Dinner at Jalapenos, on the same block as the theater, and then God of Carnage at The Ritz. I just love that we treat ourselves to season tickets each year. Going to the theater is something we love to do!Our meal was excellant, I believe this may be our new tradition! It was a pleasant evening, not too hot at all by the time we left home.
Neither Mark or myself had ever seen God of Carnage and it was an interesting and funny play. We laughed and giggled and really just enjoyed ourselves. It was good to have a night out!
Tonight was a gorgeous night for a stroll, so stroll we did! We didn’t travel too far, just over to Three Pond and then home.The moon was rising and the sun was setting, the perfect combination for photographs. I did not take as nearly as many as Mark did, but all in all I am pleased with the results. Our final shot of the evening, long shadows at the opening to our development. I just love shadow shots!
Scent is such a strong reminder of days gone by. Last night, while I was heading into the gym, my nose caught a whiff of honeysuckle. Memories came flooding back.
As a youngster, I had a penpal from Japan. In our letters we shared little snippets of our lives. Once, we each shared our favorite scent. Mine was honeysuckle and hers was sweet pea. I sent her a candle and she sent me a sachet. I think I was 9 that summer.
Also, I remember as a young girl, riding my bike in Barnegat Light, smelling the sweet honeysuckle as the vines wrapped their tendrals around anything they could grab on to. As an adult, I recognized the same familiar scent as Jess and I would ride our bikes around Beach Haven, especially on early June weeknights, when there was very little car traffic and the smell of our surroundings was very clear and recognizable.The year I met Mark I remember smelling the honeysuckle as we would walk each evening that summer. Honeysuckle has a very distinctive smell and I just love it. Last night I just had to grab a photo of the delicate honeysuckle flowers. They bring such happy memories.
There they are, our vegetable gardens. This is now my new obsession. As I sit here, impatiently waiting for rain, I am planning on some new plants to put into the gardens. Right now we have five varieties of tomatoes, five varieties of peppers, zucchini and cucumbers. In the herb garden, we added two basil plants and a thyme. Last night we took another trip over to Home Depot for some of the plants we forgot like dill and two different kinds of parsley. Mark bought the wood to build a raised bed for the new strawberry plants which we will add to the multiple wild strawberry plants that I found. Things are really growing around here!Also purchased last evening is the peony plant that will complete our little row of peonies along the pathway to the back patio. It is a beautiful pink which compliments the other two plants quite nicely.
Finally, today I noticed that Jessie's rose has bloomed. I call it Jessie’s because when she lived here she would always cut the blooms to have in her bedroom. The roses are beautiful and they smell delicious!
Absolutely so much got accomplished this weekend. My hubby finished crafting our raised garden beds and started filling them on Saturday. On Sunday, while Mark worked, I worked on filling the rest of the raised beds. Today Mark finished filling the raised beds with our soil before we headed out to Home Depot to get some manure and plants.
By the time I started on dinner, I had planted all of the vegetable plants and Mark had filled in around the beds with soil. The patio is nearly ready and the back patio just needs a little bit of work. There will be furniture cleaned and pots filled with annuals to round out the yard. Things are looking good. We are going to bed sore, but happy!
After planning every last detail about the building of our raised vegetable garden, things still did not go as planned. Something about huge rocks in the way. Now I have five tons of mushroom soil sitting out on our driveway, in the rain. Not the best scenario, to say the least. Hopefully the beds will be settled into their space this weekend and the soil can moved before the next rain. Fingers crossed.
Sunday I found this strawberry plant hiding in and among the weeds in our back garden. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Mark was just saying that we needed to add strawberries to our planting list; now that we have blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. Just like that, they appeared, bearing fruit no less!Once the raised beds are built, the strawberry plants will make their way over to that area of our garden! I can’t wait to see what we’re able to harvest this year!
Today I am feeling especially appreciated by my students and their parents. Last week I was gifted daily treats that were really the sweetest! Like this beautiful frame I received on Friday. Teacher Appreciation Week was the first week in May. Our PTA celebrated last week due to PARCC testing the week before. Each morning I was handed a touching gift.
One morning I received this:Smarties and Extra gum from my “smarties.” Another day I received a mug with a Starbucks gift card. I love Starbucks!
One day, a small gift bag filled with chocolate treats.Finally, on Friday, I received a book in which each student completed a page about me. It is adorable. They got so many things correct like, where does your teacher live? “in a house.” My teacher always tells me to..."think.” Her favorite book...”I’m not sure but, she seems to enjoy all the books she reads us!” I love my teacher because she, “calls on me.” It is such a treat to look through the pages and read what the students wrote. It truly makes me smile!
Unfrotunately, this is what it really looks like when I switch out winter clothes for summer and winter bed clothes for summer. I store off season clothing, and such, in a large trunk that my parents bought for me when I was a senior in high school. It is a beautiful trunk, lined with fabric. Most of the items that I stash inside of it will be placed in the ziploc space saver bags. It is quite a process and it overwhelms me every year.
There just has to be an easier way. I was so tempted to empty the trunk and move it over to my mother’s house just to free up a little space, but what to do with the stuff that is stored inside? There was no viable answer to that question so the trunk is still here. The clothes and stuff have been moved off the floor, for the most part. I think I may need to utilize a few more of those space savers so that everything fits!
Mark had to leave the house before 4 to get to work on time this afternoon. This is what out raised beds looked like when he was done working. Hoping to get them fully leveled and snug in the ground before the soil is delivered on Wednesday.
In other news, the afternoon rain made for some very cool photographs which included drops of water and bits of beautiful color...
