April's Homemaking

I was so happy to get back out into the garden last week. Oregon has had a record year for rain fall, and as a result my garden has become very overgrown with weeds. However, last week the sun came out for three beautiful days, so I spent as much time as possible clearing my garden beds, and prepping them for planting. I also started clearing out some of my flower beds, and made room for a new fairy garden.

My dog Zoey enjoyed being out in the garden with me the whole time, she is so funny and loves to sniff every flower. It is nice having her out with me in the garden, and she is enjoying the sunny weather as well.

I posted a Week 1 Garden Vlog on my YouTube Channel. I did a little before tour, so you could see where I started, as well as what I accomplished last week. Here it is if you'd like to check it out.


This week has been very rainy once again. On Mother's Day the kids weeded and edged my entire front yard, which was such an awesome gift. I will include that in my upcoming weekly garden vlog. This week I hope to get some more weeding done, as well as planting the rest of my veggies and flowers.

So that is the beginning of my Spring/Summer 2017 gardening season, I look forward to a nice gardening season. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

It has been quite some time since I have updated this blog, I hope to do so a little more regularly. I have been very busy with my YouTube channel, and am having a lot of fun making and editing videos. I do a lot of product reviews, mostly toys, as a fun way to connect with the toy collecting community. This year I also started to incorporate more homemaking type videos on my channel, that I hope to continue developing as well. In the past I have blogged my garden's progress every summer here on this blog, I may still do a bit of that this summer, but to change things up a bit I also decided to do a video garden vlog. I just posted my first garden update, with pictures from my garden throughout this past spring, as well as the plants I purchased, the seeds I will be planting, and my new garden journal. So I thought I would share that with you here as well.


I found this inexpensive planner at the Target Dollar Spot, and decided that it would be perfect to use as a garden journal, I thought that the floral pattern would be pretty for a garden journal. In the video below you can see how I've set up this journal, as well as check out the plants and seeds I'll be planting this spring and summer, as well as clips of my garden this past spring.


I do hope to get out to the garden when our sunshine returns to take more pictures, which I will share here in future garden updates. I hope everyone is enjoying a nice spring, and having fun out in the garden! :)

Thanks for stopping by! :)

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So I thought I would share a couple of my latest YouTube videos here today. I have been filming some of the dinners that we have had over the month of March. I thought it would be a good idea to be able to see some of the meals that I talk about in my Meal Planning videos.



I also thought you might enjoy seeing my latest grocery haul along with my meal plan for the first half of April-

About half way through January I got back on track with meal planning, and as a result my grocery budget has really trimmed up quite a bit. One of my favorite recipes from last month was my Cheesy Chicken Hash Brown Casserole, so I thought I would share my recipe.


I first tasted a version of this cheesy hash brown casserole at my great grandpa's funeral years ago. A large portion of my family on my mother's side is Mormon, so we travel to Ogden, Utah for the funeral. It was the first Mormon funeral I had been to, and the church community provides a beautiful potluck style of meal after the funeral. One of the classic dishes, I have come to find, is a cheesy hash brown type casserole as a side dish, which is even sometimes called "funeral potatoes". Anyway, I loved the casserole and learned the recipe, and have made it for potlucks at church many times. I decided to turn this casserole into a main dish by adding a good portion of chopped steamed chicken tenderloins. By the way, this is a double recipe for a large sized casserole, I like to make a big casserole since I am often feeding 5-6 adults/teens at each meal, and I like leftovers for lunch.

Here are the ingredients-
about 8 chicken tenderloins cooked and chopped
2 standard sized bags of frozen hash browns slightly thawed
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 stick of butter
1 large onion chopped
1 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
2 cups (roughly) grated cheddar or cheddar blend
salt & pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder (less or more as desired)
1 1/2- 2 cups of cornflakes for topping.


Gather your ingredients, be sure your hash browns have sat out for at least half an hour before you prep this casserole, they need to be slightly thawed out so they will break apart and not be in a big frozen clump. Chop your onion and saute it in 4 tablespoons of butter, saute your onions in a large pot that will be big enough to stir together all the ingredients later. This is a lot of butter but it is part of the recipe and will be stirred in with everything else. When the onions have softened and are translucent but not browned take it off the burner and add hash browns, chicken, both cans of soup, one cup of milk (you may need a 1/4 cup more if casserole seems to need it) and 1 cup sour cream along with about 1 cup of shredded cheese (you may want a bit more). Then add between half a teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of garlic powder depending on your preference, then salt and pepper to taste, you don't need much salt because the cheese and soup mix are salty. When casserole is thoroughly mixed transfer to a large greased baking pan, a lasagna sized pan would do well for this size recipe.


Top casserole with another cup of grated cheese lightly cover with foil and bake at 375 F. for about 45 minutes to an hour. Casserole is cooked through when potatoes are cooked through. While casserole is baking make the crunchy topping. Apparently there is often quite a debate about whether or not cheesy hash brown casserole should have at topping or not, I have made it with a topping and without, and I like it both ways. Since this was a main dish dinner casserole I though a topping would be nice. So I melted the other 4 tablespoons of butter and put about 2 cups of classic corn flakes in a ziplock sandwich bag, I slightly crunched up the cornflakes, then transfered them to a small mixing bowl and tossed with melted butter.


When casserole is close to done remove foil, and top with crunchy topping and return to oven to bake until golden and crispy, about another 15-20 minutes, checking frequently so topping doesn't burn. Because of the potatoes and cheese this casserole will be very hot, so it is nice to let it cool for a bit, especially for children.


If you would like to check out my latest meal plan and grocery haul check out this video below from my YouTube channel.


I am excited this week as my garden has been showing signs that Spring has arrived, the crocus are blooming and other flowers are starting to bud as well. My backyard birds have been very active at the feeders which I always enjoy, we even had a large hawk land in the yard last week! As soon as our spring rains let up I will be eager to prep my veggie beds and plant some more spring flowers.


I hope everyone is having a nice week! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Linking to:
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This week I have started my spring cleaning. I always like to start about six weeks out from Easter so everything in my home is cleaned and ready for my big Easter family gathering and egg hunt. Plus, getting ready for spring is always so motivating to me with the spring bulbs popping up everywhere and more sunny days.

Last year I did a 40 bags in 40 days declutter-

The sedum is blooming as well, we have many different varieties, as well as other succulents that are blooming, some are pink and some are white, I really loved the flowers on the two plants below.


I had to take a picture of my holly bush, it has been having a rough couple of years, I transplanted it from a corner of the garden that was too hot for it, and it has spent the last couple of years recovering, right now the leaves look so vibrant and a rich glossy green, so I'm happy it seems to be making a comeback. I also love all of the yellows and oranges in the garden right now, the marigolds, day lilies and nasturtium are so pretty.


I didn't realize I got such a nice variety of nasturtium this year, most often I only get one or two colors, but this year just about every plant is a different color and they are all stunning, I also am enjoying my happy pink cosmos, it is nice having so many flowers this year!


The grapes I planted this spring are doing nicely and growing very well, I don't expect any fruit this year, and hope I prune them correctly for next year, they are a bit of an experiment, but it will be fun to see if they do well in containers. My garlic is very nearly ready, the elephant garlic as well as the smaller variety are just about to bloom this week, I thought the elephant garlic flower with its little cap on looked a bit like an elf with a little pointy cap, I also love the pinkish color of my Killarney Red garlic flower.


The petunias are starting to fill out their pot nicely, and the maidenhair fern is also doing well, I had extra marigolds and decided to plant them in a pot that had a little space left, I was going to plant them in my veggies, but something keeps eating all the leaves off of my Marigolds near my veggie patch, not sure if it is a bird or a bug, but I'd be curious to figure out who is nibbling them, I thought they were supposed to deter pests? Either way, these marigolds seem to have escaped being nibbled.


My hydrangea was very late in blooming this year, and it is no longer blue, so I think I will need to fertilize it properly soon. I know there is something to add to make the flower blue again, which I will have to google. For now, however, I am enjoying the soft pink blossoms, with a hint of blue, they are really very pretty.


The green beans are doing well and the pepper patch is getting going. The zucchini are a bit slow to start, and only about a fourth of the seed germinated, but I am hoping they will catch up. We have had very warm temperatures this June and hardly a speck of rain. Since I was off gardening duties during my recovery from surgery, the watering got neglected a bit, as did the weeding. But I am back at it, and the plants seem to be responding to the attention.


My squash and onion patch is doing okay also, the pumpkins are a bit slow to start, and the best squash plant of all is the mystery squash which was a volunteer, I wonder what it will be? The Walla Walla Onions are doing well also.


The beginning of blueberry season has arrived. I have both early and late varieties of blueberry, and the early variety are ready for picking. The kids have been nibbling on fresh berries and I will hopefully have enough for a small blueberry crisp or some muffins and pancakes this week. :)


I also thought I'd show a picture of the wonderful flower pots the kids painted for me back in grade school. My kids are now young adults, I had these pots put away for safe keeping for the longest time, last year I sprayed them to make them weather proof, and I decided that this year I would enjoy them more if they were planted and in use in my garden. I put a little heather plant in each one, and I love the way they look. :)


We also had a very interesting visitor to the garden this week. I had the curtains open during a girls Bible study I host, and just as we began our lesson this bird lands in the garden. I was sitting directly across from the window and was definitely surprised. I had to grab my camera and get some pictures, the bird stayed in the garden for at least ten minutes. I suspect it was hunting my small bird feeder birds, I most often have at least a dozen little birds hanging out at the feeders. They were all smart to scatter while we had this visitor.


I'm not completely sure what this small hawk is, after looking through books and online I suspect he/she is a Cooper's Hawk. I also read it may be a sharp-shinned hawk, apparently even long time bird watchers have trouble telling the two apart. But since Cooper's Hawk are closer to the size of a crow, which was about the size of this hawk, and sharp-shinned hawk are a bit more the size of a jay or pigeon, which this hawk was definitely bigger than that. So I'm leaning toward Cooper's Hawk. If anyone of you is familiar with birds in the Oregon Valley, and recognize what this bird might be, I would love if you would let me know in the comments. This bird is definitely a hunting machine, his talons and beak are pretty imposing. He/She ran along the fence line hunting for birds, I tried catching a few side pictures, but it was too fast so they all came out blurry, you can see in the bottom picture how long his tail feather is. Between the Kestrel and this new Hawk, my little birds had better be on the lookout!

Last Tuesday I had surgery to have my gallbladder removed. I thought I would share a bit abut how that went, and how I'm recovering, as well as all that has been going on this week.

I was quite happy when they removed my IV and had some really fun dinosaur wrap to keep the gauze on, I am a big fan of dinosaurs and this really made me happy, when my hubby saw I was getting dinosaur wrap he knew I would be pleased. :) If you are going in for gallbladder removal I would highly suggest bringing in a comfy outfit with soft stretchy waistband pants and a tank top and cotton T, I have been quite happy this whole week to wear my stretchy yoga capris, and I wore my bright walking sneakers for a happy pop of color. I was quite sore for the first few days and could barely get up and down. Laproscopic Gallbladder surgery requires four cuts in your abdominal area, so the muscles are very sore, you can't lift anything and can't twist around much. The pain medicine did the trick, although after day two I realized the pain medicine was making me jittery and anxious, so I opted to switch to just over the counter pain medicine, which was fine.


I spent the whole week taking it very easy, watching lots of television, and reading magazines and my Kindle. I also had lots of flowers to brighten my days. My husband brought me a bright bouquet of Gerber daisies as well as mini roses for my bedroom, my bible study group sent over the most perfect rose I have seen in some time, such a pretty color and fragrance! My son's girlfriend brought me pretty pink lilies from her cheer team, and my mother in law stopped by with a very pretty soft colored bouquet with hydrangeas and daisies. I was so thankful for all of my beautiful flowers, I think flowers really help people keep cheerful while healing. Thanks for all the flowers everyone!! :)


The night before the surgery I spent some time getting things ready around the house, and prepared some lime Jello (my favorite flavor) since my diet after the surgery had to be pretty simple the first few days. I found these absolutely fun Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mini gladwares at Target last week and knew they would be perfect for single serve portions of Jello. These little Jello cups have been very nice to have all week, and having them in TMNT cups is super fun. This would be a fun thing to have made up in the fridge for summer snacking as well.


Since I was unable to attend the Senior parents locker decorating evening, where parents of graduating seniors decorate their students' lockers, I decided I would make some in advance and have my daughter deliver them to my son and his girlfriend's lockers. I had to keep it fairly simple because I was very busy getting things ready for my surgery, but I really liked how they turned out. I printed out a Congratulations message on bright orange paper, and made fringe from strips of black cardstock, which I glued around the back edges of the paper, then added some grad cap stickers, and some black and orange glitter. They knew I wouldn't be able to attend the decorating event because it was the day of my surgery, but I wanted to surprise them with a little decoration, which they were happy with. :) This weekend is their graduation, and we are all excited for the event!


The weather most of last week was beautifully sunny, I could not resist sitting out in my garden and watching my birds, as well as watching them from my window. The goldfinch and sparrows where very entertaining with their singing and flying about.

The Kestrel was flying over head one day and I caught one picture of him, a little sparrow was working on nest building, and at first I thought some of these new visitors with speckles where just some variation of the goldfinch, now I suspect they may be Pine Siskins, it was fun to see some new visitors to the bird feeders.


I took a few short strolls around my garden last week as well, to check on things and see what was blooming. The little white flowers have popped up on the moss, I love the little yellow flowers on these clovery weeds in the gravel, and a new variety of lavender is blooming.


The succulents in my new dry river garden are doing great, the hens and chicks are making chicks nicely, and some look like they are about to blossom, and one of my new succulents put out the most beautiful hot pink flowers, I was surprised by them, I had no idea they would be so vibrant. I am hoping they still have some at the garden center, because I would love to add more to my garden! It was nice getting out in my garden, and getting some fresh air.


All week I had been hoping I would be well enough to attend my son's last high school play. Luckily I was well enough to attend on Saturday night, his last performance. The play was Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which is one of my favorites, it was set in the 1940's. They all did a wonderful job, memorizing all of those Shakespeare lines was difficult, but they did great!


My son played Don Pedro, and I was so glad I got to see him perform. His girlfriend was also in the play, as well as many of his friends who have been in plays together for all of high school. The whole night was a real treat!

Since the hospital where I am having my gallbladder surgery is located in Silverton, Oregon, I have taken plenty of trips into Silverton this past couple of months,and thought I would share some of the pictures of this very pretty little town.

The first time we ever visited Silverton was quite a few years ago, and we found this little park right in town. This little park has a covered walking bridge that goes over the Silver Creek that runs through Silverton. I love covered bridges, and this is a fun little bridge to walk over. So now, just about every time we drive through Silverton we stop at this park.


The bridge goes over this pretty creek that runs right behind all the businesses right on the main road through town. It is neat to look down the back of all the buildings, many have decks that look out over the water, although they don't look like they are in use any more. The last time we went, the water was sparkling in the sunlight.


There were pink blooms all through the park - the Rhododendrons and Azaleas all looked very pretty, as well as all the other pretty flowers and shrubs.


The buildings all through Silverton are older and have a lot of character, I love just walking through town and driving around and seeing the different building designs.


There are also many different murals painted throughout the town you can take a walking tour of the murals and read information all about the different murals at the Silverton Chamber of Commerce Website. The murals are all interesting and have historical significance, since I enjoy history, things like these murals are really enjoyable to me.

The other thing I enjoy in Silverton are all the fun little shops, I love walking through the different antique shops, there is also an old historic movie theater in town which we once went to with friends of ours to see The Pirates of The Caribbean, the theater only shows one movie at a time, but it has a wonderful old fashioned feel to it, and was a fun place to go to the movies.

There are plenty of different coffee shops and cafes throughout town too, I haven't had the opportunity to visit many of them, but last time we were there we tried out a coffee shop that was housed in an old gas station. It was fun trying out a new coffee place and walking around the downtown area.


One of the most interesting murals I saw on this last trip was a long wall painted with a very large mural telling the story of Bobbie the Wonder Dog, who got separated from his family on a road trip to Indiana, and he made his way all the way to Silverton, Oregon back in 1923. He became very famous for his astounding journey of 2,551 miles, even Rin Tin Tin laid a wreath at his grave, Bobbie was laid to rest in Portland in 1927. You can read all about this story at Bobbie The Wonder Dog's Wikipedia page. I thought this was a pretty interesting story, and without the historic mural I would probably have never known about it. I look forward to exploring the rest of the murals this summer.


So that is just a small bit of Silverton. The town is also full of beautiful historic homes, a wonderful farmer's market, pet parades, and other small town festivities. The town is close to the Oregon Gardens so if anyone is headed out in that direction I would highly encourage a stop in Silverton, one of my favorite small towns out in rural Oregon. :)

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The garden is looking really pretty right now, there are plenty of flowers in bloom, and the birds, along with their babies, have been visiting the feeders all week. Here's what's happening in the garden this late May.

The Bachelor Buttons in the flower  bed are still producing beautiful blooms, the snapdragons have opened up as well, snapdragons are one of my favorite flowers and I have them all through the garden, they often plant themselves and survive the winter, so we have some mature snapdragons from last year as well as some new ones. I also added petunias to the bed to help it fill out a bit.


In addition to adding petunias to the flower bed, I decided to devote a whole barrel to them, I found this pretty little plant trellis, and I just loved the look of it in the planter with bright colored petunias. I usually devote all open planting pots to veggies, but this year I am just in love with flowers, so I decided I would plant more this year. I look forward to watching the petunias fill out and hopefully pour over the sides. I also planted another maidenhair fern in my little shady corner. :)


Some volunteer mystery squash has popped up in the bed where I had squash planted last year. I took out most of them but I may leave one of these just to see what they are. Otherwise in this bed I planted some mini pumpkins in both orange and white. I really wanted to grow a larger pumpkin last year and they just didn't do well, so I thought I would try the tiny pumpkins again. Around the boarder of the bed I planted some Walla Walla Onions just to see if they would grow here, if they do, that would be great, they are a Pacific NW favorite! Most of my peppers are doing great except this twiggy little one which the flock of Starlings got curious about and plucked off all the leaves, they left most of the peppers alone except two, one has come back, but this one isn't doing well. I will probably be replacing it or planting an Anaheim in its place.


The herbs are doing well, the chives, thyme, and sage are all blooming right now which makes the bees very happy. I love the purple sage flowers! I re-potted the chives and gave them a bigger pot so they could spread out more, I also re-potted the parsley and planted some new Italian flat leaf parsley. The crows have been visiting the garden regularly, they don't get into the veggies at all, what they are looking for are crackers that I have been putting out for them. They are very shy, so I can only get pictures of them through a small opening in the curtain. I am hoping the crows will be regular visitors, I have heard stories about crows leaving shiny little gifts, like beads or metal bits they find, in spots where they get fed, I think that would be pretty neat.


Just like the last few years I am planting two varieties of green beans, one green, and one purple variety. They are a summer favorite around our house.


I also planted golden summer squash and zucchini. So now the garden is all planted and ready to tend to this summer.

The starlings have had their babies, and my are they a noisy bunch! They have been going  through one to two suet cakes a day, as well as a feeder and a half worth of seed, and any bread I put out for them. The babies are so cute, they are learning how to feed themselves, but seem to prefer their parents to feed them, and they definitely let them know. All week I have able to watch the baby starlings being fed, they are nearly as big as their parents but a little fluffier and sort of a gray-brown color.


They have been perched in the Weeping Katsura tree for most of the days, as well as hanging out where I put bread down. Although loud, and although they ruined a pepper plant, I really enjoy watching them. This week I got to see them respond to the Kestrel in the area behind our house, which for one afternoon was actively flying over head pursuing the little birds. Just before he would fly over, the starlings would somehow know he was nearby and take off all at once along with the babies. The kestrel in flight is quite a beautiful bird, although I'm sure the Starlings and my other little birds don't think so!


One day last week I was bird watching and all of a sudden in flies about five large birds, the likes of which I had never seen. They looked almost tropical and I quickly grabbed my camera to snap a few pictures. They were as big as the starlings roughly, and very beautifully colored. Sort of an olive green yellow, with black and white, and a bright yellow across a very large light greenish beak. I was so excited to have a new bird in the garden!


Of course with its distinct markings and beak it was very easy to identify after flipping through my bird book, and I found out that they were Evening Grosbeaks. I had heard of this bird, but always thought it was smaller like a finch. They have been back to the bird feeders multiple times this week, and it has been fun watching them. Aren't they beautiful?


It is definitely the year for more birds in or around our yard, we have a Great Blue Heron that flies over head lately as well, I usually see them on the outskirts of town or in the surrounding countryside. But last week we spotted a beautiful huge heron in a little pond that is a couple streets over. Now I see, presumably the same one, flying overhead headed in the direction of the little pond.

So that's whats been happening in our little garden this late May, it has been a beautiful month out in the garden!

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