I'm on my way!

I have officially entered the gardening world. Now I'm not Ina Garten yet with her vast herb and vegetable garden BUT I did start my compost pile. I have to admit when I first heard about backyard composting I was a bit intimidated but the Vegetable Gardening 1 2 3 class answered my questions, and the city of Chandler supplied me with a free backyard composter. Well it's more like an old garbage bin, with holes drilled in the tops and sides for aeration and the bottom sliced off, but hey, I did mention it was free right? If you would like more information and you live in Chandler call the city recycling line.

Composting is so easy to get started. Save some newspaper, pesticide-free yard clippings (no weeds), some discarded cut up fruit, veggies, eggshells and coffee grounds. Layer with some dirt and you have a compost pile. I will admit to you the thought of maintaining this pile, because you do have to stir it, water it, and feed it more clippings etc, is exciting. Yes, I did say exciting. I've wanted to have a garden for the past 2 years so having a compost pile means I am actually following through with one of my dreams and that is extremely exciting to me. That's what this blog is all about. Get back to basics girl, find the things that used to make you happy while simultaneously stepping out of your box to explore something new. Dang! If only this site accepted pictures taken from my phone carrier you could see what the actual garbage, I mean compost pile looks like. It literally took less than 10 minutes to finish the first stage of this gardening project. I should start my actual gardening in a week or so. Here's hoping my backyard doesn't turn into a scene from Mimic.

The Early Results Are In!

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Can I just say I love the Chore Chart that I created? It has helped me be a little more organized when it comes to housework. This chart is just like having Ritalin for my housework ADHD! I have stuck to it all week and have had time to 1) read an entire book, 2) practice my knitting AND 3) complete ALL of my laundry. That hardly ever, ever, ever happens. I’m talking sheets, towels, cleaning rags, everything! Granted, this was the first week but I was extremely proud of myself so I will definitely continue to incorporate this into my everyday TO DO list. To finish off this week’s chart I went ahead with my grocery shopping and meal planning today. I wanted to share with you what we will be having over the next 2 weeks. Now I don’t cook everyday but I do cook most days.

· Ground Turkey Meatloaf, Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Frozen Veggies (2)
· Chicken Chimichangas, Spanish Rice and Refried Beans
· Fried Chicken, Sauteed Spinach and Rice Pilaf (2)
· Grilled Chicken, Salad, Baked Beans
· Chicken Alfredo, Garlic Bread, Green Beans
· Rotisserie Chicken, Mac and Cheese, Frozen Mixed Veggies
· Chicken Parmesan, Salad, Rolls (2)
· Frozen Pizza, Popcorn
· “Ham” and Beans, cornbread

As you can tell, Fry’s has chicken breast on sale this week so I made my menu from their sale paper. Where you see (2) these are planned leftover days. That is where the cooking most days comes in. In my family I literally have to place the leftovers in the fridge right after I prepare the food or it will be gone! I like how this menu looks because of the variety and the limited amount of pork and beef that are in the dishes. “Ham” indicates it is really our version of vegetarian as there is not any real meat in this dish just a packet of ham flavoring. This actually turns out better than you would think. I will post that later in the week or maybe next week, whenever I decide to fix that.

Another thing you will notice is I have not assigned days to the menu. I don’t want to box myself in. I can choose what I want to fix from the above menu instead of saying, on Monday I will fix. I like it better that way.

The other part of my menu planning was to go to the grocery and I will let you briefly know about that: First I spent $138 for the next 2 weeks for a family of 6. Now I still need to go to Sam’s club (for a few items, I try not to go crazy even though Sam’s Club is a definite $$ trap, I’ll save that topic for another day) however, I do keep a well stocked pantry to cut down on my grocery bill. I buy multiples of these items when they are on sale. Second, we take part in a fruit and vegetable co-op called Bountiful Baskets and we get all of our fresh fruits and veggies from there. If you would like to know more, please visit their website listed below. This saves us a TON of money and we only take part 2x per month. Here’s a partial list of what we got this past weekend:

· 8 ears of corn, a bag of green beans, 8 med. sized sweet potatoes,
· 2 big bags of grapes, 8 apples, 10 plums, 10 peaches, 8 pomegranates
· 1 head of cauliflower, 2 bunches bananas, 2 heads leaf lettuce,


If you would like more information about this all-volunteer fresh fruit and vegetable co-op please visit http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/.

I continue to journal, try new things and not outwardly complain. This seems to be working for me. Let me know how you are doing in the comments section. Keep Slapping the Bull everyone!

The Great Chore Chart Experiment

I've been thinking lately, what would make my life easier? How can I get more time in my day? I mean the amount of housework that hits me in the face everyday is truly overwhelming. Our house is not that big (1300 sq. feet), and with a family of 6 it seems there is always something to do. I feel like I am spinning my wheels when it comes to this issue. Hire a housekeeper you say? Well, for some of us that is just not an option so on Tuesday I made up a Chore Org. Chart. Oh yes I did go there. What's the purpose of this? Well here is my plan: the org chart will help me stop running through the house and doing a little of this chore, a little of that chore, but truly getting nothing done. I will have days to complete an entire chore so that I feel like I have actually accomplished something. Has that ever happened to you? You start off in one room picking up and as you go to another room you see something you want to pick up in there and soon you have Housework ADHD! So this is an experiment that I am sharing, the Chore Org. Chart. Here's what mine looks like:

Sunday - Laundry, Menu/Dinner Plan for the week ahead, Sunday night: have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away so we can start the week off right
Monday - Masterbedroom, (clean, vacuum, change sheets), Dishes This is a "light" day because Mondays are generally rough for me, I can barely function Monday night: have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away
Tuesday - Clean Master Bath, steam mop entire house, dust/glass cleaning, Tuesday night: have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away
Wednesday - Laundry, vacuum, paper/mail purge, dishes, Wednesday night: have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away
Thursday - Laundry, clean out microwave, pickup in Master Bedroom, dishes, Thursday night: have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away
Friday - Straighten up counters, and clean as necessary in Master Bathroom, steam mop entire house, dishes, Friday night: have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away
Saturday - Laundry, change kids sheets, Saturday night: have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away

If you notice there are certain chores not listed. There is not much vacuuming because we have only carpet in our bedrooms with a small rug in the family room. I do not clean my kids bathroom. My oldest son Cabb cleans that every Saturday with Andre, who is ten, picking up in there during the week. I do not do laundry for my two oldest kids, (18, 10) because that would truly be too much laundry. I have mountains just for four folks can you imagine trying to do laundry for 6?!! I know there are some of you that do it so I give you kudos. I do not take out trash or recyclables. I supervise my kids cleaning their room with me fighting the urge to go back over it. If you have older kids I would say deligate, deligate, deligate. I decided to add have kids pick up their 'stuff" from family room and put away every night because you have no idea how much time I spend picking up other peoples shoes, dolls, psp's, books, etc. Listen, my name is not Hazel, or Florence or Alice. They actually got paid to pick up other peoples stuff, I do not. I'm putting my foot down, its your stuff, pick it up.............daily. I have not listed monthly chores like cleaning out the fridge, cleaning baseboards or wiping down walls. I need to get a handle on the day-to-day so I am not swimming in chores. Now who knows how this is going to work out but I am going to try it and see how I like it. Already I like the fact that I know which chores I am going to do when I get up in the am AND I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Of course this is my list, yours may look different, especially if you work, but you can do something everyday and not let your laundry, or dusting or whatever pile up until the weekend. Share your ideas in the comments section. Do you have a better way? What do you do about housework that saves you time?

Harder Than I Thought

Okay, so last night I attended the Vegetable Gardening 123 class with my father at the Environmental Education Center. Which by the way is gorgeous. Its out on Chandler Heights and Lindsay. Anyway, I mentioned this class about a week or so ago. Let me start by saying it was chock-full of information and this was only the 1st class out of 2. Now I have absolutely NOTHING started. No plot, no compost, not anything. My dad keeps asking me. "Have you started your compost pile yet?" "Well no dad I haven't. DUH!" My father has had a successful garden for about the past 3-4 years. He went with me to see if he could learn something new about gardening since he was self-taught. He learned a couple things but the first class was geared toward the beginning gardener. I learned that starting a completely new garden has lots and lots and lots of preparation. I don't know why I was thinking I could just dig up some dirt, throw in some seeds, water them and BAM! instant garden let's eat. Well, I need to re-think that plan, or lack thereof. Seriously, it is going to be an undertaking and quite an investment for beginning materials. I want to have a raised garden but here is where the investment comes in. You have to buy materials to build the garden, you need to buy good dirt as well as an irrigation system as well as stakes and so on and so on. I may scale down what I want to plant since this is my 1st year so I don't have to take out a second mortgage just to get started. I did enjoy hanging with my dad and getting his ideas for my garden. That was a definite plus. I can't wait until next week when we talk about what grows well here in AZ in the winter. I am blessed to have my dad living in the same area as I do but if your dad lives someplace else you can still connect or reconnect with him. Call him up and ask about his hobbies, or explore a new one together albeit long distance. Take an interest. If your dad is anything like my dad, he is not really a talker, he's a doer. Now I have something else to talk to my dad about when I see him. You know what makes it even sweeter? This is our thing. No one else in my family has taken an interest. It feels special, sort of like when I was younger and we would get up every Saturday morning and wash our cars side by side and we would talk. Makes me smile just thinking about it.

Stepping out of the Box

Yesterday I had two huge Slap The Bull moments. First I joined a Meetup group. What's Meetup? Its a website you go to to find a group of people that are interested in the same things you are i.e. hiking, or scrapbooking or in my case, knitting. I've been wanting to learn knitting for a few years but have never taken the plunge. So, I went to www.meetup.com, searched for a knitting group that meets in Chandler and....wait for it......attended a meeting! Before you ask, no I did not know anyone before I went, I just went. It was quite rewarding. Everyone was extremely nice and because I have NEVER knitted before I was taught how to cast on, how to knit and how to purl right at the meeting. I was also given some knitting worksheets and a website, www.knittinghelp.com for future reference. We met at Wildflower Bread Company at Chandler Mall, so it was very close to my house. I enjoyed watching the more experienced knitters zooming along as they worked toward the end of their projects. I also learned two basic stitches, stockinette which is to knit 1 row, turn, and purl one row, and the garter stich which is to knit every row. Peep pics of my beginner's kit with my practice stitches below. I was extremely proud of myself for throwing caution to the wind and learning something brand new AND meeting some new, interesting people to boot. I would encourage you to get out there and learn something new today. Your brain, and your spirit will thank you.

Reflection

Recently, a friend of mine posed a question to most everyone she knows,

"what is it that, deep down in your heart, more than anything else, you want to be, have or do in life? What do you want to be famous for?

and to tell you the truth, I could NOT answer. I think this question is not unlike the "Who are you?" question. You want to say something really profound, or really intelligent, or really witty but all I could muster up was a measly-sounding "I don't know." Since then, this question has been on my mind, not because I am trying to answer but I want to know why couldn't I answer. How utterly frustrating it is to feel you dont know yourself as an individual anymore. To be so out-of-touch with your wants, dreams and desires that all you can say is "I don't know." Now when I was in the working world I was taught if you don't know something it is perfectly acceptable to say you didn't know IF you followed it up with a "But let me find out for you and get back to you." I absolutely know what I used to want and what I used to enjoy, and certainly before October 22, 2008 what I used to materially have but I know it's not the same anymore. There are so many variables that have shaped me as a person over the past 5 years: my stint as a stay-at-home mom, my marriage, the fact that now I am on the OTHER side of 40, the all-encompassing tragic loss of a fire, the death of loved ones, unexpected chronic health problems, my husband's cancer............... I could go on and on, but you get the picture, they affect you as a person and alter what it is that you want in life. I have been so busy living in the fast lane of motherhood I have not taken the time to stop at the rest stop and recharge myself. Listen, don't get me wrong, I have seen some very funny, insightful, inspiring, and proud moments as a mom, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but I can say that I have had tunnel vision probably for the past 10 years. Focused on one thing: my family. Making sure our experiences as a family have been memorable, because after all that is what a mom is supposed to do right? Making sure my child is NOT the child that starts Kindergarten not knowing all the right things, or meal-planning, or budgeting, or......the list goes on. Life comes at you fast and I so wish I could have quickly answered that question but for now "I don't know, I'll find out and get back to you."