The 25th Hour ~karenjcardoza.com~

I’m not a big TV fan but I do have a weekly date with my favorite show, The Biggest Loser each Tuesday night. I can always be guaranteed a boost in motivation and a good cry each week.  No reason for tears yet in this episode but the cast is in the White House kitchen right now eating a salad picked from the First Family’s garden. It makes me pine for my garden right now and sad that it’s run it’s course for this year. Nothing beats fresh, organic vegetables grown at home!

NaBloPoMo 3

I love my organic garden and I love to do simple domestic things around the house.  Of course, I happened to pick one of the hottest days to do some canning but Mother Nature doesn’t wait!  I have a beautiful crop of cucumbers and the tomatoes are starting to ripen all at once so I put up a few jars of Bread and Butter Pickles and Garden Salsa…. Just the first of many, I’m sure!

Bread and Butter Pickles

Garden Salsa

We’re in the midst of a heat wave here and it seems like summer has finally arrived full steam ahead!  Patriots training camp wrapped up today with a double and while I really didn’t have time to make to both sessions, I did.  Since school ended, I’ve been swamped with errands and lots of To Do’s.

Recent Randomness:

*Garden has been exploding with the heat wave and I’ve been harvesting green beans, cucumbers, herbs, zucchini, tomatoes and lettuce daily.

*What I couldn’t get from my garden, I picked up at the Farmer’s Market at the Visitor’s Center on 295 today. I’ll be visiting each Tuesday through October.

*Had another productive Rendezvous Prep session on Saturday and once again had an enjoyable time with our crew.

*Actually went in the pool TWO days in a row!  The girls love it when we hang out there in yard for the afternoon. And Bells really loves the pool and twirls around and yelps to come in.

*Free is a good thing:  Since I leave my Old Navy Visa for the kids to use for gas, I manage to earn $10 and $20 reward coupons to use at the store. Yesterday,  I walked out with a bag of merchandise without paying a dime. (Two pairs of flip-flops, two metal water bottles, a yoga tank top and yoga/bike tights.)

*I’ve been riding on the Blackstone River Bikeway as much as I can although this week has been too busy and too hot. I hope to get another ride in soon.

*I’ve been getting quite a bit of reading done (both audio and book) since school let out last Thursday and hope to keep it going!

I’ve got a very busy week ahead with a full calendar of appointments and things that I need to do around the house and yard before heading on vacation,  then right back to school. I’ll be busy this week but once I get to NH it’ll be nothing but relaxing for me.  At least I’ll get one week to just do nothing. Where did the summer go?

Spring has sprung!

A time of new beginnings… and hope. <3  Things have been crazy here due to some medical things going on and the endless tests and waiting for answers.  I’ve pretty much been on auto-pilot for the last two months and have been pretty quiet in the social media/new media space. Thankfully for Pats fans it’s the offseason so they’re not missing much due to  my lack of podcasting. (Honestly though, family comes first so even if it was right in the the middle of the season, there probably wouldn’t be many shows anyway right now.) Hopefully, we get the answers we seek by the end of this week.

School is chugging along and with it, the dreaded Alternate Assessment hanging over my head… (I won’t get into how much I despise it and disagree with it here AGAIN…. let’s just say that it almost has convinced me to switch positions and leave the kids that I love teaching just to escape it, more than once!) It’s the time of the year that paperwork is piling up and I’ve got lots of IEP meetings to try to schedule as well.  I also need to really decide what I’m going to do in terms of taking more classes to apply towards my re-certification. I would prefer to work towards something that will give me some more options for the future rather than just take a bunch of random classes and end up with lots of credits.

I’m dying to get out in the yard and get my hands in the earth.  I’m planning on expanding my little garden and want to put in a raised bed across from it but we have to do some repairs to the fence first.  Last year, I had a great tomato crop and pole bean crop but many of my other vegetables didn’t do that well because of the cramped space. I’m hoping that my expansion will work out well and I’m looking forward to getting to work. My compost bins have been doing their thing and I’ll be uncovering my rainbarrels soon. (I’m such a nature girl.. always was and always will be!)

Although it’s grey this morning, I hope to get out to Lincoln Woods later today for a nice walk around the pond. I’ve also got the usual laundry, library, CVS,  and marketing to do before heading back to school tomorrow. Hopefully, I can squeeze in some reading time in there somewhere. Here’s looking forward to a productive week and some good news along the way.

Getting ready for tonight’s game vs. the 49ers later and wrapping up a busy bye week. Life has been all about school, working out,  and family stuff. Last week, Jake and I met up with Zip, Coach and Web and attended a viewing of The Hall at Patriot Place. It was an awesome visit to the Pats new interactive Hall of Fame.

I finally got the tailgate posted from the Miami game but wasn’t able to podcast this week. I’m hoping to get back into a regular schedule soon however, since we’re heading to San Diego for the second leg of the Pats west coast jaunt, I may not have time before we go.  Too bad I won’t be able to podcast during the long travel day. I will however, get to catch up on some reading and figure I can read at least 2 books during the trip.

Yesterday was the perfect fall day. I got up early, took the girls for a nice long walk and had clothes on the line early to soak up the sunshine and breeze.  I spent the rest of the day doing a super cleaning and putting up my fall decorations. I love the look of fall decor and the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of the season.

Right now, I’m just finishing my “Sunday Soup” which not only cleans out my crisper but will provide us with hot lunches this week. I’m also making some eggplant parmesean which I’ll end up freezing for a couple of meals. I really hate to waste food (who doesn’t?…duh) but throwing out organic produce by letting it rot is simply not acceptable. I’ve got a couple of mangoes in there as well that I’ll find something to do with this afternoon too.  Heck, while I’m in the cooking mode, I may even make some freezer meals for later use. It’s a perfect day for it with the cool temps and rain.

Today’s a Boston girl’s sports dream… Pats on at 4:15 then the Red Sox chance to sweep the Angels for the ALDS right after. Since the Dodgers swept and the Sox are a game away, the wheels are already spinning (not that we want to get ahead of ourselves but..) as the thought of a Manny & Torrey vs. Sox World Series is starting to take shape!

For now, I’m getting  back to cooking and soon will be gearing up for the Pats vs. 49ers ready to rebound from the Miami shocker two weeks ago.

Go Pats!!

I almost forgot:

The Patriots have released their training camp schedule through Monday:

FRIDAY, AUGUST 1
No Practice
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2
2:30-4:30 p.m. — Practice (CLOSED TO PUBLIC DUE TO CONCERT)
SUNDAY, AUGUST 3
2:30-4:30 p.m. — Practice (OPEN TO PUBLIC)
MONDAY, AUGUST 4
8:45-10:30 a.m. — Morning Practice (OPEN TO PUBLIC)
6:30-8:30 p.m. — In-Stadium Practice (TICKETED EVENT FOR SEASON TICKET HOLDERS)

PPS:  And THIS made me smile

(Now I’m really going to bed!)

I’m a huge water drinker and literally drink something from the minute I get up until the minute I go to bed. While I like water, sometimes I’m in the mood for something different. Instead of drinking bottles of premade diet green iced tea with citrus, I’ve been brewing a pot of green tea in the morning, adding my own lemon and ginger and putting it on ice to drink throughout the day. I prefer this to the bottled version for a number of reasons:

• It’s not sweet which is the way I like my drinks.
• There are no artificial sweeteners, colors, or chemicals in it.
• I can water it down as much as I like.
• One tea bag will brew enough for me to drink weak iced tea all day.
• It costs me just pennies instead of dollars per day if I were to drink bottled green tea.
• There’s no individual packaging to have to recycle (or pay for)
• Even the teabag and lemon rinds end up in compost bin.
• It’s fresh and delicious!

The second green tip is so simple that I’m amazed. I woke up the other morning after a huge rainstorm to find that I had lots of little tiny ants around my sink.  Not wanting to use spray chemicals or purchase ant cakes, I googled for a  natural solution.  Lo and behold, the suggestion to sprinkle baby powder along their point of entry to prevent them from crossing over it, actually worked!  So, my sink area looked like I had gone on a bake fest and failed to clean up the scattered flour for a couple of days but it was worth it!  So far, no more ants.

These are just two easy, cheap, and green solutions for every day situations which cut out the chemicals, saved me some money, and didn’t harm the earth. What do you do?

The 4th has come and gone and it seems like summer is flying by already. I’ve been extremely busy running errands and working around the yard but man… I LOVE MY SUMMER LIFE!!  It’s the simple things that really make me happy:

• Getting up early with my dogs and listening to the birds
• Walking every day
• Being with family
• Having a clean house
• Weeding a bit each day and staying on top of it
• Hanging a load or two on the line every morning
• Doing the daily crossword and sudoku puzzles
• Reading as much as I can
• Wearing my “summer uniform” (bike shorts, tee, sandals)
• Composting and living green
• Getting in bed early with my dogs, books, and laptop
• Rolling over and turning out the light any time I want

Of course, once Patriots Training Camp starts on July 24th, my life will change considerably as I’ll be “on duty” and my free time will be cut way back.  However,  I do hope to keep up with as much as I can.  For now, I’m planning on enjoying each and every moment of being home.