Planting A Garden

Last weekend Steve built me a raised bed garden. During the winter I read/studied about Square Foot Gardening and convinced myself that I could do it. After all both my parents are/were gardeners, Dan gardens and Bill landscapes - seems like it should be in the genes. We shall see.

Needing to see progress lettuce and strawberry plants were purchased and planted. Being a little daring lettuce, spinach and sugar snap pea seeds were also planted.

This is one week later. We may have salad tonight!!!
I bought another strawberry plant, the type that bears fruit all season and 4 spinach plants.
I may not be patient enough to be a farmer, but I will try.

Spring Break

This year we hung out at home and enjoyed the summer weather. We had record highs 4 days in a row. The nightly lows were higher than the normal highs. It was glorious.

 I planted pansies, transplanted grasses, painted the kitchen, tore apart the office and put it back better than ever, read 4 books, walked the dog, and anything that would allow me to be outside.

Seeing the woods coming back to life so early in the season makes me very happy.

So happy that pansies are now residing on our porch.

Happy Spring to Everyone!

Band Concert

The east side 8th grade bands joined together one Sunday afternoon for an amazing concert.

Each of the 3 schools showed us how good they were as an individual school. They then came together for two amazing songs.

Don't bother looking for CJ, he played bass clarinet and is hiding in the middle left.

Enjoy.

Bread in 5 Minutes a Day?

Could it be possible to make bread every day with little work?  After reading Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day  I decided to give it a try. The first day takes about 15 minutes of 'work' and then 2 hours of waiting. I mixed the ingredients and put them in this container.



Two hours later the dough had risen and was then put in the refrigerator to be used later.


The next day I pulled off a hunk of dough, shaped it, let it rest and then baked it.

Not sure that a whole 5 minutes was spent actively involved with bread making on baking day.
Am very sure that the bread was yummy.

The lessons learned were:
dust with less flour
use hot water for steam
close the oven faster
and
given the opportunity CJ would eat bread for every meal.

Homework Buddies

 

IELA homework is much more fun with a buddy, and pizza!

Witchcraft and Wizardry

This is my wizarding bag.

I believe it has an 'extension charm' on it as it holds much more than one would expect.

First I read the spell book,

Then use a magic wand,

To turn this ball of yarn,

Into a beautiful scarf.

Magic!

Winter Orchestra Concert

Another fabulous concert from the 8th grade orchestra.

Cat Toy

 This toy is made from the edges left over from making a fleece blanket.
It was intended to be a toy for Tucker.

 

This is not Tucker.
This is no longer Tucker's toy!

Fresh Bread

If only you had a scratch and sniff computer!!!
Fresh baked bread smells so good.
Don't tell the boys that this is 100% whole grain bread,
 they might decide they don't like it!

Fresh bread has once again become a weekly thing. The bread machine used to get a lot of use, but then I got tired of the strangely shaped loaves and the hard crust. To fix that I now I let the bread machine do most of the work, then the dough goes into a loaf pan and soon enough we have a 'normal' looking loaf of bread.

Solo & Ensemble Contest

CJ and two friends performed as a woodwind trio this past Saturday .
This is them waiting to find out what there score was.
Their teacher was impressed, saying that they played the piece better for the judge than they had during practice. The judge had 2 comments, the first I didn't understand and the second was a complement.
The boys eventually gave up on waiting for the score and opted to go home and do non-school things.
Turns out they got a 1 which is awesome!
Congrats!

Finally Did It

This is the chair that we thought about buying for more than a year.
Now that it is ours, I think I want another one!
The cat really likes it when I sit in it. He jumps up and makes himself comfortable on my lap.
The dog does not like it when Steve sits in it, as there is not enough room for the both of them.
Hmmm...I wonder if they make one big enough for Tucker.

(In case you are wondering, that is Pia looking in the window.)

Winter?

This picture was taken last week. In winters past I would only see my toes when it was time to bathe.
I have seen my toes frequently this winter. On this day it was warm enough that I wore flip flops to an evening appointment. While the calendar may say February it felt like spring.
Then it got cold, really cold. Strong winds made it even colder. I didn't post this picture because it seemed silly when it was so cold out. As of yesterday it is back to being very warm for February and my toes are again visible.
Some people (in this house & elsewhere) are really missing winter. Not me, the warmish days, the beautiful blue skies and the toes that are only cold when I walk outside in my bare feet make me smile.

Weekend Fun

What do you do for fun on a winter weekend when there is no snow to speak of and the 'slopes' are covered in an icy granular mixture the reminds us of the Pocono's in the late 80's, been there/done that - yuck.

Bowling works for us.

 

Winter Arrives...maybe

Yep, the outside temperature says 9.

That was back in January when the temperature was either 50 or 10.

Sometimes it's snowing, sometimes it's raining.

 Now that February is half over it seems that we might actually be experiencing winter.

Happy Valentine's Day

Wishing a wonderful Valentine's Day to my boys!