Pardon the Garden

Confessions of a lazy wannabe homesteader

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thirty-four

July 3, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

Well, here we are. 34 years old. This getting older thing gets easier, I tell you. I’m sure that might somehow go away, but I much prefer my 30s to my 20s (though admittedly that first few years in my 30s were hard mostly because I was still adjusting to motherhood and everything about it that consumes my life). Last year I was more embracing of my age, and this year it feels that way even more so.

The day was pretty low-key. Breakfast at Bob Evans. BMV trip to get my car tags renewed. Trying to hide in the craft room a bit to knit and watch Outlander after not getting to knit for a few weeks. Then off to my college class for a few hours before coming home and enjoying some bourbon and fresh-picked raspberries from my little urban homestead on the porch.

Most years I make my own birthday cake as a tradition. This year, the Little Mr wanted to bake me a cake. We’ve been watching a lot of cooking shows, and he had this whole vision of what, exactly, he wanted to make for me. So we had chocolate cherry coconut cake for my birthday, which was quite delicious! (and even if it wasn’t, I’d still eat it because he was so proud of himself!).

Posts baking, Little Mr, Me, summer

#caturday

June 23, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

I’m pretty certain that I’ve been turned into a crazy cat lady. I find myself looking forward to going home, not because it’s the comforts of home but because I can’t wait to lay on the couch with the cat in my lap and listen to him purr.

Featured, Posts Buttercup

He’s fitting in nicely

June 9, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

This cat. So much love for this little guy! We’re all adjusting to having a cat in the house. The dog, when she was still with us, was always at our heels and never so mischievous as Buttercup. My potted plants are taking a beating already, which is a bit frustrating. I’m not sure what the point was in buying specific “cat” toys when he seems pretty content to play with all of the kid’s toys. But he’s such a snuggler, getting on my lap and purring away while I read.

He’s slowly becoming more of the kid’s buddy. And I’m encouraging him to be more involved in his care since he’s the one that Buttercup bonded with initially. So he came with me when I took him to the vet for a check-up to make sure he’s healthy, and then he picked him up yesterday with daddy after Buttercup had his surgery to neuter him (I am, after all, a responsible pet parent). He feeds him in the morning (if he gets up when I get up), and I make sure he feeds him at night. They like to sit and look out the windows together, and earlier this morning (pictured) he snoozed on the table while the Little Mr played games on my phone.

I’ve had one or two incidences where Buttercup found my yarn, but so far I’ve been able to knit and spin without much trouble from him. But, all in all, he’s been a really good addition to our house!

Featured, Posts Buttercup, Little Mr, spinning

The cat adopted us

June 1, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

Allow me to present Buttercup, or Butters for short: the cat that adopted us, rather than the other way around.

This loveable furball turned up at my parents’ house in the country, most likely dumped by someone who decided they didn’t want a cat once he outgrew his kitten cuteness. He became quite the friend to the Little Mr, following after him and basking in the sunlight while the Little Mr played outside. He begged to go inside with him, and nearly tried to get in my car when I’d leave for work. I knew instantly that I wanted to bring him home, but before we could buy all the necessities the cat disappeared. I had hoped that maybe a neighbor took him in, but it turned out some neighbors have been feeding him out of pity and he was bouncing from yard to yard just getting by. When he reappeared, less hungry but still loveable, and still following the Little Mr around, I knew we had a keeper. Or, rather, that he had found us to be keepers.

He’s been here 2 days and pretty much settled in immediately. He is just FULL of snuggles and purrs. I have to admit that I’ve never considered myself to be a cat person – I had a traumatic incident as a child involving an adorable kitten in my lap and my cousin letting his giant St. Bernard dog get too close and I was clawed all to hell by this terrified kitten. But this cat? This cat is totally changing that.

This cat adopted us, and I can’t think of a better way to acquire a new pet into my little house. <3

Posts

Summer beginnings

May 27, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

Low-key weekend for us, so far. Between the Little Mr and I, we’re quite the pair of sickly things. He started a few weeks ago with an ear infection and we thought we were good until earlier this week when he started complaining about the other ear – so, back to the doctor we went. Turns out the ear he said was hurting was actually fine and might have had just a small infection but the other ear – the one that was originally a problem a few weeks ago – was a RAGING ear infection. Oy. Between that and the sinus infection I’m fighting off we’re both in quite the mood.

So with what, we’ve been relegated to taking things slow. We got an early start Saturday and actually got our garden planting done. Well, the Mr got it done. I mostly showed up to plant flowers, lol. I debated on driving up to Wooster to the Great Lakes Fiber Show and load up on pretty yarns, but I’m working on being realistic with myself right now on a. how much yarn one actually needs and b. how much yarn I can actually use given how little I get to knit anymore. So I spent a lot of the rest of the day wandering the house wondering what to do with myself, and ultimately watched movies and snuggled the munchkin.

Today, determined to do something other than sit in front of the TV being pathetic on this holiday weekend, I chopped up a pound of strawberries and poured some blackcurrant balsamic vinegar in a canning jar and we snacked away on the porch while watching the world go by (and knitting, but a worsted wool sweater on a 90 degree day was a poor choice). BTW, that blackcurrant vinegar and strawberry combo is amazing if you pair it with some bread and cheese like little appetizers!

I started reading The Bear and the Nightingale this weekend, too. It was on my “to read” list, and Amazon Kindle has it for only $2 so it seemed fated for perfect holiday weekend reading. So far I’m loving it – it’s a book that I don’t want to put down and stop reading, but at the same time I don’t want to plow through it and finish it in a single day, either. So I bounce between a chapter or two of that, and a few rows of complicated chart knitting, and then back again.

Featured, Posts home, knitting, literary, Little Mr, summer

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Pardon the garden. A phrase I’m most likely to utter anytime anyone visits the house during the growing seasons of spring through fall. Sure, there are pretty flowers and delicious veggies in there somewhere, but they might be a little hard to find amidst the mess of overgrown grass, dandelions, and weeds that have found their way in there and haven’t been pulled. Read On

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