Before I Gardened…
Mr Chiots and I were talking the other day and I said “what did I do with all my time before I gardened?”
Before I gardened I ran, lots of and lots of miles and I spent time lifting weights. I trained and ran races and I thoroughly enjoyed the exercise. Then I started having to decide whether I should spend an hour weeding the garden or spend that hour logging some mileage. More often than not, the garden came first and soon enough I had to retire my running shoes for my wellies. I don’t really miss it though, I feel like I’m actually in better shape from gardening that I ever was from running. Gardening provides such a wide variety of activities to work all your muscles including your heart. I could still run in the winter when my garden in sleeping, but I now choose to do yoga instead because it keeps me in better condition for gardening chores than running does.
Had cable TV and enjoyed watching shows. Then little by little I spent more hours in the garden and had to spend my evening getting my work done (I work from home). Of course I should attribute this one to this blog too, as blogging takes up much of my extra “free” time nowadays. I don’t mind though, I cancelled my cable and save myself a good chunk of change each month.
Before I gardened I sewed and did other fun crafty stuff. Then my winter slowly became engulfed in ordering seeds, reading gardening books, and tending to tiny seedlings in the basement (my seed starting begins in January with celery, leeks and onions). This year at least I’ve been able to do a little more craftiness because of my job at Ethel.
Before I gardened I kept my floors clean enough to eat off of. I started choosing to spend my time cleaning out the flower beds instead of cleaning the floors. Instead of sweeping and mopping twice a week, the floors only get it once a week or sometimes every other week! With a big dog and three cats running around it can get a little “furry” in between those cleaning times.
Before I gardened I kept my home much neater and more organized. I used to hate clutter, it drove me crazy. Then my seed collection started to grow, I had flats of seedlings that wanted to be warm upstairs instead of cold in the basement, and the stack of gardening books on the table started to grow. I acquired miniature indoor citrus, ginger, figs and too many potted herbs. I started blogging about my garden and spending my spare moments snapping photos of everything. Now my house is much more “lived in” that it used to be, but I’m learning to be OK with it. I now am happy that I have some clutter and hope it makes people feel more relaxed when they come visit.
The truth is that I could still have time for all these things if I hadn’t chosen new hobbies. If I didn’t blog I could still run, if I didn’t take as many photos I could still sew, if I didn’t garden I could clean my floors several times a week. My priorities have changed and thus my time is spent differently. My job is also more of a priority than it used to be, I’m focusing on turning what I love into a career. I think that many of us mature into adults between the ages of 25-35 and this is the time I happen to have lived here at Chiot’s Run. As a result I have hone in on those things that make me happy and have learned to make time for them.
Have you given up any hobbies for more time in the garden?
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A Sunny Delivery
I grew up in South America in a tropical climate, that means I grew up eating wonderfully delicious in season citrus. Even though most of my food comes from my local area, I take advantage of living in this day and age by enjoying a variety of fresh citrus each year. Last year I ordered one box of organic grapefruit from G & S Groves and they were so good, I decided to join their fruit of the month club this year (I even wrote it on my calendar last year).
Last week I received my first delivery, Rio Red Grapefruit. I’m a HUGE fan of grapefruit, I like them all, even the sour white ones. I’ll have no trouble putting away the 36 lbs of grapefruit and the 36 lbs of oranges which are supposed to arrive next week.
I usually just eat grapefruit like most people eat oranges, in sections, but every now and then I bake them or put them on salads. If you’ve never had baked grapefruit I’d highly recommend it. It’s the perfect way to enjoy them on cold winter morning, they’re juicy, sweet and oh so good! I’ll be posting my recipe for baked grapefruit over on the Your Day blog tomorrow if you’re interested.
Do you like citrus? What’s your favorite kind?
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Forcing Beauty in Winter
When I was planting all the tulips a few weeks ago, I made sure to save out four bulbs of each variety to force indoors this winter. Each variety was put in a separate bag and labeled so I know which is which. I also poked holes in the plastic bags to allow the bulbs to breathe a bit. Then all the bags went into a brown paper bag and they were laid to rest in the fridge for the next 2 months.
Come February I’ll take these bulbs out and most like force them in vases of water, I’m thinking a long row of them in a windowsill like this will be really lovely. I don’t have a ton of vases, so I’m thinking I’ll be using mason jars for forcing the bulbs. I might need to buy some river rocks for the bottoms to weigh down the jars to keep them from toppling over. I’ve also saved out a few other varities of bulbs like tiny daffodils and muscari.
When I ordered by tulips, daffodils and other bulbs, I added three different kinds of amaryllises to my order. I gave one of each kind to my mom, since she’s a big fan of amaryllises and always has them blooming around the holidays. Mine are still hanging out in their mesh bags as I’ve keep forgetting to pot them up. They’re starting to sprout though, so I must add this to my to-do list this week! This is my first attempt at forcing bulbs, so I’m kind of excited to see what happens. I’ll have to make sure to plan around a trip to Florida in March, my luck they’d all end up blooming while we’re gone!
Do you force any bulbs in your indoor garden?
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Getting Creative with our Christmas Cards
I love getting photos of all my friends kids via their Christmas cards, it’s a great way to keep up with what’s going on in their lives. Mr Chiots and I don’t have children, so we don’t have to send out the obligatory family photo for Christmas. Each year I spend all year trying come up with something creative to do. That’s the one problem with having a really great card one year, then people expect it every subsequent year! This year, we decided that since our camper was a big part of our summer, it should be featured on our holiday card.
My original idea was to have the camper parked in a snowy field with us sitting around a fire nearby. However, we have had no measurable snow, that means I had to come up with something slightly different because it was getting close to the cut off time for ordering the cards.
I spent the night before last outside for about an hour at dusk taking a variety of photos trying to get just the the right ones for our card. Of course there was a self portrait or two that didn’t make the final card.
I can’t wait to get the final cards in the mail. Each year, it’s pure joy to address them and send them off to my friends & family. Coming up with a creative card is one of the things I really enjoy doing for Christmas. I’ll show you what the final product looks like next week after we receive the final cards.
Do you send out family photo cards, handmade cards, pre-made cards from the store, e-cards, or no cards during the holidays?
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Holiday Baking Party
Being an introvert, social occasions are not high on my list of things to do, especially if they will be attended by a large group of people that I don’t know. You see as a introvert social activities, especially those with lots of people and folks I don’t know really wear me out; I’m exhausted the entire next day. So when my friend Sofie, aka The German Foodie, invited me to a baking party I had to think about it before agreeing to go. I decided that I was going to suck it up, bake some cookies, and head over to meet some interesting new people. I baked up a batch of my Super Spicy Gingerbread Men and was ready to go.
There were tons of people there, both kids and adults. The kids had a great time decorating cookies with a variety of colors of icing and sprinkles of all colors, shapes and sizes – what kid wouldn’t want to be able to decorate each and every cookie differently?
Lots of people brought cookies already made, some brought dough, and other mixed up cookies while we were there. The oven was on for the entire 5 hours I was there, churning out cookies all afternoon and some delicious homemade pizza later in the evening.
I’m glad I went and had a wonderful time. Was I tired the next day, absolutely. But I met lots of new interesting people and had a lot of great conversations. You see, Sofie’s friends are very varied and interesting. I think I counted 3 or 4 different languages being spoken throughout the event, and conversation topics from Argentinian political history and what kind of King Arthur flour works best for artisan bread to a long conversation about growing edibles in a cold frame all winter long. As a Colombian with a very eclectic life experience I fit right in. I even got to teach Sofie how to throw pizza dough to make a nice thin crust.
Have you baked any holiday cookies yet? Any holiday parties?
If you’d like to see more photos from the event head on over to my Facebook page and look through the album.
