if you give the kids a camera

I finally splurged the $15 to get myself an extra memory card so that the girls can have (mostly) unlimited access to our older digital camera. They've been having a blast, and it is so much fun to see the world from their point of view. They take some pretty incredible pictures...all of these pictures are theirs (the neighbor kid took the last 2). And I'm glad they do, because I am soooo lazy about taking the camera out and about and also have this weird complex about looking geeky, whipping out my camera every 2 seconds. I need to get over it, though, because these moments are so fleeting and so precious...like them hanging upside-down on their favorite mini merry go-round at (very) high speeds.

may day

Flower crowns, fairy houses, maypole dances, and perfect weather. Score!

We used this tutorial for our flower crowns, only I didn't use any wire, just floral tape, and it worked just fine. One girl wanted lots of flowers, and one girl wanted only one. I may or may not have sort of snorted at the lots-of-flowers crown until I went to make my own, and then I couldn't stop myself. My crown ended up being the gaudiest of all. We watched this lovely video to show the girls a pretty maypole dance.

I love how fast spring happens here. You can see in the first picture that the branches were basically bare... today, just 2 days later, new leaves are exploding on every tree, all over town! I'm digging like a gopher in my backyard, trying to dig a few more beds for the garden so I can go to the nursery and get everything planted next week. I direct-sowed a few things last week... the arugula was first to pop up, and now the chard and beets are started to show their heads, too. Summer tastiness is on its way, peeps.

spring cleanup, day one

Today was our first real day in the garden. It was just a little cleanup -- clearing away some leaves, turning the compost, chatting with a neighbor -- but I am amazed at how much it invigorated my soul. I feel alive again in a way I didn't know I was missing. And so much is already growing -- rhubarb, garlic, chamomile, chives, lemon balm, catmint, and horehound -- the early spring troopers, so it would seem. The girls dug for worms for a while, then one scampered off to play with friends at the park while the other settled in for a nap in the sunshine. Now that's an after-garden activity I can get behind.

trail walk in april

We are knee-deep into this homeschooling thing. Wading in with so much hope, so much excitement about the future. 

The possibilities!

All my worries, all my excuses, all my what-ifs... God is pitching them out the window, wholesale.

So, to all the many (many) friends of mine who have ever told me some form of you would just love homeschooling! or someday you'll see or you really ought to read this article...

You were right as right could be.

So right.

first, there was a ceiling...

...and then another ceiling, and another, and another one after that...

...until we (he) finally hit the rafters in our little kitchen. Out came the rafters, and out came 100 years of dust and pseudo-insulation. Then the sledgehammer came out.

New insulation.

Then we (he) cut a hole in the wall (sorry about that, Dad). And started ripping out 100 years worth of drywall, wallpaper (so cool!), plaster, and more dust. The doorway between the kitchen and dining room was in an awkward spot, which was, well, awkward, given that it's maybe the most-used doorway in the house. Its new home (on the left) makes traffic flow so much more smoothly.

And tonight, there was more wall demo, which involved the unpleasant discovery that there was no insulation over the window (arrgh!). I am so grateful to be married to such a flippin' stud. He does all the hard stuff. I'm good for cleaning up after him. Monday we'll go buy some flooring and some lights, the electrician comes on Tuesday, then we'll take a deep breath and rip out the lower cabinets before installing the new ones.

starting time

I get kinda jealous when I think about all the people who have their gardens in the ground already, while up in the North we are just starting our coldest of the cold-weather seeds. Still, it's a joyful beginning, and we are so excited about this year's garden. We have plans to make it quite a lot bigger than last year's 8x10 plot, with hopes of producing enough veggies to freeze and can for the winter. Last year I froze a few tomatoes, some zucchini, a few peppers, and a whole lot of kale, and it was a veritable gold mine for cold-weather eating. I mean, how cool is it to eat a soup you made from your garden in February? There's a rare sort of satisfaction in that.

jumping back in

Every time I feel the itch to blog, I come up with some lame excuse. I've been wanting to blog again for a while now, but "getting back into it" just seems so... awkward somehow. I feel like I have to catch up. Be crafty. Have something momentous happen to me. And I know that's not true. So I'm jumping back in -- with the commitment to myself that it will only be for when I feel like it -- and because it's fun.

Nothing much has been happening.

Everything much has been happening.

We're homeschooling now.

Spring is coming.

The kids are growing like weeds.

Life is good.