T-3 Days

We're in party mode around here!!!! Praying for good weather, and getting together the goodies. It seems like it would be pretty simple to throw a party, but when you're trying to be healthy and environmentally responsible- apparently that is pretty difficult.

Fun, healthy food for the party as well as some goodies. Making a cake and realizing about food dye in the icing. Icky plastic beach balls for the kids. Even picking up a new propane tank for the barbeque makes me feel a bit self conscious. I think this is going to take me a few years to perfect- not a good project to undertake in 3 days - so I'll make it a future goal to make an awesome, fun, healthy, sustainable party. Maybe in time for birthday # 3.

Oh hooray- our fence is finished! We won't have to worry about little munchkins taking a nosedive off of the edge of a yard (it is a 3-6 foot mini cliff). The fence is the cutest, most wonderful picket fence in the world and I'm already planning on next year's plants to put there. It completes the yard so wonderful. Actually, the entire yard will be so wonderful next year. Raspberries, Cherries, Peach-Plums, Strawberries. I think that I will be sad to leave it when we build our hypothetical farm. (Did I mention that I have picked out a plan?)

It's time to put my baby girl to bed for one of the last times before she's a little girl

Looking ahead to the big 0-2!

We're T-4 days until Avari's 2nd birthday. My baby is going to be an official toddler! It's funny because 2 and a half years ago, I was assuming that I would probably be ready to burst with baby number 2 by now.

Funny how things change! Other than regret for my other favourite unused baby names, I'm pretty content with our three person family. Luckily Kevin feels the same way. Since we're still going through nights of interrupted sleep with the occasional break, it's hard to imagine going back there again for another 2+ years.

Right now we have dreams of our own little farm. A place for us to grow our own food, raise meat and pets. Have a spot for Avari to run wild all day in between schooling sessions. Our own orchard, grape vines.... doesn't that sound incredible! The world is getting to a very scary place as far as food sustainability and availability, and I'd love to create our own little niche in the planet. Granted, we know nothing about farming (and considering that the only thing thriving from my newly planted garden is one zucchini plant and some peas), we have alot to learn! We were very lucky to have gotten in the market at a good time, and we've secured good equity in our house. I'm hoping that the equity we have will be enough to buy us a few acres of land and then we can build a house with the cost of our existing mortgage. The best thing yet is that Kevin agrees with me! *

(* Those who know me know of my weekly new dream/scheme and it's up to Kevin to bring me back to earth)

So, it seems like this might actually be a really down to earth smart idea and we've set a time line of 3.5 years and here's to hoping that the dreams can come to fruition!

Some photos to share

I forgot to add this on my last post- working for Karen also has an even bigger perk- I'm learning so much about how to take better photos. Here are some to share from this month





look at how in focus her eyes are at 2.8f !





























CATCHLIGHTS!!!!!!!!






I went on a nature walk last month and it was wonderful!



























Beautiful morning window light!

I was so proud at how even lighting I got this photo




























Avari wants to wear her tutu everywhere!

Reinventing the Blog

So, it's been 2 months since i've posted- bad on me again! I've been trying to muster up something interesting to write, since I subscribe to a heck of a lot of good blogs. I want to be able to reciprocate with something equally enjoyable, and it just felt like everything was pretty blah di blah.

I think I'm becoming inspired to write not only about my daily life, but to issues that really matter for me. As you can see from my last post in April, I was looking to become a more responsible citizen, and voila - it's been working! My compost is baking away and starting to resemble some gorgeous rich earth and my garden is flourishing (with the exception of the plants I keep having to replace from the beetles and slugs). I should be able to start harvesting some lettuce leaves next week, and the first blossom has appeared on my 5 foot tall pea plants. Even though I don't like to eat tomatoes, I have 24 plants in the greenhouse which will hopefully provide us with tomato sauce and salsa for the winter.

This year's garden is technically a trial run for me, because I've never in my life gardened before. I have been learning a ton, and am ready to stockpile seeds and plan out a good companion garden for next year. I stumbled upon companion gardening this month as I replanted cucumber and corn seedlings for the 3rd time as they were being completely sheared off at the base. Obviously not a fan of pesticides, but desperate to be able to make pickles I went searching for answers.

Companion Gardening! - The act of planting certain plants together that are beneficial and deter bugs. So far, my cucumbers and corn have survived 3 days with the help of marigolds and nasturtiums. Nasturtiums truly have become my own best companion - they have beautiful foliage and you can eat the flowers and they deter bugs from eating the veggies- what can be better than that!

Enough about the garden for now. It's Avari's birthday coming up on the solstice. She is such a doll! I asked her today how old she will be

2! *

(*OK - there may have been a teensy little bit of conditioning there...)

But, what I didn't condition her to do is pick out the letter B on a page and tell me what it was. I fluke I thought, so I have asked her a few more times since and she was bang on each time. So, she knows the letter B - and she's started to sing some of the songs we do at toddler time/

I've been in a bit of a panic this week, because we do many fun things every week, and one by one they are closing down for the summer. The Family Place does stay open though which is a lifesaver for the pair of us!

On the work front. I am having so much fun working for Karen this summer assisting for weddings. Besides being an incredible photographer, she is the most awesome positive person in the world and so much fun to be around! I look forward to the weekends that I get to take the ferry over the island. I wish that we post lived on the same side of the water so that I could work for her permanently! ( I would definitely have better taste in music if we hung out more ).

So, I'm going to promise to blog something very insightful everyday all summer - I promise!!!! I'll share more photos, and hopefully I'll have more crafty stuff to share!

Being a Responsible Citizen

My goal this summer is to become more sustainable. I've been working on this for a LONG time, but it doesn't seem to be progressing at a pace that makes me happy.

Since we get our produce and dry goods in a weekly bin and our meat in a monthy box, that saves us on a huge amount of crappy plastic bags. Somehow, my kitchen and laundry room and STILL becoming overrun with them. I am however recycling all of those extra bags so that makes me somewhat feel better. My goal though is to bring in NO plastic bags to the house. I have a market bag and 2 reusable grocery bags as well as a couple of canvas bags but they don't end up coming with me in the car. Need to make a plan to help this!

Reducing the amount of waste that goes out. Recycle, recycle, recycle. I'm doing a ton better and now that I have built our compost- that's saving us about a plastic grocery bag a week of waste. My goal is to only have 1 bag a week of garbage leaving the house. (and that will make it more enticing to purchase biodegradable expensive waste bags). There really is no excuse to having even a full bag of garbage going out of the house considering you can recycle so much, and compost. What is getting thrown out? I have to figure this out.

I need more ideas...

Great Soup

I have to post this recipe before I forget!

-Make a rue from coconut oil, onions and garlic
-Add can of coconut milk, 2 tbsp curry powder and simmer
-brown a lb of ground beef in a frying pan
-When the coconut milk has simmered and thickened fill the pot with water and chopped veggies
(I added broccoli, baby bok choy, bean sprouts,mushrooms and celery)
-Add the ground beef and juices, and a cup of pearl barley
-If you want it a bit thicker then add a cup of milk
- I added some different spices, salt and pepper to taste

YUMMY!

Oops- I've done it again!

OK- I need to start a new rule. Blog everyday, or else I'll lose my readers (do I have any?)

Everything gearing up for spring is getting even busier. I've been finished work for a month now, and the days have been even more full if that is possible!

I'm determined to have a garden, I've been tilling up a storm. Avari's little garden area is almost finished, just waiting for the bizarre weather to be over so we can plant some little seeds for her. She's been helping fill it up with worms! I've constructed a compost and it's filling up quite quickly as we do the yard work. I'd say that the front yard is about 80% done. Just needs a couple more hours of tilling and weeding and some gorgeous new soil, some edging and presto!

We've also been keeping our weekends busy constructing and making things. Besides the compost, I've dyed some playsilks with kool-aid, made a wooden spindle and a birdhouse. We're planning on making Avari a set of playstands in may that have some shelves for her to play with and then a playsilk can be draped over for shade.


She already loves her little table set we created for her out of some old stumps that were left in our backyard




All in all, I suspect that I will have the front yard done by April 15th, then it will be the construction of the backyard garden and seed planting for May 1st. Yea me!

My crafting has been lacking due to lots of tax stuff, and doing my new advertising job- that has to be done in the evenings, and it's alot of set up work. April 13th I start my photography assistant job and I'm SOOOOOOOO stoked about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, after quitting work, I now have 3 jobs and a fulltime mom slot all wrapped up in to a day, and I LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm also catching up on technology. I'm getting a cell phone- a blackberry and it's PINK! yippee! I can now check email all day, any time of the day, and do MSN stuff all day. I'm not going to get in to web surfing, but it has an organizer, so instead of having a zillion little pieces of paper getting lost in my pocket - they will now be engrained in my new beloved toy. Can you tell i'm excited and it's not even here yet!

I got a wonderful little gift in the mail today. I'm so fortunate to be a part of a great group of mommas online and we're doing a mother's day swap. Today I got a little note in hte mail with 3 beautiful handmade gift cards that are getting put in a frame as soon as I can get back to the store to get one. Thanks so much secret sister!!!!!!

OK- back to do a few rows of my spring cardigan before naptime is over