I Stand Corrected

Not spring yet.

Definitely not spring.

Definitely, definitely not spring.

This was so sudden. One day it’s sunny, warming, with barely a snowflake on the ground - twenty-four hours later, you have this. INSANE. I’m so glad that I hadn’t moved any plants outside, like I had started planning. Speaking of plants, we have some sprouts!

The alyssum is going nuts. This seems to be a good choice of seeds for egg cartons - they are very small (so I imagine it will take longer before we need to transplant), and sprouted within a week.

The zinnias were also quick to come up, and are a little more substantial.

The other seeds to have sprouted are our carrot seeds! (Please excuse the blurry photo, but those things are tiny! I really had no idea that carrot seeds were so small. The boys and I investigated the first little seeds to sprout with the help of a magnifying glass.) The jalapeños and the morning glories are still working - I found a few seeds of each that hadn’t gotten properly buried and I can tell that they are swelling. Theoretically the jalapeños will take a few weeks to sprout. I can’t wait.

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Snow!

(Pretend snow. Shh, don’t tell. )

I’ve been reading about bento boxes this week. (Bento is a form of Japanese boxed lunch, carefully packed and balanced to create nutritious individual portions of food.) The premise - as far as I can see - is that the presentation makes the meal about more than just the food. Since I’m trying to seize the day and enrich our lives and all that, when the boys asked for a snack this afternoon, I thought I’d try something interesting.

Huh. That wasn’t too hard, actually!

I used a silicone muffin cup liner to shape the “snowballs” from homemade quickie sticky rice (1 cup rice and 2 1/2 cups of water brought to boiling point, then covered and simmered for 20 minutes) to avoid getting rice all over my hands. The snow on the ground is shredded coconut, the buttons and eyes are raisins, the nose is a baby carrot, and the arms are pretzel sticks. It took me less than five minutes to turn food - that they would probably have been only mildly excited about, to be honest - into something so fun that they’re going to remember it for a long time.

Go figure.

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And One to Grow On

Did you know, that when two babies are having a contest in which one says, “Mommy, I am the SADDEST BABY EVER,” and the other claims, “No, I am the SADDEST BABY EVER,” and you have to evaluate them and decide who is actually sadder because, realistically, you can only fix one baby at a time…you kind of feel like a jerk. Especially since the baby you choose to work on immediately stops crying while the other one continues yelling, “I am SO SAD!” while also adding, “And WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?!?” (Tommy is king of the reproachful glare, yes indeed.) Sigh.

Anyway, it’s spring! Sort of. I mean, the snow has melted (except where it was piled and stacked by the plows into good-sized mountains that are still clinging to life) and the sun is brightening, and temperatures are warming, so we’re thinking of spring. With the success of our little sunflower seedlings, we decided to try to grow a few more things. I’m a bit nervous, since I seem to have something of a black thumb when it comes to house plants…or flower gardens, for that matter, and never mind what that spindly poinsettia from Christmas 2008 has to say. I’m surprised he’s still alive, to be honest.

So, the other night the boys and I went down to the HOMAC (that’s the Home Amenities Center to us English-speakers) for some seeds and potting soil. Yup, I’m buying dirt. I’ll do anything I can to stack the deck in favor of these hapless little plants we intend to kill raise. We picked up seeds that I think say to plant them in March or April up here AND that I recognize at least vaguely - Zinnias, Alyssum, Morning Glory, and carrots. Max and Charlie both like carrots. That would have been that, but Max asked sadly, “Mommy, don’t they have any strawberries here?” (Max is madly in love with strawberries.) As it happened, they had a few little strawberry plants marked down to 100 yen apiece because apparently you’re supposed to plant them earlier in the year. I had already seen them but I wasn’t going to buy them - last year I had a bad experience with some rootbound HOMAC clearance pansies - but he really, really, really wanted to try growing strawberries. What the heck. Why not, right? I even used my rudimentary Japanese to verify that the plants were, in fact, strawberries. (”Ichigo desu, ne?” The clerk checked for me. “Hai, ichigo desu!”)

After the boys went to bed I started reading up on strawberry plants - I figured that out of all the plants we’re going to kill grow, Max would be most devastated over the death of the strawberries, so I’d better keep them alive as long as possible. We transplanted them to a nice large planter yesterday, and let me tell you, we went to some lengths to give them a fighting chance.

First off, the planter has an internal plastic grate inside at the bottom for better drainage. We gathered a bunch of gravel from our road to layer over that. At this point I stood a pair of toilet paper tubes in the center of the planter and filled them with rocks to provide ‘a central drainage core’ (we filled the rest of the planter around them, then pulled the tubes out). Then, we dug a bowlful of the sandy soil behind the house (the previous occupants had a shed there, which is the only reason I can think that there’s so much sand in the soil in that spot) to layer over the gravel. Finally, we filled the top half of the planter with our potting soil. There were pictures of vegetables on the bag, so I’m really hoping this is the kind of dirt that strawberries like. The internet claimed they like a lot of organic matter and good drainage, and that’s what I’ve tried to provide for them. (They were pretty rootbound, although both plants had roots that had escaped from the blob of dirt inside their pots and just coiled around at the bottom, waiting for some dirt to spread into. I tried to break up the rootballs a bit without causing too much breakage, but…we’ll see.) I hope they don’t die.

We did some more planting today: I’ve been saving my egg cartons.

You may be tempted, if you are sprouting seeds in egg cartons, to cut the lids off immediately. I would recommend that you don’t. I don’t know how much free counter space you have, but I have next to none. (Even when the kitchen is clean.) If you leave the lids on, you can stack them until the seeds sprout and deal with your new little plants as they come up.

(That diaper box is holding our bag of dirt.) I had Max and Charlie use measuring scoops from the kitchen to fill the cartons - if our strawberry expedition yesterday taught us anything, it’s that small children have difficulty keeping dirt ON their trowels.With the scoop, they got the dirt to the egg cartons most of the time.

I also elected to use my spray bottle for water instead of one of our many small watering cans…again on the basis of mess potential and accuracy. This actually allowed the boys to water the seeds very neatly.

Charlie was more excited about the flowers than the “food” seeds.

Even my three year old watered neatly with a spray bottle! I think I’m onto something here.

See? All neatly covered and stackable until the seedlings poke through the soil. If this works out, this summer we’ll have three different kinds of flowers plus strawberries, carrots, and jalapeños (whose seeds were sent to me last year by AN ANONYMOUS SOURCE - you know, in case it was illegal). Hmm. I hope they don’t all die.

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Self Assessment

Our family is entering a transitional period in life. We’ve been in Japan for more than two years now (no, really!) and that means that we’re suddenly left with less than a year here. It’s funny how that seems like no time at all - but this will be the last spring that we see the cherry blossoms bloom and watch the petals fall, the last summer that we have bonfires and fireworks at the beach, the last chance to see the festivals and eat the foods we’ve grown to love. I’ve already started grieving. (I don’t think I’ve been this sad to move away from somewhere since I was nine years old.) I love it here so much, that if there was some way to transplant this little patch of Japan a few thousand miles closer to my family, I would want to live here for the rest of my life.

In addition, the end of our assignment here marks the end of Greg’s enlistment, and we’ve decided not to re-enlist. That means that once the military deposits our family back stateside, we can do…anything. We get to choose where we go next, what we do next…anything! (Also, ACK, we have to try and find a job in a job market that has apparently been SMASHED to SMITHEREENS, but we’ll deal with that later.) Greg and I have spent a lot of time talking about what we want in life, what he wants to spend his time doing, life goals, family goals, hopes and dreams and daydreams…and while we don’t have the long term sorted out yet, we do have short term plans. Hey, Arizona! We’re headed your way next year! (Any readers from Arizona? I can’t believe we’re leaving here to go somewhere with deserts and scorpions. AGAIN. Sigh.)

Anyway, talking Greg through a thorough self- assessment has led me on a bit of an introspective path, as well. Who I am. Who I want to be. The wife I want to be. The mother I want to be. What I want to do, and see, and accomplish. I’m still sorting things through, but the one conclusion I’ve reached is that time is slipping by faster than ever before, and so if there’s something I want to do, I need to DO IT and not accept “someday.”

In the last week we’ve:

had pirate ships for lunch

made muffin-pan melted crayons (do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?! Since I was a child myself, and I don’t remember ever doing it!)

(Also, some tips. Foil muffin papers work VERY WELL. If you’re using paper muffin liners, and you decide to let the crayons cool down on the stove instead of in the freezer, be aware that melted wax will seep through the paper and get onto your muffin pan. Whoops.)

planted sunflower seeds - man, do they grow quickly!

dyed noodles with food coloring and vinegar

made tasty peanut butter play dough (it’s 1/2 cup peanut butter, about 1/2 cup flour, and about 2 tbsp honey)

(The kids decorated it with other edibles.)

AND, we went fishing for goldfish with pretzel rods and peanut butter bait.

I don’t know what we’re doing next, but I bet it will be fun!

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Wow. I Am So Slow.

(HOW SLOW ARE YOU?)

I am so slow that it took me a month to knit two baby hats. No lie. They were my only project, too, so it’s not like I dashed off and did something else in between steps. Nope. They just languished.

At least they were worth it.

Tommy and Teddy are just thrilled. No, no - I can tell. Anyway, as you can see I used the same yarn as I used for the stripes in the cardigans (plus a few accents in a darker green) so they really go together beautifully.

They’re peas in a pod! Get it? Because they’re twins! Peas…in a pod…right.

As you can see, I crocheted the peas and pods and little vines (they’re pretty much the same as the pumpkin hat vines) and I think they’re almost unbearably adorable.

How did I end up with the most adorable kids in the world?! That seems statistically improbable…oh, well. I’ll take em!

Once More, For Old Times’ Sake

As I was digging through the twins’ drawers today (we’re running out of room as we add gradually larger and larger clothes, so I had to empty out the drawers and remove sleepers that were *sniff* too small) what should I uncover but the very first thing that I made for them - their hats! You remember the hats…

Aww. That’s Teddy on the left and Tommy on the right, there. (You can find the hat pattern on my blog here!) Anyway, I decided to see whether they still fit on their much-larger noggins.

Ta-da! Yes, thank you, Tommy, we appreciate your enthusiasm today, you little ham. Teddy is zonked out. These hats are big enough to fit for a few months after birth, as well - although we’re reaching the limit of what they can take.

I measured their heads the other day for the green hat, of course, and at the moment their head circumferences are about 16 inches. So, as you can see, um…

Okay, fine. You can take a nap!

Well, Dar-Knit.

Or, as they say - da Nile is more than a river in Egypt. I just want to show you a picture of something:

Yup. Yessiree, that’s a nice…big…hat. Check this pic out:

 Wow. Wow. Proof - once again - that swatches lie. Proof also that calling something “oversized” will only shield you from the realization that it’s WAY WAY WAY too big for so long. Drat.

Oh, well. Only a baby hat, right? (Note to self: next time listen to the little voice that says, “Hey! That looks way way way too big!”)  After a few moments of debating whether to finish it and give it to Charlie - he does look cute in it - I sucked it up and ripped it out. It’s amazing how fast a perfectly good oversized hat is reduced to a ball of yarn. It’s also a bit surreal, looking at a ball of yarn thinking how thirty seconds ago that ball was a hat.

The good news in all of this is that since I had to make the hat significantly smaller, it went a lot faster. So now, I’m at exactly the same point I was yesterday…woo. I’m looking forward to moving on to a new step in the process.

Anyway, this post marks the end of my January blog blitz, and my website anniversary. I’ve really enjoyed getting back in the swing of things, and even though I’m not going to try to blog every day this next month, I hope to keep things going at a faster pace.

Knitting Knew Knoggin…Covers

Pulling out the Concentric Stripes Cardigans yesterday reminded me - I always meant to make coordinating hats to go with them! So last night I went digging in my yarn and found a skein of the same green yarn I used in the cardigans, did a swatch and a few calculations, and started knitting.

It’s just a simple rolled brim beanie to begin with, and at first that type of knitting is quite pleasurable. It’s nice to relax, forget about details, and just knit and knit and knit. Of course, a few inches in I get bored and start measuring after each round, wondering when it will be long enough to start the decreases, but fortunately that didn’t take long. (And I wonder why I make so few sweaters. Seriously. I have the attention span of a squirrel sometimes.) Anyway, I made it nice and big so they can wear it through the next few months, and I finished most of the hat. I’ll probably add the embellishments and start on the second one tonight.

Tommy is so thrilled.

Can You Picture It?

You know, I’ve been doing this a long time. And when I say a long time, I mean about five years - so a long time compared to, say, how long I’ve lived here or how long it takes to read the entire Harry Potter series, not compared to say, how long my parents have been married. (Hi, Mom!) Still, it’s a long time. Anyway, in the time I’ve been blogging and designing and website-ing, I’ve learned a lot about photography.

Just compare this picture of Max

to this picture of Charlie

to this picture of Teddy and Tommy.

(No, people, those are not their real names. I realize that might seem a bit weird, since after all I do business under my real name, but I figure it might reduce the chance of someone stalking them on the internet and getting the kids to come with them by calling their names. If you yell “Max!” at Max, he most likely won’t even turn around. You know. Unless you sound really crazy.)

Is part of that due to a steadily increasing quality in cameras? You bet. (I have a Nikon D40 and I LOVE IT.) But I’ve also learned a lot about lighting, composition, background, staging, et cetera, and I don’t use any fancy equipment. Other than my fancy, fancy camera, that is.

Anyway, I had so much fun mucking around on my website yesterday that when I did my photoshoot this morning I decided to document it and share my tips for getting good pictures in true cheapo fashion. The article is Getting Good Portraits, and I hope you find it useful.

Time Just Slips Away

You turn around to change a diaper or two, then someone’s hungry and what are we having for dinner tonight? Better hurry, because it’s bedtime and we have to see the dentist tomorrow. Yes, it’s time to go grocery shopping again and what did you do to your toyroom?! Then the babies are hungry and you might have fallen asleep for a bit and it’s time to switch over the laundry because someone’s out of underwear and next thing you know all of the spoons are dirty and what do you mean you lost your boots?

Seriously, did I just miss five days of blogging? I can’t really remember.

Anyway, I don’t have much to say today, aside from, “Hi, Mom, I’m not dead!” and if you’d like to read more of my writing that’s actually cohesive with lucid points and relevant information you can check out the article I just uploaded to Inner Child Crochet. It’s called “The Miseducation of the Crocheter,”  and it’s something I submitted to be included in the Crochet Liberation Front’s First Ever Book back…uh…how long ago? Two years, maybe? Unfortunately there just wasn’t room for everything submitted, and my article was sent back to me. (My Saucy hat made it in, though!) I stumbled across the article while trying to clean my files off our desktop’s hard drive - that computer is 6 years old and going down like the Titanic…we’re just trying to save the passengers at this point - and decided to put it up.

Aside from that, I’ve also spent a lot of my free time recently changing the copyright dates on my webpages to 2010. You’d think I’d have set up some way to do them automatically or all at once. Not so, sadly, not so.