Making Up for Lost Time.

As promised, I have been a busy busy bee.  Yesterday was an all day cleaning house event.  I never did get around to organizing my closet, but I accomplished quite a bit.  The kitchen is very clean  now, and the carpet is vacuumed.  I did a cursory cleaning of each bathroom, but will work on them a little bit more this afternoon. Next week I will be able to do a deeper cleaning and touch up work before I host my son’s graduation party.

Right now I am resting.  I am dirty.  I’ve been working in the yard again.  This time I attacked the side yard on the OTHER side of the house.  This is where our carport is.  When we moved here 5 years ago, I built a little planter long side the cement slab and planted ornamental garlics. They used to be full and lush and beautiful, but a month ago they started dying. That’s when we realized the irrigation is broken on this side of the house.  However, the rains over the past few weeks have brought them back to life, and I am watering them by hand until my husband can fix the problem.  As you can see from this picture, they still look scraggly, and there are knee high weeds growing behind the planter in the side yard.

I bought more red mulch last week befor the flu hit me. 5 bags for $10…I love holiday weekend sales at Lowes!  Not sure why red mulch makes me so happy.  Its an easy fix I guess. Anyway, I cleared away the dead growth from the bottom of the garlic plants, spread the mulch, then I got out my trusty flat head shovel and started scraping away the weeds.  I kept saying to myself…this is my happy place.  Its true.  I love fixing and building things.  Creating.  Cleaning out the garbage and replacing it with something fresh and clean.

I mean, c’mon.  So…much…better…

Its also good exercise, I get some sun on my skin, and it keeps my mind active.

There is still so much to do, but I feel good about my progress this week. I’m such a happy camper.

NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MacGyver Who?

Beating my chest this morning.  Yesterday, I was able to not only extend the dog run, but I only spent $40 and it looks SO MUCH BETTER and is much more secure than the old dog run.  Last year, in a huff, (my husband and I were having a spat about the dogs) I ran out and spent $200 on this TERRIBLE dog fencing at Petco. (see below) It came folded up in sections so you could set it up either oblong, or in a circle. It seemed like a clever design, but it was really wobbly and hard to work with.  Since I have mad MacGyver skills, I was able to make something out of it.  THIS YEAR, I went to Lowes and only spent $40 on a roll of deer fencing.  It is very sturdy and much easier to work with.

Anyway, it only took me about an hour or two and the doggies were exploring their new digs. Check out the before and after.

I also love how the deer fencing is so light…its almost invisible.

Still wondering what to do with the picnic table.  I am wanting to garden a bit and thinking it might be cool to put a roll of fake grass underneath the table so the doggies can lay in the shade, and then put some potted plants on top of the table.  Unfortunately, this side of the house gets full sun most of the day in the summer, and any plants I have put out there have burned up in the sun…so I will have to figure out how to get more shade over there. An umbrella might be cool.

OK, now my wheels are turning again…YOU GOTTA LOVE IT!

Its another wonderful Wednesday.  Gotta get the kids out of bed and start my day.

Windy Warm Wednesday.

I love the first few days of the week.  I’m home, I’m with my kids and dogs, I can work on my house.  It’s awesome.

Today we had a pow wow, time for the boys to take on more responsibilities and help out around the house.  Too much sitting in their room, too much computer…not enough activity in their lives.  I told my youngest that the day he went out bowling with his friends was the happiest I had seen him in years.  He came home beaming, he had fun…we was (gasp) SOCIALIZING!  So, its time to start implementing more activities in their lives and learn how to be functioning members of society.

I proposed a business plan.  Something the 3 of us could do together to bring more money into the household and to teach them how to build a business.  Its something we could work on slowly and in our spare time. (Not that I have any spare time, but THEY do). Julian has to concentrate on graduating high school, and Dante is looking for work…but looking forward, I think having a family business is a great idea.

After our meeting we got to work.  Julian took the dogs for a walk and did a little art project for me. (More on that later) Dante and I worked on the yard, did a few repairs and then he made us all lunch.

Cooperation rocks.

Two weeks ago, I posted my intention of working on the wood pile beside the house.  Little by little Dante chipped away at it and today I went out and finished it off.  The side yard looks great now. Ironically, since the wood pile has been dismantled I have not caught any rats or mice in my zapper…aaahhhhhhh!!!!!!

 

This morning a can of 7-up mysteriously fell out of its box in the pantry and exploded. Upon cleaning up the mess, that’s when I realized my kitchen is in need of some serious revamping.  So I got a wild hair to organize my pantry and another cabinet. I was excited to find some items that had been stashed away for years that I could repurpose and reuse for storage and decor.

        

OK, this one’s pretty embarrassing…even my cat is saying, REALLY? WHO LIVES LIKE THIS?

         

Here are a few ways I repurposed items I rescued from the cabinet of doom…

Dish drainer:

Placemats and dishes displayed on the kitchen table:

Tall cylindrical vases now used to store pasta and rice, looks cute in my kitchen!

I cut out a few cardboard discs and asked Julian to doodle a picture on each one (that was his art project for today).  These fit right inside the cylinders to protect the pasta from dust, bugs, etc…(it would be cool to find some cork eventually)

Here’s a photo of our lunch too.  Pita flat bread pizzas. Easy peasy and SO YUMMY!

I still have a few more projects I’d like to tackle today, but it feels good to sit and enjoy my couch for awhile.  And it REALLY felt good to spend some time with my kids and get some work done around the house.  My wheels are turning…what can we do NEXT WEEK?

Dirt Farmer.

Today I put on my big girl panties and went out to tackle the world. OK, not the world, but the side and back yard. Those dried up, stubborn, gnarled weeds have been taunting me for months.  Even when they die they still hang around until I physically go and knock them down. BASTARDS!

So I ate an early lunch.  Leftover beef stew.  Protein…yum (gonna need it)

 and then I got to work.

There’s not much I can say that would be real impressive.  Basically I pulled my flat head shovel and metal rake out of the garage and started scraping dirt. All the time listening to my inner crazy person repeat over and over “I’m a dirt farmer, I’m a dirt farmer”.

  (My friends today).

So, I know…weeds are brown and dirt is brown…so these before and after pics don’t show an impressive make-over…but I feel A LOT better.  I hate weeds. I really really hate them.

   

  

Next week the boys and I will be tackling this ugly wood pile.  It must go.

God knows what is living in there.

I noticed something wonderful as I raked underneath our (sad) citrus tree.  (I call it sad because it has never produced a recognizable piece of fruit in the 5 years we have lived here. I’m a dirt farmer, I’m a dirt farmer…)  My son always said it was a meyer lemon tree, but I thought is was an orange tree.  Son wins the argument…lo and behold, hanging on the bottom branches were three GIANT lemons. Wow! I can’t believe we actually grew something that the squirrels didn’t eat.  diiiiirrrrrt farrrrmerrrrr

Thinking I could really write a song, but I won’t make the hook EEE AIY EEE AIY OH.

Javalina Sighting.

The other evening, before sunset, my husband and I took the dogs for a walk down the dirt road.  As we made the turnaround to come home I started noticing the different types of tracks in the DG. Dog, person, and…what’s this?  Small unusual prints that I had never seen before, the spread of each print indicated that the animal was probably the size of a raccoon or an opossum…that wasn’t the odd part, however.  The tracks ran perfectly straight.  Rodents tend to scurry, and coyote’s kinda “meander” like a dog…this was a straight line…it really made me wonder WHAT THE HECK CAME THROUGH HERE?

Two nights later, my husband and I are driving home, this time its around 11pm…its dark.  The usual suspects romp to get out of our way…rabbits, a field mouse, and…what’s this?  I could have sworn the back end of a koala bear ducked under the field fence.  Noooo, not a koala bear, maybe a…what? Some kind of pig?  My husband laughed at me, “its a coyote babe.”  That was no coyote…it didn’t have a tail.  It was short and had stubby legs.  He Googled it the next day…Javalina.

This is exactly what I saw.

Great…we not only have every nasty rodent under the sun living here, plus coyotes and wild dogs, mountain lions and skunks; now we also have destructive wild pigs.  My husband was wondering what tore apart his irrigation a few weeks ago.  We chalked it up to coyotes desperate for water, but usually coyotes just chew the hose in one spot.  Our drip lines were DESTROYED.  Now what?

On to other news…

I am back to working on our food budget again, and I’m putting together an idea on blogging my shopping trips, meal planning, menus, time saving ideas, etc…I will eventually make a separate blog site for that, but until then, I am still working on my shopping techniques.  I’d also like to incorporate “how to” videos and offer shopping services and meal planning to others.

Today I was up bright and early…this is how my morning looked:

I only had about $200 to spend (as I mentioned, this was a lean month so my trips to the market have been piecemeal.  Ideally, as mentioned in a previous post, I try to do all of my shopping for the month in one day, hitting 4 or 5 different stores for the best deals…but today we only went to Stater Brothers and Albertsons.  I ended up spending a little over $230, but I still scored a lot of food, including wine, dog kibble and cat food. There is enough meat and vegetables in our fridge for 9 dinners with leftovers for lunches. This should carry us until our next payday.

Today we have been eating the last of our leftovers from last week.  In my last trip I bought a ham (on sale after Easter) it made 2 dinners for us, the second one was ham & cabbage soup…(YUM) and I still have a tupperware FULL of meat.  Great with eggs in the morning, and grilled ham & cheese sandwiches.  Once it is gone, my husband is burned out on ham for awhile. heehee

OK, that was one long blog post.  Hope everyone is having a happy Monday.

Hugs & Kisses from Long Ranch.

Spring.

Nothing says Spring like a sale on red mulch at Lowe’s.

I now read all my store ads that come in the mail.  Last week I got one for Lowe’s along with my grocery store ads.  I usually never read them, but I took a moment to ponder the Home Improvement mailer…there it was… a SALE on mulch.  5 bags for $10, that’s about half price. YAY!  I L-O-V-E red mulch, (bark chips)…they really make all your greenery pop and add a very clean look to any landscape project.  I ran down to Lowe’s yesterday and bought 10 bags…BAM…$20…no problem!

We are having guests this weekend. Realtors.  They are all about “curb appeal”, and right now…my curb appeal SUCKS!  We have weeds growing EVERYWHERE, and despite our spraying every week, they just keep coming.  So I knew today I would have to get out there and do some manual labor.  No problem…I need the exercise and sunshine, PLUS the weather is gorgeous…and I think it would really help my outlook on life.

My day did not disappoint.  Here are some before and after pics of my work.

 

 

Anyway, its been a long day and I’m tired…just wanted to post a few pics of my day.

We have all the windows open in the house and the birds are chirp, chirp, chirping away.  I get to sleep tonight with sun on my skin and a few very tired bones…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oh Mojo I Have Missed You So.

Yep, the past 8 months or so have been brutal.  Stress and depression were weighing heavily on me and my entire family…but things are finally starting to come around and we are beginning to make some headway.  This past weekend I finally felt like myself again. It was a good feeling.

I started a few SIMPLE projects around the house, that has definitely helped with my mood.  I didn’t spend any money, I basically just moved some pieces of furniture around and did some cleaning and re-organizing. There were so many things I wanted to work on in 2014, but our world basically crumbled around us and instead of home improvement projects…we ended up picking up the pieces of our lives instead. So NOW…maybe I can get back to some CREATIVE projects.

One of my friends posted some pics from Pinterest of bathroom vanity ideas…they were really cute and it got me to thinking…I HAVE A SMALL VANITY, I have had it ever since I was a little girl.  I have carried it with me everytime I have moved…its an antique, very delicate…and I’ve never REALLY used it…it just sits in a corner collecting dust.  So I decided to move it to a spot in my bedroom where there is perfect natural lighting, I organized all my cosmetics into a cute box which freed up some space in our master bath.  In a few weeks I will sand it down and give it a little face lift with a coat or two of dark stain.

As I was admiring my new space, I remembered that I have a cute little sign someone once gave me that says “ROCK STAR” so I rummaged through the garage, found it, and placed it over my mirror.  Cute, right?

UPDATE on my last post regarding the large rodent in my dryer vent…I think I caught him.  I put a electric rodent zapper by the back door and two nights later, there he was.  All 7 lbs of him…OMG.  He was huge!  You will thank me for not posting a pic.  I am still having an issue, however.  There is another rodent eating one of my plants on the patio.  I’m really bummed because this plant is very unique and was a gift from someone.  I have lots of plants on the patio, and none of them are being touched…so this particular plant must be exceptionally tasty.  I am hoping its another rat.  I put the zapper on the back patio…hopefully I will catch him.

Tomorrow I am meeting with a gal pal of mine (a fellow rockstar)…my younger son is working on a few logo designs for her, and she might have some other work for my older son.  This would be GREAT NEWS.

Last, but not least…I FINALLY got my garbage disposal replaced.  I am SO STOKED!  Its never been a very good garbage disposal, and about 2 months ago it completely stopped working.  Every time I would run the dishwasher it would leak underneath the sink.  So, I’ve been saving money and keeping my home warranty rider paid up…and this week I was able to get someone out here to fix it.  If you live in the country…get a HOME WARRANTY INSURANCE RIDER.  This has more than paid for itself in replacing and repairing appliances around our house.  This time last year our well pump died.  It would have cost $15,000 to replace.  We have also had our water heater replaced, and now our garbage disposal.  Not only does the insurance pay for replacing the appliance, but it also pays for someone to do the work.  Since my husband works so hard and has very little free time for repairs, this is invaluable to us.

OK, I have plenty to do…just wanted to drop a line. Ciao!

Geraniums, One Year Later.

Just had to post this as I have been out walking the property the past few days, soaking up the beautiful sunshine, and I noticed how beautifully my geraniums recovered from the trauma I put them through last year.

Originally we planted them in pots and wrapped chicken wire around to protect them from the rabbits.  But they grew so large that they became entangled in the chicken wire and root bound in the pot.  I had to rescue them, but the only way was to tear them apart.  I felt terrible.  I replanted them with the root system that was left hoping they would some day forgive me and recover.

They did.

Last Year

Today

This is a lesson in patience for me.  Did you hear that self?  PATIENCE!

I am still waiting on my car, which is MIRACULOUSLY getting a BRAND NEW ENGINE.  I am waiting to be able to fix up my house and our property, but right now money and time do not allow us to do much.  There are so many good things on the horizon, but I MUST WAIT.  I MUST HAVE PATIENCE.

One day it will all blossom, just like my geraniums.

Hydration Break.

Today is a productive day.  The weekend was brutal, and really depleted my energy level.  I thought yesterday I was going to break down…absolutely no energy and lots to do.  Its tax season, I’ve been putting off all my doctor follow-ups, the house is in shambles, and my husband is pushing to get our band marketing in place and learn new songs.  It was just a little much.

The truth is, all this stuff is just life.  I am not special or unique to these daily trials and tribulations…when I’m sick or run down, it all just seems amplified.  So yesterday, I ran a few errands and talked to some of my doctors then came home and worked on band marketing.  Today, I had to clean house.  Good lord, who lives here anyway?  Pigs?  heehee.

This morning I still felt a little run-down, but I allowed myself an hour and a half or so to relax, drink coffee and think about my day.  I took the plunge, wrote a to-do list and started in on the kitchen.  By noon I had not only cleaned the kitchen, but I washed my sheets and cleaned the bathroom and made a delicious lunch.  After lunch, I scrubbed the shower and folded some laundry…now I am ready to sit down and hydrate.

          

I know its terribly exciting to blog about cleaning house, NOT, but its these daily chores that make me feel like I am accomplishing something and participating in the family dynamic.  I HATE BEING SICK…it takes me away from everything I love to do.

So, let’s get back to talking about saving money.  A new website came to my attention that I am very interested in.  Its called Jet.com  SUPPOSEDLY it will be a discount shopping website, but before they launch, they are building their following.  You can check it out here for a free 6 month subscription: JET.COM  It will be interesting to see where this goes. I ended up going back to the grocery and spending another $44…but I had to go to Stater Bros. as they had my coffee on sale.  I bought 4 cans saving me $8 for the month.

I am also following a friend of mine who is blogging about healthier living.  She and her husband are around 60 years old and they are the sweetest, handsomest & happiest people I know.  They just ALWAYS seem to be happy.  She has developed a method of fermenting vegetables and she swears by its health attributes as it puts pro-biotics into your gut which is very healing.  Its sounds like solid preventative medicine.  I want to give it a shot, but to be honest fermented vegetables sound disgusting.  haha.  I’ll put my mind to it, and may give it a shot after my next grocery trip.  After taking antibiotics for a week, I’m sure my system could use a healthy dose of good stuff.  Here is Cheri and Mike’s blog if you’d like to check it out. http://keepfightin.info/

I have to keep a close eye on my budget for another month. I have many household repairs that need to be made, and my car is in need of brake pads…but I am going to try and hold off until February to start in.  I will also need to buy more pest control items (the mice have been brutal this season) and weed killer.  Luckily, I socked away a few bucks for all of these things.

Alright.  My hydration break is over.  Time to get to work on my patio.

Here’s to another week!  CHEERS!

Snakes. Why Did it Have to be Snakes.

Cleaning the patio the other evening after a blistering day of 105 temps…we are expecting guests, so I thought I should probably clean up the dog poop near the patio.  I am in flip flops and shorts…its still pretty stinkin’ hot…but the sun is starting to set and our guests are due to arrive in about an hour.  I hike myself over the railing to the dog poop area and start cleaning up the turds off the ground.  I wrap up the bag because the smell is killing me and I start back over the railing back onto the patio.  As I swing my leg over, I see movement in the corner of my eye.

Snake.

Big mother fuckin’ snake.

Coiled up underneath my plant stands…he feels secure, he’s not worried a bit that I am looking down at him.  I sit like a do-do bird on the railing…and call out sweetly to my husband.  He knows this tone in my voice, something is wrong. “What is it?” he answers as he comes running toward the glass slider.  SNAKE!  “What kind?” he asks…THE BAD KIND.

Using a shovel and a small hoe we (ok not WE…HE) pulled it away from the plant stands as it reared up and shook its 14 rattles.  I have never heard this sound before, and it was less than 6 feet away from us.  My husband grabbed his rifle and shot…and it was over.

My neighbor yells, YOU OK?  We reply, “Yes…SNAKE!”  DID YOU GET HIM?  “Yep!” (thank GOD)

The heat has been pretty bad the past week, but today it started pouring rain unexpectedly.  Not just rain, but thunder, strong winds and hail too.  Its glorious.  There is a river running across the bottom of our property, you could take a canoe ride…if you had a canoe of course.

If tomorrow is bearable I will see if I can transplant some of the oleanders, that would be fantastic.  If so, I will post about the project!