Highlights of Paige and her 6 gr year at Church

The Harvest

I mentioned I liked to grow vegetables. Well you're looking at the latest pick. One, uno, un. No matter how you say it...one lonely bell pepper at a time.

I planted this bell pepper plant last summer. I got quite a few peppers from it last year. It survived all winter and I've had 3 already this year. I don't see any more though. So sad. My yard is so shaded I have a difficult time growing vegetables. Right now I have a tomato plant in a container. We'll see if it does anything. I am able to grow some herbs. I have rosemary and lavender growing around the bell pepper plant and I have basil in a container. We ate the pepper tonight with chicken fajitas. Of course it was supplemented by another bell pepper purchased at the grocery store. But there is something very satisfying about growing food and actually putting it on the table and eating it. I would like to start a compost bin, but my husband doesn't share my vision on some things....like compost bins and rain barrels, but I won't give up maybe one day he'll see things my way.

Our Neighbors, Brothers, Sisters, Sons, Daughters, Fathers and Mothers a.k.a... Our Troops

This is a picture of my neighbor William. William is currently serving in the Army in Iraq. I try and remember to pray everyday for William and all of our troops. Recently my friend Linda let me know about this website http://www.prayercentral.net/. You can go to this website and subscribe (no charge) to get a daily one-minute prayer e-mailed to your computer. I signed up this week and my prayer assignment comes to my inbox every day.

We get busy here at home and sometimes forget to think about and pray for our men and women serving overseas. Go to the website and get your prayer assignment. You will be blessed and so glad you did.

Chris is William's Dad and he writes " I appreciate your including William’s picture in your blog and as his father and a Christian I would like to personally appeal to your friends and family for their prayers on behalf of my son and his platoon and all our brave servicemen and women carrying out the mission that they were given so far away from home."

On the website look for Baghdad Prayer Patrol click on that and sign up for the prayer assignments.

Summer Reading

We took our first summer trip to the library this past week to pick up some summer reading material. Paige came to the check out counter with none other than Gone With the Wind. I have to admit that I've never read this book. I've seen the movie a couple of times. I'll keep you posted on her progress. There are over 1000 pages in this book. She's on page 90 now. She has lots of questions about what is going on in this book and wants to read me "scenes". Can you guess what the reading level of this book is???

I was thinking about 11th grade. Paige thought it was around 10th grade. Well I looked it up and it is 7.1. Can you believe it?? I think that it should be higher than that. But since that's the case I guess she's right on the reading level.

We'll rent the movie when she's finished.

We also rented the A&E Biography on Condoleezza Rice. What an amazing woman. Check it out from your library if you get a chance. You'll be glad you did.

E-bates

Since I'm blogging about being green in the suburbs, one of my favorite "green" things is cold hard cash. I'm a stay-at-home mom so I don't generate much income for our household. If an item has a rebate attached to it, I always send in the rebate if I get back more than the price of the stamp :)

Recently I learned about the Ebates website. I have the link over in the right column just scroll down until you see "My Favorite Websites". I do a lot of online shopping. My husband seems to think I spend most of my days at the mall shopping. Not True! I can shop sitting in my study at my own computer. No need to drive down there in our gas-guzzling SUV. Anyway, back to ebates. You simply link over to the website and the registration is free. They give you $5.00 for signing up. There are over 900 stores on the ebates site and you simply find the store you want to shop from and link to it. Ebates tracks your purchases and gives you a rebate based on what you spent at that store. The rebates are mailed quarterly. They actually send you a check. I'm so excited. I have $15.00 and something cents already in my account and trust me that total will grow. ;)

Link over from my site and check it out and don't forget to go to your ebate account everytime you shop online. Happy Shopping!!

Bags, Bags, everywhere bags....

Bags, Bags, everywhere Bags...(not counting the ones under my eyes)

I promised I would have some "green in the suburbs" ideas for you so here goes. I want us to stop and think about the number of plastic bags that come into our homes on a weekly basis. The newspaper bags, drycleaning bags, grocery bags, bread bags, plastic that our papertowels and toiletpaper are packaged in and many other examples at our house and I'm sure your house as well.

I attached a picture of the bags that I've been collecting for just the last month. Our curbside recycler will not accept them, but I can take them to Walmart or Kroger and put them in the container there to be recycled. Start putting them all together in a larger bag and drop them off when you go to the store.
Another thing I love is that most of the grocery stores sell the reusable totes now. I have several of these. The red one actually zips up and can fit in my purse. I have a couple of totes from Kroger and they hold a lot. I keep them in my car and take them in when I go to the grocery store. I'm seeing lots of folks starting to use these. They are the perfect alternative. So when your at the grocer store and the bagger asks "Paper of Plastic?" smile and hand over your cloth bags. :)

Last Day of School

This is a picture of Paige and Leah as they leave for THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL. I felt bad as they were leaving. I would not be at home when they walked through the door in the afternoon. I am a stay at home mom, but I wasn't staying home....I caught a flight out that day to Atlanta, GA to go to a college reunion. Yikes! 25 years ago I started college....but that is another blog.

Paige's shirt reads "Surfin to 7th". They had a big beach-themed party for all the 6 graders that day. Leah came home with some interesting clay art that her teacher let them spend the day working on. It was a great year for both girls. Leah had awesome teachers - Two wonderful woman who could write the books on teaching. In fact, I think they have - articles anyway. Paige also had two good years at her school. Mrs. Daly will live fondly in Paige's memory. She was an incredible teacher. She also learned some tough life lessons too. (We won't mention any teacher's name) But she's stronger for it. We're excited about Jr. High School. I know she'll do great!

Dad did a great job with them that weekend. Getting them to sleepovers, birthday parties and the house was even spotless when I came home on Sunday. Whoohoo!!!

Making Cookies with Leah

Today is Tuesday. We're two days into the first full week of summer break. Leah always ask me to make cookies. I usually say no and tell her we have Keeblers in the pantry so why should we labor over cookie making. But today we decided to make cookies together. Paige was at an all day VBS event. She went to Incredible Pizza and then to the local swimming pool. I'm sure Jen and Shorty imparted some spiritual truths along the way today. Leah and I stopped by the grocery store on the way home from our VBS. We picked up some peanut butter chocolate swirl morsals. I also picked up a 2 lb flour and sugar just to make sure I had enough. It takes me probably 2 years to go through a 4 lb sack of flour. I just don't enjoy baking so I rarely use the flour. Anyway, I went to my favorite recipe website http://www.allrecipes.com/ and picked out a yummy looking cookie recipe for us to make.

It was called Best Big, Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie. It had pretty basic ingredients so I went with that. The cookies turned out delicious and Leah had a great time making them.

Keep this website in mind if you need to look for a recipe. You can literally quit buying recipe books. I use this website all the time.

The Picture

I know this picture doesn't look like a suburb. The picture above was taken in Sedona, Arizona. The one to the left at The Grand Canyon. Our family went to Arizona for Spring Break 2008. I loved every minute of this trip.
The landscape in Arizona is amazing. Every picture we took looks like a postcard. Paige took the one at the top. I love it because the moon is in it too.

From Phoenix to the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Sedona - I was mesmorized with the beauty of each of these places. They all looked different. I just thought Wow God! Thanks for giving us this beautiful place to see!