Cold

This tree is in our front yard, right next to the driveway. We pass by it in our daily comings and goings from our house. In spring it has beautiful pink flowers, lots of leaves in the summer, and it sports berries in the fall. But until the foliage was gone and we had some snow, we had no idea that there was a bird nest in our tree. The snow had fallen from the tree leaving just the little pillow of snow on top of the nest.

Newness

This is the new scarf my youngest daughter bought me for Christmas. She has a little business making duct tape bags and saves her profits. About a week before the holiday, she asked me to drive her and a friend to the store and drop them off so they could pick out some presents for us. She wanted to spend her own money and get us each something she selected just for us. Needless to say, I love my scarf. I wear scarves a lot. After wearing it the first time, I took it off and laid it on the nightstand and it looked so beautiful that I wanted to try to capture the color and texture in a photo.

Photo project

Many people are committing to a Project 365 for 2011. For those that don't know, that is taking a photo everyday and posting them. I came across a list of suggested weekly themes to help accomplish this. Notice I haven't once said that I am committing to this! No, that would completely stress me out if I didn't take a picture one day - I envision laying down to go to bed at night and jumping up so that I can go snap a pic just to satisfy some random resolution.

So what I am proposing to do is use the list of weekly theme suggestions and try to take a picture, not daily, but each week. The title of each photo post will be the theme from the list. I'll try to post them weekly, but if I end up posting a couple at a time, so be it. This is a personal project that I hope will: a) help me learn to use my new camera (Nikon Coolpix L110), b) allow me to express some creativity, c) give me some blog fodder! This isn't becoming a photo blog, I'll try to share stories or some description with the photos too. Hopefully the photos will illustrate the theme and any description will add to it. To really view the photos, be sure to click on the photo itself to see all the textures and details - the pics aren't as clear directly on the blog as they are if you click on them.

If anyone else wants the list of themes, I can send it to you, or you can probably find it or something similar by googling it. I always appreciate any comments or suggestions - constructive criticism as well as excessive praise ;) (I'm totally kidding about that - if you know me, you know I don't accept compliments well.)

Say cheese!

It's the little things...

We moved into our brand new home over 14 years ago. K was 3 and she picked the bedroom with 2 windows - I think she envisioned watching for Grandma and Grandpa to arrive for visits. The next biggest bedroom became the office with the computer desk, etc. It had the biggest closet which was great for our extra storage. Since we naturally had the master bedroom, that left the "fourth" bedroom as a nursery for D. We moved in just five days before D was born which meant a scramble to get moved in and ready for our new arrival. We discovered the door to the fourth bedroom didn't work. You could pull it closed but it wouldn't latch, which meant it wouldn't lock either. Since we were rushing to get the nursery set up, a non-latching door was not a concern. A baby doesn't need to have a tightly-closed door anyway. And as she got older, the fact that it wouldn't lock would be a bonus, she couldn't lock herself in or lock us out (we'd later find this was a very good thing with this strong-willed child).

A few years later we moved the office to the first floor dining room space, freeing up the bedroom with the big closet. K decided she wanted a change and a bigger closet that would hold all her clothes and toys so she switched rooms. D was ready for a big-girl bed so we moved her to the room with 2 windows, leaving the fourth bedroom free. What to do with it? I had an art table tucked away in the basement and a sewing machine that I'd have to haul out to the kitchen table when I wanted to be creative. So we decided the fourth bedroom would become mine - my sewing room, craft room, art studio - my office. It worked out great. The door didn't latch, but no big deal. There was no reason to lock it or keep anyone out. The only time it was a problem was at Christmas when I'd want to wrap presents in there and I'd worry that the girls would walk in and see their gifts. I would just threaten them that they were not to come in under any circumstances until I told them I was done.

So here we are 14 years later. The non-latching door is just one of the quirks of our house that we've grown to live with. The fourth bedroom is still my office. We've put a single bed in there - it can be used by a houseguest now, as long as we warn them that the door doesn't latch. Or I can (and do) sleep in there when snoring (his and mine) interferes with sleep (his and mine). The only problem is our dog. He likes to push the door open during the day when we're not home. He goes in, jumps up on the bed and digs around, tearing the blankets and sheets off the bed so that it has to be remade each day. I started barricading the bed with the ironing board (see? there is a use for that thing!) when we left each morning. It was a pain in the butt - one extra thing I had to do in the morning rush, sometimes I'd forget to put it in place, or sometimes I'd do it and he'd still find ways around it. More often than not I'd be making the bed when we got home.

Yesterday, my wonderful husband got out his screwdriver, hammer, chisel, powerdrill, toothpicks, woodglue and extra long screws and he re-set the strikeplate 1/2". I think it took him all of about half an hour. At long last, the saga of the non-latching door has come to an end.

It's amazing how something so small and seemingly simple can make such a difference. As I pull the door shut and hear it latch, I can't help but smile.

As you sow, so shall you reap

Summer is ending and that means it's the end of my garden for the year. It is giving me cause to reflect on why I go to the trouble in this day and age, when I could easily drive to the store to get what I need.

I think gardening is something I inherited. My grandparents were farmers. When they moved from the farm into town, essentially their entire backyard was devoted to growing food. I fondly remember helping Grandma pick green beans then sit on the back porch, colander in her lap, and snap them with her to prepare them for dinner. Or being with Grandpa in the middle of the blackberry patch on a hot summer day (I swear most of the berries made it to the kitchen for the pie).


My favorite though was when we'd go visit and I'd get up really early before the rest of my family and head down to the kitchen. Grandma would already be up fixing breakfast and we'd go out and pick strawberries fresh with morning dew.

My Dad, following their example, has always had a garden. He has about 1/3 of his yard as vegetable gardens. He spends hours cultivating the soil and picking his "crops." I grew up helping dig and plant, weed and harvest. Whenever I'm there I always ask to see his garden. He takes great pride in the fruits of his labor and always sends me home with tomatoes. There's nothing like the beefsteak tomatoes he grows.


When we moved into this house I knew I wanted to have a garden and grow some vegetables. My husband built a raised bed with a trellis area for plants with climbing vines.





Each year I make my selections of what to plant. Some years are more plentiful than others (the year of the cherry tomatoes) and some choices don't work out (watermelons have been a big failure). It is such a pleasure to walk out back and pick a zucchini for dinner, grab a couple tomatoes to add to a salad, or harvest cucumbers to make a great cucumber pasta salad. My girls would help me when they were younger. This year the only help I got was in selecting what to plant (what they wanted to eat). I very well might be the end of our family vegetable gardening. But I hope that maybe one day when they have their own plot of land they'll get the urge to get dirt under their nails and continue the heritage.