Homemade Happenings: April 2014

Remember That One Time…

Hey there!

Congrats again to Mean Ang for winning the blog redesign giveaway! I bet her and Tia are working hard together to come up with her new design!

Sunday we had some nasty weather here in SE Iowa. A confirmed tornado touched down and in 2 separate barns in 2 areas about 30 miles apart there were 2 injuries, one fatal. So sad.

We were fine, just had some really strong winds and rain. It all started about 3:30 that afternoon. We had just gotten home from shopping in the big city. The sky kept getting darker and darker, then the rain hit. Some thunder and lightning. All of a sudden the electricity went off. The boys ran and got their pen light flashlights from their rooms. I settled in on the couch and started nursing Tate. All of a sudden my phone went berserk, TORNADO WARNING! Shit. I hollered to Andy that it was time to head to the basement,which of course sent the boys into panic mode. I ordered them to the basement, but since we had no lights they were terrified to go down there alone. We had windows open, and with the wind really whipping, the rain was coming in so Andy and I had to shut the windows before we could head downstairs. I got up off the couch, barked at the boys to be brave and get to the basement, then started walking around the house to get the windows shut. Meanwhile Tate is still latched on, just nursing away! Ha ha, lucky boy!

We all get settled in the basement on the couch and my phone rings – it’s my dad checking in on us. He has electricity so he’s watching the news and telling me what he’s hearing. A tornado, on the ground, about 15 miles from here. The warning was for more northeast of us, which made me feel better, so after another 10 minutes back upstairs we went. Still no electricity.

Things settled down some. Andy went back to the kitchen to finish up what he was doing, the boys were bouncing off the walls and I was cuddling with Tate. 5:00 came, still no electricity. What to do for supper? Call in pizza, of course! I called the pizza place the next town over, they had power so ordered us up a pie.

We left about 20 minutes later and were trucking down the highway. All of a sudden we could see trucks with lights flashing up ahead. When we got up to them we could see why – the power poles had snapped off and were laying on the highway! This would have been almost directly south and west of where that tornado had been spotted by about 10 miles. Later, on IG, I saw a video an old classmate posted. He was driving down the road, recording the crazy wind and rain, and captures those poles snapping and falling! He was right by them! Can’t believe his car didn’t get hit! So so crazy! I think his exact words were “OH F***!”

They had the highway down to one lane only. We made it past the downed poles and went on to get our supper. By the time we got home, about 6:00, the electricity was back on and everything had completely settled down.

I, of course, have no pictures to share to make this story more exciting, but it was one of those weird, crazy evenings and I wanted to make sure I wrote about it so I could look back on it later. Kind of like when sitting around with the boys 20 some years from now, reminiscing and telling their wives and girlfriends stories of when they were little and bringing up “that one time when I was nursing Tate when a tornado warning went off, you boys were so scared and Dad and I had to shut all the windows…” I love stories like that!

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Blog Design Giveaway Winner Announced

Before I tell you who the big winner is I want to thank each and every one of you for entering! Tia is so awesome, both as a blog designer AND a blogger so I hope you get in touch with her when you are ready to update your own blog! The proof is in the pudding, just look at what she did for me!

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!

The winner of the blog re-design giveaway is…..

MEAN ANG!

You have no idea how badly Angela wanted to win this! She told me so in every comment she left me since I announced we were giving this away!

Congratulations, NICE Ang!

It’s Planting Time!

Last week I talked about prepping your garden for planting. Today I’m going to show you how to plant your cold weather veggies.

POTATOES

I buy seed potatoes at the grocery store (ours has a ‘garden’ dept. in the summer months) or at the farm store (they sell onion sets/plants, potatoes and seeds in the spring). What you are looking for is a potatoes with multiple eyes growing, such as this one:

You’re going to cut the potato into smaller chunks that have 2 eyes each. I cut this one in half because it only had 4 eyes and I only wanted 2 hills.

Dig a nice deep hole (it’s handy when you have a hunk who can do it for you!). 12-24” deep is good, and pile up the dirty next to the hole to use later. Put your cut up potato in the hole and cover it with a few inches of dirt.

As the potato grows you’ll use that extra dirt to pile in the hole. Don’t cover the potato plant up completely but the purpose is that the plant will keep growing ‘taller’ and you’ll keep sort of burying it. Then the potatoes will have a lot of room to grow in that big ol’ hole you dug but are now filling in. Easy, right?

Carrots

Start off by digging a trench a few inches deep with the edge of your hoe (Heeeeyyyy! Hoooeee!). You can make your rows as long or short as you want. Just try to keep them straight, they look prettier that way! Make the rows about 12” apart. Tip: don’t let your preschooler do it for you if you want neat, straight rows. Ha ha! What a cutie!

Sprinkle your carrots down the row carefully. Try not to dump a big pile together because they won’t have room to grow nice long roots (carrots) if they are too close together. As they come up you can thin them out a bit by pulling some of the plants. I always love digging up the carrots in the fall and finding two that have entwined themselves together like lovers. Hee hee! Can you see the green specks? Those are the seeds!

Carefully cover them up with the dirt that piled up as you pulled that hoe down through the dirt. A couple of inches of dirt to cover the seeds is all you need. Use your 7 year old for the back breaking work if you have one.

Onions

In the past years I have ALWAYS used onion sets to plant. They are like dried bulbs, basically, that you plant pointy side up. The last 7 years I have had terrible luck growing nice sized onions. They’d always be kind of smallish and just disappointing. So this year I am trying onion plants. They come already growing with the green tops. I’m hoping this makes a difference for me.

To begin you start off the same as with the carrots – hoe a trench. About 6” deep or so. Rows should be about 12” apart. Then you just hold the plant in the dirt and cover the bottom bulb area with dirt, such as this:

Then you stand back and admire your work.

I love seeing a row of goodies popping through the dirt in the garden!

Watering

You want to give your newly planted seeds a good drink of water. Or if you’re like me, you watch the forecast and see that it’s going to rain in the next day or two and wait for nature to do this for you. About a half inch of ‘rain’ is a good start. A good soaking. Then sit back and watch your garden grow! If you’re going to have a dry period you may want to water your garden once a week, but for the most part it’ll just take care of itself.

Weeding

It’s a good idea to keep the weeds to a minimum so you’ll want to till or hoe your garden weekly. We have a mini cultivator that does a good job so we make sure to plant our goodies far enough apart for that to get between the rows (about 15” apart). You may also need to do some hand weeding if some of those nasty things grow up within your rows of veggies. I’ve seen people put their grass clippings between their rows to keep the moisture in and weeds out, I think I’ll give that a try this year.

If you are planting other cold weather row crops such as peas, radishes, lettuce, follow the same directions as the carrots. If you are planting ‘plants’, such as cabbage, cauliflower, just read the directions on the tag that comes with the plant. Dig a small hole, put the plant in there and cover up the roots, water it in. Make sure you have them spaced far enough apart so they have room to grow and you have room to hoe around them.

I’m going to plant my green beans in another week or so because I don’t want the beans ready to pick until end of June. I will plant my tomatoes, green peppers and jalapenos then, too. I’ve been saving my milk jugs to cover them and should have enough by then.

Any questions? Want to know about something specific that I haven’t touched on yet?

Today’s the last day to get signed up for the Blog Makeover from Tia! Don’t forget to sign up! We’ll announce the winner on Monday!

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The ABC’s Of Me

My good blogging friend, Des, did this last week and I thought it was a great ‘Getting to Know Me’ template, so I’m going to borrow/steal/use it so you can get to know me better!

A - Age: 33.

B - Birthday: February 25th

C - Chore you hate: Cleaning the bathroom and putting the clothes away after folding them are tied.

D - Drink: If you had asked me a year ago I’d have said Mt Dew, hands down! Now, Mr. Tater gets an upset tummy when I drink pop so I’m a water drinker 90% of the day. Throw in some choc milk for breakfast and milk for supper. And if I’m being crazy I’ll have a Pure Leaf Raspberry Tea. I hate tea but love this stuff!

E - Eyes: Green

F - Favorite color: Green

G - Gent: My husband, Andy.

H - Hobby: Gardening, reading, scrapbooking/card making (see my DIY tab above).

I - Indulgence: watching crappy TV instead of doing s/t productive around here (i.e. Real Housewives, i.e. cleaning)

J - Job: Housewife (don’t knock it, I’m not PC and I like the title).

K - Kids: 3 of them, all boys! Aiden – 7, Brennan – 5, Tate – 2 1/2 months

L - Love: Spending time w/ Andy. We always have fun no matter what we are doing! There is always laughter when we’re together.

M - Music: I am an oldies fan for sure, but also listen to country (Miranda Lambert is my girl!) and pop (do people still call it that? You know, ‘pop’ular music!)

N - Nickname: Andy has quite few for me, but my favorite he calls me is Flower. Growing up my dad called me Runt.

O - One Wish: I wish I could go on an all expense paid trip to all of the places I want to visit someday: Maine, Bora Bora, England, Ireland, Australia….

P - Pet peeve: Bad drivers and vague FB updates. Drive like you know how to and if you are ‘brave’ enough to post s/t vague about how awful s/t is then you should be brave enough to just go ahead and say it! Oh! And when people don’t reply to your emails!!! Grr!!!

Q - Quote: I’m not a quote kind of gal so don’t have one to share.

R - Residence: Iowa! I love it here, and yes it is Heaven! Ha ha!

S - Siblings: 1! Her name is Nicole, she’s 2 years older than me.

T - Time you wake up: There is no answer to this. It’s willy nilly these days, dictated by the boys.

U - University: Iowa! GO HAWKS!!!

V - Vegetables you dislike: Lima beans. Asparagus. I’m sure there are more but drawing a blank.

W - Worst Habit: The first one that popped in my head is running my fingers through my hair. Hello split ends!

X - X-rays: When I broke my right arm when I was maybe 7 or 8. And when I was 15 and had a tumor in my hip. And at dental appointments.

Y - Yuck: Bugs. And dirty, greasy, stinky people. And people who don’t brush their teeth before going to a bank on a Saturday morning to get cash out and breathe all over the teller. Gross.

Z - Zoo (favorite animal): I love the aquarium exhibits! So so cool. Otherwise, bears. I like bears.

If you have any questions you want me to answer about myself so you can get to know me better go right ahead! I’d be happy to answer them!

Make sure to sign up for the Blog Makeover Giveaway with Tia! Here’s a reminder of what you get if you win:

Tia is the amazing gal who designed my blog design! If you likey what you see you will want to sign up for this giveaway!

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Have a great day!

And The Winner Is...

KRISTYN A!!!

Congratulations!!! Kristyn has won the ultimate fitness prize package, valued at what I'm guessing is over $300!

Thanks to all who entered the contest! Now go HERE to enter the contest for a blog makeover done by Tia!

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Another Giveaway?!? YES!!!

I have been bragging all week about how awesome Tia is, she gave me the blog makeover of my dreams! Now it’s your turn to be the lucky one! Tia and I are teaming up to give one of our readers a redesign for their blog. Here’s what you will receive with the package:

The rafflecopter is at the bottom of this post, be sure to sign up! Tia is so fun and easy to work with, you will love what she can do for you!

Now for Weigh In Wednesday.

I haven’t weighed in for a few weeks. Last I knew I had lost 40lbs since having Tate, and I am down 1 or 2 pant sizes, depending on what brand of jeans I am wearing that day.

What have I done to lose the weight? Not a darn thing but breastfeed the little tot. I know how incredibly lucky I am to have lost that much weight without lifting a finger but now the hard work starts so I can lose another 20. I haven’t been very dedicated to working out. In fact, I’ve been pretty lazy about it. I want to workout but that motivation isn’t there, which is weird because shouldn’t the motivation come from wanting to lose 20 more pounds? My eating isn’t very great, either. Too many goodies in the candy bowl,and now it’s even fuller from Easter.

Andy and I definitely enable each other where bad eating habits are concerned. After the boys go to bed at night and we settle in to watch TV one of us always talks the other into having a snack, which consists of junk. This is something that has to stop if either of us are going to lose weight.

I do have some NSV’s to share. First, my wedding ring slips on and off much easier now. Before I got pregnant I could barely pull it off, now it is much easier.

Second, people keep paying me compliments on how great I look after having Tate. They are noticing the weight loss, always a bonus!

Third is the jeans thing. It’s so great to pull out my old jeans (although they aren’t trendy) and have them zip up without having to suck it in.

I say it over and over, but it is time to get my exercising on track. I need to get that in place, then I can work on the eating. In the meantime I’ll try to get as much water down as possible and work more fruit and veggies into my diet.

Now here’s the rafflecopter for the blog re-design giveaway! It’s open through Friday, we’ll announce the winner on Monday! Good luck!

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Easter 2014

Hello! Welcome to Tuesday. How was your Easter? We had a nice one. The boys were thrilled with their baskets the Easter Bunny left them and I was thrilled with the potluck lunch we had with the extended family. Ha!

This was Brennan’s loot. A floaty board for swimming, a puzzle, markers, a blue baseball, Under Armour shirt and shorts, Easter Egg gum and a Reeses Pieces carrot. Oh, and soccer net!

Tate’s first Easter was good to him as well.

Books, clothes, a teething football, and socks. He wore the overall outfit for Easter and looked so darn cute in it! And of course I forgot to take a picture. Bummer.

After the big potluck dinner my folks and sister’s family came here to our house so my mom could give the kids their baskets.

My nephew Charley, Aiden, Brennan, niece Nora Jean and Baby Tate laying flat on his back, ha ha!

I had Andy take a couple of pictures of me and my dad. I realized I haven’t shown you an ‘after’ picture of my dad since his accident and rehab.

I sure do love him. Besides Andy and the boys, he’s my most favorite person in the whole world. He’s doing awesome, btw. He’s back to work full time, he’s driving on his own, he’s almost 100% back to his old self. The only way you’d know something happened is if he tried calling you by your name (he can’t remember most people’s names) or if he mixed up common words when telling a story (like hospital and store, he switches those around a lot). Otherwise he’s my dad again! Love him!

Thanks for all of the compliments on my new blog design! Tia’s awesome! Don’t forget, tomorrow we are doing a giveaway, so if you are looking for a blog makeover make sure you come back tomorrow to sign up for the Rafflecopter! Here’s what you could win:

Tomorrow the big winner of the Get Fit for Summer Giveaway will be announced, make sure you come back for that also!

Have a great day!

How Do You Like Me Now?

Well, what do you think of my awesome new blog design!?!? I am so stinkin’ excited about it, I just love it! If you are looking for a blog redesign or are wanting to start a new blog you HAVE TO check out Tia!
She is super amazing! So talented! Easy peasy to work with!

I have been wanting a pro to do a design for me for some time now but I’ve been too chicken because I wasn’t sure how to tell them what I wanted. I just don’t have the right words sometimes. But Tia made it all so easy! She gave me a list of q’s (what color schemes do you like? what do you hate that you’ve seen on other blogs? etc.) which gave me some direction in how to tell her what I liked and didn’t. I had some color schemes pinned on Pinterest (see my handy new Pinterest box to the left?!!!?) so I just sent her those, told her I like bunting and sent a pic of what I was talking about and then she took it from there.
We emailed back and forth a few times with q’s and a’s and voilà! My new blog design!!!

I love so much about this design! I think it’s so super cool how she put my social media buttons up in the bunting! She was super smart and moved everything about me and my blog over to the left hand side so that’s what you see first (after the amazing header and tabs, of course!). And she made me a pretty cool signature! I feel bad not hi-lighting the other features because I love them all too! Take some time to hop around my page and see all the cool things she did for me! And be sure to grab my awesome new button and add it to your sidebar!

Tia is such a rock star! A total pro! Please go check out her page and give her a jingle when you’re ready for your blog re-do!

In the meantime, we are teaming up to give one lucky reader a redesign of their very own! The giveaway will start Wednesday and end Friday with the winner being announced next Monday. Make sure you sign up with the Rafflecopter starting Wednesday!

Here’s what you could win:

Remember, Wednesday!

Speaking of giveaways, the Get Fit for Summer Giveaway is still open, you have through today to get signed up!

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I’ll be back tomorrow with a recap of our Easter weekend! And later in the week I’ll be posting a ‘how to’ on planting your early veggies in your garden.

P.S. I am so beyond thrilled to have so many new followers! WELCOME!!! Just an FYI, I reply to ALL comments, unless you are set up as a no-reply blogger, which means you don’t have your account set up to allow my reply to go to your email. HERE is a post I just did on this, and in that there’s a link you can use to find directions that will show you how to easily change this (or at least check and see if you are or not). I love meeting new friends through this blog so please leave me a comment!

How was your Easter? Do you need a new blog design?

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I Don’t Wear Orange

If you remember earlier in the week I mentioned that Andy and I had finished Season 6 of ‘Mad Men’ on Netflix and were looking for a new series to watch. Monday night we started “Orange is the New Black”.

The story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money for her drug-dealing girlfriend.

Have I ever mentioned that being wrongfully accused and convicted of a crime and going to prison is one of my biggest fears? I mean, it *could* happen, right? Just thinking about it makes me start to breathe a little faster. So so scary!

Watching “Orange is the New Black” is like watching my biggest fear come to life. Holy cow, the first episode I actually cried. The description doesn’t say how she turns heterosexual (or maybe she’s bi?) and is engaged to be married (to Jason Bigg’s character). She has a surrender date so they go to the prison together on the day she’s scheduled to start her sentence. They have to say goodbye and oh boy was that hard to watch! Tears were streaming, down my face and theirs. Ugh, it was brutal. And that was all before she went into Hell. After episode 1 was over I told Andy I didn’t think I could watch anymore.

Tuesday night I decided I could try watching another episode. We ended up taking on 2 episodes that night. We went to bed right after the second one was over and I had nightmares the rest of the night! Every time I’d wake up I’d immediately think of that show and what I’d seen. It was haunting me!

Wednesday night we (meaning ‘I’) decided we needed a night off from the show. It was just freaking me out way too much! And I made an executive decision that we will only watch 1 episode per night and then find something completely different and happy to watch after it so that is what’s fresh in my mind when I fall asleep, not prison, a.k.a HELL.

I when I was looking up the description for the show I saw that Season 2 is set to come out on Netflix June 6th. Heaven help me.

Andy is super sweet about it, he said we can just stop watching it since it’s freaking me out so much. But a tiny part of me wants to see what happens, how it all turns out. Wish me luck!

I will not be blogging on Monday because Miss Tia is going to be getting me all set up with my NEW blog design! Come back Tuesday, you won’t want to miss the grand unveiling!!! She did such an awesome job! If you are looking to update your blog design you MUST check out Tia!

Have you signed up for the Summer Fitness Giveaway yet? If you haven’t, here’s the Rafflecopter! What are you waiting for? a Rafflecopter giveaway

What are you Easter plans? Have you watched ‘Orange’? What is your biggest fear?

Happy Easter to all! See you back here Tuesday!!!

Erin

They Don’t Sell CD’s Anymore?!?

Happy Thursday, all! Welcome to all of my new followers! I hope you will all leave me a comment saying ‘hello, how do’. I love making new friends and meeting new bloggers! Next week I’ll do a post all about me so you can get to know me better.

Thanks to all who have entered the BIG Fitness giveaway I’m participating in with 17 other bloggers! If you haven’t signed up yet please do – it goes to Tuesday, you still have time! The Rafflecopter is at the bottom of this post.

Yesterday I went to the big city to do some ‘me’ shopping. I had a huge list of things I was looking for and wanting to get. Top of the list was some new clothes. I need some cute jeans that don’t sag and bag now that I’ve lost a little weight. I needed some cute tops for a few upcoming events that I can’t just wear a t-shirt to. So off to the city I went, with Baby in tow. Do you know how hard it is to clothing shop with a 2 month old? He was a pretty good baby, even was ready to eat at the convenient time I was already in the dressing room. But you can’t just hop out of the dressing room to go find a different size in something. And you know you are working on borrowed time anyway since at any moment the baby could decide he has had enough of sitting in that damn car seat. So I tried on a number of things, none of which I liked on, and then Tate decided he was ready for a snack. I made myself as comfortable as you can on those hard benches and started feeding him. Now, Tate is not a quiet eater, he likes to make “I’m enjoying getting my belly full” noises. Noises like “DANG this is good milk!” So there I am, sitting in the dressing room, feeding my little Tater Bug, and all the while he’s making loud moaning and sighing noises, and all I can think about is the other gals in there wondering “who’s getting a piece in the Target dressing room?” Oh sheesh. 30 minutes later, we emerged from that little room. Luckily I didn’t run into anyone else back there!

Did I leave Target with some new clothes? Nope. Womp womp. And I forgot the stroller so couldn’t go down into the mall to find clothes down there to buy. What a let down.

After that I ran over to Best Buy, looking for a couple of bizarre CD’s for my almost 14 year old niece’s birthday next month. First of all, have you ever heard of Sleeping With Sirens or Pierce the Veil? What is she listening to?!? Anyway, so into Best Buy Tater and I go looking for these CD’s. Did you know that Best Buy doesn’t cell hardly any CD’s anymore? NO? Neither did I! What is this world coming to? It took me forever to find the tiny selection of CD’s, and once there I knew right away there was no way I finding those CD’s. Guess I’ll be ordering them online.

So that was fail #2.

Well, actually, fail #7, because most of what I wanted to find at Target I didn’t.

Then I went to JoAnn Fabric. I was looking for similar material to those Adan and Anais blankets. Have you seen them? They are nice and thin, perfect for covering baby’s up in the summer.

aden + anais for Target Zooaroo Swaddle Wraps 4pk - Gender Neutral

I wandered and wandered around that store looking for the material and never did find it. I thought I’d just make a couple of those blankets for Tate myself instead of spending $30 for 4 blankets. I was wrong. The universe was against me and didn’t want me to do that. Instead it led me to the rack of DCWV scrapbooking paper that was on sale for $9.99 a stack. So I bought a new stack even though I’ve been a lame scrapper and haven’t done a single page for over a year. Yea, lame. Fail #8 and #9.

So my big, exciting day of shopping and actually getting to take time to roam turned out pretty crappy for me and I’m bitter about it. Boo. I need a real life shopping day, ASAP.

The best part of my shopping trip was meeting up with my awesome friend, Amy, for lunch at Olive Garden. It seems to be our spot for meeting up for lunch. It was yummy, as always, and we had a great time catching up.

Now, get yourself registered to win an amazing Fitness package!!!

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Erin

Easter Basket Blog Hop And ‘The’ Giveaway

Today I am linking up with the beautiful, amazing, awesome Sarah from “Our Journey”. She is hosting a blog hop that showcases the goodies you are putting in your special people and pet’s Easter Baskets.

I thought I’d show you what I got for our niece’s this year. I don’t always get them Easter Baskets because Andy’s family does a HUGE egg hunt for the 4 (now 5) grandkids. I’m talking a few hundred eggs for 4 kids. Ridiculous! Since they go that route I don’t usually spend extra money on basket stuffers, but this year I decided the nieces might just feel too old to hunt Easter Eggs. Addison is turning 14 next month (waaaa!) and Chloe will be 11 in June. I had fun picking out ‘girly’ stuff for them. And it turned out we didn’t do the egg hunt this year because it was a rainy day Sunday, so my planning ahead worked out for the best!

1. Found this cute basket at Dollar General for $3. I thought my nieces could reuse it to put in their jewelry, nail polishes, make up – whatever!

2. Candy – because what Easter Basket is complete without candy in it?

3. A $2 picture frame – I loved setting out pictures of me and my friends when I was a teenager.

4. Makeup – hello, TEENAGERS! I found fun eye shadow, lip gloss, nail polish and nail tattoos.

Both nieces loved their baskets, they were a big hit!

As for what the boys are getting in their baskets – you’ll have to come back next week to find out!

Now for the most AMAZING giveaway!

I am teaming up with some awesome women to give one lucky winner the fitness package of goodies of their dreams! Seriously, there’s some great things in here, you don’t want to miss out!