EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSES!

Well a beautiful morning to you all! How are you doing this absolutely gorgeous day? I am floating on rose petals! LOL… Last night I had to go to the stores for a few things we needed and I found some beautiful plant deals! I took these great pictures last night (everyone thank Dad for the card reader, which works great obviously LOL, letting me able to share lots of great pics with you again… Thanks Dad! LOL)



These are Yellow Diamond Jubilee Hybrid Tea Roses that I found clearanced to $4.50 a piece! I pruned off the dead parts of the plant and they don’t look so bad really! Each plant already has 4 buds on it and they are supposed to have a sweet fragrance. Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite flower is the rose… red and yellow ones firstly, but all roses in general. These were the only 2 yellow ones that they had for clearance and they were just SCREAMING “Take me home PPPLLUUEEAASSEE!?” LMAO!



Ok, so then I go to Home Depot to cash in on the awesome Garden Club Coupons I got in the email this month. More free flowers YAY! I got the mini roses for me and 2 packs of day lily bulbs for my mommy to replace the ones she lost. I hope she likes them! As for the mini roses, they are going into a big pot together to hopefully make a very pretty walkway decoration. I’m thinking small square planter at the front door, stained, and maybe even some fancy stenciling painted on it… or maybe just a big plastic pot LMAO cause that’s what I got right now LMAO!



I ended up going out to my mom & dad’s house yesterday and I did some more plant foraging. You will never guess what I found! Ok all over their yard is these little onion looking stalks. My parents say they are wild onions… ok… but we didn’t think you could actually eat them. That was until my Dad informed us that he has already eaten them before! So he goes and rinses a couple off and he and my DH chow down right there in the yard! OMG are you serious! YUCK! LOL… But as the day went on, I got to thinking more and more about them, I jumped online to check them out, and they are so totally safe and edible, so I pulled up a bunch more to take home and clean up to cook with. They are very strong smelling, but don’t make your eyes water like normal onions.



So mom and I are looking around in the house and I look out the window into the field next to their yard. And I see something… something that doesn’t look like a weed, but more like a lily or a gladiola, etc. I just have a gut instinct that they might belong/were once in my mom’s lily bed. SOOO lol I go frolicking in the lot and start pulling them up. They had these HUGE rhizomes on them! (For those who don’t know… a rhizome is a horizontal plant stem with shoots above and roots below serving as a reproductive structure. In botany, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes may also be referred to as creeping rootstalks, or rootstocks.Thanks MOM for teaching me a new- and fun to say LOL- word!) I put a bunch of them into some soil in pots and I am praying they are going to survive and turn out pretty like the picture shows… I've been researching since I got home and the greens look like this picture, so we will see! Keep your fingers crossed! I've been crying at the thought this might be them (LONG story peeps...)

I always have so much fun with my mom & dad. She got some pretty lantana flowers and some other flowers to attract bees and butterflies to her garden, so she was potting those in some hanging pots. We also put tomato plants in her Topsy Turvey planters too. When we went inside and started talking, I got another crazy hair-brained idea! Mom was talking about all the wild edibles you can find all over the place. Plus I actually was doing some reading a couple of nights ago about all the stuff you can find wild in a town not to far from here. So my idea you ask? Oh well packing the kids and a picnic if you will and taking a road trip to this town on a foraging adventure! To see all the edible things we could find during our trip. Isn’t that crazy? But think about all the free food! Southern Dewberries (also called blackberries by some), grapes, strawberries, blueberries, dandelion greens, lettuce, ginger, onions, pecans and other nuts, fruits from roadside trees, you name it! I think it would definitely be interesting if nothing else. Of course you have to be careful you don’t pick some poisonous copycat… which are all over as well! Today mom told me about some HUGE patches of berry vines and fields full of white blossoms! Guess where I will be (and hopefully lots of helpers too) in a few weeks when they turn into ripe delicious berries!? YEP… pickin some berries! Free fruits to make jams, cobblers, eat fresh, make smoothies, you name it! YUMMY! Oh believe me, I will get you some serious pictures. If I am right, we are gonna have more berries than we know what to do with! Maybe I should call myself “The Frugal Forager” LMAO!

So today I think the DH and DS18 are gonna go help my Dad put in new flooring… so what does the woman folk do? Well I guess I am gonna try to finish conquering the mass chaos in the living room and I am actually feeling a bit crafty. Maybe I can get some sewing done. Being that April is Autism Awareness month, I am going to be sewing a lot of things with the puzzle piece fabric. Shopping bags, purses, luggage tags, pillow cases, scrub tops, etc. Whatever hits me is what I will make.

I like to do a lot of charity work. Guess its in my blood I suppose. My mom, dad, and brothers were volunteer fire fighters for many years. Yes I said my MOM too… so doing for others without expecting “repayment” has always been natural. Then throughout my life, many “causes” have effected my life or my loved ones lives quite extensively… I have battled a couple different types of cancer (successfully thank you), a near fatal car accident, bone disease, sexual assault, and quite a few other things in my life. My son lives with ADHD, developmental delays (classified as mental retardation), and Autism. My daughter also has ADHD as well as Asthma and severe allergies and joint disorders. Other things that have touched us include (but not limited to LOL) diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke (adult and pediatric), family of a serviceman, etc. SOOOO as you can see we could basically just pick and choose what we want to support LOL. Its really no laughing matter I know, but sometimes you gotta just laugh to keep from crying ya know? So being that I am not rich and famous and cannot donate hundreds of dollars… what can the “little man” do? Well… I sew… A LOT! I make all kinds of things with either cancer fabrics, autism fabric, yarned lapel ribbons, etc. Then I sell them. When I have great sales, I donate some of the money to those causes major foundations- Susan G. Komen breast cancer, Doug Flutie autism, American Cancer Society. And when sales are not so hot, that’s when I donate homemade items and care packages and other tangible things. I send care packages and cards to the troops, I donate toys and stuffed animals to the Children’s Hospitals and orphanages, toiletries and other homemade things to the Women’s Crisis Center, handmade walker totes to senior assisted living homes, homemade doo rags to the major cancer hospital treatment centers. Most of the time (if we can), the donations are anonymous (like to the hospitals, etc) because we are not doing this to be noticed… its to help. I urge all of you to do at least one good thing for a charity or maybe just even someone you know. It’s a wonderful feeling to know you helped make at least one day a little easier for someone less fortunate! And don’t pass up those bell ringers at Christmas either… every penny does help! My DD has always asked for my change to give since she was tiny… so I always kept a roll of nickels and a roll of pennies in my purse at Christmas time and gave her a few to give each time she saw a Salvation army bell ringer. She learned that giving to others who truly need help is a good thing. Now she has graduated to dollars LOL and sometimes if she has money of her own, she gives that too… but most of the time its mine LOL! I have really great kids. Even my DS14 gives to them and seeing an autie donate is a moving experience! I firmly believe that if everyone gave just a little bit of love in some way like that, the world wouldn’t be such a violent place.

Ok, now that I am blubbering again (I don’t know why I am so emotional the last couple of days) lets get back to crafts. Being I have talked about gardening, seeds, etc. a lot, a good craft for someone you know who likes to garden would be this nifty little nature craft!



Seed Packet Craft with Matching Pot
by Twila Lenoir

This seed packet and matching pot is a lovely way to share the seeds from your favourite garden plants, and it looks attractive enough to use a personal housewarming gift or gardening gift.

Seed Packet Craft

Craft Supplies:

free printable seed packet pattern
terra cotta plant pot
potting soil
2 small clear plastic bags
acrylic craft paints in brown and white
permanent marker
brown paper bag
wallpaper remnants or fancy printed gift wrap
decorative edging scissors or pinking shears
spray sealer
thin ribbon
Seed Packet and Pot Project

Craft Instructions:

1. Print and cut out the free seed packet pattern. Trace the pattern on a brown paper bag, cut out, then fold and glue where indicated on the pattern.

2. With pinking shears or decorative edging scissors, cut out a rectangle from wallpaper or gift wrap. This needs to be a little smaller than the seed packet and should be glued to the front.

3. From white paper, cut a rectangle slightly smaller than the wallpaper rectangle, again using pinking shears or edging scissors. Decorate the top of this with a flower sticker or decal, a motif cut from wallpaper, or a rubber stamp design of your choice. You will repeat this decoration on the pot.

4. Write a positive message on the front the seed packet, such as "The Seed is Hope, The Flower is Joy." Glue on a bow made from thin ribbon over the top of this message.

5. Paint the terra cotta plant pot in a color similar to that of your brown paper bag. Paint the rim white. Once the paint is dry, use permanent marker to write the same message around the rim that you wrote on the seed packet. Decorate the pot with a flower motif, decal, sticker or rubber stamp that matches the one that you used on the seed packet.

6. Add some potting soil to a clear plastic bag, seal, and place inside the plant pot.

7. Brush a finishing sealer on the pot.

8. Punch a hole in the top left corner of the seed packet. Place the seeds in a small plastic bag (tiny ziploc bags work very well). Seal the bag of seeds then slide it into the seed packet envelope and glue down the top flap.

9. Thread another length of thin ribbon through the hole punched in the seed packet. Use this to attach the seed packet to the bag of potting soil in the pot.

Now what to eat… well everytime I go outside I find a red strawberry or I open my fridge and see fresh farmers market produce. I have been on a salad and fruit kick lately, so I thought I would share this refreshing salad recipe with you today.



Grilled Chicken Salad with Seasonal Fruit

Ingredients

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/2 cup pecans
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 onion, minced
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 heads Bibb lettuce - rinsed, dried and torn
1 cup sliced fresh strawberries

Directions

Preheat the grill for high heat.

Lightly oil the grill grate. Grill chicken 8 minutes on each side, or until juices run clear. Remove from heat, cool, and slice.

Meanwhile, place pecans in a dry skillet over medium-high heat. Cook pecans until fragrant, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat, and set aside.

In a blender, combine the red wine vinegar, sugar, vegetable oil, onion, mustard, salt, and pepper. Process until smooth.

Arrange lettuce on serving plates. Top with grilled chicken slices, strawberries, and pecans. Drizzle with the dressing to serve.

Okie Dokie kiddos, I have to go get the manfolk up and dressed for a day of hard work. Then its time to clean and such… today is really going to be “Susie Homemaker” day LOL! You take care in your travels or whatever you find yourself doing and I will see you tomorrow! HUGS!!