Musings of a Mom and Scattered Blogger

This blog has gone in no direction that I thought it would go. I had big plans of sharing recipes and my tips on gardening, instead, I have written mostly thoughts about my life. Each entry is filled with my need to live a simple life, getting back to basics and appreciating the things that matter most.  Well, this entry is not veering too far from that either.  Bear with this gal, as I fumble my way through pulling this blog together to some sort of cohesive space. 

So this morning, I was repacking my cooler and snack tote of goodies for our second day in a baseball tournament for the oldest boy. Waffles will be on the breakfast menu today, I believe. I haven’t actually started cooking because the need to write out this thought struck me and I hit the computer to jot it down.  The house is quiet, Im enjoying coffee before the kids hit the floor running. We have an extra kid for the night, a friend of my youngest son, a friendship foraged at baseball parks and football fields. 

I know this generation of kids is far advanced in technology and video games. They will probably go down as the video game generation, even though, I played Nintendo a time or two growing up myself. It’s this generation where obesity rates are high and people believe kids no longer enjoy the outdoors. Sure, there are some who would rather spend hours playing mock war on the gaming systems but there are so many who do enjoy being outside. I have come to this conclusion as I was watching the oldest boys double header baseball games yesterday. Tournaments are intense. These boys go on the field to play ball and winning is what they are all after. Each time at bat is a battle.  They sweat in the heat standing in the outfield waiting to make that perfect catch. Their uniforms are muddied from sliding into third. The crowds are cheering. It’s never quiet at a ball game and off in the distance, in a small patch of grass between ball diamonds is a group of kids playing pickle. They are the younger brothers and sometimes sisters of the athletes on the field. They are laughing, having a grand time running around outdoors. They are wading in mud puddles and taking turns seeing who can spit sunflower seeds the farthest. These are kids who may not go to the same elementary school but they are building friendships all the same. 

At my house, after the games at the fields have all ended, the kids come home to eat and shower but they do not stay still long, soon they have called over some friends. Wiffle ball is played in my yard until it’s too dark to see the ball. It is then that the computers fire up and video games get turned on. There is still hope in the younger generation.  It warms my heart to know that fun is still being had on American baseball fields and backyards, that friendships foraged with bonds of dirt and mud puddles still exist, and that kids still enjoy sitting under a tree and sharing a snack. I love that athletes are still battling it out on fields across the world and younger siblings are looking up to those athletes and wanting to be just like them. I love that when the street lights come on, there are still moms out there yelling for their kids to wrap up a game and to come inside. It is part of what life is all about, the simple enjoyment of it all. Maybe next post I will blog about my homemade pasta recipe. It is really simple, but the troops are starting to wake and breakfast needs to hit the table.

It's That Time of Year

My Baby at Pitching Practice

Baseball season, it is my busiest time of year. Both of my boys play baseball so there is a lot of running from practice to practice, game to game, and some traveling to tournaments on the weekends just for good measure.  I scrub jerseys, to free the knees from the grass stains and red dirt that mark a well-played game. We hunt for the elusive “cups” that somehow seem to leave the sliding shorts and get lost as soon as we are home from a practice or game. Shoot, who needs dryer eating socks; I have a house that eats athletic supporters. 

Baseball also means the end of the school year is fast approaching. We have 5 more weeks left here in our little school district. Where did this school year go? I swear I just packed their backpacks with all the shiny new school supplies that were so painstakingly picked out. Their fresh shoes that we spent hours picking out just the right pair…have been discarded as too small and too worn out. Jeans are starting to get the high in the ankle look. The school year is ending and their jeans are a testament to how much they have grown. 

My Spring Wreath and Gardening Gnome

Five weeks left in the school year puts us just about the time to start planting the garden.  I had been planning to do some raised beds this year. I just like the look of them for my small town backyard garden. However, I have been a compost queen and I spent some time outside turning my dirt and noticing how wonderfully dark and rich it has become. I may just have to sow directly into the ground. So many decisions, Spring, or as we refer to it as Baseball Season, has so much work to do. So many things to get done. How is someone supposed to live simple?  Well simple does not always meaning not busy does it? I have certainly come to that conclusion. It is the simple thought that I am practicing this seasons. Spend time with my family and plant a garden. In the moments I want to feel overwhelmed with it all, I am just reminding myself that these are the times that matter. My children love to eat from a garden and they will grow up to remember the garden we planted year after year. They will, hopefully, look back on the memories of baseball and the friendships gained on the field with awesome nostalgia. Actually, to think of it, my oldest is in 7^th grade, I am still friends with the people I was friends with in 7^th grade.  So, as the kids grow and look back, may they all laugh about the summer before 8^th grade while they sit around a campfire when they are 30. I hope their kids are playing baseball in a backyard somewhere while they are at it. 

Garlic has sprung

Now, I just have to remember to breathe slow, deep, breaths and laugh and I will make it through just fine. A glass of wine probably won't hurt either. 

Sisters

A dear friend of mine has 3 brilliant, funny, beautiful girls. She has recently found out that she is expecting a fourth baby later this year. Her girls remind of what I imagine sisters to be like. I don’t have sisters. For the most part, I come from a family of boys. Boys, Boys, Boys everywhere, really. My mom has a sister and even though they are 10 years apart in age, they are so very close. My aunt and my mom may have busy lives and children, grandchildren and even a great grandchild in the mix, but they still talk on the phone or drop by for visits with each other regularly. My dad has lots of sisters and I know growing up he felt a sense of protectiveness over them all even though he is one of the youngest in the bunch. I know his family dynamic was different. His relationship with his sisters was not the same as between the sisters themselves. 

Jessie and I, circa 1983ish lol

Why am I having such a need to write about sisters? I have a cousin, Jessie. She is the closest thing I have to a sister. She lived with us at times, growing up. We stayed up late at night giggling because we shared a room. We argued in a way that I think only sisters can. She always had my back growing up and I would have done anything for her, still would. We definitely got into our fair share of trouble, but almost all of my memories growing up include her, whether good or bad. I cannot count the times we have laughed and cried with each other. When things happen in my life, she is the one I think of first to tell. She knows me, in my soul, she knows who I am and where I come from. Jessie knows I hated getting up early to have to take the first shower in our one bathroom house and she knows that while I may present a tough exterior, she knows I have a marshmallow heart.  

Baseball anyone?

Baseball season has started and it is one of those times of year that I miss her the most. Jessie, ten years ago or so, left me behind in Michigan and moved to Florida. It has been good for her and her family and I am so proud of where she is in life...  But, holidays and baseball season are when I miss her the most.  We have children that are around the same age, boys of course, and they all play ball. I wish she was here freezing alongside me at practices. Cheering and ducking fly balls. Call me crazy but I envision this still taking place in Michigan, even though I’m sure her sons last baseball practices in Florida did not involve all the moms bundled in sleeping bags and the kids in sweatshirts and layers. I would love to cheer her boys on. I do from the wonderful family connector, Facebook.

So, sisters, not everyone has one. I am sure it is a complicated relationship on so many levels. I just honestly don’t know for sure. I do know, having been blessed with a close cousin, that it is a wonderful relationship even in all its complicated-ness.  Having brothers is no less wonderful, just different.  To bring this post back to my mantra of Back to Basics, living simple… enjoy your family, brothers or sisters. Don’t take anyone or moment for granted.

Book Club

In college I majored in US History and English Lit. I think it’s pretty much an understatement but I love to read. A small group of friends and I started a book club. Not that I needed an excuse to read books but we also like to discuss the book, the story and the language used, lasting impressions that kind of thing. I usually judge the book chosen for reading to be a success if a member recommends it to someone once we have finished. 

The story of a book is great. It is obviously an important piece to what a book is, but I really love language. I love the words that authors choose. The tone that is evoked from certain words would not always be the same had the author instead chose a different word. The dialogues would be different, the characters would evolve into something else. I like to work out what the author is saying deeper by looking at the language they use. Partly, I believe this is why movies are never the same as the books. Screen writers changing a loved book changes intricate pieces to the characters and story that are then lost in the movies. Never mind that they also change lots of other things too.  

This month we read A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I have to say that it was my turn to pick a book, and I picked this one based on the main character as being a historian and the setting being in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. While I have never been there, it is, in my mind, the most wonderful of all places.  I initially thought this book was going to be a work of fiction but more of historical fiction, a history of witches or perhaps a history of Alchemy. I was wrong for the most part, but pleasantly surprised all the same.

A Discovery of Witches is book 1 in a trilogy. It is neither an earth shattering literary classic book nor even really a work of historical fiction. Actually, it is another take on witches and vampire myths. I would compare it to a grown up version of Twilight. The vampires, however,  do not sparkle, thank goodness.  I also liked that for the most part, the characters are educated. I like that they work in laboratories and that there is a research aspect to what they do. The story revolves around two main characters, one a witch and the other a vampire.  Without giving too much away to the story line, I do have to say it is an original take on the witch/vampire stories out there or atleast that I have read.  It was a quick read. The author does a nice job of setting the scenes and I like her language. It is not over the top cheesy on the romance level. I will read the other books in the trilogy because it has sparked my interest. 

As I’m typing this, a thunder storm has rolled into town. The room has gotten dark and its noon. ..This means I need to wrap this up and snuggle on the couch with our next book, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This is perfect reading weather! 

Stopping to smell the Roses…err Daffodils

As I said in yesterdays post, it was a beautiful day here in Michigan. Sunny, warm with a gentle cooling breeze, really the stuff that dreams and pictures are made out of. School is getting out and my youngest boy likes to walk home on these nice days instead of riding in the car. Can’t say that I blame him there.

He bounds up the front porch steps, all smiles with his hand behind his back. I wonder, what can he be hiding back there. . .  A snake? A frog? No no , maybe it’s a worm or a turtle. . . You never really know with young boys do you? 

Daffodil in a pot made by the Boy

My baby had stopped to pick his mom a Daffodil. Now, as a gardener,  property owner, adult  I know it’s frustrating to have some random kid pick your precious pretty flowers. I get it. But, at that moment my mushy, filled to bursting, mom heart melted. It was the sweetest thing.  On his walk home, my boy, the run jump climbing boy, the one who later that night would bury his legs and feet in dirt and sand at the baseball field “just for fun” boy thought enough of a flower to stop and want to bring it home to his mom. Priceless.

Today, on the way to school, we had a talk about the importance of leaving flowers where we find them so that others can enjoy their beauty and about that even though they are in “nature” it is someone's flower.  Even though, secretly, I was still mushy and happy,  seeing that pretty yellow flower that my baby picked just for me, on my window sill. 

Even the Kitten likes to smell the flowers

The Weather

Tulips sprouting

Yesterday was beautiful. Today is shaping up to be pretty gorgeous. High in the 80F range sounds like a perfect Spring day. Lol But, it’s only the middle of March. That is definitely out of character for Michigan weather.   Tulips bulbs that I planted last Fall are starting to pop up, they bring with them the promise of warmer days and cool nights.  The weather and promise of Spring makes me want to dig in my garden, to plant flowers and vegetables everywhere.   I am already planning a raspberry patch along one side of my garage.  And the herbs, can’t forget about herbs! I see myself sinking containers into the ground, spaced out in a “S” shaped pattern. I can almost smell the Lavender, Rosemary and Thyme. 

Budding leaves

Only, I have to get ahold of myself, lol, no rushing into planting just yet. I still believe there will be a wild snow storm in April, a freak frost in the first week of May. It has to happen. This is Michigan after all. Right? I must admit, I am worried about what the unseasonable warm weather means for the garden this year. Our trees are budding and the grass is green, bugs are coming out again. Will the weather be too warm and the vegetables get too leggy? A question every gardener must worry over.

To satisfy my urge to garden, I am happy to at least begin to turn over the earth. Spread some layers of compost out. I compost from organic matter such as potato peals to paper, but my secret is I also like to add a bit of my chicken manure. The nitrogen that the manure produces helps to break down the other organic matter and also adds some nutrients into the compost which in turn feeds my garden soil. I only have 5 backyard hens so the manure is not a lot, however it does do the trick in my opinion.

Enjoy the turning of the seasons everyone. I am heading outside to get some vitamin D and to relish the sunshine and heat while it lasts. I still think there is an ever present threat of snow or frost. lol Atleast until May. 

Chickens in the yard : )