Working on Fridays is for Suckers

I love lazy Fridays. Let me rephrase. I love not working on Fridays. I love having a day of laziness that isn't on a weekend and getting to laugh at all the suckers spending their last day before the weekend slaving away.
I'm spending the day in girlish luxury. A massage and a movie with friends. Relaxing in the yard with a new magazine and a delicious iced tea. Eating leftover Chinese food cold out of the container for breakfast. (Hey, I didn't say it was YOUR idea of luxury.)
The hubby is spending the day in bed, recovering from food poisoning. For the second time this week. Yes, after eating something that gave him food poisoning earlier this week, yesterday he proceeded to then eat the leftovers, causing him to be sick yet again.

Don't ask me, I wouldn't have eaten it.

I'm thinking about heading to the library for some perspective widening new reads. And doing some volunteering. Isn't it fantastic to have a day where you can choose what to do?

I love Fridays.

Food not lawns

I finally planted some things in the garden this weekend - tomatoes (yellow pear, roma, currant, paste and beefsteak), eggplant, cukes (pickling and burpless), zucchini squash, and brussel sprouts. This week I need to get in the peppers (sweet and jalapeño), greens (lettuce, kale, spinach, swiss chard and collards), herbs, beans, onions, beets, and radishes. I'm trying a new "caging" system for the tomatoes and vine crops that was recommended in my Veg Gardening 101 class through MSU's extension program - it involves building "fences" for the vines to grow up, reducing the amount of horizontal space they take up (and allowing hopefully for more plants in a smaller space). Courtesy of my overzealous hubby our garden is also larger this year - almost double the space of last year and slowly encroaching over more and more of our yard. (Food not lawns!) We've also got plans in the works to add a new back door to the house onto a new back patio - to be complete with space for a fire pit and seating area, so I'm slowly inching closer to my goal of no wasted lawnscape.
I spent Saturday afternoon volunteering at Gull Meadows Farms in Richland and we all know no trip to a greenhouse can be complete without a purchase...hence two new shade loving perennials joined me for the trip home. Though we disappointingly didn't get very many questions (other than where do I find x?) I did enjoy my time wandering among the greenhouse plants and watching people excitedly fill their carts. It's nice to know people do care about and want to add to their landscape - I did even see a couple filling several carts with perennials (awesome) for their house.
As much as I'm still dedicated to it, it is harder this year to work on the yard - harder to bend over and I'm so much slower at working through things. The heat definitely is having a greater effect on me as well. I'm determined though to spend as much time as I can on it hoping it will have a positive effect on the little person in utero and they'll come out a little garden loving dirty footed hippie child.

Ramblin

I'm finally done painting and very glad to be - I was getting so tired of it I was starting to slosh paint other places than just all over me (well, and the walls, floor and animals of course). The tape has been pulled off, the furniture put back in places and most of the decor put back up, so now starts the really hard part: deciding what fabric to use for curtains. Last night I stopped at Field's after dinner with my lady friends and 8 samples later was almost chased out the door by the sales clerk (I would have kept going but they were closing). There are just too many choices! That and they have an entire section of Amy Butler prints that I can't get enough of. Any advice on good decision making tactics (than iny meany miny mo)?

I met with a gentleman from SCORE this morning (they offer small business counseling) and Sarah and I are slowly making our way to getting our catering business underway...as soon as we register our name, register for a Federal Tax ID, register for a MI tax ID, get approval from the Health Dept, submit our paperwork for the LLC, meet with a lawyer to draw up and operating agreement....so sometime around 2112 we'll be able to cater your event.

I also spent some time helping out in the Growing Matters garden this morning doing some harvesting with the garden manager...seeing someone else's garden always gives me lots of inspiration. And makes me want a bigger yard.

You need one

Yesterday evening the cute hubby and I joined forces on saving a wonderful friend of ours from the depths of overkittenization. What is overkittenization you ask? It is a horrible, terrible state, typically caused by long periods of exposure to overly cute kittens, excessive amounts of sleep deprivation and a general lack of all things chic and fashionable such as late night ice cream devouring sessions and meals with fun and entertaining people outside the house. Symptoms include an increased appetite for chips, a focus on mathematical formulas and bathroom habits and a desire to wear only yoga pants.

With our years of experience, we quickly determined the only way to save my dear friend from the horrible fate in which she was trapped was to steal her away from the clutches of the 10 cats (yes, I said 10 cats) and force her to ingest excessive amounts of cheap Italian food and make witty conversation.

It was a dangerous and challenging mission, fraught with rapid fire quips and educated judgments. Late night rations of waffle bowls and chocolate were required but luckily with our experience we knew to come prepared.

Fortunately we were able to catch the disease in it's early stages and our applied treatment was successful. In such case that the above treatment were not successful, large amounts of vodka and dancing would have been required to save her from the horrible fate.

Below are case study photos of subjects under the spell of the dreaded host animals.

Beware - the images below are highly sensitive and may cause intense feelings known as need-to-have-one-right-now. In such case these feelings do occur, immediately contact KAR for the required antidote.

Proceed at your own risk.