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My Dad took this photo while in southern France recently. Birdie!
Happy Friday, lovelies. Can we somehow make every week a holiday week – wasn’t this a nice one?
Have a wonderful weekend. I plan to work in the garden, make something in the ice cream maker and hang up some more clothes… Any fun plans for you?

the new line

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My sister-in-law, Emily, gave us an outdoor drying rack late last summer and we’ve finally found the perfect home for it. Confession! Although I really wanted one, I’ve never really used one so let’s just say I’m still learning. Further proof that I’m a complete dork: I actually Googled “how to hang clothes on a line” because there is probably a correct way to efficiently do it, right? Sure enough, 55,600,000 results popped up. This actually made me feel a bit better about my dork status. A bit.

Fun facts I ran across in Cyberspace about line drying:

  • According to the NYT, clotheslines are banned or restricted by many of the roughly 300,000 homeowners’ associations that set rules for some 60 million people. Yikes, Big Brother, yikes.
  • Most households can save more than $25 off their monthly electric bill. Nice!
  • You can reduce the full lifecycle climate change impact of your jeans by up to 50 percent by line drying and washing them in cold water.

More fun facts and reasons to line dry can be found here.

I think clothes on a line are just beautiful and I’d like to see more of it. But not your dirty old stained underwear, thank you very much. What are your thoughts on drying clothes on a line? Do you have a method or routine you follow? I’d like to know!

 

 

 

 

a little birdie turns 2

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Lovelies, I realize that this is not an original thought, but here it comes anyway. Where does the time go and how could I already be living in a home with a two year old little girl? Just the other day Chris and I were musing about how exciting it will be when we get to hear the pitter-patter of a little person in the upstairs hallway. I remembered this today when I was gushing to myself about a just-out-of-the-oven loaf of coconut banana bread and I heard the sound of a little birdie running down the hallway. It’s times like these I’m grateful for wood floors without even a runner to buffer the sound of 23 ebullient pounds.

It seems a bit silly to attempt to show gratitude for the birdie’s presence in our lives by baking cookies and stringing up purple balloons because it doesn’t exactly equate, but such is life. What fun to try anyway! Was it crazy to invite a bunch of two year olds over to graze on a sugar-laden buffet easily within reach of their chubby hands? And was I completely exhausted by the end of the day? Yes and yes! But I’d do it again. It sure is fun to celebrate life, isn’t it?

The day was complete with only one real meltdown involving crocodile tears and a new plastic set of golf clubs, just a few raindrops, fun-loving friends and family, lots of bubbles, sugar, and the color purple. Wren is really into purple right now so we decided to celebrate her in a rainbow of purple. Here are a few more photos of her big day.

We made an easy-peasy balloon garland that we saw over on Design Mom recently. All purple, of course…

And then there were the cupcakes, for which I take no credit! Late last year I won a gift certificate from a local pastry chef and saved it for Wren’s party. I saw an idea for some lollipop flower cupcakes and had Sweet Ashley Marie Creations make them. Lucky us! They were beautiful and added the perfect punch of color and fun that we needed.

The cupcakes echoed the invites, which most people received despite the problems. A few never got theirs (sigh), but they still came and didn’t complain, yahoo! I love Wren’s friends.

Some say a party for preschoolers is really for the parents, but Wren is very social and she had an absolute blast with her buddies. By the end of the day, she too was pooped. Pooped and happy. And this Mamma was too.

Wren’s Play Kitchen!

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I’m very excited to share this project with you, lovelies! I spotted the (ugly-as-sin) nightstand in a nearby alley well over a year ago with heartfelt intentions to make it over into a play kitchen for the little birdie that very day. I saw other DIY play kitchens like this by Vintage Songbird and this one by Vicki Howell made from old nightstands and was inspired to make one for Wren.

Chris snagged it for me, dragged it home and then it lived in our basement, awaiting a transformation. It waited and waited. What a patient nightstand! It was going to be a 1st birthday gift, then it was going to be a Christmas gift, and now (finally!) a 2nd birthday gift. Yahoo!

Here are some images and a few notes on the process…

First I hauled the nightstand outside and sanded everything down so the paint would adhere better then the real work began on making the piece of junk great alley find look like a kitchen.

Everything AND the kitchen sink. I found an old metal dog bowl at Goodwill for $.99: perfect for a little sink and perfect for the wallet too. Chris cut out the hole for me after I tried and failed to do it myself.  Meanwhile I sawed off the front of one of the drawers and discarded the other pieces. Then I spray-painted the wood pieces for the burners, knobs and faucet. The faucet is just an upside-down “J” that I saw on other play kitchens.

Then I painted the whole nightstand with about three coats of white paint. I hand-painted the burner coils with a Sharpie paint pen. Then glued them on to the cooktop area with some handy Gorilla Glue. That stuff rocks! I also screwed on a little coat hook on the side for a hot pad and oven mitt (on clearance at Michael’s for $.99, yesssss).

Next up, the backsplash. I painted the backsplash tiles orange, white and green. These are just simple $.29 wood craft tiles that were easy to adhere with the glue to the plywood board we attached to the back of the kitchen. I still want to add a shelf to the back of it because it looks a bit naked, but I haven’t done that yet.

I don’t have photos of the entire process because it was LATE the night before Wren’s birthday and it caused a near-divorce situation as I begged Chris to help me with “just a few quick things,” which of course turned into more than a few things. He was already really tired from installing our new fence, working all day and then I threw him his list, which included installing the hinges, installing the little cabinet magnet so the “oven door” would more easily stay closed, screwing on the handle, screwing on the knobs so they turned (washers!) and screwing on the faucet. Meanwhile I sewed the little curtains and fed them on a dowel, touched up paint and tried to stay out of harm’s way… Let’s just say it wasn’t a very pretty scene.

BUT. I think it was all worth it when the little birdie came down in the morning to greet her new kitchen. The funny thing is that she just got right to work, like she knew exactly what to do. Grabbed the tea pot, filled it up with water and served it up. Put the oven mitt on and checked on the pizza in the oven!

Day two and the party continues! Apparently, popcorn is a popular thing to cook…

Thankfully the little birdie loves her new kitchen and we’re proud of it too. The irony is that Wren’s kitchen is the best part of the entire kitchen. Case in point, Wren has an oven. Our oven hasn’t even made it into the kitchen yet! We’re still using our old one in the basement. Yeah, that’s convenient. Ahem. This project has inspired me to tackle the REAL kitchen, but where to begin?!

What kind of projects are you tackling these days, lovelies? What has inspired you to get moving on them? Do you need a deadline too? Ahh, to be only human.

curse you, USPS

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So the invite saga continues… I could just cry, lovelies. But instead I’m just going to be pragmatic about it (sniffle, sniffle) and hand-deliver the invites that were returned to me for additional postage. They weren’t supposed to be in our mailbox yesterday, they were supposed to be in your mailbox. OK, enough complaining. I best make haste and hit the road…

How’s your day going so far?!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

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Happy 2nd Birthday, dearest Wren Sabina!

It seems like you were just born, but at the same time, it’s hard to imagine our life without you. You are so very dear to us and we love you more than we can put into words. Thank you for being you: sweet, funny, spunky, feisty, smart and beautiful. Seeing your smile in the morning makes every day worthwhile.

You share a birthday with Bob Dylan, who is 70 years old today. Papa thinks what Bob has to say fits you like a glove: “He not busy being born is busy dying.” Keep on, keepin’ on, little birdie. We’ll be here, trying to keep up with you.

finally

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It doesn’t just seem like the snow piles just disappeared. They really did. And what happened to spring, anyway? Yesterday’s summery 83 and sunny crashed that party. So my peas are not ready for 83 on a regular basis. They seem to prefer a milder spring. But they’re making a lovely appearance, aren’t they? Finally!

In other gardening news, the little birdie and I planted several more rows of different seeds yesterday. Melons, squash, beets, carrots, dill. She’s pretty focused for about 3/4 of a row of the bigger seeds, like tigger melon or delicata squash seeds. The carrot seeds–so tiny, even for tiny, nimble hands–not so easy or interesting for an (almost!) two tot. She just wanted to toss them up in the air and see them rain down. Can’t really blame her, but it will be an *interesting* carrot crop this year.

And I’m thinking that we will have a nice salad for a Memorial Day picnic… crossing fingers here.

What’s growing in your garden, lovelies? Have you had any fresh asparagus yet? Yummy. XO ash

P.S. Yes, it does seem a bit trite to blog about lettuce growing in our backyard when there’s so much devastation and heartache in Joplin. I’m feeling very grateful to have a home that is safe and sound, a healthy family, and another beautiful day to be alive.

arrghh

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Invite update. I have a love/hate relationship with the USPS, arrrghh. So I took an enveloped invite to the post office to see how much postage I needed (thinking maybe two stamps). Guess how many it required? 4 stamps. Four stamps! 4. Lord help me. The friendly clerk said that it couldn’t be thicker than a 1/4″ to be considered a letter, so back to the sucker drawing board. I decided to get a flatter sucker and they’re also organic so it’s all meant to be. I suppose.

New sucker, new look. I don’t love the wrapper, but we’ll just have to go with it.

Invites? Check.

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The little birdie turns two next week, woah! It’s a good thing I’ve regained my energy after the first-trimester slump because my nesting instincts are kicking into high gear. Nesting AND celebrating really. We’re planning a party for Wren over Memorial Day weekend when we’ll have family in town for the long weekend and it’ll be here before I know it.

This week, I finished up the birthday invites and will be sending them out today. If I write that, then a trip to the USPS has to happen. I want to share them with you because I think they came out great. Let me know what you think!

So here’s how I did it:

1) Take a photo of your child making a fist. This was easier said than done as the little birdie wanted to make TWO fists. Two would’ve been OK, but then that would necessitate two suckers in each. Plus her fists kept ending up right in front of her face. But finally, we got a pretty good shot of one fist, to the side. Here’s an outtake:

2) Then I brought the chosen photo into InDesign (any layout program would work) and created a 5 X 7 document with the party invitation at the bottom of the card.

3) I then made a .jpg of the invite and uploaded the image to an online photo service (Snapfish, Shutterfly, Kodak, they’re all fine) for printing.

4) A few days later, they arrived. Yippee! I just love getting mail, don’t you?

5) Grab yourself a bag of suckers (next time I might get some flat ones to make mailing them a bit easier…) and an X-Acto knife. Let the fun begin!

6) Cut about a 1/4″ – 1/2″ slit at the top of the fist and one at the bottom of the fist and slip the sucker through the holes. Voila! You’ve got your sucker card.

Lovelies, I didn’t just wake up one morning with this brilliant idea. Far from it. Thanks be to the Internet and the Blogosphere of endless ideas. I was inspired by an idea for a Valentine’s Day card I had seen over at Design Mom. And she borrowed the idea from Alissa. Let me know if you make one and send me a link.

Party on!

P.S. You might notice our gift note at the bottom. We originally wanted to have a “no gifts” party because we don’t want a bunch more stuff, but know that people often feel they want to contribute something to honor the birthday. So after agonizing over it for a while, we decided to ask people to consider making a small contribution to a swingset that we plan to build soon. This way, it’s something everyone can use and enjoy! What are your thoughts on “no gifts” parties, lovelies?

UPDATE: I decided to change the sucker for mailing purposes because it was going to require, get this, FOUR stamps. 

asparagus crowns

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I just love this time of year in Michigan. It screams “asparagus!” to me. This year we decided to dedicate some of our newly-expanded garden space to a few asparagus beds. Although we won’t get to taste the asparagus for a couple more years, it’s a delicious and healthy investment. And tests your patience, arrrghh… The first year you plant the asparagus crowns, the shoots will come up, but you don’t pick them. “They” say it’s important for the health of the plant to let them go to their ferny seed, but the following season? Pick away! Yessss. So when Wren is almost four, we can enjoy our own home-grown asparagus. Seems like a world away… But seeing as how I feel like I just saw her for the first time as a wet infant who smelled of fresh-baked sugar cookies, it will likely come quickly.

After digging some trenches and mounding dirt in the centers of them, the little birdie and I spread out the roots of the crowns. They look a bit like octopus so that made it even more fun. Octopus in our garden!

Looking for some more asparagus fun? The 8th Annual Empire Asparagus Festival begins this coming Friday, May 20. It kicks off with a BBQ complete with asparagus beer from our favorite local brewery. Yes, that’s right. Asparagus beer! Will I see you there?

What’s your favorite way to enjoy fresh asparagus, lovelies? Will you send me a recipe? Please and thank you!