How we plan to survive this summer

I'm sure this is probably normal for plenty of families. Right? At least, for families in which one parent works full-time and one who works part-time at home. Here's the current summer schedule for the kids.

June:

• One week at home (Monday-Wednesday) with a young babysitter from down the block.
• Thursdays with Oma.
• Two weeks at a park district camp near us, but not our actual resident one (which we didn't like last summer). This includes four visits to pools in neighboring suburbs.
• Two sessions weekly with a tutor for Nea, working on literacy and math.
• One session weekly with our private speech and language pathologist.
• Fridays, hang out with me.

July:

• One week at home (Monday-Wednesday) with a young babysitter from down the block.
• One week full-time at a YMCA. This includes at least one pool visit. I won a buy-one-week-get-one-free deal, so this is a good price.
• One week full-time at Camp Invention, a science camp the girls attended last year, too.
• Thursdays with Oma. Except when she is at knitting camp.
• Two sessions weekly with a tutor for Nea, working on literacy and math.
• One session weekly with our private speech and language pathologist.
• As time allows, Nea will go to Extended School Year classes, which are a joke, but she gets an additional 45 minutes of speech weekly there. Assuming they can work with our schedule. Right now I think she'll go 12 days out of a possible 20.
• Fridays, hang out with me.

August:

• I'm taking some time off, which I'll need after trying to figure out who I'm driving where in July.
• One week at home (Monday-Wednesday) with a young babysitter from down the block.
• Possibly some gymnastics camp and swim lessons.
• Thursdays with Oma, plus a couple extra days just before school starts.
• Two sessions weekly with a tutor for Nea, working on literacy and math.
• One session weekly with our private speech and language pathologist.
• Fridays, hang out with me.

I hope someday this will just be some confusing weird memory of how ridiculous our summers used to be.

Fourth Annual Trash Pick

This year was a little sparse in comparison to some other years, but I can't complain. It's free, after all. 

Booster seat, lemon twist type toy. Papa Skateboard, Mama Skateboard, and Baby Skateboard. Old-timey playpen that I will use with some chickenwire for our hypothetical guinea pig, should we ever acquire one. We keep talking about it, but nothing ever happens. Three pretty china plates, a "suction cup it to your window" bird feeder, and Keen shoes, new with price tag ($29.90 at Nordstrom Rack).

Seven sample upholstery fabric books (for crafts), magazines (also for crafts), a bag of board books (will give to our old preschool).

Double jogging stroller (lending to a friend), tile address sign (will take apart for trivets), plastic flamingo (score!).

Basket with decorative grapevine balls, 12 new-in-box wire baskets (probably will give to Girl Scout troop), planter, cool old three-drawer thingie, plant stand, old toolbox (cool!), three square plastic planters (maybe for Garden Club), concrete planter (already being used).

Cute wee bunny, games, toy microphone for speech therapist, snorkel gear, find-the-Santa book. In background, large glass container for terrarium I hope to make.

Candlesticks, very nice plastic storage box, another stack of magazines, frame, little silver heart-shaped boxes (with lucky pennies and a little note from Grandma. A bit sad, really.), and a treasure trove of keepsakes from my high school Alma Mater, including keychains, cheerleading trophies, etc.

Garden news thus far

This Spring has been crap. Cold and very rainy. We haven't even mowed the lawn since it hasn't grown, although it is nice and green.

Here in Zone 5, it's still at least 2 weeks until the average last frost date. I should have started a lot of seeds earlier (I finally did the pole beans, brussel sprouts, cantaloupe, and cucumbers yesterday!), but the weather didn't exactly motivate me.

I did put in the potatoes (Katahdin) and onions almost a month ago. The onions look good, but nothing is showing in the potato bed. They may have rotted from all the rain. I need to dig one up and look.

In the cold frames, the carrots, radish, and beets look really good. Almost time to eat some radishes, even. And the carrots came up! That never happens for me.

My garden guy recommended not putting out the zucchini and winter squash until the end of June. That way you miss the entire vine stem borer life cycle. I don't know if I can wait that long, but I will start them indoors soon in bigger pots and wait as long as I can.

In window boxes, the bok choi and lettuce mix look good. The Red Mountain Spinach (Orache) self-seeded and is doing well. I have peas coming up in a pot. I hope we get a good crop this year, as the kids really love eating them right off the plant.

I'll be buying tomato plants, since only 3 of my heirlooms sprouted. Sigh. My seeds are old.

Basil -- one tiny spring coming up. Pathetic. The parsley came back.

New this year: salsify. I started it outside today. I was supposed to start it with the radishes, but I couldn't find any seed locally. Luckily my brother got me some for my birthday! Hurrah!

Almost ready to harvest: rhubarb and asparagus! Very late this year, but thems the breaks. As always, the chives, oregano, and sage all look good.

In other garden news, we found another old well! We filled in one when we moved in. The idiots we bought the house from had just put a piece of plywood over the top. Can you imagine? Total morons. It was 30 feet deep, with maybe 8 feet of water at the bottom. Sure, that's safe! Anyway, we've always wondered why we have this little sinkhole in the lawn. Every year we throw a little extra dirt on it and scratch our heads. The other week Boo tripped on it, and it's two feet deep, and you can see the bricks along the sides. Yup. She's lucky she didn't break a fetlock and have to be put down.

Lastly, I know I've posted this before, but if you missed it, use this planting guide! It's so helpful.