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!