Flower bed #1- boxing complete!

This past Saturday the Hubby and I had friends over and the men were able to box in the first of the flower beds in the front!!!!

Before the front of the house/flower bed looked like this...

Now, after 4-5 hours of hard work and approximately 20 landscape timbers the front looks like this: 

Already the front looks so much cleaner, and that is only one side! We're hoping in the next couple weekends we'll be able to get the other side boxed in as well. We already have all the timbers, re-bar and nails. Once we do that we'll be checking with the HOA to find out of the paint takes care of the rule that we have to have the bricks in the front covered. If so, we're going to go ahead and take out the box-woods, since they aren't even- and we just dislike how they look. After that we'll be looking into buying a truckload full of topsoil to fill up the boxes before we plant anything else. We're still debating what plants we'll get- that also largely depends on what the HOA says. No matter what the box-woods will be coming up at some point. 

We also hung up the hammock that my boss was kind enough to give me since she no longer uses it. 

Unfortunately, it's sprinkling so I wasn't able to used it right away. However, I was able to lay on it briefly.  which gave me a lovely view of our trees covered in cicadas.  This has been a good weekend! 

Kids make me smile

I've always had a dream, that depending on how close someone is to me, may or may not be secret. That dream is to publish AT LEAST one children's picture book. Luckily, due to my job as a children's librarian, and the friends I've made throughout the years, I have many testers for my stories. I recently wrote one that I  have titled Norma the Bookworm that I sent to a friend from graduate school to share with her kindergarten classes. About a week after I sent the story to her, she messaged me on facebook letting me know her student's liked the story, but they thought it needed illustrations, so they drew me some. She then was awesome enough to mail them to me. They arrived yesterday (Friday) which actually was perfect because I desperately needed the smile they gave me since my Grandmother died earlier that morning (which is a blessing, but still sad). SO! I went through them and pulled out my favorite ones to share with you at the same time I share my story with you! I am sorry I can't share them all with you, there is just no way I can without taking up too much space.  Also, I am very excited and nervous that I have sent a manuscript (not of this story though) into a publisher for consideration. I'm starting out small because even sending it to one publisher is a big step for me. 

So I hope you enjoy Norma the Bookworm, written by me and illustrated by my friend's students. 

Norma the Bookworm

Hi! My name is Norma, and I'm a bookworm. I live inside the books at the library. What are you making that face for? Living inside books at the library is awesome! I get to go on as many adventures as I want to.

How you ask? It's easy! I just pick up a book and dive right in.

Look! I'm a pirate, sailing the seven seas. What? You say I have no arms so I can't be a pirate? NONSENSE! With books there are no limits.

I can be an astronaut and fly to the moon! You know that it's a giant ball of paper right? Those craters are actually bites from all the bookworms that have flown there already. I bet you didn't know that.

I can be an archaeologist, traveling around the world digging up artifacts that tell the stories of our past. Look! There's a mummy!

I can be a dancer, twirling and leaping on stage! What's that you say? I have no arms... why are you focusing on my lack of arms? I'll just be an Irish dancer!

Or I can be a knight, rescuing a princess from a vicious dragon! Uh oh....that dragon is looking at me like I'm a snack. You know, I've heard that they think bookworms are delicious. I think I will go before he confirms it. 

But what I like best is that no matter how many adventures I take, I know I can go on more just by diving into a new book. I love being a bookworm. 

Awww, the library is closing. Time to take a nap before my next great adventure! (Meep, meep meep, meep -this is the sound of a bookworm snoring). 

THE END

CSA Cooking: Week 1 Swiss Chard and Cheddar Quiche

This year the Hubby and I decided we wanted to try signing up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where we pay them a lump sum at the beginning of the season and we get however many weeks of fresh produce. The produce varies week to week depending what is in season and what the farm is growing. Since it is just the two of us, we decided to split it with my parents- which worked out this year because we can admit we wouldn't have been able to afford signing up for it by ourselves.

Anyway this week is the first week of our CSA and we are SO EXCITED! We pick up our box of goodies on Tuesdays and on my way home from work I drop of my parent's half at their house. This week we got strawberries, green onions (gigantic ones), beets, sweet potatoes, asparagus, radishes, spring greens and swiss chard. We ate the spring greens the first day but we had never cooked, or even eaten, swiss chard so we had to figure out what to do with it.  I decided on this Swiss Chard and Cheddar Quiche from Real Simple. However, we didn't have ALL the same ingredients they called for, and some additional ones, I altered it some.

This is what I started with :

Ingredients: 

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 bunch swiss chard (we actually had half a bunch)

1 green onion chopped (ours was huge)

1/2 cup regular egg substitute
1/2 cup egg white subtitute

3/4 cup evaporated milk

kosher salt and black pepper

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

1 prebaked 9.5 inch pie crust

If you have to make your pie crust, do that first. That is what I did- and I used dried out chickpeas to weigh down the bottom of the pie crust when I baked it so it didn't puff up. Then on to the quiche itself!

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

2) Chop your swiss chard and green onion(s) into bite size pieces. Heat the tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chard and onion and cook until tender. 

3) In a bowl, beat the egg substitute, evaporated milk. Season with salt and pepper (I would suggest around 1 teaspoon salt- I used less and it was not enough). Add the cheddar and the chard mixture and mix it all up. Pour into the pre-baked pie crust and bake until set, 35-40 minutes. 

After the quiche is done baking let cool for a few minutes  before cutting into it. Then serve it up and enjoy!

So far we are enjoying the CSA, but it is also only week one. The only problem that I have encountered is that usually I do my grocery shopping on Friday and I have the next week's meals planned before I go shopping (we've cut our grocery bill down by a little more than 1/3 by doing this); however, with the CSA we don't know what we're getting until I get it on Tuesday. So I'm having to plan a few more options so that the meals are more flexible. I'm finding that a little frustrating, and it makes it harder to stick to the meal plans, but we're getting there!