Japanese Yews

This is another photo of my backyard showing my Japanese Yews. They are more fragrant than a lilac. My entire yard has a beautiful scent right now with these and the Cherry Tree.

Please note that it is a mulching year. I do it every 3 years and I'm buying the beautiful brown that LBSA just installed this year. John E. will be installing it sometime this weekend so it will look even more fabulous next week! I'm so excited.

Backyard

Here is a photo of part of my backyard. Isn't my Cherry Tree beautiful this year? It's never looked better!

My House

A lot of you have asked to see a picture of my house after all of the work I had done last fall. Well, here it is!

I call it a 1 1/2 story GI JOE because it was built in 1957 and was built under the GI program. It has 3 bedrooms and a full basement. A detached 2 car garage is in the back.

I think it looks great! Just imagine a weed filled lawn, NO trees, bushes, or plants - everything on my lot I planted myself. Most trees and bushes were the $3.99 ones from Walmart!

The Rain Barrel Is A Hit

I absolutely love the rain barrel. If you'll recall I made a rainbarrel a few weeks ago and have been testing it out. It's fabulous to have fresh, natural water to feed my plants and fill my bird baths. I am finding out that my little homemade job isn't big enough though so am really looking at buying one of those big ones from Loews that would match the siding of my house. They hold about 30 gallens of water and I really think that's what I need.

Have you ever calculated the cost of water & sewer at your house? The cost of the sewer is about 40% of the cost of water. That's very expensive and my plants, birds, trees and grass don't need treated water. Actually they would prefer my rain barrel water so I think I'll go for it so will be watching for a sale in the next few weeks.

Forget-Me-Knots Are Blooming

The Forget-Me-Knots have just started to bloom in my yard this week. They are one of my favorite flowers. Two of my garden flower patches are filled with them and it's like a sea of blue. My Cherry Tree and Japanese Yews are also in full bloom so my backyard smells WONDERFUL and my grass is lush! I love spring.

I mowed for the second time this season yesterday. Sixteen years ago my "grass" was all weeds - dandelions, crab grass, creeping charlie and plantains. It was disgusting but I kept working at it and I now have grass growing that I'm really proud of. I fertilize 4 times per year and apply crab grass preventer (this weekend because the lilacs are now starting to bloom) and after mowing do a trip around the yard with my weed-b-gone so that I can quickly kill any weeds that start to grow. I have no blooming dandelions but am surrounded by them on boths sides of my yard so it takes extra diligence to keep the invasion at bay. I also keep my grass at 3 inches during the spring and summer. Doing this helps keep weeds from growing and provides shade and holds dampness for the grass. In the fall I slowly bring it down to 2 inches in height before the snow flies. Doing this prevents "grass mold" from developing over the winter. Everything else is growing well and I hope to have pictures to post later this week.

Great Week To Try Walgreens

It's a great week to try Walgreen's and learn the ropes of Register Rewards as there are quite a few FREEBIES this week. I didn't even pick them all up because they weren't something that I would use.

This is what I have picked up this week:

2-3 packs of tennis shoe sox - $4.29 after coupon

Skintimate Shave Gel - FREE

2 rolls Scotch Packing Tape - FREE + .2 cent moneymaker

Plackers Dental Picks - FREE + .50 cent moneymaker

Tone Body Wash - .99

Yup, I paid $4.76 for all this stuff. Gee Wiz, I got 6 pairs of sox!

It Does Get Better

This isn't my usual upbeat post today. An event touched me over the weekend that reminded that there's always someone else who has it tougher than you do. I am still processing this information but felt the need to share what I know. Who knows, maybe it will help someone.

There is a gal on my block who was divorced several years ago. She is/was a severe, and I mean severe, alchoholic while raising a son. The son basically took care of himself and ate when there was food in the house. He committed suicide two years ago at the age of 17 by hanging himself.

Since then, I have noticed a huge change in my neighbor. She is now able to hold a job, is not drinking, walks her little dog regularly, and has a support network helping her. An older gentlement comes to pick her up weekly and takes her to the grocery store. "Ladies" visit her on Sunday afternoons to chat, etc.

She also had a boyfriend. Someone new in her life and he stayed with her in her home. They were planning a future. Things were looking up for my neighbor. On Saturday afternoon I had even seen them outback having a good time with some friends visiting.

But, on Sunday morning I woke up and walked into my living room. There was a strange strobe effect of light in the room so I opened my front curtains. Outside my home was the Rescue Squad and 2 vehicles parked willy nilly - obviously, EMT's had rushed to the scene and parked quickly. Soon our Chief of Police drove up along with another deputy and his vehicle and two Goodhue County Sheriff's and their vehicles. Within moments the Rescue Squad and the EMT's left.

My neighbor's boyfriend had committed suicide by hanging himself.

I just sobbed for her. How can one person take this much tragedy? I feel so bad and can't quit thinking about it. I think that suicide touches most everyone sometime in life. My niece, Dawn, committed suicide in 1994 and left behid a two year old daughter. My daughter Grace has had three friends, all males, commit suicide and she is only 19.

I can't imagine the kind of pain that would cause someone to do this. I don't think that they understand that suicide is FOREVER. There is no going back.

Call a hotline, call a friend, scream from the mountain tops - just let someone know, CLEARLY, how you are feeling and ask for help. No matter how much pain you may be in today - it does get better.

OK, I couldn't help myself!

Ok, I couldn't help myself over my lunch hour. I went to Walgreens and here is a listing (sorry no pic.) of what I got for $5.24 this week.
1 Ban Deoderant - $.24
4 Welch's Grape Jelly - $3.00 (I use about 10 of these over the summer for my birds.)
1 Shave Gel - FREE
4 Boxes of Cub Crackers - $2.00 (I love these crackers!)
That's a ton of stuff for $5.24. I know the crackers normally sell for $2.99 per box, the Welch's Grape jelly I normally pay $2.00 each and Ban is usually $3.99.

On Vacation

I'll be taking the next week off from work for the first time since June 2009 so I'm REALLY ready to be gone! A vacation - without going anywhere except that spending time in my yard and garden is very refreshing for me. There's lots of work to do but I'll get my afternoon nap too!

I'll probably have a lot to post about by Monday, April 26th!

It's Ridiculous!

Ok, here's my hoard from Target for this week.

4 boxes of Ziploc Slider Bags

3 cans of Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner

2 Tubes of St. Ives Facial Scrub

IT'S A MONEY MAKER!

I will make $1.30 on this deal after receiving my rebate. (If I hadn't done this particular rebate twice already I would have been making $6.30!)

I'M LOVIN' TARGET!

I just won a POOL CUE!

I am registered with Marlboro.com and they send me a coupon every 6 weeks or so for $4.00 off a carton of cigarettes. They also ALWAYs have some sort of game going. Well, I've remembered to play it about 3-4 times and I just received an email from them saying I had won a DESPARADO VIPER POOL CUE!!!!! After a quick google search it looks like this is a $100 pool cue. Yahoo! Maybe I'll have to start playing again. I used to be pretty good IN MY OLD DAYS, anyway!

Can you tell that I'm thrilled? I don't usually win things.

Take the "$20 Challenge"

The $20 Challenge is flying around the blogosphere right now so thought I'd share it with you. It is somewhat similar to me saving all of my found money, rebates, etc.. and putting it towards my long term bills. Which, by the way, I am proud to say that I paid off my credit card IN FULL last month and by the end of April I should be able to make a dent in a 2nd mortgage that I have after I buy some new pans. My hope is to have that bugger paid off before the end of the year.

The $20 Challenge is done with a partner such as a husband or wife, etc...

Each of you are given $20 and you have the rest of the year to grow that $20 by investing, selling items, making items to sell, etc.

The fun is beating the other person by how much you make.

Simple rules are:
You are able to sell personal items but will check with each other to make sure the other person doesn't mind what you are selling.
You can't borrow money to invest in another project if your current funds are all tied up in a current project.
If other issues pop up, sit down and talk about it and set more rules.

The challenge is to think outside the box and see if you can keep investing money in projects and make a larger return on your $20.

This sounds like a fun challenge and A MONEY MAKER!

Canary in your Kitchen?

OK, I am now on a mission. I knew that Teflon pans were dangerous but have kept using mine. It has simply been the easier thing to do - UNTIL TODAY.

Did you know that a Teflon pan heated on the stove above a #4 on your dial gives off a gas that will kill a bird in your home?

Apparently, this is a well-known phenomenon in the bird world and folks who have birds in their homes will not use Teflon!

Imagine what this silent killer has been doing to our bodies for all of these years. Or, maybe, I'm the last person in the world to be TRULY enlightened. At the very least I'll be adding new cookware into my budget. PRONTO!

P.S. When throwing them away take off the handle and put the pan in your recycling bin.

Dramatic Heat Bill Differences

Now I know that if I were technical I would count the therms used for the last 3 winters but I'm too lazy so I have just based my calculations on the actual bills.

Using my past bills I saved 37% this winter (January, February, & March) over the winter of 2009 AND 45% over the winter of 2008. That's HUGE in my book.

All of those big AND little energy saving efforts have really made a difference in my heating bills. It makes me want to finish my insulation project!

(This is not a picture of my home.)

Vole is Dead?

I put together my new composter last Friday and found a great spot for it in the backyard. I'm in the middle of retraining myself to not throw the egg shells, strawberry heads, bad lettuce, etc in the regular garbage. I did goof a little bit over the weekend and threw some compostable stuff in the regular garbage, but, I figure it takes a while to get used to anything new.

I thought I heard an oriole in the yard over the weekend so I quickly put out my oriole feeders. Didn't catch sight of any but the robins quickly found the tasty grape jelly! I suppose my Downy Woodpeckers will find it this week sometime. It's surprising the different birds that like that jelly! They are all birds I like in the yard.

A few weeks ago I noticed signs of a vole near my cherry tree. I quickly got some poison in the holes. I could see no signs of fresh activity this weekend so think I caught it/them before they actually got to the cherry tree. (Voles love the roots of fruit trees and can kill a tree very quickly.)

Dryer Balls - Give'm a Try!

On my shopping trip to Aldi this weekend I got strawberries for $1.18 pound! Yum! They are the best tasting strawberries that I've gotten in a few years. Absolutely fabulous! Again, all of their fresh fruit and vegetables looked great. Remember that Aldi's is a "cash only" store and you have to bring your own bags.

I also spotting a sale on Dryer Balls. They were 2 for $3.99. I had read about them and thought I would give them a try. (They are suppose to reduce wrinkles in your dryer and shorten the drying time considerably.) Well, I'm a believer now. They did a fabulous job and really did shorten the drying time. I highly recommend throwing a couple in your dryer! Score!

Oh, yea! I sold those cake pans over the weekend. Bargain Hunters IS really a great way to sell stuff that you don't need anymore for FREE. I'm going to list my front door shutters later this week - they don't fit on my house anymore with my new siding - they are about an inch and a half too wide. So I might as well try and get rid of them!

Wowsa! Target Rocks!

I could hardly believe it when I checked out at Target with this hoard of stuff!

Air Wick Freshner (7.99) - FREE

Air Wick Freshner (7.99) - FREE

Stove Top - (.99) - FREE

Stove Top - (.99) - FREE

St. Ives Body Wash - (.99) FREE

St. Ives Body WAsh - (.99) FREE

St. Ives Body Wash - (.99) FREE

St. Ives Body Lotion - (.99) FREE

Heinz Gravy - (.99) - $.51 cents

I had no idea when I went to Target that I was going to come out with this good of a deal! I laughed when the cashier said $.51 before tax!

Happy shopping!

Rain Barrel & Compost

For the last couple of year's I've thought about having a rain barrel. My neighbor behind me uses them for watering his flowers & plants. He, however, has an elaborate operation where he takes a trailer full of barrels down to the river and syphons off water a few times a year (I'm thinking that this is actually illegal but he's done it ever since I moved into the neighborhood!). I priced the modern ones that are being sold at Loewes, Fleet Farm, and Menards and decided that I was not interested in paying $100 for one. That seems like an awful lot of money and I've already seen one in someone's garbage because they do break quite easily.

So, I made one this weekend out of a large steel feed pail that I had in the garage, some mosquito netting and a bungee cord. It doesn't look too unattractive since the pail was in perfect condition and nice and shiny.

My "rain barrel" is now all set up and waiting for some rain to test it out. If it works, I plan to set up 1-2 more. Hopefully, rain will come later this week. We already really need it!

I also noticed that Menard's has a compost bin at a reasonable price this week ($28) so I'll be buying one of those and setting that up too. I'm thinking that will cut my actual "garbage" down to one small bag per week.

I am already a heavy user of my recycling bin. The other idea that I would love to implement but can't afford would be a wind generated water heater. Their cost is still way too high - somewhere over $10,000 - so not quite worth the expense yet! But maybe someday.

It all adds up!

Happy Easter!

HAPPY EASTER!

When I was very young we got dyed Easter chicks one year. We kept them in a cage in the backyard but I don't recall them growing up so don't know how long they lived. They came from the dime store downtown and cost about $.25 cents each.

Could you imagine that in the U.S. today! PETA would be pounding on our door. Here is a pic that I found off of the internet from Morocco so the practice does continue.

You must admit that they are kinda cute. They dye does eventually wear off as they grow.