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Gardens

Everyone loves a water garden. Whether it is a small one in a pot, or a large one in your yard, people are just fascinated by the ecosystem you can create with water and plants. Not only are they beautiful but they add a serenity to your garden that you will appreciate.

Making your own water garden in a pot is relatively easy and inexpensive. You have to find the proper container or pot first. It must be sturdy enough to hold a lot of water without collapsing or leaking. Glass, copper or galvanized metal are usually the best. Ceramic will work as well, but you want to stay away from terracotta. Terracotta will leak or just plain give out as it is not strong enough.

Next you will need to choose where you want it (making sure it has plenty of sun) and buy your plants and water garden soil and gravel. Make sure to buy a blooming plant as well, because it will make your water garden really look nice. The water in the garden needs to move to keep mosquito’s from breeding as well. You can click here to see water pumps that are available for just that.

If you are doing a large water garden, there are several things you must take into account. First figure out where in your yard it is safe to dig (ie no underground utility pipes) and then decide how large you want the garden to be. Some can actually be built above ground with wood and flexible liners, these are relatively easy to put together.

You can also make a floating garden, within your water garden, by building floating “decks” to plant your regular garden on. Of course you have to make sure they are wired to stay in one place so they wont damage your water plants, but it makes for a two in one garden and is very beautiful and takes up less space in your yard. That is a bonus for those who have small yards. If you build one of those above ground, it can be drained and moved later one, if you ever change residences as well. Double bonus, because after all that hard work in building and maintaining your garden, you really wouldn’t want to leave it behind if you don’t have to.

Choosing the plants in your water garden is very important. You don’t want to over crowd it and it will need “weeding” or “thinning” from time to time.  Make sure to remove any dead leave or flowers as well on a regular basis. If you don’t you will get too much “compost” at the bottom of the water and it will get choked and can clog the pump.

Most of all, enjoy the work as you do it and the rewards will be well worth it. If you plan everything ahead of time and have all of your supplies handy, you will be finished in no time at all. Good Luck !

 

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Prevention and Protection

Moms are the beginning and the end when it comes to keeping our homes running smoothly. Not only do we take care of balancing the checkbooks, paying the bills, cleaning the house, and raising the kids, we also have to see that our home and family are protected. Protection comes in many different forms, from safety to pest control.

When you buy a new home, you have the obligatory inspection done. They test for everything from water damage, roof leaks and termites. When the report comes back, you decide if you really want the house or not. Ours came back clean but in order to keep it that way, it needed regular maintenance. I saw to it that we are continually protected from infestation by Terminix pest control.  I don’t want my dream home damaged by little bugs.

There are a few things that you can do for some extra prevention:

  • Make sure the soil slopes away from the house
  • Keep plants at least three feet from the house
  • Use plastic sheeting under the house to cover the dirt.
  • Point sprinklers away from the house

You should never have any standing water around the base of the home, as termites need water for survival. Get rid of any dead or dying trees and don’t pile up firewood against the house. You shouldn’t have those anywhere near it in fact. Make sure the base of the house shows about six inches of the concrete foundation all the way around it. Don’t use a lot of mulch around the house, as it breeds termites.

Depending on your area and the regular weather you have there, you might want to make sure there are no large trees too close to the house either. They can be knocked over by storms and you don’t want them to fall on the house. I know that they shade the house and help keep electricity bills down, but in areas with high straight line winds, those trees can be dangerous to your home and your family. Keep the trees well trimmed as well. This way you won’t have to worry about dead branches falling from them.

When you buy a home with a pool and you have small children, you should invest in a safety pool fence. Some of them are removable for those pool parties and such, but they are definitely worth the expense to keep your children safe. In addition to the safety fence, you can put latches or locks at the top of the doors to your home to keep the children from wandering outside. Kids have a tendency to do that the moment you turn your back or use the restroom.

Make sure you have the safety plugs for all of your outlets as well. We all know that children love to stick things into small holes and spaces. We buy them lots of toys teach them to do just that and need to make sure they can’t do it in the wrong space. This goes along with cabinet locks to keep children out of chemicals and such as well. You would be surprised to learn how many children are able to get that Pine-sol bottle open and drink it.

Protecting your home and your family is not very difficult or even expensive if you take simple precautions. Most of it is common sense and easily done on your own without the help of professionals. If you do need a professional to help you, just do your research and you will be fine. I hope this helps you ladies. I know that a lot of it helped me when we first bought our home.

 

 

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Have You Ever Noticed

Have you ever noticed that when guys take a nap ( no matter what age) in the afternoon, they wake up in a cranky mood and proceed to let everyone know about it.

This is quite possibly one of my biggest pet peeves with guys. I mean REALLY ? You supposed to take a nap to feel refreshed and better when you wake up, not to feel like you hate the world. Seriously irritated right now…grrr

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Bring Me an Eggroll

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of Asian food. I think part of it may be that where I grew up there was no Asian food. I never had anything remotely Asian until I got into college, and that was the cheap take out food that you eat by ordering combination #1 or combo #2. The only food I was willing to try was sweet and sour pork. That was OK, but the best part of the meal was the eggroll. Don’t ask me why, but I like eggrolls.

So tonight we went to an upscale Asian restaurant and I didn’t know what anything on the menu would taste like. They did not have a sweet and sour pork, but they did have eggrolls. So I ordered a chicken dish with a funny name and the eggrolls – the eggrolls were awesome. The best I’ve ever had!

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Holidays underway and winter storm

Been really busy lately as is usual for this time of year. Between sick kids and trying to get everything done for holiday shopping and the local food and toy collections, I barely have time to breathe. The house is fully decorated though, so that is one thing I no longer have to worry about. Not that the lights outside are likely to work well this weekend. The winter storm that is coming through is supposed to have lots of ice, so we will more than likely lose electricity. We had no electric last night for a few hours and it was not a good thing, especially with a sick child.

I am really glad we have a fireplace so we don’t have to worry about not having heat. It won’t be able to heat the entire house, but I can close off a few rooms and keep it relatively warm in here. That will go a long way to heating things up. Cooking might be a problem. I am digging out the camping gear just in case. That way if we need it to cook, we will have it ready.

I have plenty of candles and canned goods that can be quickly heated up, as well as lots of crackers and snacks. We will be okay through this. I am worried for people who don’t have the supplies and resources that we do though. I hope a shelter or two open just in case they are needed. I am also reaching out to a few people that I think my need our help. I will feel better knowing that their kids will be warm if they come to my house to stay for a couple of days or so. Other than that I have done all I can. Stay safe in the storm people.

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Beautiful

This is one of the most beautiful colts I have ever seen. I absolutely love his markings. They are so unique.

I will bet that he will sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I hope to one day see pictures of him after he has grown up. I am sure that I will. He is like living art to look at. I just love horses.

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City water

I hate city water, but never more than now. Seriously, they have made some definite changes to our water and I am so not happy about it. There is so much chlorine in the water that it is messing up my hair. This makes me go through so much more conditioner because I am trying to equalize it and it is not working at all. Even my hairdresser noticed the difference and asked if I had changed shampoo’s or somthing. Definitely not good. I decided to call our local water company and find out what the deal was. Why did they change our water? The answer was basically that they were forced to up the chemicals due to the heavy rains and since our winter weather is mostly rainy, it was here to stay. Great! Just what I needed to hear.

I cannot handle the water as it is right now, so I guess I am going to have to think about putting in a water filtration system. I thought about ones just for the bathrooms, but apparently of the four available, that is not one of them.

  • A pitcher filter only gives you clean drinking water. That is good but certainly won’t help my hair any.
  • A sink or faucet filter only services that particular area
  • An under the sink filter is about the same with only doing that sink
  • A whole house filter will service the bathrooms and showers, but of course is much more costly.

Since my main concern is for my showers and bathtubs, I suppose that I will have to bite the bullet and spend the money for the system. No one in the house is happy about the changes made by the water company as the children have complained that their eyes hurt after taking a shower. You know when that happens, there is way to many chemicals in the water. I had this problem once before when we lived in our old house. We didn’t own it so weren’t about to spend the money for a filtration system for it. Now that I own my house though, I can justify the expense and it will add value to my home as well.

Environment Masters in Jackson MS have come highly recommended after much research, so I have decided to go with them. I have a few friends and family members who have used them and still do for repairs etc… At least I know that my home will be taken care of correctly. I should have done this a long time ago.

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Hair styles

There are so many different hair styles to choose from and hair accessories as well. From barrettes, ribbons, and combs to beads and feathers, you can use so many things to give yourself a new look. I found feathers online that are amazing and come in tons of different colors. They even have temporary color chalk to give yourself streaks of color to add to it. I found it online the other day when I was searching for accessories to wear to a wedding that is coming up.

I decided I want to do something a little different this time as the wedding theme is a bit different. It is a camouflage theme and all the guests are encouraged to wear colors that go with the theme of camo itself. I think I am going to get some green and orange feathers and maybe some chalk and play around with it to see how I like it. I have a green colored dress that will be perfect for it all to go with. I also have some camouflage pants but those are orange and blue and white. I may decide to wear those as the wedding is the typical “redneck” wedding and out of doors. It may work out better that way.

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Blood Services

You gotta love irony. This is too funny. I guess whomever it is that owns this car must work there, and definitely has a sense of humor. That is the kind of person I like to work with, someone who can laugh at themselves and have a little fun.

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Roof leaks

Roof leaks are caused by many different things. Detecting them before they do any major damage can be a problem, because you generally do not realize it is leaking until visible damage has occurred. Most often you will notice a discoloration in the ceiling or wall near the ceiling depending on your paint of course. If you have a really dark colored paint on the wall, and it isn’t showing up in the ceiling, you may not find out about it for a very long time. That in itself can be bad.

Doing regular roof leak detection on your own, for missing or worn out, cracked shingles is the first step to preventing water damage to your home. Sometimes it can be as easy as banging a nail back in to keep it from leaking, other times a professional is needed to assess your roof and to make sure it is in tip top condition. One major reason for leakage is incorrectly installed flashing around chimneys, exhaust vents and such. This usually only happens from low quality work or a poorly done DIY job. Peak Roofing Systems in Frisco, TX have specialists for roof leak detection to help you find those leaks that are not readily apparent.

Just because one area is wet, doesn’t necessarily mean that is where the leak is. Water naturally rolls downhill, so the leak could conceivably be elsewhere and usually is. If you have found the leak by the usual means, ie it’s coming through the ceiling, you need to get that repaired right away. Here’s the tricky part. The leak is fixed, but the damage caused by the leak needs to be addressed. Sometimes it is as simple as a little paint and either drying out or replacing the wet insulation. However, if the damage is extensive, it may take more work. I should note that any damage done in or near any electrical outlet, box etc..should not be attempted by you yourself. An electrician should handle drying out and taking care of that. Only then can you replace the drywall and paint the areas needed. With any luck, your leak didn’t extend down to your carpets, but if it did, the first thing you should do is open the windows to allow air to in to help dry them out. Even if it is only in a small area.

You don’t want to end up with mold, because that is almost impossible to get rid of. You can also use a wet dry vac or rent a shampoo machine to suck the water out of carpets. They will dry much faster that way. My personal experience with this actually came from a tree limb that landed on top of our own roof. It did no visible damage and we were relieved and thought all was good, until months later. In hindsight, we should have had the roof checked out immediately to ascertain if there was damage to begin with. It certainly would have saved us a lot of money, because our damage was extensive later on.