...and she lived happily...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:06:00 +0000

I think I can be okay at starting things, but finishing them is another story. Right now, I feel like I really need a place to write, somewhere I can be real. I thought about starting another blog and not telling anyone about it, but this little blog is mine and I like it here.

The internet is a funny thing. With social networking, it is amazing how easy it can be to create a perfect image of yourself and your life for all to see. Add all of the "look what I can do" blogs on top of that and I have to imagine there are people out there just sitting at their computers thinking

"What the fuck is wrong with me?"

I mean, people besides me.

Don't get me wrong, I love "look what I can do" blogs. I find them much more inspiring than depressing most of the time, but I have ADHD so the chances of me hyper-focusing and spending hours "pinning" inspiring things on pinterest to do later are much more likely than me seeing something, feeling inspired and actually going and doing those things.

I'd like to talk about what it's like to be me, a stay at home mom with ADHD who has a son with ADHD. Most of the time, I feel like I am just pretending to be an adult and I'm pretty sure everyone around me knows. I've fallen into this role as a plate spinner and while I seem to be pretty good at spinning one, once you get a few spinning I'm overwhelmed and they all fall to the ground and shatter... then instead of cleaning it all up I decide to make a mosaic table top...or maybe half of one...

Not a lot, but they're all mine!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I love flowers, but I can't say I have tons of them. Not yet at least. Someday I hope to have an absurd amount of flowers. Seriously. A ridiculously obnoxious amount of flowers. I'm talking more flowers than grass. Don't be surprised. This is me we're talking about here!

For now, at this moment this is what is blooming in my yard!

Pink Daylily

Bellflower White Clips

Hosta

Hahaha!!!

More Daylilies

Daylilies again

Gold Mound Spirea flowers

Gayfeather

My husband bought me this rose bush last year. It was light pink when he bought it, but over the winter it died back and came back this color. My husband calls it my phoenix rose!

I've been dreaming of creating a cutting garden, and by dreaming I mean I've been obsessing, researching and designing one! I was really hoping to be able to do it this year, unfortunately I don't think it's going to happen until next year. Sometimes I overwhelm myself with all of the ideas I come up with for the yard and have to stop and remind myself that this is all going to take time. Some day, my yard will be amazing. It's like a never ending work of art and I love it!

Things that catch my eye

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:43:00 +0000

Whenever people show me their landscaping, I always seem to notice something I like, get really excited about it and go on and on about it until I realize I'm being a total dork. It's not like "oh wow, that's a really pretty flower" but more like "oh wow I love how the texture and color of the foliage of that plant contrasts with the one next to it..." but then I don't shut up about it. I can keep walking and looking at the rest of the plants but my thoughts keep going back to that one spot that caught my eye and I keep bringing it up like they really want to hear for the eighth time how much I love some plant combination I saw ten minutes ago. They're never like "oh my gosh I'm so glad you noticed that I did that on purpose because I thought so too!" they are usually like "...oh yeah, that does look pretty cool." like they'd never noticed before. I know I'm not alone here, there are books about these things! I know it's probably just because I don't really know anyone else who is as ~~psychotic~~ passionate about landscaping as I am, but I usually end up embarrassing myself and feeling like a total dork because I wont shut up about something and it's obvious that I'm the only one who cares.

So, since I am just typing this and wont be able to see when your eyes glaze over and you start to look at me like I am a crazy person for rambling on and on about things that catch my eye, here we go!

Bellflower White Clips

First of all, I love these bellflowers! When I was planning this whole area, I knew I wanted something small in front with white flowers. I ended up choosing these bellflowers because they are perennials. I am so glad I did! I love their compact habit and how they end up completely covered in blooms. One thing that always seems to catch my eye about this little area is the way the bellflower and the hosta behind it compliment each other. I love the contrast between the bellflower's small ruffled foliage and the broad smooth foliage of the hosta as well as the hosta's subtle white edges that mirror the color of the bellflower's blooms.

Spring 2011

I put this stepping stone here, because my sidewalk curves the other way. If we want to get to the hose or if the kids want to go to the back yard, usually they go in the opposite direction of the sidewalk. Stepping stone or not, that is the route that would be taken. Last year, it was surrounded by hens and chicks. They don't do so well when my kids miss the stepping stone. Ajuga on the other hand, can handle a little foot traffic so this spring I surrounded the stepping stone with it hoping that it would spread and surround the stone.

It has grown just like I'd hoped it would and I love the contrasts between the Ajuga and the stepping stone when it comes to color and texture.

Next to the stepping stone, I also have a Gold Mound Spirea. I put it next to the Barberry bush because I loved the way their colors contrasted.

Barberry

Gold Mound Spirea

...but I didn't even really think about how lovely the Ajuga would look next to the Spirea when I planted it around the stepping stone!

One more thing when it comes to colors in general. With the idea of light colors kind of popping and visually seeming to come forward and dark colors almost receding in mind, here is a picture from when I began working on the plants in front

May 2010

Can you see how the dark mulch almost seems to take a step back and let the plants be the stars of the show as opposed to the light colored landscaping rock that almost looks as if it's competing with not only the plants but also the sidewalk for attention?

July 21, 2011

I like the dark mulch!

"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Swiss Chard

When most people think about vegetable gardens, usually the word 'beautiful' isn't one of the first words that come to mind. This season as each day has gone by, I've watched my garden come to life. Sometimes it just leaves me breathless. When I walk back into the house after spending some time out there, sometimes I look at my husband and all I can say is

"I have a beautiful garden"

Now, I know I'm a little (or a lot) biased because it's kind of my baby but I think the foliage and blooms on some edible plants are just as lovely as some of the ornamental plants we regularly use if not more so.

Foliage from carrots, opal basil and pepper plants

Snow peas

Potatoes in bloom

Marigold next to cucumber flowers

Nasturtiums

Borage

Onion

So, I've been thinking about edible landscaping a lot lately. So many ideas have been swirling around in my head.

Asparagus and Swiss Chard

I'm feeling inspired, to create a beautiful edible landscaping design. If I can come up with one, I'll share it with you

The one where she bored everyone to death with millions of pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 05:51:00 +0000

"So...where do we go from here?"

Tonight, after it had rained for most of the day, I went out to the garden to see how things were doing. I was in heaven.

Swiss chard, onions and peppers

My garden is flourishing!

Swiss Chard

I've spent many hours dreaming it up, creating the design, planning plant placement, building the actual garden, planting everything and tending to these plants. When I walk back there and see things thriving, I can't even explain how good that feels.

It really is one of my favorite places to be. Sometimes I just sit and stare, amazed. To me, it's just beautiful.

I think the combination of Opal Basil and the fine textured carrot foliage would be a gorgeous addition to a flower bed.

I've never really had much luck with peppers, but they are all growing well and I'm starting to see little peppers on them.

I have several different kinds of tomatoes and the mesh trellis supports have been great so far. I'm starting to see little tomatoes on a lot of them!

Never mind the toys, gotta keep the four year old entertained sometimes!

I have three different types of peas on the left side of the supports and three different types of cucumbers to the right. I had spinach in front of the peas but it started bolting so I pulled them out. I will probably either replant spinach or a different type of salad greens there. In front of the cucumbers I have baby romaine.

aww aren't they cute?

Do you by any chance remember that middle bed I wanted to have jack be little pumpkins and morning glories climbing up a teepee?

Okay so I obviously planted too much in this bed but I might be okay with that. They are climbing up the teepee and spilling over the edges. I love it! So far the morning glories are still trying to climb up through the pumpkins. Hopefully they'll be able to sneak through so there will be some blue blooms mixed in here and there. I think that would be so pretty with the pumpkin flowers!

These are boy flowers. You can tell because they don't have little baby pumpkin bumps.
They get to stay thin. Jerks...

Speaking of flowers...have you ever seen a potato flower? Well I haven't, at least not until today!

Okay so I know it's closed and sad looking, but I was pretty excited to see that this evening! I have never grown potatoes before so I didn't know what to expect. When I filled the bed they are in, I only filled it halfway to "make it easier for me to hill up"...right...

I've obviously underestimated these guys. Four and a half bales of straw have gone into this potato bed.

"Is that all you've got lady?"

...and they keep growing...and growing...and growing! Now I know that some of it is just the straw settling but wow! I am going to have to add some chicken wire around this bed to keep the straw from spilling out. I still think about how much it would suck if I were to dig down after all of this and not find any potatoes! I'm pretty sure I would cry. Yes. I would definitely cry. Hopefully, we will have lots of potatoes!

"Hey guys, how's it going?"

So, things are growing pretty well, besides the weeds we also have a few uninvited guests like this tomato plant that randomly sprouted here!

"oh come on I'm a pretty fun guy!"

"'fun guy?' For shame Jess, for shame""

...and these little guys that showed up in the bed with the peppers and onions! I'm thinking I'm going to have to take the straw mulch out of this bed. With a soil mixture of composted manure, peat moss and vermiculite I think it might be retaining more than enough moisture without the mulch. So far this summer I think I have had to water the garden maybe three times!

So, that's where we're at right now. If you've made it this far, thank you so much for taking the time to look at all of these pictures! Next time I will try to remember to take my real camera out with me so you don't have to look at camera phone pictures!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:00:00 +0000

I'm not exactly sure who decided on the placement of the light switches in the lower level of my house, but I'm pretty sure whoever that person is, was feeling pretty sadistic that day. Okay, so maybe they just lacked experience in that sort of thing, but having to reach past knuckle scraping pipes to turn on a light switch behind the door in the space the size of a closet while holding a basket full of dirty laundry starts to get really old after a while if you're not a contortionist. My husband, who soon grew tired of hearing me complain about it, and after catching me eyeballing the ceiling in the laundry room started worrying that he might come home to find a ~~hole in our bedroom floor~~ D.I.Y. laundry chute, decided it was time to install a light switch with a motion sensor in the laundry room.

Seriously, it's magical. I'm not kidding. It's a perfect "shut up" project! It took him about five minutes, cost less than twenty dollars, earned him hero status for at least a few days and totally shut me up! Okay that's not entirely true, I didn't totally shut up. It's probably been almost a year now since he's installed it and I still tell him at least once a week how awesome it is.

Today it seems like every time I walk into a room I am turning lights off. The sun is shining and I've got big windows and small trees. All of these lights just aren't necessary. Especially when no one is even in that room. It makes a girl kind of grumpy. Makes a girl wish she could do electrical things so she could install those motion sensor light switches through out most of the house. Since I can't work with electricity, or at least am not willing to try on my own, I'm thinking I'm going to have to turn this grumpiness into a learning experience. I'm thinking that today, the kids are going to have to do a couple extra chores to make up for the electricity that they are wasting. (insert maniacal laughter here)

Yep. It's going to be one of those days.

If this is a circus, where are all the clowns? Oh wait, that's me I guess.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:25:00 +0000

Since my memory is just about as short as the time it takes me to get everything ready and get outside some days, I usually try to write myself a few notes to remind myself what exactly I want to do. If I don't, I'll end up going outside and bouncing around the yard like a pinball from plant to plant only to realize a couple hours later that I'd totally forgotten to do what I'd originally gone outside to do. Usually it's just things like "potatoes need hilling", "these seeds need to go into the ground now" or "does this need to be watered/mulched/deadheaded, etc..." you get the idea.

Today I went outside with a game plan. A few weeks ago, I forgot all of my melon seedlings out on the front step on an insanely hot day. Five different kinds of melon seedlings all dead. I'm not going to lie, I kind of wanted to cry. I'd been daydreaming of having this big patch of melons and pumpkins. Yeah, I killed the pumpkins too. Out of them all I only have a couple kinds of melon seeds left. I realized last night that they don't take as long as some of the others so if I were to get them into the ground today they might actually have a chance.

So my list for today was:

plant melon seeds and mulch the area they will be growing in.
check plants in the garden and water them (only at the roots, tomatoes are looking a little blighty)
hill potatoes

Not a long list right? Seems pretty reasonable doesn't it? Well, after getting the kids dressed and covered in sunscreen and gathering everything I needed I went outside to do these things. While I checked on some of the plants in the garden, my four year old thought he would help me out and water the garden. I have one of those sprayers with a bunch of different settings. It's really very fun for a four year old, but not so fun for the plants that are getting blasted with water. If my little basil plant comes back I'll be amazed. Same goes for the carrots he blasted. He was only trying to help, but he ended up drenching just about everything in the garden including me.

Meanwhile, my eight year old shows up with his dirt bike, notices a patch of dirt and decides that it looks like a fantastic place for him to do burnouts with the back wheel. That patch of dirt just so happened to be a patch of dirt because I planted seeds there a few days ago. Did I have it marked? No, but I shouldn't have had to. He knows he is not supposed to do burnouts in the yard.

By the time I got a phone call from my sister in law wanting some information, I was so glad to have a reason to give up and go inside. So the plants are watered. That's it.

Sometimes I feel like all I am doing is running around trying to avoid disaster after disaster. One mess is cleaned up, another is made in another room. One thing is planted, another thing is being destroyed a few feet away. Soon I realize it's late afternoon, I feel like I've accomplished absolutely nothing, but I'm exhausted. By the end of the day, my husband gets home and it looks like I've done absolutely nothing because my house (on a good day) looks exactly like it did when he left that morning. I on the other hand, look and feel like I've been wrestling tigers, or alligators or...trucks.

If I could draw, I would draw a comic strip of myself today and I would be a circus clown running around frantically trying to put fires out all over the place but the hose would be kinked. Then when I would look at the hose it would un-kink and spray water all over my face. Then you'd see that my kids are the ones kinking the house because they are playing the "who can push mom so far over the edge she hides from us and eats hot fudge out of a jar with a spoon" game. Yep. Today I'm like a deflated clown. At least that would explain my huge feet...

Changes of perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:06:00 +0000

When we first bought this house, whenever I would see rabbits hopping around the yard I always thought they were so cute. I would just sit and watch them with a smile. Having lived in the city most of my life, the majority of the rabbits I had seen were in pet stores. Sure there were random wild rabbits out and about once in a while, but they just weren't something you would see on a regular basis. "How lucky we are!" I thought, "to be surrounded by so much nature!". Then I started gardening.

It started with a few strawberry plants. They did okay at first, but soon I noticed that they were being chewed on. I saw a rabbit out there one day and looked to find all but one of my strawberry plants totally chewed down to the ground. This was no one's fault but my own of course. I should have covered them right away when I noticed that they were being chewed on. It was at this point though, that I decided that rabbits were jerks. Yes, I know they need to eat too and all of that jazz, but here's the deal: if I am spending the time, money and energy to try and grow food for my family and you take it upon yourself to destroy my work, I don't care how cute and fuzzy you are. You and I are no longer cool.

Then we have spiders. I don't love spiders. I don't even kind of like spiders. I'll let a daddy long leg hang out and kill any random crawlies that sneak into my house for a while, but other than that if there is a spider in my house, I'm looking for a shoe. If the spider is big enough, I'm looking for my husband. I know, I'm a wimp. I'm okay with it. Well, I guess I was okay with it until this big mama decided to make herself right at home in the borage I'd planted in my veggie garden.

"Hey, what's up? Got any steak?"

Remember that whole thing about me growing up in the city? Up until this point, I had never randomly come across a spider like this. Being 98% sure that if I were to try and squish it with something it would probably just take it away from me and beat me with it, I went to find my husband. After poking it with a stick a few times, (really why do they do that?) he asked me if I wanted him to kill it. While inside my head I'm thinking "YES KILL IT TWICE! KILL IT LOTS! KILL IT WITH FIRE! KILL IT UNTIL IT'S ALL KINDS OF DEAD!!!!" I actually hear myself say "no, just leave it..."

"No?!?!?" My husband and the voice inside my head ask in unison. "just leave it?!?!?"

As I stared at it's web, full of mosquitoes and other bugs I told him to leave it be.

From that day on, my garden routine was a little different. Every day I walked out to the garden with goosebumps. My very first task was always to find the spider. It never left the borage, so it was always pretty easy to locate. Once I knew where it was, I was able to work in the garden without being too worried about randomly stumbling upon it. It's like we had an agreement. I stayed away from it, and it stayed in the borage and killed bugs. Did it kill enough bugs to make up for how much it freaked me out? Probably not, but who knows. I didn't have any problems with bugs in that garden, but I don't know how much the spider had to do with it.

I often tell people that gardening keeps me sane. At the end of the day, some time alone to clear my head in the garden works wonders. Now that I think about how much gardening has changed the way I think about things, I'm not so sure if "sane" is the word I should be using!

To my sweetie, Thanks for all the support(s)?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Last year was the first year I actually had a garden. I have this problem when it comes to trying things. I didn't want it to just be your average run of the mill garden. I wanted it to be beautiful and functional and I wanted to place things based on what I'd learned about companion planting. I spent hours researching and planning. I had random notes all over the place. My husband was convinced that he would wake up one morning to find me standing in the living room still awake from the night before obsessively writing things like "carrots are good for tomatoes, but tomatoes can stunt carrot's growth", "peppers like onions" and "borage is wonderful!" all over the walls! I was that obsessed.

Eventually I figured out where I wanted to plant everything. I was so excited! I had placed the veggies and included a few flowers that were good companions. It was going to be beautiful!

July 2010

At first, things were looking pretty good. The tomatoes and peppers I had started inside from seed when it was still snowing outside were thriving in their new homes. The seeds I had planted were starting to grow and so was my head. I was feeling pretty awesome. I'd grown a tomato plant or a couple pepper plants here or there but I had never planned out an entire garden bed. I was feeling like I was a pretty awesome gardener! What I didn't realize was, with all of that planning and researching I had forgotten a very basic, very important thing.

Determinate

Indeterminate

While my determinate tomatoes would remain bushy and only end up growing a certain size before they stopped, the indeterminate tomatoes were vine like and would just keep growing. Tomato cages, while fine for determinate types of tomatoes, just weren't going to work for the indeterminate type and I had caged them all. Eventually they grew up and over the cages, falling over the sides and tipping some of them over. My husband ended up having to attach wire to the cages and to the sides of the garden bed to keep the cages upright. By August my beautiful perfectly planned garden looked like this:

They took over everything! I ended up with tons of tomatoes and lots of basil but not much more than that. Most of the pepper plants were crushed by the tomato plants and the ones that weren't didn't receive nearly enough sun. The alyssum I thought was so pretty along the front of the bed just got in the way of the onions and was eventually ripped out.

So this year I am trying something different. This year, we're going up!

Thanks to my super awesome husband for building these!

One would think that I would steer clear of indeterminate types after last year's disaster but oh no, that's not how I operate. This year I'm only using indeterminate types of tomatoes! The supports on the beds to the left in the picture above are all for tomatoes. The ones on the right side are for cucumbers and peas. If all goes well, they will be full of plants and it will look almost like an enclosed garden and less like a garden with soccer nets around it! We'll see how things go this year. I can't wait!

Guess what time it is!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:56:00 +0000

Oh yes, it's peony time!

Now, I will be running outside like a crazy person to cut all of the blooms because it's about to rain!

My first harvest of the year!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 01:08:00 +0000

A strawberry. Just one! It's kind of funny being from Minnesota and watching people who live in warmer states post pictures online and talk about all of the things they have already harvested while my plants are still wimpy little guys. Even people in Minnesota who were able to get their cool weather crops in the ground at the appropriate time make me feel a little envious. While I did plant cool weather crops, I planted them a lot later than I would've liked to have planted them because my garden beds just weren't ready yet. While I'm hoping they do okay, I'm not going to get my hopes up. Maybe I can replant some of them in the fall and try again if they don't do well this time. Next year though? I'm on it!

So here is my first harvest of the year. A strawberry! Yes, I know I probably could've given it another day but chances are, something else would've found it first. My husband said I should put it in the freezer so we can feed it to our family when times get tough. He is a smartass and I will not be sharing my one strawberry with him!

They never seem to last long enough

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 05:05:00 +0000

I feel like I just took this picture and now all of the flowers are gone. My mom bought this lilac bush for me a little over two years ago when we first bought the house. I planted it underneath our bedroom window daydreaming of taking naps with lilac scented breezes. The tag said it was purple, but hey this was actually a fun surprise. This is the first year we've actually had a lot of blooms on it. I think the white flowers are really pretty, but they are already all gone. I still need to get out there and get rid of all of the spent blooms so it can put it's energy towards growing instead of making seeds.

Speaking of blooms that don't last nearly long enough...

Oh sweet peonies, why do you torture me so?

Because they can, that's why. If peonies were dates, they'd make you wait forever for them to show up, then while you're still swooning, they'd leave without any explanations. One would think you'd be disappointed or write them off, but no. You just stand there mesmerized saying "call me..." and then you'd wait by the phone.

Or maybe that's just me.

I have a feeling we're not in Minnesota anymore

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:56:00 +0000

I know, I should be reading the title of this post and thinking "for shame Jess, for shame." but I'm not. Today was ridiculous. I don't even know what the temperature got to because I figured if I looked it would just say "seriously does it even matter at this point?" and my answer would be no. Not it does not. Once you hit ridiculous the only reason people honestly check the weather is to see if they've earned bragging rights. It's well known that we like to brag about our weather. In the freaking winter time! If this keeps up, what the heck are we going to say when people ask us why we put up with this?:

You're kind of making us look like a bunch of jackasses Mother Nature. I'm just sayin'...

I had a pretty sad moment today when my son got home from school and told me that all of the plants I had left on the front step had blown over into my day lilies. The wind wouldn't have mattered anyways, I had totally forgotten that all of my melon (five different kinds!) and pumpkin seedlings were out there. Most of the pumpkins are doing okay but I'm pretty sure I killed most if not all of my melons. I'm awesome.

On a brighter note, I thought I totally killed all of the asparagus but yesterday I noticed a spear growing which today has grown into a few! Apparently I just killed most of the asparagus! I know I wont be able to harvest any of it because it's the first year, but hey at least I didn't kill them all. I also noticed that my potatoes are growing which is pretty cool because I didn't really have much faith in those guys for some reason. Some of my cucumbers have sprouted while others haven't. I'm kind of debating whether I should stick a couple more seeds in the ground or wait a little longer. It's me so I'm probably going to just stick a few more seeds in the ground. Oh! My dear sweet husband finished putting in my supports for climbers! I will have pictures of those soon!

Well, we had big plans...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 04:43:00 +0000

This morning, when my husband and I planned out our day, it was looking pretty promising. I was going to mow the front part of the yard and he was going to mow the back. Then we were going to work on the supports for my garden beds and work on getting water closer to the garden. Yeah, that's not what happened.

I got one side in the front mowed and started on the other when the lawnmower just stopped. I thought it was out of gas but no. Something is wrong with it. So now we probably have maybe a quarter of the yard mowed. My husband spent the majority of the day trying to figure out what was wrong with it while I brought water back to the garden in jugs so I could water and mulch a few areas.

Things definitely didn't go as planned today, but sometimes I think being forced to slow down is a good thing. This afternoon I made a picnic for the boys to eat in their play set and I sat with them while they ate. I don't know what it is about kids and being able to eat picnics in forts but it's so fun being able to just sit and watch them. Today was a beautiful day.

I wonder what would happen if I...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 03:59:00 +0000

You know those people who know just enough about things to have enough confidence to get themselves into trouble? That's me. With just about everything I do. I can't say I'm really fantastic at anything, but I'm mediocre to good(ish) at a lot of things. Apparently, I lean towards the mediocre end of the spectrum when it comes to tinkering around with blogs. I seem to have deleted all of the comments. This makes me sad!

So friends, your comments have not disappeared because I wanted them to. They disappeared because I like to push buttons to see what happens. Please keep the comments coming, they make my day! I promise to try not to get too clicky with the buttons from now on!

So here we are!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 23:51:00 +0000

I talked a little about the front of my house a few days ago. I thought it would be fun to post another picture of what it looked like when we moved in and what it looks like now! I took the picture on the right just a couple days ago. This is just something you have to do when you are going to take on a big project. It's so fun being able to look at these pictures next to each other. I'm not even going to lie. I have looked at these pictures next to each other way too many times. It just feels good to know that I was able to accomplish a project like this by myself while simultaneously caring for, entertaining and occasionally being a jungle gym for my three year old!

Moral of the story? Landscaping rocks were invented by satan.

Do they sell "children with rocks" collars for plants?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:36:00 +0000

"We feel so uncool right now."

Last week I planted my peppers and tomato plants. The next morning when I went to check on them, I noticed that one of my tomato plants was gone and another was broken and bent over. I quickly realized how the one was broken when I saw a rock sitting next to it. The day before, my boys were "helping" me by throwing rocks onto the landscaping fabric. I remember noticing an "oh crap" look on the older one's face at one point but I thought it was just because a rock landed in the garden bed. I didn't realize it actually took out one of my tomato plants! Then I went to see what the deal was with the other one. I didn't have to do much investigating before finding a big fat cutworm. Not cool cutworm. Not cool.

Now the rest of the tomatoes and peppers have super fashionable cutworm collars! I imagine if they could talk they'd be telling me how uncool cutworm collars are and asking me why I'm always embarrassing them. Then I'd make them feel like ungrateful jerks by telling them how I bet their dear friend Early Girl tomato wished she had a cutworm collar that fateful night.

So, besides replacing two tomato plants there is still a lot left to do here. I still need to build the supports for climbers and then fill in between the beds and the perimeter of the garden with rocks. I also need to figure out where I am going to plant my pumpkins and melons, and move some of my raspberries back here and plant them in hedgerows. I've really been thinking about planting a live fence around the veggie garden with espaliered fruit trees but I'm not sure they'll all get enough sun once I put the supports in for the climbers. Then of course there would be the whole deer issue...

You may think I'm crazy, but I think I'm just...well...crazy I guess...hmm...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 May 2011 16:59:00 +0000

Last year my husband offered to build raised beds for me for my veggie garden. Then he gave me graph paper and told me to draw him a picture of what I wanted. He soon regretted that decision!

This is actually the first year that I'll be able to use all of the garden beds, and I've got a plan!

I'm insane, I know but I am so excited!

and so it began...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 May 2011 03:38:00 +0000

A little over two years ago, my husband and I bought our first house. When we moved in, there was still snow on the ground and we had no idea what was lurking underneath. As it began to melt, the first thing I saw were hens and chicks. I had no idea what they were, but I thought they were pretty cool looking. I was so clueless that first year, I had one of my neighbors walk around the house with me and tell me which things were plants and which things were weeds!

This is what our house looked like that first summer. I didn't make many changes that summer. I was just trying to make sure I didn't end up killing anything! Last summer things changed. I decided the rocks had to go! I'd never planned out flower beds or anything before so it was definitely a challenge. Well, that and all of those rocks! I pulled out all of the rocks, divided and moved hostas, daylilies and hens and chicks and added lots of new things. By the end of the summer, my arms looked awesome and the front of the house looked like this:

Professional landscaper I am not, but man it feels like home! Now when I sit on my front step I look around at all of the work I've done and it makes me so proud. All of the memories of back aches seem to disappear. Now I see this instead of rocks...

...and I am so hooked!

So...how are things?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 May 2011 08:38:00 +0000

I have a new addiction, and I'm feeling kinda chatty!

So, if we both have ADHD then who the heck is supposed to keep track of...wait...what were we talking about?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:44:00 +0000

(eta: I've tried to fix the font of this post several times but apparently blogger hates me this morning. My apologies)

My son's school had a book-a-thon...er....read-a-thon? One of those thing...a-thons..where you try and get people to sponsor you for every hour you read. Well about a week and a half ago, the folder went missing. I figured I'd just misplaced it because that's what I do. So I've been looking for it off and on for about a week without any luck. This morning I tried looking for it again since it's due TOMORROW! With no such luck again. When I mentioned to my son that I was looking for it he said "oh I already turned that in" wait...what? So basically since I just assumed that I lost the folder, I didn't even ask him if he knew where it was. Sweet.

So here was the plan. Since I bring him to school in the morning I was going to have him go into his classroom, grab it out of his desk all smooth like and hand it off to me. Piece of cake right? Did I mention that we both have ADHD?

Here's how it really went.

We leave the house right on time, like right on time if you don't want any extra time to get to school because
a.) he kept getting distracted by the tv while trying to put his snowpants on.
Yes, I know I should've turned the tv off but then my younger son would've had a meltdown once he realized that I was leaving the house without him.
b.) I went downstairs for my keys and came back upstairs with my glasses and a hat so I ahm...had to go back downstairs for the keys.

So we finally get outside and I see that my husband who is so sweet and incredibly thoughtful has washed my car. It's so shiny and pretty and...oh yeah...school. So we go to get into the car and the doors are frozen shut. I'm eventually able to get the driver's side door open so I have him climb through. He thinks it's fantastic...I think that my butt is going to be wet and cold from him stepping on my seat with snowy boots.

We get to school and get him out of his boots, coat and snowpants and into his tennis shoes. I watch all of the kids with organized parents walk into the classroom and place their homework folders and book(read?)-a-thon envelopes on the shelf. I remind him of his mission. "Go into the classroom all stealth like, grab the envelope out of your desk and bring it back to me."
"Okay mama" he says with a sideways glance and a little nod of his head like "no problem. I've got this." Partners in crime that's what we are...me and mister T.

I quietly stand in the doorway to watch. My partner in crime walks up to his desk...yep things are going good...then he glances into his desk sees his friend and starts talking to him. Oh no! I'm losing him! Then he sees that the teacher is making hats of some sort out of paper and heads over to her. NOOOOO!!! The mission!!!! Don't abandon the mission!

"Did you look?" I ask him
"I didn't have time" He says

wait...what?

So the teacher asks if she can help me. Doh! I've been spotted.
"I ahm...well...he uh...said he turned his read (book?) a thon folder in already."
"oh yeah he turned that in about a week and a half ago."

awesome.

So I asked him to check his desk again and she goes "you might want to check his desk"
ahhh...I instantly knew what she meant.

I went over to his desk and immediately flashed back to 2nd grade, watching the other kids with clean desks eating smarties candies left by the desk fairy while I stared into my messy desk feeling ripped off.

Oh yeah, this is my son alright.

The kid's desk was packed. I'm talking filled with paper. I don't know how he can fit anything in it. I knew that's exactly why she said I should probably look. That's why he glanced into his desk for a second. He saw the black abyss of worksheets that is the inside of his desk and got overwhelmed. I dug around for a while, found the envelope, gave him a hug and a kiss and slinked out the door.

I drove home thanking my lucky stars that he's as smart as he is. He's a damn smart kid....but I'm pretty sure his teacher still thinks I'm a moron.

The difference five minutes makes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:02:00 +0000

This morning I woke up to my son going

"BEEEEEEEP!"

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEP"

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

"BEEEEEEP!!!!"

It was 7:25. My alarm clock goes off at 7:30.

When he is older, you bet your butt I will be calling him or waking him up five minutes before his alarm goes off so he can see how very precious that five minutes is.

Have I mentioned the fact that I'm not a morning person?

I'm not a morning person.

Then I rolled over and some how managed to jam my hand into my knee and bend my fingernail backwards. Why??? Why couldn't it just have broken? Man that hurts!

So then I got up to head to the bathroom, passing a mirror and realizing that in the morning, my haircut slightly resembles Robert Smith from The Cure's hair...or Edward Scissorhands' whichever. That thought was of course cut short when I stepped in my son's pee. Aim? Who wants to do that in the morning? I was wearing socks...stepping in wet things while wearing socks is just gross.

Then my alarm went off.

I'm so ready for naptime today!

Apparently 28 isn't what it used to be...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:59:00 +0000

About a year ago, I noticed a weird little spot on the white of my eye. At first I thought maybe my eyes were just bloodshot or something so I didn't pay much attention to it. One day I was talking to my mom and she asked me about it and told me I should get it checked out. That night I did what every person does when they feel like scaring the crap out of themselves. I googled it. My google search gave me two possibilities. One was a freckle that happens more frequently with people that have a little more pigment in their skin as they get older. The other suggestion was of course cancer. Now here is where I learned quite a bit about myself.

Faced with these two possibilities... getting older or having eye cancer...which one was easier to wrap my brain around? Yep. I was convinced that I had eye cancer. I mean me? Getting older? HA!

So of course the more I thought about it the more that eye hurt and the blurrier it seemed...by the time I went to the doctor I was convinced that I was doomed. Before I saw the doctor they took pictures of my eyes. When the doctor came to get me he was very nice and quiet. I was positive it was because he felt sorry for me. When I walked into his office there was the big picture of my eyes and he had circled something and written something on it. Ooooh crap. I knew it! My legs shook the entire time he checked my eyes.

Then the news...

I have an eye freckle. No, make that two eye freckles. One on the outside which is the spot that I noticed and one on the inside which is the thing that he circled. Other than that, he said that my eyes look really healthy and that I should wear sunglasses more often because of the pigment...thing...with the getting older...and what not. Then he gave me my new prescription and sent me on my merry way.

My husband of course thought this was hilarious and took every chance he could get to make fun of me. I hate to admit it but he has every right. This isn't the first time that I've googled some sort of ailment and convinced myself that I or one of my loved ones has cancer of some sort. It's even worse that I had just assumed that it must be cancer because there's no way I could be getting older, plus my eyes were blurrier and that was one of the side effects. No, it couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that I hadn't had my eyes checked in four years!

Get this, the very next day I kid you not I got mail from AARP!

I'm 28 years old!

*on a frugal note, since I still like the glasses that I already had. I just had them replace the lenses and I saved about a hundred bucks!

Printable Paper Dolls!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:30:00 +0000

I have been looking at this website longer than I'd like to admit. I used to love paper dolls when I was little! I think that you could print these out and make some really cute gifts! I'm totally trying to resist printing some out for myself!

Thanks to craftzine.com for the tip!

No More Cheese Sandwiches!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:32:00 +0000

So after Mister T's first day of school where he decided to leave the lunch I made for him in his locker and eat school lunch, I decided to just have him eat school lunch every day. I could do lunches for cheaper...but if he keeps pulling the "leave my lunch in my locker" stunt and getting food from the cafeteria...that would add up fast. I also figured it would be a good lesson in choosing foods for himself and having to eat what they have or going hungry. So every day he'd come home and I'd ask him what he ate that day. "cheese sandwich" Whaaat?!?!? Okay kid...I can make a cheese sandwich for you for lunch. In fact I can make a darn good cheese sandwich for him every day of the week and it certainly wouldn't end up costing 1.75 a day! So I talked to him and told him that we give the school money so he can eat anything he wants that they have there and that we'd really like for him to try other things. So on Wednesday he said he had spaghetti and yesterday he said he tried a taco and it was "yummy!" I really hope he continues to try new things at school or at least find a few things that he enjoys other than cheese sandwiches. I don't mind paying for a hot meal for him in the middle of the day but if he's going to eat cheese sandwiches, I'd rather do that myself. He's just too funny...it's always something!