June 2014 – Caroline Mitchell Carrico

Summer walks

This weekend we made the trip to Nashville to hang out with the Carricos. We went to the zoo, made lists with the two year old, talked parent stuff, watched the baby boys squirm, took our baby swimming for the first time, and ate a lot. Baby slept terribly; parents had groggy grown up time.Continue reading “Summer walks”

Summer

It makes me smile–this whole first week of summer thing. I live in Memphis. We are in planting zone eight, next to a giant muddy river, at the beginning (or end depending on your geographic perspective) of the Delta. It is HOT here. And it’s MUGGY. Since summer starts as soon as you have toContinue reading “Summer”

It’s ALIVE!

Things are growing. Like the kohlrabi.And the black eyed peas, eggplant, squashes, tomatoes and baby you can see below. We went out early this morning so that I could weed and the baby could supervise before the sun got too high in the sky. Our new system: as long as he can either see meContinue reading “It’s ALIVE!”

$ and cents

One gift we were given at our wedding two and a half years ago was a book called Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach. It was siting on a shelf and then put in a box and then reshelved before I finally made it a point to read it. It’s the first self-help bookContinue reading “$ and cents”

Garden envy

I’ve got a mild case of garden envy. Lots of the other gardeners have beautiful plots. No weeds. Huge plants. Our plot has weeds, but not as many as it did a few days ago. I suppose the real victory is that we concurrently are finding a way to garden and be parents. Right?

Flips

My baby just flipped back to front for the first time. We were playing on the floor, and I think I took a thirty second nap. When I opened my eyes, he was on his stomach. He had this look on his face that said, “Watch out, mommy. You may not want to blink.”

Barter

This afternoon I bartered for the second time. A neighbor two streets over has six laying hens that produce daily during the summer. (She also has two rescue bantam hens and three ducks with “angel wing” that can’t fly.) We met through NextDoor, a social network for neighborhoods. We exchange a dozen eggs for aContinue reading “Barter”

Coming home with food

Last week we got the garden back under control. Then it rained (and rained and rained). The good news is things are growing. The bad news, it’s a weedy mess out there. I hoed and hand weeded the sweet potato patch as best I could, but the mud made it a bit challenging. There is,Continue reading “Coming home with food”

Residents of the Pink Palace Mansion

Originally posted on The Pink Palace Family of Museums:
Clarence Saunders never lived in his pink Georgia marble mansion. In fact, he went bankrupt while the mansion was being built, and the unfinished building was given to the City of Memphis in 1926. Saunders never lived in the mansion, but over the museum’s history a…

Baby Bingo

I’m pretty much willing to do anything to build up my kid’s library. Without overstating it, I think reading is magic. It has been a constant in my life, from my leisure activity to a huge component of what I do for a living. I read for fun, I read for work, and I readContinue reading “Baby Bingo”