Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

...How does your garden grow?

Well, up until the last week, it didn't grow very well.  Or rather, it was growing lots of leaves, but no veggies.  And really, the point of a garden is to have something to eat after a few months.

We began our little deck garden in April.  I found these cute little pots that came with seeds and dirt for only a dollar at Target!  They had tomatoes, different types of herbs, peppers, and various flowers.  I bought one for each of the kids in my class (we were studying seeds and plants) and then I thought, "They're a buck.  What the heck...I'll buy some for us, too!"  So I bought tomatoes, peppers, parsley, oregano, and strawberries.  Matt and I had visions of feasting on fresh fruit and veggies throughout the late summer months and saving money at the grocery store.

They started out very small and tiny.

And after several weeks, they grew...

and grew...

and grew!

We were so excited that our plants were growing and not dying!  We bought bigger pots for them to grow in and eventually set them outside on our deck.

They continued growing...but after several months, we still had no indication that any actual veggies or fruits were growing.  August rolled around and I had given up hope that we would ever see any type of return for all our work (and money). 

...until earlier this week.  What did we spy, but a tiny tomato flower!  And on the peppers, what looked to be the beginnings of peppers!  At this point, I'll be happy with just about anything.  We still have awhile to wait before anything is ready to be picked, but it's fun watching things grow.  Especially for me--I could kill a cactus or any other easily-kept-alive plants.

These are the peppers--the buds are right in the center.  I apologize for my lack of a macro lens.  If you'd like, you can buy one for me and then I can take better pictures!  Just leave a comment and I'll send you my address so you can ship it to me.  Thanks!

This is the tomato flower.  It's the star-like pointy thing right in the center.  Again, send me a macro lens and I'll take better pictures.

I'll keep you updated on our gardening endeavors!

[And in case you're wondering what macro lens would be acceptable for you to buy for me, check this one out.  Thanks!]

The Perks of Being Married

I married an awesome guy.

He helps with dishes.  He likes to vacuum.  He's super nice and fun to be with.

Also, he's kind of a good artist.  He can draw stuff like dolphins and geometric designs and make them look super cool.

The other week, we bought a plain white terra-cotta-ish decorative pitcher at my new favorite store, Home Goods.  It was cute and I thought it would go good in our bedroom on the table we bought for the empty corner (also from Home Goods).  The table was white, so I didn't want a white pitcher on a white table against an off-white wall.  I had some blue spray paint, so I decided to spray paint it.

I sprayed and sprayed and got paint on my fingers and probably some in my lungs.  When I was finished, it looked....okay.  Not awesome.  Not terrible.  Just okay.  I decided it would be fine and put it on the table in the bedroom.  Matt looks at it and says, "Why don't we paint a design or something on it?"

Has he ever seen my illustrations?  Does he know that I can't draw much more than a circle or square??  I can't paint on a decorative pitcher to save my life!  I have the drawing skills of a 5 year old. 

Then he says, "No, let me think of something and I can paint it.  Okay?"

Fine.  He sketches something out on paper (it's like 500 billion times better than what I could do already) and starts painting.

He's really careful.

And by the end of the day it looks so much better than just plain blue!!

Then he says, "But it's not finished yet.  I'll do more tomorrow."

The next day he paints while I'm away babysitting.  When I came home, this was waiting for me in the bedroom:

Pretty stars.

It.  Looks. AWESOME!!!

And that's why you should make sure your spouse has better skills than you.  At least in some things.

Playing Goldfish

As I've mentioned before, I've been babysitting this summer for two sweet twin boys about 3 days a week.  This morning, they were digging around for something to do.  First, they found some homemade light sabers and had a light saber battle:

It got intense.

Next, they happened upon a small cardboard box with Spongebob on it.  One of them exclaimed, "Goldfish!!"  I thought he had found a box of (who knows how old) goldfish crackers and told him to put them away for later (hoping he would forget about them).  He said, "No!  Let's play goldfish!"  Now I was confused.  You want to play with old goldfish crackers?  Right then he opened the box to reveal some sort of playing cards with Spongebob characters on them.  He quickly dealt them between himself and his brother and started playing:

Brother 1:  "Ok.  Umm...do you have any...Spongebobs?"

Brother 2:  "No...goldfish!"

Brother 1:  *draws card*

Brother 2:  "Do you have any Squids?"

Brother 1:  "Nope!  Goldfish!"

I'm assuming you now understand "Goldfish" to be "Go Fish."  But in their cuteness, they didn't realize the difference.  I tried to explain that it was, in fact, "go fish," but they continued saying "goldfish" through approximately 50 rounds of the game throughout the day.

I love 7 year olds.  They're great.

I Never Imagined...

...that I would be cleaning up stuff like this:

...before I had children.

But when your husband works at the Lego store and discovers his inner child, this is what happens.  A small set there, a box of pieces there, and it all adds up.  There's more than just this, of course...scattered throughout the apartment.

Best Day

This summer, I've been babysitting for some awesome kids.  The two boys are twins (I taught one of them in Kindergarten and 1st grade) and their older sister is going into 8th grade.  I'm usually at their house 3 days a week from 9-5.  It's easy money and is paying for our insane car repair bills.

[You may remember that my car cost us about $260--not terrible.  Matt put his car in the garage for several things and his was $650.  Sooo....it's a good thing I had this babysitting job!!  We should have a little left over by the end of the summer.]

Anyway, our normal day includes swim practice in the morning; lunch; then off to another teacher's house so the boys can continue a reading program they're in.  After all that the day is pretty much over--we only have a little bit of time to play or just relax.  It's fun, but there's not much time to go somewhere and do something different.

 Yesterday, however, was an awesome day.  Swim team is over for the year and we had already been to the reading teacher twice that week.  We had the whole day to do whatever we wanted!  They've asked several times what my apartment looks like, so we headed over to my place so they could see it.  They were very impressed--we had a lighthouse in the living room, ship models, Lego cars, guitars, plants, and even a shoe rack!!  Wow!!

They were also interested in meeting my husband, Matt.  Unfortunately, he had already left for work.  Luckily for them, though, he works at...the Lego store!  After getting them to understand we weren't buying anything, we drove over to the store to say "hi" and look at Legos.  I parked next to Matt's car.  One of them commented, "Wow!!  He has a race car!"  Why did they think his Mazda 6 was a race car?  "It has one of those things [spoiler] on the back!"

When entering the mall, they have a large collection of those candy dispensers in the center of the hallway.  "Look at this candy!!  [dancing around it]  They have everything here!!"

We spent about half an hour looking at everything.  There was a 30 second Lego video that repeated over and over again that they watched about 12 times.  ["Just one more time..."]  I finally managed to get them out of the store by telling them we wouldn't have time for the park otherwise.

We drove down to the park and spent some time walking along the river and looking at the old prison/workhouse on the grounds.  Have you tried explaining women's suffrage to a 7 year old?  I did.

Lunch was next on the agenda, so we drove back to their house.  We ate a quick PB&J lunch, then piled back in the car to head to the library.  We checked out a bunch of books (including "Walter the Farting Dog"), then drove to another park.

This was an awesome park.  They had a playground, lake, kiddie train ride, ice cream parlor, and a merry-go-round!  We rode the train and got ice cream.  The day was perfect--no rain, no 100 degree temperatures--so it was nice being outside.

While we were driving back home from the park, one of the boys told me that when their daddy first saw their mommy, "He wuved her so much!"

Once we were home, we read some of the library books and they played Monopoly until their mom got home.  We also saw THREE bucks in their backyard!  What a great day!

New Grocery Store

After reading several blogs about it, I decided to try out Aldi, a low cost grocery store.  They cut prices in various ways so you get good deals; like not bagging your groceries, having you return your own cart, stocking off-brand items, etc.  They claim you can do 50-90% of your regular shopping there and cut your grocery bills down. 

I went this morning and bought the following items:

4 plums
2 green peppers
3 tomatoes
bananas
shredded cheese
milk ($2.29 for a gallon!!)
creamer
sour cream
4 yogurts
ground turkey
2 packs of chicken breasts
ice cream
hamburger buns
sandwich bread
deli meat
tuna
tomato sauce
tomato paste
green beans

My total was....$39.45!  I didn't get everything on my grocery list, but compared to what I would have spent at Safeway for the same items, that's a pretty good deal.  And, if I don't like something I bought, I can take it back and return it, get my money back and get a free replacement.

I like good deals.

Florida!!

We have had so much fun in sunny Florida the past five days!  Our time here is coming to an end, so I thought I would update you as to all we've done.

We drove down on Thursday, June 8th--Woodbridge, Virginia to Sarasota, Florida.  We got up at 5:30 a.m. and left the parking lot at 6:00.  We drove in 4 hour shifts, with a couple stops for food, gas, and bathroom breaks.  We managed to drive all 935.44 miles in 14 hours and 45 minutes!  We hit NO traffic, NO delays, and surprisingly, we DID NOT get lost!!!  Despite our amazing drive, I was exhausted by the time we got to the apartment we're staying in.  We dragged our stuff in and went to bed around 10:00 p.m.

Part of what is making this trip possible, is the FREE accommodations!  My grandmother owns an apartment in Sarasota that she rents out during the winter months.  Most people aren't coming to Florida in the summer to stay long-term, so she's letting us stay in the apartment free of charge for the 5 days we're here.  It has a large bedroom, two nice bathrooms, a cute kitchen, and a good-sized living room.  It's been so comfortable and a real treat to get to stay here instead of paying $500+ for a hotel!

The next morning we were able to get up, have a leisurely breakfast, and take our time getting ready.  We made a quick stop at a nearby Publix to pick up some food stuffs, then went home to eat lunch and take a nap!  I love vacations.

My grandmother lives in a retirement home just north of Sarasota, so we went over to visit her mid-afternoon.  She showed us around the complex (which is amazingly nice!) and we had dinner in one of their dinning rooms.  I haven't seen Gram since 2006 (4 years ago), so it was wonderful getting to spend time with her again.  She's also never met Matt and I was glad to introduce him!

The next day, Saturday, we went to one of my favorite Florida places:  the flea market!!  I didn't buy anything besides lunch, but it's fun walking through the long halls and seeing what the vendors have out.  We almost bought two cute puppies that were for sale...but then thought that a 12 hour car ride probably wouldn't be best for them.

We returned to the apartment and looked up a place to eat for dinner.  The Lobster Pot was down near the beach, so we decided to eat before heading to the beach for an evening walk.  It had been a hot day, but by the time we got to the beach, the weather was perfect.  We walked about a mile down the beach before turning around, enjoying the surf washing over our feet.  There were some fun shells, a snail, and a sand dollar!  It still looked like this when we found it:

But we put it in a bowl with water and bleach once we got home and now it looks like this:

Hopefully we can frame it or put it up in our bedroom somewhere :-)


Sunday we got up and drove up to Tampa (about an hour north) to visit Matt's parents and his aunt and uncle.  His parents were in town for part of his mom's class requirements (she's getting her PhD) and his aunt and uncle live in St. Pete.  We had lunch and caught up a bit.  I was tired by mid-afternoon--my allergies were acting up and just wore me out.  We relaxed awhile when we got back to Sarasota and then ate at a Mexican restaurant for dinner.  We swam in the apartment pool that evening and began considering moving to Florida.

On Monday we drove down to the Mote Marina on the Sarasota Bay.  We signed up for a Bay excursion, which took you out on a boat with a marine biologist.  They told us about some of the fancy houses on the Bay (there's one on sale for $7 mil....) and about the wildlife in the area.  We saw several dolphins and lots of birds.  There was a spoonbill bird on one of the islands which is apparently rare to see in Florida.  The biologist said only about 900 nesting pairs are in the area.

Lots of pelicans!

They took us to a man made island in the Bay and we were able to get off the boat to look around.

At the end of the boat tour, they threw a net overboard to collect some marine specimens for us to see.  They caught several types of fish, a baby crab, some sponges, and a sea star.

The Mote Marina also has an aquarium with fish, sharks, and a giant squid specimen!  It was a fun place to look around.

After we finished looking around the aquarium, we drove down to the beach.  It was fun playing in the surf, splashing in the waves, and sitting in the sun.  I'm not much of a beach person, but it was a nice afternoon.  For dinner we used our Ruth's Chris anniversary present from my mom and dad!  So delicious.  My steak melted in my mouth, which is exactly what it should have done ;-)

Our last day in Florida was Tuesday.  We spent a few more hours over lunch with my Grandma, then spent the afternoon packing and cleaning up the apartment.  We were sad to go--the time went by fast!

Wednesday morning we were up bright and early to jump in the car again and drive to Dublin, Virginia--"only" 12.5 hours (instead of 15!).  We had a pretty good drive, only hitting some traffic near Charlotte, North Carolina.

We're pretty tired, so we're taking it easy today.  I'll update more later.  Have a good one :)