We had some beautiful weather this weekend – perfect for doing work outside (especially since *knock on wood* the bugs aren’t much of a problem yet).  We cleared a *lot* of land  that had scrub and brush and leaves and small trees.  Cleared so that we’d have a better idea of how it’ll look, come Fall, when the land is gone and a nice, flat, space is in it’s place.

This is the view out the side of the house.  The arrow points to the far edge (distance from arrow to red line – at which point the ground slopes into my garden area – is ~60′).  The green line is approx. the land we’re having removed and the yellow line where the flat of the garden is and where the flat of the land-that-was will be.  It will give us a *lot* of ground to work with – for gardens and a shed and whatever we want.  We’ll have them dig back behind the house a bit to follow the arc that’s already behind the house (and give us more room for a deck/patio/screened porch/etc for next year).

I can’t say how excited I am about it all and how much I want to have it done NAO!  It doesn’t help that I just got a big fat 0% credit card and I could TOTALLY USE IT FOR THAT!  *deep breath*  Patience is a virtue can bite my bum sometimes.

On other news you may be reassured that Victor, who used to be wicked flexible when he was a baby (side note, holy crap look at the rolls!!) (side note part deux, he was never this small!)

um… where was I?  Oh, right… bendy baby.  You may be reassured that Victor has, in fact, retained his bizarrely bendy body.  Darn those feet for getting in the way! :/

We celebrated Ostara this weekend with the boys.  We coloured eggs on saturday and on sunday the “Ostara” Bunny came and hid the eggs and candies and toys around the main floor of the house.  The boys ate candy for breakfast (*heavy eye rolling from me right now*) and loved the toys.  All in all it was a big success.  Explaining the difference between Easter and Ostara will be interesting since Easter is in another month and we won’t be celebrating it (obviously) and I know Ethan’s school (as well as all the tele shows they watch) will be focusing on it.

On Sunday I went out to the garden to do more prep work.

Friday, Ethan and I went out and raked and planted some asiatic lilies (who knows if they’ll come up – late, if at all – but they should next year)

and Sunday I continued the bed and lined it with stones

and deconstructed some of the beds from last year.

Over the next few weeks Ken and I will be trying to flatten the ground out there (ha!) and figure out how to redirect the water flow enough that we’ll be ready for when he’s made the garden boxes.  Even with just the bed I created this weekend it looks better.

My sprouts are doing well

Too well, actually, since they “should” take 3wks to germinate, and 10-12wks from seed to transplant.  It’s been 2wks and they’re already almost 2″ tall!  I hope they don’t keep going so fast, or that spring warms up faster than I’d anticipated (and than it always has).

Now for another episode of Wild America.  A few weeks ago I spotted something large in a tree in our woods.  Very large (I’d *guess* it was around 2′ from top of head to feet (not including tail).  It stayed there for over half an hour, just sitting.  Unfortunately I didn’t see it fly away.  Back turned away made it hard to identify…

Thankfully it turned around after about 10 minutes…

I’m sure it’s not an owl (it’s head turned to the side here so it looks more rounded than it was), and must be either a hawk or eagle but I don’t know what kind.  We do have a bird book for the northeast but it’s in a box somewhere and we haven’t had the gumption to try digging it out yet.  Anybody have any ideas?

Also, Victor is a weirdo.

Note: At this rate I’ll never get the pictures ready, not that there’s so many, so here’s the story and you’ll have to use your imagination for the pictures.  Sorry!
Well, our trip got off with a minimal of problems.  Naturally Ethan got sick the morning we left but Grammy dealt with it admirably.  We forgot the diapers for the boys but with a few in the small diaper bag and a trip to the store she dealt with that issue well, also.  The trip had a good start when, as we stopped in the airport to pick up a puzzle book, a woman complimented me on my shoes.

We got into Orlando fairly late, checked into our room (very nice!) at the Saratoga Springs Resort (Disney owned).  We took the Disney bus to Downtown Disney and figured we’d try our luck at Raglan’s Irish Pub.  It’s quite popular and reservations were recommended but it never hurts to try.  As it turned out we got a table with no wait (late evening on a Thursday) and had a truly delicious meal with live music playing afterwards.  We both tried bread pudding for the first time and it was amazing.  I need to try making it myself, soon.

Friday we went to Magic Kingdom.  We enjoyed ourselves with cheesy rides (The World of Tomorrow Today!) as well as a few better rides and a lot of walking around.  I was stopped, at one point, by a woman who asked if I’d designed my purse myself or if it was a pattern.  Stunned at any sort of confrontation I babbled that yes, I designed it myself based off another design I’d seen on Ravelry.  Being acknowledged and complimented on a knitted item by a fellow knitter is a *big* compliment.

Saturday we went to Epcot, where we spent most of our trip at and had the best time.  The rides were so-so, but the aquarium was great and I took lots of pictures and video of fishes to show the boys.  Once we entered the World Pavillions is where we felt much more at ease.  Less crowds, and a semblance of culture.  Our kind of park.  We had the most amazing lunch in Morocco!  I’d never had Moroccan food before and was surprised and delighted by the flavours I encountered.  Sadly it’s not the sort of food I think I could make at home, but it was a lasting memory.  We went to Japan, naturally, and spent a lot of time wandering around the big shop there.  We ended up not making reservations for dinner and had to have a quicky dinner in Japan that was acceptable.  My standards are pretty high, though.

Sunday we went to Animal Kingdom.  It was nice and the Dino ride was a hoot.  I took pictures and vid of animals for the boys and we left just before lunch as the crowds were crazy.  We had some lovely tea, though, and the Himalaya rollercoaster was great, if brief.  The line was long but there was bamboo all around which gave some food for thought.   We went back to Epcot for the afternoon and dined at the fancy Japanese restaurant (grilled in front of us with some other people at the table – who doesn’t eat zucchini?!).
Monday we spent the morning at Hollywood Studios, did the Aerosmith rollercoaster and the Tower of Terror (which was hilarious! – I’d also love to stay in a hotel that the ride is based on), then headed back to Epcot for the afternoon and evening.  We had an early dinner at the China fancy restaurant and impressed our waitress by knowing how to fold/use our chopsticks wrapper as a rest.  She said we “must be professors!” (professionals, I assumed, aka experienced).  She was a good waitress and I was bemused that she really hung around our table without being oppressive.  She dropped off the cheque at the end and sloooowly walked around another table, watching us all the while, waiting for us to need her again.  It was sweet and amusing and Ken says that’s how the waiters are in Hong Kong – very attentive.

So how was the trip, overall?  The Disney “Ticket to the World” card was fan-fricking-tastic.  Our hotel “key” + credit card (no personal information, just a way to charge anything and everything to our room and, therefore, our credit card) + park card all rolled into one.  Brilliant.  We can’t say enough good things about it. Too many people for our tastes.  Too much money to go again more than once (we’ll take the boys when they’re older).  We had a good time, though.  We missed the boys a lot.  I got a lot of blisters (expected to) and, despite bringing lots, ended up running out of bandaids on the same day that Ken succumbed to Ethan’s cold and had to head out for Sudafed.  I loved wearing my new hat and had a lot of looks about it.  After Ken bought his had he got quite a few looks too since it’s not a baseball cap and he looks *so* good in it.  Totally suits him.  I didn’t get the chance to wear my new tank top (it was pretty cool) but that’s alright.

All in all we had a great time!

We decided to wait on the digging and re-drivewaying.  It’s dirt, it can wait til fall.  Come fall we’ll have all our debt paid off (excluding the mortgage) and have money saved up to pay for the earth moving without having to borrow against it.  The economy isn’t good right now, everybody’s job is at risk, we don’t want to take unnecessary chances.  It’ll also give Ken all summer to cut down the trees that are in the way on the hillside and move the wood somewhere.  It’ll give me time to have my garden and harvest (hopefully) before the work is done.  Once the garden has given me all it’s going to I’ll pull up the sides and spread the dirt around with some seed, mayhap.  At least enough to  keep the soil from eroding.  I may try to move some of it out of the way so the truck and/or excavator won’t compact it.  It means that, next spring, I’ll have to do the garden all over again, but I’d be doing that anyways with the space made from the hillside.

On other notes, I did a tarot spread last night (several, in fact) and am scared for several reasons now.  Things do not look good; not good at all.  I hope I’m wrong.  I wonder, too, who that Queen of Swords will turn out to be.  Not me, definately, but I can’t think of who she may be and she represents a significant role in our future.

(frequent Noggin watcher inside joke, sorry) (Ken just insinuated that I’m lame.  WhatEVER!)
So anyways, we’d called the dudes who did our septic because their little card said they also do earth moving and we like them (super nice, reasonable rates), to come out and give a quote on doing the hillside for us (instead of us renting something and trying to do it ourselves).  Charlie (owner – met before, very nice) came out and it turns out they were the company that did the sitework for our house initially.  It’s nice that he’s familiar, then, with our land.  He gave a rough idea of how long and how much and when.  He also mentioned what he’d *wanted* to do for the driveway, initially, but was refused that by the building company because they said too much cost (very penny-pincher company and it shows all over the house).  Oh how we wish he’d been given the ok to do it because it’s *so* much better of a design for the drive than the current, super-steep drive that we have now.  So much, in fact, that I think we’re going to have him go ahead and do it.  He said they’d be able to have it done in a day because there wouldn’t likely even be trees in the way and it’d basically give us a switch-back to get up the hill.  (More plowing in the winter but much easier.)

As for the hillside he’s going to give us a final quote tomorrow but he said likely 2-3 days with a $100/day discount if we’re ready to go next week (it’s a slow time for him since the ground is too soft for bigger projects).  It’s a bit steep for us right now, though.  We’ll have to see about that quote as we can afford 2 days but 3 is really pushing it and with the extra day for the driveway… well… we’ll see what the quote says.  We may end up going to the bank for a small loan.  At least with the driveway done that won’t be a deterrant should we need to sell the house in the future – I’ve worried about that before, given how steep ours currently is.

Last night I planted eggplant, thai peppers and bell peppers.  The planting “system” I used was Burpee and the silly little peat thingies expanded so much they overflowed their little pockets and I ended up spreading them around on top (overnight a few overflowed onto the table but no harm done).  It’s supposed to make watering easier, but we’ll see.  I’ll be keeping them going for the next month before any more plantings are done.  I think the eggplant can take almost that long before it even sprouts, so i’ll just have to be super paranoid and defeatist for the next month.

Sharon’s coming this weekend so Ken and I are planning on dinner out on Saturday at a nice place in Milford (yay gift certificate presents!).  It’ll be nice to get away for a bit as the boys have been especially….. special, these past few weeks.

Tonight we’re having someone come and estimate on shifting part of the hillside next to the house.  We want more room for gardens and storage shed and (eventually) root cellar, and we can use the earth at the bottom of the hill to smooth out the leechfield and shore up the driveway a bit.  Hopefully it won’t cost too much since we’re also hoping to pay off a chunk of our credit card.  We don’t carry much on it, but it’s been accumulating slowly over the past year (Disney didn’t help, either – and yes that’s coming as soon as I get the photos edited).  I’ll put up photos of the seeds I just planted, should they do anything exciting.  If only for cataloguing purposes since seedlings are soooo exciting!

Well, the linux thing is on hold for now since I don’t have the energy to figure it all out and, disgusted as I am so say so, Windows is just so much easier (right now).

I’m in process of sewing the zipper on Ethan’s new cardigan (finally).  It’s going to fit him through this and next fall, if not further, so it’s a good sweater for him (I think).

I love the new netbook.  It’s so much more convenient to have it always at hand.  I think I spend less time on it, too, to be honest (not that it’s not pleasant to use, but my time is more streamlined with less interruptions).  The battery lasts forever.  I plug it in at night, most nights, and it lasts me through the day (and then some).  When I’m not using it it’s hibernating on the counter and uses so little battery when sleeping).

Weather warmed considerably this weekend.  It was lovely and we all went out to the stores together.  The crocus I had in the front bed, along with all the other bulbs I’d had there, haven’t come up (damn) but the lavender’s doing great and the daffodils are poking up too.  Lilac alongside the house is starting to leave out a tiny bit, privet hedge has some fresh new bark, peppermint is coming on strong (though I’ll be killing it and planting new when the new garden beds are ready), and the rhubarb is poking up as well (we’ll be able to harvest a bit this year).

My gardening plans this year are rather detailed (I’m trying the “plant by the moon phase” techniques as well as “square foot” planting).  I’ll be starting some seeds this week in trays with a new light set-up that Ken built for me.  We’re having someone come out to give an estimate of digging out the hill next to the house this week.  We’ll also be taking down some trees.  All in all we’ll have more room and I’ll have more garden space for the boxes Ken’s going to build me in the next month.  Then it’s dirt to have delivered and likely some stone to help with drainage areas.  I’m going to try planting moss between the beds and along pathways since it’ll fill in quickly, loves our area anyways, stands up to foot traffic and looks nice.  I’ll do some moss-hunting in the coming months to find just what I want (something fluffy).  Shouldn’t be a problem.  I have a sneaking suspicion that along the ledge behind the house is just the stuff (if it’ll grow in my garden).  I know some people are against moss but I like it.  It’s green all year long, it’s durable, it’s relaxing.

Now I just need to figure out what went wrong with those crocus.  I mean, even the the blasted pansy seeds that fell from a planter into the bed last summer are coming up!

Setting up Ubuntu, why?   Considering how out of touch I’ve become with the world of computer-everything, it was surprisingly easy.  I’m running the iso off an SD card Ken picked up on sale, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing a full install sooner or later.  I’ll use it for a while and see if I have any problems.  I’m not crazy about the desktop appearance, but I love how everything’s laid out and organized and that it’s all the programs that I normally use, bundled together and ready for action.  Very sweet!
So far with my new toy the issues have been an overly-sensitive keyboard (good thing I’m used to hitting backspace a lot), an oddly sensitive touchpad (sometimes overly, sometimes underly, sometimes it wanders off into lala land).  That being said it doesn’t run as hot as I’d heard (or it’s winter so it’s a bonus) and I’m totally sitting here with it on my lap.  Keyboard oversensitivity or not it’s pleasant to type on.  I’ll adjust to the key pressure sooner or later.

I’ll start on the Disney story tomorrow.  I’ve got the files on this computer but they’re stuck in Windows land and I can’t figure out how to get them out without reloading them.  Right now I’m tired (slept poorly last night).  Good night, then, crazy people who read my ramblings (or figments of my imagination).

I’ve tried my best to be patient and wait wait waaaaaait for my new toy (mostly by obsessively watching the facebook threads and seeing what other people had found out and when their orders shipped) and called J&R (whom I ordered from), who’re located in NYC, and it shipped out today and I’ll have it tomorrow and omgweeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

*ahem*

So I’ll let you know how seamlessly (or not) it connects to our home network (go figure I’ve never used it but still remember *that* password!) and lets me online to tell you all about Disney.

Also, have you heard of the new Asus EeeTop?  No?  Go check it out.  Super cool, huh?  My kids are growing up in *such* an awesome age (computerwise)!

So we’ve decided that, when it arrives, I’m going to try out a distro on my new Eeepc.  Ken’s going to pick up an SD card and we’ll load it onto that and boot from that to see if I have problems before loading up the computer hard drive.  I’ll start with EEEbuntu (NBR) since it’s an all-in-one and is designed specifically for the EEEpc’s.  I’m kinda geeky-excited since I’ve been wanting to try a ‘flavour’ for years now and just been too chicken to sacrifice my main computer to do so.  We’ve been using Firefox for years and OpenOffice for a while so at least there’ll be 2 applications in the package that I’m completely familiar with.

Eeeeee!!

Ok, I really do have an entry to make about it but I’ve been waiting (most recently – before it was just procrastinating) for my new netbook to arrive so that I can sit at the table and take hours and hours to compose the post while also watching the boys wreck havoc in the house (at least they’ll be watched).

First, I show you this.  Then I direct you to the Amazon Reviews of said product.

Oh the laughs!  THEY HURT!