This morning my husband tried to fix our dogs retractable leash.

I figured out how to do black and white on my camera.

My dogs decided to jump for me.

Pose for me.


My second favorite photo of the day (my first favorite is the first one of my husband).

This weekend I did lots of yard work. My garden was in a shambles! I needed to do something about it. My neighbor had recently renovated her outdoor space and I became inspired. One shovel, 15 bags of top soil later I did something about it!


Voila! I dug up all the crab grass that was growing behind this holly bush, laid down some bricks that I happened to dig up in the process, and covered with topsoil. Five little pumpkin plants are now in place with plenty of space to vine out!


My camera was super foggy this morning because of the humidity. Alabama! This tomato has grown all the way up to my flower pot! What do I do?! I guess let it keep growing.


This is a picture of a bean blossom. My beans have started loosing their leaves (I don't know if this is normal or not) but I didn't start to worry because I saw new little leaves coming in. Lo and behold, bean blossoms appeared this morning. I suppose it was just shedding an old skin? Ready for a July crop perhaps?! I hope so. I didn't get nearly enough beans the first time!


Mmmm a relatively good picture of my Okra! I've already harvested two of them but I'm waiting for this guy and another to get full before I cook with them. What are you going to do with only 2 Okra? I mean really.


My zucchini has been slacking off on me lately so I picked up one more plant while we were buying supplies for digging up the yard. Hopefully this guy will do something amazing since he's the first one planted in the ground! I think the others just didn't like being in containers.

Here's my front walk, a very foggy picture indeed. I dug up the grass on the right side as well which now matches my neighbors (and that looks really nice). The next step I suppose is to buy grass feed for the left side of the yard so I can have pretty grass instead of crappy grass :)

In other news, I bought a plane ticket to Phoenix for a very special wedding in October! There's no going back now and I'm super excited! Yay for imaginary friends.

I'll entitle this one Wordless Wednesday. But I will give away some things. This is the project/quilt I've been working on FOREVER for my dear friend and college roommate, Lynnora, for her wedding. Wordless Wednesday follows!

Lately I've been inspired by this blog ohsheglows. I visited it to find out more information about eating without processed foods and was fascinated by all the things she had written about. Her life, her bakery, her food journey, etc. Right up my alley. One of the things she did was called Whittle My Middle and I'm following that this summer, or for the next month. Weight lifting has died down for the summer since everyone's schedules is different. Let's face it, working out isn't very fun when you're alone (except running), so I needed something new to spice up my summer, a small goal to make things more enjoyable. We'll see what happens :) Who doesn't want some definition on their stomach? That's what I thought.



Another new thing, I bought a mattress and it has been heaven! HEAVEN. Jaime doesn't think so yet, but he'll get around to it. I also bought jersey sheets that he claims have given him carpet burn on his elbows and knees (just what does he do when he sleeps?). I know it's probably difficult to see in the pictures but the old mattress dipped in the middle (that's a difficult thing to photograph).


The new mattress is amazing and I have never felt better while sleeping. Ever. I'm so excited that I have it, and I'm sorry that Jaime doesn't like it yet but I'm sure he'll come around. If you haven't slept in two days then I would assume that eventually your body will take over and you'll fall asleep. When that happens I am sure he will wake up a rested and more well rounded individual. I'm sure.


Oh and with dinner tonight we're having some green beans from my garden. This will be my first time cooking and eating the beans we've grown :) Yippee!

Jaime's been on my case about being a "real musician". He recently told me that he talked to my father about it and that they both agreed that I should spend more time learning songs by ear and working on "saloon style" playing. I really don't like this idea. I mean, I like the idea, I guess I just don't like the process. It's difficult for a classical pianist to just.. 'groove'. Maybe it's just me.

I had similar struggles with sight reading until I just sat down and made myself do it. I know that Dad and Jaime are right. I just am uncomfortable. It's like breaking in a pair of very stiff shoes. Playing without music is hard! It's so much easier to just get the music out and figure it out correctly the first time. If you mess up then it sounds bad and no one wants things to sound bad. But if you only sight read music then you'll never learn the chords. I'm a horizontal musician, I understand Bach, counterpoint. Brahms? Rachmaninoff? No. I don't know what's going on and memorizing them is even more difficult than sight reading them. Learning chords is not my cup of tea but it's good for me to grow as a musician.

Yesterday I made it through 2 songs.. almost. One I couldn't quite remember this morning so I don't know if it counts. And the other I played very well but when Jaime asked me what key it was in I couldn't tell him. I still can't. You start with a C chord (actually I think the song is in D but I wasn't listening to it when I figured it out so I started on C) and the melody line actually starts with E but then you play all the notes that are in the Eb scale. Tell me how that works out? I'm the music teacher and I don't even know. My only guess is that it modulates back and forth from C major to C minor. 4 years of college training and that's what you get.

Other news... how do you know when beans are done growing?

This is my okra. I hear they can grow up to 4 feet high. Maybe I should transplant?

Being on vacation for over a week did wonders to my garden! They say that a watched pot never boils, well a watched garden never grows! Unless it's squash, they grow tons, and fast! In these pictures you will see just how fast and how much my garden has grown :)

Turnip Greens. The Mustard Green's sprouted and need to be composted.

Yesterday I went to the dentist and I bit the hygienist working on my teeth. I didn't even know it but I had clamped down on her hand while she was flossing my teeth and she had to tell me "you're biting me". I recently found out that you don't have to have some tests done at the doctor, like i could tell my doctor that I didn't need such and such regular whatever. I think next time I'm at the dentist I will ask them to not floss my teeth. I floss on a regular basis and it doesn't make me bleed. I do not think that bleeding is a sign of good flossing techniques and I will probably bite her again if she gets the floss out.

Look at that green bean!!

I've been reading Madeline L'Engle's The Irrational Season. I finished her first book in the series, The Circle of Quiet, while I was on vacation. This book is so perfect for me in so many ways. I wrote a while ago about my thinking through religion and God and all those fancy things. The Irrational Season seems to fit in right with what I'm going through and it is such a relief to read. I've never had a Christian influence question such questionable things before and I feel so much comfort knowing that it's ok to ask questions and as L'Engle says, it's ok to not have answers. I've decided that I would like to visit some Anglican churches and maybe some more Episcopalian churches too.

Yellow Squash growing faster than the speed of light!

The bees seem to be doing their job. I didn't hand pollinate this yellow squash yet here it is. I've also noticed that the cantaloupe has really encouraged the bees. I see them wandering around every morning while I'm getting my coffee ready. My kitchen window is just to the left of the railing that the cantaloupe is on and I'm really exited about having a pretty view while I'm cooking.

Cantaloupe vining up my railing!

Tomatoes

In case you're wondering I did have my Moe's Wednesday with Lauren but I made healthy choices (minus the cup of queso). I'm not sure what I'm going to have for dinner tonight, I'm still working on that whole "be creative" part of cooking. I am afraid that my creations won't turn out very tasty. It's a risk I'll just have to take!

Zucchini Flowering

Bell Peppers :)

This summer is already going by so quickly. I hope it slows down soon. I looked at our calendar and we've already got two weddings to go to. One is in Kansas! I can't wait to see all my college friends. Speaking of weddings.. Lynnora has a gift coming her way soon. I have to work on that this week and next week to get it all finished and ready to go. I'm so pleased with it so far though. So very pleased. Sewing must have taken off for me because I have several other projects I'm working on right now as well.

Basil and Cilantro

I'm starting to feel the relaxed feeling of summer, I'm starting to realize that I can do things in my free time and be just as productive if not more than I am at work. This free time is letting me work on the new blog with Mom and get sewing projects done. I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me. Oh and one last tidbit. I just downloaded a new album on iTunes that I heard from this guys blog. I love it. Love it. Jaime hates it, but I don't very much like Scholomance so I guess we're even. The album that I downloaded is Go by Jonsi. Amazing :)

Lastly... The brussel sprouts have been attacked for weeks by worms. They come out of no where and no matter how long I spray them with organic bug killer or pick the bugs off myself they find their way back. I know brussel sprouts are yummy, that's why I planted them. I didn't know worms liked them just as much as I do. It's a pity. I might be able to save one plant but that's about all. The rest of them look like this little guy. Naked.

As I promised my mother and I have started a food blog about Michael Pollan's rules in his In Defense of Food book. I'm looking at it as a variation on Clean Eating because that's basically what it is and it's way easier to type Clean Eating than it is that whole Michael Pollan blah blah in defense of food blah blah blah. You should check it out. We'll be posting our progress and recipes that we've tried so be patient as we fill it up with lots of good information :)

It's called MotherDaughterEatWell.blogspot.com

Go to it here.



Oh my.. you know it's late (even if it's only 9pm) when Charles Ives comes on your iTunes singing They are There..

And I made more cookies :) They are under my MP list of foods I can eat. AND! My amazing and wonderful aunt in Indiana mailed me my quilt back all quilted perfectly and beautifully. What a treat it is to see what she does to my creations. Well.. she makes them way better that's for sure. I'm SO thankful for her. I can't wait for Lynnora to see it :)

We got back from our beach vacation late last night. It seems to be a theme with Jaime and me to drive to places late in the evening. It was much better in the long run, to drive late last night than to drive in today. It meant that we got an entire day to catch up on things, do all our laundry, and Jaime can connect back with his video games.



If I tried to retell the past week's events we would be here for a very long time. Basically we went to the beach. Edisto Beach in South Carolina. A vacation spot that I've been to a few times as a little girl (we actually found the beach house we stayed in almost 20 years ago). I think this will be one of those vacations that is better the more I look back on it. It didn't seem to really sink in while we were there. It could have been that Jaime didn't like the beach so I never got to lay out in the sun with him, but I didn't want to put him in misery.


We all rode bikes. Took the dogs to the beach. Churchill got to swim. Played a mean game of Axis and Allies, turned some tricks in Spades. Jaime and I spent an evening in Charleston. I found out that I like crab but still don't like shrimp. We ate at a local dive called Whaleys and had drinks at the Pavillion listening to a live band with a very effeminate lead guitarist/biker who's only dance move was to shimmy... We went crabbing, Jaime almost got hooked by a fisherman with little control over his pole. We ate at the local fireman's fish fry.





There were lots of things that we did but the best part was simply being with my family. The hardest thing of all is driving away from my mother and father as we head back home. I cry almost every time we leave (not in front of them, but quietly on our way out of town. It's such an intense part of the trip for me and I hate having it come so soon. But it's a good thing I cry isn't it? It's good because it means that my parents are that important to me.

We got home and I had yellow squash and zucchini waiting for me. My first squashes yet! We're going to eat them tonight.. there might be too much :)



My Mom and I are talking about getting into cleaner eating. She was reading the book In Defense of Food, and I thought it might be a good idea to eat less processed stuff so we might start a project this summer, or part of it. I mean, what am I going to do without mac and cheese? Candy? I'll go into more detail as I research it. I think this week will be devoted to researching and getting ideas. Food food food. Food!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpMIFtdeOSU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBFfTUW1df4


Those are some videos of Churchill swimming in the ocean and Huxley eating some crab legs.

Jaime and I drove into Anderson around midnight on Friday night. The dogs and I were exhausted and went to bed by 1am. Jaime, on a recent stunt to drink caffeine again, stayed up later with Mom and talked. Speaking of talking, it's been a more fulfilling joy than expected to hear Jaime stay up and talk with my Mother, also to hear him relating stories to my family of his point of view on some joint family memory. I never thought that I would take pleasure in those things, never thought they would mean so much to me but they do. Jaime is beginning the long process of becoming as much my family in memory as my own family I grew up with.

The dogs woke me up at 7:15 this morning and they are still wide awake. I went to bed last night with a migraine and dreamed of ways to get rid of it including drinking water that my dogs poured for me in these long tall glasses. I just woke up and took some medicine which I'm sure is what my dream intended for me to do.

Last night I went on a walk with Dad around the new neighborhood. Floods of homesickness came rushing back to me only this time it wasn't for people or places or even things. It was for how Anderson "feels". We walked around and talked about houses and Dad told me who lived where etc. I suddenly realized that walking around Birmingham would have been sitfling in the humidity. Walking around Anderson, however, was like walking in a dream. I'm not even kidding here so don't laugh! It was the perfect temperature outside, plus!, there were like.. NO bugs. It was my favorite time of the day, when the sun gets ready to go down but it's not quite dark yet. Everything glows in that light you know. Everything is surrounded by a halo, a southern halo. In that moment I really missed what Anderson offered me my entire childhood. I began to remember running through my old neighborhood playing with friends. We stopped to talk to some friends and a grandfather said to his grandson, "Tonight I'm gonna build a big fire and we're gonna sit up and watch for fireflies". I forgot all about that, but as I walked around outside with my Dad I remembered. I don't wish I could move back to Anderson, I've really and truly begun to enjoy Birmingham, but I miss those summer nights in the upstate. Not to throw back to Grease or anything but I do miss them.

So today we're packing up and getting ready to drive down to Charleston. I wish I could say that the forecast looks better today than it did yesterday but that wouldn't be true either. I really REALLY hope that it doesn't rain every day that we're there. And that if it does it would at least give us a few hours of sunshine. It's not a lot to ask. It really isn't, I mean, we are sacrificing hours of saved vacation time here to the vacation gods (so to speak, no this has nothing to do with my "faith" talks) the least they could do is give us some quality sunshine by which we can go crabbing. That's all I'm asking for really.

Oh and I forgot to tell you, I found my bikini at Target after all and no I don't look like a whore, I look like a respectable fashionable hot person.

We're leaving this evening for Anderson. Sometimes it seems like such a long difficult thing to go home and other times it feels like we could just hop in the car and be there in no time. Today it feels like the no time time. There are so many things that need to get done before we leave and I'm thankful that I have at least 3 hours between when I get off work and when Jaime gets off work to do them by myself. I work harder when I'm home alone. When my husband is around I get easily distracted for better or worse. Cleaning is one of the things I really look forward to if I ever get a chance to stay at home and raise a child. On my Wednesday's off I've been able to clean almost the entire house and I've found such pleasure in doing so. I want to vacuum every day. Dusting.. maybe that one is not my favorite thing to do but don't you feel so much better when your bed is made and there are those straight vacuum lines in the carpet? Dogs don't help it stay that way. Every evening around 8-9 they start their final run down where they chase each other around the house until they are exhausted and finally ready to go to bed. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we didn't crate Huxley during the day time. Would they have a similar romp before the great afternoon nap?

The weather forecast for the beach looks sad but not quite grim. What exactly does 30% chance of rain mean when you're at the beach? I'm starting to think that my family vacations are always rainy. Last year's wasn't too rainy but now that I think about it, it did start raining while we were in a boat on the lake. That wasn't very nice at all. Nothing quite beats getting rained out of your tent in the middle of the night though. This time we'll be in a house, not a tent so I guess it couldn't be too bad. As long as we get to try and catch some crabs that's all I care about. And my dogs, I want them to do the whole beach thing. I've been trying to get them psyched up about it but I'm not sure how much they understand so far. We have been practicing walking on a doubler on the leash, you know, where one leash splits and holds two dogs. It's a lot more difficult than the dog whisperer would have you believe.

I think that my parents are concerned that I haven't been going to church on Sundays for the past year. I decided to take a break after being a church pianist for the better part of this decade. Despite participating in mass twice a week (I don't take communion but that's another story) my parents still feel that I need to be part of a congregation. To fellowship with believers. I feel like I've been tiptoeing around this for a while now so I figured I might as well write about it because that helps me "release". I feel confidant saying that I have grown more spiritually this past year apart from church than I ever have in my entire Christian life. There was that time in middle school and high school where I was learning all the great theology of John Calvin, but this beats that.. not by much, but it still beats it. I've been absolutely amazed and inspired by the things I've come to question and understand deeper through this break from church. I am in no way advocating "not going to church". I think that this is a season that I'm going through and I'm going through it for a very good reason.

This past year I've been trying to focus on very very basic beliefs. Perhaps it's that I'm living in Alabama which I believe is more stereotypically "Christian" than South Carolina and perhaps that has a small reason why I'm thinking through the things I'm thinking through. I've just noticed a lot more people are doing and believing things simply because someone else told them to, or because it's just what you do, going to church on Sunday mornings, it's just what you do. I know lots of people are angry with the "church" because there are a lot of Christians out there who don't really act like Christ. That's not my beef at all. In fact, I don't really have a beef. I just don't want to become someone who only believes what she believes because Mom and Dad believe it. I think my church upbringing has been wonderful and I wouldn't change it for the world. I think my parents are loving parents and that the congregation that they belong to, which helped raise me, is a beautiful group of people (minus the strange lady with one glove and the funny hat). Lately, however, I've found myself wanting more. I think it's probably one of those "growing up" things that you have to go through. I could go to a church and sing on Sunday and take notes during the sermon. I could have debates with my husband over theology and I could attend Bible Studies where I discuss my prayer requests. Or I could stay at home and think really really hard about how if I were born in Eastern Europe would I truly believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and despite what my upbringing might have me believe, He is the only way to Heaven, that I'll go to Hell because I'd never heard of Him. I know some Christians believe that they were just not "chosen" and that in some strange way it glorifies God to chose some and not others. Heaven, which is it's whole lifetime of discussion. I've spent time pretending I'm an atheist just so I'll know what it would feel like to have no hope of Heaven. To die and simply not exist anymore. Some people believe this just as much as I believe there is a Creator of the universe.
I've thought through a lot of different things and I know I'm not nearly done thinking or making my mind up about any of it yet. I don't understand why gay people can't get married. I really honestly truly don't understand why they can't. As liberal as that might sound, I still think that abortion is killing a baby. It's the issue with homosexuals that has really stirred my religious questions because it seems to me that the Bible says that's wrong. But I don't understand why it's wrong, and I know other Christians can wiggle their way around the Bible and pick and choose what they want out of it. Which then (rabbit trail) led me to think about what I personally wiggle around in the Bible, and what lots of people wiggle around. I just don't know what to do with all this wiggling.
There is an Islamic center just down the road from my house and they put up quotations from Muhammad or the Qur'an. They seem pretty decent. So do the people who believe in the Qur'an rather than our Bible.. are they the ones that are wrong? And what about the Catholics and their other books? They must be wrong because MY Bible doesn't have what theirs does. But do they think that I'm the crazy one? I doubt that my brain would have had the free time to question these things had I been learning about the same things I've been learning about since I was a small girl. (not that there aren't plenty of things to learn about in Christianity, I just want to know more about the things around it)

So many questions! So many things to worry and wonder about.

Right now I'm going to worry about these things. Get your laundry done, clean the kitchen, pack your bags, walk the dogs, feed your husband, get us all in the car, drive home to Mom and Dad (the favorite part of my day, that and when Jaime comes home from work).

It turns out that my yellow squash was not pollinated well enough. I guess that's what I get for being a rookie at squash growing. We have a lack of bees, back porch or front porch, so I've been pollinating by hand. I've googled some videos about it and feel much more prepared this time around. I'm learning so much about veggies though. It's really amazing. I mean, who knew that female squash actually look like a substantial veggie BEFORE they are even pollinated? Who knew? And who knew that bell peppers don't need that? Or do they? Oh my oh my. Tomatoes.. apparently they are pollinated much easier than squash.
I'm making myself crazy here. However, I learn by doing.

I'm reading Madeline L'Engle's book A Circle of Quiet and it's so inspirational. This book is by far better than any devotional book I've ever read. I was reading through Streams in the Desert devotional and it got to the point where I felt like it was pushing an agenda on me. God is bigger than agendas. He is bigger than all things except himself :) Madeline L'Engle is such a balanced person and I find myself understanding more about my personal ideas and opinions as well as the world around me than I ever have by simply reading her books. She is also making me really want to have an old house in the country. My vegetables are also making me want an old house in the country as well.

Last night Huxley and Churchill (though I expect mostly Huxley) ate an entire bowl full of little biscuits. I thought they were up to no good and when I called them Churchill simply looked adolescent while Huxley had an entire biscuit in his mouth. We leave for the beach in a few days and I couldn't be more excited to see what the puppies do with the ocean and the sand. I have a feeling that they will enjoy running around on softer things than hard ground but will not enjoy the water. I will have to take lots of pictures. Lots of pictures. And I will also have to bake cookies, lots of cookies! And eat fish :) Seafood! I don't even like seafood and I'm excited. Maybe it's just time for lunch!

I have an hour and a half left of work to do for the week. I still have one and a half cups of broccoli left that I should eat and a cup full of runts sitting beside me. I do it to myself really. My husband hates it when there is candy in the house and probably hates me eating it but as long as I'm not around him when I do the blow is softer. Yesterday I was at Party City buying supplies for goodie bags for my piano students. How I've never been inside a Party City is beyond me but I feel like if I were a millionaire I would throw parties for every occasion and I would furnish them all with things from that store. I was pleased to find pencils for 23 cents instead of the 55 cents they cost where I work (how does that figure?) and I bought several marble maze games for the boys. I also happened to pick up this plastic jug of runts and brought them home with me. It's been a long week I deserved them.. yeah right. My love of sweets is probably the closest I'll ever feel to that tug an addict feels. That's embarrassing to type now isn't it! Let me go heat up my broccoli and then I'll finish this post. Maybe that will save some face.

I think that I get this sweet tooth from my mother. Now that I look back on it she seems to have had plenty of sweet snacks around her. One Easter she confessed to me that she almost ate an entire bag of those sweet tart chicks ducks and bunnies. On road trips to Northern Illinois she would hide Twizzlers in the glove compartment of our Volvo. So I'm going to blame this on her. Not entirely.. but partly. You hear that Mom? I'm blaming you for something! What a horrible mother! The only thing I can think of that you did wrong was introduce your addict child to candy. Gah. Well.. you also introduced me to broccoli and it is doing wonderful things for my insides I'm sure; making me grow strong and healthy. I do try to eat healthy (ish) so don't think that I'm totally ruining my life. I eat vegetables every day. I pretty much only drink water (throw some coke zero and black coffee in there every once in a while.. ok the coffee is everyday) and I workout on a regular basis. Pretty good. I brush my teeth with vigor and I floss regularly. At my last dentist visit I had no cavities. I don't smoke cigarettes (anymore) and I enjoy taking my dogs for long walks. :) Look how wonderful and healthy I am!

At my piano lessons if the students are good and do what I ask them to I will give them candy. A small piece. The other day one of my students was looking through my bag of candy and commented that she couldn't find Butterfingers. I have to confess that it's possible I contributed to the lack of Butterfingers (yes I eat my children's candy) but I know for a fact that I did not eat the last one. I told my student that they were my favorites as well and I was sorry that they were all gone (it really was a travesty). Last night after the recital I received several presents from some of the families I teach, I'm particularly interested to see how far I can make my target gift card go! This child had given me an entire bag of Butterfingers. When I opened it at home I stood there holding the bag and laughing and laughing. It was the perfect ending to the evening. I also had Moe's again last night so that didn't hurt the perfect evening either.

I have really great students. I was so pleased with their work at the recital and more than anything I actually enjoyed telling them each how well they had done. I usually get nervous about the whole, talking to parents ordeal, but the more years I have under my belt the more comfortable I get. This year I really enjoyed telling the parents how pleased I was with their children. I can honestly say that not one of the students in my recital were a pain to teach. I can't think of a more eloquent way to put that right now so I'll leave it at that. Usually when you teach a big group of students you find a few that really frustrate you. You find some that make you think that there is absolutely no hope.. or you teach the ones that do things like... lick their hands and rub them all over your keyboard. That happened to me once. I wanted to kill myself. I can say for the first time in forever I think that I really cared deeply about each one of my students. I cared that they did well, I cared that they knew I thought they did well, and I cared that they had a desire to continue learning. I also want each and everyone of them to not only keep taking with me for their entire lives but to never grow up. Especially my little four year old that began my students recital. I never want him to grow up. Well.. I only want him to grow up to play hands together but that's about it.

I'm amazed at how quickly the year has gone by. It's summer break already. I looked at the calendar this morning and realized that a week from tomorrow we'll be packing up and leaving for SC and then to the beach. A week long vacation at the beach. Wow. Already? Where is my summer going? Not just where is my summer going but.. I don't have a swimsuit. *groan* I know what I'll be doing tomorrow. Is it possible that all swimsuit manufacturers want you to look skanky instead of sexy? I would very much appreciate a swimsuit that covers more than the lingerie that I received at my bachelorette party while still allowing for minimal tan lines. It's really not too much to ask. Lets go for sexy-classy not sexy-slut.

Interesting things are happening and will happen. My townhouse neighborhood is having a garden contest. I know I won't win. I don't have a garden. I have VEGETABLES. But my front yard is a mass of weeds and I don't have the energy to dig them all out and plant something else. I have thought of spraying the entire yard down with round up but then I realized that it might kill whatever I planted after the weeds died. It could be interesting though. Either way the community is going to be beautiful this week and I really look forward to seeing who will win.

My mother is coming into town on Wednesday (which happens to be my coveted day off!) and I'll get to visit and have lunch with her and some of her lady friends :) I'm so excited about this. I used to get really really homesick when we first got married, however, I'm gradually adjusting to calling Birmingham home which I think is an ok thing to adjust to. BUT I leap at any opportunity to visit my parents. They did such a good job raising me that I just can't stay away! It's crazy! Crazy awesome!

The dogs got table scraps of pork chops and mashed potatoes (and garden salad from MY GARDEN). Huxtables stole off with a pork bone and hid under our bed with it. He thinks under our bed is his den. Churchill never was much of a den animal, he spends most of his time sleeping on the couch, but since Huxley has been crate trained I think he prefers dark quiet.. "under" places. Jaime and I got on the floor and watched him defend his bone from us which really was adorable. He does this really cute thing where he'll army crawl towards you and roll over and put his paws on your face. Anyway. Dogs should never be fed pork chops. Ever. The next day I found several small piles of vomit that didn't look like vomit more like a pile of little pieces of bone (that must have felt nice coming up). Yesterday while I was eating my runts and packing little baggies of goodies I experienced the gas that comes with puppies who eat pork. Then later. The pork came out the other end. Poor little baby. Huxley was covered in it. I thought about blogging about this yesterday. I spent a good deal of time thinking about it actually. I finally decided that the only way to describe what happened in Huxley's crate is to simply call it shit. It was shit. I know I don't really cuss on this blog because who knows who's reading it. But there is no other way I can put this. It was worse than anything I've ever seen. It was.. a big deal. It wasn't just like.. the four letter word that people say in surprise or something like oh shit! It was the four letter word that people say when they are disgusted. I looked over at Jaime and said.. babies are going to be so much easier, so much easier. I know those of you who have had babies want to interject here and say something like, Carrie, you're totally wrong, you don't even know what you have coming your way. Well this is me laughing in your face. You feed your baby porkchops and lock them in a cage without a diaper on.

I also have a tiny baby bell pepper and I'm super excited about that. I'm also ready to start vining the cantaloupe up the railing on my front porch :) What a nice welcome. Welcome to my house, check out the cantaloupe!

I always seem to have lots of pictures of my plants. I'm usually really bad about taking pictures and posting them to facebook or blogspot. I'm usually really bad about taking pictures period. But plants don't really go anywhere and they aren't an event that I forgot to take my camera to. So I suppose that it's easiest for me to take pictures of them instead of people or places. Besides, most of these guys I started from seed so they're my big project (besides quilting) that I'm working on this summer.
This one up here is supposed to be Okra. I'm not sure if that's what Okra looks like in it's beginner stages or not but I planted Okra seeds and this is what came up. I've had an infestation of aphids and worms lately and the Okra has suffered a bit. I'm hoping that it won't stunt their growth. Lauren came by and lent me some of her organic bug spray for veggies. So I'm pretty sure that they are all dead (I checked today and yeah, they're gone) I just hope that it doesn't slow them down at all.



Some people are supposed to come by this week to power wash the back porches where all my veggies are. I got nervous and moved half of them to my front steps. These are my four pots of Cantaloupe. I don't need four pots of the stuff but when you buy the little baby plants at the store they come in sets of like.. nine! So I planted these and gave the rest away to a friend. They are supposed to vine up so I'm thinking that I'll leave them here if they're happy and they can climb the railing.




This monster has grown double over night. It is really really amazing how quickly it grows. Now if it will only give me some beans that I can eat! I don't quite know what to do with it now that it's grown over the top of my teepee. I'm hoping that it will double back down? Or just hang out? I'm not sure.
The car in the background is the car of our new neighbors. It's scary to me that they have an identical sunflower wreath on their door. I don't know if Austin and Sarah left theirs or our neighbors are just.. twins of theirs.. And even if they left it behind. It's strange to see it up there. Also the new guys are from TN and on their plate it tells the county. Campbell county. No joke. Some people have different ways of coping with loss. Mine is spying.




Someday soon I hope to have Zinnias. Whatever those blue flowers are they took over the red pot. I'm fine with that I just wanted some color up near our door. And some strawberries but that was just a shot in the dark. No strawberries just lots and lots of leaves. Leaves wilting in the day time heat. Alabama heat.



This little guy was a really pretty flower like these guys below. I'm hoping that underneath those petals is a tiny baby bell pepper.





Thanks to Lindsey I have Basil in a Boot. It was from the Dirty Santa party we had, Black Christmas. I put water in it this past winter and it slowly emerged. Now it's finally getting big enough for me to actually consider putting it into a legitimate pot. Not that the Christmas boot isn't cute. It's just that it's May. Can you believe we're almost half way to another Christmas? Time really does go by faster when you get older.



We're going to be feasting on Yellow Squash soon! I can't wait! I check this guy out every single day. Sometimes three or four times a day. I make Jaime come outside and look at him too. I have the dogs come by and check him out. I'm so excited that I have a largish edible thing growing on my back porch.


This is I think the biggest "Zucchini" that I have right now. Not looking too hot. I don't know if Zucchini take longer to develop than the Yellow Squash but it doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get here. Too bad squash is one of my favorite veggies. Too bad.


Worms ate through lots of my Brussels. Thanks to Laurodauro they are all dead. I just don't' know if my Brussels can make it through. All the holes in their leaves.


Tomatoes! And yes I am using pipe cleaner to hold the tomato to the steak. I'm a genius.

Today I'm trying to get things done but I've been totally wiped out due to a migraine. Why migraines come on your day off I'm not exactly sure but I think it's just more proof that evil exists. It's gone due to Rx and Moe's. Moe's should probably be a prescription in and of itself. So now that it's almost 4:00 and my husband will be home soon I'm ready to get started on some general cleaning up. Laundry most importantly!

Ciao!