Oh, Greta. How you love your food.

Martin's been working a second job since Christmas. I kind of keep forgetting to mention that on here! So the girls and I have been spending a lot of time up at my parents' house as a result. Yesterday they made little Mimi bread loaves. Anja said hers was too pretty to eat... Evidently Greta did not share that opinion.

Looks like we'll be going to Virginia in July!

This afternoon both girls took a nap so Martin and I took advantage of their lasting good moods and had a date! The first real date in aWHILE. It was fun! A long time seated on the patio at Pepe's watching the people go by and sipping margaritas followed by a trip to Starbucks to sober up. Ha, that's a joke.

We're in the market for a couch. Thanks, Matilda.

I still love my iPhone! But w I want to call it MiPhone. Get it? Because it is MINE.

Tomorrow is calling for sprinkler weather! Hope everyone had a good day off. We'll be doing yard work and lots of it.

Whaaaa?!? If you want to read the post I made at my parents' house last night, you'll have to go back a few posts to may 17. So silly that it posted there! But there it is.

Sent from my iPhone

Greta was nursing the other day and got distracted by Anja, so I assumed she was finished and I pulled my shirt down. She immediately pulled it up again and said clearly, "No, I'm not quite done." I think I should start attending La Leche League meetings! Hahaha!

Today's blog post features this starving squirrel. I bought her from a pet store, where, according to her, she was NEVER fed! Poor thing!

And speaking of weird squirrels, we have a guy we call Ratty Squirrel living in our neighborhood. We googled squirrel-rat and found a picture of one that looks exactly like Ratty. Evidently the "squirrat" is a mythical creature and we now believe that our personal fortune is jumping through the tree branches outside our house, expertly avoiding photo opportunities. Hm.

This will eventually be a sweater for me. And if I knit my little heart out for the next four weeks I MIGHT get it done in time for the evening concerts at the Fiddlers Gathering, where it's often handy to have a sweater (and preferably one that matches whatever cute skirt you decided to wear that day.) wish me luck! I'm not even halfway done with the back, so don't worry, my expectations are realistically low.
Someday my dreams will come true and I will be transformed into a billionaire octopus. I will be able to buy all the yarn I want without even having to feel overwhelmed. With all those arms, I'd be able to do it all! Sigh. Maybe someday.

These pictures are from sometime back in April when we took a little daytrip down to one of our favorite places, Paoli. If you've never seen Southern Indiana in the springtime, it's well worth the miles and hours, no matter how far the distance from home.

We had lunch here at the Lost River Market. Picked up some of their fresh deli sandwiches and a few snacks (raspberry yogurt covered pretzels, anyone?) and it was such a sunny day, we sat out on their patio to eat.
Inside the store they have those little kid-sized carts!

We brought Jack with us. He really enjoyed it!

After the good lunch we headed down to this lake..... I can't remember what it's called, but the drive to it from Paoli was beyond gorgeous.

I heart Indiana. It was a fabulous trip!

In crafting news, I've been mostly just knitting, knitting, knitting. I'm working on a green sweater for myself now, which is (so far) turning out pretty well. I've not been sewing much, but I did make Anja a skirt the other day out of this weird quilt top that had been sitting in our back room (which is competely empty and stripped of carpet!) for four years. I cut it into two wrap skirt-ish things, then sewed one up for Anja. It's not really a wrap skirt--that seemed a little troublesome for a three year old--it's just made with an elastic waistband. She loves it! With the other piece, I intend to make one for Greta.

Now this is the part of the post where I talk about how obsessed with my animals I am.

I try not to talk too much about my animals. I know it seems kind of weird. Two beautiful children and I can't get enough of my cat? Hm. I'm pretty obsessed with my kids too, though. Today I called Greta back into the kitchen after breakfast so I could wipe the jam off her hands and face. She came in and put out one hand, then held up the other one and said "I wiped this one on some underpants."

Anja is very imaginative. She's come up with a holiday called "Bone Day" which is when you sing "Happy Bone Day to You" to your dogs and give them bones! We got some bone-shaped dog biscuits at the store that day, and got a toy bone for them too. We sang the song A LOT... to everyone we saw too, not just dogs! It was a happy holiday.

Also, Anja has a whole houseful of pets (and she doesn't REALLY live with me... she lives in her own pink house, alone... well, except for the pets. And Greta lives in a purple house next door.) She has a cat named Squeaky who has a kitten named Smodo. She has two dogs, Dogalina and Raincone. They are yellow labs! Such a beautiful imagination.

Greta is obsessed with lights. When the lights are not turned on in a room she tells me "A cow is mooing!!!!" So.... that's Greta these days.

My garden! We've collected some lettuce and my peas are doing great! We bought some really, really sad tomato plants for fifty cents, and I'm hoping that with a little TLC they will produce much fruit for us throughout the summer!! Also we've planted radishes, carrots and onions.

I'm at my parents right now.... and it's way past bedtime, soooo.....

HAPPY SPRING!!!!!

Where's my text???

Ok, I keep trying to make blog posts with my pictures, but I can't get the text to show up. Have I mentioned how much I love my iPhone? I even love the annoying clackity typing sound. Here's a picture of the barn at prophetstown! Please leave a comment if you see this post. I'm not sure I'm doing anything right on here.

Trying again here on the ole iPhone. No, definitely new iPhone, and definitely beyond my brain capacity. I'll keep this short in order to lessen my frustration when it doesn't publish:
- bought yarn today. Will be sweater for me.
- summer weather is lovely, but when will my house get clean if I'm outside all day?
- been clearing out the pumpkin patch. (of weeds, not pumpkins) hopefully we'll get it fenced in before the vines creep onto the sidewalk.
- Matilda went into heat.
- Matilda got spayed.
- Martin hosted a self-defense class here last weekend so the girls and I were supplied with much entertainment!
- I don't like spiders.
- Anja just had her half birthday. That means she's halfway to being 4. I'm just not sure I can handle that.
- on Monday I attended my sole social obligation of the year, the Shirley Martin songwriting scholarship awards night. I was feeling pretty good about myself, thinking I didn't look too bad, I wasn't seeming to be too uncomfortable with being out from my rock, my kids looked presentable. Then I got home and saw that I had blueberry juices smeared all across my forehead. Goodbye, self confidence! Thanks for the nice ten minutes!
- I'd like to figure this thing out and get myself back into the blog world.

Next time I'll try picture AND text!

Sent from my iPhone

Gnome Homes

Last night was my annual obligation: The Shirley Martin Scholarship for Young Songwriters awards night. It was great! Martin mostly stayed outside with girls and this is what became of their time outside: This is a tree outside of the TAF building, and all the sticks propped up in the limbs are Anja's special placement of them. She made a gnome home!! One of those clusters of sticks is a front porch.

This is one of the little "rooms" she made with pieces of bark that she found. There were two little spots like this.

She was so proud of herself! And I was proud of her too!! She kind of came up with it by herself... we have a little fairy home under our tree in the backyard, but we've never known of the gnomes to visit.

I have an iPhone! I got it for Mothers Day... I guess I never explained that here. So now I have internet access, but I'm still figuring out how to make blog posts from it. Soooo.... hopefully I'll be back on here regularly before too long.

Checking in... Maybe...

Old and Out of Touch

Last night was kind of cold and kind of damp and after the girls went to bed it was the perfect night for sipping vanilla chai on the front porch swing. So Martin headed out to Vienna to pick up a couple for us. He texted me quite awhile later, "I am old and out of touch." I replied that Vienna makes me feel that way too, but had something happened?

Turns out he'd been asked by a group of college kids to take their picture. Of course, he said he'd be glad to, and one girl handed him her iPhone. (I am laughing even while I type this.) He didn't know what to do. He actually held it up like a camera, screen facing toward the group, and was looking for a button to push. He got all flustered and the girl came to help him, then he evidently proceeded to take really bad pictures. They wanted a picture of all of them jumping, and he just couldn't get one of them in their jump. And then, instead of saying something mean and sarcastic as he would usually do in an embarrassing situation, he was just like, "Oh, sorry... I'm sorry I missed it again... um.... I'm not very good at taking pictures..." and finally the girl came up and took her phone back and that was it. He came home. His exact words were, "It was so bad, Annie." For the record, Martin's mother AND my mother both have iPhones, from which they text each other, and us, daily. They are both in their 60's. And my husband, who isn't even very close to being thirty, couldn't figure one out AT ALL.

Oooh, Martino. I know I've always said I'd like to grow old with you, but at this point I'm not really sure how much "growing" can be left to do in that direction.