The Garden is In!

Saturday morning I headed to the Farmer's Market again to pick up a couple things for the garden. I was looking for burpless cucumber plants but had no luck there. I was also looking for Rosemary plants and did find a couple of those. I was in and out of there pretty quick and the only other thing I bought was a couple dozen brown eggs. They were huge and cheaper than the grocery store eggs.

It was a beautiful day here so I spent lots of time out in the yard or on the deck. I watered my potted plants and flower beds and planted a pot full of sweet peas. Last year they didn't do so well so we'll see what happens this year. I also harvested some wonderful lettuce that we had for dinner. We've had at least a half dozen salads from the porch garden now. It's too bad the lettuce and tomatoes don't ripen at the same time though. By the time the tomatoes come in the lettuce will be long gone.

Last night we watched the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight. It was dark alright. I guess I'm just not into Batman movies. It's always just a sad story and the hero never gets the girl. No happy endings. I like a happy ending.

Today was the big plant day out at our garden plot. Since I was out there last week they have put up the deer fencing. I thought it would be just really tall fencing but instead it's only about 3-1/2 feet high and electrified! Yikes!! Not only is it electric, is very close to my little plot. I thought I was being smart to take the end plot but then they put the fence so close to my plot that you can't walk on the side of mine as it's too close to the fence line!

We got it all planted though and hopefully things will grow well. The only thing I didn't plant today was the corn as I wasn't sure if I wanted to or not or if I would have enough room. I'm only going to plant a few stalks, between 9 and 12. Today we planted several types of tomato plants, 11 plants in all, green peppers, broccoli, green beans, red and white onions, cucumbers, snow peas, zucchini, garlic and carrots. When we finished planting I had to take my watering can over to the hose since the hose doesn't reach to my plot and water everything in by hand.

Hopefully I can get that problem resolved so I don't have to haul water all summer. Rain is predicted for tomorrow so at least that's one day I won't have to water!

When we got home from planting I took the pups up to the high school field for a little frisbee. They were so full of energy but the heat soon took it out of them so we didn't stay there for long. Charlie came back with grass stains on his paws after a couple crazy jumps and rolls! No new pictures of them this week though, I forgot the camera.

Tyler is moving today. Seems his old gang is breaking up. One roommate is coming back to the mainland to go to law school and since it was taking the other roommates too long to make up their minds what they wanted to do, Tyler had to make a change and found some other people to move in with. He's moving over to the other side of the island, to Kailua, which will be closer to campus so that will be good for him travel-time wise. It won't be as convenient to stores and shopping and restaurants as living in Honolulu but the beaches on that side are nicer.

This will be our last full week of school. Next week we only have 3-1/2 days with kids and a day and a half of clean up. Tomorrow I am meeting a former student (and her boyfriend) for dinner. We had this little girl in kindergarten and tried to support her through her elementary years and early middle school time, spending time with her and going to her dance recitals, etc. We lost touch about 5-6 years ago when she moved to another town and just recently she contacted the teacher and through her, contacted me. She had moved to Georgia but is back here visiting. It will be so nice to see her and see what kind of young lady she has turned in to. I think the last time I actually saw her she was in 7th or 8th grade. She just recently turned 18 so that's quite a change.

Have a good week, two faithful readers!!

Wonderful Memorial Day Weekend...

It was a busy week and weekend here in Michigan. Howard had the week off since his company was shut down for the week so he decided to use the time to see some sites here in our beautiful state. On Tuesday he and Scott took the Mustang and headed up north and I mean, way up north!

They were headed to the UP to mine some copper. It took them 9 hours to get up there so the first day was all about travel.



The next morning they got up and headed to the mine.




They got all kinds of copper and enjoyed their trip.

They spent another night up that way on the way back home.

On Thursday they made it to a Tiger's game so I'd say they had a nice week. Meanwhile I was at work, counting down the days (11-1/2) left of school.

We were expecting Amber to visit this weekend and she was scheduled to come in Saturday evening. Saturday morning I spent the morning going out to visit my share plot in the comunity garden. It's a beautiful site and once the deer fence is up it should be a wonderful space to garden in.

This will be the community garden portion.

This is part of the share portion. My plot, which I picked the day after these pictures were taken, is just to the right of this line of plots. There are 20 in this row and then another 20 to the right of this row. My plot is the first one so that I can take advantage of 3 sides rather than two as it's on the corner of the row.


My plot is just to Howard's right and in the back row there.


After that I made a trip to the local nursery to pick up some more flowers and veggies for the garden. When I returned home there was a strange car in my driveway with Illinois plates. I couldn't figure out who the heck was at my house. Then who came out the door? Amber! She had arrived early and surprised me but the bigger surprise was inside; she had brought Andy with her!!

She had told me he was working all weekend and couldn't make it! How nice. We had a pleasant couple of days, bar-b-queing, driving in the Mustang with the top down to get ice cream, going out to dinner at Stir Crazy, a little shopping (nice 20% discount coupon), a little time at the park with the pups playing frisbee,




and lots of deck time as the weather was gorgeous. On Monday they drove over to the west side of the state to visit Nic and Andy's parents for a couple hours. They left this morning around 4:00 a.m. to catch a 6:00 flight and then go to work! It's going to be a long day for them.

Howard's back to work today but I have the day off. Today was a non-mandatory Developmental Day which means the teacher's had to work but para's and other support staff can choose not to. It's one of our two non-mandatory days so it's nice to have it off! That means we only have three work days this week! Yea!! These next few weeks are going to be so busy at school. Lots of end of the year activities like Field Day, class picnics, testing, etc. Then it will all be over. And what seems like endless time until school starts again will speed by and it will be over before I know it!


I saw this beautiful butterfly from the deck enjoying the blooms on our cherry tree.










This is how the pups spent the evening after a trip to the field to play frisbee.

29 Years Ago Today

At this time 29 years ago I was experiencing one of the happiest days of my life. I had waited for this moment for years and it had finally come. Things didn't go exactly the way we had planned and it happened 3 weeks later than expected but it did finally happen.



Our lives were never the same after that day!!

Happy Birthday Amber!

Happy Mother's Day!

It was a very nice Mother's Day for me. It started early with Scott taking the pups out of my room before they could get me up. He took them out and fed them so I could sleep in until 8:00! That's late! He also made and brought me my coffee!

Amber and Andy called in the morning and I opened my gift while talking to them on the phone. It was a box filled with lots of things I love like purple socks, face cream, new kitchen towels, healthy bread mix and a treat of a chocolate bar which I'll make last a month! She's so thoughtful. Thanks Amber and Andy, I love everything.

Later in the morning Tyler called. I promised him I would put a picture of the beautiful flowers he sent on here. The roses are gorgeous and they smell wonderful too. Sometimes those roses don't have any smell but these did. And they are really beautiful. Thanks Tyler, they are gorgeous and I love them.

After breakfast we headed out to work in the yard. This is my favorite Mother's Day tradition and though my kids didn't always like it they always helped me. It's the day to pull weeds and get the flower beds ready for planting.

In the past they even helped me shop and plant but this time we are waiting for mulch which will be delivered later this week before we plant too much.

I did put in a few tomato plants which I knew could be a mistake and sure enough, they are predicting a frost warning for tonight so I'll have to go out and cover them in a little while. Hopefully we won't have too many nights like this. I also planted my porch pots but they'll be protected by the porch roof.

In other weekend news, Friday night was our Fun Night for bowling and our night to pick up the trophy and our winnings. Look at this fabulous trophy!

It's ours and our partners for a whole year. We have to get our names engraved on there too. We only had 3 people on our team and the team we were supposed to be bowling didn't show up so we finished really quickly and then had to sit around and wait for everyone else to finish up. Finally it was time to pass out the money, all $126 to be divided between us and our partners. It was a little more than we had to pay for dinner at Outback that night. So now the season is over and we're officially done but we have been invited to bowl in a tournament next weekend. It's for the top 4 winners of all the leagues that bowl at this bowling alley. There's a $1,000 first prize though I'm sure there's no chance we'll win first place. There are other prizes too so who knows, we could win something.

I took the pups to the high school field both days so they were happy. Charlie wasn't feeling well earlier in the week so he's been on a special diet all week of rice and ground beef but I think he's over it now and feeling better. The vet tells me to give him Pepcid AC when his tummy is upset so that's what I've been doing. Who knew dogs could have acid indigestion?


I am typing this on my early birthday present. After much research I decided that instead of a laptop I would get a netbook. It's a lot smaller than a laptop, lighter weight and only has a 10 inch screen. You could probably put it in a purse, if your purse were big enough.

It's perfect for my needs of just emailing and web searching and reading blogs. It's got a really long battery life which is nice so I don't have to worry about plugging it in all the time. I really like it and it's cute too!

So it turned out to be a nice weekend. We accomplished a few things, had a little fun, and as usual, it's over too quickly.



Have a good week!

Another Nice Spring Weekend...

It's always nice when the sun is shining and it's fairly warm outside. Howard was up bright and early Saturday morning to go fishing with some guys from work. They took a boat out onto the Detroit River and drifted from Canada back to Detroit in search of Walleye. He didn't catch any himself but the Captain caught a couple and gave them to Howard. Guess what we had for dinner last night? That's right, Walleye. It's a whitefish so you can prepare it a couple ways but I chose to put some lemon, butter, salt and pepper and a few Herbs de Provence on there, wrapped it in parchment paper and foil and then just cooked it on the grill for a bit. It was tasty and light. We had enough left over to freeze for about 3 more meals.

Today we took a little road trip in the Mustang with the top down. It's nice to take the back roads to new destinations. When we got back I took the pups to the high school field for some frisbee. They couldn't stay too long though as they got overheated pretty quickly. I never get tired of these pictures!!








The weekend is almost over and it's back to work tomorrow. Why does the week drag and the weekend fly? It's just not right.