In His Grip

Flowers From My Garden

This morning I decided to cut some flowers from my garden.  I do not pretend to be good at flower arrangements, all I do is cut a bunch of flowers at different lengths and stick them in the vase and expect the beauty of the flowers to do the rest.  When I plant flowers in my garden, I tend to pick varieties that can be cut.  I love to have fresh flowers in the house.  In my garden over the last couple of years my flower varieties have grown and I have  been able to have cut flowers in the house most of the Summer and well into the Fall.  I am waiting for my zinnias to mature because they are my favorites.

 
These are a couple of the vases that I use.  They happen to be ones that I received flower arrangements in as gifts from florists.

Some of the flowers that I grow are a small variety of black eye Susana's.  The plants themselves are about 24" high and multiple quickly.  I will need to separate mine next year as they are taking over the area they are planted in and are starting to shade my roses. 

These flowers grow in bunches.  I remove most of the leaves before I put them in the vases as this keeps the water from smelling bad after a day or two.  I add fresh water every couple of days and black eye susans will continue to look nice for about a week. 

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Grilled Chicken Pizza

For the first time, I tried  gilled pizza.  My friend Sheri, has been grilling pizza for a while and our family has had the pleasure of experiencing it.  Sheri is a grill expert so trying this grilled pizza thing was a little out of my league, but this recipe is so easy that I thought I could make it work. I figured the recipe called for a prebaked pizza crust how hard could this be.  Here is the recipe, but I think next time I will try making my own crust.  I love homemade pizza crust.  It turned out super great!

Grilled Chicken Pizza

2 tablespoons butter

3 cups thinly sliced sweet onions

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

2 oz cream cheese

1 package 12 inch prebaked pizza crust

1/3 cup Alfredo pasta sauce

1 cup shredded cook chicken breast

2 roma tomatoes, sliced

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped

1.  In a 10 inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat.  Cook onions and sugar in butter 20 to 25 minutes, stirring frequently, until deep golden brown and caramelized; stir in thyme.

2.  Heat gas or charcoal grill.  Spread cream cheese evenly over pizza crust.  Top with Alfredo sauce, shredded chicken, onions, basil leaves, and tomatoes.  Place on grill over medium-low heat.  Cover grill; cook for 8 to 10 minutes.

Three Word Thursday

I need vacation!

 

100,000 ~ YEAH!

Today my blog reached the 100,000 views. Now I know that there are blogs out there that have that many views in a day.  But I am very excited that my little ole blog made that mark.  It has taken over three years to reach that milestone, but my traffic has picked up a bunch in that last couple of months and I thank each of you that take time to stop by and make comments.  Blogging has become something I enjoy and have met new people and am certainly inspired by other blogs that I visit frequently.  Once again, thanks for being a part of those 100,000 views.  I plan on having a great day and taking time to bask in the 100,000 glory!

T-Shirt Transformation

This is my second t-shirt transformation this summer.  Once again, I picked up another Target boyfriend t-shirt and jazzed it up.  I have been seeing all of the t-shirts out this season that have fluffy flowers on them.  So here is my version of all of those spendy t's.  

I started out with some old sheer fabric I had left over from a Stitches By Sturman project and cut it into 1" bias strips.  I am guessing I had probably 10 - 15 yards of bias strips.  (Note: Out of one yard of fabric you can cut 25 yards of 1" bias strip.) Using the fabric on the bias will allow for a little bit of fraying when laundered without it totally falling apart.

Next I ran a gathering stitch down the center of the strips.  I used a gathering foot for this, but if you do not have one you can stitch a double row of basting stitches and then gather by hand.

I then began hand stitchin g the gathered strips in place making the flowers by going around in a circle.  I have washed my t-shirt several times and the more I wash the better it looks.

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My Greatest Gift

The greatest gift I ever had came from God, I called him Dad! 

Happy Father's day!

Three Word Thursday

Today's unexpected beauty

 

 

Starbucks Insulated Cup!

I have been scoping out this insulated cup at Starbucks for the last several weeks.  Oh, how I wanted it.  Because I have to have my drinks covered in my Stitches By Sturman studio, (people don't take kindly to coffee and tea stains on their window treatments) I am always on the look out for a nice covered beverage holder.  In the Summer, I really need to have the cup insulated or the thing sweats all over the place and then I make water rings everywhere.  When I spied this at Starbucks I knew it would be my new favorite cup this Summer.  Oh yeah, I purchased my this morning.  So now you can picture me in my studio with a venti, iced passion tea, no sweetener in my new Starbucks insulated cup.  If we run into each other this Summer I will probably have it with  me.  My cups tend to go everywhere I go. 

Herb Basket

One of the things that I love about this time of year is having fresh herbs to use in cooking.  My favorites are chives, cilantro, and sweet basil.  However, I have learned my lesson and I no longer grow herbs in my garden along with everything else.  They tend to take over and become unruly and quite frankly, spread like wild fire. I have started to grow them in baskets or pots.  They are then placed in the garden so they too can get the sun and the rain along with everything else but are contained and are better behaved this way.

Here is the basket that I have been planting my herbs in that last couple of Summers.  But this year I wanted to jazz in up a bit. 

 
Once I again, I grabbed my berry pink spray paint and gave this basket an new coat and color.

Using the moss that I collected in Minnesota last Fall, I soaked it in water and lined the inside and the bottom of the basket.

Using my favorite Miracle Grow potting soil I filled the the basket and planted my herb plants, then covered the top of the soil with more moss.  Putting the moss on the top of the soil helps hold in moisture and keeps the basket from drying out in the Kansas wind.

Now the rest of the Summer and into the Fall I will have fresh herbs without the worry of them spreading into unwanted parts of my garden.

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Journey to Debt Freedom!

As I posted yesterday, Jeff and I are credit card free!!!!!! Yes, we have zero credit card debt as of this week.  Yeah!  (Jumping up and down doing the happy dance, and believe me you are glad that this is a blog and there is no video!)  But quite frankly, the war is not won yet.  This is just one more step in our commitment to become totally debt free. 

Next we tackle the parent plus college loans and at the same time commit to paying the last two years of Anna's college without any additional loans. Yikes!   As young parents, Jeff and I had made no plans on how we would help our kids financially through college, after all, that was years away and we had plenty of time.  Well, we are here to tell you those years disappear without a trace and you are faced with how to pay for higher education when you wake up from the fog of raising teenagers. 

We have not been total financial dummies, after all, we do have retirement planned for, it was the in-between years that fell off our radar.  But those college bills are not standing in our way for long and with a little dedication, they too will disappear and we can proceed with the happy dance once again.  I do have to say, I felt a bit of anxiety when thinking about cutting up those credit cards and that first cut really made me sweat, but once I got started, the scissors were flying and the relief was awesome.  Just to make sure that these debts will not be forgotten and the stress that is related to them, I decided to put them there right in front of us every day.  Yes, instead of the pretty marbles that usually surround my candles, I thought this credit card confetti makes a nice reminder!  Debt freedom here we come!

Three Word Thursday

Credit card free!!!!

 

Believe in the Garden

It is this time of year that makes me just want to be outside all of the time.  I even like being outside in the hot humid days if I can be in the shade with a good book.  But part of my being outside thing, is wanting to make my gardens look like places you want to spend your time.  And with the way that I love color, the more color I can get in my garden the happier I am. So to me that means lots of flowers and of course, my choice here is pink, duh! 

 
However, I had some sad looking pots around that needed some help.  This particular pot started out several years ago as a little water feature with a fountain and some water plants in it.  But I just could not keep it from leaking all over the place, so the last couple of years it has been a planter that now needs a makeover.

So I got out my handy dandy heirloom white spray paint and went to town.  I thought the pot looked a little plain so I started searching through some of my craft supplies and came across the word believe in a rub-on transfer.  Perfect!

Okay, this was starting to look better, but it is still a little stark and too high of a contrast.

 

I watered down some brown acrylic paint and wiped it all over the pot.  This helped take the stark whiteness away and gave it a little bit of a warn look.  You cannot see it so much in the pictures, but I think it looks a lot better.  I allowed that to dry and then finished it off with a clear coat.

Next comes the really fun part, the planting.  I picked up a hot pink geranium and some fun little vines that I have never used before and then covered the soil in the "creepy" moss that I got from Minnesota last fall.  And I have a great "new" re-purposed pot in my garden.

This goes perfect with the quote that I put on the garden bench, "Gardening is a way of showing you believe in tomorrow."  

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Three Word Thursday

Lazy Summer days