Updates on 2013 resolutions

I made an abundance of resolutions this year. I don't know what possessed me. I'm not going to talk about all of them. This is more of an overview.

Eco and volunteer work

Work on the new school vegetable garden. This has turned into quite the time suck. I organized volunteers to build the raised beds, shed, and benches. I've got nearly the whole summer covered for watering. I procured the seeds. When I look at my email sent folder, I’m a little shocked at the level of work I've put into this thing. Think happy non-raining thoughts tomorrow at 3:15 when the students are supposed to move dirt and mulch around! We already had to postpone once. For the record, there are other parents also putting in huge amounts of time and effort. It’s really quite a project.

Organize triathlon fundraiser. I got two people to sign up. I was hoping for more, but hey, two. I’m still sending out my own fundraising emails.

Grow one new vegetable at home. Kale! Lemon cucumbers! And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to mention that my fruit trees are all blooming out of control this year, including the pear tree and Russian quince. Let’s hope I actually get to eat some of it this year. Garden in general is looking great. Lots of work still ahead, putting in my tomatoes are all that.

Hobbies

Finished two jewelry projects.

According to Good Reads, I’m slightly ahead of schedule, having read 17 books since the first of the year.

Travel

Looking good! Big trip planned.

Me Me Me

Buy some new clothing. Got some great stuff at a rummage sale. That probably doesn't count.

Sprint triathlon training is going well. I can run 4 miles now, which is more than the race requires. A first for me. Biking is fine, swimming is fine. No complaints. Does take a lot of time, though. Exercising.

Household

Uh. OK, probably should buckle down here a little.

 

Late start to Zone 5's Spring

I finally got my seeds started a couple of weeks ago, which is crazy late, but I just couldn't get excited about planting stuff when there was still snow on the ground. Winter came late and stayed late, in stark contrast to last year’s insane 87 degree days in March. Here we are, mid-April, and we've only had a small handful of nice days. Lots of rain, though, which considering the drought we had was very welcome. For awhile. Now it’s mostly just boring.

So, the rhubarb is coming up, but there’s no sign of the asparagus yet. I ate my first thing out of the garden today – chives! On my egg salad bagel for lunch. Yum. I direct seeded radishes, beets, carrots, peas, bok choi, lettuce, spinach, and broccoli raab. Mostly the radishes seem to be sprouting. Inside I started all the usual stuff, plus kale. I started tons and tons of cukes, including lemon cukes. I want enough to give a lot away, esp. after last year’s non-cuke production.  I think after school today I’ll finally buy my seed potatoes. I have the pots ready to go, but last time I went to Sneed's they weren't in yet. See: late snow mentioned earlier.

I put garlic in last fall, and that’s looking pretty good. Parsley continues to self-seed. Egyptian walking onions are also growing nicely.

I have so many seeds. I was in charge of getting them for the school garden, and I did not disappoint. I went to a local seed swap, and the woman in charge was nice enough to give me the leftovers. She had gotten 50 packets from High Mowing Seeds, so I applied for the same type of donation ($5 for 25 packets of seeds packed for 2012). They can’t take requests, though, so some of the seeds weren't what we needed. So I picked up the rest at Sneed's.

Speaking of the school garden, I was in charge of getting the build team staffed to build the veggie garden. The principal and 11 parents showed up, which was fantastic. Didn't take too long to build 6 raised beds (from kits), 2 benches, and a storage shed. Luckily, since we've been all DIY for years I knew who to ask to help. I wanted only people who knew how to work a screwdriver. The dirt and mulch will be delivered in a few weeks. We plan to have the students move most of that around. That’s the low-skill end of the job, so that should be fine.

Last week I invited myself to help make newspaper seedling pots with the school's Garden Club (4th grade, including Boo). We managed to churn out 150 in an hour, which is pretty good if you consider that they were very interested in getting the best possible photo to be showing on the outside of their pots. Kids are not very hard workers these days. Blame the unions.

Busy busy busy

So, exciting things are underway at our grade school. Our neighbors are landscape architects, and they made up a fantastic, ambitious and wonderful plan to change our school property from a dull wasteland that regularly turns marshy to a vibrant eco-system, with a vegetable garden, butterfly garden, two play areas, a peewee soccer field with a running path around it, native plants in the village-owned floodplain, a better engineered baseball diamond that doesn't flood, an outdoor classroom, etcetera etcetera!

Even better? We got our first grant, which will be used for the veggie garden. Everything else will come in later stages, but let’s face it. This is the best part. And it’s coming this spring! While my kids are still there! So I've been writing grants and making fundraising plans with a bunch of other parents, and it’s all been very exciting. One grant is pretty much my baby, and if we win that one, I’m adding grant writing as a skill on LinkedIn. I’ve always thought that sounded like fun. Whee!

So that thing I did, with the fruit and vegetable tasting during school lunches? That’s being heavily touted in these grants as something we are doing to fight obesity and promote wellness in the community. I’m happy that all worked out so well! Plus it's listed on the back of the school phone book as something the PTA offers to the students. Which is too bad, really, as I was sort of tired of doing it. Now I'm thinking kiwis and cauliflower for next time. Need to set up some dates.

So, because I don’t know how to do things in small doses, I said I’d put together one of the fundraisers. I thought I’d do something that fits in with my role as the PTA Wellness chair, so I said, how about  we participate in local races and raise money for the playground? Get some parents exercising, maybe do a little community building in that direction. I’m hoping for 20 people, at several hundred raised per person. The current plan is to offer training runs and bike rides this spring to get interested people ready for a 5K run and/or sprint triathlon.

NOTE: I've set up a new email account for this blog. If you've emailed me in the last few months, um, I didn't get it. I got locked out of that account. So embarrassing to admit. 

This post in 3 parts

Three! Three parts that have nothing to do with each other! Why, you ask? Because I can!

Part One: Flashback to 4.5 years ago ...

I was diagnosed with AMA on the phone with the OB/GYN's receptionist.

She said, "I see you've been diagnosed with AMA."
I said, "What's that?!" (panic panic)
"Advanced maternal age."
"Oh."

I hung up and was thinking, "Really? You can diagnose that yourself? What did you use, a calculator?"

Part Two: Food pantries

I used to buy an extra item or two at Trader Joe's and have Boo put it in the food pantry bin. But in these tougher economic times, giving money directly to larger organizations makes the dollars stretch. Please consider donating through the Aidmatrix site. You can choose a food bank near you (I just scrolled through and saw Seattle, Boston, Northern Illinois, Baton Rouge, etc. etc.).

My very very large corporate employer uses this site for their internal company donation efforts. It's definitely a real organization.

Part Three: Trying to organize for the school year

For both organizational tips and packing lunch tips, try Cindy's Porch! Scroll down to the "Goal #1 for August" section.

Dreading the coming school year

For the coming year, we decided to put Nea in special ed and in Boo’s old preschool. So, one is 4 afternoons a week. The other is 3 mornings a week. She will only have 2 long days, and I’ve got someone lined up to take her from one school, sling a lunch into her, and bring her to the other school. This helps with my work schedule. More on that later.

Boo will be going to full-day kindergarten. Not at the school where Nea has spec ed, which is in our district, but at a different school. Her school lets out 15 minutes after Nea’s afternoon class, which would be fine, except Nea’s bus generally drops her off about 15 minutes after her school ends. Can you pinpoint the problem? Yeah, me too.

So, all of this means that after nearly 6 happy years with a work schedule of 2 long days (10 hours) plus a stray 4 hours on other days, for a total of 24 hours a week, I am now moving to 4 shortened days (roughly 8:30 to 3:00 Monday-Thursday). Which just seems like more work, although the actual number of hours is the same. The plus side is that my mom can work less hours doing child care here. The negative of that is I’m going to have to start pulling my weight speaking German to the kids, who will see a lot less Oma during the school year.

Added on the madness is having to pack Boo’s lunch every day. I don’t know why I’m all freaked out by this, but I am.

Naturally all of this only works when I’m working from home. Twice a month I go downtown. Then the whole carefully constructed house of cards will fall. I assume I’ll be carpooling with another mom, which will make everything easier. Probably. But although we have talked about it, it doesn’t feel that official.

I’ve already screwed up once, and school hasn’t started yet. I turned in Nea’s physical form to the wrong school.

Gee, I just don’t know where the insomnia comes from.

Freezing the money

What lovely weather we are enjoying. It rained on top of the snow, then it sleeted. Now it’s snowing. In an interesting turn of events, several towns around here are out of road salt! And it’s coming down in cute fluffy buckets.

But it’s a beautiful, sunny day in my head … For the first time, Nea said she wanted to go potty! Woooo hooo!

Speaking of winter, here’s a handy link for parents and students: School closings in the Chicagoland area.

Another fab event today – N agreed to a “no-spend” rest of February! We have a few nights out planned already, and we’ll go ahead and enjoy them. But no purchases or eating out for the next 23 days, other than food and gas. We did just get a birthday party invitation today, but plenty in the gift closet for that birthday girl! And my coworker is having a baby, but I have a whole stack of new books saved up! It’s a whole library-palooza for Baby L.

Anyway. Back to my point. This means we should be able to pay down the home equity line faster, which is good, because the Home Depot zero percent financing doesn’t last forever. And if we don’t have to move that onto the home equity account … I mean, I love the new kitchen, but debt sucks, and I’m not used to paying any interest on any credit cards or any other revolving credit.