20 miles!

I accidentally biked all the way to Beverly yesterday! Backstory: Mike fixed me up an awesome little road bike.



Orange and blue!

I kinda just got on my bike and went. Mike took both boys to the Wenham Museum so I could nap, because I'd had a long sleepless night with a sick kid. But I couldn't sleep, so off I went, figuring I'd turn around after a few miles.

I made it to Manchester-By-The-Sea, and was ecstatic! I asked Mike to drive up 127 and meet me when he got out of the museum, so I just figured I'd keep going until I was really too tired and I'd wait for him. The great part was that 127 ends in Beverly, so the mile markers counted down, and when I got to Manchester it was at 5 miles left, and then I kept going and all of a sudden I saw this:



I was at Pride's Crossing, and Beverly Farms, and then in Beverly, and he happened to be waiting at a light right where 127 ends.

I won't lie, I stopped like 5 times, and walked up a few short but excruciating hills. And I know 15 miles is pretty much a cakewalk for most people, but I'm terribly out of shape, damnit!

Then, later, I took another bike ride around Wenham Lake with Mike, a shorter 5 1/2 mile ride. So, like, 20 miles! Woo!

State of the Garden

Last you saw, I had just planted our garden for the year.



This was taken nearly a month ago, when things were just getting rolling.



And here, this morning. The difference is insane!



Tiny zucchini! Yay!



Peas!

The weedblock stuff is legit awesome (newspaper under it really helps). I won't do it any other way again.

I'm totally okay with days apart from my kid. Am I an anomaly?

Confession: I'm not as distraught as I feel I should be when my kids aren't around me.

It's not like when we're apart I don't miss them. I just seem more detached than the other moms I know. For instance, once every couple of weeks Nathan sleeps over with my mom and dad (and sometimes my siblings who are in college). Sunday night, he asked repeatedly to see my mom until I called her at work, and we arranged to meet to drop him off until the next day. Sure, I missed him a little, but I also had so much time to get things done without him. Never at any point while he's with them do I think "I want to leave right now and get him!" A week and a half ago, my mom took him camping for two nights. I think every other mom I know would have never let that happen, but I was happy to get time to do homework and have more time to myself. I was glad to see him when he got back, of course.

The same happened while I was working. I missed them a little, but it was intensely relaxing not to be in a routine of manual labor taking care of them. It's not that taking care of them means constantly toiling, but it does have hard parts. Work has adult-time, which for me was really necessary. My need to feel validated by contributing to a workplace was far more pressing than my need to be around my sons all day, every day.



Maybe the fact that I know they're having fun, and in great hands with either their dad or a grandparent, leads me to be completely relaxed and laid-back about them being without me. Or maybe I'm too detached and individualistic, and I'm not the greatest parent?

Chicken Run!

I made a thing I am proud of!

We decided we should get a few more chickens (an Auracana named James who is a she and a Silver-laced Wyandotte named Bonnie, with 3 more to come from the same home), but we needed a bigger spot for them. We contemplated under the deck out back, but we would have to somehow cut holes into the house's siding to brace a structure and we didn't want to do that. But bracing it against our front fence? Much better idea.

Usually projects with long pieces of lumber are not my list because we don't have a big car, but now that the xB has no carseats because the Mazda is our family car, I just went for it. Helps that the lumber yard is about a mile away. And the xB is magical, I fit like 16 pieces of 8 and 10 foot 2x4s in with no issue, I just used a bungee cord to tie-down the back door. I wish they still made the original xB because man, what a versatile and fuel efficient car.

So anywho, we sketched out a basic plan and I wrote up what I needed and then got to work:



The basic box.



I cut down an old extra fence piece to make our gate, and we had a bunch of deer fencing lying around which was just enough to finish the project.



Finished, with the deer fencing stapled on and the gate latch attached.



So now the chickens are a little safer, since predators usually can't enter our front fenced yard. We can also sell the Eglu as soon as we put the chickens together - we are separating them right now because the larger two were picking on the new babies.

Now we just need to convert an old dog house into a coop as soon as we can find one.

Garden 2011

Last year's garden was a terrible mess. I was pregnant, it was hot, and the project was just way too ambitious for me at the time.

But I'm looking forward to this year. Here's our setup so far:



This time I'm not letting the weeds win. I put down newspapers, then weedblock fabric.

On the side next to the house: sugar snap peas, spinach, grape tomatoes, bell peppers, and banana peppers. On the side facing the yard (and camera): kale, and in a few days, I'll also plant zucchini and bush beans (green beans).

In containers along the side, I also planted a green bell pepper and more banana peppers.



And this guy is a cherry tomato plant, which will share the bucket with a lettuce plant. In the front yard is an identical bin with sunflowers that accidentally grew from seeds left in our birdfeeder. Hee.

Oh, also, I have to find somewhere to stick a strawberry plant.

This year I think will be better because Mike can help me since he's not in pain all day anymore. He already set up a grow light operation on the top of our chest freezer. It looks like we have a pot farm, but I swear it's just cilantro and mesclun.



Nathan enjoys watering things. I do not enjoy him watering things, mostly because they are usually things like me, the baby, his own pants, or the mail.



I think he has reached peak cuteness. He's all "Mommy, helping YOU!" when we're outside. He also told the baby he loved him, completely unprovoked. DYING OF CUTE. I AM DED.

Gettin' up off my fat butt.

So I haven't lost the baby weight from Evan. Probably because of the surgeries, and having to stop breastfeeding way before I planned to. And because I loooove food.

I have never before actually had to watch what I eat, but it was clear that now's the time. Two weeks ago I was about a pound shy of the "overweight" line for my height. And it's not like I'm muscular, so there's no excuse there.

I started using myfitnesspal.com (although there's a million sites out there). I am pretty against paying good money for stuff like Weight Watchers until I try free things first. MyFitnessPal has a Droid app Mike uses to scan barcodes of whatever he's eating.

It told me that to lose weight, I had to cut down to 1300 calories a day. Now, that seems insanely low. I'm not necessarily trusting a website with my health. But clearly, after tracking my eating for a few days, I was eating so much indiscriminately that I would never lose weight unless I changed.

So for the last week, I've been trying to be careful about my diet. Nothing crazy, just eating small meals throughout the day, measuring instead of just pouring out stuff like milk, making sure I exercise more, etc. And I've already lost two pounds.

Let's Go Bananas!

Baby version 2.0: Approximately 50% pudgier than version 1.0. Upgrades include 3x more arm folds, plus an extra chin for holding leftover milk.

(They were both nearly 4 months old when these pictures were taken.)

Mike Doesn't Think the Baby Looks Like Him.

Therefore, I present to you exhibit A.

We Bought Him a Real Bed. I Swear.

Someone didn't want to go to sleep the other night, so he snuck out of bed and read and talked to his plastic horses until he passed out on the mat.

Tuna Melt

This was today's lunch. Mike found some cheap sourdough whole wheat bread - it just happens to come in fun-size. This is a plus, because Nathan thinks it's cool and will eat it, and I eat less.

I've been trying to eat better so I can lose baby weight and just generally be healthier, but the whole two-kids-working-school thing is a bit hard. I've at least climbed back on the exercise bike for the last week.

As far as work goes, I'm pretty sad - we decided that it was not really working at home for me to be gone. The commute is long, the pay is low, and after you factored in gas and time lost, it just didnt work. They really want to keep me, and I may be able to stay on with one 9-hour shift on Mondays, but we'll have to get that worked out. In reality, Mike's side project working on bikes would make more than my job. I enjoyed the job and especially being with adults, so it's a little disappointing, but what can you do, really?

At least now I'm free to go back to school full-time, and World's Oldest Undergrad should be graduating next spring. I'm attending an MBA open house tomorrow - not that I'd go right away, but I'm interested in seeing what's involved.