I think I have the skills to become a ninja

So, some of you might remember when Liam decided to lock us into the nursery because we'd turn the door to lock on the outside and I had to pop the lock with a light saber from a miniature Star Wars figure. After that adventure, you'd have thunk that I learned my lesson.

HOWEVER, last Friday I realized I've learned nothing. When Liam throws a tantrum, he runs to his room and locks the door before he slams it, locking just himself in. But last Friday I was making Liam's bed and for some reason Justin and Alana were also in Liam's room when Liam decided to have a tantrum. Which resulted in all four of us locked in. ARGH. After trying to jimmy the door with a credit card we realized we were really stuck. Fortunately Justin had his keys on him, so I climbed out the window to above the garage, climbed down the roof and jumped down to the walkway and opened the front door. Yay fun especially for the acrophobic.

So I'm going to have to bury a key in my front yard and/or give my brother a key so I can call him the next time one of the children locks me in their room. Or I should become a ninja. Either/or.

Mary, Mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

I hate that poem. People used to call me "Mary" at school because my nickname (which I hate) sounds a lot like Mary. It also reminds me of the Secret Garden. Who was Mary and was she actually contrary or were people around her just jerks?

Anyway, I decided that this was the year that I was going to start a garden. Ok, you can stop laughing now. I know that I don't exactly have a green thumb (understatement) but I thought maybe I'd try my hand at organic gardening. I had the problem that we're in a rental and I couldn't destroy the grass. The places with dirt where I could put a raised bed were too small or under the pine trees. The only place that had enough sun was on the grass. Also, the squirrels around here are VERY aggressive and would steal stuff off the plants. So I designed this garden and built it with Justin's help.

My garden-there are doors on both sides that swing on hinges and latch close. 

Onions.

Green onions

Left to right, front: cauliflower, spinach, carrots. Middle: broccoli, romaine, red leaf. Back: Sugar peas,  peas, pole beans.

Carrots, romaine, red leaf, and spinach (second batch)

Peas are starting to fatten up.

My sugar peas trying to escape!

Second batch of radishes. We harvested the first batch.

4th attempt at cucumbers. I don't think these ones are going to make it.

Tomatoes

My lone celery plant that survived

I've learned some things in this garden experiment.

1) I had too much nitrogen in my soil. This meant my veggies produced big, beautiful leaves and no fruit. My broccoli and cauliflower look great, but have little teeny-tiny heads. The first batch of radishes had 2 foot stalks but where woody and only a few tasted okay.

2) Don't start seedlings in February. I was following a chart, but we had a really cold wet spring which means that I didn't get to planting until May. So some of my seedlings didn't make it because they spent too long confined in little containers.

3) Plant easy vegetables if it's your first time around. I tried to grow celery and cucumbers, and both of them failed spectacularly. I might dig them up and plant more carrots.

4) Raised beds are awesome. I really only have to devote about an hour a week to watering, weeding and harvesting. Being so far off the ground makes it way easier on my back and also means less weeds.

5) You will not save money growing your own garden. Building the garden, dirt, compost, and manure, planters and seeds put us well over $400. That's before you add in the extra water consumption. I could have bought veggies for several months for that amount of money. Yes, the return on that money will get better each year, but we will still have to amend the soil every year and buy seeds. But the initial cost is over and I'm hoping that next year we'll be able to get a little bit more out of it.

I'm thinking of sewing some kind of vinyl cover to put over it and see if I can get it to grow all winter too. We'll see.

How Queen Victoria scared the hell out of my kid

Yeah, okay, she's more than a little frightening

Justin always gets the week of July 4th off. I tried to plan something every day for the kids. We went to the zoo, wading pool, library and had general fun. There's a discount movie theater about 10 minutes from our house and on Fridays they have matinees. Since Liam loves irates and we'd had success when we took them to see the Muppets movie, I figured that'd be an easy activity to go see the Pirates! Band of Misfits. 4 tickets  ($12) and unlimited popcorn and air conditioning made us all happy. Until the last 20 minutes when Queen Victoria turns into a rampaging maniac and Liam starts crying inconsolably and clings to Daddy until Justin takes him out into the foyer and multiple theater workers are asking if he's going to be okay. So all in all, not a success. But we had fun the rest of the week until some old guy got up in church and gave a talk on how all Liberals are going to hell and that any one who protests wars is a bad church member. But that's another story.

Send me your recipes!

I few months ago I got really sick. I contracted some sort of virus that literally made red meat indigestible. When I finally got over it (and lost a little weight in the process that I have since gained back), I found that I really didn't miss it that much. I've decided that I'd like to become a pescetarian (fish, no meat). I really can't become a full fledged vegetarian because I'm very prone to anemia and iron, but since red meat isn't the only way to get iron and since I LOVE seafood, I've decided that pescetarianism is the way to go. I'll probably still eat chicken occasionally, and I might have red meat on even rarer occasions. But here's where I run into trouble.

I need recipes. I'm not fond of tofu. I know, I know-I'm Korean, I should love it. I don't. But I could really use any recipes that are vegetarian or use seafood/fish. Dairy and eggs are fine. I do have to be a little careful about cheeses that have sulfites in them because they give me migraines. Email them or send me a link.

Stay tuned, abnormal programming will resume shortly

Sorry about the hiatus. My life has been simultaneously very stressful and very boring. Here's a conversation Justin and I had today:

Kids are screaming their heads off. I turned to Justin and asked, "What do you think? Augmented fifth?"

That's right. Instead of calming my kids, we analyze the interval of their shrieks.

Here's how Alana tells me she's hungry.

Ugh.

I am currently hopped up on a lot of Nyquil. If I drunk dial you, just hang up. I won't be offended. Maybe.

Happy 3rd birthday, Alana

Three years ago yesterday the Universe presented us with this: 

Just look at that lump of baby. Plus the awesome mullet.

In three years, she has grown into this:

I didn't realize until now that her swimming cover and water table match.

This is what she thinks of growing up. I concur.