Gardening for Dummies

Yay! Warm weather and sunshine!! Well, at least it sunshined for a day or two, nothing but rain since! But that's OK, at least it's warm outside! I love May for lots of reasons but my FAVORITE reason (with the exception that school gets out) is that I get to plant my garden!

Last year, Da Hubby was so kind to build me a fortress, beautiful garden for our backyard. Dude, this thing ain't movin'! Isn't it loverly?


People have asked us why do we need such a structure for a garden. Garden are supposed to be free and able to spread. Here are our two main reasons:

Who me?

Uhh, yeah. Don't let their adorably, sweet faces fool you. They are Vicious. Cunning. Veggie Killin' Machines. They get into EVERYTHING, hence the electric fenced in garden. (I'm just kidding, people!) However, that's not such a bad idea....

Anywho, we decided what a great educational and frugal way to grow some of our own stuff! This was our little peace of incredibly diseased, pain in the butt, insect infested, non-producing heaven last year. It was, umm, an "experimental" year. Yea. Anyway, amazingly enough we ended up with a few edible items and a desire to try to get it right this year.

We planted three small strawberry plants last year and picked the blossoms off as they came out. Supposedly that makes the plant increase their volume and spread for the next year's crops. We covered them with straw (Covering strawberries with straw - clever, huh?) over the winter and up they sprung with a vengeance this spring. They are TASTY!!!


They are so adorable! I just love them! At least we did one thing right last year!



Here's some of the other things I have planted this year and will hopefully get a harvest by the end of summer.

And then, there are the tomatoes. We planted nine different types. Ahh, our tomatoes. A great source of stress and demise in my life. I have this really beautiful and sweet neighbor I was talking to last year about my tomatoes. I told her that my tomatoes had every disease and bug that is known to kill the plants with the exception of the nastiest bug of all, the hornworm. I will spare you a picture of these grotesque creatures, because they are just that nasty. So literally a week later I go out to water my precious, dying tomatoes and find a family of 12 nasty, nasty and HUGE hornworms had taken over my garden the evening before and eaten most of the baby fruits as well as most of the vegetation. OOOOOOO!!! I HATE those things!

(Side note - I thought I'd also mention that neighbor I was talking about. You know, the sweet and beautiful one? Well, she planted two tomato plants gingerly in her front beds and produced two, 7 foot tall plants that literally were drooping to the ground with all the tomatoes on the branches. No hornworms. No blight. No powder fungus. No aphids. No garden fortress. Just tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes. Humph. I am not jealous. I am not jealous. I am not jealous.) I love you, Lisa!

Again, I will try and maybe after learning from a few mistakes last year, perhaps I will get something to feed my family with! I so enjoy watching the plant progress and grow throughout the summer. I just hope there is something to eat this year. (I really don't think I should have any worries, though. My beautiful and sweet neighbor has planted her tomatoes once again in her front flower beds and I'm sure she won't mind if I come and steal liberate a few from her! After all, what are neighbors for?

I ♥ Faces - Reflection

I ♥ Faces theme this week is "Reflection" as in the mirror image kind. I thought this could be an easy, fun challenge. I was wrong! I struggled with this theme more than I thought I would. I decided to do something little different this week. Typically my photos turn out bright and cheery, but this one is somewhat dark and somber. I thought maybe it would be interesting to mix things up a little and try to think "outside the box."

This shot reflects my oldest son, Daylor's serious side very well. I chose to use an empty picture frame with a black background for his reflection. It amazed me how well the reflection actually came out.

Head on over to I ♥ Faces to see other's rendition of this theme and be brave and enter your own!

Short and Sweets

Sitting down at dinner, we were discussing that they were showing the movie "Enchanted" at the doctors office yesterday when I took in Duglin. Our family is slightly obsessed with this movie. We LOVE it! Especially, you guessed it, Perri. We are constantly quoting one liners from this movie. Anyway, if you have ever seen the movie you would be familiar with the term, "True Love's Kiss." It's pretty much the theme phrase of the movie.

Here is how the conversation went:


Perri - "Mommy did you know that True Love's Kiss is not real?"

Me - "It's not?"

Daylor, with his most disgusted voice - "Unfortunately, Perri, it is. People actually do that."

Tee-Hee!



Go kiss your True Love today!

3 Things I Learned This Weekend...

1. It is so much, MUCH more fun to shop at garage sales than it is to be having one.

Right after Christmas we did a major clean out of our upstairs room as well as the rest of the house and decided that there was so much stuff we should have a garage sale. When I say we, that means I, because Da Hubby wasn't quite as excited about it as I was. We've been doing the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University thing and was inspired to try to make a little money. I thought to myself what a great way to make a little extra cash-ola!

We stored all the crap, uhh, I mean treasures, in the garage for four months and finally had the sale this weekend. Can we say WASTE.O.TIME? So after weeks of hard work, pricing & storing, hours of sitting in the sun (which was the best part), and a profit of only $61.00 we decided this was officially the first and last garage sale the Balentine household would ever have. 5 truck loads of Goodwill donations later we will have a place to park the cars again.

2. Being sick, while having a child who is recovering from a sinus infection, another child with laryngitis, and yet another with a double ear infection and strep throat all while hosting an unsuccessful garage sale makes for a VERY long weekend.

3. I have incredibly sweet children.

I had to take Duglin this morning to the doctor. Yes, it's Sunday, but that's one advantage of having a Jewish pediatrician. They are open Sunday mornings for emergency cases. Duglin has been running a 104 temperature since Friday morning that doesn't want to break. So I carted the poor baby off to the doctor first thing this morning to find out he has two "mega" ear infections that have caused a temporary loss of hearing in both ears AND a severe case of strep throat. I feel so bad for my little man.

Anyway, after his examination, the doctors let the kids raid a little drawer built into the examination table that is full on plastic animals and doo-dads. Duglin began to choose one to take home and the comical doctor "whispered" to Duglin to take on of the plastic lizards and put it on his mama's pillow tonight to see what she would do. Hearing full well what the doctor had said, I played dumb and asked Duglin what the doctor said. Duglin laughed and motioned for the doctor to come near so he could whisper back. I could hear him tell the doctor no, I love my mom too much to do that. AW! What a precious boy! I might possibly need to eat him!

The doctor was so shocked at his response that his eyes welled up with tears. He looked at me and said he had been a doctor for 30 years and that he has told his other patients the same thing hundreds and hundreds of times. Never once has a child ever responded that way. We both were teary-eyed. He looked back at Duglin and shook Duglin's hand. He told Duglin that it was worth coming to work on a Sunday to be able to meet him and to be able to hear that. He proceeded to walk out of the room and bring all the nurses in to meet my little guy.

Seriously! What more can a proud mama say? Remember this post? Perhaps it's safe to say that he still loves his mommy best!

Get well, sweet boy! I love you, too!

Short and Sweets

Perri enjoys watching DVDs that have any kind of music on them, especially anything that relates to tiaras and castles. Regularly she makes up her own, umm, "choreography" with them. The other morning while the boys were doing school, Perri was occupying herself by dancing around the den to one of her Disney Princess movies.

Daylor, who happens to adore his sister, but finds her extremely feminine attributes a little over the top and annoying, looked over at her and grinned. He looked back at me and said, "Mom, she is so cute! I am so glad you guys decided to adopt her." (Side note for those who don't know my family - Perri is not adopted.)

Gotta love when they develop a sense of humor at an early age. :)

I Heart Faces - Self-Portrait

Yikers!! This week's challenge on I Heart Faces was a toughy!! Definitely an exercise in humility. I used my 50mm lens for this and it certainly is not forgiving when it comes to those fines lines and blemishes. (Thank goodness for spot healing brushes, blur masks, and other fabulous technological wonders!)

I hate having my picture taken to begin with, but having to take my own portrait and having to make sure I am not making some obnoxious face at the same time, nearing impossible!!! so here's my best shot.

Head on our to the nice folks at I Heart Faces to see what other brave people did in their own self-portraits.

He's Mine...Hands off!

Just want to share something going on around my neck-o-the-woods. Lately, I been noticing a slight change in his behavior. I guess I should have seen it coming, after all, he has such a loving and funny personality. He naturally attracts people. Recently, I caught him at church watching her. When he saw me following his gaze to her, he looked embarrassed and kept walking.

I'm hurt and devastated I'm no longer his only one. I mean, I guess with those beautiful, blue eyes he was going to be hard to keep as exclusively mine. sigh.....

Yes, there's another woman...a girlfriend.

What does he see in her? OK, sure, she's naturally blond, smaller than me, but I definitely have her in the height and cooking capabilities areas.

Oh, and then there's the age thing. Apparently, he likes the "younger" models. Friends have warned me about this, but really I just didn't this one coming.

And the saddest thing of all is he actually admitted to me that he likes her!!! In fact, he even goes as far as to say that she is his "girlfriend". Seriously!!?!? And apparently, she likes him, too. Doesn't she know that he belongs to me!?!

OK, I know that they have a tendency to get eyes for other women, but seriously! He's 7! He's only supposed to love his mommy!!! The nerve!

So now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go pack my bags now and head for the Land of Denial.

He's mine, Mine, MINE! And she can't have him! Well, at least until he's 35.