One thing I love about snow in May....

One thing I love about snow in May is that on the last day of May my spring flowers are prettier than they've ever been.

New Hobbies

Today is the 7th of May and so far it feels like we've done more fun things this month than in the previous 4 months combined. Let's hear it for SUNSHINE!!!!!!

Since we've been out and playing so much, Tommy's discovered some totally awesome new hobbies.

Bubbles:

Teaching Grandma about flowers. "So soft!"

Sweeping the water with wheat. 

Shaking the dock with the crazy-run.

Sidewalk chalk: Eating. Coloring. Throwing. Whatever.

Sandal-wearing. Are those not the most adorable toes you've ever seen?

Kicking a volleyball.

Staring at giraffes through the fence.

'

Chanting with the kids on a field trip "spray us! spray us! spray us!" and then getting sprayed.

And best of all walking with mom AND dad. (Mom's the blob-shaped one on the right.)

THIS is springtime.

Some important things

These are some unrelated things that happened today that don't quite earn their own post.

• Josh and I split the first (and only) tomato off our plant this year. Not bottom rot. It was beautiful.
• Tommy slept for 2.5 hours in one nap.
• We're packing all day long for a camping trip. Wish us luck.
• Josh isn't working again today. I love pretend vacations.
• We're going shopping. All of us. For the first time since I don't even know when. Shopping with 2 boys is a whole different game than shopping with me.
• We dropped Tommy's crib. That's because 4 days ago Josh went in to get him and he was just standing there staring at his room. So I said "Absolutely. No matter what. Regardless of what else happens. Even if there is a natural disaster. Nothing NOTHING will stop us from dropping the level of that crib TODAY." And now it's 4 days later so I thought we'd better do it.
• I woke up feeling surprisingly good considering the bike ride we went on yesterday. I have a feeling my butt would hurt more if I sat on a bike seat, but for now it's OK.
• Tommy helped us pack for camping. By sitting in the bucket, and crawling around pulling things out of bags. He's fantastic like that. 

One thing I love about my balcony

One thing I love about my balcony, is these lovely flowers.

Did you know?

Did you know that I stole my baby's breakfast? Pancakes and mango puree are just too good to pass up.

Did you know that I tried to rearrange the furniture in my bedroom just to find out that there really is only one way it goes?

Did you know that Thomas had an entire pancake, a bottle and half a mango for breakfast. Maybe he was still hungry after all that so we snacked together on cheerios.

Did you know that I ran a race with a chip on my shoe? The most stressful part of the race was because the guy told us about 10 different times "make sure the shoe with the chip touches the start mat." and I was quite sure mine wouldn't (you know...because of my extraordinarily long stride....psshhhh) I'm pretty sure I took 4 steps on the mat naturally. I didn't need to stress over that.

Did you know that since I couldn't rearrange my bedroom furniture I made Josh paint our living room? It's still drying, I'll let you know if I like it later. *It's later. I love it. LOVE IT! It was totally worth the 3 year wait.

Did you know I also got a steal of a deal on flowers for my balcony? Farewell strawberries, hello pretty!

Did you know that the average lifespan of a major league baseball is only 7 pitches? I can't think of anything that gets gone faster. Not anything. (That's a lie....one time there was a package of oreos.......I can think of that.)

Things that grow - the truth revealed

Remember how excited I was about my bucket garden? OK OK, and maybe I was a little proud.....I can't help it, when I'm creating something beautiful, I get a little proud.

Immediately after planting our beautiful strawberry plants we had some strawberries grow - and they were good. We picked maybe 4-5/day and we thrilled and couldn't wait for when they really "came on".

We're still waiting for that "coming on" business....currently the leaves are brown and look like they've been torched. Do you think our neighbors are scaling the wall and taking a blow-torch to the leaves while we're gone during the day?  Maybe tonight I'll swallow my pride and take a picture to show you just how sad they are. But this post is about my tomatoes.

We saw our tomatoes growing and had a little party for the first green one. And by "had a little party" I mean "opened the fridge and ate big beautiful store-bought tomato thinking about the day I'd have a fresh tomato from my very own plant".

The tomato and squash plants get droopy every day, so we water them (a lot) every day and we worry that they are getting too much sun and not enough water (or too much water and not enough sun....but when they look burned and droopy and the soil is dry we tend to think not enough water, too much sun), but all those worries floated away when Josh brought this beauty in from the garden yesterday.

Ain't she purty?

Awww...but don't be too quick to judge - the beauty of this tomato is really just evidence of my incredible photography skills. 

You wanna see the ugly truth?

I know what you're thinking: "My goodness she has a lovely thumb!" but try to look past that and focus on the tomato, which is the subject of this post.

Something is horribly horribly wrong and to be honest, I haven't the slightest idea what it is. Of course my first inclination is to call it a fluke (because I'm a tolerator and I tolerate.) but science (and the fact that Josh brought in 3 more just like it last night) is forcing me to evaluate.

Could it be the big stinky truck that drives through our neighborhood each night spraying for mosquitoes?  Or perhaps the fact that I live in the middle of an industrial park and am surrounded by refineries.  Maybe it's the lack of sun, the bucket it too small, I'm not giving the plants enough love and attention, they're too thirsty to grow?

Clearly this is not a phase a tomato can "grow out of" it's ugliness is permanent and will spread to the others if we allow it. The rotting bottom is evidence of.....I don't know what, but it certainly ain't purty.

This much I know is true: I am capable of growing a garden all by myself. I've done it before. Remember the cucumbers from 2 years ago? That was a great year, we couldn't even keep up with all the things that grew. We constantly had fresh produce rotting on our counter because we couldn't eat it fast enough.  I know it does't sound pleasant, but it was.

Somehow this year's efforts are not as fruitful. Which means that my mom (who I love) is going to have a lot more "help" using the harvest from her garden this year. 

Also it reminds us why sometimes it's not a great idea to "buy local" cuz sometimes local isn't better. (see photographic evidence above)

Things that grow

Someone once told us that "rich people invest their time/money in things that grow even after hours and during holidays". Then he talked about putting your money where you can earn interest instead of paying it even on Holidays, planting a garden, and raising kids. Josh desperately wants to be rich, so he listened to that guy. We have a CD, a money market account, a growing baby, and this year a bucket-garden.

Last year we were garden-less and even though we gladly mooched from our parents, this year we decided to be grown ups and plant out own garden.

Only we don't have a yard.

So we are experimenting with a "bucket garden".

This is a beautiful piece of our squash bucket. I love it when vegetables flower!

This is the squash-bucket in all it's glory. Yes there are some sad droopy leaves....but overall I think it's doing pretty well...what do you think?

And our champion tomato plant (which is now threatening to take over my pretty little strawberry basket....)

I just love what plants looks like as they're starting new sprouts. I love how bright green the new parts are, and how they're all tiny and squished up waiting for the right moment to lay out their beautiful leaves.

Here's hoping we get some good fruit from our labors (I love fresh tomatoes and yes mom even zucchini). Not that we've put a lot of work into the bucket-garden, but we do water them daily (because they get burned if we don't) and we try to take good care of them. Fortunately bucket-gardens don't come with many weeds - this enhances the gardening experience ten-fold if you ask me.