Todays Solution to Yesterdays Frustration

 Annie, Elsie and I all loaded into the car this morning and headed over to our old house.  No one is living there yet and I still had loads of plants left behind.   Elsie napped under a tree while Annie and I worked.

 We collected strawberries.

 Ann was vigorously searched for her Roley Poley family.

This is her last year visiting with them.

 I can't believe how much she's grown. 

(and yes she brought the Roley Poleys home with her).

Eating a few strawberries from our old garden,

made me remember why I hate store bought strawberries.

 We brought lots of them home.

I'm feeling mildly better today after digging in the dirt for a few hours this morning.  We brought home more strawberry crowns, mint, a few herbs that I found hidden in some weeds and a couple more Lillies of the Valley.   The best part is we were able to send my sister off with a bunch of plants for her yard.

to much shade

I need to spend $40 on elderberry bushes right?  I must have another $15 blueberry bush to complete my set and I most definitely can't survive without my own rhubarb crowns.  I'm obviously having some major garden cravings.  I didn't start any seeds this year due to: getting married, buying a house, moving and having a baby all within the time span of about 9 months, so I'm feeling a little lost as far as gardening goes.  I need to be planting, but I find myself without anything to plant and a severe lack of funds to buy what I desire.   My backyard is big enough to grow all that I want to grow if it weren't for the lack of sun; making want to cut down all the perfectly healthy trees that didn't require emergency cutting to prevent smashed house syndrome.   This kind of frustration is dangerous with me.  It makes me rather impulsive and very edgy.  I can't sit still, but I'm completely unproductive with my time.  I look outside and see all that yard covered in shade and I can't stop thinking about the chainsaw just sitting there in the basement.   If it weren't for the fact that my husband would never leave a power tool out where I could get it again, I would be tempted to use it.

Old photos

 I was scrolling through my photos this morning and found some random photos.  Annie used to have the strangest habit of storing thing in the refrigerator and planting utensils.  She's gotten over both thankflly.  I'm happy to report that she now plants seeds instead of forks and her shoes are stored in neat little row in her room. 

A proud mommy moment

 Saturday night Annie had her dance recital.  It was so awesome.  I spent most the time trying to keep from crying I was so proud of her.    She went to class even when she didn't want to.  She got up on stage in from of 800 people, and she did try to dance a few steps.   The best part was that she sang along with all the songs.
Annie wanted everyone there to see her dance including our mailman.  I couldn't afford that many tickets, but I sure tried to buy as many as I could.  They sold out every seat in the auditorium.  The moms and volunteers that run this fundraiser really know what they're doing.  That was probably my favorite part of this dance class. All the money goes to the Brentwood school district and their teacher is such an amazing role model for the girls.  Non of the dances were provocative or inappropriate, the costumes were conservative and all the dances were about having fun.  

Annie admiring her wand.

My little lady bug.

New obsession

Elsie cried all day while I washed the laundry, cooked the meals, transported the children,  went to the grocery store, finished transplanting the Hostas and Lillies, and worked on the boarder of the kitchen garden.  And yes, she cried the whole time.  My body is tense and I'm about to loose it.  To calm myself I'm going to blog about dinner.  I ran across this post the other day Broke Ass Grouch.  This post is for making one chicken last three days.  This is near impossible in this house due to the Texas size appetite of my husband.  But regardless I love the lack of instruction, the figure it out on your own guidelines and the complete lack of measurements.  Now I don't have a very big dutch oven so I used two small ones, but here goes:

 Put your chicken in the pot cut up or whole.  

Squeeze in some lemon.

 Add what ever herbs you have dried or fresh, and lots of garlic if you have it.

 cover 3/4 of the way up with milk.

Add some olive oil.

Cover and bake at 350 for an hour.

  After the first hour add some lentils, quinoa, or other quick grain.  If you use brown rice add it earlier than this.   I like to toss in carrots, include the tops (very high in Vitamin K and potassium) and potatoes if I have them.  I pull out the herbs before adding the next ingrediant (less to fish out later).

Now bake for another 30 minutes or so.  Done.  The best part?  My niece Ruby loved it and she is THE PICKIEST eater I know.   I haven't tried the squash step but when making your stock toss seaweed into the pot to add more vitamins and trace minerals. 

Camera collision

So I'm now using my husbands camera to upload the memory card from mine.  My genius brother managed to get my camera to take pictures.  It just can't work with my computer.  This should buy us a few weeks before it completely kicks the bucket.  Here's hoping...

What you've missed (in pictures)

 Texas finished cutting up the tree.

 Our kitchen garden went from this:

 

 to this:

 Banjo got really muddy.

And Ruby ate this:

More about this in my next post.

My problem

My problem is I can never have enough cook books.  Today I ordered three cookbooks off Amazon.  This wouldn't be such a bad thing if I didn't already own over a hundred, but alas I do, and I can't stop buying them.  The tricky part lately is how to acquire cook books with out having any money.  Solution... Gift cards!  I found a gift card from our wedding for Amazon.com while cleaning out my desk.  I should have done this weeks ago, but I'm glad I didn't.  I always keep a wish list of cook books that I would buy if I could afford them, and had just recently rearranged the wish list order. If these books are worth anything I will be sure and tell you all about them.  For now I'm going to keep my silence.  Till next time...

(sorry for lack of posting, but posting without pictures is just sad.)