Garden

Tomatoes, 5 plants, all different varieties. There are many small fruit waiting to turn shades of red, pink and purple.

Sweet Corn, I know I should thin them out. An eggplant growing in the front.

Two varieties of beans, blooming.

A rose in the front yard.

Gratitude

This week I am feeling grateful for~

~a baby who took a nice long nap today so that I could finally tackle some of the upstairs mess. Whew, it was really starting to get to me. I avoided looking at our toy room as much as possible because I felt overwhelmed and anxious whenever I looked in that room.

~Netflix finally getting Glee season 1 on instant play! Whoo hoo! I have spent much of the last week watching it. I really enjoy it though I still can't call myself a "Gleek" because that involved saliva and spitting/saliva (but not baby drool) grosses me out more than anything else I can think of.

~huge green plants in my garden. Its awesome. Also loving that my pomegranate tree has a couple of blossoms on it, even if one was accidentally bumped off this weekend.

~kids who played together so nicely yesterday. Rhayn and Gwennie were so cute. This weekend Rhayn helped Gwennie "learn" to climb the tree. I did have to stop them from climbing too high up, the branches can only support them to a certain height. When they sit up in the tree it really reminds me of my childhood. My brothers and I spent quite a lot of time in the upper branches of our mulberry trees.

Just a few pictures

Sometimes on our way home from school, we stop into Target with some friends and indulge in a bag of popcorn and icees. Today we did that, and also checked out the toys while we were there.This is a pecan tree sprout. Its the second time we've gotten one to sprout. Hopefully we can keep this one alive.

Its so nice out today (actually its a little bit hot). Gwennie and Rhayn are spending some time in the sandbox, which I spent time cleaning up this morning. They should be inside, cleaning, but they are getting along really well... for the moment.

Spring Things

I just took a shower and shaved my legs. Sure that is no big deal, normally. But to maneuver myself into a good and safe position to shave was difficult. It was also a little scary to wield a sharp blade against my wet skin since I am in no way graceful right now.

But I managed, and did not cut myself at all. Whew. And? It feels great. I donned a pair of maternity jean shorts and plan to go sit out in the sun and let my legs soak in the vitamin d later on.

Did I mention that it is spring in Arizona? The sun is out and shining, the temperatures hover in the mid to upper 70s (and possibly 80s) in the afternoon. The lows are about 50. Its a perfect time of year.

I have seeds planted in the garden, and hope to get a few more in before the baby makes his/her appearance. So far I have a row of sweet corn going, basil, cilantro, dill, nastrium, one artichoke, 2 tomatoes (plain red ones, I still want a purple and yellow tomato plant), and 2 anaheim chile peppers. I have some beans to plant, maybe today, as well as watermelon and sunflowers. I can't wait for the garden to be lush and green, right now its rather sad looking.

Gratitude and Gardening

Happy Monday, all.

Yesterday was a lovely day, so the girls and I went to the zoo. My goal was to get new pictures of them for my blog banner (and myself, too while I was at it.) Rhayn cooperated nicely but Gwennie just entered this "don't take a picture of me" phase. Oh well. Unfortunately Will was unable to go with us because he has a lot of work (that will hopefully be paying work) to do.

When we got home, I was bitten by the nesting bug a bit more. Rhayn and I spent 2 hours deconstructing my garden. I found out that the concrete blocks I had used back in May of 2009 really just baked my garden during the summer. There was a time when my garden was so lush and green, filled with lovely plants that were flowering and even some with lovely things to eat hanging from them. Enter Penny, the diggingest dog ever. In a few short hours she had fully destroyed all of my hard work. Lily would just find a cool spot in the garden and lay there content to enjoy the shade. So we put up a fence to keep the dogs out. It worked... but also made getting into the garden to work on it difficult. So for the past year, its pretty much sat, unused. I've tried to figure out how best to make it work. Will and I even installed a water supply directly to the garden that is NOT set with the rest in the yard, so I would water it more.Anyway, Rhayn and I took all of the concrete blocks out. Pictured above is the stack of all of the concrete blocks we moved yesterday, there are a few more around the yard that were used to deter Penny's mad digging skills that I will gather up over the next few weeks, you know, before I get much to large to move them. We left 3 that we can not remove (below you can see the tallest green fence post that is anchoring those 3 final blocks in). After that we began taking out the rebar that I had used to secure them. We worked for about 2 hours and I was reminded how grown up Rhayn is. She is a great helper. This week I want to finish getting the garden ready for planting a spring garden. I plan to use this website's recommendations for what to plant, and it says to start mid-February. I would love to have some herbs to use this spring, fresh basil, cilantro, mint, and some lovely flowers just to look at.

Now, on to my gratitude for this week!

• 33 weeks, 7ish to go. I still have energy and desire to get things done. This is extremely helpful at this point. Here is to having those full 7 weeks (and maybe more, how cool would an April birth be?) until this little joins our family! Also, this little one still doesn't have a name. We have some ideas, but since we don't know if its a wee girl or boy... we haven't named him/her.
  
• cool temperatures and rainy days. Sure this is putting a damper on my gardening this weekk, but I love the clouds.
• quiet days at home. Gwennie can play by herself for hours. It. Is. Awesome. I know that these kinds of days are going to be a thing of the past soon. Gwennie will probably get clingy when babykins comes. Plus our life will change so much.
• barbecues with friends. Will mastered a smoked barbecue chicken this weekend. It was so good, though a little spicy for the kids.
  

Semi-Silent Sunday

It was such a lovely morning that we headed to the Desert Botanical Garden to check out the Monarch Butterfly exhibit.
Gwennie and I spent a lot of time bent down looking at plants and animals up close.

Silent Sunday (jealousy edition- My Dad's garden)

Silent Sunday

Semi-silent Sunday

Gwennie's favorite tree at Rhayn's school. Its an orange tree.

Rhayn and her best friend singing "Samson and Delilah"* at the end of their classes' performance of Samson and Delilah. (Her best friend was Delilah's dad, she was a Philistine in a chorus of women.)

The cactus that is blooming is a bristle-cone cactus, or what we lovingly refer to as the poop cactus. It was taken from my dad's house and dropped in front of mine where it has flourished, and made my dad jealous as this is the second year it bloomed. This year we have seven separate blooms over the course of a week. You can see the one that bloomed a few days after these in the upper left corner.

*Isn't it hilarious that they sang a Grateful Dead song? Here is a great version by Shirley Manson of Garbage. I love her voice.

Feeling Fruity

Where is the time going? Not really sure. But there is a lot going on at our house, and in our lives (No, I am not pregnant... I wish.) Right now it feels like everything in our lives is up in the air and we are trying are darnedest to not drop any balls. Mostly its Will who is juggling so much and keeping us all aloft.

Some random thoughts-

I wish I had a ton of interesting news and tidbits to share, but I don't. I guess that is a good thing.I really need to get out and take a picture of my tomato plants, they are insanely huge and covered in fruit. I can not wait for it to turn red/yellow/purple! (I decided to go ahead and do this while I was thinking of it!)

This morning I planted a pomegranate tree. I dug the hole yesterday, so this morning I purchased a five gallon plant and popped that puppy in the ground. I don't care if it gives me fruit. I am not the hugest pomegranate fan. However they are beautiful trees that grow fairly quickly and have lovely blooms.

Silent Sunday

Garden updates

Today I went to Lowe's to purchase some items for my garden's drip system. I swore that I knew exactly what size everything was. At the check out I had grabbed parts that were not labeled, and had to go grab some others.

We finally get home and the one piece I was SURE about is a 3/4 male part not 1/2. Argh! I will have to go back on the way home from picking up Rhayn this afternoon.

My garden looks awesome. I am excited to plant new things and really excited for tomatoes. There are blooms on my black krim tomato plant. It is the tomato plant in the Silent Sunday post for this week.

I suppose that is really all I have to say, just hanging around enjoying the weather and blooms in the Arizona spring.

Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

(semi) Wordless Wednesday- the Garden

I don't have a lot to say at the moment. I'm sorry about that, I know you are all used to me chatting endlessly about crap. Maybe its this beautiful weather. Maybe its because my baby Rhayn will soon by NINE! Maybe its just that I am introspective at the moment. Whatever the cause, hopefully I will have something good to say soon, because it feels strange to not have new posts.

Please enjoy what is happening in our garden. (I just ate a strawberry from our garden. It was so good.)

Celebrating 7 Years

In lieu of pictures of Will and I (of which there are few) here are some beautiful blooms from our Desert Botanical Garden trip yesterday.

Enjoy your day, you know that we are enjoying ours!

Corners, The front yard.

For the most part, I hate our front yard. We rarely spend time there, only when we are cleaning it up. But today the girls and I planted flower seeds as well as a rose bush (it is a red rose bush, with a tea hybrid so the blooms will be smaller but will smell amazing.) I want a swing or maybe some chairs in the front yard so we can see our neighbors. Until then, I think I will attempt to go out there are water the flowers every day or so.

Semi-wordless Wednesday

My aloe, it lived in the backyard until a month ago, I moved it there because it was lost in the clutter of the "great patio redo of 2009-2010". I am so excited because it is blooming. The aloe in our backyard is blooming as well, but it has a yellow flower and isn't nearly as pretty as the red of this one.

This dust is from Iraq. It was carried home in a rug that Will had there.