May 12th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Check out the gradient
coloring

Good Morning! I’m so tired, my hair even hurts. We busted our butts yesterday.

I’ll show you what we accomplished in a minute, but first I wanted to tell you why I purposely omitted Lys from yesterday’s blog. You see, while Dani, my hubby and I were working outside, Lys was in charge of desserts for last night’s dinner, so I knew a good chunk of today’s blog would be dedicated solely to her.

Zero calories on holidays,
right????

As you have seen before, when it comes to desserts, Lys goes all out, and yesterday was no exception. She decided to do two different desserts, well actually three if you count the chocolate covered strawberries. She did individual servings of ice cream in a chocolate shell cup, and she made a marble cake.

Chocolate cups filled with
ice cream

Lys has gotten the decorating down, her creations are absolutely beautiful. Now she needs to polish her actual baking though. Although the marble cake tasted okay, it came out very dense, kind of like a pound cake. She needs to experiment a little more until she gets more consistent, and I will happily be her kitchen guinea pig.

Now, as for the garden; at nine, Dani and I headed off to Lowe's. We bought cinder blocks, mulch, manure, potting soil, vegetables – in both seed and plant form, and herbs – again in both seed and plant form. We looked over the hanging baskets for the two grandmothers’ gifts, but didn’t see anything we liked, so we decided to get empty baskets and individual flowers, and make our own.

All that's left of the
three yards of dirt

Three yards of dirt were dumped at the top of our driveway around eleven thirty. Unfortunately, because of all the rain we’ve had lately, the driver didn’t want to take a chance in getting her truck stuck, so she wouldn’t drive the load of dirt out back. That meant we (meaning my husband) had to wheelbarrow all the dirt.

The first trough took eleven barrows full, and probably could have taken two more, but I was nervous we wouldn’t have enough dirt. I should have waited until all the troughs were full before I started planting, but I wanted to get one done.

Strawberry Patch

Six hours of constant work by the three of us, and the garden is filled, planted, and mulched. The only thing I was worried about was, we didn’t have enough time, or quite frankly the energy, to put the cage around the garden. Sure enough, I poked my head out my bedroom window, and it does look like the wildlife had a buffet. When I get dressed, I’ll go and take a better look, but I think my lettuce was someone’s late night snack. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

I still have to get onions and garlic, and then my herb bed will be finished, and then I have one section in front of the corn where I can plant one more thing, but I haven’t decided what will go there. I was debating about just putting in more corn, but I really think the eight stalks I planted will be more than enough for us. I don’t know, maybe artichokes would be good.

trough one is the closest
please ignore the long grass
our tractor is getting fixed

This photo shows you the whole garden from the north end. The first bed is corn on the left, a blue berry bush and a raspberry bush. In front of the berry bushes are carrots and radishes. The second bed has cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, regular tomatoes, red, yellow and orange peppers. The third bed (which still need the trellis put up) has peas, green beans and wax beans on the small side, and then zucchini, eggplant and cucumbers on the large side. The fourth bed has lettuce, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower. The final bed is my herb bed. On the left is where the onions and garlic are going to go. Then I have basil, dill, and finally rosemary. Along the western edge is my strawberry patch.

All we have left to do is the fence needs to be fastened around the perimeter, the trellis for the climbing veggies, the door, and the screen roof. Next weekend my hubby will be building my spud bin. It may take his back that long to recover after all the work he did yesterday. Between muscle aches and sunburn, he was in sad shape last night. I felt so bad for him, and I really feel guilty that I have to ask him to do more work tonight when he gets home from work, but I fear if we don’t get the fence up tonight, there won’t be anything left in the garden to fence in by tomorrow morning.

YUMMY!!

Dinner at my sister in law’s was nice, even though her dogs ate the two and a half steaks and the chicken I had left over and had planned on bringing home. My mom and my mother in law liked their baskets, and were impressed that Dani made them. PJ and Alex got me a box of chocolates and a gift card for dinner and a movie. Now I need to check out what movies are playing to see if there’s something I want to see.

Eternity Knot

I was very surprised when Dani and Lys handed me a gift as well. They handed me a Pandora bag, but I didn’t think much of it because we have a ton of those bags. Then I opened it and it was, in fact, Pandora charms for my bracelet. I got two new beads, the eternity knot charm and the clouds charm. Now I have six charms total, four from PJ and Alex, and two from Lys and Dani.

Clouds

As I was opening my gifts, my hubby proudly announced he got me dirt and poop for Mother’s Day. Yes he did. Dirt, poop, and plants totaling over three hundred dollars, plus an entire day of slave labor and the cost of his back. Then he had the nerve to apologize for not getting me a card. Seriously? As far as I’m concerned, he went over and above, and I don’t need a silly card which will only end up in recycling in a few weeks anyway.

Okay, I have rambled on long enough, and I still have the challenge to do, so I will say TTFN. I hope you have a great day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Write about either your mom, being a mom, or what it means to be a mom.

Ten minutes is definitely not enough time to write everything about what being a mom means to me, but I shall try.

Always, since as far back as I can remember, I had wanted to be a mom; and since I was an only child, I was determined to have several children. I hated being an only, and I was not going to do that to my kid.

When PJ was born, I would sit there, holding him and staring at him, for hours on end. Although I had always wanted children, until I held him, I really had no clue what that meant. I couldn’t believe I had made another person. Reality also set in that this defenseless being’s life depended on me, but for some reason, I wasn’t scared. I knew, in my heart, this is what I was supposed to be doing, and even though I was bound to make some mistakes along the way – like securing his hands into his diaper during a three am diaper change – we would be okay, and we were.

I love being a mom!
Clockwise starting at noon
PJ, Lys, Dani, and PJ's girlfriend Alex
The hairy blonde is Colby

When I found out I was pregnant with Lys, I held PJ extra tight, because I couldn’t fathom loving another child as much as I loved him. That all changed when I held Lys for the first time. That’s when I understood a mother’s heart swells to hold enough love for all her children. By the time Dani was on her way, I was just excited over having a new addition to the family.

Yeah, ten minutes wasn’t enough. I found myself cutting out tons just so I could squeeze in all three kids, and instead I think I gypped them all. Oh well, this is just meant to be a writing exercise, not a dissertation.

Your Next Challenge is:

There’s a knock at your door, and when you open it, someone famous is standing on your doorstep.

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

May 11th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! So, how will you be spending your day? Are you going visiting, or are kids coming to visit you?

I think I may have a combination of both today. I do know we are going over to my sister in law’s for dinner. We do it every Mother’s Day. My mom comes over there as well, and we throw steaks on the grill. We give both my mother and my mother in law, flowering hanging baskets for their back porches. Yes, it’s predictable, but it’s a nice, laid back, pretty much stress free holiday, which is nice.

The reason I said I “may have a combination of both” was, I’m not sure if PJ is coming over to our house today or just to his aunt’s tonight. You may recall, last year my Mother’s day gift was the frame work for a garden which never got quite finished. This year, we will be finishing it. At nine, I’ll be calling over to the Co-Op to have them drop a load of dirt near the garden.

While my husband, and possibly my son, fill the five troughs with dirt, Dani and I will be off plant and seed hunting. We’ll probably have to get the finishing items for the garden as well while we’re out – the screen for the roof, the fencing for the surround, and the netting for the vine plants to climb. (We made the center trough wider than the other four so we can center hang a climbing net for the peas, beans, and possibly cucumbers.)

I also want to pick up the wood for the boys to make me a potato bin, or spud box as some folks call it. It’s a really cool concept. Basically, it’s a two foot square box, which stands three feet high. Three sides are stationary, but the front has removable panels. There is not top or bottom, it goes right on the ground, and the plants come out the top.

You put a layer of dirt down first, then your potatoes, then you cover them with a layer of dirt. In a week or so, when the potatoes start sprouting, you cover the shoots with dirt. You keep doing this until you reach the last removable panel of your container – it will take several weeks. Then, you remove the bottom panel so you can harvest that layer’s potatoes. It’s pretty cool. Supposedly, you can yield around a hundred pounds of potatoes from this small box.

I am also going to pick up some cinder blocks so I can make a cinder block strawberry patch. I thought this was such a great idea. If you have ever planted strawberries before you know they can take over the world. By planting them in the holes in the cinder blocks, it helps keep them contained. Now the trick will be keeping the birds away from them. I had planned on lining either the front or the side of the garden with the cinder blocks, but I may just put a block between each of the troughs so the strawberries will be protected too.

My goodness, can you tell I’m excited about finishing my garden? I certainly had not planned on rambling on and on about it. I had planned on telling you about yesterday’s trip.

We did pretty good, Lys and I left around twenty after six. Dani sent me a text at five thirty, crying off from the trip. I had anticipated as much. Between the class trip and the sweet sixteen, I knew she was going to be exhausted.

Price Auditorium

Lock Haven University is only a handful of miles, and half a dozen turns, off of Route 80, so it was an easy trip; long, but easy. We arrived on campus at quarter to ten, managed to find a parking spot, and made our way to Price Auditorium with time to spare – mostly because Route 80 apparently is the US equivalent to the Autobahn. There was this one strip, where the speed limit is fifty-five. We were cruising, in traffic, at sixty-five in the slow lane (we were on our way home, so I wasn’t in a hurry). Cars were zipping by in the fast lane, at a safely estimated, seventy-five. One of the cars speeding past was a state trooper, no lights, no sirens, just tootling along with the rest of the pack.

Blurry :(

I digress. We were in Price Auditorium because only folks with tickets for the graduation we allowed in the stadium where the graduation was actually taking place. No big deal as far as I’m concerned. We got to watch from comfortable seats, in a climate controlled, weather threat free, environment. They broadcasted the commencement onto a screen, so we probably had a better view of the proceedings than the ticket holders in the stadium.

There were some technical issues at first. Initially the sound wasn’t the greatest, and at one point the screen did go black, but they got all the glitches out quickly, so we were able to see everything. The only thing I was bummed about was the photo I snapped of Lisa getting her diploma came out blurry. Lys got a great photo, but because she took it on SnapChat, I couldn’t get a copy.

Lisa & Lysa

We met up with Lisa and her family when everything was over. We took a few pictures, gave Lisa a card and some graduation cupcakes Lys had made for her, then we left for home. Lisa still had to finish packing up her apartment, so she still had a lot to do, and we didn’t want to get in her way. Yes, it was eight total hours of driving, and we only got to spend half an hour with her, but it was worth it. Now that she’s home, and finished with school, we’ll get to see her more often.

Lisa & Me

Okay, this blog has gone on long enough, and I still have the challenge to do, so I am going to end it here. Facebook folks, there are a bunch of photos, so if you want to see them, you’ll have to visit my blog.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Write a FIRST person experience from the viewpoint of a dollar bill.

Ooo, I wonder what I’ll be traded for today. Not that it really matters, I’m just glad to be out of Tommy’s pocket. Ugh, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get the wrinkles out, but I really shouldn’t complain. Tommy’s pocket was a step up from that parking lot puddle Mr. Simms dropped me in.

I really don’t know much about Mr. Simms, since I was only with him for a few minutes. He had stopped at the convenience store, that was my latest home, to pick up some orange juice and some cold medicine. He looked so tired and so frazzled. I heard him tell the store clerk that his wife and both of their small children were all home sick in bed, so I guess I can forgive him for not noticing that he dropped me.

Before I came to live at the convenience store, Sally found me folded up in one of her Easter

eggs. I will never forget how excited she was when she found me. She was such a sweet girl, and do you know what she did? She brought me, and a few of my brothers to the convenience store, and she didn’t buy candy or gum, like I thought she would. Nope, Sally traded me for one of the wrapped pink roses they have on the counter. She wanted to have something pretty to give to her mommy.

Before the Easter Bunny put me into Sally’s egg, I have pretty much traveled the country. I have lived in toll booths, vending machines, and too many wallets to count. I have survived a Minnesota winter and a Texas summer. I’ve been traded for hurricanes in New Orleans, deep dish in Chicago, and lobster rolls in Maine.

Your Next Challenge is:

This probably should have been yesterday’s challenge, but since I didn’t have time for a challenge yesterday, you’re getting it today. Write about either your mom, being a mom, or what it means to be a mom.

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.