The Blue Spot

Help a great family, and maybe win a FREE SOCK MONKEY!

2015-11-22T23:15:00.000-08:00

I want to share with you about my buddy Gabe.

He has always been a hard working young man, and now as a husband and father of two sweet little girls, he's having a lot of trouble letting a degenerative hip disease slow him down.

In the family's words:

Gabe Lenox's new X-rays shocked the surgeons with the amount of scarring and deformity they revealed. At age 35, he needs a hip replacement.
Through the pain, Gabe had built his service business, and started a young family. He ignored the arthritis setting in, and focused on building his business to provide for his family and employees. Then his hip gave out entirely. He was unable to work, plagued by pain and illness from degeneration. As this critical point was reached with his health, the business took a side track and Gabe lost controlling interest in the company. Out of work and unable to support his family, all of his efforts are now now focused on the hip replacement he needs."

In an effort to try to help this precious family

raise funds for Gabe's new hip,

I am offering the opportunity to win a

FREE HANDMADE SOCK MONKEY

to everyone who donates to Gabe's Hip Fund!

YEAH! Give to a good cause,

and maybe win a cool gift for yourself
or a little munchkin of yours in the process.

The giveaway is hosted STRICTLY through the rafflecopter in this blog post.
All entries are handled HERE, not on the fundraising website.

You must click on the link to donate to Gabe's New Hip!
Then come back here to make your entries below.
Winner will be drawn with a random number generator and contacted via emial or FB given in entry.
If winner does not respond in 72 hours, another winner will be drawn.

THANK YOU for reading, DONATING, and sharing!

UPDATE: OK, I can't believe it but there was only one valid entry!!!
Nobody else actually donated to the FUND publicly, they just entered their info without donating. :/
SO, congrats, R. Evans! You're the winner of the Sock Monkey! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An evening walk through the garden

2013-06-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Hello there!

It's only been a month since my last garden update, but things have been springing up and growing by leaps and bounds! Maybe it's the heat that brings it out. :) There's so much to see, I thought I'd take you for a little stroll and show you what's new.

Preface. I love having it all on the drip system! First of all, it would be way too much to water by hand. But secondly, it is pretty self sustaining at this point. Every morning, I just go out and check on things really quickly. Make sure there's no new bugs or any large catastrophes to take care of. And then I let it alone to work it's magic. My favorite thing lately has been to walk through and find these new surprises that I'm about to share. It's like going for a treasure hunt!

Here is our second bed as it looked in the last update.

And here it is now!

The zucchini plants have completely taken over! They are HUUUUGE. If I knew how big they were going to get, I would've given them a lot more room, but as it is now, they are crowding out the other plants in the bed: cucumbers and beans. Oh well. We'll see how they all produce anyway...

The pole beans in the back there are getting a little out of control. At one point a couple weeks ago, I didn't have time to trellis them but they were like 4 feet tall, so in a moment of panic, I pulled some large branches from the brush pile in our yard and stuck them in the ground for them to climb. Now I need to figure out a way to turn the branches into a trellis. I'm thinking I might rig something like this but on a smaller scale.

Here is a photo of both beds this evening:

Speaking of zucchinis, I was pleasantly surprised to find these blossoms on the plants today:

I snapped that picture earlier this afternoon and when I went back this evening, I realized I didn't even see this big squash that's out there! Woohoo!

And many more on the way:

I was a little worried about my garbanzo. It started yellowing and I thought I might have lost it. But it has new flowers on it, which is a good sign and I found this yesterday: my first pod!

Here is another fun surprise I found yesterday as well.

I think I'll let it get a little bigger before I pick it. :)

Caleb's pumpkins seem to be doing well:

These are my POTATO plants! They are kind of an experiment. Usually I reserach a new thing a little bit before try it, but in this case, I'm trying it first. It was all kinda thrown together last minute. My neighbor threw some potato cuts over the fence. First, I let them rot a little by accident before I planted them. Now, I have trouble keeping them as "mounded" as I think they probably should be, but... I dunno. If there's anything edible, it will just be a nice surprise. :)

DON'T EAT GREEN POTATOES.

It seemed my kale had "plateaued" so to speak. I left it alone a little too long, the outer leaves were getting too old to eat probably and it had kinda stopped producing. So I finally pruned it one night and harvested some of the inner leaves and it thanked me by giving me more! :)

Even though I'm majorly running out of room at this point, I transplanted my artichoke out of the pot, and it seems to be loving life right now. I was wondering if it would produce anything this year. I had heard it takes two years before they flower. But I kept hoping for something exciting to happen. Well, then I happen to catch a segment of Lidia Bastianich's show where she goes out into an artichoke field and I realized how BIG the plants get before they start to produce.

We have a long way to go, I think!

These are the tomatoes last month:

And the tomatoes now:

They need some support big time. (But who doesn't? hahaha).

I have some aerial wire I'm thinking of making my own cages with.

Just because I like doing things the hard way, you know.

Tomatoes are kinda funny. When they're green, they blend right in

and you can hardly see them unless you look very closely

I have FIFTEEN tomato plants this year. Who's idea was that??

Over 9 varieties of tomato! I will be excited to see how they all compare.

This one is called simply "Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato" and it is the first one to start ripening!

This is one of three thornless blackberry plants my neighbor gifted me (maybe you're starting to notice I have a very generous neighbor, don't I?) I haven't transplanted it yet because I know it will get pretty big so I want to make sure I figure out a good place for it. Also, my number one spot choice is occupied by junk that needs to be cleared first.

But who has time for THAT?! So it says in the pot for now...

Blueberry plant. Waiting for me to get some Mycor from the feed store.

Gnome. Tending my garden.

Silhouette. Me and the baby taking pictures.

Oh, you thought I was alone? I'm a breastfeeding mama, I'm never alone. ;)

Papa gnome, watching over the wildflowers, which are just starting to bloom.

Isn't he cute? I got him for mother's day, along with a 6 foot tall apricot tree,

who has also asked very politely if it may be added to the waiting list for transplanting.

And here is a lovely Gardenia that I just got a couple days ago. It looks pretty mellow now, but I have high hopes.
And the blooms smell SO NICE!

Well, it's late. And tomorrow is Monday. So I better get to bed.

Thanks for visiting! :D

Wordless Weekend

2013-06-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

A fun garden idea:

A Thought to the Future

2013-05-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

I am so excited, I have come quickly to share with you.

My son is "graduating" from preschool this month. :) The idea of a 4 year old graduating from anything is a little silly, yes. But I appreciate that the teachers put thought and energy into making a sense of accomplishment and recognizing milestones in the kids' little lives. They really have learned a lot, not just about the ABCs and 123s, but about life and working together.

Today I bought him this book. It's one of my favorite Dr. Suess books, and almost always makes me cry! I know it's a little cliché to get this book as graduation gift. Everybody does that, right?

But the neat thing, the funnest thing... the most secret surprise and "Christmas-y" thing about this gift is that we're not giving it to him this year.

We're hoping to give it to him in 13 years at his high school graduation, after we've had all his teachers inscribe something to him on the inside. ^_^

I must confess, I got the idea from this guy.

Boy, did his story tug at my sentimental little heartstrings.

What is the best graduation gift or memory you have?

From Mother's Day

2013-05-14T22:50:00.004-07:00

www.instagram.com/charitychain

It's a #happymothersday when i can enjoy a little extra time #inthegarden
#nofilter #purpletomatillo #blossom #lookingup

Art Card Giveaway by Tracy Elliot Designs

2013-05-13T07:26:00.005-07:00

I'd like to introduce you to my aunt-in-love, Tracy Elliot. She lives in Santa Rosa, CA where she draws, paints, does altered art, makes jewelry, and enjoys scrapbooking. "I have always loved various forms of art. I love to draw, and started when I was very young, I have taken every art class available at our local community collage. I started scrapbooking about 30 years ago and still love it." She has recently opened her own Etsy shop and has dedicated it to showcasing her lovely talents as an artist. She is currently working on a series of Art Trading Cards, which are small pieces of art that can be displayed almost anywhere. Each piece is one of a kind.

Tracy works in a spare bedroom-turned-office. "I am semi-organized most of the time. I have many framed original cartoons drawn for me by famous cartoonists that I love and they inspire me. I also have in my craft room vintage cameras, and toys on shelves that I like to look at to start the creative juices flowing." Her inspirations include Tim Holtz, grunge, altered art, Steampunk, and anything distressed.

She works around her physical ailments, but enjoys the process: "I have Fibromyalgia, so I basically craft when I feel well enough to do so. Sometimes it's a little bit each day... It is first and foremost something I love to do, and if I make a little money doing it, that's a really nice bonus."

What is some advice Tracy offers to other crafters?
"Did you know that you can use Michaels and JoAnne's 40% coupons right off of your phone, and that you can use them more than once? You probably did, but I just learned that. Also, my favorite store Beverly's takes their competitors coupons which is really cool."

Keep up with her new art pieces by following her here:
Like her on Etsy
Follow her Blog
Like her on Facebook

To celebrate her opening and to get people familiar with her work, she has agreed to give away one of her pieces! One lucky winner will have YOUR CHOICE of any Art Card in her shop! :)

I will pick a winner on Tuesday May 21st, email them and announce it here. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or an alternate winner will be picked. Good luck!

5/21/13 UPDATE~ the winner is MARY H!! Mary I am on my way to email you, please respond within 48 hours! Thanks! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My First Robot

2013-05-06T13:53:00.003-07:00

Since we've been working so much in the yard, we haven't gotten very much done inside the house lately, but here is one of the few updates we did do recently:

From April 17th:

www.instagram.com/charitychain

We now have AI in the house. I do not take this lightly.

I was hoping my first household robot would be the kind that vacuums. ;)

But who knows, maybe this one will save us enough money to buy the other one.

This is the Nest "smart" thermostat, put out by some of the geeks over at Apple. The coolest AND creepiest thing about this guy is that he *learns our habits* and starts to program himself around our schedules. Also, he has a motion sensor and if he detects you are Away, he lets the temp get lower/higher than usual to conserve energy, then automatically resets himself when he *sees* that we are home. Also, he is connected to wifi, so I can change the settings from my phone no matter where I am, he's able to see weather forecasts, and potentially receive software updates automatically. He shows what the temperature in my home will be in 10 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, etc., based on the current settings and the weather outside.

Big brother is totally watching. No really. This is his eyeball.

But I guess it was inevitable, right?

P.S. I just creeped myself out by calling it a "he" for this entire post.

Anyway... next time we get a robot, I want a Rosey Jetson or at the very least a Roomba. ;)

Video here ,if you're interested.

Springtime update

2013-05-05T23:39:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

So much to catch you up on! I remember reading recently, "when you feel like you have 'too much' remember to be thankful you have SO much." Sometimes I am overwhelmed by all there is to do or be or plan or cook or clean... but, while I am trying to learn to prioritize and let go of the lesser things, I am simultaneously thanking God that I have SO MUCH in my life.

Caleb is wrapping up his year in preschool. Part of me wants to plan fun, creative, educational things for the summer. And a second part of me laughs at the first part and says Give it a rest, woman, and enjoy the break! They only get like 2 months off for summer nowadays anyway. I think I will just appreciate those two months for what they are, and look forward to not having to drive him twice a week, or lug the carseat in and out and in and out, or finding Shares or doing homework or packing snack. I think this summer, more than any, both mommy and Caleb are ready for a break.

Little baby Ben is 6 months old now and quite a handful. I won't even attempt to fill you in on him right now. But you'll be seeing him here more often, for sure. :)

Right now, I am very excited about the garden! I have lots and lots of things to share so I plan to post quite a bit the next few days just trying to catch up with myself. HaHA! Be prepared! ;)

So, about two months ago, I took this photo of my seed babies in the sun and thought about sharing it with you.

But before I had a chance to do that, a week later I took this photo of my pea plants shooting up and thought I might post it also:

A couple weeks later, I still hadn't blogged yet and didn't have time to because my peas were begging to be transplanted and I needed to have a trellis built to support them. Keep in mind, I have to do all these projects in about 15 minute increments, since that's about how long the baby will afford me at a time. He *really* prefers to be held all day. :P

And so it went on and on. There are so many photos I was gonna share of our progress, but now here we are at pretty much the end of the winter garden and I'm just getting here... oh well!!

Maybe you remember when I began this garden a couple of months ago, I had a very scientific mindset. I was going to take meticulous notes for my future reference. I was going to practice crop rotation and moon gardening and learn how to start my seeds indoors and do fun experiments to see which plants grew better and...and...and... how often things do not go as planned!

At this point, I've lost track of when I transplanted this or that. I have carrots in three different places, including intermingled with my lettuces (a mistake, I know!), I started some seeds much too early and I'm thinking some of them are going to be very late, the irrigation system I was hoping would be set in place for less than $40 ended up costing about twice that and took me nearly two weeks to complete in itself (post on that in the future, I'm sure!). I'm starting to think my neighbors view on gardening might be much more healthy. She says Why can't we just throw seeds on the ground and see what grows? She has been an inspiration to me not to STRESS too much about it, not to over analyze, like a can do sometimes. But work with the earth and just see what happens.

So at this point, I think I will just give you a little tour of the garden as it is now. Maybe with a few older pics mixed in just for fun. Hang in there! ;)
_____

This is the same bed you just saw, but a few days later, with some more seed babies transplanted into it: lettuces, broccoli and onions. Also, carrots, onions and garlic were directly sowed.

This is actually a photo of the brush pile we made when we cut a couple trees down. But to the side there, you can see the thrifty way I covered my babies to help protect them from bugs. Not a 100% seal, of course, but it seemed to be effective against most things that fly. I kept it on for a good month or so - only taking it off when the plants started outgrowing it. It let in sunlight and the irrigation was underneath it, so it worked out well.

Do you know what I used? It's wedding tulle! It was like $2 a yard on sale, so it was much cheaper than agribon and seemed to work fine for my purposes.

Happy broccoli under tulle:

Same bed two weeks later!

And this is that same bed just this morning!

Notice the pea plants in the background, climbing the trellis.

The Big Thing in front is my broccoli. Right now it is all leaves and no fruit, so I think I must've accidentally bought some kind of "flamboyant" species.

This is the other side of the same bed today - Carrots, onions, spinach (which is going to seed) and one kale plant to the left there that I received as a gift. :-) More on that later.

Here is a picture I took of my son's "Giant Pumpkin" he got at the seed swap.

I took this about a week ago - it's already twice this size.

We decided to put strawberries in the tops of the cinder block bed walls. We'll see how it goes. They were neglected for a little while and I lost a couple of them, but I'm trying to nurse them back to health.

And here is my SECOND veggie bed! We just started planting in this one so I'm very excited (again)
Left to right: zucchini, market cucumbers, and "green fingers" (small cucumbers) These were all just planted last week, so I'm surprised to see how big they are.

This is my lone garbanzo bush (another gift) and I am stoked about that little white flower bud you might be able to see in there.

We have planted three types of beans. This is a purple pole bean.

Somehow I ended up with FIFTEEN tomato plants and almost all of them are of a different variety! It will be so neat to see their various fruits (assuming they live that long. haha)

Here are five of them, along with some marigold buddies. The mari's aren't too happy, I might need to get replacements. :(

and these are some of the other tomatoes, begging me to get them in the ground.

My neighbor had some surplus, so she brought these over for me today:

two watermelon plants and two LUFFA plants!

"Like the kind of luffa you use in the shower?!" you ask. Apparently! She got the seeds here.

This is my boogin...

bouga...

bog...

This is my pink plant:

I didn't plant these but they are pretty nonetheless, aren't they? :)

And I will end this LOOOOOOOONG post on a hopeful note. This is my first sort-of-decent harvest that I just brought in this morning from those pea plants you saw.

There are sugar snap (which were SO good with lunch) and a few regular peas. :)

Believe it or not, there is much more to share! Back soon!

{Almost} Wordless Weekend

2013-05-05T15:16:00.002-07:00

Finished this on March 7th for my older. He started the whole thing by becoming infatuated with a very soft light blue minky at the fabric store. So of course we had to make a whole blanket to go with the minky. :)

He ~~helped me~~ picked out all the fabric. Which would be why it is a *very busy-looking* modge-podge of his favorite characters.

http://instagram.com/charitychain

A little visitor

2013-03-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a bird in the brush that was rather plain looking but had a beautiful song. I watched him perched on a branch, his throat rolling up and down as he sang his heart out. I tried to memorize his coloring and his beak shape, although as I said he was pretty plain. Once inside, I became a little frustrated, because all my bird books wanted me to believe it was a bushtit,

photos via Cornell Lab of Ornithology

and I thought it looked like one too but when I researched it online, the bushtit didn't have the same lovely song I had heard.

A little more digging revealed the wrentit, which is much more rare, but has the lovely song. If you visit this page and scroll down, you can click and listen to the second of three songs listed. That's the one.

~~~

This little bird brought a big thought to me today. How sad it must be, I thought, to have no distinguishing features. In fact, if it wasn't for his song, I would've marked him off as a bushtit and called it a day. But he would've been quite misunderstood.

Sometimes I can feel like my life is pretty non-descript, or even that I might honestly be labelled as plain. I'm a pretty simple person and I don't have the exciting lifestyle that so many of us dream about. But I also believe that each person was made uniquely by God for just such a time and place as they are in now, that each person has a destiny. And our destiny is to, in our various ways, sing our heart's song to the world. What a lovely thing it would be to stop our work every once in awhile, lift our eyes from the task at hand and just listen to someone else's song - their life story, their passions, what makes them unique. I think we will find that no one can ever truly be described as plain. We each have a part to play in a Great Symphony.

Easter Wheatgrass

2013-03-16T22:25:00.000-07:00

I remember seeing in a magazine one time these Easter baskets with live grass in them. And I thought, "Oh that's cute and folksy and eco-friendly and old-fashioned. And I'd probably love to do that but who knows if I ever will." In other words, I filed it away in my mind. I don't even think I had kids then. And Easter has never really been a very "big" holiday in our family, so I had no need to use it right away.

A couple of years ago my mother-in-law gave my older son a basket with real grass and I told her how much I loved it. The mental file was brought to the front of my mind.

This year, we are going to be visiting some of my nieces and nephews for Easter. So my basket tally went from maybe 2 to a possible 6. Obviously I started thinking about what kinds of things I would want to include in these baskets, the first I have ever made, by the way: healthy treats and small books are a nice alternative to too much candy. Maybe a toy or two but I like to keep things simple in the baskets so that it doesn't distract too much from the meaning we find in the holiday.

Then there was the grass! I finally had a reason to attempt it, but I wasn't sure where to begin. A quick call to my mother-in-law revealed that she had bought a whole bag (albeit the smallest one available) of actual lawn grass from the home improvement store. She figured she could always use the extra in their landscaping. Well... I would've been down for that. Except the smallest bag I could find was $15 and I knew I could figure something else out. Also, I wasn't in the market for leftover lawn grass at the moment.

I researched other grasses, and I finally decided on wheatgrass. If you are interested in doing something like this, you can easily buy wheatgrass at your health food store already grown and just pop it in. Easy peasy! But it was gonna cost me about $5 a pop so maybe $30 for all. Plus, you know I like doing things the hard way. Haha. So anyway, I decided I could probably grow my own. I walked around the corner to the next aisle over in the health food store and found hard wheat berries or wheatgrass berries in their bulk food section. Grabbed a few scoops full, up the the register and bam - 65 cents! That's more like it...

I found several versions of how to grow wheatgrass, but I went with the instructions I found here.

Here's how we did it:

Soak berries overnight. I read to make sure you don't soak longer than 24 hours as they may go rancid after that.

Line a basket. You can use an old plastic grocery bag or saran wrap. Or anything else that's water proof. If your basket is somewhat loosley woven, you can lay some fabric down first to hide the plastic. Add a layer of soil to about 1/3 the height of the basket. You don't want too much dirt, because it will make the basket heavy.

Spread seeds (or "berries") in a single layer across the top of the basket. I found a handsome helper to assist me with this step.

Then we soaked the seeds with a water bottle and left them in a sunny spot with a little saran lid to keep the moisture in. I'm told the trick the first few days is to keep the seeds moist.

Boy, you know what? If anyone ever feels like they have a black thumb or gets discouraged in their gardening endeavors, growing something quick like wheatgrass sure is encouraging. :)

We were very excited to see this is what we had on day 3:

And only one week from when we planted the seeds:

Ten days old here:

Wow, that grew faster than I thought! At this rate, my problem is too much grass! I will have to trim it before Easter and I hope it will still keep growing in green and lush and not turn yellow on me or something! That would figure. If I do it again next year, I will wait a bit later, like 2 weeks before Easter instead of 4 weeks.

But, that also means that you still have plenty of time to try this out if you want to. ;)

Follow up: yarn bombing

2013-02-28T10:37:00.001-08:00

It's hard to believe it's been almost three years since we talked about yarn bombing in this post.

A couple of days ago, Lion brand yarn shared this photo on their facebook page, originally found here and the work of Lorna at Knits for Life.

I find it clever and fun to look at. And obviously no one is using the phone anymore anyway...

Of course, the comment section exploded with opinions ranging from admiration to disgust. As usual, the knitting community seems pretty torn over the subject.

One woman linked to an interesting interview with Ishknits, who may or may not have been yarn bombing phone booths before anyone else. If you visit her website, it's kinda neat to see the commissioned work she has done as well.

The interview... for your consideration:) American Hipster Presents: Ishknits Documentary

Starting the New Year off with a (delayed) bang

2013-02-25T18:39:00.000-08:00

Well hello again!

It’s been many months since I visited you all here at the blog. Mostly, I’ve been busy with our second son, whose birth we celebrated at the end of October. :) He is healthy and beautiful and we are slowly working our way, day by day, through the hard first months of no sleep and constant feedings.

Needless to say, the list of things I “should” do, and even would like to do, seems to grow longer every day, as taking care of the boys is always my number one priority. For every one thing I cross off the list, it seems two more things get put on. And blogging is definitely not one of my more pressing concerns. But new adventures have called me back to the blog spot. We are gearing up for a new year of improvements around the house and my first attempt at a veggie garden. So here now, while the baby is finally finally asleep and I “should” be taking a nap myself, instead I have stolen away to share my plans with you.

Where to begin. My mind is reeling. Well, these are the plans we have for the garden this year:

I think for the sake of time and attention, I'll try to be brief. :)

First of all, raised beds are in the works for our garden. Right now they are mostly in our imaginations, but as each day goes by I get more and more anxious that they should be built by now. We went very quickly from me thinking I’d make them for free out of used pallets, to Joel thinking he’d make better ones out of cedar or redwood, to finally deciding that cinder blocks would last longer for our dollars and were quite versatile: since we won’t be mortaring them together, we can rearrange, add onto, or resell them at any time. The onlyreason why it's not already done is having to borrow a truck to pick up the cinder blocks as well as a load of compost from the city.

Side note: I find it hilarious that I get charged to have my green waste collected and then the city tries to sell my green waste back to me after composting. Something is wrong here, isn’t it? I know I could compost my own, but I think I will have to hold off on that for now…

Next: Gardening by the moon! Have you heard of this? I came across it online somewhere and thought it sounded almost superstitious more than anything. But after a little research, I realized it's been practiced for hundreds of years by renowned gardeners, so I think maybe there is some science behind it. I wonder if it has to do with the moon's gravitational pull and if it effects moisture in the soil the same way it effects tides?! I polled my friends on Facebook: half had never heard of it before and the other half swear by it. Basically the idea is that certain days of the moon's cycle are best for planting certain veggies. And other days are less favorable. There are even some calendars that go so far as to occasionally say something like "anything planted on this day will rot," which I think is kinda presumptuous. But who knows! Then I found out that not only does the good old trusted Farmer’s Almanac have a moon-planting calendar, but that it is probably the most popular one by far. I decided I should pick an Almanac anyway, since I need all the help I can get! So I got one from my local bookstore. Saved money on shipping. ;)

You can find more info on moon gardening here.

AWESOME FIND: Seed Swapping. Another new idea to me. A local CSA here that also has gardening classes hosted a seed swap last weekend. The idea is that no one really needs all the seeds they get in a packet in any given year, so everyone brings in their open seed packets and everyone shares with everyone else! I got loads of seeds for totally free! This swap was super casual, so they didn’t even require that you bring seeds of your own, which is cool because I didn’t have any. Haha.

Here is my loot:

So at first I thought – this is great, why don’t more places arrange this kind of thing?

And then I thought - you know what, ANYBODY could arrange a seed swap! In fact my neighbor and I are swapping after the big swap. And a friend of mine who is gardening in Santa Rosa agreed to swap with me by mail! Amazing fun! And if you wanted to go bigger than just a friend or neighbor, you can plan a place and time, put out some flyers and make it happen! So simple.

I couldn’t find artichoke seeds anywhere locally so when I saw an artichoke starter plant at Home Depot today, I picked it up.

Got a starter of strawberries too :)

Still want to get: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. Then we can read the book Jamberry and have a jam jamboree. :0)

Here are some other seeds I got this weekend. Spent good money on these ones:

Then my neighbor just came over this afternoon and brought over a box FULL of organic seeds and told me I could have first pick of the year! This is her version of "seed swapping" although I have very little to offer her in return, and probably nothing she doesn't already have :} What a blessing she is!

Joel’s grandma recently gave us this lily. I like how lilies look. I hate how they smell and shed pollen. She said we should plant it in the yard. I’ve never heard of anybody planting a lily before, I wonder if it would work. Anyway, it’s NOT staying in the house, so I guess I might as well try!

I have a gorgeous flower garden in my mind for the side of the house. It’s a shady spot, so I found a bed plan for a “shady garden” that I think will work out nicely.
I planted some other bulbs: mostly Angelique tulips and iris and some daffys in the front of the house. But I know I planted then way too late (like in January/February) so it will be interesting to see if they even bloom this year. If not – oh well, I will call it a big head start on NEXT year! Wow, yeah, that feels a lot better. Now I’m way ahead of the game. Haha.

Several other experiments in the works on my first year of gardening:

I saved seeds from two store bought bell peppers. One is organic and one isn’t. I wonder which will grow better and/or produce more peppers. Although I must admit to being biased – no matter how they grow, I’d prefer the organic one anyway!
I will be purposefully planting a few seeds against the moon cycle to see if it really makes a difference.

***Awfully AMBITIOUS aren’t I? Yeah, I know. It scares me, too***

My plan is to utterly fail completely, that way any success will be a sweet surprise. One of the failures I foresee is based on the number of bugs and birds there seems to be in my yard. I’m bracing myself for all-out war with them! We shall see how the battle may rage and who will claim victory there. Until then – off I go to start me some seeds before the moon begins to wane. ;)

Photo Project Complete - Autumn

2012-09-22T19:49:00.001-07:00

Today is the first day of autumn. It might be one of my favorite days of the year, because of its promise that cloudy weather, beautiful fall colors, rain, and the holidays are just around the corner. 'These are a few of my favorite things.' :)

Also today, I bring my nine-month-long photography project to a close. I have photographed these same spots now on the First Day of winter, spring, summer and fall, respectively. Always at the same time of day (so that any lighting differences are actually an indication of the earth's orbit).

There were quite a few different spots that I photographed, but for the sake of your time and attention, I'll only share the most interesting. (you can click on the photos to enlarge them if you want to)

winter

spring

summer

fall

I don't know if it's the preggy hormones running through my veins, or if I'm kinda sentimental anyway (probably both) but taking these last photos got me to thinking about the seasons changing, not just in the natural world, but in my personal life as well. I thought about where I was a year ago. Or even nine, six, and three months ago when I came back to the park to take these photos.

winter

spring

summer

fall

It was a year ago today actually that my mom passed away. At the time, although I knew it was coming sooner than later, it still pulled the rug out from under me and left me reeling. As Lemony Snicket writes... "It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one.... It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise..." That was definitely a hard season, but some might say as inevitable as the biting cold will arrive in January, the one that makes you ache to your bones. When you draw into your lungs the frigid air of long, dark winter nights like that, it imparts its stillness and loneliness to your heart...

It took a good long time to get over that one. I spent most of the winter wallowing in depression and self-pity. But I allowed myself those feelings so I could walk through my grief properly and come out to the other side, to the spring.

Also a year ago, we had been wanting another baby for quite awhile, and I was feeling discouraged that it was taking so long. But six months later, we found out we were finally pregnant and one week after that, I was shooting the spring photos... :) My belly has grown progressively bigger as I've shown up to the park in summer and fall. And now here we are, only about a month away from his arrival.

winter

spring

summer

fall

Another dream that we had for several years was to own a home. As of winter, we had been looking and making offers off and on for about 7 years. By spring, we had made an offer on a cute little fixer-upper, but I didn't have my hopes up too high. But by summer, our dream had finally become a reality and we had moved into our first home, deep in the throws of a major remodelling project.

winter

spring

summer

fall

So as I look at these photos and study the changing face of the seasons, how the same spot can look so different over such a short amount of time, I correspondingly marvel at the changes in my face. A little more weathered, a little older - a few more wrinkles from new projects and less sleep, a few more gray hairs of grief and worry, skin a little darker from working my land, a twinkle in my eye for a new little one to love, and the woman in the mirror seems more of a mother to me now and a little less of a daughter.

So much has happened this year, I can only imagine what the next season will bring...

Reusable Snack Bag

2012-08-30T11:13:00.000-07:00

In honor of my son's first week at preschool,

I just finished these reusable bags for him to take to school!

(Pattern can be found here).

He picked out the fabics himself. :) He loves dogs. And yes, he loves ladybugs! Although just to be funny, we call them "man-beetles" around here. And Winnie of course. I might make him some Lightening McQueen ones later if I can find that fabric in my stash. ;)

The inside is ripstop nylon. My first time working with it, and it was kinda fun. It is not waterproof, so these bags can't hold like... a cup of sliced peaches or anything without leaking a little probably. But the nylon does wipe up nicely and can handle all the dry snacks like little crackers, nuts or dried fruit. I have some BPA free little tupper-type things for wet stuff.

If you are interested, you can research different fabrics to line with. Some people used organic cotton. Some people used something called PUL, which I am not familiar with. But I am told that once you get into waterproof fabrics like PUL, you are using essentially plastic-lined fabrics. So I would look to be sure that the lining is BPA free or specifically states that it's food safe. The ripstop I used is 100% nylon, not waterproof, and seemed benign enough to use with food.

Hope everyone is enjoying the back-to-school season. Can you believe it's gonna be September in a couple of days?!

The Pothole Gardener

2012-08-28T12:05:00.001-07:00

Came across this last week:

Kind of reminds me of yarnbombing, but seems even less intrusive and more benign. What do you think about pothole street art? :-)

Bring out the figgy... jam

2012-08-26T09:31:00.002-07:00

This is how I spent last tuesday night. :)

Homemade fig jam

If it weren't for the fact that I now own a fig tree, I probably would've never thought to can figs. But the fig tree we have in the backyard has been producing lots and lots of fruit and it seemed such a pity to waste it and watch hundreds of figs rot. It's funny - when you own a fig tree, you learn pretty quickly which of your friends love figs! :) Even still, we couldn't give the whole fruit away fast enough so on the suggestion of a friend I decided to look into making fig jam.

Having never made or even eaten it before, I experimented with a few different recipes. And by experiment, I mean I took nerdy notes and saved samples to taste test against each other. 8) But since most recipes call to leave the skins on and chop them, they all seemed to result in a very lumpy jam. I wondered if lumpy jam was normal or if I was making it wrong, so I consulted a few friends to see what most people expect to see in a fig jam. In the meantime, I also experimented with making the jam with peeled figs. But cooking it without the skins really effected the taste - made it way sweeter. My favorite of the jam experiments was actually cooked with skins, then manually remove the skins after cooking/before processing. But that was pretty labor intensive, so I was looking for something simpler. And if most people expected lumpy jam anyway, it seemed unnecessary.

The results from my poll came back conclusive - most of my friends did expect lumpy jam. So I decided to keep the skins in after all. But also, just because I'm stubborn, I took an immersion blender to it before I processed it. :0) That smoothed it up nicely too.

Hope you are all having a great weekend. :)

First Day

2012-08-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends by The White Stripes on Grooveshark

Today was my son's first day of Pre School...

He's SO excited. He's been looking forward to this for months. We even made a paper chain a few months ago so he could see how many days he had left before school starts, and he loved tearing a link off every morning and watching his first day of school get closer and closer.

Of course, my mommy heart thinks about how it wasn't that long ago he was just a newborn, cooing in his boppy. And look at him now, such a cool little dude, wearing his backpack. I can't believe what a big boy he is.

I spent the morning frantic, trying to get him ready and making sure I wasn't forgetting anything... Did he have his snack? Water bottle? Did he go potty before we leave? Why was his hair not staying combed? All his cowlicks were acting up again. Then, when we got there, it was finding a parking space... figuring out how to check him in and show him his cubby. I wanted to get that great First Day of School photo, but none of my them were turning out very well because of the morning light, so that was all frustrating.

Then all of the sudden, his teacher, very sweetly came over and welcomed him to class and asked if he ready for some school today and made him feel at ease. He was being whisked away to a half day of learning and fun and friends. Our time was up, so we made our way to leave. I kept looking back at him to see if he would smile or wave to me one more time, but he was already caught up, his eyes glittery with excitement as he listened to his teacher explain what fun things he could do today. Joel lead me out the door, and I peered in the window to check him one more time. And that was when I finally lost it. Do you think he'll be OK? Does he know we left? Should I go back for one more hug???

No, it was too late. I already had tears in my eyes and didn't want him to see me that way. Besides, it was clear to me that he was fine. I was the one having the hard time... :}

I am so excited for him, because I know he's gonna have SO much fun and he'll make lots of new friends... But this morning... my house is way too quiet and my arms feel kinda empty. Even though it's only a few hours, I miss him! :} Joel asked me what I was gonna do with all my free time (a rarity in my life). I said, "Well today my plan is: to cry" Haha. It's true though. I doubt I'll be able to get anything else done this morning.

Can't wait til he gets home and tells me all about his first day at school. ♥

Helping Out - printable chore chart for toddlers

2012-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the absence.

(To start with a tangent: why do bloggers always feel the need to apologize for not updating regularly. As if all of humanity wait with bated breath for us to write something. How presumptuous. ;))

Anyhoo...

We have been busy as usual with life, working, cleaning, cooking... chasing after my toddler who has more and more gumption every day it seems, working on the remodel a little here and there, working on the yard a little here and there, experimenting with my canner (more on that later) and being pregnant. That last one, while easily said, probably takes the most energy. :P

We took a vacation a few weeks ago, and I was gonna post some fun photos and even a printable for a car game we enjoyed. Maybe next time. For now, I wanted to share something else... printable. :}

I've talked before about our perspective on chores around the house (holy cow, I just realized that was over a year ago!). Well, with my toddler starting preschool this week (AHH!) and a bebe on the way... I've been thinking that I should reign in some of the... how shall I put this... lack of focus? I see in my little boy most mornings. Well, he's not really lacking focus. He's just not focusing on some of the things I need him to focus on. Hahaa. So I decided it might be a good idea to create *drumroll* a Chore Chart! (All the non type-A moms just rolled their eyes at me, I can feel it). :P But I think it will help our mornings run a little smoother, when I am trying to get us all ready to go and out the door by 7:45AM. I'm hoping it will keep us on the same page, and with an understanding of what is expected of him every day, along with some motivational tools in the form of recognition and reward. As I shared in that post a year ago, we decided that there are some things we expect to be done unpaid and some that I feel are "extra" chores that are opportunities for him to earn some money. That way, hopefully, he's learning responsibility as well as how to handle cash.

So... I looked around the good old inter-web and found some cute ideas. But in the end I decided to create my own. It's nothing fancy really, but I think it works. One thing I made sure to include were visual clues (pictures, not just words) for my toddler, since he can't read yet. This is to help him fulfill his duties as independently as possible, even though I do have to assist with a couple of them. I'll even give him the stickers so he can mark it off himself when he is done and I'll just check his work. Actually we might go with lamination/dry erase pen so it's reusable and I don't have to print a new one every week...

Just in case it might be useful to you, I thought I'd share it. Downloadable here. :)
{if you have trouble viewing it, you can still click File, Download and you should be able to open it on your computer if you have publisher}

OR here is a jpeg version

Thanks for visiting.

Almost Wordless Weekend

2012-08-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

We were on vacation last week and I am slowly coming back to reality. So this morning, I will just share something fun I found in my newsfeed.

I see 36 squares in this puzzle, but I'm sure there could be more... How many do you see? :)

(Almost) Wordless Weekend

2012-07-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

          Sneak peek at our bedroom colors                         Made laundry detergent last night

Cut mat as a floor plan. This room is a real puzzle. :/       Other roses may tire, but old Yeller is going strong!

Thanks for visiting! :)

Yes we CAN!

2012-07-18T00:44:00.001-07:00

Just finished my first batch of Strawberry Jam! :)

I went to a canning class about a week ago. It's something I've always wanted to learn but was intimated by. But the class was very hands-on and confidence-building, so I was excited to get home and do it myself. This was my first attempt and I think it went pretty smoothly. I tried to do it without a canning pot or a rack, which was challenging but not impossible.

I started with Strawberry Jam because it seemed like the easiest and most universal recipe. I just used the Ball Recipe here because I figured they have it figured out by now and the recipe is one of the most popular ones on their website. I halved it. And, being warned that most traditional canning recipes are really sweet, I reduced the sugar in the recipe, but it still turned out a little too sweet for my taste. I might try even less next time or try to find an alternative. Besides honey. I kinda can't stand honey. Trust me, I wish I could.

Oh look! Here's a light version made with grape juice. I might try that next time. :)

A cool idea I had that I would recommend (if you are a canner and haven't tried it already) is to use an immersion hand mixer to mash the strawberries after starting them a little with a fork. I was sitting there trying to get a smoother consistency and it was taking forever. So I pulled out the immersion and it worked great! It was already on the stove by then, making the berries softer, so that might have helped too.

Have you ever canned before? If so, what are your favorite things to preserve?

Home Improvement: Vinyl Floors

2012-07-17T16:02:00.001-07:00

Gonna keep this one short and sweet. For the both of us. :)

Most of the work was actually done about a month ago but we finally added some finishing touches to it, so I feel better sharing. ;)

This is the kitchen floor BEFORE.

A little scary, yes? The tile was so old and bad, it was literally falling off. You could kick the tiles up. Joel wasn't even sure what they were. Not ceramic.

Unfortunately I don't have a Before of the bathroom. Don't know how I missed that one. But that is still very much a work in progress anyway, so we'll skip it for now. Sufficed to say - the process I'm showing you here was repeated in the bathroom and laundry room as well.

>>>

First, Joel tore up all the layers of flooring until he got to the very bottom. I'm not even sure what you call this layer, but it's basically part of the frame of the house.

Then he laid down underlayment in all three rooms: kitchen, laundry, and bath. It's basically a thin board.

I will spare you all the details of how I went about choosing color and type of flooring. I will say this - we decided on a vinyl tile because (a) Joel could install it himself easily enough and (b) it allowed for flexibility during later renovations. For example, later on when we are tearing out old cabinets in the bathroom, if the new cabinets take up less floor space, we can just add tiles here and there as we need to and not have to re-cut/ re-install a whole sheet of linoleum flooring!

They were self adhesive, and seemed very easy to use. I should talk - I didn't do anything! :) So, you just line them up press them down or roll them on. Of course there is cutting involved once you get to the edges and corners.

Joel found a little helper to hand him tiles as needed.

Before After

Wide shot

Done in the kitchen: installed flooring, fridge, oven, microwave, painted cabinets/new pulls.

Still to do in kitchen: New cabinets, sink and counter tops. And, since we don't have a dishwasher right now, we'll also add one (and the townspeople will rejoice).

And after we're done tearing things off the walls and putting things on the walls, only then can I justify painting the walls. :) Can't wait!

Thanks for visiting.

Home Improvement: The Boy's Room

2012-07-15T01:24:00.003-07:00

It's really late and I'm really tired, but I wanted to share a few photos with you before I collapse into bed. I'm just excited because I've been waiting for a few weeks now to be able to finish this project and then share it with you. We've been living here for over a month now and we finally have one room almost done! :)

Here's a photo of my son's room before we moved in. (And my son posing in it. Hehe)

The floors look alright from far away - but they really needed refinishing. And, while were were at it, I wanted them darker, since they were kind of a honey brown. The walls were very dingy and dirty and needed paint. The windows are newer, which is good (probably one of the few things in this house that's less than 10 years old!), but the casings were unfinished.

Anyway - Joel refinished the floors before we moved in and then this is what the bedroom walls looked like for the first few weeks.

About a month ago, we finally found the time to start painting! My son was very invested in the project - he picked the color out himself, and had been looking forward to helping with painting for a long time, so we went ahead and gave him a brush. And then I realized he doesn't have any "work clothes" like mommy and daddy... so we let him paint in his chonies! He only helped for a couple of minutes. ;)

That's the most adorable house painter I've ever seen...

♥

Taking his work very seriously.

Oh yeah, and Joel helped a little too. :0)

Here's what the old door casing looked like before Joel tore it all out. And there was no baseboard at all. So, after we painted, we waited a few more weeks to acquire the tools needed for Joel to install baseboards and new door casings. And I got to be helpful and paint those myself while Joel was at work (I was pretty proud of me). :P Anyway, here's detail of the new casings and baseboards.

So today we finally unpacked all his toys! When we got to his boxes of books, he ended up spending a few hours looking at all the books he forgot he had and 'reading' to himself. ^_^

And here, my friends, is our somewhat finished product! Tada!

What I'm not gonna tell you is how big the mountain of his toys is that stands behind me as I take this photo. ;) Funny side note: I told him maybe it was time to sort through his things and see if there was anything he wanted to give away to kids less fortunate. We do that from time to time when he has gotten to a point where he's accumulated a lot. After sorting through a few hundred guys and cars are other little toys with him, there were exactly three items in his giveaway bag: a broken plastic Easter egg, a sticker dispenser with no more stickers and a pair of 'disguise' glasses. It was so pathetic, I just stood there laughing at the sad little bag. Ha. Oh well! Guess he wasn't in a very giving mood. Maybe we'll try again later.

So I say it's 'almost' done because the only thing we have left to do in this room is to install a new light fixture (the one in there now is blah... and broken actually, so he just has a lamp right now) and we'd also like new blinds eventually. Maybe some window treatments... but for a little boy's room sometimes I think that's over the top. We'll probably hang some of my son's art work on the walls. That will really make it homey :) Then I think we'll be finished here!

Anyway... no sooner are we done with it than I am left wondering how we will rearrange it in a few months, when it goes from being a boy's room to a boys' room!! ;) That will be interesting.

Tomorrow we hope to paint our room and maybe I'll blog about our new vinyl flooring.
Thanks for visiting. :)

Humble beginnings

2012-07-10T10:01:00.002-07:00

These are the cheery faces I greeted as I went to water my veggies today.

Tomatoes

Bell Pepper

Let's not discuss what number 'attempt' this is for me. Haha. These ones were doing great until we moved and the day after we moved, I found them crusty and mostly dead. I assume I made the mistake of taking the flats outside too early for the little guys, since it was about 1000° that day. Anyway, I picked these up during one of our many recent trips to the home improvement store. They were about 12" when I got them a couple weeks ago and I made sure to enrich they're soil and find a good sun spot for them. They've grown really well (about twice as big as they were) and I am so pleased to see flowers on them. ^_^

"Energy and persistence conquer all things." ~ Ben Franklin

Although I'm not sure I've conquered anything just yet. I suppose I shouldn't count my tomatoes before they... hatch.

Since I was taking photos of our hap-hazard "garden" - or the beginnings thereof - anyway...

This is Joel's baby. It's a Satsuma Mandarin tree. He has a thing for citrus and we have already talked about wanting to get fruit trees in the future. But this is our first one. If you look closely, there is one fruit on the top! But it's still really young so I don't expect too much this year.

Satsuma Mandarin

The fig tree was here when we moved in (obviously - it's huge!) For some reason it has been trimmed very lopsidedly. That bushy area to the lower right is actually the main trunk with a bunch of new suckers on it and then the huge branches reach way out to the left. Weird! We will let it give fruit this year before we take all those left-side branches down. And at that point we'll decide whether to keep the tree and just cultivate the new growth on the trunk or take the whole thing down as well. It's not a bad tree, but I'm not a huge fig fan. I guess it's fun to give them away though. Anyway - this is the meat bees' favorite place to hang out! I think they like the sweet fruit.

Fig Tree

And here are just some little annuals I planted in front of the house, just to have something cheerful to greet our visitors. The dirt here is VERY hard and has lots of clay in it. I mixed in a little compost blend but I'm not sure how some of the petunias (purple) are fairing. We'll see. I just have to remember to water! Water water water.

Being busy with the move and remodel right now, and expecting the Little One in a few months, I've decided to mostly wait until next spring to start a serious garden (raised beds and irrigation and all). So for now we just have some potted things here and there.

Thanks for visiting!