reaping what we've sown

We've used stuff from our garden in 2 meals this week! It's been pretty awesome. This Sunday I used a bunch of basil, oregano, and parsley in this turkey and vegetable casserole thing I made, and then yesterday we made this pasta, tomato, shrimp, and basil mix. Both meals were quite delicious. It's been fun being able to use stuff already. Not much is ready to pick and use, mainly just herbs and some tomatoes, but it's still cool. I can't wait for more stuff to be ripe enough to eat. Oh, and blueberries! We've picked and eaten like a couple dozen blueberries. It's awesome.

Speaking of the garden, it's growing out of control. Like seriously, the eggplant leaves are bigger than my head. The zucchini have overpowered the strawberries, though the strawberries seem to love it. I guess they like being in the shade, it keeps them cooler. It's pretty exciting that I have yet to kill anything.

In other news, it's starting to slow down a bit at work. Finally. After next week we're done with school groups; then we just have to figure out how to get some more tourists in to keep us busy. Otherwise I'll go crazy with boredom after a couple of weeks. People keep asking me if we're going to take another trip this summer. They say they need something to read.

There's probably more going on, but honestly, I've been working on this post for about an hour and can't come up with anything else. Luckily I have this entire weekend off from work, so hopefully we'll go have some adventures and I'll have something to write about.

Road rage

So I'm on my way to work right now, sitting in traffic because of an accident. The SUV in front of me just changed lanes and almost sideswiped a car in the next lane. The man driving the car honked and swerved around her. He then rolled down his window, held his arm out and made a motion with his hand to indicate that she was talking, then shook his fist at her out the window. Next he held a sign (ore-printed and in a plastic cover, so he apparently uses it often) that said "hey blondie," (incidentally, she was blond) "shut the hell up and drive." I have to admit, I laughed. Next he made some more angry gestures at her with his hand out the window. Then he threw something at her car. I couldn't tell what it was, something small, it kind of looked like a battery. That's when I stopped laughing in case he looked over and got mad at me, too. Finally he gave her the finger. At that point my lane started moving faster, and I couldn't see them anymore. The lesson I've learned this morning: people are frigging crazy.

Our first harvest!

It's our first little tomato from our garden! We got this plant for our anniversary (I think) from Alfred's parents, so it's already a couple months old and bearing fruit. The verdict: yummy. There's another bigger tomato that will be ready to eat in the next day or 2. I'm so excited!

Happy cinco de Mayo!

It's been a great day, mainly because I had the day off of work! Huzzah! The other big news of the day is that I discovered a way to clean the well water marks off of my bathtub - borax! Works like a charm.

So anyway, I cleaned the bathroom, went to the gym (and was jealous of all the super toned people there, so I worked pretty hard), slept in until 8am, all sorts of good stuff. We went and hung out with Lucy and Ellie for awhile. Got to see the new house they're buying, which is pretty nice. Ellie and Alfred played with a bottle of tequila in the backseat. She was a fan.

Right now we're celebrating with Alfred's family. We've got funny hats, margaritas, and (presumably) lots of food. I smell something delicious, at least. Definitely a good day off. Cheers!

The graduate

Congrats Emily!

We're at Emily's college graduation this morning. She's graduating with honors! Way to go, Emily. We haven't actually talked to her yet, but we found her in the crowd. Also, someone just busted out some hot dogs in the audience. I might go jump them and steal one.

garden update

This is impressive. It's been a week and a half and nothing's dead in my garden yet! Things are actually surviving! Dare I say they're doing well? I dare! Check this out!

In this picture you can see a) my watermelon seeds coming up, in the far bottom right corner, b) my butternut squash seeds coming up, to the left of the watermelon, and c) a strawberry that's turning red, on the left, resting on the wooden frame. How awesome are all of these?? That zucchini's looking pretty good too, it's between the butternut squash and the strawberries.

In this picture you can see a) my corn coming up from seed, on the far left, b) my pole beans sprouting, surrounding the sticks (i.e. their poles), and c) my eggplant that has freaking doubled in size! The eggplant is on the other side of the pole beans from the corn. It's grown like crazy. Oh, and the blueberries are totally forming. Everything is actually looking really good and healthy. It's pretty exciting.

My flowers are less than impressive. I planted some moonflowers (I think that's their name) by the back porch, but nothing's really come up there yet. I guess that's ok, at least the things we plan to eat are doing well. I just planted a swamp rose that someone at work gave me last night, so we'll see how that goes.