"She refused to be bored, chiefly because she wasn't boring." Zelda Fitzgerald

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Cherry Blossom Haze


Just today, the cherry blossoms started opening. This next week will be stunning, the weekend may be a glowing daze. We are having magnificent weather with gentle breezes and buckets of sunshine alternating with torrential winds, chill and rain, rain, rain. The lawn is ready for a first cut and all the raised beds have been planted except for the potatoes and the children's garden. Our plum trees started opening their blossoms this morning. Must keep an avid watch on the fungus and pests and be liberal with my organic sprays and compost tea. I am also planning to order a giant dump of mulch to keep everything handily tucked in and moist for when the hot weather arrives. Its also time to divide any perennials I want to trim down and QUICK, finish the brick trim on the front walk! EEP!


 The boys are getting so panicked about being outdoors at all times that they are trying desperately to throw off the yoke of household chores. I am trying to remember to be insistent but it is SO hard! I am terrible at staying consistent and modeling the things I want them to learn. Most of parenting has been parenting myself, I swear. I must finish my chores before I get all distracted while feeding the chickens and wander over to check out the seedlings and trim the pear tree and admire the crocus and see if the grape vine is budding. Adhere! I must learn the things I am trying to teach. No time like the present. 


 This morning I gave myself a haircut. I would include a photo but I doubt it would be very dramatically visible to anyone. I cut about four or five inches off the ends but it was so stringy and brittle and damaged that there wasn't much volume left. I have to say that I love me some YouTube tutorials. That's where I taught myself how to cut my side angle bangs. That's where I learned how to cut my sister Lockbox's curly hair and that's where I went this morning when I had the itch to fix the scraggly, dried and breaking mess that was my hair. I parted and trimmed and brushed and angled and trimmed again until I had trimmed it all into gradual piecey layers, framing my face on both sides, all serious damage trimmed away and the parts that are left mostly falling in a regular and even fashion. I feel so much better. Cutting my own hair makes me feel like a dog that had all the winter mats trimmed of its paws or a sheep that's been sheared right before the June heat hits in waves. Its so relieving and freshening! Someday maybe I'll go to a salon and have them do it all for me but its hard to trust a random pair of shears when I know what I want and my own experiments are free.

 The bikes are back out and I am realizing that even though Dee is 7, I haven't really focused on working on getting him riding on a two-wheeler without training wheels very confidently. Goals for the Spring! Also, we seriously need to weed down our collection of wheeled vehicles. We do not need the gigantic fleet that we posses. Yay for the approaching neighborhood swap day!
 I am drinking a fair amount of protein shakes these days. I have decided that my new workouts and maybe just my normal activity warrants a more reliable protein supply and I have been whizzing them up when I am too busy to have a real sit-down lunch or when breakfast seemed like it had more produce than muscle feed in it. One of favorites has been a "pumpkin pie" version made with coconut milk, canned pumpkin pulp and cinnamon + vanilla protein powder. Yum! Its a treat that I don't really mind the boys indulging in with me and sometimes its serving as an ice cream substitute after dinner if I whiz in frozen fruit (Yay, new Costco membership this year!!!) and then scoop it into a bunch of tiny bowls.
 Pom is trying to potty train although I have been impossibly lazy about it. Here he is about to turn three and I am not there yet. I am embarrassed to admit that the "last baby" thing has infected me and threatens to allow me to spoil him. Argh! How can that be me? I know about that crazy stuff and I hate the idea of being like that. Its also just hard to be dedicated to the toilet cause when there is baseball practice and swimming lessons and co-op and gardening not to mention the laundry and the mopping. So much to keep on top of and his wearing diapers still seems somehow excusable. The good news is that he seems motivated himself on some level. He's doing pretty well at keeping clean at this point, telling me to take him to the bathroom when the need arises without any prompting. Staying dry is a whole 'nother story but hey....we can't ask the sun, moon and stars all at once!
I have been working on very little painting lately although I have a couple of ideas percolating and A is taking one of his necessary but unpopular trips to the West Coast again this coming week. I also hope to watch a few movies, maybe finish painting my bedroom and push a little bit of extra yoga into my life. Optimist much?

Hey, listen....its Spring!

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