Flowers in Marron Valley

I figured since we have a lot of garden friends some of you might know the names of the flowers I found in Marron Valley (halfway between Otay and Tecate Mountain).

These next two are from the top of Otay.


You can't imagine the crap I took for taking pictures of flowers...........
Matt

more great mural pictures...

....over at Poppy heart. Check it out!

reading room...

Sometimes the collection of books sitting toilet-side perfectly represents our families current intellectual pursuits ...this is not one of those times...afterall there is no "Hobbit" for Emmett or parenting-your-spirited-child books or WWII books for Matt or Emmett's other fav, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (hilarious to hear him laughing on the pot hysterically) ...not even a Harry P or Artemis Fowl for Mac.
The addition of Silas' potty reading material, "Grovers 10 Best Ways to Help the Earth" and the low-brow but hilarious "Curiously Compelling Bathroom Book" and especially the Judy Blume sitting up top...well, these are the reasons for this post.

"Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. " is well rifled through and I perused it the other day...it's been 27 years since I've done that...and all those pre-teen issues came flooding back. It has been a hormonal hurricane around here lately. Lots of feelings and changes and...late night snuggling conversations about every little thing. Growing up is hard. I forgot about a lot of it. Judy nailed it in so many ways.

As for Silas' on the potty...we are no where near the goal, not even trying yet really... it's still diaper on, sitting and reading. And occasionally I will catch him pulling out the little potty bowl and wearing it as a hat. That is a sure sign he has no idea at all what's supposed to go in there.
And here's a fact for you from "Compelling..."
did you know that King Tut was buried with 145 pairs of loin cloth underwear...
and...the shortest complete sentence in the english language is "Go."????

the mural

Our new school mural is finally complete after much planning and help from many families. It was designed by a kindergarten dad, Rafael Lopez, who is an awesome artist and has illustrated childrens books and has even designed a postage stamp.)...
I wish this were a better picture...Emil will put one up eventually on the garden blog...a panorama...but I just couldnt wait to show all of "you" out there. I just think its beautiful.

Totems

ok Cami, we have been
hunting far and wide
for these for Finley's
Big 1rst B-Day and they
just are so cool we had
to give you a Natural
History Museum
Diorama-like preview...

the catch is that the rabbit is only
1 3/4 inches tall and a definite chokable...but it was the only cool rabbit we could find...so we may be turning this into some sort of mobile...

I think we should add a chicken, ladybug and toad to add the effect don't you?

For all of us!

I know many great mamas, my
mom being at the top of the list!
So, Happy Mothers Day to all...from
those of us who get slobbery baby kisses
and bizarre breakfasts in bed, or
awesome glued heart cards, or
the "Chronicles of Narnia" to be
read aloud, or clean cars (I am
keeping my fingers crossed
on this one...), or watch batteries
replaced (in our house the
wishes are practical!) or simply a day
of relaxation that involves only a few
loads of laundry...and especially to those
celebrating their first mother's day with
cutie little toddling red-heads
or brand newies in their arms...

And a humongous thankyou to those
little people who made us all moms
in the first place.
(Matt, you get a shout out for that too!)

the Men in my life ROCK!!!!!!

Crimson Butterflies and Mexican Orchids

The prettiest 'guara' I have ever seen, called crimson butterflies...much prettier than the white...


















...and I definitely put 'epiphyllum', aka mexican orchids, on my list...for home and the succulent garden ay school!

Ry and Si...

This one is for you Lydia and Sean! Ry is so much fun and Silas seriously worships that cute boy. This mornings conversation was all about him! Check out the mayhem...
(I apologize for the annoying mama narration...again.)

cats cradle...

mac is back!!
here are just a few of the many things she learned at camp...

the teacup and eiffel tower

cats whiskers and jacobs ladder

witchs broom

Hide-and-Seek Hysteria

They could do this all day. This is why the noise level in our house is sooooo outta hand!

love these...

It's amazing how English-Garden-Looking you can get with some of these drought tolerant perennials!




Veronica Longifolia "eveline" (left)
Catmint (right)

you must must MUST check this out...

...Cami's most recent post!
This is one of the many reasons you gotta love Cami...that she was and is this girl!!
Just classic!

and off she goes...

Mac and her 5th grade class are off on their "Science Camp" adventure.
She spent last night alternately worrying about being homesick and packing meticulously.
She thought up every possible scenario of what could go wrong and only then could she relax. She takes after her mama AND her papa that way. Prepare for the worst, expect the best. I got the feeling she realized that it was actually going to be ok when she waved "bye" from that enormous bus with the biggest smile. I heard she and Isabel talking..."this is the first day of the rest of our lives"...and "we start our adventure!"
Ahhhhh, the freedom!
The difference a year makes...
I didn't even get teary-eyed. As with all things, when the time is right it isn't hard, just natural!

Two Guys in Corduroy

Emmett and I woke up one day and realized we had similar taste in clothes, and attitude.

Papa

out with the crock-pot, in with the juicer

oh yeah baby

We made juice twice today. Rhea introduced me to the JackLaLane Juicer a few years back...I think it was her apple/ginger that hooked me...anyway, it's time to start 'er up again. The kids were initially very excited to make alotta noise and have pulp for the compost.

This afternoon we made apple-carrot- cantalope-strawberry-raspberry-tangerine.
Wow.

Tonight with dinner we nixed the carrot and cantalope and added lime.

Both awesome to Emmett and Nana and me...we are mixers of all things edible.

Mac and Matt are purists and would prefer one or two fruits at a time max...and nothing on the plate touching, thankyou!

Good-bye soup, hello juice!

California Native of the Week...

Agastache "Summer Breeze" (left). This is the kind I got today at the City Farmer. The one on the right is Agastache "Apricot Harvest" but many of the different varieties make tall pretty bushes like this. Great cut flowers too!
Hardy, tall blooms, the leaves smell awesome...kind of like a lemon thyme/desert sage smell.

a not-that-profound moment of clarity...

what makes happiness?
For me...time spent listening to music, creating art, making things grow, learning from someone and teaching what I know ...time alone in quiet, time with children...working hard for something that matters with time to observe the fruits of my labor...all of this shared with people I love in the most natural environment possible...

When I boil it down, it's simple.

If we each could define our 'happiness list' and keep these ideas in the forefront of our minds...steer clear of activities that lead us away from these basic concepts...life would be so clear.

These have been my thoughts from today and yesterday and everyday since I saw the movie "Into the Wild"...I really loved it because it made me think about where my happiness comes from. If you haven't seen it... do.

Girls...Join the Revolution!!!

From my "sista" Megan...a mid-wife-to-be...a Planned Parenthood employee...my feminist connection...
the lady in the vaginal know...

She highly recommends the DIVA cup!! What is it? It is a tampon alternative that you buy ONCE and only ONCE unless you're me and then TWICE after I lose it the first time...

It is easy and cool and doesn't leak EVER (Megan is right here and put the emphasis on the EVER)!
The awesome company, lunapads.com, also makes a girls starter kit for our up-and-coming generation of feminists. You can also buy it at Whole Foods or online. Megan is so enthusiastic about this product I had to stop her from doing a demo. (JOKE.)

Be Eco-Friendly, Never mess with Tampons again,
Stop Giving Your Money to The MAN

(Embrace your inner woman. don't be the one who says, "ewwww")
Dare to comment.

the ultimite starwars post...by emmett

starwars was an atractting sceince fiction movie because of
the invention of the LIGHT SABOR and the DEATH STAR. it made kids move from
dungeons and dragons to light sabors and planets. it really
evovled and here is my impresion of a droid.





and my mom wont let me do generel greivus and mase windou or r2d2 or imperial walker
because she said"one violent video is enough." phooey.
she is acting like lord sideus, i need to summon yoda.

let's worship!

Today is Silas' Half B-day!

18 months is the best!
When Silas wakes up saying "Hello bed! This is mama, here's silas... walk?"
And then proceeds to introduce me to every inanimate object between my bed and the coffeemaker...then says "sowwy" for sorry when he bumps me and "shanks" for thankyou when I hand him his cereal...and says, "of cose" to just about any question...it's just great fun all day long.








This picture cracks me up because he is making that sort of baby-drunk face that comes from too much time in the same room...the slap-happy-because-we-have-been-in-the-house-for-5-days-with-sick-siblings-and-their-sick-friends-face...He has been a trooper but he definitely misses the playground at school!

For all you real men out there!!!!!!!

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~thoffman/videos/mansong.swf

Open this link if you are a real man....
or married to one. Or even know one....

Matt

greats...

Mom and I have been trying to remember the name of this awesome, prolific, low-growing perennial...and mom found it in the new Sunset book today...GENTIAN! (click to enlarge)

We planted this from seed, just threw it around, last year or even the year before...it is so beautiful!!









These are two California Natives that I think are really beautiful...California Wild Lilac (aka Mountain Lilac) and Sweet Broom....that smells so good like lemony roses!

what we did today...

...worked at the SDCCS Garden and School Clean-Up ...
check it out here

the avant garde, dramatic, sweet and graceful piano stylings of the dreyer children...for the grandparents far and wide...

Teapot.

opinion post...

..so many good things about North Park...so many new restaurants springing up everywhere...and bars and shops...
but I have a beef with the Commonwealth Cafe...a decor issue...

Though I love the color green, and a huge neon green sign is so cool, its proximity to actual late night dining customers makes everyone look sick sick sick. Especially if this place is for the after-bar crowd who definitely need 'thoughtful' lighting, after the eyeliner starts to smudge and the mojitos have kicked in. First design rule...don't make the folks look nauseous and the food look freaky. Maybe a red sign, or the green sign moved outside and higher up...anything!

If you don't agree, just go there after dark, eat and take a picture of yourself. Not good.

(below, a photo from the gay and lesbian times from the review...see...just icky)

I will add that the food is good and it's great to have take-out burgers near home!

I got Fooled....

Every year I vow I won't get fooled again, but somehow it happens. In years past I have been sent to the pharmacy to buy lice cream and vagisil. I have been told I was having twins. I have had my car's windows entirely covered in Post-it notes. I have been fooled many times. This year I received three scary voice mails from my beloved wife. She was panicked because this rude man came to the door, asking all kinds of personal questions, asking where I was, my work number etc. This individual supposedly was delivering me a subpoena. I freaked, thinking I was being sued for something at work. Annie played on my fears.....I was FOOLED.

So to all of you, who trust their sweet and loving spouses and children, heed my warning. You may be Fooled. I was. Again.

Matt

lovely day, best sentence

...we got an e-mail from my brother Mike and his wife Dana with news that they are pregnant!! THIS IS SO EXCITING! They will be wonderful parents...he teaches 3rd grade and she is a doctor, both super loving and ready...great news!

...I heard this morning that mac's 3rd grade teacher Dmitry may be a papa very soon...the word is that his wife is having contractions and who knows...any minute, any day...This news is especially exciting for Mac who has always had a great friend in Dmitry as well as an inspired teacher who supports and shares her love of music and taste in books...and is hilarious, I should mention...

...I MADE lots of bowls today...maybe not that exciting but a reminder for me why I do this. Sometimes I spend more time cleaning and kiln loading than actually creating anything. I forget how peaceful and absorbing it is to just throw for a solid hour...

...My baby son is saying sentences now..."I did it!!" is a favorite..."Where are you!" is another..."My turn now" is a new one...and the very best came today in the parking lot...
"I love you mama!"

for craig...

... "big, BIG... truck?!"
The cousins have a lot in common!

lights out!

Well, it was lights out at our house between 8:00 and 9:00 last night for "Earth Hour" where our cities residences were asked to turn out the lights for Global Warming Awareness...the girls used this as an opportunity to totally freak eachother out in a scary kind of way.









The boys also got into it. The story goes...our van broke down in the pouring rain on an old country road...but wait, in the distance an old house...a mansion...with creaky doors and pianos that play on their own...
It was fun to watch them all get so into being totally and completely scared while knowing that it was just pretend.













I wonder if San Diego had a good lights-out turnout...our neighborhood sure didn't. We even went on a walk around the block to get other people to turn off their lights...it didn't work very well but we tried...
i

this is my ride!

Amy sent this to me...really funny...if I weren't so lazy I'd take some
pictures to prove that this IS my ride...just substitute scone crumbs for fries, crunchy-hippie bumper stickers replace the honor student ones, switch the diet coke with an americano...and have those golf balls cracking the front window from driving down Pershing...

loved reading this book!

This book was recommended to me by Anne
at the Grove and I bought it because I just couldn't
say NO when all I really wanted was the book Virgin Earth
that I mentioned in a previous post that turned out to be
horrible and ridiculous.... Anyway, Sight Hound is such
a good book...funny, sweet, great characters...
It was perfect for 3 days in the cabin
by the fire...

Happy Birthday Pop!

This goes out to my Pop. Happy Birthday to the Big Boss.

Our 5th Spring in Idyllwild!

A Touch of Greatness!

Cami recommended this movie to me many times (check it out here) and we finally watched it while she was here and it is really great and inspiring. Emmett even got a chance to watch some of it and he was fascinated too. It's one of those simple movies with a simple idea that absolutely changes your thinking.

It makes me want to rethink education and imagination and childhood...and reinforces the idea that school should be about much more than stuffing facts into young minds.

Thanks Cami for another great suggestion...you always know what I will like!




And now I am absolutely convinced that our school needs a drama program!!

Happy Birthday Indika!!

This b-day image did a little booty dance but I don't know how to make it do that on the blog...too bad because when I think of Indi I think of a happy dancing girl climbing really really high on a jungle gym at the age of 2!! Always daring! We love you!

Our New Tree!

Forest Pansy Redbud!!!

Cami, Nana and I went to Mission Hills Nursery on a quest for Wisteria and a Western Red Bud but they didnt have either so we settled for a Forest Pansy Redbud that has maroonish leaves in summer instead of green...



I am actually really happy about our choice now!!
It is also a California Native !



The color of the early spring flowers is incredible to me!
...another that I love but we don't have room for is an Australian Acacia! (for you Lydia!)

Happy Birthday Aida!

Ten Years Old! WOW!

Just look at those cute cheeks!

I can't believe we have know this
little girl for so long...still the greatest!

Love from all of us!

memory shots...

These cousins are just starting
to get used to eachother.
Silas wakes up wondering
about "the baby" and Finley
seems to like his company now!











We've had fun at the beach
and the diner. We have
taken lots of
walks to Rebecca's
and many
rides in the car listening
to various music...Silas
likes "Officer Krupke" from West Side Story ...
Finley likes it all!!

we got finley!!!

Check out that
upside-down cuteness!!

Finley is very sweet
and curious
and cuddly
and a little tiger...
she loves apples
and water and her MAMA
and watching her big cousins run around...
she is wary of Silas and Mabel...
(one drools the other is LOUD,
actually they are both loud and drooly...)
We LOVE her!

good-bye to the QUEEN!

The very last show...and there
were six...boy is the
queen exhausted!

you know you need some grown-up time ...

...when...

...everyone's lunch includes a sippy cup, including Matt, and you don't even notice ... this really happened today. Matt says, "Annie come check this out...see anything odd??"...and truthfully I didn't until he told me.

Next time he gets the crusts cut off and the butter in the shape of hearts!!











This (left) is the Star of India where Mac, as a male crew member from 1873, will be working and spending the night with her 5th grade class. She is a 'line-rigger' with a 2 hour night watch and has been practicing songs like..."what do you do with a drunken sailor?....bring 'em to the bilge and make 'em drink it and shave their belly with a rusty razor"...etc. How cool is that!





...Actually I don't need grown-up time...I want to be a kid again! They seem to have a lot of fun nowadays!