Choosing Kindness

Kindness is hard to come by these days. Everyone is busy with their own lives, their own kids, their jobs, their vacations. So when you do come by kindness, it's rare and special. I'm not just talking about the kindness of using kind words when talking to people. I'm talking about going out of your way to do something nice for someone else that you have no obligation but wish to do so by personal choice. 

I went to Costco this week to pick up a few things. A few things always turns into a few things + a few more things + a few more things. I had two legitimate items I needed. I left the store with....6+ items. But when Costco discounts Halloween-themed ravioli for $2.50 a pound, you buy it! (unless your children won't eat black and orange food. That's a different story...). I love Costco, but I'm digressing.

I checked the ingredients - no artificial colors to get orange and black!

When I left the store, I was running slightly behind and needed to go get my daughter from school. However, I also knew that when I rush things, I mess things up. So I was talking to myself as I was loading the groceries into the back of the car - take your time, do things right. I made sure to pack the cold items into my cooler properly so nothing would puncture or leak - nobody wants to bring home cracked eggs. And I loaded everything else carefully in so as not to touch the muddy stroller wheels.

Then, I realized I had a drink and three hot dogs to put into my car. So I picked up the food and drink, went to the side of my car, and attempted to ask my son to open the door. Of course he couldn't hear me because his door wasn't open and only the trunk was. So I rearranged my hands so I could swing open my door and put the food in the car. As I was placing the hot dogs in the middle tray by my seat, I heard a man call out to me that he was going to help me return my cart. I saw him pull my cart away. Initially, I thought he was going to go shopping with it, but then I saw him take it to the cart return located a few spots down from my parking spot. 

When I returned to my trunk to close it, he had just finished putting my cart back and was walking back to his car. I called out another thank you and waved. I don't know his name or who he is, and he doesn't know who I am. We probably won't run into each other again, and if we do, we may not even recognize each other. But his gesture was very kind and I won't forget it.

Choose kindness for someone. They may not forget it either.

The Third Life

Central Market hosted a special tasting activity for kids in celebration of their 30th anniversary earlier this year. I signed the kids up to go and it was a fun mid-morning activity for us. They enjoyed all the samples (as did I!) and getting to decorate a cupcake at the end.

Central Market did such a wonderful job planning this event. I couldn't stop marveling that each cupcake came in a to-go container perfectly sized for the cupcake. Not only did they plan to-go containers, but the containers had a little "moat" around the border of it to catch the excess sprinkles and toppings the kids were using to decorate. Talk about genius. Whoever is on their design/marketing/packaging team better be getting the recognition he/she deserves. 

Along with the free samples and cupcake decorating, they provided each child with a vegetable planted in a mini pumpkin. Can you tell they really put thought into planning this event? And it was free 😱

My kids got a broccoli plant and a kale plant. Having some experience with gardening and growing plants, I knew the vegetables weren't going to last long if they stayed in the pumpkin. I was already finding it difficult to get them enough water because they'd wilt within 24 hours. The roots needed more room to expand and grow if the plants were going to stay alive. I have a garden, right? Why not plant them there?

That's exactly what I did. I cut the pumpkins open carefully and transplanted my kale and broccoli to my patio planter. They would be neighbors with cilantro and pepper plants. Not bad, right? 

It wouldn't have been except all the leaves on both my plants got eaten within a few days. I was merely left with stems and the babiest of leaves. I wasn't entirely sure who the culprit was, but I knew it was someone who could reach the patio planter. To no surprise, they left my pepper plant and cilantro alone. So with their first life claimed, I removed them from my planter and transplanted them back to small nursery pots and placed them about 3 ft higher on my plant shelf.

My vegetables started growing again atop the shelf. I saw more leaves peeking out, and slowly, they grew. After a few weeks, I decided to move the broccoli back into the patio planter. I put some strong smelling herbs around the plant to deter pests in hope that they'd leave the leaves they wanted alone. 

One evening, I felt the urge to check my garden at night. It was around 10:30 pm, and I decided to walk outside to take a quick look.

All the leaves were gone, again. The second life was claimed. 

I moved the broccoli back into a nursery pot and it stayed next to the kale. For those of you who do not plant and aren't familiar with the ins and outs of growing, growing speed is exponential, not linear. Less leaves = slower growth. More leaves = faster growth. Due to having all the leaves chewed off yet again, my poor broccoli plant had to start over on its third life. 

I kept it up on the shelf and have not transplanted it into any larger container yet. This is what she looks like on her third life.

I'm not expecting to eat any broccoli this winter, but I might get to eat some of the leaves if I'm lucky. It's too bad my plants can't talk as I'd really like to hear the story of the first two lives first-hand. I guess it will forever be nature's secret. 

My plants remind me to start anew when possible. Because the alternative is death. Just keep growing.

The Lifeline

My children love playing outside and I love letting them play outside. I had posted recently about our backyard transformation which has allowed our children so many hours of fun outside. 

One of the things I've been able to do is to put potted plants on our patio. This way I can grow my plants, move them as the weather changes, and my husband doesn't have to do creative mowing between pots if they were sitting in the grass. 

I can't remember why anymore, but one day, I allowed my children to use my gardening scissors outside to cut something. I told them what they could cut and then let them loose. Well....as kids are, they started cutting some things which I didn't say they were allowed to cut. For the most part, it didn't bother me. However, I later realized my son had cut all the pink flowers off of my plant and put them into his bucket.

 

 

His gesture was sweet and genuine - he liked the flowers and he wanted to cut them all off so he could collect them and save them in his bucket. I read a book in college about this mentality gone wrong. In a four-year-old? Cute. Grown man? Inappropriate and disturbing. I don't remember there being anything graphic in the novel itself, but if it were not in my list of required reading for my class, I would never have thought to read it. 

My son got an earful from me about how I didn't say he could cut the flowers off my plant. And how flowers die when you cut them off the plant because they are separated from their life source. Their outdoor play ended shortly after and we all went back inside.

That evening, I was outside for something completely unrelated and I noticed the plant was already starting to push out new buds. You can see the little pink beginning to emerge and blossom.

 

Plants are resilient. They will grow back given the proper environment. I actually took my son out the next morning to show him the plant and the new flowers that were growing on it. I think he was semi-scarred I was showing him the plant he wrongly cut so he got weepy again. But in no time, he was outside playing as normal and forgetting that he ever cut them in the first place. 

I'm still learning as a parent that reactions are more memorable than actions. I myself am a product of a childhood of negative reactions, ones I hope not to pass down to my children. It's an uphill battle, one I lose more often than I'd like to admit. But this plant was a reminder to me: if you are connected to the lifeline, you will grow and renew.
 

We Got a New Microwave!

So typically, I enjoy house projects. I like picking out new things and doing some minor construction. However, I don't enjoy it when it happens unexpectedly. Therefore, I did not enjoy having to replace our microwave when ours started to die. 

It began one evening when we were microwaving food for dinner, and suddenly, the normal "heating" sounds didn't come on as we hit the start button. There were lights, the turntable rotated, but we could tell something was off. 

The next day, I tried using the microwave again and it seemed to be fine. This lasted about a week until it happened again. This time, we told ourselves it was time to get a new microwave and say goodbye to this one. It has served three owners well in its 20-year lifetime. 

 

 

 

Goodbye.

 

 

 

It took a little bit of online searching to realize that built-in microwaves are really just countertop microwaves with trim around to make them look built-in. After we made this realization, it was much easier to shop for one as countertop microwaves are aplenty. We purchased one and were able to pick it up that same day.

Out with the old....in with the creativity.

Putting in the new microwave was not as easy as it was cut out to be. The old trim kit had a base riser which the old microwave sat on. Well, lucky for us, the new microwave didn't work with the same base riser because the legs of the microwave were positioned differently. Unless we wanted to spend another $150-$300+ dollars buying a new trim kit that may or may not give us more grief in installation, we were going to have to get creative to find a way to sit this microwave at the proper height.

This is where we went into the garage and dug around to see what spare boards of varying thicknesses we had. Surprisingly, we have quite a few. The difficult part was finding just the right combination of boards (because we didn't have one at the thickness we needed) to raise the microwave enough to get the trim on properly.

 

 

 

This board was removed from one of our new bathroom vanities during a bathroom remodel because it interfered with the way the plumbing came through the back. It came in handy this time and served as one of the layers of our base riser.

We kept the front plate from our existing trim kit to use around the new microwave. There was a lot of test-fitting and pulling the new microwave in and out to see if it would fit. Perks of renovations and construction. Doesn't this make you want to get your hands dirty in some house projects? No? Me either.

We started this project on September 30 and finished on October 1, but it only took us 4.5 hours. How was this possible? See if you can read the clock.

We felt very accomplished after finally getting the microwave in and properly fitted with our existing trim piece. It was also very late and we were tired. We're happy to have a working microwave again and hope it can give us a good 20 years just like the last one. I told my husband, the next time we need to replace our microwave, we're going to turn the opening into a shelf so the microwave can sit inside it and there's no need for trim pieces or getting the microwave to sit at a certain height. 

Or we'll move before it happens. 😂