Garden Update

The past several weekends have been rainy, cold, windy, or some combination of all three. Because of this, it took almost a month longer to build the last section of our garden beds and fill them than we would have liked. However, this past Saturday dawned sunny and warm, so we grabbed some breakfast, got dressed, and headed off to the local Lowe's to get the chicken wire, topsoil, and compost we needed.

Within an hour, we were back home and getting to work. We guesstimated we would need 20 cubic feet of soil to fill the bean bed, so that's what we got. You can see it there beside the bed materials in the heaps of bags.

Why Write Reviews?

Monday before last, I talked about having the goal of reading and writing reviews for two books before the end of June. Why am I doing that?

There are several reasons behind this decision.

Celebrating Eleven Years

Hubby and I celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary last week. We're coming up on fifteen years together as a couple come September, and it dawned on us that we'll meet that "half our lives" together milestone in just a few years.

Taken Thanksgiving of 2002. We'd just announced our engagement.

How time flies!

Implementing Quarterly Goals

I've spent the last several years looking for a way to increase focus and productivity in my everyday and work life. I've tried daily, weekly, or monthly goals and gotten overwhelmed. On the other side of things, I tried making yearly goals and forgot about them. I'm going to shoot for a "happy medium" and try implementing quarterly goals.

I mean. I get some stuff done, but I need to do more!

Starting now, since April is the beginning of the second sales quarter of the year, I will post several goals to be met over the following three months. Then I'll come back at the start of the next quarter, reveal how I did, and list my goals for the following quarter. Y'all will keep me accountable, right?

Pied Piper iPad

It's no secret we've allowed the girls to use what electronics we have over the years. I've talked about "tech schooling" and the girls' computerized lessons off an on. I think I even might have mentioned vintage video game family nights a time or two. We've always tried to place limits, but still, the electronics call to them like the Pied Piper of the modern day, and we'd occasionally let them have "just a little" longer because a few moments of peace seemed worth it for days when work was particularly trying.

Sneak "teaching" a friend how to play a game when she was 3.

Hubby and I decided to implement more strict rules regarding screen time toward the end of spring break. With the distraction of illness and just trying to keep things running with one of us out of commission, we let them have way more time than usual. Being kids who still believe in "more is more," they took full advantage. Within a couple of days they began snapping at one another and fighting over games or movie picks and just showing a general lack of regard for one another as they got lost in an endless stream of entertainment. They were like addicts looking for their next hit, and we knew we had to put a stop to it right away.

Getting Back on Schedule

Between a two day cold following the Expo on the 19th, a migraine that set in Tuesday afternoon and lasted into Wednesday, and just a lot of fatigue and pain the rest of the week, not much got done during our spring break. I'd planned to take care of the post event inventory and write last week's Flash Fiction Friday on Sunday. I was going to inventory my supplies and place a restock order as well as catch up on housework and write on Icarus Monday. I was supposed to write a blog post and another few hundred on Icarus come Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday was slated to be our gardening day, and then Friday and Saturday were supposed to be the same as usual. Instead I was in bed much of the week.

A Visit to the Botanical Gardens

Long time readers will know our family takes a yearly trip to the local botanical gardens every summer around the girls' birthdays. It's usually the only time we can afford the ticket price plus gas plus time plus snacks for the day. However, I lucked out and won a Twitter contest held by the gardens a few days before this year's spring break for Hubby's school.

Here's a pic from our first trip as a family for comparison.

We allow the girls to have half days when Hubby is off for school holidays aside from summer vacation, so time wasn't a problem this time. We needed to head into town anyway to run errands on Tuesday, so gas wasn't a big issue. So we packed up our own water bottles from home, grabbed a box of trail mix bars, and went to the gardens several months earlier than is our usual.

Starting Our Seedlings

Two weeks ago, we built the frame for our garden bed this year. Well, we built the main part anyway. We ran out of chicken wire before we started on the last 4 x 4 bed because we'd ordered a 4 x 12 bed, and we didn't realize it would come with enough materials to build a whole other bed. Anyway, we decided to start a few plants from seed last week.

We decided to start our beans indoors since they're a bit more "picky" than the radishes, which will be fine being planted directly into the beds this week. And the pumpkin won't be ready to plant for another month or so. We will be purchasing tomato, pepper, and cucumber plants from the same nursery we did last year in another few weeks, and we  plan to purchase several lettuce varieties while we were at Lowe's getting dirt in a couple of days..

Leaving Room for Flexibility

Last Tuesday, I was still dragging after the time change. We got a late start, and the girls and I never managed to catch back up. Then I realized I'd made a big mistake in my business model while we were eating lunch. I still needed to get a bunch of household chores done and writing time was supposed to start an hour and a half later. But I know myself well enough to know I'd forget if I didn't handle the issue right then.

So I rearranged the "time chunks" in my schedule to make room for this task, and I got to work. I still have my schedule, and I kept to my work day. I just left enough flexibility in my schedule to be able to adjust when I need an hour or two to handle issues that come up unexpectedly. If you run a small business, it's something you need. If you keep things too rigid, you'll drive yourself bonkers.

Fighting the Perfectionism Monster

I've written before about perfectionism and the problems it causes, specifically for the girls. I'm not so sure if I've touched on my own struggles with it, but in this case, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I've been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember, and until recently, it's killed my productivity.

As long as I remember, if I started something, I wanted to finish it and make it just so. If doing that seemed impossible, I'd avoid starting altogether. It wasn't until I grew up and began reading articles on the internet that I learned this is common. Up until then, I just thought it was a personal flaw. But it makes sense. When you hold yourself to an impossible standard and get angry with yourself when you fail to meet it, not trying in the first place becomes very tempting. You can't mess up what you don't do, right?

Building a Raised Garden Bed

If you were around last year, you might remember we spent several days building a patio garden only to have an unusually wet year drown everything. You see, Alabama summers are notoriously hot and dry. So when we picked out pots for a patio garden, we thought having ones with solid bottoms and putting drainage rock in the bottom would be our best bet. Things didn't turn out so well, and this year is shaping up to be just as soggy. So having a patio garden for vegetables for the next few years doesn't look like it will work.

This was the garden about a week after planting and few days before the downpours began.

According to the schedule, this year was supposed to be the chamomile bed, a fire pit and attached patio, and the old patio garden. Then next year, we'd build a pergola with built in planters and benches for grape vines and blackberry bushes to climb over. And in 2018, we'd look into raised beds for other fruits and vegetables. Hubby and I decided to change up the plan's schedule. 

When Your Body Betrays You

Have you ever felt like your body betrayed you? I have.

I know decreased strength and aches and pains are normal parts of aging, but I never expected to feel like I was falling apart at thirty-four. And it's not the morning stiffness or feeling achy in the evening that bothers me. It's the alarming increase in clumsiness and seeming inability to hold onto anything some days I find frightening.

Bribe vs. Earned Reward

How do you encourage a child to make the right decisions? Some parents are fond of using the carrot, and some seem to prefer the stick. I'm not going to touch on the "war" surrounding which "stick" measures are preferred or even allowable. Instead, today I want to look at the different methods of "carrot" one can employ.

Goal oriented, Sneak's never been afraid to work for what she wants.

When is a reward a bribe, and when is it something that's been earned? I think this is an important distinction when the goal is teaching your child a work ethic and intrinsic motivation. After all, when you break it down, what's a paycheck but a reward earned through a set period of work?

Longing for Nice Weather

This winter's been a bit warmer than it has been in the last few years, but it's been much wetter. We've had the occasional nice day. However, most have been rainy, windy, bitterly cold, or a mix of the three. Typical winter weather actually, when you look at it on the whole. It just makes you want to stay inside under the covers, and after nine or ten weeks of it, you can't help but begin to long for the return of nice weather.

The girls and I have been feeling it for a couple of weeks now. Sneak in particular is practically climbing the walls in anticipation. She's been begging to go to the park for two weeks straight, and she doesn't seem to understand not everyone is as hot natured as she is. Boo Bear and I feel the cold, and we feel it intensely.

Yet on days like this past Saturday, nice weather doesn't seem so far away. We woke up to frost, but it was warm enough to not need a jacket by lunchtime. The sun was shining so brightly, it hurt to walk outside without wearing shades.

So, the girls and I have come to a deal. If they can consistently finish their daily schoolwork within the allotted time, we'll make daily visits to the park, or at least the road that runs beside our house, for a walk when the weather cooperates. And if they can keep up with their lessons and chores without whining or fussing amongst themselves, we'll start going to the playground on Saturdays when the weather cooperates and we don't have other obligations.

If nothing else, we could all do with a bit of exercise and sunshine. Bring on the warm, sunny days of spring. We're ready.

Symphonic Weekend

The local symphonic orchestra and ballet company held a free, first come/first serve family event this past weekend. The concert didn't start until 11 a.m., but the doors opened for family friendly activities at 9:30. Music has always been a big part of my life, and the girls have been showing interest in musical instruments and learning to play. So Hubby and I thought we'd get everyone up early and see if we could snag seats.

We were running a few minutes behind, so we decided to handle an errand we'd planned to run before the concert afterward. It's a good thing we did because the place was packed! If we hadn't rearranged our plans, we may very well have made the twenty-seven mile trip, one way, for nothing otherwise.

Give Sneak a violin, and she's all smiles.

Stations were set up all around the theater lobby. They had a booth where you could learn how to conduct, an "instrument petting zoo," face painting, hula hoops, musical chairs, a coloring booth, photo ops, dancing scarves, and more. 

Cinderella's carriage has seen better days.

The girls had a blast. We nearly had to pull them away from the "instrument petting zoo," and then Boo Bear fell in love with playing musical chairs. Sneak got bored after a game or so and wanted to make sure she explored everywhere. So Hubby stayed to keep an eye on Boo, and I took Sneak around to explore. She gave conducting a whirl, played some percussion instruments, had her photo taken in Cinderella's carriage, and played with the dancing scarves. Then we met back up and found some seats.

Boo Bear was excited to see the show.

Sneak, ever the explorer, soon grew bored with watching the musicians warm up and wanted to go back out to make sure she didn't miss anything. However, the theater was starting to become crowded, and I was afraid we wouldn't be able to find seats together if we gave up the ones we had. So I started pointing out different features of the concert hall's design and different instruments to distract her the few minutes until the concert began.

View of the hall from the stage, taken by symphony staff fifteen minutes before the show began.

Once the lights went down and the music began, the girls were entranced. The symphony played their first couple of pieces without accompaniment, but it wasn't long before the ballet group began sharing the stage. They used clever, minimalistic puppetry and costuming to bring the characters to life. The theme of this particular concert was animals, which is just perfect for the ten and under set.

Mr. Hedgehog enters during, "Mr. Bear Squash You All Flat."

In different parts of the concert, dancers came down into the audience or entered from the back of the theater, allowing the children to see them up close. Between songs, the conductor stepped off his podium and led the audience in music making with simple instruments provided at one of the booths in the entrance or just drumming on their laps. A couple of the puppets, fish puppets to be exact, thrilled the audience by producing bubbles as they "swam" down the main aisle of the theater.

The concert itself only lasted an hour, just long enough to have the kids leave still on a high from the show without growing bored. We made it back to the car, ran our errand, and grabbed a quick bite to eat before the lunch rush was in full swing. Then we went back home, pleased and grateful for having had such a nice morning out.

Get 'em Moving. Keep 'em Learning.

Ever noticed how it seems sensory integration and attention deficit disorders have increased as we've cut back on recess and the amount children play outside? I'm not saying a lack of physical activity causes these problems, but it certainly doesn't help the symptoms. Childhood is a time of intense physical as well as mental development, and the body not only needs but demands all types of movement and sensations in order to facilitate these developments. These demands can present as many of the symptoms listed for ADD, ADHD, various sensory disorders, and more.

So what is a parent to do?

Valentine's?

Everyone's been talking about Valentine's Day lately, and there've been heart shaped boxes of chocolates and whatnot on shelves almost since December 26. Am I the only one that just doesn't get it?

Valentine's Day confuses me.

If you enjoy the holiday and like celebrating it, more power to you. But it's something Hubby and I just can't get into. It feels too manufactured to actually be romantic, so we just skip it.

The Not Fun Part of Running a Business

We all have things we aren't good at, and for me, that's keeping up with my bookkeeping. You'd think I would have learned to keep on top of my accounting throughout the year by now, having worked freelance off and on for nearly a decade and running a small business since January 2011. But I'm that stubborn, or lazy as the case may be.

Our booth at Yomu_Con 2015 in Tuscaloosa, AL.

I'm good on the fun parts of the job, and even a few of the not so fun bits. I churn out a fair bit of high quality creative material. I handle customer service and what little bit of marketing we do. I schedule events and keep the store updated. But no matter how determined I am to do better at the start of every year, I invariably fall behind with entering all the store's sales and expenses in the ledger. Then I end up having to spend a good week or two come tax season combing through a huge bag of receipts, emails, balance sheets, sales records, etc. 

Dealing with Wintertime Blues

I've started dreading this time of year. It's not for any concrete reason, just that for the past seven or eight years, I always seem to end up in a funk towards the middle of February on into late March. I know there's such a thing as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), but I'm not going to say that's what it is. I don't know if it's so much the season itself, dread of things I've come to associate with the latter part of the school year plaguing my subconscious mind, backlash from the creative high during the holidays, or a combination of things. I just know it's a pain to deal with every late winter.

Making sure I get plenty vitamins and minerals helps. Opening the curtains and blinds all over the house to let in as much sunshine as possible helps too unless it's one of those odd days where a migraine looms. (Then all that light just hurts, but those are thankfully few and far between these days.) Upbeat music can help a too if the girls have finished their schoolwork.

New Year Frustration

So, I wrote about how I wanted to increase focus in 2016 at the first of the year. Here I am just three weeks later writing about my frustration in keeping that goal.

Okay, so it's not like I've given up. I haven't. I'm still trying, but the new schedule is proving harder to keep to than I'd like. When it's working, it runs like a dream. However, if you get even the slightest bit behind on one of the chores, everything starts falling apart.

This would be the schedule in question.

Of course, that may just be my personality. I enjoy schedules and routines, and I abhor when they get out of sync. It just ruins my day, and I feel like I'm playing catch up all day if not all week.

I had a few days last week where I was just exhausted after doing way too much the day before, and some of the housework piled up. Because of trying to get caught up on that, no writing at all was done last week aside from one lonely little blog post. But, we took advantage of the holiday Monday to get all caught up and reset ourselves. Here's hoping we can keep chugging along and being more productive in the weeks to come.