Yummy!

Well, at this point my veggie plants are paid for. I harvested my first round of lettuce today, and Ray and I enjoyed it in a salad for lunch. It was very yummy and it was really neat to be able to go to the yard for food instead of to the grocery store!

By next week, I should have some berries to harvest too. In fact, I'll have enough of them for about 1000 pies by the end of the season! Maybe I'll try to sell some at the church farmer's market with the proceeds going to missions. Or, I'll process them and freeze them so I can bake in the winter.

Regardless, the yard and the veggies are coming along. So is my pregnant belly. No doubt I am pregnant now! Although I'm not brave enough for a full out naked belly picture, you will get the point.




Considering that I have not gained, but lost 15lbs since I stopped working, my doc said I may be lucky to gain 15lbs by the time all is said and done. But, it is totally normal considering I'm not eating out 2 or 3 times a day, sitting behind a desk for 10 hours a day and driving in the car for another 2 hours per day. And, I could stand to lose some weight anyhow.

Our next doctors appointment is on June 22 and they will do the 20 week ultrasound. Assuming the baby cooperates, we will be able to find out the gender, if we decide to do that. Still not 100% sold on letting the sex be a surprise up until the birth. I guess we will have to wait until that day to decide for sure. Either way, it will be a good day.

And now, both Ebony and myself need a walk. Catch ya later!

Memorial Day, 2009

Well, the day is almost over and Ray and I have had a great one! We slept in, then worked together in getting some much needed house work done. We have lots to do over the next week to get ready for a furniture delivery on Thursday. However, the weather was beautiful and this afternoon we decided to cook out on the grill for the first time. The grill, by the way, was another perk of buying the house! Here are some pictures of Ray cooking dinner:









While he was cooking, I was enjoying the garden yard. It is so much fun because it changes every day. And, the veggies are doing GREAT!!!! In fact, I will be harvesting some lettuce tomorrow. The strawberries are also growing. We are going to have a ton of them. Good thing we really like them. I'll have to find some recipes for smoothies. That would be perfect for the summer. As for the flowers, here are some pictures for you to enjoy:

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

According to the web site http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.
As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.
It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:
"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."
One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.
The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.
In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.
A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."
When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:
"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."
In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.
Thanks to Mack Welford for reminding me of this great poem.

Thank you to all the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces! We appreciate your hard work, dedication and sacrifices!!!

Family Heirlooms

Ray and I have been very fortunate. We have been able to buy a great starter house at a price that was a steal. We are expecting our first child. We have also been blessed in some of the "things" we have acquired. Included in this has been my grandmother's china. I finally got around to washing it and putting it into our china cabinet. I don't normally care about really fancy, expensive stuff. But this is a little different. It is a part of my families history that I will be able to continue sharing with others. Here are some pictures:

You probably saw some other heirlooms, both old and not so old. But, all of them tell a story of Ray's and my heritage, present and future. I can't wait to have someone come over and visit so we can use them!

Thank you Grandmom!!! I love you!!!

Veggies Anyone?

All my veggies are now in the ground! Well, at least all of them that I have to plant for now. I still need to get a few tomato plants and clear one more corner of the little plot in the yard I am using.





I took the above picture to show you the process of clearing this area and getting it ready for veggies. The prior owners of the home had prepared this area for and planted several cactus. So, I had to remove all the river rocks (as you see on the right side of the picture), turn the earth to mix in the small layer of sand on top with the good soil underneath, and fertilize before planting the veggies. It is not a huge area, but enough that doing it pregnant tuckers me out after a while.

So far, we have planted:

Rhubarb
Iceberg lettuce
Red leaf lettuce
spinach
bell peppers
broccoli
zucchini
green beans

So, one corner left, then plant the tomatoes. Then all that is left is watering and watching my veggies grow! Oh yeah, then eating them up too!

Home and Garden...and a lot of work!

As I mentioned before, our yard is not your normal yard. It is a garden. AN ENTIRE GARDEN! While I was working, I tried to explain this to my coworkers. I don't think they understood. One of them, Kelly, came to my house to get some rocks for her yard. She was shocked! She had no idea how big this "yard garden" really was.

Here are some pictures so you may have a better idea:

So what do you see? I see tons of plants, more rocks then one will ever need in a yard, and way too many weeds to keep up with. I have always loved to garden, and this yard is giving me my dream to have a huge one! While it is a lot of work, I'm enjoying it very much!

Right now domestically, I have 3 projects going:

1. Get the baby room painted and the floor done before furniture is delivered on May 28. (Ray is painting this weekend. Then I'm putting the laminate floor down next week)

2. Get the veggie garden plot ready (meaning getting rid of all the rocks and getting the soil ready) and get the rest of the veggies planted.

3. Keep up with normal maintenance in the yard.

Needless to say, #3 is the one that I have been slacking with the most. I think that once the baby's room is done and the veggies are in and growing, I'm only gonna take on one project at a time along with keeping up with the yard.

Life is busy, but is is fun and definitely not boring!