Veggies galore!!!!

Veggies veggies, glorious veggies!!!

Do you love them or hate them?

I didn't grow up loving them. All we ate were canned veggies (peas, green beans, corn,and carrots), carrot sticks, and sometimes salad. I would go to a friend's house and they would serve me something odd, and disgusting, like broccoli and cauliflower. I remember one of the first times that I ate dinner with my husband's family. We had only been dating just a short time. I was raised to always get a little of each thing being served to be polite. I scooped up a small spoonful of a veggie medley (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots). His sister came up beside me and scraped it all back into the bowl and told me I didn't have to eat the nasty vegetables.

Fast forward several years...my kids love veggies! Not all of them, and each of them have their likes and dislikes, but I can cook a variety without too many complaints. Broccoli and green beans are the basic go-tos.

When Mark and I got married, and moved into his grans old house, we decided to continue on her tradition of a garden. This is not your average sized backyard garden that you plant a few peppers and tomatoes and a cucumber plant. This is a GARDEN, or more like a small farm or homestead if you throw in my chickens. Seriously my garden is 83'x56'. That is over 4500 sq feet of dirt and fruit and veggies. Perspective? My house is only 1100. Yes my garden is 4x bigger than my house!!!! After raising 5 kids, my garden is often my sanctuary. My peace and quiet. We will discuss the benefits of playing in the dirt another day, but trust me, you need to take some time to go do just that.

When we started this adventure 23 years ago, we knew absolutely nothing. And somedays we still know nothing. Gardening is 100% trial and error. My experience with growing things was helping my grandma plant corn, picking and eating her cherries and strawberries, and arguing with her that cucumbers were destined to be dill. I don't know how much Mark helped his grandparents. He does talk about his grandfather growing peanuts and other things like that. But you know how it is when you are a kid, "old people" stuff like that didn't matter.

Planting a garden has expanded my taste in vegetables. I would have never touched a yellow crookneck (or straight) squash. Okra was a big NO WAY!! Wasn't much of a fan of cucumbers unless they were made into dill pickles. And peppers were on my not eating that either list. I had never had a fresh green bean. With the exception of last summer, we have planted the full garden every single year. I love almost every stage of it!! Not everyone shares my joy of watching the first plants pop their heads out of the soil or hunting for the itty bitty baby watermelons. That's ok, we all have our own hobbies. My oldest will patiently share my excitement of my garden treasures, and in return he tells me all about his video games, comic books, and the latest car he found. Seems to be a fair trade. Out of our 5, I do have one that is my dirt fairy. I will tell you about her another day.

Being forced to try new things meant that I needed to either try out new recipes or create my own. My next several posts are going to be a few of my favorite summer veggie recipes. If you have a specific vegetable that you would like some new ideas for, drop me a note in the comments and I will work on it.

~Michelle

Keeping it Cool

Now may be a great time to mention that I am in the group of technicallogically (I don't think that was a word before now since my autocorrect didn't even try to fix it) challenged individuals. I have basic skills and knowledge, but I really hate being outsmarted by the damn phone that I hold in my hand. The same phone that I control whether or not it even gets the power to operate. Yet the stupid thing is in charge of almost every aspect of my life. Ok, with that little rant over, please make note that I am not the person to ask the techy questions to. I am afraid that I am going to have to turn to my awesome tech friends to help me out more often than I would like. (Weirdly enough though, I can write some basic HtML code....)


Onward and upwards with today's subject. I actually wrote all this out last night using the Blogger app. It won't publish because the photo didn't load right. It won't sync to the website platform so I can fix the photo issue. Now it won't let me edit it at all in the app, so I am starting over. (Oh wait that was part of my tech issues.)


Hello summer! I know, I know it has officially been summer for weeks, but it is SUMMER in Oklahoma. July in Oklahoma is a fiery adventure at its finest. Let me help create the visual picture of July in the south for those of you not blessed with spending your summer vacations here.

This is the time of year that modesty flies right out the window. I try really hard to teach my girls to dress modestly and to have respect for their bodies. It is difficult to enforce this with the alternative being heat stroke. So please don't judge too harshly when all we are trying to do is live to tell the tales come fall.

This is the time of the year that you seek out the parking space with the most shade. How close it is to the doors is completely irrelevant, you are just hoping to keep the interior of your car a little bit cooler. I may be slightly regretting my choice of a solid black vehicle with the blacktop features that I picked out in December. (During below freezing temps, I might add. Oh the irony!) But this IS the reason that I kept repeating to the dealership that I did not want leather seats. Think 3rd degree burns on the back of bare legs!!! I would like to point out that black fabric seats still absorbs a lot of heat. But hey I still look sexy driving my beefed up minivan even though I may be slightly melted.

This is the time of year that we pay close attention to humidity levels. This has nothing to do with bad hair. But the higher the humidity and the higher the temps, the more the heat literally sucks the air out of your lungs when you step outside. Let's add the wind on top of the heat. I have been to Chicago. The windy city has nothing on our winds that come sweeping down the plains. The best way to describe this to an outsider, is a blast furnace. We do not get gentle lazy breezes. It is all or nothing.

Oklahoma is very much an outdoor state and we spend lots of our time outside. Hunting. Fishing. Gardening. Bike rides. Grilling. BBQ's. (yes there is a difference, but that is a discussion for a different day)

So my question to all of you, is how do you stay cool in the dog days of summer? Throw some creative ideas at me!!

~Michelle

Here I Go Again

Here I go again... yet another attempt into the world of blogging. Maybe I can stick with it longer this go around. I mean, I always sit and compose posts in my head I just never take the time to sit down and write them. And I balked at the idea of using my phone. But here I sit in a rocking chair outside, writing my first blog in uhmm, years, on my phone.

Today I am just going to reintroduce myself. Who I am, where I come from, and what I am doing out here. When you get a chance, I'd love for you to drop me a line in the comment to say hi and tell me where you are from. K? Thanks! I love getting to know new people.

Here is my story:

My name is Michelle. I am married to my high school sweetheart, Mark. We have 5 kids, 2 boys and 3 girls (ages 8-23), 1 granddaughter and another grandbaby on the way. I run a home based health and wellness business. I also find time to garden, read, cook, spend time with my hubby and hang out with the kids. Mark is rocking a very successful career as a firefighter. He also like to hunt and fish and watch racing. (This makes me a firewire AND a hunting widow.)

The 2 oldest kids have moved out and started their own families. But the younger ones still keep me busy. Marching band, concert band, music lessons, golf, cross country, and baseball. Plus one working on trying to put together a dragster so he can follow his passion of racing. And another wanting to add tennis to the mix.

This blog is a way to combine all my passions into one. I think my kids are quite hysterical, my garden is phenomenal, and my hubby is awesome. I like to share recipes and other things that I love. I also live music and always find ways to relate songs to my life. My youngest son has a bleeding disorder, and sometimes you have to sit back and have a change in plans.

So sit back, buckle up and keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.