A LOT HAS CHANGED LATELY

Welcome to another gloomy day in Iowa. It has been raining all week and it's just gloomy and cold. Quite frankly, it's making me not want to do much of anything, but I have stuff that needs to get done today. Last night I made a list of all the things I need to do today. This morning I have been editing and then an electrician came over this morning and put in this light switch as well as this outlet down here. That light switch and outlet used to be here, like on a beam, and now it had to be moved over there. So this morning I have not got a lot done because while he was here it kind of put a halt on the things I was working on. First, before we do anything, I need to run out to the mailbox and drop off a package. So I need to get all my warm stuff and run that outside, which really I've been dreading doing all day because it's windy, cold, and wet. I made it in from outside. Super windy and I'm out of breath. I got my morning workout in for the day, I guess. Gosh, I... Also, I think my husband forgot to feed the cat because she was waiting at the door crying up a storm when I came back into the garage. I need to re-look at my list and see what I need to do here. Okay. Poshmark order sent. So what I was working on while the electrician was here, our garbage can got some like meat juice spilt in the bottom of it, so it smells really bad. I washed it out once. I'm going to go ahead and wash that out again. I think we can all agree that it is just very unpleasant when you go to somebody's house and their garbage stinks every time you open it. But real quick, I'm going to go ahead and just pick up the bathroom. There's a few things that I left out while I was getting ready that just need to be put away. Okay. Much better. Today, once I am done picking up and doing my list of things that need to get done, we are actually going to be seed starting today. And this is something that I have been really looking forward to doing, but I was waiting for my seeds to come in the mail, and then my heat mats, and they're both finally here. So once I'm done picking up, I will get to start on that. Oh, I've just been looking forward to doing it for so long, and I just hope it turns out because this is my first time I've ever seed started. And yeah. Anyway, let's finish picking up the kitchen. Holy mess. It's not really that bad, but it definitely needs picked up with the remodel. All things are just out of place right now, and there's just some things that need put away. I have two pieces of cleaning advice for you guys that have helped me maintain a cleaner house, and I am going to share them with you. First one is really simple. I cannot stress or suggest more that if you just take 15 minutes to pick up your house in the morning, or at night, or do 15 minutes morning and 15 minutes at night, it makes the world of a difference on keeping your house clean. Right away in the morning, I set a timer, and I try to beat the timer. I go throughout the entire house and pick up what I can in 15 minutes. So the second piece of advice that I have is don't go and put things away in other rooms if you're working in a certain room. So for example, if you have a t-shirt in the kitchen, don't just take that one t-shirt and go put it away. What I usually do is each room, I make a pile of stuff that does not belong in the room, and then I combine it. So like right now, I have everything in this basket. This is all stuff that did not belong in rooms that it was in, and then what I do is I go through and take everything out of this basket and put it in piles of which room it goes to so then I can just take that whole entire pile and hurry and go put it away. Works like a charm. I have all my piles made of stuff that goes to different rooms. So this is Jay's clothes, this is what goes to our bedroom. This is stuff that goes to the spare bedroom where I keep my clothes, bathroom, front closet, dirty laundry, garage. So now I can hurry and put this stuff away super quick. Perfect. It did not even take me 30 seconds and everything is completely put away. The moment I have been waiting for for today. We are seat starting. I had to put up my hair because things are getting serious. You guys will have to ignore all the remodel stuff that's going on over here on the side, but it just has to be there. So I went ahead and just put a piece of plastic down on the floor. I would like to add in a little disclaimer. This is my first year of seat starting. Like I said earlier, we're going to try it out and see how it goes. But I went ahead and just got out my seat starting tray. Over here I have all of my seats. So this is a photo organizer. I just got this off Amazon and I put all of my garden seeds in here and then I just categorize them. This makes it a lot simpler for organizing it throughout the winter, as well as when I need to seat start or bring it out to the garden, I can just grab this and take it out. A majority of my things I will be able to just directly sow straight into the ground outside. Some of the things I'm going to do inside, like my tomatoes, my peppers, and then there's just a few other random things. I went ahead and just got this seed starting potting mix to use, and then you can use any brand of tray or cup. Before I get started with my seed starting, I would like to thank Skillshare for sponsoring today's video. If you have not heard of Skillshare, it is an online learning community where you can go and take classes. If you are a curious person like me, they have tons of classes on all sorts of different topics. It is just a super good way to learn new things, structure your time, and achieve new goals. This is personally where I took all of my seed starting courses. The class that I took was by a teacher named Geraldine Lavin. The class was set up really well, especially for a beginner. I also really appreciate that the classes are set up in an outline form, so if you don't have time to watch a 30 minute video, you can specifically go to the parts of the class that you are interested in. So for me, I really just wanted to know at this time, seed starting and thinning, and I was able just to click those on the side and watch them. Whether you are just looking to find something to help with boredom, or learning a new skill, or just being part of a creative community, this is an awesome place to go do that. The first 1,000 people to use the link in my description will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership, and after that, it's only around $10 a month. Now let's go ahead and get seeds starting. So first, I'm just going to go ahead and fill up all of my seed starting containers with the potting mix. Oh, I was sitting on my legs for too long, and now they hurt. I have all my little pods filled with dirt, so I'm just going to go ahead and get out the seeds that I'm going to be starting. Okay, I know I am seed starting some cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, and I think I'm going to start with tomatoes, because that is what I have the most of to seed start. I wanted to do heirloom seeds. I ordered them off of Baker's Creek, so we got some Amish Paste, Roma's, Paul Robinson, Berry Crazy Cherry, Yellow Pear, and then Dr. Weix. So these are all the tomatoes that I'm going to be starting. So I have my Popsicle sticks over here that I'm going to use for labeling, and I'm just going to put these in at the end of each row with whatever they are, and then that entire row is going to be that plant. So I am going to just start with these Dr. Weix. Pretty much for all of my seeds, I'm going to go ahead and do two seeds per pod. Once they sprout and grow, I'm going to go ahead and split them off into other containers. Whatever I don't need, I can give to family or friends, and they can grow them in their garden. General rule of thumb is however big the seed is, that's how deep you need to plant it in your soil. I have these two trays planted, so now I need to go ahead and cover them up with dirt. Take some dirt in my hand and just sprinkle it on top of each pod. You should plant these six to eight weeks before they're ready to go outside. I will not plant these until after Mother's Day. I'm going to go ahead and water them. So you can do this multiple ways. You can go ahead and just water from the bottom and let the water soak up from the bottom. You can go ahead and water from the top, or you can do both. Today, I am just going to water from the top. I did go ahead and just saran wrap the top of both of these to just kind of create a greenhouse effect. And then once the seedlings come up, I will go ahead and take this off. So for now, let's go ahead and go down to the basement because I need to get some stuff set up down there for the rest of the seed starting. Welcome to my dungeon of a basement. Not really, but obviously it's nothing special. If you guys did not know, seeds actually don't need light from the actual sun to grow. They will grow with a fluorescent light bulb. So my mom gave me these lights that I'm going to hang above this, I don't know, dresser, I guess you could call it, and it will be perfect for my seeds to sit on this. And then I also have a shelf over here if I need it. But my plan is, hopefully that everything will just fit right here, I can hang my lights from the rafters, and it will be great. What I need to do first is go ahead and put up screws. I bought some, hmm, I need to find where I put them. I bought some chains, kind of like this, that I'm going to hang so I can hang the lights because they need to be about an inch to two inches above your plants. They say that you don't even need to use the lights until your plants have sprouted, but I'm going to go ahead and just start them so that way, when they do sprout, the light is there and the plant is ready to take on the light. Slight change of plans. I cannot find the chains anywhere that I bought, so I'm going to put up one light for now with twine. I feel like a cat. I went ahead and just hung up my light. It might not be the correct height, but I'll change it if it's not. Our house is super cold. We keep it at 62 pretty much all winter, so our basement is even colder, and in order for seeds to germinate, they need warm. So on Amazon, I went ahead and just bought some heat mats. This will help warm the soil. I just went ahead and bought two of them. Sweet. Alright, I have my seeds wrapped up and under the light, so hopefully they germinate well and take off. I thought we would do a quick sit-down so I could give you guys some life updates. For the last couple months, I have been leaving you guys kind of in the shadows of a lot of things that have been happening in my life, mainly because I was not ready to share them, but I am ready to share some of that stuff with you now. If you guys have been around for a while, you guys will know that I am a nurse. I have been a dialysis nurse for the last two and a half years. The beginning of January, I put in my notice to my place of employment and gave a month notice letting them know that I would not be working there anymore. So I gave a month notice just to give them some time to try to fill my position before I left. My brother, Cole, offered me a full-time position helping manage and edit for his YouTube channel. So I was left with a decision to decide if I wanted to continue working as a nurse or if I would want to step down from that position and take on his line of work that he had for me. And that is what I chose to do. It is not that I did not love being a nurse. I love patient relationships and the things that I was learning from it, but for me and the place that I am right now in my life, it is not my passion. I have so many passions of things like gardening and home renovation and things that I was not able to do and excel and grow in working as a nurse just because of like the time that it took for that job. There's more to it than that, but that was like a majority of the reason I decided to take this position and this position gives me the opportunity to work from home, which is a huge blessing for both Jay and I. I get to see family a lot more. I'm not getting up at three in the morning to get ready for work. I have had so many opportunities to grow in my passions already. Since I have been home since the beginning of February, I've already got to take on two remodeling projects and just a whole slew of things. I just could not be more grateful for the opportunity I was given. So with that being said, obviously I am working from home now. Some of you have kind of caught onto that and have been asking that in my comments. Something that I'm working through is figuring out my own schedule here at home. It is a lot different than when you go to work and you know specific times of what times you need to do certain things and you go to break at this time, you're off at this time, and when you're at home, obviously you make up all the rules for yourself for the most part. There have been times where I have definitely felt overwhelmed. I am a professional at taking on a lot of projects at one time and filling my plate two-fold. That is something that I have been working through is just finding a schedule for myself to make sure I'm using my time effectively and that I am being the most productive that I can be, but at the same time not filling my plate so full that I'm just overwhelmed and stressed out. So just learning that balance has been a big thing for me. It has been really nice planning out my own schedule and getting to work on things that I have just been dreaming to work on. So those are like the big life updates for me. But other than that, we are sitting in the middle of a remodel, so that's been a big thing going on right now. I've been enjoying every second of it, but yeah. Anyways, I just wanted to give you guys a little life update of what has been going on in my life. I'm gonna go ahead and call it a day. I need to go over to my parents, get this all picked up, and just do a little more research on a few things. I just feel like gardening season has officially begun and now I just need to sit and wait for my seedlings to sprout. So hopefully, fingers crossed, everything goes as planned and I have a successful first year of seed starting. Have a great rest of your week and I will see you guys in the next one. Bye!