Too Much To Process

Oh my GOODNESS! There have been a lot of goings-on around these parts! There were things that I couldn't talk about until they settled out / were made formal. There were just busy things like trying to stay active without over heating in 108 degree heat. And, as always, there was OKRA...

That's my second batch. I have an entire bowl in the fridge right now just waiting for me to take action... I am still in love with the pickles, bit I am TIRED of picking okra. The trees are so tall that my arms are covered in itchy spines by the time I'm done picking. I can't seem to make myself pull them up, though since they are FOOD and still producing. :-/

Well, in other news, we settled the insurance for Don's car. Luckily, we still carry full comprehensive and collision coverage even though the car was paid off. Listen up, folks - this is my big advice: ALWAYS carry full coverage on your car. If you think that you cannot afford full coverage, let me tell you what you really cannot afford - a new car. Without the insurance money, we would be down to one car right now. In a town this size, that means one of you is S.O.L.

Oh, in other GIANT SIZED news, Don quit his job. :-O He is officially going into business with another attorney in just two short weeks. It is totally scary to jump like this without a safety net (a.k.a.: a savings account), but in his previous position, there was no way for us to build a safety net... so we jump. I am completely on board with this decision. I trust my husband to make well-thought-out decisions that will ultimately benefit our family. Also, the planner in me is scared out of her mind. I loathe not having any absolutes. I take that back - the only absolute that I have is that this is really happening... GAH!

*sigh* Well, at least there's this:

and this:

and thanks to (you guessed it) Pinterest, and this pin:

Source: ohcrafts.net via Rachel on Pinterest

we have the beginnings of an underwater theatre:

I'll post more pictures when we're done, but we're very excited! All of the animals will receive googly eyes and various other embellishments tomorrow (after they dry). Then we will craft their aquarium!

And just in case you were worried about me, I have had some down time in all of this :-) We spent last weekend on the Dry Frio in ranch house heaven. Just me and 13 of my closest family members...

If you're not from Texas, this might not look like heaven to you. If it does not, then we are no longer friends :-P Trust me - it's awesome. We walked down the river while in the river, then I slept all afternoon. No lie.

I'm trying to break the rest of my update into actual blog posts, but I will tell you now that I am in full-on Fall Garden Planning Mode. It may be epic... or it may just be a garden...

Oops! Must dash - time to head over to my Mama's house to try and put a dent in the leftovers from last weekend! Besos!

Okra, Okra, Oh-KRA!

You guys, my okra plants are out of control. Granted, the beds are raised, but each of the 5 plants is taller than my head. I harvest between 5 & 8 pods per day, and the pods are GIGANTIC. We love us some okra in this house, but we've finally grown weary of every-other-day consumption.

okra with purple beans ready to bake

It was time to bring in reinforcements in the form of my colleague/inspiration, Nora. Nora is a fellow massage therapist and an all-around great soul. She has a soothing energy, great hands, an incredible laugh... I could go on all day. She also gardens and has much more experience than I. When I told her about my chronic, shallow over watering issue, she stopped, smiled and said 'you're a caregiver, Rachel. You were just taking care of them.'

When Nora posted recently about pickling some of her okra, my ears pricked up immediately. I adore pickled okra. When I say 'adore', I mean 'I can eat a jar in one sitting'. My tummy might hurt afterward, but that will not stop me from doing it in the first place.

This week, the okra harvest reached the level of 'ridiculous', so Lily Ruth and I wandered over to Miss Nora's house to see her chickens and get her recipe. I also had a chance to sample some of her already made okra pickles, and I almost melted into the floor with delight.

I am completely jumping the gun here because my batch is barely out of it's boiling water bath, but I'm going to post the recipe anyway knowing that even if I managed to personally mess it up (which I won't know until it's time to open a jar), the recipe itself is good :-P

Nonna's Pickled Okra
    courtesy of Nora Pullin

For 3 pint jars:

2 cups water
1 cup white vinegar
2 Tbsp canning salt

1 1/2 Lbs fresh okra
3 dried red chili peppers
3 tsp dried dill
3/8 tsp Pickle Crisp granules (Calcium Chloride)
** I also added 1 whole garlic clove and 1/2 tsp whole dried corriander seeds to each jar**

First, boil your jars, lids and bands for 10 minutes to sterilize them. Take them out of the water & set them aside (do NOT wipe them off with a dirty kitchen towel :-P). Keep the water hot - you'll need it again in a minute.

Combine the water, vinegar and canning salt in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil

To each jar, add 1 dried chili, 1 tsp dill and 1/8 tsp Pickle Crisp (and garlic & corriander if you're feeling saucy). Divide the okra between the jars. Add the brine (a.k.a: water, vinegar & salt) then tighten the lids onto the jars.

Return the jars to the water bath, and boil for 10 minutes. CAREFULLY remove jars and set aside to cool completely (approx 6-8 hours).

Pickles are ready to eat as soon as the jars are cool, but will get spicier as they cure... if they last that long...

Refrigerate after opening.

Notes:
1) This recipe easily doubles, triples, etc. I made 6 wide-mouth pint jars using just my large pasta pot and a medium saucepan.
2) Canning lids (the round, flat disk with the rubber gasket) can only be used ONCE, but the jars & the bands for the lids can be reused.
3) Ball jars do not automatically come with labeling stickers - I am bummed, but I guess this just gives me an opportunity to make something fun...
4) My daughter is especially patient today. I gave her some soap and free rein at the bathroom sink. This kept her occupied for most of the writing of this post...

*edit: DANG, these pickles are guuuuuuuuud! I managed to wait approximately 7 hours after removing them from their water bath before opening the first jar, and I am hooked! SO tasty! So crunchy! The garlic and corriander are permanent additions to my version of the recipe! I also ended up with enough okra to make a second batch of 7 jars just one week later! The okra is out of control!!!!*

Sometimes, Life's a Total Wreck

Lily Ruth and I slept in yesterday. By slept in, I mean that it was after 10 o'clock when we woke up. We both needed the sleep. Between my insomnia and her nonstop approach to life, we were a bit overtired.

Once we decided to wake up, we smiled sleepily at each other, and she started babbling happy morning nonsense. I grabbed my phone to check the time, and saw a text from Lily Ruth's Daddy - it was over an hour old. 'Good morning!' It greeted me cheerfully.

"I'm going to call Daddy and tell him good morning."
"O.k., I'm going to go in the living room!" She slid off the bed feet first and padded off.

I can hear lots of highway noise as he answers. Not a surprise as he was driving to Houston for a deposition.

"Hi! Where are you guys?" His voice was loud and overly cheery.
"At home - why?" I answered cautiously.
"Good. I need you two to jump in the car and head for Seguin to pick me up. I just totaled the car."

I was completely confused. His tone was all Hail Fellow,Well Met but the message conveyed was terrifying. I started scrambling for clothes as questions fought for space in my mouth.

"Are you o.k.?"
"I'm fine. I just need for you to come pick me up. The officers should be done with me by the time you get here."
"Oh. Um. We'll be right there..." Not strictly true as the drive alone is over thirty minutes, and I still had to get us both ready, but he took it in the spirit it was intended. "Great!"

It took me almost twenty minutes to leave the house. I was at a total loss. What would we need? How long would we be gone? Would we have to take him to the hospital? I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find a bra, but I left Lily Ruth's hair wild and uncombed. I threw ridiculous combinations of blankets, pillows, bathing suits (swim lesson at 4 - mustn't forget!), art supplies, toys and snacks into the car in case we ended up needing to occupy our time someplace awful. By the time we left, I was milliseconds away from tears, and I desperately wanted to throw up. But I did neither - I had a child in the backseat, and if I fell apart... well, it wouldn't be fair to her, and it wouldn't do any good.

As instructed, I called him when we hit I-10. The cheerful tone continued: "Good! We're just about done here, and the officer is going to drop me off at the Home Depot a few exits away. I don't want you or Lily Ruth to see the car." That almost did it. I almost threw up again.

We found him in the parking lot surrounded by the detritus of a totaled car. Leather satchels, legal notebooks, sport coats... He was talking on the phone and pacing (as he always does). I pulled up next to him and jumped out - I just needed to touch him. Without breaking off his conversation, he hugged me with one arm and began loading his things into the car. I don't think he had any idea that he was shaking like a leaf.

Lily Ruth begins her interrogation from her carseat. "DADDY - did you have an accident in your car?" He hangs up the phone and gives her his full attention: "Yes I did, Boo. My car hit another car, but I am fine." She plugs her thumb into her mouth and twirls her hair tightly. I realized much later that to her, 'accident' means not making it to the potty in time. The news that something had happened to daddy AND his car was a surprise to her and the information was highly confusing.

He wouldn't show me pictures of the car until after we got home. He made the right choice.

We spent the rest of the day doing mainly accident-related stuff. A trip to the minor emergency clinic for a check up. Calls to the insurance company. Picking up a rental car and his prescriptions. I finally dropped Lily Ruth off with some friends around 5 o'clock. "I just need a minute to fall apart" I told them. I had kept it together the entire day because every time I even mentioned the accident, my tiny shadow would plug in that thumb and go a bit purple under the eyes.

I just hugged him for a while and sobbed. "This is probably harder for you than for me" he said. "I didn't have time to be scared, and by the time it was over, I knew that I was fine." I, on the other hand, had spent all day worrying about him. I just wanted to crawl into his body and check it out bit by bit. How could they know if he's o.k.? Shouldn't someone have come along shouting about a need for full body scans or something? Like some sort of lunatic, I just kept asking him if he was really all right or not.

I eventually pulled it together and went to collect our daughter. She spent the rest of the evening glued to us and nervously staring at our faces hoping for some kind of clue as to what was going on. We finally got her to talk to us about why she was scared, and it was mainly because she had no idea what had actually happened... and (like me) she was unconvinced that daddy was truly fine. Luckily, when you are three, mama and daddy can usually convince you that all is right in your world with fairly little effort. She fell asleep easily, and we settled in to our own bed to unwind.

As he always does, Don drifted off long before I did. I'm sure the pain pill helped. I stared at his silhouette in the dark, and listened for his breath. For once, I was thankful for the snoring.

****************

Thank you, Lord for your presence in our lives. Thank you for keeping your hand on my husband. You kept him calm and saved his life. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Summer of Being Three Marches On

I cleaned Lily Ruth's room the other day. It won't be too long before I stop doing that, and insist that she do it by herself... hopefully I won't have to add 'RIGHT NOW' too many times... After that, it won't be long before my uninvited presence in her room will be considered prying or snooping... aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! One Mama freak out a time, please!

For now, I love to go in and sort through her things. She tends to play with more of her toys if they're sorted in some manner, so every once in a while, I make that happen. This time, I started with her Special Drawer. The bottom drawer of her dresser is set aside for things that she especially treasures. We started it together - adding the things she was currently the most fond of - and since then, it has been up to her what is added or subtracted. I occasionally troll that drawer for missing items of my own, and am not surprised when I find them. She even has me follow her in there just before friends come over to play so that her most prized possessions can be put 'way up high' out of the fray.

Emptying out this drawer is a true and honest insight into her three-year-old brain. I found things that I expected like tiny dolphins, sticky frogs, plastic bracelets and princess cards (playing and Valentine versions); but I also found basil from our garden, rose petals from Nanny's house and what looked like either a carnation or a pomegranate flower. I found rocks, pencils, Hello Kitty lip balm, rings, the felt wallet that I made for her and random googly eyes.

I love the transparency of childhood. She has yet to develop any sneaky or hiding abilities. When she wants to keep something from me, she fumbles it behind her back and demands "Don't see this!" Things that she sees as special are put in special places, carried around proudly and shared with those that she loves. When do we learn to hoard and guard our treasures? How do I keep from teaching her that?

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"MAMA!" Her voice cuts though the quiet of the house.

"MAMA!?" Her plea is followed by crying. Not a drama-queen-crocodile-tears-moment, but scared noises.

I round the corner to find her teetering on unsteady legs. Her tiny body wavers in the middle of her floor in sleepy uncertainty. I kneel in front of her and gather her in close. "What happened, Boo?" Her eyes close and her weight melts into me. "Yes" she replies. She pats my back softly as though I am the one who woke up alone. She kisses my cheek and takes for granted the fact that she'll be snuggled up to Daddy's head the next time that her eyes open.

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Lily Ruth is sad. This is something that she decided quite deliberately once we got to her 'school day' today. We actually left at least half an hour before we normally are able to... mind you, this is still half an hour after the parent's day out program starts... and then I forgot to make her a lunch. Literally. Forgot. Didn't remember until I was far enough from the house to insure that I wasn't interested in turning around. So we went to Central Market and got her favorite things for lunch AND a new bag to hold them all. Good stuff. We were on a happy roll.

When we walked into the nursery, her friends were walking toward us to go up to story time. Lily Ruth was engulfed in a wave of happy voices and hugging bodies saying 'Lily! Lily Ruth! You're HERE! Let's GOOO!' She tucked her chin and plugged in her thumb. "We'll join you in a minute." I gave them time to get down the hall, and knelt in front of my daughter. The skin under her eyes was violet. Tears welled then spilled silently.I asked her to talk to me about why she was so sad. "Because, when you leave, I'm going be alone" she whispered. Holy cow. So she has chosen Friday morning (one day that I could spend achieving goals or napping - or BOTH if napping was my goal) to feel abandoned... in the middle of a group of people who love her without reservation.

I'm at a loss. I reassured her as best I could. I loved on her. I reminded her of the love around her. I reminded her of the fun she would have alllllll day. I talked about how important it was to CHOSE to have a good day. I even offered to pick her up early for a 'Mama/Lily Ruth Treat' before swim lessons. All to no avail. I put her in the lap of one of her favorite teachers, and turned to leave. A glance over my shoulder as I ran for the door showed her scooting down to sit alone on the floor; wrapped in a ball with more silent tears and her hair swinging forward to hide her face. That kid can work a room. *sigh*

**********

I thought about this 'alone' business all the way home. Why would she even say that? Then I realized that it's me - she's pulling it straight off of me. I have felt very alone recently. I have lost all but facebook contact with most of my friends who work. My few stay-at-home mom friends have had busy summers with kids out of school and visiting/visits to family. I have felt alone and cut off. I've been resentful that I can't even find the time to write. I've made way too many crafts...

'Brave' dress, anyone?

... but I haven't addressed the fact that I'm lonely. Last night, for the first time in a long time, I offered it all up. I prayed for openness and acceptance. I prayed for gratitude and hope. I prayed for the ability to let GO. I prayed for the strength to receive these gifts when they are given. Today, I feel lighter.

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Lily Ruth is an author. Writing books is her new passion. Our supply of tiny notebooks is depleted almost faster than I can replenish it, but it's worth every penny. She fills the pages with stickers, crayon, marker and pencil. She 'reads' me stories of pirates and fairies. She lines up her 'kids' in the Viking fort and weaves tales of princesses, dogs and saber-toothed tigers. Her stories vary wildly and verge in and out of nonsense. I love to sit outside the fort and listen to her incorporate every book she's been read, movie she's seen and person she's ever met. She often says things like 'and then Brad heard the commotion and came out to see.' Commotion?! Where does she learn this stuff?

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I have a reoccurring feeling that this is a summer of Firsts, but since my kid is only three, um, every day is full of Firsts. But this summer has been particularly good.

Lily Ruth's Nanny took us to Family Camp. Lily Ruth decided to love the beach!!!

She also witnessed her first Variety Show, and attended her first DANCE PARTY! During said dance party, she performed her first YMCA, Chicken Dance and Electric Slide. She also followed her cousin around until he caved in and danced with her:

Since then we've kept the ball rolling with Firsts like First Time Off the Diving Board, First Time I Chose to Wear Cowboy Boots All Day:

and First Time to Use Gymnastic Equipment (a birthday party at the Little Gym):

This week included First Swimming Race and First Swim Race Victory! That girl can SWIM! It's too cute. I'll have to hold myself still long enough to take a picture for you :-)

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p.s. I made Lily Ruth's Merida dress using an e-pattern (the A-Line Dress) purchased from Lil Blue Boo. It is a darling dress pattern and easy as pie. I modified it only slightly for my purposes, but fully intend to make it as directed soon. You should buy it and make some for yourself!

Keep Calm

This delightful reminder to stop taking myself so seriously made it's way bravely across the Atlantic Ocean. It weathered various hardships and survived the breaking of it's protective glass. Now it sits on my desk and mocks me. That's right - it mocks me. With it's beautiful green print and it's smug laissez-faire attitude. *sigh* If only it were that easy.

I have allowed myself to stress out again - big time. Ya'll know how I get, right? I have a problem that becomes a tail-chaser, and I practically turn myself to butter like the tigers in Little Black Sambo... or perhaps I could find a less racist comparison... This particular muddle is a well worn refrain: I need to go back to work but child care is mucho expensive - can we really afford to pay out an average of 2/3 of my wage in child care? Also, my career involves early and/or late hours including weekends and holidays. With a husband who travels for work (and therefore can't be reliable back-up), how can I go back to the spa? If I DO, then when will I see my family? This is what happened when we fell apart the first time! But if I don't go back to massage, how will I earn even enough to pay for child care never mind contribute to the household? BUT if I don't go back to work, will we EVER be able to stop living paycheck-to-paycheck?!... you see where this is heading, right? Mental instability and sleepless nights, that's where...

So I'm making stuff. Again. It's insane. I start to obsess, then I just shuffle zombie-like over to the computer. If I was already on the computer (say, looking for jobs), I just open a new tab for... wait for it... Pinterest, and start browsing for something that I can make NOW.

So, in addition to the macrame bracelets:

And the Viking fort and the Astrid costume and the garden, there is also some Celtic knot-work:

(toddler headband on the left & random, useless Celtic Heart Knot made from twine on the right)

Dream catchers woven into metal links:

(possibly to be made into bracelets or necklaces? possibly just because I like them :-/)

A new blanket for LR:

I bought the fabric and trim intending to make a blanket for our neighbor who was very pregnant at the time. When I got home, I realized that while the coral of the trim was one of the colors in the baby's room, the pattern and color combination were strictly my taste, and not my neighbor's taste at all... so it sat around waiting for me to have a crafting emergency... I finished it this past weekend in just under 2 hours... Lily Ruth LOVES it :-P

And now we come to what may be the death of me. Tiny pom poms. I saw a garland on Honestly WTF a few weeks back, and the thought of it has haunted me. I almost bought an actual pom pom maker (no lie - there IS such a thing), but then I saw the tutorial for making pom poms with a fork (A FORK?! I have one of those!), so I spent the $7 that I would have spent on the pom pom maker on tiny cards of yarn instead! Check me out:

*sigh* Well, I may not be gainfully employed full-time, but my life is gaining color, splash and spice... right? That counts... right? *double sigh* I wish that somebody would pay me to make all of this stuff. Anybody know a benefactor with a weakness for home-spun craftiness? And don't say 'Etsy' to me. Some of this stuff takes way more time to make than I could re-coup in selling prices. I want a flat-out benefactor or a full time job with child care. Make it happen. Toute de suite.

... I talked this all over with Kittyn - the one who sent me the Keep Calm picture - and she suggested that perhaps my angst is due to a sense of defeated expectations. I really didn't picture my life looking like this right now. Despite the fact that taken big-picture, my life is pretty damn good, I still expected to be in a different place right now. I mean, the big 4-0 is right around the corner. I fully expected to have more stuff figured out by now! I already went back to school and found a career that I love, so why isn't the rest of it all just falling into place? I expected to be working full time, and even working hard. What I didn't expect was constant uncertainty and/or worry. I expected to feel like a grown up... you know - steady job, bills paid, work all week & weekends are for family... grown up stuff... yet here I sit. Me. Just me in a 39-year-old body. When do the grown ups get here?

p.s. Aside from the blanket (which is me sewing two pieces of fabric together then adding a satin edge), all of these projects are on my Pinterest boards. You can find me as lilyruthsmama (big surprise). If you want/need a Pinterest invitation, just ask me :-)

Lily Ruth Turned Three!

... and I forgot to tell you about it... My camera crapped out in the middle of candle-blowing-out pictures (or at least, that's what Lily Ruth's Daddy claims, but it seems to be fine now...), so my Mama was the one who captured the lion's share of images from the party. As wonderful as that is, now i can't get my CD-ROM drive to spin up, so I can't share any of her pictures :-/

Here's what I do have:

Just before the party: 'hiiiiii-YA!'

soooooooooooooooo cute!

We knew that we were going to have balloons, but when I got the ribbons out for strings, she asked for streamers!

Lily Ruth's Nanny made cake and cupcakes in ice cream cones - YUM!

a low-res cell phone photo of us - I always end up in that dress...

 All in all, it was a GREAT party. Lots of friends, lots of crazy, running, swimming, eating kids. The Viking fort was a huge hit. As were Daddy's balloon-figure-making skills. He spent the afternoon fashioning swords, dragons and Viking helmets with a tiny balloon pump and a giant bag of balloons. I was so sick of the balloon popping noise that they are now banned for at least another month, but everyone else was in heaven.

We said goodbye to the last of our friends around 9 pm (!!!) and finally wound down enough to sleep around 10:45... well worth it!

To celebrate the actual day of her birth, it was just the three of us, lots of hugs and a few presents. Since she tried to change the theme of the party at the last minute, I set our dining table in her character of choice, and we talked about how happy we were (and continue to be) when she joined our family. We did not have another cake or any more candy :-P

 I put a '3' candle in a cup... genius.

Strawberry Shortcake table setting with presents from Mama & Daddy :-)

It's good to be three - just ask Lily Ruth.

My Little Viking

Ya'll know how Lily Ruth is obsessed with 'How to Train Your Dragon', right? Well she is, and has been since last summer when she saw the movie for the first time.

Also; somehow last fall, she found out about having a themed birthday party. I have no idea how that happened, but it did, and she immediately began lobbying for a Viking Birthday. I said 'sure', and assumed that she would either forget or change her mind ninety times before her birthday. I was wrong on both counts. The lobbying continued unabated until two weeks ago when I actually began to put together guest and task lists for said event. As I sat at the computer typing e-dresses into evite, she announced that she had 'changed it to princesses'. I told her it was too late, and hit 'send'. Then I got to work...

You've gotta see this stuff! So, this is Astrid (Lily Ruth's favorite Viking):

And this is the beginnings of Lily Ruth's Astrid costume:

- by the by, it is hilariously funny to stand on the kitchen table and have your picture taken :-P and it is very important to spend some time checking yourself out in the mirror...

The T-shirt is one that we had on hand. I used Pentel Fabric Fun pastel dye sticks to draw lines on it and make it look more like Astrid's sweater:

The skirt is made from crafting felt that has a reptile skin-esqe finish. I cut it into 2" x 7" strips (7" being the measurement from LR's waist to just above her knees), and made a 19" long, 2" wide strip that I folded in half (lengthwise)and sewed over the layered strips (a.k.a. a waistband). Add ties on the ends & et voila, skirt:

It is tooooooo hot here to even pretend to wear boots and/or arm warmers right now, but the leg warmers from our immense stash do add a cute touch of boot-ish fun. But ya'll, this is the best part - I convinced her to put on her bear feet slippers and 'hi-YA' for me. In the interest of honesty, she was already going to 'hi-YA', I just got her to do it on camera...

LOVE it!!!!!!

The costume is still in progress. I made a finger-woven headband from old T-shirt strips. I added silver embellishments to the skirt, and I'm finishing up the shoulder decorations (Um, I made tiny faux bird skulls from Sculpey clay...), 

but I'm sure i can have it done by tomorrow...............

**EDIT: I've noticed a lot of hits for this post as we near Halloween. If anyone wants better (or actual) instructions for any potion of this costume, you can e-mail me at aintelmosworld(at)yahoo(dot)com, or comment here and I'll gladly supply more of a tutorial for you :-)**

But wait - there's MORE! We made a fort out of giant boxes! Grandpa brought us three boxes like we used for her very first hideout. We put them to good use:

The colors on the top are tissue paper glued over cutouts. It looks WAY cool from the inside!:

Our friends Lola & Jett helped us decorate it (inside & out) with giant markers, then the kiddos pretended to take a nap in the fort: 

In an over-stimulated frenzy, bickering and crying ensued. Our friends went home to nap for real, and Lily Ruth settled in to 'read'.

I can't WAIT until tomorrow! This is gonna be GREAT! What time are you coming over? ;-)

Putting the 'En Garde' into Gardening

It looks very innocent and even innocuous back there.

But the truth is, the garden tried to kill me last night. You heard me. An ambitious Trionfo Violetto pole bean tendril tried to garrote me as I watered and puttered in the fleeting moments of last night's gloaming.

To be fair to the tendril, I almost never walk over there. It was probably just minding it's own business... yeah, right...

It wrapped it's sticky vine-ness around my neck and tried to do it's worst, but it was no match for my Kung Fu. Of course, by Kung Fu, I mean shrieking and wild flailing of arms - I call it 'Hysterical Style'. It may not be as effective as Tigress's 'Hard Style',

but it works for me.

I freed myself from the clutches of the ill-intention-ed legume, and got the heck out of there - I mean - calmly finished my watering.

I've got my eye on you, Bean.

That goes for the rest of you, too. Okra, just because your flowers are pretty, doesn't mean that I won't be wearing gloves to pick you...

Scenes From My Summer (So Far)

My daughter glowers at me from underneath furrowed brows. 'NO, Mama, it's not_______, it's ______!!!' We've had this exact same discussion every hour or so for the last week. It's exhausting.

Her new breakthrough issue is Being Right. She is Right every minute of the day, and she will tell you so - loudly. 'It's NOT a bow, it's a FLOWER' in response to a compliment on her hairdo. 'YOU need to go over there, then I will swim to you. GO' (when we get into the pool). 'You forgot to get me my agua. Get me a cup'... aaalllll day. I spend our time together correcting and redirecting her behavior. I end each day frustrated, irritated and longing for a break.

I want to take my fingers and soothe the scowl from her tiny face. I want to tickle her until she's giddy. I want to love and cherish our time together... but she pushes me away and insists that she's Right and I'm doing it wrong. I know that it's just a phase. I know that it's an important developmental breakthrough. I know that my job is to lovingly show her how to speak to other people, and to teach her to treat others with respect. I know all of those things. What I would really like is for someone else to be in charge today... and maybe tomorrow, too.

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Our little fish has taken up residence in the pool. Her day is spent planning her next excursion into the water. She leaps fearlessly into the rippling aqua depths. Surfacing for only enough time to take another breath and plunge back in. Her tiny body is so light that she bobs near the surface like a cork despite her best efforts to the contrary. She constantly asks for help getting to the bottom so she can walk, retrieve toys, or 'touch with two hands'.

She stands on the lowest step and yells 'I can do something - watch me do something!' As soon as she's sure that she has our full attention, she says 'when I slap the water, then I can go.' Her hands splash down, there's a big inhale, and she steps off. Her jump takes her buns-first toward to bottom for a few seconds, then she swirls like a mermaid and floats to the top. Her fingers reach lightly for the step, and she stays underwater; swaying and kicking until her air runs out. Her head pops up. her eyes light up and she says 'now we go underwater to-gev-her. Is that a good plan?' Well of course it is. Let's go, my love.

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Well, here I am - a Garden Person. I spend part of every day in the garden. Most days it's just a few quick minutes to check on everything and pick beans (and more beans, and more beans...) But some days require actual work. You know what? I don't mind. Even the days that are hot or mosquito filled are good days to be out there. Getting down near the plants. Looking closely at their foliage and stems for pests. Picking tiny weeds and prodding the earth to check moisture levels. These are all very good things. Very calming and centering things - and honestly, I could use a few more moments like that these days as my thoughts fly off the handle with the merest provocation and my anxieties about family and money and work (or the lack thereof) crowd my brain and make sleep a hard won commodity. The garden is there for me. Growing beautiful lettuce, sweet, juicy corn and beeeeeeeeans (and more beans). Reminding me that growth and change are good, but they still require work, patience and love.

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I have a new crafting obsession. You're not surprised - I can tell. This time, it's bracelets. Specifically, macrame bracelets. I wove strips of old T-shirts into boxed braids until my fingers were tired. Now I'm making tiny knots on slender threads. Hemp cord, embroidery thread, polished stones and beads. Alternating square knots and 17-stranded French sennits make it hard for me to think about other stuff. My mind is filled with candy and jewel tones side-by-side with rough natural fibers. Welcome to my newest coping technique - what can I make for you?