Our Life Lately 9.3.14

I used to post picture updates like this often, but there are so many sweet moments in daily life that I don't capture in pictures.   Partly because I don't have a camera phone (crazy, right?) and partly because we are on a hands-free journey right now. But here are a few!

OUR GARDEN OF DELIGHTS: Every morning, Sisi and I run outside to see how many passion flowers have popped open.  I will always be fascinated by these freakish blooms, and the fact that they only stay open for one day makes them even more special.  Still haven't seen any passion fruit yet.

BABY "SPRINKLE". I helped throw a mellow baby shower for a sweet friend at church.  It's her third baby, so she didn't want a big fuss.  Good food, pretty flowers, and sweet friends were all we needed.

Which one is 8 months preggers?? :) 

Thank you Trader Joe's for the cheap stock, snapdragons, mums and roses.  $30.00 of flowers was more than enough to decorate the whole house.

CAMPING TRIP:  We had our first family camping trip in a pretty remote part of Big Bear.  And about an hour after we arrived and set up camp, a very large bear came super close to us.  He was sitting kind of dopey-like on his haunches, staring at Joe, just hoping he'd share our pulled pork with him. Us women-folk jumped into the truck, and Joe scared him away with a rusty old machete. The first thing I said to Joe was, "You said there were no bears in Big Bear!!!"  I guess there are, but they are more like raccoons than bears.  Still gave this suburbanite a scare!

belly shot, about 22 weeks.  I'm 25 weeks now and feel twice as big as this pic!

 

Joe's camping coffee setup.

Joe said that this was a more comfortable spot to sleep than the tent!  

He scampered up that rock face in 2 minutes like a squirrel.  My husband is such a stud.

Sheep's milk yogurt with grain-free granola (essentially "nut-ola") for breakfast.  

FAMIILY DINNERS. Lately, most of our dinners take place al fresco, on the patio.  This was a particularly yummy paleo meal- cauliflower mash, almond flour breaded pork chops, and artichokes dipped in drawn butter. 

I am also heeding the advice in the book French Kids Eat Everything by making dinner time special every night.  An everyday dinner is the perfect occasion for candles, flowers, and music.  I even splurged on real cloth napkins yesterday, which is a first.  I am also making an effort to sit still and wait for Joe and Sisi to finish eating before I hop up and tackle the dishes.  This is a tough one, since I'm always the first one done and I am eager to get on with the clean-up duties.  But dinner time is such a special time and should be savored, right?

Not pictured: a major water damage/mold issue in our home, scouring craigslist daily for furniture for baby #2's nursery, and lots of etsy mask orders. 

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Life Is Beautiful

...Even in times of grief.  Here are some things that are making me smile, despite our recent loss.

A new picture for the photo wall... 

Pretty good, right?  

Not only do we have half a steer in our freezer, we also bought a grassfed lamb from Primal Pastures.  I LOVE lamb.  And I love how the butcher packaged the meat all old-fashioned-like with paper and string.

My herb/veggie garden is actually doing ok! Big surprise to me.  Growing our own herbs has definitely saved us a ton of money.  It's wonderful cutting a snip of this and that for each meal.  

Women's tea.  Makes me feel like I'm doing something good for my lady parts, as they've been through a lot the past few weeks.  Placebo effect? 

My precious friend Julie sent the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers.  1 1/2 weeks later, they are still blooming beautifully.  

Ok, this is the coolest toy we've ever bought.  They are called "river stones" and Sisi has found so many ways to play with them.  She pretends the carpet is the water and she has to hop across.  She also pretends they are linked trains and rides around with her friends. I have a feeling these will be a big hit at our next playdate, too.  These would be a rad Christmas gift!

Yes, she's wearing a dog collar.  Don't worry, we don't put a leash on her :)

Sisi is finally old enough to know that glue is for creating, not eating or pouring on furniture.  We have fun collecting stuff around the house for collages.  And then I throw them away.  I can't stand the clutter.  The old me would have saved every single one.

I love that it's December and sunny enough to craft outside.  

Although we started clearing out our office to prepare for the baby that we lost, we decided to keep the momentum going and finally moved our computers to the sunroom.  This Ikea kitchen island is the perfect standing desk, and Sisi can do art right next to me while I work.  It's fun working right next to Joe, like we're office buddies or something.

Sisi's "tail phase" has lasted for months now.  Shoe laces, ribbons, boas, lily grass- you name it, I've pinned it to her butt.  

I ordered this lovely banner from Joyful Joyful  because I knew it would be good for us to sit down and write out things we are thankful for, even through our tears.  The banner included those little leaf cutouts and clothespins exactly for that purpose.  

The old office is now Sisi's new room.  Soft yellow, Sisi's favorite color (probably because of her thing for ducks?)  When I was pregnant, I allowed myself to relax, sleep in, take it easy (as all pregnant women should!).  Now that I have my energy back, I decided to put it to good use and fix up our house.  I'm not a handy woman by any means, but I'm trying.  I patched up the drywall, hung a bunch of pictures, and painted two rooms in two days, all by myself. I'm super proud, even if I complained every second of the job.

I hope you're all finding things to smile about, too! 

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Our New Water-wise Garden!

I've been waiting 4 1/2 years to replace our crummy, crappy, wasteland of a yard.  Not typically one to hire outside help, I've made a few half-hearted attempts to spruce it up in the past.  Every few years, I'd spend a few hundred dollars to plant a couple trees or plants or even a veggie garden, but since I had no real vision or horticultural experience, my meager attempts looked downright silly. And then I'd forget to water,  and then they shriveled up and died an aphid infested death.  Not super encouraging.

This was the magical year we decided to hire an actual landscape designer and invest in a nice garden.  Someplace serene and inspiring, where our toddler can walk around barefoot on grass that isn't dead.  Then maybe she wouldn't end up crying and screaming, "Ouchy grass!!!"  

In my dreams, I've always pictured a "Secret Garden" type of retreat, with tons of hydrangea, bright flowers in window boxes, rambling roses and picket fences.  As you will see, that's pretty much the opposite of what we actually did. So Cal is semi-desert, and water is a luxury (or so it should be), so we can't have a lush garden that needs water all the dang time.  I also wanted something easy to maintain and hard to kill, because I stink at gardening (I'm really good with flowers in vases though!)  So my picturesque secret garden will have to wait until we trade in our generic stucco track home for a quaint Oregon cottage after we retire.  Someday... sigh... 

 I put together a pinterest board of garden inspiration which I showed to our wonderful designer, Yvonne. With her encouragement, we decided to embrace the natural climate of California, and chose water-wise native plants.   Native California plants are not necessarily the lush, romantic flora of my dreams, but they are definitely beautiful in their own funky and understated way. I'm so enjoying watching our succulents, grasses, and native wildflowers bloom and grow day by day.  I'm so thrilled with our decision to hire a designer.  It's like hiring a wedding planner- you can probably get by without one, but you won't regret it if you do.  In fact, you will probably enjoy your wedding more, hire better vendors, and maybe even end up getting better deals if you hire a planner.  I'm pro-wedding-planner, can you tell?  

BEFORE PICTURES:  

Our blah front yard... doesn't our brown, weedy lawn just scream "Welcome!"

 Walk through the gate, and you've entered our lackluster courtyard (which actually looks better in this picture than it did in reality)...

Here is the random space between our house and garage. We did nothing with this space besides put Sisi's poopy diapers in it.

Speaking of poopy, this was our backyard... weedy "ouchy" grass, fruit trees that rarely bore fruit, and a planter filled with aphids.  Yum! (These pictures are actually quite flattering, must have been taken during the rainy season.)

AFTER THE MAKEOVER!!!

Front yard!  No more lawn, just a variety of water-wise plants, including bamboo, jasmine, papyrus, flax, grasses, and succulents.  The plants are not mature yet, so I assume it will look a lot more filled out in a few months.

Walk through the garden gate, and enter our courtyard... 

 Courtyard.  How cool is that modern bench?  Custom built for us by our incredible carpenter, Mark. Any O.C. or L.A. peeps thinking about buying wooden furniture, arbors or fences from big generic stores should consider hiring Mark!  He'll do it better, maybe even cheaper, and you'll feel good about buying handmade.

The spider-infested ivy in the window box was replaced by lime green heuchera.

I'm obsessed with the passion flower vines growing all over our walls.

They produce these purple blooms! Soon they'll be covered with them.

We replaced our diseased roses with papyrus.

  The random space between our house and garage is now an outdoor sitting room.  Thanks to clever wood screens, wooden outdoor wall art, and a vertical garden, it's a cozy area to relax.  All we need is a sofa and outdoor rug to complete the look.

I told you I suck at gardening.  The fuchsias were really pretty before I literally watered them to death.

The side of our house is flanked by a beautiful gated arbor, handmade by our carpenter. Perfect for keeping the dogs in the backyard.

AND THE BACKYARD...

We've got soft "non-ouchy" grass and easy plants like penstemon, senecio, flax, kangeroo paw, and salvia chiapensis.  Also, our carpenter built us this 8 foot picnic table in one afternoon.  I've always had a thing for picnic tables!



I should mention that we recently built a sunroom on top of half our patio, which now serves as our dining room and frees up space in our tiny kitchen.



How amazing is our table, modeled after the Big Sur table from Crate and Barrel, but handmade by a local carpenter on Craigslist for half the price!  Seriously, handmade is the way to go.

We've got a banana tree and Johnson's blue geraniums...

We've got a new planter bed that will one day be filled with veggies and herbs.

And last but not least, an adult jungle gym for my monkey-of-a-husband.   Still in progress.

So, I did experience a bit of sticker shock when I realized how much the garden and sunroom would cost.  Basically, the price of a super nice SUV.  Gulp, that's expensive.  But here's how we justified it.  We like our house and our down-to-earth neighborhood, but the house is pretty tiny.  We would rather add a sunroom in order to free up some space in the kitchen (where we spend most of the day) than pick up and move to a bigger house, which always comes with hidden costs.  We also feel that a beautiful landscape will be enjoyed by every member of our family for years to come.  We've already had picnics, a bbq, and daily wrestling in the grass.  That is worth way more to us than a nice SUV. Plus it all adds value to our home, and blah blah blah.  

Hope you enjoyed  my little garden tour!

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