Finally can unlock the front door!!

Made it through the first week...only 3 more to go.  

So we closed escrow on our house last March.  Somehow, we never got keys to the front door.  Not sure if the previous owners didn't have any or they just didn't make it into our hands.  So, we have been using the back door for the past 13 months.  It's really not a problem if it's just the two of us.  But with me having Caylob almost every day and when people get here when we get here, one of us has to go around the back, walk through the house & unlock the front door.  

Not that people aren't welcome in our back yard, they are.  It's just the dog is overwhelming.  Especially since most of our friends & family have small children.

I've been meaning to call a locksmith for quite some time now & today was the day!!

I'm sure this guy would totally appreciate that I secretly took pictures of him. 

Took him almost an hour & a half, but we now can unlock the front door...from the outside!!  And a bonus, the key is the same as the back door!

Love free stuff!

So I've been thinking lately about how I'm going to label the things in the garden.  I didn't do it last year and I had no Idea when kind of squash was what until the actual squash started growing.  Not that big of a deal, but I like to know what's what.

So I finally decided that paint sticks from Home Depot would be the best thing.  Now, I just had to go in and get 20 paint sticks.  I didn't want to just go in and grab a bunch and walk out without buying anything.  Ended up buying some tomato stakes.  Or whatever those things are called.  You know, the round things you put in the ground for your tomatoes to grow up?  Yeah, those.

I walked up to the paint counter and noticed a bunch of them just sitting in a paint can on the counter.  The clerk was helping someone else, so I saw that as my opportunity to take them.  Yes, they are FREE, but you feel kind of stupid going up to the counter and asking for 25 paint sticks.  I wanted all of the ones in the paint can, but I ended up leaving a few there.  I brought 18 home.  So not too shabby.

I need a few more, but it's much easier to ask for 5 instead of 25 :)

Pinned Project

So I've been thinking about things to blog about since I have the next 17 weekdays to blog before I can cross another thing off my list.  That's a lot of stuff to write about.

Once a week I'm going to post about a Pinterest project that I did.  Everyone loves Pinterest....right??  If you haven't joined the bandwagon...DON'T!  You will never do anything productive ever again.  Ever.

I try to make pre-made breakfasts for Chris.  Since I usually leave to go get Caylob around 6:50 and Chris is usually going out to feed at that time and by the time I get back, he is heading out to door to go to work.  No time to cook him breakfast.  I have been making him breakfast sandwiches for a while...another Pinterest find.  Addicted, I tell ya!

He was getting tired of the same sandwich every morning, so I found this recipe the other day.

Not nearly as easy as the sandwiches, but it makes a few more, so whatever.  It works for me.

The dough made 16 pocket things.  Whatever you want to call them.

It probably almost tripled in size after about 2 1/2 hours...I got busy with yard work.

I used more than a pound of sausage because I just used a chub that we get from our butcher.  However big that is.

Yes, there is only 15.  I had to make sure they tasted good enough for Chris to eat for breakfast.

If he likes them, I think they are worth making again.  This is about 2 weeks worth of breakfast for him, so that will help out to make that many at one time.

What projects have you done from Pinterest?

Everything is growing!

Ok, well this was scheduled to post yesterday and didn't.  Can't figure out why.  But it was scheduled, so I'm still counting that as a post for Tuesday so I am still on track to cross off another item on the list. :)


Almost.

The seeds are looking pretty good.  Most of them have germinated and made their way through the soil.  The tomatoes, jalepenos and okra still haven't made their way through.  Hopefully they will this week with the temps going to be in the 80's!!

Corn

Zucchini

Spinach

Lettuce

Since we have such a long warm season, the garden lasts a long time.  These are all the first round of starts, I need to get started on the second round so we have have fresh, summer vegetables all the way into October.

Love me some coupons!

Today starts my quest of completing #57-Blog Monday-Friday for 4 weeks.  We shall see if I can make it.

So, #19 on the list is Start using coupons.  Check!

And let me tell you,  I love coupons.  However, my worst fear came true the other day while checking out at Target.  I had a good stack of coupons, at least one for almost everything in the cart and the check out lady told the lady behind me that it was going to be a little while if she wanted to go to a different line & then she shut off her light.  I was so embarrassed.  Although, she was really nice about it and said that she was a coupon shopper too, but still, doesn't changed the fact that my checkout took 4x longer than normal.  AND I signed up for their Target debit card, so that took a little longer too.  BUT, I did end up saving about $30!  I was so excited!  The trip to Target a couple weeks before that I only saved $10.  So, yay for me.  

I refuse to go to Target at any other time of the day than when they just open because then there are too many people in there and then I'd make a lot of people wait while the clerk is scanning all my coupons.  No thanks, I can feel my face getting red just thinking about it.

Is couponing a lot of work?  Yeah, kind of.  Is it worth it?  I think it absolutely is.

Check out www.myfrugaladventures.com  It's a lady in Southern CA that has basically made couponing her business.  She shows off all the amazing deals and different way to coupon.  It's amazing!

Happy Monday to you all!

TOAD!!

A couple nights ago, Mallie was going C.R.A.Z.Y. outside.  More crazy than usual.  Barking, growling, jumping around.  There was no one out front, so Chris went in the backyard to find out what was going on.  He come back in and says....

"She is afraid of a toad"

This dog is kind of a sissy la-la.  She is afraid of our big garbage can, anything that blows around the back yard and evidently she is afraid of toads.

Oh geez.

I ran outside to get a video of this.  She kind of stopped barking, but it's still kinda funny.

I stopped the video when I did because I thought she was going to grab it and I didn't want that on video.  

That's nasty.

One year ago

This Saturday is our 11 month wedding anniversary.  Since our engagement was so short, I was trying to look for a picture that was taken on April 14th of last year just to see what we were doing one month before our wedding.  Oddly enough, I didn't have a picture on the 14th.  The pictures shortly before and after that date consist of planting flowers in front of the house & having a cocktail...or three...at the Ag Booster fundraiser that we helped with.  The cocktail was exactly 14 days before the wedding.  It was well worth the money spent :)

I also came across some pictures of DJ on April 12th.  A year ago today.  So funny to see the changes in him.  We see him at least once a week, so the changes aren't really noticeable, or we don't really pay attention to the changes, but when you look back at older pictures, the changes are really noticeable!

This picture was taken one year ago, today.

This picture was taken two days ago.  He was being silly when we were at JC Penny's looking for a new shirt & tie for Chris's class reunion this Saturday.

We think he was going for the toothless, old man look.  What do you think?

You can definitely still see the same kid, but the chubby cheeks have slimmed down, he's grown like a foot, & he has a big boy hair cut.

We love this kid & his little sister and she is a spitting image of him when he was that little.

One day Get-a-way

Last Saturday there was a club lamb sale on the coast.  Oh, darn!  ;)

Left around 10 Saturday morning after doing some work outside.  Got there around 12:30.  Left the sale around 4:30.  Sale only lasted about an hour & a half, but of course you have to stand around, look at sheep & b.s. with people you haven't seen in a while.  

Then my husband had to drag me to the ocean to have dinner.  Dang, I hate when that happens!

View from our table at the restaurant

It was nice to get away from everything at home, even if it was just for the day!

Another sign of spring

Around here, Springtime means budding grapevines, weaning lambs and....shearing the ewes.

With our extra pens not being set up yet, weaning has proved to be a harder task because you have to separate the babies from the ewes.  So we moved our ram in with the ewes and moved half of the babies into the old ram pen.  We are going to make a smaller pen within the large ewe pen and use that to wean of the rest of the babies.  Hopefully this weekend.

And let me tell you, the babies do NOT like to be separated from their mamas!!  They baaah until they can't baaah anymore...literally.  They get horse.  Kinda sad, kinda funny.  The ewes don't care so much.  They are glad to not have a 60 lb baby jabbing at the udders several times a day.

These poor ewes were not shorn last year.  We had something minor going on last spring.  A wedding of some sort.  ;)  We were a little preoccupied with only 4 1/2 months to plan.  So, they are pretty shaggy.

BUT, this past Wednesday Chris started in on the ewes.  He's done 2 per day so far, so 6 are done.  Ok, I did one, so he's done 5 :)

6 more to go.

Linking up with Farmchick's Farm Photo Friday!