Updates....from the absent one

I am sorry I have been absent for so long...we have had quite the month. Nathan's siblings have been visiting from all over the world and so we spent quite a bit of time with them and between that and work that made for very little sleeping time.

And I have also been feeling extreemly depressed lately...and scary thoughts are best not shared :(

My mom has to have open heart surgery the first week of September, and it is scary. Some of my family (who shall remain nameless...) don't seem to get the big deal that it is and that frustrates me. I mean, our mom could die...and they don't seem to care. So we haven't spent a lot of time with my side of the fam because of the tension and stress...I just don't need that right now. I feel bad because we haven't helped with their move as much as others have and as much as I feel was expected of us...but we had a choice to make - spend time with all the out of town siblings, spouses and kids we never see (for example I have 1 niece and 2 nephews I had never seen until this last couple weeks) or go help with the move and be around all the contention and mean-ness...we knew our choice would upset someone, but I had no idea there would be this amount of hurt feelings. I am not sure even what to do because I want to say things but I don't want to cause more hurt feelings and stress, especially with the surgery looming close...

In other news our only neoghbors that had any interest in knowing us....moved. Now we are stuck with white trash, and Mexicans (nothing wrong with that...they just do NOT want to be our friends :( ...sad)

In happier news our garden is doing fantastic! See:

This is all the stuff we picked out of the garden in ONE EVENING!! There are chili peppers and green peppers and yellow squash and several types of tomatoes and one lonely cucumber...our cucumbers are the only things that are not doing so hot...well, them and the butternut squash. It has been so nice to have fresh FREE produce to eat the last few weeks. Having a garden is sure paying off.

Well, I am off for now, hopefully my next entry won't be a month out.

Stop staring at me swan...

So I tripped...again. This time in the parking lot of Wal-Mart...I was walking trying not get get run over my some white trash psycho in a beater car and I stepped on a rock (which was big and shouldn't have been out in the open like that anyway, maybe I should sue...but I digress...) and FELL on my hands and knees - on the hot asphalt and the white trash psycho just slows the car down and STARES at me...open mouth, bug-eyed stare. It was all I could do to keep that middle finger from springing up (and be accompanied by a couple of my favorite four letter words of course) and yelling "Stare Hard Retard!" She stared at me like she had never even seen a human being before...Sheesh, and NO ONE even asked "Are you ok?"

I don't like going to Walmart much...you know, associating with commoners, etc... but I needed this little white fence they have to put up around my little flower beds to keep that retarded dog of ours and his HUGE CRATER feet out of them!

The garden is doing ok...well parts of it. All the beans and peas we planted didn't fare so well...in fact, a majority of them didn't even come up, and the ones that did got choked by Morning Glory and were all yellow and dying so we just pulled them up...So a list of the survivors:

3 Sweet Red Peppers
2 Green Peppers
2 Chili Peppers
4 Spaghetti Squash
1 Zuchinni Squash - which sadly enough may be on the way out :(
2 Butternut Squash
3 Straight Eight Cucumbers
2 Ice box Watermelon
1 Yellow Meat Watermelon
1 Big Beef Tomato
1 Super Fantasitc Hybrid Tomato
2 Roma Tomatoes
1 Cherry Tomato
4 Yellow Pear Tomatoes


mmmmmmm :)

Patio

I know I said I would have pics of the patio with the gazebo up and I planned on taking them after work today, but the weather turned nasty and what good is a picture of a beautiful gazebo if the sky behind it is all nasty grey and black??!?

So hopefully within the next day or so it will clear up enough to take one.

If you get a sec, check out the link on the side menu about Jenny and Scott...Jenny is an old friend of mine from back in my drumline days...we were drummer chicks together...she moved to Oregon and got married to Scott and now they are hard core biker kids...and they are riding 5,000 to raise awareness for Thirst Relief. It is a pretty cool thing, I can't imagine spending months living off a bike and sleeping on the ground...they will be super buff by the end though!


I fear the morning glory is going to choke out our peas and beans in the garden...darned stuff just won't go away and we think we have it and it just comes back...grrr...

Well, off to bed I go - Winston needs his snuggle buddy :)

Catch-up...yet again

So I have been a slacker...we have been busy and then I have been just lazy too

We have been working in the yard - planting the garden and flowers, etc. We bought one of those metal gazebo thingy's and we put that up on Memorial Day...I really like it - I'll try to take a pic tomorrow and post it. The inside of the house has suffered a bit though...since we've been outside so much, but that's ok, we'll get to it this weekend hopefully.

I am pretty excited for the garden, we planted 5 types of tomatoes, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, peas, lima beans, watermelon, 2 types of peppers and 2 types of string beans. We'll see if we can get to harvest without killing most of the plants.

We have the nicest backyard neighbor - She is from Germany and we have gotten to know her a little bit more over the last week or so because of spending more time outdoors and she is great...she did tease us a bit about the MASSIVE (and I am not exaggerating) weeds we had growing in the back yard last year...but she is glad to see we are putting all this effort in too.

We are still adjusting...it is hard to believe that we have been here for one year...it seems just like yesterday I was planning the Annual Dinner at the Chamber... We have not adjusted completely...we really only know 2 neighbors...and we don't really know anyone from church (I guess it would help if we went regularly)...but I have gotten all the back ways to work down and figured out which grocery stores are the best for which types of food...and so I guess things aren't as bad as they could be...(heaven forbid I don't know where to find Hoisin Sauce!)

I am going to try to form a book group - the first month or so might be kinda small, but hopefully it will grow and I can make some good friends out of it. The first book we are reading is My Sister's Keeper (which is really good by the way).

How does your garden grow?

I planted a TON of bulbs and flowers this spring and some have come up (some haven't) but I'm thinking it is starting to look really good...next year will be better when they spread a bit.

The front bed - you can see the corner of the new patio around the corner. The rock in the middle of the bed is to catch the rain coming off the roof - just in case you were wondering...The bird feeder is a John Deere - given to us by some great friends back in RI.

The fire colored lilies


Close-up of one of the Alliums (a little blurry)

Absence makes the heart....

So I am finished with my hiatus...things are ok...a little rough with Mother's Day and all, but overall - ok.

I spent some time in the yard with my parents, hubby and brother on Saturday. Nathan and I have wanted a deck/patio but it is a little tricky because of how our house is situated in the cul-de-sac. Our backyard is virtually non-existant, but we have a large side-yard so we decided to put it there. We were going to pour concrete (I could get a good deal with my connections at work) but then my dad found a whole mess fo brick at a yard sale for $15 so we decided to go that route instead. We had to get some other stones too to make it as large as we wanted, but overall it looks really good...

The grey stones weigh 36lbs each and my mom and I moved 62 of them...THREE times. (From the pallet to the push-cart thing to the truck to the yard) The doggie 'helped' and got pretty tuckered out too. Here are a few pics:The Finished Patio - we are still going to add posts and an arbor but this is a good start.



Brad and Besta all tuckered out (look at that green grass!!)


Dad - supervising from the shade.

Where is the rewind button?!?

So today, scratch that - the last few days, have been rough...

Saturday we worked in the yard all day - it was great - we got flower beds dug and planted, gravel put down, it is starting to look really good...enter the bad part...I got a horrible sunburn on the backs of my arms and on my neck...AND I got eaten by bugs...all but one I am positive are mosquito bites...they are small red welts with an annoying little itch...but one is a big red-ish purple-ish nasty 1.5" across bite...probably from some mutant spider or something. And it HURTS! eech.

In addition to that, while we're minding our own business in the yard, the Animal Control truck pulls up and the officer comes over and asks us if our dog has been with us all day - they got a report of a disturbance...well Besta had been with us all day in the yard, so we knew where he was the ENTIRE time...Well then she notices that he isn't licensed yet in our city...and almost gives us a ticket - we told her we moved and took the dog from my brother and just hadn't taken the paerwork in yet (because we hadn't gotten it from him yet) So she said we had until Tuesday to have him licensed and she wouldn't ticket us...

So then today we had to take Besta to the vet for the rabies shot - he did pretty good, but he got all excited, peed ALL OVER the floor, then proceeded to tromp through it, then jump on me...grrr...now mind you I am on my lunch break, dressed all nice for work...double grrr...so I had to run home and change before I went back because I smelled like dog urine...

Nathan felt bad I missed all my lunch (because the vet kept us waiting for so long) so he went to Einstein Bagels and got me an AWESOME sandwich...which he brought to my work...but when he left after dropping it off, he backed into some guys truck..which was totally his fault...EXCEPT the guy was parked where there isn't even a stall...dur...well he came out and said it was no big deal...the truck is in bad shape anyway - don't sweat it. It is like an 85 Ford...all rusty and paint chipping, etc...

So Nathan heads back to school and I go back to work, then he (the guy) calls me at work and says he changed his mind, he's going to try and get the truck 'totaled' so he wants us to exchange info...blah, blah...so tonight while I'm making dinner, the phone rings and it is the city police! They heard from his insurance company and need to gather a pit more info...

Man oh man he is making WAY to big a deal out of this...he has a dent on his wheel well, our truck got more damage...Nathan's rear lights were broken out...so I'm not sure what is going to happen...we have a very good insurance agent so we'll see what he can do for us...

All this makes me wish sometimes life had a rewind button...