THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

The dog days of summer have officially arrived. I've begun to feel a little grouchy and depressed lately with a side if malaise. After looking through old entries, I realized that this seems to happen every year around this time. Is it the heat? Is it the fact that it seems like everyone is on vacation except for me? I have a list of things I want to do, but no gumption to get up and do them. And I'm tired. Wah wah wah. This is when the happy list becomes really important.

• Planning my trip to New York
• Chris's sense of humor
• Seeing new faces in my yoga classes
• Easy work days
• Chris's mom eating and liking my spaghetti
• Chris's mom for no reason making us fried rice for dinner (she didn't even eat, she had already eaten)
• Taking dad to the Pawnee Bill Wild West Show (I think he had a good time)
• Watching an entire season of WEEDS in two days
• My new sunglasses
• Tomatoes! Green ones!
• Lucas' little gun holster and cowboy guns
• Getting sunscreen I am not allergic to
• Hot summer
• Catching bits of the air show as we drive around our side of town
• The junk I ate for "dinner" at the Wild West Show (so not a pro-veg area)
• Making up for the crap I ate the night before with a smoothie from 105degrees
• Making plans to meet up with my sister for lunch
• Picking a red hot chili pepper from the garden
• Beans!

Ah...that feels better.

GARDEN DIARIES

Beans! We've got beans! We are on the cusp of being able to eat more then just spinach and lettuce from our garden. I can't believe we have a garden! With shit growing! With FOOD! We have tomatoes and bell peppers and chard. Actually, it's a good thing we have the chard because the spinach is kaputt.

A few weeks ago Chris talked me into planting a potato that had sprouted in the pantry. I didn't know to chop it into pieces, so I planted the whole thing. We're going to have lots of potatoes. And the pineapple I planted is green. No pineapples, but it's growing. What more can I ask for? And don't even get me started on the cucumbers. Blooms galore. We've got a bounty.

We have plans to fertilize and eat. Of course we'll wash every thing first.

THANKFUL FRIDAYS

Well, I guess I can say that there are a lot of things I'm thankful for this week. The boss has been away, so things have been a bit lighter at work. I've been able to ride the scooter most of the week. We survived the flood and my health has returned to normal again.

This weekend is Father's Day and in celebration of that day we are taking my dad to the Pawnee Bill Wild West Show tomorrow night (YeeHa!). I am thankful that I heard the commercial for the show on NPR just in the nick of time. Dad's a simple man and not too easy to shop for. I am also thankful to the rest of the family for pulling together and joining in on the festivities. I didn't really plan this event. I just said I'm doing this and you're welcome to join us. And so they are. I can't wait. I've been looking forward to this all week. Oh, the photo opportunities!

As always I am thankful for Chris, the temporary roof over our heads, the dog, the lush garden, and the promise of something fun. Have a wonderful weekend and thankful Friday.

LOVE THURSDAY

I noticed that once we reached the balmier side of Texas on our way to visit my friend a few weeks ago, that all the hydrangeas were in bloom. Big blue popcorn balls of flowers. I know the magnolia is the true southern bell, but the hydrangea will always be the true flower of the south and the official signal of summer.

The hydrangea always congers up memories of summers spent visiting family in Mississippi. I can feel the pillowy hug from my Aunt Martha and hear her raspy cackle and the way she and my uncle says my mom's name, Patsy, as if it has four syllables. I can feel the thick muggy air on my arms as we trek around the yard, getting a tour of the newest plant additions Aunt Martha has planted.

I remember one summer when Aunt Martha gave mom a clipping of her hydrangea to take home. Mom planted it and babied it, but for the next two summers, it refused to bloom. The next summer rolled around and Mom went out and threatened the plant. She told it if it didn't bloom this summer, she was pulling it out and tossing it in the garbage. That summer, her hydrangea bloomed.

Happy Love Thursday!

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

I went to grab my list today and realized that I had written nothing down for last week. The stress of the work day toppled with the new illness (all better now!) just zapped me. So today I am making up the list as I go.

• John's fern (named Fern) has bloomed in the lab
• Cia Bella's Blood Orange Sorbet + Orange San Pellegrino + vodka = new favorite summer drink
• The expectation of taking Dad to the Pawnee Bill Wild West Show this weekend
• Having the whole family decide to come along to the Wild West Show too
• Ice cream for dinner
• Canker soars healed
• Clean sheets
• Clean bathrooms
• Bean plants as tall as me
• Looking in farmer magazines and reading about chickens
• A boss free week
• Watching them install the wind turbines on the new building

I'm sure there's so much more. I promise! I'll do better for next week. Enjoy the day!

GARDEN DIARIES

The other night I dreamt that something was attacking my bean plants, the whole garden really. But my focus was on the black, shriveled leaves of my bean plants. Of course this could have really been a dream about the state of my health, because the garden is doing just fine.

Things are starting to bear fruit. Any day now we will be able to make a salad of tomatoes, lettuce, and bell peppers. The spinach is slowing down, soon to be replaced by chard and my cucumber plant has pretty star shaped flowers popping out all over. Chris's mom is most excited about her Thai peppers that have shot up over night.

It's hard to believe we are still going strong. I like to look back at the beginning pictures just to see how far we've come.

THANKFUL FRIDAYS

Well...it seems that I've come down with the crud again. This time my throat hurt bad enough for me to just give in and go to the doctor. Canker soars on my throat. Could be viral related or bacterial, but the strep test came back negative. So, I am thankful for that. I am also thankful that I had very little to do at work today. I was able to go in, get it all done and leave. I am thankful that this is a no obligation weekend (with the exception of Thai language class on Sunday...more to come on that later). I can really focus on rest. Since my throat hurts so bad, meal planning will be easy. Ice cream for dinner, pudding for lunch. Ta-dah! I am also thankful for the antibiotics that are starting to kick in and make me sleepy. So...lethargic...hard to ....type.

Have a good weekend!

LOVE THURSDAY

This shopping cart is the first toy I ever remember playing with. I remember lugging this full of babies up and down the two steps that lead down into the family room. After I had grown out of it, J came along and then he lugged it up and down the steps. After J, came Amanda, and then J's boys J.R. and Thomas.

When my best friend had her first child, I dragged the cart out of the attic and gave it to her little girl Cati. Now Cati's little brother is pushing the cart around their living room. It's the toy that just never grew old.

Cati asked me why I wanted to take a picture of the shopping cart. I told her I wanted it for a blog entry (she's six, but she nodded like she understood). I told her that the cart used to be mine and that I played with it as a little girl. I told her that when her momma had her, I brought it down for her to play with. She looked at the cart and then she looked at me. And then she leaned in and gave me a big hug.

I love that I could share this with her. Happy Love Thursday.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

All I can say is, even though I have times of ennui, life is good.

• Leaving work really angry about something, but teaching a really good yoga class and feeling that anger just float away.
• Now that LOST is off the air, I can watch Glee
• Chris's really garlicky spaghetti
• That bread we bought from Sprouts
• Cutting fresh spinach, basil and parsley for our quiche
• Being forced to slow down at work because I'm training someone
• Taking the risk to ride the scooter and ending up in the rain
• Taking the risk to ride the scooter and ending up just missing the rain
• Two short weeks in a row
• Laying on the couch eating cherries and watching Julie and Julia
• Attending Cati's dance recital
• Flat Tire's veggie burger
• Cartoon Sunday
• Having so much spinach, I can give some away
• Pad Thai made special for me
• Roaming the isles Super Cao
• The giant earth worm I rescued from the street (screaming the entire time)
• Flowers on my bean plants
• COOP Mondays!
• Buying my ticket for New York City!
• The blogs I read and the people who write them

Hope every one has a fantastic week.

GARDEN DIARIES

It seems like weeks since I've updated everyone on the state of the garden. Things are coming along great out there. In fact, every time I come back in with some declaration of growth, Chris says "Can you believe we have a garden?!?". And I always reply "NO WAY!".

A couple of weeks ago we had a pineapple and in a stroke of genius (or mad scientist), I ran outside and planted the top in the garden. I have done this before, but I never got the chance to see how turned out because we moved. I know I'm a bit delusional if I think we're going to get a pineapple. But WHAT IF WE GET A PINEAPPLE!

In other garden news, the Christmas beans have blooms. I am giddy. These beans have been my highlight of the garden. They just keep getting bigger and bigger and they're just like the beans in Jack and The Bean Stalk. I can't wait to eat beans!

But in the meantime, we have lettuce and spinach out the wahzoo. So this week we're eating a lot of spinach and I'm making some spring rolls with the lettuce for lunches. BLT's are also in our future (well..TLTs for me, tempeh lettuce and tomato).

THANKFUL FRIDAYS

I feel like it's taken me twice as long to get anything done at work or even finish a decent experiment all week. We have students working in the lab this summer, so I'm training and teaching and redoing botched up stuff and I'm a little worried about Monday's lab meeting because I just don't have much to show for it. And today, I am really thankful it is Friday. I am thankful that I will get a fresh start next week. Also, even though my student has zero lab experience, she nice and seems smart. She's already jumped on the "clean up after yourself rule". I am thankful for this. And today is National Donut Day, which I wouldn't even know about if it were not for Chris. So in honor of of National Donut Day I purchased a dozen donuts for the lab. Even though these people drive me crazy, it felt good to do something nice for them. At least now they know I'm not a complete bitch. Eat a donut today!

Happy Thankful Friday!

LOVE THURSDAY

Memorial Day Weekend, I accomplished something from my life list. And I couldn't have done it with out my friend Anna and her wonderful family and friends. First of all they let us crash their party. Secondly they ferociously jumped into the task of helping me put together a water balloon fight.

After filling three buckets up with water balloons (250..give or take a few leaky ones), we placed the buckets along marked line and said every man for himself. Water balloons went flying. The only regret I could ever had was the inability to slow time. It seemed to be over in a blink, but it was just so much fun. It was just awesome. All of it, the way we were so openly accepted, the enthusiasm in helping me with my life list and best of all getting to see Anna after all this time and meet her totally awesome family.

Anna's husband asked me what was next on the list. I have no idea, but doing this one thing has brought so much happy into my life that I'm ready to see what's next.

Happy Love Thursday!

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

Oh Man! What a Week?!

• Easy work weeks
• Road trips with Chris
• Getting Dad's advice on places to eat on the road (he gets so excited)
• Stuffing myself silly on fried oysters
• Open air road side fruit stands in the middle of an orchard, selling home made ice cream
• The classic alternative radio we listened to all the time
• Visiting with an old friend
• Meeting new people
• Greg's really bad idea (turned out to be a pretty darn good one)
• Crawfish boils
• Water balloon fights
• Water/mud slides
• Trashcan Margaritas
• Four day weekends!
• New healthy grocery stores that are cheep
• The new dress I bought on sale at REI
• Lunch and a movie with my friend Jen
• Chris
• Coming home to a clean dog

That list could get so out of hand this week.

WEEKEND UPDATE

Usually I reserve the weekends for my garden, but what's there to say right now? It's growing and things look good. Oh, I also planted the top of my pineapple just to see what happens. But the real story of the weekend was our trip to Texas.

There's so much to say about our trip from the crawfish to the water balloon fight, but I think I'll save the balloon fight for another day. The simplest thing to say about the weekend is that we had a really great time. It was so good to see Anna and meet her family and friends. The crawfish boil was unlike anything I had ever experienced. So good. So much. Anna's husband ended up releasing a bag of crawfish into their pond, we had so many.

It was good. We laughed much. We ate much. We relaxed much. It was really the best way to spend our weekend.

THANKFUL FRIDAYS

I'm sitting here waiting for Chris to get out of the shower and my pie to finish baking and I have that antsy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I am ready to go! Let's go, let's go, let's go! I just want to go! Patience. I think I might be short on that right now. I am so thankful for this four day weekend and the chance to get away. I don't want to squander a minute of it doing something stupid. I am also thankful for my dad. I vaguely remember Dad rambling on about fried oysters somewhere around Paris TX. Since Chris and I are heading in that direction I thought it would be a good place for lunch. I called Dad (who happens to be in MS at my Mom's brother's house) and he answered on the first ring as if he knew exactly why I was calling. Dad's favorite place is Catfish King. They closed all the ones in our area, so Dad has had to seek out all the others. In fact, I bet if you go to the Catfish King website in the directions and locations category, they just have my dad's phone number. Because Dad told me about TWO Catfish Kings and that the best one is actually in Mt. Pleasant. So there.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and has something to be thankful for on this Friday.

LOVE THURSDAY

Chris and I are leaving for Texas tomorrow. An old friend of mine from high school lives in a small town near the Texas/Louisiana state line. When her husband announced on his facebook that he was throwing himself a crawfish boil birthday, we invited ourselves. And Anna being well, Anna, she enthusiastically agreed that we should come.

Anna and were not best friends, but we were really good friends. We lost track of each other after we graduated, but reconnected through our blogs. I have to say that I think I value our friendship more now then ever. It has been such a joy to read about her life and seeing her kids grow. And I really can't wait to see her.

It's right about now where you wonder what the connection is between the picture and this post. I just thought it was a good way to show just how excited I am to be getting away, to be seeing an old friend, and working toward crossing something off that Life List (more on that later).

Enjoy your Thursday!

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY TUESDAYS

It's been a good week:

• Trying a new recipe and liking it
• My individual sized coffee press
• The promise of a mini-vacation
• The new post doc's new hair cut (makes him look like this)
• Reading a really silly frivolous book
• Thursdays!
• Doing some scooter maintenance all by myself
• An evening alone
• The memory foam mattress topper
• Smoothies for lunch
• Getting all the chores done before sitting down to watch the series finale of LOST
• Satish in lab meeting talking about his IP experiment and saying "the amount IPeed". Ha!
• Watching Misti get chased by her own sprinkler

Have a fabulous week!

GARDEN DIARIES

I realized that I've failed to mention anything about the little herb garden we planted near the kitchen. We put in some sage, basil, cilantro, a weird looking fennel and some onions. The green stuff is looking really nice and we've started using some of the basil. I need to start finding ways to use the cilantro because it's starting to get out of control.

Everything, actually, is looking swell. The lettuce is growing up nicely.

We have flowers on one of the tomato plants.

Chris's is mom is excited about the hot peppers that are coming in.

And than I noticed this on my bean plants.

Ack! Something is attacking my babies! I think it might be spider aphids, at least that's the all knowing Google tells me. So this evening, after I've watered them down, I plan on spraying everyone with a good dose of Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds (insecticidal soap, just has to be a soap made with fatty acids). Hopefully this will do the trick. Other then those few little blights, the beans also seem to be thriving.

We are pleased.

Update: Chris built a contraption to hang a CD in the garden while I typed this. Had no idea that's what he was up to. He's perfect.

LIFE LIST #2 GROW MY OWN VEGGIES

I know that today is usually set aside to be thankful and it still is. But I finally can cross something off my list. Last night I harvested spinach and basil from our garden to go on our pizzas.

My heart couldn't help but swell as Chris and I tore up the spinach and basil into little bits and sprinkled it on the pizza crust that I had made. I looked over at Chris and said "this is our spinach. We grew this!".

And that's what makes this two entries in one. I am thankful for the beautiful pizzas that we made with veggies from the garden that we built. I am thankful for the sense of accomplishment and joy in growing my own food.

Have a wonderful thankful Friday.

LOVE THURSDAY

I thought when I got this calendar that I would keep every day that I tore off. I thought I would really study and maybe learn a few phrases of French. Yeah... that lasted about a month before I just tossed them as I tore them. But occasionally I come across a phrase that makes me laugh or just smile. These are the ones I save and tape up in random places around the lab.

For some reason, Sunday's phrase really struck a cord. I've been thinking about my Life List lately. It kind of seemed like writing the list gave me a license to procrastinate. I haven't really done anything. We started the garden, but until I harvest and eat something from it I can't justify crossing it off. I've tasted new wines and teas, but haven't kept track of any of them. I let myself get stuck. Is it because I don't believe in myself? I don't believe I have it in me to accomplish anything? Well, that's just silly.

I do believe in myself. I just needed a little reminder. And maybe some of you need that reminder too. Believe in yourself. You are beautiful and amazing.

Happy Love Thursday.