Greetings from Jersey

Oh, apartment living.  I hate it.  It’s the pits.  The area we’ve moved to is really nice though, so I’m thankful for that.  Also, the apartment manager has been really responsive and patient, which helps because there’ve been a lot of little issues with the place so far.

The Good:
1. Starbucks (duh)
2. Target, Trader Joe’s, Ikea (you know, all the stores that I haven’t had access to in the last 5 years)
3. The ice cream truck has SOFT SERVE and SPRINKLES and WAFFLE CONES instead of pre-packaged ice cream bars
4. NYC is a hop, skip, and a jump away
5. The girls have played outside every single day, and made loads of new friends
6. Lots and lots of trees

The Bad:
1. The apartment has electrical issues
2. The kitchen has a *total* of two drawers. ARGH.
3. The bathroom has one outlet, and no cupboards
4. My commute in to work is uglier than I thought (and the asshole lady at the MTA put me on the wrong train home my first day)
5. The apartment has no blinds. Yeah.
6. NJ drivers are mostly (but not all!) asshats. Way worse than SoCal.

Bryan really really loves it here, though.  Like, a lot.  He’s hinted that we should buy a house in this area.  I’m still ambivalent, and getting adjusted.  I don’t do well with big changes like this, and I’m still getting used to leaving my family and going into the office to work.  It’s been really stressful and strangely emotional for me.  I find myself crying sometimes for no reason (I think just pent-up anxiety).  It really caught me off guard.

Pictures to come soon — I’m mostly excited that we were able to find some pretty nice furniture for dirt cheap at Ikea, and that we’re getting our space set up and organized.  The sewing room/office is a little cramped, so I haven’t been able to set up my machines yet, but I hope to get that done this week.  Yay!

Can it just be summer forever?

Seeing lots of progress with the garden, I go out there once or twice or eleven times a day to check on things. A little obsessed? Maybe. Hopefully we'll see some actual veggies here in the next few weeks, but there isn't much for me to really, you know, DO. Except poke around a bunch.

The neighbor ladies showed Phoebe and Charlie how to do hopscotch the other day, so Bryan drew them a crazy-ass Dr. Suess type hopscotch course.  With flames, because we're just hip like that.

LOVING this summer, I think it's our best ever.

Planty McPlanterson

The little garden has been coming along pretty nicely.  That is, until I compare it to some of the other gardens around here, and then my garden feels puny and sad.  But I will persevere!  I'll water and fertilize and fawn all over these bitches and see where that gets me.  Here are some pics of all the crap we've planted over the last few weeks.

 

Happy June, homies

What I’ve been up to (clearly not blogging): growing stuff is big around here.  Currently I have one planter box with beans, strawberries, romaine, tomatoes, zucchini and carrots.  I have a second (small one) planned for all tomatoes, with maybe a red chili plant and a jalapeno plant — both for Bryan.  The husband will be putting in a third small box a little later, that I’ll be planting with more lettuce and carrots for sure, and maybe some other things if I find something that strikes my fancy — I’ll probably look into crops I can plant later in the season.

The husband built all the boxes for me, and has been clearing out the plot next to our house to plop them down.  They’re pretty damn awesome, and although we didn’t take great pains to make sure they were level, they’re doing their jobs pretty well.  The kids love checking the progress of our seedlings every day, and there’s always something new to see.  I’ve gotten lots of compliments from the neighbors about how well we’re doing — considering that pretty much everyone out here has a vegetable garden, their compliments mean A LOT.  It also makes me feel more confident that I’m not screwing it up too badly.

We’ve been doing some very light landscaping around the outside of the house, including a rhododendron in the front, a few small bushes, some evergreen shrubs on the side, and a bed of lilies in the back (I’m most excited about the lilies).  I need to figure out somewhere to plant my tiny little lavender plant where we can all enjoy the smell, but am getting a little tired of digging up sod and putting in edging.  It makes my back hurt just thinking about it.  This place is starting to look pretty damn nice, though, and I can’t wait until the plants and shrubs start filling out. 

Also, I’ve been growing the baby, which is far easier than planter boxes and landscaping, lemme tell you.  I have an appointment on Friday to find out if it’s an innie or an outie (shall we start a betting pool?) and CAN HARDLY WAIT to know.  I think I need to know more than Bryan does, and just about everyone I’ve spoken to thinks it’s a boy.  Hmmm.

I have pictures all up in the camera but have yet to take them off… I’m itching to get outside 99% of the time, and can hardly be bothered to sit on the computer when there’s dirt to rake and weeds to pull.  I’m hoping to have some time soon, though, because I’m damn excited to show off all our hard work!

I hope I'm not dooming myself to failure

I ordered our seeds. We are going to do a garden this year, come hell or high water.  I hope I didn't order too much -- I tried to stick with things that seemed pretty easy.  I held off on bell peppers, as I thought that was too ambitious for our first try.  So, I got:

• bush beans
• broccoli
• carrots
• chives
• lettuce mix (two different kinds of romaine)
• squash/zucchini mix
• cherry tomatoes
• regular tomatoes
• strawberries
• potatoes

It sounds like a lot. I'm fearful that I may have lost my mind.