Early Spring means hard work...

Ole...Punxsutawney Phil says Spring is coming early!  Well I believe it.

Living in Houston,Texas the weather is very unpredictable.  We can go from the low 30s to almost 80 the next day.  Basically chilly to extremely hot and humid. Awesome! Right now it's raining, it's pouring and the old man is snoring.....(you know you started to sing this tune...lol!)  

Now is about the time that the Hubs and I start pulling weeds and mulching.  I wait to cut the trees till March.  Sometimes we get that 1 last hard freeze that kills everything and that sucks.

This coming weekend we'll be working in the back yard.  As you can see from the pic below we're going to be super busy and I foresee backaches, broken nails, splinters, thorns and lots of yucky bugs to swat away.

Look at all of this.....I promise you there is a sprinkler attached to a water hose and a row of moss rock that outlines the bed under there.

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Easy Lime Syrup!

This will probably be the last post for Summer....not the last post ever but the last post about anything to do with Summer.  Labor day is around corner and that usually means bye bye Summer.  The Fall season will start soon and I can not wait.

Okay back to the post.  

Last weekend while running errands with theHubs, he promised to take me to Sonic to get something cool and refreshing while we endure the "awesome" heat here in TX.  Well we totally forgot to stop.  I said don't worry, I'll see what we have at home.  While creeping over the Internet I found recipes for snow cone syrup.  They are all pretty much the same and so easy I decided to give it a try. 

Yes, Yes...I know I'm all late to this band wagon of cold, cool, fresh beverages, but this is the first time I ever tried this. I was super excited and theHubs totally loved it.

This has to be the easiest thing to make EEEEver!!  Well I wanted to to flavor it and all I had were limes.  One of theHubs employees has a lime tree and she gave us a bag full of limes.  I'm really thankful to all our friends who are always sharing their fruits or veggies with us.  I was in the middle of making frozen lime cubes, since I don't like to waste things, I used some fresh lime juice to flavor the syrup.

Okay here is what I used and what I did:

2 cups of sugar to every 1 cup of water.   

Fresh Limes

For this batch I used 2 cups of water and 4 cups of sugar.  Brought it to a boil, making sure the sugar was dissolved and the mixture was clear.  Took it off the burner and while letting it cool, I used 8 limes to flavor the syrup.  Then I added a couple of drops of green food coloring. There you have it, Lime Syrup......YUMMY!

Of course it was complete agony waiting for the syrup to cool down.  But when it finally did I just used my blender to choppy chop the ice!  Served it in styrofoam cups like the snow cone place does it then hand a cup over to theHubs with a spoon and a bendy straw.  

It was sooooooooooo good and I want to make them all the time now.  

 I just used a jar to store the rest of the syrup in and popped into the fridge.

*edit - You can flavor the syrup with kool-aid packets....I sooo totally didn't believe this.  But yesterday I made some more syrup and added a cherry flavored packet...oh my....it was yummy.  Two thumbs up from the hubby as well.

Everyone have a fabulous week! Thank you for stopping by.

Sharing at all the awesome parties on my party link page and here: 

It's So Very Cheri

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Spray Paint project!

I ♥ spray paint!!!  Why, because this stuff can pretty much change anything into something pretty to look at.  Frames, furniture, glass, even shoes!!!!  I'm still trying to convince theHubs why I have so many spray paint cans or why I keep buying more....lol!!

I spent one of these past Saturdays spray painting outdoor plant pots.  They were due for a upgrade.  When we first moved into our new home we had no plants what so ever, the front door looked sad and lonely.  My mother-in-law gave me this potted plant, it is a type of Ivy.  The pot was painted white, probably with house paint not sure and after 7 years the paint has chipped away.  I sanded down as much as I could as you can see from the picture below.

It's no secret, I love easy projects.  This was super easy too!  I didn't remove the plant, because I was lazy and I said I loved easy projects.  So I just covered the plant with a plastic bag, tucked in all the long Ivy arms and pushed wooden skewers in around the bag so I wouldn't get spray paint all up in there. 

Ta-da!!  Fresh and white! 

I picked up this salmon colored pot at a garage sale for $1.00, yay!!  I washed and dried this baby and it was ready to be painted.  I loved the shiny color it had, it just didn't go with the outdoor color of the house.  So I just chose another shiny color to make a statement in the entry way.   

LOVE IT! Who doesn't love a nice turquoise?

Now, they are ready to show off!

I just put them here to take the picture.  They have since been moved, the blue one is on the walkway now.  

Everyone have a fabulous day, stay cool if it's hot out or stay dry if you're getting the rain! 



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"fruits" from the garden

Sadly, not my garden.  I don't even have a garden and the last time I checked, none of my flowers were sprouting fruits or veggies.

This yummy snack was from my friends garden!! She was sweet enough to give me some. 

I ♥ cucumbers!

They're so refreshing to eat.

These were washed, peeled, sliced and seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon.......DELISH!!

Cucumber facts:

source

Fruit or Veggie

From a scientific perspective the part of the cucumber plant that we enjoy is a fruit. The cucumber has seeds and is formed from the flower of the plant. At the same time, a cucumber is a vegetable as well. How can a cucumber be a fruit and a vegetable you might ask? The term vegetable is solely used in culinary terms so as far as cooking is concerned, a fruit can be a vegetable, but scientifically speaking, the cucumber is a fruit.

Much of the nutritional value of the cucumber is found in the skin. 

Cucumbers are high in vitamins A and C, calcium, and fiber.

Mostly water and nutritional yumminess, cucumbers are very low in calories.

• Cucumber Fact #1 : Cucumbers are natural diuretics used to help lose weight!
• Cucumber Fact #2 : Cucumbers sold in supermarkets are coated with a thin layer of wax for preservation that gives the cucumber an unnatural shine. Most of the cucumbers in the home garden are naturally dull green.
• Cucumber Fact #3 : Soak slicing cucumbers in salt water before slicing to suck some of the moisture out of the cucumber. Sliced cucumbers leak water when sliced.
• Cucumber Fact #4 : Sliced cucumbers release water and can be used to moisturize the skin. Slices of cucumber placed on the eyes is a common remedy for wrinkles around the eyes.

Enjoy some today!

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Wow....who knew that my 200th post would be about cucumbers!!  lol!!  I'm happy to have this blog to share tid-bits from my life, share my crafts/recipes or post sillyness from the day!  Thank you to everyone that has become a new reader of AboutBloggingTime!!  I try my best to respond to each and everyone that comments....even when you have a no reply or no email to reply to, I reply on the post.  So don't think that I don't read them.

It's the middle of the year, I wonder how many posts I'll have by December......hmmm that's sounds like I just challenged myself. (",)   

Everyone have a great day!

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In full bloom - Framed Flower Art

Who doesn't like LOVE flowers???  Well you're the weird one if you don't!  My favorite flower to receive is Tulips...in any color, but my all time favorite are Yellow Tulips!  Getting flowers, any kind for that matter for no reason is always a pleasant surprise.  My second all time favorite flower is the white Peony.  Really, these are soooooo beautiful.  I love them when they are fully bloomed or just barely opening.  

Okay, enough of my flower rambling!  I decided to make a piece of art to resemble a fully bloomed peony.  Can you guess what I used to make the flower?  I was also able to use a piece of fabric from my scrap busting bin and I also reused a garage sale find frame.

Sorry for all of the pictures....I couldn't decide which ones to show, so I just kept most of them.

Have you guessed yet?  It's really simple.

To make the flower petals was fun and easy...but the burning of my finger tips, not so much .

The flower looks like porcelain here doesn't it.

I really enjoyed making the center of the flower....after it was cooled I then spray painted it. 

You figured out what was used yet.  C'mon they're repinned all over Pinterest.

I wiped down the frame....my bestie found it for me at a garage sale for - dun...dun...dunnnnn 25¢

I cut out a piece of cardboard to fit the frame, then wrapped it in the piece fabric.  For the backing I just glued a piece of newspaper so you couldn't see all the glue and tape.  Sorry I forgot to take a picture of it.

Then I hot glued the flower onto the fabric.  After the glue dried I stood the frame up and put glue into the crevices.  I don't want it to fall off after it's put up.

It looks really great if I say so myself.  Well of course I'm gonna think that, lol!!

The three different textures used were wood, fabric and plastic!! 

Fine....

I used spoons for the petals and forks for the center! See, now you're thinking...really or whaaat!

Cool huh!!

Now it's ready for hanging.  I just have to decide how I should hang it.  The hook is at the top, the way the pic above is.  But I could easily add hooks to hang in the other way. 

Leave comments letting me know which way to hang it.

↨ upright

↔ sideways

   I'll tally up the comments next week and hang it up.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a fabulous week!


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Today's Creative Blog

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Pictures and Words - Wednesday (i guess the opposite of Wordless Wednesday)

Well, well, well  look who decided to bloom this past weekend!!

 

My Passion flowers.

 

These flowers look absolutely gorgeous.  Sadly the bloom will only last about a day. Luckily there are tons of buds on the vines, so I'm happy that I have been getting about 5-7 blooms everyday since Saturday.

They look like they could be from an alien planet. I know that there are about 500 different species, well according to the Internet ('~')! You know how reliable that is, lol!  Some vines will bear the passion fruit.  My vines never have, but I'm happy they don't....who knows what animals I'd have coming in my yard.

As you can tell from prior posts, I do love to be outside in the yard tending to plants.  I'm always watering, trimming and talking to them.  Yes talking....and I said I would never be a "talker" to plants but I do.  I know I'm not the only one. 

Happy you stopped by to take a look!



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