Easter Baskets for Older Kids

Continuing in the theme of "oh, yeah, that happened a bit ago," here's what our Easter egg hunt looked like this year.

The kids are now 13.5 and 11.75 years old. Roughly. Nea asked whether we were having an egg hunt this year, which was a reasonable question, as we have been out of town for at least the last 3 Easters. It’s been awhile. I wanted to mix it up a little, since they aren’t quite as excited about candy as they were a few years ago. Boo has braces, so that also complicates sugar consumption.

So I cut out 11 pink paper squares and 11 yellow. Put those in 22 of the eggs. Filled the rest of the eggs with some candy. It was pretty wet out, so we hid the eggs in the house. Oma and Opa helped. Boy, Opa wanted to make finding the eggs super difficult!

Once they found the important clue eggs, they had to unscramble the letters to find their Easter baskets.

If you want a little brain teaser, these were the two sets of clues. (answers at bottom of post)

A B E I I L M N N U V

A D L M N O O R R U Y

Oddly, Boo had a bit of trouble finding hers (pink clues). I didn’t think that part would be particularly challenging. It was under a reusable grocery bag in the back.

This is Nea’s basket. A wrapped present from a local boutique (beaded bracelet, seen in second photo), a giant jar of capers, a book, self-sealing water balloons (sort of a gift for me, frankly, knowwhatImean, fellow parents?!), and gum. She’s been eating the capers as a snack, in a bowl with a spoon. As one does.

Boo’s basket had seaweed snacks, a trashy magazine, facial wipes, running shorts (wrapped, shown separately), and gum. 

[answers to the word scramble]

Ugly Ornament Party - 2015

Oh, how we love ugly ornaments! Oh, how difficult it is (much more than you might think) to find a real contender! Sure, the stores are full of normal ugly, but the truly awful are very rare. I would know, because I look for them all year. You'd think garage sales would be full of them. But no.

Updated to add a link to this related Cracked article. I don't care what anyone says: I sort of like #3.



Here's what I brought to the table: Christmas Herpes. So named because, as we know, "Glitter is the herpes of the crafting world." I trashpicked it, naturally, so no backstory on why anyone would glue a bunch of pine cones together and then cover it in holographic glitter. What the photo doesn't show is how heavy this monstrosity is. Truly a fail. Extra points for also, again, failing to be ugly enough to garner very many votes. I'll never win my own party, sniff sniff.

For the others, let's go in reverse order. First, some bad honorable mentions: Little Drummer Boy and Leder-HORSE-n (obviously pandering to the German unicorn vote, that one).



We can all agree, no?, that they are unfortunate. But not bad enough, sorry. 

Next, the one I voted for. I love it! It's "A Very Troll-y Christmas." I believe there's some sort of troll movie coming out, so points for relevance. Also, it's a nice riff on the Easter Egg craft thing, as it's the same shape as those traditional sugary Easter delights. It only lost by a vote or two. 



And lastly, the winner, which is worse in person than what you see here, aptly named "Orange You Glad This isn't Your Ornament?" It's half a painted coconut with weird seed pods stuck on it. Except the one on top apparently wasn't glued enough, as it didn't make it to my house.



And there you have it. Another ugly ornament party in the record books. Hope you enjoyed this installment of "oh, yeah, I have a blog, oops, forgot."


We're just going to move forward and ignore the fact that this update is super late, kthanksbye.

Happy House-versary

Gosh, well, happy new year. That’s a bit embarrassing. I’ve been, um, busy.

So, 14 years ago we bought this house. It was almost a 100 years old at the time. Now it’s well over. It was built in 1908 or 1910, depending on which source you believe. We are finally getting to the point where all the work N does on it is “nice to have” instead of “really, this needs to happen.” We had a visitor come look at the house recently. He grew up here with his 8 brothers and sisters, and a cousin who stayed for a few years.

I felt a bit bad. There’s little left of the original layout. The floor is mostly original downstairs. None of the original closets or stairs remain. His parents came by maybe 10 years ago, so we’d heard some of the history already. They lived here 30 years, from the 1960s to the 1990s. We’ve had other former owners (from earlier) come by, too. It’s a house that inspires loyalty, it would seem. Certainly the garden has undergone at least as much change, too. It had hardly anything when we arrived. Just a few large trees, a couple lilacs. Not much else.

Anyway. If you would like some stylish shoes like these, here’s how to get them. Buy an old house. Work on it constantly for years. Wear the shoes a lot. And that’s about it.

Yes, I did take this photo last summer. When there was grass. It's not like I don't have blog ideas. I just don't seem to prioritize the time to write.

Book hoarding

I know about real hoarding. I’ve seen the TV shows. More personally, I know a woman who deals with real hoarding at her mother’s houses (there are two). The attempts to clear out one house and get it on the market. The citations from the village. One house condemned. Fix it up before the village tears it down. Hoarding spilling into the yard. It’s painful just to hear the stories. They did eventually find the body of the cat they knew had died several years ago. But the struggle never ends, because apparently it’s very difficult to cure hoarding behavior.

Then there’s pet hoarding, which is awful. Our guinea pig rescue group just took in 50 pigs from one such situation. They aren’t well socialized, so they are hard to find homes for.

Hoarding in my family is much more manageable. My mom has 50 or 60 jars of jam in the basement at any given time. Nice, tidy hoarding.

My hoarding centers around books. I finally went around and did a rough count in our house, out of curiosity. I did get rid of a few hundred children’s books last summer, so that helped a little. Plus we have two Little Free Libraries within walking distance, so sometimes I can stick a few books in there. Granted, sometimes I have to bring a new one home, too. It’s only fair.

Starting upstairs, Boo is a minimalist and a big re-reader, so she only has her 50 favorites in her room. Nea is a bit of a hoarder of everything, plus she’s the downstream book-catcher from the older sibling, so no surprise that she has circa 650.

The master bedroom has 175 in a bookshelf, and 130 on the floor/nightstand. Yes, that looks just as well-organized as it sounds.

Ok, so we have a couple book-free rooms. The sunroom and dining room have none. There are only 5 of the most used cookbooks in the kitchen. The other cookbooks are in the living room, with the gardening books and some kid books. Total living room – about 450.

There’s some board and early childhood books I couldn’t bring myself to give away, boxed up in the basement. Let’s say 300.

And that leaves the study. N finished these bookshelves awhile back. There’s books in the cabinets underneath, too, where the board games were supposed to go. Yup. That’s another 1260 or so.

Grand total? Just under 3000 books, roughly. That’s in the realm of normal. Right?

Oddly, I find myself at the library at least weekly.

I did some navel gazing not too long ago and decided that my need to be surrounded by books appeals to my most optimistic and pessimistic hopes and fears.

Best case scenario: I live a life of leisure and have time to read for hours a day!

Worst case scenario: society collapses, and all technology is lost. It’s not safe outside and hurrah! Nothing to do but read all day and wait for the end! See, now where will all you e-book types be then, huh? That’s right. Pillaging the library, fighting over Danielle Steele and Louis L’Amour paperbacks. Ha. Suckers.

Random photos

The kids are busy with softball, basketball, swimming, and training to run Boo's second/Nea's first 5K. 

N has been transforming our unfinished basement into different rooms. Laundry and workout rooms are nearly complete. A large family room to come. 

I'm still me, but with more work hours, larger granola batches, yet more triathlon training, and attempts to transition volunteer work to others as much as possible. Only another year left at the grade school! Need to start handing off my pet projects.

So, here's some things that happened this week, in photos.

On the way to pick up a new guinea pig from a rescue group, a call to update the blog:

Here she is, the new pig. Her new name is Pepper. Ain't she cute?! We never renamed a pig before (and this is our 4th rescue pig), but "Peggy" didn't do it for us. Before that she was apparently "Piggie Pig" which is pretty weak. So, back up to 3 pigs currently.

And lastly, the first sprout of the season! Front left, if you can't find it. Late start, with it still snowing and all. Might have to buy my tomato plants this year. Oh well.

Beautification

One day a long long time ago, I think it was in May, I went to a garage sale with the kids. I gave this bench a look, but from afar it looked like the price tag said $300, which was believable. A nice bench like that.  But as I squinted more carefully, I realized that this oak veneer bench with hideous stained fabric was really marked $30. No way, I thought very very quietly to myself. What a deal. I sprang into action, declared it sold, and made the kids sit on it for safekeeping. You know how crazy people can get at garage sales. I wanted to take no chances.

Isn't this great? I said to the kids. No, they said. They hated it. I proudly brought it home and showed it to N. He was not impressed. No vision, this family of mine. So I ignored them and went to the fabric store, clutching a coupon. And now, wah laa, it is finished. Got some nice baskets from Target to store our shoes underneath. Makes the back door all fancy-like. 

View from a blog

Gosh, it's been an age. Hello!

We had a fire in the chiminea the other night. I sat there quite awhile, as you can see. 

Trash picked items: hurricane lamp, sundial, candlesticks, and the lovely fern in the back.

Adventures in travel

View from the breakfast table, near San Gimignano

We recently returned from a long trip visiting family in Switzerland and hanging out like Eurotrash in Tuscany. There’s too much to tell, but I’ll try to hit a few highlights.

Turns out renting a GPS from Hertz at the Zürich airport costs a completely ridiculous 30 euros a day. In retrospect, that would have been cheaper than the divorce that would have been imminent had we traveled with only a map. Thankfully, my cousin ripped his GPS off his dashboard and handed it over just as he was dropping us off at the train station the evening before we left.

We named her Inge. It was a love-hate relationship from the start. Her best lines included, “Sie befinden sich in einer Sackgasse,” (You are in a dead end.) while we barreled happily down the Autobahn. Also, she regularly chirped “Achtung! Gefahrstelle!” (Careful! Dangerous area!) for no discernible reason. And you haven't lived until you hear Inge say, “Poggibonsi,” which is a small Italian town.

Lastly, here's some very old artwork (1500s? Maybe earlier.) we saw at Florence's Duomo.

Apparently this Disney shit is much older than I thought.

Touring the estate

When we stroll around our garden, we like to call it "touring the estate." Aren't we fancy? Sometimes we wear hats and sip fancy drinks, too. I'd like to take you on a short virtual tour today. Last year N ripped out the strange half-wall on the side of our old wooden front stairs. We immediately received a code violation notice from the village. So he applied for a permit and that shut them up. Here it is, over a year later, and he just finished the last finishing touch, which is the lattice under the stairs. (The permit was closed last year.) 

Also of interest in the photo is the giant coffee cup planter on the platform. I love it an unreasonable amount. 

I'm going to pretend this is a magazine article, and include notes on where to purchase the items shown.

Deck and railing: Azek

Hostas and front planter: trashpicked


See those porch windows above? They are the windows shown below. This is most of our collection of birdhouses. 

Birdhouses and rocking chair: Nearly all of them from garage sales
Bench: trashpicked


Last year we added another small raised bed. At left rhubarb, moved from a too-shady spot. Front is onions and peppers. In the cold frame, two tomatoes (one Brandywine, one sweet 100 cherry). Between them is a potato that just showed up. That's known as a "volunteer."

Rhubarb: Chivilo Family
Onion sets and tomato plants: Sneed's
Pepper plants: Long Family
Big Honkin' tomato cages: Menard's


And my old bean area (see the last photo) was becoming shadier year by year, plus I was really sick of climbing a ladder every day to harvest them. So N had to build another bed. Hmm. Seems like we're averaging one new bed a year. Interesting. 


The beans are blooming, so we should be eating them soon.

Trellis and magnolia tree: Schwarz Nursery
Bean seeds: Duffin Family

Self-portrait

This is one of my favorite photos of me. I'm just chilling on the rocky shore of Loon Lake, MN, rockin' the post-triathlon body. I was bleaching my hair for awhile, but I decided it just wasn't me. I'm pretty low maintenance.

Really, it's my homage to Adu Gindy. I'm sure my artwork will remind everyone of her seminal work, The Brighton Beach Barbies. Sadly, I can't find a single image online.

Duluth artist Adu Gindy parodied photographer Craig Blacklock’s series “Lake Superior Nudes” by shooting photos of Barbie dolls posed on lakeside rocks.

Titled “The Brighton Beach Barbies,” the work was Gindy’s commentary on the objectification and artificiality she perceived in Blacklock’s work. The opening reception was literally packed. What was to be a one-night affair grew into a three-week show.

from http://www.businessnorth.com/viewarticle.asp?articleid=1021 

N and I are nothing if not totally hip to the Duluth, MN cultural scene, man. We are sooo hip. We make cultural references so obscure that I'm not even sure where this blog post is going, man.

For the back-backstory, Craig Blacklock's work, A Voice Within - The Lake Superior Nudes (NSFW) Please, to note that the model (his wife) apparently is actually named "Honey."

Quick rule for determining whether it's p0rn or art? If it's in black and white, it's art. (rimshot)

Art

Moved some paintings around this weekend. I tried this one (signed by Keiko Tofuku) over the mantle before and thought it looked too Republican. For some reason, it looks better to me now. I don't know why.

Winter

"One-match Bluestem" they call me. Well, I call me.

My mommy made the socks. They are toasty and warm.

Boo does photography

Boo took this photo with the iPad, edited it with Snapseed (cool free app) and emailed it to me. What a crazy world we live in. Remember when all we had was canvas, paint, and a stick with some horsehair?

She said something about Blue Bear being a girl, and I said, "What? Blue Bear is a girl now?" and she answered, "Of course! He's always been a girl." So that clears that up.

Happy Holidays

From our house to yours ...

And from the house down the road ...

I know this looks bad, but I swear we came by ours honestly. Family hand-me-down.

Proof I am a cephalophile!

At great length and with much enthusiasm have I spoken of my cephalophile ways. But ne'er was there proof in my abode. Hark! This oversight has been rectified.

I know y'all are filled with the envy. Methinks my coolness rating has ballooned.


Especially as I found this in a second-hand shop in Door County. Where we all go for our stained glass octopus needs, right?

New home improvements, part 1

I bought this leaded glass window at a garage sale two years ago. It was $10. Finally N hung it up in the downstairs bathroom window for privacy. I drew on the glass around it with a window marker to make it extra fancy. Isn't it? Isn't it fancy?

Happy happy

Apocalypse Snow

I love the smell of salt trucks in the morning.

Photo evidence

You know, in case you don't really believe me when I talk about this "garden" I "work" on and "enjoy" so "much."

The main garden, overview. In the forefront, what's left of the Three Sisters, namely the hubbard squash. Under them, strawberry plants.

Now panning in sections from right to left...

On the left is the red orache, at full height of four feet. In the foreground one giant massive plant, aka yellow summer squash, with zucchini next to it. Behind them, 5 tomato plants. Behind them, very successful raspberry bushes (barely visible).

Some overlap with previous photo, but here we see the small brussel sprout plants in the left coldframe, asparagus plants (which look like wispy ferns) in the background. Insane oregano and chives in the front of photo.

Left front, tiny basil and swiss chard. Then giant peas, with the out of control cukes behind. Another 8 tomato plants. Parsley going to seed in front right. What a wall of green.

Container with a tomato plants and two eggplants. Behind are the windowboxes with lettuce.

Part of compost bin on left. Potatoes and winter squash growing on the ground. Pole beans growing up side of garage. Nea ate about 15 green beans yesterday! Hurrah!

Walk through my garden