various pictures

More pictures when Melanie came for her birthday- yes many of them are on her blog, but I decided to put some of the ones where I look cute up since it doesn't happen very often....



Dinner at Out Back-which turned out costing each of us a buck. Yay for gift certificates!!!!










Me in front of the playhouse. Too bad didn't get a picture of Melanie :(



Here is Melanie before the play started, in our original seats (not good, but then they moved us to great ones).








Here is Melanie and I on the couch talking to mom on Mother's day. We even sang a song, but probably should've practiced first :)

Melanie sharing the bounty from her garden. My zuchinni are still seedlings... (notice screwdriver for comparison)

Melanie sure helped me out a lot so I put up this cute picture again of her helping me.

Here is a before picture of the patio, plus the stray cat that I'm feeding in an atempt to keep it from stalking the bird feeders.... not working yet. (her name is nanguo-rhymes with mango means sad in chinese, the idea is stolen from Allison, but this cat really is sad...no tail)

So here is the after picture, don't know if you can tell but the gross carpet is gone. Thanks Melanie and Kate for helping with that!

Here is a picture of the lime merangue pie I made. It set up after Melanie left and was pretty good (if you like that sort of sourysweet thing).

So enough of that. Yesterday and Friday I got things pretty caught up in the garden. Kate helped by mowing the front lawn and most of the back (i got the second mower out and did the edges). I still need to 1. mulch and weed barrier around the trees and then 2. use a bio degrading mulch on the berries. 3. is expanding window gardens to include the stepping stones, and 4 is to start the flower gardens starting with the front shade one, moving to the front sunny, stump, and tree gardens. Wow that sounds like a lot of work still!

I did get the misters set up in the patio, but when I turned them on they are more like small sprinklers..... hmmmm not what I expected. I'm not sure what to do at this point and I'm rather discouraged.

Anyways I treated myself to a fancy lunch at P7-12 since I was working hard. They have really good pizza. I found that if I'm going to dine by myself I need to remember to bring something to do. Its a small restaurante and there is only so much people watching I can do before it gets awkward....

I wore myself out yesterday and still needed to get my primary lesson ready. I learn something everytime on how to do better for the next lesson. Also I tell myself to start on the lesson earlier each time, but that has yet to occur.

Today I made cornbread (a favorite lately), cut up a pineapple, and made what i call an asian stew (like american only with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and black and rice vinigers) and served over rice and noodles. Actually turned out pretty good.


In keeping with my various picture theme, here is a picture of my garden plan... I only stuck to part of it because I kept buying extra things like tomatoes, and had extra room....

Here is a bit of my letuce. This was a couple of weeks ago. Its lots bigger now ever though I pick a small salad's worth everyday. I just eat it alfresco and its very tasty (if the leaf has lots of dirt I do wash it off, usually). I love the different kinds. The only problem is in a mix I don't know which is which and so I won't know which kind to buy next year. Since this picture I've had two more plantings in an effort to get more crops. I'm going to try and find some shade cloth to see if that helps it last longer into the hot summer.

Here is a stand for 6 pots that Angela got me from Grandma Ritchie's house. I put shade plants in it and its pretty cute out on the patio. I sure hope I can figure out those misters and make the patio really pleasant to hang out in.... its going to get really really hot in just a couple of weeks. ugghh i don't like the heat.

two sundays ago I had some friendly visitors. After I gave them a treat they thought we were best friends and went everywhere together. I think the one closest to the door is a border collie mix, I don't know what the one was in the back but they were both cute, friendly and makes me want one.

On a pretty spring evening, but kindof cold, Cathy invited me to UVU baseball. She had picked up a baby somewhere, and apparently her tallent is putting kids to sleep. I like having inside hookups. Cathy led us to a box seat which was way nice as the wind was cold.

To close, here is another mountain picture taken while headed to court in Spanish Fork a couple of weeks ago. The snow is mostly gone on the lower peaks, but there is still on the tops.