Gotta love free...

Kristi, the amazingly talented designer of this blog layout is introducing some new products in the form of a giveaway!! These super cute little taggies are perfect for luggage or purses or diaper bags or pretty much anything!! You should check them out, leave a comment for her and see if you win!!

200th Post!

I started this blog with no goals in mind and no idea of its longevity in January 2006...and 3 1/2 years later, here we are at the 200th post! I can't believe that you've stuck with me this long...through all my randomness and drama and sometimes weird posts, but thanks for hanging around! In honor of the past 199 entries, I'd like to focus this post on some memorable moments from the past 3 years.

I've come a long way since my first post.

I've gone through phases of sharing musical preferences, telling all on Tuesdays, and passing along information about the things I love in life.

You've joined me in celebrating so many wonderful events...like anniversaries (2nd, 4th and 5th-I would like to apologize to our 3rd anniversary...just because you didn't get your own post doesn't mean that you weren't memorable and special!) and welcoming new members into our "family" (like our god-daughter, Eden, and well, this).

You've been there as I've honored (and sometimes unintentionally embarrassed) some dear friends and probably even had a little chuckle as I shared a less than flattering story of my own.

I've shared inexpensive decorating tips, before and after pictures of our generally successful home renovation projects and my love for all things bargain.

One of my favorite blogging moments happened as I was able to share with you all a wonderful new project that was underway with 2 other "simple girls". Many of you have been the driving force behind our creative ventures and we have loved your kind words during this process!

So, through it all, you've been there for me...listening to my rants and complaints and excitement and opinions and joys. But, when did I know you were for real, blogging friends? When you read about my less than traditional family, and kept coming back for more!

Raise your Diet Cokes to 200 past posts and to 200 more! Cheers!

Giveaway at "Three Simple Girls"!!

We're really excited to have just posted our first giveaway on the "Three Simple Girls" site! The items up for grabs this time are made by me, so I know you'll want to go check them out and enter!

For more FREE STUFF (aka giveaways), check this out:

Totally Random

I feel like I have about 15 different projects going on right now and my mind is going a mile and minute and this post will reflect just that.

*I'm slightly addicted to Google Reader. This handy Google application allows me to have every single blog that I read in a list and it updates very frequently with new posts. I read TONS of blogs (especially craft blogs) every day, 70 of them, to be exact. This keeps me from spending hours clicking on sites that have no new posts. It also keeps my mind racing with projects I want to try. Which is good for our house. And not so good for my sleeping pattern.

*We've been hounded for years about our lack of interest in "The Office". We watched the pilot episode, weren't really all that impressed and never watched again. After MANY, almost daily, comments about how awesome the show was and how we were pretty much inept members of society for not partaking in the love of "The Office" we decided to give it a shot. We started the first season on July 17th. We will probably finish the 3rd season tonight. It's awkward and weird and makes the viewer slightly uncomfortable a times, but it's so stinkin' funny. Jim is our favorite :) We might be addicted to that too.

*If you haven't been over to the Three Simple Girls blog, you should stop reading this post right now and check it out (but please come back and finish reading here :) ). We're getting readers from all over the world, literally, and are really excited about sharing information with our readers! Check it out on a regular basis as we are posting new stuff like crazy! And be sure to leave a comment and let us know you were there!

*I'm in the process of re-launching my home-based business: the Whatta Cute Baby! collection. I started this business (known then as Whatta Cute Bag!) about 4 years ago. It boomed for a while, I did some craft shows, and then it died along with our economy. I still get e-mails pretty regularly from friends and family requesting burp cloths and bibs and blankets and they all want to know when I'm going to get a website up and running. Well, the last thing I'm going to ask my computer savvy husband to do when he gets home from his computer infested workday is to create and perform the up keep for a website. And that's where my good friends a Blogger come in. I'm able to post items, maintain the site myself and it's FREE!! I'll be launching that site (hopefully) by the end of the month and I'll let you all know when it's up and running. If you've purchased sets from me before, you'll want to check it out...I've got some new items available and they are pretty darn cute (maybe I'm a little biased)!

*My brother and his wife are having a little girl (due around the first of November). She shall be called Reagan Marie and I LOVE being able to make cute little things for her. Can't wait to see her sweet little face!

And there you have it. Totally random thoughts. It took me about 10 minutes to type all that, yet all those things run through my mind in about 2.5 seconds. No wonder I feel like I'm going crazy.

Siamese Squash

You may remember this post upon which I was the proud owner of a small garden out back. I fear that the squash plant felt as though it was represented unfairly or not mentioned enough to its liking as less than a week after that post, it produced this:

You rebellious little plant, you!

Three Simple Girls Blog Launches Today!

Two dear friends and I are launching a new blog today and I wanted to invite you to check it out!

www.threesimplegirls.blogspot.com

Our goal is to use the random creative gifts and talents that we've been given to inspire others to do the same. We'll be offering up simple solutions to dilemmas in decorating, cooking, teaching, organizing, crafting and many other areas.

So, stop by, check it out and leave a comment to let us know you were there.

five

Today, we celebrate five years of being married. I think our calendars must be off or something because I'm quite postive that he time hasn't passed by quite that fast.

Five years. Five great years.

I'd rather be a pauper
Than a prince living without you.
I'd rather be a failure
Than famous living without you.
("Without You" by Shaun Groves)

Happy Anniversary, love!

The Birds

Early one Spring morning Marty and I were awakened, well before our alarms were set to go off I might add, by a persistend pecking sound on our bedroom window. Obviously, we were annoyed by this and after about 30 minutes, we had concluded that it was a bird. This bird would latch onto the screen (which we could hear), scratch it's claws against the glass part of the window (which still causes me to cringe), then release from the screen and fly straight into the upper portion of the window....repeat times a million. The next morning, it started again...and the next morning...and the morning after that.

I finally resorted to the master of all researchers for things of such a bizarre nature-Google. According to all the professionals on the World Wide Web, we were smack dab in the middle of bird mating season. You see, birds are very territorial animals during such a time. Our lovely little wren was seeing his reflection in the window, assuming it was another bird and attacking it. And thus began the trial and error portion of this story. We tried everything we could think of or read about on the internet to get this bird to give it up already!! I printed a picture of a cat to put in the window-that worked for about a minute. I put CDs in the window (the sun would reflect off of them and keep birds away)-that worked a little better during the day, but didn't help at all during the early morning hours. Finally, we ended up with a contraption that I'm sure came straight from the Beverly Hillbillies. I'm kicking myself now becuase I didn't take a picture of it and any description I give can't possibly do it justice. We had the window completely covered on the inside (fabric, blinds and 2 sets of curtains). There were 2 CDs wedged in the top of the window. There was a trash bag taped, with packing tape, to the top part of the window. And there was 2 pieces of cardboard taped to the bottom part of the window between the window and the screen. It was ugly as anything, but let me tell you right now...it worked!! We were finally able to sleep in again and the little wren could finally regain any sanity he lost by beating himself up on our window for 2 weeks straight!

About a month after that, Marty was out of town for a conference, and I had gone to stay with my mom for a night. I was gone for about 24 hours and came home to this on the back stoop...



Yes, that's bird poop and this picture certainly doesn't do the damage justice. What you don't see is that it's also covering our door mat, and the surrounding areas of the carport. YUCK!!!

And if you think this was bad enough, check out the sliding glass door...

No, that's not paint on the door. Those would be marks where a bird was repeatedly flying into the window. Apparently, the bird would sit on the stoop, see it's reflection in the door, fly into the door and literlly beat the poop out of itself. Neat.

Our little wren friend wasn't the culprit this time. We had a different attackee on our hands...a Red-Breasted Robin. So, in an effort to keep the bird from seeing it's reflection in the door and to keep from causing another portion of our house to be blocked off by trash bags and cardboard, I started keeping the curtains closed all day, which caused a darker interior, but much less mess!

And the bird must have really been out to get us, becuase this is what happened next...



The bird would sit on our retaining wall and relieve itself (multiple times) before launching off the wall and flying straight for the driver's side window of my car. It would hit the window, fly away, come back to the car, perch on the side mirror or ledge beside the window, poop and then do it all over again.

So, in order to keep my car from looking like this every day, I had to put a towel over the driver's side window every single morning.

When I started this blog a few years ago, I never thought I'd be posting pictures of bird poop. Nor did I ever think that I would look out the back window to see my husband sitting on the retaining wall with a bebe gun trying to keep birds away. However, I figure that spending this many hours observing birds' activities and researching ways to combat such activity was blog worthy. So, the moral of the story is, birds are persistent...and messy.

The Gardening Gilberts

Several months ago, Marty decided that he'd like to try his hand at growing some tomatoes. I'm sure you've seen the ads for the "Topsy Turvy" Tomato Planter (it hangs from a hook and grows tomatoes upside down). A friend told us about a way he'd figured out to make his own upside down tomato grower out of a 2-liter bottle. Figuring we had nothing to lose, we gathered our supplies, and got started. And this is how it turned out...


It's certainly not the most beautiful contraption of all time, but it seems to be working! It's grown quite a bit since this picture was taken and is finally starting to get some little tomatoes on it! We've got 3 plants like this, so we'll hopefully be making some homemade salsa before long!

Soon after the tomato plants started proving to be a success, Marty decided that we might as well try our hand at gardening as well! So, after several trips to Wal-Mart and Lowe's for soil and supplies and seeds, we set out on this new adventure.

First, Marty made a basic box of out 2x4s. Then, we cut out a patch of landscape fabric and used stakes to secure the box to the ground.


Next, we filled the box with a whole lotta soil...we used Black Kow, which is basically just composted manure, for more organic vegetables.

We had started the germination process for several seeds and decided to plant some sprouts as well as some seeds to see what happened.


We planted Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Cantaloupe, Cucumbers, Cilantro, Green Peppers, Hot Peppers, Broccoli, Green Onions and Lettuce.

And just a few months later, here's what we've got!

The squash and zucchini plants have taken over completely!! We ended up having to uproot several plants of squash, zucchini, cucumbers and cantaloupe because their leaves or vines were keeping other things from growing.

And here is our first little bit of harvested homegrown veggies!!


So far, we've collected plenty of squash, zucchini and cucumbers. The broccoli didn't come up at all. We had one green pepper plant come up, but no peppers produced from it yet. The lettuce is finally starting to come up (after several tries), but probably won't grow enough for us to use. And the green onions seem to be growing, but not fast enough. We tried to do a little container garden with cilantro and some hot peppers, but that bombed as well. Our cantaloupe plant finally has a little melon on it, so we'll hopefully be able to get something there!

It's been so much fun to pick fresh vegetables to cook for dinner. For a little money and just a little time each day, we've been able to stock our freezer to the point where it is overflowing with the crops our little garden has produced!

July Savings Update

July has been a hecka crazy month (see the previous post)!! I always have these lofty ideas of being at camp for 2 full weeks, which means meals and lodging provided, which SHOULD mean less money spent on food. Any my lofty ideas are yet again shot to the ground. For starters, anyone who has ever been presented with the lovely camp food options knows that pb&j and cereal QUICKLY become your new best friend. So, in addition to buying enough food to keep us from feeling like we might implode at any moment there are also little things that creep up on the shopping list to make camp a more desirable experience...like sunscreen and bug spray and 2 box of Puffs Plus and a box of cold meds when you catch the Camp Crud. And then, there's also the driving to places that are 5+ hours away for weddings on back to back weekends and all the expenses that come along with that. Even though I'd hoped to save more, I'm pleased with what we were able to save this month. We'll be parked at home for most of August AND a lot of the crops from our little garden are starting to come (post coming soon) so I'm gearing up for some MAJOR savings!!!

Here's the deal for July:

We were $54.06 under budget.
We saved $68.49 with coupons and sales.
That brings the monthly savings total to $122.55!!!

And we're finally over the $1000 mark!! In 7 months, we've saved...

$1099.91!!!

The freezer and pantry are busting at the seams...bring on August!!