Progress

The boy has been taking advantage of these warm January days and making a lot of progress on the greenhouse.
 

We have big plans for it this spring.
 

And a certain girlchild has big plans for the playhouse that's going to be on the second story.

How does one get that much self esteem

That little black blur in the middle on the left is our chihuahua/boston terrier mix, Piper.

She meets the cows at the fence every day.

"Hey cows! Wanna fight?"

The Last Few Weeks

The boys went fishing at Pyramid and caught some tasty dinner!
Emma got to help gut the fish...she loved it.

New Year's Eve brought the tooth fairy AND....

....fireworks

I learned how to make hot tamales from one of my favorite people in the whole world

The sweet ladies at church made me a prayer shawl,
 which Emma promptly claimed as her own.

The boy turned 33.
We celebrated with a mocha bacon brownie.
Which is about as un-confetti chip cake as it gets.

Orange You Glad

The poppies are in full bloom right now. 

They remind me of all things summertime and my mother. 

I think I might need to get some for my yard.

Blossoms

The peach tree the day before it froze.

I might be turning blue, but I'm still holding my breath for fruit this year.

If you move it you lose it

Blurry lego chaos

You know guys, the carpet is dry now.  

At some point I'm going to need to get the couch off of the dining room table

and put it back where it belongs.

Look Ma, I crafted!

Actually, my mother is as allergic to messes and sticky fingers as I am. 

She would say, Gross! Why would you do that?

But the kids had fun popping the balloons after the pastel eggs were dry, and I found a use for the tons of embroidery floss I'm never going to need again.

Original idea here.

The Best Lazy Decision I Have Ever Made

And that's how you know it's spring!

Daffodils are the easiest flower I've ever planted. 

They are forgiving to my negligent ways.

They bloom every spring like clock work.

I love them. 

The strangers who come to the front door remark on how beautiful they are.

I can't wait to have some cuttings to put on the dining room table.

Eager Anticipation

A little girl hiding behind the Christmas tree (she really is the only one who can fit back there) with her diary, crayons and a letter to Santa Claus.

Egg Beaters 1 - Zeke 0

When I was a little girl my best friend in the whole world lived all the way across town.  And I say it like that because when we used to ask for sleepovers, either set of parents would wrinkle up there noses and say,

"Maybe later, they live all the way across town."

And there would be no arguing with that because A - walking wasn't an option and B - I'm pretty sure I wasn't up to the two wheeled bike option yet.

So, on those rare sleepover adventures we made sure to get into as much mischief as possible.  We tromped through the snow chasing cows or who know what we were really trying to do, in the summer we'd swim in the water trough with the mosquito eating fish, and in general just eat candy until I was sick to my stomach. 

One very hot summer day we decided to make a potion consisting of raw eggs (a lot of them), dirt and a mayonnaise jar.  Shaken, not stirred of course.  And then left for far too long in the shed behind the wood pile.  For reasons I cannot recall today, I accidentally dropped the jar and it shattered in the shed. Causing the stinkiest, most gag worthy mess that had to be cleaned up before I went home for the day. 

And to this day I cannot lay eyes on scrambled raw eggs without feeling like I might toss my cookies at any moment.  It has also resulted in me absolutely needing to have my eggs cooked to death before I eat them.

Today on my honey-do list:
Buy the husband egg whites

Standing in the egg section at wal-mart I remember that I'm allergic to that eggy smell and I start to get panicky.  There's a cute old man trying to make conversation about how they don't have the kind of eggs he likes and I'm speed reading the boxes of egg beaters because one is regular and one is southwest and what does that even mean??  Isn't it just eggs in a paper carton.  I give the old man and half smile and book it out of that section before something embarrassing happens.  All the way up to the cash register and out to the car I can feel the eggs sloshing around in that paper carton and am trying to convince myself that throwing up is not an option. I get in the car and as I'm putting the egg beaters in the refrigerator it dawns on me, the husband did not ask me for egg beaters....he asked me for egg whites....and I epic failed on that one.

A Polliwog's Tale

This is a story about a little girl who graduated from preschool a couple months ago and her pet polliwog.

Studying polliwogs was one of the last lessons they did before summer break.   And don't even think about calling it a tadpole....it will be a good ten minutes before you will be able to get a word in edgewise.

On the last day of school, the girlchild comes home with said new friend in a sandwich bag with strict instructions to feed it fresh boiled lettuce everyday. 

Boiled lettuce.  Everyday.

Oh, really.  Over the course of the next 6 weeks I meticulously boiled lettuce and fed it to the polliwog a grand total of zero times.  The tadpole managed to survive just fine on goldfish flakes.  We kept the creature on the kitchen window sill so that we could remember to feed it we could watch it's ever changing, and metamorphesing body.

As a free range child myself, we used to catch tadpoles...because back then they were called tadpoles....by the thousands and keep them in a mayo jar in some non-disclosed location.  I can't honestly remember if we ever really fed them or what, but every so often we'd take them out of the jar hold them in our little muddy hands and then put them back.  And then one day my favorite sister of all got sick.  Really sick.  Beaver fever sick.  And so tadpoles were banned from my childhood.  I can honestly say that they never captured our attention long enough to pay attention to their teenage-tadpole years.

Fast forward some uncalculated years and I have a polliwog sitting on my kitchen counter.  Turns out it was pretty fascinating to actually see the shrinking tail and emerging legs.  Did you know that they actually form their front and back legs under their amphibious skin and then one day they just pop out fully formed?  I did not.  And now you do too.

After the changing was done and the creature could be identified as a frog, the inevitable question came.  "Mom, can I keep him??  Please!"    And while it was pondered for a nanosecond it wasn't to be.  Because after all, where would he live?  He can't share a house with pinchy the crawdad. Because he is currently doing jail time for massacring the goldfish.  And Wally the welfare fish would eat him in a heartbeat.

But isn't he just the cutest little thing?

So we set him free to find his own way in the world.



Spring and things

A perfect sunrise on our sleepy street

The photo above doesn't do the sunrise justice.  It really was awe inspiring.  Inspiring enough that I absolutely needed to scoop the boy-child up (toothbrush still in his mouth) and hustle him out into the yard so we wouldn't miss it. 

Other news around the yard: 

There are fresh cut daffodils on my mother's table

The hyacinths are nearly blooming

The entire backyard is a slippery, slimy mud puddle....don't even think about going out there

Group runs have begun to gear up for the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey (did I mention this run was on my bucket list)

I started knitting a pair of fingerless gloves, judging by my current pace they'll be ready just in time for next winter

I've been reading some pretty good books

Swim lessons are in full swing

Called Home

My little brother is replacing my parents kitchen floor this week.
I know, right?!
Suck up!
Actually, I think he's just paying his thanks-for-taking-care-of-me-all-those-years tithing to the parents all in one week.
So when the phone call came that he could really use some help because it's Thursday and he needs to have to job done by Saturday night, that I-better-be-a-good-kid-too guilty feeling won out.
I picked the kids up from daycare and the three of us headed out to Fallon.


There was KFC (my dad's predictable like that)

A LOT of dusting and vacuuming (Em and Burrito each declared they need their very own upholstery vacuum for Christmas now)

Walls were scrubbed

A lot of critiquing was done over my lack of elbow grease cleaning power in the stove/oven area, and a few "Not good enoughs, keep cleaning" comments were made.  Did I mention William's Type A personality.

And in between rinsing rags out and scrubbing walls we talked about family and all the mementos that line the kitchen walls.  There are ceramics my Memere (my mother's mother) made in the 70s lining the tops of the cupboards above the refrigerator.  I declared they are mine.  When my mother dies of course.  And then we laughed because I am, after all where Emma gets that statement from.  And every baked bean pot I dusted and put back above the cupboards was declared "The One" that will hold Hal's ashes when he dies.  How many bean pots does one man need?! Honestly. 

Hours later, I packed my sleeping babies back into the car, took my dirty, tired, simple green smelling self home to take a shower and sleep.

And I am thankful that I was called home.  Thankful for being able to help and for learning some new family history.

Bad Case of the Mondays

I think even Em is starting to feel the end of winter blahs.
My list includes

- spring fever with no cure yet

- oh, the wind how it does blow. Which I hate.

- rough work days

But I did run across this video the other day....I like it.  It's kind of cute and sassy.  Reminds me of Avril's I don't like your boyfriend video (which I also like)

Soon. Soon I will be out in the backyard with my bright yellow visor on, weeding the garden in my swim suit so as I do not get a horrible farmers tan. Soon I will be out running again in the early morning hours, listening to the dew sizzle on the power lines over head.  Soon I will be sitting on the back porch sipping sweet tea and swatting at mosquitoes.

soon.

Today, God Told Me to Grow Nuts

I ran across this poem in the gardening book I just finished. I liked it. I've heard the whole teach a man to fish bit, but this one was longer. So now, I am spamming you with it.


If you give a man a fish, he will have a meal.
If you teach him to fish, he will have a living.
If you are thinking a year ahead, sow seed.
If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree.
If you are thinking one hundred years ahead, educate the people.
By sowing seed once, you will harvest once.
By planting a tree, you will harvest tenfold.
By educating the people, you will harvest one hundredfold.


anonymous Chinese Poet, 420 B.C.

Kind of bittersweet to find it now, amid all the education cutbacks that just rolled out.

But.....the point....I'm thinking about planting a nut tree. Is that an option? What kind? I think I'd love a pecan tree but they must only grow in the south. maybe. The book I was reading was really about subsistence farming. Growing all the food/meat you would need to be self-sufficient. Not for me. But a nut tree might just be.
Maybe I should see what the fruit trees do this year first (While I research my possible Nut tree options). Mini-me has been scouring the pages of that gardening book too. Yesterday from the back seat she called out, "Mama, can we grow cherries?"
To which I replied, after the scowl crossed my face, "I think that's what I'm trying to do."

Because it is. Lets review:
Attempts at peach trees - 2
Number of peaches grown in the last 4 years - 1
Attempts at Cherry trees - 1
Number of Cherries grown in the last 4 years - 2
Number of Fruitless Mulberry trees purchased - 2
Number of Fruitless Mulberry trees that died and came back as a Fruiting Mulberry - 1

Reasons:
1. Supposedly fruit trees need a few years to establish themselves
2. Those cursed and all too frequent late frosts
3. God's trying to tell me to move on to nut trees?

Regardless. This year I'm going all out crazy with the strawberries. Why? Because I can. And because last year I think I got two total all summer. Those 'helpers' of mine were out in the strawberry bed every night eating every strawberry that was even the lightest shade of pink.

A little bit of heaven right in my own living room

Shocking right? It can be hard to spot amidst the clutter of toys, markers, rock collections, etc. But it's there.

And it looks like this:



I am actually a little ashamed to admit that it took me six long winters to figure this out. But should one decide to take one's well loved, faded old blue nintendo chair out of the closet, set it up in front of the fireplace and kick one's feet up on the hearth stones - that certain someone would find an itty bitty piece of heaven right there.

Oh, I have cozied up to the fireplace many a wintry day since we moved in. But it has been a love/hate relationship. I love how toasty warm it is, until that instant where I have sat there too long and my back starts to feel like it's on fire and I am jumping around all crazy-like trying not to let the fabric from my shirt touch my back. Then as soon as I've cooled back down to room temperature I scoot myself right next to the fire again and the dance repeats. But, I have discovered that if you turn around and sit with your feet closest to the fire - it doesn't happen. ever. Maybe your bare feet are tougher, I suspect mine are.

It really is amazing. I could nap right there. I could sit there all day and read, knit, day dream, the possibilities are endless. Except that my children would not permit me staying in one place that long. So really I haven't experimented with how long I could actually park myself right there. And lets face it, at some point I would have to take myself to the kitchen for sustenance.

If you should call and I don't answer, odds are I'm relaxing right here....




p.s. I am aware how freakishly long my feet look...Its a Newman thing.

The Family that Shreds together....

Know what they say about the family that Shreds together?

No.

Neither do I. But we are ALL going to be lookin' amazing this summer in our swim suits. Even Bobby's committed. He's got quite the little milk belly to work off.

New Year Resolutions - they are a-happening at our house. I am 10 days into the 30 Day Shred DVD. I've only weighed myself once so I can't really do a numbers report yet, but I think the muffin-top may be getting a little smaller. And Mr Woolsey swears he can see a difference. But...I pay him to say that, right?

And, who would have guessed those 1 pound hand weights Santa put in the kids' stockings would be such a hit.

Not me.

Bittersweet

Monday was a Snow Day - Yippee!!!!

But UNR didn't get their act together until after my children were on their way to daycare. So...I got to stay home by myself, but I was kind of sad about it.

There's nothing more enjoyable than watching your children play in the year's first big snowfall. And with mine being so young, they still are quite intrigued with snow.

I did get a ton of things done though, that I would not have been able to do with them home.

I shoveled the driveway, twice

I did six loads of laundry (yes I am that far behind)

I did two loads of dishes

I made turkey soup

I cleaned the snow out of the chickens shelter and made sure they were surviving

I caught up on some DVR programs

I wrapped presents

I sorted toys for good-will

So it was productive. But I did find myself standing at the front window watching all the children sled down our street and wish my family was all out there participating in the fun.

The cogs they are a whirling...(Or Rebekah is In-Demand)

Remember how I told you it was Jalapeno Jelly making time? Well we are waaaaay past that now. The pectin has been shelved. The canner has been boxed up. The jelly jars were lined up in a row.

Yep. You read that right. WERE. They are all gone!!!!

First, I gave a couple away to family members. Then I got an email from the sister-in-law saying the girls at work were loving the jalapeno jelly and could she get another jar to share. Pretty soon the emails started rolling in more frantically. PLEASE SEND MORE JELLY - ASAP.

Then, came the most unexpected and wonderful email yet. One of SIL's co-workers wanted to BUY some jars of jelly. Seriously. I never would have imagined as much. I had dreams of having to invent wild and crazy recipes just to use up all of the jars of jalapeno jelly in my cupboard. Because it would be in my hips best interest if I did not eat all of the above mentioned jelly slathered on Ritz crackers with copious amounts of cream cheese.

So anyway, humbled by the request, yet nervous about selling something that someone else possibly, maybe wouldn't like, I declined the money. I gave the jars away under the guise of "building up a strong and faithful fan base".

But next year....

Oh next year....

sweet with a little bit of heat next year....

When I have jalapenos heaped up and overflowing the basket on my kitchen counter, maybe-just-maybe, I won't readily send them out the door with Will to give away at work because I'm sick of looking at all that green.

And maybe I'll be making a little bitty bit of green to keep myself.

Spring Sprung and then...

Sunday morning I woke to one of the first signs of spring at our house.

My crocus bloomed. Yeah! That means the daffodils will also begin to bloom very soon. Wanting to share my 'spring fever' with someone, I quickly found Emma and dragged her over so she could see too. I pointed out the blooms and we had a 10 second conversation about something and we parted ways.

The next thing I know, Emma is trotting up to me with a cheesy grin on her face, exclaiming "Look at the pretty bouquet of flowers I picked for Daddy!".

My eyes widened in horror, I took a deep breath, shook my head, and replied "That Daddy, He doesn't know just how lucky he is."

We took the bouquet into the kitchen and put in a glass of water so that we could at least enjoy the flowers for a day or two. So now, I'm back to waiting for colorful signs of spring in the yard again. And I don't think I'll point it out to Emma next time.