Vacation!

Here's a quick recap of our quick vacation. We went down to Clearwater, Florida (in the Tampa Bay area) for a few days. Matt grew up there. Or at least he "grew up" there as much as a military kid can.

It was nice. Hot, but nice.



For lunch one day we went to a burger place called Five Guys. It was ridiculously good. Everyone should find one close to them and go try it out. They have buckets of peanuts all over the restaurant for customers to snack on. Apparently word got out about the nuts because this guy was hanging out outside the front door.



Even though the year round humidity and subsequent sweating suck, the gardens are fantastic down there. The family we stayed with grows fruits and veggies in Earth Boxes. The plants were just exploding everywhere. In Nebraska, you plant for veggies in May, they fruit in July, and then by October they're dead. It's early May and look what they had out of their garden already:









It's funny because I ended up with about ten pictures of the beach and then twenty pictures of vegetables and thirty pictures of their dogs.

We really didn't do a whole lot other than drink beer, hang out with friends, drink beer, see a Kings Of Leon show, and try to avoid sunburning. We succeeded in all areas.

I Don't Need No Wah-Wah

Our watermelons are starting to grow!



This is actually the second one to start growing. The first one was tragically run over with the lawn mower. While Matt is the one who did the actual slasher job on the melon, it was essentially my fault for having a wild jungle of a garden. He just didn't see it. It jumped over the teensy little plastic fence that was supposed to contain the vine. The fence failed, obviously, and the melon wound up in lawn territory. What can you do?

Ringo came outside with me while I inspected the garden. And when I say "garden" I obviously mean "pit of crab grass."



He's so happy because he just got his ears cleaned. I'm not sure why, but that dog has the grossest ears ever. He's lucky he's so cute and I'm willing to put up with it. Really though, anyone who knows me knows I'm completely obsessed and in love with him.

It's almost the weekend, which means it's almost time for me to start feeling guilty for not doing housework.

Gardening and Produce Rant

I checked the garden again this weekend and found lots of veggies hidden under the foliage. I'm really loving the gardening now. Before, it just seemed like a lot of work with no payoff. But now that I literally have fruits of my labor, I'm enjoying myself. I really think gardening is going to turn into a hobby for me. This was the first year that I've ever tried it and I've learned a lot so far. I'm already planning my garden for next year. I definitely need to invest in plant cages and trellises. I also have a better understanding of how to plot out a garden. You can't just plant anything, anywhere as I've found out.

We ate our first home grown tomato last night. It was delicious! Very sweet and juicy. Matt also pulled back some leaves and found about five jalapenos hiding. I'm sure those will get eaten this week. We put jalapenos in everything!



The cucumbers also exploded within the last week. The little one I photographed earlier is now huge.



I also found another large one hiding under some leaves in the back of the garden. There are maybe five other little cucumbers and about eight green tomatoes on their way.



At first it seemed a little weird to be eating things I pulled from the back yard, but now I don't understand why it ever seemed strange. The veggies taste so much better and farming is something that people have been doing for the last 10,000 years. It might just be mental, but I think it really does taste better. Everything we eat out of the backyard is grown without pesticides, fertilizers and other artificial means. I like to think that I'm doing something good for us.

We're also lessening our dependancy on supermarkets and commercially grown foods which I absolutely love. Do you think people had grocery stores 10,000 years ago? No! They grew everything they ate themselves. How unnecessary is it that the tomatoes on most people's plates were grown in Mexico, when you can grow them in a large pot in your backyard? It's just that easy! Plant, water, eat. The last tomato Matt and I bought at Baker's cost $1.35. The tomato plant I bought at Ace cost $2.99, and so far it's produced five tomatoes. You can't go anywhere and buy five large tomatoes for $2.99! The other tomato plant I have I grew from a seed pack, which cost $1. That one has produced four tomatoes so far. I read that for every $1 Americans spend on produce, it cost the farmer 10 cents to grow it. Can you imagine how much money everyone would save if they grew their own veggies? LOTS!

Ok, when I said that you can't go anywhere and buy five large tomatoes for $2.99 I was forgetting one place where you can definitely buy five tomatoes, maybe more, for an incredibly reasonable price. That place is the Boys Town farmers market. The stuff that the kids grow is unbelievable. Its also incredibly cheap. The best part of it all though, is that it's all grown naturally and its grown in Omaha. You can see the farm from Dodge street. Its awesome. You can see exactly where your food came from. In a time when e-coli outbreaks are popping up as a result of poor farming practices, growing my own food seems like such a safe thought to me.

Green Thumb

Hen & chicks out front:




Heirloom Tomatoes


Whopper Tomatoes


Yellow Peppers


Beginning of a Cucumber

Weekend Update

Here's what I've got done so far...

1. Vacuum the inch of matted dog hair off the bedroom rug.
2. Paper the bathroom shelves.
5. Weed the front flower box and maybe replace the flowers I let die.
6. Make the guest room look like more than just a room where crap goes.

Can you believe that? Turns out that all I have to do in order to make actual progress on the weekend is to tell the cyber-universe that I'm a lazy pig... And just like that! Motivation!

The rug actually got vacuumed last night due to an incident with Ringo. We left him out while we went and hung out with Ryan, and when we came home Ringo had dragged trash all over the living room and kitchen. He ate anything resembling food and left mostly paper. The worst thing though was that there was five days worth of coffee grounds in the trash. We swept and vacuumed and still there is coffee all over the floor. The gritty feeling on the bottoms of my feet drives me nuts.

The bathroom looks pretty great. It started off looking like this:


And ended up looking like this:


I have since peeled off that label on the basket. It was driving me crazy after I noticed it in the picture.

It took way too long to do, but I think the end result was worth it. I also papered under the sink and in the cabinets. It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic because I spent nearly half an hour under the sink trying to smooth out all the air bubbles in the paper. I can't stand leaving air bubbles in that stuff. Anal people should not be allowed to use contact paper to cover shelving. Then again, who else but an extremely anal person would even bother with papering shelves?

I fixed up the front yard earlier, and actually weeded the garden on Thursday. It was such a pain in the ass. Bag of crap I pulled out of the garden:


I also bought some cheapo geraniums that didn't look so hot in the store for 29 cents each. I brought them home and planted and watered them, not they look fantastic.



As an added bonus, I went out this afternoon and only spent $11.50. That is a Saturday record low for me. Saturday is usually the day I get into trouble with the spending. I bought an over-the-door robe hook for $5, six clearance geraniums for $2, a nick-nak bowl for the bathroom for $1.50, and had a free lunch with Gloria that only cost me a $3 tip.