DSC09753 - Copy

28 May 2013

Weekending: laundry, gardens, and more rambling

My sweet peas are growing up an assortment of twisted sticks, dried out contorted willow and Rosebay Willowherb stems. In front of them are carrot and calendula - the very raised raised bed and the calendula being this year's effort to prevent carrot fly getting wind of them.
DSC02686

I love growing veggies, and I so want to be the kind of person who carefully weeds their raised beds and produces crops season after season. Like my desire to have a beautifully tidy house, my dreaming rarely provokes much concrete action (though as well as planting more veg seeds AND weeding the garden, I did also clean out two kitchen cupboards and clean the bathroom this weekend)!

Jenna has been staying with a friend this weekend, and Morgan has been away to Scotland and Cumbria with my mum. It has been a strange couple of days, with just the two little ones. I found two children pretty intense hard work, all those years ago. And now, I find myself casting around for extra things to get done *quick while I have so much tiiime*...  I used my holiday chicken fabric to make Jenna a cute skirt. I'm making the most of these years while she is still perfectly willing to allow me to sew geeky fun clothes for her, because she may not indefinitely.
DSC02702

This is what Morgan was up to on Sunday:
morgan holiday with mum

morgan lambkin
Ack why must they grow so fast??

My neighbours think we're weird. That's fine. We kind of are. Our garden is wild, and covered in children's toys, and there are often (loud happy) sounds of children playing during the day, advertising the fact that they don't go to school. One neighbour frequently tells me how lovely it is to hear them play, but also hints that they might enjoy the garden more if it were tidier. The other neighbour gives my children packets of crisps over the fence, having noticed that they are always "soo hungry" and quite probably thinking that I don't actually feed the poor little dears.

Anyway, come summer, they get to judge the stains on my laundry too. *sigh* Any pleasure I feel at pegging out the rows of sweet little clothes, and reassure myself that the sun helps to bleach them, I also feel like I am exposing my lack of housewifely ability to scrutiny.
DSC02687

And, well, they know what it is I've been doing instead of cleaning things. My washing line is far more frequently used for things other than laundry...
DSC02689

3 comments:

  1. Wow, look at Morgan on that horse, such a grown up girl.

    Hey mama, we are weird too, I spend housewifery time squelching in mud and sitting in the woods whilst Charlie plays, and yes, my sink is always full of dishes but I'd rather read a good book!

    You are a wonderful mama <3
    Xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have a love hate relationship with housewifeyness id rather read a book, crochet or knit if im honest. Housework looks fab when first done but doesnt last long as small children following behind me undoing all my hardwork, ah well nevermind. x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Here is a little story from my Prophet Thomas S Monson, so you can tell it to your neighbors ;)

    A young couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door neighbor hanging out her wash.

    “That laundry’s not clean!” Lisa exclaimed. “Our neighbor doesn’t know how to get clothes clean!”

    John looked on but remained silent.

    Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments.

    A few weeks later Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash hanging in her neighbor’s yard. She said to her husband, “Look, John—she’s finally learned how to wash correctly! I wonder how she did it.”

    John replied, “Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You’ll be interested to know that I got up early this morning and washed our windows!”

    Said the Savior, “Judge not.”

    Valerie
    xxx

    ReplyDelete

Penny for your thoughts? :)