good news-finally

What's better than finding an egg on the coop floor after a month of no eggs? 2 eggs in the nesting box a couple days later.

Monday, my RIR, Ruby, gave us a present, she layed her first egg next to a fake easter egg in the nesting box. Wednesday after work, I found two eggs in the nesting box. That means the Barred Rock, Violet took a cue from her sister-hen and chose to use the box.

This is great. I don't like searching the coop for eggs.

Up next to lay: The white hens. They are about 28 weeks and due any day.

Come on over for breakfast anytime! I will fry up some taters and scramble some eggs for you.

and i thought i took myself too seriously..

wordpress account?

hi guys,

i'm setting up a wordpress account.

those that read and comment here (thanks to all 3 of you), would you prefer i stay here at blogger or move over to WP?

let me know your thoughts.

M

calling BS

why the fuss over all of of michael phelps' medals?

yep. i'm that crotchety old lady, the one that has a big bug up her ass that says it's not that big of a deal. he just has more options available to him. that's all.

i'm pretty sure that all of the sports in the olympics require the same amount of dedication, training and effort (some even have a higher danger factor) and yet there is only one medal to be won. i don't see the press giving all those athletes the same superstar, brad pitt kind of attention.

shame on you media! (c'mon i know better)

so there mister- i pod wearing, head bobbing, i'm too cool to talk to you because i've got lots of new bling around my neck and i'm the fastest swimmer in the world- phelps!!

i'm not that impressed. noticed i inserted, "that" into the sentence. i'm a swimmer too. i know you work hard. i know its a big accomplishment to win the races like you do. i just think you are getting way too much attention.

but you have a really nice body, so i will watch cos i'm easy that way.

blo(n)g weekend.

apparently if you want to be a good blogger, you are supposed to write about stuff. i am not a good blogger.

but i will humor you and write about some stuff, my weekend to be exact. my very long, exhausting, totally full weekend.

i could write volumes and post lots of pictures but i'm lazy and still a bit hungover from "the weekend" so i will just give you a quick summary

FRIDAY:

i picked up G from downtown and we went shopping. we bought necklaces and bracelets and some fancy pants,( smells good for the earth or in other words overpriced ) cleaner for the house.

while we waited for lessie's bus to come in, g and i hiked up city creek in our chaco's

lessie, chandelle, g and I met up w/ kiami and johnr at the sheraton where we all piled into my car for dinner at the one world cafe (g, paid for me. she's a good date)

after dinner, we drove back to the sheraton to the bloggersnacker ( i don't "snack" anything) where we met lots of new people, got reacquainted with old people and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked....until i couldn't function any more (see johnr's and G's pics)

after the blog mixer/party we walked the streets of slc looking to cause trouble, only last call is some pitiful time after 12am so we settled on a downtown bar where some of our party could have a 'taste".

somewhere around 2 am we dropped the boys off and headed back to my place where chandelle left us to go to her family(sure, use that as an excuse, chandelle) and me, g, and lessie proceeded to talk for another several hours.

SATURDAY:

because sleep isn't as important as friends, we were all up by 8 a.m.(feel free to correct me) i collected some bikes from our garage and we pedaled down to the farmers market where i bought fmhlisa a parasol, lessie a necklace and a really good latte from the coffee garden.

and because we didn't do enough talking the night before, we stopped and loitered (and talked) at the gateway for another couple of hours.

pedaled home to take showers and to attend the blogging panel at sunstone where i got to meet more people. this is where i reveled in the fact that janet is my friend and jana is someone i'm familiar with through the "nacle. apparently there was some other lady speaking and she's some sort of celebrity? oh, i thought janet and jana were the celebrities.

(btw, those two ladies are amazing!!!)

ummmm let's seee....

oh yeah, we did some more piling into my car- jana, john, galen, lessie, and ellen- and went to the 9th and 9th area for dinner only to talk some more. this time i got to chat with jana...all by myself (you have to understand, everyone is competing for "time" with everyone else and the noise level is atrocious)

said goodbye to lessie as she had to go down to utah county and stay w/ family, dropped off the remy's in sugarhouse, dropped of ellen at her hotel and slowly, cautiously and gratefully drove home.

only to get a call from bbh with an invitation to walk over to her sisters house (she lives in my hood) where we proceeded to talk some more...until midnight, i think.

g and i walked home where we cozied up in her futon AND talked some more until we passed out only to be scared awake by a crack of thunder.

once again, sleep being low on the priority list...

SUNDAY:

me and galen are up and dressed by 9 am so i suggest that i need a coffee from the maverick (why yes, i am a sinner of the worst kind. the kind that needs caffeine to wake me up and kill headaches)

so we pedal over to the mav, then to the mexican bakery for a pastry and then continue up the jordan river trail to a bridge where we, you guessed it, talk some more.

after our talk, we head over to the library and permaculture garden so g can get a better idea of my long range garden plan then over to the community garden will i pull some carrots out of the ground for her to snack on while she's traveling.

finally, i drop her off at the airport and feel sad that it's all over.

later....i discover that i have no friggen voice. in fact, i still don't have a voice and it's been over 24hrs.

phew....that was a lot of work.

good times.

wheels on the bus...

all this discussion about paranoid parenting has finally pushed me over the edge to come out and admit to y'all that i am a bad parent.

a bad parent indeed! i don't allow my 14 year old, petunia, to own a cell phone and worse yet, i make her take the city bus to school, the library, to the mall, even to her friend's house 15 miles away.

yes, yes, i make my kid use that bus pass, her legs, a watch and good old common sense to explore her city and be a part of the community in which she lives.

ask anyone. if the kid wants to get somewhere...she's walking, busing or riding her bike.

now you might ask, why? don't you worry?

of course i worry. i'm a mom. it's my job. but it's also my job to teach the child how to be a functioning part of society. it's my job to teach her to think on her own, plan, prepare, be on time and most importantly, stand tall and confident in unfamiliar situations and nothing does that better than using public transportation.

i always knew i wouldn't be one of them shuttle moms. in fact, i've was never the hovering type so this was an easy decision for me, for us.

it's been great. i don't waste petrol driving my kid around and she learns how to use a public phone to let me know she's going to be a few minutes late.

i don't stress about getting to where i need to be and where she needs to be, and she learns how to walk with purpose, not like a victim.

i get to trust that my daughter is exactly where she says she is and she has the confidence that i trust her right back.

see folks, i'm not the kind of mother that insists on catering to my child's every whim. i don't go out of my way to make sure she has what she wants (sometimes, it's really hard not to. she is after all, my only child.) in fact i take pleasure in making things just a little more difficult for her. not because i'm a meanie but because i am doing her a favor by making her work just a little harder for the things she wants.

you may take offense at my mothering, that's all right by me. i did preface this post by saying i'm a bad parent. that's makes everyone else a good parent, no?

Look, Ma!

Reading Chandelle's post about changing her mind on eggs reminded me that I too have changed my mind about certain foods. Vegetables in general and onions in particular.

It used to be that if an onion, even a tiny piece, contaminated any portion of my food, it was deemed unfit for consumption. Exclusions being onion rings and sauteed onions because they have been fried in so much oil and salt that they are no longer onions.

But a few weeks ago, I forgot to order my cheeseburger at the Appollo, sans oignon and surprisingly, I liked it. Initially, I thought it might just be that the crunchy-ness was masked by the lettuce and the flavor was drowned in the fry sauce, cheese and overall fat content.

So for fun, I kept experimenting with onions on my food discovering that they added something to it but not quite sure what it was. Until this past Friday, when I cut a sliver of a brown onion and popped it into mouth just to see if I could (because in my head that's really gross) and it was yummy. It was sweet and spicy but had just enough of each flavor to compliment each other.

Why is that? Did something happen to me as I've aged that changed how things taste to me? Or was it that some foods are considered "grown up" foods and I never grew up?

Or is that growing food, and being part of the process from seed to table, changes how I view things?

In the not so distant past, I would not eat (raw) carrots, cilantro, beets, sweet potatoes, eggplant, and many other things that grew out of the ground (except potatoes, of course) . But it seems now that standing in the sun and dirt and plucking an item right off it's vine is a signal to my brain that it's OK to try it. In fact, I feel obligated to try it because all that damn sunscreen burning my eyeballs has to be for a reason, right?

Now that I've grown fond of onions, it seems that a whole new world of food has been discovered, and I'm using and experimenting with the items from the community garden to create new meals except, I can't convince my family that the stuff that grows in the dirt is good to eat too.


What are the foods you dislike? And why?

What are some foods that you hated/ loved that you now love/hate?

What what would you love to eat but can't get your family to eat?

And if you are a magic parent, what have you done to get your kids to eat everything you serve them?