cardboard storage

A little better than where it was before...
Which was underneath a mile of cloth and paper
hard to find or get to...



Esme saying to Daddy not to interrupt her as she was 'just typing' at her checkwriter



Putting paper in the shelves


Scissors, tape, construction paper - and voila, two storage containers

I cleaned the workshop some last night - it was stacked about six feet high above the table with 'things'... I had also brought some cardboard boxes home from work and went to making them 'useful'. Each one has three compartments - so I knew there was something to be made from them.

I'll let you see what the whole space will look like in a day or so - I really want to get back into making more things and need to keep a nice open space to do so.

pictures courtesy of Mark, thanks :)

other: Esme has said a few things last night and this morning that really shows me she is progressing. Last night: 'It is all my fault. I am mad at not read three stories.' This morning while I am urging her to wash her hands before eating: 'Which hand do you want Mama, this one, or this one? haha. I'm funny.' She really wants 'more' lately, again. She is playing all sorts of pretends, video game, and having arguments and long disagreements of logic etc.., which are only slightly different - but do have a distinction.

bits of content

Half or more of our corn fell down in the drenching down rain the other day. We don't know if it will stand back up on its own. I feel I am facing some unrealistic goals at work... don't know where to take that. Esme's indoor garden marigolds have begun to spring up. I spent several hours cleaning my workshop table tonight when I got home from work. I found my glasses - which I have not worn in over a year but had begun to miss. I called my mom and talked to my sister for a moment online. *whoosh* I watched Esme play PORTAL on Daddy's computer and she was amazing - it was a controlled room Mark built for her to experiment in - and she loved it. I could just see the gears running in her head as she played with the different elements. She argued HARD not to go to bed and to keep playing.

I am working more on the outline for the crafting book I want to write. It will take a lot of work, photography and finished objects to make it possible. But, I think it would be a good contribution to the craft book world, as well, for the approach that it will take. There is a children's math book I want to write, as well. I need more information on how to do things in the publishing world.... but mostly I just need to get the drawings and text all done so it can be presentable.

Mark and I have been talking a lot when I finally get home from work at night - and Esme has been fairly good about it. She would really rather we play, though -- and doesn't know what all this seriousness is about different businesses and things we all may need to sort in the weeks ahead. I'd say for a four year old she is doing quite well with the idea. She has still been on her reading kick a little - I got a few recommendations for books from my parenting group and they were very good ones.

Morris the Moose (sees a cow, goes to the circus, goes to school). She has these but I have misplaced most of them. Danny and the Dinosaur (again, we have it, misplaced), Moncure books like 'play with a and t' (we have) and the Biscuit book series which we do not have but would be a good one to start her on. There are at least four small easy-read books I made for her a year or more ago that would be reproducible and good to think about publishing as well.

Garden bounty

bounty

Red cabbage, summer squash (zephyr hybrid), a green bell pepper, green and wax beans, some carrots and herbs (basil, lemon basil, oregano, mint) from the garden today. There are still no ripe tomatoes yet.

I put most of this into a mixture on the stove with some butter and apples to boil down. A little more of it I put with some storebought tomato, rice and kielbasa to make a tasty hotdish for tonight's supper. Mark had made more fried apples for himself and Esme to eat with the wonderful pulled pork roast he did a few days ago. He is getting so good at it - ginger and other spices combine with lots of things so well.

In other news I am working on a pig sewing pattern. Esme has the first one and it is a sweet little piglet waiting for its mama. I should go work on her right now.

bit: kudos to Daddy for recognizing that little girl can and will sleep somewhere past the crack of dawn if we put a blanket over the canopy of her bed. It blocks the first rays of sunlight which otherwise have her popping out of bed somewhere around 6 am. Now, unless something else wakes her up and she realizes the sun is up, she might sleep until 8 or even 9.. sometimes close to ten. That is good, because she gets tired in the middle of the day and very cranky - and being full 'on' all day she doesn't really slow down earlier, just cranky and surly in the afternoon with possible chance of nap.

She still wants to go to school every day. Every morning her first question is: 'can I go to school?' Poor kid. Not until June 12th, again.


Last night eating an apple
we had sliced them up to put in dinner

Fresh from outside in the garden with us, muddy, sprayed with a hose, wearing plastic necklaces Grandma gave her and just happy and thoughtful in general.

Memorial Day

It is Memorial Day, and we will be visiting Grandma and remembering Grandpa today. But, as I work retail, it does not feel like it is a holiday - we really don't get holidays off so they just feel like a break in the insanity if it perchance, like today, happens to fall on our regular day off.

Later:
Esme wanted LOTS of things today. She wanted to go to Jackson to the bookstore. She wanted to go to school. She wanted me to dial Grandma on the phone and wake her up early in the morning. And although I usually make things for her on my day off - I had some plans for things for the house today. I made two pillowcases for our bed with an airy light cotton I found at the store yesterday. Esme wanted to give me the bag of stuffing to make them into pillows. Then she wanted them for her bed, but then she was happy enough because she saw how pretty they were on ours. She brought me her pillow and asked for me to 'fix' the star on a part of the fabric print that had been sewn in a seam. She was unhappy I could not fix it. And then I made a sunhat, for me, for outside in the garden. She wanted that, too... poor kid. I probably will make her one but she didn't like hers last year and they are admittedly one of the more difficult pieces I've sewn from scratch.

We went to visit Grandma and she played and was almost very good... but did throw a bit of a tantrum. She fell asleep here at home after a meal of leftover pizza and juice. I went and watered Grandma's hillside garden. Now it is time to sit down and rest for a bit - unless something else comes to mind to make.

Summer Flowers, early midsummer plantings

It is actually not 'quite' summer yet - but it is hot out! These are flowers from our garden, zinnias, cosmos and also a 'Blaze' rose. The zinnias are 'volunteers' from last year.

I am working at writing more on my gardening lens : Beans, Squash and Corn and adding links to all of the books and companies I have found the most useful over the past few years.


The garden jungle as it is
Even though I mapped it carefully as I went along, I have to say I planted 'informally' this year
and I think it is working out well...


Two different squash fruits starting

I still need to plant my purple hull and black eyed peas, and the whipporwills as well. Some of the sorghum broom corn seeded itself last year but with the temperatures turning hot it is time to put that out in a row as well.

Other notes: I am getting a zucchini or pattypan squash out of the garden nearly every day. The big yellow blossoms are so nice to see early in the morning. There are two blue Hubbard squashes started - we will see where they go - as they have a long time until they would be ripe. The eggplant has flowers. The tomatoes have still not turned yellow/red. The green peppers are producing, but not the banana peppers. We have pulled all of the green cabbage, but the red cabbage is not yet ready. I have zinnias, cosmos and marigolds blooming! I need to put out more radishes around the squashes to keep the bugs down - I've seen and killed two adult squash bugs out there already. It has been an early but strange year gardenwise.. so warm at first, then cold for a long time, and now downright hot!

The bean that has impressed me the most this year is the King of the Early bean, bought from the Little Ragamuffin's shop. It has produced so many tasty green beans already - and the plants are upright, bushy and doing very well. Almost all of the seeds that were planted germinated right off, which is why they are producing so well now.

Later:


The new bean fence, for cowpeas and Kentucky Wonder climbers

I have been in the garden - even though it is hot! I planned on planting the 'midsummer' items in a month, but they really need to go in now. Like everything, it is a month early...seems fitting for the year as it has went. I took a bean fence already made up from last year and put it up in the back of the garden. It was getting tangled by our goat the other day - so I needed to do something with it other than where it was.

I planted Mississippi Silver Crowder cowpeas by it, black eyed peas, the whipporwill heirloom peas I have, and some Kentucky Wonder climbing green beans that just happened to be on that same fence last year.


A squash, beans and corn combination

When I came inside Esme had a plan for me. We were going to build an 'inside garden.' She had a craft kit I had been given at work for her - and it was indeed an indoor planter. We built it, filled it with dirt and planted some marigold seeds in it. She is very happy and I wonder how hard it will be to get her to understand they will not be up soon. At least she is not still watching it - she went back outside to play.

I have some more whipps to plant and also some sorghum broom corn.



Esme's indoor planter
with marigold seeds


Esme doing some antic
she swears is 'being piglet pushing on the swing'
and has to stand up here because Piglet is small

We have had to watch the Pooh movie many times this week. This morning she asked me for 'on pooh Mama - all the more you find it - on the pooh cry and cry and duckie go (curvy line through air) swim and quack!' For those of you who do not translate Esme well that is her asking for me to go to the 'MORE' special features on the Pooh disc where I found the Loch Ness short cartoon. For something that is hard for her to explain, I think she did that well.

bambi bit

I am working at making this pattern better - still have a few more to make. Esme liked this set so much she took it to town with her today. I should make a few for sale in the shop, too - my standards are so high though it would take several more tries to get one good for sale.


Bambi (as said by Esme), and baby, and one of her other favorites 'Mack' dog

I would like to see some of my internet presence grow again - I have just 40hour work-work-worked for so long now I need to make it a bit of a priority to see what is happening out there, make new things and work on the book I promised Dot I would think further on. I am updating my Squidoo lenses - and made a new one about vintage children's patterns to sew for babies and toddlers. Sewing the vintage patterns has been a whole other world than modern ones - I have learned so much from them.

Vintage childrens sewing pattern lens with lots of info