Seed Hoarder

I had actually meant to start a few seeds inside in March but it seemed that time kept getting away from me. Today, with only a few weeks to go before when I should be transplanting I took some time, pulled out my seeds, and began to plant.

I love the smell and feel of the potting soil. The colors on the seed packets are always vibrant and make me long for the sweet smell of wet earth and fresh carrots.

I realized though when I pulled out my seed packets that I perhaps have a problem.


Hi. My name is Lacy and I'm a seed hoarder.

Every year I buy my seeds and instead of throwing out what I don't need or better yet, passing them on to others, I put them in Zip Lock baggies, label them and put them in the garden shed.

I was admittedly surprised packets of the same kinds of seeds purchased year after year for now three years in a row. (I'm looking at your Green Beans) Frankly, it was a little embarrassing.

I also noticed that my gardening know how and ability seem to have increased.

When I first started I just grabbed whatever seeds in the garden store looked interesting. Not sure what I was thinking when I bought jalapeno seeds. I don't even LIKE jalapenos!

Now I only purchase heirloom seeds and I think long and hard about how I want to eat what I grow. I wont plant lettuce again since my family are not big salad eaters. We love cucumbers though and I think we need a few more plants around here of those.

This year I'm trying a couple of new things. I'm going to try and grow watermelon and another kind of melon. I've added garlic.

And I threw out the old seeds. Anything from 2010 just had to go. A couple of the 2011's went too.

And I planted tomatoes. Amish Paste and Fox Cherry. I also planted mini yellow peppers. Just for fun. (And because Kylie and Lizzie will eat them.)

Veggiepalooza 2012! Viva la Tomato!

That groundhog is a liar

We had had a very mild winter, despite the pictures in my previous post with all the snow pictures. This weekend while Micah and I were cleaning the backyard of the dog "presents" and old leaves it dawned on my to check my garlic.

There's something I never thought I'd say. Check my garlic. Almost sounds like code for something else coming from me doesn't it?

Anyways, last fall, probably in October, I decided to expand my gardening horizons and picked up three varieties of garlic and then promptly forgot which kinds I had picked up.

In any case I planted them in my half whiskey barrels and walked away. Leaves collected in the barrel and I thought nothing of it really until Sunday.

Sunday I looked in the barrel and initially saw nothing. Which good because it's early March and the chance for snow here is pretty high. I learned that at the end of April 2 years ago when a large snow storm hit after I had transplanted all my peas and tomatoes.

Then, upon closer examination I started to notice a little green.





I've tried to cover them with some leaves but they refuse to be denied sunlight. I truly feel sick to my stomach that they are growing in so early but can hardly blame them. Today we hit 70 degrees at a time when the average temperature is around 54 degrees. So it makes sense that the garlic bulbs think they have hit the jackpot and are sprouting early.

After all, they aren't alone. I found this stowaway in my larger raised beds. This must have been a pea that dropped and hid at some point and has now decided to sprout WAY ahead of schedule.


My yard work assistants were pretty intrigued with all the green. Wilbur offered to help "pick" while Lizzie Lou just wanted to hear what all could be eaten with garlic.



I hope our lovely weather continues because I'd really like for all my plants to live. I really hope that groundhog was a liar and there is no more winter.

Just in case I think I'll pick this weed...

So about those Christmas Gifts.....

Remember this summer when I was canning and I was trying to be all secretive due to people who would receive said canned items reading my blog.

Yeah.

That totally rocked.

I am a gift giving GENIUS. Tell your friends.

So for Christmas to close friends and family we gave what we referred to as our Canned Family. It was a basket of 6 items that represented each of us.

Mine was White Chocolate Raspberry Sauce


Micah's was Caramel Apple Butter. I don't have a picture of that lid because I bought the image online and so we don't have it anywhere I can display it. Sorry.

Ky's was Cinnamon Apple Sauce


Notice the ingredient "teen angst". So appropriate.

Lizzie's was Vanilla Strawberry Jam



Will's was Peach Butter


And Tasha and Molly had Peach Salsa


Really the only family member left out was Jason so hopefully next year I'll be creative enough to come up with something for him as well.

The baskets with the Canned Family were a big hit and it felt really good to give something local that I also knew would be used. To date I've received a couple of jars back and feel like this might be something I'd like to do next year.

Technically ketchup is made from tomatoes....

Dear Lord,

Is ketchup a vegetable? Or a fruit? (Tomatoes are fruit I was just informed). If it isn't could it be just for tonight? Please? Because Lord, if you would grant me that ketchup counts as a vegetable (OR FRUIT!) then I can rest easier knowing that I served my children a well balanced meal with a protein (chicken nuggets), a starch (steak fries), and a vegetable/fruit (ketchup).

Lord, it's not that I don't WANT to serve my children a healthier meal where the status of the vegetable/fruit is not up for debate. It's just that, well Lord, I'm busy. You see I struggle. I want to be really PRESENT for my children. I want to be a good mother. I want to be a mother who listens to her daughters tell her about volleyball and the playground and discuss boys and friends and birthday parties. And I can't always do that when I'm rushing around the kitchen trying to make dinner.

My time is limited Lord, but then, you know that. Often my choice is to make a healthier meal which will take longer in the kitchen or throw something together fast so we can get on with our night. Yes, I know, Once a Month Cooking and Kitchen Prep can be lifesavers. I KNOW this. But sometimes, some weeks, I forget. Or I get lazy. Okay, it's probably more lazy than forgetful.

But Lord, I don't get home until 6pm. Then it's another hour in the kitchen. Then we eat dinner. By the time that's all over it's 7:30pm and there is still homework and bath time and baby cuddles and story time and dancing princesses and, well, sometimes I just don't wanna give all of that up for dinner prep.

I'm striving to be a better mother. A more in-tune mother. I want to know my children better Lord. I want to know their hearts. I want them to feel as though they are being heard and that their mother is not distracted with food preparation after work.

And this ketchup gift would go a long way in helping that. So please Lord, just for tonight. Or this week. Can ketchup please be a vegetable (or fruit)?

Colorado friends and family - look away

Okay you can read the first 6 paragraphs but then really, you have to stop reading. The safety of the world depends on it.

This Saturday my husband gave me the morning "off" and I went strawberry picking. I figured it would be like when I went in June which means they would be small and hard to find. I was SO wrong.

The berries were EVERYWHERE and they looked like this:

They were so plentiful that I hoped off the tractor that pulled myself and the other pickers our there that within 35 minutes or so I had an entire flat FULL of them. It looked like this:



I will say that it is considerably easier to pick berries that are large and everywhere without children than with. I was in the field a considerably small length of time than the groups with kids and had far more to show for it. Of course I didn't eat the product either and by the looks of some of the kids that's ALL they did.

I went back out into the field and picked another flat because I was certain one wouldn't be enough. In June when I made Jam I didn't have enough and had to buy strawberries at the farmers market for far too much money. I was determined to get enough. I got MORE than enough.

I also got a really bad sunburn. Turns out when I don't bring my children with me I get so excited that I forget to bring ANYTHING for myself and so didn't have any sunscreen with me. It's now Thursday (I picked on Saturday) and the back of my arms STILL are sore to the touch from the sunburn. Owwie.

Okay Colorado family and friends. Time to stop reading. Look away now.

Are you looking away? NO! You just read this line. For real now, I'm serious, look away.

Okay, are they gone?

So I'm making Strawberry Vanilla jam for Christmas gifts this year. From one FLAT of berries I produced 2 batches of jam. Really it's just a strawberry jam recipe with a vanilla bean cut in half, scraped and all stuff dumped into the pot to simmer. It tastes divine.

I made it in two sizes. 4 oz and 8 oz and Micah will be hopefully designing the labels for me soon.


Tell me that doesn't look yummy!

Two sizes. Also, if you look at the environment AROUND my jars you'll see a real microcosm of my life. Teething tables, dental checkup reminder and unopened mail on my counter.

This is the AMOUNT of jam I have so far. I still have the berries from another flat to process too.

I better hurry, raspberries are ready to be picked in 2 weeks at the farm and I'm looking forward to some raspberry jam as well!

Strawberry Jam

I meant to have uploaded the pictures we took of the Jam making process but I just haven't yet.

I will. I swear.

But in the mean time, here is the finished product made with only strawberries and sugar. No pectin, no lemon juice, just 2 ingredients. And boy, is it SWEET.

Overall we made 9.5 8oz jars and I water bath canned them AND they all sealed.

As I said, it's pretty sweet and it's also a little runnier than commercial jam but it would be great in a sandwich or over cheesecake so that works for me.

Little Berries

Saturday I decided to have a little girl time and took Lizzie and Grandma Leslie (Micah's mom) to Berry Patch Farms in Brighton. It was a 30-45 minute drive which I do not consider to be that bad.

The goal was to pick our own strawberries to make jam with.

My friend Erin and I tried this with Lizzie and her daughter Alice when the girls were about 1-1.5 years old. We had a great time but admittedly did not come home with a lot of berries. I was determined to have better luck this time. Luckily time was on my side and this was the last weekend in June that they would be allowing berry picking which means it's a free for all. When Erin and I went 4 years ago we were limited by both the farm and the children.

When we got there we boarded the Berry Train which is a tractor with cool sled type thing on wheels behind it.


You can see that we were being overly ambitious with our picking plans by having 2 trays with 6 containers EACH for berries. We also brought an unseen smaller container for Lizzie specifically. Now THAT was realistic.

Once we got there I got to the very serious job of picking berries. Lizzie and Grandma started and then got side tracked searching for berries.


In the end they came back to me and luckily, with their eagle eyes were able to spot a toad. It was TOADLLY cool. Oh my....



I gotta say, that was a big toad. I was happy with our hoppy friend being around but what freaked me out slightly was that usually, where there are toads snakes are bound to be close by. That was about the time Lizzie was over the picking and ready to head out. The idea of snakes bugged me so we were out of there.

In the end we spent probably an hour and a half total on the farm and got a about 4 lbs of strawberries. Little tiny ones because ,in case you didn't know, pick your own strawberries are much smaller than the ones in the grocery store.

Also, I'm not tattling but SOMEONE ate the best strawberry of the day out in the field. Berry Patch farms are certified organic so we weren't worried about chemicals and so SOMEONE just split the strawberry with the other person there (after I declined). I'm not saying WHO but I'll just show a picture and maybe you can figure out who.

Overall we had a great time although Lizzie did get a little sunburn on her shoulders despite using mud SPF 100. Tomorrow I'll show you what I did with the berries.

Starving

William has been, from the moment of conception, an eater. He likes all things that involve eating and was born hungry and ready for breakfast. Or lunch. Or even a snack. He didn't care as long as there was food. He became depressed in the first few days of life when milk was not as forthcoming as he would have liked but once it did come in he was enthusiastic about it.

He's my chunk of burning love baby.

Since this weekend he has been kind of a cranky boy. I think it's sort of a perfect storm coming together for him.

1. he had the undying love and attention of his sisters for 2 straight weeks and they are gone

2. he had the undying love of a Nana for an entire 2 days and she is gone

3. he's teething and they wont pop out no matter how many fingers he stuffs in his mouth

4. he stuffs a lot of fingers in his mouth which makes him choke and also makes him cranky

5. he didn't get to really take a good nap all weekend

6. he's starving and no one noticed

It's not that I didn't notice. It's that I didn't put everything together. I figured he was waking up every 2 hours at night (after sleeping through the night for how long?) because he was teething. So what if I made 8 ounce bottles all three times and he sucked them down in 9 minutes? While asleep.

Sunday, I fed him a jar of baby food. A little one because he's really only eating baby food sporadically so we only had little ones.

Now let me stop a moment and paint a picture for you of feeding him. When Micah or I feed him we need two spoons at a minimum because either one will end up on the floor at some point or we need to distract him. He constantly tries to grab the spoon with his left hand and chew on it which makes for a messy and long ordeal in feeding. So we haven't been consistent and he's only 6 months old, he really doesn't NEED it. Right?

WRONG.

So he sat in his high chair and ate the entire container of apples without moving anything but his lips and head. I thought it was great he had finished the whole container and SURELY he would sleep through the night. No. He woke up twice that night.

Monday, I sat him in his car seat but he refused to lay back. I fed him another small container of apples. He ate it without comment or attempt to touch the spoon. When I finished he cried. Cried like I had kicked his favorite puppy. So I got a container of squash and decided he would probably eat 1 bite and waste the container.

WRONG.

He ate almost the entire thing until finally his lips would no longer open and only about 5 bites remained.

After an additional 8 ounces of formula with a rice cereal mix in he slept from 1-6. The longest he'd slept in a week.

Yesterday more of the same. Pears and then green beans until I was scraping the jar and praying the monster would be appeased.

The only thing he focused on was the spoon. The only thing he cared about was the spoon. He would not make eye contact with me and when I dared to get up to fetch the second jar he cried sorrowful, pitiful cries. Angry cries. Why me God, why me cries. You know the ones.

Basically that's the only thing he did with us last night. Fussed, ate and went to bed.

Woke up at 3:30am. Drank 8 ounces of formula. Wanted to chat with me about weather, the dogs, breakfast...until 5am.

Last night after he went to bed I had to run to the grocery store because we only had 4 containers of baby food and in two days he had consumed what had taken 2 weeks previously to eat.

I bought $40 worth of baby food. I'm not proud but there it is.

And better diapers because I knew what was coming today.

Luckily I had to work early so Micah had baby duty this morning.

He didn't say much but I believe his text message read, "OMG the poop on him!!"

At least he's not starving anymore.

Conversations with Lizzie

Alternatively titled: Reason I don't bake more

Me: Hey Lizzie, would you like to make some muffins with me today?
Lizzie: With frosting?
Me: No honey, muffins. Muffins don't have frosting.
Lizzie: No thank you. Muffins are just ugly cupcakes.

The Vending Machine of Doom

It's "of Doom" because it eats all my money. It's siren song of deliciousness steals my hard earned cash and leaves my butt and thighs too big.

Micah and I have several goals this year, one of which being to pay down as much of our debt as we can.

To that degree we took the majority of our tax refund and paid off several small cards and a medical bill (babies are EXPENSIVE). But there is still, sadly, much more to work on.

I've decided to try an experiment in saving money that I tend to fritter away.

I drink, on average, 2 bottled soda's at work. I buy them from the vending machines here and they cost $1.30 each. (ouch) That comes to $2.60.

Which is a lot but not as horrible as it's about to become.

That $2.60 is $13.00 a week. $52.00 a month. (Now we're starting to talk about money I notice)

Ultimately that's $676.00 a year. In soda. Just at work.

That does NOT include snacks or extra drinks or anything.

SO.

In an effort to save money I've decided that this week I will not buy ANYTHING from the vending machines. Or one the way to work. Or at lunch. No stopping at the grocery store, no going out for a burger. Nada.

This means that anything I want to consume at work much be brought with me from home. I will allow myself the ability to consume anything someone else provides for free such as donuts (not that anyone has brought any yet) and water.

This is day 2. Once this day is complete I will have saved at least $5.20. Not bad for only having to think about what to shove in my bag an extra 2 minutes in the morning.

My quandry is now what to do with the money we save.

Do I put it in a savings account? Do I just use it for the other bills we have? Do I set it aside for a specific purpose?

I haven't decided yet. Any ideas?

Dinner Disorganization

I am, by nature, a disorganized person.

I am also a person who likes lists. And spread sheets. Colored coded if possible.

I like making menu plans. I love them. Because when I don't make a menu plan my life after work is chaotic and often expensive. It generally looks something like this:

Monday - beg Micah to pick up fast food for the family because I'm exhausted and it's Monday.
Tuesday - Order Pizza
Wednesday - Spaghetti for dinner. Eaten at 8pm.
Thursday - Junk night (translation: soup for Kylie, macaroni for Lizzie) Micah and I fend for ourselves.
Friday - Pot Roast because I finally got my act together and put it in the crock pot.

Rinse and repeat.

One of my saving graces has been acknowledging that I'm human and busy. I know my limitations in the kitchen on a week night where I have just put in a full day of work outside the house. But even when I was a stay at home mom, my limitations were still there. Frankly I much preferred taking Lizzie to the museum than worrying about dinner. And prepping for dinner.

To that end, I LOVE making meals ahead of time and just pulling them out.

I also love my crock pot.

Those two ideas have saved my sanity on more than one week and I want to share that with you today.

Why?

Because last week looked very much like what I described above so yesterday I went back into Make Ahead Meals and crock pot planning.

This is what my week will look like for dinner:

Monday - Manicotti w/ garlic bread
Tuesday - Chimichangas
Wednesday - Pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, green beans
Thursday - Teriyaki chicken, rice, peas and carrots (I think I still have some of those)
Friday - Spaghetti (Kylie will be making this)

All of this eaten by no later than 6:30pm and all with minimal crazy surrounding it.
Each entree is either pre-made or crock-potted (is that a word?) and is much healthier than the pizza or soup the prior dinner menu had.

I love the make ahead meal (some people call this once a month cooking but I don't make it in that big a batch). At it's simplest form you can just double a recipe when you make something and stick it in the freezer to pull out later.

Some places like Dream Dinners and Saving Suppers do all the prep work and menu planning for you but can be very expensive. (Although these are the places I am more apt to try new menu items since I don't have the choice of making the same things over and over again)

I am a fan of the website Saving Dinner , specifically the Freezer Meals. I also have two cookbooks for freezer meals, Don't Panic: (Dinners in the freezer) and Dream Dinners. Don't Panic is my favorite for family meals for my picky eaters while Dream Dinners lends it self to more adventurous meals. All tasty, all good.

My favorite thing to do is to gather a group of ladies together for fellowship and dinner. Usually the host decides the menu (two chickens, a red meat and a vegetarian is how I like to roll when I host) and gathers the ingredients. The people who attend the party pay the host for their portion of the food (usually in the $30 range) and off you go. Partygoers chop, place items in bags, marinate and talk and laugh while they make their meals based on the recipe the host provides. When I host I also supply labels that detail how to prepare the item and what the item contains but you can just write it in permanent marker if you need to. I also like the ability to cut or add items based on what you like. If you like more onions in your marinate, then throw them in. Like less basil? Don't include it.

This is a great time to fellowship and bond with your friends and prepare your menu for the upcoming weeks or months.

And in my case it DRASTICALLY cuts down on the chaos in my life and provides my family a decent quality meal without having to be out of a box or containing a lot of preservatives.

Mmmmm, manicotti.....

Healthy Obsession

So I know I've mentioned my love of guacamole on this blog maybe once or twice before. But I think Sunday may have alerted my husband to a growing problem I have with it and he may be forced to act on it soon. As such I am coming clean now in an attempt to abate his possible "Guacamole Intervention".

Sunday my Mother In Law Leslie and I went to Holiday craft fair. We walked and talked and did some minimal shopping for about 2 hours. I had one contraction and it was a faker. *sigh*

I dropped Leslie off and realized that I was very close to my favorite restaurant of all time, Carlos Miguels. It's a Mexican restaurant in Lakewood/Littleton and I live somewhere between 30-40 minutes away from it. I called Micah but he had eaten and wasn't interested in going out.

So I called them for pick up and got some dinner on the way home. A chimichanga. Yum. And also fresh "tableside" guacamole just the way I like it, to go.

I had every intention of sharing the goodness of the guac with Micah. I really, really did.

I discovered instead though that Carlos Miguels wants to destroy my marriage. The container for the Guac of Life happens to fit the cup holder in my car. And the waitress, when she noticed I had tipped for a pick up order, loaded me down with warm, salty chips.

So I did what any pregnant, ravenous, guac loving woman would do. I drove down E-470, I-25 and I-225 going about 65 miles an hour eating guacamole from the cup holder in my car. I meant to just have one or two bites, I really did. I swear.

But I got home and Micah greeted me and I'm sure he was thinking he would enjoy a little guacamole too. But alas there was MAYBE 2 bites of it left in the container and I would have eaten those too had I not been busy licking the rest of the guacamole off my shirt where I may have dropped it. While driving.

So, my name is Lacy, and I am a Guacaholic.

A list of things that don't sound good at all together

.....but that my tape worm parasite fetus commands me to eat. RIGHT NOW! BEFORE I WITHER AND DIE YOU HEARTLESS WOMAN! Oh, don't cry mommy. Let me rub you with my head/butt/back/face/knee/hand so you'll feel better. Ahem

1. Pasta salad swimming in mayo & Tropical fruit starburst + Dr. Pepper
2. Turkey lunch meat dipped in mustard & skittles + Dr. Pepper
3. Tomato soup & dill pickle + Fanta
4. Rasinbran ceral, milk & processed american cheese
5. More pasta sald in mayo + skittles

You can see what I'm dealing with here, right? No wonder nothing really sounds good to me. When something does sound good mentally, I'm replused by myself.

PS. I have a UTI. I love pregnancy.