Everyday Life for Four Seasons

Things I'm happy about:

It's sunny today.

I had a great rowing workout this morning.

'A' visited her speech therapist yesterday and she "graduated" from eating school. She used to forget to chew and swallow her food, among other things. No longer. I think part of the solution was that we both heard the therapist talk to us about the issue and it gave us a safe and comfortable vocabulary to use when we discussed it at home. We worked it out.

The baby clothing pile in my living room is dwindling down (yay!). I brought several boxes to our local charity today and many items are currently up for sale at a consignment sale in town. I volunteered at the sale last night and was happy to see both of my car seats go home with new owners. It didn't hurt that I priced everything on the lower end - I just want someone to be able to use it before it expires.

My list of things I'm not happy about is short but important today, with the oil and natural gas catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico topping the list.

This was delicious tonight:

From Local Bounty: Seasonal, Vegan Recipes by Devra Gartenstein

West African Peanut Soup

6 cups vegetable stock
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons grated ginger
4 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 bunch collard greens, cut into 1-inch strips
1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy: I used soynut butter so that 'A' could eat it too)
1/2 cup tomato paste, or 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
Hot sauce, to taste

Bring the stock to a boil and add the onion, ginger, garlic and salt. Cook on medium-low for 20 minutes.

Add the collard greens and cook 10-15 minutes.

Take 1 or 2 cups of stock from the pot and whisk in the peanut butter and tomato paste. Stir it into the soup and mix well. Add hot sauce to taste and simmer 10-15 minutes.

I typed this from the book and omitted some "extra" words, so this is the gist. It's good. Enjoy.

The girls and I spend Mondays running around. 'H' has gymnastics in the morning, and 'A' has gymnastics in the afternoon. During the stretch of time between classes we sometimes stay for open gym hour, sometimes go to the playground, sometimes stop at the library, and usually we make a pit stop at the grocery store. Today we went to the library to return the books about Antarctica and check out some that address the question, "where do babies come from Mommy?" You wouldn't believe how many books are out there on that topic, and they range from G-rated to R-rated. I went for the G and PG ones.


We spend a lot of time in the car on Mondays, and I'm not crazy about it, but I do like the gymnastics classes and I like going to the gym at the end of the day, so I guess it's all worth it.

Jeff has officially brought me into this current century with the gift of an MP3 player for Mother's Day. It was meant to address my complaint, "I can't stand the music they play at the gym!" I'm looking forward to loading it up. I must be one of that last people my age without one.


I got some other wonderful Mother's Day gifts too... well, they're not exactly for Mother's Day but since they all came to me on that day, I consider them my gifts. One is a *new* computer. I got a virus (or something) on mine last week and it's been hard to use ever since, so Jeff took some time to wipe the slate clean and I have a new operating system and my computer works great! The second present is a finished bedroom. We're moving the remaining furniture back in tonight and I am so excited to sleep in my own room after two months of sleeping in 'H's bed!

It's the basic things that excite me.

A late afternoon game: rolling a marble back and forth on the table...

Tuesday was much better than Monday, and today was better than all of the days combined. When my girls spend the day whining or crying or being mean, I always know that it's partly them and partly me. Our energy mixes together and their disposition is almost always related to the way I'm interacting with them. And vice versa.

We still have two works in progress laying around the house (I guess you could call them that): our bedroom, which is being finished up by Jeff in a speedy manner; and I still have these piles and closets full of baby clothing awaiting delivery to the consignment sale (Sunday they'll be gone!). In the meantime, the warm spring weather is here, so like it or not I've had to start work on the garden beds. I do like it. I added some manure and peat moss to the raised vegetable garden beds, moved some perennials around in the flower garden bed, weeded said bed (whew!) and as if that weren't enough, I spent the last three days turning over an 11' by 11' grassy patch of the backyard to make a new vegetable garden. Just me and my shovel. Today I finished it off by adding some manure and voila! A new garden. Nothing works the body like some good old fashioned gardening.

I'm doing all this work now in hopes of having some lazy, relaxing summer days to enjoy.

Breakfast outside. What could be better? Not much. Oh, I'll tell you what could be better... children who listen to their parents. Yesterday was all fine and good until late afternoon, when my children tuned me out entirely. And the house was a played-in mess. I yelled, they cried, and no one felt good about it. Maybe today will be different. Maybe I won't yell. Maybe they'll be able to put some things away. Maybe.

What a nice weekend we had! Sunday morning was spent at our Unitarian Universalist Congregation and the afternoon fun was divided between the Brookside Museum's Sheep to Shawl program and play time in the sandbox, in the sprinkler water, and under the pines in the backyard, taking quick naps (um, that was me). I spent the evening with a wonderful group of UU women discussing all kinds of things. I love my discussion group.


Yesterday I participated in a last-minute challenge hosted by the Lens, the photojournalistic blog of the New York Times. At 11 am our time, everyone across the globe with a camera was encouraged to take a photo and upload it to the Lens website. This week all of the photos will be online and sortable by location or subject. I took mine as we headed into the UU service, so I tagged mine with the subject "religion." All of the photographs will present a snapshot of the world at one specific moment in time.


Next week I'm participaing in Kids Clothes Week Challenge, hosted by Meg at elsiemarley.com.

You might say I like challenges!


Today I'm going to head into our almost-finished bedroom with my caulk gun to seal up some spaces between the wall and the trim. Then we're off to gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics, with a stop at the playground between classes. Hoping we'll get some rain here today, as our rain barrel is getting low. Those newly moved perennials need the cool, soaking drink that only Mother Nature can deliver.


Have a wonderful day!

Jeff and I did a ton of hard work today, adding peat moss to the garden beds, transplanting some perennials, and staking out the new expanded garden site. The girls played hard today in the sandbox, helped Jeff water the transplants, and spent time relaxing and laughing in the hammock.


Jeff is painting our bedroom as I write this. I've got my fingers crossed that we'll be moved back in soon! I've got a date with the shovel on Tuesday, one of our only below-80 degree day this coming week, and I'm looking forward to turning the 11' x 11' grassy area next to our raised vegetable beds into a lush vegetable-producing garden plot.


We took home from the Farmer's Market:

turnips with the greens still attached
mesculin mix
mustard greens
red potatoes

This is a light week for us, and I have no idea how I'll make these four things stretch all week. Our CSA membership for the winter is over and we have 4 weeks until our summer CSA starts. I'm looking forward to it... we'll be picking up at the farm again this year.


Grace caught a bunny rabbit the other day (and killed it). It was her first "big kill" (bigger than a chipmunk) and she was really proud. I'm feeling neutral about it. Cats kills other animals. That's all there is to it. Today I was outside examining the phlox, wondering why half of the flowers were sheared off, and then I realized that a rabbit must have eaten it. And then I looked over and saw that it was right next to Grace's hang-out spot in the flower garden and that she may well have pounced on the rabbit just as it was eating the phlox up. Huh. Imagine that.


What a great day we had today.

Oh yeah, she's ready to be a little mommy, holding her baby in one arm while she uses the other to water the garden.


I love:

: Asking the girls to water the peas and watching them fetch their little watering can, fill it up at the rain barrel, and give the peas a drink...

: Rowing 8,000 meters on the rowing machine and feeling the energy pump through my veins all day...

: Working in the yard all afternoon and cooking up a simple peas and pasta dinner at the last possible minute...

: Watching Erma's arthritic legs grow stronger and more flexible every day...

Tonight I went out to stretch my neck and say hello to this awakened oak tree. Those little bright green leaves are always a delight to see.