5-26-12

9:00am

Got the garden watered early before it got hot.

Tomatoes are getting bigger thanks to the heat

and some have flowers on them.

Radishes and carrots are popping up all over

as well as beans, cucumbers and onions

I just planted.

10:00am

Took the kids to the pool this morning

til about noon.  It warmed up quick.

It was about 91 degrees around noon.

  

There was a couple bird's nest under the gazebo.

Father bird kept a watchful eye out 

sitting on the hanging flower planters.

The boys jumping into the pool.

Stopped in the maintenance shop so

the boys could change out of their wet clothes

because we were going to Walmart.

I wanted to show you all the pop that

the maintenance guys found the other day.

The guy going around filling the pop

machines at the pools threw out lots of

20 ounce bottles of pop.

We salvaged some.

There was so many they plugged in a fridge

in their golf cart garage to store them all!

Stopped in Walmart.  I got a couple

bags of topsoil for my flower tower planter.

I think they were $1.29 a bag.

Got a couple other things as well.

Once home we unloaded the truck.

I wanted to show you the dish sets

we found yesterday.

Now I'm working on trying to figure out

why our air conditioner in the truck isn't working too well.

You'd be amazed at how much money you can save

by doing a lot of vehicle maintenance yourself.

I google any problems we have with 

vehicles.

I'm thinking that the reason the ac compressor

is cycling on and off and only blowing

cold air out the rear vents is because

we don't have enough freon in the system.

We've already put in two cans.

I'm thinking it needs more to work 100%.

We have gauges.  And I think I read

it needs to be at the 55 mark 

on a 90 degree day like today.

Ours is reading at like 25.

Definately need to get this up and

running for our trip.

Cans of freon is cheapest at

Big Lots, Walmart and maybe Dollar General?

Small cans are $10.

If you go to an actual parts store

they run $15 to $16 for a small can.

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3:50pm

For about the last hour I have been working
on my flower tower planter.
Not as easy as it looks.

For starters I didn't have a small enough drill
bit to put holes in the 1/2 inch pvc pipe
that will go down the middle of the larger pipe
and use to water the flowers.
Instead I took a small screw and drilled
it straight through the pipe all the
way down making many holes.

Then of course out of two drills
and four batteries nothing is
charged to it's fullest putting me even further behind.

I measured the circumference of the larger
pipe divided it by four then drew lines
down the pvc pipe to mark
the four sides I want to make.
10 holes down each side. 
Then down each line I measured
and marked every 5 inches of where
I would drill the holes out.


This is as far as I got while drill batteries
are charging and I'm making supper
of tuna and noodles with alfredo sauce,
peas and carrots.

 ------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

10:10pm

 

 

 

Earlier this evening I decided to give the

truck bath.  It was filthy.  Tony helped.

Then he went and got two more cans

of freon to put into the truck.

So far we had only put in two.

I am happy to say that I was

right about what was wrong with it.

The air conditioner works really good now!

 

About 7:30 we headed to Tony's work

to let the kids swim once again

before closing the pools.

The pools were packed.

The one pool the kids swam in 

had 60+ people at it!  I counted!

I thought we would have problems

getting them to leave at 9:00pm.

 

At about 8:30pm Tony left the pool

to go check on another pool.

Me and the kids stayed.

I got brave when he was gone

and announced to everyone at 8:45pm

that the pool was closing in 15 minutes.

I was not sure if they would even understand

me because 90% of them were hispanics

having a memorial day party.

I never had to say anything again to them.

They were the nicest crowd!

They even cleaned up after their party

and helped put the chairs back around the pool

where they belonged.

By 9:00pm everyone was gone from the pool area

and Tony came back amazed that I managed

to get that many people out of the pool!

 

On the drive home I started to get a migraine.

I've had them on and off for many years.

It starts out with no pain and I start getting blurred vision.

Actually about the best way I can describe it

is this, have you ever seen a heat wave?

The waves of heat coming off pavement or a hot car?

That is how my vision is.

After that would come the migraine headache.

Well after years of suffering from migraines that

could last for days with severe pain

and having to try to sleep it off in a dark room

because any kind of light would aggravate it more,

I finally found a way to make it go away

within about an hour.

Since the first sign of my migraines was blurred

vision, as soon as I would get it I would

immediately take 2 ibuprofen or tylenol.

Within an hour the blurred vision would clear up

and I'd have a mild headache that didn't go

full blown into a migraine. 

It has worked every time for me.

I wish I had discovered this many years

ago instead of suffering for many days like I did.

 

 

Well it has been a long day y'all.

I'm tired and are ready for bed soon.

 

 

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5-25-12

11:30am

Back from yard sales early.

There wasn't very many sales today

due to Memorial Day weekend.

I only bought three things,

-small toolbox for .50 cents.

I need this to store MY tools in like

hammer, screwdrivers, pliers and screws in.

I had some of my tools in the kitchen drawer

but they all disappeared.  So this

will be my secret stash of tools. 

I thought about painting my tool handles

pink making the boys less likely to use them, lol.

-Ceramic hair straightener $1.00

Even though it is a straightener I am going

to use it to give my hair body and wavy ends.

Check out how with this You Tube video. 

-Large angel for .75 cents.
I got this to give to mom for Christmas.
She likes angels and sparkly things
so I was planning on painting the angel's
gown with some glitter paint and the wings
a pearl iridescent.


After not finding too many yard sales I
wanted to stop by Marcs in Westerville
to check out their plants.

They had 20 packs of petunias for $4.97
and I got 2 packs.
I plan to turn my PVC pipe $2.45 into a flower tower planter.
Plus I need a bag of compost manure from Menards
to make it, $1.38.
TOTAL COST TO MAKE A 5 FOOT TALL 
FLOWER TOWER WITH 40 PETUNIAS, SOIL
AND PVC PIPE-  $13.83.
I have an extra 1/2" pvc pipe I plan to drill
small holes in and run down the middle
of the larger pipe then fill soil around it.
That way I can water the tower from the top
and down the smaller pipe to be able to get to each flower.
To buy a premade flower tower only 3 foot high
with no flowers, soil or watering tube 
would run you about $25 to $30.


I also found that they had black mulch
marked down to $1.00 a bag because
they were opened or tore.
I got 7 bags, a bag for in front
of the 7 fence panels out back for the rose flower bed.
I still would like to get 7 bags of
composted manure from Menards for $1.38 each.
So for the moment I have spent
$24.50 on 14 roses (still might take back about
half of those to the store this weekend)
$7.00 for mulch
and it will cost $9.66 for 7 bags manure.
And any additional flower seeds I might plant
cost .03 cents a pack, let's say 10 packs for .30 cents.
TOTAL COST TO MAKE A 56 FEET LONG 
BY 2.5 TO 3 FEET WIDE ROSE/FLOWER BED
INCLUDING SOIL, MULCH & ROSES/FLOWERS
$41.16
And that's before taking back 7 rose plants.
Then it would cost $28.66 for all.


Plus I have all the free rose cuttings
I got from Tony's work that I'm going
to try and get to root to make rose bushes out of.
Did you know that instead of buying a rooting hormone
to apply to the stems of the cuttings to prevent
disease or rot while growing you can
dip the stems in honey or cinnamon instead.
Will have to try both on different stems
to see how they turn out. 


--------------------------------------------------


7:00pm


A little warm out to do anything outside.
I did dig up a little more grass in the soon
to be flower bed but that was because
part of that area was in the shade.
Little by little is better than nothing.
Gotta close three pools tonight.
Wish it was bedtime because the
heat makes you tired.


--------------------------------------------------


10:00pm


Just got back from closing the pools.
I get nervous when we close pools
and there are people still at them.
I always worry that someone may refuse
to leave or be drunk and aggressive.
So far it hasn't happened but ya just never
know with all the weirdos out there.


One pool is across from the bulk trash area
where people are supposed to
put furniture and larger items that they
no longer want.
Well the kids found 2 boxes of
matching dishes tonight.
Maybe an 8 serving set between the two.
I didn't check it out a whole lot
as I put them in the truck and wanted
to get back home.  And they are still in the truck.
Two more nights of closing pools
and I don't look forward to it.
People go to the pool to party
especially for Memorial weekend
and bring coolers of beer with them.
By 9:00pm they can be really toasted.
Oh well, we'll just take it one day
at a time and hope for the best.

5-24-12

8:30 - 9:00pm

Toooo early in the morning to be sweating from

top to bottom and front to back!!

Save yourself some money and don't get

a gym membership, plant a garden instead!!

That will for sure give you a workout.

I figured I'd work a little this morning 

digging up the grass in the flower bed along

the fence while it was still cool.

I know for the next 4 days it's gonna be hot.

Not sure if I'll be able to get back to

digging the bed til next week when the

temps cool down a little. 

For starters I ran a line of yellow yarn from

one end of the yard to the other to show

where I should be digging and to make

it all even.

So far I've gotten 16 feet dug up.

I have 40 more feet to do, ahhhh! 

2 days ago I put some larger flower seeds

into a zip baggie with a wet paper towel

hoping they will sprout faster and get

then ready for the flower bed.

Today I took them outside to get some sun.

I have 

Italian White Sunflowers for the back of the fence.

Then will have Peaches 'N' Dream Hollyhocks next

then Lupine, Cosmos, Zinnias and Malva Zebrine.

Hoping to use these in between the rose bushes as a filler

along with some other flower seeds I have

that are shorter.

Mostly reds, pinks, whites, purples and a few blues.

I don't expect a miracle garden overnight

or even this year but it will be a start.

It's a lot of freaking work for just one person!

But ya know in the end I can look back

at it all and say, I made that.

---------------------------------------------------------------

2:45pm

 I have spent about the last week
studying the different kinds of roses I got.
I was thinking about taking back some of the roses
I bought now that I have had a chance to
get more information about the ones I purchased.
I was hoping to have every other rose
pink and red but it seems like most of the
red ones I got won't like Ohio Winters,
are prone to diseases and a lot of
work to take care of.  Mostly Hybrid Tea Roses.
So back goes all the red and climbing roses I bought.

I will be keeping these pink roses-
-Queen Elizabeth
-Paul Neyron
-Reine des Violettes
-Marchesa Bocella
-Therese Bugnet


These are
floribunda, perpetual, rugosa and grandiflora roses.

-----------------------------------------------




This was pretty cool site that I found last night.
It's called Race Track 3-D seats.
You can check out many nascar track and find
the seats you will be in and get a 3-D
view of where you will be sitting.
This is the view we will have MIS.
It's at the entering of the pit area.


-----------------------------------------------


6:00 - 10:45pm


Left around 6 and went out to eat at McD's.
From there we went to Kroger to get
a few things for this weekend.
Tony has to close three pools at his work
today til Monday in the evenings.  We decided at the last minute
that the boys could go swimming.
But they didn't have swim trunks or towels
with them.  Sooo after Kroger I went to the other
shopping center across the street which
had a VA thrift store.  I managed to find
two swim trunks and two large bath towels
for $3.20.  I'm glad I watched how much change
the lady gave back to me!  
While checking out at Kroger I got a $20 back
to use at yard sales tomorrow.  I decided
I would break that $20 at the thrift store
to get some smaller change for the sales.
My total was $3.20, I gave her $20 
and she gave me back $1 and some change!
She had rung me up as giving her $5.
We got that situation fixed real quick with a manager
as I got my other $15 back.


The kids swam in the pool for about 1 hour 45 minutes.
There was a couple other kids there also.
I saw that all around the pool there
was rose bushes.  About 4 different varieties.
A couple rose bushes were so pretty 
because the roses grew in clusters in a variety
of colors from light pink, medium pink and a coral color
all on one stem.
I plucked a bunch and brought them home.
Did you know that you can propagate roses
from their stems?  Google it or check
out some videos on You Tube to see how to do it.

Tony was telling me that the pop man
came today around to all the pop machines
to refill them.  And when he did he threw
all the pop in the machines out!!
Well earlier today the maintenance guys
salvaged about 100 bottles of them.
This evening we found about 20 more!
It sucks it wasn't diet though but free is good.
Especially when we needed something like
this for our road trip.

We also found another bookshelf,
a purple purse and a little shelf 
that will fit on the back of the toilet tank.

Right about the time we were closing up
the pools Tony got a page about a bat(s)
being in this lady's apartment.
She has been complaining about them since
earlier today and said she saw them again this
evening.  She actually left her apartment
and went to stay the night with a friend
because she was afraid of them.
Me, Tony and the boys searched that 
apartment high and low, tapping and banging on
walls, furniture, pulling the fridge out,
you name it we did it looking for a bat(s).
I was so paranoid thinking that the next
thing I would move, look under or bang on,
out would fly a bat.  But we did not find
anything and there was 4 of us in this
apartment looking.  Starting to wonder
if she was seeing things.


Well it's a little after 11:00pm and
I'm hoping to get to bed soon.
I am so behind with some things.
I haven't even got a yard sale list started yet
for tomorrow.  I know what I'm gonna
have to do early tomorrow morning huh.


Nighty night all.




----------------------------------------------------------

5-23-12

1:30pm

I no sooner got done watering the garden

and filling the birdbaths, got the water

turned off and birds swooped in to get

a bath and drink before I could even get to the door, lol.

It was like they were waiting for me to fill up the birdbaths.

 I saw that I now have

radishes, carrots and bush beans coming up.

I think I lost another celery as it wasn't

looking too good.   Something may have

been munching on it.

The tomatoes are loving the warm weather

and looks like they grew an inch or two.

Getting flowers on the hot banana plants.

----------------------------------------------------------

 2:45 - 3:05pm


This is about as far as I got with starting
to dig up the grass along the fence
for a flower bed.  I got too hot, lol.
This will have to be a morning or evening job
that's going to take awhile.
I figured it'll be about 3 feet wide by 56 feet long.
I only dug out a 2 foot area so far.
Maybe now you can get a better view
of the slope I hate mowing, the reason to put in the flower bed.
This is the center fence panel where I started.
I plan to maybe move the one large 
arched trellis here for a couple of
climbing roses, Climbing Peace and Royal Gold.
Trying to figure out how to level off this
center ground area to be able to put a bench
under the trellis.

3:20pm


I went back outside to check out
an idea I had about how to put
a bench on a level surface on this slope by the fence.
I don't know what my problem was because 
after I got these photos and walked in the house
I felt like I was going to pass out.
Lightheaded and feeling like I was going to keel
over onto the floor.
That was a scary feeling!
It's only 79 degrees out and 77 degrees in the house.
I turned the air conditioner on to 75 degrees
about 30 minutes ago because tomorrow it's
supposed to be 84 degrees then 
Fri through Mon in the 90's.
I immediately got in front of the fan
for a few minutes til it passed.
I ate today and took my medicine earlier around noon
so it couldn't of been that.
Glad I came around because I couldn't 
imagine what Christopher would of done
if I was laid out on the floor. 
Anyways here was an idea I had to
take boards and lay them from the bottom
fence rail to part of the slope resting on another board
making a mini deck to put a bench on
under a trellis.
It's kinda hard to show you with the bright sun
but here it is.  Of course it would be longer
to have a bench there.  This is only an example
to see what it would look like.
Then picture the trellis going over it.

Well I think I'm going to go chill for 
a bit more in front of the fan before Tony gets home.


----------------------------------------------------------------


Baby pears from my pear tree.

--------------------------------------------------------------

5-22-12

8:45am

Got the trellises unloaded from the truck.

Actually these were two arbors tore apart.

I'm not too sure if I like them up against the fence.

I'm sure I'll figure out something to do with them.

I could always use them as trellises for the garden

for beans, peas, cucumbers, sugar baby watermelons and such.

Time to get the creative juices flowing, lol.

Got a deer roast going in the crock this morning.

I found a frozen zip bag full of beef gravy

that I thawed out and put into the bottom of the crock.

Next I cut up an onion into large pieces.

I sprinkled a packet of beef seasoning

over top the roast.

Will serve with some carrots and potatoes.

----------------------------------------------------------------

9:55am


Was checking out the Farmer's Almanac to see 
what weather we will have in store for this Summer.
HERE'S the forecast for May 19th to July 20th.
I see lots of thunderstorms and 
90 to 100 degree temps
at the end of June and July.
YUCK!




--------------------------------------------------------------


4:15pm


Still trying to plan our Michigan trip.
I'm not having fun
and don't have experience doing this.
I checked out Hotels.com and Mapquest.com
for ideas for hotels.
I don't want some run down motel/hotel
and are trying to find decent ones that's $50 to $60
a night with pool, hot tub (for me to relax) , double queen beds,
wi-fi and continental breakfast.
It seems like hotels that are within 50 miles
of the racetrack are the ones that are 
$100 - $200+ a night.  So it looks like we're
going to have to stay about an hour to hour and a half 
away from the track to get the best rates.
So I'm thinking maybe the Toledo area for
the best rates.  Book 2 nights.  
Stay there Saturday when driving up the day before the race
and stay Sunday night after the race when coming back
during Father's Day weekend.
It's about and hour and 20 minute
drive to the track from Toledo.
Then we might head over to Lake Erie
so the kids can see that since it's not far away.
Just getting flustered that's all because it
seems like the women always plan out
all the details to the vacation.

Well time to get back to making supper.

Got potatoes cut up

and carrots peeled and cut up and boiling.

To jazz them up a bit I added garlic salt

and teriyaki sauce to the water of both. 

Once drained I added butter, salt & pepper to both

and drizzled a little honey over top the carrots.

Then drizzled worcestershire sauce and gravy over the roast

and potatoes.

------------------------------------------------------------------- 

5:20pm

Oh yeah, everyone is stuffed!

--------------------------------------------------------------



7:00 - 9:15pm


Well we finally got our seats reserved for the
nascar race in Michigan.  Should get them
within the next couple of days.
And I think we all agreed upon staying
a couple of nights in a hotel in Toledo.
Still have to reserve the room.
We had a plan to save money on gas
by using our Speedway points to 
get a free tank of gas or at least about $50 worth.

I had to take a break from planning all this
before it drove me crazy.
I told everyone I wanted to go back over
to Big Lots to see if they had any
of the $1.75 half priced roses left.
I didn't they they would have any left considering
it had been a week since I saw the sale.
Amazingly they did.
I have 56 feet of fence to plant flowers
and wanted to grab more roses before
they sold out of them.
I bought 9 more.  I bought 5 earlier this week.
So a total of 14 roses for $24.50.
That to me is pretty cheap for that many roses.
Roses that will come back every year
and I don't have to worry about replanting flowers.
That's one less headache to me. 
Spend once, plant once
and enjoy many, many years.

Won't have to visit The Park of Roses as much
when I will have 13 different kinds in my back yard.
 
All of them are a different kind except
for one that I accidentally got a double of.
-Climbing Peace everblooming rose (yellow & pink)
-Cl. Royal Gold everblooming climbing rose (yellow)
-Gypsy everblooming hybrid tea rose (orangy-red)
-Reine des Violettes hybrid perpetual rose (pink)
-Don Juan everblooming climbing rose (red)
-Queen Elizabeth everblooming grandiflora rose (pink) have 2
-Marchess Barcella hybrid perpetual rose (pink)
-Chrysler Imperial everblooming hybrid tea rose (red)
-Double Delight everblooming hybrid tea rose (red)
-Mister Lincoln everblooming hybrid tea rose (red)
-Therese Bugnet everblooming rugosa rose (pink)
 -Europeana everblooming floribunda rose (red)
-Paul Neyron hybrid perpetual rose (pink)

I tried to get the roses in pinks and reds
with the exception of the yellow and the
yellow and pink roses.


One day we'll get brave enough to ask the
neighbor if we can go into his yard and cut
down all the weeds on his side of the
chain link fence.  There are also many baby trees
in there as well that are as tall as the house.
I would love to have
a flower bed there some day but can't
do it when I constantly have to cut
back the weeds poking through his side of the fence.

Tomorrow I'm going to mom's to
plant the lilac bush I got for her for
Mother's Day.


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