My how your garden grows!

This past year was what I consider my first real attempt at growing a garden and a few other things.  I had tried my hand at a garden two years ago, but everything died except for the zucchini so I don’t really count that.  But this year we had  a small garden and we put tomato plants in our front yard.  Along with all of that, I planted 2 blueberry bushes, 4 raspberry plants (only two survived and I planted about 24 strawberry plants.   I did fairly well with the veggies (although I hope to do much better next year)!  The fruit bushes/plants didn’t (were not supposed to) produce this year- so I am excited to see my hard work pay off next summer!  Especially for the strawberries, they look AWESOME!!

Spring '09- the strawberry patch

 

Fall '09 - the strawberry patch that has spread!!

Yeah for ‘organic’ food!!!

Happy 4th Birthday Belle!

 

 

My how 4 years changed our lives!  Thank you for your kind and loving heart and your tenderness, compassion and your quick smile.  We love you and are so proud of you!

As requested:

Here are two pics of 73 candles in my kitchen.  Although the photo does not do justice the absolute tornado that went through my kitchen.  The first pic is just a handful of them in the final stage of drying and waiting for the bows/labels to be added.  As you can see, this is no where near 73 candles, but I have them stashed all over my house in piles to keep everyone’s orders straight.  They are on the fireplace, my dresser, our bed, the piano, the kitchen table and on the counter.  Whew!

And then this second picture is of them when they are drying.  Jason built me two wood holders so I could slide the candle with the hot wax under and then tape the wick up so it would dry straight.  Pretty amazing, huh?  Again, I was getting near the end with all of this when I took these pictures, everyting looks under control (although in the bottom picutre the dishwasher was open and I was trying to clear dishes so I could have more than a 1×1″ of counter space to work with.  We had dinner last night and there was no room anywhere in our kitchen, so the hot casserole (thank you freezer meals!) was put at Jason’s dinner spot and he ate around it.   You think I’m kidding.   But I poured the final 6 this morning and I’m D-O-N-E until after Thanksgiving.  Looking forward to a little break.

Truthful Thursday

“Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not IRRITABLE or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrong doing- but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” – 1 Cor 13:4-7

Confession:

One of THE biggest reasons I blog is that I like comments.  I admit it, I’m selfish.  So many other people blog to keep a record of their lives or to encourage others or as a place to vent.  I really don’t use my blog for any of these.  I like making people laugh, I love getting a reaction out of people (mostly good ones And somehow over the past few years (either to my diminishing blog reader #’s or my lack of sense of humor), not nearly as many comments were flying. So… I started “not blogging” about every topic that came across my head at 10 pm and I found that the break was nice.  But a few times I’ve thought “Gee, I should write about ____” but it just hadn’t happened yet.  And then my friend Sarah (sorry friend, I would link your blog, but I have no idea how to do that told me I should start blogging again.  I found myself with 10 extra min at nap time today, so here I am.

Here are a few of the top happenings at the Rohlf house:

I currently have 73 candles poured in the last few days sitting in my kitchen… I don’t like messy or clutter kitchens, it stresses me out   But we are saving for some new (used!) furntiture in the future, so I keep trying to imagine my nasty little loveseat outa here.   And we’ve decided that any extra money that I earn this season with Kandela will go into an adoption fund so we can have some $$ if/when the time comes that we would like to pursue adopting a little one.

John Boy- the kid poops a LOT and does not sleep much.  Seriously, he has been teething (only 8 left!) like crazy, but the kid will not sleep very well.  It is nothing like my friend (Sarah above but we’ve cut out Johnny’s mornng nap and pushed his beadtime back a good 30-45 min and the kid still wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 am every day. There have been a few good mornings, but then nights like  last night he was up 2 different times crying, but then will go back to sleep.  And today at his nap, he woke up after an hr crying, I went in and patted his bottom and he went back to sleep (hense this blog entry:)

Belle- my baby is turning 4 next week!  I can hardly believe it!  Every day she is showing us more and more how much she is growing up.  She has started asking if she can help with anything at dinner time (still not all the helpful, but I am trying to slow down and teach her things along the way) and she loves to help her brother- they are the best of friends and the worst of friends at this point in their lives. And their relationships can turn on a dime around here.  One min they are laughing and running, the next there are screams and pulling hair and pushing… geesh!  It is nice that they are playing more together (I can hardly wait for Johnny to start talking so they can talk together!) but my goodness do they get in arguments like every other min.  Keeps this momma on her toes

And I did a cooking/baking/freezer day.  I do have an extra freezer in the garage,  but Money Saving Mom (who inspired me) cooked for her family of 5 in their little freezer above the fridge!  It can be done!  I’ve had freezer meals the last couple of nights (I’ve been busy pouring 73 candles!) and I’ll tell you what- the stress of that day was gone in an instant as the meals have been such a blessing to just pull out, thaw and heat.  Wow… I’m TOTALLY doing this again next month! (I only did about 1/3 freezer meals, with 1/3 crock pot meals and 1/3 normal cooking) but I’m hoping in Dec to do 1/2 freezer, 1/2 crock pot.  I hope to post more about how I did things/ what I would change for next time/what to do with the kids, ect in a later post.

The kids just woke up!  I’m out.

Double or Nothin’… the total.

Well, minus the printer that I got for $5 that I just threw in the trash…(it sat out in the rain- someone was supposed to come get it) I was able to get rid of everything I purchased over the summer.  Most things sold on Craigslist- a few (that I learned did not sell well) went to Stuff Ect.  And I just went there and I had $$ in my account to cover the costs of those items I could not flip on Craigslist.  Those 5-10 items I considered a wash.

I tallied up everything that I spent/earned over the summer and including my $60 mistake (on a tool!  never doing that again!) I almost made it to doubling my $.  I think the final percentage was like 1.94%.  I am pretty happy to say the least… especially that my intial $100 turned into me spending almost $400 over the summer which means that I ended up with nearly $800 total at the end of all of this!  I just enjoyed it so much that I kept garage saling each weekend (and the garage sales here seem to go on and on and on!)  After tithing on my profits I was able to pay for part of our IPOD and we are saving up for our 5 year aniiversary trip coming up in Jan!

I plan to flip stuff again next summer, especially honing in on the items that I found sold the most.  Kids toys/stuff!  It is amazing what people will spend on their kids!  And how much people are willing to get rid of at rock bottom prices to get their basements/garages back!  I think I sold about 25 Little Tike items and around 6 exersaucers! However, I am glad for the break this fall and winter- but I’m guessing I will be ready to start wheeling and dealing come Feb!

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

As long as I can remember, I’ve always been told that I look like my mom.  So much so, that in high school people thought my mom and I were sisters.  And I can see why, she looks young and in no way has a “mom body” .  It never really bothered me that much that I looked like my mom.  (‘m hoping to follow in my mother’s footsteps and at 48 years old and a grandma look like I’m 37.5! I was just re-reminded of it again this week as a friend said, “Wow, you look like your mom!”  Maybe it is that as a teenager being told that you look like someone 22 years older is not quite the “hot” factor you were going for when you were getting read that morning.  But there is something about babies/kids/teens looking like the members of the family that people feel inclined to comment on.  And I’m finding I’m the same way.  I saw my niece for the first time this week up close and said “Wow, Jade, she looks just like you!” Like it would be much different.   AND recently (after years of “She looks like her daddy!”) people have started to say that Belle looks like me.    I wonder what she is going to think about that.  If she will shrug it off or be glad that she has these genes!   We will see….

It’s official… I’m burnt out.

GASP! I can hardly believe I’m writing these words, but I thought them two days ago, said them out loud to Jason yesterday and today I am still feeling the same way.  About coupons and bargains that is.  I had actually read on one of the blogs a few months ago about someone asking if that particular  mom had ever got tired of finding/going after great deals.  And she said yes and that she recomended that every few months you take some time off of couponing or bargain hunting.  I didn’t think much of it at the time and honestly thought I probably wouldn’t get there.  But I have.  Coupons have lost their luster, flipping stuff on Craigslist has become a hassle and the thought of using mental energy to put together coupons to score great deals is a no go.  So I think I have reached that point of burn out.  I’m not sure how long I will take off or what exactly it will look like.  For example, there is a sweet deal at Walgreens today with kleenex, paired with a sale and a coupon that I plan to go get tonight.  But I think I’m going to give myself the wiggle room to let some deals slide by and know that whever I do pick it up again, there will be sweet deals then as well.  As for my Craigslist flips, I have a post coming soon.  I need about 2-3 more weeks to get some winter stuff sold and then I can post the offical results.  (And yes, now that I have the cash from those flips in an envelope for our 5th Anniversary trip, I”m excited, but the thought of doing more at this point… no thanks)

Water, Farts and Native Americans

Jason and I are in discussion right now about the possibility of purchasing a video camera in the near future.  (Most likely it would be bought with our Christmas money and I say it is totally unromantic!   Our first camera that we got for our wedding had a small video option so up to this point we have just taken several 15-30 second vidoes of the kids.  It has worked out great, but the camera is on the fritz so we are now faced with this new dilema. We both have enjoyed  taking/watching videos of the kids .  However, my home vidoes of me as a kid are something I would be ok with never seeing again. Sure the videos are cute of kids when they are smaller- but most of the videos of me personally are in that awkward tween stage and several embarrassing moments are on camera.  The time I wouldn’t jump off the dock into a foot of water, the time I was trying to jump rope and I started farting (yes that really happened!) and the time we put on a play about the pilgrims and I was the cheif Native American  and I was trying to speak in some sort of dialect that was terrible!   Needless to say, I really have no desire to capture my kids on camera… when they are older that is.   But these little things like talking, walking, singing ect I do!  Then there is my husband who has absolutely no home videos, however, this man has a photo album for every year of his life… and that is no joke.   Jason and I are both big photography buffs so our kids will have plenty of documentation of their lives, but he wants to give them the home movie part… I on the other hand am a little shy.  I think if we were just given the $$ for the video camera I might be a little more eager to make this happen, but to put all my Christmas cash towards a gift I’m not so sure of…. well, I need to think this through.  Anybody else have any embarrasing home movie stories?

Price Match!

As a deal finder/hunter I am always on the look out for how to make things quicker or a more smooth operation.  I usually like to go to just two stores a week and then maybe stop at Walgreens or CVS depending on how good their sales are that week.  I had heard that Fareway and Walmart price matched adds of other stores, but I had never tried it. For some reason it was a very complicated process in my head (like at Walmart I would have to check out normally, then head over to the extremely long line at customer service and wait for a manager to “fix” my prices, ect)  However, Aldi had an amazing deal on blueberries a few weeks back, but when I went to pick some up, they were completely out.  I was “forced” to try to match the add at Walmart because I really wanted those blueberries for $.99 per carton!  So I ran to Walmart and blueberries were the only thing on my list.  I figured that would help make the entire process easier and quicker for my first time.  When I went to the register, I told them I wanted to match the add and i wasn’t sure how to do that.  They just asked to see it and then proceeded to check me (and my 20 cartons of blueberries) out within 20 seconds!  No manager was needed- it was a simple override and we were on our way.  Talk about slick!  I loved it!  Then I got brave and took the Aldi add to Fareway and had them match Strawberries and Cantelope (2 items instead of one!) and figured I would create some scene with managers, but again, it was a simple override.  If I didn’t know any better, I would have just thought it was a normal grocery check out.  So, needless to say, I’m way excited about getting more deals with fewer errands!