Usually I reserve the weekends for my garden, but what’s there to say right now? It’s growing and things look good. Oh, I also planted the top of my pineapple just to see what happens. But the real story of the weekend was our trip to Texas.

There’s so much to say about our trip from the crawfish to the water balloon fight, but I think I’ll save the balloon fight for another day. The simplest thing to say about the weekend is that we had a really great time. It was so good to see Anna and meet her family and friends. The crawfish boil was unlike anything I had ever experienced. So good. So much. Anna’s husband ended up releasing a bag of crawfish into their pond, we had so many.

It was good. We laughed much. We ate much. We relaxed much. It was really the best way to spend our weekend.

I’m sitting here waiting for Chris to get out of the shower and my pie to finish baking and I have that antsy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I am ready to go! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! I just want to go! Patience. I think I might be short on that right now. I am so thankful for this four day weekend and the chance to get away. I don’t want to squander a minute of it doing something stupid.

I am also thankful for my dad. I vaguely remember Dad rambling on about fried oysters somewhere around Paris TX. Since Chris and I are heading in that direction I thought it would be a good place for lunch. I called Dad (who happens to be in MS at my Mom’s brother’s house) and he answered on the first ring as if he knew exactly why I was calling. Dad’s favorite place is Catfish King. They closed all the ones in our area, so Dad has had to seek out all the others. In fact, I bet if you go to the Catfish King website in the directions and locations category, they just have my dad’s phone number. Because Dad told me about TWO Catfish Kings and that the best one is actually in Mt. Pleasant. So there.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and has something to be thankful for on this Friday.

Chris and I are leaving for Texas tomorrow. An old friend of mine from high school lives in a small town near the Texas/Louisiana state line. When her husband announced on his facebook that he was throwing himself a crawfish boil birthday, we invited ourselves. And Anna being well, Anna, she enthusiastically agreed that we should come.

Anna and were not best friends, but we were really good friends. We lost track of each other after we graduated, but reconnected through our blogs. I have to say that I think I value our friendship more now then ever. It has been such a joy to read about her life and seeing her kids grow. And I really can’t wait to see her.

It’s right about now where you wonder what the connection is between the picture and this post. I just thought it was a good way to show just how excited I am to be getting away, to be seeing an old friend, and working toward crossing something off that Life List (more on that later).

Enjoy your Thursday!

It’s been a good week:

• Trying a new recipe and liking it
• My individual sized coffee press
• The promise of a mini-vacation
• The new post doc’s new hair cut (makes him look like this)
• Reading a really silly frivolous book
• Thursdays!
• Doing some scooter maintenance all by myself
• An evening alone
• The memory foam mattress topper
• Smoothies for lunch
• Getting all the chores done before sitting down to watch the series finale of LOST
• Satish in lab meeting talking about his IP experiment and saying “the amount IPeed”. Ha!
• Watching Misti get chased by her own sprinkler

Have a fabulous week!

I realized that I’ve failed to mention anything about the little herb garden we planted near the kitchen. We put in some sage, basil, cilantro, a weird looking fennel and some onions. The green stuff is looking really nice and we’ve started using some of the basil. I need to start finding ways to use the cilantro because it’s starting to get out of control.

Everything, actually, is looking swell. The lettuce is growing up nicely.

We have flowers on one of the tomato plants.

Chris’s is mom is excited about the hot peppers that are coming in.

And than I noticed this on my bean plants.

Ack! Something is attacking my babies! I think it might be spider aphids, at least that’s the all knowing Google tells me. So this evening, after I’ve watered them down, I plan on spraying everyone with a good dose of Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds (insecticidal soap, just has to be a soap made with fatty acids). Hopefully this will do the trick. Other then those few little blights, the beans also seem to be thriving.

We are pleased.

Update: Chris built a contraption to hang a CD in the garden while I typed this. Had no idea that’s what he was up to. He’s perfect.

I know that today is usually set aside to be thankful and it still is. But I finally can cross something off my list. Last night I harvested spinach and basil from our garden to go on our pizzas.

My heart couldn’t help but swell as Chris and I tore up the spinach and basil into little bits and sprinkled it on the pizza crust that I had made. I looked over at Chris and said “this is our spinach. We grew this!”.

And that’s what makes this two entries in one. I am thankful for the beautiful pizzas that we made with veggies from the garden that we built. I am thankful for the sense of accomplishment and joy in growing my own food.

Have a wonderful thankful Friday.

I thought when I got this calendar that I would keep every day that I tore off. I thought I would really study and maybe learn a few phrases of French. Yeah… that lasted about a month before I just tossed them as I tore them. But occasionally I come across a phrase that makes me laugh or just smile. These are the ones I save and tape up in random places around the lab.

For some reason, Sunday’s phrase really struck a cord. I’ve been thinking about my Life List lately. It kind of seemed like writing the list gave me a license to procrastinate. I haven’t really done anything. We started the garden, but until I harvest and eat something from it I can’t justify crossing it off. I’ve tasted new wines and teas, but haven’t kept track of any of them. I let myself get stuck. Is it because I don’t believe in myself? I don’t believe I have it in me to accomplish anything? Well, that’s just silly.

I do believe in myself. I just needed a little reminder. And maybe some of you need that reminder too. Believe in yourself. You are beautiful and amazing.

Happy Love Thursday.

I’ve done it again folks. I let a week slide with out writing things down on the list. So yesterday, during lab meeting, I wrote down a bunch of things hoping that I captured something from the week and not just the weekend.

Kind of figuring out why my Westerns aren’t working
Being so busy that day zooms by
Pineapple upside down cake with coconut gelato
BTT’s quesadillas. The put squash in there y’all!
Stopping at Coffee Slingers before heading to the Farmer’s Market
Seeing Wayne and Michelle Coyne at Coffee Slingers. They are so cool.
Finally getting over that sinus thing
The bustling market
Scott grilling up a HUGE slab of tofu for me
The Vespa Barbie at Toys R Us
New bras (sianara saggy boobs!)
Feeding the dog peanut butter toast
Chocolate hazelnut gelato
Making up some of our meals for the week days in advance
Cheese grits!
Sleeping
And this. This right here. Makes me so happy.

Things in the garden are progressing, slowly but surely. I think birds are eating my lettuce and cantaloupes. Need to hang some sort of whirly gig to keep them away. Today I bought a bag of egg shells (it was like a buck fifty for a full sandwich sized baggy already crunched up) and sprinkled it around all the plants. Misti got me a replacement tomato from the Frontier and it seems to have made itself at home.

Now we are just waiting. I think it’s a miracle that anything has grown as much as it has. We’ve had the oddest weather and the wind has not been kind. But…despite it all, things are actually growing. It won’t be long before we’ll have beautiful spinach and tomato salads and homemade pickles. I better get on that task of learning how to make mozzarella.

Chris and I watching a documentary on Appalachia featuring Barbara Kingsolver:

Barbara Kingsolver: There were as many shades of green as there are words in the dictionary.

Me: Oh my God. She speaks the way she writes. If that had been me, I’d have said “it’s so green and purdy”.

Chris: I mean it’s really green. Like really really green.

Me: Like all colors of green.

Chris: Yeah. Like super green. I mean really really green.

Me: We are so word stupid.