Carrie, Carrie, quite contrary...

How does your garden grow? 

Just kidding. She actually took the picture for me. 

My sweet friend Karen Autumn posts excellent and fun pictures on Facebook of older objects which she breathes new life and love into. I was thinking of her as I grabbed this basket which belonged to my great grandmother Frances before I headed to our garden. I love when pretty things are functional things and fun things! 

It makes me smile to think that my amazing Grandma Frances used this in her gardens- I am old enough to remember her cherry trees and her riots of flower garden patches- and now here it is, making my life easier so that I don't have to try to lug everything back to my house in my T-shirt.

Not that that would ever happen as we adults possess the skill called planning ahead. Ahem.

That would be our first watermelon, a sprig of basil which I accidentally snagged off, cucumbers on the top, multitudes of tomatoes including a Cherokee Purple one on the right, and zucchini in the foreground. We also have extraordinarily tall lettuce (I didn't know lettuce grew up but these ones do), golden beets, carrots, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, and holy cow basil and tomatoes out there. 

I must must must get back to blogging as my phone is out of storage: can't take any more pictures until I clear some stuff off, and the garden is CRAZY. 

Hungry? Come on down!

I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)

We've discovered an amazing ice cream place in town and are going to be F-A-T...

Yes, that is every bit as amazing (and as blue!) as it looks. It might be my favorite there, though the Coffee Oreo and Caramel Brownie are also outstanding...

These are World Peace Cookies by Dorie Greenspan, author of multiple cookbooks but especially the new one I got for Christmas. Every recipe I've tried from it so far has been a hit, from the Almond Crescents which surprisingly Carrie will NOT leave alone to these World Peace Cookies which are absolutely to die for if you like true chocolate cookies and not just sugared chocolate cookies. Even the chocolate ice cream recipe with vodka in it was yummy!

Did I mention F-A-T? I'm gonna be 500 miles WIDE if I keep this up. Some of you are remembering the meme I added to my Facebook wall about my beach body being postponed this year until further notice. I'm not in shape. Wait. Round is a shape, right?

And let's be honest, all those veggies mentioned in the garden post will not be in place of the above yummies, rather they'll be in addition to. I'm a Hobbit at heart, what can I say?

So this is happening

Spring has sprung. That means it's time to get seeds ready. This is the first year in the new house that we've gotten the grow lights out and had everybody on the counter in time for a head start, haha! 

Pay no mind to the photo bombers. Damon was helping with the watering can and the big kids were goofing off at the table. 

Dada got a bunch planted: cucumbers, strawberries, basil, marigolds, cauliflower, tiny red and tiny yellow tomatoes, Cherokee purple tomatoes, I think two other kinds of tomatoes (I'm sensing a theme) and we have some spots left to fill with squashes. Everybody else can either go straight into the ground and not worry about frost (peas, beets, broccoli) or wait until after the freeze- free date (carrots, lettuce, watermelon, eggplant, nasturtium, chives, lemon grass, and, ahem, wildflowers). We have another small section of ground out back covered with pizza boxes and bricks to kill off the grass. That will be the strawberries-and-friends patch. Apparently strawberries appreciate helpful thyme, which I happen to have seeds for. I was thinking somebody else is supposed to join them... carrots, maybe? 

Dada had another week of training people last week so we didn't get him as much as we'd like. We did our usual homework and karate, had a no school day due to fog, had home group on Friday night when it was 75 and the kids were all running around outside like they'd never experienced fresh air before. Yeah, it was pretty great. Our friends even brought their dogs along, so Triskal had somebody to lounge on the deck with as well! 

We also got the first mosquito bites of 2017. Someone delighted themselves in my sandaled feet and was a bloody, gross mess when I squished her. Carrie won herself several and Damon got a great big one by his right elbow. 

This week is more of the same wash/rinse/repeat. Perhaps the weather will stay a little more consistent and we can squish in some time in the puddles Great Outdoors away from the cause of all the screaming and yelling Wii. Have a wonderful last week of March, wahoo!

Summer in the city. Just kidding.

Spring finally got around to the whole let's-settle-down-to-business thing. The trees have budded up, the flowers are showing up, and the weeds have decided it's high time to take over the world. Here's some greenery (and other colors thrown in for good measure) to kick start your Monday:

Cute tiny spider above and cute tiny butterfly below.

There's one of Carrie's froggie friends on top of the pond "fountain", which clearly needs de-gunked, again.

Missed the irises at their peak, but the colors are still lovely even if the blossoms are dilapidated. And check out those vigorous fingery weedy things. They have little suckers on them and hold on tight when you're yanking them out. Then they hold on tight to YOU.

Lots of these guys are garden-bound. We went to a FFA sale to get a jump start on our veggies this year since our grow lights and seeds didn't happen. We bought some tomatoes, an eggplant, a brussels sprouts, assorted herbs, and then the boys and I went a little crazy on the flower side of things since we can't resist color. Betcha can't guess who picked out the cheerful yellow citrine flowers.

Muggin, these are those vibrant lilies you were so impressed by last year. The hummingbird really liked them, too. They're not ready yet, so I guess this post is to be continued!