Big Plans for the Garden

This fall I hired a garden planner, Villa Verde Garden Designs, to do a plan for the backyard. I decided to do this after a few months of mentally planning, but always feeling unsure of where to start, how much of what materials to buy, and nervous about wasting money with mistakes. With a plan laid out, we know what the final outcome will be and we can do portions of it as we have the money and time, without worrying that putting one thing in is going to screw up something I'm going to want later. I also wanted help with sizes of things from someone who has more experience with gardens than me. The completed plans, delivered to us on a large paper, fully scaled for accurate dimensions, include a path, a couple of border flower beds, tearing down and rebuilding the current raised beds and adding several more. Our planner, Leah, knew to do things I might not have thought of like designing the new beds to be sizes that you can buy boards so we won't have any waste, and with big enough spaces between each one to fit a wheelbarrow. She gave us two options for layout, and included detailed views of how to put together a stable path that will last. She also included a list of local suppliers that have good prices for our building materials, and a list of plantings for the border beds. I would highly recommend this service if you're planning making a major change to your yard, or if you're just unsure about what plants to add to your space. We got our plan and all of the advice for a very reasonable rate, and I am thrilled to be adding to our vegetable garden and beautifying our backyard. I hope to document our progress on this blog as we begin making changes.

We got a puppy shortly after we got the final plan and sadly haven't done a single thing to the back yard since then. But, yesterday I did manage to dig up the entire front border of our front yard, remove the plastic sheeting, add a little bit of soil, and plant 130 bulbs! I am so excited to see them come up this spring! I also planted a lovely climbing rose next to our walkway. My long-term plans for the front yard include adding several lavenders and another climbing plant along the walkway and some wild-flowers next to the curb. As part of doing this I will be taking out all of the plastic that is currently in the border beds of our yard, under an inch or two of wood/bark chip. I hate plastic sheeting! While it does a pretty good job of minimizing weeds for a couple of years, it breaks down in the ground over time, losing functionality and turning into plastic flakes in your soil. This is not the kind of material that I want where I am trying to grow things.

In the back yard, we didn't plant a fall/winter garden this year, so we are pretty much done with harvesting for 2009. . . although there are still a couple of peppers out there that we never picked because we had such an amazing bumper crop of peppers. We ate peppers in salads, in sauces, and in burritos. I cooked more stuffed peppers this summer than in all other years combined, and we made many batches of pepper jelly, which will be one of our main gifts for Christmas this year.

Remaining to do in the back yard before it is really ready for winter: prune the raspberries, remove the dead, dried out plants, stir the compost pile, and add mulch to the raised beds.

So we have lots of big plans, now we just need to find the time to do the work.

The Puppy's Sweet Side

The sweetest things about our puppy:

He won't go to bed until we all go to bed. That means that if I am bouncing the baby in the office while daddy is asleep, he will come lay near me and won't go to his crate until I go in to bed too.

The way he crosses his ears over the top of his head when he is concerned or paying attention REALLY hard.

The way he lays down if I give a command he doesn't understand - like that's the utmost he can do, is this what I'm asking for?

The way he licks toes.

How he now associates me getting peanut butter out with him going in his crate, so he jogs down the hallway ahead of me and gets inside, ready for his treat.

The way he tries to crawl onto my lap when I sit on the ground.

The way his kisses make Sweet Pea laugh and laugh!

Nursing in Public

How do you feel about nursing in public? Before I had a baby, I felt a bit conflicted about it. Now, after having a baby, and nursing in public myself at least once a week... I still feel a bit conflicted.

My internal conflict isn't about whether or not it should be allowed or how women should go about it. I firmly believe that every mom should have the right to feed her baby in any location at any time, no questions asked. I also believe that women should simply do it in the way that works best for their babies, without regard for the "comfort" of those around them. It is natural and healthy and therefore should be a non-issue. However, even I (called a nudist by my husband for my tendency to wander around the house naked) have some hang-ups about exposing my breasts in public. Why? I don't know, probably because of this up-tight, patriarchal society I come from. Again, intellectually I think it's totally great and should be totally acceptable, but I find myself looking at other women nursing in public, curious about how they do it, how they hold the baby, what clothes work for them, are they comfortable, are other people staring, etc. Then, I think, "Oh no, am I making her uncomfortable because I just realized that I am the one staring?!"

So here, is my conflict: I WANT to be totally comfortable doing it, but I'm not always actually comfortable, even though I try to act like I am. Things that help me to feel the most relaxed about it are if I have on a nursing tank so my belly isn't exposed, and if I have a cloth tucked in to catch any stray sprays or drips. I also appreciate it if those around me just continue to interact with me normally, rather than totally looking away. I own a nursing cover/"hooter-hider" thing, but I've only used it a handful of times because I have never gotten the hang of it where it feels like it makes things any easier. The few times that I did use it I was in a position where I felt very exposed, for instance facing out into a crowded restaurant, and I wasn't wearing clothes that were very conducive to nursing. I know some people that love them, but it just has never worked very well for us to cover Sweet Pea up while she's trying to eat. Now that Sweet Pea is older she can figure out how to latch on in nearly any position, with only a small portion of my breast exposed, and she is very efficient at getting the milk, so it is much much easier to get the job done quickly than the early months. Although of course now that she is older she also squirms and gets distracted by people around us more, so I still sometimes try to find a quieter, private area to nurse. For this reason, I believe that nursing rooms should be available in more public places. NOT because women should have to hide themselves or worry about other people's comfort, but just because it can be easier to get the job done when you have a comfortable chair in a quiet location.

As she grows, I also wonder how I'll feel about nursing an older baby in public. Will I feel more uncomfortable because I'll be concerned about being judged for nursing a toddler, or less uncomfortable because I'll have so much experience by then?

Halloween Costumery

The winning idea this year was: Super Mario Bros. family!
I was Princess Peach
Average was Mario
Sweet Pea was Toadstool

We sewed blue overalls for Average out of some heavy "duck" fabric we found at JoAnn's, got heavy red fabric for the hat, and bought a red shirt at Value Village. I found a pink prom-style dress for myself at the village too, a pink silky robe that I modified with PUFFY sleeves, and we bought a wand and a crown to complete my outfit. Sweet Pea's costume was the simplest: a mushroom hat and a matching vest. I thought this would be good for her because at 8 months old, she isn't that patient for clothing changes, and I wanted her to remain fully mobile and comfortable. My sewing machine held up through all of the sewing of the heavy fabrics and the fluffy fabrics and the silky robe thing, but it is starting to go slower it seems. (Hmm, maybe it's time for another oiling and cleaning? I better make sure it's in good shape because this year for Christmas I am planning to try to make most of my gifts.)

Average is already thinking of ideas for next Halloween, and we were definitely inspired by some of our friends' creativity as well. I can't wait for Sweet Pea to get excited about Halloween too!

My Diaper Mentor

Once again, this post is part of the Cloth Diaper Carnival, hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry.


In my high school, all students had to take a personal finance class. For the most part, the class was pretty ridiculous, trying to "teach" concepts that are either common sense, or vary greatly family to family. One of the more useful projects we were assigned was to make a family budget, after randomly drawing a job and salary. The budget was to be based on a variety of lifestyle choices, including type of home, car, food choices, and diapers. One choice that I remember was my partner and I deciding to use a combination of cloth and disposable diapers, thinking that it would be too difficult to use cloth all the time but that we could save money by using cloth.

I probably didn't think about diapers decisions again until a little less than two years ago, when I went to a baby shower for my friend, Wendy, who was planning to exclusively cloth diaper her first baby. Her friend passed on a brand of diapers that she wanted to the guests, and listed where you could order them online. This was the first time that I was introduced to the "new" all-in-one and pocket-style cloth diapers. They look much like disposables, but with nice colored fabric, and function just as easily in terms of putting them on and taking them off of the baby. I thought they were pretty cool, and was interested to see that there were more options to the diapering choice than I had been aware of.

Months later, that same friend came to stay with us for a few days, with her husband and new baby. They cloth diapered while traveling, and used our washer to do a load of diapers. She had a cute wooden basket that the diapers were neatly folded in, a cute hand-made diaper bag, and cute wet bags too. Wow, I thought, who knew that diapers and their accessories could be so... cute!! I also saw how entirely do-able it was to travel with cloth. From then on, I knew that I would use cloth diapers with our baby and it became one of the things that I looked forward to about having a baby, too.

So thank you, Wendy, for being the first to show me the light and expose me to cloth diapers for our generation. I talked to Wendy about this post and she says she knows at least 10 people who have started using cloth diapers since she began -- what an inspiration!

Folding diapers in our laundry room during a visit this summer.

Hoping No One Saw Me

Sweet Pea is in the midst of a possible Nap Schedule Transition, AND her First Illness (a cold). After three attempts at laying her down to sleep for a nap today, I finally gave up when it got WAY past her normal time for a first nap and got her to fall asleep in the ERGO. So, I had been sitting and reading blogs while she slept and occasionally snored. She had been resting for a while, when I noticed the time. I knew the mail-person would be coming soon and there was a bill that I needed to mail today, so I decided to slip on some warmer clothes and walk the block to the mailbox with Sweet Pea in the carrier. The clothes that I could find that I could add to my outfit without disturbing her were: my husband's black fleece vest, a large green knitted blanket, my heeled clogs, and a red baseball cap. This was over a pair of jeans, rolled up at the cuff, and a bright pink t-shirt. I tucked the blanket around myself and Sweet Pea and into the ERGO to keep her arms and bare feet warm. I was about halfway back down our block (in the rain) when Sweet Pea stirred, and I looked down and realized the blanket had fallen and was hanging from only my waist now, looking like a ridiculous skirt. I don't know how long it was like that, and even when it was properly positioned I'm pretty sure I looked like a crazy person with a giant growth on my front. I'm just glad no one else was at the mailbox at the same time.

Clothesline Weather

I finally finished a little project that I'd had in process all summer long — a clothespin bag. Just in time for the rainy season. I did get to use it once before rolling our line up for the year, but the clothes still had to go into the dryer for a few minutes to get totally dry.

I found the pattern online here. The directions were pretty good, and have nice little thumbnail photos to go with them. The only difficult part to understand was which side you sew the seam on before folding over to the button part, but that part is hidden so I decided it didn't really matter. I used a fabric square that I had bought about a year ago because I liked the colors. The buttons were ones I had in my button box already, and the ribbon was left over from a gift that was nicely wrapped. In August, I embroidered this little design on the front, although it's hard to see in the photo. About a week or two ago, I finally finished it. I currently have the bag hanging from a clothes hanger, but it can also hang directly on the line, which is one reason I chose this pattern. I like the look of this one too, though.

I'm so excited for clothesline weather to come back! I do enjoy the fall for the lovely leaves, and winter for the holidays and snow activities, but spring and summer are really my favorite because I hate being cold, which I am all the time, and I love being outside. It just feels so nice to hang the laundry out to dry on the line and get that sunshiney smell, and know that you are saving electricity and money. I think this clothespin bag is going to make hanging my laundry out even more enjoyable than before. This may be my favorite trick for making chores fun: making something cute to use with them.

Lessons of Parenting

A few things that being a parent has taught me:

• Never pass up an opportunity for a nap.
• Take time to play.
• Don't stress about your to-do list. There's always tomorrow.
• All babies are different. They will all sit up, eat, crawl, sleep through the night, walk, and talk at different times, and that is OK.
  
• If you forgot to bring wipes or a wet bag, the baby will probably poop.
• If you thought you were going to be early, you still might not even make it on time.
• Whatever gets the most worry will not actually happen; something else you never even considered probably will.
• It's the truth when people say "they grow so fast," so try to appreciate every moment.

Moments like this....