Spring--It has Sprung!

Well, it has been a long (and quiet) four months since I last updated. Now that I am getting around to gardening it is time to get this blog up and running again. (Especially since it beats working on actual work) If you look really hard at the first photo you will notice tons of daisies sprouting up of nowhere. Yup. I got April Fooled--My mother brought down silk versions my least favorite flower (daisies)and stuck them all over the front yard! (Complete with daisies in the potted plants)



So, after all that fun, what new perennial additions have found their way into my yard?

• Three raspberries
• Two Semi-Dwarf Peaches
• One Italian Plum
• Two more grape vines

What does that mean? Lot of holes. Too many to do in one day. In fact, it took me and my husband about two weeks to get everything in, mostly due to a bad case of Trumpet Vine.  Now I don't normally go out of my way to kill pretty and non-spiky flowers, but Trumpet Vine is the one exception. It spreads by runners, is highly destructive, and is nigh-impossible to actually kill--even with contact herbicides. This is the one case where I had no problem turning my husband loose with a can of generic RoundUp. We shall see if it is actually dead, or just mostly dead.

So all that aside, I have new bushes, and all of them are holding up well. The 40-60mph winds have not been doing the new babies any favors, but the 80 degree days do tend to make them happy.  Even the birds are enjoying it, especially since the new trees mean that water is readily available to them.

In addition to the trees and shrubs I went ahead and planted strawberries in one of those new-fangled Topsy-Turvy Strawberry Planters. I wasn't sure if it would hold up to the wind without bashing the poor plants to pieces, but so far it seems to have weathered the storms quite nicely (as long as I remember to water it).  I have had bad luck with strawberries down here in the desert--I could get the greens to grow, but the berries never would form. It looks like this year I may have found a way to grow my strawberries and eat them too!

Are you planting trees? Bushes?
Do you have any suggestions for the evil that is Trumpet Vine?
Or are you still digging out from snow?

One wat to save money easily: Home Haircuts

At about $15 a piece for a basic trim, the money can add up rapidly.  Given the $15 estimate (with no long hair extra fees), we just saved $45 and never had to leave the house!  If you have never thought about doing haircuts at home, give it a try, it is not difficult once you know the tricks.

Some tips for haircuts:

• Wash and then cut hair when it is wet
• Comb hair out from the scalp and cut to an even length
• this makes hair lengths look more natural and any unevenness when cutting isn't visible

• Use sharp scissors, and a fine toothed comb to get best results
• Expect to touch up a few stray hairs after the initial cut.
• For short cuts, buy a basic hair trimmer (around $20) and use the guides for ease

So far I have had better results from haircuts at home than I have had at basic hair stylists for one main reason: I know what I want to end up with after the cut.  I don't have to tip, don't feel pressured to buy "product", and overall spend less time on the cuts doing them myself.

Hmm... $45... that can buy a lot of chocolate.

I love you Mr. Brown

For the record:
Sinus surgery... more accurately: sinusotomies... suck.

Also for the record:
Alton Brown... re: gluten free goodness really really wins

So to expound a bit, I had a complete rotorooter job of my sinuses last Tuesday. Whee. I would like to not have a resident sinus infection sitting there making my head unhappy. This means that right now my head is... well... rather unhappy, but in good time it will be much better than the alternative of not surgery.
Surgery also means that my sleep schedule has been shot to hell though I have been getting lots of sleep. I have been on a sort of 6 hours on, 6 hours off rotation of awake/sleep. Since I am no longer living pill to pill on the pain meds (yay happy meds!) I just sort of have been sleeping when my body orders or strongly suggests that I should rest. I have lots of experience at ignoring those suggestions. My body also has rather potent ways of making me sleep though... like shutting off my focal point vision till I sit down, shut up, and turn off my brain for a while (yay swelling. /pout)

In other news, this sleep cycle has a whole bunch of unexpected side effects. The first is that the dogs are really confused by me being awake--but on the same token it means that I have now seen them off the leads long enough that I trust them to behave themselves free in the yard now. Second on the list of goodies is that I have been cooking. Not intensive cooking, as that takes brainpower and non-medicated thought processes, but rather the instant gratification of FOOD! (and if I feel like eating it, it must be worth making because food in general has not been very appetizing of late) Along that same vein is that I have had time to just sit and surf the internets. For said food. Often.

Insert Alton Brown. Master of Good Eats and food geekery. I may not always agree with how he does his food, but I always appreciate why he does things the way he does. And he had a show recently on food allergies apparently where he made ***Insert fanfare***

Chocolate Chip Cookies!!!!

Not the store variety of cardboard or grainy wafers, no, these are the chewy yet crisp excuse to eat chocolate and milk and cookiedough straight from the spoon. Which I am doing right now as a matter of fact. I know that they will cook up well... but I am fighting myself to actually get them to the oven to become COOKies...

... rather than heavenly dough that I will devour at my not so slow leisure

So they are chilling in the fridge per instructions... waiting for their doom... either on a pan then my tummy... or I'll just skip the pan altogether.

If this post seems a bit fragmented, it probably is. I still have a micro dose of happy meds in me to keep my head from sploding. And I have cookie dough. The latter is probably more to blame for the fragmentedness.

Fun with Dad

This weekend was full of travel. First there was the trip from home to the city to go to church and then up to my parents' house. There my man dropped me off and left me to the devices of my family. It had been a long time since my dad and I had spent some relaxed time together so we decided to take a short fishing trip around the state. We tried several lakes (which is imprssive considering that we are in the middle of New Mexico--a state full of deserts) all with little success of the fishing variety, but lots of relaxing time. And driving.

Unfortunately I have found that the weather is out to spite me. Normally New Mexico has its rainy season (wishfully called the monsoon season) in mid August. This year it appears to have jumped to late May/early June--also known as the time that everyone had outdoor adventures planned. Every time my father and I would set up at a fishing spot it would: A--start to blow right into us (not good for fishing), B--drip/pour rain on our heads, or C--not have a single fish bite due to A and B mixed with high temperatures.

Even with all the weather spiting us, we managed to have a nice trip. We fished at 5 lakes all told (and saw 3 additional ones too) and drove over 600 miles round trip. What started as a simple jaunt up to a familiar lake turned into a road trip. It is a good thing that I like road trips! Unfortunately our trip was cut short due to work needs at my dad's office so we had to come back to town early, but it still was fun.

After that was the adventure with the family truck so that I could use it to help move Casita Gatita to its new house. This truck is... well loved... yes, that's it, well loved. It has well over 200 thousand miles on it, has had new transmission, engine, cooling system, shocks, various panels, and--thanks to today's adventure--new tires. I grew up driving this beast of a pickup, and hope that it lives a nice long life, but when I left the house this morning I filled up a tire because it was a little low. About 40 miles later when I stopped to get new windshield wipers for it, I noticed that once again it was low, but this time it was down by more than a little. Wipers cost $10. Tires... not so cheap, so I called my dad and asked him what he wanted to do. He tried to tell me earlier that the tires were perfectly fine, just a little worn that was all. Suuuuuure.

After taking it in to my friendly tire shop (which I trust) they sadly told me that there was nothing wrong with the tire... other than that the rubber was just disintegrating and not holding air in. I asked the question of whether it would get me home (60 more miles) or not. The lady there flat said that she did not think it would make it there with any air left in it, and thought that the other tires were not far behind. I checked all the tires again for air pressure... sure enough they had dropped between 2 and 5lbs in 4 hours and 40 miles. Damn.

I called dad back and explained, then put him on the line with the sales rep and had them explain exactly the same thing that I had told my dad, except with dollar signs attached to the solution. $600 later, the truck has new tires, I had a safe drive home at a reasonable speed instead of a turtle, and I have peace of mind that I would not get stranded due to tire failure any time soon. I love my dad, but when it comes to other people's vehicles he just loses his senses (he takes excellent care and maintenance of his own truck). That is okay, this is why I know to hand the phone to the "experts" and let them explain why the part is necessary rather than his eternal "little girl." Daddies are sweet, but sometimes need a little push in the right direction to listen to sense!

All told the trip was nice, the truck is fixed, I have a way to move that does not involve cars or SUV's, and I am well rested from a road trip and an excuse to have a fishing pole in my hands and enjoy the outdoors. And I managed to get sunburnt where I missed part of my back... oops. I have sunscreen for a reason, since I have a tendancy of burning to a crisp, but I missed two perfect stripes on my shoulder blades where a halter top doesn't cover anything... and where nice soft un-sunned skin had a chance to get crispified by the high desert sun.