I am wife to a magnificent man and mother to five wonderful children. Three of my children were born in the Northwest and two were born thousands of miles away in Liberia, West Africa. Birthplace is no matter, all of my children were born in my heart. This is our journey.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

It's that time of year again.

I love hanging clothing out on the line. I know to some it seems primitive or time consuming. For me, however, it is very relaxing. Aside from the garden, most of the work I do at home is indoors. Doing the slow and methodical job of hanging out the clothes outside is therapeutic somehow.

I pray, think and plan, decompress or sort things out. Add to that the benefit of money saved and less wear on the clothing and linens and you have worthwhile summer chore. I can do this for only 3-4 months a year where we live and I look forward to it every year. I suppose it might lose it's luster if I could do it all year round. But this way, it is something different from the norm, something simple and something very enjoyable.

I run out of clothespins by the time I get to the socks so the deck works just as well. I do go out and flip them to dry the other side at some point. You would think there wouldn't be so many socks to wash in the summer but we are in the Pacific Northwest and with seven people, well, you do the math. That's a lot of socks no matter what time of year it is.

Monday, June 28, 2010

I love those greens!

It took two tries and four bags of new soil but our salad garden is finally growing!

We have several kinds of greens including lettuces, spinach and cilantro along with green onions and radishes. Yum!


The strawberry patch is doing well also. The berries are large and sweet.


I love this time of year and I'm hoping heaven will have gardens and temps in the 70's. :-)

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Today I...

sat in the garden in the sun and weeded for over an hour.

listened to the water from the soaker hose hit the tomato tent and pretended it was the roar of the ocean.

watched my kids play in the pool.

sat with my guy while we visited and laughed.

re-planted most of all our green and red peppers.

did laundry. (Dirty clothes don't recognize Sundays as a day off.)

prayed about some hard stuff.

ran errands with my oldest girl and had a great time enjoying the person she is becoming.

missed my oldest son who was having a great time with his aunt and uncle.

got to see one of my sisters.

missed my oldest daughter who left to spend time with her cousin.

worked on plans for a party.

got two spontaneous hugs from my middle girl because she just felt like it.

told my husband how much it means to me that he appreciates and gives me the freedom to be who I am.

made pico de gallo and guacamole for the first of what will be about a gazillion times this summer.

ordered a new camera.

got a sunburn.

read two books and sang a lullaby to my two youngest before I sent them off to bed.

thanked God for the place he has me right now.

Today I enjoyed my life.

Friday, June 11, 2010

The sun is coming!

Several weathermen have predicted at least ten days of either sun or partial sun.

I'm trying not to get too excited just in case but I know there are a lot of people in my life that could use a good dose of Vitamin D. I'm off to check our lettuce and tomatoes and radishes and dill and cucumbers and potatoes and, well, you get the idea. Anything that is not inside. Have a good weekend, friends!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Stream of consciousness

I am borrowing the title of this post from other bloggers. It seems to be appropriate for this post. I have been a bad blogger the last week. Our summer has had an interesting start and we have yet to hit our stride. I have been spending days gardening, working on couponing deals and getting organized. We are hosting a Thrill of the Grill House Party for Oscar Mayer, a larger family garage sale and are getting ready for upcoming vacation. Life is good but busy!!!!!!

Closets are being cleaned out, hot spots de-cluttered and the back yard is getting whipped back into shape. Steve and the kids have been working this week on cleaning out and setting up our pool for the summer. Rumor has it summer is on it's way but I am a tad skeptical at this point. I do love that the pool is ready to go should it really come.

It would seem that I owe an apology to our local bird population. It was suspected that birds were eating up our garden when in reality we have a snail and slug infestation like nothing I have ever seen. All along our northern property line across the fence is a field of ivy. Slugs in particular love ivy. Yay us. They ate all 16 of my pickling cucumber plants and 14 out of 18 pepper plants. They also ate just about every green bean plant that came up. I couldn't believe it. We have never had a problem before. We tried some organic options but in the end had to settle with slug bait. Almost three dozen slugs and one HUGE snail later we seem to have the problem under control. I have begun re-planting and so far, so good. Now if only the sun could come every now and then and we would be golden.

Our kids finished up their first round of homeschool testing for the state since we started home educating. I am relieved to report that they are learning, thriving even. All of you teachers out there understand when I say you never know how much they are retaining. You hope for it but the proof is in the pudding. Even two of mine who struggled big time with math when they came home both scored above grade level in that subject. What a relief!

Already I feel that summer break is getting away from me. I am trying to find a way to slow down and enjoy the season.The rest of the year I am focused on schooling, feeding and cleaning. During the summer its feeding, buying school supplies and gardening for food. As busy and hard work as it is I still love it. It can be frustrating, mind numbing and hard but it is also enjoyable and rewarding and I cannot imagine having it any other way.

On that note I think the dishwasher needs to be run. Happy Wednesday!