Life Has A Way…

Whew, life has gotten a bit insane lately!  Tomorrow will officially be 8 solid weeks of at least one person in the house sick… and 7 weeks that my ears have been plugged up!  I’m hoping that with the sunshine that finally decided to come for a visit we will start to get over this crud.

That is the reason for my absence as of late – I’ve been sick, the girls have been sick, and the weather has been nasty.  Did I mention that we had snow last Wednesday & Thursday?  And today it’s sunny & 65 degrees.  Strange.  Oh, and last week was Spring break too – even though it felt much more like Winter.

So, now that the girls are both back to school and I’m feeling about 75% better, I’m getting back into the swing of thing and posting again.

So, the giveaway that we did for Milkshake swag a bit ago… the winner was contacted today (sorry for the delay!) and I hope to get that shipped out this week.  I have some bags to complete and taxes to finish up.  Oh, and Easter weekend services to finish up!  Should be an eventful week…

A couple of updates:

Gardening Fun – I found a great site this morning that actually helps you plan out your garden, and tells you when you should be planting all of those seeds (or, in my case, when I should have planted some of them!)  It’s called PlanGarden.com and they have a free 45 day trial that is FABULOUS.  I was able to diagram our little subdivision lot and put in the plants that we have already planted as well as those we are getting ready to get into the ground.  I was also able to put in the things we plan to add in structurally – something other sites I have found don’t allow for.

Another garden planning site I found (which is free) is WorldFoodGarden.com – they offer a service to plan out a veggie garden that fits into a pretty small space that will feed a family of 4 and more.  It’s pretty cool – it shown you how many plants of each variety will fit into a 1′x1′ square of space, enabling you to fit a LOT more than you would normally think!

So, yes, that is being added to my list this month as well.  I need to get the seeds planted!  We spent Saturday leaning up the yard from Winter, and garden area #1 is ready to be planted.  THe onions & garlic are already growing like mad, and the berries are starting to bud out.  Hopefully I got to the raspberries soon enough tis year and they don’t develop the leaf mold they got last year… I kinda forgot to get out there and take care of them last Spring.  oops!   The currants and blueberries did very well last year though, so we didn’t miss them too much!

Eric has also set a goal to have the garage and my office cleaned up this month… I’m almost tempted to take a picture of my office so you could truly understand, but I’d be too embarrassed!  Yes, it really is that bad.  At the moment is is a giant pile of papers, boxes and fabrics.  I think there is a cutting table, ironing board, desk and chair in there somewhere… I just haven’t seen them for such a long time that I’m not sure anymore.  I will be posting some fabrics on etsy.com over the next 2 months, as I go through them.

Selling fabrics?  Yes, I will be going through the fabrics for Mimsi Bags and culling out the ones that I want to keep and selling off the rest.  I’m taking a leave of absence – a hiatus if you will.  With the job at church and everything around the house I just don’t have the time to devote to it that I used to.  That and I have been having a few health issues in the past year that have seriously hampered my ability to churn out the number of bags that people have ordered at times.  Not major health issues, but enough to make life interesting.  Migraines being at the top of that list…

So, if you or someone you know has a desire for some fun fabrics, check back from time to time over the next few weeks.  I have a couple of bags to complete (once I uncover the sewing table) and then I will be measuring and posting fabrics.  I’ll let you know when they go up.

Let’s see… the rest of the list for April includes a minor kitchen remodel – basically a coat of paint, curtains sewn and some tile for a backsplash.  Depending on what the taxes offer up we may put down tile floors in the kitchen and bamboo flooring in the upstairs as well, but that remains to be seen.  I’m open to any tips you may have to offer for that!  Yes, we will be doing it ourselves.  The floors also means that the garage HAS to be cleaned out post haste – gotta have some place to put all of the furniture!

Well, that covers most of the updates!  We are almost healthy again – M still has a cough & I still have partially plugged up ears, but Eric & A are both doing well.  The cat seems to be healthy too – a good thing ’cause she doesn’t get trips to the vet.  Now that the sun us here we will be eating healthier again too – something about warm weather just makes a person hungry for fruits and veggies instead of soups, stews and breads.  I am getting back into the habit of baking our bread again – I had paused that for about 2 months as well.  I just didn’t have the gumption to do it.  Whatever the crud I had was (cold, flu, etc) it just wiped me out energy-wise.  Add in TWO double ear infections (yes, back to back – big fun) and the vertigo that came with them and moving wasn’t much of an option some days.  Seriously.  Not the most fun I’ve ever had, but (crossing fingers and knocking on wood) it seems to be on it’s way out the door.

Well, the island in the kitchen is taunting me again – I need to give Eric an excuse to buy me flowers!  Yes, we have a deal that if it is cleaned off he will bring home flowers to set on it.  Unfortunately I haven’t gotten many flowers for the island because I haven’t held up my end.  Bummer.  I’m trying to work on that too!  

Thanks for walking through life with us!  I hope Spring is visiting you as well, and if you have any tips for gardening or painting (especially cabinets!) or de-cluttering, I’m all ears!

Happy Easter!