Examining every rock for the ones she wants to keep, digging, taking the caps off of the acorns, peeling up moss, breaking sticks, crumbling leaves, and, of course, sampling some little tastes of dirt.

So far she doesn’t care about the sky or the flowers or the trees or the boulders off in the distance – she just wants to know all about what is directly under her feet.

Well… I think that’s over. Three days of sleep deprivation was rounded out nicely by a morning of sleeping in and then a happy baby exploring this foreign terrain known as The Yard.

I realize I’ve gotten behind on my new year’s resolution – I’ve been doing things and just not photographing and posting them, so here is my catch up for weeks eight, nine, and ten.

Thinned a big heap of Hazel’s outgrown / winter clothes – 2/3 put back for future babes and the rest into a box of clothes waiting for the consignment shop to start taking winter things sometime this summer.

Sock & underwear purge – a thrilling Saturday night.

Thinned out some beads and charms – these will eventually make their way into the destashed supplies for sale in my Etsy shop.

Last week we were talking with Mikey’s mom about the possibility of adding her to our family cell phone plan to save her some money. We did all of the research and she picked out a phone and was all set to deposit money for it into our bank account when I got a piece of AT&T junk mail (that I almost threw away without reading) offering a code for a really nice phone for free if you added another line to your family plan. She and Mikey are always, always falling into things like that. She wasn’t even surprised when I told her to forget about the bank deposit because she could get a much nicer phone for free.

So, this morning when I was packaging up Etsy orders I started thinking that maybe I should try something a bit more sustainable when I next need to print business cards. After dinner I opened up my email to find an Etsy newsletter, which included this link – 50 free business cards from moo.com. They do reeealllyyyyy nice, delicious printing, but I’ve always opted for cheaper options. Even though this offer includes a small ad on each business card and $5.00 for shipping, I took them up on it anyway because the ad offers a discount code to whoever gets the card. I wanted to see how they turned out using my photos, and was impressed by the sustainability of the cards: 100% recycled / recyclable / biodegradable, chlorine free, and manufactured using wind power. I hope they are pretty! I really should have business cards that actually feature photos of my products, and Moo lets you do a mix of lots of different photos in the same order of cards. Possibly worth the extra money – we’ll see when they get here.

Listening: Will Oldham
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible
(Hazel is) Reading: Cars and Trucks and Things That Go
Working on: blue & gold blanket (which I always work on to ease the distress of having a molar-getting kid, for some reason); Easter basket goodies; custom jewels

You’re probably sick of my play-by-play snow updates, but here it is anyway: snow is now melting so quickly that the ditches along the road and hundreds of tiny streams are bubbling and splashing through the woods and between the boulders at a slight deafening roar… the sound of water running through the woods. Mmm, mmm. Water is now actually flowing through our gutters and not just the downspouts, because the former are no longer full of ice. We lost the last of the roof-ice at about 11:30 last night – a bunch from a dormer window onto the front porch roof created such a quake that everything on the opposite side of the house fell and bounced down the deck stairs, coming to a halt on the driveway. I thought a massive tree had fallen on the house. Mikey was sure that every gutter had been ripped from the eaves at once. Just ice! Ice that we no longer have to worry about serving as a gateway to death’s door every time we dart from the house and out of the danger-zone. I dare say that by this time next week we might actually be able to use our driveway. And this was hiding underneath all along:

This is the first day in Hazel’s walking-life that she has really gotten to play outside. We don’t have a clear yard, still, but it’s such a remote, quiet place that we spent an hour and a half walking up and down the gravel roads and roaming around in the driveway(path). She clearly has a fierce, instant love for the outdoors. She could barely contain her excitement over all of the things to touch, the mud, the sounds, the sticks, the rocks, the breeze in her hair. She cried and cried and cried when we came in the house and promptly fell fast asleep under a lightweight blanket with a spring breeze swirling through the screen and around the room – it’s a whole new life, really. How do children lose this love for nature? I hope she never does. Mikey’s mom got me this last year – it’s time to dive in!

People thought 17 floors was high up: our neighbors don’t have a backyard, they have a cliff.

Listening: nothing at all
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible
(Hazel is) Reading: The Shape of Me and Other Stuff
Working on: blanket; custom jewels; things things things