Happenings

So I may or may not have told you that I've been itching to start a summer garden since December. That wasn't practical for several reasons, one being that a successful garden takes lots of planning, which I had yet to do. Secondly, Christmas time is not the time you think about spending money on recreational hobbies that don't yield significant results (at least not immediately. At least if I was spending my money on a gym membership, I'd have the satisfaction of looking like a hottie. Gardening required getting on your knees and getting really dirty and wet, which I'm typically wont to do anyway...hey, get your mind out of the gutter).Third, and only slightly irrelevant to me, was the fact that you can't have a summer garden in winter. That being said I spent the first four months of 2010 reading gardening books and pouring over pictures and tips on the internet. Generally, this was done during the quiet time just before bed when David and I read together, and he took notice of my obsession. He generously offered to build me a raised bed garden after I asked him if I could buy a set of raised beds for $300. (Of course we didn't have the money, but I like to dream. And since when does not having money stop me from getting what I want?)

Finally, after patiently waiting four months, we make it Home Depot where we pick out the wood. Now, I knew certain wood was ideal for raised beds, so I looked for cedar planks, which we found no problem, in addition to a 4x4 piece of pressurized piece of cedar wood to be used for the posts. What I didn't know if that pressurizing wood requires using chemicals - chemicals like arsenic and other names I can't pronounce but sound equally deadly. The chemicals leech into the dirt and the plants absorb them through their root systems. Just the kind of poisonous plants that I wanted for my family garden!
Then, come to find out, it's gonna cost close to $100 just to fill the darn box with gardening soil.
So my project is dragging on due to lack of funding, but I do not despair. I stole a bunch of containers from my mother's patio recently. It was a graveyard of dead trees and flowers. They'll be put to much better use at my house...once I fill them that is.
But look!

You can see I already transplanted some seedlings into the larger square containers. The only thing is I forgot what kind of vegetable plant there are - either zuchini or cucumber. (The cucumber plants I bought are engineered to grow in a "bush" shape and you can fit three plants in one 18 in. container! If it turns out to be zuchini, I'll probably have to move them, because one zuchini plant will take up a lot of room.)

The back row is the cucumber (I think) and you can see the two roma tomato plants and three basil plants I got going on there. The rows of dirt in front of them are gonna be cilantro and chives.

Another thing - growing plants from seeds requires patience, and you know I'm full of that.

Oh! but hey - check out my front yard. It's blooming right now...

I've got sunflower seedlings, an orange tree (in the black pot that's hiding), an avocado tree I grew from an avocado pit (from a great batch of guacamole we had back in November), and I'm totally digging the jasmine! You can smell it night and day, although it seems to be most active at night, giving off a sweet heavenly smell.

So far I haven't killed anything, which is a...no wait. I lied. I purposefully let my strawberry plant die because I was mad it never bloomed. (I can be vengeful and ruthless, I know this about myself. I'm working on having compassion for plants, and I do. I think I was just in a funk when it happened.) I am a little concerned about the avocado tree, though. It's about 12 inches tall and it was ready to move outside, but thus far it has not been an easy transition! Either the sun is too strong, or it suddenly needs a lot more water it used to, or it doesn't like the new and expensive organic gardening soil it's in. Picky little tree. I'll have to figure out what's wrong with it before it gets much worse. If it dies, I don't know that I'll cope well. It's been a six month investment thus far! It was never even supposed to live - I buried it in a pot of dirt outside and only watered it very sporadically. For three months I just had a pot of dirt sitting on my front porch, the only reason I kept it there was because it matched the empty dirt pot that the strawberries were dying in.

I have issues.

Anyway.

My day started off grand this morning. I stayed up super late to watch episoes of LOST and Glee with David. This meant I slept in. This meant I was rushing, didn't have time to make the kids lunch, and threw on whatever clothes I could find before racing out the door and to the gas station to get money from a debit purchase. The black guy behind the counter raised his eyebrows and smirked at me. I ignored his expression and gave a genuine smile back.

"You a Dodger's fan or did you leave in a hurry this morning?"

"I'm a Dodgers fan...and I left in a hurry this morning. Can I have two $10's, please?"

"I don't got none."

Thankfully the cute college kid gas attendant was there and said,

"I got change at the register, follow me outside."
He opens the door for me and I step past him.

He looks me up and down, and asks,

"What are you wearing?"

C'mon people! Has no one ever gone into a gas station in mismatching pajamas with no bra on and a head full of frizzy hair hiding under their hat?!

You know it's been too long since you've blogged when...

...you can't remember the universal password you created to log into the blog.
So I've been moping about the fact that school has been consuming my life these last 7 weeks, to be exact. I am counting the days until my classes are over (May20th) and all I will have left are my Azusa Pacific classes. (Just in case you didn't know, I'm taking a history and child development course on top of the APU courses I'm in.)
Now that we're on the same page, let's just take a moment to look back at these last couple weeks, because I refuse to believe that my life is dead.

So let me see what we've got here.

Oh yes. Meet Draca, Ashlee Garman's new rat that I was asked to pet sit.

Lucky for me I like ratties. We had her for a week before she was returned to their care...

I wonder if she's still alive.

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This is a picture of Potato Croissant dough that I was making by scratch to serve for Easter Dinner.

You know the only bread I have ever made from scratch has been the dough we put together to throw into my breadmaking machine, which I have never used since that time we used it on Elvenking. (Remember I was afraid to open the yeast because I thought it would be squirming around or maybe come crawling out of the packet? I do.)

These are the Potato Croissants that I baked and attempted to serve for Easter Dinner, but my mother prevented me, insisting that I had not let the dough risen properly. I was adament I had followed the "quick rise" directions properly, and to demonstrate utter confidence in my baking abilities, I ate the bread, which was a fine idea until I swear it began rise in my stomach. I know it was all in my head, but I couldn't shake the image of a baby bird's stomach bursting as it eats a grain of rice. They were as edible as they look there in the picture - which means, not very.

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This is William and David at the Mission Bay Aquatic Center in April. Emma and William both attended a spring camp sailing camp where they completed and earned a 15 hour sailing course certificate. William was pretty excited we got to be there and spend the morning with them.

Emma was also radiating exuberance and enthusiasm.

William, with his new found sailing skills and David (who was in the process of taking a crash course in sailing due to the fact that the Captain of the boat was only 7 years old, after all) sail off into the wild blue yonder...

...and get ship wrecked shortly thereafter. With a little bit of man power they were able to unbeach themselves and resume their expedition  out into the bay.

Sophia and I follow everyone's progress on a boat with a real motor. The camp leader was boating us around; he was 21 years old, was from Hyannisport (think Cape Cod), and had grew up racing sail boats and currently races competitively for University of California, San Diego. Pretty cool.

Later in the day we were able to have a picnic on the grassy beach. Naturally, after getting up at 5:45am and spending most of our time out on the water, somebody is bound to break down. Of course it was the seven year old and not the three year old.

Don't ask what happened - I don't remember. But I can pretty much guarentee you that it wasn't worth him dying on the towel in front of me.

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Also, we do a lot of baseball - about 4 hours a week. All our practices and games are held at the local elementary school that is thankfully close.

And this is just proof that Emma does smile. Sometimes.

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So that's my life in pictures

Most recently, I told you about my gardening project. I'll save pictures for my next post.

Til then, Ta Ta my dearest!

Someday...

You will remember that you started this blog...and then you'll check it. :)