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This Crazy Life

What’s going on, you ask?

  • We are headed camping this weekend. We reserved last minute so all we could get was the “group” site which holds up to 75 people (and 15 vehicles). Three families are going so it’s not toooo ridiculous. I’m calling it The Jamboree. I can’t wait. But of course this makes lots of work … to get ready for camping … again. The kids are beyond thrilled and not just because I got them new buckets and bug catchers.
  • My darling over-achieving husband added to our workload yesterday by getting MORE bedding plants at the nursery. He was there to get tomatoes and came home with a bunch more flowers to add to the beds. I was a bit peeved because remember how I hate gardening? Still do.
  • We braised a pork shoulder in Dr. Pepper last night … oh. my. word. We were supposed to take it camping with us but we underestimated how much it would cook down. Unfortunately we were left with about a cup of insanely tasty pulled pork and that will feed … maybe the kids? Maybe me? Not all of us though. Plan B. Costco also has pulled pork.
  • Speaking of cooking, you have probably noticed that the Cookbook Challenge has fallen by the way side. I had fun with it at first but then it got to be a chore, so I chucked it. I have enough chores. I’ll share a recipe when I really really love it. The end.
  • We found a piece of land we’re very interested in. There are about 15 hurdles (big ones) we have to jump through  and very few of them come with guarantees, but we’re very seriously looking into it.
  • I have been pretty slacky on the whole being healthy thing, but I had a serious talk with myself and decided I would correct this. It is actually going pretty well and I’m pleased with myself. Of course this is only Day 3.
  • Relatedly, I am really enjoying running right now. I’ve been chilling more about mileage and just focusing on having good enjoyable runs. Matt and I did a great session at Table Mountain on Saturday. I want to get out to more trails. I love the scenery and the peace.
  • Tabby is doing a photoshoot with some friends on Friday for an outdoors gear company. They will apparently be some sort of team and may appear on a box. The important part (to Tabby) is that they get cash for their efforts. The kid is big on saving money and this thrills her to the core.
  • Ben has a nasty abrasion on his face. He tripped and fell face first this weekend while running … on the side walk. He has been wearing a bandaid over it all week. It looks pretty cute and quite rakish on him. They do feel fast though!
  • I am behind on so many things and trying to get my act together. Work is pure madness right now. I have two very big projects I’m tackling right now and things are falling through the cracks at home as my work hours go longer and it follows me home.
  • I am very much looking forward to a few minutes of peace tonight when I get my hair cut.
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The Weekend

It was a nice long weekend. The kids went to stay with my parents while Matt and I had a date. The kids missed their grandparents and had a great time hanging with them while Matt and I ran errands in peace and went to see American Reunion, which was fun … and as it’s at the bargain theatre, CHEAP. Yay.


In the morning we picked them up and went right to a birthday party at the train museum. They both had a wonderful time.


Ben in particular enjoyed the cupcakes. Continue reading “The Weekend”

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The Death Star (Composter)

Woot is my best friend and my worst enemy. Excellent deals on stuff. Stuff we even need! Or at least want! Like a composter. We’ve been talking about building or buying a composter for a while now to take advantage of our scraps. We didn’t want to build because we wanted superior smell protection (our house is pretty close to our neighbors) and the ones to buy were all so expensive!

Enter WOOT … which has a new home section, by the way. They were selling a composter for about $80 last week and we bit. It showed up on Friday and sometime on Sunday we decided to assemble it and get it out of the house. At first we were calling it R2D2 because as it was being assembled, that’s what it looked like. Once fully assembled, we agreed … this was no R2D2 … we have a death star!!

Ben was (and is) a big fan. He spent a lot of time rolling the giant ball around the house and playing with the key that opens it. Tabby was very interested in the whole composting process and managed to bust Matt not 10 minutes after he’d explained it to her when he tried to put a banana peel in the trash. Silly Daddy!

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Worst Gardeners EVER

We are seriously terrible at gardening. We have good intentions (or we start with them anyhow). This year we even did our own starts … like from SEED! We may have started a bit late, but we did get them grown and plunked in the ground. We even made sure they had adequate, regular watering.

Then we did … err… nothing. Absolutely nothing. We didn’t weed (though our garden doesn’t seem to get very weedy?). We didn’t trim back. We just let it do it’s garden thing. We went about our summer and last Friday, Tabby went outside and proclaimed that we had a ripe tomato! And indeed we did. Quite a few of them as it happens.

Turns out we also have a squash! Forgot what type this is – I’ll have to look it up. Not sure if it’s ready for picking or not (another thing to look up), but Ben is convinced it is and that it is HIS. But for the moment, it’s still hanging out in the garden.

So Farmer Joe we are not. CLEARLY. But the kids had a splendid time combing through the vines, collecting tomatoes and exclaiming how over-crowded the garden is. And that alone makes it pretty worthwhile in my opinion. Maybe next year!

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The Garden is In

Procrastination/schedule/good luck prevented us from putting any of our plants in the ground until this past weekend. The upside of this is that we missed out on some of the more … fun … weather Mo Nature has thrown at us lately. But the downside is that our garden starts in particular were looking pretty crappy. They needed more sunshine and room to grow and they needed it … well weeks ago!

We finally got a break from rainy/cloudy this weekend and struck while the sun was hot. We planted our front beds with a mixture of sad-looking strawflower seedlings we grew in the basement and a few more bedding plants from Wal*Mart (I figure if they can survive Wal*Mart, my garden should be like Eden for them).  The kids hung out with us while we worked out front. Ben was a pretty big fan of digging in the dirt. Go figure.

Continue reading “The Garden is In”

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The Garden Starts

For the past few years, we’ve done our garden from seedlings purchased at the nursery. There’s nothing really wrong with doing so – we get a reasonable variety of heirlooms from them – but we have always wanted to try growing our own. This year we finally made it happen. I ordered seeds from Seed Savers at the beginning of March. They came and at first I despaired because getting them started seemed like such an easy yet complicated task. There were so many rules and colors of light and recommendations. But I happened upon a great article that really broke it down for me and I made a trip to Lowes and (all by myself) got everything we needed to do the indoor starts. Matt helpfully followed up with another trip for shelving.

Continue reading “The Garden Starts”

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Spring in My Step

It is a beautiful afternoon here in the Mile High City. Wow. We’ve had a mild winter and we’ve hit the 70s twice this month already. I love it. If it weren’t for Christmas and skiing I’m not sure I could stand winter!!

I STILL  need to get our seeds ordered and our seedlings started or we’re going to be stuck buying them from the nursery again without many choices. Luckily, thanks to CO’s open-minded laws on a certain little plant known as MaryJane, grow-shops abound and I can get lots of excellent indoor growing lights at competitive prices. Yay for the potheads. We’re going to tack up some 2x4s on the wall in Matt’s shop and mount grow-lights on a timer underneath each to sun our plants.

I am making up my menu for next week while I wait on things. I usually get around to this on the weekend, but I’m planning on having the family over for dinner tomorrow night (it’s supposed to get chilly here tomorrow and I want to make lamb stew one last time this winter). I am loving Skinny Taste big time and I want to make Chicken Pot Pie Soup and Skinny Tuna Noodle Casserole from there this week. These Shrimp Po’ Boys from Annie’s Eats look awesome as well, but I have to find a new source from shrimp since the ones I’ve been getting from Target and Sunflower haven’t been the best. I’ve got to hit Whole Foods to pick up the lamb anyhow, so maybe I’ll try theirs.

We have a few plans for this weekend, including seeing The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley at our local theatre and attending a very important birthday party for one of our favorite five-year-olds. Aside from that we must get in a long run … and of course the never ending cycle of errands and laundry. Hope it’s a good one for all!

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Summer Slipping Away

It was a nice weekend. We:

• picked raspberries from our own garden (again!)
• took a long walk
• made lasagna cupcakes (no frosting involved, just lasagna in muffin tins)
• went for a 10 mile (!) run in really hot weather
• played Bunco (well just me)
• had yummy brunch out
• said goodbye to our friends at the gym, and the gym itself (boohoo!)
• spent great time with some good friends
• and made a new friend
• cleaned the house (again)
• did about 10 loads of laundry (do our clothes mate while we sleep?)
• went shopping for deals for next summer and new clothes for the fall
• did NOT run a race
• won a $20 gift card
• made peach sangria
• had a wonderful time

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The Fruits of Summer

I’m not big on ornamental shrubbery. Especially evergreen bushes … they just catch tons of JUNK. So last summer, we ripped out the evergreen bushes that were in our alley. In their place we planned to put raspberry bushes but we never got around to it. So we finally put them in this summer.

Neither of us really thought we’d get much off of the bushes this summer, but four of our five bushes are heavy (as in BENDING OVER) with gorgeous ripe raspberries. They taste every bit as good as they look.

Tabby is hugely enthused about having a raspberry patch behind our house and is dying to pick ALL the berries (even the not-so-ripe ones). Unfortunately, the wasps like them as much as we do and we have to pick them at strategic times in order to avoid them.

I also bordered our front flower beds with strawberry plants. They are yielding some pretty tasty strawberries as well, though the bunnies seem to get most of them before we can get our hands on them.