It's warm enough now that I wanted to start hardening off my plants and evicted them from my closet. Of course, the smallest ones stayed under the grow lights because they're just babies, but the big ones? Especially the tomatoes? Out you go! On the left bottom, the rocks holding it in place. In the … Continue reading Moved My Plants Into the Greenhouse
Garden update time! I seeded six of my seven GreenStalk planters. The nice part was that I could sit in a chair or stand to do most of the work. I used wax pencils to write on them. Varying colors depending on the planter. The wax pencil is holding up to the rain and watering … Continue reading I Have Seeded the GreenStalks!
Okay, this totally needed photos! We already had this feeder on the existing Shephard's hook. My mom gifted my husband with this one: And so I got him a matching one because hummingbirds will fight to the death over a feeder: And of course, if you have hummingbird feeders, you have to have oriole feeders … Continue reading My Husband Put Up Bird Feeders!
Because the top of the wood box my husband made is particle board for now, he painted it to resist the weather a bit better. And then, he went through our wood pile of wood and brush and broke it down! The big, useful-but-won't-fit bits are to the side. Look how neatly it fits: Here's … Continue reading Updates on the Wood Box
My compost thermometer finally arrived, and you KNOW I immediately upon unboxing ran outside and tested my straw bales. These ones, as a reminder: Anywho, they were ALL over 100 degrees, and two topped out at the goal temperature of 140 degrees! They're peaking, so as they cool a little I'll be able to plant … Continue reading 140 Degrees for the WIN!
My apricot trees are blooming! Yay! They're blooming way to early! Not so yay. So, send some well wishes to the weather that we don't get a hard frost. Because I'd actually like fruit this year. Please be nice, Wisconsin weather!
My husband went picking through the pallets and wood left from the previous owner and made us a wood box. Total cost? Paint. He found everything he needed in either junk left behind in the garage or jars of stuff in the basement. He even found matching hinges! He still has to paint it, but … Continue reading My Husband Built a Wood Box!
The first three green stalks are up and ready! The brown ones are leafs and the white one is an original. Up close, you can see how the planting areas nest: I have four more to fill, and I have to clear the existing beds, but then I'll be ready to plant once it warms … Continue reading Setting Up for Spring!
The straw bales we ended up with were huge. Ridiculously huge. And it was immediately obvious that when they started to break down they were going to make a huge mess. So, we wrapped them in chicken wire! Which, I'm sure my UPS driver hates me. We had tires delivered the other week as well … Continue reading We Have Contained the Straw Bales!
This year, I'm straw bale gardening, because I want to grow a TON of potatoes. You know, because End of the World, and I like potatoes. My plan was straightforward: Buy straw balesEnlist help for physical labor.Pick up straw bales.Place straw bales.Condition straw.Profit.Me. And it was a disaster from the start. First, I could NOT … Continue reading Straw Bale Disaster
I have a greenhouse. It's shiny, and new, and I've been super excited about it, especially since the greenhouse I had last year BLEW AWAY while I was out of town. So basically this: Super stoked about this. Gonna put ALL my plants in this. Enter Wisconsin weather in the spring. There I was, minding … Continue reading In Which I Am Assaulted By a Greenhouse
The five dollar, cheap, dollar store shower curtain we purchased when we bought our house in 2013 finally tore and bit the dust. I had it hanging off the curtain bar with those little ring clips you use for compiling papers, not even proper hooks. So I was forced to go shower curtain/liner shopping. And, … Continue reading Ridiculous Shower Curtain
You might remember, that I had a small greenhouse before. One that took off into the wild blue yonder during a windstorm when I wasn't home. So... here's try number two. I staked this bad boy to the ground with ~30 stakes, zip tied the pieces together to keep the wind from tugging them apart, … Continue reading Greenhouse Attempt #2 and Garden Prepping
First of all, this was an APPROVED purchase. The husband APPROVED my purchase of more planters before I bought them. Anyway, there are seven of them waiting to be filled with dirt and planted. There are seven of them there... five of the originals and two leafs. And I have duplicates of some of the … Continue reading GreenStalk Plans and Stickers!
Five grape plants! My Stark Bros. order came with the four grape plants I had ordered, and I have them neatly tucked away, the bare root one potted so it has a chance to wake up. Aren't they preeeeeetty? Just think of all the tasty grapes! I have more coming, but these are here a … Continue reading What’s Better Than One Grape Plant?
I intend to turn two of the less accessible beds into grape beds this year. I intend to wrap them like I do berry canes, so I've been keeping an eye on what grapes are locally on sale as well as what I've ordered. Tractor Supply had them in stock, and one grape plant had … Continue reading An Errant Grape Plant
I've had fairly good germination - only four tomatoes haven't come up. The peppers are in process, and the basil has several types where the seeds are a LOT older than I should be trying with. But, here's some photos of the starts AND my plants. A shot of the room as a whole: First … Continue reading Seeds Starts Are Going Well!
I sat down this Saturday and worked out what I would plant where, including my Greenstalk planters. Did you know that you can plant CORN in a Greenstalk?!? I'm super excited about the options involved. A lovely person in the Greenstalk Facebook page came up with a chart for laying out what you planted in … Continue reading Garden Planning
Ya'll... ya'll, I couldn't wait. I found a Mother's Day present for my mom, and it was PERFECT, so I went in with my brother and went ahead and ordered it, not realizing that the town it was in was ReedsBURG not ReadsTOWN. Readstown is not terribly far... a hike but not impossible. Reedsburg is... … Continue reading Super Early Happy Mother’s Day!
I've been working on making rice pasta, and while the recipe I found makes a good dough, I can't seem to roll it thin enough that it will cook all the way through when I boil it. So. It's time for a pasta machine! Now, before you're visualizing some hugely expensive endeavor... it's not. In … Continue reading Pasta Machine!
I'm going to preface this with the fact that this is an OFF BRAND endeavor - it is neither Clean nor Sweet. There is swearing. That said, my best friend and I started a Let's Play! If you're not familiar with them, these are YouTube videos where a person or several people play a game, … Continue reading In Which We Start a Let’s Play
And the final purchase I made in this batch of 'publishing' purchases was an embossing tool with my logo. It is GORGEOUS. I ordered it from this listing on Etsy, and it's both well made and promptly delivered. The box: It's blurry, but it's this logo: The embosser itself is pretty good sized: Why is … Continue reading Shiny New Embosser!
I have a bunch of sites that send me emails that I signed up for... mostly because they have seeds for sale. One of them sent me a nifty email advertising garden planners and a seed sale, so you know I wandered in and browsed, which is definitely what they were hoping for. I did … Continue reading Some Nifty Garden Planners
It is THAT time of year. The time of year where garden planning becomes less wishful thinking and more action. So on Friday, I started my tomatoes, peppers, and various types of basil! I'm going a little unusual this year and planting hybrids too. Normally I plant everything heirloom, but this year it's not a … Continue reading Started My Seed Starts!
I was SO EXCITED to post about my logo and stamp last week that I ENTIRELY FORGOT TO LINK THE ARTISTS. *facepalm* So, here goes. This is the logo: This was done by AmbellicaDesign on Etsy, and you can find them here. It will be coming as an embosser soon, so I'm excited to see … Continue reading Forgot to Credit
It's NOT cancer. *confetti* The first biopsy didn't have enough 'good' tissue for a clear biopsy and came out inconclusive. This one is perfectly clear. NOT cancer. So not only is the surgery done, and I'm recovering well, but I know that it wasn't even cancer so I don't have to stress about anything they … Continue reading Biopsy Returned!
This last week has been nothing but surgery recovery. I basically slept continuously Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, just waking up for medications and to drink or eat something. Those days are kind of a fog. I lost part of my stitches on Tuesday, which is not a surprise, and it's something I warned the surgeon … Continue reading Recovering Well!
Okay, ya'll, I'm really stoked about this. I commissioned a logo and an author stamp. The logo for, well, everything, and the author stamp is my face for the 'author' page in my book and signings. So, ready to see some shinies? First of all, here is my logo: One of my gaming friends did … Continue reading I Have a Logo and a Stamp!
I decided to try making a Vtuber channel with my best friend, starting with the new End of Dragons expansion for Guild Wars 2. A week ago, we did a dry run to figure out how all of the equipment works. Saturday, we tried it, spending about three hours recording and working on the game. … Continue reading VTuber Fail
Today is the day I go and have the probably-not-cancer tumor removed, so there's no post. Wish me luck!
We finished up the paperwork for our home equity loan, which was a mess. The poor gentleman at our credit union had to do our forms four times over the weeks leading up to the signing, first because my estimate of house value was WAY low. The appraisal came in, and I found out my … Continue reading Loan Done
A looooong while back, I was getting hives regularly, bacterial bronchitis regularly, couldn't-walk-across-the-room breathing issues, the works. On what had to be the 20th visit to urgent care, I got a pediatrician who took one look at me and said 'food allergy' and sent me off to get promptly tested. The tests showed I was … Continue reading No Photos Because No One Needs to See to Believe
Just a quick tease of a post to show you that Brooke's portrait is almost complete. Look at those eyes! She's lovely! Does she look like you'd imagined her?
I'm working with DAZED Designs to redo the font and formatting on my covers. Natasha Williams is AMAZINGLY good at what she does, so I was so happy when I saw the mock ups! So, today here's the e-book cover for 'Murky Water'! And just so you can see how they look together as a … Continue reading ‘Murky Water’ Finished Cover
I'm working with DAZED Designs to redo the font and formatting on my covers. Natasha Williams is AMAZINGLY good at what she does, so I was so happy when I saw the mock ups! So, today here's the new e-book cover for 'Still Water'! Isn't this snazzy?!? She'll be doing the wrap around for paperbacks … Continue reading ‘Still Water’ New Cover
For Valentine's Day, my husband traditionally buys a box of fun dip, puts rhyming clues on the individual dips, and I go on a scavenger hunt to find them all. This year, there was a prize at the end! My husband had installed VRoid Studio and VSeeFace on my computer along with my favorite game … Continue reading You, Also, Can Be a V-Tuber
My uncle died January 17th, and we didn't find out until February 6th. It was a shock. We're all shocked and it doesn't seem quite real. He had a foot surgery, and I had called him on the 13th, leaving some silly, flippant, sing-song message teasing him for not answering his phone and ended it … Continue reading In Which I Ask for a Favor
First of all, here's a close up of the eyes. If you're one of the five people who have read my book, you can try guessing. Did you guess... one of the twins? It's Rowan! The lovely artists at Unreal Studio Works have finished another character art piece from the set I ordered waaaaay back … Continue reading Character Artwork Complete: Guess Who?
We're expecting the appraiser to come on Tuesday and HOPEFULLY tell our bank our house is fabulous and totally worth lots of money. Which means we started cleaning when I got up on Saturday morning, pushed until dinnertime, and then resumed Sunday morning. I gave up in the afternoon with the dishes and part of … Continue reading Cleaning for the House’s Appraisal
I've been experimenting with baking bread, and the last two were very dense, but edible. I checked my yeast, and it expired in 2017. Well then. Armed with fresh yeast and a cast iron bread pan, I tried again. It rose very nicely! I overcooked it by just a few minutes, so the top started … Continue reading I Mades a Bread!
Eggs are a cheap protein, and so we tend to use them a lot. But I go through stages of what I want to eat, so I'll sometimes abandon a food for my husband to eat. And all it takes is finding one rotten egg for him to refuse to touch any of them. And … Continue reading Don’t Count Your Eggs Before They… Go Bad?
Starring random Hispanic dude we accidentally called five times. Let me explain. My in-laws have a new house. They're moving out of the city and into the country, and they have a new house. They've been working on cleaning up the old home, their 'starter' home of 30+ years for sale. This weekend, we visited … Continue reading Let’s Play What Circuit Is This Outlet On?
I am enraged. Let me tell you the reasons why, and you are welcome to share. I tried to set up an account with the IRS through ME.ID. Settle in, this rant is long. First, it wouldn't accept my phone number. I got ID.ME-splained that the phone number I've had since 2004, the ONLY number … Continue reading Let Us Discuss the IRS’s New Login System, ID.ME
My hair had gotten to midback, and on Friday night it got pinned so badly beneath my husband that I cried while we tried to untangle because he didn't wake up right away. Plus I'm feeling awful... awful about my finances, awful about my mental health, awful about how much work I'm getting done and … Continue reading Time for Some Change – Get the Scissors!
Let's talk mania. And finances. Last fall, I went full paranoid manic for close to two weeks. With how the world was behaving, no one realized my frothing was anything other than a reaction to everything. I bought end of the world supplies. A lot of end of the world supplies. A wood stove. A … Continue reading Gonna Admit I’m a Failure
I've been vague about why I've had an MRI and such, but I have contacted family, and here's the low down. Disclaimer: There is NO NEED to panic. NONE. No one is going to die, and it's not a crisis. I have two extra salivary glands on the outside of my jaw. In early 2020, … Continue reading It’s Probably NOT Cancer
I got my MRI results literally the day after I had it. Talk about quick response time! Note that this was taken with and without contrast. They were fun to read through. I thought they would JUST check our location of concern, but they looked at everything. I was impressed with the level of detail, … Continue reading Magic 8 Ball Says: Results Are Promising
I loved the cover for book two SO much, and it was done by a different artist than book one, even though its the same studio. Here is a cut from it: So, for marketing materials I commissioned the same artist to do character portraits of the love interests. Can you guess who? It's Hakon! … Continue reading Character Artwork
I overheated working in the garden.
reneewittman.com 