The Best Things In Life - Morning Sickness Edition

An ongoing feature of 5 of the best things in life.

These are what I found were my greatest comforts when in the worst throes of Morning Sickness

1. Gum- Something in your mouth counteracting that nasty metallic taste and helping with the too much saliva thing (what is that thing? I don't know but it make you want to puke and it's probably triggered by wanting to puke)

2. Showers- sometimes you're too weak and sick but when you muster up the gusto to take a shower, ahh, that's the good stuff. When you're sick you're gross, getting all clean, the water feels good and the best thing: you can spit anywhere. The too much saliva thing makes you want to spit all the time and sometimes you're on the couch weighing your options like "Get up and spit, stay here and suffer" in the shower you don't need to grab a tissue or head to the sink, you can just spit right there. Sorry, I know this is gross but I really wanted to share how great some things can be.

3. Alcohol. Sweet relief. Not drinking of course, that would be awesome if pregnancy and drinking went together but I'm pretty sure if you're already puky, booze doesn't help. Rubbing alcohol my friend. Someone told me to sniff it and it kind of works. Probably bad for you but wipe up a mess with a little witch hazel and you're happy for 0.168 seconds.

4. Here we go,  the good stuff. Pine Sol. I bought the blue one. I CLEAN EVERYTHING. Everything in the world smells bad except for Blue Pine Sol and Rubbing Alcohol. I took every single item out of my fridge and freezer, wiped down said fridge and freezer with Blue Pine Sol, wiped down every item that went back inside fridge and freezer with Pine Sol, then mopped with it. It is un-stink. The killer of evil. Maybe I'll put some in a Scentsy pot.....

5. This one is fantastic. The "Morning Sickness Button" on Pinterest. Haven't seen it? Eh, well, it hasn't been invented yet.YET. But if the coders in Pinland are cool they will make one. What does it do? It lets your sick self waste time, distracted from the pain in life, strolling on Pinterest with all the food pictures OMITTED. I don't care if you found a way to make a Paleo Chocolate Chip Oreo Casserole for under $5 with only 150 calories, or if it's something your great grandma taught you, IT MAKES ME WANT TO DIE when I see it. So if Pinterest could just get on that, yeah, that would be great.

What was your comfort in the black death plague known as morning sickness?

Photo Credit: 1, 2, 3, 4

Frugal, Functional Fashion Friday

I think those weekday name posts are silly (throw back Thursday etc) so this title comes with awareness and sarcasm.

Fashion and farming/homesteading/gardening don't usually go together, but hey, these are the kinds of things I think about. That's just who I am.

It's actually kind of a thing for me.

Most farm girls put on some kind of boot, a tee shirt and jeans and that is the farm-girl uniform. I wear skirts.


Ok, I don't look quite like that, but I do have a denim 'work apron' I do don too. I learned to farm and garden in skirts and I just like it better. In fact I hate pants all the time. I own a few pair to work out in or just for having I guess, but they're just not comfy.

What's the point? Ok, well I have this thing about clothes that a friend recently pointed out to me was pretty 'green' and I suppose it is, I never thought of it that way, but it is. And perhaps that's why it's so (exciting? pulling?) cool to me.

My thing: In a perfect world you get an article of clothing. It's new, it's nice. It's your nice clothes. If it were the 'olden days' it would be your town clothes. It would be your church clothes.

Over time it would get a little less than perfect and it would become around the house clothes and eventually so ratty it would just be work clothes until it died a 'rag' death ripped into shreds for cleaning.

Rather than have 13 church dresses, 100 things that would be for general public wear ranging from casual to dressy and if you had reason to go outside maybe 5-10 "work" grungy clothes.

Ok! So the super exciting part ~to me~ is what article of clothing could work, for me, here and now, and go from church to the grocery store to cleaning the house to gardening? (Like I said, I already wear skirts outside soo...)





Love it? I love it. I'd make mine all a *little* longer and perhaps even sew on some fabric at the bottom when it truly became a "work" item.

All you need are different cardigans/jackets/jewelry and these dresses can fit any occasion. See, like this:


From Church/Wedding wear, to normal daily wear, to work-outside wear

Now, all I have to do is find a maternity version :/

And learn to sew. And get a machine. That's all....

I suppose for the maternity season I will stick to smock top skirts and white shirts

Sucker Punched!

Ok wise webbers, you gotta help me out here: in the pictures of my 'garden' I have one, big, happy tomato plant. Well, it's obviously indeterminite and as I have been told I dutifully pinched off all the suckers as it grew, except one that got away and became to big to prune, well....

ONLY THE SUCKER AND HEAD HAVE FLOWERS.

I thought it was supposed to be the other way around? You pinch suckers because they are "all leaf and no fruit". Well, now I have a ton of branches and leaves, and only 2 points with flowers.

What's up with that?!

Transparency and Confession Time

So it's like this.

Transparency: I really am a beginner. I am here to learn from and with you all, but I feel kinda shammy having a garden blog and one sad little garden.


See my plants:

Yellow Lookin' Basil

 One very small, stunted tomato :(

Happy (I hope) Tomato

Lettuce. Fixin to bolt. Which is fine at this time in the season, but it was kinda bitter???

Crook neck. He's ok. Pretty much happy I think, I went to town on fertilizer on this guy cos he was yellow.

*BUT* When we ate some of the fruit, before, it was kinda woody. Do I need to water more?

As you can see my garden is all in containers, we are just renting and have only been living in our current state (Californ-I-A) for a couple months so we are definitely not permanent here and that leads me to the confession...

Confession: I wanna homestead!! Waaaa. Maybe not so shocking on a gardening blog, but I want to remain in my pencil skirts, heels and lipstick. I want to always be close to a city. I love girls nights out and malls. This inner homesteading desire really is kind of a secret inner burning. 

There. Now you know. 

Father's Day Gift Ideas- Outdoor edition

Happy Father's Day, Fathers! 

I've compiled a list of what Father's day would look like in my house. Enjoy!

1. A Hammock - of course. Garden and outdoors is all about relaxing and enjoying it for the father in my house.

2. Paint - why would he want paint? I'm thinking this gift is from the kids, they can paint neat pieces of wood or rocks with messages about how great Dad is. I know someone who would *love* this.

3. Another from-the-kids gift, a Birdhouse Kit to put together with the littles. Nothing like outdoor beauty and a lesson/quality time for Father's day memories. (Maybe even use those paints when it's done?)

4. Paper Lantern Lights. Like I said, Dad at my house likes to be outside, feet up and relaxing. Anything to make his outdoor experience more ambiance-ish will be appreciated. 

Intro

Short version: Never had a garden, now have been trying for a few seasons and I'm not real great at it. I will become a good gardener though, and perhaps a home steader??

Medium Version: I'm from Texas. If you are from anywhere else in the country, especially places where everyone gardens, let me clear something up for you, Texans aren't farmers. Yes there are a lot of cows, but they are on billion dollar cattle establishments. Everyone else with cows just has a few for the tax break of having 'agricultural land'.

This isn't exclusively true, but being a small city, central Texas native, that is my experience. We don't go outside (Where did you like to hike as a family when you were young?-- We didn't) So when I moved to Helltopia (a place known to some as utopia, others (me) as hell) in the much-more-North-Than-Texas, I experienced seasons for the first time, the ease in which everyone around me had gardens, sometimes very large ones and the satisfaction of doing so.

Somewhere in between being a hippy (No thank you High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup) and being the opposite (heels, yes, dangly earrings, yes, a full set of make up and painted nails, non-organic yes yes yes) I want to grow my own food and be close- ok, not close but in a relationship with the land.

Long Version: It's important to me that my kids grow up going outside (total kids as of right now: one on the way) and having chores, responsibilities and skills I find useful and cool.

I don't know what it is about me that can get such bad "luck" when it comes to gardening, but I figure everyone has to start somewhere and I'm starting here, where I am, with just a few plants. I can track what I learn on the way and hopefully get advice on everything that goes wrong! I have a lot more wrong going on than right.

While we're at it: About the Garden: We just moved to USDA Zone 9 beginning of March (also found out I was pregnant then, got super sick, not much got done) and we have to garden in containers. We have lettuce, tomatoes, celery leaf, parsley, fennel, crook neck squash and cilantro. Not a lot, none of it is going great. More to come on that as we go!

My other great longing for gardening is that --secretly, no one tell my husband please- I am kind of intrigued by this 'seasons' thing. They are weird and annoying, but I like that there is a busy season and a slow season, it's just cool. Snow is horrible and should be illegal, but living your life with the world is just so neat, while the trees and plants are busy growing, producing, flowering and bees are pollinating and everything is on GO, so are you. Then you stock pile it (can anyone say nesting?) and that is about as attractive a thought to a pregnant quarter-lifer as you can get.