numbers of my day

01. something else "funny" that happened at the farmers market yesterday was that i fell flat on my face in front of oh about 50 people. basically i was walking up the street towards the market holding a card table. as im passing a van one of the legs to the table pops down and jams into the wheel well of the van. what are the chances!!? it was a one in a million shot! so naturally it prevented me from advancing and i didn't even have time to put my hands down because i was holding onto the table. gravel in my hands and welts on my shins where i hit the bottom of the table - good times. it's funny, having so much attention drawn onto someone with an anxiety disorder is sort of cosmic joke. this is sort of the stuff we have nightmares about - but it was great. i didn't even get up off the ground yet and augustine was there with a glass of iced tea that he had bought for me from a lemonade stand. that made the physical and ego sting much easier to bear!

02. BIG NEWS! the columbus land bank finally called me back, after i've been hounding them since oh, april? to lease us an amazing plot of public land. so, in two weeks we will officially be in possession of land for our community garden. i was equal parts relieved and annoyed to talk to the man in charge of the land leases. i mean, righteous anger about the snails pace of things over there yes? i cannot explain how excited i am. AND they approved both of the possible garden layouts we proposed! we were concerned that because we do not publicly own the land we wouldn't be permitted to put permanent structures like compost bins, a shed, or even perennials down. all wrong! so im browsing sites to find deals on fruit bushes and trees in bulk.

03. i believe olive has inherited some of my sleep issues. i've always been a night owl but in college i developed insomnia which has waxed and waned in various seasons of my life. olive's issue is that it takes her forever - upwards of 2+ hours - to wind down at bedtime. we lay both kids down at 8 and there have been nights where olive will still be up in her bedroom romping around at 11pm. it leads to some very frustrating nights for david and i not to mention that we would therefore have no quiet time together if she is at the stairs asking to come down, etc. for 2+ hours. so upon the suggestion of a trusted friend, who gives it to her children and had it approved by multiple doctors, we've been experimenting with a low dose of melatonin. you wouldn't believe the difference in all of our evenings!! instead of the epic fight to get her to calm herself down and sleep, we usually now only have around 30 minutes of settle time, which is absolutely reasonable! i actually hugged my friend at church today, i was that thankful for her suggestion!

04. *sigh* someone broke into davids car last night and stole our veggie oil computer. there is no question in our minds who did it sadly (when david came home last night at around 1am there was a gathering outside an apartment). here is what i'm getting it - besides "this sucks!" -- be careful what you pray for. seriously. every week i pray for opportunities to not only hang out with my neighbors but invite them into the love of God by reflecting Jesus. hey, that's an invitation for hurt! literally we came home from church, discovered the break in, and not 5 minutes later we were talking with the neighbor in the back yard area while our kids played together. it was, difficult. i mean BIG ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM! im not being a jerk here or jumping to conclusions unjustly - they've already been in trouble for breaking into cars in our neighborhood sadly. anyways - so it's been a really practical exercise in putting my money where my mouth is. it is not comfortable to say "okay, i've learned what love and forgiveness looks like, now i've got to actually DO IT." oddly our conversation turned to food and i got to share with them about justice gardens and the neighbor quietly asked if they could get food and gosh, i mean my heart just exploded with compassion and heartbreak. no "thing" is more important than people however we have put up a flier explaining that what was taken was not a GPS or mp3 player and it is of no use to anyone other than those running their cars on the particular vegetable oil system we have and to PLEASE return it to the car no questions asked. i do not love the idea of forking over lots of $$$ for a replacement.

05. lance armstrong is still my pony in the tour de france. we've been anxiously watching it for days.

DITL of Justice Gardens

we are almost two months into the first season of the Justice Gardens having a presence at the farmers market. i can't believe it's been over a year since my friend jared and i had a seed and are now seeing the tiny (though significant!) first fruits. there has been so much going on that i don't think i've even taken time to put fingers to keys and record some of it. would it even really be possible? practical? im afraid if i don't record even the mundane i will regret it. i feel we are just at the beginning of something that will be with us our entire lives, will mark so much of our future, i can't pass up my itch to write it all down and dissect it, perfect it.

first, the more mundane - i want to explain what exactly goes on. the clintonville farmers market starts at 9 on saturdays so that means we've got to be up and out the door by no later than 8:30. all of the "stuff" (the tent, cash register, zip ties, screen printed bags (which we distribute for a donation), banner, table, and tub of misc items like scissors, duct tape - oh yes i love this stuff -, a pen, and so on is all housed in a volunteers garage. so every other week it is my week to "be in charge" and i hit the door with augustine at 8:30, pick up the schwag and head over to the market, which is just a mile away. i will interject here that augustine is very enthusiastic about coming every week, always. i try to urge volunteers to show up between 8:30-8:45. sometimes they are there when i arrive (like today!) and sometimes not. we commence unloading the car and setting up the tent. if there are any new volunteers i kind of go over our "elevator speech" which jared explained as what you would say to someone if you only had 20 seconds in an elevator to tell them about what Justice Gardens is.

"Justice Gardens is working to ensure that the sustainable agriculture movement reaches under-served communities, lower income families, and at-risk youth.

Our vision is to expand the boundaries of who gets the good stuff. Using the USDA Victory Garden campaign as a model (which produced over 20 million gardens in 1943), we’re cultivating the idea that urban agriculture and "local food" is not just about getting better food for yourself...but about doing justice on behalf of others."

and then pretty much the volunteers and i stand at or around the booth and hand out business cards, talk about sustainable agriculture, poverty as a social issue, the justice involved with food, and so on. maybe i'm just a low-key kind of lady but i get really amped up when people respond to our message. someone walks up and is interested, we could and have talked to people for upwards of 30 minutes. since we are a non-profit we do not sell things but rather for a donation of $10 or a donation of $10 worth of produce (naturally our preference) we give them a really sweet bag - screen printed by the amazing folks at skreened. i will also interject here that you can buy Justice Gardens tshirts on their site too. i really like skreened/the peeps who work there, you should spend all of your expendable income there, just sayin. our main objectives are to communicate the need for fresh food for those in poverty, the importance of sustainable agriculture, and of course stress that we are seeking to be a place of fresh food drop off which we will in turn distribute to local food banks, private persons in need, shelters, etc.

most people are like YES!! and we've gotten an amazing response. a response that i am confident signals that next year we will have more volunteers and perhaps another booth at another market. *fingers crossed* around 30 minutes before the market is set to close we send a volunteer around with blank canvas bags. this person goes to each of the farmers and tells them who they are (if they don't already know) and if they have anything to donate to put it in the bag and we will come around and collect it at closing time. it's win-win. they dont have to go home with food they can't sell and we are able to get it into the hands of people who are otherwise unable to have access to such fresh, healthy foods. this week we had maybe 150-200 lbs of food? it's so hard to estimate! i do know that we were able to take some to three different places - the 5th ave faith mission for men, st, james the less food pantry, and the clintonville resource center.

actually my friend beth and i were in charge of taking things over to st. james today and meet up with a guy named frank there that our group has been in contact with. i think we had maybe 60 lbs of food to donate there? it's hard to estimate. anyways, this was my first time over there. he gave us a tour of the entire place, which until about a year ago was a convent. it's set up as a communal living arrangement for up to 20 people/families though only 3 live there so far since it's conversion. they have a "needs pantry" that was set up like a mini grocery store, it was so humbling to see it all. i was really thrilled when i saw a little sign in the window that said "catholic worker movement." love me some dorothy day! beth, frank, and i chatted for a while about social justice and gah, it just felt so wonderful to meet other people who are passionate about similar things. frank said their parish is interested in targeting the latino population of their area, which they feel is significantly underserved. i didn't realize it until he said something but many pantries and needs services make you show proof of citizenship/ID to receive aid. i'm sorry but that is no Jesus of mine, folks (& frank agreed). so because many in the community neither speak english nor are here legally, they are not receiving any kind of assistance except through places like st. james and even then the folks are naturally very suspicious for fear they might somehow be reported i imagine.

lastly, if anyone reading this has a garden or participates in a community garden where any portion of the proceeds go to help those in need i strongly urge you to go to our website and register your garden! we'd love to eventually put a map up so you can see gardens near you who are all involved with the same idea of food-justice.

so in a nutshell that is typically what the day looks like with Justice Gardens

placental honor/today's haul

after i had olive we took the placenta and buried it under a lilac bush at my parents house. i'm really glad we did this for several reasons. one, as hippy dippy as this sounds i am amazed at the physical capabilities of a placenta. men, you try spontaneously generating an organ! sure it was not painlessly delivered but hey, i still think women can do a pretty neat trick and all that. because of that uniqueness i wanted to (whoops hippy dippy talk again) give the placenta a bit of honor. it grew my daughter selflessly and i kind of believe it would be nice to keep something else growing too. lastly, i think it is a nice idea to plant something in honor of your children and see how it grows as they do too.


april 2008



june 2009


oh & half of today's haul (the other half went to maggie and austin). click on it for specifics if you're confused about what each thing is

never before!

i just booked our first ever family vacation and i am on cloud nine! david and i really have only been on a small handful of mini vacations, none of which were "that grand". in 2003 we drove out to witchita to visit david's sister & her family. it was fantastic company but well, in witchita, kansas. then in 2006 david, augustine, and i went to seattle for a long weekend. that was fun - we stayed with friends of davids for a while, went to the market, ate good food, walked around. it was low key and nice however i was riddled with panic attacks and couldn't enjoy myself that much because of that. augustine was good but um he was 15 months and not the get up and go type of child. we have also gone camping a few times which has also been low-key fun. finally, now we are going somewhere BIG on a REAL family vacation - myrtle beach!

how freaking awesome does this place look? 10 POOLS! a waterpark on site! the beach is just down the block! other stuff i'm not mentioning but there's children-specific and adult-specific events that go on at the resort too. leaving august 9-15 HOLLA!

this might be the greatest video i've ever seen

we are family, 4th of july

duane, maria, me, david


jena, augustine, ruby, paige, olive, annie - COUSINS!

david's sister maria, brother in law duane, and their 4 awesome girls were in town for th 4th of july weekend. they live in massachusetts and we rarely see them. maybe once a year? it's pitiful and a shame because we get along so well. every time we are together there seems to be a moment where we pitch to the other the idea about moving back here or to there so we could all hang out more often. i love those guys. oh and the above picture is the "before" image, but that quickly morphed into this, the "after". more on flickr

the 4th was pretty good. it was spitting rain all afternoon so i was hesitant to get out there and go to the fireworks but meh. worth it. augustine and i spent the morning at the farmers market, then the family all packed up the family in the car and headed to my parents house for a cookout. sadly no pictures of that! but good food and fun people naturally. that evening we went over to element (our friend's business) which was close to the park of roses where we would eventually wind up. it was a good mix of people we knew well and people we didn't know at all, sitting around talking and smoking cigars and whatnot. the fireworks themselves were pleasant. olive almost fell asleep oddly enough. of course the camera died so we have no photographic evidence of said merriment. whoops.

caught red handed

blood on my hands. okay it was really from pitting several pounds of cherries. but it looked pretty cool.

7 years anniversary

here's to 7 (x7) more years of marriage!


& big BIG props to kjames for babysitting at the very, no seriously VERY last minute so we could go out on a date. luff her