Saturday, August 27, 2016

Moon Flowers Galore

Not so long ago I didn't even know what a moon flower looked like.  A friend gave me a single plant a couple years ago that I planted out by the patio in the back yard.  I think I may have had a single blossom a few times that summer, but never more than one at a time.  Of course, a moon flower blossom only opens once for maybe 14 or 15 hours, but one plant can have several blossoms.  Last year I discovered a whole bush of moon flowers that were volunteers down by the road in front of our house.  I saved some of the seeds from that plant and when I expanded the flowerbed in front of the new ramp, I planted a few of the seeds.  This was in January, so I wasn't expecting them to take hold... boy was I in for a surprise.  They cover the front and are taking over.  For right now I am letting them stay.  When the blossoms come out like this last batch, it is hard to think of them as being invasive, but that is what I am told.  Meanwhile, I am enjoying their beauty... and the bees are too.  There were so many bees this morning, you could hear the buzzing before you got very close.

We finally went to get a load of mushroom compost.  This stuff is amazing.  With our sandy soil it helps tremendously.  I bought some tomato and pepper plants a couple weeks ago, but waited to put them in the beds because they needed the compost.  I bought good size plants because I knew I would not have the compost right away as my source for the compost is not nearby.  Early this morning I was out there working at getting the soil in the beds amended with the compost and then successfully got all my plants in the ground and even got shade cloth in place over them.  I am posting this picture in the hopes that I will be able to post a new picture of their growth in a few weeks to see how well they are doing. In this bed I have a cherry tomato, roma, and two Tycoon.  I would plant more tomatoes, but I am the only one that will eat them at my house.  In another bed I planted some sweet banana peppers.  The nursery did not have any bell peppers when I was there. 

I have not been doing much quilting the last couple of weeks, but I got a new baker's rack earlier this week and was trying to find something to embellish it with.  The sewing machine stand was intended to display a quilt block... for quite a while this block was pinned to this stand without being quilted.  I sat down the other evening and did the quilting by hand, then turned the backing to the front for the binding and clipped it to the stand to make a nicer display.  Still playing around with what I want to display on this new baker's rack.  I do know that it already looks much nicer there than the old book shelf that used to sit under the window.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

CW Moment anyone?


I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything new.  I guess there are various reasons why such long gaps exist between my posts.  First of course is a busy schedule... I have no one but myself to blame, but things do stack up sometimes.  It seems too often I turn over a new page, and lose my momentum before I get going.

I recently came up with a new challenge... in an attempt to inspire myself to be more motivated to get things done, I thought I would share... The challenge I am referring to as my CW Moments. I need to see how many CW moments I can accomplish. 

OK, CW can be a variety of tasks or accomplishments.  Clean What, Cook What or better... Culinary Wonder, Create What, Call Who, Charity (help) Who.  I know there are other Cs that could go with Who, What, When, Where, and Why, but I will come up with them as they are encountered.

Now this CW thing came about when I was trying to figure a new way to inspire my daily journal.  This journal has become more important as a reference to know when I last did something.  Age does have a way of getting in the way of a good memory.  A written journal is good, but things can get buried and hard to find when I am looking back to see when I had my last haircut, or took the cat to the vet, among so many other things.  This led me to look into what a bullet journal is... lots of info out there. There are good things that can be accomplished using a bullet journal... way over the top for what I was looking for, but I have started my own version of a bullet journal.  I have adapted some of the techniques, but mainly I have included ways to focus on the highlights of each day to make it easier to spot when something has been accomplished.

My version of a "bullet journal" includes what time I got up, my weight, what bible verses I read, the weather and temp high and low, what I ate and then the list of tasks I know I have to do, and I add new ones as they occur. Appointments and events too. I have not come up with any hard and fast rules... I am still in the creation stage... coming up with new ideas as I go.  My latest add-on is to be sure that I have at least one CW moment every day. I can envision a day having several CW moments, but I want to be sure I can include at least one.

So my challenge to you is... How many CW moments can you come up with today? What new CWs can you add to my list?  Now I am not asking you to share what the task or accomplishment actually was... unless you want to, but rather if you came up with a new C to go with the 5 Ws.

If there is an interest, I can include a quick glance of the format of "my bullet journal" layout in a later post.  You are welcome to join my challenge, or you can make a suggestion.