Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Let's Talk CRAZY!

Is it summer?
Is it winter?
Is it spring?

Yes.

Hahahahahahahaha

Today it hit a high of 82 degrees.
It was LOVELY!

Tonight around 11:30 it's going to start raining.


And then about 2:00 in the morning it's going to switch
over to snow.
They are predicting between 3 and 5 inches of snow
between 2 am and around noon.

And then, on Thursday it's going to be 70.

So.... we haven't actually picked a season yet.

But in the meantime,


Our broccoli and cauliflower starts are looking good!
(There are TINY little snapdragons and some early peppers 
under the domes...)


Yesterday Kyle up-potted the cabbage into little dirt pots.


And we went into Hays and lost control of ourselves.
Two raspberry plants.


Two blueberry bushes.


And a gooseberry!
(Plus a red rhubarb that we took to the WaKeeney house.)


And our lilac hedge on the back of our yard is starting
to have little tiny leaves!
Hope the blizzard they are predicting tonight doesn't hurt them.

We were at Ace Hardware this afternoon and decided to
drive by the hospital where I'm scheduled for a mammogram
tomorrow morning. When I put it into my GPS it said
"Your route may be affected by the predicted blizzard."

Except the hospital was 5 minutes away, and the blizzard is 
about 24 hours away (at the time).
So... thanks Google for keeping us safe!
Hahahaha.

When we got there, I asked if I could reschedule 
because I didn't think I was going to want to drive in a blizzard,
having just recently moved from Florida.
She said she understood, and they actually had an opening
RIGHT NOW.
So... I got it done today.

And THEN we went to Home Depot and bought plants.
And stuff for Kyle's house, like drywall mud and paint.
OH! And a new lawnmower ($125 OFF) to keep the
aisles between the rows in the garden trimmed up.

All in all, a productive Tuesday.
And now we are going to hunker down and enjoy
THE BLIZZARD.

Monday, March 17, 2025

Happy St. Patty's Day!

 Happy St. Patty's Day!

YEARS ago, when we first moved to
Indialantic, I worked for Peat Marwick Mitchell,
a stock brokerage.
Our Office Manager was named Patrick O'Harrow.
His birthday was today.
He was VERY Irish.
(Except he didn't have an accent and he smoked
like a chimney...)
But he was a nice guy.

Anyhow.
I always think of him on St. Pat's Day.


I had to make a run into town to get some stuff.
(An orbital sander for Kyle and some groceries...)
Of course, I was all duded up with my green 
necklace and earrings compliments of Mom.

In other news,
I had / got to speak in Church yesterday.
It went well. I replayed the talk I gave in 2021.
Am I Good Enough.

******************************************

In other, other news...


Rozann and Greg's beautiful dog Zoe unexpectedly
passed away today.


She was an amazing companion.
She will be missed by everyone who loved her.

RIP Zoe.

My heart goes out to you Rozann.

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Smile!

 I had a nice visit with Soni on the phone this morning.
And then I went into the kitchen to make me some
avocado toast and dandelion tea.


It kind of smiled at me... lol.


We added a second grow light to our little set up.
And then we lowered them a little... don't want everybody 
getting too leggy...


We got about 95% germination on the broccoli!

Aren't they cute? 
Still nothing from the peppers,
but we have some new cabbages coming up in the dirt cells.

Kyle got the rest of his shed insulated and drywalled
so we should be able to move them out there.

I'll be heading out to the farm later today so we can
measure where we want to put the garden and put in
the water lines from the well.
It will be SO NICE to have on-demand water!
Not that it wasn't an adventure to truck water to
the garden everyday... but the upgrade will be awesome!

The guys have been BUSY this past week.


They got the septic system in for Kyle's house.


That's a HUGE tank for a little one-bathroom house...
should NEVER need to be cleaned out though.


Rod got the shower all finished with the concrete board.
Next Kyle will need to tile it.
(He has to go with tile since he put a window in the 
middle of his shower... no fiberglass surrounds for him...
but MY house will have fiberglass. I had tile in our FL house
and I was NOT a fan...)


Yesterday Rod built the ramps so he can run the
wheelbarrow full of mud around the crawlspace 
so he can get started on the cinderblock foundation walls.
Plus in the future I'll have a pathway to walk on...

Things are coming along!

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Gardening!!!

I'm so excited to be gardening again!!!

On Sunday, after church, Kyle and I got some seeds
started in the seed trays Rod & I bought the other day.

We started a TON of peppers (red, yellow, orange...),
more cabbage to go with the ones we started in
cotton balls (we aren't sure how those are going to do...)
and some broccoli and cauliflower. 

We set them up on the top of Beau's crate in the
living room with a grow light, but it was pretty
unstable. We had one end stuck in the book shelf
and the other end taped to the top of the spray bottle.
Hahahahahahahaha.

Last night we had the missionaries over for dinner.
And we needed to tidy up, and move the crate so
we could set up a table.

So I moved them to my office.


Still not an ideal setup... they are sitting on my freeze dryer totesl
And there are cans holding the light.


But they seem to be ok with it.
This morning we have 14 new little baby broccoli starts!
Nothing else yet, but peppers take a long time.


And the cabbages in cotton seem to be doing well under the lights.
They are a little "leggy", but we will fix that by lowering the light.

Kyle spent yesterday working on getting his shed ready 
for us to turn it into a grow room.
He insulated and drywalled 90% of it. Still has to do
above the workbench and the ceiling.
Pretty good for one day though!
So we should be able to move them out there soon.

Anyhow.
I'm EXCITED!!!!

In other news, I got a couple of fun packages from Mom!


Ugh. I just got out of the shower... lol.
And GOODNESS I'm WHITE!
Sheesh.
Anyhow.
I wore these darling earrings last night to dinner.
They are SO CUTE!

And the girls are going to love the little kites.
I'm going to make up a bunch of them.
Thank you!!!!!

Friday, March 7, 2025

Google

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours watching
a tutorial and then experimenting with
Google Docs.

Yes, I'm old.
I've never really used docs before!

But now that I know how..... watch out!

I put an agenda up and even was able to link to
the minutes from the prior week's meeting as well
as a link to the girl's presidency meeting minutes.

Just got off of today's presidency zoom meeting.
(Thank goodness for Zoom... with our ward spread
out over nearly 60 square miles, and we are all in
the 4 corners...)

But I needed to find a better background.
I sit in front of a white wall... and I have my 
work background...


Which is fine for business meetings... but kind of ugly.

So I just found something I think I'll use for my other meetings.


Who knows, I might even use it to teach sometimes.
I have a bunch of Christmas and Halloween backgrounds,
but I wanted something a little more spring-ish.
And then I saw this one and decided I liked it.

Anyhow.

I'm also wondering what on earth I was thinking...
I signed us up to feed the missionaries on Tuesday.

But we will have to stand in the backyard.
HA!
We don't have a table.
Or enough chairs.
I mean, we can probably scrape together enough
including our desk chairs... and I have 4 TV trays...
but..... hahahaha.
I might have to bring in the white table we use for
the farmer's market and set it up in the living room.

I guess it also depends on who comes. We have 4 Elders.
I don't think I can put 7 people in my house.

Sheesh.
First world problems.

But for now, I need to get ready to start tonight's class
in a bit. I'm hoping while I was in the meeting the
mailman came, I am expecting a package and it's WINDY
out there, so I want to catch it before it blows away.

HA! Just heard the UPS guy, he opens the screen door
and puts my package between the doors. He's a good guy.
I ordered a new long t-shirt dress.
Hope I like it.

Ok. Enough rambling.
Happy FRIDAY!

(Oh, I talked to the builder and the "guts" guys yesterday and
they are both working on new, updated proposals for us... so
I'll be watching my email for those as well!)

Thursday, March 6, 2025

We Love WaKeeney!

 So, you know our little town bills itself as the
Christmas City of the High Plains.

They take Christmas to a new level.

And now..... even MORE!


June 25, 2025 is LEON Day!


There will be a GAZILLION people there.
(If the crowd for Halloween was any indication...)

Just looks like FUN!

(Fun fact, I used to work for the architects and we had
an electrical engineer named Noel. I always called him Leon.)
(He probably hated it.)
He called the Town of Malabar one day, with a question
about a project he was working on in our town.
I was all like... LEON!!!!!!
Hahaha.
I'm a 12 year old.

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Left Ya' Hangin'.... OOPS!

 I called Mom yesterday morning and shared
the NEWS with her...
and Rozann, Nancy and Sondra already knew...
but I forgot to update the rest of y'all!

MY BAD!
(ugh, don't you hate it when people say that???)

Anyhow.

Gotta remedy that now.

Sondra and I are BOTH
FLYING TO TUCSON!
We are arriving on April 4 about 10:30 in the morning.
And we are staying until April 8 and not leaving until
about 4:30 in the afternoon!
(Which means no "middle of the night" flights!)
(THANK YOU REID for taking me!)

Anyhow.

That's just a short month away!
YIPPEEEEEE!

I'm working on getting subs for my classes on Mon & Fri.
I'm SO looking forward to it!
(And Rozann said her casita [my FAVORITE PLACE] is
all spruced up and ready for visitors!)
Nancy and Reid have an amazing casita.
It's like staying in a 5 star resort.
I love it, I feel pampered!

Rozann and Greg have an adorable casita and when
I stay in it I feel like I'm in a playhouse!
I don't know... I just love it. It feels like home to me.

Anyhow.

Besides all that... yesterday I made some beef bone broth
in the pressure cooker. I wasn't super impressed.
When we used to get our steers butchered, we got
BONES. These guys packaged up a hunk of meat with
a little round bone in the center and called it a soup bone.
HA!
We'll need to have a conversation before our next order.

AND,
I put a gallon (almost) of whole milk in the crockpot
and made some fresh yogurt.


It made a full crock of nice, tangy yogurt.
I didn't strain it, Kyle doesn't care for greek yogurt.
(And my yogurt strainer is............?)


Kyle prefers flavored yogurt (he is working on a gut issue from
taking oil of oregano daily for several weeks...)
So we have a small tub of watermelon/limeade,
a large tub of plain, a berry blue and a strawberry.
The watermelon was a "TrueLime" drink mix.
The others are just flavored jello.
We'll see how it works out after it's been in the fridge
for a bit and set up some.
It was a little runny for my preference, but I can always
strain a small amount for me if I want.

Anyhow.
It felt good to get back to making yogurt.

And the SAVINGS!!!
A gallon of whole milk was just about $4.
Each container of yogurt (Walmart brand) is
about $5. So about $18 worth of yogurt for $4.
Not bad!

And it's SOOOOO easy!
*Yes Sabrina, EASY!

In a crockpot (you have one...) dump a gallon of whole milk.
Turn it on LOW and set a timer for 2.5 hours. (This works perfectly
if you do it right as soon as you get home from work...)
When the timer goes off, unplug it and set a timer for 3 hours.
Just before bed (when the timer goes off) stir in a small tub
of store bought, plain yogurt. (I used Chobani this time.)
Wrap the whole thing up in a big bath towel.
In the morning, you have YOGURT!
The longer it sits, the tangier it gets. I started mine 
about 11:30 yesterday morning, so it sat wrapped from 5 last night
until about 8:30 this morning so it's good and tangy.

Anyhow.

We got some pretty good winds yesterday.
And then about noon it started snowing and snowed all day.
We ended up with a light dusting. It will all melt today.


The guys are headed to the farm.
(Kyle's shoulder is feeling better and he has SERIOUS
cabin fever!)
I'm heading into Hays for groceries.
It's Linger Longer this weekend after church and the
theme this month is sandwiches. I signed up for
lettuce, tomatoes and cheese slices.
So I need to pick those up.
And we need salad.

So... Happy Wednesday everybody!