Let the Adventures Begin...

Road Trip to Iowa...I am certain the first two hours of the 30 hour car ride is going to be great. I'm just not positive on the rest of it. Pray for safe travels as we venture back to the Midwest.
From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean

Wordless Wednesday

Look what packages arrived today!
From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean

Wordless Wednesday

Yippee! I can't contain my excitement...the last cedar shake. After some quick finishing touches with some trim work the painter's should be here next week. Hooray!
From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean

Divide and Conquer

Our life is busy at The Little Blue Bungalow. It is not necessarily a pace I'd recommend for every family and sometimes it is downright messy, literally and figuratively. Between two full time jobs, kids in activities, building a garage, trying to grow and preserve much of our food, chasing chickens and taking in family adventures, we definitely have to lean on one another to push through to the next day. Our lives are FULL.

















It is funny how life's lessons can be applied to everything...even marriage.

By now, most of you probably are reading the title of this post and wondering, "Huh?"...Divide and Conquer = Marriage? Yes, I definitely can say our marriage is all about dividing and conquering TOGETHER.

Because of this crazy pace Drew and I often lean on our strengths to complete the daily tasks. For example, I am excellent at budgeting so all the bills are my responsibility. Drew is amazing at packing in the every last dirty dish and has become the expert dish wash loader in the house. Drew is allergic to grass, trees and almost every living creature (well, almost) so the yard work falls to me. However, Drew is amazingly patient and talented at building and not to mention the best toy "untangler" you could image. (Well, if "untangler" is a word.)

Whatever the task we come up with a game plan and get to work...divide and conquer! Hence, the City Solve race is and has been one of our favorite "adventure" races. Two weekends ago we participated in Seattle's City Solve race. If you haven't heard about City Solve, it is worth a quick browse on the computer. It truly is a race where brain collides with brawn. Armed with wit, your cell phone, feet and mass transit teams solve clues around the city and prove they have completed a task or visited a check point by taking their picture. Trust me, it gets kinda' wild running all over the city, but worth the fun.

This year we relied on our skills as a couple and tackled the clues dividing the sheets when we received them. This alone was the key to our great success in which we shaved off 50 minutes off our first race. We still ended up getting lost in a park for 20 minutes, laughed it off and got an amazing workout up and down those stairs. (Seriously Freeway Park...you are crazy!!!) We also befriended many strangers (ahem...ok...I befriended) along the way asking for help. Drew was the expert navigator and mass transit user. Seriously, he knows his way around maps and navigating on this phone. Nothing like a little trust when Drew says, "OK, this way 10 blocks." I have no choice, but to trust and run even if it is up hill...both ways.

Though we didn't earn any amazing awards or qualify for nationals with a time of 2 hours and 47 minutes. (Close, in the early 30's for placement against 100 or so teams.) However, we did have fun and got some great quad work up and down the hills of Seattle. The race was a testament to our daily lives of dividing and conquering, because together we are unstoppable.

From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean

Wordless Wednesday

From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean

Weekend View

My view this weekend...staring up at a garage, up and down on a ladder, cutting cedar shakes for my husband with the miter saw. Ah..ahem...I am a woman of many talents. I've even come up with a great title to my work on the garage "Material Specialist". Yeah, that's me...Material Specialist, one who hands their husband materials during projects.

Though it pays to have personal confidence with power tools and a skilled husband too.
I'm super proud of our entire family who has helped in making our project possible. Even the kids were "runners" on the ladder to deliver cut shakes to daddy. And Drew and I have gained a new appreciation for folks that side their entire house with cedar shakes. Seriously, to you we bow down.

From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean

Adaptive Gardening

Disappointed. I've been more than dismayed at how difficult it has been to get things going in the garden this year. Though we don't rely completely on our gardens to feed our family, we do reap the benefits of having healthy choices throughout the year and lowered grocery bills.

The Northwest had an exceptionally wet and cold spring almost into mid May which hindered my early plantings. Things I did plant in April literally rotted in the ground. Nothing new for me the last two years, but a hard act to follow when in years past I've been planting in March and reaping the goodness out of the ground in April.

Our goal this year was to really expand our vegetable beds and work with our climate more to maximize production. In April we ordered 3 yards of dirt and added an entirely new garden (approximately 18 feet by 20) behind the new garage. Yes, I realize not just a some pile of dirt, but an investment on our family's eating.

I knew I would be pushing this new garden's capacity as we hadn't "worked" the soil yet, but I had seeds in hand and it couldn't hurt right? Or could it? Though the soil appeared to be rich I've noticed in the months after that it clumped in my hands. This soil texture has caused few tender seeds to push through the hard soil or if they did survive they die days later. Where as my new garden should be bustling with tender greens and plants, it is surely lacking.

However, there are bright spots. My tomatoes (a Northwest variety) are doing quite well as well as my potatoes and squashes. I am excited about these "wins" but I know these items won't be ready until later in the season. My established garden of course is doing fantastic. I did have some minor set-backs with the green beans as they were some of the seeds that rotted in the ground. In addition, I finally had to replant the pumpkins in pots away from the garden as the chickens pushed the garden gate over four times and ate the pumpkin seeds. (Seriously girls!) My girls only have access to the gardens late October through February so naturally any chance they can sneak in they make their entrance.

But all in all, our original garden is going gang busters especially our strawberry patch. In
the past I've tried to contain or control the strawberries as I had limited garden space. This year I decided to let the strawberries take over an entire patch as I wasn't' worried about space. Over the past week we harvested over 2 baskets full of beautiful, fresh berries from the garden EACH DAY! A huge win in our family, but again we are missing our fresh greens.

Though I am disappointed, I will adapt. This weekend I plan on planting some new sections of greens (peas, lettuce, endive, spinach) into the established garden where the pumpkins should have gone. I will plant the pumpkins into the new garden after they sprout as vine type plants seem to be doing OK at this time in the new garden beds. This Fall I will start working the new garden by adding all of our compost in the months to come and turning the soil as often as I can with these added nutrients. In addition, I plan on bringing "the girls" (aka the urban chickens) to help. They have helped my other garden each year by scratching the soil, spreading nutrients (with their um hum waste), and mixing the compost with the soil.
Though it isn't my gardening dream this year, it is what it is. I learn things each year about gardening and I adapt and hope for the best next year. I still have time to salvage this year, I just have to work harder. Of course, my flowers in the front never seem to mind and always look amazing. I will simply have to stop and smell the roses from one of my 13 rose plants.

From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean