Batter up!

I'm still new to the whole Little League culture.  I admit that, in my mind, it feels excessive to be doing a midweek and a weekend practice.  They've been holding practices now for about a month!   That's early even for Spring Training!  (I love his concentration here.  He loves this game.) 

It's so much more serious this year.  Last year was coach pitch, and it was mostly about learning the basics, and a lot of  'attaboys' for not much at all, if you want to know the truth.  This year is already significantly different.  A lot of shouting, actually.  "Where's the play?!?" and "Throw it to second!  Throw it to second!  Come ON!!"  or, randomly from the kids' perspectives, "Hold the ball!!!  NonoNOnoNOOOO! Don't throw it to first!!!!"




There's always a group of dads, ready to do pitch practice (oh, how they all want to be a pitcher!) or batting tutelage or to provide gentle reminders about where to play third or how to back second base.  I always bring a mitt, so we can play catch.  Tommy loves to play catch!  

I wasn't so sure about the increased pressure that I perceived, but Tommy is responding well, taking it oh-so-seriously, and I love that he loves it.  I also love baseball, and I like having a partner in crime for $1 nights at the A's games, or to take in a Giants game on a summer day.  But even more than that, I think it's so important for him to find things he's good at, and to stick with them.  I'm still hopeful that he'll go with math, but baseball is good for now, too!

Field Trip!

I took a day off yesterday to chaperon Tommy's field trip.  We spent the day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and we had a BLAST!  (And yes, Kelly and Moose, we got a wee bit turned around and ended up taking 68 into town which meant that we passed right near you guys!  I recognized the route, fortunately, from the day we did the Run Forrest Run 5k that day!)



Did you know that you can take up to 40 hours a year to volunteer at your child's school?  It's true.  You have use vacation or personal days, or even take unpaid leave, but it's so nice to have that kind of support for parent involvement.  California's not the only state, either, as Nevada has enacted a similar law.  It's worth looking into, no matter where you live.  


As a teacher, I've always scheduled several field trips every year.  I love to see kids out in the world.  They are so different when they go out!  Kids that can drive you to distraction in the confines of the classroom can be so enchanting in a more natural environment.  They are funnier, more clever, and sweeter in every way.  It's nice to see them like this, because you take that memory back with you and it let's you see the best in them even when they may not be 'shining' at any particular moment.

Tommy and I had such a great time!  It's a beautiful aquarium; world class, actually.  And the Monterey Bay itself is one of the most fascinating ecosystems in the world.  





They do a fantastic job on the exhibits.  They have one deep sea tank that holds 1.2 million gallons of water...that's more than all the other tanks at the aquarium combined!  But it's so cool, because you can see sharks and tuna and school fish in an area that allows them to behave naturally.  Fascinating!  Is it just me?  I can watch fish swim for hours.

The touchpools were one of our favorite areas for sure.  These bat rays can be 'petted' by leaning over the railing.  So cool!  We also touched sea cucumbers (ugh!), star fish, and sea crabs. 




The Secret Lives of Sea Horses is their special exhibit right now.  Oh, my!  What a sweet, amazing creature!  Can you just die...look at his little tail, wrapped around that seaweed.  Eric Carle has a beautiful book called Mr. Seahorse, that I highly recommend.  His style of collage art is very inspiring and kids love to make their own animals.  I have them paint large sheets of plain construction paper (I like tempera paints for kids, because they are non-toxic and wash easily from clothes!) then tear the paper into different sizes.  Those swatches of paper are then used to create different shapes and creatures.  They are always, always beautiful.

The jellyfish have been there for awhile, but they are never stale.  I can watch them for-ever.  They are mesmerizing...no eyes, no brains, no spine.  Mind boggling!

But truly, these Leafy Sea Dragons were the showstoppers.  I can't do them justice (I'm still learning how to use my camera, especially without the flash!) but they were unreal.  In case you can't tell, he's sort of swimming downward, his head toward the lower left of the frame...he has a long snout, like a sea horse.  I couldn't take my eyes of these!





This just cracked me up!!!  Here's Tommy, playing with a wooden penguin display.






Here's his classmate, playing an interactive video game based on the penguins.

And...here are the very real penguins, just behind both of these boys!  haha!  I had to encourage them to actually abandon the fake penguins and go spend some time with the actual penguins.  I still giggle, just thinking about it!


There are shows and activities, including watching the feeding times, and a two-story exhibit of the kelp forests...did you know kelp can grow 12 inches in a day?  I can't tell you how sweet it was to get my teacher-geek on with my very own Big Boy! 

Peeking intot the garden

Late last summer, I planted two artichoke starts on the back hill.  Artichoke plants get very large, and they look incredibly hardy and robust.  However, these are easily the most dramatic plant I've ever dealt with.  A few warm days, a missed watering or two, and they completely collapse, laying wilted and exhausted on the dirt.  Then, you sprinkle them with some water, and a few hours later they are upright and sprightly once again.  Oh, my laws, they just can't tolerate inattention.


These pictures were taken in the late afternoon yesterday, so they are in the shade of the house (though the beautiful afternoon sun is undeniable in the background!) but I think you can tell that these are two plants, stacked on the hill there, and they are both well over two feet tall.  These were about 6 inches tall when I planted them.  All that rain this last month has clearly done them some good!  I kind of went out in the afternoon, expecting carnage, but found this instead.  Sweet, sweet garden surprises.  I have no idea what, if any, production will occur, but I'm so pleased with their progress!

I also found the beginnings of tulips, daffodils, and crocuses.  All of these are from last winter (November of '08), when I planted some bulbs.  Last January, in marked contrast from this January, we had a heat wave, and I can remember all the tulips blooming prematurely, then drowning and shriveling just a few weeks later.  *sigh*  So much better to see these friends reappearing in February...I can't wait until I see them fully formed in March!

And then, there's this.  Those are weeds covering the steps to the raised patio.  Oh, and those are Halloween decorations.  Ahem.  I started this weekend by hand pulling weeds growing amongst the pavers on top of the patio.  I'm hoping that this weekend will be clear enough to get in and really start weeding in earnest.  As a hobbyist gardener, I've had to learn to embrace the process of weeding.  This early in the season, it's still novel enough.  Check with me in April, and I'm sure I'll be less enchanted.

The yard is still over-wintering, and I'm barely beginning to take inventory.  I'm pretty sad that I appear to have lost two large flowering bushes near the gate beneath my bedroom window.  They are very twiggy, and they should both already be getting leaves and buds for blooms.  I'm wondering if they 'drowned'?  I never thought too much about the soil drainage in that area.  I've been getting ready to direct sow into the raised beds a few early spring crops.  I'm a little nervous, because I would have told you six weeks ago that we never get a frost around here (mild bay winters, gracias!) but my pond had a sheet of ice on it back in December, so....clearly all hell is breaking loose.

In addition to direct-sowing, which I would normally do in early March, I've decided to start some seeds indoors.  Wish me luck!  Tommy gets these milk cartons at school lunch time, and he told me that he came up with 'thirty-four uses for these'.  He presented them in commercial style, almost like he was doing a home-shopping-network sales pitch.  Too funny!  I used to do a really good impersonation of a QVC pitch-woman, but I've not watched any in so long, I wouldn't know where to begin.  Tommy's didn't include a Southern accent, which was central to mine, but I was impressed all the same.  Use number 14 was to plant seeds.  So, here we go.

I'm kind of glad not to be direct-sowing just yet, because it will give me time to figure out what's happening here.  I cardboard mulched the areas between the raised beds, but this is what met me this weekend.  Hmmm...At first I thought maybe moles or gophers were coming up from the ground and wreaking havoc.

 (My previous neighbor...actually, two neighbors ago in that house...once came to my door and said, "Hey, you know a lot about animals...can you come take a look at this?"  He speculated that "this" might be a guinea pig.  Before I even got to his yard, I had to gently explain that guinea pigs aren't generally found in the wild in this area, and that the chances that a domesticated guinea pig had escaped and then survived in his yard was also highly unlikely.  It was a mole.  He was from Iceland.  It's the only explanation that makes sense.)

So, anyways, point is, the more I looked at this mess, the more I started thinking....it kind of looks more like deer were tromping around.  We have a lot of deer in our area, and our yard is mostly "open" at the top of the hill between both neighbors on the sides, and with nothing more than a barbed wire fence to the open park land behind us.  I often find deer scouting the front and back yards.  In the beds area, there are still rosemary, flat-leafed parsley, marjoram, and sage growing.  So maybe they were poking around?  They don't seem to be bugging the artichokes, so I could totally be wrong, and even if they were hoping for food in in the kitchen garden, they don't like strong-smelling-food, so they wouldn't find anything to their liking.  But, still, I wonder if they're 'shopping'.

So, that's that.  I just wanted to apologize for abusing our friend the comma.  It's a tick to my writing; and I'm sincerely sorry!

89 Years Young!

Tommy has been missing Gram, and it was no wonder...we haven't seen her in over a month!!  Crazy-ness.  She turned 89 years old this week, so it was the perfect time to get up early and head out for a (too short) visit before Tommy had to be back at baseball practice.

We had a ball, as usual.  These two are so in love with each other!  And it was so wonderful to see Gram looking like Gram again.  Her hair has a normal cut (I love my Aunt Barbara, but when she trims Gram's bangs it leaves her looking like a mental patient!) and her neck brace is off and she looks about 100% better than she did even at Christmas.  It's such a relief to see her all the way to the other side of this neck injury!

Aunt Barbara talked about an engagement she has next weekend, and I told her to bring Gram by before she went and leave her with us.  When Tommy heard that Gram could be coming to our house, he literally jumped up and down and said, "Yay! Yay!"  He just slays me.

While we were there, I threw together another apple pie for them.  I had brought up a few jars of the pie filling that I had made a few months ago.  Have I told this story?  I was all, "Hey, here, you can make pies with this, so easy!"  And, I couldn't make this up, my Aunt told me that she didn't have rolling pin, or a pie plate.  What the what?  She pretty much refused to learn how to make a pie crust so I introduced her to the pillsbury pre-made crusts (they come two to a package), and then I made the damn pie in a 9x13 casserole dish.

This time, she was so proud of herself, she had found a couple of tins and two frozen pie crusts.  I made a round pie and called it a day!

My cousin Kathy (who also lives there with her family...it's a full boat, for sure!) has a dog named Nitro.  This is easily one of the cutest, most annoying dogs I've ever met.  She is so sweet!  But every time I tried to take her picture, she'd bum rush the camera and start licking the lens.  Not cool.  Then, she started digging in my bag.  There was no food in there or anything, she was just rooting around.

So I stuck my feet out, to try to keep her just far enough away to get a picture of her adorable face, but instead, she started trying to eat my shoes!   Every once in awhile, I start to think about getting a dog.  I'm so not ready for another dog...

Blue Skies Alpaca ::~:: Cowl

Mimi, who is being smothered in handmades at the moment, still can't seem to get enough!  My mom made her the same chenille throw that I made for Maia's wedding (totally different colorway, though, as the purples were handpicked for Maia-bean) and it's been a big hit at the hospital.  And the hats I made are, rather hilariously, being used by everyone and their mother!  Mimi's daughter-in-law is smitten with the green cloche, her granddaughter prefers the blue cloche, and my own mother has absconded with the red beanie.  They just "borrow" the hats until I can "make more".   Right-o, I'm on it!

Mimi recently put in a request for a scarf.  Her granddaughter actually suggested the cowl style, which slides over the head and onto the neck like a tube.  It's a brilliant solution, since she is in the hospital, and this one won't get bunged into anything.  I found this free cardiff cowl pattern on the LionBrand site.  It's interesting; it works out from the center in a lacy pattern.  This one was done in Alpaca.  (Please to ignore the ends that still need weaving!  Details, schmetails.)

At first, I wasn't sure about the 'hourglass' quality of the lace working out from the center, but when it's on, it lays so perfectly!  It sort of folds in and around in all the right ways, layering itself in a sweet, soft stack around the neck and ears.

In anticipation of The Borrowers, I started two more of these.  :)

Inside and Outside

Tommy and Scotty have a favorite Dr. Seuss book...Green Eggs and Ham.  You'll just have to trust me that there is nothing cuter than either (or both!) of them reciting it by heart.  With a fox?  In a box?  Swoon.

But these rainy days...and all the ways they dream up to entertain themselves (and us!)...have me thinking of The Cat in the Hat.  In fact, when Erik took a business trip to Universal Studios in Florida, he came back with Thing One and Thing Two shirts for them, and it stuck, because in all honesty, it's true!

There's Thing One, walking on my furniture.  They were doing hot laps like this for almost an hour...across the couch, step on the hope chest (nee, coffee table), jump once to the floor, limbo the laundry basket obstacle course, peel out back to the couch.  Repeat.  Until somebody gets hurt.

Finally, on Saturday, it cleared up.  I had been missing my friend Claire, so she and her son, Yusef, came to our house and then we hit a nearby park.  Claire and I, engrossed in catching up on a bench, barely noticed when an hour had passed!

Our children, however, were quite another story.  Tommy was exhausted.



Yusef was begging for water.

Scotty has his own way of letting me know that he can't take anymore.  It's subtle, but I recognize the signs.




These poor boys!  After nearly a month of the wet and the cold, they are being raised like veal.  Ten minutes in the fresh air, responsible for propelling their own body weight across the play structures, and they were ready to join the AARP and call it a day.  Time for calisthenics; spring training is around the corner!

Guest Blogging

I was over at Brit's digs today, live updating on her back surgery.  So I have no more words today.  Oh.  Except these...I'm feeling so grateful for Brit's successful surgery, my own good health, and that all my boys are happy and healthy and right here with me!

Tomorrow is the start of something big in these parts, and yes, I've been making, and plus, I have some sweet pictures of the boys to share (so what, I'm biased) so I'll be back soon.  :)

Apparently, it is impossible for me run out of words.