taking it outside

summer is finally here. it sure took long enough coming. i can finally safely say that i won't be posting any more complaints about unseasonable snow until september. hopefully october, but i don't want to get my hopes up. stupidass prairie weather.

one of the great things about my new house is that my some of predecessors were (and still are) gardeners. thanks to these fabulous people i have deliciously cool ferns near the front door. i like ferns because they make a little ecosystem all their own. no matter how hot the day gets things stay cool and breezy under the ferns. bugs can go there to cool off. many do, when things get blazingly hot. when i was a kid i tried to hide from the sun under a bank of ferns and got chased out by a million irate bugs defending their territory. bugs aren't the best at sharing, it turns out.
the previous inhabitants of my home also planted strawberries. i will have berries soon. there are no words for how much i'm looking forward to the sun-warmed berries. is there anything better on this planet? maybe, but not by much.

i have daisies. the summeriest flowers i can imagine.

lilacs. my boy eats these by the fistful. i did that at his age, until i became agile enough to dissect the flowers so i could have just the nectar. eating lilacs is one of my favourite annual traditions.

i also have lily of the valley and a bunch of other nice stuff already flourishing without my help.


because of the preexisting plants i don't have a whole lot of space to plant. i don't mind, since i've had no time at all to be working outside over the last few months. it turns out that work, school and childcare all take up a great deal of time. who knew?!?!?
i've been container gardening to compensate for the lack of garden space. i've never done container gardening before, but so far it's pretty straightforward.

the simplest kind of container gardening is bringing houseplants outside and letting them soak up the sun. my homepeppers are infatuated with their new environment. i've never gotten such a fantastic number of peppers at once, and never seen such fat, tasty looking peppers. my salsa will be damned good this year.

my tomatoes are happy and flourishing, and so am i. i hope you are, too.

emotional exploration

i'm taking a counselling course in school. it's done in five days, (yay!) but for the past two months i've had a flurry of newly learned counselling skillz circling my brain. (i'd rather have nunchuck skillz, thankyouverymuch)

i've been trying to use these skills whenever i can, since practice makes perfect and all that. it's been frustrating, though, since the two people i spend the most time with aren't really into exploring their feelings.

me: little boy, how do you feel about that?
the boy: how do i feel about it, mama?
me: you tell me.
the boy: no, you tell me. how do i feel?
me: you feel... ticklish! (big ticklefight ensues)
me: no, seriously, how does this make you feel?
the boy: how does it make me feel?
(many repetitions and explanations later)
the boy: it makes me feel.... good. mama, what makes me feel good?
me: .... (having forgotten what we were originally talking about)

i don't even try with the baby.
so, you see, honing my counselling skillz at home is a little difficult. do you want to know how this makes me feel?

what not to do

i ate a whole mocha cake in less than 24 hours. hell, less than 20. maybe 15. or less. it was a lot of cake and i now regret it, since my toilet is currently clogged and i have a lot of poop. it turns out that eating a whole cake makes you poop lots. don't do it if your toilet is less than operational.

also, don't flush a huge chunk of rotting rice. sure, you might think that the rice will break up into little pieces in the toilet and flush down beautifully, but if you think that you're wrong. then if you have to poop lots because you were a serious cake glutton you will end up with a stinky, stinky bathroom.

tonight i was going to take a bath, but i had to change my plans because the air quality in my bathroom is quite bad. really bad. shitty, in fact. so i ended up doing homework instead.

so, to sum up, flushing rice is bad because it won't flush so when you get goopy cake poop it will sit and ferment in your toilet bowl, preventing baths and forcing you to do homework when you'd rather not.

the moral of the story: don't leave rice in the fridge too long, it leads to poor hygiene.

my apologies to twilight fans everywhere

i have been watching twilight. all i can say is:

according to facebook quizzes:

i will get married when i'm 19
(i was 20)
my marriage will last forever
(um, no. but 6 years is forever when you're 3, right? so it depends on perspective, maybe)
i should marry johnny depp
(HELL, YEAH. although marriage isn't actually what i think about when i think of him)
if i am an 80's tv character, i am punky brewster
(sure beats alf)
i should have 3 kids
if i am a cheese, i am brie
(Your personality is rich and classy, with an exterior that some may find daunting to stomach, but is well worth the discomfort once they get to know you. You have expensive taste, but not flashy at first glance. You are much better once the atmosphere has warmed up a bit. Strong yet gentle, it takes a distinctive person to appreciate you.)
i'm really 22 years old

ok, that's enough for now. a girl can only take so much self-revelation before lunch.

when he grows up he wants to be a man

you know the kid in every crowd that's crazy and all over the place and you think to yourself 'man, i'm glad i'm not that kid's mom' or 'geez, that kid's mom is definitely doing something wrong'?
today i was that kid's mom.

i like to think that my boy is well behaved and likable, generally. i've been told many times by many people that he's bright, funny, polite and a joy to be around. apparently they were lying.

today my boy got kicked out of toddler storytime at the library. i didn't even know it was possible, but my kid managed. true, he was being a pain. he couldn't sit still to save his life. he was jumping up to see what the baby and i were doing, checking out all the doors in the hallway to see if any were unlocked, sitting down for part of a story, running over to tell me about the story... he was being disruptive and hyperactive. i was not impressed, but i can't exactly give the kid a stern talking-to in the middle of storytime, you know?

and in his defense, storytime was pretty awful. normally the storyteller reads slowly and with expression, and gets the kids to hop around between stories so they can focus better. normally my boy loves storytime and has no problem. today there was a different woman, one who speed-read without taking breaks between books. her goal was to read as many farm-themed books as she could cram into the time allotted, apparently. her style really didn't work for my kid. the other kids looked pretty restless, too, but none was jumping all over the place like my own precious crack-addled monkey.

when the assistant asked us to leave i wanted to sink into the floor. i grabbed my kids and hauled them, screaming, from the room. i grabbed some kids' movies and headed for the checkout desk. the woman who had asked us to go was there, and as she scanned the movies she offered me some colouring sheets. i declined, wanting to get the hell out of there, and she asked innocently 'oh, your kids don't even sit still long enough to colour?'

i muttered something about too many colouring books already and left.

do you think she meant that in a bitchy way? it sure sounded snarky, but that librarian is usually really sweet. it sounded mean, though... i don't know. what i do know is that my little guy is crushed that we can't go to storytime any more.

the making of a home: living room edition

the new couch has turned my living room from a room with scattered, random furniture, some of which was comfortable for sitting on, into a cohesive living room. i have no before pictures, but check out my 'after' shots:

here you can see my chair in one of the only places in the house that i can get internet. i spend a lot of time in that chair.

eventually i'll put that dresser in a bedroom and get something more conventional to hold the tv , and i need art for my walls, but i really like my living room.

mother nature hates me

this week i finished planting. i converted my front yard into an urban tomato farm. i'd decided that i'd just grow tomatoes this year, since i have limited time & space, and of all the things i grow, tomatoes bring me the greatest joy.

but then, five minutes ago, mother nature gave her opinion.and apparently she didn't think much of my gardening plans.she especially hated my very favourite tomato plant.i guess when the hail melts and things dry out a bit i'll convert my failed tomato farm into a carrot and beet farm. yippee.