybe I should just let Stephanie (my resident green thumb) plant me a seed, and then we'll transplant them later. It would definately be cheaper, Especially since I have a cucumber in the kitchen. The wheels are turning, can you feel the heat and smell the burning wires?

Tomorrow is grocery day. It won't really be much of a "grocery" day, because there is only $11 left in our grocery budget for this month. However, that is an other post. But, groceries and the garden go hand in hand. I've already saved money from planting the garden, and I'll be saving a lot more money as things mature and we can eat them!

I know, I know...time passes

Last week was girls camp. I won't go into it, but it was almost a bust...however that is an other story.

So, we are going to Texas next month. Texas with 4 children, and 2 adults. How do we do this on a budget? First of all, I'd like to give kudo's to my brother who works for choice hotels. :-D Truely without him, this trip wouldn't be possible for my whole family. So, now it's time to figure out what we are going to do (for free) and what we are going to eat (from the grocery store, or with what will cook in a crock pot...although I should probably see if I can use a crock pot)

I've been doing some research. We'll probably go to the Alamo. We'll be over there, and all we'll need is gas money to get there. Much cheaper than paying entrance fees for 6 people. As it stands right now, that's about all we're going to be doing. LOL!!! I know there will be other things, but I have not been able to dedicate much time to planning. This week is finals for me, and I've been trying to do that. Although, it's REALLY hard for me to concentrate when I have a family vacation to plan out.

The spirit of God like a fire is burning! ~Amber