Our Corner of the World

Tonight Regan, Jack and I rested in the grass in the backyard and decided that if all we do over our three day Memorial Day weekend is just that it will be just fine. Approaching our third summer in this house our yard is finally starting to come along. What used to be a muddy wasteland surrounded by rusty chain link fencing where grass refused to grow is now nearly fully covered in grass and surrounded by a lovely privacy fence. We’ve still got a ways to go with the grass because our ultimate goal is to have a yard as lush as Alec Baldwin’s head of hair, but we’re taking it a step at a time. At least our dog doesn’t look like this after playing in the yard anymore. 

Thanks to Regan’s parents the decorative garden bed that borders the back of our house is rich with hostas and ground cover. Somehow we were able to dig up, travel over two hours with, and transplant over 20 varieties of plants from their yard in Champaign without losing more than one plant. We saved hundreds of dollars by being plant bandits and our yard got a huge facelift.

Last weekend we officially got our summer garden started. If all goes as planned we’ll have tomatoes, green peppers, peas, butternut squash, brussell sprouts, strawberries, lavender and basil. Our goal was to make a dent in our summer grocery bill and to also make enough tomato sauce and pesto to freeze and eat regularly this winter. I think this weekend our goal is to make a portable lettuce table so we have a place for lettuce to thrive and hopefully be able to grow it well into the fall. We’re also finishing up our rain barrel. Regan made it a while ago, but we’ve yet to build the base for it and adjust the gutter to accommodate it. We’ll see how it all goes. Working towards some idea of sustainability little by little.

Or maybe I’m not

Last post I bragged about how I was really starting something– a new sweater about which I was SO excited. And I was. Until I knit the bust in two nights, tried it on and realized it was too big. For a day I pondered the question: Do I continue knitting and live with an ill-fitting sweater or do I rip? I decided to rip out and start again. However, it took me a few weeks to get around to ripping it and flushing two days work (not that my time is THAT precious, but still). Finally I just went for it– destruction–and now I have a pretty ball of yarn sitting, waiting for me to start again in size small. 

In the meantime I’ve accumulated a heap of sewing projects: baby blankets, a jersey knit dress, tulip skirt, and a few stuffies for some (more) babies who just cropped up. But I’m sitting on all of it. The easy part is done. The projects are picked out, the fabric is purchased, washed and ironed. The dress is even cut, the pattern for the skirt is as well. But for some reason my mind can’t seem to meet the battle of the sergers, sewing machines and tension. But that’s all that’s stopping me and that’s really a bummer, particularly because I’m in great need of some summer clothes. Since I’ve made a resolve to buy no new clothing for all of 2009 (I can only make or buy second hand and revamp) this is my only option. I had hoped that desperation would drive me to conquer my fear of malfunctioning machines, but it hasn’t helped. 

Any suggestions? Between my failure to create, my job that is not rocketing me to success or even a comfortable lifestyle, my inability speak more than one language and the fact I don’t workout on a regular basis I’m feeling pretty loser-ish. How do YOU do it? Get motivated? Get started?