Monday, August 11, 2008

Project Support Beauty in Nature: August 08

tomato plantI have grand illusions about domesticity. In my head, I picture myself baking banana bread on my days off and getting the laundry folded and put away before the boys are sleeping and I have to quietly sneak around toys that are left on the floor.

In reality, that doesn't happen. Ever.

This summer, when posed with Lotus's PSBN challenge, I imagined the compost piles I would somehow find room for in my small yard. I imagined myself actually using the cloth grocery bags that are now, well, if I knew where they were I might actually use them.

But none of those things have happened. YET.

What I did do, however, was start a little garden. I figured it was a good way to A) teach the boys about caring for living things and B) grow some produce that was organic and yummy.How to keep kids busy for 20 minutes for $0

But if you know me AT ALL, you will know that I can kill the easiest to care for plant. I think its a case of over love.

We started off doing well enough. I had the boys water the plants regularly - we had two tomato plants, an acorn squash, a pumpkin and some strawberries. They would scoop water out of their little swimming pool and walk it back and forth to the plants. They loved it (and hey, we were reusing that water that would otherwise just get dumped out onto the grass).

But somehow life intervened. We went on vacations and went to a lot of festivals. In all honesty, I have no idea where this summer went.

Hubs and I went away for the weekend this past weekend without the kids for the first.time.ever. Walking into the house last night, I looked over a realized - some of those plants don't look so healthy. In fact, with the exception of the tomatoes (which we subsequently realized that Will is allergic to, dang it) there are no fruit/veggies growing at all. NONE. God, that's sad. I can't even grow a squash!

So - what's a girl to do? Well, obviously I'm don't have a green thumb (or any other appendage, apparently), so I won't go on feelin' bad about it. Instead, I'll focus on what I can change.

A few PSBN posts back, I talked about switching to more environmentally friendly disposable diapers. And they're great, but the closest store where I could find them was like 20 miles away, in an area of town I rarely get to. I figured that it was stoopid to drive that far to be more friendly to the environment (cuz of, uh, like emissions and stuff) and instead thought that with all this time I have at home now cuz of my four day work week I might be able to manage cloth diapers and not go insane. (Do you see those illusions resurfacing?)

In an attempt to keep my illusions in check, I purchased two Bum Genius one-size-fits-all cloth diapers. They came in the mail Saturday, so we'll give 'em a whirl and see how they work. If nothin' else, they'll be really cute on my baby's chubby hiney. I'll let you know how it goes!

11 comments:

Suzie said...

Yeah let me know. I know my doggy would love the smell of the cloth ones but I think I would not.

Angela said...

My garden is looking forlorn too, but it is producing a thousand cucumbers a day! I do not know where they are coming from, and we can not eat as many as we get from there. But aren't home grown tomatos the best?!

I am on the other side of diapers almost - trying to perfect the art of potty training with the little one... day #5!

Anonymous said...

August is a sad time for gardens--really.

Good luck with the diapers! I admire your fortitude!

wfbdoglover said...

AW, sorry about your garden! Cute picture of the boys watering.

Maybe you need to join a CSA or start one by you. You buy into a farm delivery and you can even share. I would love to, but it much food for just me. My boys won't eat anything out of the ordinary.

http://urbanecologycenter.org/csa/csa.html

Mama Smurf said...

I gave up long ago on my attempts at domesticity! I could (and have) kill a cactus. seriously.

Kate said...

Sorry about your garden! You never know...maybe it'll perk up. (I'm eternally optimisitic.)

Unknown said...

Yes I think weighing in the cost of driving for the special diapers does seem important. Great that you are doing this still, once we moved I think I just let it slip from my mind, though we do plan to clean-up a local park as the boy's Scout project, just want to clear everything with the local parks department.

Kori said...

My tomato and basil plants are thriving, depite my every attempt to kill them-but my flower beds no longer resemble beds, but weed patches. Ugh. Good luck on the cloth diapers-I loved using them when my older kids were babies, but frankly I dont have time now, and even if I did, the daycare won't take them. Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Kim H. said...

Aw Honey - you get an A+ for effort on the garden front. Good for you. We always have that happen every year - big plans and then we go away or like you said, life happens, and then it's a mess.

We started doing potted gardening and we LOVE it - just a few things here in there and it's minimal maintenance, our kids get to chip in and it's not so overwhelming and we do get to enjoy a few things here and there. Tomatoes - YUMMY! We had some last night broiled with cheese on them. Yep, they were DELISH!

Good for you on the diaper front! Keep us posted on how you like the Bum Geniuses! Oh, and I love chubby, baby hiney! and tiny baby hiney...and soft baby hiney...So cute!

Lotus (Sarcastic Mom) said...

Never feel bad about efforts made, no matter how things turn out. :-)

I love that you had the boys watering for you - so cute!

I hope you love those BG's. We have really enjoyed having them - and we initially used disposables, so we're true converts. And don't worry about people talking about the smell. We NEVER noticed a bad smell that was any different than the normal way any diaper has ever smelled.

Go get 'em! :-)

Cynthia said...

Good luck with the diapers...my hat is off to you:)