Friday Favorites: gardening hacks and ideas, sundresses, and 🦠

It’s spring and the garden is a huge part of my life at the moment! Here’s some gardening hacks and ideas that might help you too!

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts, and I’m excited to bring them back! It’s a fun way to share favorite things that we’re actually using in our daily lives (Instagram is showing my content to less & less people so I’m hoping we can all connect here in a better deeper way!)

Here’s some favorites that have been helping or inspiring me this spring!

Favorite gardening idea:

We’re knee deep in gardening right now, and I realized something. I realized that I’d learned so much about diverse plant ecosystems, pollinators, and companion planting through my vegetable garden, but hadn’t really translated that knowledge to my other gardens. 

I have decided to plant things that make my front garden look more like that top picture, and less like that bottom one. The goal? Less maintenance (no more mulch??), a more diverse ecosystem, and a beautiful cottage garden feel. 

 

 

Favorite Garden Hack:

Click here for the terra cotta spikes we love

OK so I have loved learning about olla pots and how they provide a much better way to water plants (by feeding the roots). BUT they’re definitely expensive 😬 I have a large garden and there’s just no way that I can afford to have olla pots in my garden. 

HOWEVER I can use these terra cotta spikes and wine bottles – they do the same thing as the olla pots with without all of the expense. You’ll just need some wine bottles!

Here’s a super quick video about how they work:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Christina: peaceful homemaking (@christinamariablog)

 

Favorite Spring/Summer Dress:

Click here for the most comfy + cute dress!

OK so anyone who knows me in “real life” knows that this is no surprise – I have this dress in 3 colors and wear is all summer long 😂 But why mess with something when it works?? It’s so comfortable, washes well, and is less than $15!! I have black, green, and gray. Now pretty sure I need navy too 😅

 

…and we finally got it 🦠

Well can you believe it’s been over 2 years since all of this started and we finally got 🦠? We’re all on the upswing now (which is why I’m finally able to finish this e-mail!) and getting ready to rejoin society next week. Whew – it feels good to be (mostly) done!

Since I have such a curiosity about how other families have walked through this, I thought I’d share how ours played out:

• Isaac got sick first, woke up with a 102 temp. Tested negative when we tested him later that evening. Had a fever all day, it responded slightly to meds. He felt gross & sick. He continued to be febrile for another 2 days but his fever never got over 102 (he’s my kid who has spiked really high fevers in the past). He continued to feel pretty gross for the next week.
• All of us felt OK until 2 days after Isaac’s first symptoms. I felt like I was getting bad allergies at first, and then it felt like it was developing into a gross cold. Really congested and uncomfortable, but no cough. I tested and was negative.
• 3 days after Isaac’s first symptoms (and his negative test), Heidi came down with a fever. We retested Isaac at that point, and his was a strong positive this time. His fever was gone by this point, and was just feeling “yucky” but nothing like he had been the first few days.
• Heidi continued to be sick for the next few days, and definitely got it the hardest out of all of us. She was over 105 one of the nights and it took a lot for us to get her down to 104. She was having really bad dreams and slept poorly despite being so tired. After 3 days of fever (she hovered around 103 the next day and then 101 after that) she finally started feeling better. She was still pretty lethargic and she slept late in the mornings, but having that fever go down was key!
  • I will note that Heidi is the only one in our family who has not been 💉. I KNOW there are many conflicting opinions around this, but I would hope that you would respect that I will not be hosting these discussions here on my website. Just sharing our story, and this is something I think is important to note. 
• I got sick about a day after Heidi, and my “cold” turned into more of flu-type symptoms. Achy, tired, light cough, uncomfortable. But thankfully it didn’t feel scary, it just felt gross. My husband got the same symptoms a day after me. We tested after a few days, and our tests were immediately positive as well.
  • I had been really anxious about my lungs being effected by this. With my history of being asthmatic (since I was a child) it was something I was rightfully worried about. It was SUCH a relief to me that it never felt like it affected my lungs. I did not have issues breathing the whole time I was sick. I did have some times when I had heart palpitations and my heartbeat was faster than normal, but never any issues with my lungs. 
  • I lost my smell and taste. Now I’m feeling SO much better but still have no smell or taste. It’s very bizarre.
• Nora never had more than congestion and a light cough.

Well that was a VERY long way of telling your our story! 😅 I hope that helps anyone who has been curious about how it’s played out for people with similar family dynamics or health issues.