SPRING

I got my first seed catalog today, and so in the midst of the winter storms, spring is here! And let me tell you, this seed catalog is amazing! Its the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (http://www.rareseeds.com/) and the pictures are beautiful. It comes on high quality glossy magazine paper, and some are full pages of this gorgeous fruit and vegetables. If I could, I would wax elequent about the pictures.

I love looking thorugh seed catalogs, I think I got it from my mother. I plan out all the varities I should buy, think about my garden and how this year it will be weedfree and gorgeous. I re-think the "don't buy fruit trees, you are renting" argument that I have every year with myself. I spend hours pouring over the different cultivars, and the new items I want to try this year.

They make everything sound so good in the descriptions! Here is the discription of the Chinses red meat radish (see picture on the left): The colorful "Beauty Heart" radish of historic CHina, the 4" round roots have white and green skin, but the magic is in their rose-red center, which is so sweet, crisp and delicious. A good radish to add color to salads and stir-fries; must be grown in cool weather and does best when fall planted. Sometiems called "watermellon radish" at market." I don't plant radishes any more because they don't really get eaten because I gues no one really likes them, but this description makes me want to plant 4 rows! Just reading the discription of all the varieties of tomatoes, or mellons, or peas makes my mouth water.

I know that I will end up buying plants from my local nurshery (Cooks ), and stick to the basics because I will procrastinate any buying or actual garden prep, but this doesn't lessen the enjoyment I get out of planning and dreaming!

For those of you who care about my life, its been crazy busy and yuck. so I can sit here and dream of digging in the garden and that makes me happy.

I did just get back from a sealing at the temple. I've only been to two of these work related ones. It is always bitter sweet. I'm so happy that there is a hopeful future for this little girl, but most of my other little (and not so little) ones won't have the same opportunities. I hurt for them, even as I rejoice in the possibilities for this one. I need this vacation time so badly right now.

Crazyness

So its been awhile since my last post, (as if you can't tell just by reading-but its ok to point out the obviouse just in case, right?). The month of November and now December have been flying by and I've been barely hanging on.

We celebrated Jamie's upcoming whatever with a bridal shower. Yes, I'm trying to be positive about it, but at times other things leak out :) At any rate Jamie had a good time and its always fun to be around whats left of the Cherry Chubs! We had lots of good food which also makes me happy! Melanie didn't get a lot of good pictures, but you can check here to see a little:

http://msmarthelm.blogspot.com/2008/11/utah-again-to-see-lovely-bride-to-be.html

So after getting over the stress of that (which honestly I shouldn't have stressed about since I made other people take over the hard part- I just do food! ps thanks Erin, Averies, Sarah, Jen, roomies, etc) we had Thanksgiving coming up. Trying to fit everything in at work with a shortened month (Veterans day, Turkey day) which was way stressful because I'm such a procrastinator. Also as some of you may know my work itself is not fun/stressfull/taxing/fill in your own descriptive negative word.

I REALLY enjoyed Thanksgiving! I feel bad that I didn't help out Neita who was on her feet cooking the whole time, but I sure came back feeling more positive about the world then I've been in awhile. I drove which isn't usually fun for me, but because I was excited about where I was going, and the roads were fine it wasn't bad. Going home again wasn't quite as much fun, but Jamie called me when I was tired and talked me through it till home. Again stealing from Melanie's blog, here are a few pictures:

http://msmarthelm.blogspot.com/2008/12/great-thanksgiving-day.html and from Amy's blog:

http://sunshinehelm.blogspot.com/2008/12/thanksgiving-feast.html

We ate tons of good food, and I had lots of fun hanging out with my siblings and nephews and neices. One night I cooked some "chinese food" and as people ate what I made I call it a success! Jared also made craeps (I don't know how you spell silly french words) for Breakfast. I have discovered that if I get sleep I do alot better on vacations, so thanks to the Neiders who made that possible.

On one of the days Nathan, Jared, Melanie, and I went out to Fish Creek Dam which was a really fun outing. I could've stayed there all day hearing the funny sounds the rocks made on the ice. Its this old dam from the 30's that needs repair, and Nathan is trying to help the families that rely on it for their farms navigate the state beauracracy to get it repaired ASAP! Its really cool looking with these arches and crumbling concrete. It was a scary standing under it where water was leaking through pretty good. We could also see missing chunks! here are a few pictures I found on the web. The first three are of Fish Creek, the other two show an abandoned dam in Idaho, much smaller, that is built in the same manner so you can see the cool arches.

The state has required the families to drain more then half the water out, and take out two of the arches in the shallower part just in case it all of a sudden fills up again and then decides to break if there is an earthquake or just a complete failure. I think the plan is to build an earthen dam around the old dam to speed up the repair process, so the families can continue to utilize the water resource they depend on. Unfortunately they are runing into roadblocks all along the way and the dam isn't getting any better. I wish there was a way to save the dam as it does look really cool, and an earthen dam just doesn't have quite the same awe factor! Hopefully Melanie will get her pictures developed and scanned in so I'll have more pictures to show! --side note in this part of the land water is probably the most valuable resource we have!

The week after that I went to Vegas for Melanie's companie's employee apreciation party. I just have to say that their company must appreciate their employees more then the State of Utah does :) We had a really awesome dinner (with Prime Rib at one of the carving stations- if you don't know I used to work catering events and cut myself pretty badly doing that on one occasion), and then tickets to see Cirque du Soleil- Ka. It was a great show and was really entertaining. Its amazing what people can do!

Saturday Melanie and I participated in the Great Santa Run of Las Vegas. Its an attempt to get back the record for the most Santa's in 1 place. Who knew there was a record, but it was really fun. I've never seen so many Santas in my life, thats for sure! During our walk we could see nothing but Santas for the whole mile!



I give the experience 2 enthusiastic thumbs up! Afterwards we had to rest from our strenous experience by hanging out with Melissa in their hottub. Now I could really use one of those in my backyard!

On Sunday Melanie had decided to have a turkey dinner. The turkey took a lot longer then the only other turkey I've done (last year), so we ate our dinner in courses. We had burned stuffing first, then some really good squash, then some mashed potatoes, then some turkey, then some mashed potatoes and gravy (couldn't make the gravy until the turkey was done. It all tasted good (yes even the burned stuffing), but my clothes smelled like turkey when I got back home, and I'm sure Melanie's house still smells that way! Melanie doesn't have a meat thermomoter so we used a candy thermometer (look closely at the turkey).

So I got back home and got back to work. I'm a little stressed with trying to get everything done in a MUCH shorter month as I will be gone to New Mexico (and California for Jamie's thingy) for 2 weeks.

So I've been stressed out, but today I had pizza and then went for Frozen Yoghurt with Jamie, Brittany, and Kate so all is well tonight.... that and the fact that I'm not working until tomorrow evening (it being a short month thats the only time I could fit in a couple of visits)

Angela and Mom are spending the night tomorrow on their way back to NM from Angela's college adventure. Hope she passed her classes so she can go back again!