Stuff on Us: July 2011

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Quick Bites

Me getting ready for work this morning: "Macey, does this look okay?"
Macey: "Well, I am kind of a fashion person. So I don't know. I would not like it on me. I kind of like other stuff. But I know you can't wear that kind of thing to work so I think that is fine for you."

Josh, upon waking up every morning last week: "Can I go watch my Cars?"
Josh, upon waking up this Monday: "Can I go watch my Cars?"
Josh, upon waking up this Tuesday: "Can I go watch my Cars?"
Josh, upon waking up this morning: "Can I go watch my Cars?"
Do you see a pattern here???

Daniel: "I think I am the most spoiled one."
Me (laughing, thinking ok, I'll bite): "Why is that?"
Daniel: "Because I get to do the most things and go the most places and people buy me stuff."
Me: "Ok."
A day later, same conversation for some reason. This time I add on...
Me: "Do you really think so?"
Daniel: "Yes."
Me: "Well, maybe talking about it so much will make me think that Josh and Macey need to be a little more spoiled and you need to be a little less spoiled so maybe you don't need to talk about it so much."
Daniel: "Well, I won't talk about it anymore. But I still think its true."
At the end of the day, don't we want each of our kids to think they are the best, most loved, most terrific person in the world? I think that's part of building confidence when they are young. They are supposed to think they are the center of the universe. As they get older there are so many things in life that are just going to bowl them over and make them question themselves and their place in the world that I am of the opinion that yes, its okay for them to each think they are the most spoiled, at least for a period while they are so young. So while it was probably not a conscious part of our parenting plan, I guess its working so far!

Monday, July 25, 2011

Flowers in my Garden-Aren't they Just Neat?

Planted wildflower seeds around the edge of the garden-exceeded all expectations! We have cut flowers on our table every night.

On Saturday morning I had an omelet with squash, zuccini, onions and tomatos fresh from the garden. String beans and squash for dinner. Terrific start to the summer garden. Tomatos are starting to come in slowly but surely...there is going to be a plethera of tomatos because in addition to the ones I planted, a number of volunteers from last year came up too. Should be fun to harvest and give away all those delicious veggies!!

Garden Summer 2011

So the garden is doing great this year. We went in a couple of new directions with string beans and brussel sprouts as well as peppers. The peppers are fair-to-middlin'...not great yields there. The Brussel Sprouts are yet to do anything...they are odd plants. In terms of size they are kind of like tobacco plants (uggh, bad memories there) with huge leaves growing from a thick central stem. Apparently at some point they will push up a strong stem off of which will grow the brussel sprouts. This won't happen until late August, those are 90 to 100 day plants so our season is just barely long enough here in the great northmidwest. I was tempted to just bail on them and pull them up when I saw how big they were getting but Jason convinced me to leave them be. So for the time being we have 4 brussel sprout plants that are doing nothing but taking up room and crowding out my string beans. The string beans are great...had a batch for dinner two nights ago and the left overs last night...delightful.

I planted wildflower seeds around the edge of the garden, up on the rocks but outside of the rabbit fence. The wildflowers have exceeded my every expectation. They are just beautiful. I have flowers at one end of the garden anyway in hopes of attracting bees to pollenate the plants and those flowers came back bigger and more beautiful than last year. I read somewhere that perennials survive the first year and thrive the second year but I had no idea what that meant until this year when I watch my perennials from last year come back bigger and better and simply more beautiful. And the wildflowers...all this beauty from a 1.50 pack of seeds-its crazy. We can see the lovely flowers from our house and its just delightful. Anyway, these are some pics of the garden overall and some of the lovely flowers around the edge. Macey helped me take all of these pictures...she is quiet the horticulturalist (I think that's the right word).