Friday, June 17, 2011

I'm sorry but no matter how I try, every idea I have for this title includes the phrase, "My butt."

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

I know, I know, I've been a terrible blogger and kind of dropped off the face of the earth.  Let me just say that the end of the school year was busy, we've been slaving away on the raised bed (which are now DONE!), and having both girls home all day, every day now that it's summer break certainly has been keeping me much too busy to spend a lot of time on the computer!


Oh, and I've been practicing up for this:

(The important part runs from about 0:40-0:50.  I guess my 15 minutes of fame comes in 10 second intervals.)




Our belly dance troupe is dancing and doing some simple lessons in our tent from 11-7:30 tomorrow, plus doing three half-hour shows on one of the stages.  Obviously, we danced this evening, too!  The rest of the troupe who were there tonight were grabbing a quick bite to eat when your man with the camera came around, so it was lucky me who gets to have a famous rear.  :)

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

WW - Next Door Neighbor

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

WW - Spring Primaries

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Saturday, May 07, 2011

Garden Progress (featuring the cutest li'l shovel swinger!)

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Hey, with this much dirt to move...
 

...I'll take my help wherever I can get it!

In fact, earlier this week, Mr. Kluges came home to a very Tom Sawyer scene, with several of the neighbor kids happily digging away, though rather less effectively & diligently than Penguin does in the video.  I figure, any shovels-ful they do, are fewer Mr. Kluges & I have to move, right?!

We've been busy digging, leveling, digging, moving/counting bricks, digging, and, oh, did I mention digging?  Moving along fairly quickly, all things considered.  Mr. Kluges is on a kick to get the digging/leveling/squaring off the holes done by the end of the weekend, so HOURS of digging were put in today.  Not done yet, but we're keeping our fingers crossed for good weather.
Here's a couple pictures I took about lunchtime today.  More progress has been made, but this lets you see the scope of our folly, without water (or snow) this time! 



Wednesday, April 27, 2011

WW - Dear Weather, Seriously? Seriously!?

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

WW - Dear Weather, you are NOT helping...

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

WW - Let the Digging Begin!

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Raised Garden Bed With Brick Paths = My Brain Hurts!

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Mr. Kluges and I want to tidy up our rather messy garden. You see, the only spot sunny enough for a garden is right in the front yard. Granted, it's not the middle section, but still it's very visible & public. While I was pretty decent about keeping it relatively weeded, it still looked untidy.

So we decided we should put in raised beds, with lovely brick paths in-between.

(Yes, it's gonna be a lot of work; no, I'm not sure how happy my left wrist will be with much shoveling; because it's going to look so nice!)

We've got a bunch of bricks in the backyard that Mr. Kluges purchased off Craigslist last year, which should be enough (but my job after typing this is to figure that out for certain). But since cutting bricks is no fun & I think they don't look very nice, we need to take Mr. Kluges's plan and convert it into dimensions that work with the actual size of the bricks & pattern we want to use.

Plus, he really wants the paths to be 36" wide. But the bricks are 8" long by almost 4" wide. Which doesn't exactly work out. Unless you put two bricks on their edges as borders since they are about 2" that way. So if we do a basketweave pattern, with borders, we can get 36".

But his plan isn't just one simple straight path, or even a cross of paths.

No, it's a center long rectangular raised bed, with four L-shaped beds around it, and the paths go between them all.

Now, my brain & his brain do NOT work the same way, particularly in regards to spatial things. We do NOT move furniture well together & likely never will! So, today we laid out some of the brick in the planned pattern & tried to figure out the exact math of it all, to reduce/eliminate cutting.

That helped, but I ended up coming inside & working it all out on the computer. Powerpoint may not be designed to do garden planning, but hey, sometimes you gotta use the tools you have/know.

Even so, my brain hurts. :) But here's some of the progression of figuring out what is basically one-quarter of the garden, which gives us all the info we need.

Now we can start measuring it out, and shoveling once the ground's all thawed!!!

Hooray!!!!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

2010 Resolutions Reviewed

(c) 2011 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Yeah, so, I DO know it's March... I just kinda never did get around to reviewing 2010's resolutions & making new ones. Well, now that I can sort of type with my no-longer-sausage-y fingers, let's just take care of that postponement, shall we?

My 2010 Resolutions focused on two areas: weight/exercise and tidyness/organizational/housekeeping.
  • Exercise most nights of the week - I was pretty good at this most of the year. Most weeks I had belly dance (and tap, too, for part of it), so I just had to run 2-3 times and/or do a DVD once & I was grand. C25K really helped with this one!!!
  • Do the Couch-to-5K Program...and run in a 5K race - I rocked this one by running in TWO! See?! Once my arm doesn't mind getting all jiggled and jounced around, I'm planning on getting back to this again, though there will definitely be a need to spend some weeks reconditioning!
  • Reduce/avoid empty calories - Ok, so I was more aware... but evenings are still a trouble time for me when you'll find me snacking/having a beer. That's probably why January 2011 weight was a mere 1 lb. less than my January 2010 weight. *sigh*
  • Keep following the Flylady - I did, and still am, and recommend her for motivation / encouragement / a (gentle) kick in the butt to just do 15 minutes 'cuz it really will help.
  • Spend 30 minutes per weekend on the attic room - I probably got this done about half the time. It got HOT up there in the summer, so sometimes then I did my half-hour in the lovely cool basement. Still, progress was made.
  • Paint the small area behind the radiator in our room (in the summer) - done! And it makes me smile whenever I notice it. Yay!
Ok, enough of that. Maybe I'll manage to get my 2011 goals finalized & up before the end of April, hey?