The Fruits of our Labor Aren't Fruits at all...

Without labor nothing prospers. ~Sophocles

And as you can see none of us are given a free pass when it comes time to work in the garden. We've spent a great deal of our free time in this garden but it has been a joy to do so. I have immensely enjoyed spending time in the garden with my Sweet Pea, even if we were only pulling weeds.

I know many people in our area have taken to planting a garden this year because of the current state of our economy. I will admit that was a motivating factor in deciding what we planted this year. This isn't our first garden, although its the first at this house, but it is certainly the most thought out. I made sure to plant the things that we eat the most in order to help cut down on our produce purchasing this year. The main motivation though was to teach our daughter where food really comes from. I know she's still small but it's never too early to learn. It amazes me that so many kids think their food simply comes from the grocery store and have no idea that you actually grow it. I can't wait for the Sweet Pea to be able to help pick her favorite fruits and vegetables right out of the yard. The garden is really taking off so it won't be long before we get to start.

I was so excited to see our first sign of production when we were watering last night.

It's the very first vegetable to appear, a bell pepper. It's certainly not my favorite thing in the garden but none the less I am beyond thrilled to see it. It is so gratifying to see the fruits (or in this case veggies, lol) of your hard work.

Memorial Day Activities

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We spent the day Monday at a Lavender Festival at Lavender Ridge Farms outside of Gainsville, Texas. It was neat because I've never gone to one of those farms where you pick your own produce, flowers, etc before this. They had a large field filled with lavender plants and you got to walk around and pick your little bundle full. It was pretty picked over since it was the last day but we still managed to find plenty. They also had some antiques, plants, and of course arts and crafts. It was a nice afternoon except that it got a little too hot towards the end and the Sweet Pea got tired. But it was a lot of fun and nice to spend the day with our family. I'm definitely going to be looking for more fun things like this in our area.
While we were there a reporter from the local newspaper came by to take a picture of the Sweet Pea cutting lavender with her grandma (my mom). She said if they use it in their story she will mail us a copy. I thought that was pretty neat, hopefully we'll hear from them soon.

Stop to Smell the Roses

I found a quick minute to stop in and say hi. We came down to central Oklahoma this weekend to see my cousin graduate from highschool. It was a nice ceremony and even though it was outside the weather wasn't unbearable. After the graduation we had a cookout at my grandfather's house and then just visited with family for the rest of the day. Rather than just rushing right back home and back into the regular grind we decided to take the time to relax and smell the roses.

Today we headed to the Texas Motor Speedway to go to their trade days. It was much smaller than I had expected but we all found things to buy none the less. During our cookout after graduation my Uncle's girlfriend had the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. It looks like the top of a bottle but it snaps onto a soda can. Apparantly they've been around for several years but this is the first time I've seen them. Its the coolest thing because I love my Mountain Dew out of a can but when we're outside I'm always afraid that a bug is going to crawl inside when I'm not looking! This is the perfect solution. I was thrilled when that was the first thing we saw at the Trade Days. Needless to say I bought one for myself and the hubby. Mine is a just white but hubby's glows in the dark and has a deer on it! He'll love it. Here's another brand of them called Snap Capps. These aren't the ones that we bought but they are just like this. Aren't they awesome?
Now that we've regrouped and unloaded the truck we're headed off to Ikea. Yea!! It's my favorite place to browse around when we're in the Fort Worth area.

So I'm a week behind...

Okay so I realize it's Saturday and I'm about to make a post about what we did last weekend but I have a good excuse. Last Sunday I developed a horrible head cold. Since then I've been taking the sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever so you can rest medicine and even though I took the day kind it still wiped me out. That's the thing about this particular medicine is that even if you don't physically get any rest after taking it, your mind still goes on vacation. At least that's what always happens to me. But I'm happy to report that a week and several doses of Vitamin C later I'm doing much better. Yea.


Last weekend we all went to the Junque Arte Festival in Nowata. It was actually much more than I had expected. They had some great arts and crafts including a quilt area that had some beautiful quilts and quilt blocks. I am always amazed at the abilitly of these women and men who can make quilts. Myself, I don't have the patience to make it all work out like that. Trust me, I've tried and its not fun. I really liked this one, unfortunately my picture doesn't do it justice.
In addition to the arts and crafts there were a lot of old tractors and tons of beautiful old cars. I could have wandered around for hours staring at the cars and just wishing.

Okay I love this one. It's a 1940 Hudson in case you were wondering. Anyone that happens to have one just sitting around, feel free to send it my way. Seriously. The Hubby already knows that once we win the lottery (I should probably be buying tickets to make that happen) I'm going to become a collector.

Chains of Love

Those of you that are close to me know that in January of this year we lost my grandmother unexpectedly to stomach cancer. Within weeks of coming down with what she thought was a nasty stomach bug and days of finding out the ugly truth, she was gone. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend the last weeks of her life with her. All the time I spent in the hospital while she was there, I passed the time by crocheting.

You see, my grandmother was the one that taught me how to crochet so crocheting by her side was nothing new for us. She taught me when I was around 12 years old, maybe younger. In those days I would spend the summers with my grandparents and my grandmother loved to go camping. We would go camping for a week or more at one time and as I’m sure you can imagine, a young kid will get pretty bored during that length of time with no phone, video games, or tv. Afterall, you can only play cards so many times. Undoubtedly I drove my grandmother crazy so in an effort to teach me something to do that would keep me busy, and quiet, she taught me to crochet. She would have me make chains until I was sure I could wrap the entire car in my chain it was so long. Then she taught me the basic stitches. I would practice those until she thought I was good enough to make something besides a very lopsided square. Finally the day came when I was good enough to make a potholder. She taught me a very basic potholder pattern and off I went. I swear I must have made a hundred potholders. In fact some of those early potholders are still hanging around, much to my dismay. They weren’t pretty by any means but boy was I proud of them. I eventually progressed to making a few very basic scarves but potholders were my mainstay. They were quick and easy and I could give them to everyone I knew!

As time went on I quit crocheting all together. Then just a few years ago I picked it back up. It was just before I found out I was pregnant with my daughter actually. I learned to read patterns, and really began to understand what I was doing. Even though I was married and “grown” I would still take my creations to my grandmother and go to her with my questions. It always amazed me how much more she knew about it than I did. Until one day I was able to show her something that she didn’t know. I came to her with the lighted hooks that I had only just recently discovered and she couldn’t believe that something like that was even out there. So of course I had to get her one for her birthday. It was so much fun to be able to show her something new about the craft the she taught me so much about. I felt just like that little girl who had finally made her first potholder.

I would often come to visit and see that lighted hook sticking out of a ball of yarn next to her chair and it always made me happy. I loved that crochet was something that we could always share no matter what else was going on in our own little worlds. It was our connection.
After that last day at the hospital I put my hooks away. Something inside wouldn’t let me pick up a hook, it just didn’t feel right. It was not easy the first time I picked my hook back up but I did it because I know she wouldn’t have wanted me to give up like that. She would have told me I was being silly. So I started to crochet again, not on the projects I had already started before but on one simple design. A dishcloth. Not just one dishcloth; I’ve made so many that I’ve lost count. I made dishcloths until I ran out of cotton then I would go out, buy more and start again. I think in some way it was my tribute to our days of making potholders. Something simple, useful and yet beautiful in its own way. Who knew a dishcloth could serve as a coping mechanism but it has certainly served that purpose for me. My days of making dishcloths are done for the time being at least, so here is my dishcloth tribute…

With all my love...

Yea for the moms!

Happy Late Mother's Day. I hope all the mothers out there had a wonderful day. I've finally recovered enough from mine to make this post. That and I found a card reader so I can finally get the pictures off of this camera. So now both cameras are operational. Woo Hoo!

We had a really fun day actually. Hubby's entire family came to the house for lunch and it was yummy! My FIL cooked fish for us and everyone brought a side dish and we pigged out. I've never seen so much fish, but it didn't take long for us to all demolish it. All the little cousins were there so the Sweet Pea had an amazingly fun time. She reached her limit though because in the middle of all the chaos she came to me, held out her arms and said "night night". It was too funny. She took a little nap and then was back in the middle of all the fun again. I've never heard her laugh so much.

I didn't get the craft project finished that I was planning to do for all the mom's but I'm not telling what it was because I'm planning on using it in the future. But I will share the picture I framed for my mom, MIL, and Hubby's grandma. I framed a variation of this picture in a double frame with the Sweet Pea's handprint on the other side. It turned out to be super adorable and I am so sad that I didn't make one for myself.

Since I was hosting the festivities I volunteered to make the desserts. That way none of the other mom's had to worry about cooking or anything. Besides I really love to bake and I wanted to try out some new recipes. I made some yummy thumbprint cookies, cupcakes for the kiddos to eat and then I tried a new recipe for lemon cheesecake bites. I was told they were really good but they were all gone before I even got to try one. I still have extra ingredients so I'll have to make a batch this week so I can try one! I also made a chocolate sheath cake but it was half gone before we even served lunch. That's partly to blame on me and dh though. Since I made the desserts the day before we couldn't resist the temptation of a chocolate cake sitting on the table. lol

And just a little notice that the next post will in fact be craft related. I have some crochet to put up so stay tuned this week...

Happy Cinco De Mayo

Okay so we don't really "celebrate" Cinco De Mayo around here but any excuse to whip up some Mexican food is good for me. Tonight it was 2 versions of stacked enchiladas. Stacked because I am quite frankly too lazy to roll up each individual enchilada and they taste just as good this way. We also had Spanish rice and homemade guacamole. Yummy!

Here you go sis...

I found it, I found it! I finally found my camera cord. Well I found the cord to one of my cameras the other is still missing. Unfortunately the one that's missing is the camera that has most of the pictures on it. But it honor of finally having a working camera to computer relationship I'm making this post. So here ya go sis, ask and ye shall receive.

She loves to play around in the floor with her daddy. They are really quite the pair!

This is my absolutely favorite picture. She looks just like she's ready to leave for her first day of school or something. I can't believe she's so big. She really will be off for school before we know it.

Okay can you tell she hated her Easter dress. From the moment we tried to put it on her she was furious and her mood didn't improve as the day went on. As soon as we got home from church and the dress came off she was the happiest little girl.