First Day of Spring

My seeds have been started!

First thing this morning (after breakfast, of course), Adam and I went to work in the dirt and officially started our 2018 gardening season. I thoroughly enjoyed having a little helper working alongside of me. He was so excited to be able to help and happily watered the starting pellets and watched them grow. He is so detailed and careful for a two year old, and took his job seriously when I let him plant the pepper seeds.

I had a hard time figuring out how many of each item to plant, since I'm hoping to sell some produce on top of stocking up and feeding my own family, so I just threw some seeds in the dirt and we'll see how we do! 

I'm going to try three different tomato varieties: Roma (since they bring a high dollar at the produce auction and are a specialty item), Beefsteak (because who doesn't want a giant tomato or BLT sandwich), and Amish Paste (because this is my tried-and-true paste tomato. It has never failed me in all my gardening years, even while I've attempted and failed growing a number of other varieties.)

For peppers, I'm using seeds I had left from previous years. Besides bell peppers, I used up the rest of my jalapeno seeds. I'm hoping to sell those. There weren't any at the produce auction last year, and there are always gobs of men who attend, so I figured I'd take the chance and watch the market!

In addition to the tomatoes and peppers, I decided to try some flowers, too. I've never had success with them, but I have too many packets of seeds sitting around unused. Ideally I should have started them weeks ago, so I guess you can call them an experiment, too. (But then again, what do I do that isn't an experiment?) The varieties I planted are Marigolds and Evening Primrose. 

Evening Primrose are known as an enthusiastically spreading plant. I'm going to see what it does here in Mid-Northern Michigan where it gets below -10*F in the winter. I had the seeds so I thought I'd give it a shot. Another experiment I guess.... but this one is not going in my produce garden! 

Deep Freezer - Before and After Organizing

....Aaand here are the results of my freezer cleaning!

A couple weeks ago, I posted my brim-full refrigerator before picture, and a nice, sparkly after picture, along with a teaser of my deep freezer before picture, which revealed a freezer so full it's about busting at the seams. As promised, I have returned with an after picture and a list of what's really stored inside!

The main reason the freezer was so full is because I had just received a cows worth of beef bones, which I turned into some delicious bone broth. Once I was able to clear those out, I finally had room to rearrange and take inventory of what was inside.

I had a pretty good idea of what I had before I started, since the freezer came with these nice handy, dandy dividers where I can section off categories like ground beef, steaks, roasts, etc. These are super helpful because we buy our beef in bulk and can fill up an entire section with one variety of cut rather than everything being strewn about and it being a treasure hunt whenever I manage to dig below whatever is on the surface. 

Because of this, I did not dig through the steak section to see exactly how many of each cut I had (round, sirloin, etc.). Knowing I had an almost-full section of steak was good enough for me to know we weren't going to run out anytime soon!

Ta-daaa! 

Here it is! The after shot. Still full, but much neater.

And here is the inventory. I included the list of my upstairs refrigerator/freezer inventory, since I am frequently transferring things between the two.

Since making this list, I have used up the whole turkey, a roast, some steak, a bag of zucchini, the beets, a bag of hotdogs, and several pounds of butter. It has been nice having this list handy so I can plan my meals accordingly without having to open my freezer, although I do sometimes get better inspiration when I see the actual food. :) 

Want to know what's cooking? I have a beef roast in the crock pot at this very moment! Mmm.

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 14 - Rice Krispie Treats

We've had quite the weekend driving all over the state! Instead of going out on Valentine's Day, we decided to skip the rush and the late mid-week night by having our date night on Saturday instead. It was our second ever kid-free date as parents. I thought it was special, and enjoyed the rare chance of having undivided husband time with no responsibilities or interruptions. Our kids are super fun, but it is like pushing the restart button on life and sanity when mom can get out for a minute to breathe.

Because of spending many hours on the road - and all day doing it, I had limited time to create a dessert for the next day's meal. Thankfully I was prepared and had a few things in my pantry that I could pull together.

On my last trip to the "big town", I had a coupon that was good for $1 off any boxed cereal purchase. Boxed cereal is on my "I don't usually buy" list. Maybe 1x/year for a special dessert, like Christmas Chex.

One [of a few] big reasons we don't buy boxed cereal is because it's not worth the money! I personally don't find cereal very filling, and can eat a half a box in one sitting. At an average of $3-4 a box, this is really pricey. Instead, I make my own cereal (either granola or grape-nuts) for the day we need a quick breakfast or snack. 

But back to that coupon. At $1 off, it wasn't worth my time trying to use it unless I was able to get a really good deal. Honey-nut cheerios were on sale, and the cheapest cereal per box, but it's not something we normally eat, and it's not very versatile, so I decided it wasn't a good buy even though the price was decent. The next best buy was Rice Krispie cereal, on sale for $2.50 for an extra large (maybe 18 oz.?) box. This was even cheaper than their standard sized box! With my coupon, this brought the price down to $1.50, which I thought sounded good to me since I could use them in a variety of recipes like Rice Krispie treats or granola bars. I did have crowd dessert in mind when I put them in my cart, and ended up getting a couple bags of marshmallows that day as well so I would have them on hand just in case.  

So, on that day that I was gone until 8pm, Rice Krispie treats it was. My two year old and I had a grand time in the kitchen together that evening. We got to share of bowl full of the leftover Snap, Crackle and Pop cereal while we were melting the marshmallows for the treats. This was the first time I'd ever attempted making Rice Krispie Treats, and I had no idea previously that it was basically just marshmallows and cereal! As a junk-food illiterate chef, I guess I learned something new that probably everybody else knows.

[By the way, another thing I learned this year was that Cool Whip is found in the frozen food section! I've never bought Cool Whip before, and have no plan to ever ever, since it's nasty and I don't even want to eat it, but I had NO idea it was a frozen item and was surprised when I walked through the freezer aisles to see it. This might confirm how unknowledgeable I am in the junk/processed foods department. I really don't mind being uneducated in this area.]

I made 3 recipes of Rice Krispie Treats, which according to the box was enough for three 9x13 pans full. Each recipe took 6 cups of cereal and one 12 oz. bag of marshmallows. Since I don't have three 9x13" baking pans, I used a half sheet pan and a smaller 7x11 pan. My cost into the cereal was $1.50, and the marshmallows were $3.38, so my total dessert cost was $4.88. It made about 52 squares (if I'm remembering correctly), and I was aiming to serve 40 people. Cost per square was 9 cents. 

There weren't as many in attendance as expected, so less than 40 mouths to feed, but people did some snacking after the meal was finished, and we had about 12 pieces leftover. 

Product Review: Shark Professional Rotator Lift-Away Vacuum - PART 1

The following article is written based off my personal experience using this machine. It was bought and paid for by me, and I get no compensation from anybody for sharing my review and opinions with you.

I finally did it. I bought me a new vacuum!

I'd never bought one before, so this was a new experience.

I'm no expert in the area of cleaning. Cleaning is not my forte. I'm what you call functional, but having a vacuum that I had to sweep up after was too much.

The vacuum that lived in this house when we got married was one my husband already had. He may have been a bachelor, but he did have a few necessary household items, and he was fully stocked in the cleaning supplies department. Now fast forward to three years later, when I had to try not to vacuum when Aaron was home because he would complain every time I did, and it reminded me how trashy our vacuum "cleaner" really was. About a minute into cleaning, the house would smell like dust. The thing couldn't pick up a piece of dirt the size of a wheat berry, and it would leave a pile behind anytime it was turned off or jostled around the slightest bit. I had to be careful to wheel it over to a room with hardwood flooring before turning it off, so I could easily sweep up after it with a broom. I then carried it to its spot halfway down the basement stairs oh so carefully so as to not shake it too much to avoid any more dirt leaking out. We tried emptying it. We tried blowing it out, cleaning it, checking filters, and finally, after talking about it for months, saved ourselves the headache and hassle and bought us a new-fangled fancy one! 

When shopping for a vacuum, I had a few specifications that I was looking for. 

1. It had to suck dirt.

2. It needed to have a hose so I could clean in tighter spaces, in cracks or crevasses, or on top of furniture.

3. I wanted it to work well on hardwood floors.

I had remembered hearing rave reviews on the Shark brand by other moms, many of whom had cleaning businesses or large families. While we have a rather small house with only one carpeted room, I'm banking on a new vacuum lasting a number of years, which means our kids will be older and tracking more dirt, our family size will probably grow in that time, and we'll be taking it on to our next house (and who knows how much carpet we'll have then). 

Here are some of my first impressions.

Unboxing and Assembly

It came in a much smaller box than I was expecting. I guess after having a huge honking vacuum, I assumed that this one would at least be in a vacuum-sized box. One of the unique features of this particular vacuum is that it is compact and can be easily taken apart for cleaning or depending on whether you're using it as a stand-alone vac or a hand-held sweeper. So there was some simple assembly (no tools necessary).

Another thing that caught my attention right away was how light it was. My first reaction to it's being lightweight was that it must be cheaply made. Heavy = heavy duty, right? Time will tell.

Next, it felt flimsy to me. I knew right away before trying it that I wasn't going to like the rotator.... That is, until I actually tested that function. 

While the base seemed a bit narrow at first, I love how slim it is in height. It is able to slide under the edges of my couch very efficiently! So much different than my old clumsy Eureka that kind of just bumped into the furniture.

Performance

Well, it blew me away with how well it picked up dirt. I was like the difference between a gentle summer breeze and a tornado. The suction was set at max by default, but I didn't see that until after it tried sucking up one of my baby's wooden puzzle pieces. It didn't eat the piece, but I was impressed that it tried. It also sucked up a piece of paper that was slightly larger than an inch square. This could be bad for those of you who try vacuuming around things you value somewhat that you might've forgotten to pick up beforehand, but helpful to those of us who don't want to bend down to pick up something that small that you would've just thrown in the trash yourself. If this is too powerful for you, then simply adjust it lower than max suction. I kept it at max because I wanted to see what it could do, and also to give my carpet a good cleaning after having a lousy vacuum for so many years.

Rotator feature

You're probably wondering what exactly do I mean by rotator? It means that the canister part can move from side-to-side while the sweeper base is stationary. This is why it felt floppy to me at first, but here's what it does! It is designed that way to get underneath things easier! In the above picture, I demonstrated how far it could get under my futon if it wouldn't have the rotating capability. In the photos below, you can see that simply by bending it to the side, I am able to reach an extra 12 inches! With my Eureka, it always seemed like I was pulling the hose out to get the under edges of my furniture, but the Shark can easily be maneuvered into tighter spaces. For reference, the space between the futon and the table leg is about 4 inches. 

I don't know if I should be more excited or embarrassed at how much dirt I picked up from sweeping my house one time. I think this is a clear sign that our other vacuum did. not. work. The dirt canister can easily be lifted off to empty, and the filters are all washable by using plain old water. The fact that it can come apart at multiple points for easy cleaning and maintenance was a huge selling point for my husband. He loves that he can access any part of the vacuum easily! Being a mechanic and fabricator, his words were "this product was very well designed". 

Mr. Asks-to-Vacuum-Several-Time-a-Week-and-Wants-to-Do-it-All-Himself stood on a chair while I assembled the vacuum and ran it across the living room for the first time. It wasn't until I shut it off and was ready to move on that he asked to give it a shot. This one is a little easier for him to use because it's not as heavy, but due to him being a kid, he still has to work to lift the thing in order for it to lay flat on the floor. I think he'll do better using it with the lift-away feature (to be reviewed in part 2).

I love that the cord is 30-feet long! We have an old house with verrry minimal outlets, and half of them are hidden by furniture, so having an extra long cord is super handy! I literally vacuumed my entire house without having to unplug it. It didn't even pull the cord tight! Yeah, our house is only about 880 sq. ft., but this still is absolutely impressive. Also, check out the cord hook, which helps keep the cord off the floor and out of your way while you're vacuuming. Okay, so I just discovered my old vacuum has this too, but I never noticed after all these years.

~

So far, I'm pretty happy with this product. My biggest disappointment is the fact that I had to learn on a rare big purchase that Kohl's doesn't offer Kohl's Cash all the time. Thankfully, I was able to get this on sale, plus stack two coupon codes for an additional $52 off, making the purchase price just shy of $180. It's a rare moment when I can bring myself to shell out this much money on anything, but I was sure hoping to get $30 Kohl's Cash back, because I already had plans on how I was going to spend it. :)

....To be continued....

Poinsettia Update

It has been nearly 9 months since I've last updated you on my poinsettia, and I'm happy to announce it is still alive!

It's not very pretty at the moment, and I admit it had me worried this last week or two when I noticed it started dropping its leaves again. 

I have been soooo bad about watering it this entire winter. I don't even know if I gave it water more than five times since Thanksgiving, until recently when I started trying to give it a little bit about once a week. That's when the leaves started turning brown and shriveled, and my hopes of keeping this plant got trampled.

My poor plant. The one that has been around wayyy longer than any houseplant I have ever tried keeping. The potted success that has brought green to my winter since 2015. I've had this for over two years!

Did you know though, that a poinsettia actually thrives with less water?! You're not supposed to keep the soil wet, but rather let it dry out a bit on the surface (being careful not to let the dirt get bone dry) before you water it again. I'm convinced my forgetfulness in watering it is the only reason I still have it around today.

Look! This week I noticed little red buds starting again! I about shrieked with delight when I saw them. It's coming back to life! I am so excited to be getting several bunches of red leaves once again. It always takes longer than I expect to get any decent-sized red leaves, so I imagine it will probably be late spring before they are nice and full again.

It's looking rather gnarly not since I've not pruned it back at all. I'm so nervous to try. Technically I should've been pruning it all along, but I feel like my brown thumb would show through and poinsettia would end up dying for sure. I would love to talk with an expert and find out what I really should be doing to care for it so I can maybe have a beautiful, full plant again. My goal is to get it to bloom again in time for Christmas one year, when I can remember to stick it away to hibernate during the winter months.

Planning to Plant

My seed order has arrived!

This is by far the record earliest I've gotten prepared for gardening. I sent in my order in January. Looking back to the first summer we were married, that year I received my seed order in uh... April.

I never thought I'd catch myself getting excited about gardening. Back when I worked at Farmer's Markets, I remember hearing a born-farmer say he started his in January, and my eyes bugged out and probably did a little eye roll because I couldn't believe anybody could be so passionate about having a green thumb. But here I sit, the first week in February, with my seeds all ready, waiting for the snow to melt and sun to shine so I can get some seeds started! Since I'm in north-central Michigan, I can't actually plant outdoors for another 3 1/2 to 4 months. My tomatoes and peppers will be started indoors sometime in March though.

When I sorted out my seeds from previous years, I found I had enough left over of a few items that I didn't have to order quite as much as I had anticipated. We did order heavy on green beans and corn, since these are two items we have or will have used up our stock by summer. We're planning to mass-produce these crops so we can store away enough for the next 2-3 years. When I get tired of canning/freezing, the rest will be either sold at our roadside stand or taken to auction. I am purposely planning a little bit extra to sell, since last year both of these items brought a pretty high price at the produce auction. Beans were up to $22/bushel, and from what I remember, corn was hardly under $3/doz., unless sold by the giant bin.

Other items I bought seeds for include cucumbers, red beets, lettuce, spinach, roma tomatoes, wildflowers, and cut flowers.

The roma tomatoes are for an experiment. I am planning to make a double batch of ketchup this year, but don't really need to stock up on any other tomato products. Ideally a paste tomato works best for ketchup because you don't have to cook off as much juice. I have a tomato variety I like already, but am unsure how well it would sell at the produce auction, so I decided to try my hand at growing romas so I can send whatever I don't need to the auction. They are a common, specialty paste tomato that gathered a high price last year, but was in extremely limited quantity and only was available every couple weeks, even though the auction ran two days a week. We'll see how well they do! To date, I have only had real success with my favorite Amish Paste variety, so it will be interesting to see if I can get romas to grow. 

The wildflowers are because I would like to add some more visual appeal to my garden. Plus, my in-home summer decor is usually made up of fresh wildflower bouquets (often picked and carefully arranged by my sweet husband!). I've tried growing flowers in the past, but have never been faithful in watering them, so they've never come up. I'm hoping this year we'll be seeing nice patches of colorful blooms that we can enjoy all summer long. 

Last week I got to go on a fun shopping trip. Aaron has a rewards card at ACE hardware, since he shops there fairly often for work. We get coupons in the mail every month, and after spending so many dollars (earning him a certain number of points), he'll get gift cards usually for $5 off a purchase of $5 or more. In January, it was ACE's anniversary, and they sent out their rewards members a $10 gift card to be spent on a $10+ purchase. The calendar month flew by, and before we knew it 1/31/18 was here, and the gift coupon was expiring. Since we literally can see the parking lot lights from our house at night, and can't let free money go to waste, I received the honors of browsing the store to use the coupon. It was like a field trip for a stay-at-home mom! I bundled up the kids and went out one wintery afternoon and we rode the cart up and down those aisles. It was quite fun being able to take the time to answer all of Adam's "what's that?" inquiries without feeling like he was taking up precious need-to-focus shopping time. 

This is what we walked out of the store with! A hose nozzle and a piece of caramel (not pictured. It didn't last that long!) that we paid a grand total of 34 cents for! The nozzle was $9.99, but since the purchase had to be $10 in order to activate the coupon, we bought ourselves a treat for the short ride home. I had been needing a hose nozzle for the past few years, but never took the time or money to go out and buy one. Instead, I've spent the past few summers freezing my fingers off by covering the hose opening with my thumb to adjust the spray. Now I have a handy dandy, [almost] free nozzle that I can use! My fingers are already excited to be saved from the ice-cold well water.

My Workspace

Take a peek into my workspace this afternoon! Meal planning for the month, making a grocery list, feeding the baby (and me) some lunch, and copying down a bunch of our favorite recipes from Pinterest.

*This week's declutter/organization challenge is taking care of the recipe and coupon department! I don't clip many coupons and don't really have recipe books to weed through and purge, so my task is copying down the recipes I use from the internet and putting them on paper! It's another thing I've been meaning to do for quite some time.