gardening and life and stuff

This past weekend, my in-laws came over and helped us plant our garden.  We covered the beds wtih some compost, filled one of the vegetable boxes, and put some compost around the roses, also.  Then yesterday, I we made some hills and planted a bunch more vegetables!  I have never been able to start a vegetable garden, so I am a little amazed that we are finally doing one this year!  Some beans started coming up out of one of the boxes, I have no idea what kind, so we will just see.  Today I filled the second box with manure/compost mix and soil from the ground.  I planted rainbow carrots and zuchinni from seeds, but my mother in law also brought over some plants she had started.  So I have some cucumbers, kale, more zuchinni, garlic, and a ton of squash.  We made a bunch of hills and planted an assortment of squash and pumpkin plants.  Some of them we don't even know what kind of squash they are, so we will see if anything survives/works out.  I also planted some pumpkin seeds in one mound.  I'm excited to see how it will grow and have been reading up on what to feed them.  I had some pictures of my garden, but somehow they didn't make it onto the computer, so I'll have to post it another time.

I also planted a row of wildflowers, sunflowers, and some chamomile in another bed.

I love being outside gardening!  Today was beautiful, although I will admit that my attitude STUNK this morning.  I was totally letting myself be grumpy about everything Shea and Kaia did.  So we finally just got out for a walk.  Kaia sometimes drives me crazy (she is a puppy, afterall), but she is such a good puppy!  I can't believe how well she stays by us on our walks and she seems to be getting better at things every time.  She is ignoring annoying dogs more, not freaking out at people, and is learning to leave things alone when I tell her to.  One of the biggest improvements has been feeding time.  She used to just jump like a mad dog every time I give her food (she still jumps a little), but now I can pour her food into her bowl and she has learned to just sit and wait (if I remind her the entire time) until I'm done.  I don't know what we are doing right, but wow, if I can train a dog, I think anyone probably can.

Anyway, we walked down to the dock and the tide went out forever!  It was so beautiful.  I love it, because Shea can run around and explore as much as he likes, and Kaia can run around (she stays pretty close by, though) and I don't have to worry too much about them, so everyone is pretty happy.  I still can't believe that we have our beach.  Since we got Kaia (and the weather has been nicer) we have been there almost every day.  I love it even on rainy days.

I don't know what else to write about.  I have been spending a lot of time at the church lately, because we're moving the preschool classroom upstairs.  It should be much nicer, but it's a lot of cleaning , moving, and organizing.  Especially since it will be in a shared space.  I am also not completely done cleaning up the bookkeeping mess the church had, so that is taking up more time also.

I guess here are a bunch of random pictures before continuing on with my post...

I pull out my camera and she always comes up with some silly pose.  This is titled "the spoon on the head".

enjoying the sun!

big girl on her bike!

in a soap box derby car at the kid's museum on bainbridge

from our morning run - just the girls!

playing outside while mommy gardens

OH and yes, I also have been able to get a little furniture re-finishing done.  There was a lot of furniture left here at the house.  Most of it is pretty ugly and old and we need to get rid of it...but I salvaged a few pieces I thought had potential.  This lamp, for instance.  I didn't get a before picture, but it used to be gold and black striped kind of, and now it is blue.  The lampshade is HUGE but it works well with our high ceilings.  For the shade, I took some fabric I got for a $1 per yard and painted stripes on it with some acrylic paint, then I glued it on.  I actually need to re-do it a little, because I doubled it and it doesn't give off enough light...plus its a little puckered for some reason.  Anyway.  Then there is the table.  The table was just a natural oak and had a lot of stains on it.  I spray painted it gray and then put some foam (which was also here) on the top.  Then I stapled the fabric onto the it.  I am thinking about drilling some holes through the table and putting buttons on it to give it a "tufted" look, but we'll see.  We really need to get a new rug for in this area and I want to make a bunch of new throw pillows that kind of help bring the fun colors into the rest of the room.  I also have some large frames to fill with pictures for the wall.  So, its a work in progress.

Another new thing is that (I'm finally coming out of the closet) we have stopped eating meat.  It's been about 2 or 3 months since we sort of decided not to eat meat anymore (mainly brought on by our lent experience), but I think only a month since we haven't had any meat at all (we accidently ate some a few times, or chose to eat it at family gatherings to not be weird since we weren't quite ready to have that conversation with our family yet).  We're still kind of "closet vegetarians".  And in an effort to attempt to stop buying so many processed foods (and because EVERYTHING has soy in it, which we are trying to avoid among other additives), its means I have been spending a lot more time in the kitchen so I know exactly what is in our food.  I mean, it has actually been very easy and I love cooking and being creative with food, so it has been fun.  Every week I find more ways to streamline things, too.  I now soak a load of beans at the beginning of the week (so easy, I don't know why I ever bought canned beans) and cook them the next morning during breakfast.  I also make a big batch of brown rice and lentils.  Both us and our dog eats them (yes, after much research, she is slowly switching to a vegetarian diet also), and I have had a lot of success (meaning my family eats them and seems to like them a lot!) with making "burgers", "Meatballs", "ground beef", and other things from these ingredients.  We also eat a lot of different thick soups and chillis, and cauliflower is my savior when it comes to thickening things naturally (and amazingly good for you).  Shea seems to be willing to eat more and more vegetables every week.  So even though I still have a long way to go in trying to help us eat healthier, this has been a great step for our family.  I am excited to hopefully be able to supply more of our food from our garden this year too, but I'm sure it will be a few years before we really get a fairly sustainable garden going - I have a lot to learn.


My project for today is to get the office a little bit more cleaned out.  I have been needing to find a good space for all of my craft supplies, so I think I finally figured something out...I guess I'll let you know how that goes at some point.  Jeremy will be off work soon though, and then we are headed up to the church to work some more on the preschool.  Gotta get it done so I can have my open house!  It is already pretty late for that, but thats ok.  Its more for the students I already have planning on attending anyway, and if we get a few more, that would be great.

Now I am finally posting this.  I figured out how to tether the wi-fi on my phone to our computer (press a button, so technical, I know!) so I can get on and post things like this.  Anyway, we got a good dent of work done at the preschool, brought Shea his "big boy" mattress home, and now I am up way too late because I told Jeremy I had to finish the deposit for the church "real quick" and decided to post this.  GOODNIGHT!