Perfectionism and Adventures in Gardening

My perfectionism sometimes gets in the way of me actually accomplishing anything.  Lucky for me, hubby is far from a perfectionist.  While I will agonize over how exactly to do a project and scrutinize every detail, he will just grab some stuff and slap it together.  Case in point:  our garden.  We've been talking about making a vegetable garden for...oh, I don't know, years.  Several years ago, we attempted one at our old house, but it was quickly gobbled up by the groundhog that lived in the woods behind our house (he came into our yard so much, we even gave him a name:  "Pucker").  Eventually we decided it wasn't worth the effort to try to grow vegetables to feed Pucker.  So that was the last of the gardening at our old house.

Our current garden, mid-July

Last summer was the first summer at our new house, and it was then that we discovered that half our lawn was dead.  We thought it might be a good place to put a garden in, but decided to wait and see what would happen with the lawn over the summer (weeds...the answer is weeds would happen).  This spring we again discussed putting a garden in.  I, of course, wanted to plan out all of the details:  decide on the exact size and shape, get just the right boards to build raised beds, figure out precisely when to plant which seeds, etc.  Then one day hubby said, "I think I'll go outside and put together a garden bed."  I'll admit my first thought was "I don't think so."  You see, he isn't exactly the handiest of guys, and besides that, what about all my garden plans (you know...the ones I had yet to make)??  However, despite my hesitation, I agreed to it.  So, he found some boards under our deck (thank you, previous owners!), and voila - a garden bed.  It may not have been perfect, but it was done, and that's more than I can say for my garden bed (which was still entirely in my head).  We were even able to make a second one with more boards the previous owners had left.

Seed packets, purchased from PTA fundraiser

In mid April, we sowed our first seeds:  peas and carrots.  We also planted potatoes, I think around the same time, but my memory is a little fuzzy.  Hopefully this blog post will at least give me something to look back on so I can remember what we did when next spring rolls around.  (First note to self:  take more notes!)  The peas were the first to sprout up and it quickly became evident they needed something to climb.  In an effort to be resourceful, we found some large sticks in the yard, shoved them in the soil at the edges of the rows of peas, and tied twine between them.  For the most part, this worked fairly well.  However, once they got taller it seemed like they could use more support, especially after getting drenched from the many rain showers we've had this summer.  (Note #2:  peas need more support!)  The carrots took a lot longer to sprout up, but they're doing good now.  At least I think they're doing good now (how can you tell with carrots??)  And the potatoes seem to be doing good as well.  Oh, and hubby found a strawberry plant growing elsewhere in the yard and moved it to the garden.  No sign of strawberries yet, but it is still alive at least.  We also had a few random tomato plants pop up, which we moved to the garden as well.  Cherry tomatoes were the one and only thing we grew last year - apparently they reseed themselves (bonus!).  So that's garden bed #1.

Garden bed #1

In garden bed #2, we planted green beans and cucumbers, probably in mid-May, but I can't recall for sure.  We also threw in a couple more volunteer tomato plants we found.  The green beans are doing great.  The cucumbers took a bit longer to get going, but now the vines are really starting to grow, and there's not much room for them.  Which means we're scrambling being resourceful and looking around the yard to find something for them to climb.  (Note #3:  cucumbers need something to climb, or room to sprawl!)

Garden bed #2

First garden-fresh peas!

The first week of July, we tasted our first peas, and man were they delicious!  We've been eagerly gobbling them up over the past couple weeks.  In fact, only about half of them actually make it into the house.  (Note #4:  plant more peas!)  I think it was about a week later when we got our first green beans, which were super tasty, too.  Then we were gone for 4 days, and returned to a partially wilted garden, but an excellent little harvest!

First big harvest from our garden - yippeee!

Fortunately after a good soaking, everything that was wilted snapped back.  And since I started composing this blog post a week ago, we dug up the rest of the potatoes (which were super delicious!) and picked our first cucumber (which was yummy too!).  All in all, I'm super pleased with the results of our garden so far this year, and definitely want to do even more next year!


In summary, my notes for next year:
1. Take more notes, and photos, right from the beginning.
2. Get or make something better for the peas to climb.
3. Get or make something better for the cucumbers to climb, or give them more room to sprawl.
4. Make at least one more garden bed, so we can grow lots more veggies - definitely plant more peas and potatoes!
5. Try something new - maybe broccoli??
6. And don't worry about making the garden perfect, because...
7. Everything tastes better when it's homegrown, and...
8. Even if they're not perfect, gardens are way better than lawns!

There's no Someday Like Today...

Countless times in my life, I have said "someday".  Someday, I'll make more art again.  Someday, I'll check out that new place I've been meaning to go.  Someday, I'll finish that project (like the makeshift curtains in our living room that are still in their jerry-rigged state a year and a half after moving...ugh!).  Someday, I'll get back to doing yoga.  Someday, I'll finally write and illustrate the children's books that I've had ideas for forever.  Someday, I'll start blogging again (it's been almost a year since my last post...).  You get the idea.

Recently my life had become so full of these "somedays", that they started to become overwhelming.  Everywhere I looked, it seemed there was a reminder of something I wanted to do, but had put off until "someday".  I became stuck.  I had all these things to do someday, but what about today?  My entire life felt like it was on hold, waiting to happen.  And what kind of life is that??

Of course, with little ones in the house, it's often difficult to find the time for everything you want to do.  (Love them as I do, they sure are time-suckers!)  But I've come to realize how important it is to carve out time for yourself.  And how important it is to prioritize your life.  And to make changes so that you can do the things that really matter to you.  You know that saying, 'If mom's not happy, no one is'?  Yeah, that.

When Little G (who's not so little now) started Kindergarten last fall, I started thinking more about my job and how it wasn't really working for me anymore.  While there were aspects of working at a florist that I enjoyed (and still do, on occasion), others...not so much.  Like being tied to retail hours and being expected to work extra hours for every holiday.  That was really starting to get to me.  I wanted to be home with G before and after school.  I wanted the flexibility to be able to volunteer in the classroom.  I wanted to enjoy our holidays instead of being stressed out working overtime.  I wanted more say in what I did with my time.

So I made a change.  It wasn't easy.  I had been at the same job for nearly 10 years.  But when I found a job working from home doing something I love to do anyway, I knew I had to take a chance and seize the opportunity.  I admit the transition to a new job has been rocky, but several months in, I have no regrets.  True, there has been more of learning curve than I anticipated.  True, it has been a struggle to manage my time efficiently and get enough work done.  True, we've had to make sacrifices because my income is lower now.  But has it all been worth it?  Absolutely!  When I look back at the school year and think about all of the things that I was able to do that just wouldn't have been possible had I not made this change, it has been undoubtedly worth it.  Am I still struggling to adjust to the new job?  Yes.  But I'm trying to keep a positive outlook and have faith that it will work out, given time.  And if it doesn't...well, at least it was a step in the right direction.  That I know for certain!

Over the course of the past year, all this job transition stuff has taken a lot of my time and energy.  The "somedays" started piling up again.  But that was bound to happen...after all, this wasn't simply a change of job, it was a complete change of career.  A complete change of the way I spend my time, and the way I live my life.  And the past few months haven't exactly been typical either.  This spring, just as I was starting to get in a good rhythm with work/life balance, something unexpected happened:  my father was diagnosed with lung cancer, and less than 2 months later, he was gone.  Seeing someone close to you die is a surefire reminder for you to live.  And not just to complacently go through your days, but to actually live your life to the fullest.  To do all of the things you want to do.  To experience new and exciting things, but also to savor the quiet little moments too.  It's not always easy, but I'm doing my best to keep all this in mind as I heal and move forward.  Baby steps, I keep reminding myself.  And as for all those "somedays"?  Well, now I say there's no someday like today.

Rainbow Birthday Party

Little G turned five this summer.  Five!!  She love, love, loves rainbows, so I thought what better way to celebrate her 5th birthday than by having a rainbow birthday party!  So I sat down with her and talked to her about her birthday party, and when I mentioned the idea of a rainbow theme, her face lit up with excitement.  At that moment, I knew it was a go.  I started brainstorming and scouring the internet for ideas, then got right to work.

First on the agenda:  rainbow party invites.  I decided to design these myself and was really happy with how they came out.  After a bit of hemming and hawing, I finally decided on the wording "Please join us for a rainbow of fun as we celebrate Gretchen's birthday!", the letters all being in rainbow colors, of course.  I initially had it with a white background, but it still seemed a little blah, so I added a blue sky background with a fluffy white cloud.  So that's the front:

On the inside is a big colorful rainbow with all of the details of the party:

Next up: the rainbow party decorations.  I wanted to keep the decorations fairly simple and inexpensive, so we started out making some paper rainbows.  Very easy to do...all you need is some paper or card stock in all the rainbow colors, something to cut it with (I used a paper cutter so that my strips would be nice and straight), and a stapler.

When we were making these, I was planning to stick with the traditional ROY G BIV color scheme, but G thought there should be pink in the rainbows, so we added that.  She also took a great interest in the color indigo...she was very intrigued by this new color that she had never heard of! 

On party day, we ended up putting these on a table inside with the rainbow sticker books (more on this in a bit!) and some rainbow roses (yes, they are real, and yes, they are dyed):

Crepe paper streamers are also an inexpensive and easy way to make a party feel festive.  Since this was a rainbow party, I picked up rolls in all of the rainbow colors (even indigo!!).  On party day, I hung a few streamers on the front porch so that our guests could easily spot the party house, then I hung them all along the ceiling creating a path from the front door, down the hall, to the kitchen, then split them so that half led to the back door (most of the party was in the back yard), and the other half led to the playroom (which, by the way, is not yet 100% done, but I did at least get the rainbow finished before the party...pics soon!!).  Here's a couple pics of the streamers:

So that's the decorations.  Now for the rainbow party food!  If you've looked for rainbow party ideas on the internet, you will likely have come across all sorts of dyed food concoctions to make rainbow food.  But since all of the colors of the rainbow can be found in food naturally, I don't see the need to make all of these dyed rainbow food-like things.  I kept it simple with fruit skewers, a veggie tray, and bags of rainbow goldfish crackers (made with natural dyes...yay!).  Here's the food table:

Ooooh, pretty!  I couldn't have been happier with house this turned out.  I really didn't have a plan ahead of time of how I was going to set the food table up, but I was thrilled when I saw in the forecast that the weather was going to be nice and we could have most of the party outside!  So I popped up a folding table, threw a cheap white table cloth on it, then ran more of those rainbow streamers (those big rolls of streamers really keep going and going!) across the top and down the sides.

Veggies were layed out in rainbow stripes:  grape tomatoes, baby carrots, yellow bell peppers, cucumbers, blue corn chips (closest I could get to a blue veggie!), and purple cauliflower, with bowl of ranch dip (kind of like a cloud!):

Rainbow fruit skewers with watermelon, oranges, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, and grapes.  These were a big hit!  Almost all of them were eaten by the time the party ended:

You may have noticed a rainbow at the back of the food table (no, not the one hanging on the fence...we'll get to that in a minute).  This one is a rainbow of flowers!  My mom knew we were having a rainbow party for G's birthday, and put in a special request with her favorite florist (that would be me!) for some rainbow flowers for the birthday girl.  So I came up with this:

Birthday girl loved it, and our party guests did too!

So rainbow invites, rainbow decorations, rainbow food, rainbow flowers...how about some rainbow fun??  For birthday parties, I like to have at least one or two games or activities lined up...gives the kids something to do and makes it feel like a party.  With the rainbow theme, I thought a scavenger hunt would be perfect!  Since kids usually love stickers, I decided to go with a rainbow sticker scavenger hunt.  So I made sticker books for all of the kids, with a page for each color of the rainbow:

I got lucky and found some great deals on stickers in rainbow colors (thank you Target dollar spot and Christmas Tree Shops!), which I cut apart and divided into each color of the rainbow (except indigo, much to G's dismay).  Each color was put in a bowl with a little sign:

I hid these bowls of stickers all around the house.  Initially I was going to make up clues to lead from one color to the next, but decided to nix it due to time constraints and also the fact that it wasn't really necessary for this age group to have fun with the hunt.  The kids loved this, and every one of them found all of the colors!

Now for that other rainbow you saw hanging on the fence.  This one was for the Rainbow Limbo!  G was so excited about doing the Rainbow Limbo at her party.  I had planned to do something more elaborate for the rainbow (I had visions of clear tubing filled with colored water so the light would shine through the colors).  In the end, I went with something much simpler, but still totally effective.  And since I already had plenty of streamers in all the rainbow colors, I figured I may as well use those:

The kids had a blast doing this!  After we had gone from high to low, G wanted to go from low to high, so we went with it.  And after that, it seemed like the kids still wanted to play, so I figured why not milk it for all it's worth?  I gave the kids a series of things to do going under the Rainbow Limbo, like "hop on one foot", "tip toe", and "hop like a bunny".  Then I had G be the leader, and everyone had to follow her, copying her movements.  Fun stuff!!

Now for the cake.  The rainbow cake.  I performed several experiments to make a rainbow layer cake with natural food dyes and got mixed results.  I thought I had all of the colors down, but I was a bit disappointed when baking the final cake that the orange layer did not turn out as it had previously, and the red/pink layer was not as vibrant as I had hoped.  But overall, you got the idea.  And not a drop of food coloring in it, so I can at least be proud of that!

And now finally, the rainbow party favors.  I had so much fun with these!  G helped pick out the favors, and everything had to be rainbow, of course.  We packaged everything in cellophane bags, tied at the top with curling ribbon in rainbow colors, and attached a tag that said "rainbow to go!":

Here's a peek at all of the fun rainbow goodies inside the bags:

clockwise from top left:  rainbow pencils (oriental trading co.) with hand sewn felt cloud toppers (me!), rainbow stickers (target), rainbow notepads (oriental trading co.), rainbow paint pots and brushes (ac moore), rainbow slap bracelets (oriental trading co.), bubble jars (oriental trading co.) with rainbow labels (me!), and rainbow crayons (oriental trading co.)

And that about sums up the Rainbow Birthday Party.  Yes, a lot of planning and effort went into it, but in the end when I asked G what her favorite part of the party was and she replied, "Everything!  The whole day!", it was all well worth it.  A smashing success!  Here's one last photo of the birthday girl with one of her rainbow roses (you can almost see her rainbow nail polish...)

"The Flower House"

Is it just me, or did this summer fly by?  We had every intention of starting work on the exterior of our home this summer, but due to some other unexpected expenses (pest removal and car repairs...fun!), it looks like it's going to have to wait until next summer (boo!).  But we did start looking at colors and have at least narrowed it down to blue.  On the bright side, I guess now we have another year to decide on the exact shade!  And I do believe we have at least rid the house of all of the critters which had invaded it and gotten the holes sealed up tight (knocking vigorously on wood), so that is definitely a good thing. 

Since we haven't been able to do much with our house, I thought the least I could do was redecorate this blog.  It was looking pretty bland, and our home is full of character, so shouldn't the blog reflect that?  I was debating what changes to make to the blog when it dawned on me:  The Flower House.  When we first looked at this house last summer, little G called it "the flower house" because of the floral wallpaper lining the entire entryway, stairway, and hallway upstairs. 

 
Over the course of the next few months, whenever we talked about the house, we would call it "the flower house".  The name just stuck, and seemed very fitting.  Now, I'm not typically a fan of wallpaper, but for some reason this wall paper has really grown on me.  I think a large part of that is because little G was so excited about "the flower house."  So, what better background to use for this blog than the very wallpaper that gave this house its name?  Hope you like the new look!

A Saga of Household Pests

As I mentioned briefly in this post, we have had squirrels in our attic (well, technically, the ceiling above the attic, since the attic is finished). But that's not all we have had for household pests. It actually has become quite comical the things we have encountered since we moved in. In fact, so much so that I thought the subject deserved to be put into writing. So I thought I'd share a poem I've been working on about our household pests.


A Saga of Household Pests
by Shannon Hanley

When we first moved in
We knew there were mice
So traps we did set
Not once, and not twice,
But several times
Until we were certain
We had caught all of
These pesky vermin.

Then one day we saw
A small squirrel scurry
Into our attic
In such a hurry.
So we set a trap
To catch our intruder,
Enticing him with
Sunflower-nut butter.

Two squirrels were caught
And driven far away,
In hopes that they wouldn’t
Return to us someday.
We thought we were done
With our unwelcome guests,
Until we heard more
Scratching and unrest.

So then we decided
To call in the trapper,
To see if he could see
What was the matter.
Grey squirrels, he thought,
And he trapped some more,
Taking them far away
From their little door.

But then we were all
Quite surprised to find
Some more squirrels of
A different kind!
The flying squirrels who
Had also come to nest
Up in our attic
Would need to be addressed.

I think the trapper
Had now realized
That this job was bigger
Than he first had eyed.
As for us, we are
Very, very glad
That we gave up trapping
And hired this man.

We seemed to be done
With all the squirrels,
When we found out that
Our yard was in peril.
The crows were feasting
On something in the grass -
We weren’t too concerned,
We thought it would pass.

But then something else came
Through our lawn late one night -
Foxes pawing the ground -
It was quite a site!
It appeared there were grubs
That the birds were chomping,
But what of the foxes?
Why were they stomping?

We started asking
And some suggested moles,
But we didn’t see
Tracks or mounds, just holes.
It’s still undetermined
What’s destroying our lawn,
But at least the foxes
Seem to now be gone.

All was well for some time,
Then one day I went up
To the attic to work
And heard some hubbub.
Squirrels again?? I thought,
But the next morning
Something unexpected -
We had no warning.

We were startled to see,
When we glanced outside
Our bedroom window,
Looking at us wide-eyed,
Sitting on our roof,
Was a little raccoon.
I thought to myself,
What’s next - a baboon?

You would think we lived
Way out in the woods,
With all these pests coming
To our neighborhood.
But in the city
Happily we dwell -
Even with these troubles,
We still think it’s swell.

But I do hope that
Our saga of pests
Very, very soon
Can be put to rest.
And that no new critters
To our house should roam,
Wreaking more havoc
In our new home.

Playroom Update!

We're finally making some progress in the playroom.  I've been slowly chipping away at the task of painting all of the trim white, and I've come to two realizations:

1. Painting windows is very tedious
and
2. I probably should have used primer.

But, live and learn, eh?  I actually thought for half a second before I started that priming might be a good idea, but then I discovered the nearly full gallon of white semi-gloss in the basement, and thought:

go out and buy primer (and therefore delay the start of the project)
or
jump right in and just start with the paint (not spending any money and getting immediate gratification?  It's a win-win!)

Obviously I opted for the latter.  So, two coats in on most of the trim, and it looks like a third will need to be applied (dag nabbit!).  That being said, I'm loving the white trim.  Makes the whole room feel lighter and brighter.

Then I got this great idea to make valances for the windows that look like puffy white clouds (why is it that every project I start becomes more and more involved along the way?).  So I've been playing around with a piece of white fabric I had laying around (me?  have spare fabric??  never!!), and I think I've got it pretty well figured out.  But, I will need more fabric to make three valances, so off to the fabric store I go.  In the  meantime, here's a little sneak-peek at the grassy hills, which I did finally manage to finish up this weekend:

April Recap

Wow, was April ever a whirlwind of a month!  We've had a lot going on this month, and I haven't had a moment to blog about any of our house projects.  So here's a little recap of our April:

1. Realized that painting the exterior of our house might be a bit more than we are capable of doing on our own this summer.  So...
2. Got several estimates from painters.
3. Raked and bagged more leaves.
4. Seasonal allergies kicked in (ugh!)
5. Fixed our broken garage door (well, I should say a temporary quick-fix...I expect we will have to revisit this little project again soon)
6. Put up a baby gate and baby-proofed the playroom for a newly mobile baby b.
7. Discovered half of our lawn is dead (more on this another day)

8. Continued sewing the rainbow quilt.
9. Started painting the play room (here's a little sneak peek:

I'm loving the blue, but I still have to get the green paint for the grassy hills, and...
10. I realized that I definitely want to paint the trim white in the play room (of course!)
11. Shuffled some furniture around.
12. Thought we had finally gotten rid of all of the squirrels above our attic (did I mention we had squirrels above our attic?  More on this another day)
13. Raked and bagged more leaves. (really?  more leaves??)
14. Washed the siding on our front porch (here's a pic of it half way done:

 


What a difference, eh?)
15. Heard something scurrying around above our attic and realized that we were wrong about #12.
16. Planted some grass seed in the mud pit (what I like to call the fenced area behind the house where there is nothing growing except for a couple hostas along the side, and apparently where some previous inhabitants had chickens!)
17. Pruned a few tree branches.
18. Passed an annoying cold around our family.
19. Realized we did not do a thorough enough job with #6 , so we moved more things around and out of the play room.  (As a side note, quite surprisingly, this is one of the most injury-producing items in our home:

because, you see, kids don't just sit on it.  They jump on it.  They climb on it.  They lean on it until it tips over and they land flat on their faces.)
20. Raked and bagged more leaves. (seriously, how many leaves do we have?!?)
21. Decided to start a children's music band. (because, you know, we don't have enough to do already!)
22. Found an almost full gallon of white semi-gloss paint in the basement. (score!)
23. Used newly found paint to paint a board for a height chart.
24. Installed newly made height chart board on wall, and began recording heights.
25. Celebrated baby b's 1st birthday!  (hooray!!)

So there you have it.  All in all, I'd say it was a good month, and I feel like we got a lot of little things accomplished.  We'll see what May brings!