Summertime

This fall I will be entering 19th grade, more commonly known as my final year of law school. That makes this my last "real" summer. And I have been milking it for all its worth by:

• grilling chicken, corn, and burgers
• sleeping with all the windows open
• reading Newberry award winning children's books one by one
• eating pounds and pounds of peaches, plums, pluots, cherries, nectarines, etc.
• attempting to cook homemade peach jelly
• spending evenings with my dear husband (who is often gone on weeknights during the school year)
• enjoying the long evenings by going for runs after work - speaking of work, I really like my summer job
• scorning the advice that vegetables need 6+ hours of sunlight and growing a garden in a plot gets half that amount
• reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time

I love the summer.

Harry Parter Potty

This frothy, amazing looking beverage is homemade butterbeer. My husband found lots of recipes online, and chose the recipe that claimed to taste like the J.K. Rowling approved butterbeer that's served at the Harry Potter theme park in Orlando.


It was nasty.


We made it last night for a pre-party for the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie. (About 75% of the time I mentioned the party, I said "Harry Parter Potty." My husband thought it was cute.) The recipe involved melting brown sugar with butter, rum extract, cider vinegar, and way too much salt, mixing it with cream soda, and topping it with a dollop of whipped cream. What a horrid creation.


But, everything the butterbeer lacked in taste was made up in the movie's awesomeness.

Who are these two weirdos?

The Joy of Siblings

You can be resting on the couch, just minding your own business when suddenly your sister comes along...

Plops down on top of you...

And starts munching on your hair.

And that, my friends, is the joy of siblings. 

Five Days in Colorado

My man and I got to spend an extended Fourth of July weekend in Colorado with family. The weekend was full of:


Nature,

After years of failed attempts, we finally made it on top of Harmonica Arch.

A moon rock.

My big bro and his pup.

I was trying to catch a shot of a lightning fork by using a super slow shutter speed, but I got these awesome clouds instead. I love Colorado thunderstorms.

Family,

I got to see almost twenty of my family members. Here's grandma and my cousins' dog, Baggins.

My happy parents.

And, of course, Food.

shish kabobs!

The best cheesecake ever!

And our dishware: urine collection cups. My mom brought them from her clinic. Hopefully they were unused!

Crazy Bird Lady

I bought a bird feeder, stocked it with seed, and birds starting coming. 

And coming. 

And coming. 

Now we have a veritable menagerie of birds in our tiny backyard. I fear that my neighbors might think that I'm turning into a crazy bird lady, but that's ok. Territorial fights have ensued including one where, according to valid eyewitness testimony from my husband, the blue guy below pushed (weird, huh?) a mourning dove off of our neighbor's roof and then pounced WWF style on top of it. Now that little bird really has something to mourn about.

Here's the cruel, cruel bird.

That's an avocado pit!

More sweet, little birds like this one, please!

And we've been getting hummingbirds.

Last night, my husband and I bought a twenty pound bag of birdseed. We feel like we're feeding a dog. I'm excited to see how quickly the birds devour it.

Gardening: Victories and Defeats

First of all, my man has gotten as into gardening if not more into it than me.


He has taken to grabbing whatever seed or sprouting thing he finds in the kitchen and throwing it in the dirt. It's been wildly successful.

A few months ago, he threw the seeds of a Santa Claus Melon (no kidding, that's what it was called) into the ground. They grew. We read that in order to produce one melon, it would have had to take over our entire property. A moment of cost/benefit analysis led to us ripping it up.

A few weeks ago, an onion of mine began sprouting. Michael stuck the onion in the ground with the sprouts above ground. The green sprouts grew very quickly and I've been using them in my cooking. Since we're alive, I guess they are not poisonous!

Yesterday, he put jalapeno seeds in the ground. We shall see what happens. 

Second, there have been a lot dead/dying plants back there. Bugs got to the beets killing most of the poor, little sprouts. And I was too lazy to figure out what was happening to remedy the problem. The four that survived Beet Blight 2011 are now going strong. I still have some hope for our carrots. As for the spinach and lettuce... I'll just blame the heat for their shriveling up over the last couple of weeks.

I can't believe our rate of success at willy nilly throwing things into the ground is higher than our serious attempts at gardening normal-style.

The lettuce was way too dainty and difficult for my non-green thumb.
Or maybe I should have followed directions and just planted it in the
winter when the temperature is right.

But, the TOMATOES!! They make me feel so successful! I don't think I could kill them if I tried. We planted one puny tomato plant. It is now massive. We've only harvested a handful of cherry tomatoes so far, but judging by all the little green tomatoes and blossoms all over the plant, we will be harvesting dozens and dozens. Since everything has been difficult but the tomatoes, we went to our local garden center and purchased two more tomato plants yesterday.

Friday Photography Walk

I am supposed to keep my walking to a minimum so my booty stitches can heal.


I was getting depressed sitting inside all... day... long... when the days are so long and so beautiful. So, I went on a photography walk. I am such a rebel!


Here is the plunder:


My lens doesn't zoom much, so I was about fifteen feet from this door when I took this picture. Can you imagine how awkward it would have been if someone walked out as I was taking it? I would've muttered something like, "I... uh... cool door" and subsequently fled and locked myself up indoors again.

This one makes me feel emo. I think I'm going to call it "Vampire Love." But, seriously. I really like this photo and the fact that all the brown in the picture is dead flowers. So emo.

Backlit leaves. Very nice.

Have I mentioned before how much I love Southern California's citrus trees?

There is a violin maker's shop nearby. The entire shop is covered in tools, wood shavings, wood stains, and violin parts. I need to go back sometime to see the violin maker in action. Can you pick out the knobby, tuning part of the violin in the photo below?