I have garden envy.

I had to put my garden to bed early this year because of our move and I still haven't gotten around to putting in a fall garden like I had planned. Probably too late now. Meanwhile, the next door neighbor has a beautiful garden. I peek through the fence at the vines of beans and the tomatoes turning red. With the beautiful weather, we've been eating our evening meal outside on the patio and I end up just looking at her garden, trying to identify everything. Beets, potatoes, onions, peppers, climbing squash and a raspberry patch. She has a peach tree too! She was out trying to save a heavy branch by picking some of the fruit. My children put on their poor urchin looks and she sent a bag of peaches home with them. What a nice lady. She even lets them catch grasshoppers in her garden. They love that. I watched her tonight, walking around the plants, talking to them a little, and picking a few ripe tomatoes and a zucchini.
Sigh...
Now I sit here dreaming of my someday garden. Maybe it will look something like this.

from CountryLiving.com

An award!

Ha! Got that image on here on my third try! I'm fairly new to the blogging world, and I really don't know what I'm doing. I can barely remember to title my posts, let alone figure this out, but I'll do my best. And maybe someone can explain the whole award thing to me?

Sharon, over at Life with Jack and Jill, awarded this to me.

I am supposed to say why I blog, how I choose what to write about, and then pass the award on. Simple enough. Let's see if I can mess it up...

WHY: I found as I searched the web for specific things that many times I found great answers and better ideas from blogs. From gardening, to cooking to building, someone has tried it and has advice. It is fun to get a peek into others experiences and then maybe build on those. I have lots of projects in the air and I love trying new things, so I started blogging to kind of journal my experiences and maybe help someone else along. I also love the feeling of meeting people that have similar interests. It's nice to know I'm not the only weirdo out there. :)

HOW: I'm not sure I've found my writing style yet. Sometimes ideas just flow and sometimes, I have nothing to write about except my daughter being sick during the night. Many times during the day, I think, "I should write that on my blog" but I don't have time right then and I forget. So what makes it on my blog is sometimes something that's been on my mind for a while that needs to come out and sometimes it's just silly little things.

Now, to pass it on. I think I'll hand it to Kelly from Some-things Cookin'. She and I seem to be on the same path and I really enjoy reading about her journey. She has also been so nice and supportive and has led me to almost all of my favorite blogs.

So there we have it. Now what?

Comforting

I knew the minute we bought our mini van that someone would get something slammed in one of those sliding doors. I assumed it would be one child slamming another child's fingers. I was wrong.
My four year old daughter slammed her very own arm in the door. -she has a special talent for hurting herself in new and interesting ways- I didn't see exactly how it happened, I was gathering my bags, but I heard the thud and knew from the long moment of silence (as she sucked in breath to scream) that it hurt pretty bad.
I helped the sobbing little girl to the house and into the kitchen where we found the freezer door wide open with her five year old brother standing on a chair, pulling out the ice cube tray to make an ice pack for her arm. As I took over the ice pack job, he ran to the bedroom to get her favorite fuzzy blanket and asked her what movie would make her feel better so he could get it started.
I guess he was listening as we explained his vocabulary words...

Comforting: something comforting makes you feel better when you are hurt of afraid.

Generosity

I think I have just fallen in love with the idea of planting more than what you need in the garden and sharing with those unable to grow garden goodness.
Due to our move, my garden had to be put to bed. We weren't there to tuck it in on a few chilly nights and it died. I wasn't there to take care of it or harvest things anyway, but I'm still kind of sad to be done already. I'm not done having those summer vegetable meals from the garden.
We moved to a place where peoples gardens are still going pretty strong and it is kind of depressing that I don't have my garden here and I don't really know anyone to beg a tomato off of. I was moaning to my husband about it and how I've only met a few young mothers who surely don't garden, we can't afford to buy much at the farmer's market, and grocery store tomatoes just aren't the same.
The very next morning, I went to a neighborhood playgroup for the first time and almost immediately, one of the other mothers asked if anyone was interested in some produce. I was so grateful to be blessed by her generosity. I doubt she realized what a blessing her over abundant garden was to me. We already ate the zucchini and I have a lovely bowl of tomatoes sitting on the counter just waiting to be part of a B.L.T.

Fighting chaos

I haven't written anything in a while. We moved. And life is absolute chaos. Seriously.
We have lived with my parents for the past two years. TWO YEARS. We get along with my parents and they were not there all that much: all in all, it went well. But, my mom's house is full of STUFF. It's not all her fault, though. My parents have six kids and each of us has left things under beds, hanging in closets and stuffed into dressers as we moved on in our lives. She's too nice to just toss it all, so add all that STUFF together, and you have a full house. We squeezed the bare minimum of our things and ourselves into that house. It was only supposed to be for a few months. A year and a half later, we added a baby and all the STUFF that comes with them. It was a tight fit, so I'm very happy to be in our own place and glad that we have our belongings out of storage.
The chaos, though, is a result from my STUFF. After my experience these past two years, I decided to really get tough and get rid of all the unnecessary junk in my life. Unfortunately, I only have so much time to go through things. I have boxes to be gone through under my desk, next to my bed, shoved in shelves and closets... it's everywhere. It's going to drive me crazy, I think. It's hard knowing where to start. If I could get through everything in the closets, then I could actually store things in there that I want to keep, and that would bring peace to the house. If I start under the desk, I'll be going through papers for the next week, but it would make life here much more pleasant, and I just might find that box of checks that I need. The boxes near my bed need to go, but that will require my going through clothing and I'll have to decide what's worth hanging on to for the baby to grow in to and what can be donated. Then there are my many projects in different stages of creation. They need a home... the closet maybe?
So that's where I've been and where I will be for a while. Trying to tame this beast called STUFF!