My Kingdom for a Box

Or is that my kingdom as a box? Remember that awesome box I scored at work the other day? We finally got to working with it. It is the perfect castle shape, so I gave it a drawbridge.


Welcome to my Castle


Interior decorating


a little Tom Sawyer


C'mon Mom, you can do it, come in!


Odd little curious George smile she does

In other News
The Mayflower beans are about to give two seed pods and the Shackamaxon have a handful of swelling pods waiting. And on top of those I am 'reserving' there are pounds and pounds of regular beans coming in! With gallons of soup frozen already, I need another way to use these without having to blanch them the regular way (getting them cold enough afterwards is the part we keep failing on).

This recipe looks good!:
Scalloped Green Beans originally from easy southern cooking, converted to what I have on hand:

Gallon ziploc bag full of beans, trimmed and washed
1 onion, diced up
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
1/3 c. diced up Cheddar cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
Half the soup can milk
crushed up crackers or toast crumbs

Combine all ingredients except crumbs in greased casserole; mix well. Top with crumbs. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes or until bubbly.

Other recipes for using up the harvest(s):
saucy green bean bake probably without the 'processed cheese' though...
walnuts, onions and cheddar cheese over olive-oil steamed green beans (my thought)

Other 'other' recipes that peaked my interest:
lemon yogurt cornbread, odd but intriguing
Lemon ginger carrot cornbread idea
Lemon cornmeal cookies<--- gotta try this!
Crown Jewel patties, carrot and onion patties covered with cornflakes and baked

Make do and mend...

Make do and mend book on Amazon. This book really is the epitomy of what I was taught as a child - and what I still do as an adult. It is a reprint of what was distributed in WWII to families to help them through the hard times. I'm sure I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never the whole thing. I read through what Google Reader would let me and was amazed at the quality of the writing, illustrations, and examples. It is a shame that fewer people have these skills now, especially as this nation is beginning to need them more and more. I am thinking, if we cannot make more money in this economy, how to do with less and stretch those things we do buy and those things we already have into more enjoyment and more meaning. And it also makes me think of how I grew up, and what I would like to pass on to Esme.

I remember a time when I was Esme's age, maybe just a little older, four and a half or so? My cousin and I were outside and fighting over something the way that young children do. My grandfather called us over to a pile of wooden bits - he gave us some nails and a hammer and we each made a toy. Mine was an airplane - really just blocks of wood nailed together to LOOK like an airplane. The boards that made it up were yellow and blue and for some reason I was insisting on naming it Cindy. My grandfather, I am sure, was rolling his eyes and I know my grandma hid a laugh. This instilled great morals that things of value do not have to come from a store and can cost next to nothing yet bring hours of enjoyment. And, the enjoyment is as much in the making as it is in the use of the object. That has stuck with me all of these years.

Treasures found... art made

medium weight cotton 'denim' in mustard
and light weight cotton denim in navy

I found these fabrics last night after work... it was such a great find for very little money. Mark even said it was well spent.


Esme's treasure trove

I was cleaning this morning and getting ready to throw away/put away some of the little assemblages Esme makes on her shelves.. and I found these all hidden away between some toys. She has been collecting treasures out of the buttons I let her play with, like a little magpie! Apparently she likes rhinestones! I can honestly call it treasure because her treasure chest was one of the toys piled on top of them.

LATER: Esme and I spent some time in our downstairs room, the one that is supposed to be hers some day when we finish it out and solve the drainage problems in the garage (adjacent to it) for good. I have a lot of my old art school things in there - piles and piles of drawings and sketchbooks.. and some assorted crafts. I cleaned down to the table and invited Esme in there to read books while I sorted. She saw some of my old paintings in a stack - and said they were mama stories, and that I did a good job. I unrolled a canvas I did not remember what was on it - and she said it is a girl..and looked up at me with an odd questioning look - it is mama? And yes, it was a self-portrait I had done back in 2001. Apparently I did a good job ;)

She had me paint a portrait of her - and man... I'm out of practice! It could be any little blond girl, it is not her in particular. I will need to practice and she will definitely help. If Esme had had her way, the arms would have been green and the eyes would have been pink and the face red. But she was impressed that I drew her dress green with pink spots - just like the dress she was wearing.. she thought about that and then decided that Mama did a very good job and told me so several times. She loved watching me mix colors, literally danced up a storm telling me 'the red is so pink - the blue the black the green .. it all blue! etc etc.. She dipped in and drew some circles on her own paper but was very hesitant, and then wanted me to do it for her... and I didn't. I started to fill the background on her portrait in with purple and she said 'no raining Mama, no raining on the Esme need a sun right there.' She has her ideas... I just thought it was a pretty 'Esme' type color to fill in with.. and she thought I was putting her out in the rain!

I bought a little truck and a big brush for her at the store today. We will have to paint that big box soon as a project. It should be warm this week for it. She can use my little brushes on the truck. I am thinking of moving her table and chairs down to the room so she can spend time with me down there. She hardly ever uses the table now except when I am home to spread toys out on - she is usually at her desk table with her computer or food trays. We can do more 'school' type things in there, as well, with an Esme-designated corner. She was sitting on a stepstool today and reading some old books of hers she found stashed there. I'll keep an eye out for some carpet remnant at work to throw in there to keep the floor warmer this winter. The added benefits of all this is 1.) my art supplies will not be crowding my sewing supplies upstairs and 2.) instead of that room just being a shrine to 'old art' that I can't part with but can't do much with... it will be a place for making new things as well. The downside is, I will have to make some rules she can only go in there with me or daddy, since there is not a lock on the outside. I don't want her accidently knocking a portfolio down to the floor where it could get damaged if it rains hard, or leaving a cat in there etc etc...


painting her truck
Her portrait I painted is on the wall behind her...


painting truck with mama

47 months

It's almost here, she will be four next month. I wonder if I am going to continue the monthly updates once we reach the 48 month mark... and I answer myself that I will, at least until 5. But I'll drop the months ;) and find some other way to make it easy to search back. After all, these are for her as much as me - to look back on one day. Also, I am sharing it with you, the reader, up until such time she tells me this is all too embarrassing to continue. The way that is going, probably a few more years! But, I think five is important. A lot happened the last year. She is such a different child now than she was then, and yet, so much the same. Her world has expanded, and so has her imagination.

That is what I want to post about this month. Her imagination. She now talks about ghosts and dragons and alligators and all sorts of things without any prompting to a subject change! She tells me things that I have to say 'uh huh... really?' on... like ghosts don't have teeth, and that food makes your teeth grow (which is true, kind of) and that capes make you 'super'. She wonders what ghosts do without teeth, and why they try to eat her? She tells me what doctors do, and what farmers do/wear, but still has a firm identity that she is none of those - she is an Esme, a little girl. She thinks she has this mommy and baby thing worked out - but it is VERY funny to hear her explanation of it. Such as, ghosts have mommies and daddies too, and they help them so they are not ghosts and can be alive. All of that was said with a washcloth over her hand in the bathtub and singing parts of a Muppet song from the Alice Cooper episode where they sing 'I'm looking through you...' ?? Some days I just don't know or plan on finding out exactly where it came from. She has these things figured out, and uses them often as matter-of-fact instead of just imaginary. It is an interesting ride when she really gets going on a topic. However, she still does not jabber one's ear off as some her age do. She thinks, and thinks deep. Then she explodes on you at unexpected times.

She sings daily and often, and gets a lot of the words right to many songs - doesn't like it when I change the words, but realizes what a joke is now. She used to just get mad at me. Her deadpan 'no laughing' and 'no clapping' and 'don't say it' with a pouty lip is still a common occurrence. It is especially funny when she has said something like the 'Daddy isn't learning how to be a dragon right' when he was coughing smoke... and she is 100% serious, crossed-arms and everything looking at you. Classic.



Sometimes, I will come to my desk in the middle of the day and find an assemblage of toys which will make me laugh. At this very moment there is a tiny wooden helicopter with a hole through it no larger than the size of a quarter. She has found a small plastic pig and put him into the helicopter so he can take a ride. I remember her last night spinning the helicopter blades and making it fly around, but I hadn't seen the pig at that time.

In other things, we still have not learned the button-up shirts. I have not stressed it. I might work on her more with her jacket with the one button. It will come. She is extremely interested in computer games and learning how they all work and how to win. She has so many I can't keep track. At times, she is still interested in learning how to spell words and how to write letters. She still counts to twenty while skipping a few .. and I've heard 'eighteen, nineteen, ten!' recently said to a kitten. I think she wants to work on money more and will have to find her a plastic piggy bank or something she can put coins into - she gives me buttons and says there are your twenty cents. She has had very little regression on the PT - forgetting to take time one day etc...at least she got her own new clothes and put the wet ones in the laundry room. She is eating well and growing tall and strong. She is social and loving... empathetic and funny. I don't worry constantly about some of those things like I used to but Mark still has to pat me on the head and say 'Yes she is an alien and everything in the world is wrong with her'... and I get the point. I guess I get it from my mother.. *yipe* I hate that idea. Old habits are hard to break.

collection of thoughts

Flipped through a magazine at work today and found only two pages that had anything I could possibly live with in my house. What does that say about me? Hmm... Good things, I think. I rarely see anything in a 'design' book that is interesting enough to save for the future. These are like what I saw.

a bedspread set like the one in a magazine. Definitely would do a darker bedspread but the pillows were interesting - and the ones in the book had more of a 'black on light' square to them. Very sewable.

writing desk <--my grandfather had a desk a lot like this

It was in pieces and not very stable so I did not bring it back from Minnesota. I should have anyway, maybe it could have been helped some. Perhaps I can make something like it in a woodshop in the next few years or find something like it at a thrift/flea market type atmosphere. The one I saw in the magazine that reminded me of it was a warm honey/orange colored wood. The thing that attracts me most to it is the closeable slat top that also opens up as the writing surface. My grandfather's had a pull out flat board underneath that helped support the slant-top when it was open.

when the tomatoes are coming out your shirt sleeve...

When the tomatoes are coming out your shirt sleeve it might be time to stop picking them and go inside and get a bucket! Ha, had you wondering where I was going, eh? Lots more yellow tomatoes today - I indeed had my shirt so full of them that they were coming down the shirt sleeve as they overflowed the makeshift pocket I was putting them in. I think they must have been hurried up by the nearly freezing temperature last night. I need to pick the beans again but did not see them overflowing. A huge pot of soup is on the stove right now - yellow tomatoes, beans, cowpeas, peppers, split peas and leftover pork chop trimmings from last week's cutting. It smells wonderful. I brought a crysanthemum home from work that was on sale - and planted it in the garden. Everything seems to be doing well enough, except the radishes have a bit of yellow on them. I hope the frost doesn't come earlier than it is forecasted.

New blog find, very unexpected and also superb :
The Yellow House