Mom is Just a Nickname

I’m eating Dora the Explorer vanilla yogurt. That’s better than the banana kind I’ll be eating before too long. I got them for X, hoping that the colorful cartoon character would convince him to eat some. No such luck. Now I’m stuck eating it. (I prefer my plain yogurt, nice and tangy and not laden with sugar.)

Eating his yogurt now is about more than just not letting the food go to waste. I need the yogurt containers! They are by far the easiest container to convert into pots for my seedlings! I’ve got loads of seedlings and I’m trying to transplant them over to pots now, to give their roots more space.

I’ve got yogurt cups, a cut up two liter soda bottle, a frosting container, a margarine container, cut up water bottles…the list goes on. Anything I’ve been able to scrounge that is the right size and I can poke holes in will do. I’m so desperate I’ve eaven asked Toph to keep watch for things at work. Steal the co-workers’ trash so I can recycle it into pots for my baby plants!!!

How did this happen? How did I forget to plan ahead and save yogurt cups ahead of time?

So, do you have any water bottles, yogurt cups, or ANYTHING I can use?!?!

I’m excited this morning by how my plants are thriving. I’ve got “flats” of seedlings that are getting taller by the day! I’ve got a mint cutting that had looked dead but is now putting off new leaves! My rosemary cutting is still green and bright and seems to be doing well. I just got a new cutting of a plant called ‘wandering Jew’ and I got it potted last night. Even the one potted herb I have, feverfew, is doing well!

It’s such a small thing to be happy about, but it’s thrilling to see my plants doing well.

.^.*ScAtTeR*.^.

Re-reading my last posts about “what do you believe?” keeps making my brain go on to the next question, “Why do you believe what you believe?” I already explained some of my reasons for why, but I think it’s an important question for anyone to consider, even if you don’t share the reasons with anyone. I’m more frustrated by people who don’t ever ask that question of themselves than I am by just about anything else. I think not asking “WHY?” can lead too easily to a ‘herd mentality’ (where everyone goes with the flow and stays safe in the herd).

.^.*sCaTtEr*.^.

We’re setting up a fish tank. So far we just have water in with the filters running, but I still enjoy looking and listening to it. My kids and cats are entranced by it too. It’ll be fun to watch everyone enjoying it even more once we get plants and fish into it.

.^.*ScAtTeR*.^.

I couldn’t concentrate on one topic for this post. My brain is hopping from one idea to another today, so you got a scatterbrained post! Enjoy!

As a teenager, I like to think I had a rather green thumb. I had my own plot of garden in my parents’ backyard where I grew bleeding hearts, clematis and ferns. I had a multitude of houseplants and bonsai growing on a shelf in my bedroom. I read all I could about growing things, I talked to everyone I could find who could teach me more. I also helped in my parents’ vegetable and flower gardens.

Between caring for my kids and the house, the garden fell to the wayside after I got married. My house plants all died. I decided not to get more because we have mold allergies in the family and the soil in the house plants can harbor mold. My garden only survived if I managed to get perennials and pot them in as soon as I brought them home.

So, for years, I’ve said I have a black thumb. I could kill whole flats of seedlings just by blinking. I killed almost every potted plant I had over the course of the last 6 years or so.

But still, I’m intensely interested in plants. I am fascinated by herbs for cooking and medicines. I’m intrigued by other people’s lush gardens. I love the way a home feels when there are live and growing plants throughout.

So, I’m trying to turn my black thumb green again. Thanks to plants shared by family and friends my garden and house are starting to perk up. I’ve only killed one plant, a strawberry, through neglect so far this spring. I almost killed a rosemary bush, but it has greened up since I got it in the ground.

Now, the kids and I are sprouting seeds and I’m hoping I don’t manage to kill those. We planted forget-me-nots, moss roses, thyme, basil, oregano, catnip and johnny jump ups. So far, the basil, moss roses, thyme and forget me nots have sprouted. It’s fun for all of us to watch the green sprouts push towards the sunlight each day.

I’ve got mint waiting to be potted and a few houseplants I’m trying to go without soil (hydroponically) to avoid the mold. So, here’s to turning my black thumb green! The kids are enthusiastic helpers and I’m relearning how fun digging into the dirt can be.

Kermit was always my favorite Muppet, so I’ve aspired to “be green” for a lot of my life. Now, I guess that’s taken on new meaning for me. Now, I’m just doing my best to make my family’s footprint on the Earth smaller, rather than trying to live in Kermit’s swamp!

We’ve taken a few more baby steps in the last few months. I’m using tote bags instead of plastic ones when I grocery shop. Sadly, they aren’t homemade bags, like I was hoping. Still, they are sturdy and handy. I always feel good when I remember to bring them along and use them. I’m remembering them more than I’m forgetting them these days, since I now keep them stashed by the passenger seat of my car. Any that are brought into the house after shopping are set under my purse so that I grab them on my way out the next time I leave the house.

We just changed another of our light fixtures over to CFL’s this weekend. There is only one light fixture left to change out now. All of the rest of the light bulbs in the house are CFL’s or regular flourescents. As expensive as the CFL bulbs can be, they last so much longer than incandescent bulbs! We are still using some that we got as a gift back in 2006 (or was it earlier than that?) and they are in heavy usage light fixtures! (Thank you, John, for making the investment on our behalf. We teased you at the time, but we really do appreciate them!) We have moved them with us twice now and they will continue moving with us as long as they last.

I think the next “green” step I will take is composting. I’m still weighing what kind of composting I want to do. I’m pretty intrigued by worm composting, or vermicomposting. Toph’s not all that keen on having a worm composting bin in the house though, and that’s the only way we could do that. I like the idea of having a composting pile outside, but I’m not sure the neighbors would think it was so cool! So, I guess that leaves an enclosed pile. I just have to figure out the best way to do it.

Composting has two huge benefits: For one thing, it reduces the amount of waste going into the landfills. So much of what I throw away, I guiltily realize could be composted or recycled. We do recycle, but our city’s recycling program only accepts a few different types of things. So, other things that seem perfectly recycle-able to me end up pitched. The second benefit for me is that compost provides excellent nutrients for my garden. My garden is growing in leaps and bounds right now, and not having to buy fertilizer or other things to improve my soil would be a definite bonus.

What do you do to save resources, to be “green”? Do you vermicompost or have a compost pile? What have your experiences been with composting?

Also about my adventures in Greener Living: Disposable World

I’m not sure what possessed me, but a few days ago I decided the kids and I needed a schedule to follow this summer. It had to be flexible enough to be spontaneous, but firm enough to guide our actions in the day to day.  I dedicated Mondays to sticking around the house, Tuesdays are grocery shopping day, Wednesday we go to the pool, Thursday to the library, and Friday is our Adventure Day, where we go somewhere exciting around town and explore. Adventure Day should mean the zoo, or a museum, or the beach. But, I’m still trying to recover from our late night Wednesday so I wanted to to stick close to home.  So we followed Monday’s schedule more than Friday’s, yesterday.

Here’s what we did:
7-8am: read in bed, watch TV, or check email
8-8:30: breakfast and get dressed
8:30-10: Gardening: planted the rest of the iris and started some seeds in containers
10-10:30: Shower/change clothes, have snack
10:30-12pm: Craft Projects (I was collaging our summer schedule, J was doing a sort of engraving project and X was painting)
12-12:30: Lunch
12:30-1:30: Chores (Clean up lunch dishes, clean kids’ bathroom, scoop cat litter)
1:30-3: Shopping at Home Depot and CVS
3-4: Quiet time
4-5: TV watching

About that time, J got a phone call from a friend inviting her over for the evening. So we dropped her off for that and then went out to eat, instead of eating at home like we were going to. Ooops.

So far, the schedules are popular with the kids, and I liked it too.  I feel like I was more productive today than I normally am, and this made me happy. I felt like the kids enjoyed their day. There was enough time for them to go off on their own and do their own thing, but not so much free time that they were whining at me about boredom. They got to do fun things (gardening and crafts) but it was balanced by getting things done that we needed to get done (chores and shopping).  Jillian especially seemed to appreciate being able to look at the schedule and know what was coming.

I really hope that we can keep up this schedule. I’ve never been one to stick with things like this, except when necessary. But I really think we NEED this structure to our days this year.

So, if you’ve got kids, what do you do to help tame the wild days of summer? How do you keep from hearing “I’m bored” all summer long?