Living, Loving, Learning

Do you Pin?? I was HUGELY reluctant to join pinterest, and waited about a year but finally gave in when...oh well, best just to admit it, everyone else was doing it . I have been super happy I did join though, as I have found a ton of great artists, recipes, tutorials and kids activities through the sight. This is one such activity .  It is super easy...mix cornstarch and water and food coloring (I used gel dyes that were starting to get a little too thick to use in frosting anymore...waste not, want not.)  The kiddos, especially Lucy, LOVED this project.  Sooo much so that she asked me to make it up again when her buddies, the Solice girls were coming over to play.  I love the designs left behind on the driveway, and rest assured all traces washed away with the first heavy rain.  (We have an asphalt driveway, not sure if it would stain a lighter color driveway.)  A super fun, super cheap summer activity.

I have been wanting to tie dye for like FOREVER. My amazing friends Devin and Johnny hosted just such a party this weekend. It was soooo FUN! We met great people, had great food, made great music and amazing creations. They live out in the country and the kids loved running around, playing with the neighbor kids, despite the crazy heat! In addition to the shirts, I did a pair of yoga pants and a skirt for myself. The boys got underwear! And a few stained tablecloths. The one below will become a picnic/ beach blanket! The colors are so much brighter than the photos show! We used these dyes from Dharma Trading Co. They were so beautiful. I also bought some clothes from there to dye and they are really cute, nice quality (beware, they run small). A great party idea for kids and adults!!!

A few years ago, I ran into an acquaintance in Walmart. She had a cart filled with 3 fold black cardboard panels. I asked her if she was working on a school project with one of her children, but she told me they used them to make puppet theatres. They were on sale that week and she was stocking up. That was all the suggestion I needed, and I quickly picked up one for us. It was pretty easy to draw out the part we wanted to cut away and then Bruce used and utility knife to cut it out. At the time, Lucy was too little to use it and Griffin didn't quite have the patience for puppets so we put it away in storage. Meanwhile, we accumulated a collection of puppets, mostly given to us as gifts. We are currently cleaning out the house BIG TIME, preparing for our first ever garage sale. When this came out, it did not take the kids long to start entertaining us with puppet shows. A old/new favorite toy that encourages their imaginations to run wild - I LOVE IT!! They even put a special s

The people around me daily are probably reading this and thinking, "Enough, already!!" but I don't think I've blogged about it yet, so indulge me!!! ;) My dear friend and yoga teacher, Hilary , turned me onto this amazing website, YogaGlo , and I want to share it with you. It is the sight for a yoga studio in Santa Monica. It is stuffed full of incredible yoga and meditation classes that you can stream, unlimited, for just $18/month. The teachers are incredible and when taking their class you can almost feel like you are in the room with them. In some of them, you can see people in the class struggling or succeeding right along with you. They even have a beginner series for each style of yoga that prepares you for taking a full class. One of the best features of this sight is it's search abilities. You can search by style, duration, teacher, difficulty, specific purposes...it's so helpful for quickly finding exactly what you need at the moment. I hugely dislik

Bruce and I have been loving this band, Sweet Sunny South. We especially love song #12 I'm Satisfied. My goal as his wife is to keep Bruce humming that song for the rest of his days. This song doesn't have a youtube video *GASP*, so this is the only way to share it with you. Hope you are having an awesome week. We are recovering from colds and are looking forward to the weekend. Big love to you!!

We had soooo much fun yesterday. Our friends, Cassie and Ava came over to dye silk scarves with us. A few months ago, Cassie and I had purchased 100% silk scarves for another possible project that never happened. Cassie told me about a tutorial she had seen that told one how to dye silk with kool-aid. I am not going to re give the tutorial here, but I will give you some hints that we figured out. We watched a few youtube videos to learn some new ways to fold the scarves. While this produced an interesting pattern, in the end there was a lot of white left showing...that could be good or bad depending on your desired results. We used rubber bands to hold our scarves in the desired folds. We used large Ziplocs no matter what size scarf we were dyeing. Our first scarf turned into a smoldering plastic/silk mess in the microwave. We found that if you lower the power of your microwave to 5, use the bigger size bags and add about 1/2 cup of water into the bag before sticking it

I recently checked out a new grocery store in our area, the Brumfiled Farm Market . I am sooo excited to have this store to shop in. I was able to purchase fresh milk (in GLASS jars!!!!!), strawberries, bread, eggs, tomatoes, cheese, ice cream, jam and butter. All of it is sourced relatively locally. There is such a huge difference in flavor and shelf life by cutting out the warehousing and shipping chain. And, of course, I love seeing my dollars support local small business owners. Good for the earth, good for our community, good for my family....this makes me happy!

This was in my inbox from the Good News Network, and I thought you would enjoy it too! Most of us are already doing these things, but a reminder certainly helps me get refocused on this most important job of mine. From the American Academy of Pediatrics comes this list of 14 ways to show your love to your children: 1. Use plenty of positive words with your child. Try to avoid using sarcasm. Children often don’t understand it, and if they do, it creates a negative interaction. 2. Respond promptly and lovingly to your child's physical and emotional needs and banish put-downs from your parenting vocabulary. Be available to listen to your child when he/she want to talk with you even if it’s an inconvenient time. 3. Make an extra effort to set a good example at home and in public. Use words like "I'm sorry," "please," and "thank you." 4. When your child is angry, argumentative or in a bad mood, give him a hug, cuddle, pat, secret sign or other gesture

Yeah, so the heavy cloud of nasty colds is parked over our home at the moment. First Bruce was sick for 10 days when he went to the Dr. for an antibiotic, and even then he didn't truly feel better for 3 more days. Then Lucy went down hard on Monday night and has not yet turned the corner. Her stuffy/runny nose and low grade fever is preventing her from sleeping well and her attitude is...well, not good. This morning about 9 am I got a call from the school saying Griffin wasn't feeling well and was running a fever, so now I have him home ill as well. ***heavy sighing**** I feel kind of rotten, but I think it is just exhaustion. Sooo, I just put Lucy down for a nap and Griffin and I will follow shortly. Naps make everything better! In the midst of this, I was able to sneak in an hour of listening to a teleletcture by one of my favorite women in the world, SARK!!! She is so inspirational and bubbling over with wonderful ideas about how to live a creative, present life (

This is a book that we borrowed from our local library and are LOVING right now. We are reading it everyday to prepare our hearts and minds for our Thanksgiving celebration. I would like to share the poem here with you. Giving Thanks To be a human being is an honor, and we offer thanksgiving for all the gifts of life. Mother Earth, we thank you for giving us everything we need. Thank you, deep blue waters around Mother Earth, for you are the force that takes thirst away from all living things. We give thanks to green grasses that feel so good against our bare feet, for the cool beauty you bring to Mother Earth's floor. Thank you, good foods from Mother Earth, our life sustainers, for making us happy when we are hungry. Fruits and berries, we thank you for your color and sweetness. We are thankful to good medicine herbs, for healing us when we are sick. Thank you, all the animals in the world, for keeping our precious forests clean. All the trees in the world, we are thankful fo

You guys have got to check out this AMAZING TV series!! You have probably heard of the book series, and HBO now has a show of the same name, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency . The series is really phenomenal and I am completely in love with it right now. The show has amazing music, costumes and story lines. And Jill Scott, wow, she is an amazing actress. So tough, so gorgeous, so sweet, so classy, so fun to watch. I love learning about Botswana, where the show takes place. The issues they explore are important, current and so interesting. I love seeing how this part of Africa is grappling with modern ideas and conveniences but still keeping their history and culture vibrant. I love that the main character is this powerful, strong, good, feminine, black woman - an image not shown nearly enough on TV these days! Wow, I just can't say enough good things about it. Rent it, netflix it, watch it, tell your friends about it. And then let me know what you think.

Lucy and I just discovered Pomplamoose Music thanks to another blog I read, but already they are a favorite. We especially love this video...Lulu is working on her "oh oh oh oh oh"'s! She won't sit still to watch anything on t.v. Dora? NO Sesame Street? NO Baby Einstein videos? Hell NO But, sometimes she will really get into watching these people. That and videos of babies laughing...you know, America's Funniest Home Video style.

7 years of wedded bliss! And boy oh boy, did we celebrate this weekend. Wine, jewelry, flowers, romance, what more could a woman want? Bruce and I hired our first non-family babysitter since Lucy was born and headed out for a wonderful meal at a little Italian restaurant here in town. It was so good, surprisingly good. We will definitely be back. I got to try a beef carpaccio (they are always carpaccio-ing something on our favorite show, Top Chef!!) which was delicious! Ohhh, and a delightful bottle of Querceto Chianti reserve - YUM. Then to a movie (just ok, really confusing, should have read the book first, The Time Traveler's Wife) and back home. After Bruce walked the babysitter home we lit a bunch of candles on the front porch and enjoyed another glass of wine on the porch swing. Ahhh, the moments I live for. We had a family fun day on Sunday. We drove into Evansville and stopped at a really cool nature center there. The kids loved playing on the playground with both their pa

We just put Lucy's room back together after the floor was fixed from the flood. This quilt was hung up in it's rightful place of honor. It is so beautiful and it really pulls the room together. Thanks again, Jessica!!

I went to a great herb club meeting last night. The program was on cooking with herbs. It motivated me to get going this morning and prune the herb gardens. My bundles are made, now I just need to find a good place to dry them. Did you know that you use 3 x's the amount of fresh herbs than you do of dried herbs? I did not and it is such a handy conversion to know!

My favorite flower, my favorite time of year...

My favorite website these days is http://www.pandora.com/ . Maybe I am the last person to check it out, but if not, I don't want you to be the last. It is commercial free internet radio. You can pick your station by genre, band or song and it will tailor the music to that description. It is a little hard for me to explain, but I encourage you to go and check it out. I enjoy cleaning to "Jump Around" radio, cooking to "Ladysmith Black Mambazo" radio and hanging out to "Amy Winehouse" radio. I have been turned on to quite a few new artists this way. Let me know if you design a station that you think I might like. Enjoy!

Ok...so sometimes I do a little product endorsement and here is another one for you. All I can say is YUM. The thought of a drop of this in my coffee is the extra push I need to get up some mornings after being up 2-3 times during the night with Lucy! :)