Jamie T - Emily's Heart; Johnny Flynn - Hong Kong Cemetry; Newton Faulkner - Gone in the Morning; Paolo Nutini - White Lies (Actually, anything by Paolo is the shit) :)
Those are just to name a few of the great artists that can be found on this amazing site that I found. I really think you'd REALLY enjoy the artists found on the station that I'm always tuned in to. I'm gonna try to insert the link in here, hopefully it will work.
If it does, ENJOY! Oooh! And David Gray and Ray LaMontagne are goodies too! :) James Morrison and Laura Marling - Blackberry. I think you'll like that one. :)...too. ;)

http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Paolo+Nutini/similarartists#pane=webRadioPlayer&station=%252Flisten%252Fartist%252FPaolo%252BNutini%252Fsimilarartists

Picture Time!

I love your cottage cheese ass. At least it was holding itself up. I can't say that for my own - but I'm working on it! I've been taking Sophia to the gym with me - i just set her down with the laptop and a movie and she's chill for about 45 minutes. I've noticed that's her time limit. After that she starts getting restless. There are other children in the gym as well, which is cool because I don't feel like a bad mother for bringing my daughter there too. Or at least, if I am, at least there are other mothers just like me who are willing to do what they have to do to get a little "me" time in.

And now it's time for a picture update!
The weekend before last we spent up in Pasadena, as Andrew had just graduated from high school.
This is Emma and her cousin sitting in the cathedral during the commencement ceremony (it was a private, christian, college preparatory school)....

This is Andrew with the younger niece and nephew...

Here's David with his "little" brother...

Here's me and my hubby...

And this next photo I took just for you because I actually brushed. my. hair.

This is Emma having fun playing volleyball during the last game of the season.

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Then just this past weekend, David made me lunch and I wanted to share it with you....

Oh my god, it was just that good.

and THIS is the girl who has a MEGA crush on William.
Her name is Daisy Willow, and she comes over every day to play with William.
When he's out playing with the boys, her heart is crushed. She follows him wherever she can.
Today I found them lying in his bed curled up together. He was reading and she was laying on his chest.
I delicately explained they were not allowed to be in bed together (as innocent as it was, it nearly broke my heart) and asked them to play downstairs or outside.
Perhaps they knew each other from a past life, who knows:)

Oy! So, here's a pic that i'll only put up on here. :) I look like a cross between a bucket of cottage cheese and an oompa loompa that stole Willy Wonka's sunglasses from the new version of the movie!

And the other one is just a really nice pic that Guy took with his iphone. :)

Enjoy! ;)

Love the taste of poison in the morning

Partly because I know you don't get news of much variety and partly because you mentioned wanting to buy organic and partly because I want to store this information in a manner that will ensure that I don't lose it - I am going to post this information I read in an article on CNN. (Here's the original link for my own reference:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/01/dirty.dozen.produce.pesticide/index.html?hpt=C1)

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit group focused on public health. They scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.

The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.

The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables.


You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen. So without further ado, here they are:


The Dirty Dozen

Celery

Peaches

Strawberries

Apples

Domestic blueberries

Nectarines

Sweet bell peppers

Spinach, kale and collard greens

Cherries

Potatoes

Imported grapes

Lettuce



But never fear! Not all non-organic fruits and vegetables have a high pesticide level. Some produce has a strong outer layer that provides a defense against pesticide contamination. The group found a number of non-organic fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Clean 15" that contained little to no pesticides.
 
The Clean 15



Onions

Avocados

Sweet corn

Pineapples

Mango

Sweet peas

Asparagus

Kiwi fruit

Cabbage

Eggplant

Cantaloupe

Watermelon

Grapefruit

Sweet potatoes

Sweet onions


 
 
If you feel inclined to read what might seem to you like large amounts of text, I have included the rest of the article.
 
 
Can small amounts of pesticides hurt you?


The government says that consuming pesticides in low amounts doesn't harm you, but some studies show an association between pesticides and health problems such as cancer, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and nervous system disorders and say exposure could weaken immune systems.

The Environmental Working Group acknowledges that data from long-term studies aren't available but warns consumers of the potential dangers.

"Pesticides are designed to kill things. Why wait for 20 years to discover they are bad for us?" Rosenthal said.

Some doctors warn that children's growing brains are the most vulnerable to pesticides in food.

"A kid's brain goes through extraordinary development, and if pesticides get into the brain, it can cause damage," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.



Can pesticides be washed away?


Not necessarily. The pesticide tests mentioned above were conducted after the food had been power-washed by the USDA. Also, although some pesticides are found on the surface of foods, other pesticides may be taken up through the roots and into the plant and cannot be removed.

"We've found that washing doesn't do much," Rosenthal said. "Peeling can help, although you have to take into account that the pesticides are in the water, so they can be inside the fruit because of the soil."

All fresh produce, whether it's grown with or without pesticides, should be washed with water to remove dirt and potentially harmful bacteria. And health experts agree that when it comes to the Dirty Dozen list, choose organic if it's available.

"To the extent you can afford to do so, [parents] should simply buy organic, because there have been some very good studies that shows people who eat mostly organic food reduce 95 percent of pesticides [in their body] in two weeks," Landrigan said.



** On a side note, I will not rant and rave, but WHY I ask you, WHY are we as consumers so dispassionate about this? Why do we neglect and ignore the super powers we, as consumers, have? We drive the markets! There should be mass movements of outraged human beings taking matters into their own hands and growing their own food. I've taken a small step with my little container garden and it consoles me to a degree, but not nearly enough. Now to get the growth hormones out of our milk and antibiotics out of our meat!

Happenings

So I may or may not have told you that I've been itching to start a summer garden since December. That wasn't practical for several reasons, one being that a successful garden takes lots of planning, which I had yet to do. Secondly, Christmas time is not the time you think about spending money on recreational hobbies that don't yield significant results (at least not immediately. At least if I was spending my money on a gym membership, I'd have the satisfaction of looking like a hottie. Gardening required getting on your knees and getting really dirty and wet, which I'm typically wont to do anyway...hey, get your mind out of the gutter).Third, and only slightly irrelevant to me, was the fact that you can't have a summer garden in winter. That being said I spent the first four months of 2010 reading gardening books and pouring over pictures and tips on the internet. Generally, this was done during the quiet time just before bed when David and I read together, and he took notice of my obsession. He generously offered to build me a raised bed garden after I asked him if I could buy a set of raised beds for $300. (Of course we didn't have the money, but I like to dream. And since when does not having money stop me from getting what I want?)

Finally, after patiently waiting four months, we make it Home Depot where we pick out the wood. Now, I knew certain wood was ideal for raised beds, so I looked for cedar planks, which we found no problem, in addition to a 4x4 piece of pressurized piece of cedar wood to be used for the posts. What I didn't know if that pressurizing wood requires using chemicals - chemicals like arsenic and other names I can't pronounce but sound equally deadly. The chemicals leech into the dirt and the plants absorb them through their root systems. Just the kind of poisonous plants that I wanted for my family garden!
Then, come to find out, it's gonna cost close to $100 just to fill the darn box with gardening soil.
So my project is dragging on due to lack of funding, but I do not despair. I stole a bunch of containers from my mother's patio recently. It was a graveyard of dead trees and flowers. They'll be put to much better use at my house...once I fill them that is.
But look!

You can see I already transplanted some seedlings into the larger square containers. The only thing is I forgot what kind of vegetable plant there are - either zuchini or cucumber. (The cucumber plants I bought are engineered to grow in a "bush" shape and you can fit three plants in one 18 in. container! If it turns out to be zuchini, I'll probably have to move them, because one zuchini plant will take up a lot of room.)

The back row is the cucumber (I think) and you can see the two roma tomato plants and three basil plants I got going on there. The rows of dirt in front of them are gonna be cilantro and chives.

Another thing - growing plants from seeds requires patience, and you know I'm full of that.

Oh! but hey - check out my front yard. It's blooming right now...

I've got sunflower seedlings, an orange tree (in the black pot that's hiding), an avocado tree I grew from an avocado pit (from a great batch of guacamole we had back in November), and I'm totally digging the jasmine! You can smell it night and day, although it seems to be most active at night, giving off a sweet heavenly smell.

So far I haven't killed anything, which is a...no wait. I lied. I purposefully let my strawberry plant die because I was mad it never bloomed. (I can be vengeful and ruthless, I know this about myself. I'm working on having compassion for plants, and I do. I think I was just in a funk when it happened.) I am a little concerned about the avocado tree, though. It's about 12 inches tall and it was ready to move outside, but thus far it has not been an easy transition! Either the sun is too strong, or it suddenly needs a lot more water it used to, or it doesn't like the new and expensive organic gardening soil it's in. Picky little tree. I'll have to figure out what's wrong with it before it gets much worse. If it dies, I don't know that I'll cope well. It's been a six month investment thus far! It was never even supposed to live - I buried it in a pot of dirt outside and only watered it very sporadically. For three months I just had a pot of dirt sitting on my front porch, the only reason I kept it there was because it matched the empty dirt pot that the strawberries were dying in.

I have issues.

Anyway.

My day started off grand this morning. I stayed up super late to watch episoes of LOST and Glee with David. This meant I slept in. This meant I was rushing, didn't have time to make the kids lunch, and threw on whatever clothes I could find before racing out the door and to the gas station to get money from a debit purchase. The black guy behind the counter raised his eyebrows and smirked at me. I ignored his expression and gave a genuine smile back.

"You a Dodger's fan or did you leave in a hurry this morning?"

"I'm a Dodgers fan...and I left in a hurry this morning. Can I have two $10's, please?"

"I don't got none."

Thankfully the cute college kid gas attendant was there and said,

"I got change at the register, follow me outside."
He opens the door for me and I step past him.

He looks me up and down, and asks,

"What are you wearing?"

C'mon people! Has no one ever gone into a gas station in mismatching pajamas with no bra on and a head full of frizzy hair hiding under their hat?!

You know it's been too long since you've blogged when...

...you can't remember the universal password you created to log into the blog.
So I've been moping about the fact that school has been consuming my life these last 7 weeks, to be exact. I am counting the days until my classes are over (May20th) and all I will have left are my Azusa Pacific classes. (Just in case you didn't know, I'm taking a history and child development course on top of the APU courses I'm in.)
Now that we're on the same page, let's just take a moment to look back at these last couple weeks, because I refuse to believe that my life is dead.

So let me see what we've got here.

Oh yes. Meet Draca, Ashlee Garman's new rat that I was asked to pet sit.

Lucky for me I like ratties. We had her for a week before she was returned to their care...

I wonder if she's still alive.

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This is a picture of Potato Croissant dough that I was making by scratch to serve for Easter Dinner.

You know the only bread I have ever made from scratch has been the dough we put together to throw into my breadmaking machine, which I have never used since that time we used it on Elvenking. (Remember I was afraid to open the yeast because I thought it would be squirming around or maybe come crawling out of the packet? I do.)

These are the Potato Croissants that I baked and attempted to serve for Easter Dinner, but my mother prevented me, insisting that I had not let the dough risen properly. I was adament I had followed the "quick rise" directions properly, and to demonstrate utter confidence in my baking abilities, I ate the bread, which was a fine idea until I swear it began rise in my stomach. I know it was all in my head, but I couldn't shake the image of a baby bird's stomach bursting as it eats a grain of rice. They were as edible as they look there in the picture - which means, not very.

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This is William and David at the Mission Bay Aquatic Center in April. Emma and William both attended a spring camp sailing camp where they completed and earned a 15 hour sailing course certificate. William was pretty excited we got to be there and spend the morning with them.

Emma was also radiating exuberance and enthusiasm.

William, with his new found sailing skills and David (who was in the process of taking a crash course in sailing due to the fact that the Captain of the boat was only 7 years old, after all) sail off into the wild blue yonder...

...and get ship wrecked shortly thereafter. With a little bit of man power they were able to unbeach themselves and resume their expedition  out into the bay.

Sophia and I follow everyone's progress on a boat with a real motor. The camp leader was boating us around; he was 21 years old, was from Hyannisport (think Cape Cod), and had grew up racing sail boats and currently races competitively for University of California, San Diego. Pretty cool.

Later in the day we were able to have a picnic on the grassy beach. Naturally, after getting up at 5:45am and spending most of our time out on the water, somebody is bound to break down. Of course it was the seven year old and not the three year old.

Don't ask what happened - I don't remember. But I can pretty much guarentee you that it wasn't worth him dying on the towel in front of me.

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Also, we do a lot of baseball - about 4 hours a week. All our practices and games are held at the local elementary school that is thankfully close.

And this is just proof that Emma does smile. Sometimes.

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So that's my life in pictures

Most recently, I told you about my gardening project. I'll save pictures for my next post.

Til then, Ta Ta my dearest!

Someday...

You will remember that you started this blog...and then you'll check it. :)