Thy Garden Overflow-eth (with zucchini)

My garden is backwards. When it was rainy here my garden struggled along and the few squash I had rotted. Now that it is 1,000 100+ my garden is thriving like no other. Or maybe that's the kind of weather zucchini like. I don't really know, I just plant things and hope for the best!

And for those of you who don't want to scroll down a few posts who don't remember what our garden looked like just a few weeks ago, here it is

Tis just a lil' thing

And here it is today!

Big Mama-Jama

One thing I have learned is that next year I don't need to plant 8 yellow squash and 8 zucchini plants- 2 or 3 of each will be fine. I will also have a second bed for the vine-y plants (squash, pumpkins, etc) and put all my peppers, tomatoes, green onions in a bed all by themselves. By some miracle the tomatoes I started from seeds are still growing and are now sprouting flowers, but the peppers were overtaken by the pumpkin plant. Survival of the fittest I guess. And speaking of pumpkins, we have one-

Hellllooooo pumpkin!

And we have another teeny, tiny one I just noticed today.

Awww... a baby...

We may be carving our pumpkins in September, but my kids are too young to call shenanigans so it's all good.

Here are the little squash on the vines

Peek-a-boo, I see green onions!

I also planted some green onions that I was sure were gone, but I parted the Vine-y Sea and found them. Just like I had left them weeks ago.

So I yanked those suckers out to have on our baked potatoes tonight

Failure to thrive 

My Garden Bounty

And if we could please have a moment of silence for our fallen friend.....

RIP Cilantro, you will be missed in all future guacamole....

The right half of this box was cilantro, the left half of this box is a weed

And the irony is that I planted the cilantro in a window box so I could bring it inside when the weather started to get hot since cilantro is a big baby when it comes to the heat. Ah well, maybe I will try again this fall. 

Luckily the basil is doing well and so are the cherry tomatoes. 

Yum...basil...

This is a bad photo because I stepped outside with out shoes on and the concrete was HOT!!!

And now I will bring this boring post to a close!

BE the gazelle...

Today I vow to be the gazelle. Well, maybe not THE gazelle, but A gazelle. Haven't a clue what I am talking about? Allow me to explain.

Dave Ramsey. At the mention of this name, you are either nodding your head and mentally high five-ing me OR you are shaking your head in disgust.  Dave is sort of a love him or hate him guy, there isn't really much in between. Previously I was of the hate him not so fond on him mindset. Sell your house and your cars? Great idea Dave, now these people will be broke, homeless, and lacking transportation.

Then our church offered Financial Peace University and we heard testimony of couples that had gone through the program and (ta da!) had found financial peace. I looked it up online and still felt it was a bit extreme, putting every penny towards your debt and anything extra at the end of the month goes to that debt too. Where is the wiggle room? It seemed like a fad diet- looks great on paper but can you realistically put it into practice? Sure it is easy to vow to never eat out and never buy yourself another pair of shoes again, but life happens. I mean, we aren't swimming in debt. Aside from my school loans and our house we are debt free. We paid cash for my car, we do not carry credit card balances. We're ok... right???

In an effort to bridge the gap and learn more about this Dave and his program, I got his book "Total Money Makeover" and read it front to back in 3 days. Here is what I learned: 1.Dave has been there. He has been to the bottom and gotten back to the top, I give the guy a round of applause! 2.He is funny, I found myself laughing aloud while reading, which I wasn't expecting. 3.While I still feel his plan is a bit extreme, it can be modified (although his book pretty much says the opposite. I feel now that I have read the book, I get Dave on a different level. We're homies. Brotha's from otha Motha's, if you will. I am sure if we were in person he would give me the green light to just go ahead and alter his plan slightly 'cause we're tight like that...) 4.Debt is debt. And I have been in denial (De Nile, it's not just a river in Egypt!) about my student loans and just how big they are. I have called the school and offered to return my degree as I am not using it, but they spouted off some lame excuse about, "That's not how a college degree works..." Whatever. So, after taking some artistic licensing with Good 'ol Dave's plan, we will officially own that Art Degree in 14-15ish months. And to give you some idea of just how much this lovely art degree is worth, I could buy 33 iphones, 10 Samsung 51" Plasma TV's, and a zero turn John Deere mower with a 62" deck. Faaaaannnnnntastic....

So, while I won't be the gazelle, I am going to be a gazelle. I won't be the leader signalling danger to the group, but I won't be the slowest gazelle that gets eaten either. We will tighten our belts a little, set a budget, and hopefully be better off in the long run.

Who knew photos could hurt?

Since I am always the one behind the camera, I asked Jim to get a picture of me with the girls for Mother's Day. And yes, I know Mother's Day was over a month ago- what can I say? I'm slow to get things posted.

Anyway.

Apparently taking a photo with Mom is a bit like torture. Who knew?

This one time, at band camp...

Ok, so it wasn't band camp, but it was band class. When I was a freshman in high school, Jim was a senior. A super cool trumpet playing, varsity soccer playing senior. And man, was he a hottie. My first REAL crush. He drove an old boat of a car and I would've given my left arm to ride in it. But, alas, 3 years is just too big an age gap while in high school. He graduated and moved on. Sigh....

Fast forward 5ish years, Winnetonka had it's first (and only) band reunion. Surprisingly enough, lots of old band members showed up, including Jim. I didn't actually want to go to this reunion, but my parents were very involved in Band Parents while my brothers and I were in band, and since I didn't have anything better to do, I went along with them. And boy am I glad I did. It really was fun to see friends I hadn't seen in years, and when the reunion ended, we continued the party at Jim's duplex that he shared with another fellow band alum (and another friend). I ended up staying last (surprise!) and Jim drove me home since I had hitched a ride to the reunion with my 'rents. We stayed in touch and I asked Jim to be my date to my brother's wedding, our first "real" date. Ok, now this is debatable because 1.) I am not sure a wedding is a first real date and 2.) We had actually gone to dinner at Jeremiah Johnson's when they did their dry-run before opening to the public- but that was a free meal. So probably that was our first date, but whatever. That night, as Jim helped me pull out the 10,000 100 bobby pins in my hair, I told him that I was going to marry him. And his response? "We'll see."

Ha, I showed him. Roughly a yearish (like how exact I am on my dates?) We were engaged, and 6 months after that we were married. 6.5 years and 3 kids later, we are still going strong. I thank God every day for my amazing husband. I remember being young (which makes me sound really old- but I am going to my 10 year high school reunion in a week, so I guess I am getting a little old) and praying to God to send me a boyfriend, to send me someone who makes me feel special. And He did. Not on my timing, but on His. And I am so incredibly thankful.

Paper Mama Challenge

I am pretty sure anyone who reads this blog sees all my photos on facebook, but for those of you who aren't on facebook  because I find my children extremely adorable- here it is again. The one and only photo I was able to get of K and A looking at the camera. And I swear to you I am not joking. Someone is always running away, or crying, or blinking, or crying, or crying. Yes I mentioned crying 3 times. Get two strong-headed toddlers and a bossy big sister together and there is bound to be crying. Times 3.

And in an attempt to broaden my blogging horizons, I am entering this once-in-a-lifetime photo in the Paper Mama Photo Challenge. Goooooo me!

Here they are, daughters 2 & 3 at one year. I only had to take 98 shots to get this one.

Link up and enter, because if I can figure out how to do it, I know you can too. And probably in half the time it took me...

Color Me Green!

It started slowly. When Jim and I got married, we lived within the city limits and we were only allowed two bags of trash, but we were provided with a recycle bin and free recycling. We started recycling and noticed that our trash fit in one bag. So I started looking for other ways to cut back. I started using old rags to clean with instead of paper towels. Then I replaced our paper napkins with cloth napkins. I am really cheap and appreciate a good bargain. And the fact that I was helping mother nature was simply another plus. I was saving money and saving the planet, a win-win for all! Then I discovered craigslist and freecycle. Both are great places to pass along items to a new home. I have found a few items and I have re-homed a ton more. Then, when the twinners came along, we decided to give cloth diapering a try. We don't do it 100% of the time (more like 60-75% depending on the week) but it has helped cut down on the amount of diapers we use, which in turn saves us money.

In the past few weeks, I have decided to take my Green outside. We have planted a garden. It's small and has flaws, but I am excited none the less! We took dirt from an oddly placed flowerbed to fill it with and used scrap board from my dad. Emily helped me plant the seeds and get them started, then we moved them to the raised bed.

Garden

We also have cilantro. The other half of this window bucket is supposed to be oregano, but we haven't seen any yet.

With Stacey's help, I sawed down my gutter and put up a rain barrel to water the garden. Fancy, isn't it? My in laws gave us this.

We have also added a composter for all those garden scraps. Although, it smells mainly of coffee since it is about 50% full of coffee grounds. What can I say? I like my coffee!

This stuff (minus the pink flowers) is all weeds, but don't they look nice? =) 

Cherry Tomato Plants

It's not much but every little bit helps. Plus, Emily enjoys helping me take our banana peels and coffee grounds out to the composter, and she LOVES to help me fill our water cans from the rain barrel and water all the plants.

Cherry Tomatoes

We are also growing basil. The basil has some prime real estate alongside some awesome weeds!

And today we sowed the first fruits of our labor, 1 cherry tomato. Dinner is served!

And this is my 5th post this month. Which is the same number of posts I had all last year. 

Missed Opportunity

Today we were at the Library checking out books to knock out list One of our Summer Reading Program. Maybe I had a case of the Montuesdays (which is a case of the Mondays when your first "official" day of the week starts on Tuesday due to a Holiday) but I was feeling a little short-fused. A woman stopped us to ask if Kate and Audrey were twins, which usually doesn't bother me. Who doesn't love babies? And two of them? By all means, I love to hear how cute my kids are- but today I politely stopped for a moment, thanked the woman and proceeded on in. Emily is 3 and has been acting it lately. Not that she is bad, she's just 3 and I have to remember that. I just wanted to get the Library trip done and back in the car.

While in the children's section checking out books, I saw other mothers. Mothers who had patience, mothers who were reading and doing puzzles with their kids. All of which made me feel like the Bad Mommy because I simply wanted to get our books, get home, and not make too much of a scene with 3 children age 3 and under (which, as it turns out, is darn near impossible). As we walked around and got our books, I noticed a little boy (I would have guessed about age 2) with his dad. This little dude had one arm that ended at his elbow. I didn't notice it in a negative way but in more of the same way when you notice a child has curly hair, or lots of freckles, or is short/tall. I simply noticed. And if we hadn't almost mowed him down with our train stroller, I probably wouldn't have noticed him at all.

The theme of this post is 'I just wanted to leave', in case you hadn't picked up on it. But, when Emily asked if we could stop and do some puzzles the aforementioned Bad Mommy Guilt crept into my head and I told her she could do one puzzle. Emily sat down and ended up sitting across from the little dude who was almost our ninth first stroller casualty of the day. Emily is waaaayyy into other kids right now. She says 'hi' to anyone and everyone, asks me if we can go to the houses of people we pass while driving, and gets genuinely offended when the kid 3 cars over doesn't see her wave. While doing her puzzle, Emily looked over at Little Dude and said to me, "Mommy, why is his arm like that?" Now, this is a moment I had practiced over and over in my head. Not all scenarios were kids, but I practiced what I would say to Emily when she did start to notice that people are different and what I would say when she pointed it out. When I practiced in my head, the scene would start much like it did today. Emily would take notice of someone who was not like her and point it out. Not in a bad way, but simply in that innocent child way- much like asking 'why', she simply wanted to know. In my head, I would tell her that God made us all different, and because of these differences we are all very special. We would go on to talk about how if we were all the same the world would be a boring place. In my head, she would ask questions "Can he throw a ball? Does it hurt?" and I would explain that he could do everything she could do. It doesn't hurt, he was born that way and he was perfect, just like she was. In my head, I had all the right answers.

And in real life, I had a brain-lapse. Maybe it was the Montuesdays, maybe I didn't think Emily was old enough to notice, maybe I just simply didn't think when I saw Little Dude that this would be my opportunity to make my child aware and open to differences. Whatever it was, when Emily asked me about Little Dude, I panicked and said, "He was born that way, that's how he was made." End of explanation.  After a brief pause, Little Dude's dad spoke up and said, "Yep he was born that way. It doesn't hurt him and he can do all the things you can do!"

I was crushed. What I had done? Or better yet, why didn't I do more? I am sure I looked like a crazy self-centered mother in the eyes of Little Dude's dad. And yes, I am sure he answers that question a lot and will for years to come, but I am very disappointed in myself. I know that this isn't the only time I will be faced with a difficult question, but I still feel like I let my kids down. Like I let Little Dude down. I can only hope that next time I am able to summons my inner Super Mom and have all the right answers. That should I flub and get caught off guard I will be able to get back on track and redeem myself. I'm sorry Em. I'm sorry Little Dude.