TASTE and see that the Lord is good. Psalm 34:8

I guess I will call this MY version of a "GREEN" St. Patrick's Day Blog. . . .

A few years ago my hubby bought me an AeroGarden for Christmas!  If you don't know what that is, its an indoor table-top apparatus that allows you to grow a "small" garden, hydroponically......YUP, NO dirt, just water.  He got it at Costco and it had enough seed starters for 2 growing seasons.  Both starters were Herb gardens, since that was my latest craze, that I could grow some fresh herbs in the house for use in cooking, etc.

Official AeroGarden website


So, I got it all set up and started.  AND boy did the stuff grow!  Within a few weeks I had Oregano, Mint, Basil, Chives, Thyme and Dill all over my kitchen table!  I used the basil and oregano for some italian dishes.......chopped up the chives to sprinkle on things......used the thyme too, and chopped up the dill to make some dill sauce for fish!  My cats loved the chives......Princess kept chewing them down, so they didn't last long.  After most of them were finished, or I had chopped them down, I tried potting the basil outside....the basil was still going strong.  But the plant never took.  In the AeroGarden the roots are hanging in the water and tend to mingle with the other plants.....so you literally have to "rip" them up to separate them.

Well, that season of herbs was done so I put the thing away for awhile.

This past Christmas, after all my basil in my garden died in the frosts (sniff . . . you should have seen the 3 HUGE plants I had ), I decided to plant the last herb set I had and get the AeroGarden out again!

Since the seed starter kit had been sitting for over a year I was not sure what would come up, but nearly all of it did!  The chives came up rather feebily, and the cats munched them down . . . . sad, veeeeery sad.  The dill never made it . . . but the rest, well you can see for yourself!

GANGBUSTERS! ! ! !

Basil is such a hearty grower!  it is in the back on the left in the above pic....oregano is front and center, with mint directly behind.  Those two herbs are from the same family, and look remarkably similar.  Thyme is on the left in the front.  It got crowded out of light by the basil plant behind it early on, so it never has taken off really well.  The pic below shows from the left side, the basil is on the left.

I keep pinching them all off, and moving the light up higher, and they keep growing!  I just have to find a use for the mint . . . .  The basil is going to go into some hummus I am making this afternoon! YUM!

Yes, I am a gardener, and my garden outside is doing rather nicely as well!  See the beets!

There are more where those came from !  My pepper plants, green and sweet, took a beeting (HA HA! no pun intended), but are coming back at the base.....and my carrots are doing well also.  I have a very old garlic chive plant, almost 2 years old now, that I transplanted from one end of the garden to the other, and it is coming along nicely as welll....they are very hearty growers, frost tolerant too, and good at transplanting.  Not sure if I have a picture of my garden handy......let me look......nope.  Well, I am soon to be planting some stuff in the garden and when I do there will be some pix!

But, doing the AeroGarden again made me want to get another seed starter kit, since I needed some more grow lights to finish this set of herbs off anyway....so I went online to order something.  I have a salad starter kit coming, which will be great to plant inside over the hottest part of our summer, when salad greens don't typically do well outside!

Stay tuned for more gardening news, both indoor and out!  and God Bless!

Frugal with a Flourish: Pendant Lighting Love (and a Giveaway!)

Just found this blog the other day through my friend Susan Wahlers on FB!  And she really has some great ideas!  AND now there is this giveaway....ooooo and I so want to win it!






Frugal with a Flourish: Pendant Lighting Love (and a Giveaway!)

....and God said, "Let there be light!"

So, about 6 months ago . . . . . maybe more, I bought a set of LED link-lights for under my kitchen cabinets.  Off to the side of my kitchen I have a section of counter and cabinets.  I call it a side bar . . . my neighbor calls it her " CRAP " counter!! (mostly that describes mine too . . . . it is very cleaned up for this picture )  Well, it's dark over there, especially in the afternoon when the eastern sun is not coming in through the opposite wall of windows.  There is a recessed light in the ceiling adjacent to that, but the ceiling is vaulted . . . . . and so its waaaaaaaaay up there. . . . . not much for work lighting on the counter.  Here is what that space normally looks like.

Needs some task lighting, don't ya think?  so here we go . . . . . . I drilled a hole in the middle of the 2 cabinet sections to run a connector through.

Then I had to screw into the underside of one of the cabinets, the power module base that runs the lights.

Then I connected the lights to each other.  They just plug into each other on the ends.  Then I used the clips that came with the set to hold the lights up under the cabinets.  They attach with little sticky pads.  But the cabinet underside is a bit too shiny a surface so I roughed up each spot with sandpaper so they stick better.  (I learned from a previous project that the sticky stuff does not stay up so well.)   Then I

plugged them in.

And there was LIGHT    !!!  So now my dark-under-the-cabinet side bar looks like

THIS!

. . . and "God saw that the light was good, . . ."

And when I want to find something over there . . . I am one happy woman!  It's the little things in life. . .


. . . coming soon, Making Old Things New Again.

EKLEKTIKOS

Today I decided I would google the word "eklektikos" and see what came up.  When I was writing my first blog, I searched for the meaning of the word, in English.  The things I found this time were interesting and well, quite ironic.

Here are a few of the more note-worthy results from a Bing search of the word "Eklektikos":

1)  an alternative investment firm
2)  an art gallery in Washington DC
3)  some kind of software company
4)  a rather radical, political, commentary blog....weird
5)  a kind of tarot cards....( not even going there....)
and

THIS!!

Eklektikos is the name of Prince Edward Islands only musical ensemble dedicated to presenting contemporary chamber music.  They picked their name based on the meaning as well!!  In case you don't know, Prince Edward Island is in Canada, way over north and east of Maine....northish of Nova Scotia.  So far they have played only music by Canadian composers, and the composition of their group is dictated by the kind of music they are playing.  Their website is rather humble, and it does not seem that they have done any performances since about September of 2010.

So.....you're saying to yourself, " Yeah, so?  What's so special about this group?"  Well it just so happens that the hubby and I are booked on a cruise from Montreal to Boston, which happens to make a stop in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island!  So when I saw this entry come up in my search I thought it was too funny and much too coincidental!  I will have to look them up when we get there! 

The cruise isn't until May, and we are celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary!!! We didn't get to go anywhere for our 20th last year because the oldest child graduated from high school, and we didn't want to take away from that celebration. (The graduation ceremony itself was ON the date of our anniversary.)  But we have been saving up for several years now for a 20th anniversary trip.  And thanks to the strategies of Dave Ramsey (and God), we are blessed beyond measure to be able to do this trip.

Ok, so there it is blog #2.  Whew got that over with!  Guess I got the right name for my blog alright....I can tell these posts are going to be nothing but eklektik!!

Have a blessed day peeps!

Beginning this Blog

Hello!  Welcome to my blog!

You are probably wondering at least 2 things right now: ‘What IS this blog about?’ and ‘How DID she come up with this name?’  Both are great questions; to be answered in due course.  First, I would like to start by saying that writing this first blog is like trying to corral a bunch of sheep without a shepherd or a sheep dog.  I have to corral my thoughts!.....not easy.  And this entry, like every other after it, will probably be a bit like the title….eclectic.  That said, let me first address the second question posed above.

How DID she come up with this name?  Well, I thought it would take me a LOT longer, but it didn’t.  I wanted it to be about me, duh, but also about my home and the people and things in it, and about the things I like to do, that for whatever reason, other people have expressed interest in when I talk.  Go figure!  Part of me wanted it to sound fancy….(does it?) or intriguing…(hmm?)……and informative and well, unique.  I wanted to utilize my love for languages and foreign words…( I think I got that part down…HA!)  Well, the word “eclectic” popped into my head….don’t ask me why, I don’t know.  And since I had just spent a day listening to Beth Moore tell me about some Greek words….I wondered what “eclectic” was in Greek.

“Eklektikos” in the Greek means “picking out, selecting”…and I liked that.  I also like the spelling with all the k’s.  J  I have also always loved the word “casa” which is “house” in both Spanish, which I can speak a little of, and Italian, which is a language from a country I am quite enamored with (we’ll get to that).  So there it was, “La Casa Eklektikos”.   If you know my house…well, it is rather eclectic, and well, so am I.  In English, “eclectic” means “choosing what appears to be the best from diverse sources, systems or styles”.

And with regard to the first question posed above, ”What IS this blog about?”  Well, it is about all things eclectic in and around my home from the food (la comida) I make, to the garden( le jardin) I tend, to the house I keep, the projects I take on, the hobbies I like, the dreams I dream and even mi familia .

And THAT my friends is exactly what this blog is …food, family, and fun collected by me from diverse sources and styles.  I look forward to you joining me on my journey!... ( now I have to come up with some real content….oh brother.)