Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Spring has Sprung!!!!

The weather has been very nice lately. We have had more sunny days than cloudy. We have had average temperatures in the 70s. I sure cannot complain at all about this weather! 

I actually yearn for sunny days and warmer weather. I am a naturally chilly person. Just like at this very moment, I am on the couch covered up with a blanket and it is in the mid 60s outside. I am not warm until mid 70s or low 80s. Beyond that though, I love the outdoors. I love gardening, watching things grow and bloom. The excitement of the bulbs I planted pushing through the earth every spring. The excitement of listening to the birds early in the morning and watching the trees slowly getting their leaves. The smell of grass being mowed and the gentle buzzing of the bees hard at work. I just love it.


Unfortunately the outside temps at night nave not been warm enough to let my plants hang out on my porch. You can see some here in my bay window. Please overlook the dirty windows..the puppies love to hang out there. I have 2 spider plants: one is in a huge pot. My mom gave it to me because it was too big for her and the other is in a homemade hanging basket ready to be put up on my front porch. I also have 2 hanging baskets of petunias. Both of which I bought off of the discount racks at Lowes for $3 each! Check out their discount racks..great deals can be found there and most are just plants they have overstock of. I also have a poor fern I am
to save but I am just not sure it is going to survive.                      


                                                                                       Sadly or maybe fortunately , when spring arrives, my  dining room table gets taken over with  my                                                                              seedlings just waiting to be put in my garden beds. My kiddos are very happy every year when this phenomenon takes place because they get to eat their dinner sitting in the living room floor watching movies. I am  hoping to be able to put my plant babies in my beds on May 1st since our last frost date is April 23rd. I just have to  pay attention to the weather reports and pray no frost hits after they are planted.                       


Warmer weather also means tons of outdoor and mainly free activities
for my family. One of our favorite things to do is to go fishing. Sadly, about a month ago, someone decided to steal our fishing poles so we decided to splurge a bit and go buy 6 brand new fishing poles. Each one of my kids picked out their own poles, not to exceed $20. It was very fun and we have already used them. Last Sunday we went fishing and everyone caught at least one fish......except me :(

Along with fishing, we have always wanted to go camping. Since we cannot afford a camper, we decided to splurge on a tent. Here is the bag for the tent. Unfortunately, after putting it up to make sure i know how and to make sure all of the parts were there, I couldn't get it rolled into a small enough roll to fit in the bag. Our tent's new home is a tote and it is very happy.


 Here you can see our "home away from home" all set up. It measures 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. The center height is 6 feet 6 inches. It has 3 rooms. It can sleep 10 people in sleeping bags or it is big enough to place a queen size air mattress in each of the 3 rooms. With my family, this is the perfect fit as we have 2 girls, 2 boys, and 2 adults. We CANNOT wait to have our first camping trip which will probably be in my mom's or my dad's back yard.


 Another outdoor activity my hubby enjoys is golf. I, however, do not have an athletic bone in my body. But he has convinced me to dabble in the sport. A couple years ago we purchased a men's golf club set second hand and I must say, the golf bug has bitten me. I have not went to an actual course yet but I was pretty good at the practice range with the men's clubs. So we decided it was time for me to have a nice women's set. I purchased these from Golf Outlets of America via Amazon.com. They arrived yesterday and I have dabbled with the driver in the empty lot beside us and a plastic practice ball. If that dabbling is any indication, I will more than likely produce lower scores on the course than my hubby. At least that is what my competitive nature has told me.


I have also been playing around with my camera. I would love to get into photography. I would LOVE to do special events, portraits as long as we aren't in a stuffy studio, landscapes, everything. I have so many pictures on my computer, my computer runs slow. The sad part is, I also have 2 external hard drives full of pictures.

Here you see my youngest son blowing dandelion seeds in my mom's yard. (Don't tell my mom's hubby..he hates having dandelions in his yard.)



Here is an artsy fartsy shot of the dandelions in my mom's yard.

A bumble bee on my mom's trees.
A honey bee on a dandelion
 And the beautiful sky
Spring = a renewing of life. My lovely indoor cat was impregnated by my lovely outdoor cat and 7 kittens were born. One, her first born, was still born and looked just like its daddy. The other 6 are alive and well. As you can see in this picture, we have an oddball as 5 of her kittens are grey or grey and white and one is black and white.






My final picture of today is the progress of my ripple blanket. This blanket is being made to fit my bed. It is being made of mostly odds and ends of yarn from various other projects. I did buy a few extra skeins because I liked the colors but none of those have made it in the blanket yet. Once I finish with one color, it goes into one bin and then I just close my eyes and pick another out of my other bin. I know it will take me a while to get it finished as I am alternating days working on this blanket and crocheting 6 inch squares for Share a Square.


I hope you have enjoyed this post and I will try to update more often. Life is crazy busy right now AND I seem to always forget my camera. Maybe I need to buy a point and shoot to keep in my purse.

Sending my love and warm hugs to all of you!

Erin

4 comments:

  1. I am forever jealous of your plants and flowers. I can't grow anything to save my life.

    And OMG KITTENS!!!!!!!!!!! SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!

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  2. Wow.. I just LOVE your new look! Where did you find such a neat background? I also like the nice bold font. Very easy to read. Love all the photos.. you should go camping this very weekend in a campground.. you'll have fun around the campfire. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  3. Love this post. What green fingers you have. I sadly am still waiting for the one plant I have to pop up. I am not even sure if I potted it right hehe! Oh well we live and learn.
    I must say that is a very impressive tent and those kittens are soooooooo cute.
    Ripples take forever. I have sadly put mine away for a time when I have no children around in the daytimes so I can give it all the attention it deserves...Oh and I agree with Teresa it is a cool background :)

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  4. Yay Kittens! They're so cute :-) The black and white one must be something to do with recessive genes!

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