Green thumb

I can kill any plant. Even a cactus. But when I discovered two weeks ago that there were rose bushes in my new backyard, I got really excited.


Just like I do everytime I don't know how to do something, I called my mom. She gave me some tips and lucky for me the plant hasn't died yet.


Of course it has only been two weeks! Here's hoping that my roses last!

SHEEP!

I should have been born on a farm. I was meant to frolic through high grass with cows and sheep and goats. When I was younger I lamented that I was born in the wrong era, as I was certain that Laura Ingalls and I were supposed to have been best friends. Fast foward to the suburbs in 2010 and my visits with farm animals are usually limited to the annual State Fair.

Not this year. The sheep have come to my town and I couldn't be more excited. I have been chasing the sheep around my town for the last two weeks. The spend a day or two in different areas eating the grasses. Since Saturday they have been very near our house. In fact on Monday night my husband took Molly to go visit the sheep. Unfortunately Molly had an encounter with the electric fence. (Needless to say, Molly doesn't care for the sheep anymore)

This morning as I was about ready to make my lunch, I heard the sheep. Not the distant "baa-ing" I had been hearing all week, but the "baa" of a sheep in my backyard. I ran downstairs to see the sheep right behind my fence. I didn't even care that I was going to be late for work. These guys are awesome.

Did I mention there are 2200 animals? 2100 sheep and 100 goats. They were actually getting ready to move them, so a few minutes later I saw them block off the road to get 2200 animals to cross the street. The kids trying to get to school were pretty excited.

Yes, I just wrote a blog post about sheep. I am awesome.

Things I have learned from "House Hunters"

Most of what I love about HGTV's "House Hunters" is learning how the rest of the country lives. Apparently us Californians don't do it like the rest of the country.

1. Yards. In California we have fences. This is my backyard space, that is your backyard space. Don't mess with mine and I won't mess with yours. But so many of the yards I see in other states don't have boundaries. There are just hundreds of feet of grass between you and the neighbor. Question: how do you keep your dogs from running away? Except for the animal issue, I think I like life without fences. It looks a lot prettier.

2. Basements. My grandma's home in the Bay Area has a basement. It is cold and concrete. That is where she threatened to send us when we misbehaved. I know that some of the older homes in San Francisco and Sacramento have basements, but for the most part, basements are foreign to me. Everytime I watch House Hunters people want to see a finished basement or a least a basement they can finish themselves. I guess I just don't understand this yet.

3. Man caves. Apparently man caves are very desirable outside of California. The men on that show are always looking for a space (ie the aforementioned basement) to set up their man cave. My husband has a man cave. It is called the garage.

There is one thing I know to be universal about homes across our country, however: some people do strange things while designing and decorating their houses.

Let's get reacquainted

1. I don’t get my toothbrush wet before brushing my teeth. It works fine without water.
2. I never put my seatbelt on until I have backed out of my driveway or parking spot. It is a bad habit, I know.
3. I never put CDs or DVDs back in their cases, which makes my husband very angry.
4. I don’t do things until the last minute. This is not because I like to procrastinate or am lazy, it is because I don’t have incentive to do it earlier. If you need it Friday, why am I starting it on Monday?
5. I never liked baseball until I met my husband. He gave me a beer, a hot dog, some garlic fries and taught me to appreciate the game. Now I love baseball.
6. I don’t think any sort of sports draft needs prime time television coverage.
7. I have joint custody of Molly the wonder dog. She will be at my house for 9 days starting this Saturday. Yay!
8. I put salt on everything. People are always telling me that it is bad. But I haven’t died yet.
9. I get incredibly attached to people and places. When I meet someone or go somewhere, I dig in deep. This is why it is hard for me to say goodbye.
10. I want to be able to write my blog more frequently, but for the love of God, I am searching for time to do it. I work my regular full time job AND then coaching swimming from 5:30-9pm every night.

Miss me?

Friend: "Dead or alive?"
Me: "Dead"
Friend: "Caused by?"
Me: "Buried alive. By my work."

I opened Google reader this morning and I had 108 unread blog posts in the last couple of days.

I miss writing my blog.

I AM TOO BUSY!!!!!

If you read this really fast it might feel like one topic.

I am paranoid. We already know that. But do you ever wonder if there are moments where we are spared some sort of disaster? Are there "what ifs" that we don't even know about because we were spared?

Molly the dog is staying at our house while my parents are out of town. She sleeps next to my bed and I have never heard a peep out of her. Last night at 3:40am she was up and walking around the bedroom. She came back next to my side of the bed and sat staring at me until I got up. She raced down the stairs to the door. I let her out in the backyard and she spent 5 minutes in full reconnaissance mode. Molly circled the backyard with her nose to the ground and the hair on her back raised. I called her and she just kept going. I was thoroughly freaked out and woke up the husband who told me to stop worrying.

Molly finally came inside and laid back down on her bed. But it was a good 30 minutes before she actually put her head back down and went back to sleep. Needless to say it was at least that long before I went back to sleep too.

I don't know if there was a bird taunting her or some real creeper outside my yard, but I still want to thank Molly for saving my life.

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Yesterday I had my annual "lady" appointment. After teaching sexuality to teenagers for four years I am generally not weirded out by this anymore. However yesterday in the room I was really bothered by one thought-- should I leave my socks on?

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I am ever so grateful for the arrival of Friday. This week has been busy, busy, busy! Brandon and I will attack the forest of grass in the backyard (it is literally two feet tall), FINALLY hang up some curtains that haven't been up since we moved in, and I will attack the laundry pile that has been accumulating. I will do my taxes for a second time because I completely disagreed with the outcome the first time and hope that doing them by hand instead of using the fool proof TurboTax will result in something better for me. *sigh* Outlook not good.

Happy Friday!

What is the statute of limitations on overdue library charges?

Sometime around my senior year I was riding the bus home (yes, I still had to take the bus occasionally) with sophomore boys who were reading "The Catcher in the Rye." While I considered myself well-read in the classics, this was one book that I had never opened. After reading the first few paragraphs I decided that I would read the entire book and headed to the library.

I can't tell you why I went to the library. I don't do libraries. I buy books and I borrow books but I don't get them from the library. But sometime around my senior year I was riding the bus home when I decided that I should borrow "The Catcher in the Rye" from the library.

"The Catcher in the Rye" didn't do much for me. I remember thinking that it must be a book for adolescent boys.

Several months later I realized I hadn't returned the book the library. I put it in my car so I would remember. I went to college without returning it. The book got packed up with all my other books when I bought my condo. It didn't get returned.

This weekend when I was unpacking books into the bookshelf in our house, I found "The Catcher in the Rye."

Sometime around my senior year I was riding the bus home when I decided to borrow "The Catcher in the Rye" from the library and I never returned it. It is ten years overdue.

I remember seeing a story on the news once of someone returning books to a library some 50 years after they had been checked out. Looks like I better hold on the book a little longer.