Catch Up

It's February, it's cold. The kids are home again for a snow/ice day (the second or third this school year). I thought I'd sit down and write a catch up post since I haven't been posting regularly.

I am dreaming of spring. I'm sure you are too! I am so tired of being chilled, even in the house. I broke down and bought a king sized heating blanket. Sean and I wrap up with it on the couch in the evenings and watch Netflix. It sure makes the winter bearable. So do these beautiful Valentine flowers that my sweetie got me.

My sculpting business is going well. I used to have to sell on eBay just to attract customers for custom sculptures but the word is out and I have a steady flow of customers just through word of mouth. I feel very blessed. I did take a couple of weeks off after Christmas to give the old hands a break. We went and saw the new Star Wars movie and as soon as I got home I got the bug to sculpt one of the cute creatures. Here is a little Porg.

Wesley has had a big month. One of the major school projects is called The Wax Museum. They get to choose a famous person and research that person. Then they dress like the character and resite a memorized speech when someone pushes the "button" on their hand. The whole school and parents are invited to this event. It was well done and all the kids really did a great job. Here is Wesley as Harry Houdini.

He is also doing really well in karate. He started last fall and has been learning his moves. He got his first strip two weeks ago, which is a big deal! We are very proud of him.

Wesley started an instrument this year in 5th grade. My parents were nice enough to let him use my old saxophone from when I was in middle school. It's still in good shape and he's able to play well with it. We are planning on having some pads replaced this summer so he can go into middle school with an instrument in tip top shape.  

The dogs got a nice new dog bed for Christmas and they all like to pile into it (except Winston). Chance will be turning 15 years old this spring and is pretty spry still. The addition of the two young boston terriers seemed to have brought out his inner puppy. We hope to have him around for at least a little while longer.

The first crop of lettuce in the tower garden has has come to an end and the second round is already growing. The instructions say that flowering crops are not recommended for inside growing. I figured this was due to the lack of pollinators (bees & butterflies). I'm always up for a challenge so I planted eight cucumber plants in the base of the tower. Here we are two months into growing and there must be 80 flowers. I was clueless as to how to hand pollinate so I went to YouTube and learned all about male and female cucumber  flowers. It was pretty easy to tell the female flowers after watching a video. They have a tiny little cucumber under the flower and if it gets pollinated then the cucumber continues to grow bigger. If unpollinated it dries up and falls off. The flowers are open for about 24 hours so once a day I go over there with my little paint brush and hunt for the female flowers. There are usually about 2-4 a day to pollinate, it takes less than a minute. Now I've got 20+ cucumbers growing and am looking forward to fresh cucumbers soon. Have I mentioned how much I like the tower garden?

A couple of weeks ago we finally got some beautiful weather and we all got to get outside and enjoy some sun at the park. It was a welcome change. Come on spring!