Garden Roboot

(Ohmigosh, I still have a blog!)

So, it's full-on summer here in the desert and while I really try to avoid going outside while it's hovering near 115 degrees outside, awhile back I bought a decent sprinkler and a decent timer and now...we kind of have a lawn in the backyard!

Two or three weeks ago, that was nothing but dirt.  We have a very tiny area (maybe 6'x6' or so) that grows year round, but it's generally pretty sickly looking.  I am *ecstatic* that there is this much green in our yard right now!

So, the new growth combined with a dear friend reworking her garden in an even more arid environment has compelled me to take on a garden reboot.  Because ours was just sad and the two little plants that grew this spring have turned into plant skeletons.

So, I took some "Before" photos to peek at when I catch myself thinking that nothing's changed. ;)

This is the garden in the corner of our yard, as it appears right now.  There's grass - yay - but it's all overgrown.  We were in the midst of cutting it when we realized that the whole yard (and I do mean the WHOLE YARD) had become one giant ant bed.  So we're treating for ants (sugar and borax ftw) and it seems to be working quite nicely.

The pond insert has been hanging about for awhile ended up getting propped against the fence during a nasty sand storm.  It will need to go someplace else.  The bird feeder was relocated to the garden a few weeks ago and will need to be moved again.  Getting it off of the patio was an absolute necessity though.  Pigeons are messy.

The garden itself consists of three raised beds.  There's one 4x8 bed that's built but empty, one 4x8 (where the bird feeder lives, now) that's filled and one 4x4 that's filled.  It's hard to see in the photo, but there are skeletons of a tomato plant and sunflower in the 4x4 bed.  (At least the sunflower grew nicely for a bit!)

Early last spring, Bug and I dug out the rock bed near our front door, put down some edging and planted some lavender and ground cover.  It didn't take.  It's kind of been floundering since then so I'm going to try to get that worked out again, too.

I have no idea what plant is that's popped up there on the right.

I did most of the prep work of gathering stuff while Richard was out with the kids, and then called a halt to it because it was 108 degrees outside and I knew that Bug and Boo would want to be involved.  When Boo came home a bit later, we pulled the weeds from all of the spaces - and I was delighted to discover that the soil in the gardens is still in awesome shape! - and found some new ant spots to treat.  I pulled the wild plant from the front door bed, resettled one of the pots, removed the others and broke up the dirt.  The soil there isn't as friendly as I'd like, but between a little new soil and some compost I think it'll be all right.

Bug is already chomping at the bit to get moving with the next steps, so hopefully this project will take off quickly.

 

30 Minute Men's Pants to Boy's Jammies - A Tutorial

I was tempted to title this post "How to Turn a Pair of Way-Too-Big-But-I-Lost-the-Receipt Men's Pajama Pants into a Pair of Boy's Jammie Pants Tutorial"...but that seemed a little long.  Since the pants were based on the 30 minute pants, I shortened it. ;)  And I figured that, instead of just saying "Hey, I chopped these up and made something new", that I'd try working it up as a tutorial, just in case anyone else has a similar pair of way-too-big pants hanging around.

(This is my first attempt at a tutorial quite like this, so please let me know if anything is confusing!)

All you need is a pair of men's pajama pants, and 30-60 minutes, depending on the frequency and length of your distractions.

A little bit of back story...

Back in December, I picked up a pair of pajama pants for Richard.  Yes, I could have made him some myself.  I'd messed about with the idea.  But I was feeling swamped with other projects, I always end up totally frozen by incompetence when I try to sew something for myself or my husband, and Old Navy was running them at such a low price that I couldn't even buy fabric for that little.  So I opted to save myself some stress, time and money and just buy them.  My mistake came when a bout of indecisiveness hit at the store.  I had the perfect pair of pajama pants in my hand, decided against them and hung them back up, then changed my mind again and picked them back up.  Only problem being that, while I had closely checked the size the first time that I picked them up, I didn't when I went back for them.  The size tag on the hanger read medium, but the pants were actually XXL.  WAY too big.  And we put off returning them until I'd lost the receipt, so they've just kind of been hanging around waiting for me to either chop them up or donate them to Goodwill.  Bug decided that he really liked the idea of having matching pajamas with Daddy, so I decided to chop them up.

Here's how:

First, wrangle your small children out of the pants...

I love the look of adoration she has for him here.  We see that face a lot.

Lay out the pants and determine how much length you need for your little person.  Use a pattern that you love to determine how long they need to be.  Keep in mind that you're not going to have to hem the pants because you'll be using the existing hem.  Remove the pants legs with enough length to cut out your new pattern.  (Since I'll still be using the top of the pants to make a pair of shorts for Richard, I also made sure that I had enough length left to do that.)

Cut the pants legs open along the INSIDE seam so that you can lay the fabric out flat.  I would recommend giving them a good pressing here, just to make sure that nothing goes wonky in the next few steps.  I'm a big fan of excessive pressing.

Once the fabric is open and flat, lay the cut open pants legs with RIGHT sides together.  If there was an outer leg seam on the original pair of pants, make sure that you match it up.  I suggest pinning along the seam, if there is one, and making sure that the bottom hems are even.

Lay your pattern piece on top of the flattened pajama fabric, putting the outer seam where it would fall on the finished pair of pants.  I used a pattern of my own making that doesn't usually finish with an outer seam, so made sure that the existing outer seam fell in the center of the pattern piece, along the grain line.

Pin and cut out your pattern.

I suggest marking front and back at this point, just to keep things from getting confusing later.  I always put a safety pin on the outside near the center back seam, but do whatever works for you.

At this point there was mayhem with my little people, so I had to walk away for a moment.  Which necessitates "Remove cat from your fabric" as the next step in my house.

Chin says these are super cozy pants!

Now you'll sew the legs up.  Match up each piece at crotch and hem and sew.  It's all right if they don't match up perfectly, though I do try to make sure that the fabric matches nicely at the hem.  It's a little easier to fix extra fabric at the top of the leg.

Because the fabric on this particular pair of pants is somewhat thin and I worried a little about it falling apart at the hands of my active boy, I opted to put in french seams.  If you trust your fabric, serging would work just as well.

Once both legs are sewn up (and you've pressed that seam open), you'll need to attach them.  Turn one leg inside out and the other right side out.  Because I was doing a french seam, I set them inside one another RIGHT sides together, and then flipped them to WRONG sides together and stitched again.

Now turn the pants inside out and mark your waistband.  Again, because of the lightweight fabric, I wanted to make sure that the stitching wasn't going to pull out, so I marked a fold like 1/2 inch from the top edge, and another 1 inch below that.  Press and pin.

Then stitch your waistband, leaving an opening at center back for elastic.  I like to stitch just at the top edge of the waistband, too, to keep it from rolling around while Bug is wearing them.

Insert your elastic.  Make sure to test the waistband size on your little one, if necessary, and then stitch the ends of your elastic together.

Close the casing and you're all done!  (I added a little twill tape tab, so that Bug could tell front from back.  he admonished me for not adding a frog loves monkey label - ha!)

Try the pants on your little person and then just TRY to get them to take them off!

Attempting to Read

Richard and I took the kids to the library this afternoon.  Given that we were not-entirely-politely tossed out the first and last time I took the kids solo, we opted to tag-team it.  (I'll tell that story later, if anybody's interested.)

I got to wander off by myself for a few minutes and actually look at book titles and read blurbs and everything.  It was kind of cool.  I even picked out a few books, though thinking that I'll be able to scratch out enough time to finish even one is probably silliness.

I'll admit to two of them.

The Queen's Rival by Diane Haeger.  The way this particular library shelves their fiction, it's kind of hard to tell sometimes exactly what genre your book is going to fall into.  This one looks like it's going to be a nice combination of historical, romance and personal redemption, without being too much of any one of them.  I don't expect it to be a particularly light read, but I'm looking forward to it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  This is probably gong to sound ridiculous, but I had NO IDEA that a movie of this book had been made, much less one starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon.  When did that happen?  (Oh, last year, by the looks of it.  I was a little busy.  Obviously missed it.)  I was going to give some sort of blurb, but I suppose everyone's already seen it. ;)

I picked up a third book too, but it's a poorly written piece of garbage to have on hand for car rides.  Also probably the only one of the three I might have time to finish - sad as that is.

After picking out my books, I went to find Richard in the kid's section.  I was shocked...that place had been stripped clean.  Bug has been reading the Magic Treehouse books and the shelf that used to be full of them was entirely empty, as was every other shelf on the aisle.  Aisle after aisle after aisle in the kid's section was empty.  I thought that perhaps they were rearranging or moving the books elsewhere, but it turns out they've all just been checked out.  Almost all of the chapter books, almost all of the easy reader books, almost all of the board books, almost all of the kid's music and movies.  Stripped clean.  Richard was baffled until I pointed out that it's the first week of summer vacation and 115 degrees outside during the day.  Even mid day on a Thursday, the library was packed.

Bug ended up finding a handful of books that he was excited about (a new Charlie & Lola, his first Ramona book and a few that we've never heard of before), so it ended up being a good trip.  We read a whole bunch of little board books to Boo while we were there, but she generally prefers to hear whatever Bug is reading, so left all of those there for whoever might want them.

I'll go online and put holds on some of the books that we couldn't find for Bug today.  He'll be pretty excited by that, I think.

First Sunflowers

Yesterday, the kids and I went out and discovered that Bug's sunflower had bloomed.  It's not very tall, but is quite pretty.  And it looks like there are seven other blooms getting ready!  Seven!

It was also pretty exciting to see that the tomato plant is still alive and has bloomed.  Again.  It's not getting enough water, or is getting too much sun - I'm not really certain which - and keeps blooming and wilting without actually producing any tomatoes.  A little disappointing, but at this point I'm really just kind of thrilled that it's love at all.  If it bears fruit, that will be a huge bonus.

Really, our outside time yesterday was all kinds of exciting.  I finally remembered to buy birdseed, and Bug and Boo were all kinds of excited to fill up the feeder and sprinkle as much seed on the ground as we'd let them. 

My sister moved into a cool new house awhile back and had set aside some stuff at her old house that she thought we might be able to use.  And since my step-dad came back from Texas with a trailer, we were able to haul over a new refrigerator (Mom's old one, since my step-dad brought a newer one from their place in Texas for their house), some shelves that have already gone up in the studio and more for the garage, a spinning composter and an ancient lawnmower.  You know, the kind with no motor.

For the first time in my life, I mowed my own lawn.  And it was exhilarating.  I'm not naive enough to think that I'm always going to have fun with that, especially as it continues to get hotter and hotter here in the desert, but I certainly felt accomplished yesterday.

Then we got the composter set in place.  Bug and I pulled out some of the mulch that was left in it for a project we have planned, then dumped our first big bowl of compostable stuff inside.  Bug is so excited about it that he's decided that it's his job to spin the composter.  He even walked away from Phinias & Ferb this afternoon to go spin it when he saw me carry a bowl of scraps outside.

Add to things that Richard has been cooking with fire and we've been living in suburban pseduo-homesteader heaven for the past few days. :)

Easter, Part II

Easter was a REALLY low-key affair for us, this year.

Richard had to work.  We'd already done the big egg hunt at my sister's on Thursday.  And, after playing with our friends on Saturday, Boo woke up sick on Sunday morning.  (GAH!  We were the plague carriers!  Dangit!)

The kids had actually forgotten that it was Easter. 

They were on the sofa, tired and congested and watching tv with their breakfast (hey, they were sick), when I surprised them with their Easter baskets.  Talk about excited!  We don't so the Easter Bunny and they don't get candy, but I tucked a few things into their baskets that they were excited about.  They each got a set of bunny ears, which they thought were funny, and a little stuffed animal, and some Annie's gummy bunnies.  There was a set of egg-shaped sidewalk chalk for them to share, and Bug got some Silly Putty (which Boo always tries to eat) and a little set of wooden cars in his basket.  Oh.  And they each got one of those little washcloths that's packaged up super tiny and grows to full-sized when you get them wet.  Boo was so excited she asked to take a bath immediately.  Bug opted to play in the sink.

They spent the rest of the day attempting to eat the last of the eggs we'd dyed for the hunt at my sister's house.

The eggs my sister made specially for Bug and Boo.  Their names are on the other side.

30 Minute Pants

I've been doing a LOT of sewing for the shop, and while the kids typically end up with new clothes when I do that, Bug has kind of been shortchanged on that front lately.  Adding lounge pants to our offerings was a boon for him though, and he loved them.  (Yay!)

Bug isn't much of a fan of fabric shopping - though he does have an impeccable eye - but he does really like picking out fabric for his own projects.  He also loves Lightning McQueen.  A lot.  So he picked out some Cars fabric a week or so ago and it's been sitting here, waiting for me to do something with it.

I'm guessing it was a bit of insanity, but when Richard had the kids at my sisters, I realized I had about thirty minutes before I needed to go meet them and thought, "Hey, I wonder if I can whip up those pants before it's time to leave?"

Short answer, yes.

And he loved them. :)  (Yay!)

Butterfly Day at the Desert Botanical Gardens

A few weeks ago, we headed out to the Desert Botanical Gardens.  I love the botanical gardens.  I especially love that, once a month, they offer a free admission day.  In the spring, that even includes admission into the butterfly exhibit, which is amazing in a way that I can barely even begin to describe.

Since it's ridiculously late and this post is seriously image-heavy, I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking...

Boo, getting ready to load up and hydrating before a long, hot afternoon.

LOVE these glass sculptures.  I have no idea how they don't get broken in bad weather.

All ready to spend the afternoon looking at amazing things.

Turns out that, this year, instead of offering free admission for the day, they offer free admission for half of the day.  We ended up arriving about ten minutes before they wanted to start letting people in and, given that it would have cost quite a hefty sum for tickets for all of us, we opted to hang outside the gates and have lunch first.  There were lots of neat things to look at out there, too.

I so love this.  It makes me want one somewhere in the house.  As if that wouldn't be pretentious.

 Once inside, there was SO much to see!

Enthralled.

Riding in style.

She was happier in there than she appears to be.  Honest.

I love this tree.

Hummingbird!

And then...butterflies!

Boo was SO EXCITED.

She knew she wasn't allowed to touch the butterflies...so she bent down and kissed one instead. <3

I adore this child. <3

A Texas Mountain Laurel...which I never saw in Texas.  It smelled like grapes.

A really cool art installation.

Quail!

Bug LOVES to run!

She's chatting with a chipmunk that was in the plants.

They got SO close.

See?

 

These lovely women - who's names are escaping me - chatted with us for quite awhile.  Very nice ladies!

 

Terrible photo of me, but Bug is so stinkin' adorable.  That smile!

There was a LOT that we didn't get to see.  With only spending half of the day there, we basically saw the butterflies, took a short walk and stopped for lunch before heading out.  There's quite a lot more.  (Seriously.  We've been probably four times so far and there's still one half of the place we haven't seen, yet.)  We're looking forward to heading out again soon and taking some of the other trails.  And, of course, seeing the butterflies again!