Gardening Rocks!

Since moving into our house a year ago, I began planning all the cool gardening I would do now that we have a yard. I did lots of flowers of all kinds and loved every minute of it. There is nothing quite like watching the plants you place in the ground grows and bloom.

There is something harmonious and Zen like when you are one with nature like that. Hands in the dirt, pulling weeds and then later partaking in the joy of cutting and sharing the blooms. It shows how all things are connect at the most basic of levels.
To me the garden is a sacred place. No phones, video games, no TV. Just your hands, often on your knees digging, planning, weeding. All is in balance and right with the world.

This year in addition to the various flower gardens we also decided to try our hand at a veggie garden. We started in late April planting seeds in peat moss and top soil in little containers made for starting plants. It had been unseasonably warm that weekend so it got us pretty psyched to start. We planted 5 different kinds of squash, pumpkins, 3 kinds of tomatoes, watermelon, 4 kinds of beans, sunflowers, cucumbers, strawberries, carrots, different kinds of bell peppers, banana peppers, cayenne peppers, and jalapeños. We had no idea what were doing of if any of them would make it. And to make matters even more interesting the following Tuesday it snowed.

Well time passed, we kept watering the little containers and making sure they got plenty of sunshine. They covered my entire kitchen table as we nurtured each one of the little spots. We began seeing sprouting, first with the beans then the squash. They plants got big enough and the weather got warm enough that we moved the trays to the back porch.

They got a little bigger, so big they were overflowing the trays. It was time to put them in the ground. John picked up some lumber and dug out an 8x8 garden. We tilled in top soil and put everything in the ground. At first it looked like we made the garden too big.

We continued to water, feed and nuture the plants. And in return they grew. The time between putting them in the ground is 30 days and wow what a difference. Next year we know to have a bigger garden and have 2 types of gardens. One for straight plants and one for vines.

The squash began squashing the other plants. Our beans aren't doing that well, but we have more squash blooms (which means actual squash in a few weeks) then everything. The tomatoes are both bloomed and with green tomatoes. The sunflowers are around 5 ft tall. The carrots and other things are in the growing process. The strawberries have produce 3 strawberries already and more blooms on them.

In the next few months we are going to be able to eat many of the fruits of our labor and we can't wait. There will be zucchini breads, salsas, and pumpkin pies. More fresh veggies then we will know what to do with so we will be sharing with everyone we know.

Which brings me back to the comment I made earlier about us all being connected at that basic level, "When you share your wealth with others, it comes back ten fold." I believe that. And the wealth you receive is as much an internal wealth as an external. We all need a little wealth, especially on

Reader, reading...

After returning from the library and not only picking up my giant stack of requested books but writing for about an hour, I came home to look at all I picked up.

I got two books for pure enjoyment reading. "one more day," by Mitch Albom & "Anna karenina" by Tolstoy. I loved "Tuesdays with Morrie" so I am sure I will like this one. It is a rather tiny book, great for putting away in one sitting. I picked up Tolstoy because everyone won't shut up about it being a great book. Always up for a reading challange I got the 838(in tiny print no less) book to conquer. I am giving myself a month. I read to fall asleep at night (unless the book is so good I stay up all night until I finish it like Jen Lancasters "Bitter is the new black") and again during my lunch breaks. I tote a book around nearly every where I go like the grocer, doctor etc. It kills time as I increase my braincells. Kinda a two for one special.

I used to write reviews, that sucked. At least the way I to do them. We were handed stacks of books by both unknown and known authors and more times then not the books sucked. I got to where I dreaded reading anything because I had to read inorder to review, then to make matters worse, even if they sucked I had to say something nice about them. It was a nightmare so from now on I only review what I want and when I want, same thing for reading.

In the rest of the stack are books to show to my manager for our group of kids we are mentoring. I did some research and wanted to put together a bunch of books that are ACT, math, confidence, etc to review with her as possible tools for our program.

Ok well I am off to do my pre-bed reading. I will let you know how it goes and if "one more day" is indeed as good as "morrie" was.

Until tomorrow!

Dreaming again

It has been awhile since I have been able to write without disruption of school, homework, and stress from work, sickness, etc. and I am feeling the dreamer creep back into me.

I started feeling the slow warmth of creativity when this weekend, for my anniversary, we took along walk around Borders. When I crossed the threshold into the land of words, I could hear tiny, incomprehensible words coming from all directions. With each step they grew louder, but not clearer. I headed for the fiction section and upon turning into the first aisle it looked like a candy store. Bright colors, rich textures, shiny objects abound. I reached out and touched the spine of a red book and I could hear it saying "write, write again," as clearly as I could hear the pages of the book the person next to me was reading, turn. With every touch of my finger to a spine the voices changed, but the message was the same "write, write again!"

My process of writing is probably not as unique as I think, but here it goes: I have to dream it into life. Whether it is a casual day dream or a wake me up at 2:00 a.m. and write it down, it has to come from somewhere deep inside. Like the proverbial can of worms, it has to be opened. I think this is why I go for such long bouts of not writing; because I don't dream it therefore it will not come.

When I am stressed it is like cholesterol blocking my creative veins. I can't do much beyond surviving without creating more stress. When I have those paths wide open my dreams come back, thus my writing begins again to move freely from my thoughts to the keys clicking away.

So, I am dreaming and creating new worlds again and I couldn't be happier