Gardening with a side of OCD

My grandpa was a great gardener.  He grew beautiful flowers all over his yard, and he had a weed-free, well organized vegetable garden.  I loved to look at his garden and to snack on freshly picked green beans in the summer.

I've had my own garden consistently since I was 24-years-old, along with a disappointing garden a couple summers when I was in my teens.  (Tomatoes don't grow well under a gigantic shade tree and I got sick of hauling water from the house.)

When I was sitting down to plan my garden a few weeks ago, I looked at the spread before me and shook my head at myself.  Gardening is supposed to be relaxing.  It seemed wrong to plan a garden using two computer programs, three sheets of graph paper, and another sheet of notes.

I thought, this is gardening with a side of OCD.

But then I thought of my grandpa.  The man counted and recorded every bean he picked (along with everything else, as well as the temperature) as long as I knew him.  And, I realized my anal-retentive gardening technique is truly a tribute to my grandpa!  That, in addition to the pickles we make most summers using his and my grandma's recipe with our garden cucumbers (which will be grown in precisely 7 square feet of space in the northeast quadrant of my garden).

Toast

For the last few years, I've been a little unsure about the effects of wheat on the body.  (I am constantly reading about food and getting myself paranoid.)  So, my kids haven't had a lot of bread products, aside from homemade ones made with almond flour or other grain-free substitutes.  Lately, I've been opting to let my kids be more mainstream (read: less deprived), so we've had more bread around.

The other morning, my kids had made themselves cinnamon toast, one of my childhood favorites.  I was cleaning the kitchen when I heard this exchange.

Luke:  Toast is so good.
Ally:  Mmm hmm, whoever made this up is smart.

Ice water

My parents love drinking their water well iced.  Although I loved ice water when I was pregnant, in the last several years, my teeth just can’t take it.  

The other day, after my parents had been visiting, Luke filled a cup with ice and put it in the microwave for three seconds.

I asked, “Buddy, what are you doing?”

“I'm wanting it to melt a little so I can have ice water,” he explained.

I thought it was a little odd, and then I figured it out, “Are you trying to drink ice water like Oma and Opa?” I asked.  Then explained, “They just put some ice in and then add water.”

“Ha!” he laughed, completely surprised, “That's strange!”

This girl is on fire

Kate has, once again, been on fire!  

She won the Scholastic Writing Award for a short story she wrote.  She was competing against kids in high school!

She went to State in Forensics!

She also won Student of the Trimester at school for her all around academics and behavior!

Here she is at Grl Pwr,
an event to empower girls to be their best selves,
with two friends a few weeks ago.

This kid is something else!

Skiing with my funny little weirdos

We went skiing in Michigan for Spring Break.  I had been nervous about going, since I spent this winter still vacillating between being scared to ski and finding it somewhat fun.  But, I'm happy to say, the trip pushed me over to the “fun” view.

That said, I’m still a very cautious skier.  It’s simply a different sport when you learn when you’re 40-something instead of when you’re six.

Luke doesn’t understand this, though.

At one point, he said, “Mom, you know how you can go faster?”

“I don’t want to go faster.”

He looked slightly taken aback and then tried again, “Okay, but when you’re older and you want to go faster...”

One of the things I find really fun is an app Dave found for our Apple Watches that tracks our distance, number of runs, altitude, and speed.  I love numbers, so it adds a whole new dimension to the skiing.

I got really excited when I broke the 20 mph barrier.  (For reference, Luke went 38 mph when he borrowed my watch, and Dave hit 44 mph on a run.) When we got on the lift with Luke, I excitedly said, “Buddy, I went 21!”

He laughed.

I realized how ridiculous my speed sounded to him, even though it was honestly exciting for me.  So, I teased him a little.  I put on a hurt expression and, pretending to be confused, asked, “Why are you laughing?”  

He quickly realized I’d been actually excited about my speed and made his face very serious and explained, “I don’t know why I was laughing.”

This cracked me up.  He’s such a sweetheart!

Speaking of Luke being a sweetheart, his twin is not.

The hotel had a double headed shower.  So, one day after we’d been swimming, I shared the shower with her.  I washed her hair then turned my back to her to wash my face.  Next thing I knew, the kid had turned around and was gently smacking my rear end singing, “I like big butts, and I can not lie.”

She got a severe tickling for that one.

She’s pretty funny.  And I learned that she’s also kind of like me with her love of numbers.  Whenever I’d ride up the chair lift with her, she’d look at the number of the chair in front of us and add one to figure out what number chair we we were in, and then she’d play with the numbers.  If we were in 38, she’d say, “We’re in 11...or 5... or -5... or 24...”. 

And in case that wasn’t a weird enough trait of mine to inherit, Anna confessed to me that she when she’s skiing, she imagines her goggles can hone in on objects and give her directions.  I think she envisions it like an Iron Man suit.

I can’t comment, because I was at least her age when I made myself a Batman outfit and rode my bike around as fast as I could with just as crazy imagery running through my own weird little head.

Poor, strange kids!  Boy, do I love them.