the bone i picked

the wall project in the office that i teased you with a glimspe of is all finished (actually it has been for about 2 months...i am forgetful and a poor sharer! forgive me?) and i am in hard luuuuurve with it.

so now i give you my sexagonal, vaulted-ceiling, herringbone accent wall of glory:

it makes me happy-happy with a hint of dizzy too. so glad we chose the wall that our backs face while we are sewing/working. your brain tends to try to slip into crosseyed-ville if you look at it too long.

i need to get some stuff on the wall to break up the mind-swirl that it is now. a chic, sexy, perfect mind-swirl...but nevertheless. needs stuff.

 so much tape was used to create these ladders climbing up to graphic heaven.

 this was ALL the paint i had left over. a quart was perfect.

pulling off tape is always very pleasurable. but with this mammoth project, this last pull deserved its own photo. the feeling i had here was nothing short of sublime.

 did i just give you vertigo? sharing the wealth, yall.

i am a happy girl.

as you can see in the margins above, we still havent done much of anything to the other 3 walls. right now i am thinking a cool mint or a cheery coral...but i just dont know.  

also wondering if these pics are enough or if a real tutorial is needed on how we did this.

i saw herring fish fillets at the store the other day and i reached down and thanked the little guys for their anatomical inspiration. 

in conclusion: schwing.

dont forget to enter the boudreaux giveaway. somebody is getting a $100 visa giftcard soon!

backyard birdwatching

my favorite species to spy in their natural habitats are these two strange birds

only truly enlightened pirates understand the importance of lawn maintenance

judah shows the octopus who is boss (10>8) but he feels conflicted about it

change of plan(t)s...

naturally, we managed to fail before we even started.

i'm referring to the garden. you know, the one where all we have planted so far is delusions.

well after a thoroughly charming tsunami of impulsivity and sunk costs, i spiraled into sickening regret and denial.

we were NOT going to be able to do this.

the fencing-in of an area to keep the garden safe from the dogs alone was going to be a HUGE undertaking. and that didnt even address the garden itself and all the awesome points yall brought up last time about soil and toil and money and HARD and such.

as i sat dejectedly pouting at my hubris jesse came to the rescue. let's keep in mind that he begs me not to do these things. he sees this coming. but i am like a hopeless addict when one of these inspiration attacks grabs hold of me. i cant hear my sweet husband pleading for rationality and patience and i plunge forward.

(jesus is working on this with me.)

so jesse gets one million gold doubloons for being the agent of my rescue when he could totally choose to just be captain of the USS I Told You So.

he said: lets just do a few raised beds instead.

ahhhhhhh, sweet relief. and like a kid who hasnt planned adequately on his magna-doodle, my downward spiral immediately hit a wall and was finished prematurely.

so on with his day off my husband (while fasting for easter!) built us 4 beautiful raised beds on the humans-only side of the fence. it is in a totally unused,neglected, and raw area of the yard.

when i got home we set about the toil of weed protecting them and filling them up with nice dirt.

not everyone's attitude was immediately eased by the new plan

 layla and chopper look on in concern as judah amps up the drama

 oh the injustice...of something.

 

oh its funny now...

i call this face "im trying to still be upset but my heart isnt in it."

 meanwhile layla uses the ladderballs to choreograph her circus routine. like you do...

 *insert circus music here* 

dee dee deedle deedle dee dee dee dee...

polka dot, polka dot, polka dot afro!

 layla in her element (as in the element from captain planet..earth!)  as clifford snuggles chopper's hindquarters.

 as you may have noticed, judah's mood is inversely related to the amount of clothing he is wearing. a quick recovery was on hand when we let him go nakie-digging

 all the best summiting moments in history involve underoos

we attempted to leverage their willingness to work in the dirt and have them haul their wagon along with our wheelbarrow:

 this lasted about one half of a wagonfull before they got wise and returned to progress-blocking.

at about 8 pm i finally felt the crushing hunger and decided we were too dirty to go inside to eat and too hungry to cook ourselves. we opted for a pizza picnic which was beyond sublime 

...except for that moment when i said to jesse as i opened the steaming box, "is there anything better than hot fresh pizza when youre starving?" and he replied, "um, being able to eat it would be nice." i had forgotten his fast. oh, but i felt bad, yall.

 here's someone who has never fasted, i assure you. couldnotlovehermore

and here's some awesome progress on the sprouts i bought WAAAAAAAAy too early:

yeah. i'm awesome.

so it snowed one day last week and the day before i was being a good plant mommy and covered up the seedlings with black plastic. well i forgot to remove it the next (sunny) day and even though it was freezing, the sun still scorched the mess out of EVERYTHING above the soil. je deteste myself.

hopefully, since the roots were nice and un-singed, these will grow new healthy leaves (somebody tell me if that is likely or not) if i keep watering and sunning them appropriately. 

so here we are. about 160 sq feet of raised beds in 4 little rectangles, weed-shielded and filled with high quality soil.

we nixed a few of the plants we had planned for that are super cheap in the store (carrots, corn, onions, watermelon) and focused more on those that we eat a lot and can get pricey (tomatoes, okra, peppers)

we added in sunflowers, bay laurel, marigolds and cucumbers as well. 

is this right? my planting robot does not tell me how much of anything to expect upon harvest (assuming everything turns out) and i dont know if i am going to literally end up with ONE cucumber or what.  the triangular parts point northeast, for the record. and every square is one square foot. 

what's my most important next step? 

you people were RIGHT ON with all of your attempts to talk me off the ledge (ever so gently) before and hearing your words in my ears did eventually manage to rein this in before it got completely out of hand, so i am turning to you now for more wisdom.

this is hard.