scrumptious summer salad

I could eat this every day!

It's so easy - just throw everything in a bowl,

mix it up

(although it does look so pretty in layers)

set it in the fridge so the flavors can mingle

and eat!

Summer eating at it's finest.

~

1 can garbonzo beans (chickpeas) rinsed & drained

(I rarely buy canned beans,

I just cook my own & freeze them, without liquid,

in can-sized portions in sandwich bags.

They thaw super quick;

just empty bag into strainer and run under hot water)

Gosh. 

After all that, I feel like I should start over.

1 can garbonzo beans (chickpeas) rinsed & drained

1 bell pepper, diced

1/2 onion, diced kinda small

couple of tomatoes, diced.

1/2 cuke, guess how? diced

few handfuls of baby spinach, chopped - ha, gotcha!

 1/3 cup white vinegar

1/3 c  cold H20

few splashes of Italian dressing*

splash of olive oil
squirt of honey

a bit of salt, pepper, and paprika

If you really want to make it special,

add a few handfuls of fresh mozzarella pearls

~

delish!!!

just a little FYI

 Aldi has peppers, onions and decent-tasting tomatoes on sale through today

*

for years, we have used Good Seasons italian dressing packets

(someday, I will try making my own...)

mixed our way in their cruets:

white vinegar to water line

splash of apple cider or balsamic vinegar

water to oil line

add dressing packet

1-2 Tbls of a light cold-pressed oil 

(grapeseed,, sunflowerseed, etc)

YUM!

(if you know of a copycat recipe for GS packets

that really tastes like the real thing ~share, please??)

nap, interrupted

Whack, whack, whack...

I was immediately awakened

- if I had even been asleep at all -

from my nap.

"Stop that banging!" I hollered.

And I heard it again,

whack, whack, whack...

in rapid succession.

I jumped out of bed and threw open the door.

I figured there was a slight possibility

it was my husband making all that racket

and not a child, after all, so perhaps I shouldn't holler again.

I rounded the corner to the living room to see Josiah,

holding Jeremiah's brand-new-almost fishing net

up in the air

trying to catch a fan blade.

whack, whack, whack...

Of course

I then pulled the old (stupid)

"What were you thinking?!" card

and clearly

 - as is usually the case when that card is used -

he wasn't thinking at all.

At least not beyond, "I wonder if I can catch a fan blade."

I wonder what he would have done
if he actually caught one?!

Kieron, 3 1/2 months

Luke & Lana and the babies 

came over yesterday evening for some water fun.

I was busy cooking and forgot to pull out the camera.

I'm such a dork sometimes - sheesh.

I did have the presence of mind to grab it

when I sat Kieron in Lex's beach chair

and he matched it :-)

He's such a little cutie!!

 

a day off

~

thanks, Love!!

waiting

this kid

makes me smile.

Every Sunday night

(and the occasional odd other day)

Ton' leaves a note for Tyler

requesting a wake-up in the morning.

I know - some folks are opposed to full grown peoples

(and little peoples, too)

being woke up by other peoples,

and think a blaring alarm is the only proper way to great the day,

but in this house, we think a loving 'rise and shine'

works just as well, if not better, 

when possible.

Now, the wake-up songs - those I could do without.

But alas

 this post is about Tony's notes, 

not various methods of waking one up.

Never, ever

is the request the same.

Because 

that

wouldn't be my boy's style.

And I do love my boy's style!

Love you, Ton'!!

an exciting discovery

More than once,

when I've seen the clusters of tiny starlike flowers

image courtesy of  irishviews

and then later in the summer,

when I'd see the clusters of dark purple berries

(which look an awful lot to my untrained eye 

like poisonous poke berries)

image courtesy of thriftyliving.net

I would wonder

(sometimes to myself, sometimes aloud)

do we have elderberries on our property??

~

Book learning is great

and I've learned so much via the world wide web

but sometimes,

it would be nice

to have a real live person

teach me things.

Things like painting furniture and identifying herbs;

'cause you really don't want to mis-identify an herb!

Since I am not aware of any 

real

live

herbal wildcrafting

enthusiasts,

after years of wondering,

I finally pulled out the book,

googled,

and grabbed a branch off the bush.

And I discovered that

yes, we do, in fact,

have our very own elderberries!

And, of course, the accompanying elder flowers...

It makes me happy that I have herbs (besides plantain) 

growing wild on the old homestead

 but I'm especially tickled

because elder flowers are one of four ingredients

in our most-used momma-made herbal remedy.

Now, I just need to learn how to harvest them.

Time to hit the books.

again...

little baby is growing up

Guess who

- yesterday and today -

took herself to the potty

and pooped!

I'm sort of a pro, having done it eight times

but I have only one potty-training tip:
don't bother trying until the child is ready.

Really ready.

You'll save yourself

(and your poor baby)

so much frustration

(and laundry!)

If you do that

- wait on the child's readiness -

you won't have to potty train the child;

she will potty train herself.

Last weekend, Lexi wasn't quite ready.

Today, she's wearing panties.

I'm happy and sad at the same time...

another sneaky peaky :-)

for women only

Consider yourself warned, Boys....

~

A little over a year ago,

there was flu bug running rampant in our house

and in an effort to keep from getting it,

I loaded up on garlic pills and probiotics.

I happened to be having my period at the time

(I told you ~ this is a ladies only post....)

and was shocked to discover that my flow was considerably

lighter than my usual soak-a-super-tampon-and-a-pad in a hour.

I had very little cramping and back pain to boot!

Interesting!!

So the next month when Aunt Flo came to visit,

I repeated my garlic / probiotic therapy. 

I wasn't sure which of the two supplements

 was responsible for my tolerable period of the previous month

and having 'known freedom'

I wasn't willing to go back.

Then 

one month

I ran out of probiotics,

but I faithfully took 1 or 2 garlic pills every time I changed

(I'm almost blushing, ya'll)

and you know what?

Same results!

All along, it had been the garlic alone

that was responsible for the reduced pain and decreased flow.

I mentioned it to my doctor recently

and he was like,

 "Oh yeah, of course garlic slows your bleeding

because blah.blah,blah...."

I can't tell you why it works;

I can only tell you that

extra garlic

during that time

works for me!

the test piece

 There are certain things that are non-negotiable for the LEM:

Tyler insists on a table.

I really wanted a window seat for reading

but we didn't think a built in would work well in the space, 

so in lieu of that, I gotta have a padded bench.

Tyler and I both said a comfy chair was a must

and Jeremiah has had his heart set on a nature table

ever since we started talking about adding on.

 When I spotted this chest

I got excited.
It was bigger than what I had in mind

but I thought it had nice lines
and I loved the pulls
and over all was in pretty good shape.
The drawers were a bonus ~ I hadn't even considered drawers;
I was just set on having a 'surface' for a nature table.

It was a bargain at $20
so I figured it'd be a good practice piece for me.
If it ended up being too big for the space
or if I ruined it,
I wouldn't be out too much.

So, I bought it and we got busy.

Of course, the kids all helped where they could.

And I made repairs just like the pros.

What?! The 'pros' don't  use popsicle sticks??

okay - so my fix isn't exactly perfect and professional....

  At one point during the re-do

 Tyler said, "You know, I'm testing you."

(remember, he's not a painted furniture fan)

I was like, "Yeah, well, I'm testing me, too..." 

I'd spent hours learning - could I actually do it, though??

 I gotta say,

even with all my imperfections,

brush stokes,

and obvious under-use of sand paper,

I love my test piece!

 Sadly,

I'm not sure that it's gonna work in the LEM;

it is, after all, bigger than I had allowed for the nature table

when I drew up the room on graph paper.

I wouldn't say I exactly aced the test,

but I did pass with flying colors,

I think.

I linked up with Sarah's Before and After Party

listening

to this 

over and over and over.

Tony ~ put this on my phone, please?

welcome home

I've been faithfully checking Craigslist

every couple of days.

My search is the same each time:

chair

bookshelves / book case

paint sprayer
Sometimes
I change the order up to keep it interesting.

Yesterday, I found this baby

It looked rather ghastly,

but the shape was just exactly what I was looking for.

And craigslist photos are usually less than amazing...

"You going to reupholster it?" Tyler asked.

"Something like that."

"You going to paint it?!" 

"Um. Yeah I was thinking I might..."

My poor husband.

He wasn't overly enthusiastic,

but Tyler lovingly went to look at the chair anyways.

At 10 bucks, I figured it was worth the risk.

~

Welcome home, sweet thing!

Tyler and Tony are hoping I do something with the color,

but I'm not so sure I will;

I'll have to see how it looks as the room comes together

but

I kinda love the chair just like it is.

sneaky peeky :-)

the saga continues

So.

After sanding the primer off the table,

I went and bought a can of spray primer.

It went on really weird - and when dry

the table looked and felt like it was covered in tiny powder balls.

So I sanded some more.

Fortunately, when done sanding that time,

I had a nice smooth surface of primer.

So I painted my first coat.

It looked just fine,

so I sanded it just a tiny bit

because everything I read said to.

Then I started applying the second coat.

It didn't go so well

can you see the drag?? click on the picture if you need to


I tried fixing it with a bit of water on my brush
(learned that through all my research, too...)
but it still looked like crap
so I stopped painting, waited for it to dry
and -  you guessed it - pulled out the sandpaper
again.

This table is going to look good, darn it!

Tyler suggested getting a paint gun from Harbor Freight.

Now, I'm not a huge HF fan,

but some things from there are ok.

I looked up guns & reviews

and found one on sale for $14 that had 4.5 stars.

With 39 reviews, I figured that was pretty good.

I read through every single one

and when Tyler put the girls down for a nap,

I ran to town.

While at HF, I found another gun, also on sale,

that was specifically for latex paint

and sat down right there in the store

(SI joint is still bugging me)

and looked up reviews on it

(on the iPhone4 the fam bought me for Mother's Day).

I bought both guns.

~

Fortunately, I thought to try out the gun with water

before loading it with paint;

The latex gun has trigger issues - it doesn't stop spraying.

so I didn't even get to try it.

The other one, Brandon took apart and cleaned

as per the directions.

(contrary to popular opinion, I am a rule follower...)

We ran water through it,

then got ready to paint.

I'd read enough to learn that most problems with paint spraying

are due to operator error & inexperience,

so we opted to paint some less important pieces for practice.

I thought the boards turned out pretty good,

but was a bit surprised at how rough they were;

I'd thought the 1x2s were pretty smooth.

huh.

I decided that I should have sanded them more,

but wasn't worried 

since they were just for some beach chairs for the little ones. 

Today

I decided I was sufficiently trained in spray gunning 

to attempt my table-top.

Big mistake.

Huge.

My dadgum table feels like sandpaper!

And I know it was well-sanded and smooth prior to spraying!

But the good news is

I have further researched

(I am just about sick of researching!)

and think I know what I need to do to fix it

(short of buying a better sprayer)

and the other good news is:

Monday, while I was at Harbor Freight,

I bought more sandpaper.