Go to Museums and Gardens for Free!

Want to visit a museum for free?  There's lots of California and Texas museums and gardens offering free admission in May!

• Admission is free  the Mayborn Children's Museum in Waco, TX on May 1, 2011.  (I really recommend this one...you can spend the whole day there and not see everything there is to see!  The pictures above are from there.)
  
  
• Free Museum Day lists days you can visit museums for free.  Currently their list includes museums in these California Cities:  Los Angelos, San Diego, and San Francisco.
  
  
• Today is the last day to enter for a 4 pack of Tickets to Sea Life Aquarium in Carlsbad, CA (plus get a $50 Froots gift card).  Only 8 people have entered this!
  
  
• Get free admission to local gardens May 6. They have gardens from all over the country.

Hop and Squidoo

Hello, and welcome fellow Squido Lensmasters! For those who aren't travelling here by blog hop and don't know what Squidoo is, it's just a place where you can make nifty little web pages about any topic you choose, and maybe earn a little money for yourself or a charity in the process.

And guess what, I have a squidoo for Texifornia.  It has some fun interactive stuff like funny and useful lists you can add to, photos, and more.    

Well, recently it got delisted, which means it doesn't show up in the Squidoo directory anymore :(.  It may be because my lens intro is so short.  They keep asking me to make it longer, but I like it short so people can get right into content without a lot of intro. 

What's your opinion...does a lens intro have to be long to be good?  Or is brief sometimes better?

(Oh, by the way, I'm hopping in from two blogs today...this one, and my other blog Such Fun to Give.)

2 Question Thursday/Aloha Friday

Funny Allergic Gardener T Shirt by Swisstoons

Every now and then I participate in Aloha Friday, where I ask a simple question for you to answer (nothing that requires a lengthy response) and Two Question Thursday (same idea...only TWO questions).  If you'ld like to, comment with an answer to the questions below:

1.  Do you get seasonal allergies?

2.  If so, what is the most drastic thing you would do to get rid of them?

Please leave your answers in a comment.  Thanks a bunch!

As for my answer...I do get allergies, but fairly mild.   My husband, however, gets them horribly.   I've actually heard about people going so far as to infect themselves with hook-worms, which may suppress allergic reactions.   Neither of us would go that far. 

Happy Easter!

I'm taking a break from the computer for the next few days as our family takes time to remember the death and ressurection of Jesus, and I wanted to wish you all a wonderful happy Easter!  

Praise God for his mercy and grace!

(My Own Story of Faith)

A Few More Days To Earn Money for Cameron Park Zoo - And a Coupon!

Big photos is still donating $1 to Cameron Park Zoo for everyone who registers at the new Cameron Park Zoo Photo Site through April 22nd! Plus you can get $5 off photo books with coupon code HOLSM! What's especially cool about these photo books is that you can use zoo animal photos provided by Cameron park alongside your own photos...so if you didn't get a really great shot of that Rhino or Leopard you can use theirs right next to a pic of your smiling kiddo.

Veggies to Plant in Texas in April

1. Cantaloupes, 2. Collards, 3. Corn, 4. Cucumber, 5. Cushaw (and Pumpkins) 6. Eggplant, 7. Melons (honeydew), 8. Lima Beans, 9. Luffa, 10. Malabar Spinach, 11. Okra, 12. Peppers, 13. Pumpkin., 14. Snapbeans (19), 15. Southern Peas, 16. Summer Squash, 17. Sweet Potatoes, 18. Swiss Chard, 19. Tomato* 20. Watermelon

*On tomatoes plant transplants (too late to plant from seed)

These are all plants which are great for planting in April here in Texas.  I've been learning all about the best time to plant different plants from a book called Month-to-Month Gardening in Texas.  I wish I had gotten this book years ago...it's teaching me so much about Texas gardening that I really was absolutely clueless on!  I knew Texas had two growing seasons but I really didn't understand when the seasons started or ended.  It turns out I trying to grow nearly everything at the wrong time!  I'm going to try to share tips from the book each month (but there's so much info, I couldn't even begin to share it all).   They also share what else you need to do each month (when to fertilize, aerate your soil, tackle weeds, etc.). 

But, if you just want info on what veggies and herbs to plant each month, you can also get that information online here.  That's a good resource for  other states too.

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I found the photos for my mosaic on Flickr, and the photographers were nice enough to offer up for use through Creative Commons (click on the links to see the photos larger).  Yes, the Sountern Peas (ie cowpeas) in that picture are blighted (that was just a hard one to find, so I took what I could get.)

I'm linking up at the gardening linkies at Living More, Spending Less and Ramblings of a Christian Mom.  Also linking up at Mosaic Monday.

Aloha Friday - First Flowers of Spring

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday. Every Friday (well, ok, almost every Friday) I ask a simple question for you to answer--nothing that requires a lengthy response.

Today, I spotted the first spring wildflowers in my yard...

 

Mexican Evening Primrose!  They're natives wildflower that we discovered in our yard last year.  They are actually a very pale pink, though they look white in this picture.  The ones in my front yard are pinker, but they haven't started blooming yet.

So, this week's question is...

What were the first flowers to appear in your yard (or are you still waiting)?  And what state/country is your yard in?

You can answer in the comments.  Thanks!

If you have a blog and would like to post your own questions you can leave your link  at the linkys at An Island Life.

A New Photo Site Supporting Cameron Park Zoo

I love Cameron Park Zoo here in Waco. Its a small zoo, but well taken care of, with lots spots for kids to stop and play in.   We always enjoy visiting.  And we always take lots of pictures when we go.  Here's one we got of a napping lion.

I just learned that Cameron Park has opened a photo site, Cameron Park Zoo Photos, where you can make photo gifts like posters, cards, and photobooks, and 25% of the profits go to support Cameron Park!  And, now through April 22, Big Photos will donate one dollar for each new user that registers on the site!  Since Cameron Park is a non-profit that sometimes struggles for funding, I'm glad to have another way to help them out.

The coolest thing about the Cameron Park Photo Site, in my opinion, is that they have galleries with wonderful pictures from Cameron Park that you can use alongside your own pictures.   So, say you took a picture of your child with a giraffe in the background...

...but you didn't get any good close-ups of the giraffe to go along with it.  If you are making a photo book through CameronParkZooPhotos.com you can pick out one of their great giraffe photos to use alongside your own photos.  

All the photos in their galleries are of Cameron Park animals, so you can feel happy knowing the pictures you choose are of the actual animals you saw at the zoo.  And it's easy to move and resize pictures, change the layout, or add text, too!

You can also get $5 off Photo Books with coupon code HOLSM.

Visit Cameron Park Zoo Photos

Pretend City Kids Museum, Irvine CA - Giveaway

I found a giveaway for tickets to Pretend City Children's Museum in Irvine, CA.  Looks AMAZING...if we didn't live half the country away I would absolutely take my kids to see this.  And only 8 people have entered so far.  If you're in California and want to try for this, you can find out more and enter here.  Ends April 10.

Easter Questions

The blog Tots and Me will be asking bloggers qustions related to Easter and providing a place to share them.  I would like to join in this journey.  Her first question was...

How Do You Prepare for Easter?

For several years now I've attended a Baptist Church that practices Lent (unusual, I know), which is typically a time of preparation. This has been a new experience for me...as before I came to this church I had no idea what lent even was. My first year I didn't feel drawn to give up anything for the whole lenten season, but did decide to give up  media (TV and internet...I think I allowed myself music) from Good Friday through Easter Sunday. This turned out to be a powerful way to set this time aside and keep it Holy, and so I've continued this every year. I was also encouraged to find out that early Christians set aside this time to fast, long before the practice of lent began...so I felt like I had intuitively stumbled on a long standing Christian tradition.

I have since given up other things for the whole season of lent...as I've learned it's a powerful tool in battling my indulgent nature, and tackling addictions. It doesn't really feel like preparing for Easter so much as a yearly time set aside to battle sin (not that I don't do that year round--but this is more focused). Sometimes it goes better than others.

One thing I'd like to do some day as a way to prepare for Easter is find a version of the new testament that puts the four Gospel accounts in chronological order (combining the four into one account)...and read through this starting with the Nativity story in December and ending with the Crucifixion and Ressurection by Easter (maybe continue on through Acts for May). But, I'll have to save that for another year.

My Faith Story

Also sharing this at An Christian Inspirational Easter Linky and the Easter Link Up.

About Me

Hi, and welcome to Texifornia...the blog for Californians in Texas and Texans in California!  Which one am I?  Read on...

I was born in California. Until I was 10 I lived on a big, yellow, converted Navy launch named SNAFU  (since this is a family friendly blog we'll just describe that acronym like my parents did:  Situation Normal All Fowled Up). Here it is....

...and there's me.  It was a unique life:  the biggest swimming pool on earth right out our back door, but also very little living space, a sailor's sway that I took with me to class, and quite a bit of isolation.  My mom got sick of it eventually just about two minutes after I was born...but it took years to convince my dad to sell the boat, and then more years to actually find someone to buy it.  I don't know whatever happened to the boat I grew up on.  Would love to know, if anyone's seen a boat like this chugging along somewhere. 

So, then we moved to the mountains (my parents didn't care for big cities)....

Twin Peaks, specifically  (yep...same name as that TV show.  Different city though)!  We loved living up right in the middle of all that beauty.

Then I went to college, met and fell in love, and followed the man who would become my husband to Texas...where there are no mountains (um, at least not the 5,000 ft high mountains like the ones I had lived in)  and the oceans were brown (Galvaston) and summers are 110 degrees (at least)!   Needless to say, I was homesick!  And so, Texifornia.com started...a little site for Californians from Texas, and Texans from California.

This blog started out mostly as a place to post news for Texifornians, and I still do that, but it's become more a place to post photos, share about places I've been, talk about my crazy gardening "techniques", and share about our backyard wildlife. 

I've been in Texas over ten years now and have learned to love a lot about it...the wildflowers, the sunsets, the slower pace of living!  I still miss California sometimes, but I'd miss Texas too if I left (except for the allergies and that 100 degree heat!).

(UPDATE:   In August 2017 I moved back to California and am currently living in San Diego.  I DO miss the dear people I got to know in Texas, but not the heat or the allergies!)

Well, wherever you're blogging from, glad you're passing through!  And if you happen to be a Texifornian yourself, I'd love to add your blog to my blogroll and maybe interview you on the blog, so please let me know!

(Me at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin...

beautiful place if you ever get a chance to visit!)

May God Bless your Day!

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This post was originally written for the The Ultimate Blog Party, a huge blog hop put on by 5 Minutes for Mom.