Green Week - Trees, Leprechauns & A New Thrift Store

We started the week off with a CRACK!  One of the huge pine trees behind our house collapsed on St. Patrick's Day.  Luck would have it (pun intended) that it didn't hit the water storage tank, any cows, any people or leprechauns.  This was major excitement for our little lane in Valley Ford.  I immediately called Beulah (our neighbor/llama farm owner), as it was her property.  We put on our slicker boots and trekked out back to explore.  At the base of the trunk, the tree was completely hollowed out from wood beetles and there were quite a few wasp nests disturbed and they were buzzing around.  Grady climbed the fallen mammoth pine tree and looked for leprechauns, of course.
We ended the week by going to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and meeting Grady's adopted Grandma, Linda Lou.  What an amazing building (totally green) filled with information about the environment, fragile ecosystems, the rain forest, our oceans, Africa and so very organized.  We purchased a membership, so that we could take it in slowly with Grady and attend lectures, etc.  over this next year.  I highly recommend going, if you haven't done so already.

Of course, the icing on the cake for Grady was purchasing a small African penguin figurine and these fine, fine patches that I ironed on his air-conditioned-at-the-knees jeans.  Just another green way of prolonging the life of his clothing and helping him continue to make his fashion statements.  Lovely.

Speaking of fashion statements, I also found a really fantastic women's consignment store in Petaluma called the Red Umbrella.  I'm not usually a designer label person, but love finding labels at consignment stores (totally inspired by my friend Jill).  It feels like you're almost stealing something.  Charles David pumps $15, Enzo silver flats $14, Born wedges $15.  I mean, come on, I had to buy all three and a few other things.

I rounded out the week by celebrating the first day of Spring cleaning my house.  I was worried my love affair with 20 Mule Borax would wear off, but it didn't.  I actually was reading a blog this week called Shelterrific and she had a contest question:  How did you celebrate Spring?  I commented about my use of Borax and guess what?  She notified me via email that I won the Snap Pea Spring Cleaning Kit from Mrs. Meyer's.  I was more than excited.  I love to win things (and by that I mean buy things at silent auctions and claim that I won).   

Things on the horizon:

1.  Garden renovation project starting this weekend (with the help of a landscape architect)

2.  Chicks arriving as soon next week!

3.  Continue reading these amazing books/cookbooks (Apples for Jam, A Handmade Life & Made from Scratch)

4.  Experiment with desserts (pavlova & homemade sorbet) 

5.  Try to make butter (?) - just because I never have and it could be funny

I am thoroughly enjoying my domestic life and want to soak it up as much as I can - for as long as I can.  I feel so much closer to my boys, my house, nature and to my true self.  Simply grateful for each day.