Even fate is a little disapointing...

Deep soul searching is in high need.

Workin' hard...

My youngest is such a little helper. She's just like her sister was at this age but a little more in tune to her momma. It's so much fun watching her want and try to help in everything I do.

Tuesday saw us planting broccoli and celery. And Ms. Elizabeth looking mighty proud of her pretty dress. She's only half girlie, the other half is pure capable. (just like her momma) Isn't she a doll?

Today I spent most of the day building a yard for our hen house. We're expecting more chicks next week and now that our hens are laying consistently we don't want them leaving their edible gold (eggs) in our neighbors yards (yup they've done that a couple of times).

While I sat down to take a break Elizabeth took it upon herself to help finish the project. (No it's not plugged in)




See how well she pays attention? Always put on gloves before working with tools.

Ya watchin' mommy? I do listen!

Since I wouldn't let her out of the house to go work in the garage she decided her toy vacuum cleaner needed fixin'. (Yup she's got some housewife in her too, just like her momma.)

She's wearing my favorite hat. Which seems fitting when she's doing her momma's job. Look at that concentration.

6:55am but I was up at 6:36..

I wish I had the ability to print out the picture in my head. I’m sitting in my big chair looking over my garden calendar and making to do lists, shopping lists and day dreaming (I do that a bit). My almost 2yr old (on the 25th of this month she’ll be 2! Yay!) walks up to me with her hand fisted and held out like she wants to give me something. In her mouth is something else which she’s not really liking the taste of but seems to be giving it the benefit of the doubt before spitting it out. I hold out my hand I’m assuming she’s bringing me some of her mid morning snack (cereal), in my hand she empties a fist full of black seeds. Oh no! I damn near tripped over her going to my office to see how many packets of seeds she’d gotten into. I left them on a side table next to my desk last night after doing inventory of what I still needed to get. In my mind I’m seeing thousands of seeds scattered all over the carpet and me with a magnifying glass and tweezers picking the smallest ones up in a whirl of panic wondering what seeds are what and wondering how many she ate.

Lucky me she only got one packet. My luffa seeds. All but 20 of them were gone. I hope she doesn’t sprout. I have no idea how many seeds were in the packet cause it’s one of my experimental plants this year so I just got the smallest packet available and was planning on planting whatever they sent me. Usually those small packets only have 25-50 seeds when it’s a specialty item like that. I stuck what was left in a starter tray to see if chewing on them has done any harm. Heck maybe they’ll germinate faster being slobbered on and cracked.

Yesterday I spent the better part of daylight hanging gates, removing and pounding t-posts (metal fence posts), herding alpacas, digging boulders out of the ground and getting muddy. Even fell down once, oops, boy does my arse hurt. The day before that was spent running to town, an all day event. Today I have to finish the grocery shopping I didn’t get done Tuesday, this morning I shampooed all the dirt out of my carpet from yesterday and scrubbed my kitchen floor of all its dirt too (sos pad is my bestfriend) and Friday will see me digging ditches to drain the pasture where my corn will be planted (more mud more fun!).

If I don’t find myself sitting down here to post another blog before Monday remind me to tell you about my date. (No I’m not back on a dating site. Fate stepped in.)

6:58am... (civil twilight not when I started this post)

This pic is of my oldest a couple of years ago. She’s such a doll and it’s a great pic of spring which is just around the corner. Though not the subject of today’s blog post but it’s one of my favorite pics.









It’s February already, can you believe it? In just one short week I’ll start the first of the broccoli and celery indoors. I’m so glad I wrote out my garden calendar back in October otherwise I’d be in a frantic mess trying to remember what and when and how many. I’m still working on the garden map itself and I’m struggling with a couple of numbers, especially tomatoes and peppers but I have what I need to know in front of me so I don’t find myself in the middle of May with nothing but seeds.

Back at the end of Christmas break I moved Elizabeth into her sister’s room with her. The idea that getting my office back together and the ability to sneak out of my bedroom at the wee hours of the morning without waking her up would be much needed. What I didn’t know is that by doing so would see her sleeping till 9am if I leave her to it, which on Saturday and Sunday mornings is really nice it gives me a couple of hours to relax with a cup of joe and get my to do list together before I have to make her breakfast. Of course during the week I unfortunately have to get her up in time to put her in her car seat and drive her sister to school. It’ll come in handy this summer too when school is out and I don’t have to wake either up early.

So today I’m officially putting my office back together again. Part of that is cleaning up my desk top computer so I can keep backups on it and I’ll actually get some real work done. What I use for blogging, chatting and garden homework is a little HP Mini (notebook) I got while I was taking a few classes last year. It’s turned into a toy as much as a tool though and it’s too easy to sit in my big chair and get lost in watching Dora, Diego and Sesame Street or whatever chick flick or reality tv show happens to be on in the evening instead of doing the work I should be. Not that I haven’t had the ample time to do all the above but soon enough I’ll find those distractions more than a filling in of boredom gaps but a tool for procrastinating and falling behind. See I do think ahead.

I’d forgotten what a mess I left my desk top computer in when I got this one and a wireless connection though. Not to mention the desk itself. I’ve talked about my ability to let things pile up around the house. My desk is another one of those places where things get put when it’s closer then the spot it’s suppose to be put. Know the feeling? Maybe it’s just me. (I’ve also forgotten how easy it is to get lost day dreaming while looking out my office window! TV tends to be more boring; maybe I should put my office in the living room.) Luckily I’ve been around the pc block once or twice so I’m not completely naïve to removing programs I don’t need and defragmenting and whatnot. No I couldn’t tell you how to do all that and I’d never attempt it on a pc that wasn’t mine but for my own personal use it works in a crunch. Eventually I might just have to take it to the pc doctor again and get it back to new condition.

One mediocre fish sandwich later I’m back at it. One thing I have learned is I cannot sit down and punch out anything more than about 200 words at once. Unless that is I’m inspired by some steamy day dream and decide to put it towards my harlequin goal (ladies know all about harlequin but I don’t expect many men to know what that means) then I can easily punch out 1200 to 2200 words in an hour. That doesn’t happen very often though. So this particular blog post will take me the majority of the day since I happen to be writing it while doing EVERYTHING else. That and I’m not in my big chair, I’m in my office (still on the notebook though).

So yea, February again. Already. I was just thinking back to last February and where I was at in life. Single. I had just got dumped the month before after seeing a guy from about Oct till mid January. What a joke that turned out to be, joke on me. I don’t think I told you about that one. I also don’t think I will. Not today anyways. When I need some funny material I’ll reminisce a little until then I’ll forget it. Valentine’s Day saw me picking the short straw to take mom out to dinner. Though I don’t actually remember grabbing for a straw or anyone else for that matter but the obligation landed in my lap. Which wasn’t all bad. I had a great dinner which cost too much then got a speeding ticket on the way home which cost even more. But dinner was really, really great, shark, volcano of onion rings and um… I can’t remember what I had for the main dish. I wonder what this VDay will have in store. Single again after seeing someone from Aug till Nov, which again turned out to be a joke. Ha! Jokes on me! I have some bad luck with winter dating. Maybe I should remember that and forgo whatever relationship happens my way at the end of this summer. Hmm… Well I’ve already given up on dating so I guess I won’t have a problem with that. Unless… that one guy… hmm… ‘nough thinking ‘bout that.

So yea, February again. Already. Wow.

P.S. My computer is running great once again. Yay!

Employees...

I hired my first real employee over the weekend. My brother. He's a little lost in his way and not sure what step to take next and currently unemployed so I nabbed him. We spent the weekend putting up fence. The first step of many that has to be taken to get my garden spots ready is making sure the alpacas can't get where they're not wanted.

Here's the kicker though. Hiring my brother means hiring my mom. She's his unofficial keeper. Shhh... don't tell him I said that. But yea, where my brother goes my mom goes too. She's retired so she has a lot of time on her hands and with my brother unemployed she'd found herself a companion.

Having mom come over wasn't so bad. It will end up costing me more, but she did my Monday chores, or at least half of them. My kitchen is spotless Monday morning before I even got up. I still have a load of laundry to do but the rest of the day will be spent doing some R and D.

So I guess you could say I hired my first 2 employees over the weekend. Let the fun begin!

Oh the reason why. I'm learning how to allocate chores. Since I know for a fact the max hours I could really work is about 100 with a part time sitter for the kids. And there are a few weeks that have enough space for two people working those hours. So see, this is me growing, maturing and accepting the fact that although I AM SuperMom, I can't do everything myself.