Get the weeds before they get you!

The first thing I do to the yard every spring is pull all the weeds I can find. I've gotten quite the harvest this year.



And I'm not done yet. The kids like to help. As I fill up my plastic bucket, they carry it to the baby pool and dump it out. If I'm lucky, Charlie will bring it back. If he's annoyed because I'm working on the weeds and not playing, he throws it at me.

But I am starting to see signs of the grass coming back to life, something I feared wouldn't happen after last summer's awful drought when our grass died and our yard filled with hardier, dessert-adapted weeds that scratched the kids' knees if they fell on them. I get such satisfaction out of hearing their roots rip free from the soil. I guess they did their part by preventing our topsoil from cracking and blowing away, Dust Bowl style, but it is time for them to go.

Yay for grass sprouts! Grow babies grow!



Every time I find grass sprouts under a weed, I work extra hard around that area. I'm trying to avoid having to put down new sod.

All the yard work is doing a number on my kitchen floor too. The last of THREE LOADS! Yuck!!



Spring here is akin to summer in more temperate climates. We have all the windows open every day and are soaking up the sunshine before it's too hot to go outside.



This weekend's project will be getting our vegetable garden ready for seeds. I'm hoping to get enough tomatoes this year to have extra to make salsa and tomato sauce to store for later. I also want to grow basil and cilantro so I can eat them plain right out of the garden. Or, you know, use them to make salsa and tomato sauce.

Have a good weekend!

Possibly not safe for work, except that it is a carrot

Check out this awesome "organic" carrot I bought the other day. Nope-er-doo! No weird chemicals used here! Except, you know, ENRICHED URANIUM. And that's not really a chemical according to the Periodic Table.



Charlie calls it the "pants carrot."

It was tasty in stew. And now I must submit to monthly monitoring by the federal government.

He's a very empathetic child

Why are you crying, Charlie?

Because I wanted to get some connn-post for our baby plants and the recycling center didn't haaavvvee any.

No worries, we'll just go to Home Depot this afternoon.

But the plaaannnts neeeeeeed connn-post now!

We can plant them while Wes naps, and then later we can get some compost and put it on top.

MY BABY PUMPKIN PLANTS NEED COMPOST TO EAT!

Jekyll/Hyde

It is spring "break" here in South. Why the quotes? Because it is NO KIND OF BREAK FOR ME. For one, I don't get to go teach my lab. Two, my dad/our nanny is in freaking CABO, and three, there are kids EVERYWHERE. Most notably, at my house, because there is also NO PRESCHOOL.

Let's all imagine how it must feel to be three and have your entire schedule jolted by one hour without warning or explanation and then the next week take away ALL of your comfortable routine. No school, no church Mom Group, no grandpa time. Just you and your pissed off mother, twenty-four hours a day, for FIVE LONG DAYS.

Yesterday was trying. I was unprepared for a long shapeless day and wound up at Ikea after a tantrum and fight-filled morning (me included). We impulse bought a new bathroom rug, some sippy cups that looked like mice, and a collapsable play-tunnel because I was all "What the hell? It's cheaper than therapy!" It turned out to be pure genius, though. The play-tunnel amused them WITHOUT MY INTERVENTION for at least thirty minutes, until Wes tried to climb on top of it then had a mini-stroke when it would not support his weight like he wanted it to. Later, they had a hand flapping, stompy barefoot dance party on the new bathroom rug. Other than that it was pretty stormy. On the bright side I finally made time to email a girl at church to offer her any of my organs she liked in exchange for watching the little darlings during that long preschool-free stretch of time formerly known as summer "vacation." When Ryan came home there were cookies in the oven, no dinner to be found, and we were dancing in the living room to "Free to Be You and Me," which was turned up so loud he had to yell to be heard. My mental health, it is hanging on by a thread.

This morning, having learned my lesson about whiny, bored children yesterday, we headed out to the community center right after Ryan left for work. I ran on the elliptical for a while, then sat at a table and drank coffee while I leisurely perused my new Moosewood cookbook for a good recipe for dinner (I went with the vegetable ragout). Then we went to the basketball gym and the kids ran around chasing basketballs for twenty minutes or so.

Then it was off to the hippy grocery store with my hippy cookbook to buy some ingredients for my hippy meat-free dinner, and then to balance out all that good karma we popped into the Starbucks next door for some non-local drinks in disposable cups. Mmm delicious non-local, tree-hating vanilla latte. On the way home the kids wanted to see "the river" (a large creek running through our town that swells like crazy any time it rains, and it has been raining hard for about twelve hours), so we took the back way home, a windy drive next to the river through the woods. So peaceful and pleasant. A great morning, I thought, yesterday must have been a fluke!

After a lunch of peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwiches, Wes went down for a nap. I started washing yesterday's dinner dishes when Charlie asked me to help him find a brown crayon. I told him I had to finish the dishes first and he LOST IT. Screaming, crying, snot dripping down his chin, throwing crayons, ripping all the cushions off the couch. I tried holding him wrapped up in a quilt, thinking he might just need a little attention, but he kept screaming and kicking me, so I took him to his room and put him to bed. He screamed for another twenty minutes while I sat next to his closed door, but finally quieted down. I checked him later and he was asleep in his chair.

Friday is a LONG way off, friends.

That's what I like about Texas

I just checked my camera for the new pictures and DUDE! Did you know it snowed here recently? Because it was in the seventies all weekend. I must have had a raging case of the Seasonal Affective Disorder because I feel better than I have felt in WEEKS.

Or maybe it is just that my kids are almost over the disgusting cold that had us out of all organized activities all week. OMG.

Whatever the case, we only came inside to use the potty and sleep this weekend. I just swept most of my back yard off of the kitchen floor and after I write this I should probably go mop the route from the back door to the bathroom because it looks like a herd of bunnies ran through there.

By the way, I forgot how hard kids sleep when they've been exposed to a moderate amount of fresh air and sunlight.



It all started on Thursday when I dug up part of our yard and put in the garden seen in my last post. Saturday we finished it off with weed cloth, mulch, a trellis, and some climbing vines with pretty yellow flowers.



Saturday morning started with a trip to Home Depot. It was a very big hit once we snagged the race car cart in the parking lot.



Sometimes we like to do silly things to see if the kids will mimic us.



Then we came home and spread out all the mulch and dug this huge hole for the tree we were going to buy. (It got huger than this)



Then Ryan left to go get the tree and the boys had some good natured brotherly fun with the hose. I pulled some more weeds. I've now got a three-foot mound inside a plastic baby pool and think I might be getting close to calling it good.

Ryan came back with an oak tree and Sonic drinks for everyone.


I heart "watermelon" slushes! Also, HFCS!

Ryan finished digging the hole while Wes and I walked to the grocery store for dinner stuff (we were both covered in mud. I was also sweaty. It was hawt. I ran into my friend's husband. My friend who is very pretty and I am sure does not go to the grocery store looking like she's been involved in a shipwreck.).

Then I made dinner and dessert and our niece came over for a slumber party. She and Wes had pillowtalk before bed. It was quite adorable.

Today we went out for breakfast tacos, Ryan took the boys on a bike ride, and I got to go to the nursery and bookstore then topped it off with grocery shopping ALL BY MYSELF.

It's never good when only one kid is laughing hysterically

Hey, I've got a GREAT GAME!

First, you act like a really awesome big brother and let the little kid hold the hose. Wow, I'm a really great guy for sharing the hose.



Then, you secretly turn off the water, as if by magic.



And then when the little brother gets the hose nice and close to his face to see why the magical stream of water has disappeared, you LET HIM HAVE IT.

Another Cooking Post (ish)

A long time ago my friend Maribel made a Feast for our grad school friend group. Believe me, this Feast more than deserves proper noun status. She made watermelon juice to drink for goodness sake! And she made a brisket in the crock pot. And served it with warm tortillas, sour cream, and cilantro. So simple, yet one of my top three meals of all time.

I asked her for the recipe and she said "Oh, you just put the brisket in the crock pot and cook it!" It cannot be that simple, I thought, so I will not even try.

But last night I went to the memorial service of the mother of a dear friend of our family's. She was born in Poland before the war and, after a very interesting but tragic series of events related to World War II, ended up in Buffalo, New York with her two little girls. It was a happy and informal service, filled with wine and touching stories about how Maria touched each one of us.

Much was said about the Old World European habits she retained even after decades in the US. Her daughter, our friend, has invited us to her traditional Christmas Eve feast with borcht, perogies, fish, and homemade lemon vodka every year going back to when I was in high school and I've always enjoyed it. Last night, the memorial made me think anew about tradition and heritage and how it provides a comforting structure to the year, especially for children. I grew up with a typical array of middle class American family traditions-- hunting Easter Eggs, Santa, summer vacations in New England, donuts on Saturdays-- but I've always been interested in the traditions of families with stronger ties to their ethnic roots.

So, tonight, I decided to make the brisket in honor of Maria's life in Upstate New York, and as a means of starting some new traditions in our family. Since we live in Texas, though, I will be serving it like Maribel did, with fresh, warm tortillas, sour cream, and cilantro. As Labmama said, "Texas IS an ethnicity!"

I felt a little silly saying to the butcher "I need a brisket." Like I should be wearing a dress--belted at the waist--knee highs, and sensible shoes and carrying a large purse on my forearm. And like I should be dickering over the price with him (the large ones were $1.88/pound, but since I didn't need fourteen pounds of meat, and needed it to fit in my crock pot, I had to get one of the smaller ones, which were $3.44/pound. What the H?).

The recipe was as simple as Maribel said. Put the meat in the crock pot and turn it on. Awesome. Although I am sure ladies of generations past didn't use forks to carefully maneuver the meat from the package to the crock pot. They probably used their hands. And they probably didn't get totally grossed out by the sight of such an enormous piece of raw meat, either. Clearly I have a lot to learn if I am going to be as cool as my grandmothers.

I left it cooking and the boys and I went out for an hour's walk around the neighborhood with Labmama. When we returned, the house smelled AMAZING. So my last tip is this: If you cook brisket in the crock pot, remove all junk food from the house. Because the delicious smell will give you a SERIOUS case of the munchies. Just ask the pan of brownies I made last night for the memorial but couldn't take because they were too stuck in the pan.

I think I will roast some potatoes later on to go with the tacos. Then sit up straight and cross my legs at the ankles.