Springtime Shifts

Its been a good winter....again, and I am loping on into a New Year, February already a new notch in my belt. There are big fat buds on the apple tree that leans over our fence, the snails are out doing war  with the cole crops in my garden every night and the acacia trees are flouncing along with their yellow blossoms all down the freeways. Its the first of the really solidly spring blooms...before the poppies are spilling down the hills like orange sprinkles or the bottle brush trees are a standing in fierce crimson array on every street corner. So wonderful to live in a place where winter means green, and lush and damp fog laden moss. I have to get my tail down to the redwoods again, haven't been for a couple of shameful months...the trees call in this kind of weather.

I have noticed that in the waste space along the freeways there are some old forgotten orchard trees...I saw them for the first time last year and assumed they were cherries but missed a chance to go see them close up because we were so busy with baseball. They are just opening to peak bloom right now and I managed to park and run over to check some out on a side street near an overpass. They are not cherries, but maybe some kind of plum or peach. I am curious to see what/ if any fruit develops as the summer goes on. Lovely to feel homey enough where I live to be able to start picking out little curiosities like that to keep tabs on.

I am starting to feel pretty settled. I have places for most everything in the house, I am starting to feel like our possessions are trimmed down to an amount that more closely match this space. I have people to call in case we are trouble, know the neighbors, have the mailman's name down and even occasionally run into folks we know at the grocery store. Its such a good feeling to nest in more firmly and feel the amazing mix of wonder at the novelties but comfort over the known.

Spring is coming and I am working on tuning up my life and schedule...working out all the little ways things can be tweaked and adjusted and let go and removed. Isn't it wonderful to remember that we are the stewards of our own lives?

Here's What's New Right Now:

• I have been making meals for families with new babies or sick members at our church and homeschool group as a little way to contribute to the community. 
• I am cutting back on fruit and coffee and going back to a more strict interpretation of paleo eating.
• I am trying a new sleep schedule (to bed before my husband) to try to get 8 hours and still have morning quiet time alone.
• Minimization has come back into my life in a firm manner.
• Watching the boys play piano is inspiring and I have been planning to get my fiddle back out for tune up and learning.
• I am painting weekly now thanks to standing babysitter dates.
• We are not doing baseball this spring.
• Taking Zumba in addition to yoga.
• I am signing up for another year with Classical Conversations.
• We are planning a big trip to Italy this spring!
• I cut a bunch of length off my hair after it kept breaking and breaking. 

What are you shifting and changing in your life this season?

Green Brain

I have Green-Brain. Its that time of year. There are any number of things sprouting and greening and budding in our sunroom which is very cheerful. This is a good time of year to be one of my houseplants. I'm dreaming of gardens and gardening and yet feeling so cold averse that I want to spend all my time snuggled up indoors. All of that amounts to much more attentive, loving care for the plant members of the household right about now. I am clinging to each little chartreuse leaf and unfolding blossom to tide me over until the warm comes back and until the baby is willing to me wander farther than a foot from him with my pruning shears and my trowel.

Almost every night I am carting the clanging metal compost can outside to our backyard pile and dumping more veggie trimmings and fruit cores. I feel very motivated to grow the heap, thinking about all the earthworms that I hope are churning away in the core of the pile, making me sweet fertilizer for filling up anemic raised beds, and tucking around my sad strawberry plants. Its a good time of year to be anything gardeny that wants my attention. Green leaves, and curling tendrils and produce of all kinds from my own land are what I am dreaming about at night, craving at the library, and turning my camera on whenever I look around for subjects.

Pom is not a fan of plants, unless he can eat them. He puts everything in his mouth and is scooting around backwards making himself angry at the way everything gets father and farther away every time he moves. And he is starting to make stabs at standing and stepping a little with hands to hold. The doctor tells me he is 5th percentile for weight and height but I find it hard to be too concerned, when he's so impossibly round and happy.  He's just a small, plump, happy man.

Kitchen Towels Aplenty

All my kitchen towels are starting to wear out. Little holes are widening on the margins and frayed edges appearing on the hems and I admit there are even a few with burned bits from near musses with kitchen burners. Time to dust off my collection and upgrade by hanging a few brand spanking new linens. I have been thinking about buying some plain linen toweling and making my own or buying a bale them at Target (maybe these ones?), and then I read this post on the fabulous blog A Number Of Things. Gah! Am now drooling over many different options at Spoonflower's little shop. So many beautiful linen options. I am rather in deep like with the following designs:

Can't quite see the whole thing in this shot but I love all the graphic representation and bright styling on this one. The colors are great. And "Eat Well" has to be one of the best captions for a produce item beauty pagent ever. Yes, please...more veggies!

The illustrations on this one are cool, and even better...a way to support a young entrepreneur. The 14 year old daughter, Anna of the blogging mama from A Number of Things drew these as part of a little study course on herbology she and her mom dove into. I think these are beautifully done and some of them are very unique choices for "useful" herb representatives. I wanna go look up what honeysuckle is good for. I know now, since this last summer that plantain (common weed in lawns, hooray!) helps bee-stings not to inflate and to heal much more quickly. Simply take the fresh leaves, mash to a pulp (or chew in moments of desperation) and apply the gooey paste to the sting, cover with a bandaid to keep it on the spot for at least a half an hour. I left mine on all day. Major difference in the amount of swelling and reaction.

Love these bright butterflies too and the fact that I already have some framed butterflies hanging above the kitchen counter makes the theme a little more attractive.

Something about the swirlyness of these illustrations really appeals to me. Love those twirling cucumber vine bits and the little bloopy, real life shapes of the tomatoes. And how can I resist a vegetable lineup that begins with asparagus, my ultimate favorite. :)

Now I just have to narrow it down and decide which ones get to come live here.

Related articles

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Kitchen Spiff-Up!

I've been working on the kitchen and I had to share the results.
Kitchen Before:



I never remember to take decent Before shots when I am starting a new project. It's so much more exciting to get going!

Kitchen After:

Tada!!!! It's bright green, I know, really, really bright...but I love it! The color is Sherwin Williams, Direct Green. I think it will be an inspiring place to cook in, and that that peppy shade will carry us through winter well. There are still a few little minor details to finish like the ugly faux wood switch-plate on the wall next to the door..and the chic seventies hammered copper door cupboard handles which I am switching out as soon as my Ebay purchase replacements get here! 

And look at all that new counter space!!! I'm psyched! We have doubled when we had when we moved in by adding that pale green section over the dishwasher and then (and this is the latest touch of genius) moving the microwave off the countertop. Hooray for space!

Here's the stove area "Before." I took all those spices down from the cluttery arrangement above the stove and I think the new occupants of the space look a lot nicer. You can't see it in the Before shot but there is a cupboard above the stove and I took the doors off of it to open the space a bit and display some of my prettier dishware that we use all the time. (i.e. things that aren't in the china cabinet but are still nice to look at)

So, this is how it looks now. A good bit better. 

You can just barely see where I ripped off the wallpaper above the cupboard, I still need to remove the bottom bits of it and paint it clean white. Am considering some sort of scalloped colored painted border at the top (maybe cobalt?).

Here are the other bits of the new kitchen arrangement.

The spice corner, near the stove. :) The hanging rack with pretty jars of spices, then more spices in baskets on top of the fridge, and believe it or not, there are even more that are lesser used in a tiny drawer on the other side of the kitchen.  And my stone mortar and pestle on the tiny island counter.

Here's the window now, I need a little suction cup hook or a bit of chain to make that suncatcher hang a little lower but the colors make me happy. There is a kid-reachable spot for hanging  a couple of aprons on the left of the window-frame, a big chalkboard that I painted on the wall for quotes, notes to each other and jotting down grocery items, and then on the right hand side of the window I hung one of my paintings! Hooray!

Now you can see where the microwave migrated too. See it on top of the refrigerator? I know that's a little silly but it works well for us because of the steps which give easy access. I love having all our countertops free and it's kind of cool to use the top of the fridge for something more than just clutter collection. It isn't the prettiest arrangement but you never know, a way to make it look nicer may occur to me. It isn't bad.

Here's some close-ups here and there so that you can get a feeling for the fun details. The only thing I bought was the paint, and the aforementioned cupboard handles (a dollar a piece!) and the rest of the goods were just shopped from my own storage stash and wherever else throughought the house I hunted and found something I thought would work. The yellow gingham on the window was in my fabric stash, the baskets the spices are in were storing something else inffectively, etc.

Yay redecorating! Next on the docket is the dining room and further spiffing in the living room, and then I really roll up my sleeves with the playroom/homeschool room. I'm also working a bit on the pantry after a bout with the dreaded pantry moth. Will put all the dry-goods into glass jars or bust! Argh!

Anyone have any tips for how to store cereal? I would like to keep it in glass, no plastic in some sort of space-efficient system but in jars large enough to hold a whole box-full.  

Related articles

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• Jenniffer's Small Yet Luxurious Kitchen Small Cool Kitchens 2011 (thekitchn.com)
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• Kelly's Bright Double Green Kitchen Small Cool Kitchens 2011 (thekitchn.com)
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Summer Coming In

We're into the real stuff now....hot nights when we lie on top of our beds listening to the fan whir away without even untucking the sheets, epic salads for dinner served in our big wooden salad bowl, days that stretch out longer than they have any right to be. Real summer.

Mango lemonade with mint

I have a window-box of fresh herbs on the back porch and its getting a lot of use. I drop snipped bits into our dinner salads, and snip them over all our meats and every glass of whatever we're drinking is better with a sprig of mint, right? I love fresh herb season. Next year I have to remember to make sure cilantro and thyme make it in. (Help me remember that, will you?)

Our corn went from this....

To this!

And here come the tassels...the male parts of the plant!

The corn/lawn experiment, in which I planted corn right in our turf grass and then mulched over the top once there were rows of green leaves..... is going well. I have never grown corn. My parents always did when I was growing up, but I've never done it myself. Fun to have the space and the sun. My dad always planted our corn when I was a kid, it was his special garden project, he pounded in stakes with taut string between to be sure of perfectly straight plantings, and then he put in the corn. I remember that we always planted from little paper bags full of seed that we got at the feed-store. Not a feed-store in sight here and I still seem to be managing to pull of my own tiny corn patch! Hooray!

The apples on our apple tree are swelling and starting to show just the barest hint of a blush...still wondering what color they'll end up, how big they'll be and if they'll taste good enough for eating. A few weeks ago I ate a jar of applesauce my aunt made, thinking wistfully that I hoped this fall we'd be eating our own. And apple pies, and dried apple rings and maybe a few apple turnovers for autumn picnics to boot! The boughs are starting to bend downwards with the weight of the fruit which makes me smile.

And the bees are happy about summer. They're buzzing around pollinating our cucumbers and tomatoes, and zooming over the hedge, to yards beyond our range of vision. I have been into the hive a couple of times since introducing the bees to their new digs. They're building beautiful comb and filling it with all kinds of good things, and I am hopeful that they'll find enough fodder in the neighborhood to make sure they are all lardered up for the winter. I have plans to build a small fence, with climbing, flowering vines planted on it, to enclose the area where the hive is, and create a little protected bee yard. We're working on teaching Dee to stay away from the hive but he did recently discover it and is now on closely monitored probation to ensure that he never get out of eye-sight. Time for a little landscaping to solve the problem. I'm thinking a short fence of some kind with honeysuckle on it, and maybe pots of jasmine in the summer to make it really highly scented. Mmmmm!!!! I'd like a barrier like that around my house, wouldn't you?



Closing with this song which is humming in my mind, on perpetual repeat, Sumer Is Icumen In, sometimes also called The Cuckoo Song. Can't remember where I first heard it but I know it was a long time ago and I know rings in my mind merrily and makes me smile. Its a very old song, one of the oldest written songs we have in English, written about 1260 or so....a little ode to "sumer." It says "Summer is a comin' in, loudly sing cuckoo, groweth seed and bloometh meadow and springs the wood anew..." Summer is a pretty timeless affair.

My Happy Place

 We all have our "happy places" right? The kind of place you go when life is rough and you're not sure you can make it, the kind of place where you go and you instantly know you're going to make it. The kind of place that can make it all okay again. On of my happy places is Panera Bread.

Another one is this greenhouse. We make a point of going every year and have for five or six years running now. It is best to go in the dead of winter, when you've hit the dregs and are not sure you believe in spring anymore.

 You'd never know we were in a greenhouse in Connecticut. I feel like I'm in deepest jungle in Costa Rica...somewhere always warm, misty humid and vibrant with life.

This citrus tree has ten varieties grafted into it.

 This is one of those places I wish I could live. And a place that it's honestly good we don't live down the road from because I would work there for free for sure...and A might not like that.

Here is the entrance...the happy world you walk into through that door of light.

Oh Spring, am holding on for you! Come soon. Okay?

(The greenhouse we visit is Logee's, of catalog fame...you can go too if you find yourself nearby!)