It’s been three weeks since our last update and I have made some progress on this project.
Here is where I left off last time:
Please visit the other blogs in the SAL to see what they are up to. You won’t be dissapointed!
See you in three weeks 🙂
Today I started the transplant process for the tomato babies!
The key for seedlings in my experience is not to put them in direct light as soon as they emerge from the soil. Instead put them under a florescent light then they don’t get leggy. I just use a plain old florescent tube light but if you can afford the fancy grow lights go for it!
These tomato seedlings have been up for about 3 weeks and they are ready for transplant because their second set of leaves are forming. I am trying to do all of this on the cheap so I came up with using the cardboard boxes that I have access to instead of using expensive peat pots to transplant the seedlings into.
I cut the box so it is about 3 inches deep and for drainage, I cut holes in the bottom of the box. Make sure to wet the soil thoroughly ahead of time to prevent dry pockets. I used my kitchen sink sprayer to moisten the soil in a large bowl.
After spreading part of the soil in the bottom of the box I started to loosen the seedlings from their cramped container. Yes, I re-purposed sour cream and cool whip containers (don’t judge lol).
When separating the plants take care not to break their necks. Only lift the plants by the leaves and not the stem. If you break a leaf it’s not a big deal but if you break its neck, the plant is a goner. Loosen the soil at the base of each plant with a spoon or even your fingers and very gently guide the plant and root out by the leaf.
I placed the seedling in a pre-formed hole in the soil and then back filled the soil burying it right up to its neck. That’s right… bury the stem because it will create a stronger plant and along that buried stem roots will form. Be sure to pat the seedling in firmly so no air pockets form under the soil and there is good root to soil contact.
Water well. I use a squeeze bottle so I don’t hit the plants and knock them over with too much force. Now you can put them in a sunny window and water when the soil seems to need it, every 3 or 4 days.
Watch them grow super fast now. I always say a tomato plant has taken root and is growing strong when the stem starts to turn light purple. You’ll see.
These tomato plants are Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, an heirloom and there are 48 of them. I definitely don’t need 48 so when the time is right I’ll be giving some away.
See you in a few weeks for an update. 🙂 -MM
Home Equity Loans can be wonderful things if you are doing a major project on your home, like renovating your kitchen. A new kitchen adds value to your home but unfortunately when you take out a home equity loan just to consolidate debt you don’t have a pretty new kitchen to show for it.
We took out a home equity in 2014 for $17,000. It is due to be paid off in August of this year. I don’t want to wait that long though. I want it gone, and I want it gone NOW. We owe just under $1900 on it. I am paying that sucker off next month. Seriously. I mean it. I don’t care if we have to eat peanut butter and macaroni all month, that home equity will be history by March 31st.
I have a plan. It may not be popular with my family or the financial experts but sometimes you just gotta take a leap of Faith. For me it’s all about cash flow. Paying this loan off now will not save us much on interest but that’s not the point. Paying it off will free up $328.00 a month and that burden that has kept our hearts and minds hostage for the past 5 years will be gone. Paying off the Old Navy freed up $300 a month and saved us thousands in interest a year.
I also realized after looking at our cell bill that we were paying $26 a month just for protection for two cell phones. Oh yeah…you bet I canceled that real quick! Scott’s cell phone was just paid off this month and it’s 2 years old so if he drops it in the toilet we’ll just get another one. The payment for that phone was $30 a month. Hey, now look at that, we just had our bill go from $297/mo to $239/mo. Every little bit helps!
I had a feeling all last year and I continue to have it this year, the feeling I should pay off any loans that are attached to our house asap. I don’t know if it is the political climate or what but I am listening to that feeling. I paid off the home equity line of credit with a no interest credit card and now I want the regular home equity gone too.
Say Geronimo my friends! I’ll check back in soon. Hope your debt is shrinking too! -MM
A couple of months ago I popped an unfrosted cake into the freezer to use for later and forgot about it. I came across it while I was looking for something else in the freezer and thought I would bring it out to have it as dessert last night.
Cream cheese frosting sounded better than butter cream this time and I had blueberries in the freezer that I could thicken and use as a filling. Perfect!
With all the ingredients on hand I formed a plan in my mind and set to work making a blueberry filled, cream cheese frosted white cake. Yum right?
Step 1, I used a 6″ baked cake, excess cake sliced off to create a flat surface. I created a frosting “dam” to prevent the filling from oozing out.
Step 2 fill it! I thicken 1 cup of frozen blueberries with about 2 Tablespoons of flour and about 3 Tablespoons of sugar (or to taste). Microwaved it for about 2 minutes then stirred, then another 2 minutes until it thickened. Then I cooled it before using it on top of the cake reserving about half of the thickened blueberries for the blueberry drip.
Step 3 place the second layer on top with the bottom of the cake facing up.
Step 4 crumb coat. It really helps to do a crumb coat to seal in all the crumbs. After frosting with the crumb coat pop it in the fridge to harden up for about 15 minutes (go stick a load of laundry in while you are waiting 😉 ).
Step 5 final coat of frosting.
Step 6 Blueberry drip. Using the leftover blueberry mixture dump it all right in the middle of the frosted top layer then carefully spread the blueberries towards the edges being careful not to just slop it over the sides. It should delicately drip down the sides.
Step 7 using a large star tip gently pipe pretty peaks onto the blueberries. (You can never have too much frosting right?)
Step 8 slice and enjoy!!
I hope you enjoyed this fun little step by step on decorating. Hopefully this gives you some ideas! Happy decorating 🙂 -MM
Good morning from windy New York! We are expecting a high wind storm the next 2 days with winds reaching 75-80 mph. I didn’t get a lot stitched these last three weeks. I have been catching up on my reading instead of crafting but if the weather reports are right I will be getting a lot more stitching done if the power goes off.
We have a new member to add to the group this time. Welcome Sharon!
Here is where I left off with Crown of Thorns:
I worked on the bottom of his beard which was mostly whites.
If you have a chance, please visit the other members of the group by clicking on the links below. We are all working on fantastic projects.
See you in three weeks! -MM
Hi all! I looked back to see the last time I posted a monthly result and I haven’t posted results since October! Yikes! Sorry about that.
Between Christmas shopping bills and property tax bills that came due in January I am a little behind in paying off debt but I do have some progress to post about!
In October I posted that at the end of the month we were down to owing $30,531 in debt.
As of now our debt owed is $27,011. That’s down $3520.00. Remember I talked about owing for medical bills for a night in the emergency room that added up to at least $3500? Well I haven’t gotten the bill for it yet so as of right now that $27,011 is still a solid number.
Now that, the Old Navy balance is gone I need another bill to focus my energy on so this time I am picking a bill that has a smaller amount owed, our home equity loan. Right now the balance due on that loan is $2,207.46. Seems a much smaller goal to pay off than that $6500 Old Navy balance right?
If I can get this bill paid off quickly it will free up that payment of $328.00/month which will give us a much greater cash flow.
I told my husband every time we pay a large bill off we will add another $10 to his 401k retirement a week. Doesn’t sound like a lot but when his employer matches that amount it will definitely add up. So far we have increased his 401k contribution $20/week since December.
How are you doing on your debt? Do you use a budget? See you next week! -MM
It’s been three weeks since our last update and we have had multiple snow storms even blizzards in that time so boy did I get a lot done on my current project!
Here is where I left off last time which was my first post on this WIP:
And here is Jesus’s haunting face which is coming through beautifully:
It’s been an interesting experience working on this project. I had some trouble with knotting and misplaced stitches which led to some rip outs but once I started on His eyes is was like I was building him from bone structure to finally flesh. I should have taken a photo of that in-between process to show you.
I have never stitched a human face like this before.
Hopefully we won’t have any more blizzards for a while but I didn’t mind get stuck in the house stitching!
In our Stitch-a-long group we blog our progress every three weeks. If you are interested in joining our group please contact Avis, the first name in the contacts below. And don’t forget to check out the other member’s blogs and the projects they are working on by clicking their links. You’ll be amazed at the talent. Welcome to new members Jocelyn and Carmela!
See you again in three weeks! -MM
Avis,
Claire,
Gun,
Carole,
LucyAnn,
Kate,
Jess,
Sue,
Constanze,
Debbierose,
Christina,
Kathy,
Margaret,
Cindy,
Helen,
Steph,
Linda,
Heidi,
Jackie,
Sunny,
Hayley,
Megan,
Catherine,
Deborah,
Connie,
Clare,
Mary
Margaret,
Renee,
Jenny,
Carmela,
Jocelyn
I’m back! I am so excited to be back with my favorite stitchers. I was gone for quite a while because I wanted to concentrate on getting my debt paid down. Now that I am well into my 80 week challenge I decided it was time to get back to stitching.
I received a kit for Christmas that I have been quite taken with for years. It’s a chart of Jesus’s face with His crown of thorns which is by Vervaco. Thank you mom for the very thoughtful Christmas present! This image is haunting to me. Just beautiful in fact.
I haven’t stitched a kit in years so I am trying not to mess us to often because I don’t want to run out of a color.
Here is the kit image and here is how much I have gotten done so far. I have had to rip thread out twice! I’ll get there though.
There are a lot of other stitcher in this group. Please visit their blogs by clicking on the links below. You will be pleasantly surprised at what you see! See you in three weeks! -MM.
Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Catherine, Deborah, Connie, Clare, Mary Margaret, Renee, Jenny
It’s been an interesting two weeks. I didn’t think I would get much extra debt paid off this month because I have Town/County taxes to pay, our planes tickets for our trip to Ireland to save for and now these medical bills which just got bigger today.
But get this… we had an unexpected surge of cash this week which lent me to paying our taxes in full (Thank you to Him!), that’s one off the list. We have saved about $500 for plane tickets so far and from the advice of our pastor I am going to apply for a grant through the hospital to help pay for the medical bills from that emergency room visit. We will see what happens.
Remember when I posted about reading all the mail you get? A few weeks ago I got another set of checks from our credit card company where I could use the checks to pay off anything I wanted and the interest rate would be just 2.99% for a full year.
I thought a lot about those checks and I even called the credit card company which was through our credit union and asked about the details. They were in fact valid checks and I could use them for anything.
So after really thinking about it, I decided to sit down with my favorite Credit Union rep yesterday and I asked her what she thought about paying off our Home Equity Line of Credit with one of the checks.
She said “well it would certainly save you a lot of money in interest.” The interest rate on the loan was 15% and the amount I owed was still the exact same amount ($5000) since I took it out 8 years ago. I took the line of credit out in 2010 to pay for the equipment to start my bakery and I still owed the same amount because I kept drawing from it.
Without even thinking about it anymore I told her to do it. I wrote the check and she gave me my receipt and I paid it off. In my mind it’s one more thing that’s done. Yes, it’s on a “credit card” but if you use them correctly they can actually set you free of debt. I have one year to pay it off before the interest rate goes up and believe me I intend to do just that.
Every day I work on our debt. Every day. You have to stay on top of things my friends. Keep working and using your magic to get out of debt. There will never be a dull moment!
See you next week! -MM
I survived the holiday baking season. The only thing I can say without going into details is that it was awful by the end and I am so glad it’s over! Terrible to say that isn’t it?
During that time though I am happy to report a very good thing and very bummed to report a very not so great thing.
Here is the very good thing:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=547540485763700&id=1455853581377715
I paid off the Old Navy card!! All $2048.00 left on it. In full. Felt amazing!
Now for the not so great news… Remember that emergency room visit I had in November? I am getting a whopping bill for over $3500 from the hospital from it. That’s after insurance took care of only about a $1000 of it. Gotta love that high deductible plan we all have right?
I was devastated at first but not for long. We have to keep going. I will get that $3500 paid off next is all. I am not worrying a single second about it. Yes it sucks but the Old Navy is gone and it’s never coming back.
We accomplished paying off $6500 in debt in 5 months. That’s a reason to celebrate in my book!
I hope you all had a very Happy Christmas and please enjoy your New Year. It’s always a new beginning. -MM
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