Monthly Archives: March 2010

Ok, so look at the top of the page: where the banner is.  Did you notice we changed the background picture?  Isn’t it freaking beautiful?  My brother Jake has been working on this crazy contraption that is basically a remote controlled moving tripod that enables him to take insanely high resolution 360° photographs.  Next time he’s over with it, I’ll have to figure out a way to take a photo of it (he uses the DPF camera to shoot, and we don’t have a second camera!).  Anyway, it’s pretty cool, huh?

By 11 am, I had run all my errands, done most of my chores (which included mopping the garage after the dogs both got sick, and pooped their brains out at least 5 times each), and settled in for some more seed-starting. Thank goodness my mother gave me and Victor a book about growing vegetables (Grow Vegetables by Alan Buckingham).  It’s clear and easy to read with lots of photos.

I set up shop in the dining room, near the glass sliders…lots of room, lots of light, but still has the warmth of the house.  We have what I’ve always thought to be a greenhouse near the vegetable garden, but I suspect it’s meant to be more of a potting shed…who knows.

I love the anticipation I feel when I set a seed into the soil and cover it up.  I have to admit…I think I check every hour to see if they’ve sprouted yet.  This is really the first time I’ve tried seed starting inside before the ground wamred up, so who knows if it’ll work.  I’m probably doing it all wrong, but whatever, at least I’ll learn something! My tomatoes have begun to burst through the soil, which is a good sign.  I’m hoping they’ll continue to grow and that I won’t accidentally find a new way to kill them!

My time with dirt under my nails was cut abruptly short when I looked at the clock and it was 4 pm.  Victor and Lorena had requested to leave work a little early to head to an annual charity Rummage Sale in Wilsonville.  We packed up the car and headed out.  I decided to join them for a short while to see if I could find a goodie or two, and I managed to get this adorable little antique table for $10.  It’ll need a bit of TLC, but totally a project worth doing!

Besides for then making dinner (Pork Fried Rice), playing with EG, and then putting her to bed, that was my day…hmmm, now that it’s written down, it doesn’t seem like all that much. Odd.

RANDOM PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Daddy brushing little teeth

Brushing her own teeth

"Uno, Dos, PRINKA!!!"

So Jeffrey discovered this when he was emptying the dishwasher...apparently that little cup got blown up into the bigger glass so perfectly, it created a seal and held all that water in...

What are the chances?!?!

Ellie’s cries of  “MAMA, MAMA, MAMA” couldn’t motivate me to get out of bed at 6 am.  I kept thinking, “She’ll go back to sleep.”  I tried a pillow over my head.  I tried counting aloud. The wails just became louder and louder turning into, “Ma-MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”  I finally managed to get my feet on the ground, and with my eyes still shut, I fed the dogs and poured some warm milk into a sippy cup hoping that this little trick would work to get her to sleep just a weeeeee bit longer.  After delivering the morning feedings, the dogs and baby were quiet, so I crawled back into bed…..

Not even 10 minutes later, she was at it again.  This time, there was no calling for me, no calling for the dogs, no asking for books.  It was just a pure, pissed-off, shrill-as-all-hell SCREAMING.  You’d think that since in my previous career, all I did was deal with cranky, difficult toddlers, that I’d have some secret remedy to help keep me patient and calm. Uh. No. I had, just like my daughter, woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

I did try as many tricks of the trade as I could think of.  But, one thing that I gleaned from my 12 years of toddler-rearing is that sometimes you just have to let them be GRUMPY.  Don’t try to fix it, understand it, condone it, or stop it…just go about doing what you’re doing, and invest in a good set of ear plugs.  If that doesn’t work…then put THEM to work!!!

See! Check her out!  So maybe it lasted only long enough for my camera shutter to close, and then there was something else to scream about – but still…

Cleaning the Floor, at least it wasn't with a toothbrush!!

Packing up Cheerios

Starting the dishwasher

"Cooking" with ice (sorry about the coloring on this, the batteries on my flash are dying)

Of course, life marches on, despite the emotional meltdowns of mothers and toddlers – there are things to be done, animals to be cared for, gardens to be tended, and toddlers to be parented…oh, and areas to be graveled.  At 7:30 am, Newberg Rock and Dirt called to say a truck would be arriving shortly with the load of 3/4 gravel that I had ordered yesterday.  I told him he was just going to have to wait a couple hours because I couldn’t deal with everything I had to do in the morning AND have to instruct him where to put all the damn rocks.  It was THAT kind of morning.

Bye-bye, Dump Truck!

After talking and dealing with Gravel Guy, I headed back inside when something hit me.  Last week, Lorena had accidentally sliced her wrist on a broken vase, and had to have a couple stitches.  The ER doctor had told her to go get the stitches removed a week later…and it had been 10 days, and she hadn’t said anything to me.  I asked her about it, and, well, let’s just say I needed to take her in.  So off we went to Newberg to get her stitches removed.  While she was at the clinic, I headed over to Fred Meyer with “the Bear” (this was one of the first times that EG’s nickname actually fit her personality!).  This was when my day started making the turn for the better.  As I headed out to the garden center, a little something caught my eye: a kid size garden bucket on wheels – just like the one I use in the flower garden….just like the one that Ellie Graye tries to haul around.  Ellie about jumped out of the cart with excitement, and I think I might have actually skipped over to it.  I couldn’t resist it OR the plastic garden tools.  My little helper is now fully equipped!  Woo hoo!!!!

After finally finding my happy little girl again, I put her down for her nap and headed out to work with Geekah on the garden.  I can hardly believe it’s mid-march and it’s planting time for the early-spring seeds.  Geekah and I are both still learning about vegetable gardening, and often times we have quite different ideas on how we’re going to do things.  I’m not very good at being a “boss” when it comes to stuff that I don’t have 100% knowledge of, so the relationship between the two of us has been quite a work in progress.  He definitely takes the initiative to do stuff that needs to be done, but sometimes it’s not what I had in mind.  I’m learning to say, “HEY! Let’s talk about that before you do it, huh?”  We had a great planning session about what matters to me, and what matters to him, and I think we reached a good middle ground on what to do. With all that behind us, we headed out to the garden and resumed what we had started yesterday.  We’ve planted our Early Frost Bush Peas, Onions, Garlic, Radishes, Early Spring Spinach, and of course, started later seeds inside.  I LOVE, LOVE reconnecting with the garden, the soil, and where all that yummy food comes from!

The Fall planted Garlic

See my bamboo teepee that I made from Bamboo that I cut from our garden? I'll be making more and using them for our green beans.

I ordered 10 yards of Garden Soil, but it won't be delivered until Monday, so we used a soil that we've been amending in our Nursery

Indoor Starts

Aaah. There’s nothing like the smell of dirt and seeds to refocus and center me!  I feel like I had a productive day after all!

RANDOM PHOTOS OF THE DAY

The Cherry Blossom Canopy (it's almost like Anne of Green Gables' "White Way of Delight")

I love our home!!!!!!

No matter how many photos I have of these, I still take more!!! They're so pretty

On our evening walk, we happened upon this little humming bird - these are the most successful shots I've ever taken. The little stinkers move so fast!!!

One of my favorite shots I have ever taken!