Gardening Season

Today is a BEAUTIFUL day! Gardening is the plan, so we are off the store for plants and seeds and flowers with three little boys in tow. :) They may get a play set today...we'll see. And we desparately need an umbrella for over our outdoor table after our entire table with the umbrella flipped and broke last year. We have the worst luck with umbrellas - a new one just about every year. :)

Anyway, I love the start of gardening season - the smell of the soil, the beauty of the plants, and most of all...the anticipation of delicious produce. Ah, summer. Enjoy your day!

Not Much

Today will be my last day teaching Biology! As much as I love the kids, I'm thrilled to be done! It takes a lot of work and I'm ready to not have so many things taking up time. I have a big project that I need to be making more headway on for work and hopefully one less thing will help!

We are getting anxious to work outside and put the garden in - we are expanding this year and very committed to doing it well and preserving or giving away what we can't get eaten. :) I'm looking forward to trying a few new things this year. And, of course, I always have lots of herbs - some of the perennial herbs are already up and smelling fantastic!

We have a full day and full weekend. Calvin will be having his initial consultation at Riley for Speech this afternoon. We are hoping it will all work out!

Happy May everyone - maybe it will finally get warm and stay warm!

Miscellaneous Things

For the first time in my life, I have had some heartburn. I had it last night and I've had it some today. My husband has suffered with if for a few years and I've felt bad but now I can truly empathize. It's awful - hopefully mine will go away and stay away.

We test drove an Odyssey Friday night and LOVED it - well, as much as you can love a minivan. We aren't quite ready to purchase a new vehicle but we are in the number crunching and investigative stage. We recognize that a larger vehicle is a necessary purchase if God has a 3rd baby planned for our family.

This week is a week of celebration in our family - 1 yr. of marriage for my sister and brother-in-law, my brother's 22nd birthday, and our 6th anniversary (the 6th, 7th, and 8th respectively). My poor brother had to spend his 16th and 21st birthdays celebrating marriages instead. :) Oh well, I don't think it scarred him too seriously! :)

The boys are keeping busy. We enjoyed a tantalizing breath of spring yesterday. Today is wet and rainy. We are all ready for warm weather! I can't wait to get outside and plant flowers, vegetables, and herbs. The boys love playing outside with all their fun toys. And I'm also ready to grill out and eat lots of yummy salads and fruit. Come spring, come!

Garden Produce

I wrote just a little about our garden here but here's a picture of some of the yummy vegetables we've been enjoying!

The yellow pear tomatoes and the cherry tomatoes are my favorite. We love them cut in half and combined with fresh basil, fresh chives, balsamic vinegar, salt, & pepper! We also picked some jalapenos just today but haven't made any salsa yet - I'm a little nervous to work with them since having jalapeno hands for a few days last year. :) Anyway, it's awesome to see the vibrant colors and enjoy the wonderful fresh vegetables and herbs.

Okra

I don't really think of myself as a picky eater. I love different ethnicities of foods and will try pretty much anything - this got me into a little trouble when I ate raw oysters once and had an allergic reaction. :) But I must say, okra is not good. The texture is slimy and disgusting and it changes the entire texture of whatever it is in...not in a good way.

I can tolerate okra if it is fried but even then, it just isn't a flavor I prefer - if I'm going to eat something fried, just give me some french fries or onion rings! Andrew, on the other hand, loves okra. So I try to occasionally buy it for him and even encouragaed him to plant some this year but it didn't make it (I'm secretly kind of glad but don't tell him, okay?).

I 'm usually a fan of vegetables but I've given this one a shot and I think I'll pass. Any okra fans out there?

Thanks & Gardening

First, thank you to the many of you who offered encouragement and support through a very difficult week. I was blessed by the calls, comments, and e-mails. My Grandpa was laid to rest on Friday after a wonderful funeral service - God was truly glorified. We will miss him but we take a great deal of comfort in knowing he is in Heaven and in the many memories we have with him.

Now on to my post. Andrew and I have been diligently working on landscaping/outdoor living area since we moved in to our house 3 1/2 years ago and this year is no exception (my Grandpa would be proud :). 2 years ago we built our deck, last year we put in our fence, and this year we are working on improving our flower beds and garden. By the time April rolls around, I anxiously wait until it is "safe" to plant my flowers. Something about visiting the local garden centers is always exciting - perhaps it's the thrill of choosing what colors and plants will grace my beds or maybe the joy of the warm weather returning.

My favorite plants are my herbs - I have a few periennals and then I add several annuals. I love cooking with them throughout the summer and fall. This year I'm featuring chives, sage, thyme, spearmint, peppermint, lovage, basil, lemon basil, rosemary, italian flat leaf parsley, curry, and oregano. My personal favorites are chives, lemon basil, cilantro, and rosemary. We are also growing some vegetables - tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, okra (for Andrew), and peppers. We have one bed that is entirely tomatoes - 14 plants in all including cherry, yellow pear, orange, purple, and roma. Fresh salsa is one of our favorite summer dishes. We use the lasagna gardening method and have found it to be fairly successful.

I'm also doing several different kinds of flowers in the beds and terra cotta pots. I'm hoping to keep up with all the gardening better this year since I will be home more and my boys LOVE playing outside! (And yes, I know it's a little earlier than recommended for planting but we just couldn't wait!)