Making "grass soup":
Even though we are moving in a couple months I decided I couldn't stand it and I headed out today with some lettuce and greens seeds and put them in the ground. Most of it should be mature and ready to eat right before we have to move and hopefully we will get to enjoy some of it. I also put in radishes, and I bought a very early variety this year and they should be mature in only a month. I will make successive plantings for the next few weeks so we have a few harvests of those before we leave. Today I put out in the garden boxes two different loose leaf stir fry mixes, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Arugula, Komatsuma Tendergreen (oriental), spinach, Broccoli Raab, Ching Chang Bok Choy, Lolla Rosa lettuce, De Morgest Braun lettuce, Garden Cress, and Petit Dejeuner radishes. We'll see what happens in the next week or so with seedlings popping up.

In other areas of the yard I am seeing hollyhocks, clematis, salvia, strawberries and dianthus peeking up through the soil. I am hoping that the hollyhocks, which are a biennial, will blossom early enough for me to see them. I bought purple/black hollyhocks last year thinking they sounded very unusual and have looked forward since then to seeing them in bloom. To think that I may miss it! I will have to get my dear neighbor to pop over a take a photo or two to email to me if they aren't in full swing by June when we leave Kansas. Last year Ella accidentally "planted" some beans when she was playing with a bag of dried beans on the deck and this year she has been sneaking pinto beans out of the pantry and leaving them all over the yard and in all my large planters on the deck. I have no idea what is going to happen with those beans but she is hopeful every single day and asks to go check and see if they've sprouted each morning when we are eating our breakfast. I am not sure whether to hope they all sprout or hope they don't - it could potentially be an enormous mess of bean vines around the yard and in those pots. Then again, she is so excited and hopeful and what is better than having your kids be really actively engaged in something that is so tangible, educational and fun!

I bought a sewing machine several months ago and I've been a little afraid of it since then. I've completed a few projects here and there but nothing that has justified the expense of the machine. I had intended to take some formal sewing classes at a local fabric shop but having a nursing babe, a busy toddler and a husband who travels a lot for work has made that more challenging to get away then I had previously realized. I discovered Pattern Review, an excellent sewing website, about a year ago and I've finally taken the plunge and enrolled in an online class. Only three lessons in and I have learned so much about sewing from a pattern! All those weird symbols are no longer so mysterious. The pattern directions seem sensical now too. I am working on the Oliver + S Tea Party Sundress pattern for my daughter for my first class project. Hopefully I'll have a finished project to post about in a few weeks.

I am also busy, busy crocheting a baby blanket for a friend's baby girl. It is a very simple double crochet stitch, one color, blanket, but it still looks pretty and comfortable - at least I think so! I intended to lay the knitting down for now because my life is very hectic and I just don't have the patience to really struggle to figure out a new skill. But then I keep seeing the best patterns that I want to knit! My friend has helped me get the basics and I've checked out Learn To Knit from the library to keep me going in the meantime.

-Jess