This has been an interesting week, to say the least.

Wednesday morning, Little Man and I loaded up my SUV and we drove down to the lake again. I don’t know how long we will be down this way, but suffice it to say we will not be returning back Nort. Squatch is looking for a new job, and I’m looking for housing, further south in Wisconsin, only about 2 hours or so from the rest of our families in Illinois. It was not an easy decision to leave, but you’ve got to do what’s best for your kids, right? Little Man is so excited to be back at the lake; we spend almost all day outside, adventuring, going on trail rides, playing in his pool. He loves it, and when he naps, I’m able to escape the room and head out to the kitchen or bathroom. I have tended to just sit at the little table next to the bed and work on the computer, though. We miss Squatch, but we check in with him every day, and were able to Hangouts chat him this afternoon after naptime.

Anyway – I’m doing a bunch of project around the house this go-around. Project #1 was to clean out and organize the spice cabinet. It was a quick and easy task, thankfully. I’m trying to convince my mother to purchase a bunch of identical containers to transfer everything to; I am a fan of everything looking crisp and clean, and being the same size, they can be better organized and even stacked. There were so many packets of onion soup mix (7 to be exact), ranch, chili mix, etc. I told my mother that if she wants them, I will help her make her own homemade versions. I’ve got the recipes to do so, and I would much rather use those than the store-bought ones. Who needs all those preservatives, anyway? Plus, you know just what is in your mixes if you make them yourself. I think she will find that she uses these pre-packages mixes a lot less often than she thinks, so there is no need to be hoarding so many of them.

I’m also working on a few D.I.Y. projects around the house. Project #2 is working on a self-watering planter for my mother’s herbs. My cousin built this amazing planter box out of scraps she had laying around. I’ve installed wheels on it, so my mother can move it around the deck as she sees fit. It will be self-watering, based on some instructions in a book she found. Here’s a pro tip for y’all – make sure you know just what you’re looking for when you run to the store to pick up supplies. Also, double check at home that you actually do have the pieces you thought you did have. This project is currently stalled, as the drainage tubing we need is not in the basement or garage, so we’ve got to pick some additional stuff up this week. Anyway…I’ve stapled a shower curtain to the box, and we’ve gotten the 4″ corrugated drainage pipe laid out. We tied it together to help it to relax, and get out of the tight coil it was in when we got it. The final decision was to put it in a circle, connecting the open ends. I have to wrap it in landscape fabric, to keep any soil from getting into the pipe. Then we’ve got to install the fill and drainage pipes (need to get some drainage tubing), fill the whole dang thing with soil, and add the plants. I also suggested we find some old windows, hinge them in a triangle shape, and put them on top, so it can act as a greenhouse of sorts. Having it be a triangle will give my mother’s herbs the space they need to grow and not be stunted.

I’ve got my feelings on my parents’ decision to do the hose in a circle – I’m not a fan of it that way, but whatever, it’s their planter. I wish it were deeper, because as you can see, there is not a lot of space between the top of the pipe and the top of the planter box. We should have gone with 2″ piping, instead of the 4″, just based on the dimensions of the box. I also would have preferred to have more control over the actual dimensions of the box, but we work with what we have, right?

Anyway – that’s that for now. I’m pretty much done with FaceBook. My posts will still automatically upload to my page there, but I do not plan on doing much more with it. My MeWe page is still running, and is where I’m going to be doing the majority of my posting. If you are not already there, join MeWe and follow my page – https://mewe.com/p/libertyalldayblog