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

About Me

Hello again my friends. I am sorry I haven't been around lately. Life has certainly been very busy. We have had tons of appointments and functions to attend on top of our everyday school, work, and home schedules. I tell you we have barely had time to breathe lately. 

I have wanted to blog about so much stuff that has been happening but I have failed to take pictures of most of the goings on. However, I do have some to post soon. I am just waiting on the right time and for a few more things to come to fruition. 

So I decided to help you all get to know me a little bit.

I am 32 years old. I have been married for nearly 12 years to the greatest man alive and I have four beautiful and very intelligent children. Two of which are girls ages (nearly) 13 and 11 and two of which are boys ages (nearly) 9 and 7. I am also the mom of 2 doggies: a 3 year old Chiweenie, Tinkerbell and a 5 month old Chihuahua, Roxy. I cannot forget my kitties either. My outside boy, Wickett and my sweet inside girl, Daisy who just had 6 kittens fathered by Wickett.

My husband and I met in high school but we are not sweethearts. We were best friends. We hung around the same crowds and he dated a couple of my friends. I really didn't see him as "boyfriend" material because he had a tendency to be a player and was a smooth talker. He and I didn't get together until I was 19 and after I had my oldest daughter. I began to see him in a different light when I saw how he was with her. We became a couple because I felt it important for my daughter to have a strong male figure in her life and our relationship really didn't become as a couple until we were married for a couple of years. I guess I always knew I loved him but didn't realize it until a big argument happened and I thought he had left me.

My oldest daughter obviously has a different biological father than my other three. Her dad and I broke up when I was 6 months pregnant with her. The next time I heard from him she was 2 and after that I contacted him when she was 7 because she wanted to talk to him. He lives in Georgia so she doesn't get to see him.

As everyone who follows my blog knows, I suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks for 6 or so years. Most of those years were spent inside my home and a whole year was spent inside my bedroom because I would have panic attacks just to go to the bathroom. My love for crochet developed out of those times in my life. Crochet gave me something solid to hold onto. It gave me that finished product to keep working towards and to look forward to when all I wanted to do was curl up and die. My very first product was a blanket made using all double crochet stitches. It had uneven sides but I was very proud of it so I gave it to my mom. My second project was an American flag afghan.

I am very spiritual. I have been drawn to God ever since I can remember. I used to go to church all by myself when I was a kid and if one was within walking distance from where we lived. I don't think I would be alive today if it wasn't for God and prayers.

I almost committed suicide when I was in the middle of my anxiety. I had a bottle of my hubby's blood pressure pills poured out in my hand. What kept me from doing it? My hubby couldn't cook anything but hamburgers and spaghetti at the time and I told myself that my kids could not live off of just hamburgers and spaghetti. I put the pills back and never thought of it again.

I am nothing like my parents. Both of them tend to be on the selfish side. They don't mind doing things as long as it doesn't inconvenience them. I am very loving, giving, caring, and I will go out of my way to help others. People who know my parents and know me all think I am adopted but I look too much like my mom and my dad to be adopted.

I love to cook. I can cook nearly anything I set my mind too with the exception of fluffy biscuits. However, I hate the clean up. I absolutely hate doing dishes. I have done them since I was 7 and I am begging my hubby to get me a dish washer :P

I have OCD. It started when I was 9 or 10 when I lived with my dad. My stepmother would be very mean to me and if she checked my room and it had just a teeny piece of paper from a notebook on the floor she would flip out on me and take stuff away. I started being a "neat freak". I tried to relax it when I had kids because I didn't want to be crazy around them with having to have everything perfect. So when the house is a little messed up I am usually grumpy until I get it cleaned. (I am definitely a lot better about it now though..I'm not as grumpy)

You may have guessed that my parents are divorced. My mom and dad lived here in Ohio. They seperated when I was 6 years old. My mom moved to Georgia where my grandparents had moved to. My dad was supposed to come once he sold the house and got the affairs in order. He never did. He told me when I was grown that he couldn't uproot his life to come to Georgia with us. I did see him every summer. I lived with him for 3 years from the age of 11 til 14. After I moved back to Georgia with my mom, I didn't see my dad again until I graduated high school. It is ok though. My grandpa was like a dad to me. He took me fishing, doted on me, and even walked me down the aisle when I got married. (my dad  didn't come to my wedding either)

Last but not least....I love you guys. Even if this is the first post you read, I just want everyone to know that I am sending love to everyone out there. 

A big hug from me to you!!!!

Erin