Tomatoe Trobules!

Last night I went out to water my tomatoes and I noticed that the bottom leaves on both plants had turned yellow and had weird gray holes in them. After looking closer I found little black bugs were on my plants! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I've been working so hard to make them grow well! I talk to them, I water them and I even gave them some miracle-gro! That however was not the last of my problems with them last night.
One of my precious tomatoes was rotting, and it wasn't even ripe yet! Look at this:
My hubby took me to the store so we could get some pesticide to help get rid of the bugs. I really wanted to grow them without pesticides, but my plants are dying so I gave in. I was all anxious to get home and spray them, but he surprised me and took us out for Tai food... yummy!
I've sprayed them today and now we'll see how they look when I water them tonight!
Today my grandmother comes! YEAH! I'm in the last stretch of my cleaning craze! ^_^ My hubby will be glad when the cleaning spree ends!

Tagic News

Yesterday I received a phone call from a friend saying that another friend's daughter was killed in a horrible car crash Tuesday morning. This girl had just graduated from high school and was ready to attend college in the fall.
I can't imagine anything worse that a parent losing a child. I called my mom to talk about it with someone. She said she can't even think about how my friend feels right now.
I am just praying for this family right now in their time of need.

Spinning Along

Well, I finished spinning the wacky brown color. It's come out quite nice and I'm pretty happy with it. I need to leave it on the bobbin for 24 hours before I can ply it (or so says the spinning gurus that I learned from). Once it's plyed and washed I am thinking it would make a nice hat. I'd like to make the brim of the hat gray and the rest with my wacky browns. I think that might look cool. I don't know if I'd wear it or give it away as a gift for a friend. We'll have to see how much I like it once I start knitting with it! ^_^
Only 2 days until my grandmother gets here! I can't wait!

READ MORE BOOKS!

So today I went to a conference with a very well respected name in ESOL. It was great and I have a wonderful time! The keynote speaker had one major message for us... all kids (not just ESOL kids) will learn better and be smarter if we let them READ MORE BOOKS! He went on to tell us about all this other research that supports ESOL and bilingual eduction. It was great to have so many ESOL teachers in one place. At my first building of the day I am the only ESOL teacher. It's sometime hard to be an island in a school. At my second school there is another ESOL teacher. Last year there were two of us teaching together. I like having another coworker who knows what I do. I've learn a lot being alone at my first school about how I have to be an advocate for all my students. So, to honer this wise keynote speaker, I went to the library today. I got a few books for fun for this week (yes, I read the other two over the weekend). I plan to read more over this summer!

The other thing that I did today was use my wheel. I haven't spun in a few weeks. I finished plying my gray and purple skein.

I also started spinning this fiber that I traded a friend for. I never would have bought it on my own, but since I traded with her I only got a little amount. Brown is not a color that I would have chosen, but it's growing on me! Now I'm sad that I only have a little... it's spinning up pretty cool.

Cooking Storm

Yesterday, Hubby and I went to the supermarket so we could get some food for the house. We grilled out last night, so we needed some stuff for grilling. Hubby grilled out some chicken, and I started to make pasta salad.

In our house pasta salad does not last long. The last batch we made lasted only a day or two. I never really eat it before when I was younger. Now, for some unknown reason, I like it. We dragged my HUGE stock pot out of the basement for this:

Note the size of the salad dressing bottle next to this mammoth pot! While the water started to boil in this beast, we started to prep our other stuff. We got fresh mozzarella, Colby jack cheese, black olives and celery. You can see my smaller stock pot in this pict.

Finally, we mixed it all together, and this is how it looked (ok, the pict is kind of dark, but you can get the idea): One thing that I saw at the store that made me wonder about food choices here was this: Would you really give these to your kids as breakfast??? Hubby also showed me that Pop-tarts have 400 calories if you eat one package of them. The serving size is one (they come in packs of 2) and one of them is 200 calories! Hummmm.....

Today, however, I am on a mission to find our recipe for beef jerky. We got the meat and stuff to make it now, I have to find the recipe! I also have to dig out the food dehydrator too. I want to make some apple chips in it sometime too! Hubby needs to show me how to use it again. We haven't made jerky in a long long time! YUM!

Seeing as I haven't cooked a meal in months, it's good to know that with all my vacation time I can start cooking again. I have some new recipes that I want to try out this summer! ^_^

Cleaning Crazy!

I have one week until I grandmother arrives here. The state of my house would revolt her and send her running home. My family is kind of crazy when it comes to clean. My house is never clean enough for them. Yes, it's vacuumed and things are put away, but that is not good enough for them! Our house is one big construction project and yes it gets messy from that. I always make an effort (a few days beforehand) to try and get as much of our messy lives back in an order that might show my family I have house keeping skills. However, this always annoys my hubby since then he can't find anything!
Anyway, my grandmother will only be at my house for a few hours before she heads off to a hotel for one night (she can't go up and down the stairs in my house anymore, or maybe it's my cleaning....) and then my mom and I are taking her down to a cute little lake where she is renting a cottage for a few weeks. I'll move down there with her for most of her stay.
Last year she came for a whole month, but this year she has decided that a few weeks is better. My grandmother is very energetic and still takes care of herself. She is wonderful and I can't wait to have her here! We are going to sit and knit together on the dock and she asked that I bring my wheel since the last time she saw anyone use one was when she lived on a farm as a kid! It's going to be great fun as long as I get my house cleaned up first! HA HA!

Free Books!

After school today I headed over to our local library. The librarian today recommended a few good books for me to read over the summer. She showed me how to use the online website for our libraries. I haven't been to the library in forever. I think I stopped going once I got my Barnes and Noble membership. I found a whole slue of books that I want to read this summer now!!! I did have a $.50 fine on my card and I had to have it renewed. I paid off my fine and took out two books. One book is The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke. The librarian told me that I should read this one. The second book I grabbed after reading the dust jacket. It's called Spirits That Walk In Shadow by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. I can't wait to spend the whole summer reading my free books! Support your local libraries! ^_^

LAST DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is it! I finished packing up both rooms, turned in my key at the one school and now all that is left is to go to school, have the awards ceremony for the teacher, and eat our end of the year lunch! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 77 days of FREEDOM!!!!!

Tomatoes!

I now have 4 tomatoes growing on my better boy plant! Yum!!! They have a long way to go, but they look good so far! ^_^
The kids are done with school now! I have to go until Friday and then I have 77 days of FREEDOM!!!!! I think I'm worse than the kids! HA HA! ^_^

Theme Park Fun

Yesterday was so much fun! I had a great time with my friends at the park. We rode all the roller coasters and walked forever! My feet did have some blisters by the end of the day, but it was so worth it! One friend doesn't like the roller coasters, so she sat and waited for us and then we would all ride something that she liked. That way was the best way we could think of that made us all happy. There was the log flume that we all loved so I think we did that three times or so. We never spent a dime (which is really saying something... I usually have to save up to go there!) We packed a lunch, and we never stopped even for ice cream!
After we did stop for lunch we thought it was a good time to go swimming and do the water park part. Every year when I go it is always too cold/ too windy/ or something so that we can't do the water park. Yesterday was HOT! It was perfect for swimming and enjoying the water. The girls were so excited about the wave pool. I was too, but there were so many people that I was nervous about weak swimmers. (I was a life guard for 3 years.... these are things that I worry about). I was right to worry.... my friends are weak swimmers. The one who doesn't like roller coasters is a little bit better swimmer than her sister who had a DEATH GRIP on my hands. She was yelling that I needed to watch her sister... hummmmm, right. I was very happy when they were done "swimming"(IE- holding on to me for dear life). After that we did the water rides where you sit on a tube and slide down. That was a lot of fun!
We finally left there at 8:30 at night. We got there when they opened at at 10 a.m. I was really tried and in our rush to get there, I never put on my sun screen. So, today I am sitting here with tea compresses all over me since I resemble an over cooked lobster. Just great, what was I thinking? Oh well, it was a great day anyway! ^_^

Updates to My Life

I feel like I'm getting lost in the end of the school year stress. I haven't had a whole lot of time to do things that I want to do. I did however finish my socks! Here they are:

I'm so proud of how they came out!

Last weekend, I went out with my coworkers from my second school that I work at to do a team building ropes course. It was a great time! We had so much fun. There were eight of us who went. I did a bunch or rope courses when I was a kid and I totally love them! We did a low ropes course first, and then had some lunch. After lunch we did the high ropes course. The course is 20 feet off the ground and you only have this little harness to hold you up and keep you from falling to the ground if you slip off. Here's a shot of my coworkers on the low course:

When we finished the low ropes, we did a zip line. Here's me (I went first!) zipping along:

Here's the high ropes that we went on:

My garden is growing so well. I found that I have 4 better boy tomatoes growing on the one plant and it's flowering even more! My big boy tomatoes haven't flowered yet. My neighbor also made a garden, but I don't think it's going to make it. I've never seen her water it and the past three years she's had hanging baskets but they die in a week since she never waters them! I want to secretly water them for her, but I'm still trying to get my gardening skills down for my own garden! However, my Gerber daisies that I had last year managed to reseed them selves, and now I have some beautiful Gerber daisies coming up!

Tomorrow I'm off to a theme park with some friends for a day of fun. I'm looking forward to it! I got my ticket to go today. I'm meeting there tomorrow morning! I can't wait! ^_^

My Sock Update

Well, we didn't need to work on the plumbing! Putting the stopper in the tub and filling the sink with hot water on Friday was how my hubby left the house for work. I'd been using the sink in the bathroom until his call saying not to. Yesterday when he got up to look at it, the clog had managed to free it's self and move though the pipes to the soil stack pipe that leads out of the house and to somewhere I don't know. So that turned out to be the best plumbing job we've were had to tackle! I love when things fix themselves!

That meant that yesterday Hubby worked on the bathroom project upstairs while I knit. I have to help get tools and stuff so, I knit when I'm not needed for that part of the job. I worked on my sock for a bit. I was able to turn the heel by my self and start the instep. Here's right after I turned the heel yesterday.

It's coming along pretty well. Can you see my new stitch markers in the picts? I love them! I really wanted to get fancy ones since this sock is kind of a fancy thing for me! I'm so into my socks that I went and bought more sock yarn yesterday. I decided that I can knit a pair like this for my Mom for Christmas... I need to get started if I'm knitting gifts for Christmas! I got her the same yarn, but the color scheme is softer blues, pinks and greens. I think it's more her style... I also got this really loud and obnoxious blues, oranges, greens and yellows for me!

Here's how sock number 2 of this color looks this morning. I hope to get up to the toe decreases by tonight and get them done this week!

House Troubles

After my exciting discovery of fresh strawberries I found I had a message from my hubby on my phone. This week he has come home early so we actually got to spend some time together! It's been great! However, his message was not that he was coming home early but that I was not allowed to use the bathroom sink (which I had done since I didn't see him message until I had been home for a while....). That's odd, why can't I use the sink... I wandered into the bathroom and found that the tub had the plug in and water was in it. As I listened to the message he tells me that the tub and bathroom sink are backed up and that the toilet is OK to use since it's on a different plumbing line and the kitchen sink is also fine to use.
So my big plan of being outside and weeding (I saw two weeds in my garden) is going out the window because I'll be inside helping him with the plumbing. No, we don't call people to fix things because we can do it our selves. We have redone most of the plumbing in the house ourselves however, this run would be one of the ones that we haven't replaced yet. I don't think either of us is looking forward to this task. Oh well, that's the joys of owning a home! ^_^

I Can Grow Stuff!

I ate my first strawberries off my plant the other day, but today there were FOUR that were ripe.

Yum, there were great! I'm so excited that the plants are growing and doing really well. My one tomato plant has a flower on it and they both are going very well. I'm so happy about my new found gardening skills!

Today was so hot and muggy. I gave into my favorite summer treat of lime pepper on fresh tomatoes. I got tomatoes the other day and they are so yummy!!!