gc

Kimberly, I meant clothes line. I'm picking up more saying than I realize. A "clothes line" is a "washing line" here. Before you know it I'll be calling "the bathroom" the toilet! :) The concrete was easier than I thought and a lot less work than the shoveling and sifting of the soil is (ongoing job). Its coming along nicely though. leafy, we've actually had a warm front. I had my shoes off while I was working in the yard yesterday. For 4 days in a row the sun has been bright and I've not needed my fleece for the last two. I couldn't even tolerate a long sleeve tee yesterday, it has been wonderful and today is looking much the same. :) gc

I have a myspace page and I've just signed up for facebook. I don't know which one is better, but I know some of the myspace pages are hard to read because of the wall paper people chose for their pages. I live in England and my family lives in Louisiana. A few of them I talk to on the phone regularly, but I have a large family and the rest I only talk to when I go home for a visit. The day I joined myspace I got 4 or 5 hits from nieces and a great niece and 1 brother all wanting to connect with me. I like knowing what is going on in their lives and I also like them knowing what is going on in mine. Plus I can leave short comments or just a hello when ever I want to. What is the difference between myspace and facebook besides the liberal and conservative angle? gc :)

You have me smiling while reading your post. I love the "garden mama" name! We are still working on the building of our raised beds. Yesterday is was SUNNY! so we were able to pull up the concrete slab for the old washing line and the pole for the old washing line yea! Its sunny again today, which is wonderful, thank you God (two actual sunny days in a row), so we will get the ground leveled in one section and a retaining wall up for the second tier. Thursday I planted a number of young lettuce seedlings into a new pot for them to grow on in. Later on when the veggie beds are ready I can put the rest of them in there. My brussels sprouts are looking healthy too. I counted up my sweet pea plants, 45 annuals and 6 perennials! May in July sometime we will get weather warm enough for me to wear shorts <_< G

Kimberly, I just planted some pea seeds yesterday. I only like early peas too. gc

oldiesman, I've never on purpose bought low calorie, low sugar and low carb pre-packaged food for myself, I usually don't like the taste, except for the low sugar icecreams. But, I have bought sugar free chocolates before for someone else. I never buy the packaged type in grocery stores because of the nasty after taste. But, I do like the hand made chocolates that you get from a candy shop. If you don't bake, then my solution to low sugar, low carb, low fat, low calorie treats, the best I've ever tasted, is a ripe pear or fresh cherries. To me fruit is the best you can get for a sweet tooth treat if you can't bake a no sugar cheese cake! :) If you have a blender and know how to use it, then what I have made for years as a healthy treat especially when my son was a child is a type of shake. Ingredients I like to use: icecream, low fat and low sugar, low anything they offer as long as it has a decent taste 2 bananas, and/or a handful of blueberries, strawberries or any fruit that you think will mix in a blender. I bet mango would work milk ice cubes, just a couple to make sure everything is good and cold uncooked oatmeal, a handful or so grape nut cereal (not the flake type), maybe about 1/2 a cup or drop or two of vanilla or almond extract, but not necessary yogurt, with live bacteria, single serving size I'm guessing from memory on the amounts as I've never measured any of it or written measurements down, I've just made it up as I went along. Into the blender: Crush the ice, then add icecream, chopped fruit, milk, yogurt, extract, oatmeal, grapenut cereal in this order mixing between each addition. Once it looks like a shake and everything is good and chopped and mixed, pour into a large glass. You can change it around and add all kinds of things that are good for you and tasty. The oatmeal is good for your heart and keeping your cholesteral level low yogurt helps with digestion and helps you combat harmful bacteria grape nut cereal gives a nutty flavor to it, uses glucose as sweetner instead of sucrose Rum, if I ever had a thought of buying a Myoplex shake just to try it, its now gone! :) gc

Thanks Rum, that was nice of you, I appreciate the info! I love making pizza, but have never made a wholewheat crust. Tell your sister that I will check the splenda site out, thanks! gc

Twinky, normally my mother-in-law eats hers with lemon juice and my husband has marmalade, but he used to eat them with syrup. gc

I love baking goodies, I've done it for years. I'm now married to a man who had diabetes. I'm always looking for sweets that are low sugar or no sugar. Anyway, about two weeks ago it was Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and here in England it was Pancake Day. They are celebrated for the same reason. Everyone here cooks pancakes at some time in the day. So, in the spirit of things, I cooked up some crepes and filled them with fruit. They tasted really good and only had a couple of teaspoons of sugar in them and looked pretty too. Fruited Crepes Ingredients: 8 crepes (crepe recipe to follow) 3 bananas sliced thinly ½ pint strawberries cleaned and sliced thinly small pot of light yogurt with fruit, single size container (a little over a cup) whipped cream (recipe to follow) cinnamon Make the crepes keeping the finished ones in a slightly warm oven. In a medium sized mixing bowl mix sliced bananas, strawberries and yogurt. There should be enough bananas and strawberries in the mix so that the yogurt just covers them. Lay a crepe on a plate open flat, browned side down. With a spoon spread some of the yogurt mix across the center of the crepe. Then, fold the top end of the crepe right past the center just covering some of the yogurt mix. Next, fold the bottom end of the crepe up past the center so that it over laps the top fold. Top with yogurt mix, then a dollop of fresh whipped cream, sprinkle with cinnamon. Crepes: 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour 1 ½ cups milk 2 eggs 1 tablespoon salad oil Salt In a bowl, combine all ingredients and ¼ teaspoon salt; beat till smooth. Lightly grease a skillet or crepe pan; heat. Remove from heat; spoon in about 2 tablespoons of batter. Spread batter evenly. Return to heat; brown on one side only. To remove, invert pan over paper toweling. Repeat with remaining batter to make 16 crepes, greasing pan occasionally if necessary. I made larger crepes than what they describe, and when removing them from the pan they slid right out onto a paper towel once I loosened them in the pan. Fresh Whipped Cream: ½ pt of fresh double cream ½ tsp vanilla 2 teaspoons of sugar In a small bowl, using an electric mixer and the whisk attachment, mix all ingredient until you have a stiff whipped topping. It gets hard pretty quickly. Now you are ready for your dollop of cream. Easy Peasy, as the English say! gc :)

What a great thread! I've just made bread for tomorrow's dinner of tomato veggy soup. Fresh butter would be wonderful. I have chives growing in the garden mmm mmm! Now to check on how much cream I have. Devon cream is supposed to be one of the best. Thanks for the links and the new bread recipe gc :)

I don't have any added advice, but I will add to your list of herbs; Dill. I love making dill butter for carrots (only thing that comes to mind right now :) ) When I lived in New Orleans area I grew flat parsley, it did great and would self seed in the same patch. Have fun with your new garden patch! I guess I do have some advice, take leafy up on her offer of a rosemary, will be faster than from seed. I love cuttings from people! gc

Leafy, There are two ways to insert a picture into your post. There is the "insert image" button on the tool bar for inserting pictures from the web and then to use photos from your computer, look below the typing screen on the right hand side where it says "browse" and next to it "upload". Just like you would use for attaching anything from your computer in an e-mail, or uploading to picasa or photobucket. That's what I can't get to work. The other pictures I've uploaded on this thread were straight from my computer. If you get it to work, let me know. gc

Leafy, Usually I upload from my computer, but I've got a picasa site, I might try that. thanks. waysider, your picture of the anemones will put mine to shame. gc

A couple of weeks back my first flower bloomed. Its a purple anemone. I wanted to post a picture because its sooooo pretty, but for some reason I can't get the attachment feature to work. Anyway, yesterday my husband and I put one section of my raised beds together, I'm going to have three, all for vegetables! I can't wait until they are all done. I've begun sowing seeds; so far I've got yellow onions, leeks, Brussels sprouts, sweet peas; annual and perennial, gazania, trailing lobelia and alpine strawberries. I have a few more Feb. seeds to sow yet. Leafy, I've got daffodils blooming too, one pot of them. You see, there was this one small pot of them sitting on a table outside. The temp dropped here, the wind picked up and then it snowed. The wind made a couple of the leaves droop, I felt so bad for it that I brought it inside. I planned on putting it back out once the snow stopped, how little I know! the next morning I had two blooms! Now there are 7 beautiful daffodils smiling up at me! When I lived in New Orleans I grew sweet white corn in my back yard! People would stop to ask me about it. Its tougher and different to garden here, but I'm learning. It's kind of exciting too. I do miss my creole tomatoes though. Kimberly, will you post some pictures of your fountain when your done? It sound wonderful! AND I've finally transplanted the fuschia! Once I got it into the back garden, I hate not having a side yard, I made three plants. One standard, one very large bush and one that I put into the back hedge since it has no root system. I've taken hard wood cuttings from a fuschia before with good results, but this thing is BIG! I'll post a picture of the two when I figure out why I can't get the attachment feature to work. Twiggy, any snow where you are? gc

your cats are pretty! thanks for the link, I enjoyed seeing your pictures. gc

twinky, I've got bulbs coming up all over the place! 25 here, 30 there, 9 in that pot, 18 in that one, two there, 7 over there...and the bluebells are popping up all over the place (those were my transplants taken out of the front garden)!! I go out and check on them every day, its so unbelievable! Where I'm from it doesn't get cold enough to plant bulbs, and if you get one or two to bloom, well, they rot before the next year. The upsetting part is, when they all are in bloom in May, well I will be home in New Orleans. My neighbor reminded me the other day that I will most probably miss most of my bulbs blooming. wg, that's a nice story about the momma spider. We get big spiders here and I never mess with them. They will spin a web any place. There are times when you come out the front door and end up with web in your face. Then when you start up the stairs towards the car you get more in your face :) They love my fuschia, you can always find bees and spiders hanging around there. leafy, is that your cat pictured below your nick? He/she is so beautiful! gc

New words are invented all the time ;) :D Main Entry: fercious Part of Speech: adjective Definition: violent, barbaric with angry tendencies, a combination of ferocious and furious Synonyms: barbarous, bloodthirsty, brutal, brutish, cruel, fell, feral, fierce, frightful, grim, implacable, inhuman, inhumane, lupine, merciless, murderous, pitiless, predatory, rapacious, ravening, ravenous, relentless, ruthless, sanguinary, savage, tigerish, truculent, unmerciful, unrestrained, untamed, vehement, vicious, voracious, wild, wolfish; with underlining hateful, heated, hot, huffy, ill-tempered, incensed, indignant, inflamed, infuriated, irascible, irate, ireful, irritable, irritated, maddened, nettled, offended, outraged, piqued, provoked, raging, resentful, riled, sore, splenetic, storming, sulky, sullen, tumultous/tumultuous, turbulent, uptight, vexed or wrathful acts displayed. Antonyms: gentle, innocent, kind, mild, nonviolent, tame, tender gc

Kimberly, Its large enough that I'm hoping to turn it into 3 plants, one might work as a standard, but one of the other two might work in the bottom tier, thanks. I asked for a new water can for Christmas, one with a rose, neither of my other two have one, I didn't get it. But, I did get my trellis for my birthday this past year! My husband gives me roses usually for most occassions. Sometimes they are plants and other times long stemmed. Last year for Valentines he gave me 6 beautiful reds. I planted all 6 and ended up with one plant that made it. Did the same with some pink roses, ended up with one again. Right now I have three dozen rose stems in pots, hoping for one of each color; red, pale pink and peach. (Our 2nd anniversary!) Happy Birthday Leafy!!! gc

wg, we had a nasty year last year too. Very wet for most of the summer, we did have a couple of weeks of warmth, kinda sorta, well I was able to wear shorts for a few days. Hardly any sun though. I'm hoping for a better summer in 09, fingers crossed. My sweet peas are beginning to sprout, they and my onions are under my sun tunnel. I've got garlic planted, this will be the first time to try my hand at growing it. I've got loads of spring bulbs poking their heads out of the ground. (insert smiley rubbing hands together ;)) I'm attempting to transplant my husband's fuschia. The plant is beautiful, the flower is pink and dark purple and it flowers profusely. It loves where it is, but I don't. It is right smack in the middle of my front garden. Its so large that I can't plant anything near it, it take up 1/2 the top tier and shades 1/2 the bottom tier. I've got a place for it in one of the back borders. Here is a picture of the flower Leafy, my basil didn't do well last year. Will try again with the yellow and orange peppers you suggested. I've got the seeds all ready to plant. I sure hope we get more sun this year! gc

That I don’t trust any organization that claims to have all the answers or claims to be the only way. That I’m a lot wiser than I gave myself credit for being. You don’t have to know anything to be right with God. I’ve learned that non-christians are not the enemy I’ve learned how to be cynical, or maybe I’ve given my cynical side a lot more room to surface. I’ve learned that I can be myself and be loved and that this love is very freeing. (not sure this one has anything to do with twi) The rest, I’m still unsure about :) gc

After reading some of the stories of what went on, I do sometime feel the fool. gc

This is interesting thread. I didn't get into twi until the late 70's or maybe it was early 80's, but I had already met God by then. The church where I was going at the time was wonderful. Most of the people there were either teens or 20 something year olds-long hair and blue jeans everywhere. We were so young and innocent then and we loved God with everything we had. We would regularly go to the French Quarters to witness, sing praises to God with abandonment as we drove around in the old delivery van (and I can't sing a lick!) and it seems that our life style had changed over night from drugs to Jesus people. Once I was part of twi everything changed, it went from loving with your heart to loving with your head. It was so hard to live up to expectations. I'm so sorry that Jim Doop has died, I was thinking of e-mailing him about his book :( I guess I can't now. gc

Hi hated the term household holiday and well ho ho was just plain goofy. I thought it was disrespectful. I wanted to giggle every time someone said "ho ho". I never used either titles. Of course, I never told anyone my thoughts on the matter since I thought I knew so much less about the bible and God. I had Christmas every year, baked goodies, sent Christmas cards to people who would appreciate them, decorated a tree and my son got gifts. I love Christmas time. gc

cheranne, Did you see this one? A 5 year old doing her rendition of the same rap song! :) gc

leafy, thanks for the suggestions, I'll look around to see what can be gotten here. Most people I know here grow tomatoes in a greenhouse and they have wonderful success. I didn't know that about the peppers! :) gc