Growing Dandelions

Anyone who knows me knows I love and are very passionate about what most consider weeds.  Dandelions are considered weeds cause they kill grass which for some apparently are desireable.  Grass when uniformly cut and lush looks very nice but you can't eat it or survive on it.  Dandelions you can and they are the only plant I know that literally looks two different ways.  One as a flower and one full of seeds.  These remarkable plants also can grow in any conditions.   So, I brought a dandelion home that was bursting with seeds and put it inside an empty tea container.  I added dirt from outside, no fertilizers or special elements in any way.  I wet the dirt and now I wait.

Here is a pic of the first day.  Then I watered.  April 20th, 2013

The first buds appeared on May 1st, 2013.  The stem you see is the dandelion I dumped into the bottle before adding the dirt from which I got the seeds.  

May 3rd, 2013 - As you can see many seeds sprouted nicely.  I have no watered since the first day as the soil still looks very wet.  I am keeping it outside and did not cut the bottle at all but there is no cap on.

May 21st, 2013 

More pictures to come as they grow.  

27 June 2013 - so my dandelions are officially dead.  The storms that came through in the past few weeks have drowned my dandelions.  Dumbass me forgot to poke holes in the bottom of the container so they got too much water.   I guess I need to wait until next year.  I still have the bottle on my back porch so if there is any activity I will update you.  *sad face. 

21 April 2013

I created a new Home Page where people can find all my blogs.  I am creating Graphitti Enterprises as my parent company.  I am starting a new venture now that I have graduated from college with my Bachelors.  That is transforming trash to treasures,  you can find that blog here.  No real explanations yet just pictures of the items I have created from trash.  Right now I am transforming paper into bowls.  We used Raven's gift cards from Amazon and ordered bottle caps but she spends all of her time drawing these days she doesn't even have time for reading.  We haven't gone to the library for books in 4 weeks.  It is all DS and drawing.  But its her life and she can spend her free time any way she wants.  I still haven't heard from my Angel, but I have waited 16 yrs I can give her a few more.  It has to be in her time not mine.  I got my first direct referral on my Clicksia and Incentria PTC sites.  I am up to $60 on my mechanical turk account doing mini jobs.  I complete mini jobs on Neobux also to up my cents to renew and recycle referrals.  I've uploaded a few new classes of papers to my School Paper blog.  My Lila is venturing outside on her own for the first time, I am very nervous for her but I pray she will be ok and that her guardian angel watches over her and brings her home safe.  This is me, signing off for now.  Talk at you all again soon.

14 February 2013

Well Happy Valentine's Day to all!  Again its been a while since I checked in.  I am on week 3 of my second to last class of my Bachelors Degree.  Yesterday I turned 40, my Aunt took me and Eric to eat at the local all you can eat buffet, and got me a strawberry swirl cheesecake.  I bought myself a cheesecake sampler and some red velvet cupcakes for my class.  I can't believe all these anonymous posters are hitting up my thanksgiving post with all kinds of irrelevant postings generally designed to promote their own website.  It is standard practice for people trying to promote their own blog but totally wrong in my opinion.  If you are gonna promote your blog you should at least read the blog on which you are making your post and make it relevant to what the post actually is taking about.  So stupid. 
I am on the third book of the Dark Matters series by Phillip Pullman.  I was pretty pissed at his writing ability at the end of book 2 and was praying as I got into the third book some of the disconnected pieces would start making sense along the way.  Some of it has indeed started straightening out.  I am thinking of creating another blog containing book summaries of all the books I read.  I may make it accessible by Raven too cause she reads alot.  It might be interesting to see how the blog shapes up with her and I creating blogs on books we read.  We read about one book at day currently, sometimes only 3 to 5 a week.  Im gonna ask her.
Well, I will sign off for now.  See y'all in a bit!!

16 - 28 November 2012

My last two weeks has been a roller coaster of good and bad.

November16th, there was a Family Fun Night at my Lila's school.  We all walked over there, it was five dollars for one slice of pizza, one small bottle of water, and a bingo card.  My two daughters and I went.  We got our pizza, water, and card, found a seat.  We saw a few people we knew from DM and Lila saw one from class.  They had a bunch of baskets to raffle and they were five dollars for an arms length of tickets.  I spent 10 dollars and dropped my tickets in a whatever looked good.  Then we started to play bingo, the game was fun and winners got to pick a board game from their LARGE stack on the stage.  We didn't win a single game but Lila had fun and that is all that counted.  After the game was over they started selling full pizzas for $3 to get rid of what they had left.  I went up and with my last $6 bought the last two pizzas.  Then they started pulling numbers for the raffle baskets.  That was were our luck started,  I won one, two, three.. FOUR baskets!! 

The first is a movie night basket, which was a $25 gift card for AMC, a coupon for a free appetizer at Applebees, five boxes of movie candy and a large bag of plain popcorn in a nice red bowl. 

My second basket was a tupperware basket with a tupperware pitcher, cookbook, and two orange peelers

My third basket was a dessert basket, three pie crust tins, three pie fillings (Chocolate Creme, Key Lime, and Banana Cream), two boxes of cake/brownie mix, two cans evaporated milk, two bottles of oil, a small jar of cherries, and two icing all in a nice blue basket. 

My last basket was a thanksgiving basket and with not having any real money I was very thankful for this basket as it had thanksgiving staples in it.  This basket had gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, oil, olives and I can't even remember what. 

I stood in the back of the room with my four baskets and two pizzas and looked at my girls and tried to figure out how to get it home (Eric had the car at work).  Raven picked the dessert basket to carry, Lila picked the movie basket, I stacked the pizza boxes on top of the thanksgiving basket and Raven picked up the pitcher and we proceeded to walk home.  It isn't a long walk but it was long enough to make me think I wasn't gonna make it with all my baskets.  My forearms were on fire and had gotten to the point of going numb by the time I actually got to our apartment.  (this is one of those times I told myself, God wouldn't have given me all these gifts if I was not capable of getting them home) Once I was home with the baskets the girls and I stood and drank in our luck. 

November 17th, we decided to treat the girls and took them to the hibachi grill buffet.  Saturday lunch is the best price and we all love the time together.  After that, I took the girls to the church bazaar up the street.  I spent a bit of money on a few necklaces, a few raffle tickets for two different sections.  A third section had the gift baskets like family fun night but there was 52 baskets instead of 10 and over 300 entries.  We didn't really need any more baskets but since it helped the church raise money I did it anyways.  The only basket I really wanted was the wheelbarrow full with 30 bottles of alcohol.  LOL.  But I didn't win.  I did hear two familiar names called out though.  The basket Lila really wanted was won by one of our DM mothers and the basket Raven really wanted was won by my Aunt.  Funny how things turn out sometimes.  LOL.  We didn't exactly get out of there with no wins though.  There was one game that you bough tickets and opened them to reveal numbers and if your number matched the number on the prize you won that prize.  The girls walked past and saw a batman skateboard.  Neither knows or ever have ridden a skateboard but they both really wanted for totally different reasons.  So I spent a dollar for three tickets for Lila and another dollar for Raven.  I had the change from the five and then I was like, my turn so gave up another dollar.  We won nothing.  I looked at my two dollars and my two girls and gave them both another one.  Lila pulled all her tickets and won nothing.  Raven pulled her six tickets, one, two... and reaching for a third got two so instead of pulling them apart she just dropped it and grabbed another.  That third ticket turned out to the the number for the skateboard.  Since her Dad's nickname is Batman, she was super excited...

We left there feeling very happy with our weekend winnings. 

November 18th,  I got an extra text that I had almost $200 in food stamps added to my account, I can only assume its the governments way of helping for the holidays.  So we went shopping!  First to the Walmart for a pan for the turkey, and a few other things, then to the grocery store for our food for the week and some thanksgiving staples, then to the wine and spirits store for some Alcohol.  Sometimes Eric is such a girl, he couldn't decide on what he wanted.  I took like 5 minutes, and then we stood in the corner for like half an hour while he thought and thought.  Back to the van after than and then to the Popeye's for dinner since it was really too late to cook at that point. 

November 19 - 21, all we did is work and school  and nothing bad or good to report they were just normal days. 

November 22, Thanksgiving - I started the day with thanking people in facebook posts and I did that all day.  Whenever I stopped for a minute or thought about it, I thanked another person in my life for something.  We had a full day ahead of us and Lila and I started cooking.  We had a list of what we needed to do that day. 

• Deviled eggs
• Cucumber salad
• Apple Snicker Salad
• Veggie Dip
• White Bean Dip
• Pie
• Cream Cheese puffs
• Turkey
• Stuffing
• Gravy
• Mashed Potatoes

 But first I made a drink! Three Olives Cherry Vodka 1.5oz, 1.5oz Amaretto, four ice cubes, two cherries, and the rest of my 5oz whiskey glass with coke. 

Then we made veggie dip which is just a Knorr Veggie mix and 16oz sour cream

White bean dip:

• 1 can white beans, mashed.  
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• 1/4 milk
• 1/2 lemon, squeezed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• salt and pepper

 After it was made we added a bit more milk and yogurt to take out the lemony flavor a bit.  Raven loved it but not Lila or I. 

Cucumber salad was up next

• 2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced
• 8 oz sour cream
• 1 green onion
• 1 tsp dill weed
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper

 

Then our Apple Snicker Salad

• 3 apples, green is what we picked
• 3 regular sized snickers, frozen
• 8 oz cool whip

We put it all together and then ended up adding another half a container of cool whip since it looked like coated apples.

Then the deviled eggs, this recipe is for six eggs and I cooked 23 so I just timed by four.

• 1/4 cup mayo
• 1 tsp mustard

Then I made the cream cheese puffs

• Cresent rolls
• Chive cream cheese

I rolled out the crescent rolls cut it in smaller pieces and dolloped on the cream cheese, closed up the sides and baked  by crescent rolls directions.  The balls are Lila, LOL

Once that was done Lila and I relaxed, Raven woke up and cleaned the kitchen and Eric started on the turkey.  He also cooked the potatoes, stuffing and gravy done the turkey was done.  I am not sure what time we ate but it was late.  Afterwards, relaxing and checking my facebook, I got word that a very good friend finally succumbed to the cancer that was killing him that morning.  He was diagnosed a few weeks ago with the most aggressive type of cancer.  He was only 26.  Raven happened to be sitting next to me looking at all the thanksgiving comments and saw the post and broke down in tears for about 10 mins.  Lila was confused, she read the post but couldnt understand why Raven was crying and I couldn't tell her.  Eric had to explain what RIP meant but Lila didn't really know him.  Raven called him Uncle.  For four days I prayed it was a joke.  Monday was the day I finally accepted that he was gone and it was not a joke.   I still get schoolfeed updates from his facebook page which is really weird and makes it hard to accept he is gone.  It also brings back when Suzy died at age 26 in 1996 and makes me hate 26yrs old.  Its hard to be positive when your heart is sad but I am trying.  I mostly feel bad for all the people who were really close to him.  I worry for their sanity and their grief.  Ziva said it best I think last night on NCIS, "You don't get over, you only get through"

TTFN  

1 November 2012

Hello all, There have been a few new developments in the past few months since I wrote last. I am still working at DM, but I have moved into my own apartment from my Uncles' house. His illnesses has caused him to be out of work and need more money from people living with him and no offense to him but if I am gonna pay that much for a place to live it will be my own place. Besides this way he gets to ask for what he needs from other tenants and won't have my crazy kids making all kinds of noise in his house. LOL. My book is still on the Kindle list but I have only sold 4 copies. I have been talking to Dorrance Publishing but they want money up front for their publishing services and I just don't have that kind of cash. So I will have to tell them no dice. They said some nice things about my book but I didn't bring the letter with me today to quote them. I wrote Amiee an email through Facebook and waited until midnight of her birthday to send it. According to my facebook message app she has not even read it. I am sure she has been online but either my app is wrong or she saw my name and just doesn't want to read it. I think you can mark emails as unread but not sure if you can on Facebook. It hurts a bit but I am more content after the email than before. I know I have done all I can without pressuring my daughter to respond. I will continue to hope each day that I will hear from her soon but I am prepared to wait. I have already waited 16 yrs, I can wait a bit more. I have started my last half semester of school. Only four more classes to go until my bachelors is complete. I get my last disbursement on the 9th, and I wont have to worry about funds any longer. I got a statement that says my tuition is frozen at this price until graduation. After this class I get a week off and during that next class I will have two weeks around Christmas off. After the new year I will finish out that class and have two more. The last class is Astronomy. I hope the weeks off recharge my batteries to finish those last two classes. Lila is back in Ridley and loves her new school and the friends she is making so much more than Chester-Upland district. She is finally brushing her hair every day, mostly so I will put it up every morning for school. I tested her sugar the other day just for the heck of it and it was 271, way too high. She has an appointment on the 5th for the doctor and I think I will have her tested for diabetes as well as ADHD. She is a bit worried about what the high number means for her. She doesn't like shots or needles and freaks out a bit. Raven had a really bad stint with her asthma a few weeks back. She had a ER visit and three followups before she was well enough. She is doing well now and only on controller medicines. She is still in the Cyber school but wants to go back to regular school now that we are in a good district. I asked her to wait a few weeks to get settled in before we tackle that move. She was fine with that. The girls got all dressed up for Halloween in like a half an hour's notice. Got a good load, Saw one of Lila's teachers and little Kiersten from Developing Minds. They had fun and got loads of candy, some of which I stole for work today. LOL. I got altered one of my blog pages on "The Most Profitable Marketing Links" it was updated with some statistics of the sites I frequent and I moved the banners around to my favorites on top. I typed out a letter for individuals to do what I do and I want to distribute them around to my friends and maybe to some individuals on the street. Well, I think my update is done. Hope its not another two months before I write again. Check out my other blogs and hit the donate button. All profits go to getting a real home for my family for the first time. Thank you in advance.

28 July 2012

     So, it has been a while since I have written and a bunch of stuff has happened.  I can't believe I have neglected my blog for two months.  Work and school is pretty much the same, I am on my 14th class of my bachelors, I am so ready for it all to be done.  I don't want to school anymore.  After almost four years of late nights, worrying about getting online for class, completing assignments and final exams I have had enough.  7 more classes until I am done, less than a year to go.  April 8th, 2013 I will be done and will not be pursuing any further education.
     My uncle has been in the hospital three times for heart issues, and my aunt has diverticulitis. She has been up and down for the last month and the rest of us are all left floundering at work trying to do the impossible.  Developing Minds just isn't the same without her there each day.  As much as I want her back at work, I want her home taking care of herself and getting better more.  My sister-in-law left her boyfriend, they have been together since they were teenagers and have two daughters.  She isn't feeling successful right now and I hope she will find her way.  My adopted sister is going through the same kind of thing, she is strong enough to do it on her own.  I know I don't have to worry about her.  Her kids are old enough to help her too.  They are both in my thoughts all the time.
     Me, you ask, well... I have been contemplating something I never thought I would get the chance to do again.  If everything works the way I want it to, I could be back in Florida next summer.  I am still plugging away with my PTC sites, trying to build my downline.  It will take a bit but this might just make me financially stable within a year.  It is time I had some good luck and get what I have always wanted.  Oh, and I published my autobiography on Amazon Kindle.  Here is the link if you wanna check it out,  My Heart, My Soul, My Story
     I wrote this for my Angel, Amethyst Rose Eldridge.  I named her after my birthstone and favorite color in the world.  If I bought my own jewelry it would always be an amethyst.  Rose just seemed to fit.  Eldridge cause it is my name.  There is no father listed on her birth certificate but it was never true that I didn't know who he was or where I could find him, that was a lie my father forced me to tell the judge.  I have no seen my Angel since she was two.  I have no held her since she was five months old.  She will be 18 in three months.  She will be legally an adult and my father can not have me thrown in jail if I email her. (Yes he did threaten that a few years back, I have the letter to prove it)  I wrote this autobiography not for money but for her, so she could read the truth without having to face anyone or ask any too hard questions she might want to ask.  If that is the path she chooses to take, it was just to give her another option to finding the truth.  My one hope is that she finds the book and reads it.  It isn't a pretty story, or a happy story.  It is a hard story, and some tell me it is not complete.  My son asked me for the whole story a few years back and took two phone calls to do it.  We spent hours on the phone with him listening and me talking.  If he can forgive me for everything there is no reason to think she will not, after all my son was the one hurt the most.
     I love my babies, and there is nothing in this entire world I would not do for them.  The book as sold three copies.  It was a bit scary to think someone out there is reading my story.  The third copy was bought my my Suprise's mother, but I have no idea who got the first two.  Now that the book is not being listed near the top of the list it isn't selling anymore copies but that is ok for now.  As I said, this book is not for money but for truth.  It is so the truth is out there and told by the individual who it all happened to.  It is the inside story.  Not being told by someone on the outside looking in.  My father's version is like looking into a box from a ripped corner, not only did he not see the whole picture he wasn't even capable of seeing the whole picture.  How can you tell the truth when you don't even know the truth yourself.
     Anyways, The book is out there now, and now I can concentrate on my fiction stories.  I have four in the works and thinking about publishing a collection of poems.  I have enough for two books.  Look for them if it interests you.
     87 more days..............

14 May 2012

Sitting here at home taking the day off work after throwing up all night.  I hate calling off work, I hate spending the day stuck in my chair.  My stomach is being wishy washy today, but I have put the time to good use.  I check in at all my PTC sites and clicked on the available ads, and at IconBux I had enough to buy my first referral package.  It is quite exciting.  That makes two sites with rented referrals.  I sent up a PTC diary for IconBux so anyone could follow my journey.   NeoBux is now working with 9 rented referrals.  Not seeing a huge difference but there is a bit.  But 9 referrals is not alot in the scheme of things.  I am so excited that two of my sites have movement.  Of course if anyone reading this wants to make money online I can show you how, just go visit my sister blog "The Most Profitable Affiliate Links" and view the PTC sites I have joined.  Not all are there as of yet but I am getting them up.
As always hitting the donate button and making a donation will help me toward my ultimate goal of buying a real home for me and my girls.  Thanks for visiting!