These days

These days seem to be flying by so quickly - I find myself struggling to stay on top of things. Our simple daily schedule works extremely well until you add anything substantial to it. And then, its as if we're paddling upstream, never making any progress and barely keeping afloat. I thought I would share with you what we've been up to that is keeping us quite busy and unable to blog much (sorry). Right now one of those extra things in our lives is travel and visits. I'm so looking forward to all of the visits and travel but, to be honest, its overwhelming at times too. So you can get a glimpse into what we're preparing for, here's our tentative schedule for the rest of the year - all of the travel and visits that we are pretty sure will happen (sans the husband's work related travel).

Fast-paced

Life has felt a bit too fast-paced lately. The husband traveled for work all of last week, returning home on Friday only to see me leave on Saturday for a 6-day work trip. My work trip seemed a bit more glamorous since I was attending a conference in Vegas.

The view from my hotel window.

However, I think I can safely say that sending an introvert alone into a situation that included one of the largest conferences in the world in a place like Vegas is going to result in one exhausted person (confirmed by my coworkers, all of whom told me I looked tired yesterday).

In addition, the conference focused on all things video related - production, editing, etc. Yes, I am a counselor by training and in my heart, so this was WAY outside of my comfort zone is so many ways.

A small part of Canon's exhibit with a set and live cameras

But I made it - I met some good industry contacts (you know, for all those times I'll be shooting video in my future career), learned a ton, and even had a little bit of fun! :)

 

As much as my introverted self needs some downtime, our little family is heading straight into a packed second half of the year. We have a lot to look forward to - celebrations, visits, and travel of all types - and I'm sure, somewhere in the midst of all of it, I'll find some quiet time!

Furry children

The ladies wanted some blog time.

Proactive gardening

When we began gardening we weren't prepared for a lot of things. That first season was spent reacting to issues rather than anticipating and proactively preparing for issues. As a result we learned a lot, especially what not to do!

Some of the 'fixes' we made last year were last minute and not always the best approach. This year we're working on improving multiple aspects of our gardening. I updated a little about how we were working on improving on cost of plants and plants in general. In addition to these updates I really wanted to update the structure and landscaping around the garden so it was more visually appealing.

Last year we were faced with a pretty serious bird problem mid-season and our quick fix was bird netting suspended by PVC piping.

Although the fix worked (except for the time a pair of birds got stuck under the netting), it was not visually appealing or all that functional - we had to unpin the net and climb under it every time we picked veggies.

Finally, the area where we put the garden is a no-mans land as far as grass goes so its a muddy mess most of the time. In addition to wanting something a little more aesthetic, I also wanted to make the space more functional. We had some extra dirt from removing the beds and trees in the front and we had extra stone that needed new homes.

I suggested that we use the dirt to build up the area around the beds and use the stone to make it easier to walk around and to decrease the muddiness factor. I also found a nice image online of a garden with netting and the husband designed an inexpensive frame for the large garden. Here is the garden so far.

 We need to attach the netting but the frame is built and only took us (mostly the husband) a few hours one Sunday afternoon.

 We now have a door into the netted area.

 

 The new bed and the rocks.

I think its starting to look a lot better and is definitely going to be easier to deal with now!

Now some close-ups!

A peak

Here's a peak into our lives over the past few weeks.

We tried our hands at taking pictures of a friend's little boy in bluebonnets. Pretty much a fail, mainly because the thought of walking around in tall grass in Texas didn't seem all that smart - oh well!

 

 

We cooked (but didn't take many pictures).

White pizza

Sweet potato, red pepper, jalapeno, cauliflower, onion, and corn ready to be roasted for enchiladas.

I did some crafting and decorating.

I made a template for an 'S,' traced it onto some extra wood, had the husband cut it out for me, and then covered it in string.

 

I hung the letter with a canvas and a painting. The picture on the canvas is of our wedding bands in a flower and the painting, which I did some time ago, is of the state of North Carolina with a small dot where we got married.

We celebrated a very special first birthday!

What are you growing with that grow light?

We have a grow light, yes, but rest assured people, we are using that grow light because we're growing plants of the vegetable and legal herb variety! You still may be wondering about the grow light situation - it does sound weird - so I'll give you a bit of an overview of our recent gardening adventures.

This year we are upping our game, taking our gardening to the next level (hopefully). We've had two growing seasons since we started gardening and our experiences during those have helped us learn a great deal. Houston has two growing seasons each year and sometimes, especially if you have weather like we've had, your growing seasons never end. Our jalapeno and cherry tomato plants are still producing.

Although we learned a lot from our first two growing seasons there are a few main take-aways:

1. Per Michael Pollen (and verified during our experiences) you cannot be one with nature and be a gardener - you must be ok with waging war on pests of all kinds. Thankfully, I'm particularly fond of my garden and not fond of pests. 
2. Buying plants is EXPENSIVE.
3. Growing seedlings is a pain, time-consuming, and doesn't work out well without a lot of planning.

We came up with a game plan to address these issues this year. Our solutions included building another garden so that our plants have more space and we can keep a better eye on pests. The husband also researched growing seedlings and discovered that a grow light is most helpful. He built a growing station with a grow light and lets just say its amazing - SO much better than growing seeds without it.

Our progress thus far:

The husband planted the seeds January 14th and with our new grow light, we had little sprouts in three days.

In the next two weeks we saw a ton of growth, such that by February we had substantial baby plants.

The husband then transplanted the little guys to solo cups where they continued to grow.

Finally, our little growing station became a jungle of plants ready to be moved to the garden.

The tomatoes were the first to be planted and then a week or two later, we planted the remaining vegetables.

They look a little sad but just needed to be watered!

We have not taken pictures of the garden in the past few weeks but I plan to do so this weekend so you should see an update soon.

Walks

There are large gulleys running through many areas of Houston and soon after moving into our neighborhood, we discovered one just at the back of it. The path beside our gulley connects to a paved trail, making for a really nice and convenient walking and running space.

With our drought last year (we were down some 20+ inches), none of the plant life flourished. Thus far this year we are above our rain totals and the difference in plant growth has been tremendous. We took the camera with us on one of our (almost) daily walks and got some nice pictures of the area.