Countdown to 10K: Fear the Pit of Despair

As many of you know I signed up to run a 10K this year. Next month, in fact.

Why? Why?? What would possess me to do such a thing? I have never in my life run more than 5K. Ever. I'm not a runner. I don't exercise. The whole thing is so laughable!

But, peer pressure -- and the promise of an EPIC meetup with some amazing ladies who I have known online for over 9 years but have never met -- led me to click "Register", and in that moment of insanity, I sealed my fate. My fate of possibly laying in a ditch in the middle of Epcot, crying.

But! BUT! ... I HAVE been training. Like actually training -- not just shopping. I have gotten on the treadmill a few times a week for the past few months and walk/run/walked a few kms. I have taken the runfies*. I have tracked my pace.

Fun fact: a 10-minute mile is not the same as a 10 minute km. Conversions (read: math) have never been my strong suit, as evidenced when I thought I was running a 7 minute km. Super fast! Then I realized my treadmill and running app weren't speaking the same language, and so I converted it all to km, and it told me my pace was a solid 10:00:00 and I was super happy about that, because balloon ladies.

Oh yes: the balloon ladies. They are these very scary 10 foot tall women (at least in my mind) carrying 10 foot tall balloons (ish), and they run a 16 minute mile way at the back of the pack of runners. If you fall behind them, you get swept. Into a pit of despair and lava. I'm pretty sure that's what I read.

Either way, the point is you need to stay ahead of these menacing creatures or you get thrown in the pit / swept off the course. It's all very scary, but seeing as how I can do a 4K run on the treadmill in 10:00:00 I figured, I'm good to go. No worries mate -- just need to add kms!

But no. Nooooo. Turns out, a 10 minute km is NOT the same as a 10 minute mile. In fact, it's a little over a 16 minute mile.

OMG OMG OMG I'm going to get thrown in the pit.

Let's go back to the distance issue. Again: I have never run a 10K anything. I once hiked 16 km in one day but I was like 16 years old and nearly died**.

**not really. I was super tired though.

So that's where I am. Lucky for me I still have plenty of time to train! A whole... what... 6 weeks?

............ 6 weeks. OMG OMG.

Okay... here's my plan:
- Treadmill 3x week, 2x 35 minutes, 1x adding another km each week until I'm up to 10. (I'm comfortably doing 4K now)
- Move from 3/1 (run 3 mins walk 1), to 10/1s. I can do this now but I think I have ITB syndrome now -- runner's knee -- which is kindof hilarious to me because I'm not a runner. All the lols.
- Hot yoga 2x/week. Because hot and sweaty and why not?
- ITB strengthening exercises on my days off
- Don't die
- Don't get thrown in the pit

Can I get it together in the next 6 weeks??......... Honestly, I don't know. My last runfie will likely be of me prone in a ditch in mid-February. Watch for it!

*Runfies. It's totally a thing!

      

These were obviously all taken before I realized about The Pit. Note the happy look on my face and the naive thumbs ups. 

An Unexpected Slap in the Face

I recently had the pleasure of visiting an art studio with my daughter, who was invited to a birthday party there. It was your typical little storefront art studio: walls crowded with completed works of art, paint splatters on the concrete floors, the smell of tempera and modelling clay in the air.

It was enough to make me want to puke. 

It's not because I didn't like it in there, or because I have some subconscious hate on for arty things. Quite the opposite, actually.

You see, I used to consider myself somewhat artistic. Talent? Ha! No, none of that. But what I had was passion: I love, love, love the process of creating art. The act of sitting down to a blank canvas, or pad of paper, pens or markers or pencils or paintbrush in hand... it was enough to make my heart skip a beat. It was thrilling, fulfilling, enchanting. I could get lost in it for hours. Still to this day I have a visceral reaction to the smell of clay and paint, the way some people love the smell of freshly-baked apple pie: it is love, comfort, home.

It was everything I could do not to break down and start to weep the moment we walked into that studio that day.

But, the reality of life and parenting and working full time and everything else means I just don't have the time, or the space, to dedicate to art. I don't feel I can afford the luxury of a few hours to myself -- and when I do get those hours, they are spent folding laundry, or flaking out online because I just don't have the energy for much else these days.

I've managed to stuff that love of creating down deep, and generally ignore it. It may not be healthy or altogether effective, but as long as I pretend it's cool with me that I don't get to immerse myself in art for a few hours a day, I can happily get on with life. The life that I chose, that has nothing to do with art studios usually.

Until, that is, I'm hit in the face with those sights and smells, and I'm suddenly faced with all that it is that I've been stuffing away for so long. As it was in the art studio that day: the feeling was shocking, overwhelming, and caught me completely off guard. Many people might feel excited, or at the very least intrigued walking into a place like that -- I felt sorrow and longing. My heart hurt.

One of these days, when my kids don't need me for every little thing and my house isn't a total sty and I don't already have 45 other things on the ever-loving to-do list, I will sit down to a blank canvas, paintbrush in hand, and un-stuff it all. Hell... I may just sit there and weep.

photo credit: Clos Pegase Winery - Painter via photopin (license)

The Great Clothing Purge 2015

Anyone who knows me knows I rant and rail against laundry on an almost daily basis. WHY do we have so much clothing?? WHY??

With that in mind, and given that the kids' drawers were literally teeming with clothing, we set out to do a giant purge. I really like the idea of Spring Cleaning, but for me, Fall is when I want to get RID of stuff.

We set aside 2 hours and got to work... dumping out drawers, assessing everything for size and wear and stains. The kids were a big help (if you count throwing clothing in the air and jumping in the piles like piles of leaves "help"...).

Purging is so cathartic though -- if you can put aside the emotional attachment you have to clothing ("Aw this is what she wore when she lost her first tooth!") it just feels good to let things GO.

Queue Frozen tagline in 5... 4... 3...

I'll be honest... I didn't think we had THAT much to get rid of -- maybe a handful of things that didn't fit the kids, and a few things I never wear anymore. So I was shocked when we dumped all the clothes we were parting with down into the front foyer, and ended up with this:

That doesn't even include all the outgrown clothes from the youngest -- her closet is literally full, but she was already down for a nap by the time we finished. 

Now I look in the drawers and closets and instead of feeling overwhelmed and a sense of dread (at the task ahead, of the impending laundry), it's like a breath of fresh air. Everything that's there is there for a reason, fits, will be worn. 

Well... almost everything. Turns out I don't know my kids as well as I thought I did, as the first thing that The Hubs pulled out of Baby Girl's drawer this morning was too small! D'OH! My excuse? She must have grown overnight.... ;)

My Version of "Training" for a 10K

If there's one thing I've learned about myself it's that I like to do research before doing *anything*. I study park maps, read up on planned activities, view places on Google street view before I go there. I like to know what I'm in for.

Training for a 10K is no different, it turns out. I've read about what shoes to buy, what route the course will (should) take, what clothes I should wear, and of course what training programs to consider. How to tackle going from a couch potato to a 10K runner in just over 6 months. I've tried out different apps, downloaded PDFs, plugged in dates and mileage. I've even crunched the numbers to figure out, if I invest in a proper pair of sneakers now (and ditch the $15 Payless cross-trainers), will they last until race day in 6 months? (Answer: yes)

Truth be told, that's all my "training" has been to date. I've decided on a costume (Mini!), searched online for cute accessories for said costume (people are CRAY about their costumes for these Disney running events!). I've bought a bunch of dry-core wicking mesh-lined something or other clothes, and am awaiting their arrival so I can have a little fashion show. These things are important when considering a 10K.

I've plugged in my treadmill. I put my sneakers on, and went out for a 2 k jog a few mornings ago. More walking than jogging. Okay it was a walk.

This isn't the typical training program most people undertake. Baby steps! Plus shopping online is just way more fun than running. I'm starting to think that's half of the appeal of starting a running program in the first place -- the retail opportunities. It's certainly isn't for the RUNNING.

Anyway I've found an actual training program (via runDisney, tailored for the actual event) that will get me to the finish line without dying, so I'm going with it. Since I'm still 6 months out, and the training program is 18 weeks, I still have a couple of months to procrastinate shop research.

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs: A Freaking 10K?

Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a runner, or an exerciser. Not by choice anyway (if a wasp crosses my path, watch out, I'm a runnin!)... But I've always said I hate running. I don't know why anyone would want to run. Ever. I have never had a "runner's high", and the whole idea just seemed stupid to me. Like, you just put on sneakers and... run away and back again? WHY?

Until the Spring of this year, when a challenge was laid down by my younger (more athletic) sister to the rest of my family: participate in the Bluenose Marathon weekend in Halifax.

After laughing my head off for a good 2 minutes, I decided... maybe I would consider doing the 5K event. After all, it wasn't a REAL race. I could certainly walk the entire thing if I wanted to, and maybe if I actually trained (hahahah) I could run some of it? Maybe? It might give me a reason to get off my butt and do something other than sit on the couch and avoid eye contact with the treadmill in the corner... Plus it would mean I could participate in my sister's "Pasta Village" event, which included wine. I decided... I was IN.

I'm not going to lie: in the weeks leading up to the event, I tried to come up with reasons I would not be able to participate. Hamstrings? Torn... something? Um... Sick kids? I couldn't come up with anything that would fly... so I bit the bullet, and got my butt on the treadmill a few times. It wasn't horrible. Again... I am NOT a runner, and never have been. But, I gave it a go, and It.Wasn't.Horrible. Truth be told, I kind of loved the feeling of accomplishment I'd get on the days where I'd be heading to work, already having been on the treadmill for 20-30 minutes that morning. "Oh, no big deal, I already worked out today." Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Now, I never did get to the point where I could run a full 5K. By the time the event weekend came around, I was able to do about 5 minutes running and 1-2 walking. I'm not winning any road races here, but not terrible. I did keep telling myself if it came down to it, I could just walk the whole 5K and nobody would care. Plus I was doing this with my 64-year-old mother who, while one of the toughest cookies I know, is also not what you'd call a 'runner'. However, she got it in her head that she wanted to better her previous 5K time (that's right -- after never exercising basically a day in her life she'd suddenly up and decided to do the occasional 5K - you GO girl!!), and so what I thought would be a fairly leisurely pace turned into my own mother yelling, "What's our time??" and then pushing my sister and I to GIV'ER! Amazing! And, honestly... IT WASN'T HORRIBLE! Dare I say it... it was actually *gulp* FUN.

In the end, my time was 43:31... and even though I was thrilled with that, it wasn't the best part. The best part was: I completed a 5K event, people. The energy and excitement around the event and the weekend was electric. I finally "got it": I finally understood why anyone would put sneakers on and just... go run. Despite my own pessimism and steadfast refusal to admit it... I was feeling this running thing.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when a group of online friends were talking about the Disney Princess Marathon weekend in February. Again... I laughed. First of all, it's in Florida, and I am far away from Florida. Also, refer back to sentence #1: I'm not a runner. (I have not been on the treadmill or any other form of running since the Bluenose... oopsie.) But... Maybe...?

I hummed and hawed, and then registration day came around. Like a giddy teenager scoring concert tickets for their favourite band, I furiously refreshed my browser 400 times and then felt a rush of excitement as I got through, and was suddenly registered for a 10K.

Whaaaaaat??

So... there you have it. Now I actually have to train, because this isn't just a 5K walk in my home town... we are taking a family vacation to Florida so I can put on a ridiculous costume (Oh yes! That's the best part, you race in costumes!!) and run 10K. And for some insane reason... I am actually excited about this.

Here we go.

LONG Overdue Garden Update

Okay! I suck! I know!

Now that I've got that straightened out... I'm here to bring you the most overdue garden post ever. But hey... I'm here.

Back at the end of April, when I really wasn't sure if we'd ever see the ground for all the snow we still had, I started planting seeds in trays under lights, hoping beyond hope that we might get the chance to plant them outside someday. Never mind the fact that I was a good MONTH behind in starting the tomatoes and peppers, and two months behind starting the leeks. Just you never mind all that. 

Anyway I started my seeds as I always do, but this year I scaled way back. Turns out, I don't need 30 tomato plants. Nobody needs 30 tomato plants! Besides all the extra effort it was to take care of a bunch of plants I really couldn't use, it was a little heartbreaking to have to toss a bunch of them after babying them in the furnace room for months last year. I couldn't even give them all away (though I tried!).

SO -- this year I kept it fairly simple, starting:
- tomatoes (Tiny Tim, Scotia, and Sungold)
- peppers (Early Cali Wonder and Yum Yums)
- green onions
- leeks -- only two leek plants survived a particularly forgetful few days of no water, so I'm bailing on these
- Romaine, spinach, kale -- which I didn't label and had to wait a few weeks before I was able to identify it. Kids let this be a lesson: don't drink & garden!
- cucumbers (lemon cukes and burpless something or other)
- a few annuals (zinnia, marigold, coleus)

There's something so awesome about getting all the seed trays out, filling them with fresh dirt, and plunking little seeds in them, willing them to grow. It's like I CAN CONTROL NATURE. Well, it's a great fresh start to the season anyway.

Ahh another season of dirt manicures has begun.

A week or two later, lo and behold, the little green things had emerged! Confession time: I love planting cucumber seeds, because they grow so darn quickly. :)

Boldly go, buddies.

WTH spinach?? Too good to sprout?

These smell so good!

Since those photos (taken April 30) I've planted more spinach - because what the hell? They refused to sprout the first time - and transplanted a lot of the tomato plants to bigger containers. I've also moved the romaine, spinach, green onions to the garden (under a hoop tunnel with light fabric), and planted peas and more lettuce seeds.

And I was also reminded that gardening comes with a little bit of tragedy - life imitating art, or whatever - when I had to thin the seedlings. For some reason, every year, this makes me a little sad.

It's for the greater good, guys.

Veggie Garden 2015 is officially (finally) underway!

Oh, it's ON.

It's Spring in the Maritimes, which means SUN! And warm! Flowers! And Gardening!!

Orrrrr.... it means maybe, just maybe the snow will melt enough by June to be able to dig our Christmas decorations out. I really wish I was kidding...

Our yard, April 25, 2015. THIS IS NO JOKE.

Well a big ole Eff You to nature, because I'm busy in my furnace room once again getting little green things to grow. I'm not sure they will ever make it outside, but just in case all that snow DOES melt, We.Will.Be.Ready.

DIY: An Easy, Fun, Meaningful Family Gift

It can be hard to come up with gifts for grandparents who seemingly have everything, and really just want a piece of the grandkids anyway.

With this in mind, we recently made this canvas for the Nonna in our life (hi!) and I think it turned out great! The bonus was that we were all able to participate, and in years to come it will server as a reminder of how small (and messy!) the kids hands were at this age.

Cool huh?

We started with a blank canvas from the Dollar Store, and painted the background all over. Then I added the brown tree shape - you could make it as realistic or whimsical as you want, with as many branches as there are family members. The kids chose their own colours for their hand-prints, and those become the 'leaves'. It just so happened they ended up making a rainbow of colours... that was a total fluke (but neat, right?).

The phrase we went with - you could put anything, this was inspired by how the tree came out in our case:

Family
   a little messy
      a little off-centre
          lots of love

What can I say... I was thinking on my feet! ;)

In any event it was hung at Nonna's house almost immediately and the kids are so proud to have been able to make something so neat for their grandmother. (I am annoyed that the lettering at the bottom ended up crooked... next time I'd put down some painter's tape to help guide me!)

Digging in the Frozen Dirt

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's something about pulling fresh produce out of your garden in mid-November that just feels like cheating :) Cheating what, I don't know... mother nature?

Having all-but-forgotten my garden by this point, I'd been curious as to how the last few bits and bobs were doing out there. As the nighttime temps started to dip and frost descended upon us, I knew I should probably cover the garden "at some point", but just never got around to it. I still have carrots, green onions, gobs of leeks ("There's a leek in the boat!" hehehe), and a few bunches of romaine and parsley that I planted in late summer and were still somehow hanging on.

Then last week we had a huge dip in temps, everything froze and was covered in a nice crust of ice and snow. I figured, well that's it then -- I've missed my window. It was a good run, 2014. Thanks for the memories, and the leeks. See you in the Spring. (Sorry, abandoned carrots.)

Until I found myself in the kitchen one frosty evening, ready to make supper, and I pulled some carrots out of the fridge. They were just... meh. Having enjoyed fresh, REAL carrots from the garden all summer and fall, we've really been spoiled. Bagged carrots from the fridge now taste, I don't know, like orange sticks of crud basically.

It dawned on me that the ones in the garden might actually still be edible... So, out I went, flashlight in hand, like a thief in the night ready to pluck the little orange gems from their wintery slumber. Ignoring the fact that our neighbourhood is home to something like a dozen or a hundred bears. BEARS. Yes, real live freaking bears. Please don't let me get mauled to death for a few freaking carrots.

I hadn't really thought this through, obviously, since the ground was frozen down at least 3" and covered in that snow/ice crust. But... I was determined. There I was, in the cold and dark, flashlight in my mouth, digging in the frozen dirt with my bare hands. At one point I thought, okay this is just silly. This is not worth it for a few measly carrots. Plus I could get mauled to death out here.

But then, lo and behold, I pulled up a huge slab of frozen earth with about a dozen orange nubs sticking out of the bottom. How cool!! And the smell! Anyone who's pulled a carrot out of the dirt knows that smell -- it's heavenly.

Now, I realize I'm starting to sound like a total kook right now. But I'm telling you, there is still nothing like the smell of fresh carrots out of the ground! Especially half frozen ground! Totally cheating mother nature, right here!

Anyway I would have loved to snap a few pictures of the orange beauties all sticking out of the frozen slab of earth, but it was cold and dark and my fingers were numb... And that supper wasn't going to make itself.

Thankfully there are still at least a dozen carrots out there (and all the leeks. Honestly what am I going do with all those damn leeks??)... so maybe I'll have another chance. Until next time...

Mini Midsummer Garden Update

Mini garden update... We have carrots, peas, green onions and beans coming in. Tomatoes just starting to ripen, peppers and cukes inching along, leeks doing their thing to the side. Just planted more romaine and carrots for a fall harvest. Woop! Love summer!!!

Dirty carrots, and fingernails (and a couple of Sungolds)

Cali Wonder pepper... yum!

Tiny Tims... oh how I love these

Lemon Cukes. Yay finally got a cucumber to grow!

Garden Update! Terrified of what's headed our way...

There was a point where I thought this year's garden was going to be a 'no go'. Almost all of the transplanted dudes were looking sad, limp, and pathetic. The seeds I sowed didn't' seem to be doing much of anything. I sighed and started thinking about heading to the garden centre and starting over from scratch.

But then... time, heat, sun and water (and a little bit of picking off bugs, pruning suckers, dusting with diatomaceous earth, spraying with epsom salt water, adding bonemeal, replanting plants pulled out by toddler hands...) worked their magic and lo and behold, a garden -- a real life garden -- emerged. Waa Laa!! 

End of June - lots of lettuce, peas just starting to shoot up (they now have mesh to climb)

Everything growing!

Things started to grow! The transplants bounced back! Well, all except the peppers, all the leaves fell off the pepper plants... not sure what happened there. But the tomato plants are miraculously all thriving! The lettuce went berserk, the peas shot up about 6" in a matter of days. Amazing :)

I can now see loads of little green tomatoes all over the plants, we've been enjoying romaine and leaf lettuce and green onions galore, and even some mystery greens that came as part of a mix and are delicious. I had my first sugar snap pea yesterday... incredible. I've picked a bunch of slugs out (and catapulted them into the woods), as well as a few weird grasshopper-looking dudes, but besides that things are rolling along. Things are happening, and it's good.

HOWEVER...

It couldn't have been that easy. No no no.

Now, just when we have all the lovely little baby veggies peeking their little heads out -- we're getting THIS nonsense:

A freaking hurricane.

I am literally sick to my stomach worrying about what this is going to do to my garden. I know there are so many other (valid) things to worry about and this really should not be one of them... but I will be so, so upset if we lose the garden after all this work, seeing these plants go from seed to huge plants to wilting and nearly dying after transplant to coming back in full force. All those little baby veggies just wanting to live and be FREE! And get EATEN! :)

Really though -- I don't know what to do about this. I don't know how to protect them. If I can manage it I will throw some plastic over the hoops and attach them as best I can but with gale-force winds and 50+ mm of rain, I'm not sure there's anything I CAN do.

I am going to cry.

Garden Update: Busy Busy Busy!

The weather is warm, things are growing in the garden and I've been busy - which explains why I've been MIA on the blog... I've been outside (and preoccupied with bringing a pair of kittens home ^-.-^ )! But I wanted to give a quick update of what's going on out there so far... it's exciting stuff I tell ya.

I've got everything (!) planted in our raised beds already. I feel like a lot of the bulk of the work in the garden is now done... we're on to maintenance mode! We've taken the plastic off the beds as well, and will keep an eye on the temperatures at night, but hopefully now that it's JUNE we should be okay to let the plants fend for themselves.

What I've got planted:
- cucumbers (2 kinds) -- looking a little shocked to be out in the cold. Pretty sure I saw them shivering.
- peppers (2 kinds) -- looking decent but might need a spray of Epsom salt water. Leaves are yellow and droopy.
- tomatoes (4 kinds) -- not looking so great :( except the ones in the Kozy Coats which are doing awesome! I will definitely be using these next year.
- romaine, salad bowl lettuce, and spinach -- all growing super well. We've been sampling!
- carrots -- just starting to sprout - last year's seeds so not sure how they'll do?
- leeks & green onions -- growing slowly but surely
- peas -- also slow to get going... I'll try soaking the next bunch that I'll plant in a few weeks.
- bush beans - green and yellow -- just starting to sprout
- nasturtiums, cosimos and marigolds
- chives -- transplanted from another bed

This past weekend we installed our irrigation system of soaker hoses hooked up to a timer, and the deer- and bunny-repelling motion sensor sprinkler. It's quite the system we've got out there! I can only hope I've timed things right and none of the plants just up and die on me - although a few of them are looking like they won't make it. Aie aie aie. Live little plants, LIVE!

My May Garden To-Do List

We are soooooo close. MAN spring is taking its sweet time to warm up this year though! I am in zone 5b, and normally we are seeing leaf buds on the trees at least.

Despite the slowness of spring, May might be the busiest month in the garden - and it starts TOMORROW! There is so much to do - but the work now should pay off come July & August when things are flourishing (at least that's what I'm telling myself...). I have to contend with the black flies too, once they start - pesky little buggers!!

What I've done already:

• Weeded raised veggie beds
• Raked in a few bags of compost, and even worked in some used coffee grounds (one day I will make my own compost... one day...)
• Threw in a bunch of worms I dug up elsewhere. Hopefully they are happily making their way through the beds now -- go worms! 
• Beds were also covered with dark fabric, both as a weed deterrent and to try to warm up the soil
• Sowed some spinach, green onion, leeks, and peas. Not sure how they will do as it's been so cold, but we'll see! Bit of an experiment with these.

My To Do list for the veggie garden for May:

• Put out tomato cloches - I'm trying a few Kozy Coats this year and I'm told I can put them out before the plants, to try to warm the soil where the plants will go.
• Cover hoops with light-weight plastic. I'm hoping I can warm up my raised beds by a few degrees, and get the seedlings out a few weeks early this year (May 15 versus June 1 for tomato and pepper plants).
• Sow remaining cold-weather seeds like green leaf lettuce, romaine, more spinach, green onion, more peas
• Build folding cucumber trellis - something like this but maybe not as tall
• Start hardening seedlings off - second week of May
• Hook up hoses and install irrigation hoses in beds. 
• Plant out seedlings and plants started indoors - May 15 ish (under plastic), later for peppers. Include blood-meal in tomato holes. Give peppers a spray of epsom-salt water.
• Sow all remaining seeds: beans, more green onions, more cucumbers, carrots, parsnips... 
• Plant out flower seedlings started indoors
• Set up trellis for cucumbers and supports for peas (these need to wait until the plastic covers are off - end of the month)
• Once plastic is off: hook up motion-sensing sprinkler to ward off the deer

Outside the veggie garden: 

• divide hostas and lillies
• clean up and re-mulch flower beds
• plant annuals
• prune lilacs and forsythia once they're finished flowering
• find somewhere to install a hammock and put it up, and then lay in it for a few hours. (Hahahaha)

"Seedling" Update: Check em Out!

Aka: Why I Really Need Mid-May to Arrive

To say that my "seedlings" have gone bononkers would be, well, an understatement. I know my last post (about my non-green babies) I said I wanted time to slow down... But honestly I just need the good weather to arrive and stay so I can get these puppies outside!! Until then, I'm tending to them as best I can. (I may have a FEW too many tomato and pepper plants. Maybe.)

Leeks, romaine, green onions, Tiny Tims

Cucumbers, Tiny Tims

Scotias, Little Sweeties, Yum yums, Early California Wonder

Early California Wonder (I think)

Most of the peppers and tomatoes stretching to the light

C'moooooooon May!

Pics of my Green Babies

As promised, here they are… my little green lovelies! (Click for larger images) Mother Nature may be playing a cruel April Fool's joke on us (it's been snowing all day… enough already!!) but I've got these little guys tucked in and warm.

Doesn't get much more (Eastern) Canadian than Tim Horton's cups and Keith's beer box. Ha!

So pretty

From left: Yum-yums, Tiny Tims, Little Sweeties, leeks, Scotias (crying to be repotted, which I did as soon as I drank more coffee!)

Go to the light, green dudes.

Here's what I've got started so far:

• Peppers: Yum-yums, Early California Wonder, California Wonder
• Tomatoes: Tiny Tim, Little Sweetie, Scotia, Sungold
• Leeks
• Green onion (not yet sprouted)

My furnace room smells heavenly!

Shooooooot. Two BIG things I did wrong!

So, I fear I may have really screwed up my garden already this year (and it's only March!).


Error #1
Somehow, I think I may have gotten my dates mixed up and started my tomato and pepper plants way too early. How did this happen? I thought I had everything all planned out... I honestly don't know how I jumped the gun like this.

I started the seeds back in February... Thing is, the pepper plants are starting to flower. Now, I don't know if this is really terrible, or if it's okay. From what I remember I needed to start them 6-8 weeks before last frost... but I can't put them out until at least mid-May (and that's with row covers and such). So... yeah. I'm still 6 weeks out NOW, and I've already got crazy growing plants in my furnace room! Ack! Is all lost? Can I keep the plants going under lights until they can go outside? I'll be quite upset if I lose all these adorable yummy little plants.

Consider this a big ole HEAD SLAP from the East Coast.

doh.

Just to be safe, I've decided to start a whole new round of pepper and tomato plants indoors. Just goes to show you, you shouldn't put all of your seedlings in one basket. You never know when an entire tray of seedlings will dry out or what have you.


Error #2
This is a biggie. I used Miracle-Gro seed starter. 

On the surface this might not seem like that big of a deal... but it turns out Miracle-Gro is owned by Scotts. Scotts is the company that knowingly sold poisoned birdseed to customers for over two years... And is apparently also in bed with Monsanto doing all kinds of nasty stuff that's affecting not only the bird population but bees as well.

We all know the bees need all the help they can get, and there's been a huge decline in the bee population around the world, including colony collapse disorder, or CCD. There are many theories about why this is but one major concern is the use of pesticides and pesticide-laden seeds, many of which can be found in the birdseed and grass seed sold by Scotts and Miracle-Gro.

Long story short... I screwed up. I can't recommend the use of Miracle-Gro and I certainly won't keep using their products going forward.

Onward and upward.

Garden 3.0 Has Begun! Get those seedlings going!

The snow is still flying and it's -11C outside, but inside where it's warm, Garden 3.0 is starting to sprout!

This is only the third year I'll be growing veggies in raised beds, and I'm still very much in learning and trial-and-error mode. Right now I'm focused on how to start seedlings.

You can save a lot of money by starting your own plants from seed ($2 - $3 for a packet of 20-40 seeds, instead of $3 - $5 for a single plant), plus it's a great feeling of accomplishment when you're able to harvest veggies that you started from seeds.

Here are a few things I've learned as a newbie about starting veggies from seed:

The Thing About Clutter, and My Quest to Simplify

On a whim last week I decided to give up social media for a month; and let me tell you, a week and a half in, I'm already seeing some positive effects. I'm no longer whipping out my phone to 'go online' anytime there's a lull, a break in conversation, a commercial, time to 'fill'. I'm not obsessively checking my notifications as though they're a to-do list to get through. I'm not concerned about capturing photos on my phone to post online or framing my thoughts in the form of a Facebook status update.

Mostly, I'm learning how to be present. To be HERE, now. To be okay in this moment, just this moment and nothing else. A big inspiration to me lately has been Leo Babauta's Zen Habits, and specifically his ideas for living simply, with intention, and putting energy into things that really matter.

I'm also learning that all that time spent online scrolling through newsfeed items is really a distraction from more important things, and a way to procrastinate. It was occupying more than just my down-time... it was ever-present in the back of my mind, it's what I turned to when I didn't want to complete a task or I was bored or just didn't want to think about all the things I SHOULD be doing.

Spending time online is a really easy way to avoid being in this moment; but not being in the moment is proving harmful for so many reasons: you're not with the people you are with. You're avoiding something. You're not clearing your mind - you are avoiding thinking about anything, giving yourself a way to not think at all and most of all, wasting time.

When I think of the distractions I've built into my own life, I realize they are just clutter. Social media, email, texts, blogs and news sites I've historically tried to keep up with... they are cluttering up my time, and my energy. They aren't all bad, but in large part they are taking away from what's really important. In fact, they are preventing me from thinking about what exactly IS important in the first place, and filling my time and my mind with clutter instead.

As a result of giving myself a little bit of time to THINK, just be for a few minutes at a time, I've realized that I've filled other parts of my life with clutter as well. I'm starting to wonder if we're serving our things and not the other way around. The piles of toys in our house could compete with a toy store. Outgrown and worn-out clothes are bursting from closets. There are stacks of papers and things that need to be dealt with. All this clutter, this keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, this acquiring of STUFF is taking away, not adding to my life and that of my family. We're spending time and energy (even if it's just mental energy) dealing with all the things, all the time. The more toys we have, the more we have to clean up. The more clothes we have, the more laundry we need to do. And so it goes.

SO... in addition to cutting back online, I'm on a new quest to cut back at home too: to let go of the things that are taking away, and make an effort to say no, and not to bring things in unless they serve to enrich my life and the things that are important. I'm on a quest to SIMPLIFY, so I - and my family - will have the time, and space, and energy to focus on what IS important:

1. Family - time spent together
2. Work - focused and productive
3. Hobbies: gardening, painting
4. Friends
5. Self: physical and mental health

Even limiting that list to five items was difficult for me; I wanted to add all kinds of other things to it, but to be able to simplify and refocus, it had to be pared down to just five important things.

Right now, I'm just taking the very small step to identify what's important, and frame my decisions about what to keep and what to let go of based on whether it enriches or takes away from those five things. I'm not running home to throw everything out, or do a massive purge to give away all our worldly possessions (though a purge is coming!); I'm simply focusing on this list for the time being.

One small step at a time...

Life Without Facebook

Every year, a friend of mine goes "offline" for Lent. Now, I am not religious at all, but every year I think, That's great! But there's no WAY I could do it. I depend way too heavily on my online interactions every day...

Which is exactly the reason I've decided to do the same this year.

An entire... month?

I won't lie, I am actually having heart palpitations about this right now. It's been exactly three hours since I made this decision, and I've fought the urge to check Facebook no less than a dozen times already.

I realize for a lot of people who aren't online all day, this may sound pretty ridiculous... But I am sadly one of the many Facebook addicts out there.

Just to give an idea of my mental state when I made this decision: my first thought when I made up my mind to do this on a whim this morning was, "But I haven't posted about my break to anyone." Meaning... I haven't prepared anyone for the devastating news that I would not be checking posts constantly, scrolling through my newsfeed, commenting on random things throughout the day, liking anything, for an entire month. How will anyone know what I'm up to? How will I know what everyone else is up to??

Clearly, I am way too caught up in the day-to-day goings-on on Facebook and other social media sites. (Who am I kidding - it's Facebook 98% of the time) I have wasted far, far too much time browsing, reading, checking, looking, mindlessly scrolling. FAR too much time.

So, there it is. Here we go, another digital diet, but this time it's a cold-turkey full-on break from Facebook. I will still be checking email and texts whenever they come in, and writing here, but besides that, you (hopefully) won't see me online in the next month. If I can stick to this.

It won't be that hard... will it?...

(In case anyone is wondering... I will share my blog posts on Facebook during this hiatus, but I can do that from my blog, so no cheating!)

The Perfect Fall Muffin... Yumpkins!

Want your house to smell amazing? Need a recipe to use up that other half of the can of pumpkin? Try these... I've made them twice in the past week and they disappear in a couple of days. I'm calling them YUMPKINS (yummy pumpkin muffins) :) The perfect Fall muffin!

These also freeze beautifully. Double the recipe and freeze in Ziplock bags in batches of 6.

Preheat oven to 400F. Grease muffin tins or line with paper. (Makes 24 mini + 6 regular size muffins)

Whisk together thoroughly in a large bowl: 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon



Yummmmmpkins

• 2-3 tablespoons ground flax seed (optional)

Whisk together in another bowl:

• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup milk or cream
• 1/3 cup yogurt
• 1 cup sugar or packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted*
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup cooked or canned pumpkin

Add wet ingredients to the flour mixture and mix together with a few light strokes, just until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not overmix; the batter should not be smooth. Divide the batter among the muffin cups.

Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 12 minutes for mini muffins and 17 for regular size muffins.

Enjoy!! :) 

*I recently tried substituting coconut oil... Amazing!