Dog Days of Spring

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   They have not started to itch yet, thank goodness. I have not seen one flea. I am glad for the cooler weather for that, at least. Unfortunately, My allergies are bad this year. I have been taking Zyrtec religiously every morning  but it is just making me functional at best.The lilac by the front porch is winning. But I love it. I love the smell but it does not love me. I planted it for my Mother`s memory. We had a couple lilac bushes on the side of the house that we shared with the neighbor next door. He did not care if we picked them and when he died, the place stayed vacant for a couple seasons. Fast forward to when we got the current owner. She and her Mother did not care that they were on the border. They cut them down. Really for no reason because they never did anything to that part of the  yard. She never did anything garden wise to the yard. I think they were just being bitches, because I wanted them to just leave them because they smelled nice. . Before that deed happened, I was able to get one season out...When my Mother died. We had everyone come over to my house after the funeral and I had picked every single flower off both bushes. I had two large bouquets in my twin green vases. Everyone loved it. I did it because I knew she loved them. Hence, that is why I planted my own in my own yard that no one else could control...except my allergies! Ha!
 I suffer now but I will be okay in a week or two.

   I started this post yesterday (Saturday) but I got distracted. Hubs was doing weed whacking and needed me to tell him what not to whack. Then I had to transplant the basil in different pots. It seems that the metal tub I have out front does not drain well enough. I hope they do not die. I have six plants and I want them all to get nice and big. I planted them in old floor plant pots. Two in each pot. They have plenty of room.  Next weekend I will buy my tomato and pepper plants. The kid needs me to buy her some for the community garden because she has to work the book sale . She and her friend are working the community garden plots this year. I just was not feeling it about going there every day in the summer. I could just plant stuff at home.

     I won $12 off the Mega Millions on Friday. I won jack squat off the Powerball last night. Oh well, no fancy vacations away to Fiji for me.   Today, I am going to attempt to put the $7 grill together. If you do not know what I am talking about, let me explain. Maybe 2 winters ago..or 3, I went to Home Depot to buy a new shovel. I think it was in February and ours had broken. Anyway, they had a display out front of a bunch of charcoal grills for clearance. $7 a piece. Now they were nothing fancy like Charbroil but it was the steal of the century. It is still not put together. I now know why. It was my head thing. I just wasnt able to read the instructions and comprehend. Hubs tried but got frustrated right off the bat. So it sat in the box for 2-3 years. Instructions and all. So I brought it up yesterday. I am going to attempt to put it together today. I will have to do it inside instead of the patio like I planned, cause it is raining.
Wish me luck! Hope I can do it. I will take a picture if I did.

Enjoy your Sunday

Homemade gift ideas for 2012

We have one of those typewriters but it is powder blue. It still works but alas it  needs a new ribbon. I must remember to order it online sometime soon. Chelsea has her new/vintage manual typewriter from the 1940s. She is satisfied for now.

   I figured out what Fred and I (really just me) are going to make for our gifts for Xmas. I was racking my brain cause I could not think of anything right off the bat except shit that took alot of time. I found a couple good websites that gave me some great ideas. I figured I would share them with you if you wanted to make a gift or two for friends and family. I looked at so many sites for ideas and the one site that gave me what I was looking for was Crunchy Betty. There are gift ideas for kids, the man in your life and all your girls. After looking and deciding, Fred and I decided that making a sugar scrub for the girls and a salt scrub for the guys was a good one. So I will make the scrubs. I have a few essential oils here already that we have collected over the past year or so. Lavender, Lemon, Lemon Verbena, Orange, Peppermint, and Vanilla. I am hoping to buy a Sandalwood when I go to the co-op this week. That is a nice guy smell. Fred wants Lemon. I turned him on to the smell from all the Lemon lotions I have.  There is also a recipe for making bath salts. I might do both for the girls. So the can soak and scrub in the same smell. I need to buy jars and supplies.
   Another place that I found some good gift ideas was at Martha Stewart. There are a bunch of ideas for men. You just fly thru the pictures and you can click on what you would like to do. We chose the popcorn tins. One is Macadamia butter crunch and the other is Chocolate Almond. We are making that for everybody. Everyone loves popcorn and nuts. Tins can be bought at the $1 store and I just need some thick card stock to separate the popcorns in the tin. Cool idea huh? The popcorn recipe is not hard at all.

 The last gift I found just recently. Someone posted this idea on Facebook, I followed the link and decided that was for me. Paper stars that you can hang. They are supposed to be just for Xmas but I think they will like them all year long in their rooms. The site is called annekata.com. All you need is some origami paper, glue, pencil, scissors, and some string for hanging. That is it!  I was thinking of sharing this with Natalie so she has a second gift to give everyone. I want yellow ones for the upstairs bathroom.

  The snow was minimal yesterday. It is too warm here on the shoreline right now so we got another dusting on the cars and on the grass. It is not as cold as it was yesterday, thank goodness. I hated it yesterday! Today I am hoping I win the Powerball ($500 million right now) or even a small portion would be nice. I am going to do laundry. And I am going to do one of these paper stars to show Natalie. See what she thinks.
Dinner will probably be the Tombstone pizzas I got on sale last week. I dont usually buy them that often but when they sell for only $2 a piece, you gotta get it. I will put them on my pizza stone. It will be like eating a real pizza!

Happy Hump Day!