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Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.
  • Hey, have you ever wanted to buy my old crap? hehehe. Ok, not crap, but stuff we just don’t need any more. Because baby I’ve been purging! This message is mostly for local peeps. And I pretty much copied the rest of it word for word from the Pax Forest School blog, if you also read that. Basically my friends and I decided to start a non-profit child led learning school of sorts outside, in all weather, back in January. We’re still working towards our 501 (c) (3) status (oh the paperwork!) and a permanent location. If you live around here and want to support alternative learning please consider donating to our sale or coming to shop!
    (and now, copied from Pax):
    Hi all, we’re wrapped up for the year. Check out this picture of our last day of the season:
    pax last day-1A big difference from the mud and cold of the first day back in January!
    We had a great year this year and are so looking forward to the fall. The board will be busy finishing our 501 (c) (3) application and finalizing our private location for the fall. This means we need your support! We have loved being able to offer Pax as no cost child led play days, but we really want the room to grow. We’d love to have the children be able to build structures, and really get to know their land. In order to do all of this we need donations. Until we have our status finalized with the IRS donations are NOT tax deductible. So we are going to have a warehouse rummage sale to get donations rolling in.
    You can help by donating used items in good condition to our rummage sale June 21-22. We have one more set drop off date (see below). If possible please have like items bagged or banded together (a bag of barbies for example, or all the pieces to a game in one box). You can not write off these donations. That is why it is so important for us to get our 501 (c) (3) status so we can encourage bigger donations (we are already registered with the state as a non-profit).
    Drop off date:
    Tuesday, June 17th from 10-noon
    Rummage Sale:
    Saturday and Sunday June 21-22
    9-3 both days
    Location:
    2709 19th St. SE, Salem
    sale stuff-1
    Donations have started piling in! Please if you need assistant getting donations to the warehouse contact us and we may be able to help you! Parents of Pax we also need help making signs, ads (Craig’s list and other garage sale sites and apps), helping with the kid’s lemonade booth and of course day of sale help. And tell your friends and family about the sale as well! Please support your awesome kiddos by helping with our sale!
    And please share this post with all your friends!
    About Pax Forest School
    Pax was started by three homeschooling moms as a way to facilitate child led learning out of doors, in any weather. Our hope is that children learn about themselves with and through nature; becoming confident, adventurous learners who work together to solve problems. Pax means peace.
     

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  • Remember my happiness project? Well I’m happy to say I’ve been sticking with it! I decided to just lump all our happy moments together (vs. one special pic for each of us). Enjoying the moment and not having to worry about capturing every detail is a lot easier. It’s been about 75 days, here are some highlights.
    happyapril
    Happy moments: 1. Tuesday at Forest School 2. Special night at the symphony with Grandma and Grandpa 3. Apple blossoms 4. sensory play for Bennet 5. bike ride to our chicken friends (and their parents) 6. olive trees! I bought olive trees (yes I still live in Oregon, cross your fingers) 7. “Papa I need a fridge for my outdoor play kitchen” 8. When your aunt and uncle surprise you with “relaxers” you gotta relax! 9. Bennet very happy I finally cleared off the mess on this thing and brought back out the learning tower.
    Um, going back through just that month made me realize just how little I’ve blogged about, slacker over here! Also how long it takes me to make collages like that. So sorry, you just get a taste. Anyone have a grid drop in PSD file like this with masks?
    Now I was going to tell you about how I joined in on another online project, Project 333. The basic idea is to pick 33 items (clothes, shoes, accessories) to use for 3 months. Work out gear, Pjs, under things and socks don’t count. Can I just say if socks counted I would last maybe a few days? I don’t like dirty feet. I digress. Here is my closet (via a crappy phone pic) after some intense clothes trying on/debating/tossing/packing up.
    my closet-1
    That’s it. There is no tee shirt drawer, no mounds of sweaters, these are all the clothes I will be wearing. It’s not 30, it’s more like 35:
    Shirts x 12

    Skirts x 6
    Dresses x 4
    Bermuda shorts
    Black pants
    Jeans
    Fleece
    Sweater
    Belt
    Bangles
    Necklace
    Bag*
    Roxy flip flops
    Silver Birkenstocks
    Brown teva flip flops
    Sanuks
    (I have no idea why there is a space between shirts and skirts, but when I try to make it go away it adds a space between skirts and dresses.) I let myself have the freebie of tank tops as undershirts since I’m still nursing. I wear them under most non nursing shirts to hide my belly while I lift my shirt to nurse. Instead of keeping two drawers full out (?!?!) I just tucked them under the shirts that need them on the hangers and put three in my underwear drawer for workout (let’s be honest – gardening) clothes. I have a totally empty dresser! Minus my one tiny drawer for under things! When I go to get dressed I will look right here and be done! I’m very excited about this. I’m also excited that I only have things I like, and that fit, hanging up. Also that I found this dress:

    dress-1
    I mean this makes me look good! And look, never opened bangles on my wrist! I think I can put these two things together and go somewhere! Plus it’s a nursing dress, which is the only kind I can wear. (yes I basically let the kids run around in the background while this was happening. I’m not going to lie, we ate pretzels UPSTAIRS!!!!).
    I put a few things that hopefully won’t be, “what was I thinking”. That long crazy print dress in an example. But I think if I don’t wear it this summer I might not have the nursing breasts to fill it out ever again! ha! I was annoyed at having to have long pants, closed toed shoes and a fleece, but we do live in Oregon, so leaving them out would probably be a terrible idea. As it is I have three sweaters and two t-shirts left out as possible back ups. I don’t know, can I get through the summer with out a white tee shirt?
    *Oh ya, the asterisk. I would be perfectly happy with one bag. But it totally depends on the kids and what we are doing (tomorrow, the zoo), so narrowing down that was not happening. I am going to attempt to use the bag I got at the end of the summer… it still has the price tag on it. Oops.
    Now, there are SIX giant totes in my storage area full of clothes because of this. Yes, I got rid of a few things, but a lot just went in there. Two of those bins are things I can’t fit in (like not even close, I wore this on my honeymoon type), that I can’t part with. They also have dresses and other things impossible to nurse in. Two are mostly winter things. And two are outcasts from this experiment (a whole lot of tee-shirts).
    Anyone try simplifying like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

    6 comments on Project 333 and a happiness update
  • 20140611-001757-1077587.jpg
    I’m growing lots of yummy edibles in the yard, as you’ve seen. I’m starting to think about cooking and preserving with them. In fact the salads above were picked from out yard! I’ve also frozen quite a few gallon bags of strawberries (cored) for smoothies.
    I pulled out an unused calendar tonight and started writing dinner ideas on it. I didn’t look anything up special, I just used recipes (or vague ideas of things to make) that we always come back to. Here is what I have so far:
    BBQ (Bj) 20
    Pasta salad 15
    Slow cooker 18
    Pizza (we make) 18
    Chicken & polenta 4
    Aaron & Erin 8
    Potato chowder 7
    Tacos 13
    Curry 10
    Chili 12
    Pot sticker soup 8
    Tomato soup and cheese sandwiches 10
    Pot pie 1
    Veggie mulligatawny 2
    Salmon chowder 2
    Other Soup 16
    Spaghetti 13
    Enchiladas 7
    Stir fry 9
    Hawaiian 5
    Salad 12
    Chipotle pork 4
    Gnocchi 7
    Stuffed pumpkin 5
    Eat out 12
    Party (&holidays) 8
    Left overs 44
    This leaves 74 nights unaccounted for, more if we want less leftover nights (but I do find we use those, and will as long as the girls are too young to eat full servings). Of course this is an ideal world, we always eat out (or get take out home) way, way more than this. Ugh.
    I would love more ideas specifically on summer time foods or foods I can make (or ingredients I can prep) to put up for later. I will hopefully have lots of lettuce, kale, cucumbers, peas, beans, carrots, radishes, Swiss chard, and fruit (strawberries, blueberries, marionberries, raspberries, plums, apples, Asian pears, and figs) to work with. Plus a few cabbages, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, peppers, onions and melons. I’m also thinking about what to plant next month to harvest through the fall into winter (and maybe even very early spring). Garlic is on my list! I just saw my friend pull up beautiful garlic from a bed she planted last fall, so cool. I should have artichokes in the spring too, those are growing well.
    For lunches we do leftovers, muffin tin lunches, sandwiches and salads. I could probably use a few ideas in that department too!
    Breakfast is usually one of these:
    Parfait (yogurt, fruit and homemade granola)
    Cereal (Tuesday; when she won’t eat anything else)
    Oatmeal (pretty much every day in winter with canned peaches or pears mixed in)
    Smoothies and toast
    Bagels and cream cheese
    And sometimes:
    Eggs/veggie/hash brown scramble
    Breakfast pie
    Pancakes (Bj)
    Muffins. Yes! I finally tried muffins, twice. Both times they were not so good. We ate them, but couldn’t finish either batch. Must figure out muffins.
    So that’s how we eat in a year. Have you ever done long range meal planning? How do you decide what to put up in the summer? I’ve always just winged it, but 17 jars of corn relish and no more Italian sauce tell me it’s better to have a plan.

    10 comments on Growing dinner; long term meal planning

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