Oh So Excited!

I went out to the garden today and was so very excited about what I saw. We have sweet peas and snow peas! See??

Sweet peas (and my hand)

Snow peas (look hard, they're there in the middle)

I think, but I'm not sure, that my lettuce is bolting. That's okay. We planted all sorts of lettuce to get us to eat salad. We don't like salad. Next year (or maybe this year when I get tired of putting it off) I'm using that plot for more squash. As of right now, we've harvested strawberries, lettuce, and herbs. I'm hoping to add peas to that list very quickly.

*B*'s cactii, which have survived two moves, have new growth on it. We thought it was a goner for sure.

Our sunflower seeds for the birds had gotten wet and started to sprout. *B* threw it into the yard, and now we've got tons of sunflowers in the middle of our lawn!

This sunflower was purposeful. It's one of two that haven't been eaten, and both of them are OUTSIDE the fence!

The cilantro has flowered. I'm really excited to try herb flowers in recipes.

*B* and I took a nice walk to and from the library tonight. I don't know why we don't walk around town more often. I definitely think it's a matter of how we grew up. I am definitely looking forward to changing that norm. I've decided, starting today, to try to eat healthfully again. It was a little difficult, but I managed to eat well today AND burn almost 400 calories at the gym. Yay me!

Budgeting Woes and Menu Planning

For the last six months or so, my laptop has been out of commission. My dad's been working on it a lot, and finally gave me a new hard drive so that I could have my laptop back while he's working on getting the data off of it.

Anyhoo...

The return of my laptop means the return of my budgeting software. I spent a fair amount of time tonight logging all of my expenses for the year so far. I was shocked at what I found! When we don't budget, we spend an inordinate amount of money going out. I knew it was a lot, and that we should pare down, but WOW!

So *B* and I decided to lay down menus for the week and ACTUALLY stick to them. So here we go:

Tuesday
Chicken, Zucchini, and Mushroom Kabobs

Wednesday
Chicken Tacos Chipotle Style with Succotash

Thursday
Chicken Parmesan with Peas

Friday
Homemade Pizza with Green Beans

Saturday
Barbecued Pork Loin with Yams and Applesauce

Sunday
Mexican Lasagne (featured here) with Succotash

I have had a few leads on summer jobs, but none of them are perfect. I'm still waiting to hear back from the library. I am already committed to going to Camden, NJ for a week in June (for which I get paid). I have been offered a half-summer position at a summer camp at my school. But that still doesn't quite pay the bills. A friend of mine from grad school just said that she can't do evening tutoring anymore, so she offered me her tutoring position about 1/2 hour from my home. While I don't have one specific job this summer, I think we can make it. But it will be tight. I will be SO thankful when all this wedding business is over. Not so much because I'm wishing my life away, but mostly that I'm wishing my stress away :o)

Memorial Day Weekend

First and foremost: A big thank you to those who have served and are serving now in our military. A special thank you is in order for those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

Secondly, we went to see Prairie Home Companion at Wolf Trap on Saturday for their Memorial Day edition.

We're such nerds that we got there 2 hours early to wait for the gates to open 1 1/2 hours before the show. We got AWESOME lawn seats.

Wolf Trap is really amazing. Just beyond where you see the chairs and people is a fairly steep hill. That makes all lawn seats good seats. Unlike other places I've been, this means that everyone can see despite others sitting in front of them.

The actual seating is really gorgeous, too. The entire stadium is made of a really beautiful wood.

This is their set. It really does remind me of home :o)

Garrison Keillor himself came out to the cheap seats!

I love a man in a suit and red sneakers.

The end of the show!

Simple Pleasure Thursday

My simple pleasure is the smell of plants. I had forgotten how amazing tomatoes and squash plants smell. Yes, the fruits are nice. But the smell of the plants themselves are amazing.

When I was a little kid, my mother had an awesome garden for a year or two. It, as things are wont to do, fell by the wayside. But for a short time, it was magical. I would run out back and pick asparagus for dinner, or just wander around the straw filled rows. Some of my strongest memories are of the smell and feel of patty pan squash plants.

Growing Garden

My garden has really taken off now. The squash and tomatoes are a wee bit yellow, and the lettuce badly needs to be harvested. But overall, it looks amazing given that this is my first ever garden.

Lovely, lovely lettuce. Some has already been harvested. Yum! The snow peas behind it are getting HUGE! I should have made the trellises bigger.

My lima beans are still tiny, but my regular peas are doing well, as are my carrots and parsnips in the closer bed. I let my salad mix go to seed, but I'm okay with that.

The peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, and patty pan squash are doing really well. I've got a ton of tomatoes there - Beefsteak and Roma.

Look at these potatoes! They were just rotten potatoes at the bottom of the bag from dinner one night that I cut up and threw in a bucket! Who knew...

Something's been eating my sunflowers, but they keep shooting out new leaves defiantly.

Look at this gorgeous asparagus! Six of eight root balls have put out shoots. I'm very optimistic about them.

Here, we've got Indian false strawberries (native/wild) and a random pea plant I tossed against the fence when I had no more room. It's doing well :o)

I have lovely sweet pea flowers.

Isn't *B*'s compost pile great??

I love this view of the backyard. *B* got the barrel for $10 at a local orchard. I hope the peach trees put out leaves soon.

My blackberry has finally started putting out good, new growth.

My chives and rosemary are going nuts. I've been doing lots of research on preserving them for the winter.

Here, I have lavender, English thyme, and lettuce that I had pulled out, roots and all. I threw it back into a pot and it's starting to grow new leaves.

Here I have the cilantro and parsley that I kind of forgot about. Oops!

This is my basil and (I think) parsley doing really well.

This will be lovely lettuce for a summer hostess gift.

We found this (chocolate?) mint plant at an organic store. I love it.

My mom had let her green onions (scallions) go too big, so we through them in our backyard.


Does anyone want some lettuce? I've got a ton!

These are more random plants that I started as seeds and have kind of forgot about. I've been giving them away left and right.
My bulbs - onions, shallots, and garlic.

My mint plant is getting eaten by the aphids. While I haven't taken care of it as I should, it seems to be doing alright.

So that's what's going on here garden-wise. We've harvested two bunches of lettuce and four strawberries this year. I'm looking forward to the rest coming here shortly!

Another Form of Work

I've often heard it said that "marriage is hard work." While I'm not quite there, I've just recently come to understand what this means. I've always thought my relationship was good - we never fight, he does nice things for me, I try to do nice things for him. But I've realized that we've been living past each other. We are each in our own world for the duration of time that we're in the same place.

Obviously not us. Image from http://www.disaboomjobs.com/career-resources/working-from-home-telecommuting/how-to-get-hired-from-virtual-volunteering

This weekend, we worked really hard to change that. Last night, it seemed to come naturally again. It seems that letting your guard down, just for a few weeks or months, means that the great relationship you've formed slips away. And without regular tune-ups, it falls into disrepair.

It's for this reason that we're going to try FHEs again. Last semester, I was in school once a month on our FHE night, so it really threw things off. We just let it go. I'm going to try hard to come up with a schedule of things to do together in order to strengthen our relationship. I am hopeful between our FHE and the marriage sessions we'll be doing before we can get married in the church, we will set ourselves up with a stable foundation on which to build our lives.

Last Week of Classes!

I'm sorry if I've been sporadic for the last week or two. It's the last week of classes! I have my kids for three days this week, graduation Thursday, off until next Wednesday, then three days of exams and they're gone for the summer. We get out on June 9th. I can't believe how quickly this year has flown. I'm just about finished my second year of teaching.

Bring on the anxiety. Yes, summer is quickly becoming my biggest source of worry for two reasons. 1) I haven't signed my contract yet. I'm 99.95% sure I'm being hired back next year. But I still worry about it. 2) I haven't found a summer job yet. I've applied at least three places, with two being places I've actively been calling. They keep saying they'll let me know either way, but I never hear anything. I called one of the two places just this afternoon, and they told me they don't have my resume! Great. Worse comes to worse, I'm applying at every small business in town starting June 10th.

Speaking of jobs and anxiety, *B* did not get the job at my school. I was sad, but I know that it was for the best. The lady coming in is immensely qualified for the job.

I'm going to try to quit my anxiety meds this summer (with my doctor's help). I really hate the side effects. I'm hopeful that, with a therapist, I can get over everything I need help with.