Thoughts On A Sunday

It's not quite Sunday, but it's almost there, so I thought I'd title the post that :p I spent most of Saturday just getting myself back together which made for a very good day. I have to do this sometimes. Especially when I'm going through a lot of stress. Just take a "me day" and do all of the things that I really like to do. I had a client at 2 today and I went to see my dad at the hospital, but after that I just did stuff to make me happy.

First up was gardening. Lots and lots of gardening. With my new gloves!!! I found these amazing new gloves thanks to Jeane :) They're made by a company called Roc. She said she wears them all the time now because you can barely tell you're wearing them and that's the truth! I really do love them. I went to a local nursery today and picked up a few things and while I was there I ran into a friend who's working there now that I haven't seen in awhile :) Made for good times!

This is what the veggie garden looks like right now. In the bed closest to the camera, all of those little seedlings are what I picked up today. Some cucumber transplants and okra transplants. Because my own seedlings were not doing well :/ There are also a couple of eggplant and corn in that garden. The back garden has tomatoes which are doing great! Beans in the back, and peppers in the front!

Here's the little chaotic flower garden. Every year I go and just sprinkle a shitload of various flower seeds and see what pops up :) Quite a bunch popped up this year!! Can't wait to see it all flower :) Only thing flowering right now are my beautiful irises which are the purple flowers. In the background is the one brussel sprout plant that survived from seeds. Still hasn't made any brussel sprouts, but I'm waiting! And behind that is a roma tomato!

I've become sort of a mint collector without even realizing it!! This is a pretty big pot. It's sort of hard to tell in the picture, but I just add different mints whenever I find one that I like. Here's a hint, ALWAYS plant mint in a pot. If you plant it in the ground you will have a yard full of mint! Today I picked up some apple mint which is the big one close to the camera and it smells HEAVENLY!!! I think I'm going to make a pitcher of sweet iced tea tomorrow and add some of it in :)

I also picked up this little guy while I was at the nursery. It's a dwarf papaya tree!! It gets to be anywhere from 4-8 feet tall and about 4 feet wide and produces super sweet papaya. I'm guessing I have probably about 2 years before I get any fruit out of it as it's really small. I'm going to leave it in the pot it's in for now and transplant it into the ground once I get a house of my own :)

Jeane didn't know that I had any cacti, so I thought I'd post this picture for her!! I made a little succulent garden awhile back and I'm surprised with how much everything has grown!! The jade especially has really taken off. I actually cut a piece off to see if I can start a new plant. I need to do something with it because the symmetry is off for the planting as a whole.

And speaking of Jeane, she REALLY has me into this subirrigation gardening!!!! I have about 7 different plants growing like this now and I have another two liter bottle waiting for me now :D Just have to figure out what I'm going to put in there. I've noticed that plants do SO much better like this!! I've put two fruit trees in two of these that were in pots before and I'm amazed by the new growth!!! The tomato plant I'm growing is looking wonderful too. I'm just worried it'll get really rootbound in the milk container I used. We'll see.

And finally, after gardening all day, I made these DELICIOUS cookies from the One Girl Cookies cookbook!! These things were WORK! Took me about 2.5 hours to do the whole recipe from start to finish. They are winter spice cookies with orange cream filling. I changed the recipe up a little bit. I added some orange zest to the cookie dough as well as a bit of vanilla. I also cut a little bit of ginger out and increased the cinnamon. OMG they were just so good.

After about a month with this cookbook and after trying several recipes, I can officially say that it's one of my favorite cookbooks EVER. And I really want to give a copy away to someone!! Actually I want to give a copy away to everyone but I can't afford that :p So only one person gets a copy :p Just let me know in the comments if you want to be entered!! I'll pick a winner next weekend.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend!!