A day for mothers and Mother Earth

Yesterday I met my mother, my sister and my four nephews for breakfast to celebrate Mother's Day. We picked a diner with a big lobby in hopes the kids would be better behaved but many other people had the same idea and the place was packed. After some time enduring the brothers poking eachother; I devised the game of how long can we keep our hands in our pockets. Two of them really gave it a go thinking the prize was bacon for breakfast. I let the littlest guy win. Of course, you can't deprive anyone of bacon. That should probably be illegal, so there was bacon for anyone that wanted. R, the little guy that won the game ordered bacon AND sausage with his pancakes. I wasn't feeling well so I didn't even get through my order of french toast. I kept busy sitting between the twins. One was sick and fussy. The other needed help with his burger and fries. I enjoy fussing over my nephews. Being an auntie is fun.

We gave our mom an iTunes gift card so she can get some new music to listen to at the gym. She's been working on getting healthier lately.

Sweets had to take his mac into the genius bar so he didn't come to breakfast. I came home and spent a few glorious minutes enjoying a cup of jasmine tea in my pretty yellow anthropologie tea cup just listening to the neighborhood go about it's Sunday. Right now I am craving stillness.

After he came home with his unfixed machine he was hungry. He likes his eggs over easy. I'm personally anti-yolk so I'd never bothered mastering cooking eggs up or over. For the past few years when I cook he either gets his eggs, scrambled, over hard or in an omellete if I'm wielding the spatula. Now it seems like my wifely duty to cook eggs to his liking. I was pretty successful this time. I think I will consult my Julia Child cookbook next weekend for even better results.

We sat down and started talking about a new grand scheme (yes, it's one week after completing the last grand scheme and we are hatching the next one) to jazz up the outside of the house with a new porch, paint, new windows and doors, more landscaping and possibly switching out the back deck for a slate patio. It seems that most of our grand schemes take a full year to execute. This one is no exception. We're going to start slowly exploring the possibilities to make the house more energy efficient, enviromentally friendly and of course stylish and livable. While that plan simmers on the back burner the yard needed immediate attention. He'd already mowed the meadow where the backyard should have been and put down fresh seed in the bare patches. With encouragement from the garden writer at my newspaper, I whacked the butterfly bushes liberally. There were plenty of hydrangeas, echinaceas and herbs to clean up out back. In the front we focused on pulling weeds. There is only a small portion of the front yard that doesn't utilize weed block. in those places we get giant onions and thistle. I don't even feed thistle to the birds in our yard but they must be getting it somewhere else and "depositing" the seeds here. In the terraced beds some of the plants are getting monstrous but that will have to wait until another day to tackle those.

One thing I've really wanted to get started on this year is a compost tumbler. We had a little writeup about one in the paper a few weeks ago. I went to talk to the garden writer about it and she told me I should just make my own out of a garbage can. So that's what we did yesterday. We took one of our spare cans with a locking lid. Sweets drilled some holes in the bottom for me. Then I loaded it up with leaves that were hanging out in the driveway, butterfly bush bits, those onions from the garden, the eggshells and coffee grounds from breakfast and the remnants of the gorgeous yellow tulip arrangement I got as a gift a few weeks ago. I like the idea of special flowers going toward making more in my own garden. Then we watered it down, popped the lid on and gave it a roll in the grass. I'm a little concerned the lid doesn't want to stay on perfectly while rolling. I'll have to be careful. If it doesn't work out we can upgrade to a real compost tumbler but at the prices they go for I'd much rather going with something cooked up with materials we already have.

My throat is still yucky. Today my lungs feel itchy and I'm coughing up some junky stuff. Hopefully this cold will pass out of my system in the next few days. Until then it just gives me an excuse to drink more tea with honey.

Comments

[Melissa]

Feel better soon!

[anne]

I hope you feel better soon so you can come take photos with me :)

How much are you loving St. Lucy's home?!!!!