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The end of February brought me grand baby number 7. I'm so in love with her.

April's here...hopefully bringing warmer weather here to stay. This past weekend we were close to 70 degrees, yesterday and today in the 40s and barely feeling like it. It's supposed to be warm again tomorrow but bringing in some nasty weather with it. On a good note...a couple weeks ago hubby won $10,000 on an Ohio lottery scratch-off! No April Fool's joke, he really did!

I had my most recent annual physical in mid December. At that time, my weight has been the highest it has been since before I started keto, my blood pressure was slightly high, and my a1c test for my type II diabetes came back over 7 again, which it has done every three months for the past two years, even with the diabetic and high blood pressure medication I am on. A couple of weeks later, around New Years, I started seeing the ads for the “natural Ozempic,” as one tends to see weight loss ads at the start of the year. I mostly ignored them, but my curiosity finally convinced me to watch one, which said there was a simple three ingredient recipe that could be easily made and taken daily to help weight loss and blood sugar. So, I watched it. Of course it was for a pill that was being sold, but I decided to do some searching and see if there was anything that could made at home. I had heard of the anti inflammatory benefits of ground turmeric in the past, so I looked to see if there was anything that could be made at home that could at least help. I found some articles which claimed the combination of ground turmeric, ground ginger, and black or cayenne pepper has been studied and found to be beneficial in some participants. I decided to add each to my two cups of coffee each morning. I started off with a quarter teaspoon of ground turmeric and an eighth of a teaspoon each of ground ginger and fresh cracked black peppercorn into each cup of coffee. This is in addition to the half a teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon I have put into each cup of coffee for the past decade or so. The combination is reminiscent of chai in my coffee, but it’s not totally unpleasant. I made no other changes to anything in my daily routine. At the end of January I had a follow up hematologist appointment, and was surprised to see my weight was down five pounds since my physical the month before. I seriously expected it to be up a few pounds, as had been the trend for the past year or so, as well as having just gone through the holiday season. The next week at the start of February I increased the amount of ground turmeric, ground ginger, and ground black pepper, basically doubling each, so I was now having a teaspoon of ground turmeric, and a half a teaspoon each of ground ginger and fresh cracked black peppercorn daily in my coffee, as well as the teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon. Again, I changed nothing else in my daily routine. Today I had a three month diabetic follow up at my primary care physician. My weight is down another seven pounds since I saw my hematologist at the end of January, my blood pressure was 113/75, and my a1c was 6.7, the first time I’ve been under 7 in a couple of years. I know, it’s very gradual and possibly very circumstantial, so I’m probably being silly to be hopeful about this. I need to stop the turmeric, ginger, and pepper for the next couple of weeks, as even western medicine admits that turmeric is a blood thinner and I have a procedure coming up the first week of April. But, trust me. Once the procedure is finished, I’m going to be adding them back in for as long as they seem to benefit me.

Ladies and germs... Black Friday has been officially cancelled for 2025, therefore us mods are deleting this site and everyone's account with it. ... wait, what day is it today???

Happy April! And to the original fool, happy birthday (my doggo turns 6 today)! I have been a cleaning, purging fool - it finally feels like our house is under control again. Now I'm ready to go out and plant some stuff but the weather just won't cooperate yet. I bought a tiny greenhouse at Aldi yesterday so that maybe I can get a head start. DS13 and I are also on the hunt for some more baby chicks, so far all of our local farm stores don't have any. I think we are going to try a hatchery, if they'll just sell us a few. DS14 turns 15 this weekend, so I guess he will be practice-driving next week! Stay off the sidewalks!!

Ouch. Is he OK? Did the deer run off? Or do y’all have venison to look forward to? Tonight starts the festival of Purim, with Shushan Purim following on Shabbes. It’s not in my tradition to bake cookies for the winter festivities, but I do make hamentaschen for Purim. This year I kept the count of each kind between a half a dozen for each of fruit filled, and closer to a dozen for the specialty ones. So we have: 6 fig 6 apricot 6 prune 7 espresso martini and 10 s’mores That’s still nearly three dozen for the three of us. That will definitely see us through the festival, and then some! Since each kind of the traditional fillings made about a dozen, I have enough to deliver them to some friends as well. Hopefully it will make their Purim, or at least their weekend, merry.

Checking in for March. Went to Dr with a possible issue and got good news, No Issue And my Iris plants have new leaves poking up. Spring soon……

I celebrated my birthday on the 28th of last month and what a GREAT day it was! My co-workers/employees surprised me with a cake (even if the one who made it did spell my name wrong), balloons and gifts, then that evening my son took us to see Josh Turner in concert! This is one birthday that will be difficult to top! She's beautiful!!

Watch out for the fools today! My birthday month has begun (and that's no foolin')! The birthday reward emails have begun rolling in so I am starting to plan which ones I can (and want to) take advantage of. Aside from that, as the weather warms, I am starting to plan out what I intend to plant/try to grow outside this year. Romaine, leaf lettuces, spinach, dill, and parsley are back in the plan, as all have done well in my garden boxes these past two years. Cucumbers have been a struggle, as I've battled fungus attacks. However, I am enclosing part of an existing tubular structure behind my house to turn it into a greenhouse of sorts and will try again to grow some cukes, knowing that the dang fungus is airborne and the enclosure might help me fend it off better. (If anyone has any suggestions on the battle front here, I'm listening!) As for flowers, I had some solid luck with what I called a "red, white, and blue corner" last year - I intend to repeat that with similar color scheme this year - maybe reverse color order. Last year, I did short (height) red, mid white, and tall (stalk flower style) blue. Thinking short blue (purple), mid white again, and stalk red this time around. Front porch will once again get hanging baskets - not sure what flowers just yet - just going to see what strikes my fancy when I make my trip to my local greenhouse. Hope my GDer family has been surviving the severe weather that's been crossing the country lately. I know we're due for another round here tomorrow. Color me thrilled (not).

The Luck o’ the Irish Americans to Ye! Sliced corned beef. I used a flat cut, rather than a point cut, even though I prefer the extra fat of the point cut. But the past few years the point cuts have shredded rather than sliced nicely. However, I also added an extra step of resting the brisket for half an hour after the 12 hour cook in the crockpot. It definitely firmed up the meat a little; in fact the taste was a little too dense for my liking. Not dry, but dense. I think I’ll try the same method next year, but I’ll go back to the point cut and see if the extra step works. Carrot, parsnip (was supposed to be turnip, but another member of the household picked up the ingredients and apparently misheard me), onion, potato, and cabbage Fresh out of the oven Irish Soda Bread The top buttered and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Removed from the Pullman loaf pan and cooling before slicing. An interior view of the soda bread. I used dried cranberries instead of raisins or currents. I reconstituted the dried cranberries by simmering in whiskey for 20 minutes and allowing them to cook before stirring into the dough. I find mixed straight into the dough they remain too chewy for me. This was perfect. My dinner plate.

Hard to believe we are almost halfway through March already! I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Salt Lake City, while my luger is here for training and racing. Kendall raced in the Norton USA Luge Youth National Championships on Friday and Saturday for athletes age 14 to 17 (Kendall is 15), where she placed 5th in the nation. Aside from one, all of the girls ahead of her were 17 and are either on the next level up, or are her direct teammates, but have been sliding longer and had many more opportunities to train on this track. Her final race for the season, the Norton USA Luge Jr. National Championships are Thursday and Friday, where Kendall will be competing against athletes up to the age of 21. The first training sessions they had in preparation for this race took place Saturday night, where Kendall's time on her first run was the fastest out of all of the athletes training that night, and her second run was third fastest, so this will be a very exciting race! The video below is her first training run from Saturday night, which is almost a minute long - rather too long to make sure I don't miss her, than scramble at the last minute, lol 20250308_190618.mp4

Another month down!!! Ready to breeze thru April and into May. May is going to be awesome. I pay off my minivan and I turn 50!!!!!!!

We have germination! I just got this set up yesterday, and even as compact as it is, it’s precariously balanced where I had room for it. Hopefully I can find a board the perfect width and length to give it stability.

Yummy! Hubby opted to not process the deer, and went to work instead. He is okay.

Et tu, Brute?

Hope everyone is doing well! I’m enjoying the early Spring weather we are having. It was a balmy 75° here yesterday.

Now that is funny and sad at the same time. LOL Congrats. She is beautiful.

Wē have a lot of bdays this month too. Plus, sometime this month we are expecting our 4th grandbaby. Exciting times

March came roaring in with an $800 plumbing repair for the house. Blah. On the other hand, I leave for Vegas next week for the annual sojourn westward. Looking forward to the week with my "sisters from another mister". I bake the pile of cookies for our pit crew guys this Saturday. May have to have them start forking over moolah for those eggs... LOL

Yay March. I was very sick last March, with a hospital stay early April, so I missed spring. Very much looking forward to that this year!

The Joanns closing really hurts. I shopped there quite a bit, and bought my embroidery machine from a Viking dealer inside one of those stores. I went to my local one yesterday and 1. I've never seen so many cars in the parking lot, 2. People were bellied up to the cutting bar with bolt after bolt of fabrics, yelling at the employees that they only wanted a half yard even though there were signs everywhere saying they had a 1 yard minimum and 3. 20% off is not a real sale, when you could regularly use a 40% off coupon previously. I don't know where these people came from, but I felt so bad for the employees having to deal with them. I walked out without buying anything, I just felt like saying goodbye to an old friend. Not sure where I'll get my fabric from in the future, but I'm sure something will pop up in its place. I really don't like the idea of buying fabric online. I have enough of a stash to last me through at least one apocalypse, so I should be good for a while

The last week of February was very eventful. I was able to help my mom donate some books and puzzles to clear up space (which will no doubt make room for more books and puzzles), and also hit a few stores I don't normally visit. Hopefully March will allow me to clean around the apartment a little more and the weather will cooperate so the windows can be open for a few days in a row.

Checking in for April!

No joke...here for April....lol

Can’t believe the month is over.

March is going out like a lion in many places across the country. Hope April brings nice weather.

You know you live in the Southern Delta lands when a 2-hr drive at night requires 2 separate stops to clean your windshield of the mass of dead bugs piling up on it. Poor bugs but that was a first for me and I have lived here all of my 54 years of life. The front bumper of my white car is black from it. Spring has sprung for sure.

Eight different varieties of tomatoes, two in each pellet and two pellets of each variety. My two raised beds have room for 16 plants total, so I hope to get two strong plants of each variety to transplant in eight to ten weeks. If I wind up with more, I’ll offer them to friends or at a seed and plant swap. This is still all experimentation for me. Last year I started seeds I saved from the previous years San Marzano-style tomatoes, which were planted with other varieties in the same bed. The plants grew and produced, but I think they were smaller overall than the Roma tomatoes I had saved seed from, so they may have cross pollinated with the other varieties I grew. I’m growing two plants from Roma seeds I saved last year from the smaller tomatoes. We’ll see how they produce this year.

What kind of plants are these? I love watching them all grow and produce through your posts.

Bring on Spring Break!

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I’m a third year raised bed gardener at Marymoor Community Garden in Redmond, WA. Zone 8b. I was a complete novice when I started three years ago in a single bed, and moved to a pair of raised beds with an arched trellis in between them last year. I still feel like a novice at this point, but I love sharing what I’m doing and getting advice from others. Today is indoor tomato seed sowing day. If they germinate and up pot well, they should be ready for hardening off in mid May and then transplanted out to my raised beds in late May/early June, depending on our temperature at the time. Here is my garden set up. I had agricultural fleece over my beds for the winter, as I overwintered garlic, asparagus, and a purple collard tree in the beds. I pulled the agricultural fleece back last week and removed the dried leaf mulch I had put over the beds to protect the soil over the winter. It looks like some settling occurred over the winter months, so I plan on adding some compost to bring level up before planting more. I hand raked in some lime as well as organic vegetable and tomato granular fertilizer, and noticed my red wrigglers appear to be getting active. I quartered up a butternut squash and pushed it lightly into the soil as food for the worms, but something kept digging the squash quarters out, although they didn’t seem to eat anything from them. I finally used a spade and dug deeper into the soil, completely burying the squash quarters. I figure the red wrigglers will find them deeper down. So far, whatever was disturbing them before hasn’t bothered them since burying them deeper. I grew eight varieties last year and saved seeds from all eight. This is my chart of how I sowed them in my seed starting tray. This is a 36 coco coir pellet starting tray. My intent is to transplant two of each variety into my raised beds. I put two seeds from a variety into each pellet, and did two pellets per variety. If I have 100% germination, I’ll have double the plants I need, but I know germination rates tend to be much lower than that, especially with self saved seeds. As I only needed 16 pellets, I removed the others in a pattern I found easy to chart and have stored them to be used next year. Not to mention, the San Marzano style seeds were saved from tomatoes that were grown from seeds I saved the year before. So these are second generation seeds. Since they were not isolated from other varieties when I grew them two years ago, they seemed to grow smaller than the crop I had the previous year. But they were plentiful and tasty. They also weren’t isolated last year, and won’t be this year, so I’ll see what I wind up with. If too far from the original, I won’t save those seeds this year, and start fresh next growing season. The seeds sown and covered over with a light layer of coco coir. The humidity dome on top until germination. This is going to sound out of the ordinary, but I’m germinating my seeds in my bathtub. I don’t have any place to set up a heat mat, and I have found the warmest place in the house to be in the enclosed bathroom with no window. So, until germination the seed tray will sit on the floor of the bathtub. The shower curtain will be drawn closed, and the bathroom door will be kept closed. I figure the occasional light from the bathroom being used won’t disturb the germination process too much. We’ll see what happens in a week or so.

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We also have birthdays and travel planned for March. Good to see everyone still here!

Oh my goodness how precious! Congratulations!!

So just how bad are these "ides" I hear about? Enough with the ides; I got enough problems already. Last thing I need is a trip to Wikipedia to see that "ides" are some kind of bad humors or some other medieval crap. On the bright side, I got one of those bird feeders with a camera on it so I see cardinals eight times a day.

Happy March! Here in Central IL we are in the Spring of Deception, which should be followed by actual spring. I have been on a yarn kick for the past 3 months and it's getting out of control. I don't even know how many works in progress I have started, but I need to start FINISHING some of them soon! I found a local yarn shop that's not too far from the ice rink where the boys have hockey practice and it's been a real hazard for my wallet I'm also waiting patiently to get some more chicks. We are down to 2 hens, and only one is laying eggs. We don't eat a lot of eggs, so I don't need many girls, but I'd like to add 3 or 4 to our flock, but I'm going to be more selective this time as to the breed we get.

Can’t believe February is already gone. Seems like it just started last week.

Hey there everything is going as good as it can right now for me

My sister crochets. She has started 4 temperature blankets (I think is what they are called), one for herself and one for my sister, brother, and me. She's been using Joanns branded yarn. She said the yard from HL comes close to the same colors, but not exact. She's going to try to get as much yarn as she can, but it probably won't be enough to finish the blankets so she's pretty bummed about it too.

I am so frustrated! Got my hair highlighted and the stylist fried my hair! I mean bad. I am going to try to save what I can but likely a major chopping is in my future! Not the way to start March.