Feeling a little productive...

For a Personal Progress Project, I decided to learn a new skill of decorating. Ohmigoodness. It is not my strong suit. So I settled on a budget of $50 and set off to the back of stores like Ross and TJ Maxx, looking for stuff to go on top of my kitchen cabinets. I wandered around and hated everything. I came home frustrated because I wanted the top of the cabinets to look nice and be a reflection of ME but not like I stepped into Tai Pan Trading. (That's hard to do, btw.) I decided on orange, yellow and green for the color scheme and found some flowers that I liked and went from there. I also wanted to keep my punch bowl and cake stand up there because they're kitcheny. :) This is what I've got so far.

The pictures for the picture frames are ordered but haven't arrived yet. The frames are up there so I can get an idea of how it'll look done. All of the pictures are of my family in eating or of orange food.

Also, the oval orange sign is going to say Jamie's Cafe. It just doesn't yet. My kids came up with the name. (I love orange, it's almost red but not.)

There's a grassy bush thing on the left and a vase full of fake oranges, lemons, and limes. This experience has taught me something: I loathe 90% of all fake plants. URG! Silk plants look so fake to me. I went with the grassy thing because it looked real and the other green thing has a variety of succulents in it. (It seriously looks genuine!)

Moving on, I decided to make the curtains that I've been thinking of making for 3 years. Their main purpose is to black out my bedroom windows at night. They work great. I had all the fabric for those so final cost was zero. I don't think they're particularly cute but they do the job.

I bought those blinds because I liked the bamboo. I didn't realize that they filter, NOT BLOCK, sunlight. I'm pretty sure my neighbors could see in at night as well. Sorry neighbors.

My garden is looking good. Especially the peas. (left) The tomatoes are looking healthy and I've got carrots and onions doing well. I tried lettuce this year. Turns out, I struggle with lettuce and the chipmunks like to eat it.

The peas are plentiful! This will be the first year I'll have a pea harvest. I usually get them in late and they burn up before crop but not this year! I've got hundreds in there!! We've eaten a couple dozen of the early ones and they are fantastic!

Merril and I got the grape trellis built today. The grapes aren't tied to it yet, maybe Monday. For now, they're just hanging out down by the bottom. I have lots of little grapes on them! Hooray! This will be my first year for a grape crop!

I tried corn as well this year. I can already tell the wind is making them lean Eastward more than they would otherwise. And something from the squash family planted itself in the corn bed. I have no idea what it is but if it'll plant itself, I'm going to keep it and see what it is.

And then my blackberries are going to produce some fruit this year! Yeah!

The prophet said to plant a garden and I really get a kick out of watching and waiting for my food to grow up. I really, really, really, really do.

I got called to jury duty...

Well, I got a summons in the mail calling me to jury duty. I tried to get out of it by sending back a reply saying I have 2 small kids at home and I'm the primary caregiver. That didn't work. So I sighed, resigned to my situation, and took off to the courthouse.

The other prospective jurors and I waited for an hour and then got called into the courtroom. I was called into the jury box for a DUI case. I was asked to answer a questionnaire (My name, occupation, affiliation with any religious and civic groups, etc.) and also answered a follow up question about whether I knew any other jurors. Which I did. After all the jurors had answered questions, the attorneys talked in chambers with the judge. Afterwards each attorney had the opportunity to throw out 4 jurors each. I was one of them and was excused to go home. I guess I was too much of a wild card, or something. So I got paid $18.50 for 2 hours of sitting around and answering questions. Not too bad. I'll probably go buy a new pair of shoes. :)

My trip back East...

My Mom invited me to a girl's weekend in New York City. I accepted after Merril bought me the plane ticket for my birthday. I went with my Mom, my sisters, and a few other cousins and relatives. We took the red eye to JFK and took right off. We went to the Empire State Building,

St. Patrick's Cathedral,

and looked at Grand Central Station. We went to a show that night called Anything Goes, a show about love, set in the 1930s with lots of swing music and tap and ballroom dancing. It was great!

The next day I did a session at the Manhattan Temple, which is so small but beautiful, and then headed off to visit my friend, Emily. We hit a museum but mostly just gabbed and played at the park with her two cute girls. I took this picture of them before I left and headed back to Manhattan, where I hooked up with my family again.

The next day we went to Hoboken, NJ to visit Carlo's Bake Shop where they film the show, "Cake Boss" on TLC.

That was super fun!

There wasn't a line so we walked right in! There was general mayhem that accompanies a lot of people in a small space but I loved looking at the shelves of pastries.

I bought 2 chocolate strawberries, a chocolate mousse cake, a berry tart, an M & M cookie, 2 sugar cookies and a chocolate almond biscotti. I spent $21, which is fairly average pastry shop prices. I took some of it home to my kids but I ate probably a 1/3 of my purchases.

Then we walked around China Town and Little Italy back in Manhattan for a while until it was time to catch our plane home. I fell into bed at 4:00 a.m. and woke up at 7 to give my kids hugs and presents. Wahoo! Fun times!

We're jammin...

No, we're not listening to Bob Marley but I did make 28 cups of strawberry freezer jam yesterday.

It's Jack's favorite. I like to think I'm saving money by making it but I don't really think that's the case. But this post is actually about something else: my obsession with saving money and reusing items. It might be a disease or at least a clinically treated neurosis. :) For example, I saw a bag of compost on the side of the road all shredded from falling out of the back of someone's truck. I totally stopped and carefully eased into the back of the Jeep so I could take it home. I've picked up 2 very nice beach towels, a swim noodle, and a kid's play tent as well over the years. I also save things that might come in handy someday. I wash and save sour cream containers to put beans in after I cook them and then freeze them. The size of butter tub I've been using lately is the wrong size but I've still washed and saved them. Yesterday I found a use! I didn't have enough plastic lids to go on my glass jam jars. (I wash and save the lids from mayonnaise and miracle whip jars because the lids screw right onto regular mouth mason jars perfectly!) I started covering the jam jars with aluminum foil but wasn't satisfied. Instead, I took the previously mentioned too-big butter tubs and cut a circle. Then used the plastic circle underneath a regular mason jar screw band. Now they can be stacked in the freezer!

I just like to save money and keep stuff out of the landfills if I can. Hopefully it never takes over my life.

I love technology...

Technologically, I feel like we, as a society, are quite advanced. So it irks me when things take longer to solve than I feel it should take. For instance, the BP oil spill took 70 days to cap. 70 DAYS! I scratched my head, dumbfounded, while day after day barrels and barrels of oil spewed into the ocean and a solution eluded us. Really? Someone hasn't figured this out after a day or so? Ridiculous.

However, I'm pleased when technology surprises me. My cell phone was "misplaced" around my house and Merril wasn't home to call it. So I run to my office computer and Google "can't find cell phone, call it" and up pops a website called "Where's My Cellphone?" A free service that allows cell phone users to enter a phone number, select the time to call (Now!, 30 seconds, 1 minute, etc.) and hit enter. The website says, "Your phone is ringing. RUN! Go find it!" After finding my phone and answering it, an exaggerated game-show host voice says, "Thank you for using Where's my cell phone!" and hangs up. Of course you can donate but it's not required.

So, with so many good technologically advanced tools in the world, some things just shouldn't take as long as they do.