Garden Update

The past several weekends have been rainy, cold, windy, or some combination of all three. Because of this, it took almost a month longer to build the last section of our garden beds and fill them than we would have liked. However, this past Saturday dawned sunny and warm, so we grabbed some breakfast, got dressed, and headed off to the local Lowe's to get the chicken wire, topsoil, and compost we needed.

Within an hour, we were back home and getting to work. We guesstimated we would need 20 cubic feet of soil to fill the bean bed, so that's what we got. You can see it there beside the bed materials in the heaps of bags.

Implementing Quarterly Goals

I've spent the last several years looking for a way to increase focus and productivity in my everyday and work life. I've tried daily, weekly, or monthly goals and gotten overwhelmed. On the other side of things, I tried making yearly goals and forgot about them. I'm going to shoot for a "happy medium" and try implementing quarterly goals.

I mean. I get some stuff done, but I need to do more!

Starting now, since April is the beginning of the second sales quarter of the year, I will post several goals to be met over the following three months. Then I'll come back at the start of the next quarter, reveal how I did, and list my goals for the following quarter. Y'all will keep me accountable, right?

Garden Update

I'd hoped we'd have more of a garden update for you today than we do. Between inclement weather and finishing up the last of the catch up work this past weekend, we didn't get to finish building the beds or filling them the rest of the way. We have our fingers crossed and are praying we will be able to get that done this weekend.

Here are our seedlings as of Saturday, April 2.

We did plant a few bush bean seedlings the week after we built our garden beds. Unfortunately we thought evaporation would be more of an issue than it was and overwatered them a bit as a result. This meant only four of the sixteen we planted germinated. The others contracted some kind of infection and died before they broke the soil.

Pied Piper iPad

It's no secret we've allowed the girls to use what electronics we have over the years. I've talked about "tech schooling" and the girls' computerized lessons off an on. I think I even might have mentioned vintage video game family nights a time or two. We've always tried to place limits, but still, the electronics call to them like the Pied Piper of the modern day, and we'd occasionally let them have "just a little" longer because a few moments of peace seemed worth it for days when work was particularly trying.

Sneak "teaching" a friend how to play a game when she was 3.

Hubby and I decided to implement more strict rules regarding screen time toward the end of spring break. With the distraction of illness and just trying to keep things running with one of us out of commission, we let them have way more time than usual. Being kids who still believe in "more is more," they took full advantage. Within a couple of days they began snapping at one another and fighting over games or movie picks and just showing a general lack of regard for one another as they got lost in an endless stream of entertainment. They were like addicts looking for their next hit, and we knew we had to put a stop to it right away.

Starting Our Seedlings

Two weeks ago, we built the frame for our garden bed this year. Well, we built the main part anyway. We ran out of chicken wire before we started on the last 4 x 4 bed because we'd ordered a 4 x 12 bed, and we didn't realize it would come with enough materials to build a whole other bed. Anyway, we decided to start a few plants from seed last week.

We decided to start our beans indoors since they're a bit more "picky" than the radishes, which will be fine being planted directly into the beds this week. And the pumpkin won't be ready to plant for another month or so. We will be purchasing tomato, pepper, and cucumber plants from the same nursery we did last year in another few weeks, and we  plan to purchase several lettuce varieties while we were at Lowe's getting dirt in a couple of days..

Building a Raised Garden Bed

If you were around last year, you might remember we spent several days building a patio garden only to have an unusually wet year drown everything. You see, Alabama summers are notoriously hot and dry. So when we picked out pots for a patio garden, we thought having ones with solid bottoms and putting drainage rock in the bottom would be our best bet. Things didn't turn out so well, and this year is shaping up to be just as soggy. So having a patio garden for vegetables for the next few years doesn't look like it will work.

This was the garden about a week after planting and few days before the downpours began.

According to the schedule, this year was supposed to be the chamomile bed, a fire pit and attached patio, and the old patio garden. Then next year, we'd build a pergola with built in planters and benches for grape vines and blackberry bushes to climb over. And in 2018, we'd look into raised beds for other fruits and vegetables. Hubby and I decided to change up the plan's schedule. 

Get 'em Moving. Keep 'em Learning.

Ever noticed how it seems sensory integration and attention deficit disorders have increased as we've cut back on recess and the amount children play outside? I'm not saying a lack of physical activity causes these problems, but it certainly doesn't help the symptoms. Childhood is a time of intense physical as well as mental development, and the body not only needs but demands all types of movement and sensations in order to facilitate these developments. These demands can present as many of the symptoms listed for ADD, ADHD, various sensory disorders, and more.

So what is a parent to do?

Homeschooling Chat: Cross Curricular Projects

Now that the girls are approaching ten and have the attention spans to match, we've decided to swap from doing a whole slew of small projects throughout the year to one big, cross curricular project. This isn't to say they won't still do some small, short single subject projects. They'll always have short essays, papers, and experiments going on. No, we're talking about a group of smaller projects grouped together covering a range of skills and subjects, all under the same theme.

Here's the girls' finished food pyramid poster.

We decided to start with one of the five basic needs as the basis of our first cross curricular project: food. No matter who you are, you have to eat. Shouldn't you know something about what you're putting in your body well before you're out of elementary school? We think so.

Starting Fresh with the New Year

Hello again. I hope you and yours had a merry holiday season and are having a happy new year thus far.

It's a time for new beginnings, and I thought I'd bring up a few of our fresh start goals for 2016. Some we technically started at the end of 2015, because why wait? Others we only started today, the first Monday of the year. Some may become new habits. Many are likely to morph or fall by the wayside. There's really no way to tell this early in the game, but still we try.

I have a horrible track record at keeping up with resolutions, so this year I'm trying picking a word keep at the forefront of my mind throughout the year. It's no secret I'm more than a bit scatterbrained, so I figure "focus" is a word I can use more of anytime. Therefore, it is my 2016 word of the year, and I intend to implement it in multiple areas of my life and the girls.

End of Season Garden Recap

I've been fairly quiet this summer, and there are a couple of reasons for that. They also played a role in how our garden went this year, so I'll just get into that story.

We made root salad with the few radishes we got out of the garden. Mmmm...

We had a couple of really good weeks with the garden. Then Hubby and I both became horribly ill right as our late spring took a surprisingly wet turn. We'd picked solid bottomed pots because North Alabama summers tend to be hot and dry, so imagine our chagrin when this year turned out to be one of the wettest in recent memory. By the time we'd recovered enough to do anything meaningful with the garden three weeks later, half the garden had drowned. Our stakes and cages refused to stay upright, and we ended up fighting black spot and blossom end rot as a result.

Long Term Plans... Well, Maybe Goals is More Accurate

Last week I told you about the patio garden we started after a couple of years slowly building up the supplies. It wasn't completely finished, but we made a decent start on it. It still isn't done, but we're a couple steps closer to finishing our establishing goal for this year.

Here's our patio garden as of Sunday morning.

We found some Italian oregano, lavender, more rosemary and basil, lemon balm, marigolds, alliums, and geraniums this past Saturday, and those got planted super early Sunday morning. Our seed packets arrived on Friday, but we're still working on digging out and edging the chamomile garden. I'm hoping I can get it done today, so the seeds can be scattered before rain blows in tomorrow and sets in for the next week.

Patio Vegetable Garden: Getting Started

We've been talking about starting a patio garden for two or three years. It's one of those things that can be a bit pricy to get going. So, we've been accumulating pots, tools, and bags of drainage rock here and there over the last few years. While irritating, it's been for the best since it gave the girls time to grow into being able to take active roles in tending the garden with us.

The girls learned how to transplant seedlings. They were so gentle with their beans!

Thus far, 2015 seems to be the year to get started as things finally fell into place with only bags of high quality potting soil and seedlings left to go. So with the girls' bean plants outgrowing our kitchen table, we devoted Friday afternoon and just about all day Saturday to setting up our first patio vegetable garden.

Summer Science, Math, and Home Ec.

As those who have small children in school probably already know, kindergarten through third grade pretty much all cover the same lessons with each year just being a bit more involved than the year before. This helps lay a foundation of the fundamentals in a way that really "sticks" since we all learn through repetition. Now that Boo Bear is in third grade, we've had our hands full with projects and in depth explanations more than we have in the past three years.

She's so incredibly proud of her baby bean plants!

Both girls have always had a strong interest in science, with the biological sciences being of particular interest. So, we're going all out in our life science studies this year, which is one reason we put off the subject throughout the winter in favor of making it a spring and summer subject. Our biggest project of the year started a couple of weeks ago when we did the usual sprout beans in a plastic baggie experiment, and it will end this fall when we're harvesting the fruits of our family's labor.

Branching Out Our Taste Buds

One day back in late February, I was out grocery shopping with the girls and bemoaning the fact our local Aldi had once again run out of gluten free bread. A woman overheard us talking and told us about a new store getting ready to open just up the road called Sprouts purportedly like a lower cost Earth Fare or Whole Foods. Of course I had to go home and look it up.

Inside Sprouts from their website. Not a sponsored post, just an excited mama.

A few weeks later this new Sprouts Market opened. We weren't there at the opening itself, but it didn't take us long to go check it out.

Finding Balance Yet Again

There's been a lot of chatter in women's blogs and magazines about establishing a work/life balance over the past several years. Funny how most of those articles and discussions make it seem like something you set up and that just keeps on going on its own. Yet it always seems I'm having to take stock of what's going on in our lives and striving to find a way to "balance" it out every few months. Am I alone in this?

We've come a long way since 2012!

Perhaps it's simply a matter of the type of jobs Hubby and I have. Upheaval's to be expected for a teacher without tenure, owning a small business, and a failed attempt at career change. Somehow I doubt that's it though. Even when Hubby stuck with the same school for several years in a row and I was simply staying home and schooling our then preschoolers, this was going on.

Fall Show Review

These past couple of weeks have been busy ones. The last two-thirds of our fall show season happened back-to-back, so there wasn't time really to comment on each of them in turn.

First we had Rocket City NerdCon in Huntsville on October 24-25. It was a first year event, so we weren't sure what exactly to expect. However, we thought chances were good it might be a fairly laid back affair, so we decided it would be a good convention to be the girls' first.

The girls were proud of their homemade costumes.

Both girls wanted to cosplay, especially since it was the week before Halloween. I, of course, waited far too long to get started on their costumes. I'd never made a full costume before, let alone two, so I was probably procrastinating out of subconscious fear. Anyway, with two full days of intensive sewing, their Batgirl and Supergirl costumes got done about 9:30 Thursday night.

Friday was eventful and interesting because neither Hubby nor I were able to get the day off work, and the convention started just half an hour after I usually get off work. Thankfully, the Huntsville City Library is just a block or so from the station and basically across the road from where Hubby works. We got set up just in time to catch our breath before attendees started coming in.

Saturday was also a learning experience. As I said before, we'd never carried our girls to a convention before, so we ended up overestimating how engaged they would be by it all. Although they liked seeing the costumes and looking at everything, they got bored fairly quickly. It probably didn't help that between the excitement of spending the night at Granny D's and knowing they were going to get to go somewhere special the next day, neither girl slept much the night before. So, we had two sleepy girls on our hands well before lunch.

Still, we all enjoyed the show overall, and it went well for a first year event.

This past weekend was our third year at Hilltop Arts Festival.

A cold front came through the night before, so it was bitterly cold and windy early Saturday morning when we were setting up. Still, the girls had gotten a good night's sleep, or so I thought, and I'd gotten everyone hats and gloves the night before. So, we thought nothing of taking the girls with us.

We got there and began setting up. The girls ran up and down a small hill behind where we were setting up our tent to keep warm and busy. Hubby and I got the tent up with a lot less fuss than the year before, which considering we only use the thing once a year, is pretty good. We probably should have taken it as a sign to just take it back down when it tried to blow away three times in the process of trying to get it weighted down.

Anyway, we got the tent set up, and I was setting up the tables when the girls really started complaining about being cold. So Hubby took them home to get some blankets while I finished setting up the tables. I was done and had made a partial round to see the other venders when they returned. They got cuddled up under their blankets, and things seemed fine for a bit until the wind started picking up as the air warmed a few degrees. It was strong enough that Hubby and I were still obliged to hold onto the tent, even with center blocks weighting the tent down. This frightened Boo Bear so badly, she began crying in a panic.

Eventually we ended up calling Granny D to come get the girls, and then Hubby and I took the tent down once the wind died down enough for us to attempt it. That made things feel a tad warmer with access to direct sun, and we didn't have to sprint to grab the tent every few minutes.

Like NerdCon the week before, business was slow but steady throughout the day. We heard some great music, ate some good food, and met some very nice people.

I'm not entirely sure if we will be vending at Hilltop again next year, but I'm sure we'll go. It has nothing to do with the show itself. It's a wonderful event. But, the weather seems to be getting colder earlier each year these past three or four years, and other festivals in the area make moving the event date impractical.

I discovered Saturday night and in through Sunday evening, that I can't handle being in the cold for that long. A soak in hot water and some "Ow, My Aching Everything," relieved much of the aches and pains from the day, but the bones themselves in my hips, legs, and feet ached throughout the night. And those are areas I usually don't feel RA related pain!

Of course, this may change with continued treatment. It's possible my rheumatoid disease isn't as in remission as I thought, and it's just going to take longer adhering to the anti-inflammatory diet, exercise, and judicious use of medicines when needed to heal. I don't want to make any firm decisions until I know more.

Holiday Traditions May Vary

I've seen posts today about how movements to improve health and diets are killing our holidays, the "big three" in particular. While I can see where the writers are coming from and agree with some of their points, I'd like to point out, holiday traditions may vary.

Sneak excited by the pumpkins and fallen leaves her second fall season.

Not everyone has the same idea about how holidays should be celebrated, and that's okay.

Product Introduction: Ow, My Aching Everything!

A couple weeks ago, I talked about the process of formulating this newest item. The formula was finalized Monday evening, and I'm currently working on getting the first dozen or so jars listed in the store or delivered to U. G. White Mercantile in Athens.

Ow, My Aching Everything Therapeutic Ointment

I have to list all the ingredients by their scientific names on the back label, so I thought I would break them down by their more recognizable names here. The active ingredients include castor oil, rose hip seed oil, lemongrass oil, cinnamon leaf oil, clove oil, eucalyptus oil, wintergreen oil, and rosemary oil. Coconut oil is used as a carrier and adds a moisturizing element to the ointment.

Upcoming Products: Formulating a Therapeutic Ointment

Back in late August and early September I had yet another flair up of carpal tunnel and what I now know to be the early stages of rheumatoid arthritis. I tried the usual over-the-counter creams and found them lacking. They helped, sure, but they burned, produced an exceedingly weird "cold burn" sensation, and left the skin feeling dried out and sticky.

Virtually all of them used menthol or capsasin as their active ingredients. Menthol is an anti-inflammatory agent found in members of the mint family such as wintergreen, spearmint, eucalyptus, and peppermint just to name a few. Capsasin is found in peppers and more of less just overrides the pain by producing a burning sensation. Knowing this, I decided to try and make a better anti-inflammatory cream.

Hubby demonstrating the texture of our lotion formula once we'd perfected it.

I studied up on different essential oils. I found several which are known to be powerful anti-inflammatories and then began experimenting with them. The first attempt worked, but the smell was like someone doused you in lemon Pledge. Plus the ointment left a greasy film behind, which I wasn't happy with either. Still, after three days of applying the ointment three times a day, my hands were back to their normal size and functionality. Since then, that first batch proved effective at relieving strained muscles, inflamed tendons, tension headaches, migraine, and dampening sinus pain long enough for decongestants to kick in.

Frustration and Injury

I know the blog has been a bit soap heavy lately. I've been more than a little obsessed these past few weeks, to be honest. Introducing the year's new lines at Con Kasterborous has become a tradition for me, and it starts three weeks from today. I've spent virtually all of my waking time at home either designing, manufacturing, or packaging soaps.

My booth at Con Kasterborous last year.

I finally finished yesterday. Well, I finished the manufacturing the soaps at least. I still have perfumes and lotions to go for most of the fragrances, new and old.