Feathered friends and a productive weekend

I finally got a photo of one of the Orioles that visits us.
While working in the back garden last night Ben and I also found a Robin's nest. They aren't all visible in this picture, but there are four chicks in this nest.

Ben took Friday afternoon off so that we could get some yard and garden work done. Between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening we got a whole lot done!
We got the vegetable garden all dug up Friday evening. Saturday morning we purchased supplies to make a clothesline, as well as some pretty red flowers. We worked outside all day Saturday. While Ben made the clothesline, Maddie and I potted the flowers for the front steps, planted our vegetable garden out front, and planted a few herbs in the side garden. Ben also helped me rake up the back garden so that we could spread some wildflowers. I grew my cucumbers and zucchini back there last year, but don't plan on growing any veggies there this year. The flower mix I bought is supposed to attract hummingbirds and butterflies, which seems like a nice way to make use of the dirt square.

I ordered a huge, preplanned, garden from Springhill back in February, but apparently I'm not going to be getting any of those plants until mid-June. So, in the mean time, we get to stare at a huge dirt square outside out front room windows. What really seals the deal is that now the plants will arrive about the same time as the baby. Sure, we'll have nothing better to do that hurry up and plant a 10'x10 garden (as well as a bush I got to shade the air conditioner). Yeah, don't think I will waste my money on them ever again.

Now that we have the vegetable garden planted I am going to be anxious as can be for some food to produce! I love garden food. We planted two kinds of lettuce, spinach, green beans, dry beans, squash, zucchini, watermelon, cucumbers, and carrots. I started three kinds of tomato from seed but will have room for two more plants. I will probably find myself a fourth variety of heirloom tomato plants to fill those two plant spots.
We are trying square foot gardening this year. Trying this method meant Ben only had to dig up two little 2'x8' strips - rather than an enormous plot (like last year). It will be great if it works, because it really takes up very little space. Typically, this is done with raised beds, but Ben didn't want to go through all the work of making these unless the concept will actually work. If it does work this year, I think I will want to make some raised beds, it helps cut down quite a bit on the weeds, for one thing.
If anyone is interested in learning more about square foot gardening, here are some of the links I looked at to educate myself:

squarefootgardeningtips.com
"My Square Foot Gardening Experiences"
Plant spacing in a square foot garden
Someone's blog on their experience
Another resource on plant spacing (this is the one I used)

The clothesline turned out really nice, and speaking of which, time to hang some diapers right now!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Deduction Guideline for Salvation Army Donatations

I have finally done it people, typed up the list so many of you have asked for lately.
I obtained this list last year from H&R Block. They told me to use this list as a guideline when donating goods to the Salvation Army or the Thrift Store.

I researched this subject a little on the internet and found out that a lot of tax places (such as H&R Block) are strongly suggesting their clients provide an itemized list for donations. This will help out a lot should you be audited. It also helped me immensely to just get an idea of how much I should be deducting. I just donated the back of the van full, and if I had to take a stab at it and throw out a number I would have claimed around $250 for it all. But when I used this list my total deduction came to $436 (and that was figuring all my prices on the lowest end of fair market value)!

I have the file saved in a few formats (since about half my friends/family are Mac users). I have:
Excel 2007
Excel (older versions)
PDF

To obtain one of these files, please email me, or leave a comment on this blog post. Please indicate which file type you prefer at that time.

I am hoping the PDF version will be adequate for my Mac using readers.
If none of these work for you, please let me know what type of file you need and I will make sure you get it.

Since we have Excel 2007, I don't know how the "older versions" file will look. If things are really wacky, I suggest you try the PDF, or let me know what I can do to fix the "old version" file.

I hope this list helps all of you as much as it has helped us already.

Happy Donating!

Birds at our feeders this morning

Here are some photos of the birds we have had at our feeders today. According to our bird chart, I think the blue one is an Indigo Bunting. We get these little yellow finches a lot latey too. We get a couple Cardinals that stop by every day to eat pumpkin seeds, but I haven't seen them yet today.












































I spoke too soon, here is our Cardinal after all. And as I type this up, we have some more of those Cowbirds and a few Red Winged Black Birds. We always have a ton of those pesky Grackles, but they aren't anything to be excited about.

A day in the life of Janae

I have nothing earth shattering or interesting here, just babbling.

I have had a lot of people interested in the list I received from H&R Block for tax deductions on goods donated to the Salvation Army. I will type that up and post that here so that you can all have access to it. The copy I have is horrible, so this will work out better than making photocopies for everyone anyway.

We have been doing things around the house lately. We have been so involved in all our home projects, that we have been keeping busy to the point of exhaustion. We re-vamped our office for better "flow" and less clutter. Maddie and I got a bug in our britches last weekend to redecorate the upstairs bathroom, so we spent hours in Target searching for just the right items. And due to nesting or just spring cleaning urges, I have been washing windows, window sills, door frames, under rugs, and every other crack and crevice in my home lately.

Today, after doing my usual chores of dishes, washing diapers, picking up around the house, getting Reese breakfast, and so on, I vacuumed and swept every room in the house. Then I rolled up the area rug in our living room and mopped every floor in the house, before placing the rug back on the floor (and vacuuming it again - you know, because I might have loosened some particles during the rolling/unrolling process...sheesh). I also washed the top of every door frame in the house and hunted cobwebs. By the time I got done with my frenzy it was half past noon and time for me to make some lunch for my son and I. With both of us fed, I got him down for a nap at two, and I have had my rear planted in front of this computer ever since then. In my defense, I did have some phone calls to make and some bills to pay, so I haven't been sitting here just enjoying myself or anything crazy like that.

So, that's my day so far. There, we have a blog update now. I won't (nor have I ever) claim that my entries are interesting, but they are (sadly) real.

Not exciting for anyone other than me, but I did get my order of cloth diapers for the new baby today! Wow, are they tiny compared to Reese's diapers! I'm really excited to start using them. I am actually going to give the old fashioned "prefold" type a try. We will see how it goes. I am trying a type called "Indian Prefolds", which are supposed to wash up softer and nicer than traditional Chinese prefolds. I also got two different types of fitted diapers to try (one of each). These have snaps, or velcro, just like Reese's cloth diapers, but still require a diaper cover. I bought two different kinds of covers too, one is snaps, the rest are velcro closure.

Now that I finally got Reese down for his nap, I am going to seize my opportunity for my shower. Hope everyone is enjoying the snow-less days lately. Take care everyone!