A Few of My Favorite Things

I am not a golf fan, not in the least, but these days I am lovin' me some Arnold Palmer! I make mine with half sun-tea and half lemonade flavored Crystal Light and I cannot tell you how refreshing it is! Let me paint you a picture: Jack Johnson melodies floating on the breeze. The sun beating down, warming my skin. Me sitting on the back porch with a mason jar filled with my lemon-y minty concoction. Mmmm.... it makes all the snow shoveling worth it. Ok, ok... snow shoveling supervision.

My little trick is to add a bag of mint tea into your sun tea mix. Hopefully soon I'll be able to add homegrown mint leaves instead! :)

My prayer for you, all of our friends and family, is that you are finding simple ways to enjoy and savor God's blessings in your life. God is so good. We just need to slow down and appreciate Him and all of His glorious creation!

Garden Update

We've been working in the garden and it's coming together little by little. The first four squares I planted are doing well. The radishes and spinach are growing beautifully and it's becoming very difficult for me to resist the temptation to harvest them.

With the Square Foot Gardening technique the idea is to utilize your limited space by encouraging as much as possible to grow vertically. Yesterday Greg put up the netting that we hope will serve this purpose.

The tomato plants are flourishing! I think I'll get one or two more at Farmer's Market this weekend though. My pepper plants are looking good, but are about two months behind schedule so I'm tempted to buy at least one sweet and one hot pepper plant as well. The broccoli plants are kind of iffy and I'm still deciding whether or not to buy plants. For the most part the herbs and onions don't seem to be doing incredibly well either, so I may try to directly plant those this weekend.

As of right now we've planted the following in the ground:
Radishes (2 sq ft)
Lettuce Mix (1 sq ft)
Spinach (2 sq ft)
Beets (3 sq ft)
3 varieties of Carrots (2 sq ft of each)

In the house we still have the following awaiting transplant:
1-Roma Tomato
1-Early Girl Bush
1-Cherry Tomato
3-Hot Pepper
3-Sweet Pepper
Onions
Broccoli
Chives
Sage
Oregano
Cilantro
Basil

This weekend I am planning to plant the following in the ground:
Romaine Lettuce
Pickling Cukes
Slicing Cukes
Onions
Potatoes (if I can find seed potatoes this late)

I feel like I'm forgetting something from my list. If I think of it I'll add it later when I upload the photos of the progress.

Mother's Day Surprise

Several months ago Greg and I decided that we would surprise our moms, who live in California, with a visit for Mother's Day. We landed on the 7th and this was the look on my mother in law's face when we pulled up to the house...

She was completely shocked! She and dad were both absolutely speechless! We stayed with them for almost a week and enjoyed visiting lots of friends and family. We crammed a lot into a short visit. On Saturday we surprised my mom and sister at a family brunch. My mom screamed and ran away before embracing us.



We also found time for some laughs with old friends, laying out on the beach, and doing some sightseeing. Here are a few snapshots from our visit to the San Diego Zoo:

Sunscreen Application: a daily ritual. I dream of the day that someone will make a sunscreen that is not greasy and doesn't smell like sunscreen.

Love: Sharing a $12 lobster quesadilla that I'm pretty sure was made with imitation crab meat.

Modeling for mom...some things never change. :)

We enjoyed our trip, but...

we're very glad to be home!

Overall it's Been a Good Week

The week started out rough, with the car accident and stress of Greg's physical fitness test and my English/Language Arts exam. With lots of prayers and love from up above it all ended just as it should have.

The auto body shop was able to acquire some recycled parts for my car, which lowered the cost of the repairs and the insurance company is going to pay for the repairs! This is such a huge relief! Praise God that no one was hurt, we have good insurance, and we've been blessed with sound minds and the ability to work that has allowed us to prepare (save) for emergency situations so this does not pose any additional stress of if we pay to have the car fixed we won't be able to buy groceries this month. I just can't give enough glory to God! He really does keep us all in the palm of His hands.

I passed my test yesterday! Well, half of it we know for sure. I scored a 293 out of a possible 500 on the multiple choice portion. I'm not entirely please with my score, but I only needed a 270 to pass so it'll do. The essay will take a few weeks for the scores to come in. I was rushed, so I know that the intro and conclusion are pretty weak, but I think my thesis and body are strong. I did miss some major historical context stuff due to my lack of prior familiarity with the work, so we'll see how I do. I am allowing myself one week off then it's back to the books for the second test which encompasses classroom management, lesson planning, and all that practical application stuff. I have until July 12 to prepare for and take that test.

Greg passed his test today! I haven't talked to him, so I don't know all the details, all I know is that he passed and he's relieved! He was pretty stressed out about it and "crammed" as much as you can for a fitness test, so hopefully he learned his lesson and will make more strides to stay in shape year round. We could both use that. He has a marksman qualification test next month on a gun he's never shot, so please keep him in your prayers for that.