Words on Wednesday – Challenged

So, I have come to rely on one evening a week to do some writing on my own at a coffee shop. It didn’t happen this week. I am a bit annoyed. I find it quite difficult to do much writing at home while the boys are around. So I have thoughts swirling around in my head, but haven’t had a chance to get them on paper. I definitely need to work on either being able to write at home or having a backup plan when my regular writing time falls through.

I like the idea of writing for five minutes a day. My friend, Adriel, has a blog where she does that. Perhaps I need to give that a go. Certainly I must be able to find five minutes to myself? We shall see.

I also need the more extended periods of writing time though, so at the moment, I am challenged. That’s ok, I’ll just have to get creative.

In other news, I am trying to decide what to do with this.

I have had a vegetable garden for four years. Each year it has gotten a bit more difficult and less joyful for me. A lot of that is owing to our Central Oregon weather. We have an extremely short growing season with late and early frosts. I am considering whether I may just let my raised beds lie fallow for this year and hope to find renewed passion for it next year. Kind of makes me feel like a lazy bum, like I should just get on with it. It might need to be what I do though. We’ll see. Still pondering.

On this second day of Spring, we woke to snow on the ground and more falling. I really do love that.

How do you find time for your own pursuits? I need help figuring it out.

30 Days of Creativity – Day 18

We’ve had a very productive day in our house today. Despite the rain, we got our soaker hoses in the ground for the garden – ok, so Colin & Jude did this. I planted all the seeds in the raised beds & transplanted the tomato plant outdoors. This is the latest we’ve ever got the garden going, but I planted shortly before this last year with starts & lost everything to a frost & had to start over. So I decided to wait until now & plant straight into the ground. We’ll see!

 

My other creative project that Colin helped me with today is one of my most favourite things I’ve ever made. I saw an item through Pinterest on Etsy & I loved the concept behind it. It was a keychain made from pennies from the year you, your spouse & your children were born, but I wanted something more accessory-like. So I scoured the house for pennies, emptied the boy’s piggy banks & found the coins I was looking for. Then I got to thinking that it would be fun to get even more personal & relevant. Colin was born in New Zealand so I am hoping some of our friends or family can find me a penny from Colin’s birth year. Then because we were married in the UK, I found a two pence piece (because there’s two of us!) from the year we were married.

All that to say that I now have a necklace with a penny each from all our birth years & the year we were married & they’re in chronological order from the top down. Drilling the holes in the coins wasn’t easy, but Colin helped & it worked! I’ll cherish this item forever!

For more information about the 30 Days of Creativity, click here.

Tis the Season…

…to head outdoors & into the garden. Hard to believe since we had snow last week, but that’s Central Oregon for you. Last year I planted my garden mid-June & still lost everything & had to start over! Arg! It was an incredibly odd year for gardening even by Central Oregon standards.

For me, gardening & having children have kind of gone hand in hand. My first son, Jude, was about to turn one when, with the help of some friends, we put in our raised beds. This will be our fourth year of having a vegetable garden. The first year was wildly successful – I put it down to beginners luck. The following two years have been good & I’ve learned new things every year.

Our First Year Garden

I’ve never been as aware of the seasons as when I began gardening. I had no idea that Central Oregon had such a short growing season. I just figured that it gets quite hot here, lots of sunshine – it must be easy to grow stuff. I didn’t know about the frosts in the middle of June!

Harvesting the First Tomato of the Season

I’m also so much more aware of life seasons now that I have kids. We had a speaker at MOPS this year who said something that has stuck with me. She said, “When you’re a Mom, the days are long & the years are short.” For me, that has been true. Most days are great, but there are those days that drag on & on & we all just seem to be waiting for Daddy to come home.  At the same time, my boys are growing up so fast & I want to put it all in slow motion so I don’t forget or mess up or miss something.

So what are some others ways that having kids & having a garden are alike?

• It’s important to have a plan! Whatever your parenting style, you really need to have an idea of what you want to achieve & how you’re going to make it happen.
• You suddenly become part of a super cool club! When you garden & when you have kids, you find yourself relating to a new set of people – you have more in common with people than you did before.
• You can talk about your kids or your garden for hours! With friends, with strangers in the supermarket – you’re always on the lookout for encouragement, stories, good advice. (You’ll also get lots of unwanted advice.)
• They’re both hard work! Weeding in the heat of summer or disciplining in the midst of a tantrum, being a gardener or a parent takes time, energy & patience.
• They both have a great payoff! It’s called fruit. When you pick that first zucchini of the season or you see your child voluntarily share with another child – it’s an amazing feeling. It’s this sense of “I did this”, but at the same time it’s “I didn’t have much to do with this at all – it’s a miracle.”

Whether you have a full vegetable garden or grow herbs on your window sill, try a bit of gardening. You’ll learn a lot & your kids will love it.

Who Can Resist a Dandelion from a Dirt-Covered Boy?

This is an article I wrote for our MOPS newsletter.