I can’t believe that we can ban people from smoking in public places and we can’t get rid of crooks and killers like Monsanto!! I try so hard to make my home and environment a healthy, nurturing one. It makes me sick that these huge corporations are out there dumping filth into my world! When I hear about all of the babies in Vietnam that have been effected by Agent Orange (an herbicide made by Monsanto), it makes my body shake! What if things had been different and I was born into a vietnamese family? That could have been me or worse, K!! AAAARRRGGGHHGGHH!! And they have just been let off the hook for all the horror that has been caused by this herbicide. We have got to take a stand!! (YES! I am screaming!) Now this company, who is huge into genetically modified crops, is sueing small farmers for saving their own seeds! (It cuts in on their profits, ya know.) What the F*%#?? Go away Monsanto! You Suck!!
Author Archives: Maria
Paneer
I made my first cheese/paneer this morning and it turned out pretty good. I can buy some really tastey paneer at the local co-op, but it is hard for me to pay $12/pound if I can make it myself! So, here’s the recipe I used:
- 1 Quart milk (I used low fat) warmed on med. high just until it has a good rolling boil (I stir it a good bit to try to keep it from burning on the bottom).
- Add 2 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice /or vinegar (I used a mix of both) and a dash of salt and give it one good stir.
- Remove it from the heat and let it sit for 15 minutes
- Line a colander with cheese cloth and pour the curds and whey over the cloth. (you can reserve the whey for soups, too)
- Tie the ends of the cheesecloth around the “ball” of curds and hang it over the sink to drain. Leave it over night.
- The next morning, remove the cheese from the cloth and (if needed) wrap it loosely in plastic wrap. Place heavy objects on top of the ball to flatten it out and drain the rest of the water.
- Once it is done draining, put it in a tupperware in the fridge.
I tripled the recipe. My paneer didn’t need to be drained after it was hung up to drip. It came out fairly dry, but still really good. Maybe I will add a little less vinegar next time and see if it will stay together better. I may also try adding some spices, too.
Tonight, I am going to make Palak Paneer (or Spinach Curry):
- 1 C (~4oz) Paneer, cubed
- 20 oz fresh or frozen spinach, chopped
- 3/4 C onions, finely chopped
- 1 tsp. ginger, finely chopped
- 2 tsp. garlic, finely chopped
- 1 green chili, chopped (I am not a fan of spicey food, so I use a few roasted red peppers)
- 1 tsp. Garam Masala
- 3-4 Tbsp. butter
- Salt to taste
- Oil for frying
Heat the oil (for frying) and fry the cubed paneer until light brown. Set aside.
Boild the spinach with ginger and garlic. Drain and puree. Heat the butter in a pan and add the chili (or red pepper) and onions. Saute till light brown. Add the garam masala, spinach puree and salt and cook for ~5 minutes. Finally, add the fried cheese.
Serve with heavy cream and flat bread if desired.
An egg to you all!!
One thing I really enjoy about any holiday is exploring it’s history. In order to create traditions for my family, I want to understand where all of our current traditions/holidays come from. I really like the way the history of Easter is described here. I never understood what a rabbit and an egg have to do with the resurection of Christ. But, it seems that the rabbit and the egg were both ancient symbols of resurection, fertility, and life. So, with the return of Spring we have the return of life, fertility… and Peter Cotton tail handing out eggs. So, in honor of ancient customs, I give you all an egg and wish you a fertile, prosperous year!
Haven’t pooed in 12 days
I’ve got your attention now, eh?? No, really, I am doing an experiment with my hair called No ‘Poo. And I haven’t shampooed in 12 days. I have washed my hair, I just haven’t used shampoo. See, Toby hasn’t used shampoo in his hair in years and it looks great! It is thick and shiny and he doesn’t have all that shampoo/chemical build up. So, when I read a little more about it, I decided to give it a try. Now, when ever I take a shower, I use a little baking soda and apple cidar vinegar on the ends of my hair, and give myself a great scalp massage. I thought it was going to be an oily mess, but after a few days my hair has already started to adjust. My scalp isn’t over producing oil anymore and my hair has lots of body and wave and looks like it’s been styled. The only thing I don’t like is that it feels heavier. Maybe that will go away after the full adjustment period. We’ll see how it goes. The baking soda and vinegar are supposed to pull out all of the daily build-up of sweat/pollution/etc, but I really use to like sudsing up my hair and the smell of it after using a good fragrant shampoo. But, I also like not putting the sodium lauryl crap in my hair.
Ok, other happenings…
Today in the garden I planted some Cosmos, Sorrel, Fennel, Love-in-a-mist, Cilantro and Arugula (all seeds). I hope all this stuff that I am putting in so early grows well. I could wait a little longer, but I am so antsy to get in the garden that I am taking a risk with frosts and cold weather. I got a report back from the State Ag. Center about my soil and it has a pH of 6.8 and great nutrients and minerals. All it needs is a little more Nitrogen!! Yay!! (Good thing I put in the raised beds with new soil ’cause the soil on our land has a pH of 5.1!!)
So, I am hoping to take a weekend away. Meaning, for the first time since K was born, I hope to get some quality time by myself and leave Toby and K at home. I have put it off for this long since K is still nursing. I didn’t want to force her to wean. But, she is almost two, and I am desperate for some time independant of my little side-kick. I love her, but 24/7 365 days a year is a lot of time to spend with someone! So, what should I do?? Any ideas from my fellow bloggers? My first thought was to head just north of Asheville, and get a cabin at the hot springs up there…
Fasting– Another thing I am desperate for is a good fast/cleanse. I use to do a cleanse every spring. I would either juice for a week or do some form of a cleanse to clean my body out after ‘hibernating’ for the winter. It always felt great! But, with being pregnant and nursing, I didn’t want to fast and have all those toxins get in my breast milk. So, maybe, if K does wean with my weekend away, I will get a good cleanse going. Has anyone ever tried the Master Cleanser Fast? I think I am going to try this one. I like the juice fasts, but they always mess with my blood sugar. The Master Cleanser, is supposed to be different and so far I have only heard good things.
Insert Title Here
I hate trying to think of catchy titles for my blog entries!!
Anyway, check out this bunny my sister, Carla, sent K. Carla doesn’t ever plan on having children. So, she uses K as an outlet for spoiling 🙂 Isn’t it the cutest bunny ever??? I know that I didn’t start this blog to just post pictures of my child and her toys, but this is a cute bunny! I want one my size that says “I ‘heart’ Maria”!
Now, if Carla would just send K some proper shoes… My deprived child likes to go around the house wearing these…
Yes, they are kitchen gloves! (And, I’m just kidding Carla, we are well stocked on shoes. Thank you!)
Today’s plantings
Happy Spring Equinox!
Today in the garden, I’ve been busy! Here’s what I’ve been planting:
In raised bed #1 -Seeds of white clover to use as an undercrop (corn, summer squash, radish, aster and pumpkin will be added later)
Bed #2 – Potatos and parsley seedlings(bush beans, cilantro, dill, and a zinnea will be added later)
Bed #3 – (watermelon, cantaloupe nasturtium, and radish later)
Bed #4 – Onion, carrot, and beet seeds planted, Chard seedlings planted (eggplant, pepper, cosmos, calendula, blackeyed susan, and blanket flower to come later)
Bed #5 – Sweet Alyssum and nasturtium seeds planted (cucumber, zuchini and marigold later)
Bed #6 – Lettuce, Spinach, Kale, and Arugula seedlings planted (tomato, basil, borage, and cosmos later)
I also have some sorrel and other yummies that I want to fit in somewhere. I will probably start a big ‘perenials’ bed with herbs and more too. Busy, busy, busy!
Happy day o’ the Irish!
All dressed up for Grandpa!
My little piggy saying “Cheese!!” (or maybe she is asking the question “How far can you see up my nose??”)
AAacccKKK!
Don’t get me wrong, I am very glad that my little girl is regular. It’s nice to know that once a day, in the afternoon hours, she poops. But tell me, why does she feel that this is also the perfect time (before said poopy diaper is changed) to go bounce on her bouncy horse? What kind of power does this horsey have over her? And why does she keep doing it over and over every day!?!
Sorry, that was probably more than you wanted to know.
more plantings
We back from our conference, which was wonderful! I really enjoyed all of the classes I took. The “Planning your vegetable garden” class was a great refresher and synopsis of the things I should be doing now! The “organic beekeeping” class, again, a great review of all the things I have been reading. (We mainly focused on how to tackle varroa mites without using conventional chemicals. We went over screened bottom boards, mite resistant bees, organic methods like removing brood frames, 4.9 cell foundation…) The class on “high-production raised bed gardens” was actually the same class I went to last Fall, but it was a good review. Then I decided to go to a class on cooking with medicinal and culinary herbs. It was great. We ended class with a herbal pesto (made with chickweed, green onion, mustard greens, toasted sunflower seed, and a few other things!), and an herbal salad dressing (made with herbs and a vinegar prepared from blueberry wine) on top of greens. Mmmmmm…
The weather was amazing today. It was supposed to be chilly and overcast, but instead we got into the 70’s with sunshine all day. We finally got all of the posts up for the garden fence and got up the fencing. Good thing too, cause I found some deer poop just outside of my garden!! Hopefully they will stay out once I get things planted. I have been holding off on putting anything in the garden until we got the fencing up. But, tomorrow, I hope to get Kale, Lettuce, Spinach, and Radish in the ground. I just finished putting some hot peppers, cosomos, alyssum, marigold, calendula, aster, and nasturtium in flats (I’m using all the flowers as companion plants in different garden beds). We’ll see how it all goes. I’ve never tried flowers in flats before. I usually just throw them in the ground and rant and groan when they don’t come up 🙂
off to school
I’ll be signing out for a few days. I’m off to Asheville for the Annual Organic Growers School. I’m taking classes on “Planning your Vegetable Garden”, “Organic Beekeeping”, Easy Raised Beds for High Performance”, and either “Building Healthy Garden Soil” or “Medicinal Herbs”. See you when I get back!!
Feng Shui Gardening
We got out in the yard early today and finally got the garden beds put together. I still need to put down more mulch in between the beds, and we need to put up the fence. But, the beds look great, don’t they? Very Fung Shui!
We cut some cedar to make as fence posts. But, the water level seems to be really high in this part of the yard. So, the bottom half of the post hole is just mud. We need to rethink what we are going to use… I guess metal posts.
Most of my seeds seem to be doing pretty well. The kale, lettuce and tomatoes are growing great. (Except my cherry tomatoes). The chard isn’t putting on a great show, so hopefully I can get a few more growing before time to transplant. This is my first attempt at growing from seed. So, so far so good, really.
Well, my body is exhausted from working in the yard all day! I’m off to veg in front of the TV!
Lion, Tiger, and Bear
These past few days have been filled with fun projects! On Thursday night, I got to go to my monthly herb class/meeting! One of the local herbalists holds a monthly class out of her home and this months topic was “Pain and Herbs”. As always, I felt like I had gone home when I was there (does that make sense?). The smell of the fire burning, being surrounded by wise women who were all wanting to open their minds to the power of plant medicine, it was so calming and nurturing! I love these classes. One other fun thing about the class is the samples. As we discuss an herb, we pass around a tincture of that herb and those who want to can taste it. So, as you can imagine, I was without any pain by the end of the night!! We discussed White Willow, Meadowsweet, Kava, and Jamaican Dogwood to name a few.
When I got home from the class Thursday night, I noticed that the neighbor’s sheep (she has 3) were making a lot of noise. I commented about it to Toby as soon as I walked in the door, but thought, maybe they were just braaaaaying at the full moon or something 🙂
Today, we got up early to start working on the garden again. We have been digging post holes and clearing the area for most of the day. As you can see, K and Suki helped.
In the afternoon, my neighbor dropped by to apologize for all of the sheep noise lately. She said she came home on Thursday night to find one of her sheep, Dorothy, had given birth to triplets!! She hadn’t even known that Dorothy was pregnant! (That explains all the sheepy noise when I was coming home from my class) Since the mama’s name is Dorothy, she named the babies Lion, Tiger, and Bear. Tiger was much smaller than the other two and passed away. But, here are Lion and Bear, doing well and growing strong!
One other final fun note… we picked up our beekeeping equipment today! A local beekeeper made our hive bodies for us out of Cypress. So, I am going to give them a coat of my beeswax varnish and hopefully we will have them up and running in the next month!!
Today in the garden
This afternoon, while Toby was out of town and K was playing at her cousin’s, I went and got a facial!!! (Thanks mom for the gift card!) I had never had one before and it was heaven. I actually fell asleep! After the facial, I headed home for some alone time! I got all my seeds in the mail today, so I broke out the potting mix and planted some kale, lettuce, chard and tomatoes in flats. If you are reading my site for clues as to when to plant stuff in your flats, don’t do what I do. I have no idea what I am doing. I have never grown stuff from seed before. I usually run out to the garden shop at the last minute and grab whatever scraggly vegetables they have left. I have never been ahead of the game with my garden. Here’s why: early spring 2004 – house on the market, traveling every weekend to house hunt, finally took our honeymoon in April…in Tobago for 3 weeks. Missed every planting opportunity. Early spring 2003 – very pregnant, put a few veggies in the ground but let them get taken over while I tried to care for a newborn. Early spring 2002 – spent 3 weeks traveling out west, too enthralled with my new boyfriend to care if my veggies were covered in powdery stuff. So, you see, this year is going to be different!! Wish me luck!
Deer control
K and I went out today searching for deer fencing for our garden. The plot is going to be 40’x40′. I am only going to have 6 raised beds to start with (triangle shaped 8’x10’x10′), but I would also like to have a sand box for K to play in while I am gardening. Plus, this leaves lots of space for more raised beds. But, deer fencing is either very expensive, or flimsy, crappy, plastic stuff. One salesman told me about this stuff called Plantskydd that is suppose to be this fantastic deer deterent. But, it is basically pig and cow blood. Aside from the Mad Cow thing, why would I want to use pig and cow blood on my plants? The directions also said not to get it on anything that would be ingested… isn’t that everything in a vegetable garden? So, I started thinking. If blood is supposed to deter animals from eating the garden up, why couldn’t I just use my own blood? (I do ‘shed’ once a month…) I could mix my own very diluted healthy blood with garlic and mint or other repellant plants and spray it on the garden. Sound too gross?? Menstural blood is full of nutrients and minerals since it was supposed to support a baby. I’ve actually known a few women who would use the Keeper, catch their menstural flow, and then use it in their plant fertilizer. Their gardens were gorgeous.
What do you gardeners out there use to keep deer away?
Grandma moon
I’ve been working with K to try to cut down on the amount of times she nurses at night and it’s going very well. I just told her that after she gets her bedtime booby, she can nurse again when the sunshine is out, but not while Grandma Moon is up. The first night this was pretty hard for her and we did a lot of snuggling and crying. But, after that she was fine.
Last night, K started asking for booby around 7 pm. So, we went in her room and read a little. But, she was more interested in snuggling up and getting her bedtime booby. She didn’t want to stop nursing. When I finally told her it was time to go to bed she cried. I told her that she’d had both boobies and that we would nurse again when the sun comes up. She got annoyed and started pushing stuff around on her bed and telling her pillows to “mooove!!” Then, as she calmed down I heard her saying, very quietly, “sunshine, sunshine, no. Gamma moon now.” What a smart cookie!!
Manly men
We rented this monstrosity of a machine today to chip up all the pine brush that was left from cutting down the trees to make a garden space. We had a lot of work ahead of us, so we invited friends over (Thanks Eric and Mark!) to help out, and Toby’s dad (Thanks Vick!) came up from Charleston to lend a hand. I, of course, was on baby duty. I tried to find someone to watch K so I could get out in my soon-to-be-garden and do some work, but no luck. I felt pretty guilty having all these other people doing my work. I know Toby wanted the trees down as much as I did so that we could get some sunlight in our house. But, I was the one who kept pushing to get the chipper so that I could get my garden going, and there I was sitting on my kister playing in the sun. My plan was to get the area organized and straighten up the grounds where the garden will go. The men’s plan – destruction!! When I saw the look of utter happiness on their faces as they tossed tree limbs and shrubbery into this metal monster and watched it chomp the wood into tiny pieces, all feelings of guilt diappeared. Once K went down for her nap, I got my gloves on and went to work. The smell in the air was fantastic! It was like someone had dumped a truck load of freshly cut orange peels in our front yard!
Now, I have to start working on putting up the garden fence and building the raised beds. I am thinking of building 6 triangle shaped beds that all point to a center area. I’m not sure what will go in the center yet. I may put a perenial bed there… we’ll see.
Beeswax Varnish
I got K this great little natural wood table and chair set today. Since she will be drawing and playing on it, I want to protect it from getting too marked up. But, I don’t want to put nasty chemicals on it. So, I decided to try this Beeswax Varnish recipe that I have been wanting to try out for a while. Here’s the recipe:
BEESWAX WOOD FINISH (for bare wood)
1 pound beeswax
1 pint turpentine (odorless, if you can find it)
1 pint boiled linseed oil
Melt wax. Remove wax from heat source, then stir in turpentine and oil. Before applying to bare wood, warm the mixture to achieve better penetration. Apply with a soft cloth, let dry, then buff with a wool cloth. Old coats can be removed with an organic solvent such as turpentine. This can also be used on leather. (Another wood finish can be made with 1 pound beeswax and 1 pint turpentine, omitting the linseed oil.)
I quartered the recipe since I didn’t need much. But, it turned out really well. I just varnished the top of the table and it was pretty simple. Just dip the rag in the warm mixture and rub on the table. Then, buff it down after a few hours. (It’s like taking of car wax… you really have to buff “wax on, wax off”)
Here are Toby and K buffing the wax off (Yes, it is nudey time, but she was too cold to take her shirt off 🙂
And here is K enjoying her new table and chairs with some cool wood fruit. The pieces are held together by velcro. So, when you ‘cut’ it with the wood knife, it actually sounds like you are choping vegetables.
She Poops, Too!
K is a wonder child! Tonight she asked to go potty and as soon as we sat her down, she pooped!! Then, after taking a bath, she got back on the potty and peed!! I can’t believe she is figuring this out so fast! No more diapers, here we come!!
Wonderful Evening!
What a perfect end to the evening! K had a great time playing in a bubble bath. Then she got out and began her nightly ‘run-around-the-house-nudey’ time. But, instead of running around, she went to her potty, sat down and peed! All by herself! For the first time!! She was so excited that she spent the next 20 minutes getting on and off the potty saying “pee gen (again)!” I am so proud! 🙂
Being a mom is hard work!
Many of my blog reader friends are moms already. So, I’m sure I’m not telling you something new. But, before I became a mother, I had this view of me as “xena -warrior princess mom” able to accomplish anything in record time, while still loving nurturing and caring for my family. HA! More like “xena – too many loads of laundry, rarely showers, cranky in the morning, never accomplishes anything on her list mom” So, I only write the following entry because, though K is 19 months old, I am still stunned by the realization that being a mom isn’t more simple, and that it is accompanied by so many emotions (like rage, joy, saddness, enlightenment, exhaustion) that always seem to hit me, all of them, with in a very short span of time – say 20 minutes. I have some mom friends who say that becoming a mom has made their life simpler and easier…I say either you are fooling yourself, or you are on some really good meds! I thought that after a few months of being a mom, I would get things under control and have this gig figured out. No one ever told me that you give up your independance because now you have a twin who goes everywhere with you, needs everything from you and whom you love with such a fierce passion that you don’t ever want to think about what it would be like if she weren’t in your life. I love K so much that it hurts. I cry to think about the day when she won’t ask for ‘boobies’ anymore (but I desperately want to wean). My whole body feels lighter when I see her at my bed side in the morning saying “all done napping mommy” (but after being up all night trying to get her back to sleep, all I want to do is say “Come on! just go back to bed and give mommy a little more time to sleep!”) It’s such an amazing roller coaster ride! But, I feel like no one ever talked about this stuff before I had kids. I had no idea what I was in for. Or maybe I just didn’t listen. For the past few months I have been slowly reading this book “Operating Instructions” by Anne Lamott. (It’s actually a very fast read, but I haven’t had the time to devote to it). I would like to recommend this book to anyone who thinks they might have kids, are in the process, or who have kids! It is a mothers journal of the first year of her son’s life, no holds barred. And I love it. I find myself laughing so much because she can put into words the things that I have been feeling for so long but didn’t know how to express. And I find it very comforting to know that I am not the only one who thinks motherhood is hard. And though there are many moments that I feel like the worst mom in the world who just can’t hack it, I look at her and feel so lucky to have been blessed with an amazing daughter with a fantastic personality. Sometimes, when I feel off my rocker and start acting a little nutty, K approaches me with this ‘wise man on the hill’ look, tilts her head, puckers her lips and leans in for a kiss, as if to say, “It’s ok mommy. You’re doing just fine!”
planning
So, I’ve been working on my garden plans for this year. The pine trees have been taken down in the front and we now have a great sunny space for the bees, vegetable garden, fruit trees, herbs, and all the other stuff I want to plant! I have a busy spring ahead of me. Once we have cleared all of the tree debris, I am going to start by throwing out a bunch of wildflower seeds. We got a huge amount of seeds for our wedding 2 years ago. So, hopefully some of them are still good. Then I need to make a path the where the garden is going to be, fence off the garden (we have a lot of deer) and build some raised beds. We are going to hit the local lumber mill and see what scraps they might have available for the raised beds. My old way of gardening was to just put stuff in the ground. But, this year, I would really like to become more aware of which plants are beneficial to others and which plant families go well together. I would like to learn to plant by the moon signs. I also want to learn more about soil composition, organic fertilizers and beneficial insects. I feel so far behind.
Anyway, I don’t know the design of the garden yet. I’m going to wait until we have all the lumber for the raised beds before planning where they go. But, here’s what I would like to plant. It’s very ambitious and I will probably cut back some, but here it is:
- Provider Bush Bean
- Frodhook Bush Lima Bean
- Trionfo Pole Bean
- Cannellini beans
- Midnight Black Turtle Soup Bean
- Tomatos -Cherokee Purple -matt’s Wild Cherry -Brandywine -Juliet -Striped German -Golden Sweet
- Ithica Carrot
- Double Standard Corn
- Painted Mountain Corn
- Diva Cucumber
- Fairy Tale Eggplant
- All Greens mix
- Watercress
- Toscano Kale
- Envy Lettuce
- Magenta Lettuce
- Brightlights Chard
- Athena Melon
- Festival Watermalon
- Sweetie Melon
- Zephyr Squash
- Buttercup Squash
- Evergreen Winter Hardy Onion
- Boldog Hungarian Spice Chiles
- Rockstar Pumpkin
- Tyee Spinach
- Reverie Zucchini
- along with some chives, basil, parsley, cilantro and other edible herbs and flowers
Wow!! What happened to just planting 10 things this year and starting out slowly??
Glued to the TV
I have something to confess. Yes, I have been busy with the business and all. But, things have recently calmed down and I still haven’t been keeping up my end of the blogging. You have my husband to blame. Two Sundays ago (the 20th), we were all feeling tired and in need of a good ‘veg-out’ night. So, he decided to give me my birthday present early…the first season DVD of ALIAS. See, I have just gotten into the show, now in it’s 4th season, and I am totally lost. Who is Rumbauldi? Why was Sydney missing for a year? Is Slone a good guy or a bad guy??? So, for the last week and a half, all of our spare evenings and most lunch hours have been filled with double-agents, plot twists, and lots of kick-boxing! We are both totally hooked! Everytime we hear the theme song we get a little adrenalin rush and one of us will pick up the cat and make him do the “ALIAS dance”. (We’re not so sure he likes it, but he needs the exercise). So, Monday we finished the first season…all 22 episodes. 🙂 Last night, Toby went out and rented the first disk of season 2…4 episodes…done! AHHH, I’m an ALIASoholic!
Hello
I just wanted to say hello to everyone out there! Things have been so hectic/frantic/spastic here, but not in a “hey, that’s cool, I should blog about it” way. So, I’ve been silent. Toby and K have both had colds, and I am frantically trying to get everything together with Full Circle Herbs before the article comes out. (Which, by the way, you can preview here. Of course they went with the one picture that was taken where Toby was in front :-))
I’ve also been getting really excited about this beekeeping thing! I have applied to be a part of a cost share program through one of the local universities. If accepted, they will provide me with two hives and two packages of bees. The university is conducting research on a specific type of honey bee (Russian) that is supposed to be more mite resistant. I’m excited, but nervous! I know that you don’t get stung much if you do it right, but I am still nervous. I also spoke with a woman today who runs Sunshine Lavender Farm, just north of me, and she said that I could bring my hives out there when the lavender is in bloom and harvest some lavender honey!! That would be AWESOME!!
Have a great weekend!
What We Did Today
Little Red Corvette, really?
So, the 80’s radio station that I listen to plays Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” a lot. I use to love that song when I was a kid. But, I took the time to actually listen to the lyrics recently and maybe I am a little naive, but did you know that he isn’t really talking about a car??? Let me give you some sample lyrics (this is what he says in between the “little red corvette baby you’re much too fast” chorus):
I guess I shoulda known
By the way u parked your car sideways
That it wouldn.?last
See you.? the kinda person
That believes in makin..ut once
Love .? and leave .? fast
I guess I must be dumb
.?z u had a pocket full of horses
Trojan and some of them used (YUCK!!)
But it was saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And u say what have I got 2 lose? (Your health?? Can we say AIDS?? She has used condoms in her pocket!!)
…
I guess I shoulda closed my eyes
When u drove me 2 the place
Where your horses run free
.?z I felt a little ill
When I saw all the pictures
Of the jockeys that were there before me (Um, yeah, I think I would have left by then!!)
Believe it or not
I started to worry
I wondered if I had enough class (Class?? She sounds like a hooker!!)
But it was saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And u say, baby, have u got enough gas?(ok, wait, if we are using the car as a metaphor, than what kind of gas are we talking about here??)
Oh yeah
…
Move over baby
Gimme the keys
I.?gonna try 2 tame your little red love machine (OK, that’s just disgusting! I think, if Toby ever called my hoohaa a ‘little red love machine’ I would have laughed in his face and said ‘never again!’)
…
Girl, u got an ass like I never seen
And the ride…
I say the ride is so smooth
U must be a limousine (Prince, you are a serious perv!! But I have to hand it to you, it took me 20 years to realize that you weren’t talking about a car!)
Sun bunnies
K and I spent this afternoon washing the car…in our bathing suits…in the sun…in 70 degree weather…in January !! (Well, I washed the car. K stomped in the mud puddles)
Beekeeping
Did you know that there is a “Beekeeping for Dummies”? There is! I love the “dummies” series.
I started taking a beekeeping course last night and it is a blast! The main speaker last night was a sweet old farmer who seemed to run off track with every other sentence, but he was still so much fun to listen too.
Many of the bees in NC are dying because of a honey bee mite. So, aside from having a decrease in the honey production, farmers are having a hard time getting crops pollinated without the bees around. So, I thought it might be a good idea to learn to be a beekeeper. Plus, I get all the honey and beeswax I could ask for!!
Happy 2005!
To start off the new year right, K has decided to take on a new favorite word: Frog. (Yes, she can say big words like ‘marshmellow’ and ‘butterfly’, but she likes ‘frog’ better) And it is very cute when she says it, except that she doesn’t fully pronounce the ‘r’ and the ‘g’ sounds like a ‘k’. So, we get more of a f!%* sound. Which I have to say is also quite amusing to hear as we walk through the hardware store and she points out the toy frog and yells “TOY F!%*, TOY F!%*!!!”. To which I follow with “yes K, that is a FROG. Can you say FARROOOGGGGAH?” To which she follows with a look of “duh, mom, I just said it!!” and pronounces loudly and proudly “F!%*”(She is having a bit of an issue with inserting an ‘h’ into the word ‘sit’…but we are working on that one too.) 🙂
2004 Christmas Olympics
Hello and welcome to the 2004 Christmas Olympics Medal Wrap Up coming to you live from North Carolina. We have looked over absolutely every little thing that we have received this year for the holidays to find it’s country of origin (ie where it was made). We find it a very interesting experience to learn where all our stuff comes from. This year, we are happy to report that USA has won with 29 ‘medals’, but they are followed closely by China with 22. The full listing of ‘medalists’ are:
USA – 29
China – 22
Mexico – 4
Canada – 3
France, Italy, Holland, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia all with 2 medals
Costa Rica, Brasil, Isreal, Korea, Portugal, Ireland, Singapore, El Salvador, Columbia, India, and Cambodia rounding it up with 1 medal each.
For those gifts that we were so excited to use (like those really cool fuzzy socks) that we ripped the tags off we have the Unknown country category with a total of 10 medals.
(Yes I know that sounds like a lot of gifts, but every book, jar of jelly, and piece of clothing counted as one medal each. Plus, don’t forget that we have an 18 month old and gift happy grandparents:-)
Thank you for supporting our 2004 Christmas Olympic Games and please keep us in mind next year when you are buying your gifts and try to support countries with fair labor practices.
Happy Winter Solstice
Happy first day of winter everyone!! I have really gotten into this holiday over the past few years. It just makes sense to me (especially as a gardener)… to celebrate the shortest day of the year and have traditions that revolve around welcoming back the sun and the light as the days grow longer again. I like it! So, we lit a candle through the night and woke up this morning to open gifts and have a very leisurely breakfast (we were just getting done around 11:15!! Good thing Toby took the day off of work!)
So today, I would like to wish you all a very happy first day of winter! I hope you are all keeping snuggly warm and enjoying the holidays! My blog family has been a wonderful addition to my life this year and I am very thankful for you all!