How does my garden grow?

It's September in Santa Maria, and you know what that means: Planting Season! Actually, it's almost always planting season here... :-)

I've decided to try my hand at gardening. I love the idea of growing my own food, especially lettuce. Paul and I go through lettuce like half starved rabbits, and the stuff isn't cheap...

I've been checking out lots of gardening books from the library, and on Sunday, Paul and I finally made the trip to Orchard Supply Hardware and came home with a small army of different soils, seeds, and pots.

On Monday, I mixed up several different soils and planted bush peas, mesculin mix, romaine lettuce, thyme, basil, and spinach. I then sealed the pots with plastic wrap and set them in a warm spot in the sun. It sounds (and looks) bad, but the book said it was the thing to do before the seeds sprout. I go out and assure them every day that this is happening because I love them and want them to grow, but they just sit there looking soggy and suffocating...

According to the seed packets, we should start seeing some germination action in a few days. Then we will discover whether this is the miracle of new life, or horrible plant torture and death. Stay tuned to find out!

My future garden

Yum!!!!

The baby compost pile :-)

Hmm, come to think of it, those look like blue thumbs...

Book Blog Bit

If you get a chance, take a look at my "Yams and Yeats" post in the book club blog. Even if you're not reading Things Fall Apart, I have posted a wonderful classic of poetry that you may enjoy. The link to the book club blog is:

http://passingthroughbooks.blogspot.com/

Hope to see you there!

Extreme Makeover- Grill Edition

Paul and I got a grill! You may be wondering how we could afford a propane Weber grill when we are always complaining about being broke. Well, the price on this one was right. We got it for free from Craigslist! The people said it was still in good working order, they just switched to a wood burning grill and never used this one anymore. I was the first person to respond, so they the grill was ours if we could pick it up that same day. Paul had to go in for youth group, so it was up to me and our trusty little CRV.

I had my doubts when I saw the grill. Don't get me wrong, it looked like a lovely (if rusty) piece of equipment. I just wasn't sure how it was going to fit in the car. I started trying to haul my mammoth prize out of the yard and toward the car. The nice grill-people (I never got their names...) must have seen me struggling, because they came out and offered to help.

I am happy to say that after much disassembling, pushing, pulling, and praying, we did manage to fit the grill into the CRV, close all the doors and windows, and not break any glass in the process. I made it home safely with 0% rear window visibility, and only got honked at once! WIN!

The grill will need some tender loving care before it is cook-out ready. It's pretty rusty and dirty from several years of disuse. However, once we have it fixed up, you are all invited to our place for a BBQ!!! I'm sure you can make it, of course. ;-)

Here are some "before" pictures:

Ain't she a beaut? =)

Grimy grill guts

So it's a fixer-upper, but at least it's ours :-)

Well, I'm off to clean a grill!

Bloggin' Book Club

The other day, I had a chance to go check out the Santa Maria library for the first time. It's a beautiful, well set up, well stocked library, and I definitely spent more hours than I had planned just looking through their shelves and shelves of tomes. Throughout the library, they had stacks of little booklets titled "Recommended Reading List." I picked one up, and found a new life goal: I want to read every book on that list (Except, perhaps, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"...) The booklet is a comprehensive list of all the world classics. It has everything from children's classics such as "Where the Red Fern Grows," to very heavy lifting such as  "The Brothers Karamazov."

I want the challenge and the joy of reading through the best literature our world has to offer, and I'm inviting anyone who is interested to join me. I am adding a tab at the top of the page for the blog book club. For each book, I will post a read-by date. Starting at the read by date, I will post my thoughts, impressions, and questions about the selection that was just read. Anyone who has done the reading is welcome to do the same. Maybe we can start a cool little community of quiet classics readers. And maybe, just maybe, we'll learn some interesting things along the way.

The first book on the list is called "Things Fall Apart," by Chinua Achebe. It is light, easy reading, but an intriguing story. The back doesn't give anything away, so here is a brief description:

"A simple story of a "strong man" whose life is dominated by fear and anger, Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all time and places."

Sounds pretty good huh? :-)

If you're interested in joining me in my classics quest, take a look at the new page at the top of this blog. Hope to see you there!

Catching up!

Hi everyone! Beginning to wonder if I was ever planning to post again? So was I! I got trapped in that terrible vortex of feeling like there is so much to say, that there is never enough time to say it. So I would put off posting till I had more time, but then there was even more to say. So here it is, my re-entry post. It's going to be mostly pictures, because I am too intimidated by the thought of re-capping an entire month filled with multiple, profound life changes. Small doses, and breathing... that's key.

So here are some pictures of our wild adventures, and a short tour of our beautiful new house in California. Pardon the mess in some rooms, we're still getting organized...

A beautiful overlook in the Beartooth Mountain Pass

Entering Yellowstone!!!

Hiking in Yellowstone (thus fulfilling a dream I've had since I was 8!!!)

Gorgeous

Stunning

Gorgeous and stunning

Bubbling mud pots

I love the geo-thermal stuff

It's like you're getting a little peak into the inside of the Earth

We visited our friends, the Wendts in Billings, MT

And learned to shoot

And to catch grasshoppers (That one is named Samuel-Marie) :-)

We visited our friends Al and Gale Borcher in Salt Lake City, UT. That's us drinking Polygamy Brew in Olympic Park. Yes, the beer is actually called that. It's slogan: "Why have just one?"

Utah is way more beautiful than I realized. I didn't even get pictures of the prettiest stuff!!! (I was driving...)

We visited my godfather Ron and his wife, Yvonne in L.A. They took us on a tour of some fantastic wineries. Those shot glasses? Made out of chocolate and filled with almond champagne. Yeah, California is Awesome.

Some highlights: An outdoor musical in the mountains with Paul's supervising pastor and his wife, Markie. The show was great!

The food line at a Spanish baptism dinner. I didn't speak spanish, and the server didn't speak English, so we did the whole point-and-nod bit. ;-)

I learned to bake bread!

Grand tour of our humble abode: Here is the entryway. Exciting stuff huh? ;-)

The dining room, which is connected to the living room and the den

The den, with a hobo (A very cute hobo, who is reading Aristotle) ;-)

Please pardon the mess, it's laundry time... But here is the living room!

And the kitchen :-)

Paul's office

 

My office/craft/guest room :-)

Part of ourbackyard. We actually have a rather sizable yard, but the whole thing is a rock lawn. I'm hoping to start a container veggie garden soon. :-)

 So there it is! Things are going wonderfully, and I will be back with more updates soon, I promise.

In addition, I'm thinking of starting a blog-book club. More details to follow, so stay tuned if you're interested!