Monday, May 21, 2007
The Women who Raised me
I was raised by two Leos and a Scorpio. They are beautiful women who have taught me who I am and who I am not. I love the picture below. It shows a bit of how much I am loved by that crew. Leta, Beth and Irma surround me with a striking amount of respect and pride.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Spring Break 2007 Girlz and Boyz Gone to the Family
That's me and the women that raised me: Aunt Leta, Mom and Nana
A week of fun in the sun with my family left me seriously sad to come home. My grandparents had their 60th wedding anniversary this year and brought all of us together to celebrate with them.
Aunt Leta, Nana and Papa, Me, Lihn and Asia after Charlie's BD dinner
Other really awesome stuff that happened while we were there:
1. Jay and Nez became engaged!!!!!
2. Charlie turned 30 over a delicious dinner and evening with friends and family we saw old friends like Jeff and Tara Ziecheck and Charles Corbin!!
3. Pete met much of my extended family.
It was a blast. We all stood in front of my grandparents and told them what we have learned from them that has made an important impact in our lives. From the bottom of my heart I said:
One big thing that has come to me as I've been pondering what to say to them is how they have been
such involved grandparents in our lives. So many of my friends don't understand what that is like. Their grandparents are people they had to put their nice clothes on for and visit on weekends or a weekend per month. But Nana and Papa have always been there and always involved. Though I'm sure they wouldn't have minded if we put our nice clothes on for them and brushed or cut our hair for them. (It might have spared us some comments.) Sometimes their level of involvement
was to my dismay when I got in trouble and had to hear it from too many adults. Other times I felt the luckiest because I received praise and support and kisses from so many. The lesson for so many of us has been the importance of being close with each other. That has trickled down from Nana and Papa. Perhaps had they been more distant, our mom's would have been more distant and we, as kids, wouldn't have been together so much. Our lives would have been very different in many ways. I feel very lucky and blessed to have grandparents who always have been and are still very aware of most things that are going on in my life. They care. They inquire. They express their opinions....their concerns....their pride. This has been very meaningful to me and taught me the value in a strong family community.
The whole ceremony was awesome. My youngest brother couldn't make it because of bad weather in Dallas. My older brother stood to my left sobbing quietly. It was soooooo sweet. Everybody spoke from their heart to N&P in front of all their friends and our extended family. It was a fun party followed by a brunch the next day and a huge passover sedar the day after that.
Good times.
Tara and her sweetie Brett--T-dog's my lady from high school. We were joined at the hip for years.
Shannon & Shannon--Other good friends from high school. along with Mel Tiz we lived together in our first grown-up home rental.
New Post, New Blog, Hard Promises
It's pouring outside. Fits my mood so it feels good to me.
Also saves me having to worry about all those fragile, young seedlings outside in my garden. They are getting loved on with all that rain.
Vulnerability: I am a moody one lately. After much pondering I have come to some big realizations about my job. I love where I work, but I am not feeling challenged these days. There is no part of my current job description(s) that has anything to do with what I love to do. I am not an administrator and that is all I am doing these days. I am an educator. I am a naturalist. I don't mind the administrative stuff as part of what I do, but here I am, fresh out of a zillion years of school to prep me for this?
Good experience I told myself. In the door it got me. Gone with the flow I have. Kudos to me for being so willing to do whatever and be flexible I've heard. Yeah, thanks. But now here I am not doing what I want. I have decided to advocate for myself. I will talk to my director this week and take some action toward change. I'm feeling it bigtime. Truth exaggerated by hormones. Go with it.
Now for my very time consuming spring project.
Shared Blog to Come: Me and two friends have made a promise to not buy anything new for a year. There are lots of exceptions making it not so, so hard core of course. We can buy consumables, services, and things we can't get used like a bettery or car oil, etc. My weddign is on the exception list, but with a promise to try as hard as possible with being sustainable. And our house remodel project aslo on the out list. I am not buying used skylights. Who gets rid of functional skylights? Anyway, even with all the exceptions it will be hard none the less...especially given our love for shopping. We'll be getting together and creating this blog some time this week. There we'll document successes and difficulties. I've already got a few.
My garden is a beautiful living breathing example of reuse/salvage/recycle. Sure I had to buy some things: compost and soil for one. Unfortunately the perfect sunny spot in our yard is also right near some creosote logs that hold my neighbors fence up. That and the fact that our soil absolutely sucks (is full of rocks and clay) led us to build raised beds and buy soil to put in them. Creosote in my veggies? No thank you. We also bought a few starts, the squashes (because the greenhouse at work was having trouble starting them), and some chives cuz i saw them next to the squashes and wanted them. I also had to buy deer fencing. Its possible that I may have been able to find something used for deer fencing, but truth be told I was getting it before I signed the contract and I needed to get it in super fast so I could proceed with getting things in the ground before it became too late.
Okay. Enough confessions. The beautiful and fun stuff I did is as follows:
1. Went to forest land just cleared for a horse farm by some folks I know and was able to get a bunch of cedar side cuts they
were about to chip to make 3 of our beds, our berry bed frame and our cold frame.
2. Took down a retaining wall in our yard and reused the concrete blocks to make 3 more beds.
3. Used the old ugly curtains that were in our house when we moved in for:
1. Barriers between the grass and the soil in our beds
2. Bed covers that protected the seedling when they were newly placed in the beds and to keep the soil from drying
out before the compost mulch was added
3. Stakes for securing the deer fencing into the ground.
It was awesome tearing up the curtains that seriously noone in their right mind would have bought from GoodWill to reuse. But even more satisfying was sitting with my needle-nose plyers and bending all the little metal z shaped peices of the curtain set into stake shapes (as shown in picture).
Trying To Get Around a Promise: With the successes comes the challenges. So, one of my coworkers gave me a brand new Kombucha mushroom. I am very excited and am vowing not to mess this one up. However, I needed a gallon sized glass jar with a wide mouth. Don't have one and don't live in Seattle anymore where I can easily go to some thrift stores and find some of these. Made the tea yesterday and had the day to find a jar while the tea cooled. Figured out that grocery stores get their olives and pickles that they use at their salad bars in these jars. They took my name and number and should have two for me by mid week. Shit! Can't wait that long for this batch. So I found one of those big glass jars with a spicket for making sun tea. Bought it with my tail between my legs knowing that I was breaking my contract. Decided I'd return it when these other used jars come through in a few days. Then came home and Pete wants to keep the thing for making sun tea. He'll buy it so its not on my conscience. IS this okay? Well, after a few mintues of considering I decided its not okay. That could snowball, I decided, into.."hey babe, can you buy those awesome new Danskos for me cuz I can't buy them myself". So, I know it still breaches the contract, but I have the $5.99 jar of tea (which kills me for a zillion reasons, biggest one being that bars and restaurants and delis around the country dispose of these everyday and I have to go spend 6 bucks on one with sunflowers painted on it for sun tea cuz all the used ones are disposed of). Not okay. Anyway, I am rambling here, but the bottom line is I am bringing the jar back as soon as they call me with a ready to use old olive jar. Conscience slightly relieved.
Also saves me having to worry about all those fragile, young seedlings outside in my garden. They are getting loved on with all that rain.
Vulnerability: I am a moody one lately. After much pondering I have come to some big realizations about my job. I love where I work, but I am not feeling challenged these days. There is no part of my current job description(s) that has anything to do with what I love to do. I am not an administrator and that is all I am doing these days. I am an educator. I am a naturalist. I don't mind the administrative stuff as part of what I do, but here I am, fresh out of a zillion years of school to prep me for this?
Good experience I told myself. In the door it got me. Gone with the flow I have. Kudos to me for being so willing to do whatever and be flexible I've heard. Yeah, thanks. But now here I am not doing what I want. I have decided to advocate for myself. I will talk to my director this week and take some action toward change. I'm feeling it bigtime. Truth exaggerated by hormones. Go with it.
Now for my very time consuming spring project.
Shared Blog to Come: Me and two friends have made a promise to not buy anything new for a year. There are lots of exceptions making it not so, so hard core of course. We can buy consumables, services, and things we can't get used like a bettery or car oil, etc. My weddign is on the exception list, but with a promise to try as hard as possible with being sustainable. And our house remodel project aslo on the out list. I am not buying used skylights. Who gets rid of functional skylights? Anyway, even with all the exceptions it will be hard none the less...especially given our love for shopping. We'll be getting together and creating this blog some time this week. There we'll document successes and difficulties. I've already got a few.
My garden is a beautiful living breathing example of reuse/salvage/recycle. Sure I had to buy some things: compost and soil for one. Unfortunately the perfect sunny spot in our yard is also right near some creosote logs that hold my neighbors fence up. That and the fact that our soil absolutely sucks (is full of rocks and clay) led us to build raised beds and buy soil to put in them. Creosote in my veggies? No thank you. We also bought a few starts, the squashes (because the greenhouse at work was having trouble starting them), and some chives cuz i saw them next to the squashes and wanted them. I also had to buy deer fencing. Its possible that I may have been able to find something used for deer fencing, but truth be told I was getting it before I signed the contract and I needed to get it in super fast so I could proceed with getting things in the ground before it became too late.
Okay. Enough confessions. The beautiful and fun stuff I did is as follows:
1. Went to forest land just cleared for a horse farm by some folks I know and was able to get a bunch of cedar side cuts they
were about to chip to make 3 of our beds, our berry bed frame and our cold frame.
2. Took down a retaining wall in our yard and reused the concrete blocks to make 3 more beds.
3. Used the old ugly curtains that were in our house when we moved in for:
1. Barriers between the grass and the soil in our beds
2. Bed covers that protected the seedling when they were newly placed in the beds and to keep the soil from drying
out before the compost mulch was added
3. Stakes for securing the deer fencing into the ground.
It was awesome tearing up the curtains that seriously noone in their right mind would have bought from GoodWill to reuse. But even more satisfying was sitting with my needle-nose plyers and bending all the little metal z shaped peices of the curtain set into stake shapes (as shown in picture).
Trying To Get Around a Promise: With the successes comes the challenges. So, one of my coworkers gave me a brand new Kombucha mushroom. I am very excited and am vowing not to mess this one up. However, I needed a gallon sized glass jar with a wide mouth. Don't have one and don't live in Seattle anymore where I can easily go to some thrift stores and find some of these. Made the tea yesterday and had the day to find a jar while the tea cooled. Figured out that grocery stores get their olives and pickles that they use at their salad bars in these jars. They took my name and number and should have two for me by mid week. Shit! Can't wait that long for this batch. So I found one of those big glass jars with a spicket for making sun tea. Bought it with my tail between my legs knowing that I was breaking my contract. Decided I'd return it when these other used jars come through in a few days. Then came home and Pete wants to keep the thing for making sun tea. He'll buy it so its not on my conscience. IS this okay? Well, after a few mintues of considering I decided its not okay. That could snowball, I decided, into.."hey babe, can you buy those awesome new Danskos for me cuz I can't buy them myself". So, I know it still breaches the contract, but I have the $5.99 jar of tea (which kills me for a zillion reasons, biggest one being that bars and restaurants and delis around the country dispose of these everyday and I have to go spend 6 bucks on one with sunflowers painted on it for sun tea cuz all the used ones are disposed of). Not okay. Anyway, I am rambling here, but the bottom line is I am bringing the jar back as soon as they call me with a ready to use old olive jar. Conscience slightly relieved.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Starting a Garden
I am at the beginning of what I can see will be a continuous project. Perfect. I am the queen of starting a project and either getting it done super fast OR while I am on my way to grab a tool that I need, I see another potential project that grabs my attention and I leave the other behind for a while. Being like this leaves my home with many projects happening at once. What does this say about me? Well, some might say I have attention deficit. That is a matter of opinion. Funny to refer to something so harmless inthat kind of way. Another way to see it that I like to get stuff done. When I have ideas, I like to act on them. The started project reminds me of what I want to do AND it helps my environment reflect the remainder of what I want to do. That's a nicer and far more biased way of seeing it. Luckily Pete doesn't mind at all. He loves all my projects. He helps with the ones I need help with.
I built a little cold frame. In it are all my babies. Babies I will care for and nurture and feel proud of when they grow and look beautiful and provide us with tasty, nutritious food. Not ready for real babies. This is a perfect substiture for now.
Just read Lacy's blog about her B&B in France. Sounds dreamy. Thinking of how I can possibly go visit her this summer.
The cold frame is for my varieties of kale, collards, chard, carrots, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, golden beets, cilantro, dill, fennel, blueberries, rasberries, strawberries, chives, sunflowers, nasturtium, basil...wow its fun listing it all out. Makes it seem so much grander than the 1-5 inch babies most of these are.
It's fun to watch the containers for any sign of germination. The soil raises a bit first I've noticed with bigger seeds like sunflower. Like its peeking out to make sure the coast is clear before pushing the soil off it's helmetted head....really slowly of course, just so the deer don't see.
Since I have to document this somewhere I also put in 2 vine maple (sweet native tall delicate shrub that turns fabulous colors in the fall) another lilac, california poppy, fox glove (another sweet native tall pink spotted bell flowers on a stalk), and a whole bunch of amazing succulents in cool shallow pots. We built a bench in the front yard. Totally rustic. A slab of cedar atop two cross sections. I am starting a black willow stake in a jar of water (just for fun..not to plant I don't think). can't wait to see the nasturtiums flowing out of the half barrel I planted them thick into.
I know I am being a dork about all my plants. I am obsessing about it right now and I love it. Coming home, having dinner and working in the yard until dark is th best post-work therapy ever. It's the best post-anything therapy really. Lot's of black-capped chickadees coming and visiting our feeders. Something else came yesterday, not sure. Got to find some good quick reference posters to hang by the doors.
Plus, the shoveling and moving of soil and placing of plants in the earth. It is a mitzvah. It is doing good for the planet. It is tikkun olam...healing the earth. So much bad done elsewhere. Least I can do is love my little parcel thoroughly and whole heartedly. Share with it some salt with my sweat. Feed the squitos with my blood and give the plants the nourishment they need so that we might trade someday. Works my body too. Good for the heart...spiritually and physically.
Buenas suenas
Chalomot Paz
Sweet dreams
Pictures to come
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