Herb Garden 2K10

I've said before that I'm probably the world's most impatient gardener. It snowed here last week, and this is what my garden looked like:

The Weather Channel says it might even snow this week. But you know what I did yesterday?

I tricked out my herb garden.

my best friend Haley gave these cute herb signs to Kyle for Christmas, but I'm fairly certain they're actually for me.

I decided to try my hand at pansies this year (these look beat up because my dog likes to shortcut through them) and have been way delighted. They're great in the cold and are a refreshing splash of color in the winter months.

The salad aisle including bright lights swiss chard and some lettuce.

I planted three kinds of sage, two kinds of parsley, and three cilantro plants.

All together now! In the bottom left corner of the picture you can see my cilantro plants, plus the purple sage. Other things I'm growing include thyme, dill, and chamomile.

The fact of the matter is that every year I try to grow tomatoes and peppers in this space and EVERY YEAR I get my heart broken because it just doesn't get enough sunlight. I decided that instead of disappointing myself yet again, I would have the most badass herb garden around. The pansies (righth hand side of the last photo) are where several different kinds of basil are going to go because right there gets the most sunlight. I'm hoping to get at least 5 basil plants going.

I also should note that before any of this stuff got put in the ground, I turned my compost pile and filtered out some delicious food for my plantlets into two big plastic bins, then carried the bins over to my garden. I added worm castings and North Haven Gardens's Veggie Food to the mix and then one bag of topsoil each to each bin. I mixed it all up then mixed it into my old bed. When planting, I sprayed the roots of each transplant with Garrett's Juice and once everything was in gave everything a hearty foliar drench. I also sprinkled a little more Veggie Food on everything and then gave everything a good watering. Today it rained a little bit and then dried up, so I mulched. 

They say it takes several years to have gardens going really good. This is my little garden's 3rd year! Let's hope for the best  :)

thanks!

Thanks to sweet friends Raising Madison and A Writer's Crafts for the nomination :) I think part of this is where I have to say something about y'all. 

RM - I love reading your honest, funny approach to parenting. I admire you because of the way you've dealt with what life throws at you.

AWC - I think it's funny that we've become friends AFTER college. It's been fun getting to know you and finding out all the quirky things we have in common. Also, I think you should write a book.

So uh, about me and blogging...

I've done a lot of journaling throughout my life...Since learning to write I've been obsessed with journals and have recently had to put the kibbosh on buying them. Currently, I have a blog, a brain-drain where I put my just woken up thoughts into almost every morning, a gardening journal, and a regular journal that's like a chronicle of stuff. OH and I have a journal that I'm writing for my niece to give to her when she's older. 

Needles to say, I've been an avid blogger for a long time - putting my heart and thoughts out there in the universe for better or worse. I've had a few blogs over the years and really, REALLY wish I'd kept my old ones because I'd like to go back and do some reading on that late-teens/early-20s angst. It was formative, painful, hilarious, and I want to go back and read it.

Anyhoo, I'm just glad people like to read what I write - I love reading the input and thoughts of my friends in the blogging community.

So, here's seven things about me:

1. I'm obsessed with the savory/sweet combination. Oddities include: fries from Wendy's with ketchup on one side and frostee on the other, and chocolate chip cookies with mustard.

2. I hate eating at chain restaurants. Thankfully the Dallas area has more restaurants per capita than New York City, and we live in a really fun and diverse area which means fabulous local, ethnic cuisine. That being said, we don't go out to eat too often 'cos the hubs and I are geniuses in the kitch.

3. Speaking of food, I absolutely LOVE nothing more than having friends over for good food, good drinks, and good conversation. Even better if we all get a turn in whatever's being made.

4. My first instrument was the piano. I am head over heels in love with piano music, but unfortunately still only know how to play on about a high school level. I bought some books and plan to get back into it on a regular basis.

5. I am a sympathetic puker. You puke, I puke. It's a party.

6. I am learning to play the mandolin and the ukulele.

7. I'm a video game fanatic. That's why we can't have them in the house - it's all I would ever do if given the choice. I therefore have really good hand-eye coordination and excellent spatial reasoning. Thanks, MarioKart!

Here's people I think have beautiful blogs:

1. Vintage Mixer. Besides coming up with a genius blog name, Becky is a mastermind in the kitchen and I use at least one of her recipes on a weekly basis. I'm always interested in what she has to say as well as the way she says it. She even makes me wish I lived in Utah.

2. I can't talk about Becky without mentioning Josh Rosenthal, her talented husband. I recently had the pleasure of listening to his music live and was really touched with how real the experiences are that he writes about, how thoughtful his lyrics are, and his mad guitar skillz.

3. Creative Fruition. She's got a really great perspective on food and music. Now, if we could only coerce her into actually writing more about it!

4. Caffeinated Squirrel is easily one of my favorite music therapists and I'm totally blessed to call her friend! She's a thinker, an amazing percussionist, a fan of good coffee, and just all around awesome.

5. Grow Lively is a fellow gardener in the Dallas area and I love reading her posts and watching her teach! I learn so much about gardening through everything she writes!

6. I don't know what I would do without Claire Colored Lenses.  She's real, she's talented musically, a master in the kitchen, great beer-drinking-river-floating company, and is probably totally going to hate that I nominated her for this.

7. And finally, the NieNie Dialogues. I started reading her a couple years back 'cos she's got this really amazing perspective on life and we share similar tastes in stuff (like Anthropologie!) and I admired her perspective on being a mother. And then, she and her husband were in a really horrible plain crash, and her blog is now about her road to recovery. She is an incredible role-model.

If you've been nominated, here are the rules: 

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog.

2. Copy/Paste the award to your blog

3. Tell us 7 interesting facts about yourself

4. Nominate 7 bloggers you love and link to their blog.

taste of nephrology

Today I went to get training on the system that the Nephrology/Hemodialysis unit charts on. I'll wait while you wiki that - Lord knows I had to. I met with a wonderful Indian woman and as we were chatting, she said that she sang and that her children were singers. I don't know how it came up but I mentioned that a professor of mine at UT was a student of Ravi Shankar...

 to which she replied, "Oh...I must touch you."

Turns out there's lots of other Indian folks in the administrative side of Nephrology, all to whom I was introduced as "a student of a professor whose guru is Ravi Shankar." :) 

The best part of our training time was easily when she said, "So...you sing?" When I replied yes she said, "Okay. Sing for me. Just a few lines," like it was the most normal thing in the world. Welcoming my New Normal, I sang the first part of Stormy Weather, then requested she sing for me - a ridiculously beautiful song that she translated was about moonlight and a swan swimming on a pond. 

Needless to say, I had another one of those "dude...I WORK here!" moments today.