Thanksgiving And Resolutions In November

As I try to finish some long overdue chores and brand new projects I find myself reflecting on Thanksgiving and this past year. Then the natural path of regrets, worries, sadness, stress of unfinished business creeps into my mind. Always does, and maybe, always will. That's who I am. Then, acceptance and new resolve to change some things creeps into my mind. For that process, I am proud and full of hope.In the past, it did not happen that way, I would always allow the first, negative, thoughts to creep into my mind. It would stop there, and I would feel horrible. Now, I allow the second process to take shape in my mind. Wonderful progress if I say so myself!!

And this is the conclusion I have come to for this Thanksgiving; I am truly grateful for so many things.

First and foremost for me this year is the simple fact I am here to be thankful. My brush with cancer this past year has renewed in me the wonder of my life and how blessed I am.

 My family. We are a mixed bunch who have evolved in some many wonderful, heartbreaking ways to become who we are now.If nothing else, we have survived and now, we thrive!

I am grateful that my son, husband, and stepson served our country in foreign lands during deployment and made it back home.

I am grateful that my son, daughter-in-law, and 2 youngest grandchildren live in the same state as we do now and not half way around the world.

I am grateful for the most kind, loving, funny husband this girl could ever ask for. Seriously, after 20 years I am still pinching myself about how lucky I am to share my life with him! AND, as a bonus, I am loved and accepted by his wonderful family who, over the years have become my family.

I am grateful for this guy. Blake has made us young again and we love his wit, sense of humor, kindness to others, and all around awesomeness.

I am grateful for my Sissy, who has been my biggest advocate, friend, and fan my whole life. She now suffers from Alzheimer's disease and as I watch her fade away I am so grateful for her love and loyalty. I treasure our time together and always will.

My friends. You know who you are.

So after counting my blessings, I resolve to try harder. To be a better wife, mom, Jamar, sister, aunt, in-law, friend, and human being. I resolve to enjoy my blessings and bask in the love. I resolve to be happier with me.

 Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkins

I love to grow Pumpkins. I have always been fascinated by them and how they grow......I know, strange huh? When I was a kid, in 2nd grade, we grew a Giant Pumpkin at school. We had an area outside our classroom that we planted that special plant that was once a seed. I will never forget watching that seed turn into a sprout, then a plant, then watching as it literally took over a large area with it's large yellow flowers and it's prickly, itchy, long vines that would grow overnight it seemed. I lived right across the street from my primary school so I would always go take one last look at that Pumpkin plant at the end of the day.I was so excited about that Pumpkin plant!

And I can still remember how it felt to touch the vines with their prickly hairs all over them. Maybe it was because I was a little kid at the time, but that plant seemed to take over the whole school yard and produced the biggest Pumpkins! And that is how I fell in love with pumpkins and growing them.

A couple of years ago, I went to a small plant sale and the Sonoma County Master Gardeners were there selling GIANT Pumpkin seeds. I could not wait to plant my GIANT Pumpkin seeds! When the plant was big enough, I picked off all the blooms except for 4 of them. One for each grandchild. They advise doing this so that all of the plant's energy can go into the remaining Pumpkin blooms. I was so excited to see how big the Pumpkins would get. I envisioned having to get a forklift to pick up the Pumpkins so that I could win the grand prize for the biggest Pumpkin ever! Well, as you can see, I did not grow the biggest Pumpkin ever but they were pretty darn big and my oldest granddaughter, Big E, was thrilled. I could not have been happier with my prized Pumpkins! Well, as a side note, at the time my 2 youngest grand kids were living half way across the world so technically, I would have been happier if they could have been there to see their Pumpkins in person......anyway......back to the pictures......

I also tried something that I discovered in one the many articles I read about growing these wonderful gourds.

When these 4 Pumpkins were just beginning to grow, I carved into each one the name of one of my grand kids with a straightened paper clip. The article cautioned that there were risks with doing this such as carving too deep into the skin of the Pumpkin, thus allowing bacteria and pests into the gourd. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened to Little E and M's Pumpkins. I etched their names too hard and punctured the skin. Soon, these Pumpkins died. What you see in the above pictures are the 2 survivors. I made sure to save the seeds from the biggest Pumpkin for next year.

The next year's results reminded me again why you should always try to buy non-hybridized, heritage, seeds when you can. The plant did not flourish and all the Pumpkins were small. Seeds saved from hybrid plants do not do well at all. They are altered so that they produce something special for that season. That's why they are altered or combined with other plants to produce something different or special. Heritage seeds are tried and true to the parent plant's heritage and history. Nothing altered, you get what you get. Something true and comforting about that fact. So, what to do with alot of nice, small pumpkins? Especially after all the fuss and hype I created over last year's GIANT pumpkins. In a pinch, with Big E coming to spend the day to garden with me, and harvesting the Pumpkins, we created these funny looking guys and the day was a great day even without GIANT Pumpkins.

Going To Bloglovin!

Good Morning!

I have been busy on the computer the last few days working with a wonderful blog designer who is helping me spruce up my blog site as well as my new Etsy shop. I am so excited about all the new changes! I will write about Jane, my blog designer, and all that she has done for me later.

Now, back to me being busy on the computer. Trying to connect all the social medias together, creating new accounts, getting expert advice from my oh so smart daughter-in-law has my head spinning!
 As you can probably tell, I am not the most literate computer person. When I get stuck or do something unintentionally devastating while working on my computer, I always cry HELP to my go to guy, my 17 year old resident grandson/techie/ all round great kid.

So, I get great advice from the above mentioned daughter-in-law when I asked her about the best blog host site to be on. DIL suggested Bloglovin which has expanded her followers on her blog, Ramblings Of A Marine Wife , by quite a bit when she changed host sites.
 I am on Blogspot and like it but I am not getting the exposure or followers I would like.

OK.....so I set up an account, great. Now to finish and become a member I must post a blog about Bloglovin with the following link. So here goes...........

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/4975049/?claim=hmpnttb47um">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Let's hope that this works! Before you feel cheated that there is nothing remotely connected to gardening or any pictures in this post, I promise another post soon about Pumpkins. I promise!

La Coop Grand Hotel....Part 2

Way back in March of 2012 , I blogged ( and bragged ) about the great deal I bought via Craigslist. I scored a huge shed that was dismantled for $50!

My husband and his military buddies rebuilt the shed for my new chicken coop. This is what it looked like after they reconstructed the shed.

And this is another angle.

What a great shed, soon to become the chicken coop of my dreams, for $50!!

Now for the next phase of completion I needed help. I knew exactly who to ask for help.
My oldest granddaughter, Big E, and her best friend, Nicole. They are so cute together and inseparable.

Of course,  they were excited and happy to help me complete the chicken coop. So on a cold, foggy morning they got to work painting murals on the chicken coop. I gave them all sorts of different color paints, brushes, and told them they could paint anything they wanted to.

I could not have asked for cuter pictures of my chickens!
But the best part was their self portraits that they painted on one end with flowers, grass, and of course, BFF in big letters.

Notice the matching raincoats. Not because it was raining, it was to keep them warm AND keep their clothes paint free.....

We all had a blast that day, putting the finishing touches to the La Coop Grand Hotel. I also have special memories and murals to remember that day every time I go see my girls !

Thanks to Nicole (on the left above ) and to Big E, my sweet granddaughter, for a very special day and all your hard work to make my chicken coop one of a kind!!

Fall Decor

 
 Today I am trying to stay inside and clean......it is SO hard to do this simple thing when the sun is so sunshiny and I know that rainy, cold weather will be here before you know it. And there is SO much to do outside.

Besides, the new, organized me has this plan to clean house on Fridays so that I have all weekend to do fun stuff.
Well.....the day is half over and nothing has been dusted, wiped, vacuumed. Sure, the laundry is done, the stack of papers that needed to filed are filed. Yay.

So to make this day of cleaning more fun, I am still in my jammies and I decided to try my hand at a Fall centerpiece on the dining table. For inspiration I visited some of my favorite blogs. There are so many talented people out there!

Take for example, one of my favorites, Farmhouse 5540. I love her style! And sure enough, there is a post about dressing up your Autumn dining table.

 So pretty!!!


Now, here is my version. I tried it this way first........

Decided I did not like this, so this is my final version.

Much better I think since we still need to use the table. What I learned from this experiment is that while I really love my camera, I do not know how to use it besides "auto" and "point and click". And in person, my dressing up our dining table, looks so much better than in these pictures.

  What a shame.....so I am now going to start doing this in my spare time.

 Would you believe it? My sweet husband bought me the online class for a birthday present, last February!
I know, procrastination is one of those things I want to shed, hey, at least I am going to do it before my next birthday!

You should check out Kevin, Josh, and Nick at their cool website for online camera classes. And while you are at it, check out Kevin and his wife, Layla's blog, The Lettered Cottage. Wonderful.

So, before the day is completely gone, I think I will start vacuuming.

Have a great weekend!

Summer's End

I walk around my garden this time of year looking at the last gasp of summer blooms and bounty. It is a sign of fall and of the approaching winter. During these walks I write down plants that I loved and will definately plant again next season.

 Like my Dahlias. Only next time, I will plant them farther apart. I planted them closer than usual this past spring to save room. What I gave up was giving each plant room to grow, to stand alone in all it's beauty, to have air circulation, and being so close together that it made cutting  for my bouquets much more difficult than it should have been.

But even with that mistake, I harvested some beautiful bouquets for my customers and of course, for me. Take a look......

During these walks I also decided to not plant some plants next year.  While they are very pretty and I still love them, my Cosmos did not sell as well as I had hoped they would. So we will give the Cosmos a break for a year.

I also planted way too many Sunflower plants!! They were wonderful and the birds loved them but they took up alot of room. So I will plant them in other, new areas.

I try to remember what worked and what did not work in the garden but I forget so I take alot of pictures and journal about my garden. It really helps plan for next year and saves so much time in the spring when it gets really hectic here!
So I will leave you with a few more pictures of my garden and where the plants are reminding me that winter is almost here. Enjoy!

Changes, Starting Over, Saying Goodbye, and New Beginnings.

My sweet daughter-in-law has been pushing and encouraging me to start posting here again but every time I start to write, I think, how can I possibly catch up? So, I give up one more time.

Now, looking at my last post which is about our Thanksgiving last year, I realize that my daughter-in-law is right when she tells me to just start, that's all, just start writing. So here it is, the first post of 2013, with so many changes, starting over, saying goodbyes, and best of all, new beginnings !

Hands down the very best change that happened to our family is that my Marine son, daughter-in-law, and 2 grand kids moved to the San Diego area from Okinawa ! While I loved going to Okinawa to see them, going to see them in Southern California is so much better ! In fact, I cannot wait for my next little road trip driving south !

The other great change that happened this last year has been that while very frightening, my brush with cancer has enlightened me and freed me from so many things that I thought were important and really, truly are not important at all. You know, all those things that we burden ourselves with all the time. Stuff !  Oh how I have too much stuff ! Guilt ! Oh, how I am so fast to heap all that guilt on me for not being living up to my impossible expectations. And I could go and on with all the different things/feelings that I am shedding as I go.Guilt and stuff just happen to be #1 and #2 on my list right now.

                                                                                                                                               
Anyhow,  How fortunate and blessed am I to have a Kidney Stone that initiated a Cat Scan that found my cancer so early that after 2 surgeries I am cancer free !

As far as the saying goodbye part, we said goodbye to this guy. Blue has been my constant companion for the last 14 years. He lived a wonderful life, spending his days keeping on watchful eye on "his chickens". When he got too old to see or hear much, he was content to sleep away the day or follow me around while I worked outside. He lived to be a grand old age of 17. We rescued him from the local animal shelter when he was 3 years old and he thanked us everyday with his loyalty, love, companionship, and humorous antics. I am lost without him by my side. I am also so grateful that he lived such a long time. Good Boy Blue.


So here I am again, with a resolve to continue my blog with all that is going on with my Maggie's Garden. I look forward to writing again, sharing pictures and the latest news.