Ahhh....Spring!!!

I don't know about where you are, but the weather in Kansas City is absolutely GORGEOUS! It's almost too warm, since it's expected to be 80°-82° for the next couple of days. I wouldn't mind it staying in the 70s for awhile, but I'll definitely take this over the snow of a couple weeks ago!

Yesterday I started the task of prepping the garden for spring planting. I was overly ambitious last year and had way too large of an area tilled, and couldn't keep up with the grass re-growing in the entire garden area! So this year, I am cutting back. In the fall, we laid down some newspaper (on part, as we ran out) and mulch over about half of my garden space. Now, I'm moving the fencing to enclose only this part. I'm basically going from 1000 square feet (INSANE!) to about 520. I think this will be much more manageable!

There is still a lot of grass to be pulled, and I have about 15 feet of fencing that needs to be re-buried by trenching the ground and covering the bottom section, but I've started the process, which is a good thing. I think the girls and I will be planting all the seeds tonight so we can have some plants to put in there sometime in May. I'm still not completely decided on what I'm going to grow this year. I will most definitely buy some tomato plants, as I have no luck trying to grow those from seed. I plan to have as many green beans as I can get growing, and some spinach and a couple varieties of lettuce. I also bought some broccoli seeds and will have to grow cucumbers. My family (especially DH) LOVES pickles, so even though I hate them, I will have to make them. lol I do like to eat raw cucumbers, so I get the pre-pickled variety. In fact, I am looking very forward to lots of my favorite sandwich this summer - hummus, spinach, tomato, and cucumber...yum!!!

I am contemplating trying some asparagus. I'm really not sure if I could get it to grow, but I absolutely love it, so it might be worth trying in just a small section of the garden. I think I'm going to skip the squash this year since I'm the only one who eats it and I still have bags of shredded zucchini from last year. I will sit down sometime this week and diagram out what I plan to plant where so I at least have a good idea of how to do things.

I'm very excited about planting some of my seeds from Hometown Seeds. I will try and keep a running account of how well they do on my blog. I love the Survival Seeds pack they sent me and I will be using a lot of their seeds! I'm very happy that gardening season is coming. I hope you find a little happiness in the soil, too! :-)

Kroger Gift Card Winner!

I wish I had a clue how to paste the Random.org number generator to my blog, but I cannot figure it out! I had 34 entries in the giveaway (wish it had been more...maybe next time!), and when I entered 1 to 34 into random.org, it gave me a winning number of 29, which is mandala!

Congratulations, mandala! I will be sending you an email shortly to get your mailing information. Thanks SO much to everyone who entered! Hopefully we'll have some more fun giveaways very soon!

A Snowy Spring

It's funny how the weather never does what it's supposed to do. Today is the first official day of spring, and I'd guess we have about 6 inches of snow out there on the ground and it's still coming down. It is very pretty, and I have noplace to go, so I'm okay with it. I've actually been enjoying a typical "snow day." I baked a scratch angel food cake this morning and made the kids some homemade granola bars for their snack. My 9-year-old has a friend over for the day who is also spending the night, so they had their snack in her room, along with chai tea with a fancy tea set. Very cute!

The angel food cake is a bit of an experiment. I am having a "house concert" next month (a first for me) and will hopefully have a house full of guests. I'm going to put out what I hope will be a very nice spread of appetizers and treats. One thing I want to try, that I've never done before, is chocolate fondue. Angel food cake cubes are something I've listed as a good option for dipping in the fondue, so that's what I'm trying tonight. I had 10 eggs that had just expired, so it seemed like the perfect time to whip up angel food and give this a whirl. I'm planning on trying several things prior to the concert/party to make sure I know what I'm doing!

It seems like so much has happened since I last blogged, and I guess it has been a long time! Two weeks ago I had what I consider the best weekend of my life, and I just haven't come back to earth since then. My favorite singer, Suzy Bogguss, was in town for a show over in Overland Park and it was a wonderful time. I got to talk to her for awhile (she's a friend these days, which is truly a gift!) and catch up with a friend from Des Moines who came in for the show. I got home very late that evening, and then headed out the next day for Hutchinson, Kansas, for another show. I went with my friend, Mark, and we had an amazing time!

Traveling with Mark is always an adventure. He prefers the road less traveled, and avoids the interstate most of the time. I've blogged before about our trek to Colorado a couple of years ago. Well, for this trip, he took me along part of the route that we took that fateful night. He even drove by the hotels where we almost stopped, for fear of bad weather, but didn't due to price or occupancy. And we even stopped in the same convenience store that was our oasis that night. It was amazing to see it all from a non-snowy perspective and realize exactly where we had been when all we had been able to see was solid white blizzard.

We made it to the show in Hutchinson just in time, but getting there had been almost as much fun as the show. During the concert, I tried the venue's House Sangria and liked it very much. Okay, I liked it TOO much. If you know me, you know that I very rarely drink, and so the Sangria hit me harder than I anticipated. I had a reallllllly fun night, but parts of it are a little fuzzy. ;-) Suzy got a kick out of it, though. She told me that I was cracking her up, and did the coolest thing as we were leaving. She teased that she was afraid that I wouldn't make it back down the stairs to get outside (the venue was on the 2nd floor of a building), so she insisted on walking Mark and I out! We ended up standing just inside the doors, just chatting, for quite awhile. Suzy is such a sweetheart!!

The next day we met up with one of Mark's friends for brunch and then a matinee of "Alice in Wonderland." It wasn't as horrible as I expected. :-) After the movie, we had to head back to Kansas City, and we actually took a little interstate due to time restrictions. We got to town and then headed for a local pizza place for karaoke. No, I didn't sing, but Mark is a wonderful singer! He did several great performances and even sang along with my friend Claudia's grandmother, which was adorable!

So can you see why I've been on Cloud 9 since? It's been hard to get back to reality, and now I have this house concert to plan, which is its own kind of fun. The performer we're having is Bill Isles and his wife, Kate. You can check out their website. They are really fun people and Bill writes wonderful original songs. I'm looking very forward to the show. I just hope I can get my house clean and ready in time and that all the food comes out! If you're in the KC area and want to come to the show, please let me know . It should be a great time.

Anyway....I guess that's the update from me for now. Oh, and don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't yet! I don't have many entries for a $25 gift card from the Kroger Family of Stores. You have a great chance at winning!!!

Kroger Cart Buster Savings Event - and Giveaway!

Kroger Stores are a staple for many. They run great sales and when you combine the deals with double coupons, it's amazing how much money can be saved. I wish I had a Kroger just around the corner!

From now through March 14th, shop the Cart Buster Savings Event and find the hottest prices around on your favorite name-brand products in over 60 categories at the Kroger Family of Stores, which includes Kroger, Ralph´s, King Soopers, City Market, Dillons, Smith´s, Fry´s, QFC, Baker´s, Owen´s, Jay C Food Stores, Hilander, Gerbes, Food4Less, Pay Less Super Markets and Scott´s Food & Pharmacy.

Here are just a few of the great brands participating in the event: Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Hamburger Helper, Yoplait, Progresso, Totino´s, Green Giant, Cascadian Farm, Tide, Charmin, Bounty, Pampers, Pantene, Crest, Iams, Febreze, Old Spice and many more! These are brands everyone can use, and there are lots of coupons out there, so get to Kroger before time runs out on this sale!

The Giveaway!!

Kroger and MyBlogSpark are offering one winner a $25 gift card to Kroger! Shop this sale NOW, and then win $25 to spend on future sales. What a deal!

How to Enter:

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post telling me how far it is to your nearest Kroger branded store and/or what you think you would most want to buy with the card if you won.

For another entry, become a follower of At Home with My Monkeys. If you're already a follower, let me know. Leave a separate entry for this entry.

For your third entry, post this contest on another contest list or in your own blog. Then leave a third comment with the link to where it's posted. I'd love to get lots of entries on this one! Help me out, will ya?? :-)

This giveaway will end at midnight on Wednesday, March 24th. Please be sure your contact information is in your comments or easily visible on your profile so I can contact you if you are the winner. Thanks for entering and GOOD LUCK!!

DISCLAIMER: I am receiving a $25 Kroger gift card for sharing this information. The Kroger Family of Stores gift card, information, and giveaway were all provided by the Kroger Family of Stores and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

Like your Keurig? You'll Love your K-Caps!

Reuse your Keurig K-Cups!

Are you wondering what that little disk-like item is? I think it looks like one of the coolest inventions ever!!! It's called a K-Cap. Is that enough explanation? I didn't think so...lol

A K-Cap is a handy-dandy little gizmo that allows you to re-use the K-Cups in a Keurig brewer! I am so very excited to try these! I adore my Keurig, but I don't adore having to purchase a new box of K-Cups every couple of weeks at a cost of about .50 a K-Cup! The coffee is good, and of course, it's a lot less expensive than going to the 'Bucks, but I can buy a bag of Dunkin' Dark and brew it for a lot less than .50 a cup!

And then along came the K-Cap. This wonderful invention actually allows you to remove the foil cap of a K-Cup, carefully rinse it out, refill it, and then cap it and brew fresh coffee. Amazing!! I have always hated watching the waste as I drop those K-Cups into the trash can after a single cup of coffee is brewed, and I am completely enthralled with the idea of re-using them in such a simple way!

If you are a Keurig user like me, this is definitely a concept to investigate. You can purchase the K-Caps in several different quantities by visiting their website. The website itself is great, too. You can read the specifics on the K-Cap, view a video that explains them even better, or even learn how your blog can earn you free K-Caps to try.

I can't wait to give these a whirl. When I receive them, I will post about them and tell you how much I love them, because I know I will. :-) In the meantime, please visit K-Caps. If you love your Keurig, I bet you are going to be as excited about them as I am!!

Thinking About Spring

I can look out my front door and see snow on the lawn across the street. The local forecasters are talking about anywhere from 2 to 8 inches of snow that is on its way to us and will arrive this weekend. I'm so tired of winter already!! So in order to escape (albeit temporarily) my thoughts have turned to my future garden.

I have a patch in my backyard that was plowed for a garden. It was a bit of a disaster last year because I had major surgery in February and wasn't able to commit the time to it that it really needed, since it was the first year it had been tilled. So grass took over and some of the plants didn't make it and it was basically rather sad. This year, however, I've already begun to prepare. I've covered the area well and added mulch so the grass is at a minimum. I have a diagram and definite plans of what plants are going where. And I will definitely spend more time out there this summer, probably even recruiting my children to learn to "work the land."

I'm excited about gardening this year! I hope to be able to freeze and can a lot of vegetables that we can use over the colder months. This will help us in so many ways. My kids are not fond of commercially canned products, but anything I've canned myself is devoured. It's a good thing I enjoy canning! :-)

Interestingly enough, while I've been contemplating my garden, I received an email from a company called Hometown Seeds. They have a very interesting product called Survival Seeds. This are NON-GMO seeds that give you a variety of easy to grow vegetables. The packet includes the following seed packets:

Lincoln Peas
Detroit Dark Red Beets
Kentucky Wonder Brown Pole Bean
Yolo Wonder Pepper
Champion Radish
Lucullus Swiss Chard
Black Beauty Zucchini
Waltham Butternut Winter Squash
Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Long Green Improved Cucumber
Rutgers Tomato
Golden Acre Cabbage
Romaine Paris Island Cos Lettuce
Golden Bantem Sweet Corn
Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion

It looks like a great assortment for any garden, and it is a HUGE assortment! I'm thinking this might be great to purchase with a friend and share the seeds. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have 3/4 of an acre to garden! :-)

Check out the website and see if the Survival Seeds suit your needs for this year's planting. Let me know if you get them!

DISCLAIMER: Hometown Seeds offered to send me a free packet of survival seeds for posting about their website. I have not tried their products yet, but this looks like a great assortment of seeds. The opinions expressed are my own, as is the time and work I will put into my garden this year!! :-)

Counting Blessings

Today has been one of those days that cause me to take pause and ponder all the blessings in my life. Shortly after awakening this morning, I learned some news about the daughter of a dear friend. On Monday morning, the 10-year-old will be undergoing brain surgery to remove a tumor on her brain that is nearly as large as a softball. How terrifying is that? I can't imagine enduring my baby going through that. My heart and prayers go out to this family, and I thank God for my healthy children.

Then this afternoon I came home to find cars all over the place along my street and wondered what in the world was happening. A bit of online searching revealed that my neighbor across the street passed away a few days ago. Family and friends called on his wife throughout the day and I looked out the window a bit ago to see her lights turned off. My heart aches for her as I think about her going to bed alone, terribly missing her husband of 56 years. Yes, he had a full life, but she is still left behind with tears and memories. I visited her briefly today and she cried as she spoke of their life together. I am so sad for her, and I thank God that my family is intact. Yes, my husband can be extremely frustrating and difficult, but he really is a blessing in my life and I wouldn't trade him for anything, even though it's a good thing nobody asked me to trade him when he was being such a butthead yesterday!! ;-)

We never know when our lives will suddenly change, for the better or the worse. And tomorrow is not a promise, but a gift. I'm going to make a conscious effort to not forget this. Yes, I know I will have days when I toss gratitude out the window, but I hope it won't take me long to remember days like today. And I hope everyone reading this has more blessings than he or she is able to count.