My white Saint Theresa hydrangea changing to pink–though it’s supposed to not ever change colors, since it is a white hydrangea. I gave it some soil sulphur last week to lower the ph in hopes of fixing the problem.
Last week’s goals were tossed out the window when I ended up reading. Winter borrowed a series of books from a woman at church, and I had read a few the week before last. Last week I ended up sitting down to finish the series, reading 8 books
The garden is brimming with ripeness now as the figs, apricots, blackberries, plums, red grapes, and Dorsett Golden apples are all ripening, which will require picking each day. It’s a constant race against the birds to keep them from eating the fruit when it is ripe, before I can pick it.
I’d like to can some apricot vanilla jam this week, if there are enough apricots, but the tree has far less fruit this year than it has in years past, so we may just end up eating it.
Winter is invited to a party to celebrate the end of school. Everyone is asked to bring a snack and a game to share if they wish, or to just come as they are. They will be playing board games and card games, and eating together. This is an annual tradition a friend of ours does for youth ages 12 to 18 from our church congregation. I’ll have Winter bring a huge bowl of popcorn.
A lot of seeds in the garden haven’t come up, or came up and were eaten by bugs. I am planting more.
It’s quite hot here. This week is supposed to be a few degrees cooler than last week (where we were over 100º several days) but only just a tad cooler. At this point, I do my garden work very early in the morning, or in the evening after dinner.
Garden:
1. Plant more cucumber seeds
2. Plant Swiss chard seeds under the fig tree
3. Pick figs
4. Pick apples
5. Pick apricots
6. Pick red grapes
7. Pick plums
8. Manure grape vines
9. Fertilize fruit trees
10. Fertilize tomatoes
11. Continue to remove caterpillar-covered leaves from the grape vines
12. Plant more zucchini seeds. I don’t have any plants in the garden now 🙁
13. Plant more butternut squash seeds. These came up but were eaten.
Sewing:
1. Sew numbers on my husband’s Scout shirt
2. Sew several items on Ezrom’s Scout shirt
3. Make velvet strawberry emery
4. Make pin bag for clothespins
5. Turn Wren’s torn at the knee jeans into shorts
6. Turn 2 of Libby’s torn jeans into shorts
7. Hem a few pairs of my husband’s jeans
Organization:
1. Organize one drawer
2. Put away collected onion and dill seeds
3. Balance checkbook and pay bills
Personal goals
1. Start reading Proverbs (I know I picked a 30-day month, but I will just read 2 chapters on the last day)
2. Make visiting teaching appointments
3. Attend the temple
Cooking:
1. Make pita bread
2. Cook white beans and make white bean dip
3. Cook black beans
4. Make potato salad
5. Make pasta salad
6. Make balsamic orange vinaigrette for a green salad from the garden with hard-boiled eggs
7. Make rosemary olive oil bread
8. Make a large bowl of popcorn for Winter to take to a party
9. Grate carrots and dehydrate them
10. Make yogurt and granola
Look for my June Shopping Plan post tomorrow morning!
What is velvet strawberry emery? Since it’s not posted under cooking, I assume it’s not desserr, but it does sound delish!
I have to make biscotti, molasses cookies, and banana muffins. I promised to make cupcakes as well. I have to go through our kitchen drawer and organize it. We are making glacially slow progress on getting the house ready to move. Ugh. UGH. I have to keep the children busy as we reseeded the front yard and need to keep them off it. I am trying to bake things that will use up the odds and ends and biscotti are great for that. I also have to pack up my cookbooks so we can empty the closet.
It’s a little strawberry made of velvet fabric, filled with sand. It’s used to sharpen sewing pins–you stick them in it to sharpen them.
Do you do anything special to your popcorn or just make it plain?
I love culinary mysteries. I am going to order these from my library. In the summer I spend most afternoons laying out in the yard under a tree reading! My kids are all grown so I now have time to do this. lol
My hydrangeas used to be pure white, now they are a pale green with some pink tinged in there. I read that as the plants get older they can change colors.
OK, you’ve inspired me to go ahead and plant my butternut squash seeds. The weather has been so rainy here that I couldn’t get work done in the garden until this week, and I wondered if it might be too late, but if you’re planting them in Las Vegas, surely I can plant them in Kansas! What kind of bugs are eating your plants? I always have a problem with pill bugs, and rabbits, and even birds – just today I saw a bird grabbing a leaf off my pepper or zucchini plant and flying off.
I’m excited to see your shopping list – it really does help me think about what purchases to plan out. I worked on a different list for homeschooling books I’ll be on the lookout for as I head to an annual used curriculum sale.
Pill bugs are the problem here.
Do make sure your variety will ripen before frost. Our frost is usually the first or second week in December, but can be a few weeks earlier. I grow Waltham Butternut, which is a variety that ripens in fewer days than other types (Butternut squash can be 85 to 120 days, depending on type).
Just salt! We cook in on the stove top (2 Tbsp oil to 1/2 cup popcorn, which fills our popper).
My garden goal this week is to get some tomato plants in the ground. plant some beans and cucumbers. Continue to pick strawberries as they ripen.
My home goal is to do a makeover of my son’s room while he’s away at the ocean for Senior Week. Cleaning, priming and painting, window treatment and making some bedding are on the list. I am also framing some pieces for his walls. I got one thing framed yesterday after finding some poster frames on clearance for $4 at AC Moore. I’m going back today to get a few more frames now that I have used one and see the quality. I had found framed for $19.99 and with a a 50% coupon figured $10 was going to be as good as I could get $ wise. I was thrilled to find these other frames for $4! I will do this around my work schedule and need to have it done by Saturday afternoon.
My sewing goal is to mend 2 items of clothing and to get window valance and blanket made for son’s room. May also try to get some pillowcases made for his room.
I can’t wait to read those books if they kept you so interested! Hopefully they will have them at the Library! You’re getting so much fruit too! That’s great. Have a great day!
Just wondering what you use to fertilize your tomatoes and what you use on pepper plants also?
Brandy, what kind of needle do you use to sew patches onto the scout shirts? A regular heavy duty/denim needle or something else? Our pack recommended fabric glue. 🙁
Thanks!
Lea
I love culinary mysteries also. Great light summer reading. I’m on the second book of the Hannah Swenson series and enjoying it and the recipes
My goals are similar to yours in that they are mostly garden related. Hope you have better luck with your new planting
Yes, the point about frost just occurred to me this morning when I thought about how long it would take before the plant produced. Our first frosts are supposed to be sometime in October, but sometimes we don’t get them until later, so since I still have the space, I probably will plant and see what happens.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I used to read a lot of culinary mysteries – been out of it since baby #2 (who is now almost 3). I’ll add that to my “wish list” for my birthday and see if the library has them.
My proud moment for this week was having enough kale in my rain gutter garden (Pinterest, where else?!) for dinner last night. Tonight I’ll be using some romaine leaves in my dinner plans. At last, I got to my lettuce before the bunnies did. Unless there’s an Air Jordan Bunny in my yard, they’ll never reach. 🙂
I need to finish an embroidery project for church.
I have a few items of clothing to repair.
Weeding the front beds (did the back beds Sat. when we finally had a dry day.)
Making a summer sleep shirt from an oversized tshirt. (Sleeves off & add some length)
Two more days of water exercise this week. One is done.
I know it’s summer and your kids probably want more pairs of shorts than jeans, but this is the technique I use when my kids tear holes in their jeans and I want them to remain jeans – I darn them. I learned how here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-uPzfZHMwQ
I always use what I have on hand ( thick fusible interfacing on the inside with a scrap of cotton fabric on the outside, and dual-duty thread in a color that matches as closely as possible the degree of fading on the jeans) rather than what she uses in the video. It works great and is virtually invisible. My kids love it and I love saving an otherwise good pair of jeans! It’s also good to know in case you run across ripped/torn jeans in the thrift shop or at garage sales. Darn them and they are as good as new!
I use my sewing machine to sew on patches. I use a regular sewing machine needle with monofilament thread in the top and red or black thread on the bobbin. You have to change the patches so often as the boys advance in rank that using a contrasting thread on the bobbin makes it easy to see the stitches on the inside of the shirt when it’s time to remove them. Easily done with a seam ripper. The monofilament thread on the top means it doesn’t matter how perfect or unperfect your sewing is – it’s invisible! Works for any color patch, too!
It’s winter here, and Australian homes are not built for winter – we like to pretend we live in a nice moderate climate, even in the southern states. In a weird way I find winter is a very productive time for me because staying active keeps me warmer. The past couple of weeks I’ve gotten so much done around the house, that when I picked the kids up from school and warned them not to go into the kitchen because the paint was wet, my daughter asked, “Are you redecorating the entire house?” The kitchen will be my last big project – although until a couple of days ago it wasn’t even on the radar, so who knows what I’ll decide to tackle next?
My big goal for this week is to get my credits for prior learning finalised so that I know what classes to enrol in for my course, which starts in July. I have already received 4 credits for prior learning and am trying for another 4, which will mean I will hopefully be able to complete my studies in a year.
I only have one day off from work this week so I plan to make the most of it! I’d like to: weed and mulch the front garden and put in some annuals, make rhubarb curd with the rhubarb that’s threatening to take over my yard, make veggie stock with the scraps that have taken over my freezer, and finish up schoolwork for one of my classes to get it out of the way as early as possible.
Have a good week everyone!
I feel a little under the gun this week with all the company.
The other guest room still needs the remnants of my sewing gone temporarily(it doubles as my sewing room). Feeling totally frustrated last night, I took 2 empty laundry baskets in there. One was for donations and one was for keep. It is amazing how fast the donation basket filled and my keep basket – I was able to put away with in minutes!
There are leftovers that won’t freeze well – but seeing your pasta salad to do, well now I know how to remedy and not waste!
Your photos are really helping my morale this week. Thank you!
Can you share how you turn the jeans into shorts?
Thanks Amy!!
I would never have thought of using the monofilament – brilliant! I had been told a “very heavy duty needle” because the patches are “too stiff” for anything else. I’m glad to know that’s not the case! I was planning on using my sewing machine so I’ll get some monofilament thread.
Have a great rest of your week,
Lea
If you like murder mystery books with pastry recipes, I highly recommend the bestselling Hannah Swensen series by Joanne Fluke (I actually wasn’t aware there were more cooking/detective books out there!). It is about a woman in her 30’s who runs a bakery and always seems to find herself in situations where she needs to solve murders to prove her innocence.
I use a 14 or 16 needle, which are for heavier fabrics (16 is for denim).
Epsom salt is good on both to help them make more flowers. I used some of that last week.
I generally haven’t fertilized after planting–just when they go in to the ground. I am going to try some vegetable/tomato fertilizer that I got at the nursery and see if that helps this year.
Cut the jeans off at the tear, making sure to cut both legs the same length.
Turn the jeans inside out.
Fold over the bottom of the jeans one time (about 1/4″) and iron with a hot iron.
Fold over the bottom again, about 1/2″, and iron again.
Pin folded edges down.
Use jean thread and a heavy-duty needle to sew folded over edges. Remove pins as you go. The heavy duty needle is helpful when going over side seams where you have lots of layers. You may also want to go more slowly over the side seams as well.
Turn jeans right side out and press seams one more time.
I made a strawberry in highschool as one of my sewing “tests”. Pretty much my home ec teacher gave us the instructions, fabric, and pattern and never uttered a word nor was she willing to help us. We were tested on our ability to read instructions, follow them and use a pattern and see through a project to completion. I still have it, some 20 yrs later!!! And the bonus is I used it as inspiration to make my daughter some felt food for her kitchen set last year for Christmas!!!
Thanks Brandy!
Our scout leader made it sound like it was some kind of special needle – not something you could buy in a regular sewing store (like JoAnn’s). I think they thought I was a little crazy for not just gluing them on like “everyone else” was doing.
Have a great weekend,
Brita
I buy Singer needles for my machine, and they have a package with three sizes in it at Joann’s: 11, 14, and 16. There are two of each size. Other brands have the same thing. I actually just broke my needle this week while sewing the jeans so I need to replace my needles so that I can sew on the patches.
Thank you!