Picara Baby Carriers

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Dragonfly


This guy was hanging around our backyard today. Very neat!

By Popular Demand

Becky has been asking to see photos of the pool fence and here they are:





I bought the fence from a wholesaler for $6 a foot and then premeasured the holes. We were looking into drilling the holes ourselves, but I felt that it would be too hard if we made a mistake. So we ended up hiring a friend who is a contractor to drill the concrete. 12 holes later and the fence was up!
I feel so much better now about our patio. It's great to be able to let Sarah go out and play without direct supervision. The hot tub locks shut, the pool is now fenced off, so the yard is as safe as it's going to be. Now when any more munchkins come along there is a lot less work to do.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Some Garden Pics

Sarah's tongue after a lime shaved ice.

The back garden bed over the pool. We took out all the ornamentals (except the sago palm) and replaced everything with vegetables, herbs and some pretty flowers.

I turned the side of the house wasteland into a pumpkin and squash patch. Weedwhacked the 7 foot tall weeds, raked, laid down weed paper, put in about 500 pounds of compost, put up a compost bin, and planted.

Better look at the high tech soaker hose watering system.

Lovely picture of me cutting back the giant blue plumbago bush in the corner. It was sending shoots through the fence and breaking fence boards. It was also hiding the lilies I planted that I thought had never come up. It needs a new home, oh Freeeeeecycle.

Here is the plumbago uprooted and left for someone on Freecycle on my lawn. Isn't the lawn lush and beautiful. We're having to mow it at least once a week now and it's still LONG.

Here are the lilies that were hiding under the plumbago.

Friday, May 26, 2006



Sarah had a visit with her dad today, so I'm on a forced hiatus in the Bay Area. Oh what great difficulty my life brings me. sigh. I got to:

1. Go to Berkeley Bowl and buy kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal, ginger, kumquats, little itty bitty baby cantelopes, curry powder, garam masala powder, mango powder and some other stuff.
2. See Astroturf car parked outside Berkeley Bowl.
3. Be assaulted by Greenpeace activist outside BB. She had no idea of personal space. I am sorry, but I don't want your braless boobies on my arm, you're not that cute.
4. Be pleasantly surprised by the nice guy selling Street Sheets past the Greenpeace Gal. If she learned how he did it, she'd get a lot more money for GP.
5. Go to a hardware store where I've purchased sling rings before and be told, No they have never, nor would they ever carry 3.5 inch soldered aluminum rings even though I've special ordered hundreds from them before. Huh?
6. Go to my old local library and have the children's librarian ask how munchkin was by name. You'll all be very happy that I finally organized all the last paperwork for the divorce to be final final final. About time, 4 years later eh?
7. Now I'm sitting in Temescal Cafe, drinking kick ass organic fair trade coffee, eating a gingerbread biscotti, listening to jazz and blogging.

I love my life.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

My Work and Hobby

Sarah's opinion of my work and my hobby are quite low apparently. I just found my special "only for the sewing machine" screwdriver impaling a stack of origami paper. She picked a nice variety of papers though, good color combo.

Oh and I made her a dress yesterday, Joann fabric has this pre-smocked fabric that you literally just hem and put straps on and voila, cute little sundress. Sarah picked out a green with butterflies. I'll have to applique butterflies over the strap seams, to make it ULTRA cute, but it's very very cute now.

Here's the closest thing to a picture I could take:
She was doing the cabbage patch.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Fresno BabyFest


Here is our sling winner from Mamaspalooza.


If anyone is in Fresno, CA this Saturday there is a baby fest going on at the Discovery Center. Mommy Matters will be boothing there and carrying a good variety of MaMaMade Slings. You know you want to go and make me money.

Monday, May 15, 2006

T-Ball


Oh isn't she just the cutest thing with a bat??

Taking Shape


The garden that is. It's finally starting to look somewhat like I imagined. It's still the first season ina new house, but it's better. I am a glam whore, so I've definately been putting in things that will bloom soon and profusely. I'll save all the esoteric wonderful stuff for when I know the climate and the soil better.
Right now it's 7:47 AM and it's already 70 degrees. The high yesterday was 97. Sigh, I hate hot weather.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Mother's Day

So, I'd love to be posting about how wonderful my child is being today. Instead I'll say, it's good I love her. She's being whiny, clingy and obnoxious. Blech.

Happy Mother's Day to all those mom's out there, all those who'd like to be a mom and all those who didn't get to be a mom. I am still all choked up about cancerbaby dying. Just not fair.

Let's hope I get in a better mood later.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

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Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Compost

This is Sarah at Mamaspalooza on Saturday. Note the new T-ball uniform. :)
Sarah and I loaded up 400 lbs of free compost at our city yard on Monday. I even got it all into the front beds that afternoon. I'm trying to convert our horrendous desert soil into something that resembles fertility.

She was such a help shoveling, we backed the truck up to the pile and dropped the tailgate. She brought her little red plastic shovel, I had a big one. She spent the whole time sliding down the compost pile into the truck and I shoveled. All in all a very dirty but fun adventure.

I need to go pick up another load, but probably not till next week. I found a bunch of plants on the distressed table at the hardware store. I put a bunch in, but need to put in the zucchini, herbs, butternut squash and other random stuff. I did more dahlias in the front, and found 3 bareroot roses for 3 dollars each. I put those under the front windows and laid out weed barrier paper to try and kill the weed patch that has grown in since my bulbs stopped blooming.

I'm trying to decide if I will join the school board of the preschool next year. I know I'd be elected, there just isn't enough interest from other people, I'm sure we'll have vacant spots. I don't know if I want all that work even though it would be really fun.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Mamaspalooza is OVER

What a fabulous day! We had such a great time and MaMaMade Products was a huge hit. I sold enough to cover the boothing fee and all the printing and extras I bought. I had a contest for people to try on our slings and let us take pics. If we choose them for the website then they receive a free sling. I'm now stuck picking from a great of lovely pics. Help!!
Pretty baby in pretty sling
Nice view of the sling
Daddy and cutie pie son
Happy Mom.

Which one do you vote for?

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Ramping up for the weekend

I made 27 baby wraps yesterday. Today I have 16 ring slings to finish, as well as all the signage for the booth. I have most of the prep work done, just need to finish the outside seams and put tags and rings on the slings. I'm hoping to show up at the event with over 50 carriers plus loveys.
I'm doing a contest at the event, if someone tries on one of our carriers and let's me take pics, I'll find the best pics and use them on the website. If I use the pic on the website, that person gets a free carrier. I hope it works.
The weather cooled off somewhat so I'm hopeful that it will only be about 80 on Saturday instead of the 90 it was earlier this week. I know it's not THAT hot, but I'm not a hot weather person. Sarah has been enjoying it a lot. We even went swimming in our pool on Tuesday. If the pool is already this warm, I think we might need to cool it off somehow later in the summer.
I've put in tomatoes, artichokes, rosemary and strawberries in the back yard so far. I need to get a bunch of compost and amend the beds, our soil is pretty awful. I don't know what will grow right now. I'm hoping for a few successes. The city offers free compost though, all I have to do is take the truck over there and load up. Probably won't happen till next week though.
In the front I'm struggling with what to put in to cover the space where the bulbs are. I'm thinking some sort of reseeding annuals with perennial bushes behind.
The snails are awful, they've already eaten two dahlias. I'm hoping the dahlias will resprout, they are my favorite flower.
I have put out Sluggo (the only snail bait I've found that is "somewhat" safe around kidlets) but it doesn't seem to be working.
Sarah started swim lessons on Tuesday. She has been asking when we go back since we left the YMCA. I guess she likes it LOL.
She also has her first T-Ball game on Saturday. I'm going to have to miss her first game as it's the same time as I need to set up for Mamaspalooza. Frank promises to take lots of pictures. I guess this is what motherhood is about, knowing that you'll miss things and being ok with it. Sarah is fine with Saturday being a "super fun frank and sarah day". I'm so lucky she loves him that much.