empty nest

this spring we had two bird families building nests on our house. the birds annexed a back corner near our garage and the little alcove right outside our front door.

the back nest had a sad end when i asked jesse to peek in the nest to see if there were eggs. he discovered three pretty blue ones, but unfortunately discovered them by accidentally tipping them out and onto the ground to break.

but the front door nest flourished. it was a little alarming all spring to walk outside and immediately have a startling bird take to the wing 3 feet from your face, but we let the mama proceed unhindered, and she built a really sweet and sturdy nest.

well the babies all hatched and seemed to be doing well.

last week i could finally see them from the ground, their little yellow beaks peeking out. i decided to try to take some pictures of the tiny fellas so i got a big 5 gallon paint bucket to stand on and grabbed my camera while judah and i were playing outside one evening.

now our little alcove is just that--little. its only as deep as the front door is wide. but it is pretty tall. so tall that, even on my bucket, i had to hold the camera over my head and kind of shoot blindly to get all of the bird's faces.

so there i am, back to the front door, on my little bucket, camera overhead with judah watching me down below.

i am looking at the pictures i am taking and thinking, "wow, the miracle of life. what tiny, precious, helpless little creatures. so simple and fragile."

precious little guys. though that middle one looks like a rough character with that stank face

i reach over to get a few closeups, inching the camera a leeeeetle further, and all of a sudden somebody sets of a wildlife bomb.

all 3 birds explode out of the nest. so now my face is trapped up there with three startled teenage birds who are very much capable of flight.

as they pelted my head ,camera and torso, i freak right on out. i launch/fall off of my bucket, screaming as tiny hollow-boned avian bodies pummel me. all i can think is, "i wasnt even snogging lavender brown in the common room! why did hermione oppogno me?"

all thought of delicate life forms have departed. the predator has become the prey. these are bloodthirsty pecking machines.

naturally this scene must have looked amazing to my neighbors, many of whom were outside and saw me screeching, "waaaaaaah! ayyyY! oh my gosssssh!" and flailing around (braless....like you do) my front yard. judah is thoroughly confused and delighted by this new development.

the neighbors start wandering off of their porches, looking on with concern as i calm down and realize there are no more animals in my hair. i start dying laughing and wave to them telling them, "i'm okay. just some birds really close to my eyeballs!"

after all of commotion i realize that uh-oh, did i push them out of the nest too early? they werent really flying so much as hovering wildly as they tried to gain their wing-equilibrium. have i doomed them? am i going to have to clean up their carcasses if they die of heart failure right now?

two of the babies are able to get into a nearby tree where their mama is giving me the chirrupy business, but one little guy is just panting in the grass, unmoving, trying to regain his composure. he have probably burned all the calories from his last regurgitated wormy mash meal in his adrenaline-fueled escape from the giant yellow-head.

so to try to undo what would have inevitably become a lifelong terror of baby birds in judah after witnessing this level 5 freakshow, i take him over to look at the birdie and he immediately falls in love and MUST get closer and closer.

visions of bird flu or whatever the hell other reasons there are that we humans are not supposed to touch the winged fill my head as i try to simultaneously get the 3 year old near the bird and photograph him, but prevent him from actually touching it using only my words.

i lack both the photography skills AND the parenting skills to pull this off without inane outbursts of mommy fear, followed by "awwwws" and laughter at the weirdness of it all.

the last victim/perpetrator of my episode.

meet n greet

the bird is wise to not turn his back on him completely

so hard to not touch (but he did great)

feathered friend turns his nose up

wow, we live in country idyll. way to go, us.

synchronized posing. favorite

locking eyes.

mama bird is right there on our mailbox handle. revenge-pooping on it. fair enough

i felt very planet earth wildlife photographer sneaking close on my belly to this cagey beast. the neighbors, again, must have been charmed by this.

needless to say, they havent been back since.

a surprise addition

we seriously did NOT plan this and thought we could never manage it with all we already had on our plates.

but sometimes god has different plans, i guess.

yes, that's right. we added a pantry to our house!

ohhhh, you thought...because of the picture? was it misleading? well, i just googled "things that will fit in a new pantry" and this was the first thing that came up. i am completely innocent.

did i go too far? i'm sorry. i wont do that again. all bloggers are allowed one good fake pregnancy title in their life. that was mine. all done.

just to be clear in case you are getting all dizzy and hyper and ready to blast my wall or call my parents: that was JUST A JOKE. my uterus is full of nothing but fond memories of placentas and umbilici and some endometrial lining that is due to shed in about a week. TASTY!

not pregnant. just yanking your 24k gold chains.

but, to be honest, the pantry project really has been my happiest addition to the house other than the two babies we've added since living here.

the absence of a pantry was one of those things that a novice homebuyer/idiot doesnt really pick up on. yes, i only ever lived in homes that had them; whether they be walk-in, closet-sized, or whatever. i was lulled into a false sense of security that my dwelling would always have provided me with a dedicated, door-ensconced place for my dry goods to live.

so it didnt occur to us to notice that this house had none. therefore we were left with this charming setup as our only real option:

i have touched on the hilghlights here

for 5.5 years, this has slowly sapped the lifeforce out of me for all of the reasons listed. the vast majority of this stuff wasnt visible due to cabinet doors and deep/high-stacked things burying their predecessors. such wasteage and regret.

i have considered MANY other options: moving it all to garage shelving just outside the door to the left of the laundry, converting the coat closet in the living room, only eating refrigerated items. but each of these wasnt solving the real problem: we wanted and possibly needed a kitchen pantry.

the solution was a surprising one (though not as shocking as a 3rd baby would be).

in the bananas world of small-house tetris: to add a pantry, we would need to add a washer. a STACKABLE washer to be exact. we waited for a mega awesome sale and got 24 months of no interest financing and with a little sweat and marriage counseling, we had this:

oh, what a nice area. but what on earth will you do with the tall, empty space over there on the right?

as soon as we had stacked the dryer (DONT pay to have this done, it was REALLY easy for jesse and me to do ourselves) i was off to home depot to get some shelving.

the goddess of organization (marthanius) was clearly smiling upon this project because the standard store shelf lengths were the perfect multiple of the widths we needed.

confession: when i was driving home, enrique iglesias' "tonight i'm loving you" came on the radio. now normally i sing this about my hot husband or james bond, or use it as motivation while running to get super sexy and hot. but this time, i was in my minivan booty shaking, giving smoldering bedroom eyes, and singing the words to my soon to be pantry.

I know you want me
I made it obvious that I want you too
So put it on me
Let's remove the space between me and you

it was written for me and my pantry.

we got bolt cutters to quickly and effortless (and strangely enough, sexily) snap through the shelves (SO much easier than a hacksaw that we had used before). we got the shelving system that has totally adjustable heights so you can rearrange without any drilling and find your ideal setup. in less than an hour we had created our 3rd most beautiful child.

no joke: EVERYTHING fits in here (and this is NOT a large space: 32x20 inches).

all of the stuff i stored in the garage (from stockpiling sale items) all the the things that were in the cabinets of the forgotten, everything from that nook of a counter space area and atop the fridge. even the across-the-kitchen cabinet i had always used for baking items and wasnt annoying: it's all in here, all visible and all orderly.

almost nightly i get out of bed and just come look at it. i find myself thinking of it while i am at work and smiling to myself like in the days of first dating jesse.

truly, truly marvelous

come. behold. taste and see that it is good.

the world is as it should be. a family of 4 and a pantry.

lend me your clicks

yall, if you have ever cared for me, show it now.

i entered layla's quilted pillow into a giveaway by the company who makes my sewing machine. the winner gets an awesome new (big, daddy mac!) machine worth insane amounts of money that i would never spend.

hopefully the first and last time we will ever see laylas name in anything so pageant-y

to be honest, the other entries make me sad, so i think i should win subjectively AND objectively (sooooo many christening gowns and sad granny quilts).

ok, you wanna help me?

GO HERE and do whatever it says (you might have to install a little facebook app, but it's legit and not spam and you can always remove it later if you want).

if i win, youd better believe i will be having a BIG giveaway with at least many plural prizes to reward everyone who voted.

AND i can see when my FB friends vote for me....so pretty much if you DONT, we are broken up. because, really? after all i have meant to you?