We're kicking around selling our house and buying a new one and it is stressing me out. My mind is coming up with really weird stuff, like I just closed my eyes for a moment and saw our and our friends' places as they would fall on a monopoly board, where we are the light blue property, one set of friend are red, another set is green (the rich friends, because we don't socialize with anyone on boardwalk or park place.) It's a creepy and weird sort of comparison, one that is not discussed or considered, but what can I say? It just popped into my head.

Hobbies

Trevor's latest greatest hobby is throwing objects, usually at people. Seeing as I'm the "people" he's around most, I'm usually the target. Today it was a softball (not so soft! No warning!). Yesterday as I sat on the lawn with Noel, he threw a small radio flyer wagon at us. Luckily his aim was off.
Noel, on the other hand, has the sweet new hobby of sitting. Yeah, that's it, just sitting there and watching various objects whiz by, and occasionally falling gracefully forward onto her face. She's all arms and legs now: When I pick her up from her crib after a long sleep, it's like a giant beetle with four waving kicking rowing legs.
Amazingly, Noel has not been hit by any of Trevor's wild throws. If she did, I can imagine just what he'd say: "What happened to she?"

That's My Man!

This morning, shortly after Todd left for work, Trevor said "I want to bike to work like Daddy." Need I say more?

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When I grow up and blog for a living-you know, ads and that-maybe I'll have a garden blog. I need an idea for a catchy name, though, something with roots or green or sprout in the title.
My first entry will be about garden themes. Not color schemes like purple and yellow, or hot or cool; not dull themes like butterfly garden, white garden (der, that's a color) night, cottage, native, drought tolerant, shade garden. No, it will be about themes that evoke the specific feeling of the garden or the intent of the designer. For example, the present theme of our front yard border is "Romp Freely." (How's that for a blog name, eh?). After ripping out a succession of beautiful, ill-mannered plants--yarrow, snowberry, fennel to name just a few still crashing the party--I unsuccessfully amended the theme: Romp Freely, with Restraint. I guess that doesn't work. Today, as I almost broke my shovel excavating a gorgeous Cape Fuchsia (phygelius for you fellow latin snobs), I came up with another one: Casual Restraint. I'm still working on exactly what that means, but I'm pretty sure it should be pronounced through clenched teeth.
Here are some other ideas to start the list, which I ask you, my faithful readers, to complete: Unbridled Optimism, Zonal Denial, Perpetual Motion, Too Much Festuca (insert other words, Too Much Centranthus, Too Many Irises, etc.), Lazy Hippies, Perfect Symmetry, Cottage Kitsch, benign neglect. What is YOUR garden theme now, and what will it be tomorrow?

Updates on the kids

One of the books we checked out of the library on our latest visit is about Pirate Pete. Trevor loves it and we've read it at least ten times in the past two days. Pete and his parrot are following the sound of thunder to find the magical Seafairy Sapphire...the thunder booms again, and Pete picks up his pace. At this point in the story, Trevor asks me, "where's his pace?"
I was corrected this week on my pronunciation. Trevor's friend Anna cannot pronounce s-blends, so they come out as a p. He picked up a toy at her house and asked, what's this? Anna replied, it's a pider. I repeated, oh, it's a spider. And Trevor said, no, it's a pider!
It is amazing the things he repeats. His language is growing more and more descriptive and he loves to get in conversations with strangers anywhere we go. Today we went to the earth day procession of the species parade and saw lots of cool costumes of mythical and real creatures. I think he loved the seahorse most because he just learned about them in Pirate Pete and it was a big, beautiful creation. We stopped at the coop on the way home and he was talking about it with someone in line, who said it was big, and he corrected them, and said it was GIANT.
Noel is growing by leaps and bounds, but it is much less obvious. She is really starting to recognize her family. When she wakes up in the morning, she coos and talks in her crib until I go pick her up (unless I wait too long, then she yells), and she always has a big smile when she sees me. She's making a lot more varied sounds, like squeals and screeches, and is very ticklish with the silliest little laugh. She can roll from her back to tummy, but only to the left and when she's feeling very motivated. She grabs everything now and passes stuff back and forth and puts it in her mouth and is totally bored with all the dumb baby toys we have.

Yummers. Cookies!

The only thing I've eaten today is about a dozen of these yummy cookies I whipped up using a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, http://tiny-morsels.blogspot.com/. (Note: there are probably thousands of way better food blogs out there, but I have no idea how to find them.) I changed the recipe slightly based on ingredients on hand (I don't stock rice flour and I didn't feel like grinding up any oats), but I have to say that this recipe is a godsend for vegans who are missing their tollhouse chocolate chip cookies...yummy and buttery but without the butter. Trevor liked them, too.

1 cup (256 g) tahini

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup (120 ml) pure maple syrup or (168 g) agave nectar

1/4 cup (48 g) raw sugar

Zest of a big (organic, preferably) orange, about 2 heaping teaspoons, or same amount of lemon zest

1/2 cup (40 g) ground oats (I used hazelnut meal)

1/2 cup (80 g) brown rice flour(I used whole wheat)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup (88 g) nondairy semisweet chocolate chips (I used minis and I don't think they were nondairy.)

I will eventually post more pictures!