• Cris and I are talking on the couch at the end of the day. He grabs a binky and wedges his little body in between us, laying down and holding my hand. He points at me: No! Stop talking! Close your eyes! and then pretends to sleep.
• He lets out a huge fart and then falls over laughing. Stinky fart! Ezra funny, mama! Ezra funny!
• I’m driving him home from daycare, asking the normal questions. How was your day? What did you have for lunch? Who did you play with? He ignores me this time and just stares at the window. Finally, he looks at me and says Don’t wanna talk. Too tired. and—I swear!—rolls his eyes.
• I’ve spent the last hour-and-a-half trying to get him to fall asleep. He keeps tossing and turning, talking, asking for water, asking for more stories, anything but sleeping. Finally I snap: GO TO SLEEP EZRA! He pulls me close for a hug and says No mama, be happy! Be happy!
• Hi sweetie! I say when I first see him. He scrunches up his face and looks very confused for a minute. No, not sweetie! I Ezra!

The backyard is coming along nicely. Slowly, but nicely. Over last weekend, we stained the fence and started building the small patio outside of the living room. We cleared the ground, removed the little concrete slab, and then filled the area with 4-5” of gravel and 2” of sand. Then we spent a day figuring out how to arrange all the paving stones in the correct ‘random’ pattern.

We still have to rent a masonry saw to trim the end pieces, and then brush sand between the stones. And then comes the planting. There’s about a foot-and-a-half of space where I want to…do something? I know nothing about plants and gardening. I want the area to fill up with lots of lush greenery but I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m afraid that whatever I end up planting there is going to be looking pretty tragic in a few months.

Our yard isn’t quite as small as it seems in the picture, but our house is at a weird angle on the lot, so there is only about 8’ of space between the back of the house and the back fence. The rest of the yard is off the side and we still have to plan what we’re doing with that. We will probably just lay down sod for this year and deal with making it fancy next spring. You know, after we come into a million dollar inheritance or something.

Introducing the newest members of our household:

Yes! Kittens! Piles of kittens!

Honestly, being an adult and owning a home are kind of drag sometimes. But every once in a while it pays off because I finally finally! get to do something I’ve wanted to do for years: foster animals. After the initial application and orientation through the SPCA, I got a call on Wednesday asking if I’d like to take in a stray mama cat and her four two-week-old kittens. Um. YES. YES I WOULD THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

So my office has now been taken over by kittens and I’m never going to get any work done again because OMG SO CUTE. The mama cat has spent the past couple days curled up in the carrier, nursing her babies and eying me suspiciously, but she’s finally starting to venture out and nuzzle my legs and let me pet her. And the itty bitty kitties (I’m sorry. I can’t help myself.) have only barely opened their eyes. The wobble around on itty bitty legs and let out itty bitty mews and basically make my heart explode constantly.

Ezra loves the kittens too. He tries so, so hard to be super quiet and super gentle with them, but he’s a crazy two-year-old and his understanding of ‘quiet’ and ‘gentle’ is off a little bit, so he only spends a few minutes at a time with them for now. Once they’re a little older and more playful, it’s going to be awesome.

We have them for a couple months until they can go back to the SPCA to get fixed and then put up for adoption. Cris is worried that I’m going to keep them all. That might be a valid concern. But if anyone in the Sacramento area is looking to adopt an awesome kitten or two or four, let me know!

Summer is getting painfully close and we’re finally starting to begin to consider possibly starting work in our backyard. I don’t step outside at all if I can avoid it during the summer days here, but the evenings are perfect and I need a place to enjoy them and all the delicious food I’m going to make Cris grill. Also, the crazy toddler I’ve got running around here somewhere? He’d love to be running outside in something other than weed-filled dirt.

please ignore the dirt…and everything except the cute kid in monkey boots

I’ve got lots of big ideas for the backyard, of course. I want a lawn, a swing set and a playhouse for Ezra, a hanging bed underneath a vine-covered pergola, twinkle lights everywhere , a veggie garden that magically takes care of itself, an outdoor ceiling fan and, yes, one of those mister things somewhere because holy crap it gets hot. While we’re at it, I’d also love if we could somehow transform it into ocean-front property with private beach access. Is there a tutorial on pinterest for that yet?

Our yard is small and odd-shaped and we have a budget of about zero dollars and I am the worst person ever at keeping plants alive, so whatever. Screw you, big dreams!

For now, we’re going to start with a small patio along the back of the house. A ton (maybe even a literal ton!) of gravel and sand and paving stones were unceremoniously dumped on our driveway yesterday, so now we get to put this whole thing together. You know, because we’re totally professional patio builders and we have so much free time and such a passion for manual labor. It’s going to great.

earning his keep around here

Fajitas. They’re like tacos, but…veggie-er. Fajitas are one of my favorite meals to make when I’m lazy and I don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen and I want to pretend I’m being healthy. Bonus: They’re pretty cheap. Super bonus: My toddler will totally eat them. In a slightly modified format.

the magic sauce

The secret to great fajitas is the marinade. I started using Bragg’s liquid aminos instead of soy sauce because it makes me feel like a hippy. Combined with oil and a generous amount of lime juice, you can’t go wrong. We mix up the seasonings but my favorite combination right now is cumin, chili powder, and oregano. Plus the garlic, cilantro, and peppers that I just can’t seem to avoid using in every recipe of mine.

marinating chicken, chopped up peppers and onions

cook, cook, cook!

I know there are millions of unique and interesting and delicious salsa recipes out there, but on lazy days, I make lazy salsa. Tomatoes and whatever get thrown in a food processor, pulsed a few times, and that’s it. I don’t even need to pull out the cutting board. It ain’t pretty and it ain’t fancy, but it’s good, dammit.

Please ignore the sad-looking homemade tortillas!

I ruined the ‘quick and easy’ part of this recipe by trying to make homemade flour tortillas for the first time. I was going to post about it but, well. The results were just embarrassing. My childhood was full of many sweet, amazing, tiny Mexican grandmas who made amazinggggg flour tortillas. Mine were okayish, but really, I didn’t stand a chance. Homemade tortillas from grandma have no competition.

To get the toddler to eat these, I chop up the fajita fillings and some avocado, and mix it with shredded cheddar. I smoosh all that between two tortillas and then heat over the stove until all melty.
I can pretty much put anything in a tortilla with some cheese and Ezra will eat it. (He gets that from me.)

We had a little Easter brunch on Sunday morning. At first, we were planning on 13 people coming. Then it turned into 11, then 9, and then it ended up just being us and my family. But I didn’t let the drop in numbers stop me from making ALL THE FOOD. There was a croque monsieur bake, a lemon brioche french toast casserole, apple gorgonzola turnovers, and some blackberry lemonade (with mint!). Plus the stuff other people brought. FOOD FOR DAYS. Delicious, delicious food. The fridge (and my stomach) are still full of leftovers.

Look out, he’s got a tie!

Ezra wasn’t too impressed with the Easter basket I the Easter Bunny made him. It had a couple cute books, a movie, a few small toys, and some art supplies. When he saw it in the morning, he dumped the basket out on the floor and then yelled: “Candy! Where candy go? CANDY WHERE ARE YOUUUU???” And then he spent the rest of the morning crying for candy.

I have no idea how this kid knows that Easter baskets are supposed to be filled with candy. HOW DOES HE KNOW? Are all kids born with the knowledge or does Ezra just have an amazing sweet-tooth superpowers?

So, I don’t think I really worked on any of my goals for March. March was crazy. Personal drama, work drama, family drama, health drama. The time we had planned to take off to work on the backyard and my office? Yeah, that didn’t happen. The backyard is still a big patch of mud and weeds. My office is still a big patch of unfiled papers and random crap. I did create a desk though. From a hollow-core door. One day I’ll pretty it up and let you see it.

So, I’m going to finish my office this month. And even if we don’t get around to making our patio, I really want to start a garden at least. I also want to take on the monumental task of organizing all my old photos, printing out photo books, and making backup cds. There’s probably no way that’s going to happen, but, hey, shoot for the stars, right?

Also? The gym. I joined the gym by my house last week. I plan on going MWF mornings after dropping Ezra off at daycare. I already blew yesterday because I had some work meeting in the AM. Shh, let’s just keep that between us.

I’m really hoping April turns out nicer than last month. I’ve got plans to make cinnamon rolls on Sunday so it can’t possibly be that bad.

download here: herringbone patterns

Hey, look, I made you a present: a bunch of herringbone patterns! Exciting, no? In addition to the .pat file for Photoshop, I’ve included 15 100×100 png images for blog/twitter backgrounds. Or, you know, whatever. Enjoy!