I can't help but feel proud...

When I see the photos and emails that Andrew Sullivan has posted on his blog today to document the protests and rallies against discrimination. It gives me hope that someday soon all of us will have the same rights and liberties, no matter what color our skin or who we love.

As I read the emails posted at Sullivan's blog I can't help but wonder how much of the success of today's protests can be attributed to the movement started by Obama. His win may just have given people hope that as a group, when we work together, we can get things changed. No one thought he could or would win, but he built a movement from the bottom up that was too big to stop. Maybe the people really do have more power than the politicians and the elected if we make our voices heard. The internet certainly makes it more possible than ever before.

I have always been a skeptic, always been a cynic.... until this year. Its refreshing to be hopeful and happy about the future for a change.

My new love....

I admit, sometimes I am a total sheeple. I saw the Kindle on Oprah and fell in love. I begged Jim for it for my birthday/christmas this year. He eventually agreed and I ordered it (had to do it early to get the $50 off from Oprah). I think it helped that I had already agreed to sell a couple of sewing machines and most of my fabric ;)

Anyway, the Kindle arrived on Tuesday and I am happy to say that I carry it just about everywhere with me. Yes, it was expensive but it is also very convenient and there are tons of ways to find free or inexpensive books to read on it. Additionally you can't beat new releases and best sellers for only $9.99 for those rare times when the library has 1 copy and 20 holds.

Amazon charges a subscription fee for RSS/blog feeds, but you can create RSS feeds of your favorite blogs and newspapers for free from Feedbooks. You can also covert PDF files to kindle format with some simple easy to use software! This will be great for business/board meetings at the co-op - I plan to dump the agenda to the Kindle and read it from there. It has a nifty notation features so I can take notes and not lose them in the mess that is also known as my car.

The only thing I am not in love with is the cover it comes with, but I am brainstorming a replacement for that as we speak.

Speaking of reading..... if you do a lot of it you should make sure you head over to Goodreads. Its a lot of fun keeping track of books you have read and I get a lot of great ideas from looking at everyone else's booklists.

Change is coming....

I would like to post something profound, but I really have no words. I can't remember a time when people were this excited and celebratory about an election. The photos of people celebrating in the streets outside the Whitehouse make me smile. I have to admit I even got a little choked up as Obama spoke. Yes we can :)

Changes.

Its been a while since I posted. Things have been busy and I just haven't really felt like I had much to type about. I fell behind on gardening and didn't get anything planted for the fall. Oh well, it will give me time to plan things out and rearrange some stuff for spring.

Some may notice that my webstore is gone. I haven't sewn in probably a year (other than some quick mending) and the thought of dragging myself to the cutting table was not a pleasant one. I have sewn and sold clothing/diapers/bags/etc for 8 years... so it has been odd thinking of giving that all up. Ultimately I realized that it just didn't bring me joy anymore, instead I felt obligated and it was more of a burden. So, I closed up the webshop last night. I am about to start selling most of my fabric and a couple of my machines. I will keep my sewing machine and will probably even throw a few things for sale up on the WAHM blogs on occassion, but for now I think I am done sewing and selling.

The reality is that the more I think about re-enrolling in college, the more I realize that when both my girls are in school.... I want a real job that doesn't include being chained to my sewing machine. I simply won't have time to do it all. So I am saying goodbye to girlwomangoddess.com the webstore and saying hello to a degree in some currently undecided computer tech discipline.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased my pieces over the years, you have been greatly appreciated!

Signs of Hope and Change

Know hope.

First Melon Harvest

I harvested our first successful melon from the backyard this week. I probably let it get a bit too ripe, but the kids have declared it delicious! Surprisingly I have another one that looks like it will be bigger than this one! The melons have been really fun to grow and we will definitely be doing it again next year.

Jim also brought home a cantaloupe that a customer gave him as a tip. I guess they got to talking about melons and this customer had a backyard full of melon vines.

I am behind on fall planting - I was hoping to have stuff in the ground already but I still need to get soil for the new boxes and make a plan. Hopefully I will get that done this weekend!

It is a playdough type of day...

I have been working really hard to get the girls to bed at reasonable times and into a routine before school starts up again. So far its been going well, with both girls asleep before 10pm, but that also means that both of them are up at 7:30/8am every morning. That will work out great for school, but its hard for me to adjust since I am such a night owl.

Because of the early wake up times, by the time it gets to be noon, everyone is a bit crazy and bored. The "witching hour" used to be about 4 on our old schedule and we could survive til Jim got home, but now that its noon I am having to come up with lots of afternoon activities to distract them. One of our favorites.... playdough!

Now, playing with the dough makes them happy, but making the dough from scratch makes them even happier. They love to help measure out the stuff, pick out the coloring, and watch the mixer go around. We tried a lot of dough recipes before we found one that is 1. easy and 2. a great consistency. Here is ours, made in the stand mixer with the dough hook:

A bread baking deal.

I have to start this by admitting I have a thing for kitchen gadgets. Most people who know me find this interesting, or maybe odd, because I really don't enjoy cooking or being in the kitchen. But for whatever reason, I love neat kitchen things! I do try to hold back a bit because I want to live simply, its just a struggle sometimes ;) Anyway I was walking around Bed Bath & Beyond a few days looking for a pineapple slicer. We all love sliced pineapple and I have been buying it already sliced and cut at costco, but its about $7.99 and I was curious as to whether having a slicer of my own would be cheaper because then we could buy the whole pineapples when they are on sale for $2.50/$3 each.

However as I was walking around an open box bread machine caught my eye. I have a bread machine, I got it from goodwill for $10 a few months ago. I love it for making dough, but I don't cook in it because it makes funny shaped, tough crusted loaves. It was perfect for mixing/kneading dough and then doing one rise. Then I would take the dough out, shape it and let it do the 2nd rise in the pan and then bake in the oven. Yet, staring back at me at Bed Bath & Beyond was a $200 Zojirushi X20 Bread Machine for only $49.99 on clearance because the box was opened. I stood in disbelief for a bit because this was the same machine I had almost bought months ago and then decided I couldn't spend $200 on it no matter how good the reviews were. Luckily I also happened to have a 20% off one item coupon in my purse (I have a collection of these since BB&B excepts expired ones) so I walked out of the store with that $200 bread machine for $42 after taxes.

Now I can make horizontal, unfunny shaped, loaves without using my oven! Its been so hot lately that we were buying bread, but since purchasing the new machine we have made 3 loaves. Yeah the first 2 were "test" loaves and not really very good, but now I have a recipe that works and my house doesn't heat up to bake it. On top of that I am totally trying to think of a good reason to use the cake function on it. It also makes jam, too bad we don't have a pick your own berry place somewhere around here!

It's almost time for fall planting...

I learned from the container gardening workshop at the Springs Preserve that the best time to start planting for the fall is right around August 15th. That day is quickly creeping up on us and I have big plans this fall!

So to start getting ready I pulled up my tomatoes and peppers - they were dying a slow death anyway. I also pulled up the corn because the soft soil recommended in Square Foot Gardening just isn't right for corn. The stalks just fell over sideways. Then I constructed a few more trellises - goodness knows the honeydew melon needs it. IT has taken over the back section of the planting box... now I know to plant smaller veggies in front of it. Planting the eggplant right next to the melon was not the best choice.

Anyway, here are updated pics of the new trellises. I love how easy it is to make these... and cheap! They may not be the prettiest things int he world, but they work well. They are made with just regular white PVC pipe and nylon netting. IF you buy the 10 foot long pieces of PVC pipe from the hardware store you can then cut them in half. You need three 5 foot pieces and 2 PVC elbow pieces for each trellis if you are making a "single". If you want to make the double you need five 5 foot pieces, 2 elbow pieces, and 1 PVC "T" piece. So you can make 1 double and 1 single out of 4 of the 10foot long pipes, which works out to about $8-10 plus another $4 for the nylon netting.

Jim had the great idea to angle the add on I had to make for the melon outward. It was really a necessity because of the hard ground next to the wall and it will also allow me to put a few potted herbs back there and offer them a bit of shading by means of the trellis!

At the container gardening class I also learned of a neat resource -the Cooperative Extension of the University of Nevada. They have a ton of really helpful information and flyers related to gardening and other nature issues on their website. One of which is this Becoming a Desert Gardener Flyer which is packed with great informating including a chart of what to plant when! Next weekend I am going to build another box on the side of the house for smaller, non vining type of plants (lettuce, carrots, etc).

29.3 mpg

Just a really quick update in regards to the new car, the Honda Fit. Our 3rd tank fill up and I am now up to 29.3 mpg. The last one I forgot to blog but it was about 28mpg.... so it has been going up by about 1mpg a tank as I drive it more and break it in. I am pretty thrilled to be getting 29.3 mpg even with the A/C on about 99% of the time. I didn't even do a lot of coasting on this tank. I can't wait til Fall and to see what kind of mpg I can get without the A/C - gosh that sounded dorky!

I have a bunch more to post about the new puppy and some gardening updates, but it will have to wait til tomorrow. I should be sleeping!

Melons, Eggplant, Peppers, oh my!

I figured it was time for a garden update! Some things are doing well, others not so much. First we have the squash, it seems to be doing OK. No babies yet, but looks healthy enough. The watermelon is doing ehhh... parts of it seem ok, others seem a bit dry. I need to get it climbing up a trellis and just haven't had time yet.



Here you can see the wonder that is my honeydew melon. It is climbine and trailing all over the place. The tomatos in the back corner have become a support system for the melon. There are lots of little bulbs on it, but 3 that are most promising.


The green peppers are so-so, it is just too hot and they are being drowned out by the melon and eggplant. I know better next time! I do have a nice sized yellow one that I need to pick. Also a nice sized eggplant that is ready to harvest I believe.



Finally we have some green beans that are doing great! I thought they would climb up, but they are really just bushy and I need to find a better place to plant them next time. You learn so much by just planting things and seeing what happens. It turns out the corn is just not doing well, the plants are doing fine but the soil is too loose to hold the stalks up. Carrots and lettuce are growing tho.

Imeem - make your web browsing musical!

I was messing around with a few design issues on the blog and decided that I needed an embeded music player. (over there ---->) There didn't seem to be a lot of options, but instead I found Imeem. Pretty nifty if you ask me.... you can create playlists that you can keep open while browsing around or doing anything on the computer really and its FREE, can't beat that.

That last sentence reminds me I am going to have to start laying off the use of the "..." soon. I am hoping to register for a few classes this fall to get back to work on a degree of some kind and I am sure English will have to be one of them.

1:55 am and 27.5 mpg

For some reason or another I found myself awake at 1:55 am last night. Could be because the summer break is really wreaking havoc on the girls and getting them to bed at any hour is turning into an ordeal. Could also just be that lately I am an really really late night owl. Anyway, earlier in the day we had passed by Huey's Mart at Decatur/Vegas Dr and gas was only 3.99 a gallon. AT 7pm tho, the line was like 30 cars long.... just not worth it! However I found that at 2 am, there are barely any people out and about filling up their gas tanks.

So, if you want cheap cheaper gas, just get up in the middle of the night! The rest of the town is at anywhere from 4.15 to 4.29 a gallon. Its crazy! The good news is that I can happily report the new Honda Fit is getting 27.5 mpg even in the excessive heat and with the air conditioning on.

Speaking of gas mileage, I admit that I am intrigued by the I drive 55and Hypermilling. I am not going to get all obsessive and mount funky gadgets to my dashboard to track my MPG, but I may coast around town for a while and see what happens ;)

Goodbye Saturn, Hello Honda!

It started a couple of weeks ago. We came into the information that Jim would be getting an extra check every month that was a "bonus", so we decided to take the opportunity to retire Jim's 11 year old truck. The A/C barely worked and the bed was held together by a very long tie down strap.... it was time!

We were able to find a 2003 Honda Element that was in excellent shape.

Wii Workout

30 minutes on the Wii Fit today. I unlocked the Advanced Rhythm boxing..... not easy! I got totally lost at least half way through... I guess I need to stick to the beginning one for a while ;)

Gradening in the city...

The backyard garden seems to be going ok. There are definitely some issues (the ants seem to think I planted it solely for their pleasure) but I think things are progressing well for my first serious attempt. Here is the "viney" stuff - the far right is the honey dew melon growing up the trellis. Next to the honey dew is the eggplant, and then 2 tomato plants.


Unfortunately the tomato plants took quite a beating from the dog jumping in the bed, but there are still a few prospects....

Household Binder in progress...

As shown by my lack of commitment to this blog, I think its obvious that I have a hard time following through on just about everything I attempt. I can't really explain why, I didn't have this same problem as a teenager/high school student, or even young adult. Maybe this is one of those things that can be blamed on having children. Who knows if it is true, but I am going to go with that for now.

In an attempt to rectify this I am going to once again try to create a household binder. I say once again because I did take a stab at one years ago when I stumbled across FlyLady but that just never worked out well for me. It was way too detailed and cleaning focused.

Some friends at Mama Drama seem to really like the files put together by Theresa at Little Turtle Knits so I figured I would give it a shot. I have completed the first step.... deciding to go through with it and purchase supplies. I probably went overboard on the supplies, but thats just how I roll. I do need to get some snazzy scrapbooking paper to decorate the outside of my magenta binder, but I figured that wasn't worth a trip to Joanns this morning.

Apologies for the somewhat bad photo, my camera's batteries ran out and I can't find the charger so the Blackberry is pulling double duty. Will update when binder creation mission is complete.

Mommy I lost you!

TI managed to miss blogging yesterday about gratitude, but in my defense I was a busy little bee. I spent most of the day cleaning, organizing, labeling. Kyla now has a sparkly clean room and I just need to get the photo labels printed for all her toy bins. I think I need to keep up on her and keep helping her keep her room clean, she is a much happier child when she has that area to escape to. This frustrates me to no end because she is the one who destroys her room.... but she deserves to have a clean space to play in and I understand its not in her nature. It certainly isn't in mine either.

Anyway, since finishing the massive Kyla Room Clean she has been extra careful to pick up the things she gets out and we came up with an interactive velcro "to do" board for her. I found the idea on the Meck Mom blog and so far she loves it! See the blog link for ready made files and photos!

All of this talk of Kyla brings me to my gratitude for the day. I am grateful for my loving girls. They often push my patience to its limit and challenge me to be a better parent, but when it comes down to it they love me as I do them.

We were in Best Buy last night, the girls were hating the trip to the store as much as I was. However, we desperately needed a new printer and I was determined to get one. We found what we were looking for and I let Jim know I would go pay, keep the girls busy and entertained. I made my way back to the computer area and checked out, it did take a bit of time(maybe 15 minutes). As I walked toward the front of the store I met up with Jim and the girls and Kyla had tears bubbling up in her eyes. We headed out the door and she hugged me and started crying and told me she was worried. Apparantly they had walked around the store, didn't see me and Kyla freaked out. She thought they had lost me and was truly concerned.

I jokingly thought to myself I needed to get lost more often. But really I think I need to be grateful for the challenging but sweet and caring daughters I have the privilege of raising and spending my days with.

Gratitude....

So, I figured I would give this "blog" thing another shot.  Maybe I can keep up with it this time ;)

 My friend Joy is doing a gratitude project. Journal daily about something you are grateful for over a 30 day period. So, I figured why not?

Today - I am grateful for my husband who loves me as I am and doesn't complain too much when I buy an abundance of stuff to help me "organize". Especially since I eventually getting around to actually following through, but it often sits on the dining room table for a while first. It is something I am working on, but he rarely complains about it. I soon hope to be able to repay him for this by decluttering and simplifying.... but still organizing ;)