Donating!

***  Warning:  If you are one of my sisters, and you want to be surprised by this in person, read NO FARTHER!!!!!!!  ***

A couple weeks ago, I was combing Sweetpea's hair after a bath and I said "your hair is down to your butt!"  Her response was "oooohhhhh!  We should cut it and donate it!"  Now, she is only 3, so you can imagine my surprise.  Munch has donated her hair twice in her 11 years.  But not in the last 2 years.  It seemed hard to believe that Sweetpea could remember her sister doing that.  They must have talked about it at some time or another.  Ya know, as sisters are wont to do even if there is an 8 year difference between them.

We decided to wait until after the recital was over.  So I could more easily pin her hair back.

Last night after her bath, we downloaded the form from Locks of Love, and set to work.

Sweetpea is having a great time telling how it all happened.  Here's her version of it (in her words, but without her little Sweetpea accent):
First, we picked out a rubber band.  A pink one.
And mama put it in my hair in a pony tail.
I had to hold really still.
Then mama cut the pony tail off!
[fit of goofy girl giggles]
The whole pony tail!!
[hand motions and more giggles]

12 inches.  Oddly, this was very difficult for me.  I sorta felt like i was cutting off one of her limbs.  Like it would hurt her or something.  Not sure why I felt like that.  I'm usually not one to be so sentimental about things like that.  But...

I'm loving the new look!

So fresh and cute.

I think she's loving it too.

What Happens When Life Runs Away With You?

This.  This is what happens when it is heavy planting season and the recital is coming up and the house falls into a spiral of disorder and...  This is what happens when you find your kids saying "salad [or sandwiches or eggs] for dinner again?

But that's all over now.  We're into garden maintenance mode.  The costumes have been gathered or made and danced in. 

I've got some po-ta-toes to salvage!

(Hey, no one can say I can't grow anything!)

A Sister's Garden

I have 4 wonderful sisters.  We get together often and have a great time.  Last week, while 2 of my sisters went on a trip to North Carolina (welcome home!!!!!!!!!), I got the chance to hang with another one of my sisters twice!  Twice in one week!  She lives an hour away in PA, so we don't see each other as often as we'd like. 

This year, she decided that she wanted to plant a garden.  Much to my excitement, she asked me to help her design and plant it.  Early last week, I took the kids to her place, had a sleepover, and then planted her garden the next morning.  'Twas really fun!

Her garden, being her first ever garden, is 3ft by 12ft.  She wanted tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, green beans, and onions.  We chose 3 tomatoes - 1 Debaro paste, 1 Bellstar paste, and 1 Medford field; 2 sweet peppers - 1 King of the North bell, 1 Lipstick;  1 hot pepper - we had chosen a Hot Portugal, but a lil bunny ate it, so we replaced it with an Anaheim;  Provider green beans;  Black Eel zucchini;  and onions grown from onion sets. 

Right after planting.

Hurray for sprouting seeds!!!  Always one of the most exciting parts of gardening (next to harvesting the yummies, that is).

With bunny protection and replaced plants.

Isn't it cute?!  I think I'm just as excited about her garden as she is!  (Thanks for letting me be a part of it all, sis!!)

Gardening is a never ending spiral.  Once you start, you can't stop.  You constantly think of how next year's garden will be bigger, better, different.  You learn from your mistakes and from your successes.  Happy accidents happen.  Losses occur.  It's challenging and exciting.  Each year is different.  Gardening is dynamic.

This was one of the wettest springs I can remember.  We are just now caught up on getting things in the ground in our own garden.  Now that things have slowed a bit in the garden, I'm hoping to have the chance to take some pics of it and post them.  After all, this will be our last year of gardening at my sister in laws house.  Next year, we'll be able to garden at the farmhouse we bought.  Hopefully we'll be living there as well!  Right now, we are dealing with the challenges of buying an old farmhouse.  But!  We now have a working well.  That's some progress!

How does your garden grow?

Totally Hilarious!!!

Hi.  My name is Alayne.  And, I'm a geek...

There is this website with truly funny comics for the geeky person called xkcd.  Some of them are over my head, but some of them make me howl with laughter.  Nick forwarded me this particular comic today.  Ohmigosh!!!  I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.  It totally made my entire day (not that it was a particularly bad one, mind you).  I just want to share it with everyone I know.

Hope you enjoy it!  Happy Friday everyone!  And, have a wonderful weekend.

Cinnamon-Apple Fairy

She loves apples with cinnamon sprinkled on top.

She loves to dress up in her sister's old dance costumes.

I love her little fairy feet.

Inside Out

Hi everyone!!  It has been a long time.  We've been up to our ears in stuff to do, and blogging has been the last thing on my seemingly endless things to do.  But, today, I thought I'd pop in to say hi.

Every year, I love to bring all my house plants out onto the back porch.  I finally did that on Monday.  They seem so much happier out there in the fresh air. 

When we finally get our new old farmhouse in livable condition, I'm going to miss this porch.  It's probably the thing about this house I will miss the most.  It's wide enough for a table.  Our farmhouse has 2 porches - a back porch that wraps around a bit, and a front porch.  Neither porch is wide enough to accommodate our table.  But, since I'm thrilled with the rest of the house and the property, we will happily figure out some alternative.

In addition to bringing the inside plants out, I like to plant some annuals in pots for splashes of color.

Here is where I enjoy taking my tea (or coffee depending on what the day has brought me).

Notice my bay tree in the dark green pot.  I just up potted that into a pot more than twice the size of the original!!!  Boy does it look MUCH happier in it's new home.  (Although a bit crooked, it seems...  Note to self:  take care of the crooked tree.)

And, a view from the swing into the back yard.

In the way back, by the fence, you can spot our compost bins.  We found some galvanized burn cans with predrilled holes in them at our local hardware store.  They are perfect for neighborhood dwellings since they keep out the animals.  Guess what is hiding in the bush right off the porch!?!?!?!?!

Yup!  You guessed it - baby cardinals.  How cute they are!

Rambling Organization

There are thousands of things keeping us busy these last few weeks.  First, and most importantly, was the purchase of our new old farmhouse.  Now making it livable will keep us busy for months to come.  Yay!

It's finally stopped raining enough for the ground to dry up.  Bright sunny days mean lots of catch-up work outside.  There's laundry to be hung (waiting so patiently in piles and piles and piles upstairs), potting soil to be made and tomatoes to be up potted, porches to be cleaned off, garden work, seed planting, grass mowing, ...  It's easy to get overwhelmed to the point where you are just standing in the kitchen with your hands on your head, shaking.

But, I've made a list.  It's miles long, but it's a list.  Each day I put the things I think can be accomplished in between the regular schoolwork, meal making, and housekeeping.  Today, I'm making soil, soil blocks, and up potting the tomatoes.  They are pretty much screaming to get out of their little 1/2 inch blocks.  Ok, ok, ... they've been screaming for about 2 weeks now.  Tonight we will have some friends over for a music night - fondly referred to as Guitar Night here. 

Tomorrow - garden work.  It will be so very nice when we can move into our new home and have the garden right there with us!  As it is now, I have to pack us all up for the day and head over to our garden. 

Slowly, we are getting our spring selves into gear.  Soaking up the sunshine and wonderful air.  Shedding the winter blues.  Wiping away the winter grime.  Planting seeds of all sorts.