All it takes is a few little seeds, some soil, sun and water and there you go, a garden. Sometimes I’m amazed by the fact that we have jars full of zinnias, black-eyed susans and, er, these cute little purple guys in our house—and that they grew from such little effort. Livia and I planted seeds last spring and watched our baby plants grow. We transplanted them into the beds Jeremy constructed and we’ve all been surprised by the tenacity of the seedlings. Two “Sweets,” William and Peas to be exact, are now thriving despite looking like they were already dead two days after the transplant. The cosmos are growing though we have yet to see flowers, and our sunflowers? Well, apparently bunnies (DEAD bunnies if we see them again) like sunflowers, too. And these are just our seedlings. Jeremy’s done an amazing job with moving perennials around and planting new varieties of annuals in the midst of the plants from previous years.
Gardening is better, not to mention cheaper, than therapy. By simply walking out to our compost pile and taking notice of the height of our fountain grass or the new leaves on the redbud, my pulse slows and breaths deepen. Something about the wind and flowers and sunshine soothes the soul.
This is my favorite shot from the Sunken Gardens. I love the contrast of Liv’s modern flip flop against the ancient looking stone bench. Her little foot in this photo, complete with patriotic toenails by Mrs. Wittmann, will always remind me of the summer when she was four.
I took a lot of photos at the Sunken Gardens, so I’ll continue to plug away at posting them. Our trip to the garden rounded out Flower Week and conveniently tucked into Bug Week. Speaking of bugs, one made his pictorial debut in this shot.
Aside from this brief moment of blogging, I’ve spent the entire evening reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Fascinating reading—my mind is bursting at the seams. I’m sure to have a few nightmares tonight, but in the waking moments between them I’ll try to remind myself of how grateful I am to live in the United States of America. Between watching HBO’s John Adams just prior to the Fourth of the July and reading this novel, I am finding that terms like liberty and equality mean much more than the lighthearted, cliched definitions I’ve ascribed to them over the years.
Here’s another shot from last week’s visit to the Sunken Gardens.
Today has been a long, frustrated parenting kind of day.
I’m pooped out.
That’s all for now.
Happy Monday, y’all. Delight in something beautiful today.
It occurred to me recently that I haven’t been doing much to teach Liv in an academic sense. She attended preschool last year—incredibly helpful and instructional—but I wanted to do more organized activities with her this summer. The true challenge, at least in my head, was whether I would make a worthy instructor. This, my friends, is a ridiculous challenge because my child performs for no man. She has read precisely one word (she sight read “book” back in January) and only recites the alphabet on random occasions. In fact, if you ask her what comes after E-F-G-H-I, she’ll say with a laugh, “joe” or “blueberry,” just to be funny. We discovered she could count to 20 last week while going for a walk on the University campus. Who knew?! She counts!
Enter thematic units. The idea was to create a week’s worth of activities around a central theme and incorporate math, reading, science, etc. The one week we’ve accomplished so far is Strawberry Week. It might be the only one we do the entire summer, but I hope I persevere and carry out a few more units before all is said and done. Liv and I spent time making a Strawberry Pretzel Salad the first day, then followed it up by a craft project the next. We thumbed through a book all about berries during the 2 hour+ of tornado warnings on evening, and then painted old t-shirts with strawberries the day after. The highlight of the week was a trip to Roca Berry Farm where we picked a large flat full of delightful and delicious berries—and Livia sampled half the number she picked. Only in this present day of germ phobia would one hear a child say (while pointing at mine), “Mom, LOOK! She’s eating the strawberries and they haven’t been washed!” Poor kid. He was probably the only child that day who wasn’t munching in the fields!
I suppose Strawberry Week still lives on. I finally made strawberry ice cream tonight, my first homemade batch of the summer, and it was all the more sweet because Liv and I made a fun memory together two weeks ago.
Apparently, the commenting folks who read my blog are a squeamish crowd. Geesh! For those of you shuddering at the thought of our little rotten snake egg, here’s a different set of pictures. Of my daughter. Because that’s what I do here on the Prairie Box. (Because really, that’s what I do in life.)
I gave Liv the choice of new shoes or new sunglasses, so please note the shiny pink shades she’s sporting in the following pic. Also, note the pose. I have no idea where the pose came from or why she suddenly started modeling, but sure, why not.
Perhaps it says something about the sheer flatness of my city because, when I was shooting this photo, I thought our view was magnificent. Sixth floor of a hospital and look! Wowee, the beautiful state capitol building! Struck by the grandeur of the capitol in the skyline (mock away, I’m fine with that), I oohed and aahed to Livia: Look! What do you see?
Her reply: Blockbuster!
Times visited: State Capitol, 0. Blockbuster, 10 million.
I’m boring myself on my own blog so I can’t imagine how the rest of you must feel! There’s a lot going on this week… We’ll be starting weekly services at Redeemer this Sunday (buckle your seatbelts!). For now we’ll meet at Zion on Sundays at 5:00pm, so come and join us in worship on the 22nd if you’d like. This week is also Vacation Bible School at Zion and let me tell you how awesome the gals are who put on this thing. There is so much prep work, so many gazillions of details that have to be managed–and they do it because they love Jesus and kids. Hats off to Tanya and Monica for all their hard work; they amaze me. I have the privilege of snapping photos all week. One of my favorite tasks so far has been shooting a head-and-shoulders shot of each kid for an art project. I love all the hilarious smiles the kids, ages 3 through 10, give the camera and end up laughing hard after each group of children. I’ll try and post a few shots here after the week is over.
And now for the photo of the week. Liv was pulling weeds at the Moreheads’ yesterday and she found an egg. After calling Jeremy to examine it, we took an Exacto to the thing for a little biology lab time. Our guess is that it’s a snake egg. It was squishy and bounced when I dropped it on accident. What do you think?
