Can you see them?

They’re so cute! The momma was feeding them yesterday. Tonight I watched them blend into the exposed ground next to our neighbor’s house. I didn’t get any pictures but I’m sure if I’d tried, all you would see is dirt and grass…

I picked a bunch of tomatoes last night from the garden. More than I can likely eat so I’m planning on taking some to work tomorrow to see if anyone would like some. I know the boss’ daughter likes tomatoes so maybe she’ll eat em!

I also picked a handful of beans!

I had them with my dinner. Yum

I may be one of the only women I know who is not reading 50 Shades of Grey. I really tried! Honestly, I just didn’t like the book. I gave it a go and ended up reading 25% of it according to my kindle. I just kept reading and hoping it would get better. Sadly, for me, it never did. I just really don’t think its well written. The characters are not deeply developed, the plot is contrived and the descriptions seem pedestrian. Now, I am not a great writer but I do enjoy good writing. I just don’t feel like I found any in this book. : /
Then I wondered about the sequels. Eric had downloaded all 3 to my kindle. I think I read the whole first chapter of the second book and… put it down.
Maybe its the genre? I’ve read some before but this just bad. Oh well, on to other books.

I started reading The Secret Life of Bees. So far I’m enjoying it a lot. I need a list of good books to start immediately after I finish this one… sigh.

We are flush with tomatoes!!!

Maybe I’m weird. I never liked tomatoes as a kid. Tomato sauce and ketchup were fine but slices of tomato on burgers and such… gross! Now I’m a grown up (hahahahaha) and I do like them sometimes. When they’re good tomatoes of course. I still don’t like them on burgers but since we’ve had our gardens, I have really enjoyed those. People always say there’s something about fresh tomatoes from the garden and it’s true. We just made bruschetta and it was AWESOME.

I’m a little blurry and excited. Please ignore.

We used fresh cherry tomatoes and basil from the garden, a little salt, pepper, garlic and oregano and a bit of olive oil. This is how it looked!

Delicious!! We have a number of different types of tomatoes growing. The lightest color are Snow White cherry tomatoes while the more yellow are just Yellow Cherry Tomatoes. We also have a few little red cherries but Eric keeps eating them from the window sill. : ) We also have big tomatoes growing but none are ripe yet. they’re huge though. And because of recent rain, the plants themselves are humongous!

 

Dog bed and cover – check!

Approved by Parker who is keeping an eye on his ball just out of frame. Syd also likes it but she wouldn’t stop trying to get me to pet her instead of posing on her new bed.

Hehehe. Not sure what it is but lately I’ve had a lot more love for these two. Maybe I’m more patient or maybe they’re behaving better lately… I doubt it’s that really because I mean come on! Parker tried to get an opossum or something that was attacking our garden. He messed up the wire fence, dug in the mud and tracked it in the house and on the new rug.

Anywho, finally finished this dog bed. It has a giant zipper running on about 2.75 sides to make sure I could get the foam in and out. I really should have lined it bc I bet they’ll tear it up. We’ll see.
Next up will be the secret project and a quicky camera case for a friend!

Last weekend we worked in the yard quite a bit. So much, in fact, that I have been sore for the first half of this week! We decided that since the grass under our big tree never grows and just looks gross, we were going to plant something back there. We happened to see boxes of Hostas at Sams and grabbed them up. We had 18 bulbs to bury but first we had to dig and dig and get the grass out! We forgot to take a before picture so the after isn’t as striking. The work was hard and we ended up needing about 4 more bags of mulch than originally estimated… It looks great though and we used up some of the limestone blocks we have stacked in front of the house!

I love our big tree. It’s awesome.

It’s almost time!!! Almost time to eat tomatoes! My mom is still surprised that I am now eating tomatoes as I wouldn’t ever eat them as a child. However, it’s true when they say that they always taste better fresh and from your own garden.

This year we went to the Sunshine Community Gardens plant sale. It was fun! So many plants and people right in the center of Austin. We had heard about this community garden on our Urban Farms Bike Tour with Bicycle Sport Shop last year. They were advertising their annual plant sale. The amount of plants, especially tomatoes, was incredible. We bought 6 tomatoes, 2 hot peppers, 2 bell type peppers, 1 basil plan, 1 parsley and 1 eggplant for fun. So far we lost 1 tomato to some catapillars but replaced it in a different part of the garden with one from Gaddy’s. Right now it’s looking puny so who knows if it will be productive.

We didn’t learn from our mistake last year and again planted the tomatoes too close together… Oops! We also picked up some bush beans from Gaddy’s since the pole beans didn’t produce a thing last year. I’m happy to report that we already have beans!

And lastly, I leave you with a glorious picture. Cherry tomatoes starting to ripen! We put up the bird netting last night so hopefully these will make it!!

Long time no see! Or talk.. or post? whatever…

Where have I been? I don’t know, not a TON has been going on here. Just busy with work and other stuff. I have not made much progress on the secret project which is nagging me pretty much every day. I have a slight creative slump on that project. Hopefully my head will work it out soon. I’m almost done with the dog bed. I only need to complete 3 steps:

1. baste the zipper seam

2. sew in zipper

3. open baste stitches

TADA!

We went to the Pup Crawl and Poker Run last weekend benefiting Weim Rescue. It was fun. We bar hopped to 4 bars on Rainey St. I think my favorite was Clive… One, because they had the best ambiance and I enjoyed their furniture. Two, they had a hard cider I liked! and three, they are pup friendly. Eric won 3rd place in the poker hand and won a cool gift basket with dog things including treats, a new ‘grunt’ toy for Sydney (instead of squeak), and a massage for me! Well, that’s how I would divide it at least.

Parker just licked my arm. I’m 80% sure he’s been eating poo. Fantastic!

Eric has a choir concert tomorrow and Saturday. My dad’s birthday is tomorrow so he has decided the concert is in his honor. He’s a funny guy.

I made a new doctor appt yesterday. I got home to look at the list of doctor suggestions from my nurse friend and low and behold, the doctor I made the appt with was not suggested. Well crap. I’ll have to call tomorrow and hope one of the suggested ones has an opening. : )

Joanna’s bachelorette party is this weekend! I need to pack tonight since I’ll be leaving straight from the concert tomorrow night. I’m just proud I already wrapped her gift.

I also sent Emma’s BOG out! WOOT. That’s Box-o-goodies for those who want to know…

Similar to children, I’m starting to wonder what the dogs are up to because I am not hearing anything, including snoring…

Peace! Gotta go stop those doggies from doing something ridiculous. Like eat Tupperware lids. Oh wait, Parker has already done that this week…

Foood!
I did not remember to take a picture of my breakfast which is sad. Sad because it was awesome and awesomely non-breakfasty! It seems like I’m turning into my mom a little in that I am excited to have non-breakfast food for breakfast. However, I won’t be eating cold pizza. I don’t care what you or she says, that’s just weird.
Wednesday’s breakfast: picture big tortilla chips with refried beans, pico, cheese, some guac in places, misplaced lettuce in places = delicious leftover nachos!
Next: coffee! Each morning Eric makes espresso and then steams milk to make me a latte. It is awesome. He adds just the right amount of sugar free syrup. And now I have enough travel mugs that I don’t have to wash midweek!

This is coffee, morning banana (I got too busy to eat it) and my water bottle at work. Yum.
Lunch was a mismash. We had cooked brown rice sitting there and I added a bit of pesto, some mozzarella and frozen veggies. Strange looking but yummy!

Oh yeah, I also grabbed a pb cup from the kitchen.
Dinner consisted of wine and appetizers at wine night! Fun times. I was not impressed by my cheesecake tartlets but there were a few people who were grabbing thirds!

That title is probably quintessential social media narcissism but that’s fine… my lunch was just yummy and I finally remembered to take pictures!

I went out today to try the sushi place around the corner. It’s in a little strip mall so you just never know!
I had the sushi lunch combo starting with miso soup, hand roll of the day, chefs choice sushi and a spicy salmon roll.

The hand roll of the day. Albacore? I forget what kind of tuna but it was yummy. How exactly are you supposed to eat a hand roll delicately? I hope I didn’t offend any nearby diners…

Sushi! I really should have asked for clarification as to what each of these were. I know salmon on the far left, the bright pink is tuna and I think the white in between was tuna too. Two from the right was my favorite and I don’t know what it was! Dang it! However the apparently seared fish on the far right, not as good. I’m sure that it was a texture thing but it was strange. The spicy salmon roll was also a little strange. It had some crunch inside which reminded me of the crunchy eel skin sometimes on sushi which I don’t like much. Otherwise it was good. Only slightly spicy which is good for a wimp like me.
Overall, good lunch!