How my garden grows!

So I'm a little later than usual with a garden update, but I did take some of these photos at the beginning of the month. It was worth waiting to post because a lot more interesting developments have happened this past week or so.

August 1st I pulled up our first carrot - to see how it was doing, and to give a couple others that were crowded around it a little more space. We never thin them out very well... I just have a hard time pulling up healthy plants before they've even had a chance. Lily tried it out, but I think Mike ended up eating it. He said it tasted like a carrot.

Our tomatoes have grown as high as the fence and there are tons of green tomatoes hiding in the bushiness, still no ripe ones yet!

I finally put up a trellis for my peas and went ahead and planted some more while I was at it. Hopefully they will grow! - no pods in sight so far. Mike also got around to planting our strawberries in the ground. We had been considering building a special box for them, but they'd waited long enough and were literally dying to get out of their pots. They are looking much better now. We only have so much time for gardening so we do what we can. We are not weed-nazis or anything. I can say we certainly don't have green thumbs, but we like to try.

I don't think our potatoes are going to work out. >Insert sad music here< We read that once the potato plant flowers and dies off they are ready to harvest. Well, they had flowered, and some of them were not looking too good - so I decided to dig around in the worst looking pot. I suspected that particular one was rotting because there was dark water leaking out around it's base, so I figured it was better to check if there were any potatoes in there before they rotted too - if they weren't already. This was our harvest: 

Three dinky potatoes none bigger than a cherry tomato. And some nasty shmear of stinky white goo at the base of the root. I did take a picture, but I will spare you. (Yuck.) I don't think our buckets had enough drainage and out soil is rather clayey. I've been hesitant to water very much or to not water...but the soil was much too wet and I think it had too much plant material in it to decay, and now I'm afraid to even check the other ones. Next time we try this I think I will put more holes in the bottom and add straw to the soil like another gardener suggested.

We were getting so much spinach! Our spinach leaves were so big and curly and full of holes from bugs or snails eating it that we couldn't keep up with it, and didn't much want to - it still tasted good fresh picked, but it didn't look very appealing hence - we weren't eating it. So we ripped half of it out to make room for some basil and cut back the other half practically to the ground to see if it would grow some more. Success! We enjoyed a lovely spinach salad this evening with some friends.

Mike finally uprooted that big onion we'd been growing for years (that looked kind of like a huge dandelion fluff in the corner of our garden). He collected at least a few hundred tiny seeds from that one blossom head.

 
We let a few of our zucchini grow big to collect seeds and I picked one of them yesterday. We've never let one get this big before and have never had the seeds seem fully developed either. This one is the size of a long skinny watermelon and sounds hollow when you knock it. I'll cut into it tomorrow to see if the seeds are fully mature. Mike weighed it on our bathroom scale and it was 10 lbs! Here are a few pics with Lily to give you an idea of the size, plus the cuteness factor. :)

Lily gets so silly when I'm trying to get a picture of her with produce. What's that about!? J/K :)

Last time Lily first, pretended, and then took a real bite of a raw zucchini...and while I was taking these photos she actually tried to take a bite of this monster! I really have to watch out! - She also teasingly rolled it off her lap while sitting on the bench (I caught it with my camera-free arm).

A little while later she was riding it down to town (She loves playing horsey).

 
She was cracking me up! She even started making faces for me, before she ran off to chase butterflies. She doesn't usually play up to the camera. She even stuck her tongue out at me! -  I got some fun photos.

Before she ran off...

Lily loves to chase butterflies while I water the garden. Major plus to living with my parents: Use of the backyard!

Already?

This morning felt chilly like fall was in the air. It's only August 9th for pity's sake! I'm not ready for the summer to be over, and this weather makes it feel like it's coming to an end too soon! I read in the paper that this has been the coolest summer in San Diego for 77 years! Weird. Well, apparently I dressed too warm this morning because it's already heating up. Hang in there summer! 

One of the things I love about this area is that even when it's cold it doesn't get that cold. I used to think I'd rather be cold than hot because you can always put more layers on - but you can only take so many off. I'd lived in the South and in the Midwest growing up and going to school and had my fair share of snow. Then I experienced winter in Boulder, CO. Not too bad weather-wise over all because the sun comes out so much, but when it got cold it was bone-chilling cold! One night as Mike and I walked from where we parked our car on campus to his painting studio a few yards away - I seriously thought I was going to die. I knew right then that fancies aside - I would never have made it as a pioneer! I had layers topped with a warm coat and a warm scarf wrapped around my face, but the air was so cold it was freezing all the moisture in my mouth and making me choke and struggle to breathe! I haven't had much desire to live where it snows a lot since. Not that I want the opposite extreme. That's what's so nice about this area. Mild temperatures and the beach! I do love seasons though - we kinda miss that here. The explosion of color in autumn leaves... And it's so lovely to watch the green creep back over the earth in the spring so gradually you almost miss the transition from the dull brown of late winter. Suddenly everything is so green and alive...and you appreciate it much more than if it had been green all along. Everything is clean and new too -- here, for the most part, plants are kind of in the same state so they tend to be duller and dustier than they'd be if they were reborn every spring. I do so love the long gardening season, though! If you find a place with a nice balance of weather that's also highly affordable please let me know! We're still open about where to settle down.

Make It Stop!

Time that is. -- It goes by way too fast! My niece Evie is starting kindergarten this year, and before I know it Lily will be in her shoes! (I'm not ready!!!) I was thinking this morning that one major thing I had to get used to about being a mom was adjusting to so much change. Quick change. The minute you think you're getting the hang of things - something new happens. And I'm not just talking about 2-year old mood swings, but they are a doozy! I fear to suggest anything these days, because the answer half the time will be: "No, not (whatever I just said) !"

Sometimes I feel like I'm developing more patience, and other times - not so much. I've gotten pretty good at keeping a straight face and letting teeny tantrums roll over me like water off a duck's back. There is no reason to them - so that is really my best reaction. They pass, again with no rhyme or reason, and my girl is sweet as pie most of the time. I know it's just a phase that soon will change.

Children develop so fast, and we as parents are in charge of helping them be ready to meet life's challenges. We have to be one step ahead, but I usually feel like I'm barely keeping up! I can't think of any other job that could stretch or strengthen me in so many ways. I'm so thankful that so many things just come naturally so it doesn't all rest on my shoulders! Sometimes, I just wish I could slow it down! I really love this age tantrums aside. It is so fun to hear the things that come out of my 2 year old's mouth and look at the world through her eyes, to cuddle and comfort her. I can steel myself to a life of change for all of that. Wouldn't want life to become stagnant any way!

Having It All

A blogging friend wrote this post a while back that I totally related to. I went to leave a comment but it started turning into it's own post. After this long, I was thinking I wouldn't bother to publish it because I wondered if it got a little whiny, and it didn't really end up making any particular point, and I really didn't feel like going back and editing it to make it better...but, then I decided: Why overthink it? So here it is:

It would be great to feel put together, beautiful, confident and in control! I have insecurities a lot of the time. I know I will never be perfect in this life if at all, yet I still hold out hope that I'll arrive at that 'ideal me' and live my ideal life one day (at least for a little while).

I think as children of good parents we acquire some (mistaken) kind of idea that we can grow up and have it all. We have this feeling under the surface that (somehow) we will never grow old like our parents, and we'll do things better than our parents did! Well, we have grown up with some greater blessings and technological advances - but we also know we are up against some tougher challenges and even global competition! Still, against all reason, the feeling that we'll do it anyway persists.

Mini-rant: Come on! I mean, it's not like my idea of having it all includes mansions, the best cars, or ridiculous amounts of money. I just want enough to be at home raising my own kids, have time to spend with my family! I want for us to feel comfortable with the way we are dressed and our appearance, to enjoy our home environment, and also have the opportunity to get out of it and see other places some of the time...to be able to pay for what it costs to be healthy and maintain our home and property, and not fear for surprise expenses that happen with life. --I also want for me and my family to have creative outlets, time to ponder, time to cultivate friendships and family relationships, time to get closer to our Heavenly Father, time learn, discover, imagine! Time to cook healthy meals and get a decent amount of exercise, and time to relax and rest our bodies and our brains! These are not insane requests - but achieving it all seems so hard! Especially when you pile it all up the way I tend to. I don't mean to complain, I just want to acknowledge the feelings of frustration many of us experience.

I have come to realize (over and over every time I overwhelm myself with what I can't seem to be or achieve) that I have to take it one day at a time and just savor the blessings I have... Every little one. Sometimes it has to be enough to know that I could have done that - even if other priorities don't allow me to. I have the talent or ability or desire, but something else is more important - and that is fine! The less I critique or pick over details the happier I can be. There is a scripture that warns us of looking beyond the mark, it's an easy trap to fall into.

I'm so grateful to be the mother of an amazing little girl! Mom has always been my dream job. I'm grateful for a husband who is so hard working and supportive and accept me faults and all, and just keeps on loving me. I'm glad that even though he has some of the same frustrating feelings about life - he also has his priorities straight and puts our family first! He'd rather spend more time with Lily and I than anything else, but he also sacrifices to provide for our needs. It's a pretty challenging position to be a father, but he balances it pretty well! If I haven't achieved all my ideals at least I am blessed to have a great family!

It was just one of those days

I love this girl.

First look at herself. --Ha!

Somehow she still manages to look beautiful with this crazy 'do!