what are you reading?

i sometimes go on reading binges after a literary dry spell, i'm on my third book so far. i think it has something to do with the coziness of the season. i'd love to create a family reading nook, a nice cozy place to relax and maybe take a little nap. or i could make one for audrey with big pillows and quilts and make mama a separate one like this: (!!!)

it is my favorite and my best

thanks to lauren, hannah & phil and a trip to the downtown library, i'm really looking forward to when audrey starts showing interest in books. i know that's far down the road from now, but michael and i still plan on reading to audrey regularly and making it an important part of her early education.

a series i'm super excited about are the charlie and lola books by, possibly my favorite children's author, lauren child. not only are her illustrations adorable but i love that lola incredibly absolutely has a large vocabulary for a four year old. check out her other books at www.milkmonitor.com :)

there's also a television series that's shown on the disney channel. i'd rather buy it on dvd though to regulate audrey's tv time. enjoy!

groundbreaking.

happy march!

deciding it was time to finally start on my veggie patch, i made a lot of progress in the past few days by tilling the soil and cleaning out the trash. many milk bottle caps and very annoyed earthworms later, here are my results. :) i dug down nearly two feet because i wanted to be absolutely sure there wasn't anything down there to taint the soil. at one point though i'll admit that i was pretty nervous as i pulled clods of dog hair out of the ground. i thought for sure i was digging into some forgotten unmarked pet gravesite. fortunately, it turned out to be what i think was an old dog bed. (whew! narrow miss!) it's strange digging into a yard you're not familiar with and finding odd objects, it's almost like taking a course in anthropology. (i can't tell you what fabulous things i deduced about the previous owners because i'm not a certified anthropologist. i can tell you though that for some reason they liked to rip the labels off their water bottles. hmm... discuss.)

here is the result of my efforts so far. i've already had a casualty in the form of an ancient hoe that michael's dear grandmother gave me for my birthday. fortunately it only snapped in the middle so it's still quite usable.

joey approves with the improvements so far. i had to clean the dirt off of his curious muzzle this morning and spotted the dirty evidence of digging on his paws a few times now. he's done a good job of keeping me company. :D

here is my comfort during my breaks. homemade iced tea and the second half of the half-blood prince, (...which by the time this post was published, i had finished and almost cried at the end even though i had read the series once before. oh dear).

productive?

we may have another month (at the least) before we may be able to move into our new house. so, what do we do with our time before then? well, i haven't been called for work for the last three weeks, so meanwhile joey and i have been making the most of our sweet bonding time. a few times (including this morning) we have hit the dog park and ran errands together but mostly he just sleeps as i read or do housework. i expect to get more calls for work starting this week, tomorrow marks the start of the district's fiscal year and everyone will gain their new vacation/sick days. i feel bad because joey has gotten used to me be being home and i hope he doesn't take it personally when i start work again. i say that seriously too, joey often takes things personally. he's surprisingly quite an emotional little guy.

i'm naturally a very lazy person so it's very hard for me to not sit in front of the tv all day. (especially when there's such great programming on hgtv. i loves me some hgtv!) during my downtime i've kept up with tidying the house and have read sense and sensibility. i haven't read anything by jane austen before this but have always wanted to. last summer i read a biography on austen but it has taken me this long to actually pick up one of her novels. i'm thinking of starting the jungle by upton sinclair next but i'm open to any suggestions. :)



unfortunately, michael hasn't had as much free time as i have, he's clogged with reading and researching for his masters classes. there's piles of "school junk" on the kitchen table and i'm not completely certain which semester it's all from. it's hard not to feel bad for him, he has five hours of classes every thursday night and hours of homework every week. honestly, we'll both be doing a lot better after he's finished with school in the late fall. he'll finally get his life back and i'll finally have my husband (and kitchen table!) back.