Dia de Los Muertos

I've mentioned in previous posts my love of holidays.  Holloween is one of my favorites.  My new favorite holiday is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is a Mexican tradition.  The more I learn about this holiday the more I love it.  I think it is a wonderful way to celebrate loved ones that have passed on and to expose children to the idea of death in a positive and celebratory way.  This weekend we happened upon this amazing Dia de Los Muertos exhibit.  It's beauty and elegance is beyond words and the pictures simply don't do it justice.  I'm going to attempt to create a very small Dia de Los Muertos offerenda this year and I hope to gather some beautiful artifacts over the next year that we can use in annual offerendas.  I'd love to hear how others celebrate Dia de Los Muertos, All Saints Day, or similar traditions.

Halloween Ghosts

I know, two blogs in one day after a long dry spell...it's madness.  But I wanted to share my Halloween ghosts.  I'm slightyly obsessed with chocolate covered strawberries so I find a way to incorporate them into any occasion.  Today I made white chocolate covered strawberry ghosts (the inspiration is courtesy of Pinterest).  Yumm!  Happy Halloween!

Treasure Hunts

Like most boys, my son loves to collect "treasures" when we're out on walks.  His favorites are sticks, rocks, more rocks, and acorns.  He would come home with his pockets full of treasures, which typically end up in some random place in the house or in the washing machine.  So I decided that these treasures needed a home, preferably outside.  We went to the local hardware store and picked up a few galvanized buckets: one for sticks, rocks, and shells.  I had some chalkboard paint laying around from another project and we used it to make labels for each bucket then we placed them by the front door.  Now the treasures have a home, the little guy loves his treasure buckets, and I love the organization with a bit of style.

Celebrate your Youness

"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” -Dr. Seuss


Dr. Seuss quotes never fail to impress me.  So today (and everyday) celebrate your youness and see where it takes you.


  

The Secret Life of Bees

Our bee swarm once safely removed.

A few weeks ago my husband, son, and I were standing in the front yard talking with friends and I looked up to see THOUSANDS of bees swarming above our heads (apparently the average bee swarm has over 40,000 bees).  I had never seen anything like it and after a hasty good by we ran in the house and watched for the next half hour as the bees slowly lowered their flight pattern and landed in a nearby tree.  I guess our yard seemed like a welcoming spot to land. Whenever possible I try to use real life experiences as learning tools for myself and our son.   So onto google and You Tube we went to learn all why bees swarm and what to do about it.   It was fun to learn something new with him and to see it happening right outside our front door at the same time.  Then we called our local bee club (yes bee club) and a few hours later a bee keeper had rounded up our lovely swarm and relocated them to a farm about a mile away.  We hope they have a happy life pollinating flowers and producing honey.

Summer Fun

Well it's been a while.  This summer has been packed full of fun (camping, vacation, beach, tidepooling, birthdays, family, and friends) and work, which sadly hasn't left much time for blogging.  But with the summer winding down I'm hoping to squeeze in some daily blogging time since I love getting my ideas out of my head and onto the blogging canvas.  While we've been having fun I've also been focusing on one of my New Year's resolutions, making the house a home.  The office makeover hit a few speed bumps and has taken a back seat to the living room makeover, which is moving along swimmingly.  I'll share my trials and tribulations on my house decorating journey later this week (maybe by then my lovely chairs will have arrived).

Summer is my favorite season of the year.  I'm savoring every last drop of the summer air and the long days.  But we're nearing the tail end of summer and fall is in the air (the leaves on our maple tree are already turning autumn colors) so fall planning has commenced.  This includes fall themed activities for the kiddo, holiday ideas, and my favorite part of autumn, planning the fall/winter garden.  Last year was my first year doing a winter garden and it was  so easy, fun, and productive that I have big plans for this year.

Summer Garden & Diggin' in the Dirt

Our garden is coming along and I can't wait until we can start harvesting the summer bounty!! This year we've planted japanese cucumber, zucchini (its hasn't quite taken off yet, but I'm going to try trellising it once it does), two types of heirloom tomatoes (one cherry and one roma), eggplant, and jalapenos. We also have some rainbow chard that is still going strong from our winter garden.  Sadly the kale, spinach, and lettuce bolted, but I let is seed so hopefully some will come up in the fall.  We also started out with some sugar snap peas, but sadly they didn't make it due to a combination of an early spring heat wave and snails.  I've had an ongoing battle with snails for years.  In the past I've used Sluggo and works o.k., but you have to reapply it every few weeks. Then I heard about copper tape!! I was a bit skeptical, but figured it was worth a try.  I used a staplegun to attach it around our raised bed being careful not to leave any gaps. So far so good, no snails!! I've heard that after a while the copper wears down and looses its effectiveness so we'll see how long it lasts.

You can see my little man in the background enjoying his favorite past time, digging up dirt with his construction equipment.  I hope you are all enjoying your spring/summer gardens!

The Potager Garden

Potager Garden (google search photo source)

In 2004, I spent five glorious days in Paris and loved every second of it. I find any excuse possible to extol the French and now I have another reason, the potager garden.  I just finished taking a six week landscape design class though our local adult education program.  One of my goals this year and into the future is to install edible landscaping in our front and back yards.  However, I needed to know a bit more (by which I mean a LOT more) about landscape design principles before I haphazardly start replacing our existing and perfectly lovely landscaping. I certainly want to make things look better (not worse).  I really didn't know what to expect from the the course, but I came away with a great appreciation for the art of landscape design, a bit more knowledge of cohesive design principles (including my new favorite term, focal point), and most importantly with a concept design for our front yard.  Assuming things go according to plan, our front lawn will be replaced by a French potager-type garden and the area along our driveway will become a small fruit "orchard" consisting of two to three fruit trees.  I don't see the potager portion of the design happening until next year. Particularly since I still have the office and living room projects to complete, a garage to clean out, and a house to paint over the summer.  But, the orchard is something that we can start working on now.  The hard part will be narrowing down our choices of fruit trees down to two or three!!

Ohm Yeah!

A while back I posted about prioritizing "me time" and my list of projects that I would like accomplish this year. Not to check them off a mental list, but because I want to enjoy doing them and they make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.  Well, tomorrow I start my first in a long series of yoga instructor training classes that will take me the next seven months to complete.  This is something I've always wanted to do.  If you had asked me a year ago if I would dare to put becoming a yoga instructor on my To Do List for 2011, I would have laughed, rolled my eyes, and given you the old "Ya Right".  But here I am. Dream big and you just never know what may happen.  In my case a variety of stars aligned to get me here, but had I not had a "Life List of Things I'd Love to Do" with Yoga Instructor near the top, then I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be writing this post tonight.   I'm not sure that all this will ever lead to actually teaching yoga.  But if you don't try you never know, right?

I signed up for this first course in February and at the time it seemed soooo far away.  Now it's here and I feel like a giddy child on Christmas Eve waiting for Christmas to hurry up and arrive.  Don't get me wrong, while I can't wait to get my yoga on, it is going to be a loooong 10 days.  I'll be working half days in the morning, attending 5 hours of yoga in the afternoon, then heading home to spend time with my gracious husband (and one of the stars helping to make this happen) and amazing son, then falling into bed to do it all over again the next day. Despite all the craziness I'm still super excited!

Office Makeover Progress

The office makeover is going slowly, but it's still going. We've narrowed our paint choices down to three samples and are ready to slap some paint on the walls to see which we like best.  Painting has been the cog in the wheel.  Once we paint we can relocate shelves, remove the built-in desk from the wall and turn it into a stand alone desk with file cabinet legs, figure out the guest bed situation (i.e., air bed, sofa bed, or daybed with trundle), rearrange furniture, make and hang drapes, create a photo collage wall, and add the final touches.  So we still have a lot to do.  In the meantime I have been focusing on organizing the file cabinet and closet and stalking Craigslist for furniture finds (mainly wood file cabinets and daybeds).  The search for pre-loved furniture is proving to be more difficult than I thought (Sigh!), but the hunt continues.

I've also done some organizing of the soon-to-be-relocated shelves and finally framed some of my favorite pictures (the frames, which I bought at Aaron Brothers, are made from reclaimed pallets.  I plan on painting them white eventually) and arranged a shadowbox with some mementos from our honeymoon.  It is amazing the difference a bit of organizing and some sentimental decor can bring to a space.  It is starting to feel more and more like our special space, which is the goal.  I used to keep the door to this room closed because I hated seeing the chaos of clutter.  Now I keep the door open and every time I walk by I get warm fuzzies (sometimes I even do a little happy dance).  I can't wait to see the finished product! 

Making Guava Juice out of Guavas

The New Herb Garden

Growing up, when things didn’t go our way my mom used to sing us kids the famous line from the Rolling Stones song “You don’t always get what you want, but one of these days you might just find you get what you need”.   It pretty much ruined the song for me, but over time, I’ve found that my mom and Mic might actually be on to something.  Case in point.  Last week I decided to prune (and I mean PRUNE) back our guava bush.  I had told my husband I was going to be busting out the pruners, but either he wasn’t listening or he forgot because when he got home from work and saw my handiwork he thought I was trying to cut it down.  So as the wonderful husband that he is, he decided to surprise me and finish the deed for me (Gasp)!  Then he came in the house and asked my son and me to check out his work.  I’m pretty sure I had a look of horror or on my face when I saw the sad remains of the tree.  That look was quickly followed by the “What did you do?” look.  Rapidly followed by my husbands, “Uh Oh, what did I do?” look.  And we both realized that the poor guava tree had suffered from our failure to communicate.  The whole situations made me want to cry and laugh at the same time. 

At that point the deed was done and we both felt bad.  So we decided to do the only thing you can do in that situation, make guava juice out of guavas.  We have a mandarin tree in our back yard that has been living in a half wine barrel for the last six years.  I have wanted to plant it, but never could come up with a good spot for it in our yard.  Well, it was the mandarin tree’s lucky day…a space had just opened up.  So the next day my husband dug up the remaining portion of the guava bush and we planted the mandarin tree in its place.  Then I created an herb garden (the though of making my own herb de provence makes me swoon and my mouth water) in the vacated half wine barrel.  Viola, guava juice out of guavas.  Now it makes me smile every time I walk by the orange tree happily planted in the ground and the awesome herb garden starting growing in the barrel.  So you see, it is sometimes true that you don’t always get what you want, but you just might find…you get what you need (although I’m not so sure the guava bush would agree)!

A Train Ride Through Paradise

Somewhere along the Gaviota Coast

March was a crazy month for us. I had work trips on two consecutive weeks and the following week my husband was out of town for a conference.  The upsides were that I was able to stop and visit my parents (first time I've had them all to myself in at least five years) prior to one of my work trips and while my husband was away I was able to spend some great quality one-on-one time with my son.

To cap off our mother-son week by taking the train up the coast to meet my husband at his conference in San Luis Obisbo since my son LOVES trains and I've never actually taken the train up the California coast.  I've seen this stretch of coastline by boat and car, but I had my face glued to the window like a kid the entire way.  The picture above (taken through the hazy train window) was my favorite.  I love the rugged coastline and the yellow pops of color.  The beauty of nature never ceases to take my breath away and give me perspective.  It's easy to get caught up in the minutia of the day-to-day and forget about the beauty that surrounds us.  I started our train ride tired but returned from our trip relaxed and refreshed.

What places, people, or things inspire you and give you perspective?

Strawberry Fields Forever

Our Strawberry Patch

...well not quite yet.  We finally got a bit of sun this past weekend and I decided it was time to find a patch of dirt for the strawberry plants that I've had in a pot for a year.  I planted these guys in our garden a few years ago and left them in over the winter because I felt bad taking them out when they seemed to be doing just fine.  Remarkably they survived the winter and produced a decent crop last summer. However, last fall I decided to move them from the garden into pots to make way for our first winter garden.  At the moment my strawberry patch is pretty small (and nowhere near constituting a field or enough strawberries for my little munchkin), but I'm planning a trip to the nursery to get these guys some friends and we'll see how large our patch can get.

Decluttering the Cookbook Shelves

One of my goals this year is to declutter our home and pare down on the things that I don't use.  My cookbook cabinet was an easy target.  I had several years worth of cooking magazines that were taking up one whole shelf (prior to the arrival of the little bean we used to have one evening a week dedicated to deciding upon and making a new dinner menu together) and a few cookbooks that I never used.  I didn't want to just throw out my magazine collection without saving some beloved recipes so I went through each magazine and tore out only the recipies that I loved, ones that I'd flagged but never tried, and ones that I was likely to make and like. When I was done (several days later) I organized them in an expandable file folder categorized by appetizer, soup, side dish, main course, or desert.  Eventually I'd like to put them in a three ring binder with each recipe in a clear slip cover so that I can easily take out recipes and not worry about ruining them with sticky fingers (I'm a messy cook).  I am taking all of the cookbooks that didn't make the cut to a local bookstore that trades used books.  The picture above is one of my two cookbook shelves, neatly organized with my favorite cookbooks easily accessible (and yes the chocolate cake book gets a lot of use).

Figs and the Far Side of Complexity

Our Adriatic (?) Fig Tree

In the past few weeks our fig tree has gone from bare to sporting new leaves and baby figs!! Further evidence that spring is upon us (even though it has been pouring rain for the past few days).  I can't wait until July when we get to enjoy our first crop of these tasty fruits and I get to bust out the cookbooks and start making every fig recipe I can find.  Last year two of my favorite fig recipes were figs sprinkled with warm goat cheese and figs drenched with a warm cinnamon butter cream sauce.  My mouth is watering already!!

We typically get more figs than we can possibly eat. So we let the birds eat the hard to reach fruits and unload what we can't eat on happy friends and family.  However, I recently found a local garden exchange program where we can trade fruits and veggies. This year, I'm looking forward to trading our excess figs for some tasty bounty!


I thought it would be fun to include a quote about figs and this is the first one that I happened across. I thought it was perfectly fitting.

"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Descheduling & Making Time for Spontaneity

Beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean

Is it just me or does our caffeine addicted (I recently gave up caffeine), iPhone loving, over-scheduled, multi-tasking world seem to be moving a bit too fast at times? Not that each of those things don't have their place and time.  But sometimes I think that our collective need to for constant information, constant motion, and constant noise is just a distraction from our real life.  I have to constantly remind myself to stop multi-tasking, to focus, to be present in the moment, and to enjoy each moment fully.  One of the ways I try to accomplish this is by descheduling or as I like to call it 'making time for spontaneity'.

The biggest hurdle I had to overcome in descheduling was my own guilt over being a working mom.  It actually wasn't that big of a hurdle once I identified the problem.  I used to feel a bit guilty that I'm not home between 8 am and 5 pm on weekdays to play with my son and do all the fun mommy & me activities that it seems all other kids/moms get to do.  My way of compensating for this used to be cramming a bunch of activities into our weekends.  However, no one in our family enjoyed spending our weekends jumping from one activity to the next.  It just made us feel more tired and less relaxed.  We get a lot more out of just hanging out at home as a family, doing stuff around the house, working in the garden, playing in our sandbox, going on walks, riding bikes around town, playing at the park, going on treasure hunting adventures to the beach, and spending time with friends and family.  So we scaled our activities back.  I implemented a one structured kid activity per weekend rule (right now it's swimming).  Also we try to have one unscheduled day during the weekend dedicated to relaxation, fun, and of course a few chores here and there.  These always tend to be the most enjoyable and stress-free days of the weekend.

Are the ways that you deschedule or make time for spontaneity? I'd love to hear about them.

Spring Equinox and Prioritizing "Me" Time

Matilija Poppy

Happy Spring!!  Spring symbolizes rebirth, renewal. What better time to reflect on New Year’s Resolutions than three months into the year and the start of spring!! Prioritizing my time and personal projects is topics that I struggle with, mainly because I have a lot of interests and limited time to pursue them. This year, to honor my motto, ‘It’s Time for Simplicity’, I tried a new approach to New Year's resolutions. I made a long list of the things that I'd most like to undertake this year.  These items were on the list either because they are life-long goals, because I have a passion for them, or they just really need to get done. Then I pared my list down to just a few items that I could really focus on during the year.   My criterion for keeping items on the list was simply that they have to be activities that make me happy or that I enjoy doing.  Time is my most precious commodity so there is no sense wasting my 'spare' time (if such a thing exists) on self-imposed activities that I don't enjoy.   So here is my list:

•       Become a certified yoga instructor
•       Decorate living room and makeover office, and clean out garage
•       Integrate edible landscaping into my yard
•       Enjoy every moment to the fullest
•       Do more family arts and crafts
•       Learn to play guitar

These are the things that I plan for, prioritize getting done, and work at every day.  I also made an escape plan.  In the event that I stop enjoying any of these resolutions or realize that they sounded more fun in theory than in practice, they are dropped from the resolution list.  That actually happened with the last item on the list. I’ve always wanted to play guitar so I enrolled in a beginning guitar class through the adult ed program.  Throughout the first class the instructor kept saying how important it is to practice, practice, practice.  So I sat through the first class, practicing the “The Horse with No Name” over and over and over, trying to figure out how I would possibly have time to practice guitar outside of class time.  I finally came to the conclusion that outside of those three hours of class-time I don’t have the time to practice and  that there isn’t anything else on my resolution list or otherwise that I’d be willing to give up to make the time. So I left at the end of the class, never went back, and never had a regret.  I’ve been having too much fun working on my other resolutions.

St. Patrick's Day Pizza?

Shamrock Pizza

Happy belated St. Patty's Day.  This year for St. Patty's Day did we celebrate with green beer and corn beef and cabbage? Nope, we had shamrock pizza.  Let me explain.  We have a few family traditions that we celebrate on various holidays.  One of them is pancake breakfast for pretty much any holiday we can find and excuse to celebrate.  This past Valentine's Day, in addition to heart shaped pancakes for breakfast, we made heart-shaped pizza for our special Valentine's dinner.  This must have stuck in my son's mind because for St. Patty's Day he requested shamrock pizza for dinner.  Not the traditional Irish fare, but since I'm Italian with a small bit of Irish thrown in, I figured that shamrock pizza was a fitting way to celebrate.  I think we've just stumbled across a new family tradition...holiday pizza.

Real Grass Easter Baskets

Today I was at a gardening talk about planting edibles in small spaces and a friend was telling me about how she is growing oat grass for her kids' Easter baskets rather than using the plastic or paper grass.  I thought it was such a lovely idea! I'm going to use wheat grass and then we can harvest it after Easter. You can grow it yourself or just buy it already grown.  If you want to grow it yourself here's how you do it.

1. Buy 1-2 cups of sproutable wheat berries/grain at a health food store.
2. Place the wheat berries in a bowl, cover with water, and soak for 12 hours.
3. Drain and rinse.
4. Add 1-11/2 inches of wet potting soil in a well drained plastic tray, a pot, or directly into your basket.
5. Sprinkle the wheat berries over the soil..
6. Cover with wet paper towel and water.  Cover with a dishtowel and set in a dark plays for 2-3 days. Keep moist.
7. Uncover after 3 days and set in a warm place with indirect sunlight.  Keep moist.

Enjoy!

The Art of Sewing

About eight years ago my husband (then boyfriend) and I rented an old and exceedingly small house with no storage space to speak of, not even a linen closet (although ironically the place had a hot tub and big back yard for our dog, but I digress).  So we we made a deal...he would make us a set of window seats to store our camping gear and linens and I would sew some cushions and pillows to make the seats comfy.  He held up his end of the bargain and I, unfortunately, did not, which has become a running joke between us.  Now every time I mention sewing something he mumbles "yeah like those window seat cushions" and then starts laughing.

Needless to say, I have a sewing machine that until recently sat unused in the garage.  My not-so-good excuse is that I've never known how to set the machine up (in my unexpert opinion the hardest part) and that once I learn that step the sewing part should be pretty easy.  My other excuse is that I'm not very crafty.  Well no more excuses.  My mom came to visit recently and we dusted off the old Singer and she gave me a tutorial on how to set it up. I videotaped her instructions so I can refer to it when needed (which will be often).  Then I moved the sewing machine from the garage to our newly organized (but not finished) office/guestroom/playroom/craftroom.  I figure it's more likely to get some use if I don't have to go hunt for it in the garage.  My first project will be throw pillows for our living room, but it may be a month or two until I get to it since I'm still working on the office project.  Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it.

Winter Harvest and Spring Garden Planning

Kale and Sweet Lettuce Mix

Beets

This year we planted a winter garden for the first time.  Since we have a small garden area I planted high yield veggies (kale, yield chard, lettuce, and peas).   I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but the kale, beets, lettuce, and chard were a great success.  The peas did okay, but not as well as I had hoped.  

It is starting to warm up a bit here on the west coast so I'm planning the spring/summer garden (tomatoes, squash, cucumber, and beans, oh my). However, our winter garden is still doing well and since I LOVE my greens, I don't want to pull the winter plants out just to make room for the spring garden.  I'm slowly learning that many veggies can grow year round in our temperate climate.  Great for us, but there is only so much space in our little raised bed.   So, I've decided to work around the plants that are still doing well.  I am going to start the tomatoes, squash, cucumber, and beans from seed to buy me some time. I've also harvested half of the beets to make a bit of room.  I'll likely also pull out the pea plant this weekend since it's not really producing much anyway.  The cramped quarters in our raised bed is also forcing me to make good on my goal of incorporating edible plants into our landscaping.

Here is a website I have found useful in helping me decide what veggies to plant and to plan out my garden.  Happy planting!!

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out...

Worm Compost Bin

Outside our backdoor we have a redwood box that serves as our worm compost bin.  Unless I tell people what it is they are never the wiser.  I've actually had it on my to do list to make a cushion for the top of the worm bin and lockable wheels on the bottom so it can double as a movable bench/seat.  There are may different ways to make a worm bin, but here's how I did it.  I bought the pre-made box at a local gardening store along with the worms, soil, and coconut fiber (for worm bedding).  I put the worms and all the fixings in the box and viola worm bin.  Now every evening after dinner I put our fruit and veggie food waste into the bin, varying the food placement each day. It's that easy.  The benefit is that we are keeping a portion of our food waste out of the landfill, we make compost for our veggie garden, and my son not only loves feeding the worms, but is learning hands-on about the food cycle in his own back yard.  What's not to love!

Perfectly Preloved Bench

A while back I posted about my New Year's resolution to turn our house into our home and to do so mainly with pre-loved or repurposed items.  Well, I'm slowly making progress.  Up until now our front stoop has been bare and unwelcoming.  Now thanks to this cute, well-worn bench it is a bit more inviting and my son has a place to put on and take off his shoes and rain boots.  I also use it to set down my groceries while I open the front door (no more balancing bags of groceries on my knee while fumbling for keys).  Who knew one little bench could be so useful!  Next up....buffet for the kitchen.

Safe Cosmetics

I've never been a product junkie, but when I was pregnant with my son (didn't know if it was a he or she at the time) I swore off all beauty products with harsh or harmful chemicals.  I moved to buying simple, natural, and chemical-free products and making my own at home.  Once my son was born I searched out natural and chemical-free baby soap and massage lotion for him.  I was doing all of this because I didn't want my baby exposed to harsh chemicals, but it made me rethink what I put on my own body. Enter my new motto, shamelessly taken from my favorite brand of body oil (Heather Lorain Cosmetics Apricot Oil), "If you wouldn't put it in your body, don't put it on your body".  After all our skin is our body's largest organ. While living by this motto isn't completely feasible, it is an excellent goal to work towards. And it's not as hard as one might think.  Apricot, almond, avocado, grape seed, and jojoba oil are wonderful body oils that can be used in place of lotion.  You can make body/face scrubs and conditioners out of items found in your pantry (salt, sugar, olive oil, avocados, honey, yogurt, milk, berries, watermelon, lemon, etc.).

For the products that I do buy, I try to find ones that I can use for multiple purposes. For example, I use Dr. Bonners soap for body wash, hand soap, and as an all purpose kitchen and bathroom cleaner.  I use apricot oil as a body oil, for taming my frizzy hair, and I put a dash in my son's bath water to keep his skin nice and soft.  The added bonus of all of this is that I save money and I have significantly cut down on the number of products cluttering my bathroom cabinet.  Here is a list of my favorite products.

• California Baby (Calendula cream, shampoo/body wash, and sunscreen)
• Acquarella (water-based nail polish)
• Dr. Bonners (soap)
• Weleda (skin food cream)
• Heather Lorain Cosmetics (Apricot Oil)
• Keys (Solar Rx Sunscreen)
• Marie Veronique Organics (Face Screen)

If you have any home made recipes or products that you love and recommend let me know. I'm still on the hunt for a good mascara (the one makeup item I use on a daily basis).

Valentine's Day and Family Traditions

It's no secret to those that know me that I L-O-V-E Valentine's Day! (I love pretty much every holiday.  Mainly because most holidays center around family, friends, and food...three of my favorite past times.)  Form me Valentine's Day isn't just about flowers and chocolate (although I enjoy both), but it's about taking a day to put down the "To Do list", focus on with your loved ones, and tell them how much they mean to you.  Really, who doesn't like feeling special and hearing your friends and family tell you how much they love you! I don't think anyone, especially kids, can hear it enough.

I was lucky to have amazing parents who somehow managed to carve out enough time between juggling three kids and full-time jobs to make every holiday special for my siblings and me. Through the years my family has developed a slew of holiday traditions that we still uphold.  Now that I have my own family I feel that it is important to make my son feel as loved as I did growing up and feel connected to his myriad of cultures (mainly Italian and Mexican with a bit of German and Irish thrown in) through holiday traditions.  I also want him to learn how to show love and compassion to others. While we try to do both of these things on a daily basis, holidays are great opportunities to put emphasis on them.  They also provide an opportunity to sit down and talk about various topics, customs, and traditions, what they signify, and why they are important.  For example, Dia de los Muertos (a holiday we celebrate in our family) is a great time to teach kids about death in a light-hearted manner and give them a way to remember loved ones who are know longer with us.  So this Valentine's Day I decided to take the day off of work and spend it with my little man.  We spent the day making heart-shaped pancakes, hanging out at the park playing baseball, making a special surprise desert for dad.  Then we spent the evening as a family making heart shaped pizza for a special Valentine's Day dinner.  It was the best Valentine's Day yet!!  I hope yours was equally as wonderful.

The Journey to a Functional Room

Design Concept for Office/Guest Room/Play Room Makeover

Our spare bedroom has never really functioned well for us.  Mainly because we've never owned the space and made it work for our needs.  We have just tried to make the previous owners' design of the room work for us, and it hasn't. So....it's time for an office makeover.  I sat and brainstormed all of the uses I wanted out of our spare bedroom (i.e., office, guest room, play room, craft room) then went to work planning a layout that would make all those uses  happen as cheaply, but elegantly, as possible (see above).  This "planning" part of the process has taken the better part of two months.  Let's just say that the planning part of anything, be it a vacation or a birthday party, is by far one of my favorite parts of any process and I tend to milk it for all it's worth.

With the office/guest room/ play room/ craft room design plan in hand, it is now time to roll up my sleeves and put my well conceived plan into action.  First step, clean and organize.  So, for the past two evenings I've been elbows deep in paper, trying to clean out 10 years worth of files.  I fluctuate between feeling of giddiness at how neat and organized things will be when I'm done and discouragement that getting to that neat and organized state seems to be taking FOREVER!  So last night as I sat amidst piles of paper, it struck me that the process for most makeovers (be it overhauling your house, your car, or your bad habits) seems to follow the same process.  And that process involves things getting worse before they get better.   But, if you own your project and follow it through, the end result is worth the messiness and you'll probably learn a bit from the process as well.  At least, I'm hoping that will be the case and that in a few months from now, we will be sitting in our neat, tidy, and functional guest room/office/ play room thankful that we decided to make it our own.

Edible Landscaping

View of a front yard with edible landscaping

Last summer my husband and I were taking a stroll along the beach and on our way home we passed by this amazing front yard that incorporated a variety of garden fruits and vegetables into the landscaping (cucumbers, strawberries, chard, etc.) (see picture).  And the best part about this edible  landscaping (other than the edible part) was that it was so subtle, elegant, and surprisingly non-vegetable garden looking.  It was so subtle in fact that we almost strolled right on past without noticing.  I had read about edible landscaping before but had never seen it executed with such style.  We were smitten and decided that we'd like to incorporate edible landscaping in a similar manner in our yard.  Enter blueberries...

Cucumber, tomatoes, strawberries, and lavender

A month earlier we had visited a local blueberry farm to do some blueberry picking and fell in love with blueberry bushes.  Given our son's penchant for blueberries and the fact that we had a nice little space open in our back yard we decided that blueberries would be our first experiment in the edible landscaping arena.  Not that we don't have other edible landscaping (we have figs, lemons, and guavas in our back yard), but they came with the house and there is plenty of space for more.  After a few months of prepping the soil with coffee grounds generously donated by my coworkers (blueberries need acidic soil) we decided it was time to plant.  So yesterday we headed off to a local nursery and picked up Sunshine and Misty.  As we've learned, you need to have at least two bushes of different varieties.  Sunshine and Misty are varieties that have relatively small bushes (so they'll work in our small space) and they bear fruit at different times of the season (so we can maximize our berry picking time).


We'll see how our first experiment into edible landscaping goes.  If it goes well we'll be replacing four large bushes in our front yard with several varieties of blueberry bushes.  And we already have big plans for some strawberry plants in the front yard once spring rolls around.

Out with the Old and In with the Old

Two of my New Year's resolutions are to purge our garage and office of the clutter that has accumulated in them, and  is to finally get around to completely furnishing and decorating the humble above that we've been living in for six years. Yes that is correct SIX YEARS!  Obviously interior design is not one of my strong suits nor do I have the time, money, or desire to spend my weekends shopping for home furnishings. But the time has come.  So I decided that the perfect way to accomplish this is to repurpose....as in, one person's trash is another person's treasure.  We're going to donate, Craigslist, or send to consignment anything that we no longer want.  In turn we're going to furnish as much of our house as possible with used treasures that we can fix up and make our own.  In the end we're hoping that we'll have a home that perfectly fits our style and that we love to come home to, we won't break the bank, and we'll be living true to our philosophy of simplicity.  I'll try and give you periodic updates on our progress, but given the reality of our busy lives this is truly going to be a year long project.  Wish me luck.