How we got a garden even though we don't have a house

Before this year I'd NEVER cooked cabbage before. Or gotten familiar with chard, kale or rutabagas (I'm still not entirely sure what those last are). Or had a bounty of fresh, free lemons, oranges, avocados, rosemary, mint, lavender, etc. at my finger tips (when in season). Or probably ever thought I would because I live in a 2bedroom apartment in the middle of a major urban center.
It all started during our downtime over Christmas break. Ian read Michael Pollan's 'Omnivore's Dilemma.' I didn't read it, but I got the play by play and I can tell you it's pretty fascinating. Basically, corn syrup and/or some kind of weird Iowa corn permutation is in practically everything we eat, and Pollan advocates getting closer to our food (ie. growing or raising it) the way people used to. Ian thought we should make it a New Year's Resolution to do that this year. I don't need any convincing that we should grow our own food because I think it tastes really good. My grandparents had a rockin garden and after eating one of their tomatoes I thought the stuff from the produce aisle should be called something else entirely. So Ian and I started planning our dream garden, complete with hives, fruit trees, veggie plots... chickens (yeah, don't ask) we made a fancy diagram one Saturday.
Hold up. This looks great on paper towel. For a minute we forgot we have children sleeping in our closets, let alone having space for figs and radishes. Plus, after breastfeeding, diaper changing and playing Spanish charades all day I barely have time to floss let alone deal with aphids and compost rotations. So... backburner, right?

One of the things I love about Ian is his amazing persistence. He has found some really creative ways to get us 'homegrown' food without having to grow it ourselves. He joined a farm group that delivers farm fresh produce each week to somebody's house nearby for pick up. They fill the box with what's growing in season, hence all the weird veggies. Yeah, this unfamiliar stuff is what grows in the area I live. And while I kind of long for the cheap grapes from Chile, these vegs are phenomenally delicious. Those rutabagas and baby potatoes were amazing just baked with olive oil, and Caleb and Julian really dig the cabbage pie. So do I. It's yum.

Ian also asked his mom to plant some fruit trees in their massively huge yard. She graciously agreed and they planted peach, apricot, nectarine, pluot, and some other things. How awesome if this stuff actually produced at some point?? We'll have fresh, delicious fruit coming out of our ears.

Finally, Ian has gotten us into scavenging or gathering certain fruit growing around people's yards. I guess it's legal, and militantly supported by some groups. Our friend's Gramps was a millionaire living in Beverly Hills 90210 when he died, but he wasn't too rich to enjoy his own personal 'fruit walk'. He picked overhanging guavas, lemons, oranges, avocados, etc. through fenceposts. So the other day Ian drove through an alley on the way home and grabbed a bunch of overhanging lemons. I found a huge rosemary bush and a bunch of other herbs near a street intersection, and we discovered a huge orange tree by where we live. Don't laugh, it's fun. We made these lemon bars with the spoils- the fresh lemon juice and rind made all the difference in the custard.

Anyways, I don't know if we'll ever get our beehives and bok choy, but for now I'm kind of liking the work around.

FHE adventures

We started doing FHE (Family Home Evening) with our 2 yr. old toddlers a few months ago. We keep it simple: song-prayer-lesson-prayer. 5 minutes. Max. Lately we've been using FHE as a teaching opportunity for concepts that we want them to learn to improve behavior. Like REVERENCE or LOVE AT HOME. This week we tried to teach them about helping (ie. help mom and dad). It was kind of funny so I had to share.
We told them the story of the Good Samaritan (in a 30 sec. synopsis) and then since we really wanted to drive home the concept about helping we decided to act it out. We wanted them to look like the Good Samaritan in the photo that we used from the Gospel art kit (see above) so I draped some dish towels over their heads for the costumes. They LOVED it! Caleb and Julian got really so into their roles I couldn't help giggling, which almost spoiled the show. They were such concerned Good Samaritans as they helped daddy who was 'hurt'.



The fun thing is that now we can say 'can you be like the Good Samaritan and help mommy do x' and they do it! Well... about 50% more than they used. Not bad.

A Mother's Reel

If you told me five years ago that I would have twins I wouldn't have believed you. If you had told me I would have 2 sets of twins I would have thought you were nuts (what were the odds right?). But if you told me that I would get crazy into scrapbooking I probably would have laughed until my face was covered with tears.
I've always put scrapbooking into that goody goody girly category, along with majoring in Elementary Ed and being really into Bedazzling. Of course, I've kind of become my own worst version of that goody goody girly girl and I've surprised myself with how much I enjoy scrapbooking since starting a couple months ago-which is especially crazy since I have zero time, but I'll explain why I'm making time for it.

It began a year ago with a donation to Ian's sister's school- one of those fundraisers where you buy magazines you've never heard of. My random pick: Creating Keepsakes. While I was on bedrest I leafed through it and preserving memories somehow struck a chord with me. A recurring scrapper theme is pausing a moment--clocks are a popular embellishment--and that's what scrapbooking's mission is I think, fighting the relentless passage of time to capture the beauty of a moment with a loved one (see below, by Gabriellep). It's more than photo taking, it's journaling and creating an artistic representation that captures the details of these fragile slices of life.

Things change so fast, especially with kids. Recently I scrapped a special afternoon when Caleb woke up early from his nap and had me all to himself. He ate muffins and sang to me. Scrapping about it somehow made the memory so sweet it brought tears to my eyes. It's easy to get swept up in the current of time and scrapbooking helps me savor the moments and remember them.


An added bonus is that it helps me understand my kids better. While I journaled on my two page spread about how Julian can't let his 'Doggie' out of his sight I realized he developed the attachment when I was on bedrest and he was at his Grandma's house. It was his way of coping from being away from me; I saw Doggie in a new light.

When I was working as an editor I always had something to show for myself at the end of the day- a scene ready for screening, a killer montage, whatever. I compiled the best of my work into a short sample called a reel I used to get other jobs. With mothering the day rolls to an end and I feel I don't have much to show for myself: the house is often a mess, the meals are eaten and gone and my kids don't really look or seem all that different. I've come to see scrapbooking as my new reel, my motherhood portfolio if you will, a way to capture my work and focus my perspective beyond being overwhelmed by the lost shoes and the unruly children to the magic of this incredible time of having four babies at home.