gardening gnome newbie spring summer series returns rita slanina
house and home, How To, humor, self-help

Gnome Gardening Newbie Returns

The gnome gardening newbie returns to the scene of the garden for yet another go! THE GARDENING GNOME NEWBIE DITL DECLUTTER REFRESH

GARDENING GNOME NEWBIE DITL DECLUTTER REFRESH

We’re back for another season of the SPRING SUMMER SERIES FOR 2022! Okay, I’m not a gnome, but I sure as heck feel like one as I roll around in the soil, plucking, planting, kicking up my heels in the dirt! It’s declutter, refresh time and It’s my second year to plan the dirt kicking, plant the seeds and somehow I don’t feel like I’m getting much better at this squash sitting thing. I digress. Let’s DITL!

BRUNO

Bruno the puppy has more gnome-like qualities though as he goobers mischief as soon as my back is turned! So, with high humidity, soon-to-be lazy days ahead this fine Summer, and loads of videos and television watching in my future, I thought it was time to hit ya with the first installment of how my garden started this year, how I prepped and planned it!  So… let’s…..

GET SEEDS & GET GROWING!

A FEW LESSONS LEARNED IN R2

Ah… the monsoons are back, and the garden is a’growin’!

  • ITS NEVER TOO LATE! If you haven’t gotten your seeds for your garden and aren’t getting it growing; you are NOT missing out! But, don’t continue to sleep on it, y’all! There is still plenty of time to get outside and throw down some seeds! I was binging some vids the past couple days on what seeds to put out in your garden in July for you slackers that will produce a harvest that you can still rave about to your friends as though your a gardening savant!

CORN, RADISHES, BEETS, BEANS, CAULIFLOWER, SQUASH

  • FIND YOUR ZONE! I find it’s best to check the farmer’s almanac to find out what ZONE you are in first to make sure but the veggies mentioned above should fare well regardless. I’m in zone 8a, which means, I get humid heat & snow in the winter. But I also average a 200 day growing season… what luck!! Woo! However, what works in fall/winter does NOT necessarily work in spring/summer. But it’s fun to just try and see how it goes. That’s literally half the fun of gardening.
  • DON’T TAKE GARDENING TOO SERIOUSLY! It WILL drive you nuts. Just enjoy the journey. For real. Some plants will make it and some won’t. That was probably my biggest hurdle last year. I was so frustrated but this year, I realized, it’s a learning process and until you toss down the seeds and see what happens… just for the fun of seeing what happens… that’s when you will get it.
  • BUY SEEDS FROM YOUR LOCAL FARMGIRL, HOMESTEADER, FARMER’S MARKET. Another lesson I learned from last year is that all the seeds bought commercially are pretty much one size fits all. They come from the same place, no matter where you have bought them. While – in theory – this sounds fantastic, it’s not always practical in application. Sure, you’ll harvest something but when I started buying from the farm girl in my town who literally has been doing this her whole life, my gardening took off! For roses, I did buy from Jacksons & Perkins, and they have fared quite well. My grapevines from Gurney’s, were a 50/50, one made it/one didn’t. I purchased some seeds from Lowe’s online and some are doing great and others were buttkiss.

The upswing in homesteading, growing one’s own food, or learning how to just rock a great herb container in the windowsill has skyrocketed in all our homes. A lot of peeps are now thinking – Holy Poo! – what if this no-grocery store thing – goes down again? How will we eat? An economic collapse bc of a tyrannical government is feeling less conspiracy and more probable these days! How do we handle it if something this cray cray goes down?

*uh oh.. impending tangent ahead?

No lol ..but my interest in this topic is deep.

Circling back… *wink

oh thank goodness.

Early Fall Season Deals! Save up to $30◊ off our Fees on Flights Use Coupon EFALL30.

PLAN. PLANT. DECLUTTER. REFRESH.

broccoli leaves gardening rita slanina GARDENING GNOME NEWBIE DITL DECLUTTER REFRESH
Broccoli leaves are just as tasty & useful as the florets themselves!

This is my second year gardening and believe me, when I say, I used to believe I could keep a plant alive to save my life  and now I am harvesting my own greens for salads everyday… it’s awesome to know that anyone can learn to do this! ANYONE!

So… show us!

Geesh , so impatient. Check out the fun on my DITL on how I got organized this year, what I planted and my blunders! THE GARDENING GNOME NEWBIE DITL DECLUTTER REFRESH! Hopefully this full 20 minute video on Rumble will inspire you but if you’re short on time cruise down to the shortened version!

FULL 20 MINUTE VIDEO ON RUMBLE BELOW

OR CHECK OUT SHORT VIDEO ON YOUTUBE HERE:

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three quick fixes for the underdog rita slanina blog recording your song for free
How To, music, self-help

Recording Studios: Quick-Fix for the Underdog

You put a song together, and now you need a recording studio.

Or do you?

As luck would have it, in under ten minutes,

I’ve got a quick fix for the underdog songwriter.

No budget? No equipment? No problem!

The idea is you need:

music software

cost of equipment

and the age-old question is… “NOW, what do I do with all this stuff I just bought?”

Music & Lyrics: a songwriter’s journal

200-page journal including lined sheets for both tabs and musical notation. An album and song title sheet with detailing fillables for music genre, mood, and tempo. Available on Amazon, or if you prefer signed editions head to the SHOP!

Let’s face it.

THAT’S OVERWHELMING!

And likely, make you not want to start recording your own songs at all.

FAST FORWARD

Three years later, you have spent thousands of dollars you couldn’t afford to spend in the first place, and its all collecting dust with half of the crap, half-in their boxes.

Oh, boo! It’s definitely too late to try to return them…

What a nightmare! No wonder people give up before they quit. You love music, you would love to get it out there; but, it’s been made into this well kept, secret that no artist is supposed to know about how to go about getting it done on the cheap.

Here’s where my

“How To Music Video Series” comes in.

The second installment takes you through an easy to follow 3-step process to put those lyrics and music tracks into a song. If you haven’t gotten your lyrics or music ready to go yet & need a starting point, check out last week’s video on how to do that.

So, without further ado… This week’s lesson: How To Record A Song (yourself) FOR FREE!

OMGosh, so easy, right!

Now, that you’ve gotten studio quick fixes,

do you think you can do this on your own?

I sure believe in you!

Happy recording, underdogs!

an ode serenades & marinades blog rita slanina
How To, humor, music, Writing Stuff

Ode To Serenades & Marinades

an ode serenades & marinades blog rita slanina how to write a song songwriters beginner

An ode to serenades & marinades!

Is it just me or does anyone else feel it’s long overdue that we need some Fall-themed Holiday Songs? The ode to serenades & marinades of Fall, we’ll call it!

No. No? No.

Darn it. No one jumping onto that bandwagon, eh?

NO.

FINE. *rolls eyes

But, with so much to do!

music & lyrics a songwriters journal rita slanina shop now perfect for the songwriter album and song title brainstorming pages
Music & Lyrics: a songwriter’s journal

skipping happily into my office, with lyrics to write, and my loving book projects to wrap up, and my favorite time of here with NaNoWriMo’s impending arrival, it’s only fitting to – Nope. Don’t do it. Oh, the ode to the serenades of Editing, reading and staying the course of all my line item marinades. *insert piano playing plus a warble here

*she did it. Focus, girl.

My joy of fall

truly just wouldn’t begin without the exciting news of writing my next album. So, no pressure, but I have the goal of getting it done before Preptober. Don’t you got books to write, bish!

Now, who knows if that’ll be possible, but I believe in tackling a little each day and eventually it’ll get there. Once a groove is playing along, it’ll happen. I’m rapid fire-like that. *wink The first couple of tracks always seem to be the hardest. Although, channeling all that emotion is pretty rough too.

Wish there was a way to do it sans THAT roller coaster! Sadly, there isn’t.

Did you just pun. Ah, yes. Yes, I did.

I digress.

In all essences of productivity, and in all honesty though, must confess that I was a bit distracted this last week. I was not sleeping well. There were incessant, racing thoughts. Lest not forget, the half-heartedly act of convincing yourself – okay, geesh, MYself – that it’ll all be fine

is a fairly tall order.

(Reminds me of a song I wrote a few years back.)

A ghostly shell of yourself walking around, daydreaming of… you know, things past, present and future. *sigh* And anyway… You know how it goes.

Just to notate how writing songs can sometimes keep these pains lingering. I mean, I guess it can be therapuetic; although reliving trauma over and over probably isn’t healing. *is that numbness?

Which, in one part fairness, and bits of reflection confetti… are GREAT WRITING CONDITIONS.

Maybe when I get to the end of this bucket of chicken staring back at me, it’ll change. *hand over the marinade! This needs more flavor!

*slaps forehead Put down the wings. You better get writing, girl!

So get to it, lady… get out of the weeds!

You had to know I was taking this somewhere!

The next three weeks, I am publishing a songwriting music series on how to get a song from idea to sold! We’re going to call it:

drumroll, please….

THE HOW TO MUSIC VIDEO SERIES

We’re going to chunk this series down into three installments.

  1. How to write a song
  2. How to record a song
  3. How to publish a song

Since it is all things serenades & marinades of my favorite time of year, fall, and I just happen to have some A and B Roll in the vault from literally two years ago and it’s staring at me, asking me “why, oh Lovely Rita, haven’t you shown me to the world?” (I hope you added a southern drawl -channeling your inner Gone With The Wind character – when you read that! Because, I sure as heck did!

an ode serenades & marinades blog rita slanina how to write a song songwriters beginner

*You raised your hand to your head too… didn’t you.

Why, yes, kind stranger, I surely did!

*stop it

Okay, fine.

So, here we go! For the next three weeks, I am going to cover just that. *Terrible accents?

Ha. Ha. Noooooo…

I am going to show you an easy, and simple way to getting your song idea out of your head and into the marketplace. If you’ve ever wanted write a song – regardless, if you play an instrument or not – I got you! This week we start with the 3 simple way to writing that song and boy, oh boy, it will be easy!

Now, get ready!

Grab your notebooks!

Snatch up those pencils!

Go write a song!

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