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I Need a Garden Plan.

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Yes folks we are presently heading into the third week of February. I live in Southern California, the land of sunshine and warm weather. I have got to get my garden plan together early this year. Got to!! Last year I had a pitiful tomato harvest, and I’m sure one of the reasons this happened was just because I started way too late. I have vowed, mostly to myself, that this year I WILL get my garden going earlier, get the tomatoes started earlier, and cross my fingers for a bountiful harvest.

After quite a few rainfalls over past month or so, this is what my garden plot currently looks like. There are a few raised garden beds off to the right of this photo, and they are the only thing weedless in the garden right now.

The weeds, of course, have completely taken over and dashed any hopes I may have had of making this an easy Spring clean up. I say Spring because it’s Southern California, and as soon as the rain slows down for us it is Spring. Flowers are blooming, weeds are bustling, the time is right for getting ready to plant.

My plan for this Spring is to try to add one more raised bed, and of course the weeds will be obliterated before any other activities can begin. My favorite veggies to plant are; zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, butternut squash, bell peppers, and jalapenos. We had a bumper crop of jalapenos last year, and they make for great cooking all year round. Oh and I will definitely be adding some cucumber plants for making our yummy homemade pickles.

Getting the soil ready for planting is definitely the most time-consuming part of the gardening process. Over the next two weeks Travel Man and I will be rototilling, digging and raking all of those rotten weeds out-of-the-way. We have a fairly good-sized composter that will have some pretty magnificent dirt in it right about now. This premium dirt will get added to one of the existing raised beds to make the soil all healthy and wonderful for the new garden. Then we’ll finish making all the dirt really pretty and smooth so we can get the planting going.

I’m looking forward to getting this year’s garden going, and getting some dirt under my fingernails. There’s something so refreshing about digging in the dirt.

Are you planting a garden this year?

2 comments Posted in Around the House, Gardening

Have you ever Made Frosting with Flour?

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Renee Spindle

I realized this week that I have neglected to post any recipes recently. This is probably due to the party planning time, and actual parties in session over the past few weekends. There is a recipe I have been meaning to share with everyone for a while now. My Mom has a time-honored recipe for the best tasting frosting ever.

In our house this recipe is called “The Flour Frosting” recipe, and it goes something like this:

Ingredients:

1 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Flour
1/2 lb Margarine or Butter, softened
1 Cup Sugar
2 Tsp. Vanilla

Directions

Mix the milk and flour together in a small saucepan on the stove. Cook on medium heat stirring constantly until thickened. Cool this mixture completely in the fridge.
Beat the sugar and margarine together until creamy. This is a critical step, the butter and sugar must be smooth and creamy in order for the frosting texture to be smooth and creamy. There can be nothing grainy going on with the butter and sugar. If this happens the frosting will look separated, and not taste very creamy.
Add the cooled flour mixture to the butter and sugar, along with the vanilla.
Beat until fluffy, and frost your cake!

This frosting is very creamy and extremely delicious, just a little warning. It is not really the variety of frosting that you can do a lot of serious Wilton style decorating with. But you will not be disappointed in the flavor and pure yummyness that this frosting delivers.

These are my brothers’ birthday cakes from his last two birthdays, both covered with flour frosting. This frosting is his favorite and he always requests it for his cakes. It is one of my all time favorites too.

Yesterday I found a recipe similar to my Mom’s on the Tasty Kitchen. This recipe is called, That’s the Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had. This is quite similar to my Mom’s recipe, and goes into some additional detail on the mixing directions.

If you are making your someone special a delicious Valentine’s Day treat, try this recipe out. If you have some cupcakes or a cake to bake this week, try this recipe out. If you have some graham crackers lying around, and some of this frosting leftover you can put them together for a delicious treat. You will not be disappointed. Happy baking everyone.

3 comments Posted in Baking, Family, Food, Recipes

I am the Family CFO.

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Renee Spindle

It’s the beginning of a New Year, and it’s a good time to get the paperwork in order around here. New Year, clean file cabinets, that’s my motto right now. One of my main job titles here at home is Family CFO. I take care of all of the family finances. There is no way I would want my Travel Guy to have this task on his shoulders. He has enough to worry about going from city to city, and staying on task with his job.

Here’s what I have been working on since the New Year started. I have a fairly decent filing system for all of the paperwork. Designated by income info, banking info, auto info, mortgage and house info, utility info, and medical info. These are my major filing groups. I still have a fair amount of papers to file every month, but more and more have gone paperless over the last two years. Since January, I have been going through my files and archiving any papers over a year old. I like to keep the last year’s paperwork in my current files just in case I have to refer back to any numbers. This is especially the case with any medical bills.

All of my bills are paid online through my bank’s bill pay feature. Most of the bills are scheduled to be paid automatically, so they are just set on auto-pilot. I do make a point to go in and review the payments at the beginning of the month, just to be sure everything is in order. This is a handy way to pay the bills, and allows me to have the bills and the receipts for the payments right at my fingertips on the banking bill pay site.

One other tool that I like to use for organizing the paperwork is Microsoft One Note. You can print any bills or receipts that you want to organize directly to One Note. In One Note you are able to create notebooks, and then organize the “paperwork” in each of the notebooks for any future reference. For example, you can have a notebook for medical receipts, major purchases, paid receipts for any bills that you want to get your hands on quickly. It’s a great tool, and similar to Evernote.

One last item that takes time in the finance part of my world is keeping Travel Man all put together with his expenses. Once a month or more, depending on the current travel frequency, I go through and audit his expense reports against our credit card statement. Some months when the trips are back to back it becomes important to be sure we are getting reimbursed for all the travel expenses owed back from the company. This is a quick task for me to take care of to be sure there is nothing missed. Of course coming from a bookkeeping background does help a little in this department too.

Oh, and I do have to mention that Travel Man and I do discuss our finances on a regular basis. The finance meetings happen most often via email or a Skype call. But we stay on track together, and try not to have any big hiccups. Like I have said before, it’s a bit of a crazy existence, but right now it’s what works for us.

How do you like to organize your bills and such? Paper or paperless?

4 comments Posted in Organizing

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Renee Spindle

A great, loving story about all the little lovies in the world.

No comments Posted in Blogging

We are Now Entering the Camp Grandma 2 Zone

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Renee Spindle

One of my newly acquired responsibilities this year is taking care of my beautiful, sweet granddaughter on Thursday’s and Friday’s each week. Oh, and I also make sure that the grandson gets to and from school safely on those days.

Last Thursday and Friday was the first week of “Camp Grandma 2”. Our camp name, of course was coined by Evan. I asked him if we should call it “Baby Camp Grandma” when his sister is here, and he was quick to point out that he comes along too, and he is NOT a baby. Then he suggested we call our camp, “Camp Grandma 2” for himself and Madison. “Two kids equals the number two Grandma”, from the smarty pants patrol. It made sense to me, so I went with it.

So, Camp Grandma 2 got off to a pretty flawless start. Although I have to admit it has been awhile since I have taken care of a baby all day long. I remember those days well, one in diapers, one telling me how to change the diapers (My girls are 5 years apart.). What great memories! The funniest thing was how contagious those little baby naps can be. The kind where you finish a feeding, burp the baby, and then she snuggles with you and you both fall asleep. Now, I am not normally a napper, but last week I found it quite easy to take a few quick snoozes with a certain little Miss.

The Little Miss has such a good disposition, as long as she’s not hungry or wet. If either of those two items are not aligned correctly she will let you know very quickly. And Evan is also quick to translate her crying modes. She’s hungry, or she’s tired. He’s very good at deciphering the different cries. In the picture above Evan was anxious to feed his sister, and he is very patient with it. Once she was done with her bottle I said, “Ok, now it’s time to burp her.” Evan started to ask me to help him do that and then he said, “No, it’s ok Grandma. You can burp her.” And that was that.

We had a good couple of days together, and I am glad to be able to help my daughter and her husband. It will be fun sharing a few Camp Grandma 2 stories with all of you, and giving you a little glimpse of my Grandma world.

5 comments Posted in Family

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