Ritual

This past month I have been reading.  Checking books out at the Library and actually reading them.  Novel, I know.

A couple weeks ago I came across "French Women Don't Get Fat".   Now, I'm sure most of us have heard of this book, it was published in 2005 (doesn't time FLY?).  I know I had, but I couldn't say I knew what it was really about.  So, I checked it out.

What I got out of it was that we need to keep our eating moderate, and we need to move more.  Really, it reminded me of back in college when I would lose weight during the semester. I had a goal of getting up the RB stairs or Widstoe stairs, two at time without panting and almost fainting at the top.  So all semester I would run the stairs on the way to class.  I even had a class on the 7th floor of the Kimball Tower one semester.  I took the stairs.  Now I kind of wish I had a two story house, for that purpose.

Also, it said to never let yourself get hungry (DESPERATE), and to give yourself treats- but not everyday.  Make them really treats.

One other thing was the idea of making eating a ritual.  We have rituals in our lives everyday, from the way we wash our face, to our bed time routine.  I have to say I LOVE this idea.  I had gotten very sloppy with my dinning habits.  Cleaning the kitchen while my kids ate breakfast, reading or checking email while eating, generally not engaging with my kids, trying to make it a time when I could check out.

Well. I decided to start making meals more of a ritual.  I started with breakfast. Later that week I read this on Apartment Therapy. A challenge to make morning rituals.  Sadly for them, as well as many of the people commenting, they don't have children.  I know some people with children get up at 5 am just to be alone, but I know me.  That won't happen unless my husband stops working nights (i.e. I still get woken up a lot at night).  But I love mornings.  I love slow, calm, happy mornings. This is where I started.

I make up the table.  Table cloth, center piece (which is either flowers, or, at the moment winter squash).  I make soft boiled eggs, toast and sliced fruit for us, and some tisane (herbal tea) in the heirloom silver tea pot from Morrocco, for me.  I highly recommend the tea.  Nothing slows down the morning like sipping tea.  It makes it really special.

I have found once I sit, it doesn't matter whether the house or kitchen is a mess.  The morning light coming through the window and my kids busy picking away the egg shells from their eggs gives me much more peace than trying to get my house clean while they eat.  We have made it a ritual in our home.

Now I have become enamored with table cloths and little tea pots.

Fall Gardening

After watching my garden struggle through the hot hot New Mexico summer sun, I had almost given up hope. Luckily in the latest issue of Mother Earth News there is an article about fall gardening. I am wondering, if I plant a fall garden if it will last all the way through spring. I mean, it does get cold here at night, but I might just have enough of a micro climate to keep frost off. It has me excited.

Here are some highlights on what to do.

1. Start seeds- broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale (essentially all your Brassicas). There is a great website called Skippy's Vegetable Garden that will tell you when to start seeds or when to direct seed. They also have a spring guide. Transplant these seedlings after 3 weeks, during cloudy weather (good luck here in Las Cruces, there never seems to be cloudy weather- or in other words, invest in a shade cloth- more info to follow).


2. Direct seed fast growing varieties of broccoli, kale, kohlrabi in shallow furrows, covered with a 1/2 " of potting soil. Keep seeds moist until germination. Soaker hoses or soaker drip tubing is great for this.


3. Keep transplants moist and shadded for a few days, this should keep successful transplant rates up to around 75%- we ALL know that in Las Cruces your seedlings will keel over the very day you set them out if they don't have shade. Some ideas for shade are old sheets, shade cloth (available at nurserys, or big box stores in the spring), old flower pots, or kill 2 birds with one stone and make a shade cloth/ bug netting out of tulle.


4. Even short periods of drought stress can stunt or kill fall crops.


5. Mulch between plants using newspaper (at least) and ideally a mulch on top. This is after you have your irrigation set out. This will keep the killer sun from being so... killer.


6. If your yard is like my yard, I can see the cabbage worms propagating- literally- the little white butterflys nest in my rosemary that sits in the middle of the garden. They have already eaten most of my brussels sprouts from earlier this season- because I didn't protect them. Prevent this by covering seedlings with a summer weight insect barrier (or tulle on stakes. You will have to raise it as the seedlings grow, but it will keep most of the buggers off.


7. There are MANY vegetables you can grow in the fall. Skippy's garden fall calender has almost all of them, it is a great resource.
   

Now, here was my plan. I was going to go to the city and get a great load of compost to put down in my garden beds, tweek my irrigation then cover it with newspaper and mulch for the winter. Part 1 has failed. The cities mulch is a complete joke. The 2" screened compost is a bunch of 4-6" sticks that need another couple seasons to actually compost, nothing smaller (that stuff they must sell, not give away to poor residence like me). So, I am going to try to hit up some fall landscaping sales and get some bags of compost, then lay out my new dripper soaker hose and see if the winter will be kind to us and not freeze anything.

Composter

I could really use one of these right now.

pic via compostumbler.com

Father's Day Goodies

For Father's Day I made Clemens some treats. The first two are wall treats. I made him a print of his favorite quote, poster sized and framed it. (Though I did break the glass on the frame as soon as I got it home! Sad day.)


The second treat was a cookie jar. My husband is lovingly refered to as the cookie monster. He LOVES treats. With the weather getting humid, in addition to the swamp cooler, he needed a place to store his treats. I love these old cracker jars, this is a new one, but was just about as expensive as the ones at the antique store.

The third treat, another wall treat is in our bedroom. I found this print at vintageprints.com, there you can download a number of amazing, high quality antique posters to print off yourself. This one reminded me of our marriage trip.

This is just a cute picture of another project. I made these pillows from a fabulous vintage sheet I found at goodwill. The sheet was also made into a wall hanging and will be soon made into a cribskirt. Maja had just gotten out of the bath and wanted to cuddle with the pillows.

Patio and Inspiration

I love outdoor spaces. The fact that our little southwestern house has an enclosed front patio and a back patio makes me very happy. I just wish I had furniture to fill them with. Right now our back patio has a turtle baby pool, a makeshift wood and PVC pipe shelf (that I am actually very grateful for) and an old bench that needs its screws tightened. Last week I threw our old futon mattress out there for me to hang out on while Maja swims. I would love to cover it with some fun bright outdoor fabric so I don't have to worry about it so much. Another thing I would love would be a canvas awning, like this one, to shade our west facing patio in the afternoon, plus it would add so much fun color!

The rest of these pictures are some inspiration for myself. I have been looking at small house/ cottage house plans by Ross Chapin, and many of his homes have built in eating areas. Honestly, I have a love-hate relationship with built in's. I love how they save space, but I don't know if a brood of children would try to kill eachother. I guess they would get used to it. These pictures from Apartment Therapy show that this space can be beautiful and happy, not cranky and miserable!

Nursery Decor

I've been wanting to post this for a while, but I thought MAYBE I would wait until I actually have the nursery finished. I am hopeless. The nursery isn't finished. Still waiting on a crib, twin bed and comfy chair. They will be there soon, don't you worry. Until then, here are some pictures of things I have made that are up in the nursery. This is my second attempt at a watercolor. Based on the pretty trees by Jellybeans. I am too cheap to actually buy a print, and this got be out of my element and painting!

I found this great bird mobile tutorial at Spool.

They have a great blog and an online store to buy fun fabric. The mobile was the hardest part. I couldn't get little eye screws into the hard honeylocust twigs, and tying the string to the branches caused the birdies to flip upside down.... so I had to hang the birds by the cuff of the neck. IT WORKED! Maja loves the birdies, she even says 'tweet' in her own little way.

The owl in the background was a trial in pastels for another watercolor. Maja liked the pastel one better, even with the scribbles over the birds head.

This green dresser came as-is from Clemens house. I love the green color. I have no intention of repainting it.

Happy Birthday Maja!

She stuck her finger in the frosting and tasted it, just to see if it was right.

For her first birthday I made Lemon Poppyseed Zuchinni Cupcakes with Best Bite's frosting. Now, my sister already asked me for the recipe to the cupcakes, but the sad truth is I cheated. I bought a box of lemon poppyseed muffins and added 2 grated zuchinni. That's it.

We thought they were great.

Dreams and Dirt

Ooo, there are a great many things I want to do! A lot of this was spurred by a trip to Barnes and Noble yesterday. Clemens wanted to celebrate finishing the editing on his book. (Can you tell we don't get out much?) I found a great magazine called Mary Jane's Farm, it is all about becoming a farmgirl. Really cute magazine. In it I read about some other things that I had to research.

The major one is a book called "Food not Lawns", I love the idea of having a backyard homestead. Since it may be quite a while for me to aquire acrage to have livestock, I want to have chickens and a huge vegetable garden. Fresh eggs sound delicious. I want to grow enough food for my family and to give (or sell eventually) to all of my neighbors.

Mother Earth News Magazine is by far my favorite magazine right now. So much so, that Clemens got me a subscriptions for my birthday. It talks all about growing food, raising food, natural energy, and sustainable home building/living. Did I mention it talks about raising animals- like chickens, oh yes.

Until then, here is an update on my little garden. I think that my garden has loved that the night time temperatures have jumped from the mid 30's to the mid 50's. It is doing wonders for my germination rates.

This little snap bean grew from just germinating and above the ground this morning, to THIS this evening!
The shady area of my garden, until summer is in full swing, it has onions, little spinich that are getting their true leaves, and the lettuces. Not pictured are the brussels sprouts, bell peppers and beets.

This is a scallop squash, it sprouted this week too!

My onions are going CRAZY!

THERE IS HOPE YET! That I may get tomatoes this year! My two striped cherry tomatoes have sprouted, along with the yellow brandywines and a great white! I am so excited!

April showers? Not here.

I think it may be the time of the year, but I'm getting all nesty.

What I mean is that I want a place of my own, so that I can paint and decorate and garden to my hearts content and not worry that my landlord is going to sue me. If anyone knows of a landlord that will let me go crazy (in a totally controled, organized way) let me know. Until then I will dream.
This is a house that is for sale in Springville, we have been looking at, since they are only asking $124,ooo for it. We might even go look at it next week when we are in town. The crazy side- it is only 714 square feet. We don't even think our car will fit into the garage, but we also think that is perfect. I did think it needed some sprucing up in the front yard, so I designed it. Sorry for the sad quality, the drawing was larger than my scanner, so I had to scan it 5 times and piece it together (without photoshop). Alot of the color didn't show up, and it is a little uneven in places.


I am essentially getting rid of all but a 4-5' strip of lawn in front (to blend in with neighbors) and filling in with a few native shrubs like snowberry (Ceanothus velutinus) or little leaf mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus intricatus), fernbush (Chamaebatiaria millefolium) that you can treat like a perennial and cut back every year, mormon tea (Ephedra viridis) or scotch broom, a few ornamental shrubs like dwarf mugo pine (Pinus mugo pumilla), magic carpet spirea (Spiraea japonica hybrid) and maybe even a rose of sharon (Hibiscus syriacus). Fill in with beautiful perennials, a few annuals and groundcovers, and it is good. OH, and I moved the tree, it needs to be nearer to the driveway to balance the space.

What this drawing doesn't show is that this property has practically a 12' park strip. Perfect, I say, for raised garden beds, I mean, what else are you going to do with a 12' hell strip? And since there are large trees all around the property, it probably gets the most sun of anywhere on the property.

In my design I was totally inspired by this garden in Better Homes and Gardens shown here and at the beginning of the post, it is a garden in Alaska (which I totally respect- high altitude gardening is SO hard). I love the use of lawn edging then another edge of river rock embeded into the edge, it makes such a great impact.