When at home from school sick…

So my son was home sick the other day, coughing out his two lungs, but otherwise an energetic as a racehorse.

Some people preach that when the kids are home from school sick that they should stay in bed. No T.V., no computer, and so on. I don’t know… I really don’t! Should they stay in bed, or should they be free to roam the house at their leisure?

I think that their energy level should decide. If they really have the flu then my kids, at least, fall asleep under piles of blankets on the couch, or lie down on a blanket. And the other day, although Will was coughing like a veteran smoker, he was otherwise perfect.

Point is… he didn’t stay in bed all day. Instead, we did the following (Pictures are SOOC – Strait Out Of the Camera):

As they say, he will only be six once…

<3 Kat

Halloween Cometh

I have achieved an entirely new level of nerd-iness. Ya, I thought, hey, I may garden, and save seeds, and use abhorrent amounts of glitter on various art projects instead of going out on the town clubbing (or whatever it is that other thirty somethings do), but I’m not that bad. Well, tonight I took COPIOUS amounts of pictures of my Halloween Village, so apparently… yes, I am that bad.

You may say that next I’ll be making clothes for dolls, and calling them my children, and talking to squirrels but I don’t care! Whatever. I love my village. It’s adorable. I’m just terrified to know what my daughter is going to do to it in the morning.

Friendly Village

Fun House

Dracula Costume

Out for an evening stroll...

Spooky Barn

Howl-een. Never gets old does it?

My boy was very strict with the orders about a Pumpkin Patch.

Look at the tiny little pumpkin lights!

My own little village. I call it 'Kathrynshire'

Just wait until you see my Christmas Village!!!

Kat

God and Family

I really need a creative outlet… like really really really need.

I wish I had the courage to go to photography school, or interior design school as I had always wanted to. But now, we are just trying to make ends meet. Blah blah blah… we all go through it, right?

And don’t feel bad for me, or pity me, because that was you yesterday, or it might be you tomorrow. We all go through strife. At one time. Or another.

That is what the minister said at church on sunday morning. It was a traditional thanksgiving sermon at first, thinking about what to be thankful for. But then David, the minister, said, all of us would be most thankful for our loved ones. He said that he had talked to many congregation members over the years, and how everyone had had problems at different times, but that it was our loved ones who got us through those hard times. That God may have given us a difficult world, but that he also gave us each other to help us through it.

It was amazing, to say the least, and I will admit I was sobbing like a baby by the end of it.

Photo Shoot

This morning I had a nice little photo shoot with my daughter who is going to be a model wearing Bearington Baby Clothes, for a local store, Tin Roof Mercantile and Cafe.

The store is going to feature my photographs in store for portrait advertising. Very exciting!

Bearington Lamb Coat. $46.99

Lamb Bib - $12.99

When coffee just ain’t enough.

Well here is the problem with blogging when you have two small children in the house. For the past two nights I have fallen asleep after reading Charlotte’s Web to William. Now, tonight, it is 12:23 where I am, and for the past about six hours I have been working on resumes and business cards!

I have not eaten dinner, nor even gone to the bathroom for several hours. Alas, I think it is time to go to bed. I hate to dissapoint my thousands of readers ha ha ha but I am so terrified that my daughter is going to be screaming mommy in five hours that I gotta go to bed.

Saving Vegetable Seeds

I am so proud (and a tad smug) for growing my own vegetables for the first time this year!

I have grown tons of tomatoes, to the point that now some are going rotten, lots of lettuce, loads of cucumbers, some zucchinni, peas, beans, and even a small squash. I also mixed pumpkin in with my flower garden in the front yard, but the leaves all got powdery mildew and kinda’ bit the dust.

Summer Peas

But, the point is… now it’s the time of year that I can save the seeds.

The notion of saving the seeds came to me one hot day in late August. Some really mature beans became very thick and almost woody on the stalk. So I opened one up, and one of the seeds had actually germinated, and was growing a little root. Well, then it was on. I now have different seeds stashed in every bowl, dish and tupperware container that I can get my hands on (not even to mention the flower seeds… ugh! But that is another post…).

I am waiting on lettuce seeds right now. I allowed one plant that was past picking to grow really tall and then flower. Once the petals wither and the seeds pod dries out, the seeds will be ready to save. I will let the seeds mature on the plant until about the time of the first frost here.

Lettuce Flowers

I also am hopeful about some of my tomato seeds. With the cherry tomatoes, which were of the indeterminate variety (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Varieties), and grew extremely large, I have been letting some fruits ripen to the point of the skin splitting open on the vine. Once the skin is split, you know naturally the plant is ready to stop growing and spread its seeds.

Cherry tomato ready for seed saving

I also left one really large heirloom variety tomato on the vine (after the hurricane damaged all the other fruits on that plant), hoping it will get mature enough that its seeds will be ready.

Bonny Best Heirloom Tomato

Hurricane Damage on Cherry Tomato Foliage

I had tons of carrots germinate…

Carrots Emerge

But very small yield…

Baby Carrots FOR SURE!

And I really don’t know if the green pepper bumb will get large enough to give me any seeds at all.

Green Pepper Bumb

Wait and see!
Kat

Fall Foliage and Green Pepper Bumb

The leaves are turning…

Fusion

I am an amateur photographer, meaning that I have a little Point-and-Shoot inexpensive camera – even though, I will say I love my little camera, and it takes amazing pics for the price.

Canon-PowerShot-SD1200-IS

I am really just beginning to explore the features of the camera, and learning more about photography – even though photography has been an interest of mine since I was a teenager.

It was only this summer that I discovered my camera had a macro setting. Then I learned how to change the exposure levels. Next came shutter speeds and lighting modifications. I am obsessed, and want to take pictures of everything contantly, just loving exploring what my little camera can do.

I was saying to my Honey yesterday that I wanted to do a series of fall leaves. So I was out this morning at the crack of dawn like every good little photographer should…

Well actually it was by accident: after the recycling depot was closed, I drove down my Honey’s old street to take some pictures near the lake there (we grew up in the same town, but never knew each other until we met later on – remind me to tell you about it sometime).

I experimented with my little camera in the morning light, and laid on the side of the road, taking pictures of dandelions, looking like one of those annoying people that think they are professional photographers, when really they are not, but I didn’t care… I got some awesome photos!

Paintbrush

Wind Socks

Orange Leaf

Hanging On

Later on, I took my daughter to the backyard, and took a crap load of pictures of her.

Someone love the slide.

Getting ready for let go!

Next I started burning a bunch of scrap wood in the back yard, that my husband has been ripping out of the basement – 50 year old beaver board with seaweed insulation. Yum. So there I was burning, and I thought, I’ll take a picture of that!

Burning Basement Wood

Somehow I wound up in the garden, as most gardeners can attest often happens, and found the most peculiar green pepper I have ever seen in my life! Sooooo… I took pictures of that.

The resemblance is uncanny…

Green Pepper Bumb

From another angle.

All in all, a productive day.
Kat

Apple Picking, and Maud Lewis

Yesterday I went apple picking with my son William’s first grade class.

Best class trip ever!

Well, it was the first time for me to supervise one, but still…

We went to a farm about an hour away, in Wolfville.

My little farm boy.

The best part of the day happened when I was talking to my girlfriend Donnelly, who was also on the trip. I looked at her daughter’s lunch bag, which had a painting of folk art flowers and such on the fabric on the front of it, instead of the usual Lightning McQueen or whatever. Anyways, I say “Oh, I love that lunch bag! It reminds me of something… Oh, who is that artist?” Donnelly said was not sure. So, I’m sitting there thinking about it, wracking my brain, saying things like “Oh, it’s right on the tip of my tongue!” and “What is it!!!” Then this little boy, Logan, grade 1, six years old looks up at me and goes… “Maud Lewis?” as if we had been sitting there discussing Pokemon, or the latest Curious George episode.

Three Black Cats. Maud Lewis. Photo Credit: http://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/ en/AGNS_Halifax/about_us/collection/aboutmaudlewis/default.aspx

I’m stunned. “Ahhhh, yeah. Actually that is the artist I was thinking of!” I couldn’t believe it, he actually knew which artist I was talking about! A very famous female Nova Scotia artist. It was awesome.

Check out this link for more info about Maud Lewis.

http://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/en/AGNS_Halifax/about_us/collection/aboutmaudlewis/default.aspx

But back to the Farm, Noggins Farm, to be exact (http://www.nogginsfarm.ca/) Awesome place for kids, there was a corn maze…

Corn maze race!

Old fashioned water pump game, where you raced rubber ducks… I was amazed at how serious the kids were about this game. Red in the face, sweaty hair, and there they all were, pumping that water as fast as their little hands would allow them…

The kids were so obsessed and intense about this game.

And of course APPLES!!!

Noggins Apples

Summer Garden

I had a great summer.

A great, hot, long summer.

My kids were home with me all summer. Oh yes, every single day.

Swimming lessons, for 6 weeks strait, camping trips, birthday parties, and everything else that comes with being a stay – at – home mom of a toddler, and a six year old (see tomorrow’s post for Summer Kids).

But in between incessant drink getting, snack getting, diaper changes, freak summer chest colds, and setting up the kiddie pool every day, with the Little Tykes slide rigged-up on one side, when the temperature was in the 40′s (Celsius), I did get to do some gardening.

Canna Lily Foliage

And I have graduated to an “above novice” gardener.

In our second apartment, about 8 years ago, my husband and I had a yard. So I decided that I wanted to garden in that wonderful huge expanse of openness.

So I bought some seeds, like sunflower, – always a favorite… and then marched out to the lawn and proceeded to try to till grass with a hand shovel. And then, once I finally had the seeds planted, and they actually germinated, slugs ate them.

My husband still makes fun of me to this day for that one.

But seriously, every year since then I have improved a little by little.

I actually fell in love with our house because of the gardens. The old owners died, and the exterior was neglected for years before we bought the place. The rose bushes were 12 feet tall, and the front bed was literally a hayfield. But underneath that hay were old rock walls, built by hand, and day lilies, and hosta, and lilacs, and peonies, and even decrepit old rhododendrons, and I knew that the garden had once been loved.

Even if squirrels did live in the attic, and in the walls of our bedroom, for an entire winter.

So…

This year, I have grown with great success: tomatoes, cukes, squash, zucchini… black eyed susans, poppies, and some other flowers which must remain nameless, as I bought them in a seed packet.

Black Eyed Susans

I have transplanted lamb’s ear, hosta, day lilies, divided irises, moved shrubs and more, and even managed about four feet out of growth out of a poor neglected poplar that I bought last year on clearance.

Lamb's Ear

I had a lovely surprise when some lily bulbs, that I purchased during a $50 seed buying blitz with my girlfriend Nikki, bloomed…

Lily Surprise

I done good, huh?

At least better than digging two inch holes in the ground for sunflowers.

Rock Wall Keeper

Suburban Fringe

Photo Credit: http://www.theage.com.au

Suburban Fringe: (def.) The geographical area that blurs the edge between suburban areas, and rural areas. (Me. From Urban Geography Class in University. 2006 – ish).

Suburban Fringe: (def.) The non-spatial area that exists in my mind, between wanting to live in the suburban area, and wanting to move to the country to have more animals and gardens. (Me. From Right Now. 2010)

What with being a full time mom, want to be full time gardener, interior decorator and entrepreneur, who has time to write a frickin’ blog?

We shall see…

Follow my dive into the depths of trying to work out what the hell I’m supposed to be doing with my life (after being laid off, while on maternity leave – from a career I despised). Do I return to the workforce in computer related desk work, which I HATE with every fiber of my being – even though I went to university for it??? Or do I do something comletely crazy, like move to South Africa with my husband and kids, or buy a farm and grow fields of lavender? What the hell!

As I garden, all the while I ponder this.

Oh… and as I take care of my two adorable little kiddies, my better half – my Honey, two cats, and a stinky rabbit, and generally living the life that everyone I know is living: normal.

And… I might even take a few photos along the way.

Photo Credit: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/media/ multimedia/2007/pages/circus/img/2.jpg