Spring Has Sprung

I seem to be getting out of doors every day. School wrap-up events are happening fast and furious; Tess participated in her Patriotic Concert this past week and I attended my last (sniff) Creative Play class and last MOPS meeting, both with Ben. He will be a big bad 4 year-old preschooler next fall, and I'm moving my time and talents to the cooperative preschool he will be attending.



I've come to realize I can only take on ONE volunteer activity at a time and keep my sanity; for the last 2 years it's been as Publicity Leader for MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). My steering team duties ended this year, and I'm looking forward to getting to know local moms through work with the co-op next year. The MOPS moms, while a FANTASTIC bunch of ladies, are sadly in a different school district, so while it's been a beneficial program for *my* mental health, there's not been a lasting connection made for my kids. I'm hoping that working with the co-op will help me get to know more moms in my town.



I'm "virtually" attending Marit's amazing Creative Art Journey class, but I haven't done any pages for it yet; I'm hoping that will change this weekend!


I have been scrapbooking digitally lately...again, the fastest and easiest way for me to scrap on the go, but I need some paint and glue on my fingers, STAT!



Supplies: Farmer's Market paper and tag, Sandy Kreiger for 2peas (freebie). Template and border courtesy of Jessica Sprague [dot] com...she has some fantastic tutorials called "Photoshop Fridays" -- buy them for $1 on Wednesdays, and watch the video tutorial after downloading the materials...easy & informational! Fonts: Antsy Pants and Pea Jack and Jill.


One of my new spring/summer activities is volunteering as a "Dirty Virgin" at a community garden in my MOPS village. So far the work has not been hard, but we've only done some seed planting; the watering needed has been taken care of for the most part by heavy rains. The only requirement for becoming a DV was that you not have any experience in gardening; I let E start our garden last year (disaster! I've done more for it this year, thanks in part to my DV work).



The food we grow will be served at a one-day-a-week local food harvest, called "Yellow Door" (the private home it is held at has a bright yellow front door). I have been to breakfast there on occasion and the food is amazing -- all of it grown within a 60-mile radius, including the beef, flour, and dairy! It can be done!



I would love to do more canning and hope to harvest enough from the 4 tomato plants in our backyard garden to put up a good crop. Last year was a terrible year for tomatoes...not enough warm nights...hopefully this year we will do better. I did buy cages for our tomatoes, as last year (ahem), hubs left our plants to fall over on the ground, thus most of the fruit rotted away uselessly. I tried helping him set up the garden this year and he is QUITE crabby about it...I think he is planning on me taking it over completely...grr...not my plan but if I want to eat food I've grown, I guess I'll have to.