Gardening

More and more I realize that I'm officially old. I like, no LOVE, gardening. Ok ok, I realize that alone does not qualify me as old. I also like fruit cake, puzzles, quilting, and I'm really clueless when it comes to high tech computer lingo stuff. I've even been known to play scrabble and sequence on occasion. I never thought I would do any of these things back in the days of bikes, bubble gum, and boys. Maybe it's because I'm turning 30 this year, or maybe it's because I have a bunch of kids that I'm responsible for, I don't know what the reason, but I've been feeling really old these days. But that's not the purpose of this post at all, I don't even know where all that whining came from! Let's move on to the subject at hand. Gardening!!!

 

This is Matthew last year building my amazing garden beds for me. They are 6 feet deep (a little too deep, four feet would be perfect) and 20 feet long. There is room for two there, but we only did one last year because I was all pregnant and awkward.

 

This is a picture of it once it's all planted. I marked off squares for every two feet and loosely followed the "Square Foot Gardening" technique. It's a great book, definitely worth a read. It made weeding and watering almost unnecessary.

 

We built a two foot deep bed along the side of the house where it's sunny all day. It was perfect for peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes because it's so hot there.

 

Here we are pruning tomato plants. Meatball got to just hang out in my tummy for the whole thing, lucky guy. This is the side bed again, in case you didn't notice that:-)

 

And here's my little dancer posing in front of the main bed some time in August.

I will have to add more to this post tomorrow because it's late and I can hear a chicken in my basement which means it probably got out again. Chicken in my basement, what?!?!?!? Yes, you heard me folks, we have sweet chickys that like to escape their nice warm enclosure, so I must run. Ciao!

Using Time for What Really Matters

I'm the kind of person who, when making a to do list, feels the need to fill the entire page. At the end of a day, no matter how productive, I feel like I didn't get enough done. I feel like there is always stuff to do and I could never accomplish everything I want to do. This has been a major learning curve in the last few years. Learning to let go of expectations and be realistic in my goals. The other day I stumbled upon this blog post "Learning to Enjoy Your Children" that really made me tear up, but not for the reason you may think. It was not with regret that I read it, but with joy. If you don't follow the link I'll sum it up here. She challenges parents to be intentional with our children and spend quality time with them everyday. She lists some examples, many of which we do with our kids often. I read it with thankfulness that Matthew and I do take the time to really enjoy our kids. It is because I play pirates with them, bake with them, read to them, listen to their jokes and many other fun things that my "to do" list is usually a "should have done" list by the end of the day. It's also why I can go to bed at night with a huge smile and warmth in my heart and just throw that list out of my mind because it really doesn't matter. Cheering for my kids as they learn and grow, praying for them and with them, that is what matters. So even if I fail in cleaning, baking, laundry, or sewing, I will strive to love on my kids in whichever way they need that day. Even as I write this post I've been interrupted countless times to kiss an owie, read a book, cuddle a baby, and sit a stubborn kid on the potty. It's all worth it. Oh my word, is it ever!




This picture was taken months ago, but sums up the silliness and sweetness of our little squirts.
So lately I've really been trying to just be more proactive in my tasks around the house instead of adding too many things to my list. I've been reading the Fly Lady's blog again for inspiration. Her stuff is mostly just common sense, like clean as you go, which my mom drilled into me while growing up (thanks mom:-) I really like her ideas for de-cluttering. Its very simple, fast, and doable. Yes, that's a word. Doable. You just start with one room, 15 min a day is all your allowed. First you bring a garbage bag into the room and throw 28 things into it, then you take it out to the garbage and forget about it. Then you bring a box and put 28 giveaway things into it, bring it out to your car to drop off at a thrift store, and forget about it. Once it's in the bag or box, just let it go, don't you dare take it out again! And then you're done de-cluttering for the day. So easy! The other thing I've been doing from her site is setting the timer for an hour and working, then setting the timer for 15 minutes and sitting down for a break. My break time is spent drinking water, and playing with the kids, in a chill relaxing sort of way. This way I'm connecting with them and they will play together really nicely for the next hour again. It's been working really well today, we'll see if I actually keep up with it or not. It's noon and I've made bread, and granola (with the kids help of course;-), vacuumed downstairs, majorly tidied the kitchen, read a couple stories, played Petshop, and nursed Micah twice. So I think I'll take the rest of the day off and plant some seeds in the garden with the kids and play. Yipee!

New Plan

Ok so I realized that most of the reason I never update my poor blog is because my photos are never put onto the computer. So my new plan is to.... well.... uhhh.... I guess I'll start by putting my pictures onto the computer so I can then post some here for your viewing pleasure. But I haven't done that yet. So I guess this post is kinda pointless. But I have every intention of making this blog a little less lonely in the next few weeks, so stay posted! Coming up I'll tell you about Owen's pirate adventures, and my sewing adventures. And can I just mention that Micah is seriously adorable and I could just nibble him up? There. I did it. But now he's trying to rip apart a pretty basket, apparently planning to eat it piece by piece. I guess he's hungry??? Ok, see you later, with photos, promise!

Updated to make this post less pointless:

Ok, I have a recipe that I've been meaning to post for a reader for awhile now, so I'll do that now and this post will now have a purpose, weeehoo! This is soup I make in the fall, I usually double or even quadruple the recipe so we have a years worth of yummy tomato soup for lunches or fast suppers. Oh, and last time I made it I misread the "cloves" part and added four cloves of garlic instead. Usually mistakes don't work out so well, but this time I think it may have even improved the recipe:-)

Condensed Tomato Soup:
7.5 lbs tomatoes
3 medium onions
6 ribs celery
4 cloves
2 bay leaves
handful of parsley
1/2 c. butter
6 Tbsp flour
1/8 tsp cayenne
2 Tbsp salt

-Simmer the tomatoes, onions, celery, cloves, bay leaves, and parsley for about two hours in a heavy bottomed stock pot, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
-remove the bay leaves and cloves and then blend with either an immersible blender, or in batches in a blender (once it's cooled a bit, to prevent burns from inevitable splashing), if using the blender method, return to pot once done blending
- in a small pot melt butter then whisk in the flour, cayenne, and salt
-add some of the pureed tomato mixture (about 1 or 2 cups) into your small butter pot, whisking to mix well
- now pour all of this back into your big tomato pot. Stir to combine well and let this come to a boil until it has thickened.
- pour into sterilized jars and process in a water bath canner for 20 min, following general canning guide lines for lids and all that.
To serve heat condensed tomato soup in a pot. In a separate pot heat milk (the same volume as the condensed tomato soup). Add a pinch of baking soda to the heated soup and whisk in the milk. This method prevents the milk from curdling.

Hello Lonely Blog

Let's just skip over the apologies for not blogging in forever and move right along. I'm just putting pictures up right now, we'll see what the next few weeks bring, maybe I'll write some stuff now and then. For now I'll try to explain some of these photos. They get posted in the opposite order than I want them, good 'ol blogger, someday maybe they'll change it so I can just click and drag, oh that would be wonderful. Ok, so we have Monkey Moo's birthday party here, the big 3! We were in Calgary for his birthday and my mom put together a wonderful party. We did the little kid party the weekend after. So he got to invite three little friends (some older siblings got to come too), and we had a camping party. We set the tent up in the living room, made cute little "happy camper" shirts, ate hot dog men, and a s'mores cake. I don't remember what other pictures are on here. Oh there is June Bug and her first day of pre-school, Papa got to drop her off on her first day which was special because when she was about 3 for some reason she said she wanted Papa to come with her on her first day of Kindergarten, to which his response was basically "Nothing could stop be from being there." June Bug has her daddy AND her Papa wrapped around her little finger, in a good way:-) Oh there is also a picture of her playing on the iPod, I just love this picture, she's way too grown up! The last picture is Monkey getting his hair cut. He has a couple extra doses of cute. And the rest of the pictures are Meatball cuteness. Looking at pictures of him almost makes me want to go snuggle him, but he's fast asleep and will stay that way until 7:30am. HA I wish.

Sweetest Baby Smiles

Getting tired of the photo shoot

Three Wee Babes at Birthday Party

Digging into the Gifts

Happy Campers posing

Smores Cake

Hot Dog Man

Kids Eating "Camping Food"

Uncle and the Kids who adore him

Cutie La Roo

Cutie La Roo 2

Papa and some of his biggest fans

Upside Down in the Bumpo

June Bug growing up too fast

June Bug and Papa at Pre-School

Monkey's Haircut

Jorge

Who exactly is Jorge you may be wondering? He is the newest addition to our family! No no, we didn't decide to name the baby Jorge, it's the new blender in town. For many weird and wonderful reasons our new lovely Vitamix got dubbed Jorge, don't even ask. But I'll tell you more about the Vitamix. AND I'll tell you that the baby IS a boy, so he could be Jorge, but he won't. Ok, onto the Vitamix. Two whole long and trying years I've waited, and finally we caved. Isn't it pathetic how this young generation of mine is? Two years!? We don't even know the meaning of long and trying, but anyways, onto the blender. It's not just any blender. Yesterday I threw in a bunch of raw veggies and some taco seasoning (homemade of course), blended for about 6 minutes, added some chicken, corn, and chips on the chop speed and had Taco Soup for lunch. The kids loved it, which means it was a success. This morning I threw in a cup of grain to make flour, then added in milk eggs etc. and out came delicious pancakes! What did we have on the pancakes? A jar of blended nectarines, which turned into warm nectarine syrup! Best. Breakfast. Ever. Now I'm sipping away at the most delicious Pina Colada EVER! Minus the stuff that makes it really good of course, but still. I'm in love with this thing, as you can tell. We make kefir smoothies every morning, and now I can just throw in my whole flax seed with the fruit and it gets totally ground. So my question is, why am I so tired if I'm eating all this healthy fresh food? And why does my head hurt? I blame that on being out in the sun all day every day this week (for quick blender breaks of course, did I mention that I made ice cream with frozen strawberries and cream in just 60 seconds?) It's been wonderful to be out so much. I plan on having the most glorious farmers tan by the time I'm called on to wear a strapless maternity dress in not one, but TWO weddings this summer. GLORIOUS! Can you tell I'm excited? Well I am. But for now I'll put my feet up in my cool dark room to get rid of this headache. I'll be listening to the music of hammers and saws building a deck below me while I slumber. A DECK! So many reasons to jump for glee while clapping my hands like a giddy baffoon. I won't deny it.

Finally Motivated!

Oh the glorious sun is doing wonders for my soul these days. I'm almost admitting to myself that I was feeling a little depressed this winter. You know that Seasonal Depression thing? Pretty sure I get that to some extent in the winter. I've had some crappy things go on this year anyways, which obviously doesn't help. I started taking a class in Jan called Family Studies. Have I talked about it here yet? It's wonderful and helping me own up to my selfishness and great need to rely on our Heavenly Father. This couldn't have come at a better time. I was beginning to feel quite bitter and awful. Anyways, I didn't mean to get into all this, so I'll just move on.
Here's a bunch of pictures in no particular order so I'm just going to talk about all of them and you can match up my blabbing to the photo. I hate blogger for that reason, and I know I complain about that a lot. I want to type all my stuff, then click and drag a photo into the place it should go. Is mac any better for doing that? Or is it just blogger that sucks?
Man I keep getting off topic! K, I'm talking about pictures. Here's one of my baby belly, surprise surprise! I haven't officially announced it in the wonderful web world yet. I'm about 17 weeks, feeling the baby move, and hopefully will find out gender next week, yipee! (side note the Monkey Moo is currently emptying out my wallet as we speak, and the Munchkin is cutting a flyer into teeny tiny shreds, whatever keeps em busy for now I guess). There's another pic here of this wonderful pin cushion I made. It has a cute little bag to collect thread bits and stuff. First sewing I've done in awhile. Oh I did make a skirt for Katelyn a couple weeks ago, which you'll see in the picture of them standing by the fireplace. It took 20 min. so it hardly counts for sewing. I love the fabric so much, and I love the fabulous stuff she comes up with to wear with it, like her "crazy tights". This pic of them was at the end of their Easter egg hunt we did for them. See the cute papers? That was a little treasure hunt they had to do, SO fun! Ok, I don't even remember what other pictures I posted. A really awesome mirror I found at a flea market that Matthew hung for me in our front entrance, which we still don't use because we don't have front stairs, boo. Ok, two food photos, which I should have saved for later because this entry is dragging on and on and I know some of you are asleep by now and I have a lot to say about food. Here we go. The muffins first. This is a recipe that I made up awhile ago and my sis-in-law improved on. It's usually banana, but lately it's squash because I'm really trying to not buy bananas lately. Don't know if you've noticed but bananas don't grow so well in northern Cananda. Squash however grows wonderfully and stores all year, so we have lots of squash. Here's the recipe, and believe me, this is a big deal to me that I'm sharing it. It's kind of my pride and joy and I feel like I could hoard it and someday sell it for millions or something. But I'm trying to get over that ridiculous idea and just share the love. I'm going to put little side notes next to the ingredients to be obnoxious, so roll your eyes all you want, but bear with me. I've been wanting to talk about food here for awhile, and here we go.

Holly and Aria's Banana, Pumpkin, or Zucchini bread (or muffins):
Wet ingredients:
1 C. Sugar (I use Rapadura which is evaporated cane juice and still has good minerals and stuff in it)
1 C. Honey (local because the bees will actually pass on antibodies for strains of bacteria and viruses in your area)
3 eggs (from your friendly local farmer of course, who knows you might build a life long friendship by buying eggs this way, it's exactly what happened to me)
6 overly ripe bananas, or two cups of your choice of squash (if you use bananas buy as close to home as possible, and buy organic because most things not organic are Genetically Modified, if you use squash grow it or buy it from your farmer friend)
1/2 C oil (I've used vegetable oil, coconut oil, or olive oil here, even extra virgin doesn't alter the taste of the bread. I have a hard time with oil because the oil that is local isn't really local because it's shipped around the country to be processed and packed and I'm not convinced that it's even that healthy for us anyways. I was pleased to find Costco carrying extra virgin olive oil in glass jars, but it's from Italy not California.)
1/2 C apple sauce (home made or from your granny or some one else that makes it from local/organic apples)
2 tsp Vanilla (are you getting sick of my notes yet? Well I cheat on vanilla and just buy it from the store, I don't even make it! Gasp! Actually I buy Watkins, it tastes better than the store stuff)
1 avocado (which doesn't grow here either, but adds a lot of wonderful moisture and nutrients to this recipe, you could use extra oil and eliminate the avocado if you're purely a local eater)
Dry Ingredients:
3 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour (again, you could use your friendly farmer for this connection, or try to find organic whole wheat flour)
1/2 C. fresh ground flax seed
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt (the good Celtic Sea salt type stuff)
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, make well in middle, set aside. Puree the bananas or whatever and the avocado and the eggs in another big bowl. I use my immersible blender for this. Add all the other wet ingredients to this banana mixture. Fold wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Pour into 2 loaf pans, or make 24 muffins with it. Sometimes I top them with nuts, chocolate chips, or an oatmeal/sugar/butter mixture. Bake loafs at 325F for 1h20 min and muffins at 325F for 35 min. Make sure you do the tooth pick test because ovens are all different.

You thought I was done talking about food? Nope! A word on meat. That other picture down there was our supper last week. Steak, potatoes, and asparagus. We have wonderful farmer friends, I wasn't kidding about the life long friend because of eggs thing. I went out to Frans house about 4 years ago because I knew she had eggs. Today I don't know what I would do without her, she has become the dearest of friends. All that to say we get our meat from them too. I've blogged about that somewhere so I won't talk about it too much. I just want to say that if you do a little bit of reading, thinking and research you should hopefully come to the conclusion that meat from the grocery store on a Styrofoam thingy should not be bought. It's horrible yucky stuff, not to mention the meat industry and who's pocket that money is getting into. The potato's in that picture are from our garden. Fran actually planted extra potato's for me and had another garden bed out there for my squash and corn. Corn in norther Alberta?! Yes, it's true people, you can even grow asparagus here! Although the asparagus in this picture was a cheat, it's from California. I still cheat a lot on food. About the garden space though. We live in town (for now, boo) and obviously have limited garden space, which I devote to tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, peas, beans, etc. The bigger, and less labour intensive stuff goes out at the farm. My goal is to grow 100% of our food here, but in reality my hubbie loves his Bran Flakes (although I've convinced him the organic stuff in the recyclable bag is better, we'll deal with weaning him from that later) I love my chocolate, coffee and olive oil, and the kids love, well they love everything that typical kids do. Speaking of kids they have been wonderful while I sit here and bore you all to sleep. So now I'll go make supper for them. Thanks for listening, can't wait to hear the comments on this topic:-) Don't be too hard on me, this is what I do for many reasons and it has been a long time to get to this point.
p.s. I would like to add that I'm not judging anyone or saying anyone is wrong, I'm simply telling you about me and what I do, and trying to get people thinking a bit. I would also like to say that I'm no where near 100% local or organic, it's just my ideal. I'm also not a "yuppie" I'm just trying to get back to the way things used to be, like before the Industrial Revolution, ha ha.
p.p.s The ketchup on the plate next to the potato's is homemade with garden tomatoes and carrots, but I didn't need to mention that did I?

'Lil Monkey Turns Chooo Choooo Two!

I love kid birthday's, especially the 2nd and 3rd because they have no expectations they just enjoy everything. We had a family party for the Monkey the night before his real birthday because Matthew's parents were here. It was so simple and wonderful. He was so happy about everything and loved all his gifts. He only threw a couple mild tempers if the train fell off the track or something. This last picture was the morning after his party, more cake! What a little hunny this kid is. I just can't get enough of him, even if he is a stinker once in awhile.

Garbage and our Dirty Earth

A friend pointed out this blog The Zero Waste Home To give you an idea of what she means by "Zero Waste" here's a list of what was in her garbage the week of December 18th to the 26th. A plastic cork, bones her dog couldn't eat, meat wrapper, lego packaging, cough drop wrappers, wax paper. She had a reason why all of these shouldn't be there. This was over Christmas. I'm amazed! She uses glass jars to store food, and brings them shopping with her to pick up her meat, cheese, bulk liquids, and she uses cloth bags for other bulk items. They literally have NO WASTE, it's insane. Her little ditty is "Refuse, reduce, reuse, then recycle as a last resort." She really puts things into perspective by pointing out that one plastic bag given to you seems harmless until you think about all the other people going through that store that day also given a plastic bag. That would be hundreds or thousands of bags a day depending on the size of the store. And then they are given out the next day too. And then the same people come back next week and get another bag. That starts adding up really quickly. IF those bags end up getting recycled they will only be recycled once, and it takes a lot of energy to get it made into something else.

Last week I was feeling pretty good about myself when I didn't have to put the garbage out, now I'm swallowing that pride. We put a regular size garbage bag on the curb every two weeks. We recycle a regular garbage size bag every two weeks too. So now that my eyes have been opened I will make a few changes. I have an old sheet that I'm going to sew into produce and bread bags. I'm never going to buy ziplocs again. Instead of using plastic wrap I'm leaving leftovers covered with a plate, which looks messy and horrible, and takes up extra room, but we have two fridges, lucky I know. I'm going to start composting again, I feel super wasteful not doing it in the winter, and it's really not any harder to do it in the winter, just need to take a little walk in the snow once a week. I feel like we've already made a lot of changes, but there is always more. I don't use paper towels or cleaning stuff, just Norwex cloths. We use cloth diapers 95% of the time (some lame "green" ones the other 5% of the time) I'm going to make cloth bags for wrapping gifts. I didn't send Christmas cards this year (because I'm a procrastinator not because I was thinking about the paper and transportation, I'm really reaching now)
Ok, so when I read stuff like this girls blog I can't just leave it at that. It's gets me thinking and I have to do more research. I had heard a rumor about a huge garbage dump in the middle of the ocean. I googeled it. It's true. Some say it's twice the size of Texas, others say it's twice the size of the States!

I saw a picture of a pelican skeleton that was FULL of plastic bottle caps and such. It was disturbing. But why does this all matter? Can't we just continue shopping at our grocery stores and throwing away our junk? I think the problem is because, YES, we CAN keep doing that! "We" have known about this dump and other HUGE environmental concerns for decades and have done little about it. We are so comfortable and don't feel the effects of all this horrible stuff going on. Right now it's only up to personal choice. We still have (what we think) is clean water, healthy food, we don't see our garbage. The only reason I think other wise is because I've read a lot about it. I'm not going to get into the food aspect of this right now, but it's coming in another post. I believe it ties into all this. My kids need lunch, gotta go. I just wanted to get this out there and maybe start people thinking, or at least let you know what I'm thinking about. What if you had to do something with all the garbage you take out to the curb? What if that option wasn't there? Would you bury it in your back yard? How long would you be able to do that? I bet you would have a lot less garbage to dispose of if you had to do it on your own. That's what I'll be thinking about tomorrow when I roll my convenient HUGE garbage can down the driveway. Until later then.

Anonymous??

I'm wondering who this anonymous person is leaving comments on my blog. It's kind of freaking me out and tempting me to just erase my blog altogether and be done with it. I've been thinking about this silly blog for awhile now. I feel like it's pretty pointless and now these weird comments are pushing me over the edge. It's just not worth the trouble anymore. So those are my thoughts, and they just may be my last thoughts on this poor pathetic blog. BOo hoo. I don't feel comfortable with the security of the internet and would rather just spend the money and send letters. Or at least emails. So there.

Felicia's Engagement

The only thing that could express my happiness for my dear sis is the tears that have periodically streamed down my checks the last week. You can read her story on her blog "To The Ends of The Earth"

We got to meet Teunis during Christmas, and he is wonderful. As you will find out once you read her story. I asked him if him and his family would plan the wedding since they did such a good job with the engagement. Sigh, I don't think it's that easy since the wedding will be so far away from them. I have my work cut out for me until June. Can't wait! And now my dear faithful readers I'm off to spend the evening with my own wonderful man.

Boots for Edith

I bought new boots a couple weeks ago, really wonderful soft warm comfy boots. They felt like slippers, and I sprayed them up real nice so they are waterproof(ish). At the time I thought they were mine, but I was wrong, they were for Edith. I didn't get to meet Edith until today. Every six weeks our church group volunteers at Fishes and Loaves, we serve soup to homeless people. It is hosted by a church in town and they have 6 groups on a rotation to serve lunch. We also give people clothes and toiletries if they need them. That's when I noticed a lady having a hard time finding boots that would work, so I asked her to try mine on. It was the most simple and natural thing to do, but it blessed us both immensely. She was so touched that I would give her my boots she cried and totally opened up to me. She shared her whole story with me, how she got to be in that situation, and how it changed her heart so much. She blessed my heart in what she said and encouraged me more than I think I've ever been encouraged. It's hard to explain how much it meant to us both, but that's the beauty of those moments. They are God moments. He knew what was going on while I bought the boots, and while her shoes were being stolen, as he was forming us he knew we would both have size 9's with bunions:-) I've never been more thankful for my wide feet! I have learned a great deal today, about people, and how God works, and about listening and obeying. Oh and I realized that my nose tingles when I first start to cry, happy tears today, lots of happy tears.

The New House

Pictures of our unfinished house, still very much in limbo with much unpacking left to be done.








No pictures of our room yet, but it's the same pretty blue as the very colourful kids room. Oh, and look at what I did to my hair this morning! I like it. It wasn't supposed to be this dark, but I think it was a good mistake.

Pretty Paper

This website is AMAZING! I'm in love. They are having a contest to win beautiful paper. I hope I win.
Owen is emptying a huge box of straws all over the kitchen floor. I'm just watching. Did I mention that we moved into our new house?!?! I'll do a house post tomorrow.

More Trees

I found these from two talented artists on etsy. Katelyn has a new imaginary friend named etsy, you have no idea how happy this makes me. The sketch picture is done by "Creative Decor". And the painting was done by "Barbara Swimmer"
I also found this AMAZING shop, check it out if you care to. Incredible photography that she alters with paints. Her collages are incredible too, she said they can take years to make . She cuts out flowers and intricate details with an xacto knife. Intense. (the barn photo is hers)
In other news, it's snowing today. Not just any snow. The kind that falls gently, blanketing the earth with it's huge fluffy flakes. It makes the world seem like a quieter place, like you need to just take the time to walk through the woods. We made french toast, which made the day nearly perfect. But not quite. I'll tell you what made it perfect. Upon opening the fridge for the cream I found we only had milk. Milk in coffee makes me want tea instead, that's how much I hate it. Soooo..... I heated a whole pot of milk, whisked in some chocolate, added some mint extract, and poured that over our incredibly strong coffee. Mint Chocolate Lattes, voila! Then we sat looking out our huge kitchen window eating a wonderful breakfast with our very funny kids (and "etsy" of course). How can a day be bad after a morning like that?