An update by numbers

Much has happened, and continues to happen, since my last post, and so to give y'all an update I thought I'd do it with numbers--I am a math teacher afterall!

672: The number of miles we traveled this past weekend to share in the beautifully unique union of my brother-in-law and now new sister-in-law! Thankfully with about the same amount of Cheerios, we had a happy almost 9-month traveler the whole time!

100: The approximate cost of my first ticket. Ever. Thank you NY trooper for not giving me a warning for talking on my cell phone since I had no idea it was against the law. Had I known
I would had at least put the phone on the inside of the car to call...or just had Mister make the call!

57: The number of things I waited to complete for tonight's Honors Banquet! It got done, and I sighed a big ol' sigh of relief!

2: The number of centimeters Ains' fingers are away from reaching the toilet water! Blech!

33: The number of students I helped chaperone on Monday all the while accomplishing Goal # 75. I love Cedar Point and it was different, yet still fun to accomplish this goal on a school day. More importantly my students had a blast and were grateful for the opportunity to go.

7: The number of school days left in my second year of teaching! This year has whizzed by, but I guess missing the first 7 weeks may have helped that.

4: The number of instructional days left this year! Take out another day for all day curriculum meeting and two days for exams and I'm just left with a blink of school!

12: The number of chapters of Sacred Marriage that Mister and I have read together. We've appreciated the content of this book but even more so, I've appreciated the conversations it's spurred.

1097: The number of days Mister & I have been married, which to a lay person simply represents 3 years, today!! I feel as if we're in that stage of feeling "What?! 3 years already!?" and "What?! It's only been 3 years!?" all at the same time. I even caught Mister saying "early on in our marriage" and it was accurately in the past, awhile ago, crazy.

I'll leave you with that, so until next time, toodles!!

New Growth

Asparagus Plant!

All right!  I'm back!

Before I get into the new things, I have some good news: some of the asparagus plants have popped up!  I had no idea what they were even supposed to look like, but the other day I was out watering things with Ainsley when  I noticed something that kinda resembled grass.  I wondered how I had about 5 random grass plants growing where I planted the asparagus.  When I looked closer (thankfully not trying to pull them out yet) I noticed that they looked just like asparagus stalks, only really, really small. So I'm stoked.  I think I need to throw more dirt in the trench as they grow so that the roots stay really deep, but I should probably read about it before I just go do it!

Initial planting, before they went bad.

1 – Seedlings        I started some tomatoes (Brandywine and Jelly Bean, guess which is the small one?) and bell peppers from seed in March.  I’ve never done seeds like this before, and it’s becoming obvious I’m not doing everything right.  Last year I just bought a couple tomato plants at Meijer and put them in the middle of my garden.  But I decided I just HAD to start them from seed this year.  And since my tray of seed-starting materials had 75 spots, and since I didn’t think I’d need to start anything else I’m growing in my garden this year from seed, I started 12 Brandywine, 18 Jelly Bean, and 18 bell peppers!  

Close-up of originals.

Why I didn’t think about staggering the plantings—if I even had room for that many plants—I don’t know.  So I’m either going to kill them all off, or give some away.  I don’t know what I was thinking.

I have noticed that, even though they’ve been inside and getting water and sunlight, they weren’t getting a ton of warmth (because we keep our house cooler than most people in the winter and warmer than most in the summer).  So they didn’t really thrive.  I ended up putting 2 pepper plants in with my lettuce and spinach, separating them; and I put 3 of each tomato and another 3 peppers in their own box about 2 weeks ago.  I figured they’d at least have a shot at living since I didn’t know what else to do with them inside.  Until we had those 3 days in a row of torrential downpours!  NONE SURVIVED!!!

The remaining indoor-started seeds

The good news is that I no longer have a million plants I don’t know what to do with.  The other good news is that I didn’t put all of them out.  I still have about 4-6 of each left.  I’ve been keeping them watered and leaving them outside on the west side of the house so they get the morning sun but not the hotter afternoon sun.  They’re still doing well!  And I’ve started some beets too.  It’s amazing how fast they came up.  (I’ve never eaten a beet, but my mom was sent a package of seeds when she ordered the blueberries so I figured I’d give them a shot.)

Also, I did put in some lettuce and spinach, which has already started shooting up.  I’d guess about another week or two and we’ll be having fresh salads.  I put in some snap peas and pole beans (I decided to grow up instead of out with the beans this year), and some of them have come up already.  I put in a few spaghetti squash and some summer zucchini as well.  So once the tomatoes and peppers look hardy and ready to live on their own, they’ll move to the garden too.  (Oh, and best of all, the blueberries are in and budding!  I'll talk more about that though when I get my other berries too.)

Transplanted "tree"

2 – Transplants       I got antsy a little while back and decided to transplant some things.  I moved some sort of tree from the backyard to the front yard.  I don’t know what kind of tree it is, but it has really pretty flowers in the summer.  So I dug it up, trying to be careful not to sever too many important roots.  I barely got it into the wheelbarrow by myself without needing some crutches afterward!  But I’m a man, and I wasn’t to be thwarted by such a small tree.  At least not yet!

So I wheeled it to the front where I wanted to place it and proceeded to dig a hole to put it in, when I encountered some roots.  Oh!  No big deal.  Just some roots.  Wrong!  There used to be a forest or something planted there, because I had to get my hatchet and big pry bar to chop and pry not one, but TWO, 8” long roots that were 3” thick!  I again felt like a man once I got them out.  It was simple from there.

I just hope it grows.

2 Former locations of Bl-E Susans

The other thing I decided to move was some Black-Eyed Susans.  They tend to take over an area, so we’re moving them to the front of the house that doesn’t have any flowers at all.  Hopefully they add their bright yellow flowers this summer.

When I dug these up, I dug up around each one.  Now, each one took up a circle about 3’ across.  I only dug maybe 3” deep, but it’s amazing how heavy a 3” deep 3’ circle can be!  My back is pretty sore from moving them into the wheelbarrow.

Stepping Stones and Black Eyed Susans (on left)

I also moved some stepping stones to the front of the house as well.  You see, our mail lady gets kinda lazy tired by the time she gets to our house, so she decides to walk through part of our flower bed instead of walking back the other way off our porch and around to our yard.  It hasn’t been a big deal really, but I’ve been nervous about planting anything there for fear she’d kill it before it had a chance at all.  So I placed two stepping stones that she will hopefully use, to give some flowers a chance at life in the front yard.  The good news is, we’ve seen her use them!

Last of the concrete!

3 – Back Patio        Lastly, we have wanted to have a back patio that’s inviting, because it isn’t so pretty.  Last year we bought a canopy to put up outside, but that only meant we were outside about twice to enjoy it.  The view was just terrible!  So we decided to change it, and there’s no turning back now.

Our goal is to put down about 500 square feet of pavers!  Yeah.  No big deal.  We can do that in a weekend.  Well, not really, nor did we actually think that.  But we have shattered, with our own 4 hands, the whole previous patio and sidewalks in the back of the house.  My dad and I had only hauled the first half away when I took this picture.

We’ve already been dreaming of when it’s finished and what we’re going to do out there once it’s done.  We’ll keep the pictures coming, and we’ll invite you over once it’s done.

That's it for now.  I'll update you again soon.

-Mister