Reflections

Today I watched boys make and play with fake snot. It was the first lazy Saturday I've had in a while. The Paperwhites bloomed.

Reflections

I made a new friend today. The world seems to have a habit of bring you what you need just in time.

Welcoming in 2012

New years are always a time for resolutions. Even if we know we are going to break them we still make them. I made a lot of resolutions, one I already broke, two I have yet to even work on. But here is the start of one, to take more time for myself ( I think I have made this resolution before).  Blogging is one of those things I want to make more time for. Now how do I blog more while working, going to school and having a family? Well this is really inspiring me right now. Not only is it short and sweet, I love how it is a little bit of blog poetry. If I don’t have time to blog I’m going to at least try to snap a photo and condense the week down to no more than three sentences.

Here is the start of my new year’s resolution and photos of a new life to start out a new year. I took these photos of my niece while in Seattle over New Years. She was born December 26. She looks like me and my brother when we were little.

The Battle of Black Jack

The other week Marty participated at the Battle of Black Jack. He played Henry Clay Pate, I was there just as local color. The reenactment was a benefit for the Black Jack battlefield, which the reenactment was on. This wasn't a battle of the civil war, this was one of the "Bloody Kansas" events involving John Brown. So I wore my 1850s style dress and Marty and I had our image taken by Wendell Decker.

I pick the pose. It was inspired by the below photo that is in the book "Dressed for the Photographer". (Which is great book, by the way).

                                             

No this isn't a normal pose, but it did happen, and I was sick of doing all the normal ones and though this would be fun. Everyone really liked it.



Still here

Lately I feel that I have been just getting what is necessary done and not a whole lot else. Though I am trying to remedy that. I haven't yet quite settled in here, but I'm working on it. My new full time job has started. I like it, but have yet to really find my place. I just signed up at the local community center, where they have Zumba and Yoga classes along with all kind of gym equipment. And in spirit of trying to meet new people and explore new things, today I attended a Unitarian service downtown KC. It was nice, but it also felt a bit strange to be attending church. I'm not a church person, but Unitarian churches are different so I thought I would give it a try. I really miss my friends and am trying to do anything to find new ones around here. It will take a while, I know. But I am feeling a little lonely here and making friends doesn't come very easy for me. In big news, I was accepted to grad school. So I should be meeting a new group of people there too, but life will soon be getting even more hectic. Though it will all be worth it.

Before I started my job I was able to take a whirl wind trip back home to visit my mama and a few others. It was just an extended weekend, but worth the trip. My mom is having surgery soon and I worry about her, seeing her made me feel a little better. Here are a few pictures from my trip.

My morning view. I didn't want to get out of bed...ever.

Ocean Shores.

My brother and his wife. They just celebrated their one year anniversary!

Blooming in Missouri

One of the things that I love about our new little house is the yard. First it’s huge! Second it came with flowers! First to pop up were daffodils, then lilacs, then poppies and now peonies have started to bloom. I even found a few little strawberries coming up.  I’ve been able to have cuttings in the window that is above my kitchen sink. I can look out to the back yard and smell flowers as I do dishes, which makes it a bit more pleasant. (Bad thing about the new house is it didn’t come with a dishwasher). This week I dug up a little piece of grass and planted a small vegetable garden. Getting grass up is a pain in the you know where! So hopefully the vegetables grow and not just a ton of weeds. I’m planning on doing the lasagna garden in the fall to prep for next year’s garden. But for now I’ll just cross my fingers for this year.

This garden is the beginning of me trying to live a more sustainable life style. With my job situation buying good organic food isn’t in the cards, so I’m trying to grow it. (I’m dying to join a CSA, but I don’t have a steady enough income for that yet) I’m really excited about doing some canning this summer. Another thing that I am going to start doing is getting rid of all the unnecessary stuff that I have accumulated. This house is little, so little that I had to rent a storage unit. So my goal is to sell enough stuff to get rid of the storage unit by the end of the summer. So I will be having a garage sale, ebaying and starting an Etsy store! I’m also trying to make more things from scratch; hopefully the garden will help with that. No one would eat anything that I just made up (I’ve tried, it always ends up disastrous) but I’ll try to share recipes that I have found, made and loved. Here is one for risotto that I made the other night. I had everything in the cupboard that I needed so I gave it a try, it turned out really yummy. You have to spend a lot of time stirring the rice, but it is easy enough to make. I used vermouth, but cut it in half, I don’t like a strong alcohol taste.

{create} 19/52

I'm back at my long neglected 52 photo project. I'm finally getting back into the swing of things after the big move, so hopefully I will keep it up.
19/52 {window light}
my kitchen window.