New Addition to the Family

Meet Jerry. 

Learn From My Mistakes...

If you're on your second date with someone and they whip out the blueprints to the house they are going to build, don't just pretend to look at them and say they look great.  Take a look at them and tell them what needs changed-- they're still trying to win you over at this point and will listen to whatever you say.  And you'll have closet space if you ever move in.  You may think this doesn't happen, but it has and history is apt to repeat itself!

As I Stuff My Face...

HELLO!! 

We had a makeover last night.  Just to celebrate my 100th post!  (Okay, maybe the truth sounds something more like, I finally found a tutorial I could follow and while I was doing that I discovered this would be the 100th...)  Aren't I talented!?  I was impressed with myself!  Pa actually took the picture of the windmill, so I must thank him, but the "editing" I totally did on my own!!  Impressive, right?!  But on to day 22 of me being thankful!  (where did this month go?!)

DJ once told me he liked me the way I was.  Not too skinny.  Although, I'm pretty sure he failed to mention I wasn't too fat...  But anywho, as I sit here and stuff my face with a healthy salad the largest salad I've ever seen in my life, I'm so thankful that he doesn't pressure me to stay skinny.  He once told me that OS was too skinny.  He didn't want me to get that skinny.  So I asked what about MS?  He said she was just about perfect.  (I guess that makes me the fat sister?!)  It's nice to know that I can participate in one of my favorite hobbies without having to worry about what he'll think if I put on a few more pounds.  I think we're a match made in Heaven!! 

Garden Tour Two Point Oh!

Long time no see!  I've been busy.  You'll see!!

Hope you're ready to tour more of my yard!! :)

A couple weeks ago, before the boys started planting, the neighbor and I went and picked up some rocks out of the fields.  Here's what we came up with:

DJ wasn't impressed with our pil

We thought we did pretty good (I have no idea why this is typing underlined, but it won't stop so I'm going with it so MS will get off my back about posting).  We took three trips, each one getting smaller rocks!  We got a couple big ones  (not including the big one on the right of the picture).  We planned on getting more, but now all the crops are in the ground so we might have to wait on that.

Take THAT DJ!

DJ was not impressed with our little baby rocks, but I used them last night!  I used them as a border for my poppy bed!  Hopefully they come up and the dogs don't decide this is their new hang out...

In other exciting garden news, I bought a bunch of gladiola bulbs earlier this spring.  Sixteen to be exact.  I didn't know what I was going to do with them so I went ahead and just put them in cheap little pots to get them going.  One day, DJ was gone and he asked what I was going to put around the propane tank.  I said I didn't know, but that maybe I'd do my glads there.  So out I went with my little spade and started digging.  I decided that was way too much work.  So then I thought... and this is what I came up with:

Tractor tire rim

I remembered seeing a rim in the trees when I was mowing.  I told myself if I could get it out of there, it was mine!  And so I got it out.  My next problem was figuring out where to put it that I wouldn't get in too much trouble by DJ for killing grass. So I put it where there is no grass.  Which also happens to be where he is planning on pouring concrete, because we can't grow grass there...  I filled it up with my glads then put two lupines in the middle and sprinkled some poppy seeds in there.  And then the storm came: 



Hail + Wind = My Sad Little Rim

This was the aftermath.  I'm hoping they'll still be alright.  I'm telling myself they will be anyway...

Cigar Flowers

This was a project that I started long ago.  My original plan was to put succulents in this jar.  Turns out its more difficult to get my hand and a plant and dirt in there than I expected.  And then I found my cigar flowers again so I stuck them in instead!  I love it.  it's just so cute.  Speaking of cute, look at the little puppies in the top of that picture.  Too cute!

DJ and I both love bleeding hearts.  I found a really cool one back home at the greenhouse.  It's got bright green leaves, it's on the left of the wheel.  If you look really closely, you can see the plain jane one on the right too. 

Bleeding Hearts

 

Of course I put those in before the big storm and they didn't fair so well.  I didn't take a picture, not that you would be able to see anything.  Maybe a dirt spot where they were...  At least they don't really bleed... that could have been messy.

 

My garden got beat up pretty good too, as well as our trees.  And siding.  But no buildings and no lives were lost so I'm not complaining!  God is good!

 

There will be more garden pictures coming soon!  :) 

Garden Tour

With the amazing weather we've been having, I got a little excited about flowers.  I've made a couple few stops to the greenhouses around here and have made more than one purchase.  DJ is thrilled.  I just know he is!

I thought I'd show you some pictures of what I have so far.  Don't get too excited, I only snapped a couple pictures so far.  As more pop up/I think of it, I'll post more.

So pull on your boots and let's go!

Tassel Salmon Pink Fuscia 

Not real sure what these are, but I thought they were pretty cool.  I transplanted them into this pot since it was bigger than what it was in.  Maybe it will make it into its forever home sometime this year.  (Or with my gardening skills, this is it's forever home and forever isn't very long for flowers around the SHITMON)



I'll have to look on the tags again to see what these are all called... yeah, I'm on top of it.
 

My original idea was to put these in two different glass jars.  Turns out my jars weren't as big as I had thought, so I found this old pan and stuck 'em in there.  We'll see how long these make it.  It's my first attempt at a terrarium, so I'm not expecting great things for these poor suckers.

Alright, that is all so far.  Next time will be better.  If everything lives until then......

Whoops

Awhile back (a couple weeks??) we loaded up in our neighbors truck and headed to a benefit auction.  DJ told a couple of the ladies spearheading it that we would come up, never mind the two hour drive.  So up we went.

It was a nice drive and we took the back roads instead of the interstates so we could see more of the countryside.  After a pit stop, we finally found the small town we had been aiming for. 

We hopped out of the truck and right beside the hall was a bar.  We skipped the bar.  Just kidding.  If you fell for that, obviously you don't know us.  We decided to check it out since we were about the 7th vehicle parked.  We went in and it was an old saloon style bar.  It was long and skinny with an old wood floor.  We had a drink and headed to the big ordeal.

We walked in and got our auction number and talked to the ladies DJ knew.  We went through the food line and had potato soup, veggies, salads, and bread sticks and cupcakes and cookies for dessert.  We finished eating and went and scouted both the live auction and the silent auction items.

An hour or so after it was supposed to start, the live auction started.  And then I started bidding.  I had set my limits on my items beforehand, so even though DJ was telling me to stop bidding, I kept going.  Until I hit my limit.  And then I won this:

My awesome barn door painting.



I don't think DJ was real impressed.  I may or may not have bought something else as well, but I'll save that for another post. 

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but that didn't stop me from bidding!  It's actually really heavy.  Around 30 pounds is what the artist told us.  The guys were worried about it flying out the back of the truck on the way home, but that wasn't a problem!!  Right now I have it on my side table.  Maybe someday it will get hung, but that sounds like a lot of work! 

Also, the little bronze thing in the corner, that's a spittoon.  That DJ had to have at an auction last year.  Maybe we should quit going to auctions?!





O Christmas Tree

I'm only a month or two behind on this post, no big deal.

DJ and I had just moved into the house in December 2011, so when I suggested getting a Christmas tree that year, I immediately got shut down.  My boss ended up giving me a little metal red one that is a little over a foot tall.  And that was my tree.  Sir Scrooge (aka DJ) won that time.  Ma ended up giving us some ornaments for Christmas that year and I found two 2011 ornaments on clearance after the holidays-- one for JW (UC wasn't with us yet) and one for DJ and I. 

Fast forward a year and I break out the little red Christmas tree.  I load it up with our six ornaments (all it could hold, mind you) and sigh, thinking there's my tree for the year. 

During my Christmas shopping excursions, I would price fake trees and ask DJ if I can get one.  I was shot down every single time.  He told me to wait.  I decided I would wait until after Christmas and get one on clearance.  I was satisfied with the idea of that.

And then I asked him if we could get a real tree.  With a little help on persuading him from MS, he threw the chainsaw in the truck and off we went.  I found some I would settle for, knowing I had very little time before he would call it quits on me, but had him drive around just in case there was a better one.  And then I found it!  I was in love.  We got out and he cut it down for me and we carried it back to the truck.  We threw it in and headed home.  We were pulling out when we spotted some really nice full ones and he asked if I wanted one of them instead, I said no, I loved ours.

So we came home and we set it up in the garage to dry.  We moved the furniture around and made room for the tree and then brought it in and dressed it up.  Two strings of lights plus our six ornaments that were moved from the little red tree made me fall in love with it all over again.

Here it is:

The Holy Knollies' first real Christmas tree!  Sorry for the terrible photo quality-- I should adjust the settings on my phone.  You can even see my awesome windmill tail on the wall!

 

I think everyone who saw it laughed, including DJ.  So it was a little bare towards the top!!

 

  A couple of ladies at work gave me some more ornaments and by the time Christmas rolled around, it was pretty full.  Ma ended up giving us more ornaments this year and I hung them on for a few days before DJ said it was time to throw it out, what a sad day that was.

Years in the Making

I finally got around to taking pictures of my "big" project!  I lost the charger to one camera and the other one was dead so I took them with my iPhone.  They're not the best, and maybe sometime when I remember to plug the camera in I can get better ones!  With help from JT, PB, SH, and DJ I was able to get it done relatively quickly!  It was really simple to do as well.  The door came from the rental.  I can't remember which door it was... maybe the bedroom.  I don't know if it was an original door or not, but the rental was built in the 1800's and with as many layers of paint that JT and I had to scrape off, I'd be willing to bet it was original!!  That was definitely the hardest part of the project!! I was probably going to put another coat of paint on in the end, but when I spilled the paint everywhere and broke the can, that changed my mind quickly!!  Whoops. 

Here's the finished product.  Okay, almost finished... I have to put the door knob back on yet! 

Here's a closer look at each shelf.