More crap from my garden...

GARLIC!

This is the very first time I've ever grown garlic and I have to say that it's going to be a year round staple in the garden from now on! So easy to grow! I simply took one of the bulbs I purchased at the store, divided the cloves and stuck them into the soil about an inch deep. When they flowered, I just snipped off the flower to direct all the growing energy to the bulb, and when the tops died off I pulled them up.

They'll dry outside for a week or so and then I'll store them inside.

I have another garlic patch of about 25 cloves that should be ready in August. I'll save one of these cloves to plant when I pull my second harvest up.

Now if I could just wash this garlic smell off my hands!

All about mullein

This year I have a small medicinal herb garden growing.
One of my prized herbs is mullein (pronounced like mull-in).

Mullein Tea is quite popular as a medicinal tea due to its treatment of respiratory ailments, including chronic bronchitis, asthmatic coughs, hoarseness, and congestion. When this herbal tea is applied as a compress it also relieves skin irritations such as acne, eczema, and bruises. In addition, mullein leaf tea helps alleviate abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and fluid retention.

I initially grew it to make mullein oil, a wonderful treatment for bacterial ear infections! After harvesting a big basket full of leaves, I carefully washed them and placed them in the dehydrator for 10 hours. Then the dried leaves were put into a glass jar, two cloves of garlic were added, and then covered with olive oil to steep in the pantry for a couple of weeks.


What you get is an incredible antibiotic, anti-fungal, soothing oil!
(left: dried leaves for tea, right: mullein & garlic oil)

Gently warm the oil before using then apply several drops into the ear canal and cover with a clean cloth or cotton ball. Apply 2-3 times daily.
I think I'll be using this as a preventative to ear problems in our boys. They are quite a "waxy" bunch if you know what I mean! They also do lots of swimming during the summer and playing in the woods. This remedy is also good for pets who have ear problems!

While waiting in joyful hope...

I kind of got on a roll sewing this past weekend and made a quilt for our baby girl.

Definitely nothing fancy.

But completely handmade with love
and thoroughly therapeutic for this restless mama!

Zippered pouch

I needed something to carry around all my diabetes supplies when I'm at work and on the go, so I made this cute and custom little zippered pouch.

It's incredibly easy to make, here's a tutorial:

Cut four pieces of fabric to the desired size of your finished bag. Two pieces of the outside fabric and two of the lining. Place the outside fabric and the lining with right sides together and then put your zipper between them.

Using the zipper foot on your machine, sew the fabrics to one side of the zipper.
Flip your fabrics to the side and repeat with the other two pieces of fabric on the other side of the zipper.

When you open up your piece, the fabrics now have the wrong sides facing. Open the zipper now (if you don't you won't be able to turn your pouch inside out later on!)

Now bring the right sides of the lining together and the right sides of the outside together and pin. Sew around the entire piece just leaving a 2 inch gap on the lining side to turn your pouch out. Cut the excess zipper off.

Turn the piece inside out and poke the corners out so they are nice and sharp! Sew the gap closed that you used to turn the fabric through.

Tuck the lining into the pouch, and voila!
Finished!

These can be made to any size and are perfect for all sorts of storage from shoes to cosmetics.

Even crappy bottles of insulin, glucometers, and syringes....
but hey, at least it looks cute!

Happy Birthday!

Wishing a very happy birthday to my baby daddy
(of almost 20 years!),

Doug E. Poo

Hope you have a wonderful day!
We love you very much!

Saving your harvest

I have cherry tomatoes coming out my ears!
To keep them from going to waste, I roasted them and stored them in olive oil. They are delicious on EVERYTHING!

Slice the sweet cherry tomatoes in half and sprinkle on salt, pepper, thyme, and crushed garlic. Toss with a generous amount of olive oil and place cut side up on a baking sheet.

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 to 2 hours and store in an air tight container. Will keep on the counter for a few weeks.

So delicious on a piece of crusty french bread slathered with ricotta cheese!

Game night

Last week when we ended up all day in Sugarland at doctors appointments, Doug's mom came over to watch the kids. She taught them a little domino game called "Mexican Train".
Last night we had a family dinner in honor of Father's Day and the little kids challenged Nana to a Mexican Train tournament:

Woe to us all ~ for the student has become the master!
(and he's NOT a gracious winner at that!)

Shooting up

What I thought would be a routine doctor's appointment turned into an all day affair. My blood sugar is out of control and it doesn't matter how strictly I watch my carb intake or not...my body is failing me.

Last night I gave myself my first insulin injection.

I'm overwhelmed.

Starting an insulin regimen while working hellacious 12 hour shifts where I don't have time to pee much less find time to eat on a schedule is daunting.

I'm scared.

But I have to do this for our baby. There is no choice. I know there could be worse things to worry about but this is still a big deal for me.I'll be taking a break from the rest of the week to deal with life

I'm thankful.

For all of you and your prayers! Where would we be without them?

Ponderings of a nine year old...

John Paul asks me in the garden the other day,
"Mom, which is easier to grow?
People or vegetables?"

I say to him, "If growing babies was as easy as growing tomatoes, I might have had a whole bushel of them!"

Still taking one day at a time.
It's hard at my age.
Your prayers are much appreciated.

Lemon Balm Jelly

Y'all, I am a jelly making FOOL!
I always thought it was an all day, labor intensive endeavor, but when you make jelly in small batches, it's quite easy and very delicious.

Today I made a few pints of lemon balm jelly.
Lemon balm is a member of the mint family and can become quite invasive if not kept in check. My lemon balm started having plans of world domination so I had to put the smack-down on him!

I used the exact same recipe that I used for the rose petal jelly I made a few weeks ago. This time I used 2 cups of lemon balm stalks and leaves roughly chopped in the place of rose petals. You can check out the complete recipe HERE.

Looks and tastes like liquid sunshine!
Best of all, no high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, or artificial coloring.

Little Red Riding Hood ~ Creamer Style!

My little red haired Danny went over the river and through the woods to his Grandma's house to carry a basket of vegetables to her from the garden.

Beets, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, and zucchini!

But don't worry!
There was no big bad wolf waiting for him at Grandma's,
only a feisty little Shitzu named Bandit!

Welcome to my world...

This weekend I not only washed 10 loads of laundry but 3 LEGO men, half a roll of duct tape, a tube of Gorilla Glue, and a bag of sunflower seeds.

On the up side I did tally up $1.50 in change towards my mani/pedi fund!

Going PINK!

How's THAT for a shock?
After four boys, God has blessed us with a daughter!

A DAUGHTER!

I think I need to go lay down until my head stops spinning!

A BIG deal for me!

This weekend I dared to make this delightful (and FREE) pattern:

It's an infant snuggler/swaddler!

You can find the free downloadable pattern HERE.

This is a REALLY big step for me. To have hope that this baby will reach term to be swaddled in it is quite overwhelming! I bought some really cute fabric for 2 more swaddlers but didn't make them. I felt like I was "jinxing" things already by making one of them so I didn't tempt fate by making more.

Silly, I know.

We did have quite a scare earlier last week. For two days I didn't feel the baby moving at all. The L&D nurse in me kept saying that it was still early and that there will be days when I can't feel things...but the mommy in me was petrified the worst had happened. I finally called my doctor who ordered an ultrasound. When we heard the tech say, "Your baby is fine," Doug and I cried tears of joy! I was thoroughly prepared for her to tell me my baby was gone...but there he was, kicking and squirming...even playing peek-a-boo with us!

That very day I rented a doppler so we could listen to the heartbeat any time we wanted to.
And we do listen, A LOT!

Who says you can't buy peace of mind?

(BTW, turns out that I have an anterior placenta which means the placenta is covering the very front of the inside of the uterus. Every time the baby kicks, it kicks placenta instead of uterine wall. That's why I'm not feeling movement these days.)

A surprise in the garden

Last October the boys carved Halloween pumpkins on the side porch. As usual, I swept the dried mess (seeds and all!) into the little garden to the side of the porch. A few weeks ago I saw some kind of squash vine growing and thought it must have been a stray seed from one of the bird feeders.

Then I saw this:

PUMPKINS!

I let the vines grow, watered them regularly, and now we have our very own pumpkin patch right on the side of the house!

There are literally dozens of these miniature pumpkins growing and now the vines are creeping out of the garden bed and around the side of the garage! We love watching them grow and I can't wait to harvest them at the end of summer to put in the house for fall decoration.

Or for another jack-o-lantern or twelve~