Plant Babies!

I've never been much of a greenthumb. I never could get into gardening, not even on tv. I am captivated by the lowest of budget cooking shows and I often even find myself glued to the tv during the carpentry shows that follow the low budget cooking shows. PBS lost me, however, when it came to the gardening. It looked like dirt and sweat and hard work for not much payoff.

I guess I should start from the beginning. Dave and I threw a pizza party one Friday night. We invited our friends and set off to Macey's with a $25 gift card to buy the fanciest pizza toppings we could find. I headed straight for the pesto only to find shock and horror when I read the price tag. No three once jar of pesto should cost $7, I thought. The culinary cost of living in Provo, I guess. No big deal, I could make my own. Homemade always beats store bought anyway. I had a full bottle of nice extra virgin olive oil at home and all I only needed pine nuts and basil. The cost of those two ingredients alone added up to more than the cost of the jarred pesto. Sadly, the pizza party had to go on without the pesto.

Throughout the next few months, there were several times I wanted to cook with fresh herbs but could not stomach the cost. So, I decided to start my own herb garden. Seeds were cheap and with a small initial investment, I would soon be harvesting my own fresh aromatics, right? Well, not exactly.







Dave and I carefully planted our little seeds and measured the plant food to make sure the seedlings were well fed. Then, we put them inside to protect them from frost and we never touched them for weeks. I warned you I wasn't really a greenthumb.

Assuming the seeds were dead, I put them outside to throw the dirt away later. Little did I know how close they were to the sprinkler system our neighbors would soon activate.



A few days later, our little seedlings sprouted and our beautiful plant babies began to grow. Now I look at them every day. I finally understand why people can become so involved in gardening. Don't worry, I'm not talking to the plants or treating them like little people, but I feel fulfilled when I see how big they are getting. Who knows, a few more years and maybe they'll even be big enough to use in the kitchen! :)

Nerent

To everyone who kept getting on my back about blogging (and you know who you are), "NERENT!" and "RAAR!" Yes I am blogging again. Seriously though, life has been very very busy. Getting married, student teaching, and graduating are all very important things. However, now that student teaching is done I have had more time to peruse other blogs, I am somewhat saddened by the fact that all those memories that could have been recorded are now blurred by the haze of forgetfulness. As I find it extremely difficult to maintain a journal or diary and scrapbooking is too expensive, I have a new found respect for blogging and a renewed commitment to at least electronically record some memories. In an attempt to make up for time lost, I will periodically post events from the past three and half months as I try to keep the blog updated. Pictures to come soon... And by soon I don't mean three months. :)

Happy New Year!

2009 is finally here and I'm really excited about it. First of all, I have a strange fondness for odd numbers, so 2009 is good. I'll be moving into a new apartment to start the year and will be making a considerable upgrade in my living accommodations. On January 6, I change from Geography student to Geography teacher. Oh yes, I also graduate with the Brigham Young University Class of 2009. I remember, as a freshman, thinking that I would be Class of '09 and feeling that 2009 would never come. This means never having to take an Economics test again, which makes me giddy with excitement. But really, in all honesty, I am most excited to be getting married. :)

With the wedding almost two weeks away, we have been very busy with preparations. The latest accomplishment was mailing the announcements. My mom and I bought some invitations that we could print and assemble ourselves. We knew they would be a bit more labor-intensive than most but we severely underestimated how much time and effort would go into making them. We started Tuesday evening at around three in the afternoon, knowing that we would probably be up past midnight. So, we set up a very efficient assembly line (Dad even stuffed envelopes) and got to work. Thirteen hours and ten Diet Pepsis later, we had printed, assembled, stuffed, licked, sealed, and stamped over 150 announcements. It was a lot of work but we had fun and it was exciting to be sending out announcements.



This was at about five in the morning when we were finally finishing.



Yay! Announcements! Yay!

I am so excited to be getting married. It was nice to get the announcement done and in the mail. I also can't wait to get back to Dave on Monday. It's been difficult to be apart during the holidays and I miss him a lot. :(