hope and honey: 9/1/09

never flitting, still are sitting

back in eight grade, i memorized the entire poem "the raven" by edgar allen poe and recited it to my language arts class. dressed all in black with dramatic dark eye make-up, a pasty white powdered face and deep red liptick, it was quite a performance. i remember feeling super artsy and cool. how i wish for a video of that day.

as i look at our new visitors, i can't help but think back to that poem. not so ominous, but as i eat at the dining room table, i will keep waiting for one of them to croak, "nevermore."

see my flickr photos for a more detailed look.

featured on ohdeedoh

how fun is this? check out our origami star mobile featured here. thanks to ohdeedoh for featuring our project and welcome to everyone visiting from there as well. glad to have you stop by!

have a great weekend - we are off to the retreat!

flashback friday

in honor of our annual fall retreat for illini life this weekend (we leave in just a few hours - yay!), i thought i would look back at some of the past years photos to reminisce. here i am six months preggo with the g-stone.

photo courtesy of tracy battaglia

this little cashew

here is my not quite successful attempt to take my own belly pic. a bit blurry, with a fuzzy blue arm spot in the corner, and not quite cropped how i would love. (and that is after editing.) next time - leave myself more time for fine tuning and remind the sun to come out from behind the rain clouds.

so i haven't given a proper update on the pregnancy for quite some time - and i have been catching flack for it. sorry. the nesting part of this experience has taken center stage - mostly so i can have more time with the boy when he arrives.

we visited the midwife practice on monday for our 32 week appointment. ahhhh! i can not believe we are so close to meeting our baby! everything is going smoothly. we have a sonogram scheduled in two weeks to check his weight. i have gained very little in the last two months and since i am carrying him so unusually, they can't get a feel for him. so, they just want to check things out, but don't seem overly concerned. therefore, i am choosing to feel the same.

i think it is amusing that i have begun to prefer the future of sleepless nights and a body recovering from labor and delivery. i will gladly trade the heartburn, back pain, braxton hicks, and general discomfort. i am not sleeping much anyway between these symptoms and the need to make a run for the bathroom twice a night. this time around i am much more aware of the briefness of this stage. no sense of wanting to hurry through.

i am so thankful for this healthy pregnancy. we feel so blessed. this time last year, we were celebrating the news of our third pregnancy. i remember sharing that news with our church family at our annual fall retreat and we leave for that same retreat tomorrow. so many emotions rolled churning around - the sweet remembrance of the short time we had with harehok and the sadness of the loss. but also the continued amazement of having a fourth baby to love and the hopeful expectation of meeting this little guy.

okay, done with the tears for now. i am being kicked in the ribs (to the point of pain) right now and need to find an alternate position for this pregnant body.

so what do y'all think? do you think i will go full term with cashew? i think i will create a poll just for fun. i was induced on my due date for luca and went into labor naturally two weeks early with gia. i am notoriously bad at judging these matters. let's get your opinions.

(poll is now up and running. place your votes!)

bienvenue a notre blog

i noticed traffic for this little blog was up and then realized we had more blog love going on. thanks to interior divine and baby deco for featuring photos of our nursery. we welcome all the newcomers checking us out. hope you enjoy the adventures of our familia!

a highlight of the week

the windows are being washed!!!

thanks dad for all the hardwork. thanks luca for the super fun photo.

(luca's commentary during this shot: "this is hilarious. grandpa is on the roof. i can see his head in the skylight. i can see you grandpa! i can see you and this is hilarious.")

how to make an origami star mobile

while inspiration hunting for the nursery, i came across some fantastic ideas for diy mobiles. i have made mobiles in the past (for both luca and gia) and the plan was to do the same for this little guy. nothing i saw was quite the right style or budget fit. i set myself a goal of $5 or less on expenses and wanted to use materials i had on hand. the only real direction i had for style was something that would grow with the baby. i had a vision - a collection of mini vintage globes hanging from the ceiling - and used this as a jumping off point.

having dabbled in origami before (one year most of our friends and family received crane ornaments for christmas), i thought about using maps as the paper for an origami mobile. my sister-in-law bought me a great origami project book a few years back, so luca and i poured through the pages, before settling on the star. it would be easy to make a lot of them (and by this time i was going big to fill the corner above the crib), but i am also drawn to them visually and symbolically. since i ended up having an old map calendar stashed away for such a day as this and i chose all other materials i had on hand, this project cost me $0!

i thought i would write up a brief tutorial on how i assembled my mobile. i also included a slide show of how to fold an origami star - not super detailed - i am sure you can find others on youtube and such.

materials used:

branch
spray paint (optional)
thin (easy to fold) paper, cut in varying size squares
fishing line
sewing needle
scotch tape
twine
hooks

i scavenged our backyard for a fallen branch that was to my liking. then we spray painted it with two coats of bright, shiny red for a pop of color and let it dry overnight.

meanwhile, i cut 3, 4, 6, and 8 inch size squares from my map calendar and leftover scrapbook paper. i then folded my stars in the following manner.

when finished, i threaded fishing line with a sewing needle on to the top point of each star. now that the branch was dry, i had it hanging at eye level to save myself some major back pain (shoulders above my head for more than a few minutes can set off my fibromyalgia big time). i estimated the length of line and the placement of each star and loosely connected them to the branch with a bit of tape (no tying yet, so i could play around with placement as i continued to add). when all of my stars were in place, i spent a couple days living with the arrangement - giving myself time to fuss and my arms and fingers a rest. i then double tied each star to the branch and cut off the excess line. jesse and i hung the mobile by tying twine to the branch and then tying the twine to two hooks screwed into the ceiling.

we love the way it turned out. hope this is helpful for any diyers looking for a new project. let me know if you have any questions or if you try it yourself.

close up of the stars

view from the crib

the big news around these parts

so if you don't live in central illinois, you probably won't understand how ridiculously frustrating this problem has been. for the last week, and even more extremely in the last few days, we have been completely overtaken by bugs. initially thought to be gnats, we have since been told that these are soybean aphids. i guess we have had the perfect conditions for a population explosion.

we won't even play outside because of these little buggers. a trip to the potager yesterday was an experience - i only squinted open my eyes every few feet while running through the swarms, then rooted around the peppers half blind. the local news has advised avoiding wooded areas, but that pretty much includes our entire neighborhood.

here is an article courtesy of our local paper, the news-gazette.

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Bothersome soybean aphids here to stay for now

By Christine Des Garennes

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 2:25 AM CDT

First, they're not gnats.

Second, you can try bug spray to get rid of them, but there's plenty more to replace the ones you killed.

Third, they may be here awhile.

You know those tiny, flitting, pesky insects of late, the ones that keep flying in your eyes and nostrils while you're riding your bike, the ones that keep landing in your drink, that have covered your deck chairs, your child's sand toys, not to mention your car's windshield?

Yes, those bugs.

"We are being invaded by soybean aphids," said Curt Hill, a principal research specialist in crop sciences at the University of Illinois.

A mild summer helped play a part in the large population of soybean aphids this year.

The bugs, which began their lives on buckthorn and spent the summer sucking sap from area soybean plants, are now thinking about their progeny.

The most talked-about (or rather, cursed-about) bug of the month, soybean aphids are moving out of the fields, and they're looking to lay some eggs.

They need to overwinter in buckthorn, an invasive shrub or small tree, to do so. A few million or so have found a big patch of it outside a greenhouse near the National Soybean Research Center on campus.

For all of you new to town, "it's not always this bad," Hill said.

Like other crops, soybeans were planted late this year due to the spring rains. And the summer weather was not hot and muggy. Turns out temperatures were ideal for growing populations of the little bugs.

The soybean aphid goes through several different stages, according to Hill. Once the eggs hatch on buckthorn, a few generations will remain on the shrub. Eventually they make their way to soybeans. The summer stage of the aphid is actually an asexual stage. But they can reproduce asexually. Plus, when born, the aphid actually is pregnant.

Yes, pregnant. Making more aphids is something they're quite good at doing.

"Under ideal conditions ... researchers have found aphids can double their population size in 1.2 days. Populations can really explode," Hill said. The optimal temperature is about 80 degrees, he said.

And the aphids' predators, the multi-colored Asian ladybeetle, haven't kept up pace.

The aphids usually stay in the fields until the day length starts to decline, and eventually they change to another stage called gynoparae, and that's when they start migrating away from the soybeans and go out in search of buckthorn.

And that is the current stage of most of the aphids that are finding their way into our clothes, our hair and our cold beverages.

You can expect to keep swatting at them, too.

"They could be around for quite a while; there's still a lot of green soybeans out there," Hill said.

Until there are some hard frosts or the soybean crop is completely harvested, they'll still be flitting around, he reported.

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morning light

overheard

"dear God, i want to turn into a bear. amen."

happy fourth and a half birthday my sweet boy!

blog love

go check out the spearmint baby blog - a super cute place that details "the whole new world that opens up once you have children" - and see cashew's nursery and our playroom featured today. thanks shari!

marathon complete

remember those pillows that needed to be finished? check one more thing off that list.

this is what i do. . .

cashew embroidery (wip), originally uploaded by annaleahart.

. . .when i am stuck on the couch due to an aching back and swollen, tingling feet. make things. . . and watch tv.

release

thanks to aunt michelle and uncle jason - we spent the last few weeks watching teeny tiny caterpillars grow long and fat, each build a snug chrysalis, and a week later emerge as beautiful painted ladies. we kept them well fed on sugar water drizzled on fresh zinnias and marigolds inside the butterfly house for the first week. but this past sunday, we had a release party in our potager. luca did a great job gently and carefully moving his little friends. once again, thanks aunt michelle and uncle jason for the great birthday present.