Tuesday, July 31, 2007

hmmm chocolate

made this shirt for my sister-in-law Mellisa last Christmas (while she was still pregnant). It had some obvious flaws in it, so I made her a new one and kept this one for me.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Murphy's law applied to children's books

I've decided that the more inane a book is, the more often the child wants to read it.

latest flower to bloom

only one of my bulbs that i planted to bloom yet. hmmm. i think it is a dahlia. i like.



don't you love the morning glory creeping in? @^#$!@%^^$ morning glories!

Thursday, July 26, 2007

congratulations!

congratulations to bill and sasha are in order. so, here is Baby Song by colin meloy of the decemberists


Thursday, July 12, 2007

Pregnancy is a highly unpleasant ailment, in which a seven -plus pound parasite develops in the lady's tummy

quote from The Poo Bomb: The Tales of Parental Terror. great book if you ever get sick of sappy parenting books. I have just made it to page three and there are several great lines in there, including,

advice to dads: when you're at the ultrasound, when you see that twitchy little creature on the black-and-white monitor, do not say, "Oh G**! What is that? Hit it with a brick!" This will not help.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

an ode to Steel House

They are shutting down Steel House, the place where I lived in Moscow for the first two years of my college career. which makes me very sad. the current residents of steel house are renting a sorority house, i believe, for two years until they can raise money to fix Steel house. I hope it works. I think that the sorority house is a better option than just making it another hall in the regular dorms. independence was what steel house was all about.


here's a link to an article about it:

http://www.today.uidaho.edu/details.aspx?id=3787

and remembering my days there, when you were in your shower and had to move out of the way of the water when somebody flushed the toilet, here is a clip from garrison keillor:

Saturday, July 07, 2007

My favorite wildflower picture

A parade of wildflowers



phew. not everything that grew were weeds.

gardening joys

I planted a bunch of old seeds i had kicking around the house (I think that they were given to me for my wedding), and didn't think that I would get much growth. boy was I wrong. plus i planted them about 2 months later than they were supposed to. in may vs. march. So if you would like a tomato, jalapeno pepper, or a banana pepper plant to put in a pot so that you can bring it inside when the cold weather strikes, let me know. there is no way i can keep all of them, so they will be thrown away. if mallory doesn't pull them out first.

the tomato plants:



The tomato plant that I planted when I was supposed to. you see the catching up the others have to do.



the pepper plants. though i must sadly report that since i took this picture, i think i killed all the jalapeno plants. if i have any make a recovery, i will let you know.



the mischievous mallory. another reason why there might not be much hope left for the other plants. You might want to be quick, if you want some.

Friday, July 06, 2007

A weed or not a weed

The previous owners of our house used to park their boat on a patch of grass (well it was mostly weeds) by our driveway. Since we don't have a boat and it was mostly weeds, Doug tore it all out and was going to put gravel down. well, i came up with the bright idea of planting a flower garden. and planting wildflower seeds. in a place that was covered with weeds previously. So all spring and summer, I have been playing a guessing game as to whether or not what was coming up were weeds or wildflowers. I wouldn't let doug tell me, he thought they were all weeds and that we needed to put gravel down. My most promising bunch, and most productive growers turned out to be trees. oh well. but, i have finally cleared out the trees, morning glories, and the rest of the weeds, and these are pictures of the leftovers that i couldn't decide on. so, I thought that I would ask you what you thought:

the dandelion:

favorite of kids to pick
beautiful, especially when covering entire fields.
i almost thought about just planting dandelion seeds there, because they are so hardy. but i thought i had better stay on good terms with my neighbors.

 

 

mallory who picked said dandelion

Dandelion: weed or flower?
Weed (ah, going with the crowd, eh?)
Flower (aren't they pretty?)
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


This one looks like it might be a thistle, but it looks different from other thistles that i have seen. So i gave it the benefit of the doubt.

 


Is this a weed or a flower?
weed
flower
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


This one was interesting. I thought it was going to flower (see the yellow bud on the right?), but within a day, it had switched to seed. and it looks slightly suspicious as well.

 
Posted by Picasa


A flower or a weed?
weed (you are suspicious as well)
flower (are you sure?)
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


Morning glories:

like dandelions, they have very pretty flowers, but they choke out the growth of everything around them. and trying to get rid of them is near impossible. their roots system is deep and impregnable.

they do sell them in seed packets.



What's the story, Morning Glory?
Weed (can never get rid of the stinking things)
Flower (you buy the seed packets, don't you?)
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Stork Stalls

Hurray for this, I must say. I’ve parked in 3 times in one of these spaces at the mall, just looking for a spot, found one, and it turned out to be reserved for pregnant women. What a great courtesy and it was wonderful to park close—especially since I usually carry Mallory. I parked in one at Kmart, and they included new mothers in their reservation. I thought that was a good idea. When I was pregnant with Mallory, I didn’t really need a stork stall. But after she was born and hauling that car seat around, I appreciated being close to the store.

ahh the joys of being pregnant

One of the biggest thing that surprised me about being pregnant was the bloody boogers. I was expecting the morning sickness, the uncomfortableness, swollen ankles, etc., but that was completely out of the blue. fortunately, my handy dandy pregnancy book told me all about it or else i bet i would have thought that i had leukemia or something. (a little sidenote: 10 pts to you if you know where "handy dandy" comes from. when i used to work in the lab, i used to say, "I need to get my handy dandy notebook, or i need to write this down in my handy dandy notebook" and my coworkers/lab partners would look at me in confusion)