Momma Pajama

Gardening 201

2010-07-17T12:20:00.001-07:00

This is the 2nd year we've had a garden. Last year we had one bed, 24 square feet. This year we have more than quadrupled that. We have seen some great progress and successes, but we've learned a lot too. Here are twenty lessons I've learned in Gardening 201.

1. I have learned that potatoes (especially white baking potatoes) do not belong in the middle of the veggie bed. So far ours (the monster on the left in the above photo) is 4 feet tall and I have it tied in a bunch to allow the sun to reach some of the other plants. 2. I learned that white potatoes have white flowers and red potatoes have purple ones.

3. I've learned that seven-foot-tall trellises are as high as anyone can comfortably pick from without a ladder (I'm glad that's what we have). 4. I've observed how MUCH the sun angle changes over the course of the year here in the Seattle area. Now our entire front yard is sunny, and the trellises actually cast a shadow forward onto the beds.

5. Now I know that a half-row of sweet peas makes the whole front yard smell good. 6. But nothing can be trellised with them - they are too thick and grabby.

7. I've learned to be careful which variety of nasturium I grow. Some are low and drapey, but this one (Ed Hume's "Tall Single Mix," on left in above pic) has leaves like lilypads and can grow 3+ feet tall and wide! 8. Deer netting not only keeps out squirrels, raccoons and cats, but also will keep momma cabbage moths off the broccoli and cabbages if the netting encloses the whole bed. 9. It's good to plant 2 squashes (and pumpkins) for every one you really want, then pull up the weaker one later if there's not enough room. Some never set fruit.

10. Walla Walla onions (on lower right of the above pic) may not reach full size in Western Washington, but they make very nice green onions! 11. Slugs LOVE beans. And lettuce. And tomatillos. And bok choy. And slug-picking may slow them down but not enough to save those seedlings. 12. Once it is warm enough for slugs (July this year) to be out, you'll need chemicals help to stop them. 13. It is really nice to have a square or two of flowers mixed into each veggie bed! 14. Even if the lettuce doesn't bolt, it gets bitter when it is several months old. 15. Once critters find something they like, they won't let up. Keep the strawberries well fenced at all times. 16. Even if the birds can't eat the cherries through the netting, they will knock them off unless you put visible flags on the netting to scare them away.17. I've learned that although growing starts from seed is more cost-effective, it is worth the money to buy healthy, large starts of some types of plants at the time the weather permits planting. Homegrown tomato, pepper, melon, and eggplant starts may die after months of babying and hardening off since February. 18. Compost needs a LOT of dry "brown" material and a LOT of turning and aerating. 19. It is always better to plant 2 seeds per hole and thin or transplant, than to lose 2 weeks of the growing season and replant again.

And last, but not least...

20. Gardeners always want to have MORE space and try MORE varieties next year!

Souvenir Plate Collection

2010-06-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

Today I was checking out the thrift store for jelly jars and sweatpants (check, check!) and then wandered through the kitchenware looking for surprises. Last week I found a dehydrator with all 4 trays and 5 insert liners for only $4.99 and I've been happily experimenting with drying fruit and making raw food crackers all week. This time I saw what had to have been someone's collection of souvenir plates. They were all very dirty, and there were quite a few at once. I didn't get them all, but I picked out a few at .99 each. From the upper left corner of my pic is the New York World Fair of 1964-65, center is the Seattle World Fair of 1962, Ireland, Caverns of Luray, VA, and the Great Smokey Mountains. All of them are in very good condition, and I love all the various plate shapes. I'm not sure if they are worth any more than I bought them, but I'd love to know! If not, they'll make a cool grouping hanging on my wall.

And this is who was waiting for me when I got home! He's my shih tzu/bichon, Gipper.

Slow but Steady

2010-06-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

Finally, a day with enough sunlight to get some decent pictures! Today is the first day of summer, and the last day of school here in WA. We continue to have cool and rainy weather, and I'm not sure how my warm season veggies are going to turn out this year. Here are the sugar snap peas, now about 5 feet tall, happy in the cool weather and putting out lots of flowers now. They are NOT having to share the trellis with the pole beans, which have fallen to the massive happy slug population.

This is my first year trying potatoes, and they seem to be doing terrific, as far as I can see above the soil. The leaves and stems are enormous and healthy, and flowers are appearing. I've learned what a BIG plant they are this year and will have to plan my veggie arranging better next year - they are shading out some others.

I am trying 2 varieties of eggplant: Millionaire and Fairy Tale. The Millionaire was the larger of the starts, and it has grown a few buds, despite the cool weather. Hang in there, gal! The 3 melons that I planted have not done as well. Two are totally dead and gone, one struggles on...

The strawberries are looking fab this year, and the fruits are enlarging. The variety is Puget Summer. I am pinching off the runners to keep the plants' energy into growing and not reproducing. I think next year I'll fill this bed with more strawberries, perhaps of a earlier variety, since we are seeing berries for sale already at our farmers' market.

I am keeping track of all of my harvest this year. You can see it in the side bar on the left.

Seattle Slugfest 2010

2010-06-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

It has been a tough spring, SO wet and cool. We had TORRENTIAL rain yesterday evening for a spell...sigh.... I have also had to do some replanting - the beans are either drowning or else the healthy, thriving crop of SLUGS is eating them before I can find them! The foxgloves are coming out now though - summer hope!

We planted a 5-way grafted cherry last spring and this year it looks like we may get a FEW cherries to taste. Thanks to my lawn-boy son, it is now a 4-way cherry though... oops! I already have it netted. I hear the birds attack as soon as the color shows!

My very first snap pea blossom! I have a LOT planted, a few in the front beds and 2 full rows in the semi-shady backyard bed. Last year they were very successful in early spring, so I planted an even bigger crop.

I tried broccoli for the first time this year, and the plants are big and gorgeous, but the heads are only the size of a baseball and smaller. Is this normal? The variety is Packman. I wonder if it's the lack of sun? We went ahead and harvested the center shoots already, since they were going to open up. Delicious! The most tender and flavorful broccoli ever! Nothing like cutting a crop and walking it straight into the kitchen and into the pot! Unless I can figure out how to get an individual plant to produce a bigger head, broccoli may just be a curiosity in my garden - one whole square for ONE serving of broccoli? Not very efficient.

Here are my zucchini, which I just transplanted out a few weeks ago - already blooming. My sis-in-law started them indoors in April. I have no idea if this is too early, but I am hoping to attract the bee action around the rhody blooms in the yard. Last year my zucchini were a BOMB. The plants did not thrive, and it bloomed but not one fruit set. This year I am trying: 4 plants instead of 2, deeper soil, and black plastic weed cloth mulch for heat. Hopefully, I'll be drowning in zukes!

I am excited for all the new varieties of plants I am trying for the first time: Delicata winter squash, cantaloupes and watermelons, Sungold and Better Boy tomatoes, 2 types of eggplant, broccoli... This is a year to experiment and see what is successful, space-efficient, and tasty. I already know that with this year's exceptionally cool and wet spring that some of the hot plants may need a retest next year, but we'll see how ripe they get - and pray for an Indian summer!

Trellises? Check!

2010-05-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

This weekend, hubby and I built trellises. Lots of trellises. For the front yard, we used rebar, circuit pipe, and nylon tomato netting. Thankfully, we got some recycled resources for it. This is the official "Square Foot Gardening" method of trellising I am learning for my coaching certificate.

The trellises on the "back" (north) two beds are 7 feet tall, the "front" two are 5 feet. I'm hoping the pole beans, watermelon, and vining tomatoes will go the distance and make an awesome display! I started putting the tomatoes in the ground yesterday. Five tomatoes in so far, room for 3 more. We do love our salads and salsa around here!

Here in the backyard, we're set up a bit more casually. In one of my two semi-shady beds, I have planted 2 rows (14 squares) of sugar snap peas, then some bush beans, broccoli, and assorted flowers. Happily, peas don't seem to mind the lower sun levels of my tree-eclipsed backyard. Last year the vines overgrew my 6 foot supports by a mile! So this week, I rescued some bamboo poles from the neighbor who was clearing his front yard and rigged up a cheap-but-functional trellis that is over 10 feet tall. I've started weaving some yarn around the bottom of the bamboo to give the pea tendrils something to hold on to. For now, the broccoli-and-beans section is still netted over, until the beans are well up and not so desirable to the crows and squirrels.

What have I learned recently? Tomato stalks are VERY brittle. Good think they easily re-root in water... Slugs must have bok choy radar systems. Always be on the lookout for free materials. One man's trash (bamboo, rebar) is another GARDENER'S treasure! And I am very, very thankful for my hubby who supports and sweats for my garden dreams...

First Crop of 2010: Spinach

2010-05-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Today I picked 11 ounces (a BIG bowl) full of spinach from the veggie beds. Our first crop harvest of the year! This is "Regal" spinach from Territorial Seed which I purchased last year. I only picked the outer leaves from about 5 squares of spinach today, and the weather is still mild, so the plants will continue to grow. Look at the size of these leaves! I planted about 6 weeks ago.

This is what became of it: a simple salad that our family really enjoyed. Homegrown spinach is so vastly superior to store-bought. The leaves are almost crunchy with moisture, but so tender.

Mid-May Update

2010-05-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

The garden is looking good this spring! Everything is springing up and getting bigger right in front of our eyes, especially on sunny days. Above is one of the "early spring" planted beds, with some crops ready to harvest. Radishes, lettuce and spinach can be plucked any time now!

Here is the view of all four of the veggie beds, now complete, from our living room window. Our garden is in the front yard, but is not very visible to the street due to a retaining wall, perennial border, and bushes between the garden and street. From the living room picture window, though, it's ALL on display! Here you can see the two "early spring" beds at the top, filled up and growing, and the two "late spring" beds with a few occupants but mostly waiting a bit longer (Memorial Day weekend?) to be planted with the veggies sunning themselves on nice days only.

What have I learned lately? Potatoes grow really fast once they make it out above the soil and you better be ready to hill them up! Slugs love bok choy best: leave room for a dish of beer bait in the square.

Wishing for Warmth!

2010-04-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung in Washington and, true to Seattle form, it is changeable! No mere weatherman can prophecy its hourly whims. Generally cool, with sudden showers and gusty winds this month. Our dogwood tree is glorious this year, bouncing back from a pruning and reveling in all the increased sunlight from the front yard remodel.

Our new bunny has made himself part of the family and has reached about 5 lbs so far (he will be about 10 as an adult). Oscar is quite a character and takes his job as manure-producer very seriously. He loves everyone, including the dog, but he is seriously Daddy's boy. He goes crazy for my husband! We are planning to move him outside in the next month or two, but have decided that he needs to be by the back porch instead of the compost pile for safety and convenience. Oscar is getting used to wearing a harness, and if he accepts it, we plan to let him have the run of the backyard eventually.

In the front yard, I have planted 3 beds with my spring crops, and they are looking good for the most part. The asparagus were, for the second time, an epic fail. Their squares have been reallocated to more cooperative crops. Broccoli, kale and lettuce are happily transplanted and bok choy, carrots, peas, sweet peas, and beets are up from seed. A red potato is sending up its first stem, but I'm still waiting to see life from the white potato. The cherry tree flowered profusely, but the plum has only leaves (need to research that a bit). The 4 raspberries look marvelous and are leafing out healthily. I moved one of my orchard mason bee condos to the front yard to help with pollination. My 3rd and 4th veggie beds are leveled and are near ready for the planting of summer crops on Mother's Day weekend.

Indoors, the cherry and Brandywine tomatoes have gone insane and are 4 feet high, with blossom buds! I have started taking them outside every day to harden them off for transplanting and to slow down their rampant indoor growth. On the nursery table, peppers, basil, zucchini, pumpkins, marigolds, watermelons and muskmelons await the big day in May. I even started a few Japanese eggplants from seed to see how well the plants do, although the fruit won't have time to mature this time. I have received a lot of flower seed varieties lately and I plan to add more flowers to my veggie beds and forgo some lettuce squares. I want my garden this year to be full of many veggie varieties and color!

In the backyard, one bed has been amended and planted with 2 rows of snap peas, bush beans, and broccoli, and flowers. The herb bed looks great, and I moved lots of volunteer curly parsley into it. I need to pick up some thymes to round out the role call.

I have learned a lot by my seed starting and bed prep this year. One thing is that I will use peat pots or sterile mix to start my seeds in the future. I have too many mysterious seedlings coming up by using my own soil mix! I also have had some bug problems in the nursery. I have also learned that bargain cow manure is no bargain! Not well rotted, and LOTS of grass coming in.

Introducing Oscar!

2010-04-01T06:39:00.001-07:00

Introducing Oscar: snuggle-bunny and garden fertilizer! He is a nine-week old New Zealand Red rabbit. He is living in his (free from a neighbor) hutch in the garage until the weather is warmer at night, then we will move the hutch to the back yard by the compost bins. New Zealands are "meat rabbits" and get to be about ten pounds. They come in white, black or red but red is the rarest. The white ones are most common for eating. They are known to be a very friendly breed, and he is certainly demonstrating that! He loves to be held and petted. From my research I found that bunny manure is supposed to be the ultimate for gardens (not to mention much pleasanter than many types in form and perfume)! For now, he is coming in to "exercise" in the kitchen twice a day, and has already learned to use a litterbox indoors. I am composting his manure with the veggie compost and dried maple leaves twice a week. I am hoping to find/create an outdoor pen for him so he can be outside while I'm in the garden this summer.

Front yard update: Last week I got the asparagus planted, 10 crowns in 5 squares in a six-inch trench. When I see the tips come up, I will fill the bed up a bit higher. I planted a row of sweet peas behind the asparagus, since I can't pick it the first year anyway! I have the 2nd veggie bed leveled, lined with weed blocker, and mostly filled with my soil mix. I plan to finish mixing soil and fill the second bed, and then plant all my early spring crops this week. The cherry tree is budding and the plum tree is sending out green tips: leaves or buds I'm not sure yet. The rhubarb is looking great and the stalks are approaching usable size, although I'm supposed to leave it be the first year. The goldfish in the pond are still alive and look 3 times their petstore- size last summer! The four raspberries are starting to sprout, the blueberry looks healthy, and the strawberries are definitely rooted in their new bed and leafing out.

Back yard update: Hubby helped me remove some soil from the pea bed so I have room to add manure and compost before I plant. Need to get the peas in ASAP. The herb bed looks messy but healthy. The new rosemary made it through this mild winter - we loved our big rosemary that came with the house 8 years ago, but it died in the hard freeze last year. It looks like the garlic cloves that I left in the ground last winter are all coming up! The compost is in full swing and I'm using the ripe compost as I fill beds. The newest compost is now being fortified with Oscar's bunny manure. I am thinking of trying a melon or two in the flower bed against the south side of the house - some of the best reflected heat!

Indoors: The Brandywine and cherry tomatoes are over 6 inches tall so I potted them up from 4" pots to gallon pots. The Siletz and San Marzano tomatoes are starting to show true leaves, and Italian sweet peppers are now potted up from their toilet-tube starters into 4" pots. The kales are all doing great and I plan to plant them outside this week. The onion and lettuce starts are going strong and I am hardening them off outside too. I have 2 red potatoes and 2 baking potatoes from the organic grocery "chitting"on an egg carton, seeing if the sprouts will start to grow so I can plant them in pails this year. I don't want to have to buy a whole bunch of seed potatoes just to try a few. I picked up a packet of yellow dwarf French marigolds and started a bunch too: I have read that marigolds are good pest deterrents and are good near tomatoes. I plan to plant them intermingled in the veggie beds. I know from experience that they are also very easy to save seed from for next year - just leave a few flowers on the plants until the flower head is dead and dried up, then pull off and dry fully inside. The seeds are long and black and easy to separate. Many of my veggies are from last year's or saved seed. If you keep your seed packets in an air-tight container and in the frig, they will last several years. The germination rate may be poorer as they age, so just plant a few more seeds to guarantee the number of starts you need.

My Garden Stats

Location: 15 miles north of Seattle, WA (zone 8)

Last frost date: April 23rd

Front yard beds: 150 sq ft (full sun)

Back yard beds: 100 sq ft (half day sun)

Herbs 2010: about 10 varieties

Fruits 2010: 15 varieties

Veggies 2010: 23 varieties

Method: Mel Bartholomew's "All New Square Foot Gardening"

Future Food!

2010-03-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

What's up with you? Here, there's lots sprouting on my card table "nursery": 4 types of tomatoes, mixed lettuce, kale, basil, and, FINALLY, Italian sweet peppers. I guess when the seed packet says, "germination in 10-25 days," they really mean it can take 25 days! In the sunniest corner of my house, with additional fluorescent lights 16 hours a day, on a table over a heating duct, those puppies just started to emerge after 21 days!

I am fairly pleased with my nursery set up this year. Moving the card table to the corner of my living room provides much more cleanliness and stability than balancing the little pots on the window sills. And saving our toilet paper tubes for a few months provided all the seed starter "pots" I could possibly need. I think I got this idea from Mother Earth News: you just cut the bottom of the tube with 4 or 5 one inch slits and bend them in to form a bottom, then fill with your soil. They are not very steady on their own, so they will need a container with sides. I used big plastic lettuce boxes from Costco. My lettuce is planted in a plastic pie box with a generous layer of vermiculite in the bottom for drainage, since it has no holes in the bottom.

So far, my germination rate is very good. What I've learned for next year? Start the peppers even earlier to allow for the long germination time. Plant at least 2 seeds in each pot for tomatoes and peppers: it's better to pinch out and "waste" one seed if both germinate, than it is to start over again if the one seed is a dud. Kale is very reliable, every seed came up. Do not overwater tomato starts or they will rot at the soil level. I feel a little dumb about my oopsies, but I have come so far in the last 2 years! I'm looking forward to my progress every year!

In other garden news: I have been hammering and scrubbing and reading up my library books in preparation for this weekend for months! Tomorrow is the big day! On my next post I'll share about my new garden addition!

Marching Toward Spring

2010-03-07T06:04:00.000-08:00

*Trying to post again - is it me, or is blogger more difficult than it used to be?

The weather here, north of Seattle, is SO temptingly warm! I fairly itch to get planting outside, although our "last frost" date is over a month away! With day temperatures in the mid- to high-50s, and lows above freezing for the last two weeks, all of the crocus and daffodils are out, as well as the flowering trees! The pollen level is sky-high too .... hey, maybe THAT's the cause of my itch!

I just realized that in the last 12 months, I have amassed 17 different types of fruits growing in my yard-turned-farm! Quite a change from the former spruce-cedar-fir decorative "island"! Now, instead grows an Asian pear with 4 varieties (hubby's retirement from the Navy gift), a cherry with 5 varieties and an Italian prune plum (both from my men for Mother's Day last year), a rhubarb (shared by a friend), 2 types of strawberries (8 plants from one that my son bought last year, another variety shared by a friend), a blueberry bush and 3 varieties of raspberry bushes (my Christmas gift from hubby). The REALLY cool thing about this is that I paid a total of $0 for all of it!

Today we plan to get two of the veggie beds leveled off and filled. I need some help from he-man to get the asparagus area dug out a little deeper - the old trees are gone, but some of the residual roots are defying me! Praise God that I am doing raised beds and don't need to dig out them ALL! I want to get the asparagus in soon. Meanwhile, I've got my heirloom sweet Italian peppers, Siletz tomatoes ans San Marzana tomatoes started on their little card table nursery in the window, as well as some Brandywine and cherry tomatoes I traded for from my sis in law. Last year I had two plants and that was NOT enough. This year I am planning two pants each of four varieties: cherry, early slicers, late slicers, and paste tomatoes. I'm fairly sure that will be more than enough for our family of four, but there is no lack of friends to share with!

How many tomatoes do you grow? Is it enough?

Pictures are, from top, the veggie bed area, my strawberry and blueberry bed, and the new rhubarb emerging.

February totals:

6 oz. spicy sprouts, value $2.39

2010 Harvest total:

18 oz. spicy sprouts, value $7.16

Febuary: Finishing Phase Two

2010-02-21T19:02:00.000-08:00

This weekend made me really thankful for the healthy way that I get to eat regularly. My son was competing at the state high school wrestling tournament at the Tacoma Dome (see his happy face in the center above) and there was hardly a thing I could eat at the concession stands! All very dairy- and gluten- filled, not to mention fatty! I am grateful that I have so many choices at home, and my husband and I both like to cook! Next year when we go to state, I'll bring a cooler of Paula-food in the car!

My Christmas berry bushes arrived! My he-man helper and I got them in the ground today. We planted a Sunshine blueberry, one Autumn Britten red everbear raspberry, one Rosanna red raspberry, and 2 Anne gold raspberries.

We have two more veggie bed frames assembled, so I'll just need to dig the sod out and level the edges to place them.

I am so thankful that we own a house now: we rented for so many years while my hubby was in the Navy and we kept moving around. I have wanted to put down my roots, literally, for a long time.

January Closeout

2010-01-31T06:40:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't have any stupendous accomplishments to report for January, but lots of activities are in process, brewing and steaming and gurgling away. In the garden, we built 2 new frames for new beds. One will house my Christmas gift blueberry bush which arrives from Raintree Nursery next month and the transplanted strawberry bed. The other will contain ten purchased-but-yet-to-be-planted purple asparagus crowns and various annual veggies.

Major compost production is underway, with 50-100 lbs of organic veggie "garbage" coming in each week from a local produce section (man, I really need to get out there and turn it again today - I hope the weather cooperates!).

In the kitchen, radish sprouts grow on the windowsill and both dairy and non-dairy yogurt is cultured and consumed on a constant basis.

If you can't find me look in the living room, where I'll be sitting gazing out the picture window, through the rain, at the front garden with a dog-earred seed catalog clutched in my hand...

January Harvest:

12 oz spicy sprouts, value $4.77

Homemade with a Heating Pad

2010-01-18T16:17:00.000-08:00

The results are in! After trial and error, and more trial and error, we have achieved YOGURT! At first I used an online recipe and my oven warming drawer, then a friend's recipe and a crockpot. Both flopped, due mostly to an over-warm atmosphere for the six hour culture growth period - they got up to 145 degrees and I think that killed the yogurt bugs. Finally, I hit upon the idea of putting the glass jars of yogurt in a small box, covering it with a heating pad, then closing the box and insulating it with a thick towel. I was able to maintain a temperature of 90-100 degrees for a long period this way - although I made sure it was when we were awake and around the house (I'm not super sure that it would be fire-safe enough to do overnight).

All you need is milk, powdered milk, and a couple tablespoons of existing yogurt to grow the culture. You can add vanilla if you like, and if you want it quite thick like the store kind, you can add a packet of plain Knox gelatin powder. Once you make a batch, you can use your own yogurt to culture your next batch. I figured that my homemade yogurt comes to about 12 cents a cup instead of 50 plus cents a cup even at the big box store. And mine has no sugar, high fructose corn syrup or corn starch! We just spoon it in a bowl and add some fresh fruit or a big spoonful of homemade jam!

If you want the actual instructions, I can send them to you. I also made some non-dairy yogurt this way using a can of coconut milk plus soy milk.

P.S. Don't feel too bad if you need add some sweetener with your fruit to get the plain yogurt to your taste: after looking on the back of the store-bought fruit yogurt, I realized that 20% of the cup is sugar - the equivalent of 10 teaspoons! I doubt you'll need that much!

January Chicks

2010-01-17T06:08:00.000-08:00

"Blackcapped Chickadees in the Lavender Field"

Acrylic, 8" x 24" January 2010

Sold!

This week I completed my painting of two chickadees and sold it, with the varnish barely dry! I started this painting in November, but was commissioned to paint the smaller "Joyful Chickadee" as a Christmas gift, so the big one was set aside. How am I going to build up a body of work to have a gallery show if I keep selling them off? A good problem to have!

"Joyful Chickadee"

Acrylic, 5" x 7"

Commissioned, sold!

Micro-Gardening in January

2010-01-12T05:46:00.000-08:00

So, what can a frustrated gardener grow in January?

Yes, sprouts. We ate up the first yummy batch of broccoli and mustard sprouts, and I've put another batch on top of the frig to warm now. But another thing to grow is.... YOGURT cultures! We usually buy a flat of flavored dairy yogurts and a half-gallon of plain each month for our bottomless pits a.k.a. two teenage boys. I love the So Delicious gluten-free, nondairy coconut yogurts, but rarely buy any because they are so pricey! In a recent mad-scientist mood, I decided to try making dairy and non-dairy yogurt so save money and to avoid all the unnecessary ingredients (umm, high fructose corn syrup in the yogurt? That's health food?).

I have to admit that I am still perfecting my recipe. I think my main issue is maintaining the correct culture-growth temperature for the required 6+ hours needed to get the yogurt nice and thick. I have tried the crockpot and the warming drawer of my electric oven, and both got too hot (over the 90-115 degree optimal range). My best success was with the non-dairy version: it thickened up only slightly runnier than the store-bought brand. My next attempt will be with a heating pad and an insulated box - I am determined to succeed in my experiment! MU-HA-HA-HAAAA!

First Crop of 2010

2010-01-08T17:49:00.000-08:00

On the first day of the new year, I sowed my first crop: sprout seeds. And now, a week later, I am harvesting them.

I bought a few ounces of both brown mustard and broccoli seeds at the health food store and sprinkled them in plastic tubs on damp paper towels. I covered them and put them on warm top of the refrigerator overnight to sprout, then moved them to the windowsill to get light and green up. Viola! In one week, yummy sprouts in our sandwiches and in my morning omelet.

January Harvest total:

4 oz. of sprouts (grocery value 6.26/lb) = $1.59

Packing up 2009, Opening 2010

2010-01-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

New Year's resolution time! Resolution #1: keeping up my personal blog. I'm not sure how many loyal readers I have ;) but this is also a great way to keep a diary of the years. It's funny to see how, in my archives, I flow from interest to interest. This coming year will start out with gardening and more paintings. I have been doing a lot of reading lately about the locavore movement and have read some inspiring and shocking info about the food industry. For my part, I plan to expand my newly created garden and keep good records about my expenses and harvest.

Here is my drawing of our front yard garden we created this past year. We dug the goldfish pond,
took down 3 trees, laid the cement chunk path, planted 2 fruit trees and a rhubarb bed and built and
planted veggie bed #1. In 2010, we plan to put in 3 raspberries and a blueberry bush and build
a few more of the veggie beds.

As for the end-of-year record, I'll give a 2009 garden report: lots of success, lots of failure, LOTS of learning. We spent about $125 over '09 on garden materials and received LOADS of free materials. A lot of time and effort were spent clearing the trees and establishing the garden, but I estimate we harvested about 16 lbs. of food from the one 8' x 3' bed. Here's what I planted and how it went down:

- One heirloom tomato (from sis in law from seed): thriving, healthy plant covered in tomatoes.It turned out to be a small, yellow, very firm variety with good flavor. Set fruit early but did not ripen for a long time. Produced until it froze.
- One "Stupice" tomato: We picked off this for months and the flavor is awesome. Very early and long producing. "A+"
- Pickling cucumbers: Off 3 plants, we picked 3 pickles. Ripened very early though. Not sure why they didn't do better. Don't think I'll try this again.
- Sugar Pie pumpkins: Two plants grew one small pumpkin each. Good flavor and a short vine. This seed was saved from a store pumpkin so not sure of the species.
- Sweet corn: Produced a few, half-filled ears. I think they needed deeper soil and much more sun than I get. Perhaps a super-early variety might do better.
- 2 jalapeno peppers: We've been picking for weeks, but we're not big jalapeno eaters. Encouraging though - maybe we'll try some bell peppers next time.
- Royal Burgundy string beans: Good flavor and fairly productive.

- Basil - this was a start from my SIL. It did wonderfully! I keep pinching out the flowering tips and it keeps going. We need more of these next year! I made pesto and froze it before the freeze outside."A+"
- Copra yellow onions: grew to be about golf-ball sized. Nice to have onions on hand. I think I need to research to do them better.
- 1 "Mammoth" dill: enormous and healthy. "A"
- "Sparkler" radishes: grew quickly to full size. Gave them away because no one in the family likes to eat them! Not something I'd do again, except as a showpiece.
- "Puget Summer" strawberry: Had only a few fruit, but it was a small plant. Hope to do better as it matures.
- "Gold Bar" bush yellow zucchini: mine utterly failed. Pollenization maybe? It bloomed but no fruit. My SIL's is still going like mad. I'll let her supply me! "F"

- strawflowers: something ate 'em.

- Fennel: Never developed.

- Cabbage: Something ate the stem.

- Swiss chard: Miserable in the garden, but it did great in a pot nearby. Needed more heat, perhaps?
-Ed Hume's Super Sugar Snap Pea: Did awesome! Grew too tall for my supports and I had to improvise an extension. Great flavor, raw or cooked. Will plant MANY MORE next time!

- Territorial Seeds' Early Wonder Tall Top Beets: Smallish sized beets, and took much longer than expected. Maybe a soil issue?
- Territorial Seeds' Regal Hybrid Spinach: Beautiful, delicious spinach. Need lots more this year!
- Territorial Seeds' Super Gourmet Salad Lettuce: Slobolt, Buttercrunch, Red Sails, Salad Bowl, and Valmaine. Very nice colorful lettuce. Another success.

- Fruit trees: new this year, had blooms but no mature fruit. Hoping for improvement in '10.

With the new fruit trees and bushes and the knowledge we gained from our test veggie garden, I think we'll be able to produce a lot of food this year with minimal investment. My compost production in in full swing with weekly organic grocery "trash" deliveries to pump it up to high volume. Having a garden in our front yard has been so exciting and interactive because we literally walk through it several times a day on our way in and out of the house. After reading the article in Mother Earth News entitled "Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet" I wondered what we will be able to reap this year?

"Tea with Dagny" and "Donuts"

2009-09-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

My latest doodle. I have been drawing in the Mary Engelbreit style lately, enjoying her wood/china/fabric textures, but this is my own confabulation. On Friday mornings, I sometimes go for a visit to one of my friends from church, Dagny, who is in her mid-80s and lives alone. We always have some tea and a snack, chat and pray together. It is good to have friends of all ages! She is so sweet and always writes down my concerns in her prayer notebook so she can remember to keep them in her daily prayers!

This second drawing is by my 12 year old son. He was home from school with a cold on Monday, and was amusing himself with my art supplies. He was impressed with the effects I get with the Prismacolor pencils over marker, so I gave him some pointers and he made this enticing plate himself! He was very tickled at all the praises he got when he put the drawing on his facebook page!

We' ve Got Her Covered

2009-09-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day: don't go into shock on me!

Immediately after I finished my memory quilt last month, I saw this pattern for a "heartstrings" quilt online and wanted to make one really badly. It is made of foundation-pieced strips laid out so that the red strips form hearts and it is super easy and fast. So I raided my fabric drawer and started, not sure who it was going to be given to. As the month went on, I realized that one of "our girls" (my best friend's daughters whom we've been close to for 10 years) was leaving in early September to go off to college! Could I get it done in time? Yep. I can't post it on my Facebook yet or she'll see it before I give it to her. I hope she cuddles up in it in her dorm room if she's feeling homesick and feels our love. Click on the picture to see it larger.

Here is the embroidery I did in the lower right corner to dedicate the quilt. I backed the quilt with a very soft striped sheet I picked up at the thrift store and tied the blocks with pink embroidery floss.

Just for giggles, here's a pic of me and my hubby at a barbeque this summer. He has new whiskers - I like them.

Freedom Harvest August Tally

2009-09-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

Here I am weighing in to the Freedom Harvest Challenge for August 2009. These are the results of two 3 x 8' beds, one in my very shady backyard and new one in my mostly-sunny front yard. Construction of a larger front yard garden with 6 beds is underway. This harvest is a huge improvement over last year's 1/2 lb. total (one unhappy cherry tomato in a pot). The last and largest item is the wild blackberries we pick from the bushes on the dead-end road nearby. I made 3 batches of jam from them this year and froze several large bags too.

- "Stupice" tomato: 8 lbs.
- Pickling cucumbers: 1 lb.
-Jalapeno peppers: 1 lb.
- Royal Burgundy string beans: 5 lbs.

- Basil: 1/2 lb.
- Copra yellow onions: 1/2 lb.
- "Mammoth" dill: 1/2 lb.

- Sunflower seeds: (the squirrels aren't telling)

- Wild blackberries: 15 lbs.

Total grown: 16.5 lbs

Total grown and gleaned: 31.5 lbs.

Outside and In

2009-08-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

More construction is underway in the front yard. Hubby is digging a trench in order to inlay the cement chunks we have accumulated into a pathway. As you can see, the little pond is finished and the fishes are doing well and growing. They have survived a few exploratory attacks by the local raccoon gang - the pond advice we received was sound! I've been keeping my worker company, weeding the flower bed while he digs.

Indoors, I have been quilting. I finished a twin-sized quilt which I began last year. It took me a bit because I embroidered 12 of the blocks. It is a memory quilt, with blocks made from our boys' outgrown pajamas, blankies, our kitchen curtains, and lots of family odds and ends. By request I kept it "unisex" with not too much girly pink stuff. I backed it with blue flannel, and I tied it with embroidery floss at the corners and middles of each square side. The binding is pieced out of the extra 2" squares I cut.

The embroidery is kind of random. Images I liked online, drawings I made up myself. The sunflower is from a marker drawing that I did a few years ago.

Bathroom #2 Finished (a la Azteca!)

2009-07-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the radical improvement in the upstairs bath remodel, I finally got off my uninspired rear end and finished the boys' bath downstairs. I had done a lot of the hard work last year, patching and repainting the ceiling, then painting the ceiling and walls with the cream and turquoise, but I stalled out at the "tile" mosaic. After dropping the "stamped tile" idea and cutting my own stencils for the 5-color tile design I created, I was finally back in business.

I stenciled the mosaic pattern all the way around the bath, then added a simple mosaic around the window to set it off.

I found a nice shelf unit at the thrift store and covered up the pink roses with dark green paint (thought the boys would appreciate that). I wanted a little more storage since this bath has no vanity.

The boys like it! Jo likes the lizards and Z appreciates his school colors in the design.

We Interrupt the Gardening in Progress...

2009-07-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

...for a bathroom mini-remodel. We're having a potluck with some friends from church next Sunday here and it was motivation to finally check this off my summer to-do list.

The cabinets are the original 1960's vanity installed when the house was

built. With a little help from a friend with a mitering saw, we patched the chipped areas in the cupboard doors and trimmed the edges with molding from the hardware store.

Two coats of paint and we were ready to rehang the doors. Then we painted the mirror wall lavender (mixed some white and deep purple wall paint we already had), framed the mirror with some wider molding to hide the aged edges, and painted the light fixture to hide the rust. Viola! Mini-makeover for $25! Well, that doesn't include the parts to reseal the leaking toilet I discovered when I was painting down there... but at least we caught it before the floor was damaged!

Behold the scary "before" pic. It didn't look this bad when we moved in 7 years ago with our then 8 and 5 year old boys...

Recycled Rubber = New Pond!

2009-06-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

Last night, our neighbor (who has a pond landscaping business) came by with a "recycled" piece of a pond liner that he had recently replaced on a job. Just the thing we need for our front yard mini-pond! I laid the liner pad in, then the liner, and J helped me fill it up and add some rocks today. We'll need to trim the edging and cover it all around with rocks, but it is looking great, and at the right price - FREE!

We have the cement blocks laid out on top of the grass, fit together in a mosaic pattern. Hopefully we'll find more recycled broken sidewalk this summer to complete the other part of the path. We plan to dig it in flush with the ground then plant the crevices with creeping thyme or some other hardy ground cover.

Back & Front Yard Successes

2009-06-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I "harvested" all the spinach and beets in the shady, poorish-soil backyard bed (you can see where this is headed...). After washing them and taking off the stems, I think I have - a cup and a half. Maybe one salad's-worth. Sigh.

But on the other hand, the Sugar Snap peas in the same bed are doing terrifically! My husband helped me with emergency height-extending poles to train them on up to 6 or 7 feet, since they had outgrown the tomato cages and started to flop over. I picked up another packet of the same seeds, so I can start another crop for the fall. Hey, if I can get something to grow back there, I'll stick with it! I'm sure improving the soil would help...

In the SFG (square foot garden) bed in the front yard, the one month old Regal spinach was ready to pull this morning. Other than some minor bug holes, it is gorgeous. Gotta plant more of this!

2009 Harvest totals:

.5 lb radishes

.5 lb spinach

one individual strawberry!

Mid-June update

2009-06-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

An updated aerial photo of my veggie bed from this morning: compare to here. The empty blocks have been seeded with carrots and fennel (for friendly bug attraction purposes).

The spinach is ready to harvest too. I still have the squirrel-proofing up and it's working great - no invasions at all. We'll see if it's coon-proof when the

corn gets ripe!

2009 harvest to date:

.5 lb of radishes

Successes and Failures: all learning experiences

2009-06-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

Lots of changes in the home garden here! Let me catch up:

- We harvested our first crop! Our "square" of radishes was ready to pull, true to the seed packet's prediction at 21 days. Very pretty and fun to pick. If only we liked to eat them...

- The spinach in the backyard bed has bolted in the warm weather. It is only 1-3 inches tall, so THAT experiment was a bust. The spinach in the front yard is about ready to harvest and is a good size and only about 4 weeks old. The sun exposure makes all the difference.

- The sugar snap peas, on the other hand, are doing TERRIFIC in the backyard. They have outgrown their tomato-cage trellises and are blooming like crazy now. I'm thinking of planting more for the fall since they've been so successful so far.

- The new asian pear got "pear blight" in the one variety branch that bloomed. So snip, off it came! It looks a bit unbalanced but there is still a stub to regrow for next year.

- I planted a whole bed of purple bush beans in the 2nd backyard bed, just because I had them. With the low light, I'm not sure how successful they'll be. I've grown them there in the past, but the surrounding trees have grown to block even more sunlight since then.

- Lastly, we were able to acquire a whole BUNCH of these broken cement sidewalk chunks for free from a neighbor down the street. They will be used for path paving according to our plan...

April Showers Brought May Flowers

2009-05-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

The new 5-way cherry has blooms on all 5 varieties: Montmorency, Early Burlat, Kristin, Rainier, and Lapin. Wouldn't it be cool if we could get at least a couple cherries to taste the very first year?

I had to try and capture the beauty of our Clematis montana which grows up about 15 feet into our big maple. The pale pink blooms just hang in long garlands from the branches - so beautiful.

The sugar snap peas are finally taking off (yes, they are trellised inside old tomato cages). I think it was less a light issue (they are in the shady backyard beds) than a warmth issue. Once the temps hit the upper 60s then 70s, they started growing in front of our very eyes!

Growth in the Garden

2009-05-26T13:43:00.001-07:00

Top row: Heirloom tomato, 3 pickle cucumbers, 2 blocks of sweet corn, 2 Sugar Pie pumpkins, Stupice tomato.

Second row: Jalapeno, purple string beans (not up), onions, 2 basil plants (toward back to allow the zucchini below more room), Mammoth dill, onions, empty, jalapeno.

Bottom row: Strawberry, beets, lettuce, 2 spaces for one Gold Rush zucchini, spinach, radishes, strawflowers.

Beautiful weather here lately: mid-60s to 70s and clear sunshine. The garden is thriving. Under the dogwood tree, the birds enjoy a place to drink and splash, surrounded by sheltering rhodydendrons. I have moved many clumps of aquilegia to grow with the white bleeding heart under the bird bath.

Late Spring in Bloom

2009-05-20T08:39:00.001-07:00

New in the front yard garden: the recently-planted fruit trees are doing great and God's been taking care of the watering duties the last few days. I was surprised and thrilled to see that the grafted 5-way cherry has developed flower buds on three different types so far! I guess since the tree has to be older and thicker to be grafted, the branches are mature enough to bear fruit. I will be tickled to get any the very first year!

Also blooming is my "Sugar Plum Fairy" lilac I received as a birthday gift a couple years ago from my brother and sister in law. It is a dwarfed variety that only grows to 4-5' tall and wide. I love the lilacs this time of year - they smell so good.

One Man's Trash...

2009-05-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

... is another man's treasure. I happen to work at a health food store that sells only organic produce. So what can I bring home every evening I work? Free organic compost fodder! Cabbage leaves, kale stem ends, overripe bananas, squishy mushrooms: we got it all.

Since I started composting our kitchen scraps and now am bringing home work compost, my compost production is going way up. I have had to start a second bin while the first one finishes up. Besides food, I am using our lawn cuttings and dried maple leaves that I had insulated our perennials with over the winter. Every third day or so, I dump out the bins, move them a bit, and refill and water them to get the compost all oxygenated. So far, it's working great - the ingredients in the first bin are almost indistinguishable and totally broken down.

Planting Day!

2009-05-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Planting day for square-foot-gardening box #1 has arrived! Yesterday I cut the lath boards to make my grid and filled up the box with the prescribed 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss mixture. What lovely black soil!

First I'm planting a square of each of the spinach, lettuce, and beets I've already started in the backyard. That way I can compare the growth in the 2 locations. Then we add all the seeds and starts we have acquired via saved seeds, trading starts, and purchasing a few starts (my younger son insisted on a trip to the nursery so he could buy a few of "his own" veggies). So the role call in our 24 square-foot garden goes like this:

- One heirloom tomato (traded with sis-in-law)
- One "Stupice" tomato (a delicious Czech variety I love at the farmer's market)
- 3 pickling cucumbers (son wants to make dill pickles!)
- 2 Sugar Pie pumpkins (saved seed from the holidays' pie pumpkin)
- 2 squares (10 plants) full of sweet corn, one type traded and one "Bodacious" from the nursery
- 2 jalapeno peppers (for homemade salsa for hubby and sons)
- 3 squares (27 plants) of Royal Burgundy string beans (will plant in 2-week intervals)
- 2 squares of Copra yellow onions (starts from nursery)
- 1 "Mammoth" dill for pickles, soups, and ranch dressing
- 1 square (16 plants) of "Sparkler" radishes from two year old dollar store seed (we'll see...)
- 1 "Puget Summer" strawberry (son can't wait to try fruit)
- 1 plant "Gold Bar" bush yellow zucchini
- 1 square of strawflowers.

That's a lot of vegetation in a 3 x 8 foot box! We'll see how it goes! This first bed is strictly by the book! We did add 5 foot corner stakes and wrapped the whole box in 3/4" nylon critter netting after hearing from the neighbors what the squirrels have done to their garden starts!

Mother's Day Gardening Blitz!

2009-05-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend, great progress was made in our front yard freedom garden! While hubby and our older son dug 2 deep holes to plant the fruit trees on the west half of the garden, our younger son and I dug out the foundation of our first cedar 3 x 8' veggie bed. Our front yard slopes gradually from the house to the perennial bed and retaining wall, so when we set down the frame, we needed to dig out about 3 inches on the upper edge so the frame was level in the ground. Then we took out the sod at an angle until the inside of the bed was also level. It's all ready to fill and plant!

I really appreciated the Mother's Day labor the guys gave me to get the trees in - the ground was NOT easy to dig out: LOTS of rocks and roots. Thank you again!!
Here, lastly, you can see the two halves of the front yard, now that all the former plantings are gone. The flag pole on the ground to the right is the property line. The boulders in the center will be moved as the garden progresses. Our first veggie bed is on the far upper right of the yard, next to the stone path in lovely full-day sun - Wahoo! Haven't had any of that to work with in the seven years we've been here!
You can see the lines in the lawn where I had boards lying to place the future veggie beds. And see how the house casts a shadow? That's why there will be a path along there, not veggies!

Backyard Beginnings

2009-05-09T06:33:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen my backyard in Edmonds, you know that it exists in a state of perpetual eclipse! We are blessed with a 100-year old big leaf maple that covers 80% of the backyard with a green umbrella most of the day. Along with our maple, the neighbors have many, many beautiful old pines, firs, and cedars which cast their shadows too. So after seven years of fighting the shade and murdering many sun-loving starts, I have embraced fuschias, hostas, and ferns for most of the area. But in the one small corner that gets morning sun....

We received a 4-way Asian pear as a gift for my hubby's retirement from the Navy and planted it. Just across the fence, east of us, the neighbor successfully grows a small grove of Asian pears, so we figure it has a good chance of being pollenated there, along with his! (Another neighbor has honey bees, so we're keeping them busy!) We put the tree in the ground in February, when it arrived, and one of the 4 varieties is filled with gorgeous white and pink bloom this very first year!
In our little corner of sun we also have 4 rectangular raised beds, built by the former owners and paved with brick by us last summer. One is all herbs, one is all flowers, and 2 will be lower-sun-needing veggies this year. I planted this bed the beginning of April with snap peas (using 5 tomato cages for trellis), beets, mixed lettuce, and spinach. I amended the existing soil with compost, and have successfully grown some veggies here in the past, although tomatoes, peppers, and sun-lovers are out of the question!

I am using seed from only local NW seed companies: Ed Hume and Territorial Seed. I figure they know more about growing in the Puget Sound than Burpee!

So, while the front yard will be devoted to true Mel Bartholemew Square Foot Gardening method, full sun, and new soil mix in the beds, this backyard bed is just my own weedy soil with amendments and half-day sun, planted intensively. Gotta satisfy my itch until those front yard beds are all in!

Backyard veggie role call (planted April week one and week 3):
-Ed Hume's Super Sugar Snap Pea
- Territorial Seeds' Early Wonder Tall Top Beets
- Territorial Seeds' Regal Hybrid Spinach
- Territorial Seeds' Super Gourmet Salad Lettuce: Slobolt, Buttercrunch, Red Sails, Salad Bowl, and Valmaine.

Homegrown Revolution in Edmonds

2009-05-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

After taking out a couple dead and overgrown trees this spring, we have come up with a plan to replace our 500 square foot front yard with edible landscaping. Where there used to reside a rotting japanese maple and a dead-branched blue spruce, there will soon (or eventually) be a brick path, raised veggie beds, trellises, fruit trees, and berries. My old landscape plan skills from high school came back into play here, you can see (click on the photo to see it larger). The top of the page is north and the street. The dogwood and 4 large rhodies at the top are preexisting in a perennial bed area, as is the stump from the japanese maple ( I plan to grace it with a big pot of nasturiums!). The stone path on the right goes along our driveway up to the front door. After playing around with the path placement, after we took the trees down I watched the shadows during the day and realized the path to the side gate (and composting area) best be near the house to take full advantage of the sunny areas for veggies out of the house's shadow. Currently there are some stumps and roots in the center of the yard that will take some work to remove, so the bed placement in '09 is going to start on the far right where the yard is clear and flat for now.

For my birthday last week I received 2 fruit trees from Raintree Nursery, an awesome WA nursery, from my men. Yesterday they arrived and I got a surprise bonus! Instead of getting the promised 4-way cherry, mine is a FIVE way! Rainier, Lapin, Early Burlat, Kristin, and (surprise!) tart pie cherry Montmorency too! The second tree is an Italian Prune Plum and both trees look huge, healthy, and about to leaf out, so we better get diggin' this weekend! With my bday hardware store gift cards I bought compost, peat moss, and cedar 2 by 6's for veggie bed #1. I'm raring to go - just gotta shake this darn pneumonia!

Workin' It

2009-02-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd share a photo of the holiday window I drew for my store, Manna Mills Natural Food Market. It was on the window for December and then I replaced it (haven't photographed it yet) with a New Year one.
j
I'm up to over 30 hours a week now at the store, which is a huge change from my previous stay-at-home-homeschooling-mom life, but I like it. There are lots of interesting products and I meet lots of interesting people and 99.9% of them are very friendly. I think ours is the kind of store people go to with the mindset of looking around and exploring, not in-and-out rushing, and are usually in the mood to chat or at least smile. And usually they like to talk about health or recipes, whether it be a mom with little kids, an immigrant with little English, or lonely senior. I have learned so many interesting things like how to grow sprouts on a windowsill and how to make injera (Ethiopian/Eritrean teff flatbread). It's never boring!
j
click on the photo to see it bigger

Goofy, Goofier, Goofiest*!

2009-01-09T08:28:00.000-08:00

Well, the snow is most melted in our neighborhood and, thankfully, we aren't in a low-lying area now that is dealing with flooding. Gipper is happy that he can make it out to his favorite tree again without getting tummy-deep in the cold stuff. Although he is looking really bushy right now in a long winter coat, I don't really think he's a baby Yeti, like my son J. imagined in his artwork here...

My big boy has turned 15! We went out to eat at his favorite restaurant - Chang's Mongolian Grill - and he wore his pjs to be silly! Here Z is being goofy with his little bro at the table. Sorry it's blurry, but it's the only one of him where you can see his face... Most of the time, he was not being cooperative!

P.S. Did you know "goofiest" is a REALLY good word to score on in Scrabble? We're still Scrabbling around here.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all!

We had a nice quietish New Year's eve. We indulged in cravings for dinner - take 'n bake pizza with everything for the boys and Tom Kah and Pad Thai from Thai Cottage for hubby and me. Followed by another rematch game of Scrabble between hubby and I, trying to think up high scoring words while listening to our sons laugh their heads off playing with the Rock'em Sock'em Robots game they just finally got in the mail yesterday from their Florida cousins (which was mailed out Dec. 15, can you believe it?!) Then Z went off to the church for the teens' all-nighter and J is SO excited he'll be old enough to go next year! The teens (led by a band of amazing, wonderful pastors and parents) do 2 hours at Funtasia, 2 hours of Wii, 2 hours at the athletic club, etc. ALL NIGHT LONG! Not my idea of fun. Anyhow, at home the 3 of us watched the DVD of "The Indian in the Cupboard", which J has recently read. Nice movie. Then hub and I went to bed after exacting an agreement with J to shuterdown after the midnight countdown on TV. And listened to the neighbors shooting off fireworks all night.

Hope you had a good New Year's eve too. One of my resolutions is to take more pics (I kind of took all of 2008 off) so I don't have to use Google images for my blogging...

2008 Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Top Ten

2008-12-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

In honor of Mama Kat and everyone else who finds this blog while searching out help going gluten and/or dairy-free themselves or for their kids: I present my top ten tips for 2008 that have made my food-intolerant life more pleasant and yummy this year. I've been working at Manna Mills grocery/health food store for over a month now as a cashier and customer service rep specializing in gluten and dairy-free and I must meet at least one customer every shift who is newly diagnosed as celiac or food intolerant or who has an autistic kid whom the doctor recommends to go gluten- and casein-free! There is a HUGE demand for knowledge and help out there!
j
1. Tinkyada brand pasta: The best noodles I've found in my five years on this diet! They make all shapes of pasta, including lasagna noodles and spinach-brown rice spaghetti, that is great hot or cold, freshly cooked or even as leftovers without getting all grainy and sticky-gross. Available in many mainstream and specialty stores.
j
2. Nutritional yeast: Not the kind that makes bread rise, this is a yellow flake that you can use as a condiment and tastes cheesy without being cheese. Great on popcorn and makes a great "cheese sauce" for pasta or au gratin potato casserole. Healthy too!
j
3. Xanthan gum: A fine white powder that adds viscosity to many products, like salad dressings. In cooking, xanthan gum gives the cling that the gluten in wheat has - it keeps your breads and muffins moist and whole, not dry and crumbly. Quite pricey, it is used in very small amounts, and is available by the jar or bag, or in bulk bins at specialty grocers.
j
4. Hemp milk: Made from hemp seeds, this is is a creamy white milk that is a nice alternative to soy or rice milk.

j
5. Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts: the best gluten-free cookbook ever! Everything in it is a five-star success that even the non-g.f.ers of the family will love. This recipe book includes dairy, but it's easy to substitute milks and margarine for butter. Check out all the raving positive reviews on Amazon.

j
6. EnviroKidz' Panda Puffs: My favorite cold cereal, it's kind of like peanut butter Capt'n Crunch.

7. Gluten-Free Goddess a.k.a. Karina's Kitchen: a great website with new recipes every week. I got her Tastebook cookbook for a Christmas gift this year from my hubby!
j
8. Tofutti Sour Supreme and Better than Cream Cheese: Awesome products that can substitute for sour cream or plain yogurt in recipes, and a good alternative in cream cheese frosting or in quiches.
j
9. PCC's Brown Rice Sushi: I love my Manna Mills for my g.f. groceries, but I'll wander down the street to our competition to enjoy their fresh sushi bar. And when it's brown rice sushi, I feel even healthier about it!
j
10.GF/DF Friends: Networking with fellow gluten-free folks is key. You are NOT alone! Just last week I made some awesome easy multigrain bread from a recipe a customer at work emailed me. Most people I meet love to share their experiences, favorite recipes and good restaurants. And there are tons of blogs to check out. Try googling for gluten-free recipes too.
j

Merry Christmas and a happier, healthier New Year!

Snowbound

2008-12-23T07:19:00.000-08:00

Last 3 days of school: cancelled. Wrestling meet: cancelled. Choir practice: cancelled. My Friday work shift: cancelled. Saturday wrestling meet: cancelled. Sunday church services: cancelled. My Monday work shift: cancelled.

Why? These pics are actually from a couple days ago - we have a LOT MORE SNOW now! I did go out and do a little shopping yesterday. I stayed in low gear all the way, even on the highway. Thankfully, people were driving pretty smart and leaving lots of skidding space. If you live in a snowy area and don't see what the big deal is: in the Seattle area, we don't get much snow and have very few snow plows plus they don't "believe" in salting the roads. So we get occasional plowing on major roads and some sanding. Otherwise, we're all on our own!

1-2-3-4-5 and Beyond

2008-11-24T20:01:00.000-08:00

Howdy there! Yes, I do still inhabit this planet. I'm doing well, how 'bout you?
j
Lots of good stuff going on, and this kale photo has nothing to do with anything. Yikes, this has been the worst photo-taking year ever! What's new? Well, I got a part-time job at the gluten-free healthfood store where I've been a customer for 5 years, and so far I'm really liking it. Heck, I have been advising people about gluten- and dairy-free stuff for free for years! Secondly, I have gotten a little decorative painting job to do in a home before Christmas. Thirdly, I recently got an email from a photographer who's interested in having me paint her bird photos! And they're beautiful photos too! Hope that happens! Fourthly, I was invited to sell my fabric grocery sacks at a craft fair in 2 weeks, so I am sewing, sewing, sewing. Fifthly, Christmas is coming and my choir is having major long extra rehearsals lately.
j
So that's what I've been doing. Hope you are well - I've been checking in on your blogs, I have!

Lovely Autumn Still Hanging On

2008-10-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

I wandered outside to record the autumn colors today, before the predicted rain arrives. I have loved this long, warm, sunny fall! The trees are gorgeous this year, the flowers are still blooming, and the wildlife is abundant! (no bears this year, but I've seen a big raccoon and the neighbors had a coyote recently).

It makes me feel like making soups and pumpkin muffins!

Taking it for a Test Drive

2008-10-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

I am working on a longer-term sewing project: a twin bed-sized quilt. It is made up of ALL the cotton prints I have on hand, including a lot of old clothing scraps. My sons' blankies, my college bed sheet, my hubby's old robe - lots of memories. Plus, I am randomly sprinkling in squares with embroidered pictures. Nothing too girly, because my younger son asked me to keep it "unisex" (in case he calls dibs on it in the future I think. He is a sentimental one!)
j
But as you can see, someone else is calling dibs on it already, before the squares are even all sewed together.
j
"Itz mine, Mommee! OK? Thanx!"

You're a Star!

2008-10-09T06:28:00.000-07:00

Little girls like personalized stuff, right? What to give the niece you haven't seen for a million years (well, two)?
j
I heard that she wants her room to be lavender although it's currently yellow, so I made her a name star painting to announce her stardom. Hope it arrives in time for the big day!

Acrylic paint, 12" square.

Twins' Nursery Final Pics

2008-10-01T20:23:00.001-07:00

I finally coordinated with the twins' mom today and went over to the house to get my final portfolio shots of my work in the nursery. It looks so cute with the crib up, the teddies up on the high shelf, and the closet full of teeny girlie clothes!
j
So fun to see my design a reality! Besides the flower border, it was my idea to add the high shelf and paint light blue above it, and to paint the interior of the closet pink. They added the pine plank ceiling and crown molding themselves, and it looks great together!

Painting & Parenthood

2008-09-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the last bits of the balcony mural - yesterday I did the clematis in the pot on the balcony. I always have loved Clematis "Nelly Moser" and now I have one, ever in full bloom! (click on the photo at left for a bigger view)
j
In other news, I just set up a "myspace" account, dohh! One of the requirement for our teen's having a facebook/myspace is that his dad and I are his "friends" and we can see what he posts on his general friend profile. For you non-techy parents, it means that you can see his main page and photos, etc. along with the comments that his other "friends" add to his page. It does not mean we can see his private chats. I am continually astounded at parents who do not even know that their kid has a facebook/myspace, much less what the kid is posting on it! It is very eye opening! And did you know that your kid can post to his myspace/facebook remotely, even adding photos and video from his cellphone when he's not even sitting at the computer? Think about it...

Cap'n Jack & Cap'n Zack

2008-09-26T15:49:00.001-07:00

This guy is not my son...
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bbbbbbbbbbBut this one is...
j
Today my 14-year-old got his whole pirate get-up on (including the eye makeup, ho ho!) and I dropped him back at school for his homecoming skit rehearsal. Each class is assigned a movie and has a team making a skit for the homecoming assembly next week. The freshmen are "Pirates of the Carribean".
j
Who is this guy?? Math geek? Champion wrestler? Pirate? All of the above!

"Why is the milk always gone?"

This Week on the Wall and on the Sewing Machine

2008-09-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Now that the nursery is done, I'm working on finishing my balcony mural... I finished the floor, the pot, and the vine. Flowers and a curtain to go.
j
By the way, the nursery was done in the nick of time! The twins were born early, 3 days after I finished and they just put the furniture in and the crib up!

Sorry not much to share. I worked on a quick costume for my son this week for the Freshman Homecoming skit, so I hope to have good pics to show you tomorrow!

Ring Around the Rosy, a Border Full of Posies!

2008-09-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

I think the nursery's done! Gotta go back Monday with a clear eye and look it over for touch-ups before I toss out the paint cups. I think this was a great learning project for me. Here's what I learned from it:

- It took me 20 hours of work to paint 28 feet of this border.
- I need to determine my working schedule with the client and if I can be in the house unattended.
- Working in a room still under construction is interesting! Need to keep all my things together in a portable tray or rack so that if someone moves my stuff, it won't spill or get lost.
- I am allergic to cats and fluffy dogs and I need to be able to limit their access while I work.
- Always have papertowel and clean water at the ready before you start!
- Determine what your paint-clothes are so you don't ruin your entire wardrobe.

- Remember to stretch out and to eat and drink regularly so you don't get shaky and sloppy.

I'm going to bring my tripod and get official "after" shots for my portfolio next week, after they get the crib and other furniture set up. Yay!

Ella & Evie's Nursery, in Process

2008-09-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've been up to this week! This nursery is for twin girls, due in a few weeks. Their momma picked out a very cute bedding set from Pottery Barn Kids called "Abby", shown here on the left.

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We are redoing the former office in their home into a nursery: wood slat ceiling, white trim and crown molding, sunny yellow walls. I am interpreting the pattern on the "Abby" bumper pad onto the walls all around the room. Above the window is a cute narrow "dish shelf" we added to disguise a weird wall bump-out (that's blue painting tape around it currently) and I'm going to paint the wall above it light blue with white polka-dots. Lots of colors and layers and details to go, but this job is a blast! Plus, it's making the momma and daddy very, very happy!

Waxing Gibbous Moon on 9-11

2008-09-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

Hello, hello! Sorry no new posts for a while. I've been a paintin' fool, but no interesting photos to share yet.
j
My 6th grader son has an assignment to observe and draw or photograph the moon every night for a month and I'm really enjoying learning about the moon with him! Beautiful isn't it? The same moon you're seeing wherever you are!

Update on the Mural Painting Biz

2008-09-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

Here's what the balcony mural looks like today. I haven't got it done as fast as I thought I would, for several reasons: running to the store again and again for the required school supplies, running to the school to pay lab fees and bring forgotten lunches, and getting distracted with some sewing projects.
j
But I'm still pleased with the progress, I like how the sun shines through the railing onto the floor. You can see I still need to finish the floor and the pot of flowers on the balcony. I have lined up my next project: a baby nursery for twin girls! I met with my client and got her input, now I'm going to make some sketches for her. I also have leads on two other future jobs!!

Back to School for the First Time

2008-09-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

Weird, weird, weird! Yesterday felt so weird! After nine years of homeschooling my 14 year old and his 11 year old brother, they both went off to school for their first day yesterday. Z is a freshman in high school and J is a 6th grader at the neighborhood elementary. Both of them are already very comfortable at the schools: J tried his on for size last spring for 6 weeks, and Z has been taking math and French at the high school for two years and has club wrestling practice there too. But yesterday was weird - they were both gone all day at the same time!
j
The first day went pretty well for both of them. J has most of his buddies from last year in his same classroom, and he has hit it off with his new teacher already, although she has a rep as the "stricter" of the two 6th grade teachers. He came home exhausted and hungry.
j
Z had a bit more adventure at the high school. He was threatened with a "swirlie" by a senior who "didn't like" his wrestling sweatshirt. Thankfully the senior was accompanied by another who knows Z (and his abilities) from the wrestling club and he talked him down. On another threatening-in-a-different-way note, Z is the ONLY GUY in his PE aerobics class last period. Whoo-hoo! Z and 30 girls!

I neglected to take any back-to-school photos, stunned as I was in the a.m. sprint yesterday, so here is a pic of me at work on my mural for your viewing pleasure...

Add a View, Any View!

2008-08-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

I really like our house. It's the first home we've owned, after moving and moving and moving with the military. I don't want to move any time soon. But I have always wanted a beautiful view of the Puget Sound, like the homes nearby.
j
So what do you get when you add one beautiful water/mountain view (taken from Cedar St. last week) and a plain-ol-closet door in my art studio, mixed with a "if-it-stands-still-I'm-going-to-paint-it" artist homeowner?

You get a sweeping Western view of the Sound and Mount Olympus and the Olympic range, on my actually-south-facing doors. Still in progress, as you can see. I still have the balcony railings, the floor and seagull to finish.

This mural is an example for my new business that I'm launching, doing murals, borders and trompe l'oeil. What do you think? I'm excited!

The word is out...

2008-08-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

First it was an invitation for my 14-year-old son to enter a math competition sponsored by the National Security Agency. Now, today, it's recruiting materials from Phillips Exeter. I guess his math testing scores from the school have been released...

Is it possible for me to have somehow given birth to my brother's clone??

Photo is from Z's "white 'n' nerdy" costume last fall. He'd probably rather have you see this one.

SAM I Am

2008-08-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the SAM (Seattle Art Museum) to see the visiting show, "Inspiring Impressionism." It was really interesting how it was set up, showing some Impressionist paintings along with older paintings that may have inspired the artists to paint them. It is so amazing to see some of the paintings that I have studied in books and seen in prints - for real! If you've ever seen the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls or the giant redwoods in person, you know what I mean - the photos and prints are beautiful, but give the merest shadow of the impact of the real experience!
j
These were two of my favorites from the show, Cezanne's peaches and El Greco's beautiful lady.

Purple Passion

2008-08-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, my sis-in-law gave me some leftover purple fabric that she didn't want. I recently picked up some cute kids' patterns for 99 cents at the thrift store, so I turned around and made her daughter an outfit out of the material. I didn't have enough to do the entire outfit, so the green band and applique were so inspired.
j
The bees are going crazy for the lavender out front. It's a little alarming to see them all and all the buzzing, but they could care less about people - they are totally focused on their harvesting!

Oopsy-Daisy!

2008-08-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

You'd think I'd be sick of painting walls by now, right? You'd think! I mean, I did the whole office and then touched up the kitchen cabinets, the entryway, the living room and the hall before all the visitors arrived...
j
So what happens when I'm at the hardware store with my father-in-law, picking up some fix-it supplies? I wander by the "oops" paint and spy a lovely gallon of green for $5! Hmmmm, just the right dark sage green as the stripes in the kitchen valances and the leaves on my painted lemon border...
j
Two coats later and a good washing of my dusty majolica teapot collection, and I'm done. Love it!

Warm vs. Cool

2008-08-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

It has been lovely here in Western Washington for the last few weeks. Nice cool mornings (in which to wear a sweater as you walk around the garden in the early morning light) and warm 70-ish afternoons (when you can walk the doggy and weed in a tank top). No bugs, low humidity... aaaahhhhh! I'm making a conscious effort to store up this lovely memory in order to make it through October-to-May.
h
Here is my pup's typical pose in the morning as I check my email and blog in our "new" office - curled up in the brown corduroy armchair, getting in his first nap of the day.
j

And the latest off the ice-cream maker? Rhubarb sorbet! OMG! I made it exactly as this recipe, with rhubarb from my bulging freezer. It was awesome! Quite tangy, like a lemon sorbet, if you (like I) enjoy that type of thing. And after searching other sorbet recipes on epicurious, I can see I'll be needing to step up my fitness routine soon...

A Rosy Wedding Day

2008-07-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

My babysitter of a few years back got married on Saturday, and I made the cake for them. She just wanted a small cake, so this is a 6" square on top of a 10" square. White cake with raspberry filling, buttercream frosting and real roses for the decoration.

It wasn't too hard to do - I assembled it on site at the reception. I put covered cardboard under the small cake, and placed it on plastic support pillars in the large cake, then piped a shell border over the edge. One of my neighbors generously donated her light pink unsprayed roses!

My family thought the best part was that I had a good sized piece of cake left over from the base that they got to eat!

Dairy-Free Bliss

2008-07-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

My own invention:

Coffee Fudge Ripple Soy Ice Cream
(12 servings/about 3 pints)

3 cups powdered sugar
12 egg yolks
1 Tbs cornstarch
4 cups soymilk
2 cups coffee
1 Tbs vanilla extract
j
Put egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch into a bowl, whisk together. Meanwhile, heat soy milk and coffee to near boiling. Slowly pour hot soy milk/coffee mixture into egg mixture while continuing to beat. Pour mixture into a saucepan on low/med heat, stirring constantly until it comes to a boil, and boil one minute. Stir in vanilla. Cool mixture in refrigerator until cool (about 3-4 hours). Make icecream per your machine instructions.
j
Meanwhile:
Hot Fudge Sauce
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3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbs margarine
1/2 tsp vanilla
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Heat chocolate and water over low heat in saucepan until squares are melted. Add sugar and a dash salt, cook over medium heat for 8 minutes, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved and mixture gets thick. Remove from heat and add vanilla and margaring. Let cool.
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When ice cream is "soft serve" in the machine, spoon into a freezer container, top with fudge sauce, and give a few stirs with a spatula (not too much or it will combine and the ripples won't show). Freeze until hard if you can stand it (we couldn't!!)

Comfy, Cozy Office

2008-07-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

Waaaa-hooooo! The office redo is finally finished! I hung the last picture on the wall last night, and now we can bask in the cozy neatness of the former wasteland that is our office!
J
I almost wish I had a picture of how shockingly messy it was "before." Maybe if I run into one in my photo archives I'll add it in here so you can see the stark contrast. Leave it to say that anyone who had experienced it would open the door to this room and say, "Oh, I've never seen this office - where is the other scary blue office?"
J
What did we do, you ask? (deep breath) We:

1. Took everything out and sorted six years of sludge.

2. Rearranged the furniture, put one filing cabinet in the closet, and added a chair and ottoman we found on craigslist.com.

3. Bought and installed a new swing-arm lamp and overhead light fixture.

4. Scraped and patched the water damage on the ceiling and window wall from a roof leak a couple years ago. (That was an adventure! The water was literally pouring down from the old light fixture onto the floor!)

5. Made two throw pillows and had a friend make a valance.

6. Recovered our old favorite computer chair with new corduroy fabric.

7. Painted the walls Behr Paint's "Peanut Butter" and the doors and trim "Creme Brulee." (yes, we have a food thing going with the paint colors in the whole house! The living room is Napa Grape, the entryway is Golden Popover, and our bedroom is Deep Cherry and Camembert).

8. Spray painted the mishmash of picture frames flat black, and finally (ummmm, 20 years later) got around to framing our college diplomas so we could hang them with a photo of the Golden Dome.

Yay! The office is actually pleasant to be in now!

Projects which Passed the Finish Line

2008-07-02T09:42:00.001-07:00

Here're a few projects that have been completed:

My vintage dollquilt that I mentioned a few posts ago. The colorful patches are from my Great Grandmother and probably include some feedsack cloth. They are really, really old and fragile, so I washed them carefully, then quilted them with some new cotton cloth to strengthen them. This is a traditional pattern that could have been used back in Great Grandma's time. Although I did machine-piece and machine-quilt it. I love how it turned out. I'm hoping to find a nice shadowbox frame to put it in, so it can be displayed and preserved.

Otherwise, I bought 2 yards of soft tan corduroy upholstery and recovered our favorite office chair, which was ripped and pink! Didn't go with the new office decor. I took off the old upholstery and used it as a pattern to cut the new and VIOLA! It worked!

Summer Stuff

2008-07-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

The garden has exploded! We have finally had a week of warm-to-hot weather, and everything is growing right in front of my eyes!
j
We did have a little "incident" concerning some of the gorgeous, almost-blooming foxgloves in the garden ... my 11 year-old son decided to eliminate most of them with his pocketknife. "Protecting" me from their poisonousness, he said. Ahem.

This week my husband surprised me with a beautiful new piece of art, "Edge of the Aspens" by local Washington artist, Steve Harmston. I had admired it at the local art festival a few weeks ago, and he contacted the artist and bought it for me. It is a serigraph (a.k.a. screenprinting) and is a limited edition print.

I snuck this photo of my 14 year-old son through my studio window while the boys were washing the cars. He's camera shy - shhh, don't tell! My baby - wahhh!

Dances with Bears Quilt

2008-06-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm officially on a quilting kick! But I'm reading about painting, alright?
j
I just finished this small (20" by 24") quilt called "Dances with Bears," made from a pattern in Fat Quarters, Small Quilts by Darlene Zimmerman. I machine-pieced and machine-quilted it on my non-long-arm sewing machine (easier on very small quilts like this).
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I'm keeping this one - it's going on the wall in my bedroom!
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Already I'm starting on a new mini-quilt, before my hand-cramps have subsided from doing the binding on this one. I saw a cute doll-sized quilt at http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/, that uses reproduction 1930s feedsack prints, and I immediately knew I had to make it. When I was about 10, I found a stack of cut patchwork squares in my great-grandmother's attic one summer. I think I was there with my grandparents cleaning out her house when she had to go into a nursing home. Anyhow, I made the squares into a simple patchwork pillow back then and still have it today, much loved and well-worn. I'm not sure of the origin of all the squares, but I remember my grandma saying that she recognized some of the fabrics from clothes and projects my great-grandma had made. So I am cutting up my childhood pillow and featuring the fabric in the little doll quilt, so I can frame it and keep it where we can see it and remember my foremothers...
j
P.S. I love the new Director of the National Institute of Health, Productivity and Human Capital. Congratulations, Sweester!

Sailed into Seattle

2008-06-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went down to Seattle to the Center for Wooden Boats, where we toured a replica of Columbus' ship, the Nina, that is in port for a few days. It was handmade in Brazil for the celebration of the 500th Anniversary of Columbus' voyage to the Americas and it tours all around now as a traveling museum. Amazing to me that it was only 93 feet long, and that the 27 man crew spent the entire voyage on deck, the hold being used for animals and supplies. Here's a pic of my nephew and my boys hamming it up on board.

For the Graduate

2008-06-15T20:54:00.000-07:00

This crazy conglomeration is my latest cake creation - a graduation cake for our friends' son. She looked through my cake picture album, and we decided on a "game of Life" cake, similar to the layout of one I've done before. This one describes the graduate's moves to different states, childhood, sports, loves (his Facebook is on the itty-bitty laptop!), and future at college.

I made two half-sheet cakes, one chocolate and one butter cake, and frosted them together on a fullsheet board. Four cake mixes, four pounds of powdered sugar, and two pounds of butter.

Now I have an order for a wedding cake next month! Our former babysitter is getting married and I'm doing her cake. Hear that? creak, creak I'm feeling old...

Noah's Quilt, Done!

2008-06-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

Finished my Bento Box quilt this morning!
As you can see from the link here, I kinda sorta modified it a little - I tried the colors all mixed up and it looked too unfocused to me with my very limited black-white-royal palette. So now it's more baby-stimulating graphic-y.

I'm really am digging on the bright red binding and soft blue starry back to contrast with the bold front. The colors also are reminiscent of baby Noah's Marine papa. My first quilt with strip-piecing and from a pattern, yay! I didn't have a good idea for a quilt label, so I just embroidered the info in a back corner.

Fun Fabric Fuel

2008-06-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling sewy lately. I saw this cute quilt, called "Bento Box" at Pink Chalk Studio, and decided to try my hand at it. My first quilt made using instructions! It's going way faster than my own piecemeal method. And Kathy was so sweet to email me some answers to my quilting and sewing machine questions.
j
If it turns out decently, it's going to be for my 20-years-ago-flowergirl and her new baby boy. But I'm already drooling over the possibilities of other color combinations. Maybe out of flannel. I love flannel. Is it a nightmare to quilt, anyone know?

Home from California

2008-05-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

I just got back last night from a 3-day women's retreat in Northern California. It was at a really neat old retreat center that reminded me so much of my grandparents' farmhouse in Ohio - lots of wood floors and old wallpaper, tiles and fireplaces. The location was beautiful and I met lots of great ladies from all over. Above are a few sights from the campus - I'm not even sure what the plants are.

Ups & Downs

2008-05-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Well, my son J. has been perfectly thrilled with his brand-new 5th grade experience ... until today. It seems he and two other boys are working on a display for the health fair together (on E. coli, echhh!) and one boy is not pulling his weight. And tomorrow they all have to miss recess to finish the project in time. Oh the tragedy! My husband & I have both told him that this is just something that everyone deals with their whole lives, not that that relieves the tragic unfairness!

Here are some pretty peony buds I bought at this Saturday's farmers' market. They finally had a nice, warm sunny day and it was packed with people and their puppies and children. Some enterprising couple was making a killing selling Hawaiian shaved ice! Besides the flowers, I bought a locally-made soap and granola and a bush fuschia. Not too much interesting by way of produce yet - still wintery stuff.

Hard at Work in the Garden

2008-05-18T10:38:00.001-07:00

... mmm, but not in my heels. This self-portrait with the timer on my camera is taken especially for Mom. (See what I bought with my birthday gift card?)
j
Other than the woman in the pink and black polka-dotted top and heels, these pics, show my cleaned-up raised garden beds which I finished yesterday. The quadrant to the left of me is the herb garden. It has (deep breath) lemon balm, rosemary, lavendar, chives, orange mint, pineapple mint, curly parsley, golden oregano, sage, and some snapdragons and impatiens for color.

The other three quadrants are mixtures of perennial and annual flowers. I give up on veggies - this photo looks sunny, but other than the early morning, my yard is in deep-eclipse shade from the many huge trees all around us.
j
My son and I did some research on butterfly- and hummingbird-attracting plants, so we have included quite a few of them. I also like to have lots of flowers to cut and bring into the house.
jj
Another beautiful sunny day is predicted today, and then back to the rain! I'm soaking up all the lumens I can!!

Rhubarb Fest 2008

2008-05-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

Rhubarbamania continues around here, fueled by a friend with a seemingly-endless supply. So far we have had rhubarb pie, rhubarb muffins, and yesterday I made a batch of rhubarb jam (made with strawberry jello powder??!) which is delicious!

This morning I made a rhubarb-raspberry custard cake for breakfast, which is a variation on a recipe in one of my favorite gluten-free cookbooks. It sounds good, doesn't it? How about rhubarb sorbet? Hmmm....

The Good, the Bad & the Cute Little Dog

2008-05-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Rather than subject you to the sight of my latest project (converting the boys' "toy closet" into a clothes closet as we move the men into separate bedrooms this summer), I will show you my cute little zuchon, Gipper, in one of his favorite poses: over the arm of the living room couch. With my enormous tulips from last Saturday's farmers' market in the foreground. They are mega-huge - the blooms are more than 4 inches tall alone.

On the plus side of the disaster downstairs, my 11 and 14-year-old sons are down there, playing a long-forgotten board game, laughing their heads off together.

Down the Garden Path

2008-05-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

This was my Mother's Day present: the path between my raised garden beds cleaned out, flattened, and paved with the cement blocks leftover from the firepit project. Yay! Looks nice now, and will look even nicer once I weed out the beds thoroughly and get the annuals in between the perennials and herbs!

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the precious mommies out there!
j
Here's to my gramma, who just moved OUT of assisted living back to her farm for the summer and fall ... Thank you, Gram, for all the summers on the farm, homemade dresses, teaching me how to sew and make homemade jelly. For sharing all your art supplies and sharing your love of crafts and painting with me. For planting rows of flowers in dozens of varieties, and letting me fill up your house with bouquets all summer. For trips up to the log cabin on the lake that you and Grampa built. For frying the fish I caught. For getting me ducks or kittens or a lamb or bunnies to play with all summer.
jj
Thank you, Mom P, for raising my island-boy husband up on the other side of the world from me. For loving him and praying for him and for telling him how handsome he was (even when he was a pudgy pre-teen and he wasn't sure he believed you). Thanks for reading to him and working hard so he could go to private school and for sending him off to college in the Midwest USA where I could find him.

Thanks, Mom for going through everything you did to have us kids. Thanks for driving us back and forth to the Midwest so we could know our grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Thanks for the ballet lessons and art lessons and for being a lunch room mother and a band mom. Thanks for sending me off to college and telling me that you wanted me to study whatever made me happy. Thank you for all your support as a mom and grandma for 42 years.

And happy Mom's Day to my sister and sis-in-laws, and all you lovely blogging mommas!

In the Garden of Weedin'

2008-05-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of the church's teen choir plant sale, and my sweet son had gotten me a gift certificate (with his own money, not dad's!) for Mother's Day. So we went down and supported the choir's summer tour with a little shoppin'.

Although the maple pollen is considerably less than last year's, it still whacked me today. I weeded a few hours and ended up wheezy and stuffy-headed. Oh well, rain is predicted again tomorrow and it will wash down the pollen count again. I hate to see my tulips engulfed in dandelions and those nasty jumping-seedy weeds, but between the rain and the pollen, I'm not getting done very quickly! I hope to get my new plants in while they're healthy.

On the changing-from-homeschooling-to-school front, things are going very well. J is loving the local school: coming home with tales of new friends and soccer at recess and the principal shaving his legs at assembly (he bet the kids if they made their fundraising goal he'd do it). A big change, but he's taking it well. I'm very proud how brave he is!

Manly-Man Firepit

2008-05-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Recently, my 11 year-old got it in his head that we needed a firepit. For the summer, you know. So we can put up the tent and camp chairs and go camping in the backyard and make hotdogs and s'mores on a daily basis.
j
After some internet research (no, we do not live in the city limits and yes, we can legally have a firepit, it must be 25 feet from all structures which makes the only option smack-dab in the middle of the yard, and various how-to-build-a-firepit websites), he and daddy went for it.

(row 1 of pics) First, they scored 2 SUVs-full of used cement blocks on craigslist for $50 and spent an afternoon driving, loading and unloading them.
They went to the local hardware/garden store and bought 5 bags of gravel for $4 each.
After marking out a 3-foot diameter circle, they laid out the blocks and determined the size of the hole to dig. They dug it 10 inches deep, with a 2 foot French drain in the center.
They laid out the blocks and water-blasted them to get the clumps of dirt, millipedes and dead squooshed earthworms off.

(row 2 of pics) J filled the French drain with gravel (this is to aid drainage so there's no standing water in the firepit, even when we pour water to douse the fire)
... then filled up the pit with a few inches of gravel ...
... and it looked like this!
J started to place the blocks around the pit - it took 14 to make a solid circle.

(row 3 of pics) J dry-stacked the blocks, alternating the alignment.
When he was done, it looked like this! Pretty professional, huh?
Then he chopped up some logs...
... And christened the firepit with its first bonfire and marshmallows!

What a nice project for $70 and a few afternoons! They're so excited! Oh, and the really cool bonus? They have so many extra cement paver blocks that I have enough to pave the paths between my raised garden beds - something I've wanted to do since we moved in!

Plenty and the Farmers' Market

2008-05-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

I recently borrowed the book, Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, from the library. It is an interesting account, written by each of them in alternating chapters, of their pledge to eat a "100-Mile Diet" for one year: that is, to only eat foods grown, harvested or caught within 100 miles of their Vancouver, Canada home. It seems, while trying to live an environmentally-conscious and healthy lifestyle, they realized that while they were walking and biking to save gas, their diet of far-flung supermarket foods was driving the equivalent of a fuel-hogging SUV.

The book was especially interesting since I live in the same bountious Northwest area as the authors. Their quests for meat (local fish and shellfish, and eggs mostly), veggies, fruits, sweets (honey), and grain (a toughy out here) were sometimes comical, but very inventive.

This morning my son and I ventured out in the misty rain to the first Farmers' Market of the season. It was almost closing time, and it had rained all morning - not a profitable start for all the poor chilly-looking farmers and craftspeople. Beautiful tulips were available in profusion for $1 a stem or a dozen for $10, but not much variety in produce yet - only rhubarb, leeks, some beets and potatoes. There were also vendors selling homemade cheese, candy, baked goods, and organic beef and pork, and fresh fish and oysters - I think we could easily eat a "100-mile diet" around here already this year! It's fun to watch the changes at the farmers' market week by week as more crops become available. I made a rhubarb crisp! (P.S. I want this t-shirt!)

A fun quote from the book, by Carl Sagan:

"If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch,

you must first invent the universe."

The End of an Era

2008-05-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

Whew. Lots and lots of changes in my life. I've got to say that this has been the most painful year of my recently-turned-42 year life, but that, although excruciating, the pain has not been for nought. Good has come of it. Like breaking and resetting a poorly-healed bone, I imagine.

My journey through employment was short-lived. After 90 days, the jig was up and I'm unemployed again. After 14 years mothering and jobless, it was a roller-coaster ride back into the world I lived in B.C. (before children), back when I was in my 20's and was willing to make the job my first priority, 60, 80 or 100 hours a week if duty or the client called. But at this stage, finishing up our homeschool year, mothering and teaching and trying to get my head straight, I wasn't the "team player" that I used to be. And that is my choice.

And, speaking of homeschooling: this nine-year era of my life ends in just a few weeks. The big guy is headed to high school as a full-time freshman in the fall, where he has already spent a few years taking advanced courses I couldn't teach him. He seems excited at the prospect, already stepping up his pace of getting school work done right away, in preparation for a full schedule next year. And looking forward to our promised summer project: moving his brother out so they each have their own rooms. Aaaah! Teen bliss! They've shared a room, willingly, for 11 years, but as their developing personalities diverge as they mature, they need more independence for the sake of peace and sanity.

And not-so-little second son? He took a trial visit to the local elementary 5th grade this week (which he LOVED) in preparation for switching from homeschool next fall. BUT, after his visit the teacher, principal and school psychologist all advised me that they'd like to see him start 5th grade NOW.

Be. Still. My. Heart.

After much discussion and prayer, we decided that this is indeed the best course, for many reasons. So starting Monday, May 5th, my 11 year old, my baby, will go to school for the first time.

We bought school supplies and school lunch fixings with our groceries yesterday. He is very excited. This boy is Mr. Social and will know everyone's name the first week, and have them all over at our house by the second week. The elementary is relatively small (2 classes of about 25 for each grade) and a half-mile from our house.

So, I know I'm blathering. 98% of families have done this with their kids from kindergarden, but for me it's all new. And exciting. And a little scary.

This is my drawing of me homeschooling, done 2 years ago.

Happy Thirty-Twelfth Birthday to Me!

2008-04-28T07:44:00.000-07:00

Today is my 30-12th (42nd) birthday! Hmmm... does that mean I should be twice as mature as a 21 year old?

I am planning to spend the day homeschooling (only 6 more weeks to go, and the boys are going to public school next year, so this is really the end of a 9 year era of my life) and then the four of us are going out to eat together. There is a new restaurant nearby that I saw reviewed in the Seattle Times which is owned by a man from Naples, Florida - near my hometown. It's called Casper's Everglades Supper House. We're going to go check it out - eat some gator and talk Southern!

Journey to another world...

2008-04-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a week in Florida visiting family, going to the beach, boating, going to the beach, eating out, going to the beach, visiting theme parks, going to the beach...

The difference in palette astounds me! Washington is cool gray, blues, and dark cool greens. Florida is yellow and coral and chartreuse!

The trip was a nice mixture of relaxing and busy.

School's for the Birds!

2008-03-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Steller's Jay, Varied Thrush, Hairy Woodpecker

Spotted Towhee, Northern Flicker, European Starling

Blackcapped Chickadee, American Robin, American Crow

Why, hello there! How are you? I wanted to share something special that happened today. My son & I were doing our homeschool lessons at the dining table, when we were distracted by all the activity outside the windows. What was going on? Some kind of bird convention it seemed! In the space of 10 minutes we saw all of the birds pictured here! We interrupt this math lesson for some zoology!

I'm in Deep Clover Now!

2008-01-22T20:13:00.000-08:00

Big news of the day is, I am employed! I started today as a project manager for a marketing and promotions company! Huge change for me - I have not been employed in 14 years, since our first son was born!

It seems like a perfect fit. I will be able to work part-time, and most of it from home, on the computer and the phone. So my early morning hours will now be spent working instead of blogging and crafting so much. It all seems so strange, and yet so familiar. Like speaking a language again that I once spoke daily, until I moved to another country (in my case -motherhood).

Ah, well! I'm sure I'll sneak in a project now and again. And I'll be keeping my eye on you!
l

"Our real problem is not our strength today:

it is the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Going With the Flow

2008-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

I had fun being spontaneous with a pack of blank cards yesterday. I needed to finally get my Christmas thank yous out, and I decorated a whole pack of cards with this and that, and wrote them all while I homeschooled. The dark smears you see are actually metallic silver: doesn't photograph well.
j
Yesterday I also went to my second ever yoga class. Where have you been all my life, Yoga?? I have gone to aerobics classes in the past (a long time ago, ahem) but that has been my only foray into exercise classes. I hated aerobics! Everyone in their perfect outfits, doing their perfect routines! Yechhhhh! But having heard about yoga from several resources, I decided to check it out. TOTALLY a different experience! Low lights, soft music, go at your own pace at your own level, no comparisons or competition, stretching, balancing, breathing. I've felt like I've just had a massage after each class!

Here's to new discoveries and healthier habits!

Illustration Friday - "Stitch"

2008-01-11T08:12:00.001-08:00

Once again, the completion of a long-delayed art piece and an appropriate Illustration Friday topic have fortuitously collided! I started doodling around on this mini-quilt more than a year ago, but just yesterday finished appliquing, machine-quilting, and hand-binding it. It is part of a series I had conceived of quilt blocks based on memories of my summers at my grandparents' farm. I have 2 others already started. So, I hope fabric art isn't against the I.F. rules, but that's what I'm doing lately...
j
Pie Mini-Quilt, 12" square, cotton fabric and batting.

Happier New Year

2008-01-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry I have been MIA lately. I have been making stuff, but haven't been in the bloggy mood. I'm still reading YOUR blogs though, and I appreciate the beauty and smiles you share. I'll get back in the groove eventually...

...until then, especially to everyone whose 2007 really sucked (and I know a lot of you), I wish you a "Happier New Year." (Oops, did my happy mask slip?)

"For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Really Odd Meme, Part 2

2007-12-09T05:26:00.000-08:00

What's on top of your refrigerator?
The basket of vitamins and meds, our good camera, the boys' jacknives, and perpetual grunge...
j
What color or design is on your shower curtain?
A gold/rust colored abstract design, that I still like after living with it for 5 years. My mom bought it for us when we moved into this house, 'cause I wouldn't pay that much for a shower curtain and she said, "It's worth it! You're going to have to look at it every day!"
j
How many plants are in your home?
Only five. Two jade plants and two angel-wing begonias which are descendents of starts I got years ago at the homeschool center swap. That swap is always so much fun! You bring in your own labeled starts to contribute, then take what you want. Since we moved in this house, I've scored money plants, ferns, japanese anemone, butterfly bush, a golden chain tree, shasta daisies, annual flowers and veggies from the swap! And I've been glad to contribute my curly parsley, lipstick strawberries, poppies, hollyhocks, and dozens of lovely heirloom tomato plants that I had nurtured on my window sill all spring, only to realize I would murder them in my own eclipsed yard.
j
Is your bed made now?
I'll ditto Ali - Nope, hubby's in it!
j
Comet or Soft Scrub?
Neither. Scrub Brite.
j
Is your closet organized?
Pretty well. I have the closet in my art studio and hubby has the one in our bedroom, 'cause they are too small to cohabitate. Tops on the right; skirts, pants, dresses on the left; belts in the center; shoes on a rack; laundry basket on the other side of them; purses and fifteen years of Franklin planners on the shelf on top.
j
Can you describe your flashlight?
Just like Ali's.
j
Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home?
Glass. Last Easter I bought a dozen of the heaviest matching drinking tumblers I could find, so we could finally set a table for guests without the potpourri of glassware. Haven't lost one yet!
j
Do you have iced tea, made in a pitcher, right now?
No, but I did all summer. I found a great recipe in the Seattle Times for Southern Iced Tea this year (the archives are being clunky or I'd add the link). Basically, it called for making a strong concentrate with a quart of boiling water and 5 tea bags for 10 minutes, DON'T SQUEEZE THE TEA BAGS WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OUT, add cold water to fill up to a gallon, then add an 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda to counteract the tannins. Very good!
j
If you have a garage, is it cluttered?
Ummm, not as bad as some I've seen but not great. Hubby and I were just discussing this last week, were you eavesdropping? Having just purchased a new vehicle, we are thinking it would be good to actually house it in order to keep it looking pretty longer. Of course, that would involve getting rid of the motorcycle and a seldom-used exercise bench, cleaning out the "church" pile, and giving the in-laws those boxes of little kid clothes.

Whoa... I didn't realize the extensive length of this Really Odd Meme when I began! I gotta get going around here, I'll catch you again later! I'm interpreting at church this morning, then I'm teaching the 3 year-olds at Sunday School during second service. Ta!

The Rather Odd Meme (Thanks, Ali!)

2007-12-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't been doing anything creative lately (ummmm....wrapping packages?) and haven't been taking any photos either, so thus, therefore, and consequentially, I haven't any blog fodder and have been neglecting you all, my faithful readers (ha! check out my hundreds of comments! well, I'm sure there're a few lurkers out there... I still haven't figured out those site-meter thingies...)
j
So anyhow, I saw this Rather Odd Meme at domesticali today and it made me smile, so I thought I'd do it so you'd have something new to read, however bizarre.
j
What kind of soap do you have in your bathtub right now?
Two, actually. One is a honey-glycerine bar that hubby uses and one is an additive-free, non-perfumed, olive oil-based bar. We've both had some issues with hives and allergic reactions this year, and these seem to work for us.
j
Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator?
No, but I regularly do have very odd or out-of-season produce in there; as a homeschooling family we are always picking up exotic fruits that are from the countries we are studying, or veggies that "Farmer Boy" might have eaten... The most recent experiment was prickly pear cactus (verdict: yummy but seedy - tastes like kiwi or passionfruit).
j
What would you change about your living room?
I would finally find the perfect art to hang on the blank walls... I don't know what... or paint it myself... you can see the problem...
j
Are the dishes in the dishwasher clean or dirty?
Dirty, but there's just a few; I ran it yesterday afternoon and emptied it.
j
What's in your fridge?
What?! I'd be hear ALL DAY! You are talking to a mixed food-allergic family here! I have three types of milk, for Pete's sake! Soy, rice and cow's! Suffice to say: a large variety of dairy and dairy substitutes, lots of cold-cuts (wrestling season is on now), and lots of produce (we cook from scratch most all the time). Come see for yourself if you need more detail than that!
j
White or wheat bread?
Wheat only. Raised the boys on it and now they are programmed to think white is strange. I'm thinking about maybe mixing up some gluten-free bread soon - I just haven't found any decent in the stores, and homemade is quite good, although it doesn't last long (I mean it doesn't taste good for many days, not that I have to worry about that - the men are NOT prejudiced against gluten-free: homemade bread is homemade bread!)

Wow! This is a LONG meme! Maybe I'll save the rest for next time so I have something to post about! I'll leave you with a verse:
j

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made: your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:14

Our Life

2007-11-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

Isn't this a lovely photo? A local photographer took it at Greenlake and it was in today's Seattle Times. It looks just like the owl in our backyard recently!
j
Lots of phone calling and running around here, concerning rental cars and insurance and tow yards and car dealers. But, ta-da, we now have a new rig to replace the totalled Dodge: a 2002 Acura MDX (red like this photo, but ours has running boards, which I really like). No little compact cars for us - we like to go places together, and safely!

Other than car stuff, the only creative stuff I've done is help my younger son set up a pre-Christmas gift of a new aquarium - which has been a good homeschooling lesson in:

tropical fish habitats
the nitrogen cycle
and electrical safety!

Very, Very Thankful

2007-11-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

Before...

Yesterday afternoon, my hubby was rear-ended by a pickup truck when he was sitting at a standstill in traffic on an onramp to the interstate. Our car was totalled, the trunk was squished all the way up into the backseat and the driver's seat was broken off its base. It caused a chain reaction, and two more cars ahead of him were also damaged.

After...

I am very, very thankful that my hubby and everyone else walked away OK. In fact, my husband is already up and gone to the church to work, with NO aches and pains at all! It made my heart catch when I pulled up at the accident site, while the tow truck was pulling our car up onto its bed, and a guy was sweeping up all the broken glass and little parts off the road, to see my handsome guy standing there in one piece, saying, "Well, hello, pretty lady!"

Very, very thankful.

Spring-giving?!

2007-11-21T13:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my 10 year old and I went grocery shopping for all of the ingredients for our "family Thanksgiving" meal on Friday. He was saying how much he LOVES Thanksgiving and how we ought to do it more than once a year. Then he figured out that six months from now would be the end of May - which is when we typically finish our homeschool year. "Perfect!" he cried, "We can celebrate our thankfulness that school is over! We'll call it..... SPRINGGIVING!"
This guy cracks me up! I am raising a from-scratch chef who looks down his nose at all the pre-made pies in the freezer section and the boxes of stuffing mix on the shelves. I told him he had better learn to cook in case his wife doesn't know how to make all these things by hand. So he has declared that he is going to help us with all phases of the Thanksgivng preparations this year, to get educated.

On to the Next Project

2007-11-19T06:36:00.000-08:00

OK, I know, it's not September... but I wanted to show off my latest "flower of the month" embroidery! You can see I'm not necessarily doing them in order. I picked this one because I love the asters and morning glories together (once again I didn't use the suggested colors on the pattern, but chose the ones I identify with the flowers).

Getting geared up for Thanksgiving around here. Need to divy up the cooking assignments with my sis-in-law, the 25lb. turkey is defrosting already, and I'm going to make the gluten-free cornbread for the stuffing tomorrow so it has a chance to dry out a bit. Once again, we will work at church on Thanksgiving day helping to feed around 1500 people at meals at 11:30, 1:30, and 3:30, hubby and the boys in the guest children's activities room and me as an interpreter for the Deaf. Then, we will have our family-and-friends Thanksgiving at home on Friday. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!

Even Better!

2007-11-17T06:23:00.000-08:00

I finished my third rendition of this blouse by Built by Wendy. This time I used flannel (the first was cotton calico, the second pinwale corduroy). I was confident enough in the pattern to start really messing with it...

I like the original pattern well enough, but the deep v-neck was a bit too deep for me and I always wear a camisole under it. So this time I modified the neckline and made it about an inch higher.

I also made the top about 4 inches longer, with the sides split open at the bottom. And I made the sleeves extra long.

I'll give it a test-wear today and see how it feels. I'm off to ride on a bus with three dozen kids to a JBQ competition!

My Thursday

2007-11-15T20:54:00.000-08:00

I had a nice day today. Just to be goofy, here's how it went:
6:30 - Woke up, late for me. Made coffee. Read my Bible and prayed.
7:00 - Checked my email, my blog, and a couple blog friends.
7:30 - Woke up hubby and poured his coffee. Worked on a flannel blouse I'm making. Got confused in the same area I did the first 2 times I made it. Grrrr.

8:00 - Got the boys up (fortunate homeschoolers get to sleep in!) and got ready for my day.
8:30 - Made everyone breakfast, finished getting ready, prayed with hubby.
9:30 - Homeschool begins! Today I did Bible, Business with both boys, Science with J, Washington History with Z, read a chapter of "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder with J, and helped Z with Geology while J made some digital art. I felt really nice that Z actually needed some help and wanted me there to do science with him! He is such a self-motivated guy, it doesn't often happen!
12:00 - Went to the health food store with J, leaving Z to do his high school French homework at home.
1:00 - Lunch at home with the boys, then made hubby a salad when he got home a little later.
2:00 - Our close teenage friend came over to check her email on our computer, borrow a stamp, discuss Thanksgiving plans, and show me her college winter schedule.
3:00 - I took a nap and then had a very hard time getting awake afterwards.
4:30 - Took a walk with hubby and Gipper. Thankfully, the pouring rain had broken up and it was only drizzling lightly. Gip got soaked on the bottom from the splashes and puddles, but he lucked out 'cause I didn't have time to bathe him afterwards, only a towel-dry.
5:30 - Made dinner: turkey mini-meatloaves, macaroni salad, and steamed asparagus.
6:30 - Sat down and ate with hubby and the boys.
6:50 - Drove Z to his teen bible study group while hubby cleaned up the dishes.
7:30 - Made some business calls, emailed sibs about a Thanksgiving bouquet for our grandma.
8:15 - Made gluten and dairy free almond biscotti with J. They're in the oven now, perfuming the house!

Don't worry, I won't do this all the time. Just goofing off. Isn't the drawing cute? J calls it, "Jewel Bird." He is really a talented kid!

Warm Colors of Chilly Autumn

2007-11-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

My eye is drawn to the toasty yellows and oranges that warm up our grey, rainy autumn. When I bought these roses at our local warehouse store, they were a pumpkiny orange, but have gone to yellow as they opened. ("Where is your husband? He should buy the roses for you!" the clerk at the store signed to me. "He is buying them," I signed back, "I just got to pick them out!") A big bag of warty gourds was only a couple dollars and helped to fill up my fall-decorated mantel. My grandma gave me her sweater when I admired it last June when I visited. The backyard is covered with maple leaves and needs to be raked, now that the big tree is finally bare. Time for a family project!

Hoo's That?

2007-11-11T06:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening we had a surprise visitor at our house. We were outside on the back patio, barbequing pork chops on the grill when a rather largish grey-brown object fluttered down into the yard amid the maple leaves. It was an owl!

From my research I will guess it was a barred owl, because it was about 18" tall. It just looked at us calmly for a minute or two, then swooped back up onto a branch of our maple tree and continued to scope out the yard for little critters. I read that they hunt at twilight and will hang around lighted areas to hunt. It was very exciting to see such a huge bird up close! We live in a very heavily wooded area within the suburbs and have seen pilated woodpeckers, hawks and bald eagles in the past, along with opossoms, raccoons, and even a black bear!

We kept our fluffy little white doggy inside. "Um, Mr. Owl? I'm not a bunny rabbit, OK?"

Itsa Me! Maaaarrrio!

2007-10-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

What's up with me? Makin' costumes, like you are! And, judging from the lines at the thrift store and the craft stores, like most mothers in the country are this week!

J. wanted to be his favorite video-game character, Mario. A reasonable likeness, don't you think? We bought a fuzzy mustache, but he didn't think he could stand it so we went with mascara instead.

Happy costuming, moms! What are you making for your costumes?

October's Done!

2007-10-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

When I saw Vicki's patchwork pillow and tutorial, I finally knew what to do with my October flower embroidery! (I'm not fooling myself that I'd get all 12 months done and make a quilt!) I had an 18" pillow form on hand, so I downsized the instructions a bit (left off the edge strips) and went for it last night. I'm pleased with the odds and ends of fat quarters that I had on hand to choose from to match the thread colors. If I showed you the back, you'd see I used two different fat quarters for the backing, with a row of flat buttons to hold it closed.

Thanks for sharing, Vicki! The embroidery is from her free patterns too!