Simply Abundant Living

• Advertise Here
• Blogroll
• Contact Me
• Simply About Me
• Sites I Like

As the bees buzz around flowers and vegetables in home gardens, one’s mind turns to the miraculous creation of these tiny workers. Time to wander away from cares about such things as acne treatments and focus on the lowly honeybee for a moment or two.

Honeybees live in colonies and make honey. During the winter months, they snuggle together to keep warm. There is one queen in each colony, who lays all the eggs. Drones mate with the queen. Female workers make the honey.

Only honeybees die when they use their stingers. All other bee varieties will go on to sting another day. This is due to a barbed stinger that pulls away from the bees abdomen when it stings, causing the bee to die.

Do you get enough? Do you crave it? If you crave it, you don’t get enough. I know there have been times in my life when I absolutely CRAVED solitude…usually around the times that I had a needy newborn and was running ragged. But, my experience is that solitude is not a want, but rather, a need.

When you have time alone, you are able to:

Think
Get to know yourself
Create
Unwind and kick back
Reflect
Hear your inner voice

Optimally, everyone should have enough solitude that they do not feel compelled to squander it in busyness. Quality solitude will rejuvenate and renew. If you spend your solitude running around trying to get things done, you will not be renewed when your solitude ends and you will be left feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied.

Find a way to get some solitude each day. For me, solitude is more important than sleep. Although I dearly love my bed, I think I love solitude more. I am willing to get up at 6 am to get an hour of peace before kids start to get up. This is arguably one of the best parts of my day and I’m not sure what I’d do without it.

So…do you get enough solitude? Is it worth it to you to carve out some solitude out of each day? I heartily recommend you give it a try.

You sure don’t need to worry about nuphedragen when you have a garden producing. We ate from the garden for the first time this season last night. Lots of radishes, lettuce and spinach rounding out a great meal on the grill.

Today we spent the better part of the afternoon mulching around everything. We have tomatoes blossoming, cherry tomatoes coming, zucchini and summer squash sprouting from the soil, peas twining up the garden fence, eggplant and cabbages getting nice and big and healthy. Even the peppers are looking wonderfully chipper out there. My herb garden looks great too…chives blossoming, basil beginning to take off. Yes…the garden is taking hold and thriving.

Next week we will finish mulching the other half of the garden and finally get some beans in…and then…we get ready to enjoy the bounty of our labors.

What a treat!

Dealing with finicky skin when you are pregnant is no fun. No, I don’t need anything as serious as adult acne treatments, but I freely admit to being tired of skin that can’t decide whether it is 12 or 43. One day it’s oily and the next day it’s dry and tight. I’m taking the natural route and just trying to watch my diet, drink lots of water and keep my face clean. Hopefully when this pregnancy is over my skin will settle back into its 40s where it belongs.

It’s really quite amazing that I don’t have worse dark eye circles than I do, considering the amount of sleep I get each night. As this pregnancy progresses, the discomforts are mounting. Between horribly swollen feet and ankles to heartburn to just plain ol’ uncomfortable…I am not sleeping the greatest. Hubby is being very sweet…going so far as to suggest that I need to stay in bed longer to keep my feet higher than my heart. Honestly though…how on earth can I subtract another hour from my day? Stress mounts…

I am really looking forward to this weekend. My daughter and her family are leaving tomorrow to head up here for a visit. We are rounding out the weekend’s festivities with a baby shower planned for Memorial Day. After that, my daughter and clan will hopefully be able to stick around for a few more days before they have to hit the road back down to Kansas. The last time there were here they ended up in an accident on the Interstate in Iowa that stranded them for days and days. Thankful for roadside assistance, but that was torture for them being stuck in a motel room with two little kids. Anyway, hoping this trip’s travel goes much more smoothly!

As the mother of four sons, I have had my fill of baseball over the years. My three oldest boys are all confirmed baseball players and fans alike. My youngest boy is well on his way in his brothers’ footsteps. No one has expressed any desire for personalized baseball bats yet, thankfully.

But really, when you think about it…I’d rather my boys focus on baseball than some of the other distractions available for mindless pursuit out there. With baseball, they are striving for excellence while working as a team. Doesn’t get any better than that.

One of the reasons people garden is to save money…right? Not only can you have the best of the best growing right outside your back door, but for less than it would cost you to purchase it from the store. Well…let’s make sure about that!

By the time you add everything up… the costs of plants, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, lawn mower and trimmer maintenance, weed eater cord, mulch, watering your garden…and even your time and effort, this can add up to substantial spending.

One of the best ways to save money in the garden is to make use of your own organic waste. By this I mean…start a compost pile and add all of your organic kitchen refuse as well as your yard waste. Before you know it, you will have a thriving compost pile ready to improve your garden soil.

1. Pare down the gardening tools you purchase and use. The must-have’s include a good shovel, a hose, a spade, pruning shears and gardening gloves. Beyond this…only purchase what you really consider a requirement for gardening.
2. Start plants by seeds instead of seedlings. Although seeds require more patience, they are much cheaper than seedlings. Start seeds indoors in late winter to have them ready to transplant outdoors.
3. Use naturally occurring materials in your garden. Mulch with grass clippings instead of purchasing bags of mulch. Lay down sheets of newspaper beneath the clippings as a weed block.
4. Apply white vinegar to weeds for an effective an inexpensive weed killer that does not contain all of the toxins of regular weed killer.
5. Collect rain water for watering instead of watering from a hose.

What are your favorites?

Living in the upper Midwest with no family living in Texas, I have only been to the Lonestar State one time in all my years and that was driving through a corner of it at night. I have no idea where I would venture for Houston auto repair if I were in the Houston area, but I hope I would be able to find something suitable for an unpleasant situation like a breakdown. I do not own an Acura Integra, but coincidentally, my husband has always wanted to own one – you might say it is his “dream car.” I hope someday his dream comes true.

When one of our vehicles needs an oil change, you will find my husband out in the driveway doing the dirty deed. Same for most of the tune up work that needs to be done on our vehicles. Yes, I am blessed to have married a handy man as far as automobile maintenance goes.

We talk every now and then about gutting our upstairs bathroom and putting in a new tub and surround. We don’t have a lot of extra room in that bathroom…not sure if it could handle something like one of those walk in tubs…but that would be nice. I would like a comfortable place to soak at night where the kids couldn’t get to me once in a while. I envision light, airy colors and lots of green plants and candles. Sounds just about perfect to me.

« Previous Entries Next Entries »