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Garden Plan
As soon as my seeds arrived from Botanical Interests, I sorted them out in order of when they need to be planted. I also included seeds I bought last year, and seeds we’ve been saving all year. I came up with a rough garden plan. It went through several revisions once we started working and…
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The Adventures of Cosmo
Look at my sweet little dog whispering secrets to my daughter. Cosmo is the best dog ever. Very mellow around kids, lets my daughter dress him up, follows basic commands like sit, stay, drop it, does a lot of fun tricks like roll over, high-five, jump through hoop, the works! But. Cosmo is a rat…
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Chalkboard Linen Closets
Since we moved into this old ranch-style farmhouse in the winter, we did not want to paint the walls and be stuck indoors with the smell of fumes. But there are child’s scribbles on some parts of the walls including these white linen closets. I tried and tried to scrub them off but they would…
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Chicken Kitchen
We just recently moved to an old ranch-style farmhouse on a 3.6 acre property. There’s a lot to do, and many springtime dreams of starting a garden, raising chickens and a beehive. Upon move-in, though, my first priority was to clean and set up the kitchen. Let me show you our kitchen, the Chicken Kitchen.…
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There’s no place like home
This Christmas was a challenge for my family. We had to move out of our home in November because of a mold issue in the house that was making us ill. My mother offered us my childhood home in the Philippines. It excites us to think of spending a little time in the place where…
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A Child’s Creation Story
My daughter loves hearing about how she was born. I tell her about her beginning as a tiny baby the size of a pea growing inside my belly. I tell her about how happy I was when she grew big in my belly and I felt her kicking against me. I tell her about the…
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Our Love Story
My husband and I met in New York City during the blizzard of 1996. He lived in a haunted Victorian Mansion, with a billiards table in the basement, taxidermy birds, fox and a giant elk, antique furniture piled on top of each other, grand pianos, giant ceramic demons hanging from trees, and feathered Indians made…
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Placenta Fertilizer
One of the questions I asked my midwife as I neared my due date was “What do we do with the placenta?” Her suggestions: cook it up for a nutrient-rich post partum snack that chases away after birth depression; then plant the rest of it to fertilize the earth. I had some placenta immediately after…
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Children’s Fairyland
This weekend we went to Children’s Fairyland in Lake Merritt, Oakland, an outdoor amusement park with a fairy tale theme. Created in 1950, this historic park still has the creepy allure of old-fashioned fairs. Attractions look like they are in need of a new coat of paint. The pen marked “Three Blind Mice” had a…
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No Counting
At a toy store, a mother started yelling at her son, approximately four years old. The mother wanted to leave, the boy wanted to stay. The mother started yelling, “I’m gonna count to three… One!” The boy cried loudly, “Nooo! No counting!!!” It made me wonder if the boy would grow up hating math.