Edible Flowers

If you're new to this phenomenon, you should know that there are a lot of flower blossoms which you can enjoy fresh and even cooked. It may be a bit tricky to find edible flowers being sold in the market but it is easy to grow them in your garden. Since the flowers are intended to be eaten after harvesting, it makes more sense if you'd grow them yourself.
A Few Words of Caution When Selecting Your Edible Flowers

• Be sure you only eat flowers when you're absolutely sure that they're edible. Just because you see flowers as a garnish, doesn't always mean they're edible
• Don't ever eat flowers which have been treated with pesticide that weren't labeled safe for use on food products. Be sure to follow the pesticide label instructions when you're harvesting your flowers.
• Never eat the flowers which you get from florists or roadsides.

Tips When Harvesting and Storing Flowers

• For most of the flower varieties which have been listed as edible, only refer to the petals of the plant. Before eating or serving the flowers, gently remove the pistils as well as the stamens. If there are attached sepals you must remove them too.
• Expect that the flavor of the edible flowers may vary depending on the season, as well as the growing location.
• Flowers that are edible are supposed to be harvested early in the morning, when the temperature is cool. If you aren't sure you're going to use them immediately, cut them and leave the stems in place before keeping them in water. Alternately, you may also store these flowers with a few dampened paper towels and keeping them in the fridge.

Common Flowers You Can Grow In Your Garden

• Borage - This has a fresh cucumber-like scent and taste. It has striking blue flowers which look great when you toss them in a fresh salad.
• Pot Marigolds or Calendula - The petals of the calendula are great with both cooked and fresh dishes because the flower can be used as a substitute of saffron. The yellowish to orange petals can give food a beautiful color and tastes once you chop and sauté them.
• Gem Marigolds - Known also as the Lemon or Tangerine Gem, it has a citrusy flavor, even if you don't get to have the citrus scent. Gently pull the petals off and remove the bitter part of the flower.
• Pansy - You'd be surprised by this one because the entire flower is edible! Pansies are great in giving off a minty flavor which make them great in candying, as well as cute decorations for hors d'oeuvres.
• Squash Blossoms - These edible flowers are very tasty, especially when you stuff them up with a savory filling and fried to a crispy perfection.

Cloth Diapering Made Easy

Cloth Diapering Made Easy was a free book for kindle when this post was written.

This book chapter on cloth diapering appears in "New Moms, New Families: Priceless Gifts of Wisdom and Practical Advice from Mama Experts for the Fourth Trimester and First Year Postpartum."

A section on Elimination Communication, a form of diaper-free potty-training, and easy cloth diaper laundering is included.

This chapter shows convenient ways to be 100% on cloth and creative ways to reuse these diapers when done with the diapering years.

BubbleWrap

BubbleWrap







Using this as window insulation is such an ingenious idea! Low cost way to save money.

Why Do We Have To Have A Lot Of Things?

Well, my Hubbies family has been a round a lot the last 2 weeks since his brother died. And what have they all been saying. That we do not have anything!! They wonder why we don't have a huge tv and why we don't have cable. Oh well! So what , if our tv is about 20 years old and not hdtv. Why do we need cable? We have a roku and get our tv viewing through that for $7.99 a month for Netflix. Our car is "old" in their eyes. But , it is paid off! We are happier since we have gotten our bills in order and control. We only have our utility bills. Nothing else. I asked my hubbies nephew what bills he had each month and he listed so many and then went on to complain about his paycheck being gone before he even gets it! By time he got done he was depressed.  He said that a lot of it goes to bank fees. We are so happy that we got out of the banking system. Took us about a year , but not having fees is so much better! Everyone needs to get their priorities in order. Is having a 55 inch plasma tv going to make you happy? Is having a new car with a huge payment going to make you happy? It did take us a long time to get the old ideas of having more and bigger and newer than your neighbor out of our thoughts. Now we know that having a happy, HEALTHY,  and prepared family is more important than ANYTHING!

Symptoms Of Ebola & How Is It Spread

Some useful Information.

Ebola spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids.

Symptoms of the disease can start to show from two days after infection, but this can take up to 21 days. People are contagious for as long as their blood and other bodily fluids contain Ebola.

For the most part, early symptoms are similar to diseases like malaria and cholera, as well as the flu, which can mean the disease can be difficult to detect.

Symptoms of Ebola HF typically include:

• Fever.
• Headache.
• Joint and muscle aches.
• Weakness.
• Diarrhea.
• Vomiting.
• Stomach pain.
• Lack of appetite.
• sore throat
• rash
•  Internal and external bleeding from the nose, mouth, ears and eyes
• Reduced liver and kidney function
• Trouble breathing
• Bruising