Greenhouse Growing

My mother had a 7x17 foot molded fiberglass greenhouse in her back yard which my son-in-law is going to attempt to move to my yard.  Has anyone grown anything in a greenhouse?  Do you have any tips or pitfalls to avoid?

~Jane

Struggling On

Here I have all these great plans for what I'm going to accomplish while my husband's away and I sure am not getting very far.  I have one closet cleaned out from my mom's and have brought it all home.  It is a lot of my dad's stuff.  Some framed commendations from his military days, boxes and boxes of slides, some reels of film, the projector, the splicer, and the screen.  A few family heirlooms.  The only catch is that I had to have a place to store it here.  I don't want more boxes in the way when my husband gets home.  I ended up cleaning out the closet in my daughter's room.  After all, she's only been married seven and a half years.  :)  So all of her stuff is stacked and ready for me to dump at her house for her to go through.  Once I moved all of it out, I had more than enough room to store all those keepsakes.  I did discover while moving things around and vacuuming out the cobwebs in the closet, that the baseboards in that room really need cleaning.  So now before I can move anything more around I'll need to wash them down.  Unfortunately, every job I've attempted has been similar.  Major cleaning once you start moving stuff.  Eventually, my whole house will be cleaner and more organized.  Let's hope it's before my husband gets back.

~Jane

Kind of Absent Lately

If you know me, you know I work for my state legislature.  They are in session this year from January to April and I'm usually pretty busy.  I work 12-hour days regularly.  It's worth it though, because the rest of the year I only have to work a 7-hour day and I love getting off that hour early.  The downside to session though is you can't take any time off.  So life is busy, my house is messy, and I miss my grandbabies like crazy, since I can't do any weekday babysitting. 

In the midst of all this, I listed my mother's house for sale.  It's been a week and I have two good offers to buy it.  Well, one good offer and one other.  I've been over there a couple times this past week cleaning out some more stuff.  My mom had a fiberglass greenhouse in her back yard.  My son-in-law is preparing to move it to my back yard.  I'm hoping it makes it and doesn't shatter.  I'm also trying to figure out how I'm going to utilize it.  My daughter had already offered to come over and help weed the vegetable garden this summer.  Now we can expand some of our plans.  I'm researching greenhouse growing.  :)

If the house sale goes through, there is going to have to be a major clean out one weekend in the near future.  There is way too much stuff to leave for the new owners to deal with. 

I'm knitting on a sweater for Malachi.  I already have Zach's knit, but I think I'm going to have to give it to him before Malachi gets his or he's going to outgrow it.  Trying to make things for two little guys is causing Grandma some timing issues.

My husband is out of town visiting his brother.  I'm trying, amidst everything else going on, to do some much needed cleaning on the house.  I have lots of plans.  Let's see how far I get!  :)

~Jane

Malachi

Everyone who knows me knows my grandsons are the light of my life.  I just can't get enough time to spend with them and everything they do, of course, fills me with delight.  Zachary, of course, is too little to do anything but smile at you.  But some of the cute things Malachi has been saying lately:

I went into Malachi's Sunday school class to visit with him a few minutes before I went into the service.  He and another little boy were building something with large cardboard blocks and wearing Little Tykes construction hard hats on their heads.  Malachi said, "You come to teach my class, Grandma?" "No, Grandma just came to visit you a minute.  Can Grandma get a hug and a kiss?"  Malachi says, "Sure, I give you a builder's kiss!"  Then after giving me a hug, he turns to the other little boy and says, "XXX, don't you want to give my grandma a hug and a kiss?"  The other little boy looked at me with alarm.  "No, Malachi, he has his own grandma to give hugs and kisses to."  "Oh, okay."  The whole conversation was just too cute.

I work for the state Legislature.  When Malachi comes to visit, he sees the big legislative building with its dome and tells me I work in a castle.  "I come see you in your castle."

Right now, his current phrase is "Right?"  Everything includes the word, "right."  We're going to do this, Right? 

His favorite song right now is Jingle Bells.  He sings or hums it constantly.  I tried last weekend when he visited to get him onto some other song.  But Jingle Bells with its "Hey!" is the favorite.

He is such a little motor mouth.  I hear his little voice as a constant drone behind my daughter whenever I talk to her on the phone.  I know now why MY mother always used to ask, "How many children do you have over there today?" when she would call.  One noisy little child can sound like a dozen over the phone.  Apparently my daughter must have been just as noisy when she was little as Malachi is now.  :)

~Jane

Saturday

Started the day with a trip to the grocery store with my daughter and grandsons.  Several of us are starting the 17-Day Diet on Monday.  I've never really done this diet and obeyed all the rules before.  I've lost about 10 pounds over the summer and I'm stuck there. I'm hoping this diet with jumpstart some more weight loss, and having an eating plan may help me avoid the dreaded "session" eating.  Which is basically eating whatever comes into the office, usually fat and calorie laden comfort foods.  I stocked up on lots of fruit and vegies, fish and chicken, and yoghurt.  I have a few health issues that I've been told by various people may improve if I removed some of the carbs from my diet, so I guess I'm ready to experiment and try it out.  I also decided my refrigerator was the pits, so I cleaned it all out today of various moldy leftovers and bits and pieces of stuff lingering in there.  After cleaning the refrigerator, I ran back out to Costco to have them double check my glasses.  They claim they are spot on, and it's just that its a major adjustment that will take some days to get use to.  I hope that is all it takes, just wearing the glasses for a while.  Otherwise I'll have to go back to the eye doctor for an update on my prescription.  After all the busyness today, I think I'm going to spend the evening watching TV and knitting on Zach's sweater.

~Jane 

Friday Night

Today was a busy day at work, training session help and helping the new staff on my committee get settled in and their offices moved.  I picked up my new glasses, but there seems to be something off with them so will have to run them back to Costco tomorrow and see if they can figure it out.  I had high hopes that I'd found a new place to buy glasses, but I guess I'll see.  I came home and settled on the couch under the heated throw, turned the TV on, and fell asleep until my husband came home.  He'd been volunteering serving dinner with our local Union Gospel Mission.  Then I set up the ironing board in the living room and proceeded to iron my entire basket of ironing while watching a couple TV shows with my husband.  I love it when I can be productive that way.  Usually I knit, but I really wanted to empty that basket.  Off to bed now.

~Jane

Resolutions - 2013

I was going to say I never usually make New Year resolutions and then realized I made some last year.  How did I do?  My blood sugar is still not under good control.  I have my moments but nothing lasting.  I've lost about 10 pounds, but need to lose more. I was doing better about getting to bed, but it fell apart with the holidays.  Freezer meals - sometimes.  Doll dresses, a couple.  These were items #1, 2, 3, 7 and 12.  I made a stab at these but didn't really succeed the way I wanted to.  I did well with #4 - my mother's house.  It isn't done but I did get estate ladies in to finish up emptying it out.  The leftovers can go to the Goodwill with a clear conscience.  Now to get it on the market for sale. I also did well with #6 - sewing up flannel yardage around the house.  I made Malachi a couple pairs of flannel jammies, pj bottoms for three of them for Christmas, and three sets of cotton summer pjs for Malachi out of stash.  Epic fails - #5 - Devotions, #8 Samplers framed, #9 Redo the small bedroom, #10 Organize the landing, and #11 Have a Garden.

So I have some resolutions for this year, but not with a lot of hope.  These are in no order of importance.

1.  Get to bed at a decent time.  I've read all the information about how most Americans are sleep deprived and the toll it takes on your body.  I'm going to attempt to get to bed by 11 at the latest and hopefully more like 10:30 p.m.

2.  Turn off the computer by 10 p.m.  I get stuck reading something at the last minutes or playing a game and then the next time I look, it's way past my bedtime.

3.  Read 104 books.  This is a totally doable goal.  I read at least 2 books a week all this year.

4.  Work on my menu planning.  Some months I've done well, some weeks I have no clue what's for dinner.  This will incorporate even more freezer meals as I go along.  However, some of this will depend upon.....

5.  Start eating better.  I eat very few vegetables, too much cheese, and too many carbs.  It's been causing me to have elevated blood sugar levels and I need to get them under control.

6.  Start exercising some a couple times a week.  I'm limited in what I can do because of my knees, but I still have my gym routine for my upper body and the equipment to do it.

7.  Continue to destash.  I managed to get rid of 12 boxes of unused/uneeded stuff  in 2012.  I'm aiming for double that this year.

8.  Sew a couple of french fashion/other doll dresses this year.  I have all the supplies, just need to take the time.

9.  Paint and wallpaper the little bedroom.  It still has wallpaper from when Elsie was a baby.  :)

10.  Get my samplers framed and hung.  It's no good having them stuck away in drawers.

11.  Have a garden this year and really utilize what we grow.

12.  Continue to organize my stuff, finish projects that are started, and go through what I drug home from my mom's.  I want to sell the stuff I planned on selling, and fix what I planned on fixing, and just generally organize everything.

~Jane