gardens, spiders, and ham. oh my.

It's been a great weekend. I have a whole brain full of random thoughts just dying to escape, so let's get right to it.

1. First of all, no one should be a bit surprised to hear that I spent 85% of my waking hours either shopping at nurseries (the gardening variety) or digging in the dirt. It's a tad early for me to plant veggies and such with full confidence that we won't get a late freeze, but certainly not too early to prep my beds and plant a few things that won't be upset by a little cold. Therefore Matt and I spent quite a long time yesterday hoe-ing our gardens. And now I'm really sore. And you should take a minute to try to guess how many different jokes I've made about hoeing and being sore. If you guessed a million, you're probably on the right track. Don't judge me. Hoeing is harrrrrd. Also, want to know how awesome it feels to spend your hard-earned money on crap? I mean, really. Crap. Literally. I parted with what probably amounts to an hour's pay on a few bags of COW POOP to dump in my gardens. It made me laugh and wonder what kind of person I've grown up to be. And it made me wrinkle my nose, cause that stuff is stinky. Shocking, right?

 

Try not to be too excited about this extremely underwhelming picture. Here's one of our beds prepped and semi-planted. You can see our parsley that decided to not-die and keep on growin' through the winter...random, but convenient and tasty! So we left him alone and gave him some new neighbors: three strawberry plants. In the middle of the bed (after the strawberries) are six...things...(sticks? bulbs? plants? stalks? no clue how these things grow or what they're called) of asparagus! The growing part is under the soil. You can barely see the grass-like sticks sticking up above, but there they are. Hopefully somehow some edible asparagus will grow, but I have no idea what it'll look like! Isn't gardening fun? You just never know what to expect! And after the asparagus are lima seeds (in the dirt, you can't see them). They're just leftover seeds from last year. There's a really good chance they're too old and won't sprout, so if we don't see anything in about two weeks, we'll just plant something else over them. Won't hurt to try, though! So that's all we put in the ground yesterday. I planted some mint in a pot (it's very invasive, or so I hear, and best kept OUT of the ground) so that I can have mojitos every single day occasionally this summer.

Today I planted some annuals (dianthus and snapdragons) in the front beds, plus some bulbs for dahlias. And some other random stuff. I LOVE SPRING!!!!

2. On a completely different note, yesterday I worked a little side job. The place I used to work (until 2008) calls me sometimes to come in for a random shift...typically when they're REALLY short-staffed, like they were this weekend for Spring Break. Usually I say NO, but sometimes I feel nice and/or want some cash and agree to go in for a few hours. That's how I ended up working for three hours on my Saturday night. The work itself was not terribly fun BUT I got a fantastic tip (plus regular pay) that made it a very lucrative three hours. Since this is clearly my own 'hustle money' that I gave up my valuable free time for, I am determined to spend the money however I feel like it. Normally that means clothes, accessories, and/or overpriced makeup (my personal trifecta), but today I had a stroke of genius and am thinking I may spend this money a very, very different way: on a HoneyBaked Ham. Have you ever had a HoneyBaked Ham? I defy anyone to tell me it's not the most delicious thing on earth. And also NOT the cheapest. But hey- it's my hustle money, and if I want to buy a delicious ham with it, who's to say I shouldn't? Anyway. Please don't judge me for my deep love of pigs. I can't help it. They're just so good.

3. I spent some of my time digging yesterday thinking about another very important topic. In case you can't tell, digging and gardening give you LOTS of quiet time to get wrapped up in your (deep, extremely important) thoughts. So I started thinking about what kind of cosmetic surgery I would get if I were to get cosmetic surgery right now. Which I'm not. But you know, what if someone was like "QUICK-- TELL ME WHAT KIND YOU WANT AND I'LL PAY FOR IT NOW! TEN SECONDS! GO!"...I would want to have an answer ready, obviously. And I decided that I would definitely go for one of the vein treatment options. I have awwwful spider veins in my legs. It's so sad. It's so genetic. My legs look JUST like my mom's and aunts'. It's so not my fault, but it is what it is. And I'm only 30, dangit. I'm not ready to give up on my legs just yet. (Side note: and I REALLY love it if/when I'm complaining about this and someone points out that "you haven't even had kids!! Just wait til you see what happens to them once you have kids!!" and I'm like THANKS FOR REMINDING ME, BUTTHEAD. YOU AREN'T MAKING ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT ANYTHING, ACTUALLY, BUT THANKS.) So anyway, I think it would be really sweet to get some spider vein surgery.

And for the record, I would gladly have my legs turn entirely blue from toe to thigh AND actually have spiders CRAWLING ON MY LEGS if it meant I had a kid. So there, helpful advice-givers.

4.  I'm thinking I'm going to watch Dancing with the Stars this season. I know. I know. I am officially a senior citizen. I haven't been a regular watcher in years, but there are too many intriguing people this season for me to not watch. People I Want to Watch: 1) Ali Raisman-- OBVIOUSLY!! Hello, she's a gold-medal-winning Olympic gymnast. From six months ago, not sixty years ago. I'm pretty sure she has this one in the bag, but I need to watch to know for sure. 2) Sean from The Bachelor. Obviously. I'm guessing he has some sweet white boy moves, but he's clearly athletic and I'm guessing ABC will use this as an opportunity to swizzle some more shirtless photo ops out of him, so...yep, I need to tune in just to make sure. 3) Lisa Vanderpump from RHOBH. I'll admit- I've fallen way, way behind on this season (hello, The Bachelor came on the same night. And now DWTS will. Soo...) but I love me some Lisa and I'm guessing she'll be full of English-accented sass and hopefully bring Jiggy along for the ride, so I need to see that. 4) Wynonna Judd. Forgive me, yall, but I've loved country music for a long time and Wynonna was a major player in my foundational years, so...gotta cheer her on. Alright, now I feel totally lame, but at least I'm not fessing up to watching that show about Z-list 'celebrities' learning to high dive, so...there's that.

That's enough from me. Back to your regularly scheduled programming- and happy St. Patty's Day!