for now, the only thing we're growing on this farm is kids - not the goat variety

Month: May 2009

Sweaty Curls

This is something I haven’t seen on my other children. (Though I wonder…if Doodle’s hair was grown long, his might have curls like this too.) Rosebud’s hair has lots of wave, and when it gets really humid, or she gets sweaty, her hair gets little ringlets in it. So cute!

Everyone Can “Help”

Rosebud has been acting so grown up lately. Today she was seen copying Marathon as he stretched, and I saw her mimicking Sudoku by flopping back on some pillows on the couch with a book to read – a book with no pictures, no less.

And with this grown-up-ness, she’s jumping right in to help with the grown-up work. In the photo above she’s enthusiastically trying to vacuum. Earlier I caught her trying to sand some boards. Thankfully they didn’t have any finish on them yet!

Testing, Shopping, Hoping and Stopping

Strange title, I know. But it will make sense in the end. (And it rhymes!)

You know how sometimes you see something you want but can’t have, and it makes you want it more? That happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

Carman was taking a standarized test across town, the same side of town where there’s a huge thrift store. He was to test for 3 days for 2.5 hours each day. While he tested on the first day, I took the other 3 kids and perused the store for 2 solid hours. I found great deals for everyone, including an orange print cotton skirt for myself. It had a short ruffle on the end. Very cute. I put it in my buggy.

I had a big pile of items to check out, so I didn’t notice that the skirt was missing until I got home. What a bummer! It must have fallen out of my buggy when I was putting Doodle in and out of the back. I was so looking forward to trying it on. Oh well. Maybe it will still be there tomorrow.

So the next day, I went back again. Sure enough, the skirt was still there. But…it wasn’t nearly as cute as I remembered it being. It was kind of pale, not the vibrant deep orange I remembered. And the print wasn’t nearly as appealing as I had remembered. For a minute I wasn’t positive that it was the same skirt. I had to check the label. Sure enough. This was the skirt I had pined over at home.

I tried it on, but left the store without it.

I can vividly remember having a similar experience a few years ago. I was in the discount section of a decorator fabric store when a bolt of fabric caught my eye. It would be perfect for our bedroom! Money was tight, though, and I didn’t need it, so I didn’t buy it.

When I got home, I told Marathon about it. “The texture is sophisticated, but the print is a bit whimsical and youthful. The muted earth-tone colors are on a cream background. It was perfect. We could pull out one of the richer colors and make throw pillows when we’re ready.” “Buy it,” he told me.

When I giddily went back to the store and saw the fabric, I couldn’t believe THAT is what I thought I had loved. Funny how NOT having something warps our perception of reality. Again, I went home empty handed.

(The skirt in the photo is not my proverbial orange skirt. I borrowed this one from Flicker’s Squid!. Thanks, Squid! Cool shoes.)

Track Meets

This spring the kids once again trained for a couple of local track meets for elementary school-aged kids. They had a good time, we had good weather for the meets, and they even came home with a few ribbons.

It was exciting (and bit disheartening) to see a friend who had had one practice run, come out and sweep first place in 2 of her 3 races. I suspect the reason she didn’t win her 3rd race was that she and a fellow runner decided they would “tie.” It didn’t turn out as they had planned.

Anyway, the kids learned about the gift of natural ability as well as the reward of hard work. (At least, I hope they did.)

The most exciting part of the “track season” was their training. We stopped running on our street in favor of making the short drive down to our local nature center. It’s beautiful; it’s not concrete. So they gladly traded their 1 mile run on the street for a 2 mile run at the nature center. On a couple of occasions they added a 3rd mile on the windy road leading out of the center. Marathon, Doodle, Rosebud and I followed along in the car, waiting for them to tucker out. But they ran to the end of the road, laughing and having fun together. I think they’re becoming friends. 🙂

Here they are ready to leave on the chilly morning of the first meet.

Floating Azalea Blossoms

The day before Easter, Sudoku brought in a couple of azalea blossoms from the yard. I floated them in a small bowl of water and put them on the table with some dyed eggs as our Easter centerpiece. I was surprised that 1 week later, they still looked great.

I dumped them out and brought in some more. These looked lovely for 10 or 11 days! Azalea blossoms will become a spring favorite centerpiece around here.

You might not be able to tell in the photo, but the peach colored blossoms are double blossomed blossoms. They look like a blossom within a blossom. (There’s probably a technical name for that, but I don’t know what it is.)

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