It's... Planting Day!!!

And we're done. Mostly. I've decided that I want to add some beans, so I bought the seeds, but I'm going to start them in small pots inside and plant them in a week or two. I have 1 Burpless Cucumber (just to see if they really are better), 5 Marketmore 76 cucumbers, 3 Health Kick tomatoes, 3 Cherry tomatoes, 4 onion chives, and 5 California Wonder Sweet Peppers.
It's amazing how much soil I needed! I used 8 40 lb. bags of topsoil, 3 40 lb. bags of Miracle Gro potting soil, and 1 40 lb. bag of Scott's garden soil. That's a lot of dirt! And the garden is pretty full, so by the time I'm ready to transplant the beans I'm getting ready to sprout, I'll need to dig another section to add next to the garden which will need garden soil, too!
Wanna see what we did? Sure you do...
I have two different angles, and one from far away because it looks small up close. (You can see larger pics if you click on the pic.)

Outside a lot!

I have been outside so much in the past few days! Benny is loving it! I have my garden dug, but I think I will be making it bigger either tonight or tomorrow. I have Miracle Gro soil to add with the regular soil. I'll mix it in together in the plot I dug out and then tomorrow is the big "Planting Day"!
We used to have two garages. We have an attached garage and when we bought the house there was a second one car garage about 2.5 feet away from the attached garage. It was a mess and the roof was falling in. Years ago, maybe 7? Todd and some friends tore it down. It had a cement floor, so we have a nice sized cement slab next to the garage where the boys can ride their scooters or skateboards. I decided to dig up the dirt between the garage and the cement slab and I wanted to plant some sunflower seeds in that strip. I went out with my shovel to pull out the weeds and the small rocks and just turn over the dirt. It's all cement! It had about 2-3 inches of dirt on top of cement! Crazy! We've lived here for 11 years and I didn't know that!
So, now I'm considering putting in a little garden box on top of the cement and still growing sunflowers in it with some mulch and a nice little wooden border. We'll see. I dug all of the dirt and weeds off the cement earlier.
Benny will be 2 in a little less than two weeks. Today I plan on starting the birthday shopping. I'm thinking outside toys like a little wheelbarrow.
The boys' school year is almost ending! June 8th is their last day. Todd is almost done with 4th grade and Luc is finishing Kindergarten. I feel old, and these white hairs aren't helping.
You know what I hate! I hate how Luc's name is always underlined in red when I type it as though it is spelled wrong!! It is SO ANNOYING!!

Dug up the garden

I made a garden today. Kinda. I think it will need to be bigger. All I really did was dig out the top part with the grass and chop up the earth underneath. It doesn't look very big, but I'd say it's almost 4 feet wide and at least 5 feet long. It's supposed to freeze tonight, so I'm glad I wasn't ready to plant my veggies yet. I'm going to go out and buy some good garden dirt in the next few days. Then I'll mix it all up and plant my stuff. I'm happy about this. It's going to be fun!


Here are my plants. They are spending the night in the kitchen since it's supposed to be low thirties tonight.

And Luc learned how to climb a tree! He only got about 3 feet off the ground, but he was so proud!

Spring time

So, it's spring. New classes (of course I have to mention school up front, right?), and new ways of life. This year anyway. I have really been thinking about the things I do in my life and how it might (or might not) affect others.
So, I've stopped using plastic grocery bags. I now have 12 reusable grocery bags made from recycled cloth. It was kind of hard at first to remember to take those bags into the store with me. Then, whenever I forgot them, I just told the cashier I didn't want a bag and had to to carry my things out. I quickly started to remember them. Also, Kroger gives you a 5 cent rebate on your purchase for every bag you bring in yourself! When I go grocery shopping, I buy a lot. I have three kids, a husband, and a dog to buy for; those 12 bags are handy.
I've also started recycling. I have considered it before, but where I live there is no pick up for recyclable items. So, I've looked into what is allowed and what isn't allowed. I have four bins in my garage and we put all of the recyclable things in those bins and once a week we drive to the recycling center to drop it all off. I went from having three full trash cans of trash a week, to one that isn't even full! Now, if Benny would just become fully potty-trained, we could cut down even less.
I've also started buying more recycled things. Specifically toilet paper, paper towel,, paper, and aluminum foil. It might cost a little more, but it makes me feel good.
I have been a coupon freak lately! I am saving so much money. Kroger doubles coupons up to $1, and for a while KMart was doubling up to $2. I won't have to buy shampoo or toothpaste for at least a year!
The final new thing that I've been doing to change our lives (haha, that sounds so silly, but it is at least partially true) is I'm starting a garden. This isn't like last year when I was like "I'm starting a garden". This is me going out yesterday and buying 24 3.5 inch potted plants to get it started. I had Todd and Jason out in our yard a few days ago. They cut down two trees and a bunch of branches that were in my way. I dug out two old stumps yesterday. This weekend, Todd and I are going to get an area ready, dig it up and put some topsoil in, plant our garden, and put a cute little edging fence around it. If that doesn't keep these monsters, I mean kids, out, I will buy razor wire. Or maybe just keep a better eye on them. We'll see.

Help??

I am looking for a book I need. I have looked on ebay and other sites like amazon, a1books, dualj, and half.com, but I'm not finding what I need at a price that I like. I did find what I wanted on ebay and I did bin, but when I got it, it was the wrong book. (I don't know all of the ebay rules, but I think it is wrong to list the ISBN number of a different book, and then farther down in the listing say it isn't that book.) Anyways, this is the book I'm looking for. I did find one auction on ebay that's at $40, and another copy on half.com that's $59.99. The biggest problem I'm finding is that a lot of the books are international copies, or instructor's editions. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

It's all come down to.....

this...
I have gray hair. Just a few minutes ago, I found the 6th gray hair on my head. SIXTH! I'm only 26. This is bull shit. I am going to have to start dying my hair if it keeps up like this. Todd says it's not a big deal, and I mean, yeah it could be worse. I don't want to get old. Even more, I don't want to look old. This sucks.

I swear all I ever post about online is school. Apparently that's all I have on my mind. Ever. So, I got an email about two weeks ago saying that my financial aid for the spring semester was denied. I resolved myself to trying to think positively about having the summer off even though I was pretty disappointed. This morning, I got a second email telling me how much my student loan was approved for. AFTER I canceled all of the classes I was signed up for. Nice.
Easter was nice. The boys got small Easter buckets instead of big baskets. They got some candy, but no toys this year. I think for not being religious people we should scale back on Easter.
Todd shaved his head again. He had been growing his hair out since January because I wanted him to. It was getting too crazy, so he shaved it off again. I'm getting used to it again, but I really liked it longer.
I have to leave for class in a few. I've been waiting around for the mail to get here, but I guess it'll come a few minutes after I'm gone.
I've been reading Fast Food Nation for my business ethics class. Pretty interesting.