Garden update...

The top of a Texas Sweet Onion. I have pulled a few (because I am extremely inpatient) and cooked with them. They are the sweetest tasting onions I have ever had!

A baby acorn squash. I planted acorn squash last year and only got two. This year there are over ten baby squash plants out there and they just keep on growing!

Foxy tries to help me weed. She eats the tops of the plants. She would get lost in the squash. Some of the leaves are bigger then she is!

These are baby vine cherry tomatoes. They are going to be tasty when they are done. I have to give these away I can't eat them fast enough. Last year I grew yellow pear tomatoes and had over 150 tomatoes!

This is a garden salsa pepper. They are pretty spicy but they make the best salsa! Just make sure and seed them really well and you won't have to spicy of salsa!

This is an anheim pepper. They are really good stuffed or made into chille rellonos. Yumm!

I like to grow pickling cucumbers. They are small and are ready quickly. They also have the sweetest flavor when they are fresh. I put them on everything. They are good on tacos, in pesto pasta, on salad, in slaw, and of course to make pickles out of!

The sweet peas are growing so tall! They have out grown the stakes I put in for them. They are right next to the corn, which they tower over! I'm so excited to have fresh corn this year!

This is a head of romaine lettuce. I have been periodically picking lettuce off of it, so at this point it is about 3 feet tall. This lettuce is so vibrantly green, crisp, and buttery tasting. I almost can't go back to eating store bought lettuce, it basically has no flavor compared to this home grown version. (I chopped this off and made salad out of it right after I took this picture with some teriyaki chicken, strawberries, and slivered almonds, Yummm)!!

My squash is taking over!! We have had so much rain here this year my garden has exploded! I have three different squash plants (butternut, acorn, and pumpkin) in there but it looks like one big jumbled mess of plants. My pumpkin plant is over 15 feet long from one pumpkin to another (so probably longer if I measured end to end)! You can barely tell, but there is cilantro and onions barried under there somewhere.

I went golfing for the first time with my husband yesterday. After being married for almost 4 years you would think that I would have gone before. I actually played way better than I thought I would. I didn't realize how sore I would be the next day! My hands hurt and so does my lower back! I told Luke we have to go the driving range so I can build up those muscles. It's amazing how stress relieving it is to wack a ball! I had so much fun. I have gone with Luke several times to the course, but usually I just drive the cart. It is so much fun watching him tee off. He always wiggles his butt to get into position which is my favorite part! It was a lot more fun to actually play though!!

The joy of my life (right now)...

I absolutely love gardening. It's so exciting to be able to go out into my yard, pick some veggies, and cook them up. The flavor of fresh fruit and veggies is so amazing. Pictured here I have purple eggplant flowers, baby snap pea flowers, baby zuchini, baby tomatoes, and the garden itself. Right now the weeds are taking over. I swear I weed everyday and they grow faster than I can pull them! I love playing in the dirt, and now I have an excuse!

Today would have been my oldest brother's 30th birthday. I miss him. It is hard to believe he will never be that age. He will never get to enjoy the joy of growing old. Not on this earth anyway...maybe in another life. Today has been a day for mixed emotions. I am happy that my brother gave his life for something that he truly and utterly believed in. But I am angry that he was taken so young. When I was 20 I thought my brother was so wise at 25 and knew what he wanted out of life. Now I am 25 and realize my brother had barely lived. Granted the life he did live was always full of laughter and joy. He had a few hard spots along the way, but everyone I have talked to that knows Doug has nothing but kind things to say. Doug wasn't the nicest of brothers at all times. He was my older brother after all, and there was plenty of brotherly 'love' thrown my way. It was really hard for me to get over my brothers death. I did a lot of things I'm not proud of during that time. As any normal person would. I felt robbed. I felt robbed of the Doug other people knew. The Doug I knew wasn't the easiest to live with. I felt robbed and angry and remorseful that I didn't tell him all the things I wanted to tell him before he died. That we weren't able to become the best friends I always knew we would be. Now I realize not many people do get to say all those things to those who are gone. Death isn't something I had ever had to handle before. All of my grandparents are living, and I've never really known anyone close to me to die. This was an incredibly hard thing to go through, but at least I'm stronger for it. Anyway...I guess I'm rambling. My point was today my brother would have been 30, and I miss him. The last picture is a poem from his funeral. It is such a beautiful poem I thought I would post it here. Freedom is not free. I have learned that the hard way. I don't take my life for granted. I have come to the conclusion that if there is something you don't like about yourself, or you life nobody can change it but you. And enjoy every minute of it while your getting there. I love my brother. Happy Birthday bro, I hope it was great!

I swear pregnancy tests are the bane of my existence. Over the last two years I've probably taken 40 pregnancy tests and they all say the same thing! I swear Luke and I will never get pregnant! That's not true I know it will happen. I just feel like it's been so long since we started trying. Everyone I know is pregnant. It's so frustrating! It's ok though, at least it's exciting knowing it will happen someday!

Libby Langdon's Small Space Solutions ISBN-10: 1599214245; ISBN-13: 978-1599214245 is my favorite new design book. It has the best ideas on how to decorate in smaller spaces. She has a lot of really great ideas. For example I would never have thought to use a wine rack that hangs on the wall as a magazine rack for the bathroom. I love the colors she uses in this book.

Another really great book to check out is Judith Miller'sBook of Color ISBN-10: 0609607847; ISBN-13: 978-0609607848. This book groups together color in periods and shows you what colors really work well together and gives the colors in paint you can actually afford! This book just has some really great color combinations and ideas!

I found this awesome dress at a little boutique in Durango. I really liked the pattern and it matches my back room. So, I thought of a great way to incorporate it into the room. My husband works for a print shop at our school and he can do up to an 11 x 17 photo. I am going to take different angles of this pattern (it also has a little red attached to the bottom I'll take a picture later and upload it) and have Luke print it out in 11 x 11 and frame it in black 12 x 12 frames with a one inch mat. I'll probably do like 6 of them and hang them above my bed as a pseudo headboard until we eventually buy a new bed. The back room is almost finally done! I'm really glad cause I'm tired of living in disarray!