Holy Week and Veggie Gardening in Houston

Yesterday was Palm Sunday and like any good Catholic Mom you are probably waking up to a table  full of palms. Hmmmm. Can't toss them, they are blessed aren't they? Hmmmm.... I have the answer for you! Below is a website (not Catholic, but gets the job done) that shows how to make palm crosses.  I like to make them and tuck them into a bible or adhere to a cross somewhere in the house.  

http://www.kingofpeace.org/palmcrosses/

Now that problem is solved! 

Today is tax day.  We had to pay :(  For the first time in years, since before kids, we had to pay.  My husband had a job change last year and our income went down $5,000 this year but we still had to pay.  Hmmmmm....  It's going to get worse before it gets better, I guess, so I wake up this morning more determined than ever to try to simplify our lives.  Here's my challenge this week: no eating dinners out.  I am going to make up the amount I sent to the IRS in two weeks by skipping 3 meals for my family out.  That should save around $90.00, just enough to cove our bill.  

Next problem solved!  On to something more fun!  A garden update.  I am posting pics of how my garden has grown in the weeks since I put everything in.  The zucchini I was so worried about is blooming but I think I need bees to get the zucchini's to form. Anyone have any insight into this??  I am desperate to get zucchinis this year. 

See the blooms!

Little cucumbers are already forming!

This is the herb garden, closer to the kitchen door, for easy access.  The bloom belongs to a pumpkin, I hope it produces a pumpkin for fall!

This is malabar spinach which is very similar to the spinach we buy in the grocery store.  I think it needs thinning out because it is supposed to grow taller, like a vine.  I really have no idea what I am doing, I just try to look stuff up on the internet and give it a try.  I hope this works, we LOVE fresh spinach leaves in our salads.   Well, it's off to get ready for work. Have a great week!

Catholic Resurrection Eggs

Since my kids were little we've been using a set of Resurrection eggs that I purchased from Walmart years ago.  The eggs were great and my kids LOVED using them every year.  This week I ran across this version that a Catholic mom crafted for her kids.  They are really good, as is her blog on Catholic projects.  If you have kids I recommend you make a set of these today, Palm Sunday, and use them all through Holy Week! Tomorrow I will post another idea for families and Holy Week.
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=380825761068

Uncle Bernie comes to Texas!

Yesterday we were happy to see Tom's brother Bernie in from Indiana. We see him every other summer when we visit Indiana but he rarely has a chance to come down here.  When we heard he was coming we knew we had to have a crawfish boil. We had to really look around for crawfish since it was a bad season for them.  We finally found someone willing to sell us a bag which turned out to be 32 lbs.  Tom cooked it out in the backyard, some mild and some spicy.  The bag fell over at one point and a few escaped. We went chasing them around the backyard, trying to make sure we got them all, they sure move fast and they are vicious! If you've never been to a real crawfish boil, you have to try it sometime :). I am so glad we got to take a brake from the issues with Ally's teacher and spend time with family.  To eat a crawfish you grab the head and twist it off.  Then you grab the tail and pull.  That's it, pretty easy.  We boil ours in a big pot that you an check out at Academy.  Then Tom adds the spices. Last he adds the corn and potatoes. A crawfish boil is a really fun, casual picnic style dinner. It's super casual and very tasty.

What a Week!

Well things just went from bad to worse this week! I had those issues at work earlier in the week and then yesterday I found myself sitting all morning with a friend whose 16 year old daughter took her own life last October.  We went to the school to discuss with the principal how certain events at the school might have added to the stress her daughter was under. I don't wish that morning on anyone else. I hope no one ever has to have that conversation again, ever.  I had a wonderful lunch with a friend who helped me through the emotional drain of the morning only to arrive home to find my youngest daughter in tears because someone had stolen her cell phone at school.  She was devastated, not over the loss of her little cheapy phone but because she felt violated and unsafe.  She had apparently struggled with this for two days before telling me, spending all day today checking lost and found in the cafeteria, office and bus, hoping someone turned it in.  I really hurt for her, that she had this burden to carry by herself.  Anyway, I finished the night off by attending a drama competition.  My daughter was in the crew of the show and her boyfriend won an award.  That was nice but the evening went downhill quickly when my daughter's teacher (from another class) happened to come over and ask why my daughter wasn't filming the event for her (the teacher's video) class.  My daughter started to explain that she didn't need footage of this event as she had decided on another way to present the story. Before she could get it all out, the teacher yelled at her and humiliated her in front of her drama class and the drama class at another school, in which she has friends.  Both classes felt awkward and were shocked. My daughter came home embarrassed and totally humiliated.  This is not the first time this has happened with this particular teacher, but usually it was in her class and never out in public, in front of other kids and adults that don't have anything to do with that class.  We have always encouraged Ally to tough it out, finish the year.  The teacher was just trying to make her the best she can be, just trying to make Ally a better and stronger editor.  Well forget it! It was not appropriate to do it at 9:30 pm at night when Ally was there at the event as a drama student and not as a video student.  I have had it! She was devastated, embarrassed and humiliated.  I told my husband that Ally had spent her last day in that class. I just can't deal with that, especially after I just spent the morning talking about another young girl who committed suicide because of similar circumstances! So now I get to spend the weekend worrying about this and what is going to happen Monday morning when I show up in the AP's office asking him to switch her out of this "elective" class and into another one.  My husband and I agree that this is simply not what we want our daughter to deal with right now.  I wish you could have seen how embarrassed and upset she was.
Weeks like these are the reason I am committed to trying to live a simple life, bring things back to the basics.  I feel like this world is moving to fast and I want to slow it down!  Pray for me.....

What a Day!

Some days are just so hectic that I WISH I could go back to being a stay home mom.  This was not a good day at work.  I got so much accomplished the three days I was home last week for Spring Break and this week has been just terrible.   I work for a Catholic church and in general I like my job.  Some days are just so disappointing, though!
We haven't been doing very good at eating out of the pantry, although yesterday the kids had a frozen pizza while my husband and I went off to Deacon classes. Today was such a trying day at work I swear I barely made it home.  I was home for about 15 minutes when it was time to take Catherine to her French Horn lesson and pick husband up from work.  Then it was home to do dishes for 20 minutes and the doorbell started ringing with girls in my little GS troop.  We had a long meeting (we made a website and wrapped up our cookie sale) and they left around 9:00 pm.  Well guess what, we still hadn't eaten yet :(. What can I say I am a terrible mom! We hurried out to a Mexican restaurant that stays open late and grabbed some enchiladas.  I just can't believe I can't go a week without eating out.  Anyway the one good thing about the place was that I had a coupon, $10.00 off our meal.  That helped a lot. Ten bucks is ten bucks.  So tomorrow I start again, going back to work and trying, as always, to slow down and live simply!

Eating out of the Pantry

It was hard going back to work this morning! Spring break was about 3 days too short.  Anyway I was determined to get back on track as far dinners from out of the pantry.  I thawed out some chicken that I had marinated and frozen last month and dipped it in a breadcrumb and parmesan cheese mixture. Then I made some boxed rice pilaf, frozen vegetables and biscuits. We had two fresh mangos that I picked up over the weekend so I sliced those up.  We tried some of the jam that our GS troop made on the biscuits.  I figure the meal cost about $7.00 total.  That's less than $2.00 per person with enough leftover to have the chicken salad for lunch. After dinner I made the leftover chicken into chicken salad for tomorrow's lunch, baked a cake and put some jello in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner.  It's a good start, lets see what I come up with for the main dish. 

 Today I found a ready made 4'x4' raised garden for $25.00 at Big Lots. It's just basically 4 cedar boards that snap together into a square but it saves me the hassle of going to buy the wood and assembling it myself.  If they had two I would have gotten two, but I got the last one.  I wanted to extend my garden this year and this will be perfect.  Now I need to purchase some soil and then decide what to put in it.  I didn't see any at the nursery last weekend but I really would like to plant more squash. That will surely be my weekend project for next week.

Spring Garden Part 2!

Well I said I would post pictures of my "re" newed garden and here they are.  Everything is going well so far, I can hardly wait for things to really start growing! Springtime in Houston is so beautiful, it was a gorgeous day. A bit warm but I guess that's welcome after such a col winter.  The girls had CCE classes today, I teach Catherine's class.  Afterwards we went to lunch with my parents and so it was late afternoon when we got home.  I had just enough time for a quick nap before heading out into the garden to water and  tidy it up a bit.  Looking around I noticed that we have about 5 tomato plants, 3 eggplants, 6 cucumber plants, 6 zucchini plants, spinach, lettuce, lots of herbs, 1 grapefruit tree, 1 lemon tree, 1 tiny orange tree and 1 fig tree.  Oh and a few beets! I am pretty happy with that. I really really want things to grow just as much if not better than last summer.  Most of all, I want my zucchini to live!

Spring break is over so the kids are back to school tomorrow.  I'm sure I should be getting ready somehow but I've decided to watch tv instead. LOL!