Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Rain Puddles and Special Moments


I played in puddles today. It rained most of the day up at my parent's house and my daughter was outside in it helping Grampy plant trowels in the garden. Yes, you read right. Trowels. So after she came in all wet, I decided on an impromtu puddle-jumping session. Now, normally I'm a bit picky about the puddles I jump in, but I wasnt' today. The biggest puddle was the dip in the gutter at the end of the driveway. So my mom, my siblings, and my daughter and I were splashing icky water all over each other until we were completely soaked, and we didn't mind a bit. The pants I have all are a bit too long, so they hung partly over my feet and acted as perfect scoopers to send big waves of water when I swung my leg through the water. It was fun! Their dog Miko, a white Miniature American Eskimo with a curious patch of yellowish fur low on his back, was more gray than white by the time we were done. So while the kids trooped into the house for baths, I gave the poor dog a bath with the hose outside. He did not appreciate that AT ALL. And he kinda looks like he's been through a losing battle with a blender. All his fur is matted so bad you can see clear down to his skin. Poor puppy.

Anyway, so that was probably the highlight of my day. Earlier we watched a movie I've added to my Must Get list. It's called Leap Year and has Amy Adams and a guy whose name I cannot remember, and it was really cute. So I now have 5 movies currently on my list, at least until I remember any other ones. Blindside, Shrek 4, Benny and Joon, Leap Year, and the new Alice in Wonderland. I just saw that one with my sister-in-law this week and I liked it. I don't like most of Tim Burton's movies, and I haven't seen a lot of them, but I love Johnny Depp so I went for it. Johnny Depp may just be my favorite actor of all time. There is not a role he cannot play, and the more crazy and over-the-top, the better. He is simply amazing. And freaking hot as well, which only improves things.

Also today I made chocolate covered strawberries with my sisters and youngest brother. We had fun, and it has been decreed that I am the master at chocolate covered strawberries and making garlic bread (yes, the garlic bread was a completely random point, but I made that tonight too and I have my own "secret" recipe for the perfect garlic butter topping). Also, I have invented a new delicacy. Strawberry Volcanoes. That's when you cut the tops off of strawberries, put a circle of melted chocolate on a flat surface (like a pan or something), set the berry flat side down on the chocolate so it covers the bottom of the berry, then with a spatula or fork or whatever, drizzle chocolate over the top of the strawberry generously. It kinda looks like a volcano. And Chocolate Strawberry Mountains are just the topless strawberries dipped in chocolate. Hey, the more chocolate the better! But none of this cheap, crappy chocolate you get in the baking aisle that come in those plastic bags that have pictures of different candies on the front. You must use a really good chocolate. My favorite is the plain chocolate Symphony bars. Hershey's chocolate chips or bars, or if you're of a mind to be a tad more expensive, Lindt Extra Creamy bars would probably work fabulously as well. Add that chocolate to perfectly perfect strawberries, and you have achieved heaven in a candy.

Let's see, other than that, I went to the store with my mom and sisters today and finally bought a new floofah (my lingo for loofah). One of the dogs chewed up my old one two weeks ago (the turds) and I've been needing to get one ever since and I finally did! And I got an extra for my travel bag. Yay me!

Oh, and I have two more things to report. The first is that when we were out playing in the rain today, a train was coming by the house. My parent's house is right across the street from where the train tracks are, and my daughter loves to watch it go by. So my dad took her over closer to the tracks to see it better, and it was just the perfect photographic moment. It was raining, so the light was soft and pretty and bright colors stood out great. They were holding hands and watching the train, and one thing that is kinda cool is that my grandpa, my dad's dad, loved trains. He had a model train set put up in a room in their basement with a whole landscape that he built, and it was wonderful. Trains were his thing. So we got a great photographic moment there. Grampy and granddaughter watching the train go by, holding hands. It was so cute. I think there's a good Father's Day present right there.

The last thing is that my hubby got a letter today. It's a letter that he wrote to himself Senior year of high school for an assignment that they said they would send out five years later. That would be now. After quite a bit of pouting and threats, he finally let me read it. And although I am sworn to secrecy about what it says, it made me smile. In it there is one part that says that he doesn't care about anything else as long as he's married to me and keeping me happy. It was kind of a blast to the past to our dating days, and I miss those days. We had lots of fun and we didn't have to be adults yet. I was talking to my mom today, and if couples didn't have to worry about money, marriages would be so much easier. It's being the adult that sucks when you get married, not the marriage or your spouse. I've said before that I was completely ready to be married, even though I was only 18. And I was. It was being a responsible adult I wasn't ready for. Bounced checks and car payments and overdue rent. The love, however, I was always ready for.

And on that note, I'm going to do my calendar (what exactly is the point of calendars if you don't write down what you do that day? Calendars have kind of become my mini diaries) and read the next chapter in my scriptures (I'm on David and Goliath, I'm excited) then kiss my husband and go to sleep. Sounds like a plan to me.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Trouble With Gardening


Today has actually been pretty good so far, so I think it's safe to say that I've given a decent effort at being happier than a seagull with a french fry. And how weird is this, I'm posting something before midnight or the wee hours of the morning! This is a very strange situation for me.

So I have a confession to make. You know how most people say they are really crappy gardeners and they can't grow anything, but they really can and they're just saying that? Well, it's actually true in my case. I have not only killed pansies, primroses, johnny jump ups, daffodils, and a myriad of other flowers, but I have also killed . . . petunias. Yes, you read that right. Petunias. Did you know that petunias are the most ironclad plant in the world? You can't kill the suckers!

But I did.

I don't have a green thumb. I have a black death thumb. I planted 35 pansies last year and 12 lasted through the summer, and that is only because I practically steeped the things in Miracle-Gro. Two months ago I bought four primrose plants. One was dead inside a week. The other one succumbed a month later. I now have one that is still alive with very large leaves but, naturally, no flowers, and one that is clinging to life by a thread. I figured I'd better stop trying to baby the things to life so I planted them outside where a few of my more successful pansies used to be. If they die now, at least they die free!

But I have great news! Last week I planted a packet of shasta daisies and another of California poppies. They are in those trough-looking planter boxes in completely store bought dirt, and I have refrained from watering them because I am more likely to drown them than kill them another way. And I went outside yesterday and in one of the boxes there were all of these tiny gray-green shoots with two to four thin grass-like leaves! I was completely ecstatic!!!! I can't remember if those are the daisies or the poppies, but I don't care, I grew something! I'll let you know in a few weeks if they stay that way . . .

It's really windy here right now! It's been windy all day and I could hear it just shrieking by the front door at work like it does in the twister section of Wizard of Oz. The trees out the window are thrashing around like crazy and the wind chimes on the back patio are clanging around in a frenzy. Maybe we'll actually see the rain that the sky's been threatening all day. That would be nice, I love the rain. I love the smell of it and the sound of it. I always feel like just curling up in a blanket and sleeping or watching a good movie or reading a book. And rain is good snuggle weather, bonus for me!

Wow, this is bad. I just got really tired and it's not even 7 o'clock yet. Technically, my bedtime isn't for another 6 hours! I'm going to have to force myself to do something productive. Mabye I'll try to finish sewing my dress together. I found a really cheap pattern for dresses like Arwen's in Lord of the Rings and I couldn't help myself. Add very cheap fabric onto that and it was a match made in heaven! I sewed some of it together a few weeks ago at my moms, then I needed a certain pattern piece and I couldn't find it anywhere! I looked all over the place and it was nowhere to be found. So when I was cleaning up my desk area this weekend, I decided to look through the pattern pieces one more time, and lo and behold, there was the piece I needed, not even cut out of the tissue paper yet. I couldn't decide whether to laugh or stamp my foot so I settle for a *facepalm* moment instead. Then I cut the stupid thing out and muttered about my stupidity the whole time.

Yeah, I think I'll go sew. I have one of those rare moments when my daughter is awake and there isn't anybody using the office right now. Wish me luck!