Problem solved!

Tonight I've realized something that might eliminate a problem for me, or parents everywhere. You see, I have been challenging myself to let go of little things that bug me, and allow the world to be as it is without my having to fix it. Hard task.

One of the ways I've done this is to allow - don't laugh - the toilet paper roll to be backward. That is, paper comes out the back, not the front. Most people have a preference, or so I hope that it's not only my neurosis. Anyhow, I usually switch the roles put on backward. This week I didn't and I've gone a whole, well, maybe two days handling this quite well. Recognizing my annoyance and knowing that I can let go. Deep breath here.

But back to my realization. For some reason, as I was getting ready for bed, I thought about Graeme unraveling the toilet paper. Like every time we have a new role. With this roll, he hasn't done it and I think it's because it doesn't unravel if it's backward. I tried to spin it myself and you actually have to work hard spinning backward to unravel anything. Not as fun. (Or so I imagine for Graeme.)

Could that be an easy solution for parents everywhere? Maybe others have already noticed this, but I'm fully willing to let things be backwards. It beats having re-rolled toilet paper any day. Just shows if you open up to different ways of being, new solutions arise! And that's just with toilet paper...

Grocery Priorities

While I was spending my time planting in the front yard, I let the boys play trains and have a snack.  Gavin came outside after a while to show me his shopping list.  It reads as follows: 

1.  Car Feed (as you know, all of the toy cars and trains in our house have to be fed real people food or they get grumpy)

2. Pistachios

3. Letter Cheezits  (Scrabble Junior Cheezits, clever marketing)

4. Candy

5. Alphabet Soup

I need to train him to take inventory of the pantry and write the actual shopping list.  

Update in Pictures

In the past week or so, I've written many posts for you, but unfortunately, none of them have actually been extracted from my brain.  So, this is my attempt at a synopsis of what we've been up to.  The famous, or not-so-famous, catch up through pictures.  Here goes:

First, garden and starts:

The seeds I started indoors are doing quite well.  I'm thinking I should probably replant them before they get too big - particularly the cucumbers because they will start twining around themselves and then be useless.

Here are some of the tomato starts.  There are a bunch as nearly all have survived.  They are tiny, but last year even the tiny starts ended up producing fruit, so we'll see.  They make me smile every morning nonetheless.

Here are the new plants the boys and I chose for the front yard.  Below are some "bumblebee flowers" which we all thought were too cute to pass up.  Hopefully, everything will survive my mediocre watering habits in the summer and grow in beautifully.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the backyard flower bed.  It looks even better now as the tulips have bloomed... however, the point of the picture was to acknowledge that the clover won the battle. I was going to try to weed it out, but then thought there might be a better use of my time.

Novelty picture of the lupine coming up in the backyard.  I love the way rainwater just bubbles in the center of the leaves.  This is but one of the ten or so pictures I took.  Luckily for you, I just posted one.

And the war begins... slugs beware.

Aww... cute little bird at the bird feeder.  We put this up about three weeks ago and the birds love it.  And we love the birds.  I was wondering, however, why there were some many sprouts coming up in my garden. Things I did not plant.  It didn't take long to figure it out; my all-knowing neighbor had warned me.  The birds apparently like to share their seeds with the garden.  Needless to say, we'll have a lot of sunflowers.  (And who knows what else will pop up!)

Oh well, how about that!  The whole post and all of the pictures have been about the yard or garden.  (You can tell it is Spring!)  Yes, I do have the boys to talk about.  They enjoyed the chocolate eggs at Easter and wore cute little vests that they'd never wanted to wear before.  Both Gavin and Graeme are very busy.  Gavin's brain does not stop.  Ever.  And Graeme hangs right in.  Can you recognize what their newest drawing obsession is?  They've drawn out quite elaborate schemes...