I’ve been changing a few things.

Looks terrible, doesn’t it? All in a couple of hours of work. That’s only the "during" picture.

The before picture is a little better but the after one is going to be really nice. My boyfriend is going to come over tomorrow and bring his buck saw to cut down what’s left of the trees. I was digging weeds and pulling up Lily of the Valley that has overtaken the area around/under the porch and decided to get rid of the trees. A simple trimming and shaping would have been acceptable but the amount that was required would have exposed a ton of dead brown branches inside. And it turns out, in cutting the branches off, that both trees are throughout with tie wraps!

The very small timbered bed that was beside the stairs will be moved to the backyard someplace and house either rhubarb or my two blueberry bushes. The lattice is going to be replaced with newer stuff (my aunt gave me some she had sitting at the cottage) but the front piece is going to be set back against the cement pad, leaving the earth between that and the timber at the front to be dug up and replaced with fresh soil and covered with weed barrier fabric. I’ll plant a couple of small shrubs and then cedar chips will be put down around them. The actual flower bed will extend in a slightly irregular shape from the bottom step, around the front, and then convexly into the south corner (opposite the stairs). The plants themselves are still a mystery but I’d like taller ones (lilies, gladioli, honeysuckle, etc) along the lattice to provide a bit of a backdrop and mask all that wood.

Hopefully I’ll have a better picture to show within the week. I have three shifts starting on Wednesday and then I’m on my second set of five off.

Peonies, fresh-picked from my boyfriend’s garden - he brought them over before heading into work tonight and now my house stinks purty! I do not count pink among my favourite colours in general but I can appreciate it from time to time. This is one of those times. These are gorgeous! And they smell even better.

I would much rather get a few simple flowers out of the blue than a huge florist bouquet on a Hallmark holiday.

Add to that, the aroma of this

(Note B’s feet - he just had to follow me outside and watch me take the picture.)

and I’m salivating all over the keyboard right now. I’m not a granola connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination nor do I eat granola other than once in awhile when I buy a yogurt that has it on top but this right here tastes pretty darn good. The recipe is called Megan’s Granola. I halved the recipe as apparently it makes a boatload and a half (I think it still made a lot but then it’s just B and me here). And definitely read through the reviews/comments too because there are some really good tips and suggestions in there. I did a few substitutions - replaced some of the oil with applesauce, replaced half the maple syrup with molasses, used pistachios instead of walnuts, replaced 1/3 of the wheat germ with ground flax seed, and added extra cinnamon. I was very surprised with B when I was spreading it onto the pan to cook. He wanted a taste and then very nearly had a series of fits because I wasn’t giving him "more! I want more!!" fast enough. Here’s hoping he thinks the cooked version is just as good. Maybe I shouldn’t be incredibly surprised though since he’s pretty good in the cereal department (back when I was buying boxed cereals); he’ll happily eat (and request) Raisin Bran and Shreddies. Since quitting boxed cereals, he’s been requesting oatmeal in a regular basis.

I’m off to do nothing but sit on the couch (layyyzeee!) in my deliciously perfumed house. 

It’s an absolutely beautiful day here, which is a fabulous change from all the rain we’ve had over the past few weeks (and the rain that is still forecasted to come). We woke up to clear blue skies, a much cooler temperature than the heat and humidity of the past two days, and a truly wonderful strong breeze. My living room curtains and sheers are currently blowing around, all my upstairs windows are open, and I’m listening to the sounds of the neighbourhood as my laundry dries on the line. I love that we are allowed clothelines here. Actually, I don’t know anyone offline who isn’t allowed a clothesline in their city or neighbourhood. The neighbour to the left of me and the two to the right all have lines that stretch across the backyard and I love seeing the clothes flapping in the breeze. I’m, strangely enough, not a fan of the smell of line-dried clothes but you can’t beat the efficiency or frugality of it and a good breeze helps to keep the clothes a little softer than the sun alone. Plus, the sun is really good for bleaching out stains (hang those cloth diapers, Rhonda!). I used to hang B’s dipes on the line and, later, his mama-made cloth pull-ups.

This is just a small load, about which I don’t feel too badly because I have a front-loader which is supposed to only use as much water as is needed. And I needed to wash B’s mattress cover. He’s fully trained (woooo!!) but occasionally has an accident during his nap. I find it funny that he can go all night without wetting the bed and not go to the bathroom for an hour or two after he wakes up but he sometimes wakes up wet from a 1.5 to 2.5 hour nap. I went and bought a second mattress cover when I decided to not put him in diapers at night. That way, I can strip his bed and re-make it right away without having to do the laundry first.

And in case you noticed them, those are boy-cut briefs at this end of the line and not granny panties! Just in case clarification was needed. Because I looked at that picture after I’d uploaded it and thought to myself, ‘Dang, those look like grannies!"

It’s another pissing-down-rain kind of day and I’m car-less (it’s in the shop) so we’re housebound. B is going a little stir crazy but I’ve promised him that when he wakes up from his nap if the rain has stopped he can go outside to play. The lid of his sand table is off and upside down and he’s dying to go and play in the collected water and, no doubt, the saturated sand in the table.

Me, I’ve been tackling some housecleaning. Not necessarily the mop-and-bucket type but cleaning nonetheless. I’ve cleaned up the kitchen counter (one of the corners always seems to become my bills/papers/magazines/purse drop spot) and spent a good portion of the morning in my sewing room. The sewing room that I have never sewn in. I moved into this house in mid-August last year and it was such a convenient room to put all the I’ll-sort-them-later boxes because I could put a kiddie lock on the knob, close the door, and B couldn’t get in (plus it got the boxes out of the way). It’s been almost a year since I moved in and the room is still not emptied out. It’s very much improved; before, you could not walk on the floor - it was precarious and you had to take huge, well thought out steps. So though the pictures below don’t look like much, believe me when I saw that I am freakishly happy with the way it looks. I’ve ruler-folded all my big/whole pieces of fabric and that makes me freakishly happy too. I’m not sure what one does with the oddly-shaped, smaller, or selvedge-less pieces but I’ve got them in labeled plastic tubs.

There’s a three-drawer dresser just inside the picture on the right, fabric next to that (obviously), a cutting table at the back, and a corner desk in the corner (can’t see it) that I will most likely move my coverstitch machine to. The sewing desk is a hollow-core door attached to and sitting on (one on each end) on those cheap pressboard Closetmaid shelves; there is a piece of 1x2 screwed into the wall along the back length of the door as well to give a bit more support.

The machines are my sewing machine (Huskystar 215), serger (White Speedylock 1600), and a Janome 1000CP coverstitch (or coverhem if you prefer). The tubs in the closet contain yarn (the lefthand stack) and the fabric (the rest of them) that didn’t fit nicely on the shelving. So for now, the closet is full. And you should see the stuff that didn’t make it into the closet! My mother got a huge amount of yarn from me. Under the window is where I’m contemplating putting my old desktop PC for B. He has a few pre-school educational programs/games that he’s constantly bugging me to use and I don’t want him on my laptop. I always rolled my eyes at the idea of very young children having a computer but hey, we all change when it’s our own child, right?

Maybe a little more work in there today. It might make me feel not so lazy for still being in my pajamas with bed head.

B had his second soccer game tonight. It would have been his third but it was cancelled last week due to the fields being too wet and muddy (it’s been raining several days a week for about three or more weeks now). His first game he didn’t play at all because he didn’t want to go out. They do five-minute rotations and so his name came up a few times but each time he refused. The coach asked him if he was just going to watch for a little while and so then he latched onto that and kept telling me, "I’m just going to watch for a bit ‘cause I don’t know how to play soccer." Tonight though with encouragement from S, myself, the coach, and another parent, he went out and did some running around.

At first, they lined up to practice goals but he kept leaving the line just as he was getting near the front and then when he returned to it, he went to the end (and rightly so) and never actually made it to the front.

Proof he actually did play (#3), before we got rained out:

The make-up game from last week is on Saturday but it falls smack in the middle of his nap, which he still needs very much. I’m undecided as to whether or not we’ll go. 

For all the rain we’ve had lately, the gardens are still smaller than I would have thought. They’re healthy though as far as I can tell so I’ll try to be patient. They were planted late due to the weather, which stayed rather cold and even now we’re not having "regular" seasonal temperatures. Most of my tomato plants are still very small but I do have two half-grown plants (Amish Paste) and a smaller Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant which have little tomatoes starting to grow. It’s nice to see some results! My other plants, tomato and otherwise, are growing and healthy, just nowhere near the producing stage.

I’m loving all the green!

And I’m loving my boy.

I’m not sure what he was doing or saying. He wanted to show off the new mat for some reason though. (If you look closely, you can see his sparkly orange toenails. I was doing mine, my boyfriend’s daughter wanted hers done, and so B did too.)

Such is the name of my new composter. I think I like Ethel better though. I’m not one for naming my appliances and articles so this one will probably be forgotten in a few days. Or in a few hours - I just thought of the name right now.

B had fun helping put it together. Usually he’s pretty long on excitement and rather short on listening but, while there was a mix of that this evening, he wasn’t too bad. I initially chuckled a little at the irony of such an environmentally-conscious activity (is composting an activity?) being housed in such a plastic container but then I read in the booklet that it was 100% recycled plastic. Well, okay then; I suppose it’s alright.

I was actually a little surprised at the height of this thing. It’s as tall as B, which is about 38 to 40". (He was 36" when I measured him at two years old and it’s now a year and a half later.) I really don’t have much to start my pile off with. I should gather up some sticks and twigs (of which I have none) to make a bit of a bed at the bottom to help with airflow down there (so suggests the booklet) as well as some brown matter. My green will consist mainly of kitchen scraps since my grass clippings stay on my lawn (cut with an old reel mower, hence no clipping collection) and I’m not overly keen on raking them just to put them in the compost. I’m definitely excited to start though. Yes, excited about composting. Why not? It’s something beneficial to do with my garbage. Already I can put a single green garbage bag out every second week sometimes (collection is weekly). Maybe I can reduce the size of that bag or decrease the frequency.

Well, not quite. But I have been feeling incredibly guilty about tossing out my kitchen scraps. I recycle everything that the blue box truck will take (notice I didn’t say "everything that I can"?) and so, apart from a bit of plastic wrap and non-recyclable packaging, the only thing going into my kitchen garbage is food waste. And, like I said, I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about that for the past few months. But no more! This morning I phone the hazardous waste depot to see if they had any composters and, while he initially told me they were sold out for the season, he then found another five as he was talking to me and so B and I went over and picked one up. I’m rather excited! I haven’t yet pulled it out of the box but I’ll maybe do that later this afternoon, after B’s nap. I know I could have made one but I like that this one is all contained and I shouldn’t have too much trouble with raccoons or other critters. Besides, it was only $25 total and I’m sure I could have spent more than that trying to cobble one together myself. (And yes, I’ve googled the many varieties of composters one can make.) Home Depot and Canadian Tire sell the same one for at least double the price so I don’t feel I did too badly.

I also called the last local garden centre looking for an acorn squash plant and they don’t have any left either. I guess mine is destined to be single this year. A little annoying since the second one I had was seconds away from being put in the ground when B accidentally snapped his main stem. I was poking around the garden when we got home with the composter, pulling a few tiny weeds (very few and far between so they’re very easy to spot and remove). I noticed a rather large clump of tiny green leaves next to one of my tomato plants. I don’t remember if it is one of my own starters or whether it’s one I bought from a centre but it turns out that the leaves were a very densely packed golf ball-sized clump of what I can only guess are tomato sprouts.

I, again, feel guilty because I could wash them and eat them but I’m not 100% sure what they are (what else would they be though, right?). The sprouts that came most freely out of the dirt have been dumped in an empty peat pot along with all the loose seeds. The ones I had to dig out are mixed with the dirt they retained in another otherwise-empty peat pot.

My tomato plants aren’t growing all that quickly as yet but they’ll be along shortly. My green peppers are thriving (I should take a picture) and I can see them growing daily. They seem to be loving all this rain we’ve been getting. The peppers were also the only plants that didn’t at all mind being in the house for so long after they sprouted. I need to get some sort of trellis up for my cucumbers and zucchini. I’m a little worried about that bed being dappled shade in the morning and only getting about five or so hours of good sun in the afternoon but we’ll see; what doesn’t work this year will be changed next year.

And I’m off to reel mow the back yard while B naps, I think. The grass is a bit damp still but I’m working days the next three days and won’t get much chance to do it until next week, when it will be that much longer. 

Today was much better despite the continued rain. I think it’s rained every day but one or two since about a week ago Monday. Today we went in search of the elusive squash plant (I had two but B broke one just as I was getting ready to plant it; I have one garden centre left to check and I’ll be out of luck for this season) and were unsuccessful. We then went to the bulk food store in search of muscovado sugar and had to settle for turbinado instead. Maybe I’ll order the muscovado online. And then, even knowing I was pushing it (he was awesome though), we went to the library because his books were due today and we ended up getting a couple of videos for him despite our new TV-free household.

On Monday I unscrewed the cable from the splitter to the TV (leaving the cable for the internet attached). When he woke up that morning and came upstairs, he automatically went to the TV first and even though I had told him the night before that I would have the TV unplugged in the morning, he was surprised. He wanted to know how I’d done it so he could fix it. Apart from today, each time he woke up in the morning or from a nap, he’d come up and turn on the TV, presumably hoping that it would work. I don’t mind so much if he watches a movie or two; movies take up far less time in a day than the TV did.

My silly sweet (and oft incredibly frustrating!) boy just as we pulled up to the library:

Hi, B.

Catching the wrong part of his cheese face.

"I’m frhee!"