#107 He Cuts Off His Mustache

It's been one of those months.  Of course it is the times when I have no time to write that there are a million things for me to write about.  So much has been going on, so many things I am storing in my mind for later, but I thought I'd give you a little glimpse into my world for the last two weeks based on the pictures in my phone....and a few from my DSLR.

We harvested our corn.  Even though it wasn't the sweetest or largest corn, we enjoyed it because it was our own.  Hopefully next year we can make Jersey proud with some more authentic tasting Jersey corn.

But it's a start.

Hubby took me to my first Yankees game.  While I'm not a real sports fan per say, I have an odd attraction to the Yankees and their team colors.

And I don't mind the game of baseball all that much either.

Now football, that's another story.

Sorry.  I've tried, a pathetic number of times.  I just can't make it happen.

  
We enjoyed dinner over our friends Jen and Tyler's house.  Tyler made us coffee in this strange science lab like piece of equipment.  It was an experience of epic proportions, at least, for a coffee lover like me.  More on this, eventually, over at The Orange Strainer.

I celebrated my birthday a little early with my family.  We ate pizza.  The best pizza in the world.  It was heaven.

Everyone entertained my stance that I am celebrating my 25th birthday for the fourth time.  It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Or perhaps that is just what senile feels like.

After my early birthday dinner, hubby took me out to Cape May to enjoy the sea air, go shopping, and eat at our favorite restaurant: Oyster Bay.  We found this decoration at an olive oil store and I contemplated yanking it off the wall and making a run for it.

Sort of like the scene with the blue horn in the first season of "How I Met Your Mother".  Except I didn't have the nerve to do it, so I suppose in the end it is nothing like that.

This was also one of the last days I spent with Hubby's curled mustache.  Yes friends the time had finally come.  He snipped off his curls and made me one of the happiest women on earth.  And believe it or not, his reason for cutting it had nothing to do with my birthday.

Or me at all.

I promise.

I celebrated most of my birthday with 18 five-year-olds.  It was a fabulous day.  (And that comment has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my students had an early morning special, which was back to back with lunch and followed by recess).  It seems that when it's your birthday the goodies and snacks you receive from family, friends, and co-workers is endless.

After I rolled out of school, literally, I had a quiet dinner with hubby.

Friday night we went to see my sister-in-law, Kristina, in a local theater production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum".  During intermission Jonathan and I took a thousand pictures on my phone.  I've spared you and posted only one.

Apparently, the blurriest one.

Hubby took me shopping for my birthday present: a new kitchen table.

I'm in love with this table.

We have very limited counter space in our kitchen.  Considering the amount of time I spend in the kitchen, the table we currently have just wasn't cutting it.  The height was too low.  When I would use the kitchen table for food prep, I'd end up with my back strained, my brain spinning, and steam gushing out of my ears.

It's true.  My poor husband has endured so much.

Our new table is the perfect height and has a tabletop perfect for tasks like rolling out cinnamon rolls and chopping up onions.

Sunday I went to the first ever family reunion of my father's side of the family.  

I think the best part (other than, you know, reconnecting with family I've never met) was that they all share the deep reverence that I have for desserts.  The dessert table was overflowing with an abundance of sugary delights.  I couldn't have been happier to be from this family.

I brought four desserts because I don't know how to minimize.  These mini doughnuts were a hit.  While I've made several mini donuts before, I've never made DOUGHNUTS.  I've made donuts.  Not douuuggghhhnuts.  I've learned.  I've cracked the mystery that has baffled man for centuries: What is the difference between donuts and doughnuts?

Donuts can be made with an oven (or in my case, a mini donut maker), with flour, without yeast.

Doughnuts are made with yeast and frying and oil.

And Dunkin' Donuts just has it all backwards.

The end, amen.

We let the non-Lunetta blood hop in for a picture.  Not a bad lookin' bunch, if you ask me.

Here's my question...

Why is the sun shining on my face only?  It makes me look photo shopped into the picture.

But I swear.

I was there.

This ends my short rendition of the past two weeks.  But don't worry, there's more a'comin.

#98 He Makes His Own Honey-Do List

My summer break started approximately 23.928475827 hours ago.  This has brought just a tad bit of excitement into my life.  The kids finished last week and the teachers worked this week for shortened days of 9-3.  It has been glorious.  I've been able to wake up a little later--7 am; if my teen self heard me calling that time late, she'd have a fit--I've had my exercising done by 8 am, and then I've come home in the afternoon to find myself practically twiddling my thumbs in boredom.

Okay, that last part is so not true.

Thursday morning, despite my freedom to 'sleep in' until 7, I woke up at 6 am.

By choice.

Someone have my head examined, please.

This choice was made due to another fun fact of this week: hubby has been off all week.  Somehow, for the past four years that I have been a teacher, hubby has always managed to be forced to 'use or lose' vacation time either right before I finish for summer or right when I go back for the new school year.

It's almost like he does it on purpose.

This week I can't complain.  Although knowing he had the whole week off had my brain formulating and devising a plan for the wide variety of things he could get done around the house, I fought all urges and did not make him a 'Honey-Do" list.

And just like the great husband that I know he is, he started Monday morning building a vegetable box garden for me.  I've given you a little inkling that such a thing might eventually happen, and now it finally has.  I must admit, I am a little leery to post this because that means I will have to follow through and let you know if I am successful with this little garden.

By the time I came home Monday afternoon, this part was already finished.  I was beside myself with joy for a few reasons:

1. Hubby built a box garden for me.
2. He did it (the building part) in one day.
3.  He did it on his first day of vacation.
4. He did it without me asking or even suggesting that he do it.
5. If this was how productive the first day was, what would the next days be like?

Now, fast forward to Thursday morning, 6 am.  The box was in place, the soil had been purchased and was sitting in the back of my car, the plants had been purchased (we decided not to start from seed because of how late in the season we began this project), and for some reason I had volunteered to help hubby with the planting early in the morning before going to work.

The one plus I can say about working so early in the morning is the smells.  There is a crisp, cold, summery smell to the air, and then after an hour or so the delicious smell of sizzling bacon wafts about like a tortuous temptress.

It is clear that I have never done this kind of work before. Without having seen how many bags of soil hubby had bought I thought to myself, "Oh, it will take only a few minutes to bring the bags out to the back yard.  That clearly seems like an effortless task."

My arm and chest muscles are still screaming at me today after what felt like a painful year of walking back and forth our alley way to the car to pick up one bag and carry it to the back yard.  Hubby managed to carry two at a time, yet my brain is still trying to figure out how I managed to carry one.

We bought way too many marigolds.  I read that it was a good thing to plant them around your box garden in order to keep animals away.  At first, Hubby thought I meant deer and so he decided we would not need marigolds as deer cannot get into our backyard.  Then when he realized that bunnies and cats are animals too, he bought two flats of marigolds right away.

I took most of the pictures for this post on my phone because it was 6 am and I certainly wasn't pulling out the fancy camera for 6 am.  I thought this picture was the best expression of what 6 am in the backyard looked like.  

Hopefully you like marigolds, because they are in practically every single picture I took.

We planted zucchini plants...

yellow squash...

green peppers...

and corn!  I'm not too hopeful on the corn growing, but I saw it and wanted it so I got it.

That is the story of my life.

We also planted sweet peas and tomatoes, and a few seeds in hope that they would sprout, but again, not too hopeful on that.  This whole garden is a trial and error project.  We'll see what works this year and try again next year for even better.  Hubby has already informed me that we could fit a few more boxes if we wanted.  My brain is already scheming up what else we could plant....I'm thinking fruit.  That was the one thing I kept wanting to get as we were plant shopping that Hubby kept avoiding me on.

The good thing is that in building this garden, hubby and I both got inspired to make our back yard more livable.  I sort of alluded to the state of my backyard in this post, but if you only knew the true terror of my backyard/porch you would be embarrassed to call yourself my reader.

Luckily, you don't know right now, so you can continue in ignorant bliss.

Because hubby went overboard in his purchase of marigolds, he planted the extras around our Charlie Brown tree in our front "yard".  He had already put mulch down on Tuesday to get rid of the unsightly little green sprouts that had already begun to poke through the ground.  I think the marigolds add a nice touch of brightness.  The next step is to spruce up the paint on our porch.  It's a little ratty, don't you think...Hubby?