• Herb Garden Inspiration

    Albeit I haven’t seen many herb gardens, one of my favorite places to visit is the herb garden at the Historic Oak View County Park. Dedicating a space solely for the growing of culinary herbs is quite divine. I have an herb garden that wraps halfway around my back deck, and slowly this space is expanding to other parts of the garden as I find new cultivars that I *must* grow. Yesterday, the Oak View garden was past its peak…

  • Rainwater Harvesting Cistern

    Last week I got an email asking if we were interested in hosting a teaching and demonstration project for a class of NCSU students, which would involve the installation of a free rainwater harvesting cistern at our house. Of course I jumped on that opportunity as Joe and I have been attempting for awhile to get a system going for the garden. Two of our downspouts feed into this 550 gallon cistern, which has a submersible pump smart enough to…

  • Kiln Opening

    In this weekend’s glaze firing, the colors came out more subtle with some browns, royal blues and indigo. After the glaze ran all over the kiln last week, I was much more conservative in the glaze application. Chun red appears gray on the brown body clays rather than white. I’m not sure if the Indigo Float was applied too thinly or if the kiln didn’t fire hot enough to fully float the blue, but the color didn’t pop like it…

  • Roof Safety

    Late yesterday afternoon, the Man was still working outside and the boys were getting chilly, so the three of us went inside to warm up. We heard Joe walking around on the roof, and I figured he was cleaning the gutters. After awhile, there was some banging and I thought, “Oh, wow. He’s decided to work on the gutters and fascia boards.” Earlier this week, a repair guy came out to assess our gutters, and apparently there’s about $1,500 of…

  • Saturday

    It has been a busy day, and I’m posting via iPhone from my bed as the boys are soaking in the tub just five steps from me. This morning we straightened the house and made muffins for a group of gals coming over to chat about PPD. Joe took the boys out for bagels, and then we spent the rest of the day outside. I did a little picking in the garden and glazed pots while he dug a hole.…

  • Dating my boys

    This morning after dropping Scooby off at preschool, Wookie and I drove out to Cary for routine blood work. It’s been over a year since I have vitamin levels and such tested. Wookie was so sweet and just sat quietly on my lap the entire time. Since I’d fasted at least 12 hours, I took us across the street to Whole Foods for breakfast. Once Wookie saw that we were getting food, he kept pointing at the plate and going,…