The Dog Days of Summer

This is the little banner I made for (guess who?) Katy, Leif's cousin, who turns 9 today! Happy Birthday, Katy!

Funny story: I thought I had her present, which was the same as her sister, Sarah's, who had her 10th birthday this past Monday. But, when I went to wrap Katy's present, I discovered I didn't have one for her, and I realized what had happend: At the store, I had decided on Sarah's gift, and tossed it into the cart and I was trying to decide between two gifts for Katy, when Leif said, "Momma, I have to go potty!" I tossed the two things I had in hand, raced him to the bathroom (all the way across the store) and when we emerged from the bathroom, I totally forgot that I had never chosen Katy's gift, and left the store without anything for her.

So, since I didn't want to drive all the way back in to town (it isn't laziness, it's 45 minutes each way!) I decided to make this little banner from materials I had on hand. I found it online (oddly, with the name Avery spelled out, which is another cousin of Leif's) and decided to try my hand. I thought it might require mad scissor skills a la Edward Scissorhands, but it wasn't too terribly hard (thank goodness!) The extra ribbon hanging from either side are so she can tie it up somewhere in her room. I didn't take any time in hanging it up (so it is a bit crooked), but that doesn't matter since that is not it's final hanging place.

Here is a close-up of the sea glass candles I made the other day. We have used them every night - we use them as a centerpiece, then I took them to the bathroom and took a shower with them glowing (we have a large walk-in shower, so they were technically in the shower with me, but nowhere near the water). Later, I took them in to the bedroom and placed them on the dressers beside the bed where they gave a lovely glow well into the night. They were lovely and perfect in all three instances...I need to make more of these - I can't get enough of their jewel-y glow around the house, whether the candle is lit or not! Luckily, I have loads of seaglass (the three candles above were made from one trip to the beach -and they are only part of that load!) so I can make a lot more of these for the house :) I literally have bags of seaglass (and shells) waiting around to be made in to something beautiful.

On a gardening note, the heat came around again and pretty much did the garden in. I'm still harvesting tomatoes, though. I thought they were done, but they just keep coming! I actually had some pink ones come up that I planted from seed, but I didn't see them until too late, so they rotted on the vine (oops). Sort of like the okra that Caryn pointed out to me - "You'd better pick that okra or it is going to get bitter!" I had no idea what she was talking about, so we went out into the garden, and she pointed out a single okra that was bigger than my thumb...well, it was more like two of my thumbs. I had never seen it before, so I had no clue it was even there. We picked it and I cooked it up with okra from the store.

The squash have bitten the dust again, and the cabbages have stalled in their growth. The {hot} peppers are doing well, though. Unfortunately, I have forgotten what type they are, so I will have to dig into my notebook to see when I should harvest them. Right now they are adorable little things sticking up all over the pepper plants. The basil is doing beautifully, though, trying to go to seed as hard as it can, but I won't let it! The parsley is doing its darndest to stay alive despite my constant picking. I'm quite pleased with its success!

On another note, I've finally gotten around to cleaning some large clam shells that I dug up several months ago during a very low tide. I'm going to use them to make a nice candle display. Love me some free beauty for the house! Right now, I'm fast-forwarding the sun bleaching process by sitting them in the sun in a bucket of bleach water. Had I washed and set them out when I gathered them, they'd be all beautiful and white right now, ready for my project. But I didn't. So they're not. So, I'm attempting to speed it up. Reminds me of when we used to gather scallop shells, and other types from the beach, set them on anthills, bleach 'em, dry 'em, and polish 'em up with clear nail polish and sell the to tourists at the Dock. I guess that was our version of the lemonade stand. :)

Right now, Leif and Jason are going for a walk. Leif hasn't napped today...he fights it every day. His excuse d'jour is that his crib is "too 'mall for me!" He's been using that a lot in the past few months, which stems directly from a conversation that Jason and I had, woefully in front of Leif, that perhaps Leif might be getting too big for his crib and that he needs to graduate to a big boy bed. For various reasons, we have not gotten him a big boy bed, but he is certain that his beautiful crib is "too 'mall" for such a big boy.

But, his lack of nap today only means that he'll be crashing that much earlier tonight - and I'll have his crib fresh and waiting for him :)

Today We:

Today we:

:: attempted to make hash browns without a recipe and failed miserably
:: got a bit down on the economy and job prospects
:: decided to do something productive to wash away the unemployment blues
:: created the beauty pictured above, warm candlelight glowing through sea glass
:: thought myself brilliant for such a splendid creation
:: decided to plan more brilliant creations for this week
:: took Leif to the beach for some playground and water fun while
:: Momma stayed home, boogied to fantastic old music and
:: made a cauliflower dish with olive oil, salt and a little accidental garlic (that's it!)
:: wondered what it is about olive oil and garlic that makes the everyday sublime
:: snitched most of the cauliflower dish before the boys even came home
:: enjoyed a lovely dinner with a magnificent sunset and new *glowing* centerpieces
:: found some new job prospects which we are pursuing with renewed gusto
:: watched the billowing clouds in the sky catch the last rays of sunlight from the neighbor's dock
:: all snuggled into bed to read bookies together before we all fell asleep, smiles on our faces.

Good night.

Happy Birthday, Jason!

Today is Jason's birthday! I took him to Outback Steakhouse for a nice lunch (with Leif, too!) and then we had a simple celebration at home in the evening. Jason requested his "traditional" birthday cake, Chocolate Chip Cake, so we got the recipe from his Mom. We had cake and decaf coffee and it was just like the celebrations back home, except not as many people (it was just us). Leif ate a piece of cake before we even started to sing "Happy Birthday!" (he is the littlest cake-snitchingest mouse ever!) and had a second helping after we sang. Jason opened cards and we laughed and had a jolly good time.

Imitating the "Close your eyes and hold out your hands!" routine that we always do at the post office. Leif opened his eyes at the last moment (it was a delayed shutter since the camera was on a timer on the tripod) but I thought it was still cute.

Then they got on to making silly faces.

And then had fun reading cards some more.

Happy Birthday, my sweet. I hope you had a great day!

Fairy House

That, my friends, is the finest little fairy house ever built. It was constructed on a pine tree stump by KK, Leif's cousin, and decorated by KK, Izzy, and Yours Truly. KK did a lovely pine bark construction with rocks as supportive anchors. Inside, there is a table with a bench. The bench and floor are carpeted in rose petals (for the comfort of the fairies). Outside has steps leading up, with flourishing pine branches and unfurled hibiscus to greet the fairies. There is even a lovely egret feather gracing the porch near the table. The entire house, inside and out, is covered in a blanket of beautiful blossoms, all from our yard (I was rather shocked at that bit - I didn't think we had any flowers other than hibiscus, but that is what looking more closely at your yard to see what you can build fairy houses with will do!) There is even a trough of Poppycock and Baby Coconuts for the fairies to eat and enjoy. Pinecones, bark benches, and dried barnacles all provided a lovely parklike setting around the home so the fairies could frolic to their heart's content. I think the fairies must have loved this beautiful little retreat, don't you?

An overhead shot of the top of the house...the trough with Baby Coconuts and Poppycock in the bottom, and the wonderful flowers on top. Aren't those center ones beautiful? I have no idea what they are (Ally? Any idea?) but they sure are fairy-like!

Aside from the Fairy House, Izzy, Kk and I made paper beads and then made necklaces out of them. They turned out really well, and the girls loved it (I'm one of the girls that loved it) and we had such a great time. We also made little animal puppets the next day that turned out adorably! Fun Fun Fun!

Muffins and Games

Leif uses a Go Fish game he received from Oma Ru to sort colors - a little game he concocted on his own. I came in and saw him doing this - he sorted all of the cards into little stacks of four! He did this while I made dinner - he played with those cards for an hour by himself (I kept checking up on him, and he was always playing with them, doing some little game or another).

This is this morning, just a few minutes ago, actually, eating his breakfast. Lately, he has been quite enamored with English Muffins with butter and jam, and requests (but does not get) them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Note the little frog in the bottom right hand corner - that was part of a gift from neighbors for watching their cats and frogs while they were on vacation and Leif LOVES it. He's playing with it right now.

Anyway, just a quick blog, so no lengthy text today! Have a good one!

Our Week in Words

Leif has just fallen asleep after a busy day of playing with cousins. He didn’t have a nap today, so he fell asleep in my arms by 7pm –hugely early for him! Jason and I are taking the time to just be still for a quiet moment – a rarity in this house (or any house with kids, I reckon!)
I can’t believe it is Friday already. The week seems like it just started, and here it is, over already.

We dread the weekend like most people dread Monday mornings. It’s odd, really. Most people look forward to the weekend as a time to get away from work and relax a bit, but weekends are a bit different for us. On weekends, we cannot very well apply for jobs, since no one is working to take calls, applications, resumes, questions, etc. On weekends, we can’t expect to hear from employment prospects in regards to the resume we sent to them. So, while others bask in the loveliness of an easy weekend, we generally spend it in a quiet fret, hoping for the best come Monday and itching until it does. To add insult to impatience, the things that we indulge in during the week, like radio talk shows, blogs, etc. are all off for the weekend, and will not return until Monday. Even the bloggers and talk show hosts are out on weekends – everyone, it seems, but us. When I was a working lass, I never thought I could dread weekends the way I do now - I mean, who dreads weekends? But here I am, Friday night is upon me and I am wishing the next two days away. Monday will mean activity and movement toward our goals, but Saturday and Sunday are little more than practice for the big day.

We’ve been keeping busy of late, and not with any one thing, but with a myriad of things. My main thing this week has been baking. I’m not sure why…I’ve never been much of a baker. But this week, I’ve whipped up a Strawberry Cake (and I’ll make another this weekend), two different batches of Lemon Poppyseed Muffins with Lemon Glaze, and One loaf of Banana Nut Bread. That may not seem like much to some, but I made as much in one week as I might have in the whole of last year. I’ve also been cooking up a myriad of different dishes, including a new obsession, Noodle Bowls. Now, you could say I’ve always had a thing for Noodle Bowls, but this week, I’ve taken it to a different level. Noodle Bowls every day for lunch, and if I had it my way (I don’t) I’d have noodle bowls for breakfast and dinner, too. I made up my own recipe, if you can call it that, it is so simple. Every day, I change it up a bit, but keep the base elements the same: Different noodles, different veg, but always the same yummy broth. I, of course, prefer mine vegetarian, but I add chicken for Leif and Jason when we have it. I also whipped up some new recipes: Cheese Ravioli with Sundried Tomato Pesto on a bed of Spinach (101cooksbooks!), Poached Eggs and Hash Browns, Pork Dumplings, and oh…what else? I can’t remember now, but it has been a very cook-y week.

Jason has been out of the house a bunch lately, which, quite frankly, is good. Leif and I miss him (Leif cries up a storm until I distract him), but the more he gets out of the house, the easier of a transition it will be when he does (and he will!) finally get a job. Leif is very into Berenstain Bears Books right now – he has a couple and he just adores them. I did, too, as a kid, and I actually still like them, so it is fun to sit down and read them together. He’s also been building with blocks a lot lately, making little cities for his people to run in, and tracks for trains and trucks.

For the past month or so, he’s been getting very messy with his toys. Instead of playing with them, he’s been dumping them all together in the big block box (which is just for blocks), or putting them in the little baskets (which he calls traps). Eventually, they end up scattered all over the playroom and house, and it is a bit of a nightmare, cleaning up all of those pieces (dozens and dozens!). For a while, we made him clean up or help clean up the pieces, but when we got to doing that 4 – 5 times per day, it was taking up the whole day. So, one day, while he napped, I packed up the majority of his toys, put them in their little individual baskets, and locked them in to the guest room. I even took Rocky the Rocking Horse (he was pulling the yarn hairs out of Rocky’s mane and tail) and put him in there. They’ve been in there for over a week now, and Leif is actually playing with the few toys that are left out (like blocks!) instead of just dumping them from one container to another. I think, in part, the dumping was caused by boredom with his current toys, and too many toys to choose from (although I didn’t put all of them out and rotated them in and out).

So, I really narrowed it down to two or three toys that were good stimulation for him at his age, and the rest went in the guest room. In an even more concerted effort to reduce the number of his toys, I’ve passed on toys he doesn’t really use on to others that might like them. Same with books. Poor kid – I’m decluttering all of his toys away! In an odd twist, he actually seems happier and concentrates better on the toys he does have to play with, which I think is much better for him.

He’s been saying funny things lately, slightly cryptic things. The other day, while snuggling with him (ah, bliss!) he nonchalantly out of the blue said, “You’re not going to have another boy, Momma.” I was a bit taken aback by this random statement that was said in a long period of silence. I asked him what he meant, and he said, “A baby, Momma. You’re not going to have another boy.” I immediately assumed he meant that I was not going to have another boy child, but now I’m wondering if he meant he would always be my “one and only” – as in, my special little boy. I’m not pregnant, and I don’t think I’ve talked about that sort of thing in front of him, aside from asking if he’d like a baby brother or sister, so it was all very strange. No matter what he meant, it was an odd thing for a Two year old to say. Well, I guess he is almost Three – yikes!

Yup, he's wearing a trashbasket on his head.

A few months ago, when we took him to the pediatrician for a check-up, the Dr. asked if he was dressing himself. At the time, he was putting his undies on and off with varying degrees of success, and attempting t-shirts, but I thought she was a bit off her rocker to be asking if he was buttoning shirt buttons, etc. Well, I think he must have heard her, because no sooner do we get home from that appointment and he gets interested in dressing himself. He works hard on buttoning buttons, zipping his pants, putting on his shoes. I’m shocked to see it, because I was pretty sure that that sort of interest didn’t come until much later, like late 3s and 4s.

Well, I guess I was wrong – the Pediatrician wouldn’t have asked it if it were not the norm, and Leif wouldn’t be doing something like that at his age if it weren’t the rightish time to do it. So, in following the Montessorian principle of “follow the child” we encourage him to dress himself, and he can button his shirts with the tiny little buttons quite well. Here I was planning on getting him some dressing frames (wooden frames with big button and button holes to practice, zippered ones to practice zipping, etc) and he is already adept with little practice on the small ones. Just goes to show, whenever you think you know something, the little ones go and prove you quite wrong!

This week was a fun week for Leif because the tree men came and took down at least four trees in our neighbor’s yard, which immediately borders ours. The trees had suffered from an attack of Pine Bark Beetles, like several in our yard had last year. So, out they went. The men brought their trucks in through our yard (and left them there) and chopped down the trees so that they fell with dish-clattering BOOMS in to our yard. Leif spent a good part of the week practically glued to the window, watching them. The big trees crashed so big when they fell that the windows, walls, and even the china in the china cabinet clattered with each fall. It was deliciously exciting for a little guy. I was sad to see them go…I loved the shade and beauty of those pines, but it does open up our view tremendously, so that is nice, too.

So, that is our week in a long drawn-out nutshell. We’re hoping to hear this coming week about some job prospects, so keep your fingers crossed and say some prayers for us! Hope you have a great weekend!

Burn Piles, Hats, and Mittens!

Watching the "burn pile" burn. Leif loves to point out burn piles everywhere we go - anywhere there are bits of leaves, sticks and other natural things piled up (whether naturally or by man) he points them out as burn piles. This picture was taken through the window from inside the house.

The other day, Jason helped Leif tuck in his shirt, and put a Thomas the Train sticker (from a Dr's visit a while back) on his shirt. He came in to show me how nice he looked, and Jason took his picture in the front hall. He looks just like a mini-Jason! :)

Leif practices his karate in his old bear hat and mittens.
He found a storage bag of his old hats and mittens and decided to wear them around the house (the only other thing he was wearing was skivvies). It was pretty humorous.

The 'tude in the back seat (as in attitude!)

He was much happier once we got to Nanny and Papa's - he played in the pool for a long time, played with Avery in the playroom, and ate a delicious dinner. He was so tuckered out that he fell asleep as soon as we pulled out of the neighborhood and slept until 9am the next morning, which is really late for him - he's normally up by 7.

Watching Aunt Spring while playing with the dive sticks.

A typical scene, eh? The boy with the watergun, and the girl in the princess towel! :)

Playing together.

This is what it looked like more often: Leif splashing Avery with lots of water and Avery, poor thing, spent half the time ducking away. She was a good sport, though...playing with a boy who is two years younger ain't the easiest thing in the world!

Leif loves Avery - he always looks at her admiringly, even when she is not looking at him!

12 Years Ago...

This was Outward Bound, 12 years ago, this month...On top of Black Hill in Utah. (I'm the one in front with my arms crossed, looking grumpy - I wasn't, I was squinting in the sun since I'd lost my hat and glasses somewhere along the way - I'm not sure why, but I'm wearing a mishmash of other people's clothes in this picture. Strange.) Lawdy, it doesn't seem like that long ago.

This is taken from the cliff from which I hung upside down, with only a few hands holding on to my legs. If you enlarge the picture, you can see a raft on the river - looks microscopic from that high up, doesn't it? The leader of our group, Tom, is waving in the bottom left. :)

Our group at the end of the trip, on Lake Powell. I'm in blue, in case you were wondering. This is what I look like after a month of no bathing, no sunscreen (!!!) and no razor for shaving of legs. On this trip, my ears stopped being pierced (an earring I was wearing fell into the river...I took the other one out, tossed it in the river, and have never worn earrings since), I stopped wearing deoderant (TMI, anyone?) and after a month out in the wilds sleeping on hard packed desert sands and rocky terrain, I couldn't sleep in a bed. Ah, that was the life! :)

After 12 years of remembering this one month in my life, I decided to share a few photos from it - all due to the fact that I now have a scanner, which I haven't had in years past! :) Finally, some pictures to go with the stories!

Funny, even after this long, rarely does a day go by without a thought of this experience. How many things in life can you say that about, eh?

Respite

The cabbages are heading up! Yay!

Some Maters...which I just realized might be close to fully ripe (they look like gold maters, not red!)...I'll have to check to see which ones they are (Scott? Any thoughts?) (***EDIT***: They are, in fact, White Currant Tomatoes, tiny and very tasty. The plant is producing loads of them now. We eat them like grapes.)

Lately, we've had a respite from the heat, and have had rain everyday, cooling us off. It is wonderful. Shortly after reporting that the garden was in the dumper (was it my last post?) I noticed that the cabbages were heading up, and I was suddenly harvesting 7 or 8 tomatoes a day, every day! The pepper plants shot up in height and look viable now and the eggplant has put out more flowers! The most shocking growth of all, though, is that the squash (pattypan) has regrown from a rotted stem (from the heat) with no leaves to a full new plant again! There are even squashes on it! Amazing! Everything that was dead - literally, Dead - has come back to life and is fruiting again. I had given up weeding (esp since it has been raining 24/7) and given up the garden for the season, but here it is again, reblooming! I just hope this fine (cooler) weather holds up so I can keep harvesting! Who knows, I might be able to try some pattypan squash from this year's garden after all! :)

More pictures below!

This is the okra, suddenly tall and strong with new little okras growing on it. :)

The second crop of pattypan squash!

Even the cucumber, which had died down to nothing is back with a vengeance...look at all those blooms!

This isn't my garden, of course, but it will be going in to the garden in the near future. I am finally harvesting the worm compostings. What you're looking at is "black gold" on the right - the worm castings, and fresh new worm bedding on the left (wet strips of newspaper with a handful of sand tossed in). The idea is that the worms, who are located in the castings on the right at the moment, will move to the fresh new bedding (they eat the paper and the sand is the grit that helps them digest food), leaving me with a big pile of castings that I can just scoop out and package up (to save for when I need it). I don't think you can really tell from this picture, but the castings go more than halfway up the bin, and the new bedding is only a quarter of the way up. Yay! Lots of food for my plants! :)

No pictures of Leif today - sorry!

Hopefully, I'll get some shots this weekend to put up!

Happy weekending!

Happy 4th!

Leif took many stickers and stuck them on his belly. He was so proud, pointing out what was what...the one in the middle he pointed to and said, "Cyuter" which is how he says computer. Silly lad.

Pointing out the "cyuter" for us.

Searching for the next one to show off.

A typical meal round these here parts: Steamed Crab, Crab Cake, and a steamed veggie. Yum. I've been working on perfecting crabcakes and have discovered that they get better and better the more I take out. :)

Leif took a haircut the other day while Daddy was out on errands. He cried and wailed the whole time, "I want my Daddy!" which is precisely what he was moaning in this picture in between the sobs (see the tears?) Eventually, when Daddy DID come home, Leif ran to him to proudly show off his haircut. :)

Life has been busy here of late. We spend a good deal of time brainstorming (for new job ideas), applying for jobs (a job in itself!) and wondering what we should do next.

Lately, we've decided to change gears a bit, and that has launched us in to a new adventure. While it is really too much to go in to here, suffice to say that we're revamping resumes and re-tooling in the hopes of landing where we want to be. After a year of this, I would think that we're a bit smarter at this by now. But there are no guarantees in life, are there? That is a phrase, by the by, that has come to have a new and very strong meaning to us.

Anyway, we're hopeful that our luck will soon be turning, and in the meantime, we're happy as little fat bugs in a rug.

In other news, the garden has taken the worst of this summer heat, and the squash all withered away into nothingness. I never got to harvest any of the pattypan squash, much to my chagrin, but the yellow squash were great. But the garden has been, as we knew it would be, a late experiment and learning experience in gardening in this um, interesting climate. I'm armed with a bit of knowledge I didn't have earlier this year, and next year, I'll be starting a wee bit earlier (as in months!) to get my garden growing.

The tomatoes are still producing - in fact, I'd say they just hit their peak this past week. I harvested some 20 tomatoes, although all were very small in stature. Their flesh is bright red and MmmMmm yummalicious!

The onions all died (from heat) and the cabbages are still there, but they won't come to much...they haven't really gotten around to forming proper heads. Their growth seems to have been severely stunted by the heat (and by the attack of the cabbage worms!) Next year, though, I have some tricks up my sleeve for those cabbage worms.

The Basil has done wonderfully, and is still producing mightily. So has the lemon balm, although I've yet to really use it. The mint went well, and I used most of it to make batches of mint tea. If there is any left by the time the cold comes, I'll make some mint jelly. If there isn't, I'll raid DaMomma's stash ;)

The eggplant has produced some sweet little baby eggplants that I can hardly stand to eat they're so cute. So far I have two fully grown and harvested, and one still growing on the plant. These are my first harvested eggplants! Last year, my little eggplant rotted on the vine while growing. It was ver' sad. So, I'm looking up recipes that use a little bit of eggplant for my three this year.

In between all the applications, doctors (yay! I finally went - nearly two and a half years since my last visit!) and general living, I've been decluttering the house like a fiend. I threw out a trash bag full of stained and worn out clothes, have another to go to Goodwill, and yet another to consign. I've gone through nearly two heaping laundry baskets full of magazines, cutting out the articles I wanted, and taking the rest to recycling. I've gone through Leif's books and toys and am sending them off to where they might be used. I went through three big kitchen drawer cabinets (essentially, three junk drawers) and decluttered them, putting them back together all wonderfully organized. I've gone through boxes of old paperwork, saving some but shredding the rest. I've gone through our library, purging out the books that I bought once intending to read, but every time I try to start them, I'm disenchanted and put them down. I'm trading 'em in for something I'll use. I've been working on cleaning off my old computer and transferring files, but that has been a bit of a stickler - I need a cable that I don't have (and can't easily come by round these here parts). In short, there are few places in my house that haven't been touched by my decluttering hand. I've learned to declutter when I feel the urge...if I delay, I generally get hit with a cloud of sentimentality that doesn't let me let go of anything.

How did I manage all that, you ask? Well, some long nights working late were part of it, when I couldn't sleep. And Leif taking longer naps also played a large part. And oddly, I'm still on a roll. I've been doing this for weeks now, and while I'd normally fizz out after a day or two, I'm still in high gear. I can't wait for the next time we head to town (and who knows when that will be - aside from my Dr.'s appointment this past Thursday, we haven't left since Father's Day, and before that, who knows?) so that I can trade it my books, take my bags of clothes to donate, and finally get rid of all the clutter!

After all that is taken care of, it is on to photographs and ephemera. Joy. And then cameras, too. Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Leif has been good through all of this, generally not undoing too much of what I do (thank goodness). Jason and Leif found a ball at the playground the other day, and so now we play kickball in the yard, which is fun.

Anyway, I'm yammering on and on, and everyone is snoring for sure by now, so I'm going to bid adieu and go snore myself. (Just kidding, I'm not a snorer).

Happy Nights and Happy Day of Independence.