Finally Something Garden Oriented

Ok, not really, but it's the best I can do right now.

For Christmas, my sister-in-law always makes chili. Not your standard Christmas fare, but having just glutted ourselves on Thanksgiving, chili is a wonderful alternative on a cold evening, even better so this year because it was snowing. She always makes two pots because my other sister-in-law doesn't eat red meat, but this year instead of a standard red chili with turkey, she made a white chili with chicken.

I couldn't wait to make it again, so last night we made the chicken chili but with the salsa I made from the garden - hence the gardenesque quality behind this post.
It was crazy good and I can't wait to try it again.

Kids and I have been enjoying our vacation, especially when I realize they've gotten too quiet, go to find them, and discover this:

They were hunkered down in the boy's room reading books for over an hour. The boy just got a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book today and was engrossed. The girl pretended to read The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. Seriously, if you know kids, you need to find the pigeon books or anything, for that matter, by Mo Willems. By far, he's the kids' favorite author. We love the books also. Also, if I could draw your attention to the picture on the boy's wall of the train...my dad drew that. It's beyond fantastic, isn't it.

The day-o-reading as the boy put it continued after the man got home. This picture was taken on the cell phone and it wouldn't let me rotate it, but you get the idea.

Two kids reading (well, one pretending to) and I couldn't be happier. Gave me the chance today to finish reading Pope Joan. It was a very good read and well worth it. Highly recommended.

The morning comes early, or rather earlier for me recently than the kids as they're sleeping a bit later now that it's vacation time. Sweet semi-gardening dreams.

Follow up to the Missing Reindeer Story

The other day I showed you the reason dogs attack their owners.
Yesterday, Gibson took his revenge on the small.

No, actually, he was trying to protect the boy and skidded to a stop before he touched him, but it made for a good picture. He did not like it when the kids would lay down in the snow and would prance around them trying to get them to get up. That was, until he saw a kid down the road on a sled which then took precedence.

Not Since the 1880's Part II

If you missed yesterday's post, not since the 1880's has the Atlanta area seen snow on Christmas. This snow started Christmas day around 3:00 and we've been stuck under one snow cell that hasn't moved a lick since. It's still only a light covering, only an inch or two, but for us around here, this is big-time, so just hang with me here. No snickering, Toni. ;)

Here's the same picture of the house from yesterday with sunlight.
Loved this little snow covered bird nest.

Who can resist a snowy mailbox? Not me!

Ah, the obligatory snowy garden shot. Toni...I heard you. You snorted when you laughed. You know you did.

BUT! Before it all began, sometime on the afternoon of December 24 in Winder, GA, a reindeer was spotted shirking his duties:

If you find him, please report him to the authorities. Or at least bring him home. He's a bit pathetic looking.

Hope everyone had a safe holiday.

The morning comes early. Time to start training your body to stay up late for New Year's!

Not Since the 1880's

Never since the 1880's has the Atlanta area seen snow accumulation on Christmas.....

until tonight.

Bad pictures, great story. I'll have better pictures tomorrow. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

The morning comes early. And it will be a white one, here.

Happy Holidays!

Seeds are ordered and in and the garden is almost planned. Well, as much of a plan as I'll stick to, anyway I suppose.

If you're traveling, stay safe. If you're staying home, keep warm. We're expected to see flurries here tomorrow evening. It's unheard of. We'll see if it really happens.

Happy Holidays, y'all.

Again, I Must Ask...What Garden?

Maybe it's just because it's the end of the semester. Maybe it's that my attention has been focused on the keychains. Maybe it's because I'm obsessed with my new NookColor. Maybe it's the inhumane and unAmerican cold weather we're experiencing; well, it's certainly the cold, but with everything else accounted for, I really need to get myself out to the garden and pick whatever is pickable and clean up what's not.

I'm looking back at my posts from last year and by this time I was chomping at the bit to order my seeds and this year I haven't even made a garden plan let alone shopped for seeds. It's on my list to do today, however. Maybe. ;)

What I can be grateful for is my girlfriend giving me some of her pesto, revitalizing my love and dependency on the stuff. She's such an enabler.
However, it's with much gratitude that I do say that most of my "alone time" this week has been spent making keychains! This weekend alone, I processed orders for 25 keychains which just made me so happy. The orders included this one for which all of the keychains are being used as teacher/Sunday school teacher gifts. The leopard print was free with her order of 5+.

This one below was fun to make. She needed a keychain for a girl whose cheer leading squad was pink and black, so I layered the black megaphones on the hot pink ribbon. It's so cute. The GT fob was hers free with her order of 5+.

Lastly, this one is going to Florida. She requested a Mickey Mouse ribbon, of which I still have some left. The layered ribbons all corresponded to school colors for her to use as gifts.

I couldn't be happier with how the Keychains for a Cause has been received. I calculated last night that we had done over $1,400 in keychain sales since July. Not too shabby, my friends!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

"You're the BEST Mommy." Darn right I am.

I'm just loving that we have to change the clocks in the winter.

It's pitch dark by 6:00 PM here and the kids think I'm the best mommy in the world and that they're getting away with something when I usher them to bed at 7:15 PM.

I don't plan on disabusing them of their opinions any time soon. ;)

But, spring's really going to stink.

Oh, can you believe seed catalogs are here already!? By this time last year I had already put in and received all of my ordered seeds. I'm falling behind this year. Better get on it!

Frozen Squirrels

It was 18 degrees when we woke up this morning! The high was only 36. Seriously, people...this is Georgia, not Illinois. I suppose it's only so much of a shock because it was just 65-68 degrees just over a week ago. We slid into winter weather without so much as a bump in the road.

Of course, I haven't been keeping up with the weather so it caught me off guard. I should have harvested the remaining cabbage. I didn't. There's a head of broccoli I should have gotten to. I didn't. However, although the plants didn't get the time to rebound today, I don't think all will be too bad. I'm sure the broccoli will be fine and I'm thinking I can just take off the top layer of the cabbage and it will suffice as well.

Main reason for blogging today is that I had a run-in with a manic squirrel on my way home today. As we were driving home, I saw a squirrel in the distance taking his sweet time crossing the road. I was on a pig pass (back road) so I saw no reason not to stop and let him go on. The squirrel ever so placidly loped into the center of my lane, stood on his hind legs and actually tried to intimidate me. A 10 second standoff ensued before I said, "Seriously?" and proceeded to straddle him with caution. I had both kids in the car; imagine the wailing if I hit him in slow motion. In my rear view I could see him, turned around, giving me stink eye as I ventured on my way.

Listen, Mr. Squirrel. You don't scare me. I'm scrappy and have more experience.

*sigh* The nerve of some squirrels. ;)

On a Keychains for a Cause note, I was very nicely corrected by a prospective customer that uterine cancer ribbon was peach instead of the color I had listed. One of the problems I encountered when setting up the Keychains site was the amount of conflicting information out there and I'm thrilled the woman thought enough to correct me. Not only will I gratefully fix the error, but look out for peach keychains coming soon!

Today saw the delivery of three Duke keychains and one motorcycle awareness keychain.

Keep us in mind for your holiday shopping! Keychains mail out within 24 hours of your order.

The morning comes early. Sweet warm gardening dreams.

We CAN at School!

How's that for a cheesy title?

I was lucky enough this year to be invited back to the Foods classes at our school to teach a demo lesson on canning. Last year was my first year doing it and we had a lot of fun making grape jelly, pickles and apple pie jam.

This year, there were five classes to prepare for instead of just the three, so I knew I needed to be super prepared and make/bring things that would score big with the kids. Because the recipes were a bit more intensive this year, I was so grateful that the foods teacher worked one step ahead of me and was chopping and preparing the ingredients for the next class while I was teaching.

Like last year we talked about safety, high vs. low acid foods, botulism, so much more, and then walked them through a demonstration. We only had 50 minutes in each class, so this was tight. Here's what we did:

1st period - made grape jelly from concentrated juice and tried some I had already made
2nd period - made banana jam and tasted some I had already made
3rd period - made apple conserve (YUM!) and tried some grape jelly that was already made
4th period - made red onion jelly and tried the banana jam from earlier
6th period - made salsa and tasted salsa I had already made

Like last year, the kids each did their best to out bid each other on the cost of buying jars. I even had one student go as far as to email me to ask if I could get her a jar off campus. Uh, no. What was nice is a student asked if she bought the supplies if I'd help her learn how to can pears after school. We could probably work something out.

I didn't get many pictures, but the school newspaper did, so I'm hopeful to get some of theirs. Here's one I took during a period when I wasn't canning. You can see the jars on the counter from what we'd already done that day.
I did have fun. Each and every jar sealed and is now resting comfortably in my cabinet. I hope I get to do it again next year.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Laws of Physics and Cabbages

I honestly don't know where all of the time has gone. Let yourself get out of your routine for a day and it turns into two and then, before you know it, it's been ten days since you've even stepped foot in the garden or looked at yours or any blog. November and December are always busy with the end of the semester and final exams, but I must admit I've been sidetracked by a gift.

For the holidays this year the man gave me a NookColor which is Barns and Noble's answer to the Kindle. I just love, love, love it. Yes, the screen is backlit so it's not that lovely e-ink screen, but it did allow me to read in the complete dark while I was waiting for my kids and their cousins to go to sleep since they wouldn't stop talking once I'd leave the room. Honestly, I'm in heaven. I can rent books from the library (something a K. can't do) and I'm finding all sorts of new authors on sites that offer self published books for downloading let alone all of the classics I need to keep up with. Yes, the battery life is negligible in comparison to the other e-readers, but if I remember to charge it over night I'm good. So I've been reading. A lot. I've honestly sat down a few times to do this post and walked away and started reading on the Nook. Thanks, Man!

I do have some posts lined up for this week. I did more canning lessons today at school which I'll post about tomorrow, but I did have to pop on here to show you that the laws of physics can be continually broken by one, singular dog. Every so often we walk by Gibson and just ponder how he gets his body in the positions he does. Yes, he's on the couch here and he knows he's busted, but seriously...how does he get his back leg over his head?
Maybe I'll start a study on the odd positions we find this dog in. Yesterday he was sleeping with his tongue just popping out and tonight he's snoring because he's got his nose wedged in between his paws and can't breathe but is too stinkin' lazy to move.

In spite of my negligence, the garden is really doing well. The cabbages that were all but destroyed have headed up nicely.

I pondered earlier about eating them since I knew there HAD to be cabbage worms in there just by the sheer amount of holes in the leaves and the poop that I found, but I let them grow anyway and harvested two of them yesterday for dinner. As I cut them to cook, I inspected every fold there was and no cabbage worms or poop was found. Woohoo!! They were so, so, so good. I've still got three out there. Hopefully I'll have as good of luck with them.

This is one of the heads and the last of the carrots we pulled up yesterday.

The other thing that's been keeping me busy is, of course, Keychains for a Cause. I tallied up what we've sold so far and were around 180 keychains sold since July which just makes me giddy. As your thinking of Christmas and holiday presents, keep us in mind for those little gifts you need to give people. We've done several custom colors and designs this last week which is always fun.

This order shipped to Indiana today. The fob was free with her order of 5 or more.

I still get a kick out of those monkeys!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Then the Leaves Fall

The man and I were remarking the other day how odd it was that all of the leaves were still on the trees this late in the year. 24 hours later, all of the leaves, in unison, decided to fall. Our back yard went from green to this in under 30 minutes.

I love the way the trees just 'know' when to shed their leaves and one tree sends the secret signal to the rest and it's game on. It's a conspiracy to leaf rakers everywhere, but a beautiful sight to watch the leaves lazily making their way from treetop to ground. It's been 3-4 days since I took this picture and it's even more covered now, but it's rained a bit, so it's not as inviting anymore.

I've been remiss at posting this last week. I hope everyone had as wonderful of a Thanksgiving as we did. The broccoli didn't head up large enough to eat, but I did pick a bowl and a half of peas that we used for shelling and as appetizers. More carrots were picked and set out as well. It was funny to watch people eat the orange ones first then hesitantly moved to the white and purple, but the only one enthusiastic about them was the boy. Some family members ventured to the white carrots, but more kept eyeballing them and asking what was 'wrong' with them. ;)

I also had enough sweet potatoes left to make the sweet potato dish, only to find out the man and I are the only ones who eat them, but they sure were good!

Instead of a pumpkin pie, I tried a friend's recipe for a pumpkin 'cake.' It darkened up after I took it out of the oven and was very sweet, but obscenely good. I think next time I'll leave out some of the powdered sugar in the filling mix, but we'll certainly make it again.

Keychains for a Cause is trucking right along and we'll hopefully pick up some steam with the Christmas holiday coming around. This is a custom order I had for a women's group. I got an email asking if I could do their group's colors (yellow with white stars). Sure! No problem.

We also got two more collegiate ribbons in - Duke and The University of Maryland. Go Terps!

When it comes time to fill those stockings, don't forget us!

The morning comes early. Especially when your girl decides to sleep in your bed and talks in her sleep and spends the whole night patting your head and calling you a "good dog." I suppose it's better than "big-fat momma" which she called me all day Thursday. Sweet fall gardening dreams.

All Good Things...

Are the peas at their end? They completely fell over in the wind we had two nights ago. They're a jumbled mess even though they've been strung up for support.
However....they're still full of peas. I think I'll let them go through Thanksgiving. I bet I'll be able to get some for a little side dish or pre dinner snack and I'll be a happy gal. I'll go through and pick around Tuesday or Wednesday, I think, so they don't get too large and starchy.
Last year I didn't have hardly anything from the garden to put on the table, but this year I've got sweet potatoes that I'll marble with regular potatoes for a dish, peas, carrots and rosemary to season the turkey with. I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out.

I posted yesterday on the Keychains for a Cause page that I had a customer ask if my dislike of the Florida Gators was greater than my love for Relay for Life. My first instinct was, "Heck yeah!" but she was right. Relay won over and these got made last night:
I was thrilled today when my new University of Georgia ribbon came in. After having to wear a gas mask and gloves to make the FLA keychains last night, this was a relief. ;) I like the two UGA designs I already have, but this one is my favorite.

Also in the order was my Mississippi State ribbon, so I was able to finish a custom order.

So there you have it, sports fans. Keep us in mind for Christmas gifts!

Broccoli Abounds and Name That NFL Team!

Now that it's cooled off during the day, the broccoli is starting to look really nice. The big one second from the left is actually starting to show a little bit of a head. There's nothing like home grown broccoli. Its sweetness can't be beat. I'd say it's second to home grown tomatoes in terms of the taste being superior to that of store bought. Then again, so are the peas, the carrots, the squash, the garlic....maybe it's all just better. I need more boxes. ;)

Today I got an email asking for custom orders for keychains depicting a certain NFL team's colors, but only if I got it right. I made a mock up and I'm putting the test to you:

Which NFL team does this keychain represent? I wrote on the Keychains for a Cause page that the first two people who email keychainsforacause@gmail.com would win one of the collegiate keychains we offer (EG....I got in Auburn! Even though you throw punches like girls.) It's open to any of you who come by here as well. It's game time! Let me know if you think I can propose this to the customer.

The morning comes early....and so is the night being that the kids don't understand daylight savings time and start asking to go to bed at 6:00. What? I'm not going to fill them in. ;)

O Garden, How Have I Forsaken Thee

I've been so busy with the keychains and the end of the semester that I've nearly forgotten there is a garden out back which is good and bad at the same time. It's good because I'm not tempted to pull every carrot out there and therefore just may have some still in the ground for Thanksgiving use and the peas are filling out nicely; as you can see, even though strung up for support, they're almost pulling down the trellis!
I ripped out the peppers and beans today and here's what I got off of the pepper plants and pea vines.

The decision is made. I won't bother with peas in the spring and only do a few carrots since they do soooooo much better in the fall and I'm not overly eager to pull them to make room for the summer veggies. The broccoli outside is just starting to show a head. I wonder if they'll grow large enough by Thanksgiving to use and cabbage worms or not, I'm thinking of finding out if those cabbages are salvageable. You can serve cabbage for Thanksgiving, right?

I was going to make a zucchini pie from the zucchini in the freezer, sweet mashed potatoes from the ones from the garden, carrots and peas as appetizers and if I can work the cabbage in there this will be one fantastic garden holiday!

The girl is becoming quite the fashionista. She's entered the "I'm getting dressed myself with blatant disregard for the seasons or original intended function of the clothing stage. She was adamant this is what she was going to wear on this 45 degree day:

And yes...those "shorts" aren't shorts at all, but a shirt she's thrown on upside down. Oh, and that tattoo is one she's had since Halloween. She holds it out of the bathtub so she doesn't get it wet, but some mean, soapy hand always manages to grab it and dunk it before we get out of the tub. I'm about to break out the baby oil when she goes to bed to get that sucker off.

This Saturday I took out a booth for Keychains for a Cause at another elementary school fall festival and did better than the first one I did, so that makes me very happy! The large youth group order is finished, packed up and ready to ship, although I forgot to take a picture before I packed it up.

Here is a few that I made for someone. Thank goodness there's some red and black to bust up all of that yellow. ;)

My collegiate ribbon is in although not listed on the website. Email keychainsforacause@gmail.com with inquiries.

The morning comes early....even when the kids play outside for five hours and fall asleep dead tired, they STILL wake up early. Is nothing sacred!?

Not Much Gardening Going on Around Here....

In the garden, things are pretty much either dead, waiting to die or biding their time before they produce like the broccoli, onions, garlic and carrots. There were, however, a few surprises. I thought the recent three days of frost in a row would have gotten all of the green beans left, but it only nailed a few and I picked a whole bowl on Sunday which was pleasantly unexpected. Right now, I'm just twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the mood to strike me to clean up the dead and dying vines.

Right now, what's keeping me busy is making keychains! We got that order in for just under 60 keychains for a church youth group so I've been sewing like a crazy tonight. I've gotten 15 done today so depending on the amount of other orders we receive this week, I should get them done in time to ship out Monday. *sigh* it's the first time I haven't shipped out within 24 hours, but I think it's understandable in this case. Here's the ones I did tonight:

And here's what I found when I came downstairs Sunday night. They were like three peas in a pod!

It was very cute.

Hopefully the broccoli will sprout heads soon and we can get back to gardening! The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

A Sale and Advertising That Can't Be Beat!!

We hit the Wally World today to do some grocery and clothes shopping since the girl and boy both decided to grow without consulting anyone. We also happened upon a 90% off Halloween sale that was STUFFED with costumes in the boy and girl's sizes. The boy got a ninja and Darth Vader costume for a whopping total of $3.50 and the girl a girl Robin costume and a Yoda which went perfect with the Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker that the boy actually was for Halloween for just about the same amount.

Here's my point....all football season this girl's been singing this song of hers she's entitled "Georgia Bulldogs to the Rescue." The refrain is simple, yet pleasing:

Georgia Bulldogs
Georgia Bulldogs
If you need help call
Georgia Bulldogs to the rescue!

It doesn't deviate from the course...ever..not even in her fifty billionth recitation.
So here I am playing at my sewing machine and making up some UGA keychains with real, official ribbon I found (GA Tech, Alabama, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, USC and Illinois coming soon), and I hear her singing the song with the jingling of a keychain in the background.

So, here she is in her Robin costume glory singing our new, completely unsolicited Keychains for a Cause theme song. However, she's sideways and even though I save it rotated, it won't transfer here as such, so try not to crick your neck.

So, here they are....the two new Georgia Bulldog keychains to the rescue!

The Fall Festival is Over...

...and I am sunburned!

It was fridged cold with the wind whipping and highs in the low 50's if that, but my booth faced right to the sun and I've now got the fancy raccoon eyes to go with my sunburn. This being my first fall festival, I really didn't know what to expect. I suppose I wound up doing better than I thought, but not as good as I would have wished, if that makes sense. I only sold three off of the table, but I got a few special orders and handed out a lot of business cards, so hopefully those people will come back. Most seemed very excited about using them as teacher's gifts, stocking stuffers or gifts for those people who you always want to give gifts to, but usually wind up spending far more than you'd like to.

This here is one of the orders I took today. I'd never made one up with the leopard print or green polkadots before, and I really like the way they turned out.

Will I do another festival? I don't know. The woman at the fancy watch and jewlery booth next to me said she was surprised that she didn't sell a single watch since she usually sells a lot, but it was just too cold and people weren't in the mood to loiter and shop.

There's another fall festival next week at which I've been invited to share a booth, and I may just do it, but at the same time I'll keep my fingers crossed that some of the people that took the cards will pop on over and order some as well.

Anyway, thanks for humoring me. The morning comes early, or actually a little later tomorrow for those of you without children who act as human alarm clocks regardless of what the digital clock says. Sweet dreams, my friends. Sweet dreams.

Erin Started It...

Once upon a time in a land far, far away (ok, it was somewhere around 1997 and we lived in Hinesville, GA), there lived a young woman who was tired of sewing all of her crafts by hand so she invested in a cheapo, lightweight, insignificant, good for nothing, poor excuse for a sewing machine, sewing machine. I knew how to use it. It wasn't my first rodeo with a sewing machine but within the first week, that *$&@^ thing was going to be chunked out the door. It got relegated to a closet where it only rarely and begrudgingly saw the light of day. I toyed with the idea of leaving it in Hinesville when we moved, but it made nice, gave me puppy dog eyes, and it came with us. "Sucker," you could hear it sneer.


I'd always wanted a sewing machine that would also embroider. A machine that was REALLY a machine and not just a "poser." I watched Ebay for months and decided on an old Babylock Esante (ese) that had been computer upgraded to an ese2 in order to manage the big embroidery hoops. I was so nervous buying something of this size off Ebay. What if it didn't work or got damaged in shipping?


No need to fear. This Cinderella found her glass slipper. I've used it for going on 7 years now and I wouldn't trade it for anything. She's carried me through an uncountable number of embroidery projects and is now the cornerstone of helping me through with the keychains.
She's a super stud. For the moment, as embroidery has given way to keychains, her embroidery arm is stowed on the floor next to her.
She obviously sits begrudgingly next to the bloody beast that can sit there until it rusts and the floor beneath it decays to where it plunges two stories to the basement floor where it will most likely remain for all eternity because I sure ain't giving it the time of day.



I'm not bitter, really. I should get rid of her, but I feel guilty even giving it to the Goodwill because by keeping it, I'm also preserving someone else's sanity.



Tomorrow is the elem. school fall festival at which I'm setting up a Keychains for a Cause booth. My dilema on if I should make keychains to bring that don't sell has been solved for me! I got an order today for 10 different key chains. I made those tonight and those along with the ones I was going to give the boy and girl's teachers are the ones I'll bring with me. If they sell, yea! and I'll make them again. If not, they go out in the afternoon mail on my way home. They're sold even if they don't sell. I'm nervous, but very excited as well.

The morning comes early...and it's going to be a cold one. Sweet sewing dreams.

Cabbage....Do I Dare?

Earlier this fall I posted a picture of some pretty beat up cabbages. The cabbage worms certainly had their way with it earlier in the season, but now look!
Most of them look like this and are just beautiful. Now, I know the wee beasties got in the early leaves pretty fiercely, but what do you think? Do you think they're still burrowed in there feeding like fiends, or do you think I may actually salvage some cabbage after all?

Thank you for the warm wishes on the Keychains for a Cause. We met with the students on the Relay for Life team for the first time today and they seemed very receptive to the idea and are going to help promote it. I've got a booth reserved for the elementary school fall festival this weekend, but I'm a bit nervous about it since I don't want to make a ton of keychains ahead of time in case they don't sell. The way I keep the costs down is by only making them when they sell so I don't waste supply by having a ton of stock just sitting around. I've printed out pictures of the website and all of the designs and I'm wondering if I should just go and see if anyone is willing to place an order that I can ship to them for free and just hand out business cards. Or, should I just bite the bullet and make a ton of random ones and hope they sell which makes me nervous.


I have until Saturday morning to figure it out. Any advice on that or the cabbages?
The morning comes early. Especially when the girl has nightmare after nightmare and then I have nightmares that she's having nightmares and it keeps on going until the alarm goes off at 5:00 AM. Sweet cabbage eating dreams.

Where to Begin.....

The peas are blooming everywhere! They're taller than me at the moment and the cold weather is coming on fast, but right now they're looking pretty good.
They're not giving me much at one time, but this helping along with the carrots from the garden. was enough to go in a baked potato soup I made last night. I also put some jalapenos and sausage in there which gave it a bit of a bite. It was yummy!

Yesterday, the kids had the day off of school. I love my children very much, but I know nobody will take offense to the fact that on occasion I do need to visit the restroom by myself. I hereby submit a petition to God or whomever that mothers be excused from bodily functions that require us to leave children unattended for even 45 seconds, for we inevitably come back to this:

It's simply not fair.

Then, this morning after third period I went to the restroom and caught a glance of myself in the mirror. I had put my lip liner on as eye liner and my eyeliner as lip liner. Boy was I a red-eyed sight. No wonder the kids kept asking me if I was okay!

Last month, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month I took out a few advertisements for Keychains for a Cause and they were successful enough that I thought to move advertising to another step with car magnets!

The came in a set of two, but it's too bad the man rides motorcycles to work and back. I'll most likely be using the second one as a stand in or prop when needed at craft shows.

Now that people are starting to think stocking stuffers and Christmas gifts, business is picking up and the extra advertising can't hurt. I've taken out a booth at our cluster's elem. school's fall festival and we got a tentative order in today for 50+ key fobs for a church youth group. I'm so very pleased with the support we're able to provide my school's Relay for Life team and I can't wait to see the check I can cut them in April and look forward to doing it year after year.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Broccoli

The kids have the day off today from school because of election day. The boy is so geeked up about his blog and all of your comments that he's asking every hour to check his email for comments. He's just thrilled that all of the names he recognizes from this blog have come to visit him there. He's even taken to taunting me that he's more 'popular' than I am which is just fine with me. Thank you all, family and friends alike, for helping to encourage him. Once we learn to type a bit better, I'm sure his posts will improve. The hunt and peck system gets a bit frustrating for him at times.

Anyway the kids are home today and this is the first day it really feels like fall. Temps have still been in the 70's during the day, but today we're in the 50's and it's completely cloudy. I'm so ready for it to be fall! The last few nights have been very, very cool and the broccoli seem to have just exploded with the cooler weather! I took this picture yesterday when it was sunny and they looked fantastic.

I promise they weren't this large the day before yesterday. I was beginning to wonder if they'd ever grow and then WHAM! They're monstrous.

Well, EG....Here it is...and I'm going to say it...ready? ...WAR EAGaaggghhhch..hold on, I think I just gagged. Okay....war eagle. There. I said it. All joking aside...I'm more than happy to make whatever keychains are custom ordered, even if they are rival team colors like this Auburn one. Besides, this woman also ordered two University of Georgia keychains so the good ole' Dawgs outnumber the Auburn one. It's all good. ;)

The morning comes early. Sweet fall broccoli and football dreams.