Tree story

The details of the story of this tree are too long and boring to tell.  However, the heart of the story is the kindness and generosity of my friends, specifically my two friends involved in this tree story who have met each other only once.  A theme among my friends seems to be creativity, thriftiness, and an amazing ability to repurpose almost anything in order to help find a loving home for any object they don't need. 

That said, I'm not sure either of the women involved in this tree exchange read this blog.  They are probably gardening right now.

  

Peanut butter tree, shipped via Wawa crate.

Beach day!

Last weekend, we visited southern Oregon, and one day, we went to the beach!  There is no better way to wear out a child!

Luumupuu

I admired our blossoming plum tree through the camera lens on three following evenings in May.

Tomorrow school is out for summer. Though I'm looking forward to many unforgettable moments and a more relaxed schedule, the truth is that having three children home all summer and the whole family home in July requires from me an unbelievable amount of cooking, as well as cleaning up mess caused by cooking and eating. So I'm just going to go into the kitchen now and emerge sometime in mid-August!

Surrur! I'm making a maja!

Do you remember my Juju-book? Here is another thing of beauty from the same authors:

Maja, the Imaginative Children's Room Book, is not about interior design but about children's own space and letting them participate in creating their own kingdom. The authors write: "You can get more breathing time for yourself if you sow little seeds of stories around your children. They can use them as starting points for their games and plays."

When I started planning this post, the first thing I encountered was a feeling of disbelief upon not being able to find a satisfactory translation for the word maja. How is it possible that the exact translation for such an important phenomenon doesn't exist in the English language? A maja is some kind of a tent, play house, or hut, something you hide and play in, and most importantly something self-made. It must be such a universal experience of childhood that there should be an exact term for it in every language!

Instructions for the royal cupcake maja...

... and the mattesses of a true prince.

This spying cheese is made of an old mattress and some fabric. The text says something like: "The best and most mysterious spying place is where no one would ever think to look - in a cheese. A mindlessly scurrying spying cheese will make even the most scrupulous food inspector chuckle."

Mari Savio and Kati Rapia have just published their third book, which was made in co-operation with the institution of Finnish design, Marimekko. The big news is that while Juju and Maja are only available in Finnish, Surrur - Make Your Own Marimekko is also available in English! You can read Marimekko's own press release here and browse through some pages here. (In case you wondered, surrur is what a Finnish sewing machine says. Hey - that was easier to translate than maja!)

By the way, remember that I accidentally said something about maybe (or maybe not) having a fourth child? Amy gave me permission to quote what she commented on that via e-mail:
"Are you kidding me? Are you Finns trying to singlehandedly overpopulate the planet? Who do you think you are, the Chinese? I will only support a worldwide Finnish takeover if it means that Marimekko fabrics will become affordable even to the worthless dollar!"

If that's how you feel about Marimekko, Amy, I think you may need a copy of Surrur. I think I may too. I would probably be wise to postpone getting it, though. Ideas, instructions and patterns to more than 60 projects is the last thing I need right now!

(You can visit Juju books & stuff here.)

Oldies but goodies...

Lara, do you have our grandmother's peach cobbler recipe?  I actually have a few of her recipes that I should pass along to you.  This one I made last fall, and since I didn't have enough peaches, I threw in some blueberries and plums.  The first step is to melt a stick of butter in a cast iron skillet...what you do after that doesn't really matter!

I should have married a weatherman...

Well, look what we did today!  (Oh, and by "we" I mean the person we hired!)  The weather forecast is now calling for rain all week....so the question now is, to seed or not to seed?  Do I really wait until June?  Will the rain wash all my seeds away if I plant tomorrow?  I wish someone would just tell me what to do!

Äitienpäivä continued

And then it was my turn to get sick. So all you are getting from me this week is another Mother's Day retrospective. (Just trying to remember some rewarding moments of being a mom.)