Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Doing


As I’ve gotten involved in the Bremerton Farmers Market, I’ve been asked pretty frequently “what do you DO?” Well, I’m not a vendor. I’m the president of our board of directors, but what that means is that I’m really just a big time supporter or our market, similar to lots of other folks in our community. I’m a lover of all things good for Bremerton, and the market just so happens to embody a lot of the things that I think will make Bremerton a better place. The BFM involves supporting local small businesses, healthy food grown by Washington farmers and the overall sense of COMMUNITY that comes from being at our local market. 


 What is the best part of being president of the Bremerton Farmers Market? Working with truly incredible people. Some of these are our market members and vendors, or our amazing manager, for example. These are people that spend countless hours creating or growing their products, making displays for their booth, often managing a website to market their business and then additional hours managing their both at the markets each week. These are the people that put in the hard hours and show up each week to vend for you and bring you a fantastic market. 

 I’ve also encountered people that have supported the market from the outside as community participants – people like City Council members Leslie, Nick, Greg and Roy. These are people who pick of the phone to have a call about a market issue, or have even joined our committee meetings held at board members homes to connect about how to make our market better. Or take Bremerton Mayor, Patty Lent, for example. She has far surpassed my expectations in terms of communicating with us regularly and also jumping in to support where she can. I can remember being at a Washington State Farmers Market Association strategic planning meeting earlier this year, and I got multiple calls from not only City Council members but from Mayor Patty Lent regarding a hot topic affecting our market. These are people that care and people that are making a difference by being deeply involved and showing up with action to support us. These folks go above and beyond in supporting market initiatives, responding to our questions and encouraging us along the way. 


What do all of these people have in common? They DO. They show up, they put their words of support into action. That being said, although I am pleased with the support from community members, I can’t say that I’m surprised. You see, I grew up in a family of DO-ers. I grew up with parents that volunteered in my elementary school, that coached soccer teams and lead Girl Scout troops. I grew up with grandparents that volunteer at libraries and manage county political campaigns, and give their love and artistic talent back to their community. I grew up in a family where it is normal to give and DO, to enrich the lives of others and our communities.

 So, what do I DO at the market? I join the others and I give – my time and energy to an organization I care about. I DO this market, because I believe in this market, and the good that it does in our community. I encourage each of you to give – your own time and your own energy to the things you care about. What do you want to make better and what do you want to give back? Don’t just think about it, DO it. I tell you this not only because its fun and it feels good, but because our community needs it. It needs help! We need people like you to step up, to volunteer, to make a difference, to make our community better. We need more people to take action on the things they care and talk about, we need more people to DO.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

2012 Garden Progress

 In 2010 when we purchased our home, it needed some significant yard work done. It was left alone for about 3 years, so was significantly overgrown in the garden beds. This is a photo of the side garden bed when we moved in the fall of 2010.



This photo was taken last year of the same garden bed in the summer, after some of our vegetables were overgrown for the end of the season.


This last month, over Memorial Day weekend, I finally got to work in making this area of the yard more landscaped and incorporated both edible and ornamental plants.

{view from below}

After two truck loads of garden soil from Cooleen's Gardens and 12 stones, it's much better and easy to water! I am incredibly happy. So far we have some lavender, our artichoke plant, some tomatoes down at the bottom and brussel sprouts. There are also some miscellaneous perennial flowers in this garden bed now.

{view from above}

{view from side}

What are your thoughts? Do you like the changes? Did you do any work in your yard over the long weekend?

P.S. that is a fig plant in the bottom photo turquoise planter. I already have some little figs growing. I purchased this one at Bainbridge Gardens - I just discovered this amazing nursery and can't wait to go back!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

2012 - A New Look & Outlook

Wowza, look at my clean blog! Wahoo! I did some cleaning up on the blog this weekend. I changed the template to make it look more simple and clean with a white background, and I took out some of the extra lists on the side. I really like it, what do you think? I think it's a nice and clean template for the new year.
I also did a small project this morning. I was inspired by Ashley's Manifesto over at From Dahlias to Doxies, a way of simplifying and writing down goals for the new year. So, I created one myself! Check it out:


I'm planning on  printing a few copies on card stock for my work and home offices. Looking forward to using this as inspiration for the year! Have any of you written down or crafted up some goals for 2012?

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Home Name Signs

I've always liked the look of a sign above the main entrance to a home. I especially love the one featured on Design Sponge's tour of EmersonMade's home, checkout the photo below.


I think what I like most is that this one is so simple - no image, no border, not funky font. I really like how simple this one is, and I love the dark background and lighter font.

A DIY spin on this idea would be to just paint the name on the wood instead of additionally engraving, but I really like the engraved + painted look. This is definitely something I will be looking for at future craft fairs!

I would love to hear if you have a name sign at your home or an opinion one way or the other. Perhaps you have a sign at your main door entrance or even at the entrance to your driveway? Let me know in the comments!