A few of my favorite things.

Chalkboards, mason jars, and fresh herbs.  These three things, in my opinion, should have a place in every kitchen.  In my house, mason jars serve all sorts of purposes aside from the preserving job they are meant for. At about 10 bucks for a dozen, they are cheap and dead useful.  They are glassware for sweet tea and storage for any refrigerated leftovers that will appropriately fit.  A votive dropped in transforms a mason jar into a candle holder and in the hands of a little boy on a June evening, they become the home of glowing fireflies. They stand proud on the table as a vase for dandelions presented by loving children and today they took on a new role as a window sill herb garden.

My friend Jessica and her family joined us for lunch yesterday and my giant wall calender started a conversation about our shared adoration of chalkboard paint.  It reminded me of this project I've had in my head for quite a while.  I love mason jars and I love all things chalkboard, so I decided to marry the two and throw in some fresh cooking ingredients for good measure.  Sounds like a win all around.

For this little undertaking you will need:

 a few wide-mouth, quart mason jars (one for every herb you want to use)

small herb plants

chalkboard paint

potting soil

I used a small bottle of chalkboard paint from Michael's.  I think I paid about 4 dollars for it after using a 40% off coupon.  If you are planning any larger chalkboard projects, you might go ahead and invest the 15 dollars for an entire quart of paint at Lowe's.  I've also read that you can make chalkboard paint by mixing two tablespoons of tile grout to 1 cup of flat paint in any color.  

I didn't have a paintbrush so I just finger painted it on.  I like things to be a little imperfect so this delivered a satisfactory result, but you could use a stencil and a brush if you wanted something more precise.

After one coat, it was still a little see through...

so I let it dry and added another coat. 

The finished jars before planting....

Now you could probably fit an entire small herb container in each jar, but since I have large pots of herbs on my porch and I was mostly doing these for decoration, I just separated small portions from my big plants to keep inside. 

And another idea for mason jar planters...a cute touch to a front porch with flowers and words/sayings. 

Grow.

Few places in the world inspire me as dangerously as garden nurseries.  The reality of my actual skill level is irrelevant here.  Somehow it is magically washed away at the door and I feel as though anything is possible. 

There have been more than a couple of occasions that I wandered into a garden center and wandered out with considerably less money and a lot of planting to do. 

The problem with me and gardening is that I love it, but I am not a green thumbed person. My mother can grow anything.  Seriously. Anything.  Last summer, she had banana trees bearing fruit in Arkansas.  She carted the huge monster plants from patio to living room during the cold months for a good few years, endured us picking on her for the way her house looked like a jungle in the winter and then stunned us all when they actually started making bananas. In Arkansas!  When she approaches the clearance plant rack of a garden center, it's like you can almost hear the little plants rejoicing that their savior has come at last.  

I, on the other hand, did not inherit this talent.  I love plants and appreciate them.  But let's just say, when I approach the clearance rack the plants droop a little more and know that I'm carting them off to hospice, aka my house, where they will surely die. 

Despite this unfortunate fact, I keep buying plants every year and learning what I can.  I can grow basil now.   And hostas. And pothos (except I don't think pothos counts, I think my dog could grow pothos.)  And I had a good long run with a Peace Lily I affectionately called Hubert, but he succumbed after a forgetful night left out in a freak late freeze. I haven't yet succeeded in keeping a hydrangea or an orchid alive but I've got goals and one of these days I'll see one to maturity.  You'll see. 

This has been a busy spring with Tobias joining our family, so though I've been anxious to go plant shopping,  today was my first trip to the nursery.  We will soon be undertaking "Operation Ugly Beds and Empty Pots" so I was mostly gathering ideas.  Plus, it's just fun to look at all the lovely things. 

Though I may not be a natural born gardener, I am quite good at nurturing imaginations.  Here's Asher winding up in his Sonic the hedgehog stance.  

And Jackson with his precious freckles for good measure.

Opening Day

Shopping malls always make me feel plain.   I recently went on the search for some jeans that fit my postpartum bod.  After wiggling into several pairs and surveying less than satisfactory results in the mirror, I left defeated.  I am not a fancy woman. I don't dye my hair and a lot of make up makes me feel like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not. I cannot justify the expense of pedicures. I like shoes that are easy and I lean towards clothes with character rather than style.  These things are generally truths of which I am confident.  However, I feel so out of place in a mall full of expensive, fussy clothes and the people purchasing them that I sometimes get a little deflated.  I forget how different we all are, how we all have different places to feel comfortable.

Farmer's Markets are my place to fit in.  You will not go to the farmer's market and feel frumpy. How can you when you are surrounded by life and talent and wholesome food being handled by the hands that grew it?   I love a farmer's market; they make me feel alive and exactly where I should be.

Yesterday was the opening day of the Certified Arkansas Farmer's Market in Argenta.  "Certified" means that every vendor is selling wares made or grown locally.  I was a bit late arriving due to a soccer game, but I wasn't too late to score some lovely salad greens, cream honey, and a quart of fresh picked strawberries. Buying food in this fashion makes me realize what we lack as a nation is respect and appreciation for our food sources.  Mass production, the pesticides and preservatives that are harming us, and the ability to transport foods across nations and oceans to buy out of season all make it possible to buy a 2 lb. carton of strawberries in February.  But do you appreciate it?  Do you pick up each berry and notice how jewel bright it glows in the sun, how the juice burst forth as soon as your teeth break skin, how there is no way to eat it without closing your eyes?  Or do you just let the last few tasteless berries mold in the fridge before remorselessly tossing them in the bin?

Something about a farmer's market commands respect for it's wares.  Every table is carefully lined with jars and produce, the people who created them full of knowledge and able to answer questions with ease about their products.  Each item purchased represents their hard work.

One more addition and I'll leave you for the day.  I just have to visually elaborate my point.  Jeremiah and I were putting together a fruit pizza for a church potluck this afternoon and polished off the last of the fresh picked berries from yesterday's market.  To finish the recipe, I pulled out the remainder of a carton of conventional strawberries I'd grabbed at the commissary this week.  I can only describe the difference in the taste between real food and mass produced food. The difference is huge but my descriptions are largely ineffective. It's really one of those things that you can only truly understand by comparing them yourself.  I do wish I could hand every one of you these berries to try because you would become a believer in locally grown, seasonal produce I am sure.

Since I can't do internet wide taste test, however, I'll have to settle for a photo.  Which one would you rather eat?