Top 3~Most Shocking Posts

…Of THIS BLOG IN 2011~
No. 3

I used some cool signage to dress up my free backsplash. It was a Farm House Friday post  at Laurie Anne’s Vintage Home . I posted it Thanksgiving week and it received 267 to date…you can read it HERE.
No. 2
 
 Much to my shock and dismay—but YES!  This is my  second most viewed post for the year of 2011. I have no idea what you have to *google for this post to come up …MAaaYBEeeee  it could have been the NEWBIE PARTY. …but I’m just saying. Is this really what people want to read about?  With only 8 comments… I doubt it.  But still …it makes me laugh to see the numbers climb upward on this one in my stats!  Here is the story of my Entertainment Center Do-Over and Purge
and the No. 1

Most popular post for the 2011 year is my Freebie Tin backsplash and pallet cutlery shelf. (before COOL SIGNAGE) …you can read it here.
None of these posts had the most comments.
I had a tie for that catagory:
“When in Drought”…being the most recent post—regarding the drought that has hit Texas so hard this year and the shortage of hay. Yes, I know y’all must be riveted by the topics that get posted here and sitting on the edge of your seats!  LOL…
And back on May 22--  “Please Pray”… the most heart felt and generous outpouring of comments I’ve ever received. Prayers for Honey (the Husband) after having a heart attack.  I remember when I wrote this.  I had no way of getting this posted. But I used a computer at the hospital to get the word out. And Pray you did. Thank you all so very much for the thoughts and prayers and for following us through a difficult time. So many of you inquire about him regularly. The heart attack and stroke have taken a toll. He has made such progress and is vastly improved.

Southern Hospitality

God bless you and Thanks for reading~
And my God shall supply all our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus~ Philippians 4:19

Glimpse of my Week~

I’ve been busy reading everyone’s blogs showcasing and highlighting some of their more popular posts throughout the year.
Well this is NOT that post for me.
This is really just a laundry list of things I’ve done pretty much the last week of the this year and haven’t gotten around to posting… AND! it’s short and sweet. Cut and dried. Very simple. 
These are Reindeer Feet  I made when the LITTLES were visiting.  They gave them as presents for their Momma’s and Daddy’s.  I think this project turned out cute!  Makes  a sweet keepsake.
 I hung a curtain in my bathroom.  It is actually a dresser runner. I didn’t have a curtain rod. But really wanted a curtain to dress up this window.
This is a close up of the twigs.

 I found two twigs with a “fork” in them; used the chop saw…

YES! ALL BY MYSELF…and cut the back off them so that they would be flat; to go against the wall. Put a long twig across there… and Voi`la !!!

On the gardening scene… we’re still GROWING!  This is just one of our broccoli plants we have in the front manure garden.  We’re not growing manure…but manure sure grows groceries well!
I hope my supplier comes in for me again this year.  I love this stuff for gardening.  Doesn’t that broccoli look good?  Not quite big enough to harvest yet and we only have about 4 plants.  NOTE to self:  Grow less radish and grow more broccoli.
For Christmas one of our kids gave us Money$$$.  I knew what I was getting as soon as I opened it. {wink}Ha! cause I recognize money when I see it... Noooo! I mean I knew I was going to buy  Some boots! …don’t know if you can tell or not; but these have little weather vanes on them with ROOSTERS!  Aren’t they cute? Honey snapped a picture of me in my new boots. I got them this morning at the Tractor Supply Store.
This is Lil Bree…showing Oma her boots; they are Barbie boots. She is proud of them…She loves wearing them out to see the chickens!

"Take a picture of my boots, Oma! These are my Barbie Chicken boots! See? "

Somewhere during that week—I had some dental work done and unfortunately will be needing some more. I hate going to the dentist.  So y'all pray for me about that, would you please?


That’s it for now. 
Hope everyone has a great start to a Wonderful New Year!
God Bless you and Thanks for reading~

Wordless Wednesday

God Bless you and Thanks for reading~

Merry Christmas~

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son; that whosoever believes in Him should not perish; but have everlasting life.~ John 3:16

Wordless Wednesday

God Bless You and Thanks for Reading~

Cargo Sweat Pants-repurposed!

This is a *repurposing project I just finished. 
It’s a back-pack for one of the *Littles* … he’ll be 4 in January and needs something to carry his current Movie of the week, some snacks, and occasionally dry pair of Spiderman Undies… (for those times when his  AIM isn’t so great!)

I actually took  a pair of his Momma’s workout Cargo style sweat pants and cut the legs off to make this bag. Used the drawstring from the waist band and the pocket from the leg… I also used some of the extra fabric to make the straps.
  
These are NOT her pants…but they were similar to this pair.
And… here it is hanging on the chair…so you could see the pocket. Pretty simple.  I’m not a seamstress… in fact, I think my sewing machine HATES ME.  So a relatively simple project took way longer for me to make than the average person; but its done. (oh yes, and if you came looking for a tutorial for this fabulous project...sorry.)
…AND THE BOY…is. going. to. love it. ~ cause his Oma made it for him!
* Oh, I might also say, the shoulder straps aren’t adjustable…so I’ve sewn a carabiner hook /latch

in the strap so he can fasten them together at his waist.  He’ll LOVE THAT FEATURE! 
LINKING HERE:







God Bless you and Thanks for reading~

Mid December Gardening~

It looks like our FALL GARDEN may carry on over into Winter. Here is just a sampling of what we are still getting from our raised beds. These are radishes we picked this week.  We still have some in the ground and are picking as needed.   Green onions—I’m really happy with these.  Some were harvested and eaten when they were still small. (small inexperienced hands helped in the picking) I probably could have stuck those small ones back into the soil to let them get bigger. But hey~ live and learn.  Our first real overnight freeze took out the ‘LONE’ tomato plant that held over from the summer drought months. It was loaded with tomatoes. After doing some reading- the best advice was to set them out and let them ripen on their own. After a couple of weeks we finally did something with the red ones.  We yielded about 8 1/2 cups of chopped red tomatoes; we still have green tomatoes today that are turning. They are still SO tasty! It’s wonderful to have fresh homegrown tomatoes in Mid-December.
Eight cups of tomatoes made about 4 1/2 pints of salsa!  Of course we used the fresh onion and some other ingredients from our freezer to make this and the Ball Blue Book recipe (with minor adjustments because of lack of tomatoes) …but it taste pretty good for my first time to can salsa.  The Husband likes it …and that’s all that matters!

Linking HERE

‘til next time.
God Bless you and Thanks for reading~

Wordless Wednesday~ 2

God Bless You and Thanks for Reading!

Reactions Widget~ Vote

When you see the reactions widget at the bottom a blog post, do you…

REACTION Widgets:

Really, I’m just curious. 

God Bless You and Thanks for Reading ...and voting!

Mending a Zippered Purse~

I found a tutorial online for zipper repairs through Pinterest and I did this little project as a favor for my daughter. It took me about an hour…and all the sewing was by hand. The zipper pull was off the purse.
It had gotten caught on the lining and the outer vinyl…and yanked off in order to get the purse open apparently. I just made that part up…cause REALLY the youngest daughter got the purse for 1 BUCK at Bargain Land…AND I don’t know what happened; but let’s just suppose that happened. {wink}   I pulled the liner to the outside of the purse  …got busy and cut it open all the way; so that I could get to the zipper from the inside.   I found the end of the zipper…
Cut it loose from these stitches.

Now I had this old purse with the right size zipper glide and cut the end off the zipper and slid the glide off to use on the ‘good’ purse.
  Kind of like this… only this zipper was a spare and the glide ended up being too small.  So now I have to repair the zipper before I can use it. Oh well, live and learn!    Here is the daughter’s purse with the ‘new’ zipper glide …complete with contrasting green pull (which she can remove and replace with her own choice of bobble) This red thread is what I used to make a zipper stopper on the zipper.  This is after a few stitches. I made mine thicker; I didn’t want the zipper coming off! Just to be sure…I have also sewn this end back into the inside of the liner. You can barely see the red thread at the top of the zipper.  Now I’ve sewn the liner back together and tucked it back inside the purse. I noticed that the zipper was trying to hang up on the liner again…so I pulled the liner taught and stitched it down to the inside of the purse about 1 inch from the zipper-- so it wouldn’t bunch up against the zipper and pull again. Here it is all zipped up! Not bad for 1 BUCK!  That’s my girl…all grown up and trying to save where she can. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree around here…no sir ~ree!
God Bless you and Thanks for Reading~

Winter Freeze Protection in the Garden~

Covering~
This fall we had two hoop frames in the Potager. One covering the potaoes and one covering everything else.

• onions
• carrots
• radishes
• peas

I had the black tubing. I bought the conduit straps screwed them into the sides of the boxes and slid the black tubing into the strapping on both sides.
Covered with plastic—and put the clamps on it.
You can see the clamps in the picture below.

You can also see that I laid firewood around the edges where the plastic meets the ground; it helps to hold it down… the wind would otherwise blow the plastic up and off.  Even just the slightest cold wind would not be good for the plants as we found out with the potato plants.

We still have one hoop cover in the Potager, the other covered the Potato Plant Bed

   

( The wind blew up the plastic once and then later everywhere the plants touched the plastic… it wilted.)
They needed way more sun shine and air I suppose than they received through the plastic… and the result was wilted plants above the earth and fewer fall potatoes below the earth!)

Watering~
Using the netting on the front garden bed for the cold hardy veggies… I didn’t cover the plants with plastic. The tomatoes died…they need covering. As for the others I found it important to really wet the ground and root systems for colder nights thus protecting the plants that way.

Learning~
A few things I learned from this.

1. YES! we can grow veggies in the fall and even winter time. 
2. Lift the corners on warmer days; OR …take the plastic back on  sunny  days…plants need fresh air.
3. When it’s raining and not too cold… remove plastic. For one they need the water; also rain collected on ours (being it wasn’t drawn tight) and caused collapse of the structure. ** note: metal conduit would work better if finances allows; we used what we had on hand.
4. This didn’t seem to work so well for our fall potatoes. (see above)

farmgirl friday 

God Bless You and Thanks for Reading~