Just another garden post

love my garden.   Even when everything else is going horribly, I can find solace there.  Perhaps I am like the crazy cat lady, except with plants.  Its spring so everything is starting to pick up- its even rained a couple times so I just come by to visit and magically my plants are watered.  

So I know the internets are just dying to know what I have growing this year so I will tell them!

First exhibit: my one survivor strawberry.  All the rest died from neglect last year.  

Here is the view facing north- things look really great from this direction; a couple small broccoli plants on the left, chard and beets on the right and herbs and flowers in the back.

But then you inevitably have to turn around to find this:

Look at all those weeds!  Those are on my to-do list for the weekend.
While I was picking some flowers I heard a rustling and looky there!

 

Here leezerd leezerd...

  

There you are! Posing so nicely!  He didn't seem to nervous about the crazy lady with the camera.  And then on the way out I spotted some poppies in a fellow garderner's plot.  I love poppies!

This concludes our garden tour, please come again!

San Diego Trip

t some point Southwest was running a special where you could fly 1-way to certain places for $25 in January. Derrick and I checked out the options and decided to get tickets for San Diego. We stayed at the downtown hostel and took the bus around so it ended up being a very cheap trip. Anyway, enough about how cheap frugal we are and on to what we did!

We arrived Thursday night at around 9pm. We had planned to go to this Irish pub to eat but turns out they don't serve food that late. So we ended up going to a french bistro/ice cream place. It was about all that was open, but still pretty tasty. Friday morning we woke up early and took the bus over to Balboa park. Our first stop was the zoo. We spent the morning there looking at all the animals. We even got to see the baby panda! The whole experience was definitely worth the $$ for the tickets. We ate lunch in the zoo and then explored the rest of Balboa park.

Next we went to the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA). There was only one exhibit at that time, Beloved Daughters: Photographs by Fazal Sheikh. He took pictures of women in India and recorded their story. The photos were incredible and the stories were heart-wrenching. It was a bit heavy but I'm still glad that we went.

After MoPA, we headed over to the botanical building. This was one of the best parts of the day and it was FREE! We wandered around the rest of Balboa park and ended up at the air and space museum. It was really lame, epecially considering the price of the tickets. I was also pretty exhausted by this time so that may also have had something to do with my disatisfaction. After that we headed back to the hostel where we took a short nap and thought about where to go for dinner. We decided on Chianti - we were a little worried at first since there were only like two other people in the restaurant but it ended up being really good. We considered going back to the pub for a beer but I was really tired and convinced Derrick that it was time for bed.

Saturday morning we packed up our stuff and boarded the bus for Coronado. We checked out the Hotel del Coronado and then sat on the beach for the rest of the morning. It was really nice just to sit after walking all day Friday. After lunch we took the trolley to the San Diego Mission. It is the oldest CA mission and very pretty. After that we headed back to the airport to go home. Overall, a good trip!

See the pictures here:

San Diego 2009

Yo-yo Ma and Neatloaf

ast week Derrick and I went to San Francisco for the day to attend an open rehearsal of the SF Symphony- featuring Yo-yo Ma! Here is a picture of the symphony warming up and Yo-yo Ma playing!




It was pretty awesome. He got so into when he played compared to the other symphony members.

After the show we went to eat at a place down the street called Ananda Fuara

Six loooong years

n January third Derrick and I celebrated 6 years of marriage! We went over to Napa and ate at Bistro Jeanty and then wine tasted at Jessup cellars. Fun!

It really has been a great six years! The first one was a little rough, but even that wasn't really marriage troubles. I just couldn't get a job despite 5000000 interviews (kind of depressing) and got mono. We have been through some trials that have really grown us and I feel pretty confident that we can make it through whatever else comes our way. I love you Derrick!

Another Christmas come and gone

This year we got to spend about a week with Derrick's family at Christmas. We had the big meal on Christmas eve since we wanted to catch the Christmas eve service in Wilmington that night. The spread was very impressive! Derrick and I had a gift certificate to the Honey Baked Ham so gave it to his family to use for Christmas. It took about an hour of discussion to convince his Grandpa (who usually does all the cooking) that they did NOT need to be cooked. In the end everything turned out delicious.
After we ate I volunteered to take a family picture with my new tripod! I think it came out really well. In the back l -> r, Derrick's grandpa, Derrick, Derrick's mom, dad, brother, uncle and aunt. The cousins, grandma and I are in the front.

Christmas in Wilmington was much more low key. We were supposed to have a big dinner with my cousins and everybody who we haven't seen in several years, but my uncle got a crazy case of food poisoning that had him the hospital for about a week over Christmas. Then we were going to have a smaller meal but my mom got a skin infection on her face (what are the odds?!). So that left us with lots of spare time to go to the beach (and no family photos unfortunately- I actually took some but my mom made me swear not to post them on the internet :) )

It went by way too fast and now it is back to reality. sigh.

Something about waiting

Over the last few years, I have been really struggling (learning?) in my faith. Back in NC I had a large circle of Christian acquaintances (I called them friends at the time but looking back, we weren't really that close). I had trouble with some aspects of their faith but I just went along and tried my best to believe because I felt like I should. When we came to CA I felt very lost. Without the support of that circle to convince me I should support certain aspects of the Christian church (or what I thought were aspects- I don't want to get into details though, lest I offend people- I'll save that for another post!) I started to give up. However, despite all of the messed up stuff I associated with the church, I always came back to Jesus. Underneath it all I still love Jesus- He still makes sense to me. Even without all the church-y stuff, He was still there, waiting for me.

I have a tendency to be busy and keep my brain full of new things and push God to the back. Then there are days like today when I am empty of other stuff and it feels REALLY empty. I come back to Jesus and again, he is there waiting to fill me up. Always waiting for me to get my focus off myself and back to Him. I imagine him sitting on a bench in my brain, waving occasionally trying to catch my eye, but I am focused elsewhere. He waits patiently until I am ready. Thats another thing I love about Jesus- He does not force himself on people. He will wait for you to get to a place where you can see him. Anyway, I'm not really sure where I was going with this- something about waiting.

Garden Clean up

This afternoon I spent a couple hours in the garden doing some clean up and weeding.  The mexican sunflowers were falling all over my peppers and looked really ragged so I just ripped them up.  The chamomile has been dead for a while and the yellow pear tomatoes were scraggly so they both got yanked.  My neighbors' cactus broke and there was a big chunk laying on top of several plants.  I'd hoped they would clean it up, but its been over a week so I hacked it up and tossed it in their plot.  I also pulled up a bunch of bermuda grass that has been gradually sneaking in from my other neighbor unattended plot.  I have decided that after this year I am leaving this plot.  We are either moving from Davis and I will leave the garden :(  or I will just change plots.  My current plot has a lot of perimeter compared to area due to it elongated shape and it is just too much path maintenance for me- especially when I also have unattended neighboring plots.  There is no hope for keeping the weeds at bay.   I also don't like being near the cactus.  Its very pretty, but people are always tramping through my beds to get to it.  hmm.. Maybe I should rename this post "Garden Whine."