How does your garden grow?

So, if you follow me on Twitter, or if we're friends on Facebook, you've seen photos of our garden bounty recently. For tonight's dinner, we had peas, carrots, onions and zucchini straight out of the garden with our turkey dogs. It was YUMMY, even though as we were shelling the peas, Adam said "This is a lot of work."

Yeah, but it's worth it when you taste it.

This is what it looked like just after it was tilled in the early, early spring. Mom and Dad and Mom's friend Jeannie planted a bunch of stuff. Jeannie has been working it a lot, weeding and taking care of it.




This is what it looks like today. If anyone wants to remake the Stephen King horror classic "Children of the Corn" we've got the prime location for you.


Here's another view where you can see the corn, green beas, peas, zucchini, cucumbers, etc. Tomatoes are in there somewhere, too. As you can see, all the rainy and cool weather we've had this summer has lent itself to a bountiful green garden.

This is what we used out of the garden for dinner tonight, except the jalapenos and green beans. Saving the jalapenos for a little homemade salsa (we hope) and I took the green beans over to dad. He said he'd been craving some of those.

We'll probably be making some zucchini bread soon...


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Thanks for hanging in and continuing to check the blog. I'm a little overextended in cyberspace, and the blog has definitely suffered. I would still like to use it to keep in contact and to generate a little Google Ad revenue, so hopefully I can get it back up and running...

Summer time, where did you go?

Looks nice and warm in those photos, doesn't it? It WAS nice and warm on the days we set up and filled the pool, but since then, it's only been warm enough to get in it twice.

Twice!

Now, I can't be totally angry about this - the weather has been good for the garden (post and photos of that to come later this week), but we haven't done any lazing around in the sun and pool. Boo!

Hopefully, by the end of this week, I'll actually have photos of us IN the pool, instead of hanging out by the side of it.

Last night, we did eat dinner on the front porch, sitting on the swing. It was quite nice. I'm conflicted - usually I love hot summer weather, but being able to sit outside without breaking out in insta-sweat has been nice.

Memory Lane

So Betsy posted this a long time ago, and Mitzi finally updated her blog with it, so I thought tonight it would be my turn.

The rules: Bold the things you’ve done, and post on your blog!

Update: post has been edited to add asterisks to the things I've done. After I posted, I checked the blog and couldn't tell the difference between the bolded and not bold things.

1. Started your own blog*
2. Slept under the stars*
3. Played in a band*
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower*
6. Given more than you can afford to charity*
7. Been to Disneyland*
8. Climbed a mountain*
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo*
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea*
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch*
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning*
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables*
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight*
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill*
24. Built a snow fort*
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping*
27. Run a marathon*
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse*
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset*
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise*
33. Seen Niagara Falls
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community*
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied*
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke*
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing*
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling*
52. Kissed in the rain*
53. Played in the mud*
54. Gone to a drive-in theater*
55. Been in a movie*
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies*
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason*
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check*
68. Flown in a helicopter*
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy*
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial*
71. Eaten caviar*
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square*
74. Toured the Everglades*
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle*
79. Seen the Grand Canyon
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car*
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper*
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve
86. Visited the White House*
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox*
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous*
92. Joined a book club*
93. Lost a loved one*
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo*
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone*
99. Been stung by a bee*
100. Bought your own home*

I have done 50 of the things on the list, so I'd say that's a good start for a 32-year-old. Hopefully I'll get some frequent flyer miles saved up and knock out the traveling items I haven't done yet...

Lists like this have to strike me when the mood is right. Usually, I think they're silly, but it was fun to go through this one. It brought back tons of memories of my early time in Wichita - the meteor shower with Travis, Teresa and Andy, filming "Dancing on the Moon" with Rod and the crew, the awesome Eagle ladies book club, and Hubs and my honeymoon. Each of those would have been blog posts unto themselves had I had a blog back then.

I wonder who comes up with lists like this. If I were to make up my own list, what would I include? Maybe that will be a blog post for another day.

"Your school newspaper your first assignments toward success"

Check out this educational video from the 1940s about what it takes to succeed in the newspaper business. It features newsboys, rewrite men, outside men, etc.

Oh, and women just aren't prepared for the rigors of reporting for the real news sections, so if you'd like to work in news, girls, start studying how to write for the society pages.

How far we've come.

Summer vacay offiially starts tomorrow, so what the hell!

Look what one little trip to Wal-Mart can do for you:

Make you work your ass off. Mom decided to get an inflatable pool for the yard - improving and upgrading the rental property - so we set out to install it this afternoon while Adam was at work.

He missed out on all the fun.

As you can see above, Jayne had the easy job - supervisor/project manager.

Luckily, I had the airbed inflator, so we used it to inflate the upper ring. That made it go fairly fast. I can't imagine using a manual air pump (like a bicycle pump) to do it, which is what the introductory how-to DVD suggested.

The worst part was having to smooth out the bottom and try to get out as many wrinkles as possible. The box said READY FOR WATER IN 15 MINUTES. Heh. Maybe if you've done it a half-million times before.

By the time we were ready to stop and just watch it fill, two hours had passed. Those of you who have done this before - where did we go wrong?!

At least when I look at these two photos, I can see a definite difference in the "Before smoothing" and "After smoothing."

The water is still running. We'll be checking on it tonight, turning it off before bed, and starting up again tomorrow.

Hopefully the next post you'll see will have Jill relaxing on a floaty in the pool.

Memorial Day with the Fam 2009

This post is mostly photos, and a lot of them speak for themselves. Most were taken by me, but obviously the ones I'm in were taken by somebody else...

This is the home my grandpa grew up in - it's in Altus, the town in Arkansas where they filmed the first season of the simple life. As you can see, the house has been vacant for so long, it's basically falling down around itself.

I didn't go on the drive to Altus. When we got back from the boat trip, I got a migraine, so I took some high-powered ibuprofen and took a three-hour nap. So, I think Carrie or Ann probably took the photo above.

The highlights of the trip for me were taking the boat out on the lake, and two nights spent playing dominoes with my cousins.

It was cloudy and a tad on the cool side on Sunday, but we decided to try the lake anyway.

Sara got to go tubing for the first time.

We did brave the cool waters. Once you got in the water, though, it wasn't so bad. Ann shot the above photo of us.


Malachi didn't seem to be a big fan of the lake. He got in, but got right back out.


Same thing with Kenzie. She got in, swam out to her mom, and swam back to the boat.


Even though he wasn't a big fan of swimming in the water, Malachi loved the boat ride.


Sara and her girls.


We picked up Matt from shore so Ann could drag him around the lake. He was quite the skilled tube-er. He was steering up and over the wake, and doing all kinds of cool stuff.

Even my dear old dad got in the lake. As you can see, he thought it was a little cold. I had stuck my foot in and said "It's not that bad!" just before I shot this photo of him getting in the water...

Dad even went tubing. I think he really enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure he's never done anything like that before, but I could be wrong...


That's me way back there on the tube. The water was a little cold when you first got in, but once in the water it wasn't so bad. Ann shot the photo of me. (Hey, zoom in next time!)

Other than being out in the boat, we hung out in the condo most of the weekend, since the weather was chilly and rainy. I think I'll definitely go back to Beaver Lake again. It wasn't really crowded, and the scenery was nice.

This was the view down the hill from our balcony.


Here's the little goober.


Saturday morning I went down to the shore with the kids so they could go "fishing." Mostly, they just played around in the mud and water, but the weather was really nice at that point, so it was okay hanging out down there.




I really like this photo of Kasie. If I was shooting this vacation for a photo assignment, I'd have edited a lot tighter (obviously) but I figured I'd show off as much of the fam as possible.

Chalk up one more reason to despise PCs

The plan was to post a bunch of photos from the family vacay tonight, but when I attempted to burn a CD on mom's laptop so that I could put them on my laptop, all hell broke loose.

Thought the CD burned. Brought it home. It's unreadable by my Mac. PC people? Anybody? Help here?

I think I'll just take my jump drive over there tomorrow and copy them on to that - no burning required.

I won't post too much about the trip yet - the photos will make that better. We got back around 3:30 this afternoon. Adam and I helped Mom and Dad unload the RV, then we grabbed dinner at Ruby Tuesday's (Adam was craving salad, and they have the best salad bar). We were going to go to a movie, but decided to come home and watched "Close Encounters." Then, Mom called Adam's phone to inform us that I had left my purse and phone at their house, so I had to run over there to pick it up. Good thing they're only two minutes away by car...

I did come home to find one baby bird egg in one of the hanging plant baskets on the porch, so we'll have to keep an eye on that to see what happens. It rained on us all the way home from Arkansas, but none here, I guess. I really need it to rain, since SOMEBODY was "too busy" to water my plants while I was out of town.

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We have one half day with students tomorrow, and then again on Wednesday. I've got grading and work to do in the afternoons, hopefully all goes well.

Summer vacation - oh so close!