Alright, Flylady, I shined my sink. NOW what??

It's that time of year. The season has officially changed. The summer clothes need to packed away for next year, and the lovely sweaters get laundered and brought back out. That always throws me into a cleaning spree. Is fall cleaning a thing? If not, it bloody well should be! It CERTAINLY is a thing here. And this year, happy birthday to me, I am getting my dad's sleeper sofa, which I love. I ALSO inherited two FABULOUS dog crates.

Have I mentioned that my house is tiny? That I have OCD? Yeah......... And now, EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF FURNITURE I OWN HAS TO BE MOVED (except Roo's bed, which is a Goliath beast of a thing and will not move unless and until we are moving out of this house. It took three people four days to get it where it is now!) Also, the laundry/storage room was a big heap of cluttered chaos. I haven't been able to find anything in there since a few weeks after the last time I pulled EVERYTHING out and reorganized it. So I pulled everything out again. But good news! We think we found Hoffa behind the paint cans left behind by some previous inhabitant....

In the last week, I have thrown away two over-full big trash bins (you know, the small dumpster thing the sanitation folks send out?) of junk, my paper recycle bin has been filled to overflowing twice (it's more than overflowing now, and I DON'T think they pick up recycling this week. Oops!!). I've donated TWELVE bags of clothes and shoes, SIX boxes of food-that-isn't-gluten-free, and I am currently looking for the right family to give FIVE bins of toys and games for preschoolers, a play vanity, and a tricycle (Merry Christmas!). I even finally talked myself into throwing away the patio bench that I loved so much that has been broken since May and cannot be fixed.

I've rearranged both bedrooms, the living room, the storage room, and the carport. On Thursday, the lawn will get mowed and edged, and the garden spots will be adorned, and, in theory, my coveted sleeper sofa will be arriving in my living room.

And I am asking myself, again, how do I keep my house and my brain in shape once I have completed my own personal Extreme Home Makeover: Crap You Already Own Edition. I am also asking myself exactly WHERE I am going to store my extra towels now that I've moved the dresser they were stored in into my bedroom and my tall-boy into the storage room to hold art, craft, and school supplies so I can actually FIND them. But that's not what this post is about. Much.

I've tried "organizing," "housekeeping" and other such systems in the past, including letting my OCD and my ADD wage war and wreak havoc in my head - and my kitchen. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS, I overthink things WAY too much, and I let my OCD get the better of me (as it will do, whether you "allow" it to or not!), and I give up, and three months later, I spend ten days trying to sort through boxes of what-the-heck-is-this?! and I-forgot-I-owned-this! Seriously. I went through a box of stuff tongight. I didn't know the box existed, much less the really cool vases and the WEATHER RADIO it contained. I have no idea how long I've had it. Probably all summer. And I've been LOOKING for a weather radio. To PURCHASE. So glad I never got around to that!!

So, I am working my way through the laundry and the storage room at this point, and then, a thorough cleaning of the floors, and I am finished. I am determined that the contents of my storage room shall henceforth remain static. If something goes in, something comes out, and it will only contain (other than the laundry supplies. DUH!) art supplies, craft supplies, school supplies, a spare AC, ceramic space heaters, camping supplies, and seasonal decorations. And I may need to scale those back.

I need to maintain, and keep organizing regularly. But how?

So, I thought I'd give Flylady another go, but this time, I am determined not to try to get ahead of myself. She says to make shining your sink a habit, right? But the "baby steps" are theoretically a month's worth of things. Not me. Not this time. So, here's my plan.

Flylady has "zone missions," right? Each week, they focus on a different area of the house, and each day, there's a short "mission" for that area. I should do that.

I like the ideas at Organizing Made Fun's 31-day challenge. It was for October. Nobody says I can't do it now. It's like a daily mission. I should do that, too. That's two short tasks a day. Morning and afternoon, right?

And I am not doing Flylady's steps in 31 days. I don't shine my sink. It's not even close to a habit. I am just going to work on THAT step and the mission-things until I'm doing it without flipping out on myself or complaining, or stressing. THAT's a better plan for me, I think. I should TOTALLY do that.

I am hoping that maybe this time I can maintain without the crazy anxiety attacks I get. Because, honestly, as mildly as I've got it, OCD is a BEAST. I was talking to a friend tonight while I was working on the patio trying to get stuff done, and I said the following, almost ver batim:

"This is stupid. I am seriously about to have an anxiety attack because I don't have the right bin for my lumber, and I don't know where the lumber goes. And I want it in an opaque bin with no lid. If I am going to use a CLEAR bin, I want my garden stuff in that. Okay, transferring garden stuff to clear bin. That's a bit better. I still don't know where the heck to put it without making it look JUNKY. You know what I need? I need some pallets and some canvas and a sheet of plywood so I can build a little mini-shed-thing to store my garden stuff in, because then it wouldn't look junky. And another one (or two) for my lumber, because that makes SENSE, darn it. And I feel COMPLETELY insane right now, because I can acknowledge that I am about to have an anxiety attack. I can tell you exactly WHAT is triggering my anxiety attack. But I can't do a THING to prevent it, because if I go inside and get away from the trigger, the anxiety is only going to get WORSE. I feel stupid. A stupid, insane, neurotic mess. OMG. Where do these bins go?"

I've got a bunch of laundry to put away. I haven't vacuumed the floor yet. So I can't put the laundry away. I know that's ridiculous. But it's true. And that's neurosis. And it's OCD. And it's my daily self. So. I am going to go put away dishes, wash a couple, because my sink isn't shining right now, and go back to work on the carport and the laundry.

And when I am finished, I have this plan to thoroughly clean my vacuum cleaner. That gives me a bit of anxiety too, because it has to dry for 24-48 hours, and I vacuum about every six hours. Not the whole house, mind, but SOMETHING.

But after THAT, I am going to just see how I do doing the flylady system, basic daily cleaning, and some organizing challenges. Because my life is crisis cleaning, and I can't live like this. Especially not if I am going back to school full-time (starting up again tomorrow! YAY!) and trying to get a "real job"

But where the heck am I going to keep my rag towels?!

I keep trying to just breathe and remember:
Íosa Críost é buadhach (Isous Christos NIKA) (Jesus Christ is Victorious)

Stay tuned for the reason we started learning this phrase! Bullying and Boy Scouts.

With love as always

The Return of the Fidget

Glory to God! My little man made it home last night! And he's psyched about our new eating plan.

It was an interesting week. I was working on cleaning up his room, which had an odor I couldn't find the source of. Well, I found it.

See, the thing is, my child is six, and still wets the bed fairly regularly. The doctors have said they don't consider it abnormal until it's still happening when he's coming up on nine. So we just handle it. Or so I though. I've layered the mattress - a waterproof cover, a fitted sheet, repeat a few times. I also snagged him some extra bedspreads. That way, if he wets, we can pull off a fitted sheet and a quilt and just throw on a new bedspread and get back to sleep. No big deal, right?

Apparently it is. It seems that his dad's family makes a HUGE DEAL about it, and he gets in  trouble there if he wets - even though his dad has admitted to wetting through elementary school himself. So, I guess he's sort of internalized it or something. Or he's afraid that I am going to flip out too. I don't know. I get that it's embarrassing. I really do. But I try to make it "just a thing" for us. It's just something we deal with because it has to be handled.

But he had trashed his closet. I mean toys, books, shoes - everything just CRAMMED IN THERE. And not just crammed in, but covering his hidden accidents. When he wet, he crammed stuff in the closet instead of coming to me with it. So I CLEARED OUT THE CLOSET. All of it. The closet is no longer storage for toys at all.

It became a project for the whole house.

I pulled books off his bookshelf, and moved the books to the living room. I pulled the bookshelf (yes, bookshelf) out of the bathroom to store our collection of VHS tapes. I put the bookshelf from his room into the bathroom. Then I set out to build him cubbies out of milk crates so I could take the plastic drawers and reclaim them for art supplies. Here are some photos. Please forgive the blurriness of some of them. I took several, but I've got this hand-me-down point-and-shoot.....

Milk crate cubbies - all of his toys are organized and accessible under his loft bed. He has a toy cave!

This corner was ALL cluttered up. The bookshelf (and four milk crates) were at the window, and everything else was shoved behind the closet door. Now he can actually get to his music stuff!

I shifted around posters, cleared and cleaned the top of his desk (and underneath it. Dude is a clutterbug!).

This was also crammed full of toys (and milk crates!). The cool hat rack was behind the bedroom door)

I cleaned up the area between the door and the closet and used some wood salvaged from my neighbors kitchen remodel to build the boy a trophy shelf. I have to pick up his trophy, but when he got home, we hung his pine derby ribbon and put the derby car on the shelf. 

Smaller, but much more suited shelf in the bathroom. I think I like it better!

This one WAS in the bathroom, and the VHS tapes were taking over my world (and by "world" I mean "beloved huge bookshelf that I scored for cheap at Goodwill). I love it here, and all our movies fit. There WAS a stack of milk crates there, but they were turned into cubbies in the boy's room. So we've gone full circle!

I am still working on the rest of the house. Still figuring out how I want the laundry/storage room organized, how I want my art/craft supplies organized in there, and how to get people to buy all the loads and loads of stuff in my carport waiting for a yard sale!! I have to move my dresser to make room for an extra-large dog crate. And I am still working my way through laundry - cleaning EVERYTHING here!

I know some of you are curious how the "diet" is going. I hate that word, "diet," but I guess it applies if we take it to mean "the way a creature eats" not "a hare-brained scheme to lose a lot of weight fast with no long-term plan."  The Young Farmer is totally on board, especially if it means he gets to graze on fresh chard and carrots. I'm working on a pot of soup for his lunches this week, which he's totally excited about. It's split pea and broccoli soup with some turkey. He picked it out.

We talked about gluten, what it was, and why it may not be a good idea for us. He wasn't sure what to think at first, then he discovered the juicer and forgot ALL ABOUT bread. He had fun picking out stuff to put in juice. We have made apple juice and blueberry lemonade for him today. Both were pretty exciting. 

My "jus de jour" today was kale, cucumber, swiss chard, carrot, dandelion greens, bell pepper, apple, blueberry, and lemon. It is actually quite satisfying and tasty. No, I haven't quit my coffee. 

For dinner, we made stir fry with chard and carrots from the garden and your standard-fare stir-fry veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, water chestnuts, snap peas, green beans, peppers, baby corn, mushrooms, fresh garlic, onion, a bit of kale, and brussels sprouts) cooked in bone broth with just a bit of fish sauce and about three ounces of ground turkey. I am guessing the boy liked it. He ate THREE BOWLS of it.

So, so far so good. Kiddo loves his room, loves the kitchen, loves the food. He loves to have a hand in the decision making about what foods we're eating. I think that helps a lot. We talked a bit about how Mama is sick a lot, and this can help me get better, and also about how it might help him feel better instead of feeling so frustrated and grumpy sometimes (how he explains the "ADHD moments" - oh, how well I understand!).  His only request was that we make Saturdays pizza day. I told him we could compromise with a gluten-free crust. He agreed happily. 

I will take off for now, I've got laundry waiting for me! Thanks for reading. Thanks for praying. And thanks, so much, for being with me on this journey of mine.

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Linking this post with:
Making the World Cuter
Make it Pretty Mondays
Inspiration Monday

Monday, Monday (bah dah, bah dah dah dah)

Don't tell me you're not singing it yet.

Okay, I am not as cool as Mama Cass Elliot. I am just not. I am, however, an awesome (and overweight) woman. You can call me Mama Kath.

No?

Okay.

Enjoy the music anyway. For my friends on the Old Calendar, today is the first day of the Apostle's Fast. It is interesting to me how the calendar difference can just erase an entire fast period from the calendar for a big chunk of the Orthodox world. It makes me wonder about things. I think I am going to sit down later, perhaps, and do some research into WHY so many jurisdictions changed their calendar! Does anybody know?

Regardless of your calendar, it is Monday. Summer is in full swing. My sunflowers are HUGE, and my little garden is producing little green tomatoes and tiny carrots. And my much-beloved Lawn Dude is here working his magic on the overgrown jungle of my yard. This is the downside of summer. if I go two weeks without mowing, it turns into a perilous jungle out there. Seriously. Little Man plays tiger in the tall grass. There are dangers in the jungle!

Speaking of the wee one, he is currently out of town with his dad. They're going to the annual family reunion. He was totally excited. I was........not. I haven't been away from my only child for more than just a couple of days in a VERY long time. So eight days and seven nights is not really an appealing thing for me right now. It's been less than 36 hours, and I have already turned into a crazy woman.

At least I use my powers of neurosis for GOOD, right?

I am cleaning, reorganizing, sorting, washing, scrubbing, planting, baking, creating, fixing, rearranging - probably sulking a little bit too. I am trying to see this week as my opportunity to do some serious projects that I can't easily get done when the kiddo is home.

I tossed out all the junk food, so I don't get lonely and binge on junk. I went to the grocery store, and I loaded my cart with fresh, seasonal veggies to eat while he's gone. I am planning on not re-purchasing any of the junk when he gets home. I've been doing more and more research on things like the GAPS Diet, the Feingold Hypothesis, and whole foods as health care. I am sold on GAPS, since I personally know several people it's worked for. Some bits of Feingold have been common knowledge in the ADHD community for years and years (artificial stuff is bad for you! Also, it hinders our ability to exercise some control over our emotions and things. And let's face it, my family puts the H in ADHD.) So I am going to work on transitioning us into a GAPS style of eating, with special emphasis on whole foods and local stuff when possible.

I am currently re-arranging my "pantry thing."

You remember the pantry thing? Did I show you the pantry thing?

This:

It's a great pantry. I love it. When I moved in, I was using a half-broken old changing table as a pantry shelf thing. See, my kitchen has 13-foot ceilings, and the cabinets go ALL THE WAY UP, but the lowest cabinet is about six-and-a-half feet up there, and I am only 5'4". So most of the glorious cabinet space here is entirely wasted. I briefly entertained the idea of taking the doors off and putting pretty stuff in it, but then realized that I wouldn't be able to reach it to DUST!

It didn't take long for the half-broken changing table to become an entirely-broken-beyond-repair heap of useless MDFboard. When that happened, my mother picked this up at a garage sale for me. It's brilliant. I painted it when I built some really cheap cabinet doors to keep my dog out of the trash. Did I show you those either? (NOT useless MDF board here. This MDF board was very useful, and also free. I paid for the hasp. That was it!)

But I am rearranging the pantry. I have two purposes here.If we're going to eat REALLY HEALTHY STUFF, well, then I don't need a pantry full of cheap stuff, so I don't need to dedicate shelves to things we PROBABLY shouldn't be eating anyway. I do, however, need some space for my business supplies.

Yes. Business supplies!

I am now making and selling organic bath and body products.

It was an answer to prayer, and it happened SO suddenly. Have we discussed my health? I have lupus, eczema, and psoriasis (among other things. But these are the pertinent issues that lead to the business). I was sitting up one night, entirely unable to sleep, OUT of any products that would make me stop itching, burning, and hurting all over. In desperation, I went to my garden and grabbed what I could: lavender, mint, rosemary, and calendula. And I started to work distilling, pressing, and infusing my extra-virgin olive oil to try to get some relief. It helped!

Next, I made a moisturizing bath soak.

Then a heavy body balm for the worst spots.

Then a lotion for maintenance.

Then I started making a little money selling it. Now I am working on opening up an etsy shop! I'll let you know when that's up and running.

My skin is feeling better than it has since I was a CHILD, and some of the spots I have been fighting for months are FINALLY starting to clear up. 

So that's my Monday so far. What's your Monday looking like? Do you have big plans for the week?

......................................................................

The Pascha Garden

My friends, I am overwhelmed by the emails I have gotten since my last post. So many words of encouragement and offers of prayer! It's certainly been a difficult week. My boy finally started processing Kearney's death on Tuesday night, so there have been many tears and much talking and praying. Necessity dictated lots of extra snuggles as well, which I will never turn down.

My arm is healing, but it feels so slow. I know it's only been a week, and it can take up to sixteen weeks for this tendon to heal, but I feel so useless sometimes. I shouldn't, I suppose, but it's part of the process. My leg is infected, and my arm needed subcutaneous stitches at Monday's appointment. At today's appointment, it was no better, and I needed still more antibiotics. I go back again on Monday. Hopefully after THAT appointment, I will be cleared to take the shower I want so desperately. No amount of sponge-bathing leaves you feeling as clean as even a five-minute shower! Please continue to keep me in your prayers. I heal slowly to start with, and this is pretty major, I suppose.

We were able to go to church last night for Holy Unction. I love Holy Week so much! I am a bit sad that I am not able to be there much this year, but I live an hour from any Orthodox church (and, in fact, I live almost exactly an hour from no less than seven Orthodox churches!), and making the drive with my arm is not very wise if it can be avoided. So this year, we are doing something extra-special at home. In fact, I think this may be the start of a family tradition.

My poor young botanist's flower bed has not been doing well. We have ONE sunflower and a few blue flax sprouting, but nothing else. I knew that was highly likely, since we didn't have time to really prepare the ground, and we didn't have a lot of soil to put down. But he was sad. He's sad about his dog, and he's sad about his injured mama, and he's sad about his flowers. I can't fix the first two, but I could do something about the third.

So, today, we went window shopping at the garden center, just to get an idea of what we might want to plant eventually. We ran into our neighbor and my son's best friend there, and they offered to let him come over and play for a while. PERFECT OPPORTUNITY! I had been needing to find a time for someone else to watch my boy so I could sneak out and buy him presents for his basket! (just a note: He got a huge basket with candy, toys, and books at my parents' Easter picnic a month ago, so I was planning on a small toy or two, maybe a Cadbury egg, and something we could do together. Lately, that means gardening, building, or painting.)

I went through the garden center on my own, lingering at the sale tables, and I hatched a plan. Then I went to find soil. I came back with a gusto, grabbing flats and quarts like a woman on a mission.

Did you know? There is NO good way to hide a bunch of flowers in a tiny little house for three nights without killing them.

So "Peter the Pascha Rabbit" came early to visit my son. He asked him to plant a Pascha garden, and to pray as he plants.

He has Joseph's Coat for the prophets, marigold for the Theotokos, white gardenias for Christ and His Resurrection, some beautiful red flowers (whose name escapes me) for Christ's humanity and death on the Cross, and some purple and blue petunias for His divinity (and I believe I remember reading that the purple also represents His Passion).  Three of the plants creep and spread to show how we should spread the Gospel.  He's got an angel garden statue already, and while I was browsing online looking for a garden cross, I got another neat idea:

I am going to decoupage an icon or two to go in the Pascha Garden! I have instructions on decoupaging for outdoor use, and I am ready to go (once I figure out what I am decoupaging onto....)

Which icon(s) should we use? Leave me your suggestions!

Pray for us! God willing, we are going to try to plant in the morning before the rain moves in. Then I imagine I will promptly be taking pain meds and a nap.

The Chore Board and Positive Reinforcement

My friend Arlie asked me to blog about our ticket system and chore board. So, here I am.

We've had some behavioral challenges around here, and your standard fare punishment is not enough for the little man of the house. Neither is the standard fare positive reinforcement system that I've always known.  We had a disorganized system of rewards and punishments, but it was, as noted, disorganized and chaotic, and thus, useless.

We've also had issues with chores. Wee Man wants to get paid for his chores, and I love paying him for chores. The problem is that the money just isn't always there for it. And it gets EXPENSIVE paying a kid every time he does a single chore. Also, who REALLY keeps rolls of change around?

We've had issues with screen time, which is related to behavior and to chores. He would grab my tablet, often without permission, and start playing Angry Birds before doing chores, and he would yell and scream and cry when he was told to turn it off. It was really ugly.

So we had to think of something else!

We went to my sister's house for my dad's birthday, and she had the lovely chart made for her kids. It gave them a limit of screen time, and they had options for earning more time on specific days (my nephew can earn extra screen time only on weekends, and never on school nights). I liked it. A lot.

Apparently we had both seen the next one on the internet.

A box.

A box that holds things that the children left lying around the house.  If it's still there after the child is told and reminded to put it away, it goes in the box, and they must do chores to earn it back.

So a system was born.

I got a bunch of tickets from my mom, who picked them up at School Box. I bought a magnetic dry erase board at the dollar store, and I re-purposed a magnetic coupon holder. I got some baskets and an empty opaque tote out of my storage room.

The white board gives him a limit on his screen time and is updated during the day as it is earned. Screen time is limited to one movie and half an hour of game time in a day. I have to count it in movies, because I do not have a subscription television service, Netflix, Hulu, or anything like that. Rather, we have a bunch of VHS tapes.

Below that is a behavior tracker. Smiley faces are for good behavior. Frownie faces are for bad behavior. At the end of the day, we do some subtraction.  Smiles minus frowns equal tickets.

Next is the chore chart. If he completes his daily chores (in orange) he earns one ticket. He can also do any of the "high value" chores, which are worth one ticket each.

Once he gets tickets, he can trade them in for special things. Three tickets equal one item from the "blue box." Five tickets can be cashed in for a slushie from Slushie Gary (like the ice cream truck, but better!) on Saturdays. One ticket can be traded for five minutes of tablet time.

Now, tablet and TV time can be taken away. If you're able to read the picture above, the game box says "Mon. 4/22."  He told a lie at his baseball game on Monday, and lost the tablet for a week.

Daily Chores:

• Take out trash
• Water for the dogs 
• Feed the dogs (once. I feed them breakfast; he feeds them dinner)
• Clean your room
• Put away your things
• Get the mail 

High Value Chores

• Do the dishes
• Clean the bathroom
• Put away your laundry
• Vacuum the floor
• (not on the board: he can dust, clean the fronts of cabinets, sweep the porch or patio, etc.)

I do my blue box a little differently. I have baskets in the kitchen. These are called the "put away" baskets.  As I am cleaning up, if I come upon something that needs to be put away, it goes in the basket. Yes, one of them is mine and contains purses and shoes! These are separate from the "put your things away" chore, in that "put your things away" tends to mean "put away the stuff you got out" and these things, for whatever reason (perhaps that we both have ADD) aren't included in those items. Just go with it.  

Anything left in the basket for more than two days goes in the blue box to be earned back by exchanging tickets.

Anyway, that's the system. Tickets can be earned for exceptionally good behavior aside from the smiley face chart as well.

It's simplified things quite a lot, because it's just all there in one place, and it's consistent without having to try too hard. It just IS consistent. When he can see what time he's allowed to ask for screen time, it stops some of the arguments. Once school work and chores are done, the screen time chart is updated to show him how much time he is allowed.

And I am all about simplifying!

The Budding Blue Botanist

I have so many partial posts that I haven't gotten around to finishing up yet, because there's just a LOT to them. So many parts and pieces to finish up. Lots of pictures, lots of ideas, and a theory or two behind homeschooling. That's right, we're homeschooling for real now. Sometime in the winter, the online charter school changed their policies on moving kids up a curriculum level, and Jack had finished TWO language arts levels. But that's another post. Another half-finished post that I will eventually slow down and post for anybody that's reading! This is not that post. This is a post about my budding blue botanist, and the awesome spring time we're having here.

Yesterday, we went on a field trip with my mother. If you're in or near Atlanta, Scottsdale Farms and Bella Luna Cafe is DEFINITELY worth a visit. Warning: TAKE CASH! You'll want it! We went for their children's event. Jack was the oldest by a good bit, but the ladies running it were absolutely brilliant with him and told him that "with age comes privilege." In his case, that meant the ability to make extra biscuits, carry the biscuits to the oven in Bella Luna's kitchen, and pick a story at story time. It also means that next time we go, he gets to not only PICK a story for story time, but read it to the younger kids! He had a blast making biscuits, reading stories, EATING the biscuits with fresh local honey, and playing with the other kids in their demo garden. It was lovely.

After this, my mom treated us to lunch at Bella Luna, the cafe inside Scottsdale Farms' gift shop. Jack had "the Jake" - a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on crustless whole wheat bread with apple slices and fresh squeezed organic lemonade. I had the most beautiful fresh, organic salad with fresh vegetables and cherry walnut vinaigrette. I also cashed in on my free chocolate caramel latte with almond milk. And their water! Oh their water! It's infused with cucumbers, and they have fresh mint leaves and lemon wedges to put in the cup! Glorious! (mind, I have a pitcher of filtered water in my fridge that is ALSO infused with cucumber, lemon, and fresh mint). It was an inspired lunch, with "Jake" the flower-lady's small black lab mix at our feet.

Then off for our awesome botany lesson and tour of their nurseries. Jack learned the difference between annuals and perennials and also between deciduous and evergreen trees. We looked at all the plants, and walked for well over two hours exploring everything. He was enthralled by the flowering blue daze plants, so when his Mema told him at the end of the tour that he could pick out one plant to buy, he went IMMEDIATELY to the blue daze, and picked up the plant he wanted. Before my mother and I had even settled on the two lantana plants for my butterfly garden (which soon will also have purple verbena and a butterfly bush or two), he came back with the plant he wanted. He was able to tell my mom that it's an annual that grows in full sun! So that was his first plant. He walked through the shop to check out, proudly showing off his blue daze to anyone who cared (and probably a lot of people who didn't), and he's been so excited and proud of the plant since.

So, now, he's into this gardening idea. We're in the process of setting up a notebook journal for his gardening project this spring and summer. Yes. Project. What started as ONE flowering blue daze in a pot has become a HUGE project. We're planning several garden plots and flower beds in our yard, and I am hoping it works out, because if it does, it will be fantastic.

Today, we were in a store looking for a birthday gift for Jack's baseball best friend (baseball is another post. I promise I will explain that one too, with pictures, adorable, wonderful pictures!), and they had a BUNCH of seed packs on sale between 10 and 33 cents each. So we bought some. Okay, more than some. We bought a TON of seeds! Jack is planting his own BLUE flower bed, some herbs, and a vegetable plot!

His blue garden contains:

• Flowering blue daze
• blue morning glories
• blue mink algeratum
• blue cupid's dart
• blue flax
• Chinese blue forget-me-nots

We also picked up these flowers:

• Marigold
• Morning Glory
• Columbine
• African Daisy
• Wild Flower Mix
• Aster
• Zinnia
• Ageratum
• Sunflower
• Echinacea

Vegetables:

• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Contender Bean
• Cherokee Wax Bean
• Cucumber
• Bush Blue Lake Bean
• Cauliflower
• Sweet Corn (GMO free!)
• Carrot
• Radish
• Turnip

And Herb

• Dill

So we got home today, in the cold and the mist, and Jack DEMANDED that we start our project. He wouldn't relent. So we started turning over dirt and turf to make flower beds, and we mapped out where we want to plant what. It's great how excited he is about this, and I hope that our gardens turn out lovely!