Things I Want to Do

• Dance more.  I spent half an hour with my brother tonight, learning some basic salsa spins and steps.  Man, it's been a long time since I've done any real dancing.  I miss it!
• Plant my cool season vegetables- tomorrow should be sunny, I'm going to get out and clear the back garden box and fill it with kale, chard, peas, mustard greens, and beets.
• Sew more.  I want to make tops and skirts.  I want to refashion some clothes that aren't wearable anymore.  I want...you know, something that FITS.
• I want to open the Etsy shop back up with dolls.  I fell in love with the dolls I made for Christmas, and my heart melts every night when Mimi snuggles up to her baby doll to go to sleep.  I think little girls (and boys) should have dolls that look like them, no matter what they look like.

What's on your "want" list right now?

More Magic

My Magic Shirt

I have a magic shirt.

Watch this!


Not pregnant.

Pregnant*

See? It's MAGIC!!

*Backstory: Friends have complimented me on this shirt, so I wore it to a family get together recently. As I stood in the background, snapping photos, my grandmother's voice rang out and said something that stopped everyone: "Is there something you'd like to tell us, Myrnie?" Ah...no....just a big shirt, Grandma! Just a big shirt! I laughed SO HARD- I've never gotten that question before! What a funny memory :)

**With apologies to Jane Austen, "...as everyone knows, a woman with a toddler MUST be in want of a baby."

*** I saw a friend today for the first time in months. She confided she had EXPECTED to find me three months pregnant.

****I am not pregnant. Mom? NOT pregnant :)

***** If I were to BECOME pregnant this month, my two youngest would be... 27 months apart. When will I stop constantly calculating that number?

****** If we were to start TRYING this month, our youngest would be... 30-36 months apart. If history is an indicator.

******* Is pregnancy a "pre-existing" condition?

******** Did I just talk myself into our next baby?

********* Ernie told me the other day that Mimi can share her bed with her, when she's bigger. And the next baby after that can, too, when he's big enough. And when she runs out of room in her bed for all the other babies, they can sleep on her floor with pillows and sleeping bags.

Build-A-Bear

Ernie made this- she was so proud of herself! She got the kit at a friend's birthday party- Costco was selling five-packs a while back- and she finished it this week. It had been lost inside the cavernous "art cabinet" which was completely emptied and organized during a recent, 2-hour-long, forced march cleaning of the playrooms.

It was a cute kit- the bear is sewn together at the head, and two pieces from there down with holes punched along the side. The kit came with a plastic yarn needle and lots of thick floss (and of course a plush red heart to stick inside, and fiberfill.) Ernie stiched up the sides and stuffed- I came along afterwards and patched up a few loosely-stitched spots. A fun little project, and she's been inseparable from this bear. Amazing the pride in making something :)

WIP: Front Yard

Here are the "After" shots. I'd rather start with the good stuff, wouldn't you??

This is the result of...4 Saturdays of work? We had four extra hands and 3 extra wheel barrows on Saturday- we made some progress!

My civil engineer brother kept harrumphing and shaking his head and grunting "This is SO illegal. Should have a blah blah grade, and blah foot of drop for every blah feet" and all I heard is "illegal" and I SO want this project to finish! Granted, it's only going to be that steep for another few days until we get out there again on Saturday. I'm calling rock guys this week to build the retaining wall- we've gone as far towards the house as we intend to.

We'll move more to the right- there will be a change in the slope, and a partial retaining wall at the corner. I'll dig up all the daffodils and move them when the time comes- for now I'm just enjoying their blooms and grateful they're easy to move! I KNOW it's just $20 worth of bulbs, but...they're alive! And I love them! Anything that blooms in Spring is my FBF (flowery best friend.)

Ah, this is where we were before the extra help on Saturday- Wonder Daddy finished clearing out all the grass, so we could see where to dig to.

I never realized HOW MUCH dirt there was to move until I saw the cliff we made on Saturday. This little slope doesn't look so bad! :)

And yes- this is going to be gardening/landscaped veggies. Tomatoes, peppers, cool season veggies, summer squash, melons, beans...I have pumpking seeds, but knowing that a SINGLE pumpkin vine can take up 5 feet of space, SQUARED...well, I don't know that we'll be growing any pumpkins this year. Sad, because I love pumpkin bread. I love zucchini and summer squash more though, so I'm hoping those do well!

Saturday Update

My goodness, I just kind of...faded there, didn't I?  Or, are you like me these days (BUSY) and didn't really notice?

Me neither- here I am Saturday night, and I haven't said bumpkuss in days!

My grandma is sick.  My grandpa is sick.  (My dad's parents.)  They're in and out of the hospitals more than usual lately.  It's kind of been all-consuming in an always-on-the-back-of-my-mind, and updates-daily kind of way.  So pretty much always actively thinking or passively ruminating.  Grandma turns 80 tomorrow, and I found out this morning we're all invited down for a birthday party- yeah!  Depending on how things go, and where we meet, and how many people are there, we might get to see her for half an hour, or it might be all afternoon.  Since it's a 7-hour round-trip car ride with two small children on a Sunday (we'll see how my sanity is doing after 7 hours of listening to classical and Mo-Tab) I'm hoping we can have a nice visit :o)  Anyways, I could talk for miles on this subject.

I'm up to my ears in garden planning, too.  We're still busily moving our front yard to the back yard, wheelbarrow-load by wheelbarrow-load.  We made HUGE progress today, with 2 extra Strong Men helping.  (Is that Strong Men that are extra, or Men that are Extra Strong?  Yes? Both?)  Big, big thanks to Dad and my brother for helping out!  I'm pretty sure we owe you something a little more awesome than barbecued polish dogs (that YOU provided), although it WAS a tasty dinner.  Man.  Am I lucky, or what?  We're to the point in this project where the little girl in my head is yelling- I didn't mean it!  Put it all back!  Hit undo!  This will never end, this will never work!  I don't need gardening space, I can't possibly keep them alive!  But, inner hysterics notwithstanding, Wonder Daddy continually assures me that it will be great, he has a plan, and everything will be FINE.  What if the sun never shines there?  What if it all comes crashing down? What if the slugs eat EVERYTHING, and our neighbor's dog tramples the rest?  If you want to see more about what we're planting this year (and it's a BIG list) I talk about it at DIY Mama.

I heard back from the talent show gals- I'm in, with one song, with an accompanist please.  I'm excited that my mom agreed to accompany me- we haven't performed together in years.  She's a genius at reading chords and making up an accompaniment, which I'm excited about.  Most showtune accompaniment is just the melody plus chords, and it's so distracting to have the piano playing my notes!  (Especially if I decide to mess around with them.)  So we'll do "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess, nice and bluesy and slow.  With everything else going on, this hasn't seemed quite the Big Deal it did back in February when I auditioned, but I'm excited and it will be fun.

I looked around the house today and realized there are a few projects we've done that I haven't shown you- oops!  Watch for updates on those :)

I cut it!

I keep waiting for a sunny day and photo-staging inspiration to strike at the same time- I received the most gorgeous, the sweetest, the nicest present in the mail. But neither has come, and I sit here like a bum not telling you guys about how wonderful it is. BUT, I'll make it up to you- until I get my sunny day and my photo-staging inspiration, you can run over here and check out my gift's twin sister. It will make you happy! And hey, if it just hops into your cart, it will make you even happier every time you look at it! (Bobbi's such a lovely artist, you really SHOULD go see what she makes for her shop!) We put ours on the piano, but Mimi was convinced it was a scarf. So now it's up a little higher. Which will work until she grows, but judging from how much the child has been eating the last few days shouldn't take long.

Speaking of growing, check out that little sprite up top! When did my baby, my first-born, become a sparkling pixie girl? She's been begging for a hair cut- (pointing to her bangs) "I want these up here "(pointing higher on her forehead) "and I want these bangs" (touching the rest of her hair) "up here" (touching her shoulders.) She wanted to be just like Kiki.

Her dream is fulfilled. Oh my goodness- I think I chopped off a bit of her soul and threw it away. The part that was serious and quiet. She's been like a rocket all day, posing, flipping her hair, shaking her head back and forth, twinkling those huge blue eyes at us and flashing half-cocked grins. She's light as a bird, and loving it. She can't wait to go to school tomorrow and show her friends. As I tucked her in tonight she said excitedly "Maybe my friends will loooove my new hair, Mom!" Maybe, sweet pea. I think they love YOU more, though.

I admit though- I found extra trash to put in the can (which, in our house, is difficult to do), just so I couldn't see her beautiful hair lying in there.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, I'm in the preliminary stages of planning our kindergarten curriculum for Ernie's first school year at home. You can see it here at my other online nook.