Wildflowers, I mean, Weeds

This house is only a couple of years old.  It was built on what had been a wild and scrubby lot, and was only roughly graded before my parents moved in.  Mom did a lot of work to get the yard level and get a lawn started.  The yard, however, still thinks it is part of the wilderness, and sprouts thistles and weeds as soon as we turn our backs.

Today I spent a good part of my day rescuing the grass from those thistles and weeds.  I also did other yardwork, like chopping up an old stump in the back yard.  Half of the stump was soft and squeaky like styrofoam, and full of fire ants (I escaped with only one bite).  The other half, however, remains, as it is quite solid.  I have this idea that I can hasten its decay by drilling it full of holes with a power drill and spade bit.  What do you think?  Would that work?

The bulk of my time outdoors, however, was spent on the weed-pulling.  Pulling weeds is very therapeutic work.  The sun was shining and the breeze was warm and the air smelled sweet, like clover, and strains of music were coming through the air from somewhere...okay, that part was kind of eerie.  The boys were playing happily in the driveway with their bikes and with sidewalk chalk.  I would have been happy to keep going for hours more, but my bending-over muscles were getting tired.  However, I'm happy to say that there are plenty of weeds left, and more sprouting every day, so I will have many opportunities to enjoy the task again.

By weeds, I mean wildflowers, really.  Only they were growing in the lawn, which makes them weeds.

 
Yes, these were all really blooming in our weed lot yard today, and half-a-dozen other varieties, too.  Aren't they lovely?  I don't know what they all are (Mom??).  I felt a little guilty about pulling them.  But I had to, or the grass wouldn't stand a fighting chance.  At least they can thrive along the roadsides, as in Texas, they don't mow along the country roads until wildflower season is over. :)  Have I mentioned that Texas is growing on me?

(I just discovered that I can make collages with Picasa--I love this feature!  Picasa is a free photo-editing program that I like a lot and use regularly.)

Another Favorite Book: Home Comforts: the Art and Science of Keeping House

Years ago, Mom and I were house guests in a home that I've always admired: clean and beautiful, warm and welcoming, delicious meals served on time at a beautifully set table, etc. etc.  While we were there, I spotted a fat volume sitting on a side table, and the title immediately caught my eye: Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House.  I surreptitiously paged through the book a couple of times and was fascinated. 

Fast forward a couple of years, when I was setting up a home of my own; imagine my delight to find that the lady of the afore-mentioned house had given me this book as a gift. :)  

My sister borrowed the book from me so many times, that I finally got her another copy as a thank-you gift for helping me out when Noah was born.  I think she'll also attest to the book's usefulness.

Home Comforts has become my go-to reference book for everything related to housekeeping.  The initial chapter or two draw me in, every time, with a warm-and-fuzzy narrative about how the author (a busy lawyer) became interested in housekeeping, and why it is important; the the remainder of the seventy-two chapters (I told you it was a fat volume) get down to the nitty-gritty details of keeping house, everything from meals and laundry to safety issues and legal concerns.  Some of my favorite chapters are the ones about preparing and serving meals; the one entitled "Fabrics that Work," which is all about different types of fibers and their advantages and disadvantages for various applications; and the chapter about bedding.  And I'm morbidly fascinated by the chapter about dust mites (when I need motivation to vacuum and dust and change the beds, I read this one).

I use this book both for quick reference as needed, and also for inspiration; if I'm feeling particularly domestic, or on the other hand am NOT feeling domestic and need to be reminded about the importance of what I do, I'll sit down and read straight through a couple of chapters for the umpteenth time.

Looks like the price of Home Comforts has come down a bit in the few years since I've bought a copy.  It's worth the money, in my opinion. :)  If you've read it, or if you read it in the future, comment to let me know what you think. :)

Of Books and Amazon

Hey friends,

As you may have noticed, every now and then I review one of my favorite books for y'all, and usually I provide links to Amazon so that you can read the reviews and learn more about the book yourself.  Well it finally occurred to me that I may as well sign up to be an Amazon associate, so that if you end up purchasing the book via the link I provide, I get a small commission.  I'm just letting you know for the sake of transparency.  If this makes you uncomfortable and you'd rather I not get any commission for purchases that you make, don't click on the links I provide, but rather go straight to Amazon.com and look the book up there.

Adios for now. :)

He's Three (and happy about it!)

Scheduling and Meals

I get a lot more done when I operate on a schedule. Here's a scheduling resource that I really like:
(Click to be taken to the Maxwell's website)
This book is full of great tips for scheduling a busy household, though Mrs. Maxwell's recommendations for scheduling infants are a bit extreme, in my opinion--I ignored those. The key to making a schedule work is having a plan for the children, too. If I don't have Elijah and Noah busy with something while I'm washing dishes, for instance, they're bound to create interruptions. But if I plan ahead of time to have Noah playing with Legos in the living room, while Elijah sits next to me and reviews his memory work, then I have a better chance of getting the job done.

The best part of this book is the scheduling kit that comes with it. First you write a list of all the things you need to get done in a day, and calculate how much time you need for each job. Then you total up the time and realize that you've got more work than you can complete in twenty four hours. Then you grumble and think and erase and consolidate and think some more, until you finally have the activity list down to twenty four hours. Repeat for each of your children. Next you write each activity onto a little square of paper (a different color for each member of the family) and start arranging the squares on a chart until you've got everything figured out. I'm a visual person so I found this step really helpful.

I got this book and kit a couple of years ago, but sadly, haven't made use of it since I moved to Texas. But a few days ago, I finally got it out again and created a schedule that runs just through 2 p.m (our afternoons and evenings are really unpredictable, so I'm leaving that block of time unscheduled for now). Let me tell you, just since implementing that rough, partial schedule, my productivity has improved quite a bit. And the boys love being scheduled because they know that I won't neglect the things they love, like story time, outside time, and "school" time (which consists mostly of coloring and puzzles and reading aloud, nothing too rigorous).

Of course, the schedule still needs a lot of tweaking, and I'd like to expand it a bit, too. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how much time is reasonable to spend on meal preparation and cleanup. Here's where you come in. :) If you're willing to share, moms, how much time do y'all spend cooking? Do you cook from scratch at every meal? How long does it take you to prepare breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? What about cleaning up afterwards--how long does that take? Do you have help? How long would it take you if you didn't have help? Do you have/use a dishwasher? Do you like to cook, or are you just trying to get the job done as quickly as possible?

(Don't feel like you have to answer all of those questions! But feel free to ramble if you're so inclined--it's always fun to compare notes!)

You ask, I deliver

I prefer wordy posts over picture posts, and if I visit a blog to find that the latest post consists only of pictures, I must confess that I feel a teeny bit disappointed. But I know that a lot of people are the other way around, disappointed when there aren't any pictures. Hence, last week's poll: should I post more pictures?

A few of you were so kind as to share your opinions with me by voting, and as I suspected, the majority would prefer more pictures. :) Well, I aim to please, so this afternoon when we headed downtown, I grabbed the camera (and even remembered to check if the batteries were charged.)

Our usual Saturday routine: meet at a park downtown, transfer boys and carseats to their dad, and then take off to run a few errands; a few hours later, pick up boys and head home. However, today, Mike was ill, so I sent him home. The boys and I stuck around for a while, and soaked up some sunshine. It was a nice day.

We went to the Williams Waterwall, in the Galleria area on the near west side. At one end of the park is the Williams Tower.

At the other end is this horseshoe-shaped wall with water cascading down over it. Sorry about the boys' goofy smiles; they tend to go all out when I say "cheese."

To one side of the waterwall. I think Noah looks so cute in this sweatshirt; I just want to pick him up and squeeze him.

Look carefully--there's a rainbow behind Elijah. This waterwall puts off a lot of mist, which was quite chilly today, but I bet it would feel great in hot weather.

I hope you all have a restful Sabbath and a great next week. :)

Running Blues

You may recall that a few weeks ago, I was posting about my struggles figuring out what to wear while running. A few kind readers suggested (both in the comments section, and privately) that I try something like a split skirt, or culottes, or gauchos, the idea being that they are garments which are still modest and distinctly feminine, but a bit more practical for running than a skirt. However, along with those suggestions came a bit of hesitation, and I gathered that not all would agree with the idea.

Well I didn't want to start running in gauchos (I liked this pair) only to find that I was offending somebody, especially if I were to post a picture on my blog, you know, like when I run that half-marathon someday. So I decided to investigate a little farther, and asked a person whom I thought might have a more authoritative answer: If I wear culottes for running, am I breaking any rules? Am I going to cause offense?

Well he didn't know, but he was so kind as to talk the matter over with a few other people. The long and the short of it is, I have been advised that while there are no hard-and-fast rules about the subject, in order for me to play it safe and not cause offense, I should not wear anything other than a skirt for exercise.

To clarify, the FP stance (that's the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland) is that women should wear women's clothing and men should wear men's clothing. And FPs believe that skirts are women's clothing and pants/trousers are men's clothing. I guess culottes or gauchos or what have you are seen as sort of a gray area that is best avoided, at least in our local congregation.

Now before those of you who are not FPs start thinking "Aaack! Legalism! Run away!" I must express some sympathy with the principles being defended here. Those principles are distinction in dress, modesty, and the avoiding of worldliness. I appreciate that my church takes those principles seriously, and it's definitely a blessing to attend church services where the women are all modestly and soberly dressed.

That said, I'm a little bummed that the "rule" trumps practicality and even modesty in some situations. I mean, generally speaking I am happy to wear skirts as I do think it's easier to be modest in a skirt. But there are times when a skirt is not as modest (I'm thankful that no one I know has seen me running lately).

So I'm feeling kinda blue about running. I've given up on it for the moment, actually, as it's frustrating and exhausting to be fighting with my clothes the whole way. I wish I could just relax and run without having to think about my clothes at all. Maybe soon I'll gather the courage to give it another try.

Of Romance

I realized somewhat belatedly that last Sunday was Valentine's Day.

I'm not big on holidays (that's a topic for whole 'nother post) and, generally speaking, I think that not celebrating holidays is freeing. Celebrating Christmas or Easter or Valentine's Day means taking on a lot of obligations...I must buy gifts, I must dye eggs, I must buy expensive flowers and eat out at an overcrowded restaurant; and if I don't, I'm a Scrooge, or un-Christian, or un-romantic. Bah humbug, I say. I don't celebrate most* of the holidays as a matter of principle (to explain this would require the 'nother post) and therefore I'm free of the obligations and free of the guilt. I like it that way.

But I digress. What an overused phrase, "I digress." I wince to hear myself say it. But to continue, it's hard to make it through a Valentine's Day season, with all its attendant marketing, without thinking of romance. I came across a "how did you meet your spouse" conversation recently (online) and that reminded me of a recent trip to Walmart.

It was a Friday night and I was in the pasta aisle. I passed a woman and her friend selecting spaghetti sauce. They were dressed to the nines in stiletto heels and trendy outfits, hair and nails perfectly done. Behind them a few paces was a tall guy pushing a cart full of frozen TV dinners and ice cream.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" the guy asked.

The prettier of the two women looked back over her shoulder. "Who, me?" she asked, casually leaning on her cart (I bet those stiletto heels were killing her feet).

"Yeah. What's your name?"

She turned around and looked him over carefully from head to toe. (Her not-as-pretty friend politely examined the label on a jar of sauce.) Inspection complete, she gave him her name and asked for his. Formalities out of the way, he got to the point. "So, uh, are you married?"

"No," she said, then asked suspiciously, "Are you?" When he shook his head, she asked, "How old are you?"

And by now I was farther down the aisle and was mercifully spared the rest of the conversation. The whole thing struck me as being bizarre. The really bizarre part was their body language. Neither one of them smiled, at all. Both of them seemed hesitant, and wary.

And rightfully so, of course. I mean, seriously, who thinks that they are going to find that special someone in the pasta aisle at Walmart on a Friday night? Seriously? It was almost kind of funny.

But the sad thing is, I don't think that this sort of thing is all that uncommon. A few words about the weather or class or something equally trivial, then phone numbers exchanged, perhaps a date set up. How can those brief few moments possibly be enough to tell you whether you've found that special someone? What are the odds, really, that the random guy from Walmart (or class, or the bar, or wherever) is going to be the one for you? Not good, right? What a recipe for disappointment.

So, then, how do you find that special someone? You know, the one to grow old with, the one to stick by your side through thick and thin, insert heart-warming cliche here? Hmmm...well my experience renders me more qualified to speak about how *not* to find that special someone, I'm afraid. So I can't answer that question for you.

(A very good answer, of course, would be "at church." And that's how my two happily-married siblings, and most of our married friends, found their spouses. But small churches have their limitations.)

Feel free to comment to share how you met your spouse or significant other. I love hearing those stories.

*I do celebrate Thanksgiving and don't think it's a burden. :)

A Poll

Hi friends,

I put up a poll in my sidebar. Your votes would be appreciated. Feel free to leave a comment on this post if you'd like to share (or if you don't like the options); otherwise, your vote is anonymous. I'll refrain from commenting until voting is complete. :)

Puzzles

We love doing puzzles. Here are the boys with their latest favorites. Elijah is working on a 600-piece train puzzle, and Noah has just completed a 24-piece of Winnie the Pooh.

Now before you get too impressed, I must point out that the boys get a lot of help with these puzzles. I help Elijah by sorting pieces and by giving him verbal cues when he gets stuck, like "Where does that piece go, Elijah? Look at the picture on the box--see here? I think it's part of the blue train's wheels," etc. I help Noah by handing him the next piece that he needs, and by identifying pieces, as in "Here is Tigger's hand," though once he's done a puzzle a couple of times, he doesn't need so much help.

I have a hard time getting pictures of moments like these, because my camera's flash isn't working. Pictures of little boys indoors often turn out blurry. This one isn't too bad though.

EDIT: After a couple of days, the boys are on their own with these puzzles. Noah breaks his up and re-does it over and over, and Elijah sorts his own pieces and comes running to tell me when he finds something important. I think it will take him a couple of weeks to finish the whole thing. :)