Rotten Tomatoes

This tomato pin cushion has lasted me through many years - probably a good 15 years of sewing, but I'm thrilled to see it go.  I think it was the green leaves at the top that finally did it in - see the shavings popping out?

So, I'm happy to say I have a nice, new, pretty tomato to hold my pins.  I even decided to pitch all of those dress shirt pins that I had saved and opt for keeping my trusty long yellow headed pins.  Looks so much tidier, huh?

Speaking of rotten tomatos, one of the things I crave in the summer is fresh tomatoes from the garden.  If you don't already know, I live in Central Texas and we are on day 20 of 100 degrees or more - ugh!  

Each summer I've tried to plant a garden, and this year, mine got in a bit late so, my poor tomato plants are baking in the sun each day.  

I thought this garden was an improvement to years past in a way because normally I've planted WAY too many plants and ended up with a giant gnarled mess of a garden this time of year.  But - what was labeled as "Cucumber" at the garden center was actually a jalepeno plant, my "Zuchinni" was enormous bumpy Squash, and "Squash" died a pitiful death by some rooting animal early in the summer.  So....I would really, really like just one or two pretty tomatoes to eat on my turkey sandwich!!!  But, as you can see they aren't looking so hot.  I may try for a fall tomato, which apparently one of our local garden centers is advertising.  

This is what they look like now - barely hanging on - but I'm hopeful still for a few sweet fruits of my labor. (I'm curling my toes even taking these pictures, because I'm sceered (that's "scared" in "Texas lingo") to death of a creeping nasty snake biting my freshly pedicured toes!  Blah!)

It's hard to tell in this photo - but there is a dirty rotten catepillar just making himself at home on one of my juicy delights - I'd pinch his little head off and squeeze it between my fingers if it wouldn't totally gross me out!!!  Dang catepillar.  

My Indiana Home

As many of you know, I have just returned from my trip to Indiana.  Each year I like to take the kids up to visit their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, and friends who are just as good as family!

This is a picture of the house I grew up in.  The picture hangs in my parents' dining room now - but it was taken in the late 1800's.  We believe that these are most likely the people who built the house.  It was built around 1890.

Here is a current picture - nothing too drastic has changed.  The front porch was expanded around 1940. Then my parents enclosed it in the late 60's.  They also added an additional room towards the back in the 1990's.  They have been in this house for over 43 years.  The land around the house used to be an orchard, and you can find a few fruit trees still scattered near by.  My favorites are the Montmorency Cheeries - they used to provided buckets and buckets of cherries, which I picked, pitted, and ate like crazy as a kid.  Now, the trees have seen better days, and the few cherries they produce are eaten up by the birds.  

It's a great old house - I've wished lots of times that the walls could talk.  I would have loved to have seen the interior as it was in the 1800's.  Now that I live in my much, much newer suburban home in a large sprawling metroplitan area in central Texas with every convenience close at hand - it takes a little getting used to, going home each summer.  The air conditioner, when needed (which isn't very often in Northern Indiana), doesn't begin to cool the upstairs.  The best produce is right outside the back door in my parent's garden- not down the freeway at Central Market.  If the kids want to run barefoot in the grass, they don't have to watch out for fire ants, snakes or scorpions!  Want to smell the country?  Just walk out to the barn and give "Bubba" the horse an apple to crunch and scratch his ears.  But it's best to wear your boots around the horse apples on the ground though.   

These are just a few more pictures I took around the house.  I'm sure I'll share more later - feels great to be back in Texas.....but there are some things I miss about my home in Indiana.

"Bubba"

"Yep - beans fresh from the garden - and they are delicious!"

Something I Can Do, Apparently.

My garden is actually growing! I'm shocked - I think once again though, I may have planted things too close together. But so far, so good. Last year my tomatoes were aweful - pathetic little shriveled up things. We were able to get about 2 mouse bites from them. This year, I'm already seeing beeeauuutiiful little green round tomatoes on the vine. The blooms are staying put (last year they all fell off).
I would swear that the corn (back right) has grown another foot since I took this picture, and so has the cantaloupe (front left). The little sprout in his diaper has grown a smidgen too.
Here's what we've got going so far:

Tomatoes
Green Beans
Okra
Red, Yellow and Orange Peppers
Cilantro
Basil
Corn
Cantaloupe
Squash
Zuchinni
Lima Beans
Onions
Hoping to have some room to plant pumpkins in a few months. The kids are having fun watching things grow - hopefully that will encourage them to actually eat something that doesn't come out of a bag in the freezer.
Well - off to do some creating in the "sewing room - or dining room as some people like to call it" - I've got some cool projects in the works but I need to work on them some more before I share the pictures. Here's a hint - one project involves my husband's suit pants.

Glorious Rain - and a Round Top SCORE!

Here in Texas, the summer has been scorching. My poor garden bit the dust while I was in Indiana and I had basically just given up on it - poor pathetic thing. Hot, Hot Sun and no rain are not good for growing anything but rocks.

But, lo and behold,.....it's been raining! Not just one day, not just two days, but ALL week! For the most part, just slow steady rain. I managed to pull out all of my dead tomato plants, etc. and replanted pumpkins, acorn squash, and bush beans. You know, that water from the sky does wonder for making things grow.

My boy has had lots of fun wearing his sister's hand me down yellow rain boots and playing with her Care Bear umbrella. Guess we need to get him a "boy" one, o well, he doesn't know the difference yet.

Round Top News - We found a place to stay!! I'm so excited. We'll be staying at this great B&B in Round Top. The house we're renting is a little bitty place - just one bedroom and a sleeper sofa, but it's adorable. I was able to stay at this B&B twice before. Once with my mother-in-law and several of her friends and once with my parents (you know, antique dealers - they had to see Round Top). I had been looking everywhere trying to find a decent place to stay. My girlfriends that are coming along on the trip have never had the "experience" of RT before, so I did want to make a good impression. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. Can't wait, I'm hoping to find lots of things that I can't live without (that'll drive my hubby crazy when I lug everything home and try to find places for it all!)

There's No Place Like Home, unless it's about to get invaded by a Pumpkin Vine

You probably know by now that my girl loves, loves, loves, to craft. She also loves her sparkle shoes. Unfortunately, those sparkle shoes didn't stay very sparkly. They started out as black sparkle shoes. I brought them home from the store and literally within days, she had worn out the sparkles on them. I found sparkles all over the house - even in her bed (yes, she wore them to sleep).
So, yesterday as I was browsing my favorite blogs Craft Zine- we came across a tutorial for making your own sparkle shoes! Totally easy - just basically paint your shoes with glue, then sprinkle sparkles everywhere. I will be forever vacuuming up sparkles. She was excited, so here's our results -


I also wanted to show you all my garden. My girl wanted desperately to grow pumpkins. So, I let her put a few pumpkin seeds in the back corner when we planted the garden, not really having much hope that they would actually grow. I was more concerned about my precious tomatoes growing into juicy round deliciousness. Well, the pumpkins have not only grown, they have literally taken over the back forty. They would take over the neighborhood if I let them. I've been cutting them back a little at a time, just to keep them from suffocating the rest of the garden. You can see them behind little girl, in the corner. At one point they had grown over the tiller, but I cut them off. I'm trying to get them to grown along the back, behind my peppers, but they are a bit unruly. If I cut anything off, I have to do it under the cover of darkness, or at least nap time, because if little girl sees hacked off pumpkin vines laying limp on the ground - or sees me coming at them with clippers - she goes into a tizzy.

So, I guess we'll have Cinderella's pumpkin carriage in the fall for my little "Dorothy" in her red sparkle shoes.

Those are my tomatoes in the cages - I can't figure why some are big, with long arms all over and curly leaves, one is barely past the cage, and one looks pretty and green. None of them have tons of fruit on them - just a few flowers. Hubby says the flowers are falling off. Any advice?? This is a learning year on the garden - we have been dining on zuchinni though, yummy on the grill.

Some Sad News.....but there's always Marguerita's!

Some Sad News....

I don't have a picture at the moment, it's just too sad.

We had a hail storm the other night, and my dear garden took a turn for the worse. At least 4 tomato plants were pummelled, as well as my squash, and cilantro. The radishes may make a recovery as well as the lettuce. They were close enough to the ground that they didn't get the brunt of it. My kids and I along with our doggie had a little camp out in the bathroom for awhile and heard on the news that a tornado had touched down 6 miles north of us. So we're quite lucky that only my garden was damaged.

On a brighter note,....let me introduce my newest apron. The Senorita Cafe Apron............

I'm envisioning serving marquerita's to my guests on the patio while wearing this one! Yes, it's available on my Etsy shop if anyone is interested.

Speaking of marqueritas, here is a picture of my sister and I after having a lovely marquerita during her visit to Texas! Yum...so cold, so icy, so sour, so.....YUM! Especially with good company and good chips and hot sauce.

Gardening added to the Mix (along with a little horse manure!)

While my family was visiting, my mom, daughter and I planted a garden. My mom has had a quite large garden for many years and I was thrilled to have her input. I'm a garden virgin. Tried once or twice to grow tomatoes in a pot, and didn't have very good results. So, I'm very excited at this prospect! I was ready to just dig a hole, put the seeds or transplant in...and cross my fingers. Mom gave me some better advice, and things are actually growing!

We have little tiny lettuces, little tiny radishes, little tiny pumpkins and little tiny cucumbers popping their heads up. During this whole process, my husband was giving back seat advice on where to plant what, how much space, etc, etc, etc.....He was very upset that one of his requests - beans - didn't get a seat in the garden. So, behind our backs, he "planted" his beans...scattered somewhere in the garden...well...I think they are actually coming up too. What a toot!

OK, this next picture is a little scary.......

Mom, I know you're gonna kill me for putting this picture on here! Sorry, but I had to document the afternoon! Thanks for helping!

I promise to start posting about my sewing concoctions again soon. I am very busy working on something, but don't have the liberty of telling you all about it yet. But I assure you, sewing is being done, and my house is a disaster zone to prove it. "Cleaning" and "picking up" is on an as needed basis right now! As soon as I can, I'll be showing you what I've been up to!