Seed Catalogs

The garden plans continue! This past weekend, I went to a little mini-class on gardening and learned all kinds of fun stuff about both gardening and composting. Then, the Gardening Guru herself (hi, Cassie!) came over to my house to assess the situation in the back yard. Once we clear out the excess brush and dead things, it looks like we're going to have a decent amount of space to plant. Also, I was worried that the yard might not get enough sun - but it actually gets plenty, and at the right time of day. I'm quite pleased. I don't think I'm going to be ready for spring/summer planting (except for a few things I plan to start in containers), but I still decided to look over some seed catalogs. The first one arrived over the weekend: Seed Savers Exchange. Eeee!

We read a really great book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver for book club last year. It really taught me a lot and made me look at food in a new way. I highly recommend it. Anyway, at one point in the book, the author says, "I have seen women looking at jewelry ads with a misty eye and one hand resting on the heart, and I only know what they’re feeling because that’s how I read the seed catalogs in January." I'm not exactly as excited as that, but I did love looking through the catalog at all the interesting types of stuff you can grow. I had no idea how many different varieties of carrots there are. Did you know there are purple carrots out there? And purple green beans? Fun!

Tagged

Our friend Madison tagged us on her blog for a picture post. Here are the rules:

1. Go to your sixth picture file.
2. Go to the sixth picture in that file.
3. Post it and blog about it.
4. Tag 6 friends

Here's the photo that came up:
I was worried it was going to be a boring photo - but this one is such a winner! In this photo, Kristin is modeling a princess crown of her own design. Basically, it's her Elmo potty seat over a stocking cap, topped with a Barbie tiara. (Not that you can see the tiara in this photo). She wore that potty seat as a hat all the time, despite her silly mother's insistence that it was inappropriate and gross. She is such a lady.

Generally speaking, I'm not fond of "tagging" folks to do stuff, because I don't want to put people on the spot or make them feel obligated. I also don't know that 6 people with their own blogs actually read this one. But in the interest of playing along...um, Kris? Cassie? Ingrid? Jen? April? and.....Karen, maybe?

Letter to My 8 Year Old

Dear Joey,

Yes, I know...you'd rather I call you Joseph now. "Joey" is a baby name. But you know what? I brought you into this world, and I keep you here, and I didn't even cause you physical harm that one time you drew a picture of the solar system on my kitchen cabinets with Sharpies. So I'm calling you what I want. When you make a person? You can call it what YOU want. Deal?

On Friday, you turned 8 years old. Surely some sort of time warp must have occurred because it seems like only yesterday you looked like this:Look and what a cute little pudge you were back then! You were even cute when you cried. Or when you'd eat spaghetti and get it pretty much everywhere but your mouth:Even covered with marinara sauce, you were still a cutie!

I know you're at kind of a turning point in your life right now. And pretty soon, you're going to stop calling me Mommy and you probably aren't going to want to hold my hand or kiss me in public. But I'm totally okay with that. Because I'm sure there are still going to be moments like this morning when you crawled into bed next to me to tell me that you loved me and I was a great mom - for apparently no reason other than you felt like letting me know. That pretty much had me floating all day. You're an amazing person, Joey. You're sweet and you're smart and you're funny. I know you're going to do great and incredible things in your life. You're going to be part of the change we need in this world. And you better believe that I'll always be there, cheering you on. I love you so much, Joey Bear.

So, happy birthday, my 8 year old. It's a big year for you. I'm proud of the person you've been, the person you are now, and the person you're becoming. Thanks for telling me I'm doing okay with the all the mom stuff. Because being your mom is the most important job I've ever had.

Love you forever,
Mom

Projects

One of the things that I looked forward to the most about having a house of our own was having a yard. I always wanted to have a garden of my own. A little vegetable patch, maybe some melons or berries, some herbs, and some flowers. Of course, that was all just little fantasy visions in my head. Making them a reality is definitely going to take some work! And, of course, we don't exactly have a huge yard to work with. But I'm still optimistic.

This past weekend, we spent some time in the back yard, getting a feel for what we have to work with and what we'd like to accomplish. We also picked a bunch of oranges off our two trees. We actually picked about twice the amount pictured. And there are still a ton of ripening ones on the tree! We were able to trade our oranges for lemons from a friend's tree. Eventually, we're hoping to set up a kind of gardening co-op with a few different friends, where we all grow certain things and share. Hooray for the barter system!

Our yard is in pretty sad shape. We really need to rebuild our fence, for one thing. It's practically falling down in some spots. And the raised beds on the side yard are shored up with railroad ties that are crumbling and rotten. We want to tear out all the railroad ties and replace them with stone or brick. Along the back fence right now there's a lot of dead or dying plants:Lots of stuff to tear out and clean up! We really have our work cut out for us. But I'm looking forward to working on these various yard projects, just the same. Since I'm not sure how long cleaning the yard is really going to take, I'm going to start my gardening efforts by planting some things in containers. I'll start with some herbs, maybe. I love the idea of snipping fresh herbs from the garden to use in my cooking!

As we make progress, I'll post more pictures! Stay tuned!

'Tis the Season...Cold & Flu Season

A plague has descended on the House of LeVine. Okay, well, not a plague per se. But it seems like we're all in various stages of illness. The worst is poor little Simon. He's had a runny/stuffy nose for a couple weeks now. He sounds like he's going to drown in his own fluids. Being sick has also thoroughly messed up his body clock so he wants to stay up all night and sleep all day...which means I'm not getting much sleep at night myself!

Joey was doing okay, but had to stay home from school today. Winter is always such a hard time for him because his asthma really kicks into high gear. He has a horrible, deep barking cough and was running a pretty good fever. Kristin doesn't have many outward symptoms, but you can tell by looking at her that she doesn't feel well. She's also very restless at night. And she has no appetite, which is always worrisome. I'm just praying that it's a simple cold and not the early stages of stomach flu. That's simply the worst!

I am willing myself not to get sick, but I'm feeling really run down from lack of sleep combined with the stress from being swamped at work (lots to catch up with after the holidays!). I have to say, I'd love to have a day or two at home to rest and catch up on sleep. Why is it that I feel like I need time off to recuperate after the holidays when I HAD time off?

Hope you and yours are staying healthy!

Christmas Review

Happy New Year, everyone! Can't believe it's already 2009. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. It was a busy one for our family, but we had a great time. Matt's mom was visiting from Seattle, and the grandkids sure ate up the extra attention! One of the first Grandmother bonding activities? Making Christmas cookies.
It was really funny to see how different Joey and Kristin approached cookie decorating. Joey was very precise and focused. Kristin was slinging sprinkles everywhere - not even caring if they made it onto the cookies or not.

Here's a photo of Simon in his Christmas outfit. I love the look on his face. "Mom, don't take a picture of me in this stupid hat! Kids are going to laugh at me!"
I was really excited about Christmas Day, because I was going to be hosting my first big family dinner. Before we bought the house, we lived in such a tiny apartment, there wasn't even room for the whole family to come over, much less sit down and have a meal together. Being able to have a big family dinner at our house was something I'd looked forward to for years. I knew someday we'd get there! I took a lot of time getting the table to look pretty. I bought a special table runner, red napkins and napkin rings. I also bought new plates, silverware, and stemware because I didn't have enough of my regular every day stuff to serve our whole clan! Our family has really grown over the past few years. Anyway, here's a photo. My mom bought me the centerpiece:

And I've had several folks ask me about the Turducken. It actually pretty much looked like a turkey from the outside. It wasn't entirely boneless like I'd thought. Cutting into it, of course, reveled its...unique qualities.


So, as you can see, there's a layer of turkey, then stuffing, then duck, then stuffing, and then chicken supposedly. The chicken part was miniscule. Anyway, when you cut the slices, it really wasn't the most attractive thing in the world:

But it didn't taste bad. The turkey part was delicious. Duck really isn't my thing, since it's sort of oily and gamey, but it was tasty. The stuffing was a little funky because it was sweet and had raisins in it. And we all know raisins are like my kryptonite. So, I had a little bowl of regular stuffing on the side that I'd made...just in case. We also had tons of other great food. Ham, delicious garlic mashed potatoes, yummy green bean casserole, and homemade rolls. No one went home hungry!

Here's what the Turducken looked like after we'd all eaten. You can see the layers better here.

For you adventurous eaters out there, I recommend trying it. If only for the novelty of saying you've tried one. Or you can just swipe these photos and claim you've had one. I won't tell if you do.

Here's to a wonderful new year!!