Life before 2008 14 Feb 2006 09:48 am
Warm.
Happy Valentine’s Day! For us, this marks the beginning of a “rest of the month love fest” :-).
It started last year when we decided to shift more of our gift-giving focus off of christmas and onto a day about showering one another with love…Valentine’s Day! This gives us a much more meditative and less commercialized christmas time and gives us a chance to fully indulge in the clashing pink and red chocolated gushiness in February, un-burntout from doing it so soon in December.
Then this year we noticed our entire month’s cash flow was at the tail end of the month. Before Dave Ramsey I never paid attention to cash flow; just bottom line numbers. But now I’m watching *when* stuff comes in and *when* they have to go out and this is a weeble-wobble of a month; all bottom heavy. So rather than postpone our merry making or skimp and call it enough, we opted to just spread it out over the rest of the month!
We started today with the accumulation of cards that have come in the mail. Over breakfast they opened Gigi’s valentines, Nana’s care package, Auntie’s cookies and Grandma’s cards. Warming: seeing my nine year old (almost 10…yikes!) read each and every word of every card. They really savored the whole experience and I was glad I’d saved them and given them the gift of anticipation that has been satisfied.
Today we will sew heart shaped pouches to hold thier cards. Tomorrow they’ll get love letters from Mom and Dad. Thursday we’ll bake cookies for our gift boxes (family, you are part of this too and expect Valentine’s Day to last the month for you as well!). Each day will highlight some other aspect of loving one another. There’s a date night for Mom and Dad in there too and at the end: thier gifts. A zip line, a baby swing, a walkie talkie set, and a potter’s wheel. I found the cutest wrapping paper with hearts all over it!
They are all quite sick with the croup today; nasty, barking coughs. It’s pj’s and coziness till it’s past. Good thing about croup is that at least it’s usually short lived.
This morning we had buttermilk biscuits and milk gravy with Great Northern Beans. W thought they were jelly beans. Jelly Bean Gravy would have been interesting ‘eh? It was warm and filling and David especially appreciated it as the plane was very late this morning and they were out in the cold from 4:30-6, unable to get on to the job of unloading. The sky is bright blue and the sunshine already yellow; it’s not warm but it is beautiful. I’ve discarded the insane thought that I might not garden this year and plunged full steam ahead into preparations and plans. I can’t get the digging and dirt going just yet like my friend Misty in Florida but I can start dreaming of bulbs and hostas and rhubarb and rows of corn. And Bantam Red Rock chickens, which I’m hoping to raise this year!
I’m warm and happy today. Biscuits, gravy, hot coffee, sweet notes from my babes, and one is in the dining room whistling a little tune. It’s gonna be a bright sunshiny day :-).
on 14 Feb 2006 at 4:17 pm 1.Bannergranny said …
Think this though….Cheryl has had several Bantam Red Rock chickens and they were the MEANEST little critters…..her most favorite was her Road Island Reds…..they were sweet as kittens but the Bantams were evil. Plus you get bigger eggs with the Road Island Reds. If I could imitate the sounds the two breeds make by typing it in, I would…suffice to say, Cheryl and Meagan have had me in stitches…..They used to chase them around the yard with a large fishing net, when they’d get lose.
I like how you are spreading Valentines out for the whole month. I must work on this as well. Love ya.
on 14 Feb 2006 at 4:23 pm 2.Tia said …
I gotta try Bantams. I suspect that 4-5 full sized reds will be too noticable on our city lot. The bantams are c-u-t-e. I’ve always heard that how you hand raise them as babies has alot to do with thier temperment. If they turn out to be hellians there is always the, um, chopping block :-).
on 14 Feb 2006 at 8:56 pm 3.gigi said …
I remember having some bantoms when we lived in Albion and they were quite feisty. It had slipped my mind (nothing new) about doing our Christmas in Feb.and I don’t recall how we decided to do it.Seems I just can’t keep up any more.We had a good time yeserday when several of us went to ‘lunch out’ at Cross Creek.It is a nice place and the atmophere was so nice.Very good food and excelant service.You might like to try it sometime if there is one near you.The days and nites are COLD now but blue skies and sunshine.I saw some redbud trees in bloom yesterday so spring is on its way.I sure do miss you guys.I fear the chickens will forget me.Love you,Gigi
on 15 Feb 2006 at 9:14 am 4.gina said …
Gigi- those chickens could never forget you! Tia, are chickens allowed in city limits? I know around here even in Ford River, farm animals are not allowed. And we’re pretty rural. Some people down the road got horses and have been in a lawsuit with the township over it-sheesh! Reminds me of a histerical ad Paul and I read in the paper some time ago. It read:
Rooster for sale- makes a great alarm clock!
on 15 Feb 2006 at 9:23 am 5.Tia said …
In most cities hens are allowed in small amounts. Check out citychicken.com. It might be thecitychicken.com. In Jax, the city ordinance read that you couldn’t have more than 4 because more than that requires a “house” and those are not allowed. More than that doesn’t really require a chicken house but that’s how they worded it. Also, you can’t have a rooster but they don’t say, “you can’t have a rooster”. They say you can’t have any animal that makes a disturbing noise at the same time each day for more than 3 days in a row! Dogs somehow are not held to this same rule?!?! Anyway, most of our neighbors didn’t know we had a chicken running around. Our neighbor here has a bantam rooster as a pet. Hens are very quiet and if you raise them like we did Lucy, apparently very attatched and affectionate. When I called the city to ask I got a different answer every time. One lady said that you had to have 2 acres. Another said not if it was classified as a farm animal. Another said she had no idea. So I read the law myself. My neighbor’s cockatiel on her porch was more disturbing than Lucy so we had that in our favor :-). We’re putting our bantams in a “tractor” this time though; there are too many dogs and cats that run loose (there’s a law about that too….).