Yesterday, I hit 1300 miles for this year. I ran 1.7 miles with my twins and then hit the elliptical for another 4.3 miles to make it an even 6 for the day. I need to average just under 6 miles per day to reach my goal of 2021 for the year. Since I have always been an overachiever, I try to get a minimum of 6 miles each day. This ensures that I will reach my goal even when I have a crazy day and do not complete more than a couple miles or when I decide to take a rest day and just run one slow mile.
Yesterday was also run streak day 400 for me. I have run a minimum of one mile a day every day for 401 days now because I already ran this morning. This might sound impressive, but I saw a post from a lady over the weekend who was on day 2,000-something of her run streak. Now that is impressive! I hope I stay healthy enough to keep my run streak going that long.
My goal was just to be consistent, so I challenged myself to run every day for a year. I ran a full marathon in December 2018 and another in January 2020, but my times were not what I would have liked, and I knew most of that was due to my inconsistency in running. I have no plans to run another marathon anytime soon, but I do run several races throughout the year, and I want to be prepared and not to be sore the few days after each race. I tend to be a bit competitive in races and push myself to keep up with or stay ahead of other women, especially if they look like they are in my age group. I have been doing this since my very first 10k eleven years ago. You would think I would have learned by now to just enjoy the race.
Sometimes we all need to stop and smell the roses… or just look at some beautiful flowers. I love early spring when our front flower beds fill with purple blooms. Purple just happens to be one of my favorite colors.
Our traveller weeping redbud is gorgeous with its light purple blooms, and my late grandma’s purple irises always bloom before the yellow ones.
We have so many more blooms this year than last! I know the irises multiplied because I transplanted several that were growing under the redbud last summer, but I am wondering if irises are like tulips and need a cold winter to bloom well.
I believe our irises are a bearded variety, but they were all given to me from other gardens, so I have no idea what variety any of them are. One thing I am certain of is they are stunning!
This is such a perfect spring day. Get out and enjoy the sunshine and the beauty of nature.
Last April, my kids and I put in a 39-foot French drain to divert water away from the flower bed behind the cabana, which flooded every time it rained and then stayed much too wet for the yuccas I had planted the previous fall. Plus, the back part of the concrete under the cabana would have an inch of standing water on it after heavy rains, and that was not good for the concrete.
The French drain took us about 20 hours over a period of nine days to complete, but it only cost me $140 and that included buying a shovel, a four-foot level (a must-have for this project), and a 25-foot tape measure. It was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it in the end. We have not had any flooding in that area since we put in the French drain.
April 2020 to March 2021
We recently hired a company to build a large metal building beside our house. The front part of this building is a two-car garage, while the back contains a workshop and space for our hobbies. My new husband has spent the last two and a half weeks transforming that space into a home gym, which will also house his drum set and some extra furniture that we will use for storage and display. He will finish up that project in the next week or so, and then I will share the photos I have taken while he worked. Here is a sneak peak of the time I helped him by holding a wall.
In the process of moving dirt and pouring the slab for the new building, the slope of that part of the yard caused some drainage issues. We did not want water to sit around the new slab and cause problems, so we knew we would have to divert the water in some way. I thought about creating a swale that would slope towards the back of the building and drain into the existing swale that goes through our backyard. However, after I realized the swale did not extend that far and that the yard did not slope the right direction, I knew we would have to dig another trench for a French drain.
Because I was a single mom for a few years and dug the last French drain mostly by myself, I started digging while my husband worked inside the building, but he soon joined me, and we were able to complete most of the digging that first day. Fortunately, there are no sprinkler pipes in this part of the yard, but our lateral lines for our septic system are in the back of the yard. Hubs found the single pipe leading to those lines without damaging it, but it was right in the way of the end of the trench. After digging for a few hours, we stopped and let it rain the next day to see how the water flowed.
The trench worked well, and we had no standing water next to the building after we received a half-inch of rain. I knew we would have to do something to divert water from where the downspout emptied near the front corner of the building, but that would have to wait until the next weekend. At some point this summer, we will have grass in this area, but for now we have a makeshift walkway to the side door for muddy days.
March 14th
I decided that I would try to make a very shallow swale to guide the water from Fred the gargoyle (Big Sis named him) over to the trench. This was a lot of work, and it was hard to see the fruit of my labor because it was so shallow, but I took photos anyway.
March 21st
I also dug out a wider area at the mouth of the trench. The septic tanks are located in this area, so we were limited on how far our trench could go, but I wanted all of the water to drain into the trench. I am very detail-oriented and a bit of a perfectionist, so I worked on this area by myself for an hour or more.
After we laid the drain pipe out, I realized we would have to dig more dirt out of the trench. It was deep enough for the pipe, but we also needed to put gravel above and below the pipe, so we both started digging again. We ended up digging the trench under the pipe to our lateral lines to allow the drain pipe to continue sloping away from the yard. I mentioned earlier that a level is necessary for this type of project. Every few feet that we dug, I used the level to check the slope. We often had to dig deeper to keep the trench sloping away from the septic tanks.
We were expecting rain on March 22nd, so my husband and my former father-in-law went to get half a yard of gravel early that morning. We spread a layer of gravel along the bottom of the trench. Then we placed a weed barrier in the trench. We put the drain pipe on top of the weed barrier and then filled the trench with gravel, leaving about an inch above the gravel to be covered with soil. Working together, we completed this step of the process in less than an hour. I had just started putting soil on top of the gravel when I remembered to take photos.
We finished covering the gravel with dirt and tried to smooth out the dirt around the trench. We decided to wrap the mouth of the drain pipe with the weed barrier and pile gravel in front of that to prevent dirt from clogging the drain. I added some river rocks to the area in front of that to make it look pretty, and my hubby put the leftover gravel in the area just outside the gate and also at the opposite end of our driveway.
Now we were waiting for the rains to come to see how our French drain worked. I went outside that afternoon while it was raining to see how the water was flowing. My shallow swale was finally visible! The water was standing near the mouth of the drain, but an hour later when it was no longer raining, the water was gone, so we believe our French drain is a success.
We spent a total of $94 on this project, which included 50 feet of weed barrier, 50 feet of perforated drain pipe, and half a yard of one-inch gravel. I have no idea how much it would have cost to pay someone else to put in a French drain, but I know we saved hundreds of dollars by doing it ourselves.
If you have not heard about Frank the Christmas Gargoyle, you should go to his page on Facebook and catch up on his holiday shenanigans. This silly gargoyle brought so much joy to thousands of people during a difficult holiday season. After our gutters were installed, we knew we would need something at the bottom to divert the water away from the building and to keep heavy rains from washing out the dirt below the downspout. I did some research and found out that gargoyles were originally installed on buildings to do just that, so I bought Fred, and he makes me smile.
Whew! The last few weeks have been a flurry of activity. I took my little girls on a day trip to Fort Worth, my fiancé moved here, we got married, my kids were on spring break, my new husband started building a workout/music room in our new garage, and we dug a 57-foot trench for drainage around the detached garage! I will start with our visit to Fort Worth and try to post wedding photos later today as well. I will hold off on the other posts until he finishes the room and we finish the French drain.
I have lived in Texas for over forty years, but I had never experienced Fort Worth. My twins received western boots, hats, and clothes for their birthday last month, and they love wearing them, so I thought they might enjoy visiting the stockyards and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. When I mentioned it to them, they were excited even though I told them they would have to get up very early on a Saturday.
We started with breakfast at Ol’ South Pancake House (www.olsph.com), where I had their World Famous German Pancake, which was good but not what I was expecting. The texture was more like an omelet than a pancake. (Later, I searched for recipes for German pancakes, and they all call for plenty of eggs and very little flour.) Our waitress suggested I try it with their spiced apples inside, which I did. If I had known the pancake would be so eggy, I would have just ordered it as they usually prepare it with butter and lemon juice, but I didn’t let the pancake or apples go to waste.
The girls ordered their kids’ pancakes, which they said tasted like cornbread. Fortunately, they love cornbread, so they enjoyed their pancakes. Everything was delicious, and we enjoyed the family restaurant atmosphere.
Next, we drove a few miles to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. We arrived shortly before their opening time of 10 am, so we took photos with the various statues surrounding the building. The girls and their poses made me laugh, but as I look back at their photos, they look so much older than how I think of them. They are growing up too fast.
Inside the museum, the girls wanted to see everything, but they did not want to read anything, so they missed a lot of the history. I tried to read some things to them and summarize other things because I wanted them to learn about cowgirls and their important roles (once a teacher, always a teacher), but I also realized they are just eight years old and can only absorb so much at a time. The museum offered a fantastic mix of exhibits, paintings, videos, and interactive activities. The girls loved riding the bronco and posing in the photo booth. I was given the option to have videos of their rides emailed to me and their photos from the booth printed immediately and/or emailed to me. Fortunately, there were no additional charges for any of these, and the entrance fees to the museum were very reasonable. Parking was also free with a code given to us when we purchased our tickets. Check out their website at http://www.cowgirl.net.
After we left the museum, we made our way to the Stockyards for the 11:30 am cattle drive. I paid $20 to park nearby because we did not arrive early enough to look for cheaper parking elsewhere. I knew we would stay in this general area for a few hours, so this was the only parking fee I had to pay the whole day. The cattle drive was pretty tame, but it was surreal to see longhorn cattle so close and with no fence between us and them, but the cattle drivers were there to keep the longhorns in line. Find out about all the Stockyards have to offer at http://www.fortworthstockyards.org.
After the cattle drive, we followed a cowboy down an alley for the Legends of Texas Gunfight Show. The comedy show had just gotten started when the first gunshot scared my girls, and they asked to leave.
We walked back down the alley to Exchange Street where the girls spent some time finding their way through the cattle pen maze and then feeding animals at the petting zoo. The maze had a platform for people to watch as others made their way through the cattle pens, and there were two platforms within the maze for them to map out which direction they should go. When we purchased tickets for the girls, they received a paper with a scavenger hunt list, so not only were they trying to find their way through the maze, they were also trying to find each number on the list. This was a good activity for them. They worked together very well.
The petting zoo had a variety of animals, and the girls enjoyed feeding them. There was an entrance fee and a fee for each cup of feed, but the prices were reasonable, and the girls thoroughly enjoyed feeding and petting the animals.
The smaller goats were a little skittish, and Sissy was getting frustrated that none of them would come close to the fence for her to pet them. The daughter of the petting zoo owner saw her frustration and climbed into the pen and held a baby goat for Sissy to pet. Of course, Little Sister wanted to pet it too. What none of us noticed was the bigger goat who wanted some attention and started chewing on Little Sister’s hair! In the photo below, you can see her pulling away from the goat as she started crying from the pain of her hair being pulled. Once I calmed her down, she was also able to pet the baby goat.
By this point, it was well after noon, so we walked over to Billy Bob’s for lunch. The walk would have been more enjoyable if the sky had not started to alternate between a heavy drizzle and brief showers of rain, but we made it with only some mild whining. The girls enjoyed playing some of the arcade games before we ordered food. After lunch, they got out on the dance floor. I would like to return to Billy Bob’s on a concert night and dance with my husband to get the full experience, but it was fun to watch my girls dance. Check out http://www.billybobstexas.com for more information.
Overall, we had a wonderful experience in Fort Worth and would like to visit again on a sunny day. My girls were disappointed that I would not let them go horseback riding ($40 each for 30 minutes) or ride the mechanical bull ($8 each for approximately one minute), so maybe that is something we can do for a special treat in the future. I will also research some other fun things to do in the area for our next visit. If you have been to Fort Worth, let me know what should be on our agenda for our next trip.
Late spring two years ago, I purchased a small aloe vera plant at Home Depot. Since my kids and I spend a lot of time outdoors, I thought it would be a good idea to have a plant on hand that could provide natural relief for sunburned skin. I ensure that my kids and I use sunscreen, but it does not always hold up to prolonged swimming or sweating while working in the yard.
It was such a tiny plant when I bought it in 2019!
I put the plant on my back patio that first summer and was surprised how quickly it grew. I did not think to take any photos of it because I was not expecting it to grow so much. We had a mild winter that year, and I think I left the plant outside. I might have placed it in my garage to keep it a little warmer, but I did not bring it in the house. By springtime, it had grown enough to need a larger pot, so I transplanted it to a pot that was actually too big. I read after the fact that aloe vera plants like to be crowded in their pots. My plant survived though and began to flourish.
May 2020 (to the right of the stone column)
I placed the aloe vera on my front porch where it could get plenty of sun. During the hottest and driest part of the summer, I had to strategically place the plant where it would get sun but not get scorched by the Texas heat in the late afternoon/evening. My aloe vera had a couple of pups or offshoots, which I dug out of the big pot and planted in small pots.
May 2020 (bottom left corner)
One of the pups did well, but the other turned red and did not look like it was going to survive. After that, I let the soil get completely dry between waterings and watered sparingly, and both pups survived although one is considerably smaller. I planted the larger pup in the same pot the original plant came in. It is now about the same size as the original plant was when I bought it. The smaller pup is in a tiny pot I received from a student many years ago.
February 2021February 2021
I brought all three pots inside my house once the temperatures were dropping below 55 degrees at night and have kept them inside all winter. The two smaller ones have soaked up artificial light and some indirect sunlight while sitting on my kitchen counter all winter. The original plant is now so large it had to be placed on the floor in my dining room.
February 2021
I have had it sitting near the window all winter, but I moved it a couple feet away from the window when we had freezing temperatures. It only gets late afternoon sunlight in this room, but that has not hindered its growth. I am amazed at how quickly this plant has grown and reproduced over the last nine months.
I think this plant is beautiful. I love how the leaves grow in an alternate arrangement. I need to cut some of the old leaves off, but we have not had any burns lately, and I would hate to waste the gel. I have done some research on other uses for the gel. While I am not ready to ingest the juice, I may try using the gel as a moisturizer for my face and/or body, but I seem to recall it feeling sticky. One website said to drain off the juice before harvesting the gel, so I will try that soon.
My plant has several new pups that need to be transplanted to their own pots soon. I read online that the pups should be removed and left out to dry for at least 24 hours before repotting and then not watered for a few days. Last summer, I removed the pups, potted them, and watered them in the same day, so that may explain why one did poorly. I will try the correct method soon. Once they are established, they will need new homes. Obviously, we do not need more than one plant for our family. If you are local, let me know if you would like a free aloe vera plant in a few months.
I noticed while looking at these photos that all of the pups have spotted leaves while the mature plant leaves have no spots. I wondered why this would be because I had read about Aloe vera var. chinensis having spots even as a mature plant. Further research leads me to believe my plant is the Aloe vera barbadensis var. miller, whose leaves have spots as baby plants but lose their spots as they mature. This type of aloe is edible, and its leaves are much thicker and provide more gel than the non-edible variety. I doubt I will ever drink aloe juice, but I am glad to know I have plenty of gel for any skin irritations that may arise this summer. I read today that the gel may help clear up acne and can be used to soothe bug bites in addition to sunburns. If you are local and want a mature leaf, you are welcome to it.
It has been a crazy week here in Texas, but I am counting my blessings today. I am thankful for a warm home with running water. I am thankful that I was already working remotely before winter weather kept my kids home for a week. I am thankful that we had a fully-stocked pantry and two refrigerators, since our roads are still too treacherous for me to venture out. I am thankful for peace and relative quiet in my home. I am thankful for puzzles. I am thankful for a fireplace and a supply of firewood. There are so many things I am thankful for today. So much could have gone wrong this week, but God protected this single mama from having to do much more than use a blow dryer to heat some frozen hot water pipes and shovel some snow. I do need to go out and clear an ice dam when I finish this though.
I can not remember ever seeing our entire roof covered in snow. The girls helped me shovel snow away from the gate, so it would open all the way. I made large batches of juice this week to avoid washing the juicer multiple times. I am running low on fresh produce. My little people keep eating the fruit. I have enough vegetables left for one more juice tomorrow. The roads should be clear by Saturday to try to find more fresh produce. Stores are running low on groceries around here. We received this puzzle in a Christmas gift exchange, and Sissy helped me put it together this week. What a beautiful view from my front porch!The fire provided a lot of warmth for the living room, so we were able to lower the thermostats in the house. I set up an air mattress for these two, and they hung out by the fire all day and slept on it for a few nights. They thought we were just having a never-ending slumber party. I am so thankful that they get along well most of the time. I told Little Sister to throw some snow in the air for a photo. I did not notice until I looked at the photo later that she had jumped. Sissy loves the powdery snow. So much fun to play in! It is not so good for building snowmen or packing snowballs though. The creek in our neighborhood is mostly frozen. Crazy people have been walking on the ice. So dangerous!I went for a run in the snow today. It was amazing! The roads in our neighborhood are completely covered in snow, but it is packed pretty well. I refuse to drive on them though. This is where one of our neighborhood roads meets a highway. Whatever we need can wait until that melts. I can run on this thanks to my YakTrax, but I will not try to drive on it. My Zyia leggings kept me warm, and my YakTrax helped me keep my footing. I never thought I would be using these in Texas. I ran two miles and had to remove my jacket halfway through my run. I always dress in layers when running in the cold.
Yesterday morning, I drank the last of my fruit juice from Monday, so I decided to make some more today. I used all the romaine yesterday, so I added a couple of small cucumbers and a few carrots. I also noticed the mangos were ripe, so I threw those in as well.
This combination was a little less sweet than the last fruit juice, probably because Big Sister ate half of the pineapple, so I had less to use for the juice. It still tasted delicious, and the younger girls approved. They drank quite a bit out of their new cups that were a birthday/Valentine’s gift from their special friend.
I know Sissy is taller than her twin sister, but I think this photo exaggerates the height difference. Little Sister is not standing up straight and is slightly further away from the camera. After seeing this photo, I measured all of my kids because July was the last time I had marked their heights on our growth chart board. I usually measure all my kids around Big Sister’s birthday in the summer and around the other three birthdays in the winter. Sometimes, I remember to measure at the beginning and end of their school year, but I am not as consistent with that.
The twins are actually less than 2.5 inches apart in height, with each of them having grown just over an inch since July. Big Sister has had a huge growth spurt, growing nearly four inches since this time last year and over two inches since July! Big Brother has finally slowed down on his growth (just over a half inch since July), but he has almost reached the six-foot mark. They are all getting so big!
I received this USA scratch off map two years ago for Christmas or my birthday, but I was not sure what I wanted to do with it. I am in my early forties, so I had visited half of the states prior to receiving this gift. I could not decide if I should A) scratch off all the states I had already visited, B) scratch off only the states I visited after receiving the map, C) make it a family map and scratch off only the states I visited with my kids, or D) make it a couple’s map and scratch off only the states my soon-to-be-husband and I visit.
This map has been hanging above my desk, where I have been working remotely for months, so I see it all day every day. Yesterday, I finally decided to go with option A and make it my map and scratch off all the places I had visited. I had no idea what I was getting myself into!
This was much more work than I thought it would be when I started. If you have ever used a coin to scratch off a small area, this may seem like a simple task, but the gold layer was very thick and took a lot of elbow grease to remove. I started on the west coast and then moved to the east coast because those states are smaller. Then I scratched off an outline of all the states in the middle of the map. I worked on this in spurts throughout the day, but it took a few hours for me to finish. My index finger is still sore today from using the small, metal scratch-off tool for so long. Maybe I should have chosen one of my other options, which would have required much less scratching!
I saved the best state for last. Just kidding, but you have to admit that Texas has a pretty cool shape. I mean what other state has waffle makers in the shape of their state in hotels across their state? Honestly, I saved Texas for last because it was so large. I think it took me 30 minutes just to scratch off this one state.
I am not completely happy with how it turned out. The first states I worked on look better than that middle section. My hand was tired and achy, and I was ready to be done, so I scratched too quickly and tore the paper in a few places. I also made indentations that prevented me from removing all of the gold in some places. I should have been more patient and taken several days to work on this, but it is not easy for me to reach the map above my desk, and I did not want to leave it down where it could get damaged.
I love this visual reminder of where I have traveled. I also enjoy being able to see areas of the country that I have neglected. There are so many places I want to visit, and I hope to scratch off all 50 states in my lifetime (bucket list). I would also love to run a race in every state, but I may be getting a late start on that. I would settle for just running in each state, but that would still require a lot of traveling. I have only run in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Texas so far.
The majority of my bucket list items involve visiting or running in locations I have yet to visit. What is on your bucket list?
Several years ago, I heard about the benefits of juicing and bought a centrifugal juicer. I made juice almost every morning. My twins loved trying my juice creations as long as the juice contained a little sweetness from an apple. We live within walking distance of my kids’ grandparents, and I would make extra to give to their grandmother. She was more adventurous and would try all the juices regardless of color or flavor.
When I wanted to start adding spinach and romaine to my juice, I realized a centrifugal juicer would not extract much if anything from the leaves. After much research, I decided on a new masticating juicer and waited on my family to buy it for me for Mother’s Day because masticating juicers are expensive. However, they are worth the price because they extract much more juice from the produce, and I no longer had to chop and peel everything.
Breakfast: 2 carrots, 1 celery stalk, 1 orange, 2 small apples, 1 cucumber, some spinach leaves
A few months after I received the new juicer, I started working outside the home and had no time to make juice, so my poor juicer has been sitting in a cabinet for a few years, only making an appearance every now and then for special occasions. Since I work remotely now, I decided last week that I would start juicing again today, and I purchased fresh produce over the weekend. I had to rinse the dust off the juicer this morning, but it worked like a champ, and I had fresh juice in less than 15 minutes.
I had forgotten how different fresh juice tastes, and I love being able to change the flavor by mixing up the ingredients. I am planning to drink at least one glass of fresh juice a day for the next month to see if it helps with weight loss and skin tone.
What is your favorite juice recipe? Why do you juice? What new fruits and veggies should I try?
Today is my birthday. To commemorate my first 43 years, I decided to run 4.3 miles, walk 4.3 miles, and spend 43 minutes on the elliptical. I also did 43 squats, 43 push-ups, and 43 crunches. It was a busy day squeezing these in around work and kids activities, but I finished everything before 10 pm.
Treadmill RunTreadmill WalkElliptical Workout
Today my maternal grandmother passed away. She has been bed-ridden for several months, so it should not have come as a complete surprise, but I was still shocked when my mom told me this morning. My grandma taught me many things and always encouraged me. She was patient, loved jigsaw puzzles, and had a great laugh.
Chronicling Chaos 