Today is the first day of spring, YIPPEE, now if Mother Nature will just remember and no one upsets her this year. Here in Nebraska we have had our share of winter. It started early and continued to be cold and snowy all winter. The last decade has been so much warmer and so much less snow that we were beginning to think Mother Nature forgot where we were; well she woke up and remembered what she used to do to us. Even at that we were so fortunate compared to many other parts of the country. I for one am all for keeping her on our good side so be good to her I will!

Now with spring brings gardening and the yearnings to get my hands in the dirt. Last year I built a coldframe, I can’t say it was a total success but it did very well and I certainly was pleased with the money I saved. Overall we had the best garden we have ever had for several reasons. I will get into that later for now I want to encourage you to try starting your own plants. Whether you build a coldframe or not you can save so much starting your own plants over buying them. The nurseries have to make money to stay in business and that is to be expected, we can’t grow everything so we are glad. I love roses and I can’t start them, believe me I have tried starting with slips time after time and just can’t seem to get it right. So I buy them but I save planting everything I can.

Last year I grew everything in our garden and shared plants with several other families, this year with good luck I plan on selling some of my extra plants to a store also and paying for my seeds that way. I did have some trouble with shock on my tomatoes last year so this year I will transplant the seedlings when they are about 5” tall into pots I made from newspaper then later transplant right into their place in the garden when they are around a ready. I will post my pots on Thrifty Fun for those of you who may want to use them. I could have purchased peat pots but there goes some of my savings again and I have a friend who makes all of his own pots from newspaper with great success.

Another thing I learned last year was to hold down on the number of seeds I plant. I purchased good seed from mail order companies such as Gurneys and the quality is so much better that every seed must come up. Their seed is no more expensive and they have sales in every catalog, great quality of the seed and money back guarantee on everything that I can attest to they stand behind. The only trouble I had was on a grass plant I ordered, it wasn’t in the best shape when it came and then I had to be gone for a few days and forgot to plant it, when I got back it was beyond help. I contacted the company and they replaced it no questions asked even after I admitted I hadn’t watered the somewhat questionable plant.

The variety I grew last year was 4 kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of cucumbers, giant sunflowers, (see the photo of a squirrel sitting on one in my photo album) peas, beans, koli-rabi, 2 kinds of carrots, onions, beets, and 3 kinds of radishes, cabbage, broccoli and summer squash.

I have posted several pictures of last year’s garden to show you just how bountiful it was. We have a heavy black soil so we have added sand the last 4 years, compost the last two and a fertilizer made locally the last two. Our local sanitation department (trash pickup) makes compost and sells it for practically nothing. If you are planting grass sprinkle it on your area and then seed it, your grass will jump. My favorite way to break up a heavy soil is wood chips from a horse barn; that combination of horse manure and those wood chips is the best I have found to loosen up hard soil. Top that off with a load of sand and you have a soil that can’t be beat in my estimation. I use weed free grass clippings for mulch as deep as 6 to 8 inches. Friends are glad to have somewhere to go with their clippings and deliver it to me for nothing but I share my garden bounty with them and they love it.

This winter we have not had to purchase any vegetables other than fresh such as lettuce, tomatoes and radishes otherwise we are still eating from what was grown in my garden. Green beans are the one thing I don’t freeze, we prefer them canned but otherwise I freeze everything else. Of course we have canned tomato juice and stewed tomatoes, preserves from wild chokecherries and plums and apples from my tree. We have a horseradish patch and each year we have a “grinding” party where we put up around 100 pints of horseradish that we share with all. We get requests for it all year long and each year new people show up at the “grinding” party. There are lots of tears and laughing as the memories are made and the horseradish gets prepared for another year.

So as you can see I am really glad spring is here and I have an excuse to play in the dirt again. My seeds are ordered, my hubby is going after the manure and compost first of the week and aplanting I will go! You really should try it, it is so rewarding.

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Well, I got my wish! I have perfect teeth, they aren’t real but they are real perfect!

As for my wish yes, years ago when my teeth were uneven, some discolored, the back ones missing; so when I tried to eat chips and other wonderful crunchy foods I got bit instead of the food, I wished desperately for a full set of beautiful “chompers”.  Just can’t bring myself to say f----- teeth for some reason, after all they are for old people and no one in my family has had ever had any. Now I admit I have always been a teeny bit different than others in my family but even I have my limits. For the sake of my family, friends and all of you may I stay a teeny bit different if you haven’t been unfortunate enough to have gotten the same wish bestowed on your unsuspecting mouth. Now that's a Dental Delimma in my toothless opinion!

Anyone who knows me well will tell you my mouth has always gotten me into trouble from time to time and still does but never did it do anything so bad to deserve this treatment.

Okay, it’s a done deal; now deal with it, right? Right! What I really am wanting to do is share a little of what I have learned that may help any one that finds themselves facing this situation.

First of all there is food, we still have to eat like it or not and I mean like it or not. I do not like it and oh how I used to, now not liking it has been a good thing for I have lost a few pounds, which I am grateful for. As of yet Weight watchers hasn’t contacted me for my secret but I’ll keep a line open; and no I wouldn’t recommend this method.

Now I love soup of any kind, rice and yogurt. Then there are ice cream and malts of course and now I have an excuse to eat them without the guilt. With great pride and determination there has been no ice cream brought into this house since I have had the excuse, with no limitations I am afraid of what I might do. You’ve seen those movies with the distraught women digging in the ice cream bucket with their big ole’ spoon, well I am afraid I might by-pass the spoon and only come for air when I hit the bottom!

Right now my favorite piece of equipment in my kitchen is my 1-cup electric blender. It has become my new best friend and no longer is delegated to under the cabinet. Front and center for my friends. It us the main tool in my cooking these days and the reason I am still alive at all. It is said we should live and learn; well I am proof of that. I am alive and relearning how to prepare food and now would like to share some of my findings with you in case you ever find yourself in my predicament. One would not have to get your teeth pulled to enjoy these few recipes but they certainly are tried and true “chomper” recipes.

As for yogurt I am enjoying it often, my favorite way is crumbling a muffin, (one that I made with Malt-o-Meal cereal thinking it was a bread I could eat because it would be soft, wrong the cereal grains got under the plates and went to war) in a cereal bowl, cutting up mixed frozen fruit and topping with fat free vanilla yogurt and a touch of milk. Now that’s a treat.

Another favorite is shrimp salad served in a half avocado shell. This one I learned in Mexico and have adapted to work with tuna also. I boil my shrimp and run it through my one-cup electric blender along with the celery. I add the rest of the softer ingredients as one normally uses, mayo, relish, garlic salt and what ever you like. Clean the avocado and cram just as much shrimp salad as I can into it, piling it up in a nice mound. The other half of the avocado I slice and lay around the filled half, sprinkle with more garlic salt, wipe the saliva from my mouth as I grab my fork and hurry to sit down to enjoy my feast.

Not being one to ever like gravy on my potatoes, I know weird again, yes I like both just not together, give me rice any day. Off course one can’t make just a cup of rice, no I don’t like the instant, so I have a lot of the wonderful fluffy stuff to do something with. In our house the hubby eats potatoes only so I can do anything I want with the rice. A few ways I have found that appease the new “choppers” are buttered or heated with stewed tomatoes (sometimes a little salsa and parmesan cheese) or cheese melted over it and of course put in stew, a hubby pan and one for me of course.

The stew is all cut up really fine except the meat, which I run through my trusty little chopper just before serving so hubby has his chunky meat.

These recipes are of course not limited to the sore of mouth, aged, or sound of mind of which I am proof so feel free to try them. You don’t have to tell where you got them, no one will know.

Well if you are still with me, you may just be a chomper candidate someday if the need arises. We’ll hope the need does not indeed knock at your door. Remember to be careful what you wish, it might come true and you will pay for it with your mouth!

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When our boys were little I got into the bad habit of going to their rooms before doing the laundry to make sure all of their dirty clothes were in the laundry room. They got more and more dependent on me picking up their dirty clothes instead of taking care of it themselves.

Deciding I wasn't teaching them anything by doing it for them I had to take action. So one Saturday I warned them that from that day on anything not in the laundry when I was ready to wash wasn't going to get washed.

Monday morning rolled around and things went fine but Tuesday the sky fell in. Neither son had clean jeans. I simply told them "gosh the wash was all done Saturday so you should have enough for the week."

"But Mom, I can't  wear dirty jeans" came from both of them as I just shrugged my shoulders and said "and I can't wash them if they aren't in the laundry.

I never had to pick up their dirty clothes again. By the way they didn't get their jeans that dirty in one day so they were okay to wear them another day in spite of what they thought.

I can't take credit for this way of handling the situation, I had just that week heard it on the radio. Another suggestion the doctor told was when your child wants to run away tell them that is ok but they must leave the same way they came into your world, naked. More times than not it will make the child laugh if you deliver the sentence right. It worked for me with our oldest son.

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With a long flight in my near future I am busy planning which crafts to take with me and how to pack them.  With regret I don't have the project ready I would like to take and rather than hurry the preliminary steps which I know I would regret later I will make myself wait to get into it when I get home.

For this time I will just take a set of pillowcases that I have kept for such a trip. I try to keep a simple project put together in a clear gallon zip lock bag ready to throw in my bag just for this purpose. My travel projects must be small, flat and simple that I don't have to think to hard to work on. I want to be able to work on the project and still visit with people or look around at the scenery. Airlines allow small scissors or nail clippers so sewing projects work well for me.

I always travel with a book also, in case I can't get to sleep at night. Sometimes a motel is noisy, the bed is too hard, at my age hot flashes can be an unwanted guest and frankly sometimes I am too excited to sleep so a good book will relax me.

An oversized canvas bag works great for me as a carry on. I stuff my purse, camera, craft project, book, snack and a set of "undies" all in it and it stays in my possession at all times. That way I am set if my bags don't get to my destination for some reason. I don't ever pack more than will fit in that canvas bag and one large carry on bag that will fit in the overhead compartment so there is no chance of loosing my things but still pack the "undies" out of habit I guess. A girl just never knows.

This trip is to Texas, stay with my in-laws and then into Mexico to OUCH get my teeth pulled by the family dentist. On my numerous trips over I will switch from my purse to a fanny pack, and with my build they look so cute, but for safety's sake I will swallow my pride. Only the necessities will be put in it which means no credit cards and no cell phone. A friend used his cell phone while in Mexico once and somehow his number was tracked, stolen and he then got a very large phone bill the next month. A good lesson for the rest of us.

One more hint I would like to share that I have enjoyed through the years involves bringing smiles to children that I run across on my ventures. I keep small change in a handy pocket, now we all know children should be taught not to talk to or take anything from strangers, but there isn't any rule about my showing a child when I just happen to spot a nickel on the floor and they can pick it up is there. Most of the time the parents don't know I have put it there but if they happen to catch me they go along with it with a smile and silent "thank you." 

If you have traveling plans in your future, be safe and take time to enjoy the little things that bring you pleasure.

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That's right a Peanut butter and Jelly marriage. We learned a very good lesson right at the start about finances I would like to share with you all.

Shortly after we were married my husband, Bob took a better paying job that involved a move. Well we were making payments on a well used, pink 8'x 30' trailer house and had just found out we were expecting our first child. Needless to say we were broke with a capital B. The raise was badly needed so we did our homework and figured out just what we would need to make the move. If we borrowed a truck to move the well used, pink 8'x30' trailer house ourselves we could save a bunch. Bob hadn't taken a vacation he had coming so we would have that check to make our lot rent and buy groceries for the coming month when we got moved. We could do it by watchng our pennies, if we could find any.

He took the job and we moved. The trailer court was so much nicer than where we were and the town was larger, a great hospital for the arrival of our expected baby in seven months. Life was getting better and better all we had to do now was wait for that vacation check.

We had managed to make the lot rent payment but it nearly broke us, not to worry, the check would be here any day now as they promised. Then we could buy groceries until then we had, you guessed it peanut butter except we didn't have any jelly! A man at Bob's new job had given him a dozen eggs and we had a loaf of bread. We would be fine for a couple of days, then a couple of more days passed, then a week. It is amazing what one can do with peanut butter, bread and eggs. One day Bob would make our sandwiches then the next day I would make them. At least it was a change. And eggs, you all know there are dozens of ways to use eggs so with a smile and the innocense of youth we lived on peanut butter, eggs and one loaf of bread for three weeks.

We made daily calls, and they made daily excuses why the check hadn't been mailed, finally they admitted that they told us wrong Bob had not earned a paid vacation, just vacation time. Yes, we were very unhappy to say the least, but we should have checked into it more to start with since we were depending on that money. You can't count on what should be you need to see it in black and white.

Obviously, we survived and to this day we still look back and laugh about our PBJ start to our marriage. Oh and by the way we still like PBJ but load on the J now.

So you see money isn't everything, attitude makes up for a lot.

Keep Smilin' and see ya soon!

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