5-8-11

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL!!!

10:15am

Had Jonathan try on his wedding pants

this morning to discover they don't fit, ahhh!

So that means I'll have to go out

and find a pair for him one day while

he's in school. 

You can't go by sizes in the stores.

I took some floral wire, or you could

use string, and went around his waist

and height with the wire.

I'll carry this in my purse to compare

it to pants that I'll look at to

see that I get the right fit.

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10:30am

Damien stopped by to give me a

Mother's Day card and a huge

pot of Hydrangeas.

They are so big I said it

looked like a pot of balloons, lol.

Cards from everyone-

My kids and hubby are getting much

better with Mother's Day gifts.

By that I mean I don't want

flower bouquets that end up thrown out.

I always request plants that come

back every year that I can put in the yard.

I can cherish them every year and

have a story to tell about them.

One year we got pear trees

for our first anniversary at our house.

($1.50 each marked down at Lowes)

 My fruit bushes were a Mother's Day gift.

My grape vine was an early

birthday gift.

(Marked down in the Fall at Lowes

to $5.00)

My flowers and Hostas weren't

store bought.  They were given by

friends and family.

And any other flowers were planted

from seeds each year that I harvested

from my flowers the year before.

So like I said, all my plants

and flowers have meaning to me.

They are more special than going

to the home improvement store

and just buying some and

planting them just because.

10:15am

Tony and Jonathan headed out

to change out a fridge in an apartment

on the top floor.

Damien stopped by around 10:30am

and I asked him if he could go

help Tony move these fridges because

of his bad back and feet.

So he headed over to his work to lend a hand.

It's just me and Christopher home

this morning.

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Today for supper I will make

Chicken Parmesan.

HERE is a recipe for it.

I plan to use up some leftover

spaghetti sauce and mushrooms.

Maybe throw in some cans

of tomato sauce I found.

My tweaks-

The recipe calls for linguine

and I have angel hair pasta.

It also calls for chicken breasts.

I will be using breaded chicken

patties.

I am currently making some

homemade Parmesan Herb Breadsticks

to go with it.

My tweaks-
-I don't have shredded parmesan
so will use mozarella instead.
-Use the regular sprinkle parmesan on tops.
 -I don't have wheat flour so
used 3 cups all purpose flour.
-I added 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
to bread mix.
-I also added an additional
tablespoon or two of water
to the mix as I thought the dough
was too thick.
-I use bread machine yeast 
in the jar instead of packets.
They make a Kroger brand
for under $3.00 and it goes a long
way.  Packets are too expensive
and so is the name brand at
around $8 a jar.

My tip before mixing everything
is to run lukewarm water
into your bread pan so it isn't
so cold when you add ingredients to it.

Here is the bread machine recipe-

Click to enlarge.

It'll be my first recipe made out

of my $1.00 yard sale book :0)
I did the 1 1/2 pound recipe for
24 bread sticks.

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10:30-12:00pm


I got my Easter Lily planted along the
driveway.

I then planted a bunch
of Rose Zinnias out in the front
flower bed.  These seeds were
from dried flower heads I saved
from last year.
This is what an Enchanted Rose Zinnia looks like-

 I also have Candy Cane mix Zinnias
I want to plant soon.
They look like this-

I was going to plant seeds around
the big rock at the end of our driveway
but it looks like a moat at 
the moment.

Mom stopped by and gave
me a pretty basket with
lotions, body washes, candles,
lip gloss and body sprays along
with some cook books for
Mother's Day.


12:30pm


Took the dough out of the bread machine
and started rolling out into
bread sticks.
They are now resting and rising
again.

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1:30pm


Bread sticks just out of the oven.
There's nothing like the smell
of fresh baked bread wafting through the house!
Right before serving these
I'll brush them with some melted
butter mixed with garlic powder
and another dusting of parmesan cheese.

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3:30-5:00pm

I got a few veggie seeds planted today.

I planted green pole beans,

yellow wax beans and lima beans

in flower boxes.

I also have yellow onions sprouting

in a flower basket and I planted

scallions in another basket.

I forgot to plant my cilantro

so that will be another day.

I'm planting cilantro to

make salsa.

Since pole beans need a trellis

to climb upon I came up with this idea.

I hammered a nail several times

through the long side of the

flower box making small holes.

I then ran thin wire through

each hole and up to the top of

the fence around every other fence board.

I got the raspberry and blueberry

plants planted.

I put the raspberry in the corner

area of the fence.  I then

ran tow rows of wire from

fence post to fence post

for the trellis support.

The blueberry plants I planted

along the back of the fence.

One each in front of

an 8 foot fence panel.

They'll get to be around 5 feet tall

and 5-8 feet wide.

About the same for the raspberry.

In this photo you can see where

everything is planted.

The red arrow is raspberry.

The blue arrows are blueberries.

The grapevine, not seen in photo,

is about 4 fence panels to the left

of the raspberry.

Over time I'd like to have fruit bushes

along the entire back fence.

Still looking for a blackberry

and I'm not sure what other

options of fruit bushes stores

may have.

As you can tell I am getting

excited with gardening

with some of the planting I've doing today, lol.

It was such a nice day today

and no rain!!

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8:00-8:45pm

As long as the weather permits

and we aren't busy doing things

we've decided to start taking

walks every evening to

get more exercise.

This evening before

dark we walked a couple blocks.

Been couped up too long this Winter

and rainy Spring.  Time to get

out and stretch the legs!

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We're still looking for a small

vehicle good on gas.

The guy with the Toyota

never contacted me back-  GRRRR!

Why do people do that crap???

He asked me for a time this 

weekend.  I wrote back with

a time and our phone number.

Never heard another peep from

him.

Oh well it just wasn't meant to be.

So moving on to find another

one.  Not easy.  Small cars

that used to be worth about $900 or less

are going for about $2000 at the moment.

And, get this, they have high mileage

from 150,000 to well over 200,000 miles

at that price and aren't the prettiest

with rust and dents.

  Is that crazy crap or what?

I research any car we look at.

Especially when it comes

to the MPG.

Here is a good site to use

when looking at cars

to see what they average

for city mpg and highway mpg

and a combination of both.

FUELECONOMY.GOV

I looked up our Suburban

and it says 12 miles per gallon!!

Our Lexus gets 16.

Not the greatest!

We need something in the

range of at the least 25

to 30 miles per gallon.

More is better though :0)

Some cars will surprise you 

when you look them up!

I was amazed to learn that

a 1996-1999 

(maybe more years as that's as

far as I looked up) 

Explorer 6 cylinder 4x4 automatic

has pretty much the same gas mileage

as our 1999 suburban 4x4 v8 automatic!!

12-13mpg city

17-19 highway

Don't make sense but ya'll

can look it up to see for yourself.

I'd really love to find a Geo Metro.
They get 38-43 city
and 44-52 highway.

 

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