Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

      Our veggie garden was TERRIBLE this year.  I'm not sure what happened, but we had pitiful harvests of tomatoes, beans, and peppers.  That was until now - at the end of the season.  Suddenly, veggies are starting to appear.      Last week, before Hurricane Sandy approached, I harvested a few potatoes, several green beans, some great looking peppers, and a lot of green tomatoes. Now I'm waiting for my fall/winter veggies to produce.  I've planted spinach, swiss chard, lettuce, pok choy, and collards.  I'll cover the beds with low hoops and row covers when the weather starts to turn colder. 

I've enjoyed the email conversations I've been having with several of you, my readers,  about cleaning out garages. It seems that the universal dilemma of garage owners is how to clean out the garage and keep it cleaned out. Garages were designed to store things.  True, originally they were designed to store vehicles, but we tend to store more than vehicles in them.  We store holiday decorations and tools in them.  We also use them as project spaces and sporting spaces and gardening project spaces.  No wonder they tend to look like a mess all the time. I can't claim to have a neat looking garage all of the time.  What I can claim is that I'm able to clean it up pretty quickly because I don't let it stay too messy for too long.  That's really the trick.  Everything has a place where it lives.  When everything has a place to live, it doesn't take long to send everything home where it belongs.  About once a mont...

  Having a hungry 21 year old Marine living in our house has some advantages and some disadvantages.    Advantages: He can lift, move, or rearrange any furniture I need him to take care of.   He loves to cut the grass.   He takes the garbage out with a quick "Yes, Mam!"   I can get a big, quick hug any time I want one.   Disadvantages: We're always running out of food. At least I chose a cheerful magnet to attach the note to the freezer.  How about that sunshine? For those of you who are worried about our starving son, we ate the ice cream that night with homemade Hot Fudge Sauce .  I just wanted to make sure we had enough ice cream for all of our dinner guests. 

  Join us for Monday Motivation - An opportunity to go through your whole house (and car too) in a year, organizing and cleaning the whole way.  October is the month to clean out the garage.   This post is a collection of the Monday Motivations from last year .   Getting Your Garage Under Control How many of you are afraid to open your garage door? How many of you are parking your car outside of your garage because there's too much stuff stored in there? I've only met two people in my whole life who had neat and tidy garages - and I'm not one of them. I can clean up our garage fairly quickly, but it never stays perfectly organized and tidy all of the time. That's just how life rolls. So let get started. . . 1. Make a plan - decided on what you will use the garage for. Will you need to park your vehicle in it? Will you need space for sporting or yard equipment? Do you need storage for kid's toys or hol...

I was feeling a bit overwhelmed this past weekend by a lot of little things that needed to be done. You know, little things like sprucing up the flower pots on the front porch, changing the AC filter, and sewing a button on a sweater. None of them are large jobs, but too many of these little jobs pile up and feel like one big burden.  I guess they become a burden because I let them be a burden -  I let them be a heavy weight in my life and grab the focus away from what I should be focusing on. My solution?  I put them in their place.  I put each item on a list and then scheduled a time to complete the task just like I make an appointment for a dentist appointment.  So even though I haven't completed any of these tasks yet I know when it will happen and I'm OK with that.  I'm free to focus on really important things without those distractions.  What can you put on your list?

Got okra?  Well, our neighbor had tons of it and came to our backdoor with a 5 gallon bucket filled with the pods.  I washed a bunch of it by scrubbing each pod with a green scrubby pad to remove the hairy coating.   I cut off the top and bottom of each pod and sliced them up.  If any pods were tough, I tossed them in the compost bucket. I tossed them with olive oil and some Old Bay Seasoning. By the way, using parchment paper on your pan makes clean up much easier and keeps the okra from sticking to the pan.  I roasted the okra in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  Hubs likes these veggies a little on the crispy (slightly burnt) side so I may have roasted them a bit longer. We used the roasted okra with homemade salsa and some grated cheese to make nachos.  I roasted the rest of the okra and froze it to use later. 

  I received two solar lanterns as a birthday present from one of my daughters and son-in-laws.  They are a beautiful blue color with a great pattern.  They got them at Target.  Although designed to be used on a patio table or deck, I had to brainstorm ways to use them differently (is anyone surprised?)     I took the top off of one of the lanterns and put a canning jar down inside to hold water for flowers.  Instant vase!  The other lantern worked perfectly as-is for a candle holder.  I simply placed a large candle on top.  I love the pop of color the lanterns add to my dining table and I get to enjoy this gift inside and outside.  Can you think of any other uses?