DeCluttering and Donating....#1 Trip for JULY

We just keep chugging away with decluttering and donating here at Chez Sluggy.
Here is what left my house this week.....

ALL NEW ITEMS
2 Postcard Books
1 Hello Kitty Puppet
1 Mens T-Shirt
2 Power Rangers Bop Bags
1 Trinket Box
1 Kid’s Toiletry Set
1 Star Trek Trading Cards Box
USED ITEMS
5 Chess Books
1 Hand Vac
1 Vintage Photo
1 Pfaltzgraff Cookie Jar
2 Kiddie Puzzles
1 Kid’s Hooded jacket
3 Boy’s Shorts
2 Pillowcases
1 Bath Towel
1 Glasses Case


And these.....

18 Cherished Teddies Figurines
  (Thelma, 2 x Wally, Sheep/Donkey, Japan, Tiny Ted-Bear, Jeffrey, Angela, Grace, Ted,
   Winnie, Ryan, Ronnie, Suzanne, Mitch, Lindsey & Lyndon, Penny Chandler & Boots,
   Strawberry Lane Accessories)

Total Items for this Donation....45

April Total....96
May Total....72
June Total....45
July Total....45
Yearly Total to Date....258 Items.

Yearly Food Bank Donation Total....78

Yearly Total for all Donations so far.....336

In other news......I am working on a food stockpile donation as well but that's not going to happen until the heatwave breaks and I can stand to be in the garage for longer than 5 minutes.  I've got the JFSC check ready to go for that as well.


Sluggy

Is It Christmas in July?.....Sort of....

I am a bad bad mommy I guess.
I am 2 days late in wishing my oldest son a Happy Birthday.
Plus the most recent photo I have of him is from Christmas.....lol

He's 19 yrs. old now so I guess he survived growing up with an inept old mom in spite of himself.

Happy Birthday Matt!!

And don't do anything I wouldn't do....er, maybe just go with the Happy Birthday part on second thought....  ;-)
See you next month!

Sluggy aka MOM

Go Win Something from Marilyn!

My blogging buddy Marilyn over at Marilyns Money is holding a Giveaway for a $60 Gift Certificate to
CSN Stores .  Marilyn blogged about the cool Upholstered Headboards she found when she went poking around their site
But you can use the Gift Certificate on anything they sell....if you win it! ;-)
Go enter HERE.
And tell Marilyn I sent ya!

And don't forget to enter my Cheerios Giveaway too....just click on the link in the right side bar.

Sluggy

CHEERIOS "Love What You Do" Giveaway!

First off let me say, we are not a big cold cereal family.  My kids are teens now and really don't care much for those sugar-coated cereals they use to beg me to buy for them in their younger days.

We have become a family of FLAVORFUL CEREAL Lovers instead.  Flavorful meaning NOT filled with sugar so you can actually taste the grains that make up the cereal. We do like to eat oat cereals, both cold and hot types.

One of our favorite cereals is Cheerios. They taste good plus Oats are good for you, so it's a win/win in my book.
#1 son and I adore the Multi-Grain variety of Cheerios.  Hubs prefers the classic Regular Cheerios, the Daughter likes the Cheerios with the Yogurt Bursts and #2 son will eat whatever variety is in the house, as long as I have plenty of ice cold milk to drown it in. lol

So when MyBlogSpark offered me the opportunity to review Cheerios and tell my readers about a FAN-tastic Contest, I was all like, "sign me up!"  ;-)
If you are a country music FAN &/or a baseball FAN, listen up!
*****************
Cheerios is partnering with country music superstar Martina McBride and professional athlete Cal Ripken, Jr. for the “Do What You Love” Contest. McBride and Ripken will recognize two lucky people with prizes that will make their hearts race.

One music lover (and a guest) will tour the Country Music Hall of Fame^® and Museum with McBride, hang out with her in her recording studio – the world famous Blackbird Studio in Nashville, Tenn. – and even get VIP tickets to one of her upcoming concerts.

Another lucky baseball enthusiast (and a guest) will have the chance to hang out and play catch with Ripken and to tour the Ripken Youth Baseball Academy in Aberdeen, Md., with the “Iron Man” of baseball himself. In addition, the winner will throw out the first pitch at the Cal Ripken World Series and sit in Ripken’s reserved seats at a Baltimore baseball game.
**DH's second most favorite baseball team is the Orioles and we went to college in Baltimore during the same time that Cal's career with the O's was beginning, so I KNOW hubs would LOVE to win this prize!!

Now through July 23, 2010, you can submit your 150-250 word original story and photo, showcasing what they love to do. For a chance to win the experience of a lifetime with McBride and Ripken, visit http://www.cheerios.com/love today.
***************
So get yourself a piece of pencil and a paper and go win that bad boy!

And while you are working on your story, take a few minutes to enter my Giveaway for a Cheerios "Do What You Love" Prize Pack, just like the one I received from Cheerios and MyBlogSpark.

This prize pack includes one box of Cheerios and a $25 American Express^® Gift Card that you can use towards doing what you love.
Food & Money......need I say more?!?!

Wanna Win It?
If you would like to win this prize pack just leave a comment about what your most favorite thing to do is,  along with your email address. 

Receive Additional entries by....
1. subscribing to my blog(if you already subscribe just tell me that)and leave an additional comment for this entry.
2. follow my blog-click on the "follow button" on the right sidebar and leave an additional comment for this entry. (If you already follow just tell me that in an additional entry/comment.)
3. Post on your blog about this giveaway and leave a link to that post, then leave 2 additional comments for 2 more entries.

This Giveaway ends on July 20th(Tuesday) at 11:59pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time.  This Giveaway is open to US residents only.
I'll post the winners name on July 21st(Wednesday) and contact them via email. If they fail to respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be selected.
Good Luck!

Hey!.....You can also check out Cheerios on Facebook! Visit Cheerios on Facebook to “Like” the brand and keep up with the latest news from Cheerios.

***Disclaimer***
This Giveaway was sponsored by General Mills/CHEERIOS and MyBlogSpark. I was supplied with product and encouraged to blog about the product and offered an identical product to give away to someone in my readership.  The opinion of the product expressed here is my own and I was not paid for endorsing this product.

Sluggy

Sunday at the Farm & In the Garden

It was a beautiful day on Sunday so DH & I took a ride to a couple of farm stands I like.

I got....
6 ears of corn
6 pickling cukes
5 yellow squash
3 large tomatoes
2 bell peppers
2 zucchini
2 onions
1 patty pan squash
1 qt. of wax beans

I paid $12.55 for this local goodness.

Other than the corn which I grilled already for Sunday's dinner & the tomato I used for the BLTs at lunch, here are my plans for it all....
*make a batch of bread & butter pickles to eat off of all week
*make fried zucchini
*make squash casserole
*make stuffed peppers-I have half a leftover red bell pepper I'll stuff for my portion that night since I don't care for the green kind
*mix green beans with the wax beans for a simple side dish one night/blanch & freeze the rest of the wax beans
*not sure about the patty pan yet
*sliced tomato for Caprese Salad-it's not a roma tomato but it will have to do

That's a whole week's worth of side dishes and then some.

I talked to the woman who runs the small family farm nearby on Sunday.  She said the last week's heat spell and lack of rain is nothing but bad news for them.  Everything is drying out.  Her son dug down 4 feet and there is no moisture in the soil to that point.  Wells are drying up too.  I hope we get some good soaking rains soon!  I've got an order in for a bushel of beans, roma tomatoes, red peppers and dozens of ears of corn to put up for fall but this won't happen if the rains don't come soon. 8-(

I am getting very impatient with my own garden here.  I need to go harvest more collards and the lettuce is big enough to pick too but nothing else is ready to pick. 

The peppers & green beans are finally budding though....yah!

And we have golf ball sized maters now!!  No sign of the late blight so far.....crossing fingers this year!

I took some photos of the garden on the 2nd but I guess everyone is pretty bored with this kind of stuff so I won't share them.  But I do have to share these.....

This is the barrel by the back deck where I put kitchen compost-ables in the winter, when it's took bitter outside to walk all the way back to the compost pile.  About a month ago these 2 volunteer tomato plants shot up!lol  So I stopped dumping kitchen waste in there for now.  I just continued to put grass clippings in to act as a mulch, as things in containers tend to dry out so fast, and I don't want to have to water these constantly.
And over by the back deck fencing these volunteers starting growing.....

I had Morning Glories here last year.  When the vines died I just left them on the fencing until winter and pulled them down and threw them into the garden bed to compost.  I guess there were some seed pods left on that vine, huh?lol

I'd better get outside now and cut those collards before I have to go to pick up one of the doggies from the vet's office.

Sluggy