The Thrifty Gardener

Hostas are such a wonderful plant. Today was splitting day for the hostas at my house. I "made" five new hostas and moved one other. It's such a wonderful thing to have a bunch of new plants without spending any money. I added all the new ones in the back to fill in some holes to get a whole variety hosta garden going across the back of the house. The ones currently in the back came from our old house on Springfield Road, so they're some nice reminders of our first house. Hopefully I can keep Midas from stepping on the new ones and the deer from eating them, and everything should look nice in the back this summer. We've come a long way in four years!

The Four Step Plan

I think spring weather gets me itching to be in shape and be more productive and all around a better person. So I am working on four things...1) Exercise more, 2) More time for devotions, 3) Less tv, 4) More fruits and vegetables. Really, #3 is kind of a by product of the first two. If I spend more time doing other things, there's just less time for tv, which tends to happen every year as the weather gets nicer. We spend more time outside and less time on the couch. I've been to the pool a couple times lately and went for an hour long walk today with the pups (they were REALLY tired by the end). I also subscribed to a new little magazine type thing to help give me some focus for daily devotions. It takes you all the way through the bible in two years. I met a guy on jury duty that was using it, and decided it seemed like something I could use. I'm currently reading through Deuteronomy, as well as a psalm and a few verses of proverbs each day. I do much better with a plan, so I'm really liking this. And then there's the vegetables. I just feel like I should eat healthier. I think that some of it is having so many work friends that are very into nutrition. We've definitely come a long way since the first year or two of marriage...I feel like we eat way more fresh stuff and just generally healthy. So I'm trying to get one fruit and one vegetable at both lunch and dinner. It seems like a good start. I'm not planning to do anything crazy like giving up fruit snacks, just adding some carrots and bananas here and there :)

Mystery Burgers

Tonight for dinner I grilled some turkey burgers on the grill. The ground turkey was mixed with egg, onion soup mix, soy sauce, pepper, and garlic powder. It wasn't until Brad was within about one bite of finishing his burger that I commented you couldn't really even tell there was no beef in these burgers. He gave me a somewhat odd look and asked what was in them. I admitted it was turkey and he said that explained why they didn't taste like beef. He didn't say they were bad, but did say he'd rather eat a burger made with beef. I thought they were pretty good...I'll admit it's not the same as a hamburger, but not bad. Gives us a good option for grilling on No-Beef-Wednesdays. And you can buy ground turkey super cheap...a dollar a pound in the freezer section. That makes for a cheap meal.

Back in the Chlorine Again

Well I decided this week that I could no longer avoid some good, hard exercising, so I decided Wednesday night to head over to the pool. I had only made it like 50 yards when I started to have some really bad shoulder pain...one joint I've never had trouble with. So I alternated swimming and kicking and was able to get in about 1200 yards, but it wasn't overly enjoyable. It's still been sore for the past couple days, so I decided to head back this morning to see if things would loosen up a little in the water. Today went much better, not great, but better. I got in 2000 yards (1400 swim, 600 kick) in about 40 minutes. My shoulder felt good for about the first 900 yards, and then it was a little sore, but not nearly as bad as Wednesday. Today was good and I was pleased to swim that many yards...I hadn't done that in awhile. It was also nice to get up and going on a Saturday. Right now it's only 11:00 and I've already swam, showered, had breakfast, and been to a two hour meeting at church. I think groceries are next on the list and then perhaps some play time outside to enjoy the sunshine.

Easter Weekend

Looking at my calender here at work, the next five and a half weeks are just solid classes...no more spring break, no more conferences, no more easter weekend. Just a solid block to the finish.
Well this last weekend of some extra time off was fantastic. Friday the dogs went the groomer and I got a bunch of stuff done around the house and errands run before we went over to see my aunt and my grandpa at my parent's house. Saturday I finished my painting project that I started over spring break and got two coats of paint on the other half of the room and the room all put back together. It's nice to have that job all finished, and it turned out looking very nice. The room looks nice and clean. That night, I met up with my friends from high school at Granite City for some appetizers and dessert. It was so great to have some time to catch up, with no kids and no husbands :) We talked for like three hours and ate way more food than we should have! Sunday brought a CRAZY morning with the kids at church, and then lunch with Brad's parents and sister's family. We got to see Reece go on a mini-easter egg "hunt". We headed home late afternoon, and I was in the mood for cleaning out so I went through my closet and came up with a huge pile of stuff for a garage sale or Goodwill. I love the feeling of cleaning out my house :) Then Bethany came over to hang out and watch a movie. All in all, a busy but fantastic weekend. It felt really long...it's amazing what one extra day can do for the weekend. Which makes the summer all the more exciting as I have three day weekends all summer!
Well, I suppose it's time to figure out what I have to teach today. Three day weekends also make me forget where we left off last week...