SewMona – Page 36 – A slice of my Florida life

Honeydews and Gardening

So, I haven’t mentioned my honeydews in a while…it seems that they need water to grow. Who knew?

I put plastic lids under the melons to keep the from rotting and to keep slugs away.

This one might recover. *fingers crossed*

This one is looking pretty dead.

This one looks great and of course it didn’t flower so there are no melons.

Honeydews need the summer heat and humidity so I’ll try them again in a few months. Never fear, I’ve moved on to my winter gardening idea. We recently got a new recycling can so I’m turning my old ones into raised beds. The one with the marigold has peppers planted and the other one has parsley on one side. I’m planning to put lettuce in the other half. I also plan to water them a little more regularly.

Footie Pants

I’ve updated my Footie Pants page to include pictures of different options. I also added a Pricing page. It is by no means all inclusive, but it does give you an idea of some of the more popular materials and requests. I’m always willing to work with customers. To contact me, please go to SewMona and use the “contact shop owner” link on the left-hand side.

Playground Rules

Recently we went to a little playground. There really wasn’t much there and it was geared for the 2-5 crowd (my youngest is 5). My kids were the only ones there, so they entertained themselves by doing all the things that were against the rules. They didn’t even know they were not playing the way they should – they were just playing, having fun, being kids.

Swings (there were two – this one and a toddler one).

The main playground

Seriously, there were a lot of rules for that little playground – some of the stuff they don’t even have there. Vertical ladders and whirls (if there weren’t pictures, I would’ve been clueless!)? What’s wrong with monkey bars and merry-go-rounds? Tell me why you can’t swing an empty swing? I think they forgot one rule under swings – don’t jump off a moving swing (surely that’s more dangerous then swinging an emtpy swing?). What kid doesn’t love to climb up a slide or slide down backwards or *gasp* head first??

The rules

I understand that if there were a lot of kids there, the rules are to help make it safe, but still, that’s a lot of rules. It seems that if people used common sense, it would go a long ways. Teaching kids some basic rules – like watch out for the little kids (I’m constantly reminding them of this), My kids know they can climb up a slide only if no one is waiting to go down. They’re taught that pushing and shoving are not acceptable. Hurrying someone up the ladder is a no-no. Going down the slide before the person at the bottom gets out the way is off limits (well, if it’s a sibling, then maybe it’s OK…).

In my world playgrounds are for having fun, trying new stuff (my youngest shimmies upÂ swingset poles), and not always following the rules. What about you?

UnStuffed Peppers

One dish I really like is stuffed peppers, except I don’t care for large pieces of pepper. As a kid, I just gave my pepper to my mom. I think she ate everyone’s pepper and not much filling while the rest of us ate just the filling. I revamped it to suit my family’s taste and to encourage my kids to eat the peppers (and me too). The original recipe didn’t have nearly enough seasoning for us, so I upped the amounts – you can adjust them to your family’s taste. This is also a great way to use up some leftovers – rice, peppers, hamburg, ends of bread, add some spices bake just long enough to heat through.

How pretty! I normally only use green peppers to make this, but I had some leftover peppers from a veggie tray so I used them.

2-3 peppers, diced
1 lb ground beef browned with 1 small onion (or 1 tsp onion salt)
Prepare 2 cups cooked rice

To the beef & onion, add the following:

1t salt
1t celery seed
1/2t paprika
1t curry powder
2T Worcestershire sauce

Mix well, then stir in the rice and peppers. Top with bread crumbs. Spread in a 9×9 pan and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Sunday Verse

Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Sunday Verse includes a simple verse, perfect for memorizing.