Memorial Day

I remember thinking about this previously that there is no such thing as a free lunch -- someone has to pay for it, either the business, another party, or yourself! When life truly is so good, it's easy to forget that what I enjoy, although imperfect, comes from the sacrifice of someone else. My husband works so I can stay home with our daughter. We pay our taxes so that roads can be maintained, trash picked up, and order maintained. And many soldiers through the years have sacrificed so we can have our American rights -- some of those followed a great example to lay down his own life for his friends.


Photo Credit: Seattle's Best Coffee's Facebok page

Whitney Farms

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Whitney Farms for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

We've got our heirloom tomato spouts going, and as soon as our spring garden is finished, we're going to get the heat-loving plants in the ground!

My husband is the one to prep and care for the garden, and since we've been learning about GMOs, we've chosen to go as closely to the original source. We believe in using organic soil and  organic plant food to help the garden to flourish. Last year, we had great success -- as I count success by the amount of canned tomatoes and spaghetti sauce! (We had more than enough to make it through the winter and soup season!)
Whitney Farms® has a full line of 100% natural plant foods and soils with no additives, nothing artificial, just ingredients from the Earth. Their products have low to no dust, no manure odor, beneficial microbes, and specially designed protein-based blends to provide plants with both macro and micronutrients they need to grow and thrive -- all in an easy to apply manner!
We'd want to use Whitney Farms to help us produce quality food that we know has no harmful chemicals. As we've chosen to plant with organic seeds, we want to use organic products to enable the best growth. Conventional plant food would go against the standard we want to maintain. We look forward to be able to try the Tomato and vegetable plant food!

Visit Whitney Farms® for a $3 coupon and try it today!

Strawberry "Pickin"

Under Attack

I never imagined our home would be under attack by birds! For about a month, we've been battling these little black birds, who have innovatively opened our outside dryer vent to build a nest inside our house! While we do have a vent like this:

the birds were lifting the middle flap open with the twig they were carrying or with their beak and then squeezing themselves into the vent to build the nest. I could hear them from our laundry room and sometimes would start the Air Dry cycle, thinking that would clear the vent. But boy was I wrong and now thankful that we didn't have a fire caused! After sending my husband up to clear out that vent from the outside twice, we got a cover to go over the vent. Problem solved.

But not the end of our bird attacks, as we soon found out.

My husband is prepping his organic garden, and he starts his vegetables from seed. We like to set them outside as they get bigger to get them acclimated to the temperature outside, and the sun is just great for the plants anyways. As we left out his trays unattended, and after a few hours, we'd check and 4-5 sprouts would be gone! The leafy tops of the tomato starts disappeared leaving the stem! We thought perhaps our resident groundhog got to it. As I happened to look out the window one day, I noticed a bird eating the tomato starts! Who'd 'a known birds would attack us as badly as they have this year! And my poor husband might not have any tomato starts left.  =(

Do you have a pest free home?!?

Photo Credit: Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Oh, Craft Me Not...

If you've been reading on a fairly regular basis, you'll know that I'm not a crafter. I'm envious of the creative ladies who post beautiful pictures of their latest creations, often quite thrifty. The thought of cutting a hot gluing gives me the chills -- I've had some brilliant ideas turn out to be dark duds and a black hole of my time and enthusiasm.

With the end of the school year approaching, I wanted to have something for my daughter's teachers. I searched Etsy, and as I browsed, I had a few glimmering thoughts. Those got much brighter when I realized that it wouldn't involve patterns or glue. So I grabbed a 25% off coupon for Michaels, and my daughter and I went to choose materials together -- I figured the gift would be better if she chose. I have to admit that was the worse part of the project -- a toddler in Michaels.

And this is what we did last night...

My free-spirited daughter created her one-of-a-kind beaded bookmarks to give to her teachers, and all I had to do was to make knots! We might have to make more of these as gifts during the year too!

I know many of you are always into creative projects. What are you currently working on?!?

Eat Like a Diabetic?!?

Having been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes when I was pregnant, I took a short Diabetic Nutritional Training at a local hospital. Wanting to keep the sugar level down, as not to cause too rapid of weight-gain for the baby, I had to make some changes. Obviously sugar straight-up was out; well, maybe I could occasionally sneak in one bite of cake, but the sweets and the juices were scratched out of my diet! I thought that I had to cut out every carb, but I was wrong! The most insightful thing I learned was to pair fiber and carb with protein; so when I ate an apple, I would pair it with almonds or cheese. This has really stuck with me as my daughter (who was born around 7 pounds at 39 weeks!) began on solids.

This past week, I read an article about Why You Should Eat Like a Diabetic. It outlines some basic principles, like switching from white bread to whole wheat bread, which have great health benefits. While I've brought all those sweets and sugars back into my diet, I should reconsider as the sugar has not been sweet to my body!

What's your healthy eating tip?!?


Photo Credit: Image: dream designs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net