Our New Blog...

The only thing interesting in our life right now is getting ready for our garden. So I'm breaking up with this blog and going with a younger, more relevant one. Check it out!


www.ourtenthofanacre.blogspot.com

And if you have an account, be sure to be a "follower" of it. You can find the box about halfway down on the right.

Thanks!

$10 Date Night: Halloween

Since we are not yet independently wealthy, we tend to just not go out. But being the bargainista that I am, I thought we could still have a lot of fun for little money and knew that I could come up with $10 every two weeks or so. There begins $10 Date Nights. If we get creative enough, we'll see if it warrants its own blog. We'd love ideas!

This week, our first, I said I would plan (I'm guessing we'll take turns). Since it's Halloween weekend, I thought a themed date was in order.

Here was the plan:

• Carve a pumpkin
• Roast said pumpkin's seeds (see recipe below)
  
• Eat cookies
• Watch a scary movie

Here's what it cost:

• Cookies, $2.96
• Pumpkin, $4.18
• TOTAL... $7.14 (what can I say, I like a bargain!)

It's no Marta Crass creation, but works for our front steps!

Roasting the pumpkin seeds was pretty easy too. Here are the instructions:

• Wash the seeds thoroughly. Lay on a paper towel to dry most of the way.
• Lay them on a cookie sheet (we greased the sheet, but I'm not sure you need to do it)
• Brush on melted butter and Worchestershire sauce, then sprinkle on some garlic salt
• Bake at 275 degrees for 10-20 minutes, stirring them every 5-10 minutes. It took us about 30-35 minutes to get ours completely toasted and crunchy. So just keep an eye on them.

Jeff picked the movie. We watched "The Strangers". Nothing gross and bloody (okay, there was a little blood), just suspenseful. It was on TV the other day and Jeff recorded it so we didn't have to rent a movie!

Visit to Birmingham

A couple weekends ago (two? I've lost track), we went to Birmingham to visit with all the Taylors again. We hadn't seen any of them since early summer I think. We typically do a September or October visit, which consists of watching football and playing with Abby. She's getting so old! Normally it takes a couple minutes for her to warm up to us, but this time not so much. As soon as we got there (at 9:30pm!) she ran around a corner and yelled, "Jeff, come scare me!"... which means "come chase me around the house while I squeal at the top of my lungs for thirty minutes". They picked up right where they left off!


And in a little less than two months, we'll have a nephew to play with, too! Max is due the week before Christmas! This year we'll be in Maryland for Christmas, but hopefully we'll go down shortly after to meet him.

Conan!

While there are other things in life I look forward to, I'm REALLY looking forward to November 8th. Can't wait to see what TBS does with the show!

I'm Back

Sorry... keeping up with two blogs is tough! So, I opt for the one that's hopefully making us money!

Most of you know that last month I became a Tupperware consultant... yes, they are still around! I love their products and wanted to earn a little extra money. So if you are ever interested in taking a look at the Tupperware products, check out my web page where you can shop directly. And if you are interested in hosting a party, traditional or virtual, just let me know.

Hopefully as we get to do some fun things with the holidays coming up, I'll post more!

One good thing about a lot of rain...

The garden loved it!

It's Raining...

We've had a little rain in the last 24 hours... anywhere from 8-12 inches. In the ten years I've lived here, I've never seen anything like it. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen anything like this in my life. More storms are moving in, but so far no rain at the house this morning. Lots of our friends have had leaking roofs and some flooding. We were worried to go upstairs last night in fear we'd find a leak, but we've had none.

This was our street for most of the day. They are still building in our subdivision, so some of those lots higher up washed out. In the 20 minutes we were at the grocery store yesterday the road on one side of it had flooded. Later on we saw on the news where they were doing water rescues from that same Publix.


And the video below was taken on I-24 less than four miles from our house. A little scary. The building you see float down the interstate is a portable from a church.



Church was canceled this morning because more storms are moving through. I'm guessing schools will be closed tomorrow as the creeks and rivers continue to rise. I know two buildings down from us at work had some flooding, but I don't know about ours yet. Jeff walked out and checked on the garden this morning. Everything held up well and should really take off this week with so much watering!!

Jeff wants to go explore, but I think we'll hold off on that and enjoy another day inside.

New Website

In case you follow our Taylor Home Solutions blog, be sure to update your bookmark to http://taylorhomesolutions.net as we've changed the website!

Check it out!

Our Garden...

Inquiring minds have wanted to know what we're up to with our garden this year, so here's the run-down! Since it's gotten so hot so early, we've already gotten a lot of it in the ground! Fingers crossed we don't get another frost! Our frost date is April 15th, so I think we'll be okay.

Here Jeff is watering the cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli. Jeff said if all the cabbage grows in, we'll have about 70 lbs of it. Recipes to share, anyone??? In the round part he's planted carrots (new this year). Along the fence on that side are snow peas (yum!) and flat green beans (also new this year). Also in the foreground is romaine lettuce (the plant) and we've planted leaf lettuce & spinach seeds. (By the way, Jeff was unhappy I got him in the picture!)

Last year we planted asparagus. It takes asparagus several years before it produces, so we bought "old" plants. This year we've already gotten about 6 or 7 spears!

Did I mention we have 60 square feet of strawberries??? We didn't get any from it last year, but we've got quite a few flowers on it so far this year... good thing we bought a freezer this winter! And the cylinders you see in the back are potatoes.

All of the pots I used for my herbs on the patio cracked over this ridiculously cold winter. So this year, I've claimed part of the garden for them. Today I planted cilantro and italian flat leaf parsley. We'll get some basil seeds soon to plant, but we won't plant nearly as much as we did last year! Still lots of pesto in the freezer! To the right of the herbs (out of the photo) are our two blueberry bushes that have TONS of buds on them. Last year the birds got all of the blueberries, so we'll have to cover them earlier this time!

And the rest of the garden is still living in cups... zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes! Actually he planted the zucchini today (I took the picture of the cups yesterday!). We have what we think are cucumbers growing in the garden from the compost we put in it last year. We'll let it grow and see what it is. I'm sure we'll have a few "volunteer" tomatoes too! Plus, we'll buy a jalapeno plant and green bell pepper plant (just one of each this year!) in a couple weeks to plant... assuming we still have room at that point.

I also got to plant some petunias in my big flower pot out front today. I love having a little color out there. I need help figuring out how else to do that. White house, black shutters, and green shrubs can be boring. Fortunately, our azaleas are about to bloom, so we'll have some bright pink for about a week.

The "Birthiversary"

Yesterday we celebrated my 33rd birthday and our 4th wedding anniversary! I could not have asked for a more beautiful day to celebrate... 80 degrees and sunny! Too bad I had to work! We went to Cheddar's for dinner. I've never had a bad experience there, but after an hour of waiting for our food, the manager noticed and offered to comp our meal. Done.

When they find out we celebrate two things in one day, most people ask if I make Jeff by a separate anniversary gift and birthday gift. The answer... technically no. He buys me a birthday gift (we always have a $50 spending limit) and we buy one thing we both want for our anniversary. This year it was a Keurig coffee maker! Yum! We've had fun today figuring it out. And as you can see, I had to go buy a K-Cup organizer today to go with it!


We're looking forward to many, many more years together... and now well-caffeinated years together!

Girl's Weekend in DC

Last weekend was our annual girls trip! This year we went to visit Becky B in DC... something that we've never done in nine years of getting together. Becky just bought a condo, so we were super excited to see that and the sights in our nation's capital!

We did do the tourist thing on Saturday and went to the Tidal Basin to see the Cherry Blossoms. Not at full peak, but close! It was a pretty nice day to be out and about. After that they fulfilled my request to go to The Container Store. I've only ever been able to shop there online and was dying to see the inside of one! The closest store to me is in Atlanta!


As usual we laughed a lot and played a lot of cards... Nerts to be exact! Next year is 10 years of Girls Weekend! Any suggestions on how to celebrate?!

Grandmom & Granddad's 60th Anniversary

Last weekend we traveled to Jacksonville, Florida to celebrate my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary! My mom's whole family came together to celebrate. It was fun to have so many of us in the same place for a weekend.

Grandmom & Granddad

We had the whole family and some of grandmom & granddad's church friends and neighbors at the party. The cake above has their wedding picture on it.

After the party, we all headed to the beach for pictures. I haven't seen the "official" ones, but these are some of what we caught with our cameras.

Kelly, me, and mom (who has lost 41 lbs!)

These are 10 of the 13 "original" grand kids (not married in) with grandmom & granddad.

The weekend went by too quickly. Hopefully someone will get married soon so we can all get back together again!

Later this week I'll try and post pictures from girls weekend in Washington, DC!

Dinner With The Girls

The Bible study I'm doing with the girls from church just wrapped up another series. This time we did "No Other Gods" by Kelly Minter. As part of her "Living Room Series" it included recipes to fix each week. We weren't that together, so we thought at the end we'd make a few of those. At first we thought about doing it potluck style, where we'd each make something out of the book. The last week, though, we decided it would be fun to cook together! So here are some pictures from last night!

Our dinner included:
Bowtie Pasta with Chicken & Sun-dried Tomatoes (feta & olives)
Caprese Salad
"Paula's Tossed Salad" (with a rocking dressing!)
& Brownies

It was fun to cook together and everything turned out super well! I think everyone left with leftovers for lunch today too!

I apparently can only work on one blog...

So its been forever since I've blogged... sorry! Apparently, I can only handle one blog in my life and the business one has won out! So I'll do what Marta does when it's been a little while since a post, and recap a bit of the last month or so!

• Getting this business up and running has been time consuming, but we had our first job today! Friends of ours called us, but we're still counting it! Our first ad drops this weekend in Rutherford County, so hopefully the phone will start ringing soon.
• I hosted a fun Tupperware party a few weeks ago! I got it my stuff this weekend and have been playing with it today!
• Jeff's 39th birthday was the 6th of this month! He decided he wanted to go to Hickory Falls for dinner and to see Avatar in 3D. I've never been to a 3D movie and it was unreal! Absolutely stunning to watch! Dinner was yummy too! It was the first date night we've had in a while. Good movie, good food, good time!
• Wednesdays have been dubbed "no tv Wednesdays" here at our house. I'm usually spending time catching up on Bible study and Jeff typically reads. This Wednesday I spent an hour and a half on the phone trying to get the wireless modem I bought Jeff for his birthday working. It works now.
• Beginning yesterday I started volunteering at the Martha O'Bryan Center cleaning out their roughly 2000 sq ft store room. I'm going each Friday until I can get it organized. Good practice for me and something they desperately need done. It was good to see old friends too. One came in and asked what I had done wrong. He thought I had gotten a DUI and had to work off some community service hours. I assured him I was not in trouble and volunteered for the job. I'll post the before and after pictures when I'm finished. I still haven't even cleaned a path to the back 2/3 of the room.
• Last Sunday was the 10th anniversary of me moving to Nashville. Hard to believe it's been so long!!
• We've had more snow here this year than I can remember in the 10 years I have been here. There is more on the way tomorrow and I'm already over it. There are WAY too many hills to navigate around here and my 4Runner is the worst thing I've ever driven in the snow. I want my Civic back! I know I shouldn't complain though as mom & dad have had 70-something inches this winter... 40ish in the last week.

Hopefully you'll forgive me for the lapse in posting. Now that we have the wireless setup at home, I'm sure I'll do better. I just don't like sitting at the desk at home after sitting at a desk at work all day.

Christmas Fun...

(If this post makes no sense, its because I'm watching the VT bowl game while typing!!)

We had a super time celebrating Christmas with the Taylors in Mississippi last week. We left Wednesday morning and headed down. We got there within 30 minutes of everyone else. We really stayed in most of the time we were there, except to go to church on Christmas eve and out to see lights on Saturday night. As usual, Jeff and Abby played pretty hard. Instead of "Uncle Jeff" she called him "my Jeff" the whole time. We also ate lots of good food! The Taylors do fondue on Christmas eve and then they fried a turkey Christmas day. And it's not a holiday without a bunch of yummy pies made by Jeff's dad.

Christmas morning was a blur, but fun. Lots of presents!!! And Abby is now at an age that she can really have fun with it. She got quite a bit of fun stuff. Aunt Becky bought her fingerpaint!! I was kind enough to get the Crayola stuff that only shows up on Crayola paper though! We also introduced her to chalk & chalkboards! A little messy, but cleans up well.

The aftermath...

On Saturday night we drove a little over an hour to Mobile to see the lights at Bellingrath Gardens. We just thought there would be a few lights on some of the trees... not even close! It took us almost two hours to walk through and see everything. It was amazing! Cold, but amazing!

Sunday morning after breakfast we loaded up and headed back. The seven and a half hour trip actually went pretty quick. It was fun to spent that time with everyone.

Things Are Rolling!

We have been working really hard to have the new business up and running by January 1st and I think we'll make it! We still have insurance to get and a way to process credit cards, but that's it! Well, that's not it-- but its all we have to do before we can get cleaning. After that we have web design, advertising, etc.

So pray for us as we begin this journey! I'll still be working full time at my day job. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep working my four day schedule so I can have a day to help Jeff with bookkeeping and scheduling.

In addition to the blog, folks can follow us on Twitter too! www.twitter.com/taylorsolutions

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas this year! We're heading to Mississippi to spend Christmas with the Taylors. I'm sure we'll have lots more pictures to post when we get back. We always do when we get to hang out with Abby for a few days!

A Great Thanksgiving!

Jeff and I spent Thanksgiving in Florida this year with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Typically when we go to FL, we take it pretty easy. This year we were out and about quite a bit. We left Nashville on Wednesday late afternoon and drove to Macon, GA where I scored an $89 hotel room on Priceline.com for $45! We got to Jacksonville around noon on Thursday. We threw Grandmom & Granddad in the car with the food they made and headed to the Smiths for a yummy Thanksgiving dinner!!! After dinner we went to the movies (a Smith tradition) and saw "Old Dogs".

Friday we got up and headed for the Jacksonville Zoo. It was fun, but pretty chilly for FL. Although it was probably in the 50's, we saw a few people in winter coats. I had to borrow one of Jessi's sweatshirts.

After the zoo, the boys went to the park to play disc golf. I tagged along to take pictures!

We also got to see Josh & Jenn's townhouse that they did a fabulous job fixing up!

Saturday we went to a huge craft fair at the convention center and came home to watch the Hokies kick UVA's butt!

We were sad to leave Sunday, but plan to go back in the spring!

It was great to see everyone!

There's Been A Murder!

Last night I went to my first Murder Mystery Dinner party! I was quite nervous, as we were all "actors" at the party and had detailed instructions to follow. But it was a lot of fun! The scenario was that we were all at a bachelorette party at a day spa (hence us all wearing our bathrobes). During the party, there was a murder and we had to solve it. I played "Carina," the bride's cousin, who was also asked to be her wedding photographer (even though I was an artist, painter, by trade). Part of my role last night was to snap pictures, so here are a few!

The crime scene!

Detective Straight filling us in on what happened!

The bride's mother and soon to be dead maid of honor.

Our lovely host Kimberly who worked really hard to get this all together... and then I sold a secret about her character "Blair" for $100. A game is a game!

"Justine" the day spa owner!

We had a lot of fun playing our characters. There were prizes for those who solved the case, the person who made the most money, the person that acted their part out the best, and the best costume. I qualified for none of those.

New Blog

We filed our paperwork with the state to start our business (more on that later) and we went with a different name than we originally thought we would. So the organizing blog I started now has a new web address! So delete the Taylor Total Home blog links you have and use this one instead.

www.taylorhomesolutions.blogspot.com

Hopefully more blog posts coming soon about the business, the murder mystery dinner I'm going to tonight, and our Thanksgiving trip to Jacksonville next week!

Halloween in Birmingham

We headed to Birmingham this weekend to see all the Taylors! We got there on Friday and the playing and squealing began... from Abby AND Jeff! As usual, they played pretty hard and he did his job as an uncle getting her completely wound up before bed each evening!

This was Abby's first year to try trick-or-treating. She made a beautiful fairy! She did well going to just 3 or 4 houses on their street. But she LOVED giving candy out! Every time the doorbell rang, she was on her feet running to the door saying "More kids!"

She was not too happy when it was time for us to leave on Sunday... neither were we. We'll be able to play again at Christmas!