Tuesday, May 11, 2010

My Heart Today~

Jamie made this necklace for me for mother's day....so sweet...he made sure to draw my attention to the pattern of the beads on the necklace! (I'm proud to finally say that one of the boys has a trait of mine!)

Sunday afternoon, while I was finishing my mother's day projects, the boys played in the bank parking lot. Corey has never really been interested in bikes...he liked his training wheels and was satisfied to just go at a lazy pace as the other two rode circles around him. Last year the training wheels broke, leaving him totally miffed and bike-less. Jim tried time and time again to get him to ride....."I Hate Bikes!" was the normal response. I don't know what happened, but there I was bent over the glue gun when Jamie ran into the house yelling "Corey's riding a bike all by himself!"....What?!?!?


Yep, there's my little Mr. riding all on his own...no coaching....no pleading...just got on the bike and rode!

I don't know if it's coincidental or if the diet somehow helped this, but WOW! This weekend was really great with Corey---he read All of the produce boxes at the market (yes, that says Grape King....uh huh...yep...those are peppers....) We got our first honest to goodness organic raw milk on Friday. I've let it settle in the fridge so that I can skim off the cream and make yogurt tonight...Cross your fingers and say a little prayer if you think about it! I've been complaining a lot about the quality of our produce in the local grocery stores. We travel 45 min to get to the next big town, usually because they have a Woodman's...I am/was in love with Woodman's. I can remember traveling up to Beloit as a kid just to go there. They have everything, in multiple brands and usually have a decent selection of local...ok...Wisconson products. But lately, their produce has stunk it up...literally....I about passed out walking past the potato bins! What is up with this? Is it that we are smack dab in the middle of no where and all the fruits and veggies get shipped from Ca or Mexico?

So now I'm on a new mission----find good food locally---we have the beginnings of a garden, but will have to wait for the fruits of that labor. There are a couple of CSA's, but do I want to spend $600 when in a couple of months I'll be harvesting my own? I finally found a decent little produce market (that has a good selection of organic and local) in the downtown area of the Big City and a few miles down the same road is a pretty good meat market....both are very quaint, old neighborhood places so it makes me feel good to buy from locals instead of big stores. We'll give this a try and see where it takes us!

In other news, Jamie had his first baseball practice last night. It was Faareeeezin'! He did good, and has a couple of kids that he knows on the team, but last night was even more evident that I am not at home here. I don't know what it is, obviously me, I've just never felt settled here. The other kids and parents all know each other (and for those of you who know me, I'm not one to shy away and I pride myself at being pretty adept when meeting new people). Jamie was a trooper and jumped right in, which I am thankful for!!!! It was hard enough watching and praying-----catch it, catch it, catch it!----he really did good for never playing in a league before. Jim was adamant about Jamie not playing on a team that was machine pitched....and Jim's schedule for the last 2 years was pretty nuts. One of the huge disadvantages of homeschooling (or even private school for that mater) is that we have no idea when to sign up for the organized sports. Unlike Cinderella, they don't send invites to all of the eligible kids in the valley! Anyway, I was a nervous wreck all night----I don't want Jamie to be known as that homeschool kid and I really hope that he builds some good friendships through this. Maybe I'm thinking about this way too much! Jamie will be fine, he'll get dirty, makes some runs and have fun...right?

I've got pictures for a tutorial on what I made for mother's day, but just can't seem to get in the mood to actually think enough to write it out...oh, well...maybe next week!

8 comments:

Lori said...

What a pretty necklace. Great job Jamie!

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness -- a Mother's Day craft that is actually acceptable for mother to wear!! :) Very nice work Jamie!

When I learned to ride my bike we were next to the grade school playground and 1/2 a block from big parking lots! Great places for riding practice. I'm glad Corey got over that hump. A plus for having older siblings. (how it worked for our #2 here)

You'll soon be loving your yogurt I'm sure. WTG!!

Michelle said...

Sending hugs your way. Everything will work out...it will!

Debbie said...

You are one busy little mom! I was amazed at the necklace. He could sell those! Keep up your energy level!
Debbie

Anonymous said...

Pretty necklace!
First practices are always bitter cold. I'm not happy about that every year.
I'm trying to get G to give up training wheels. No luck yet.
Good luck finding local food. We did a CSA--it came to $17 a week for a lot of food--a very satisfying experience.

Courtney Walsh said...

I would love to find out more about the local places you are buying...I'm assuming the 320 store? I've heard Valli Produce is good (though I'm not sure if it's organic?) I am especially interested in different meat... I feel like the organic delivery is good for fruits and veggies, but the meat there is so expensive... Hmmm... are there any good farmer's markets nearby??

shelly said...

Courtney--Valli is ehh (all of the stores really are give and take), I've had issues with there stuff going bad quickly and I'd never buy all of my groceries there (I don't feel comfortable buying meat when there's signs all over that says this meat's from Mexico or Canada).

I'm almost done reading Animal Vegetable Miracle...I'll post more thoughts later!

Unknown said...

I LOVED the 320 store. Sure, most everything was trucked in, but I loved how funky and small and homemade it felt. The store's locally-owned, at least, so there's that. By the time I moved to Madison, I had been buying most of my produce at 320.

Oh, and have I never mentioned the reputation that Woodman's produce section has in Madison?! Anyone who shops there knows that you are really gambling to buy their produce. If you can find stuff that's not beat up and bruised, you had better use it up QUICK.