Book Review: Million Dollar Diva

Remember back here when I reviewed Safe Money Millionaire?  I really liked that book.  And that's why, even though my reading-anything-other-than-textbooks time is limited, I was really intrigued by the idea of this new book by the authors of Safe Money Millionaire, and my friend, respected fiction author, Tristi Pinkston.  In essence, she was going to become a Safe Money Millionaire guinea pig.  She was going to open up her financial situation to Brett and Ethan and see if they could offer her a brighter future than what she was currently picturing for herself.  She was swinging the doors wide open, with a refreshing honesty that most of America can relate to behind its closed doors, and through her personal journey, offer hope to others.  

And she did!  I loved this!  

The book is called Million Dollar Diva, and it is written to give women financial advice for the different challenges that we might face, but the advice is equally pertinent to men, or, as in Tristi's case, couples and families, since this is a journey that she and her husband embark on together.  In a marriage, both people would need to be equally committed to make any financial goal work, and this is no exception.  

In the beginning of the book, Tristi is bogged down with debt.  $33,000 worth, if I remember correctly. She and her husband didn't rack up that debt spending lavishly and traveling the globe, but like many, it was here a little and there a little putting things like groceries and diapers on credit cards when ends just wouldn't stretch to meet.  They faced setbacks like employment struggles and health crises.  And though they were conscientious and frugal, they just didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel.  They certainly didn't see a fulfillment of financial dreams like a bigger house, the ability to vacation, and a secure retirement.  But Brett and Ethan helped change all of that, bucking conventional wisdom, and it is all spelled out in the book, and available to you, too.  

(From the back cover:) In this book, you'll discover:

* The 5-step, simple, safe, and predictable process to change living paycheck-to-paycheck to enjoying wealth and security.

* How to give yourself a $400 per month raise without asking the boss or working a minute of overtime.

* The secret formula of how to completely eliminate your debt in 1/3 the time and save tens of thousands on interest costs in the process.

And more.  Seeing Tristi's financial future changing on the pages of the book was really exciting and inspiring.  She felt empowered in her life to bring about financial security for herself and her family.  The amazing thing is that the authors of the book are offering anyone a free copy of the book (there is a $5.95 shipping charge) so that you can experience this empowering change too!  I highly recommend that you get your free copy and read it and then take action immediately!  I really do.  This offer for the free book is only good through June 15th, though, so act on it, and tell your friends!

You can go to the website to take advantage of that amazing offer: http://www.milliondollardiva.com/

If you're reading this after June 15th, then you can buy a copy here.

This, my friends, is way cool.

Thirty-Nine

Aiden brought me breakfast in bed this morning.  And late last night, he had Lyndsay drive him to the store where he bought me the tulips.  It made me cry.  Tulips are my favorite flower and my 12 year old son knew that and spent his own money to buy them for me.  Then, while I ate, he went downstairs and did the dinner dishes from last night that I'd left in the sink, and cleaned up the kitchen.

Conor's offering was one of his chocolate milks, a bowl of strawberries, and those two boxes of raisins.

And some flowers he picked from the front yard to put in my hair.

I thought it would be fun to have our dinner and party outside in the carport/patio since it was such a nice day.  Adam and Aiden set up the tables and chairs and we all worked to get the salad fixings ready.  The lettuce we picked from the garden.  Lyndsay cut up a watermelon and made my cake.

After we ate, we thought we'd play a game together before cake, but Conor was so excited for presents, so we did that first.  I love his expression in this picture, as I open the gift that Lyndsay got me.

She gave me this beautiful (LOVE the color!) cardigan, short-sleeved.  It will be perfect with a white tee or tank underneath it.  And bless her heart, she bought a size small.  Crossing fingers on that one.

Then Conor gave me his present, really from Adam and Conor.  He wrapped it himself, and wrote me this sweet letter all by himself. (I put a copy of it at the bottom of this post.)

Then he said, "Guess what it is, Mom?"  And the reason I'm laughing so hard is because once again, Conor blew the surprise.  Conor has a long history of blurting out gifts and other surprises. This morning, while I was enjoying my breakfast in bed, he said, "Dad and I are going to give you a new alarm clock."  I thought, "yeah, right, that's random."  But when I tore back the paper there it was, a new alarm clock!  Apparently, it was his idea for my gift because he told his dad that mine was "all dusty and old."
 

When I was first looking at it, I said, "Does it play CDs?" To which my family said, "Mom, CDs are so over."  Well! I still like CDs.  So there.  

Missing my Dylan boy in this picture.  But he called me today.  Twice.  And we had a great talk.

Then we got our Settlers of Catan game going.

Lyndsay painted some Love Tree for her boyfriend.  La La land.  So sweet.  And we had music playing on the laptop.  It was so nice, really.

And then, finally, it was cake time.  Definitely not 39 candles, but we scrounged up what we could find.  And I made a wish.  I was thinking this morning about what my wish would be, and how, inevitably, my wishes are always about my children.  Isn't that the way it is for a mother?  Even my wishes belong to them, just like my heart.

And here's a copy of Conor's letter to me.  I'm used to reading little kid "I spelled it myself" letters, but in case you're not, it says, "Dear Mom, I do love you and I want you to be my mom forever.  Happy birthday.  [comma] Conor Consolo".

It's been a wonderful day.  Now, let's hope I can figure out this newfangled alarm clock and get up on time in the morning.  I have more to say about turning 39, but I'll save that for another post.  Soon.

Another Garden Post, Maybe Too Soon (But I Just Can't Help It.)

We've had rain off and on this week and so, though I went out to pick green caterpillars off of my brassica plants, I was really impressed with the growth in one week, and had to take pictures.  I found 9 caterpillars, by the way, and I squished them.  I'm sure there are more and it's making me want to pull up all the plants and just be done with them.  Those stupid white moths, acting all sweet and innocent.

 

Salad, anyone?  The lettuce is growing beautifully.  So is the zucchini next to it, though I noticed that white mottling on a few leaves.  It doesn't look like powdery mildew to me, and it doesn't come off when rubbed, but I'm not sure.  I never had powdery mildew on my zucchini plants before, but I will probably spray them with chamomile tea, just in case.  

Look how big the tomatillo plant has gotten!  And it has beginning blossoms!

This is one, big, Granddaddy broccoli plant.  It's huge.

The Black Seeded Simpson lettuce has grown, and the red bell peppers have blossoms!

Here's a view of that second bed.  Since I know you all keep up with my garden in your mind's eye, right?

Here's the first bed.  The chard is growing faster than it's being eaten now, so that's good.  And that delphinium in the lower right hand square has really grown back.

Can you see progress?  This is bed 3.

 

I think the tomato plants have grown a lot!

And here's a cucumber plant, with new growth.

The watermelon plants are a little bigger, but they need more sun, so they'll have their day.

The peas have probably grown a foot.  No blossoms yet, though.

This is that yellow crook-necked squash plant that was a little wimpy and sad looking last time, remember?  It's doing very well settled into its new home.

And look how much my Eva's Purple Ball tomato plant has grown!  I'll be trellising it in no time!

Here are the other two cucumber varieties, growing slowly and steadily.

I included this photo as a "What NOT to do" tip.  Something was eating my basil.  I could never catch it in the act, so I wasn't sure, but I saw the droppings and figure it was some kind of caterpillar.  I put mason jars over my plants to shield them from the little mooches, thinking it would act as a greenhouse maybe, but it didn't.  It cooked them.  So, I'm out two basil plants and will have to replace them.  At least in the end, I took them out and not those insects, right?  Who's laughing now?  Wait. . .

My delphinium has grown even more with beautiful flower stalks!

Back to the first bed, here's the same view I took before of the cabbage plants. Despite the green caterpillars, I do think cabbage plants are beautiful.  And did you know that cold cabbage leaves are good for breast infections?  I was pleasantly surprised to be taught and tested on something so "natural" in nursing school.

Here's the other zucchini plant nestled in between cauliflower plants.

And here is my act of mercy for the day.  This first bed had my cherry tomato plants last summer and I've been pulling up volunteers by the dozens every day.  I decided to leave this one and see how it does, since the cauliflower and cabbage will be coming up soon, and I didn't plant any cherry tomatoes as of yet.  We'll give it a chance.  Give peas a chance?  No, give tomatoes a chance. (That was for you, Dad.)

Morning in the Garden

It's taken me a little over a week to get these pictures posted, and things have grown since then, but I wanted to put these up so I can have a comparison in a few weeks.  Since starting the nursing program, gardening has become more challenging for me, but also more necessary.  It really soothes me, helps me to slow down and enjoy growth, whether the tomatoes' or my own.  Growth sometimes seems imperceptible day to day.  That's why consistent evaluation is important, as is record keeping of some kind.  Gardening reminds me of that.  So, while I am loosening my expectations on the level of Spectacular that I hope for my garden, to allow myself some compassion for this particular stage of life that I'm in, I will do what I can, and share the journey with you.  Here are the first pictures of the year.

This is the first bed, and it has mostly cool-weather crops in it that have been growing for a few months.   In that first row are green onions, and some lettuces at the end, then in the second row are the remaining cauliflower plants, and in the third row are the cabbages, which I've never been able to grow before for some reason.  But all of these were from seeds I started and something just went better this year.  So far anyway.  I haven't yet actually harvested a cabbage.  And you can see I've had some cabbage worms driving me nuts.  I go out every day on a Search and Destroy mission, but man those things are hard to see.  Anyway, in the last row are some delphiniums (another in that first square in the lower right hand corner of the pic that was destroyed in a big rain/wind storm, but is growing back.) and another blue flowered plant (can't remember the name), and some chard, which I'm having insect trouble with.  I had several squares of carrots planted in this bed, and they all mostly germinated, only to have their tops eaten by squirrels, which really fries me.

Here's the second bed, again finishing up the cool-weather crops.  There are leeks and more nibbled chard in the first row, broccoli in the second and third rows, and some flowers and baby cucumbers in the last row, which will take over once the broccoli comes out.  Hopefully.

The third bed has Roma tomatoes.  Yes, I know they look ridiculous in their huge cages this early, but I needed the visual for spacing them, and I figured I might as well, since sometimes I wait too long and then it becomes quite tricky to cage them.  There are 5 plants here (Oh, there's another in that second bed, above) three in the back and two in the front.  In between the two in the front is another bush cucumber plant.  I haven't had luck with cucumbers in the past, probably because I started them from seed too late and then transplanted them too early, but this year I bought organic plants and set them in. They all have new growth, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Against the back trellis, I have two Sugar Baby watermelon plants.  I've been reading about growing more plants vertically, and they are my experiment this year.  The watermelons themselves don't get too big on this variety, and I've read that grown vertically, the stems will compensate and grow thicker to support the weight, and they can also be supported with little slings made from pantyhose.  We shall see.  Stay tuned.

Here's the back long bed with Sugar Snap peas climbing their way up the trellising.  There are about 50 or so plants.  In previous years, I've always grown the snap peas and the shelling garden peas, but I decided against the garden peas this year.  They take up a lot of room for really, very little harvest, once shelled.  It takes a lot of little peas to feed a family, even though they are super delicious.  The edible podded peas, like these, are well-loved by my family and offer a more substantial harvest.

In front of the peas are crookneck yellow squash, two plants, and then down at the end there is an indeterminate (climbing) heirloom tomato, and two other varieties of vining cucumbers (white ones and Japanese ones), and some basil in front of them.

The peas, doing their thing.  I should get blossoms any day now.

A yellow squash.  This was right after planting it and it hadn't taken off yet.  It's doing better now.

Here's my new tomato for the year, Eva's Purple Ball, which is not actually purple, but pink.  But the leaves are a nice shade of purple underneath, if you can see that on the bottom leaves.

Here are the two cucumbers that I will train up the trellising.  White ones, for fun, and a Japanese cucumber.

Here's a watermelon.  I did buy a number of organic plants this year.  Usually I grow everything from seed, but I just didn't stay on top of things this year with school, so I did what I could and then "cheated."  That's part of my compassion for myself.  Do what I can.

Here is one of the Roma plants.  Last year I planted so many varieties of tomatoes, and I find that what I want most is the Romas for sauce, so I stuck to those this year.  I buried them very deeply this time, to allow for a better root system.  Tomatoes respond very well to that.

Here is some broccoli, which was all grown from seed.  The main heads have been harvested, but they continue to produce a number of offshoots, so I'm letting them hang out a bit longer.  If you can see it, though, there is a bush cucumber plant there on the bottom, tucked in that square, which will be demanding more room just about the time we kick the broccoli out.  And that's a poppy plant there on the left side.  California state flower, you know.

Another bush cucumber plant.  There are four of them.  I hope at least one does well.  If all of them do, please come to my house for cucumbers.

There's that little cuke-guy under the broccoli.

Leeks!  Only two squares of them, as a trial.  I've never successfully grown leeks, either, probably because of too-early transplantation.  I wanted to try again, but not use too much garden space on an experiment, so I only have a few of them, but they're doing well so far!

Rainbow Chard.  Buffet-style.  I do not know what is eating it, but it's starting to get on my nerves.

Baby Lola Rossa red lettuce plants.  These are much bigger now.  I think they are so pretty.

These are at the far end of the second bed.  Three red bell pepper plants and some Black Seeded Simpson lettuce.

I'm excited about this one.  Last year I tried to grow tomatillos, and not one seed germinated.  Grrrr.... But I want tomatillos!  So, I bought a plant and we'll try it that way.  This guy is in the far corner of the first bed.

Parris Island Cos lettuce (AKA Romaine).  I need to plant another seed in that corner.  I'll do that today.

Other lettuce plants, and a so-far-untouched Swiss Chard plant.

This is the first bed from the other side.  You can see where the little green worms loved my cabbage plants, and a little of that chard plant has been nibbled on.  There is a green bell pepper plant in between the two chard plants there, and just out of frame in the front is a purple bell pepper plant.  Let's see how that works out, shall we?

The delphinium (LOVE!) and a beautiful cabbage plant.

The green onions.

Ah, there it is!  An Emerald City zucchini plant.  There are two in this first bed, and they will have more room once the cauliflower and cabbage come out.

Another kind of delphinium.  Delphiniums have always been hard for me to grow too, for some reason, so I keep trying.  I put this one outside the garden beds, along the back fence (there are two actually), and I was so thrilled when they shot up their stalks and started blooming!  Now I want the darker blue variety.

And there she is, growing, growing!  As are the weeds around my compost bin, I see.

Dear Aiden,

        I have a job for you.

Love,
Mom