Where did the summer go?

I could also title this: Summer finally started!

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we've been unseasonably cool and rainy this summer. It's just in the last couple of weeks that the temperature has consistently topped 70 degrees. We've finally been able to wear our summer clothes and play outside more often than not.

For this and several other reasons, my garden this year was a total bust. The stuff we did plant just kind of sat there, not growing or growing very little. My established herbs have done very well, but that's about it. Pretty sad all around. I'm going to have to re-evaluate for next year if this patter holds... more time in containers and my little green house.

I have been considering planting some winter wheat, though. It's supposed to be great a mulch and  soil conditioner and we might even get some food out of it. Wheat, rye, oats? I'm not sure. I wonder if any of those would work in my sandy, overgrown front yard...

I've been thinking a lot about food lately. I've been slacking off lately on making more healthy food, and my energy level and weight have definitely felt the effects. For awhile I was doing some pretty good calorie counting, but that didn't really do much either.

I've got a history of PCOS and insulin resistance, which I think might have been part of the problem... if I don't balance the proteins and carbs, it doesn't seem to matter how few or how many calories I'm taking in...

So I've been trying to come up with a new plan. I think some combination of a raw diet, a flexitarian diet and an insulin resistant diet might work if I can make it easy enough to manage with 3 kids and a husband. It will take some research and planning, but I'm going to give it a shot!

I'm also very interested in this: 100 Days of Real Food. I haven't read through too much of the site, but they seem to have mini-challenges and tips on doing a mostly local, real food experiment. I wonder if I could pull something like that off...

May... showers?

I keep waiting for spring to arrive, but it's hard to find around here. We've only had a couple of days that even made over 60 degrees lately and it's almost the middle of May! Looking at next week's forecast shows the overnight lows getting down within just a degree or two of FREEZING! This is messing with my plan to make the yard pretty and productive. Also it messes up my plan to shove most of the kids outside for most of the day. Not to mention the fact that our vacation to the Oregon coast is only a couple of weeks away now and I really would like it to, at least, not still be snowing.

Where is my warm weather??? (Of course, by July I'll probably be complaining because it's too hot... I'm a Washingtonian born and bred, after all.)

So, anyway... did I make any progress on April's list of things to do?
Get back on my cleaning schedule.
Plan my garden and set the plan in motion (seeds or starts?)
Sort all of the clothes that Cat has grown out of and donate them.
Sort all of the clothes that Bee has grown out of and get them into storage for Cat.
Sort all of the clothes that Bear has grown out of and get them into storage for Bee.
Start cleaning up the front yard for spring.
Reorganize the kitchen.
Start getting the house ready to sell.

Not too bad. I actually did work on organizing my pantry a little bit, too (which is practically the kitchen, right?).

So I'll make a new list for May, even though it's already half over and we're busy with preschool and soccer and Y classes and birthday parties (attending, not throwing).

To do in May:
Start garden!
Continue to clear front yard and plant.
Reorganize the kitchen.
Work on getting the house ready to sell.
Defrost freezer.
Clean out refrigerator.
Wash outside of windows.
Spring clean and de-clutter all rooms
Plan for vacation and house sitter.

That should keep me plenty busy enough...

Spinach pesto

Yummy!




Fresh Spinach Pesto
2-3 cups Fresh spinach
1/3 cup Parmesan Cheese
3 cloves Garlic
1/4 cup Walnuts, toasted
2-3 T Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Put all ingredients into a food processor. (Blender may or may not work, too. I haven't tried it.) Process until pesto-y. If it's not smooth enough, add a bit more oil. Also, this freezes nicely!

We've had this on sandwiches, crackers and pasta. I even sent some off to Hubby's office potluck. It's super tasty.

I brushed a little oil on top, just to make sure it kept it's pretty bright green color on the way to the potluck.

Spinach-pocalypse

(I'm testing the blogging app for my phone!)

Last week, I was gifted many bags of spinach.

Where did it come from? It... um... fell off of a truck?

I spent one morning blanching and freezing it... I'm pretty happy with how it came out.It's inspired me to plant greens and do it again some time.

Into the blanching pot with you!

I was amazed at just how small 30 bags of spinach becomes, though.

Ready for the freezer.

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So the phone blogging thing seems to work ok. Doing the text of a post is a bit of a challenge on the little "swype" keyboard and I have to edit online to get the pictures where I want them (as far as I know). Still, for loading up mobile pictures for a future blog post... not bad!

Clothes, clothes and more clothes

I went through a bunch of baby clothes this week! I ended up with six large bags of clothes to donate, sizes newborn through 12 months. I sorted the 2T clothes for warm/cold weather and got them read to store for the Cat. I did the same with the 4T stuff, only that's for the Bee. I even discovered a couple of things that the Bear will be able to wear this fall for school! Not bad, considering how much time I've been spending on Preschool stuff, getting ready for board elections and budget presentations.

So, let's see how the list of things for this month is going:

Get back on my cleaning schedule.
Plan my garden and set the plan in motion (seeds or starts?)
Sort all of the clothes that Cat has grown out of and donate them.
Sort all of the clothes that Bee has grown out of and get them into storage for Cat.
Sort all of the clothes that Bear has grown out of and get them into storage for Bee.
Start cleaning up the front yard for spring.
Reorganize the kitchen.
Start getting the house ready to sell.

Yay! Progress!

I'm still waiting to get outside to work on the yard. We had a few sun breaks and the kids played outside, but it's still a little cold. We had several days of frost and even woke up to snow one morning! The farm where we get our produce is selling veggie starts, though, so I might give up on the idea of seeds for this year and just do that. Our local farmer's market starts up in a few weeks, too, and they always have fun stuff there.

Today, though, I'm catering to Hubby's whims... it's my birthday present to him. He gets to lounge around all day if he wants and I even fed him breakfast in bed. I have a roast going in the crock for dinner. The girls and I will draw him some pictures later and then make brownies for after dinner. Happy birthday Hubby!

April? Really?

I don't know where the time went! We had a few family wide illnesses run through us along with a couple of birthdays (Bear is 5! Cat is 1!) and a big preschool fundraiser and, all of a sudden, it's 2 months later!

So, no new progress on anything. It's officially spring, I have no seeds and no planting beds. My house is a cluttered mess. The office is full of clothes that the baby has grown out of and, yet, I haven't been able to sort or donate them yet.

We have decided that we're probably/most-likely/definitely/maybe moving sometime in the next year or so. We'd like to be settled somewhere before Bear starts first grade and the school program/reason we were staying in this school district for seems to be out now. We'll be staying in the area, but we might get more land!

Being April 1st, it seems like an odd day to set goals but I'm going to do it anyway. This month I will:

Get back on my cleaning schedule.
Plan my garden and set the plan in motion (seeds or starts?)
Sort all of the clothes that Cat has grown out of and donate them.
Sort all of the clothes that Bee has grown out of and get them into storage for Cat.
Sort all of the clothes that Bear has grown out of and get them into storage for Bee.
Start cleaning up the front yard for spring.
Reorganize the kitchen.
Start getting the house ready to sell.

This may be ambitious, but well see at the end of the month...

Taking stock, January edition

It's already a whole month into the new year! I can't believe  time moves so fast...

From what I've learned, I'll have to start my seeds sometime in February or March. (I need to check on what our last frost date is supposed to be around here.) I guess that means I'll need to narrow down my options and order seeds soon! I'll have to ask Hubby what my budget is for those, though, it would be way too easy to go overboard.

My raised beds haven't made much progress, but it looks like I will be able to get three into the garden space with room to move around them. I think I might plant the corn (sweet or flour? sweet or flour?) out in the front yard, just to save space. I figure that the ears will be high enough off of the ground that any neighbor kitties'... gifts... won't be a problem.

In organizational news, I'm still doing a pretty good job of keeping to a schedule. My daily and weekly routines are going well, which means I planned them well. I fell behind a little due to kids' illnesses and a preschool field trip, but caught that up this weekend.

I decided that we have too much clutter. (Ok, I already knew that but I was ignoring it.) So my goal for February is going to be going room to room and getting rid of at least half of the stuff in there. The baby is just about ready to go into the next size up in clothes, too, so that means I can do some purging there too!