Garden!

Thanks for all of the great breakfast ideas! The ones that require reheating before eating I'll save for dinner plans (easy, kid friendly dinners are what we're all about right now). While it may not seem possible, I literally do not have time to heat up anything in the microwave before leave the house in the mornings, and by the time everyone is down in the van (two flights of stairs + three sets of short little legs = sloooooow), and buckled in, it'd be cold again anyway. I think so far the very best suggestions have been for breakfast cookies (now to find some good recipes) from Lindsey, and mini-muffins (less mess!) from Laura. There were also some great peanut-butter/pancake/waffle combos which sounded good, although unfortunately Sparky only likes peanut-butter on bread sandwiches, and is offended by things like peanut-butter cookies. (Seriously kid, are you for real?) Feel free to keep the suggestions coming! And for those of you who want ideas too -- go read over the comments to that post. There's some great stuff in there!

For a while now I've been wanting a garden. My mom has always kept one, and while she did most of (all of?) the hard work involved, my favorite memories include standing with crumbling, sun-warmed soil between my toes, with the scent of tomato vines, basil and marigolds, and eating handfuls of cherry tomatoes plain, in the summer heat.

While I may not be able to recreate that exact situation in my current living situation, I did discover a way that I can have my own little garden, just outside of my kitchen window!

Enter, Garden Patch.



Umm, sorry, distracted by the ponytail.



As I hefted 13 of these bags of potting soil up both flights of stairs, I could only imagine what my neighbors must be thinking.



These are the seeds I ordered from Gurney's (well, except for the peas, which I got from a nearby nursery)



The boys were so excited about our project, that when I gave them the job of filling the reservoirs in the bottoms of the planters, they worked for a good hour before exhausting themselves. They were rather helpful, and terribly proud of themselves.



We managed to fit almost everything that I had ordered seeds for, with the exception of broccoli, brussels sprouts and zucchini. Overall, I'm so happy with out little garden!



You can click through to Flickr for notes over this photo on what we put where.

Once these plants get a good start and the weather warms up, we'll drag them through the house to put them out on the porch, just next to the kitchen. For now, this room is functioning as a perfect greenhouse.

On the knitting end of things, I finished up the back of the Lush and Lacy Cardigan. I was knitting happily away on the left front, and was almost to the end of it...



When I noticed I'd repeated one of the pattern rows twice, about half-way back.



Rip.



Sigh. I lost about a night's worth of knitting (since my knitting is terribly slow at the moment), but it was worth it. This is a sweater I intend to wear, and I know the error would always bother me, even if it was not immediately obvious to anyone else.

Oh, and on the topic of re-doing?



Yup. Re-blocking the sucker.



Now Max has started puking. He has manged to land it in the toilet for most of the time, but I can assure you that I'm keeping the Storytime Blanket far, far away until the sickness is long gone.