• Minnesota Challenge!
  We have decided a new challenge for us is to make it from home to whatever MN destination without any screaming children. Josh came up with this idea AFTER we had all 3 kids screaming at one time in the back seat of the car. (It was insanity!) It caused Josh to say, "Max & Miriam, I am about to authorize Zeke to hit back." And me to say, "If we had a minivan, things like this aren't supposed to happen... right? That is why people have them... right?"

• Sunburn From Hell.
  This sunburn I received is the worst one I have ever had. My back still feels like it is on fire, and anything on my back makes it hurt. And nothing on my back makes it hurt. It just plain hurts bad all the time. I am sure I have some degree of burn. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I will never do that again. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I have SO learned my lesson.

• House Still Standing!
  We were in MN this weekend and late Sunday night the thought came into my mind... Did we turn off the coffee pot? I knew we didn't. I then spent the next x number of hours praying that our home would still be standing when we got home and that if it wasn't, God would give me the trust to be ok with that. It was mostly stressful since our coffee pot is a $5 one and who knows how much it can be trusted. Thankfully though, we got home late on Monday and our home was still standing even though the coffee maker was still on and very hot. Yeah!

• Revolt Against Gas Prices - Don't Mow!
  We have the longest grass in all IC. 2 weeks ago we decided we were the only ones in the whole city who did not mow on that weekend. Here it is 2 weeks later and still unmowed. You should see it. We keep telling ourselves it is good because it is helping our grass to be stronger. Yep, stronger. Healthier. That's what it is.

• Handsome Man Poses!
  Josh's Uncle Jim mentioned we needed more pictures of Josh and I concurred! Since he unfortunately has to work during the day he has been missing out on our daily garden escapades and his face has not shown up in the garden photos. While coming home from MN I snagged this one... What a handsome group they are!
  
  

• Fishing Opener!
  We ended up with less time than we thought Monday morning and the kids had to decide - fishing or swimming. They unanimously chose fishing. The boys caught their first fish of the season and Miriam her first ever. They only caught small sunnies, but you would think they caught record breaking keepers. Each fish brought screams of excitement from the boys. Thank you Papa Cramer for taking us fishing!
  
  
  
  
  

• Cousins, and More Cousin!
  We got to see all of our adorable cousins this weekend. Lil' Jem, cutest niece ever! They don't come more sweet than that! And our new nephew Carter! My brother and his wife had their 2nd cutie boy! This blows all logic about male/female patterns out of the window though! Our family traditionally (through the male lines) has all girls with one token boy. Now my brother has 2 boys. Congrats Tom a

It is finished!!

We planted all the rest of our seeds and seedlings today!!  Yeah!!!!!  What a relief!  What a job!  What a good feeling!!  This is SO exciting!  I can't believe that in the next few months we will be harvesting all these great veggies!  What fun!

Today we finished our garden by planting 4 kinds of peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, zucchini, cilantro, bush beans, edamame, carrots, celery, and various spices.  Yesterday we had gotten a nice rain so this morning when we showed up our garden was looking fine and ready to go!  (Though one fellow seasoned gardener said that we did not get as much rain we needed to merit not watering for a day.  Good thing we watered then!)

Random things of note: 

1. We had bought some extra top soil and peat moss for the beds that we had not weeded yet.  I primarily did the weeding and the kids added the peat moss and extra soil.  We went the extra soil route because we needed to plant our beans 2" deep and I did not know if our dry soil would let us get down 2". 

2. We also got some wood chips for Jeremiah's flower bed.  It was seriously covered in weeds that I didn't know if we could successfully pull them all.  So, we will try to cover up the weeds/sin and see how well that works. 

3. Seeds for kids?  From all the seeds we planted, here are the easiest by order: onions, edamame, green beans, peas, zucchini, sweet pea flowers, sunflowers.  They were easy for the kids to handle and see what the were doing.  (We do have extra onions, zucchini and green bean seeds if anyone wants any.)  Jeremiah was even able to do it very well.  They love making the furrow and closing it up too.

   

4. No wheel barrow yet, but this is what I have been doing (besides driving the RAV out there to deliver the big bags of stuff):

   

5. Also, I did bring buckets but they still weren't huge.  The boys though, made great use of them:

   

6. Kids garden!  Like I said, Jeremiah has his flower bed, then we added a tomato plant for people to steal from and 3 kinds of pepper plants for people to steal from.  Miriam has her broccoli plant growing there too.  Ezekiel then planted his carrots and celery and some spices.  (The three little cilantros are mine though, :)!  They love knowing that this is just for them.

   

7. Um... sunscreen? The genius that I am, I wanted to try and get rid of some of my farmer's tan so today I wore a sunbathing type shirt and now have one fried back.  Yikes!  Genius!

The thing I have noticed now is that I am suspicious of anyone just "looking" at the gardens.  I am now quick to chat with them, see if they have a plot, and if they don't, I make sure to mention the time, effort, hard work, money we and the other gardeners have put into this place.  Just for good measure.  Again, here's praying that we can reap just a little of the harvest for us even if we do feed the neighborhood as well, so be it.

The last two days at the garden have been exciting ones! We planted our tomatoes yesterday and today we had our first harvest!

We planted 3 types of tomatoes: Champion, La Roma & Tumbling Toms. We did bigger plants because for the cost vs. time vs. how much we love tomatoes, it was a way better deal. We also did the whole 2 Liter water system thing, but used other plastic containers from our recycles. We also planted marigolds around our tomatoes, as we have been told the smell helps to ward off some types of tomato eating bugs.

Ezekiel was really good at planting the tomato plants and the marigolds. He did great! Jeremiah, once again, picked out some pretty flowers to plant in his flower bed at the front of our garden. Miriam, was actually on water duty with me and did awesome!

The boys then reaped the benefits of her carrying their water cans...

Above is Jeremiah watering our peas and below is Ezekiel watering the tomato plants and marigolds.

Oh, and this one is just because she looked so darn cute...

Today was exciting because we actually harvested some veggies! We pulled out some of our baby lettuce and pulled out some scallions (aka green onions).

Quick things I learned...

1. I just learned that scallions and green onions are the same thing. "Green onion" is just the Americanized name. Who knew!

2. The green onions I planted a while ago from tiny seeds are the same as what I pulled today. So I am going to let the other batch get tilled up. Actual onion seeds are to be spaced 6" apart and when you plant them you can put them 3" apart and then every other one to harvest early for green onions (aka scallions). Pretty cool huh?

3. I also learned that you can harvest lettuce early for yummy baby lettuce salads. Yummy!

4. The boys loved the harvest part of things and I think next to actually planting the seedlings, it is their new favorite thing about the garden!

5. Ezekiel again, at the age of 6,has proven to be the most helpful in the garden. Jeremiah and Miriam are having fun, but Ezekiel is really at a great age for the hard work side of things.

6. Our broccoli should be done by the end of this week or beginning of next week!!!

7. A Wagon!! I need a wagon or wheelbarrow or something when we plant. Hauling all the stuff the distance from the parking lot to our site is not fun. Yesterday though, you know what I did? Shhhh... I drove our car out to our site. Yup. I saw someone do that one day and I was driving Josh's RAV and thought, "what the hey?" The huge mower they use to mow the lawn does it, our RAV is smaller and only going to be there for a mi

We have 10 broccoli plants growing in our garden.

Here is what 1 looks like...

Here is what 1 looks like...

Here is what all the rest look like...

Amazing. They are the size of a grapefruit and their leaves are HUGE. I can't wait to harvest them!

We need to harvest some scallions this week... or called green onions. Anybody need any? Plus, I still have lots of onion seeds that want a home! Any takers?

What could make a little 5 year olds day?

Happy Birthday Mr. Jeremiah! The little boy who used to say "O doin nair" is growing up so fast!

You are one of the most creative builders I have ever seen! Your imagination is so beautiful to watch! Um... I mean, cool to watch. Your eye for balance between symmetrical and unsymmetrical in design is amazing! May you continue to create, to design, to work in intricate detail, to not follow the norm, break out of the box and let your imagination flow! We love you very much and are so proud of you!!

So... when you are sick for a week, your garden is far from your home, and you are unable to check on it for 7 days what do you think your garden will look like? Knowing the grass weed situation? Knowing the bug situation? Knowing the need for water?

I don't know what a NORMAL person's would look like, but mine looked like a million bucks! All thanks to my garden neighbors / awesome friends Leslie and Amber!! With additional muscle power from amazing servant Jeremy Box!

FIRST OFF! Last Friday night I get a text from Leslie saying that she and Box were tilling up her summer crop beds and wanted to know if she could do mine too?! Wow! Could she ever! THEN! She actually worked the beds back into beds!! THEN!! She and Amber watered our plants while I was sick all week!! THEN!! She helped Ezekiel carry the peat moss all the way out to our garden today! THEN!! She offered up tons of garden advice that I don't know where our plants would be without her!!

I was honestly expecting today to come back to our garden and see this...

But instead I saw this...

Isn't it beautiful!

Wow! It looks like a normal garden now! I am so pumped! Our garden is coming along quite nicely. A few bugs munching our cabbage leaves, but nothing else exciting to report except that... YES OUR CROP WILL GET STOLEN.

Yep. Confirmed to me by one of the stealers themselves. A woman came up to us and said hello. We chatted and she said how nice our garden looked. I told her how it has been a lot more work than I expected and that it was more expensive than I expected but that all our hard work will pay off when harvest time comes and I told her she should get one. She said no because when harvest times comes people steal the vegetables and that she just steals the vegetables as well.

So what are we going to do? Well, first, pray. Second, we are going to plant extra of the most popular to steal crops (as the woman told me she says most people just steal tomatoes, peppers and zucchini) at the front of our garden and back in hopes that the stealers will take from just there and not actually come into our garden (insert more prayer here). Third, we are going to raise our fencing along one side that nobody is using so as to keep more hands out. Fourth, pray some more.

I honestly have no problem with people stealing if they actually need the food. I would encourage that whole heartedly. But if they have the money and are stealing for the sake of stealing, like from a store, I do not encourage that. However, I believe that this garden is God's and if it is all going to get stolen then so be it, we had a good run of it! :)!

Speaking of good run, here are some pictures taken by Mr. Jeremiah...

Since I am still weak from being sick, I was sitting most of the time which means that Miriam was either sitting on me or hanging on my back. I am pretty stubborn and I have to be in serious pain to be out of commission and thankfully today the pain is bearable and we could get out and do some work ourselves. With all of Leslie, Jeremy, and Amber's help we really didn&#

I have been sick since Monday and in my inability to stand Josh has been making all the meals in our house. This is Ezekiel talking about Dad's cooking...

Ezekiel, "Mom! Do you know what Dad made us last night for dinner?"
Mom, "What?"
Ezekiel, "Spaghetti! It was the best spaghetti I have ever had! It was so good! Dad is the best cook! I had no idea he could make spaghetti so good! I mean, I love his pizza and think his pizza is the best! And now he can make spaghetti too? Anything he makes is the best! I love pizza and his is the best. Now his spaghetti is the best! OH! (little light bulb goes off.) Can you imagine how good Dad could make cheesy chicken crescents?"

Way to go Dad! Thank you for all your additional work this week! You are amazing!

I hate garage sales.

I hate not knowing what exactly is at a garage sale. I hate having to rifle through stuff and a lot of it is pure junk. I hate having the feel of competition against the other people going to garage sales. I hate that they start so early in the morning. I hate the fact that some people think they are going to make big money from their garage sale and sell stuff WAY overpriced. I hate carrying cash. I hate the fact that they have "free" boxes of kid toys. I hate the pull to buy toys. I hate that people sell broken toys that you don't take the time to figure out if they are broken before you buy them. I hate the stress the whole situation brings me. I hate having to unload and reload the 4 of us in and out which takes 5 minutes (exaggerated) while it only takes me 30 seconds (unexaggerated) to see if a garage sale is a good one or not.

I love garage sales.

I love city wide garage sales. I love the fact that there are 40+ garage sales in one day in one city. I love that they put a couple sentences of what they have at each. I love that you get a map showing you exactly where to drive. I love that in one fell swoop we can be in and out. I love that then that shortens my garage sales days to just 3 Saturdays in one year instead of every weekend. I love it when you can find a big score. I love buying kids clothes for 25 cents.

This weekend was our first of 3 days I attempt to go garage-sale-ing. In the IC area the cities do these City Wide Garage Sale days and those are the only days I go to garage sales. I know I could do more, I know others who do this every weekend. But I do not have the sanity for that. I go 3 times, that's all I can take. I just pray that if we need anything it will be available to us on one of those 3 days.

For some reason, every time one of these days are scheduled Josh is out of town and it is always by chance, never planned that way. This weekend was no different as it was their yearly camping trip, and I, as a single parent for the weekend, bring all 3 cuties with me. In previous years I would enlist a friend to sit in the car while I do an in/out of the sales. This definitely can make the whole ordeal much better for me but this time I did not do that.

We had only 1 hour to do any garage sales in CV and then we had to go to Jeremiah's last soccer game, so I braved it by myself. The whole time driving there I was just praying for one big score. The last 2 years I hit one big score and was praying for that again. I was also praying for the kids to be on their best behavior. Thanks to all my additional prayer, I was less nervous and God was really giving me the peace that if He wanted us to find a good deal, He would lead us to it. Definitely made me less stressed than normal. (Weird to pray for a garage sale, but the bible tells us to pray without ceasing and sometimes that means garage sales.)

On the one hand I could say, why go then? Why not skip it? On the other hand, why not? If we can get-r-done we can rake in a ton of savings, the savings pull far outweighs any of my other dislikes about garage-sale-ing.

I remember a few years ago a dad telling me that with boys you can never have enough play clothes. I didn't quite realize it at the time, but over the last couple years I SO understand now. Thankfully we have a wonderful hand-me-down source for the boys so for the most part they are good with play clothes, I just have to fill in some "nice" clothes here and there. However, I am now realizing that Miriam is in need of the same stash of play clothes. Wearing "nice" clothes to play in is not good.

This year I was on the quest for play clothes and the first house we hit had girls clothes for 25 cents each! I got $10 worth of clothes for Miriam ranging from 3 to 5 and she has two ful

Weeds and water. Weeds and water.

It would be one thing if we hadn't planted our cold weather crops before now and could start all over again.  This is our next door lot neighbor (if it is owned that is) that has done nothing with their garden yet...

It is quite another thing when your crops are in and growing and aren't about to start over again. Leaving you and the kids with mounds and mound of work ahead of you.

I really don't think gardening should be done this way. This is sheer torture. If we did this in our back yard we would SO not have this major of an issue but as it is this is our lot in life, literally. Talk about a tedious task. I would not wish this on anyone.

All these grasses in our beds (thanks to a fellow gardener who used grass seed wrongly) need to be removed. In order to do this we have to go through and break up the soil with our mini fork thingy and separate the weeds from the dirt. The weeds love the dirt and are really firmly rooted for being so little. It is a one by one type of task.After about 15 minutes in one section it will look like this...

Now it looks like anyone else's garden in the whole entire free world but our little lot. I am not bitter though, honest. I trust this, like all things are not outside of God's knowledge and trust that this is for good for our little gardening lives. And even though we end up spending an hour and only have this to show for it...

It is worth every minute. It is definitely teaching the boys hard manual labor and perseverance when they want to give up.

It is teaching me about sin. Weeds are definitely like sin.

1. They start off so small and tiny. They creep in unnoticed by most human eyes or minds. These grass seeds were in our beds before we planted our first crops. And the larger than life dandelion field next to our garden land with its oh-so-tiny wisps of white puffs are landing in our garden every minute and we just can hardly see them to stop them and before we know it they are in and going down and growing and until they pop up their tiny little heads, we don't know where they are.

2. They take work to get rid of. And you can't always just pull them out and wa-la, done. You have to get them down deep, get to the roots and expose the whole root. You have to let the root stay out of the ground for a while so it can actually dry out and kill the plant so that it doesn't accidentally get replanted too soon and keep growing. Any part of them left in the ground means a new place to grow and they will keep coming until officially killed.

3. They want to live. I initially thought, "Oh at least our maggot mats will keep the weeds out..."

   Nope. The weeds are working their way out, sliding across the top of the dirt, even not fully buried, trying to get out to the sun to grow bigger. They are tiny but determined and ar

I'm going to Peoria.
I am going to add the big "1."
What a beautiful day!
Oh no, I'm not scared.

Uh oh, wrinkles,
Tiny, growing wrinkles.
I can't go over it.
I can't go under it.
I'll have to go through it.
Oil of Olay, Oil of Olay, Oil of Olay.

I'm going to Peoria.
I am going to add the big "1."
What a beautiful day!
Oh no, I'm not scared.

Uh oh, slower metabolism,
Small portion, slow metabolism.
I can't go over it.
I can't go under it.
I'll have to go through it.
Watch what I eat, watch what I eat.

I'm going to Peoria.
I am going to add the big "1."
What a beautiful day!
Oh no, I'm not scared.

Uh oh, loose skin,
Sagging, hanging loose skin.
I can't go over it.
I can't go under it.
I'll have to go through it.
Firming lotion, firming lotion, firming lotion.

I'm going to Peoria.
I am going to add the big "1."
What a beautiful day!
Oh no, I'm not scared.

Uh oh, outdated wardrobe,
Clothes from the 90's, outdated wardrobe.
I can't go over it.
I can't go under it.
I'll have to go through it.
Is this still cool? Is this still cool?

I'm going to Peoria.
I am going to add the big "1."
What a beautiful day!
Oh no, I'm not scared.

What's that?
I'm HERE!

Back through the wardrobe.
Throw out, throw out, throw out.
Back through the loose skin.
Firm it up, Firm it up.
Back through the slow metabolism.
Exercise, exercise, exercise.
Back through the wrinkles.
Could be worse, could be worse.
Back to Rock Island.
Live in denial.
Ignore my age.
So old now no one is going to ask me anymore anyway.
I am not going to Peoria any more... until I leave for Indiana.

*My wise older sister said to me last year that turning 30 was like going to Rock Island. You are so close to Davenport (ie 29 & in Iowa) that you don't notice you've left Iowa. 31, she said, was like going to Peoria. You are WAY in Illinois then and next stop Indiana! (ie turning 40!) Today I am going to Peoria, in the figurative sense. I keep rewriting this children's story (We're Going on a Bear Hunt, one of my all time favorites!) in my head and thought I'd write it out for posterity. Have a great day!

(We'll have new pictures of the garden later this afternoon!)

This is not about our garden.

This is about the neighborhood our garden is in.

Late Saturday night we stopped by our garden to water it if needed. The park was busy with kids and families, lots of noise and yelling and BBQing. I then witnessed something and was caught so off guard I didn't do anything to stop it. Partially from shock but also for fear. When I woke up from my daze Josh and the kids were there and I told him about what I saw and he was ready to act next sign of trouble to break things up. I was still in shock.

Things got worse and someone else got hurt and then the cops were called. I was still in shock. Partially by what I saw but also by what I failed to do the first time. I can think of a lot of what-if's for the situation but I can't go back and change the past, now I have to look forward to the future. What can I do now?

On Sunday, I spent the afternoon in prayer. I went back to the site of the scene and just sat. I prayed and prayed and prayed.

Every day we have gone to our garden I have prayed for the people we run into and pray that we can be a blessing to them and love them, help them in some way, and if given the opportunity, continue a relationship or share Christ's love with them. I have also prayed for any kids or families that that I see as we drive down the street that leads to our garden, praying for them and maybe we can meet them at the park and love them in some way.

Now, my heart cries to do more. I don't live there. I don't know them or the situations. There is so much I don't understand. I don't fit in. I have a few ideas and am praying for God to give some more clear leading here. But most importantly, I am now praying specifically that we can run into the people effected by the Saturday night scene. While I do not know what they need, I know God does and He loves them more than I do.

So when you read about our garden, please pray for the neighborhood. The anger stirred up on Saturday night could cause greater anger among some families. I know things like this happen all over the country (and maybe even have been happening in this neighborhood for years and years), this just happens to be the one in our little realm right now. While I am praying for mine, I will pray for yours.

On Friday night, I ate the most yummy thing I have ever made and I am also completely ignoring the calories consumed.

For some reason I have been trying different recipes with shrimp lately. Just frozen, cooked shrimp from the grocer, either in a bag or from their counter, nothing fancy from the shrimp side of things, just different recipes. Some recipes have been stir fried, some deep fried, etc. This last recipe I found (at allrecipes.com by Kendra) and made was divine! And OH so easy! Even if you are not a big shrimp fan you will like this one. (And if you are a big shrimp fan you will love this one!)

Honey Grilled Shrimp

1/2 t garlic powder (salt, minced, whatever you have, I used powder.)
1/4 T ground black pepper (I used more and fresh cracked, and I also added fresh cracked sea salt.)
1/3 c Worcestershire sauce
2 T dry white wine (cooking or drinking, whatever you have, I used cooking but will try drinking next time.)
2 T Italian salad dressing (I didn't have any so I used a white balsamic vinegar, I think I will stick with that for next time.)
1 lb large shrimp, peeled, deveined with tails attached (I used frozen from a bag, not the largest size but big enough for a skewer, which is important, I would use just about any kind next time as well.)

1/4 c honey
1/4 c butter, melted
2 T Worcestershire sauce

skewers

Mix together all the top 6 ingredients and toss the shrimp to coat. The say cover and refrigerate for an hour, I only did it for a half hour and it was still yummy. Preheat grill to high heat. Melt butter in bowl and add honey and worch... and stir well, set aside for basting. Then put shrimp on skewers. Crack more pepper on either side. Lightly oil grill grate. (I attempted to do this, it made big flames and just did it in a small area. I just used olive oil and put it on with a brush.) Grill shrimp. I basted on one side then put that side down and then basted the other side, closed the grill for 2 minutes came back, flipped and basted, grilled 2 minutes and repeated that whole basting/flipping process one more time. And yum, yum, yum!

They say you can grill on skewer with onions, peppers, mushrooms, but we just did shrimp with rice and veggies on the side. I am guessing this recipe feeds 4-5 but they said 3? 1 lb large shrimp is 50-60 in the sorta large size? I think in the jumbo size it'd be 25-30ish? Maybe they were guessing jumbo shrimp? I also think I may try out 2 basting recipes next time, one with butter and one with a butter substitute. I know for taste you can't beat butter, but for thigh's sake I am going to attempt something else.

Now you try it and let me know what you think! 

More water.  More mud.

Since Monday, our only work done is watering.  Leslie found out why it seems like our garden is overrun with weeds.  They aren't weeds but GRASS!  I guess someone used grass as their pathways and now the whole community garden area is effected by them.  Oh joy!  Soon we will start their impending eviction from our property.  That will be a huge task!  Our bible gardening book suggested this great way to remove them though, so we will see if it really works!

All we do is water for now.  Our seeds are little mini shoots or seedlings and we are to wait until they are 2" tall before we thin.  We also have to wait until the seeds are thinned in order to give them a nourishment drink.  In theory, we would have a compost pile or manure pile.  Since we don't, we can use a liquid fish emulsion?  (Or manure tea if we got our hands in some manure.)  In any event, we still have some waiting to do before that step arrives.  (Again, so says our book that is.)

One of the things I remember from this, what ended up being quite humorous, parenting teaching session at a pastor/staff conference by Mark Darling was about getting kids to work from a young age and having them use age appropriate sized tools.  He mentioned sawing off ends of brooms and such. 

While we do have kid sized garden tools, we do not have the water cans in the right size.  Jeremiah is holding one that we were handed down from my friend Mariam before she went home to Jordan.  The boys don't care about the color, they just care that it works!

In some ways this is a catch 22.  (And I think it only seems that way since our garden is not at our house and since our garden lot is 50 mama bear steps from the water source.)  On the one hand if it is their size for shape and weight they can do it well and they are very happy.  On the other side, that means WAY less water for each trip and having to make four times as many trips. 

Then I remember another parenting class that someone said when it comes to training your kids to do the work, like folding clothes, they may not fold them 100% perfect, or put the dishes in the dishwasher perfect, but they are learning and growing and with each time they will get better.  That is nice to remember when watering takes twice as long or when the larger water cans get filled half full.  And I think it is way more rewarding to see them working hard and being successful than me being done in less time.

One of Ezekiel's big jobs is working the spout.  It takes some kid sized muscles to turn it off and he does a great job.

And even though I HATE getting my picture taken, Ezekiel took this one if Miriam and I.  Sometimes, the work just has to get done and it doesn't matter how it happens, :)!

Our seeds and seedlings are very happy in our two gardens though.  Even with the grass.  Even with the very touchy dry soil.  Leslie, Amber, the kids and I are being as faithful as we can to water these young new lives as much as possible.