The wonderful world of Justice and Mommy aka Mary!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

You'll Be Able To Say You Knew Him When



Each year since Justice has been here on earth we’ve gone to Arti Gras. For those of you who aren’t fortunate enough to live in our sub tropical paradise it’s a really great art festival in Abacoa. They have tons of talented artist ranging from painters to sculptors, jewelry makers and more. There’s always tons of live music, local food vendors and a great section set up just for kids.

This year they had a wonderful tent set up with all sorts of recycled items that could be put together to create virtually anything without scissors or glue. Justice got to work right away on a quite ingenious masterpiece. He made a pirate ship which in my humble opinion resembles a cruise ship overtaken by two straw and pipe cleaner pirates. It’s obvious to me that he is a budding Picasso and you will all be able to say you knew him when. He even took the time to make a foam doll for his sweet cousin Hannah before moving on to the next tent to make a paper hat.

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There is something to be said for Justice’s artistic abilities. There aren’t many of us who would look at an American flag on a stick, a yellow nylon Christmas ball, a large faux poinsettia and pink feather and say “Gee that would look GREAT on a hat made our of newspaper!” but that’s just the sort of genius Justice has been blessed with. God is good.

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Everywhere we went after that people commented on his hat. To him is seemed crazy that people might pick him out of such a crowd of talented artist to stop and ask about his piece. “Why does everybody keep telling me about my hat?” he kept asking me. All I could do was grin from ear to ear and tell him he was the most talented person there.

Even after we got home that day he continued to wear his hat while he chased bubbles and rode his scooter. It was another precious moment for me. I hope I have many more years of these to come.

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posted by Mary Gerber at 2/26/2008 2 comments

Devil Horns And Proud Mommy Moments

One of the biggest events in South Florida during season is the Renaissance Festival, which we somehow seem to miss each year. This year I was sure to find out exactly when it was taking place and pencil it into the calendar before our days and hours became filled with something else. I think we were both happy that I did this.

When we got there I could see from the ticket booth alone that great pains were taken to recreate the renaissance feel. We were instantly transported from the 21st century to the 15th century and we didn’t even need a time machine to get there. It was great.

We met a pirate strolling about.

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We saw a lady eat fire. (Justice was particularly taken with her and her talent).

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Justice tried his hand at jousting.



He rode the swings powered by two men cranking a wheel.
See his little head poking out of the swing on the left?

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He rode an over sized barrel pushed rather crazily by a shirtless man.

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He even found a new hobby. Juggling crystal sticks. He liked them so much I bought them for him as an early birthday present.

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The man who ran the tent said Justice was particularly good with them. He had managed to master a trick that two ten year olds had been trying to get all day in just a matter of minutes. It was a proud mommy moment for me.

The only thing I was disappointed in was the fact that we did not have costumes! When we got there I realized it was like Halloween for Renaissance lovers. All around us were fair maidens in corsets and hooped dresses, pirates, fairies, nymphs, gypsies and more. I’m already gathering ideas for next year and promise to have pictures of us in truly amazing costumes.

This year we had to settle for devil horns and regular clothes.

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posted by Mary Gerber at 2/26/2008 0 comments

Friday, February 22, 2008

A Pow Wow With Two Little Indians

One of the things on my list of things to do was go to a pow-wow. Living in south Florida there are lot’s of them and it’s such a shame to live in a place steeped in history and not experience some of it, so I did a little bit of internet research and found that the Seminole Hard Rock Casino was hosting a Seminole Indian festival and pow-wow. I piled Justice and his very best friend Toby into the car and headed of for an exciting day of culture and history.

Justice and Toby were able to pose with an Indian while holding the hide of an alligator who met his end on alligator alley.

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We watched Indians from small to large dance on endlessly and listened to the famous drums.

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We even stopped in Ben and Jerry’s to pose behind one of those goofy cut outs that everyone loves so much.

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All in all it was a great day. The only downside was that it rained pretty heavily during the afternoon which put a damper on things so to say.

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posted by Mary Gerber at 2/22/2008 0 comments

Great! But Will I Fit In There?

During one of our recent thrift store hunts Justice found this really neat Little Tykes football toy box. The selling point for him was he could fit inside it and close the lid on top of himself. Now I don’t know about you, but; when I look for storage containers the last thing on my mind is “Can I fit in there?” I guess that’s just another profound difference between adults and children. Somewhere along the road we stop asking that question and begin to ask other questions like “Will that fit in the room?” and “Will the color of the container match with the rooms decor?”

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Justice liked his newfound football so much that he wanted to turn it into his permanent bed. I didn’t want to squash his dreams too harshly so I let him fall asleep in there, then gingerly picked him out of the over sized ball and laid him down in his big comfy bed.

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The next day he was pretty ticked off to find I had actually put toys in the toy box. What was I thinking?

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posted by Mary Gerber at 2/22/2008 0 comments

Our New Career As Migrant Farm Workers

We woke with anticipation and curiosity on Saturday morning. This was the day we were to pick our own produce just like farmers or good old country people. Justice was brimming with excitement and I was looking forward to a new experience. I was hoping to get some really great pictures of him and as it turned out destiny was not about to disappoint.

I carefully choose a pair of camouflage pants and a matching subdued blue t-shirt for Justice to wear and laid his clothes out on the couch. After a few mild threats and ten minutes Justice was dressed, however; I don’t think he was quite satisfied with the outfit his underpaid stylist picked for him. He decided to improve upon the look with a lightweight red fireman’s’ jacket and matching rubber rain boots. To accessorize this ensemble he tied the waistband from a Robin costume around his head like a samurai.

Immediately a ton of thoughts flew through my mind. He’s going to ruin the pictures, he looks ridiculous, what will other people think…. Then, I realized that there is a brief window in everyone’s life where they can walk out of the house in such a getup and get away with it. At the age of five it’s ok to look ridiculous. People giggle when you say “He picked out his own outfit out today.” Ten years from now he will not get that same response if he chooses to dress this way, so I decided to keep my thoughts to myself and let him run with this look and we walked out the door feeling good about ourselves.

After a somewhat lengthy ride on I-95, we arrived at The Girls U-Pick Strawberry Farm. At first glance it could have been any ordinary store front in a nondescript strip mall. It was obvious that they occupied two spaces; however, from the front they looked like any other store with a few cute benches out front. Once we entered it became apparent that we were not in Kansas any more.

We were met with simple shelves stocked with glass jars and home baked goods. There was an upright piano set flush against the store window and nobody complained when Justice tapped out his original score to “I Don’t Know How To Play The Piano” I found it to be quite endearing; however, I’m not sure it was quite that amazing to the other patrons.

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We browsed around the store for a bit and tried to take everything in. There were jars full of hot southern sauces to sweet jams and preserves. The aisles were littered with multicolored hard candies as well as quaint odds and ends like scented candles and touristy magnets. There was a large glass covered bakery shelf with the most delectable cakes, pastry’s and chocolate covered strawberry’s. It was the cutest little country store smack in the middle of a city.

After perusing the shelves for a little while, Justice was getting antsy. He couldn’t wait to get out in the field and pick some strawberries and I have to admit I was pretty excited too! We exited through the back of the store and I couldn’t believe what I saw. In front of me was a huge field littered with quaint signs, a house, birds and more. It almost seemed like we had walked through the looking glass. How could we have just been in the city seconds ago and now we were in a farm field? It was like magic.

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We grabbed a basket and some friskar type scissors then set of on our adventure. Our feet crunched on the white gravel pathways as we began to explore this strange phenomenon. Immediately we were met with a myriad of hand painted signs. Some alerted us to the types of birds and animals that call the farm home and others named the picturesque pathways that were begging to be explored. We were willing to oblige.

Justice wanted to get right to picking; but, I wanted to check things out first, so we began to walk up and down the well placed pathways. Everywhere we looked there were interesting things to see. The whole farm had been designed very intelligently. In the middle there was a house with a white picket fence and a small wooden sign that read Grandma’s House. Inside the fence were some miniature donkeys named Romeo and Juliet as well as a few goats and the front yard was home to a beautiful pond with several snow white swans drifting about. It was a perfectly Utopian farm house.

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Just north of the farm house was Poppies Veggi Barn, a large brown wooden structure. It was chock full of freshly picked produce resting on top of crates and potato sacks. While we were there I filled our wooden basket with the freshest tomatoes, peppers, corn, grapes and banana’s. It was a great way to kick start our grocery shopping.

Finally we headed into the fields. Now, if you have never seen a hydroponic farm you probably have a very different idea of what the fields looked like. In traditional farms plants are grown in the ground one behind the other in long rows like soldiers lined for battle. In hydroponic farms they are grown in small containers which are hung vertically which saves space and reduced the need for water.

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Justice was so energetic and eager to pick his own strawberries which just happen to be his favorite fruit. He can eat a whole pound of them in minutes without blinking an eye. While this may be a good thing it also happens to be an expensive thing. At $4.99 a pound I had to put a limit on how many strawberries we could pick. I decided one pound would be sufficient and knew we had other fruits to snack on when the strawberries ran out.

Justice ran to the first plant that caught his eye and sniped the first green vine he could get his little red scissors on. He wore a mask of earnest concentration on his face and you could tell he took his job of harvesting fruit very seriously. Very carefully he choose each juicy red treat with just a little guidance from me. I think he would make a great migrant farm worker.

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After that we strolled around the farm a bit longer then made our way to the quaint storefront to look for one last item. Justice’s teacher was out sick during Christmas so she missed our on the yummy chocolates my mom shipped down from Lore’s in Philadelphia. We had a parent teacher conference scheduled for the following week, therefore; I wanted to bring her a little something to show our appreciation for her hard work and dedication.

When I asked Justice what she likes to eat he said “I don’t think I see her eat. She goes first in the lunch line and then goes to another place to eat, but; IT’S NOT SKIPPING because she’s a teacher.” Then I asked him if he was sure he never saw her eat anything again, and in a very confident tone he replied “She eats crackers. I have seen her eat crackers.” I couldn’t help but laugh. We settled on a nice jar of homemade peach butter and decided to leave the crackers to the parrots.

Once we had paid for our items we piled everything into the car then headed over to The Boy’s Farmers Market to see if all the internet reviews boasting great prices matched with push y seniors in small spaces were true. They were true. The aisles were small, the prices were great and all I could see was a sea of white hair above my 5 foot frame. BUMP, BUMP, BUMP went the cart and our shins as condo queens knocked our cart about. YAK, YAK, YAK went the yentas who were haggling with the barely English speaking help.

It was great. I’ve never seen such good people watching. I could have wandered the aisles with a partially filled cart for hours and just been entertained by the patrons, but; I knew we had shopping to do. I couldn’t believe it- they had sliced loaves of FRESH bakery bread for a mere $1.50. There were whole roasted chickens for $5.00. I even got 5 ears of corn for $1.00 AND they had a nice wastebasket set up there for those who wanted to shuck their corn on the spot. How ingenious!

We finished our shopping with a smile and a few extra dollars in our pockets then headed off to Tradewinds Park for some disk golf and pony rides. We don’t normally get to go to the parks so far south in Florida because of the distance and I wanted to be sure to take advantage of our trip. The parks down south tend to offer more, because they are located in more heavily populated areas, therefore; they have more tax dollars to play with.

Justice rode the ponies, some of which actual horses.

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Then we toured a farm house and took advantage of the playground.

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After that we drove over to the other side of the park to play disk golf.

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Justice LOVED disk golf. Apparently it’s a pretty popular sport. We will be doing this again.

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posted by Mary Gerber at 2/22/2008 0 comments

The boy who cried wolf, outsmarted by Mom

On Friday morning Justice woke for school and looked at me with a sheepish grin. “I think I’m sick” he said. Looking at him it was quite clear that he was not. He had a slight sniffle and that was it. I thought for a moment then said “Well, if your really that sick I guess you’ll need to stay home from school today. And if your so sick you can’t go to school, we’ll just have to skip the U-Pick Strawberry Farm.” “Oh!” he said, “I guess I’m not THAT sick.”

Hmm it’s funny how that works I thought!



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posted by Mary Gerber at 2/22/2008 0 comments

How To Make A Dollar Out Of Fifteen Cents

We’ve been kind of homebound for the last two weekends with the exception of a trip to the library and some local parks, so I really wanted to do something fun this weekend. The only problem was I had no money. Of course we could go to some of our favorite free or very cheap local haunts; but, I wanted to do something new.

I have always wanted to take a tour of one of Florida’s infamous orange groves, so I decided to do some internet research and find a nearby grove to explore. To my utter disappointment the first place I called informed me that tours of the groves were no longer allowed under Florida state law. Apparently this was due to the citrus canker problem we have had in the state which doesn’t damage the flavor of the oranges, but does create dark spots on the outer skins, thereby decreasing the value of the fruit.

After that bit of bad news I started to think outside the box. Then it hit me. Maybe we could tour a farm. I began to look for working farms to visit and happened to stumble upon something I had never thought of, U-Pick farms. You can go to a farm, get a basket, then go pick your own fruits and vegetables. This is perfect, I thought. We needed to go food shopping this weekend anyway, so instead of buying produce off of the shelves, we could go pick them ourselves and have a great time while doing so.

I found a place called The Girls Strawberry U-Pick Farm in Delray beach. They grow all of their produce hydroponically and had a-lot of little extra‘s, such as carefully placed swings, swans, miniature donkeys, goats, fish and a small store. Positioned strategically next door was The Boys Farmer’s Market, boasting great prices and the freshest produce in the area. What more could I ask for?

I decided that the 35 minute drive would be worth the experience and we would probably make up the cost in fuel by catching a few bargains. Then the wheels in my brain started moving. If we were already going to be that far south maybe we could check out one of the local parks and make a day of it. That’s when I stumbled upon Tradewinds Park in Davie. It was only 20 minutes further south and had playgrounds, cheap pony rides, a miniature train, nature trails, a free disc golf course and more. I knew I could make a really great day of it with a little bit of planning and a few small dollars.

When you are a single mom you really need to become skilled in the art of making a dollar out of fifteen cents!


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posted by Mary Gerber at 2/22/2008 0 comments