This year, in addition to the flower gardens I dream about, I’m ready for the practical application of a vegetable garden. Last fall we finally cleared out the “garden” corner of our yard – the space designated for the “some day,” that has been piled with wood/junk/construction material for the past five years. Last Friday, with fine weather forcasted for the weekend, I conned Wyatt into coming home early from work so we could spend the weekend building garden boxes.

We built five -

2 4×4′s
2 4×8′s
1 4×12

Last year we heard of the concept of “square foot gardening” – where you section off your garden by square foot, and each square holds a plant. Sounds genius/easy/impressive, and since I have absolutely no experience in gardening, I am willing to try anything.

So I sectioned my garden off by square foot (in plan only so far). Do you know how many square feet I have? 140 Square Feet. That’s a lot of plants. (And my mother in law almost cried when I made my garden so small. Seriously).

Well, today I  made my plan for what to plant and where. I did research about what plants/varieties do the best in Utah, as well as what plants to put by each other so that everything should maximize it’s potential.

I’ve got a plan.

Now I need dirt – to fill up my boxes. And seed – to plant.

And then a long summer to grow my produce.

And I LOVE long summers.

21 Corn Plants
2 Zucchini
12 Pole Bean Plants
96 Carrots
2 Summer Squash
6 Pepper Plants
4 Cucumber Plants
2 Eggplants
2 Early Girl Tomato Plants
2 Big Boy Tomato Plants
1 Roma Tomato Plant
1 Cherry Tomato Plant
18 Yellow Onions
18 Red Onions
A Kajillion Green Onions
3 Broccoli
4 Pumpkins/Winter Squash
Lots of Cilantro
Lots of Basil
Lots of Parsley
And the whole thing lined with Petunias, Marigolds (which are theoretically good snail repellants) and Sunflowers.

And what about the excess produce? Well, I will can salsa if I can – and we will have summer barbeques with our yummies. And I love zucchini bread and earth bread. And then my ward always has a farmers market (where we give our produce, not sell) where we can all share our produce at the end of the summer, so I know it won’t go to waste.

Click here to download a printable planting guide.

This summer will be “The Summer of No Pants” – where my days will be spent in comfortable, soft, sweet skirts.

I was so excited I made my first one!

I made a pattern out of newspaper – reminiscent of my mother.

And then cut and sewed and cut and sewed this melony-pink tulle skirt.

Me likey.

“No I didn’t. It’s more of a statement than a question.”

On Monday they spent the afternoon preparing our valentines – signing their names, over and over and over again, each one for a different friend.

For Family Home Evening we made sugar cookies, and decorated them with pink frosting. Each love frosted their own. Everett had patience for only one shmear and set about eating his. Olivia made sure the frosting covered all the cookie real estate in neat even strokes. And Calvin spread his thick, thick and globby.

The next morning, with Olivia at her kindergarten party, valentines autographed from the day before, a special treat for her teacher to boot, and Cal and eJo happy to play with Ila who came to visit, we set about making more cookies. Because who doesn’t need more cookies?

Chocolate chip to be exact, Wyatt’s favorite.

Later, Olivia, Calvin, Everett (and Ila) went to a neighborhood valentines party. More signed goodies, more treats coming home! During the break I took Wyatt a little gift of home made cookies. We promised no valentines – but home made definitely does not count. (And then he broke the treaty and brought me home tulips. Two Lips – it makes me smile).

And then the little loves finished their party, and home we went for a sugar crash. Daddy came home early to play, and with a little dinner in our tummies, we set out to give valentines to all the friends in the neighborhood we had missed.

And when it came bed time the kids went to sleep without a peep, happy and high on sugar, exhausted on activity.

That was Valentines Day 2012.

I am so tempted to explain myself in this painting – to tell you all the things I was thinking when I painted it -

But I’ve decided part of letting myself do art in 2012 is not feeling guilty or ashamed of the fact that I’m not the most fabulous artist in the world.

I’m just going to let it be what it is.

So – January Painting

And then I had kids – who went to school.

My calendar has been a lifesaver this year, with each day having multiple things marked: carpool, snack assignments, early day, doctors appointments, homework day, etc. etc. etc.

So for next year I decided to make my own. I’ve long admired a friend of mine’s calendar. They make one every year based on a template at kinkos or something. While I like the family pictures in it, I wanted a design a little more custom.

And so . . .

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!

This calendar took me about a month to make . . .

I designed the grid/month/text in Illustrator using fonts: Splendid 66 & Pee Pants Script

Then I tore apart the PSD files of a book template that I have from Simplicity Design, rearranged them slightly to fit my format, and inserted some of my favorite pictures of the past few years.

As I looked through my old pictures to find ones for the calendar, I was reminded: Man, I have gorgeous kids!

Just saying.

Anyhow, at first I tried to have a picture from the featured month – you know, a January picture on the January page. But once I hit March I realized that wouldn’t work – for some reason I have very VERY few pictures in March of any year. Don’t know why. So then I just let it be a free for all and put in any pictures from any time that I loved. There is one spread/month dedicated to each kiddo. And I still need to get my 2011 family picture taken so I can trade it out with the picture in September (the one with the kids on the truck – same one that’s on the October spread). And I added a photo of each family member on their birth date.

Anyhoo- it’s been a bit of a laborious process, but fun. If you want to take a closer look, you can click on the image above for a humongo humongo version, or just visit my flickr page to see each month individually.

Now to find a printer . . .

click for larger version

A fun little illustration while Wyatt and I watched tv the other night. (He watched, I doodled).

This is a digital illustration I started years later of the Lemon Galleon I made on the reservation. I obviously never finished the illustration, but you get the idea.

When I lived on the Indian Reservation I made a lemon galleon out of paper mache.

And then I made fish to swim along side.

Paper mache fish with giant kissy lips and beauty marks and fake eyelashes.

And jellyfish with irredescent tentacles.

And then my friends made some too. Between all of us we made a plethora of fishies in a variety of characters. Emily made me my own bride fish and groom fish.

It was glorious.

And then, because we lived in a double wide with a vaulted ceiling, we hung our lovely creations from the ceiling with fishing line.

So that when we sat up at night and discussed the heavy things twenty year old philosophers carried, there was a whimsy of water love above our heads.

See my early fascination with lanterns?