Boy, oh Boy

That's what I said tonight when I went outside to water the garden on my balcony.

Let me back up a moment.

Last Saturday I planted my sweet potatoes and pumpkins. I expected to start seeing little bits of green poking through the soil of the pumpkin container in one to two weeks. So when I noticed something in the container last night when I watered the dirt, I thought it was some of that white cottony stuff from the trees. (Pardon the technical terms.) This morning, I was pleasantly surprised when I realized it was actually a little sprout coming up. Not only that, but another one popped up overnight. By the time I got home from school this afternoon, there were four. And just a little while ago when I went outside to water them again, there were five. Five little sprouts poking through the ground!


These are the sprouts from one of the mounds. The other two sprouts are on the other mound.

I can't tell whether the sweet potatoes have grown any since I planted them in their containers. But they haven't died yet, so that's always positive. And still, it's exciting to see stuff happening.

I promise, I won't rattle on about my little plants every day. And I'll try not to take photos of every little change. But if I actually end up with a pumpkin or sweet potatoes, I will be posting photos. You've been duly warned.

The strawberry patch

Remember the almost dead strawberry plant from a little over a week ago? Well, take a look at her now!


It's still yet to be seen whether it will produce any strawberries, but I'm hopeful.

And while we're on the topic of strawberries...


I finished the apron for the Summer Fun Apron Swap. The apron is supposed to have a summertime theme, so I went with picnic and strawberries. This was my first time to make a pleat and my first time to applique. I think the apron looks even better in person than in the photo. I'm pretty pleased with it.

My swap partner has two little girls, so I decided to make them matching picnic place mats. I looked at several tutorials (just google "picnic placemat tutorials" if you're interested) and used them as a basis. But there's nothing tricky here.


The place mat rolls up nicely for easy carrying.


And since I'm sure I've already lost the folks who really aren't interested in sewing, I'll go ahead and show you the other thing I've made recently. It's a tic-tac-tote. (I came up with that name myself -- I think.) It's just a normal ol' totebag, but it doubles as a tic-tac-toe game board. And the playing pieces are in the matching drawstring bag.






I made it for my niece's birthday, but I didn't finish it in time. So it will be a random gift when I get around to mailing it. I have to try my best to stay her favorite aunt, you know. And, of course, gifts are the best way to do that.

On the ghetto, in fact

Last Monday Brian and I met some people at a meeting way across town. We were chatting with one woman when another woman came up and introduced herself. She asked us where we lived and when we told her the neighborhood, she responded, "Oh, that's difficult."

Difficult? I wasn't sure what she meant. Since we were speaking in English and she said her English wasn't very good, I thought maybe she had used the wrong word. So I gave some generic answer like, "Yes, it's very different than the place we lived in the U.S."

That's when the first woman piped up. She asked, "What do you mean 'difficult'? Is that a nice way to say it's not so nice a place?" And the second woman explained that she was viewing it from a social worker's standpoint.

So apparently we live in the ghetto. Or as Carla from Scrubs put it, we're from the block.

Rainy days

There's been quite a bit of rain over the last two days. Do you know what that means?

SNAILS. Big fat snails.

Hello, I'm Mr. Snail.

I don't really have anything else to say about snails. I just like this photo.

Mary, Mary quite contrary

What in your garden grows?
Pumpkins, sweet, and strawberries to eat
And Texas sweet potatoes.

You have no idea how long I worked on that poem. I really wanted to replace the first line (the title), but nothing rhymes with Alisha. While searching on the internet -- you know, just to be sure -- I found a song that's actually called, "Nothing Rhymes with Alicia". I stopped looking after that because if there's a song about something, it must be true.

So anyway, this is my new hobby. Gardening. Container gardening on the balcony, to be precise. I have strawberries out there now and will be planting sugar pumpkins and sweet potatoes soon. And just look at the lovely fruit.



The previous photo is probably a little misleading. Those aren't strawberries from my plant. But they are from a photo of strawberries on the card that was hanging from my strawberry plant. So technically, they are strawberries from my plant. Kind of.



I started out only with one strawberry plant because it was more or less a test to see if I could keep something alive. Turns out, I couldn't. The plant was dead by the end of the first week. But I figured out what I was doing wrong (I think) and it seems to be reviving. I guess it was only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.

I also decided to get a second plant, as you can see below. This photo was taken on the worse day for plant number 1. She's looking a little better these days and I think I even saw a new flower today.



Now for the sweet potatoes. I haven't actually planted them yet, but they're already flourishing. I've had a sweet potato sitting in a jar of water for several weeks. Just take a look at it. These photos were taken over the last three days.



Hopefully the vines will continue to flourish once they're planted. I also decided to plant pumpkins because they're supposed to be pretty easy to grow. We'll see about that. I've never grown anything, unless you count that bean that I wrapped in a wet paper towel and stuck in a baggie in science class when I was a kid. I'm sure there will be plenty of photos of this experiment over the next few months. Unless it's a complete failure. In which case, you'll never hear me speak of this again.

I've got nothing to say, but it's ok

I haven't really had much to write about lately. But I've checked my stats and see that people have been checking day after day for an update. So this will be one of those posts that has lots of topics while simultaneously being about nothing. Consider yourself warned.

***

I've gotten out of the habit of showing mail goodies I receive because I don't want you thinking I'm just in this for the loot. But this week Brian and I received a package from one of the classes at Memorial Road full of goodies that we can't get here. I definitely see some baking in my near future.

***

Last year, one of the ladies at Memorial Road sent us a beautiful quilt. I wanted to show it to you right away, but she was also sending quilts to the other families and I didn't want to ruin the surprise for them. One family still hasn't received a quilt, but they found out about the quilts, so I think it's safe to show it to you now. The fabric is called "Vienna Nights", so it's a natural fit.


One day I'm going to give quilting a try. I'll start out with a baby quilt or maybe a lap quilt. But I would love to make something like this one day.

***

I've been doing a little sewing lately. But I'm not going to show you any of it yet. Maybe next week.

***

I've also started a new hobby. I guess you can call it a hobby. But I'm not going to tell you about it today either. I've got use these little cliffhangers so you'll come back! And I'm sure it's posts just like this one that keep you coming back for more.

Happy Mom's Day

Happy Mother's Day to a woman who can do it all. As I get older and feel like life gets busier I have no idea how you did (and still do) it all. I feel crazy busy with just a husband and a job. Somehow you managed to take care of a husband, 3 kids (and millions of others at the house all the time), and finish school all while making costumes, putting on class parties, baking cakes, and the list goes on and on. I say all of this to say--you rock mom! I have no idea how...but you rock!

Okay, I confess. I just copied that from my sister's blog. But I thought it was a well-worded and I have the same sentiments. Hopefully Mom checks my blog first. :)

These were not staged, honest

Sometimes I look at my dog and can't help but think that he is the most magnificent creature on earth. He always loves a good nap, especially when he has someone to cuddle up with. But when he can't find a person to cuddle with, his pet shark (Dogshark) is more than happy to fill in.




Now, I haven't been around a lot of dogs other than Sharkdog, so I don't know whether this is normal. Do most dogs like to cuddle with stuffed animals and sleep with a pillow under their head?

At least I didn't buy that at a grocery store

I've written about the wide range of products available at grocery stores before, but I never expected to see something like this. Yesterday I read an article for German class about an online special offered by the grocery store Plus (or Zielpunkt, as it's called in Austria). What were they selling? A wedding package. It included just about everything: wedding dress, cake, flowers, food, honeymoon and more. Can you imagine buying your wedding online? My sewing machine from Zielpunkt lasted only a few weeks. I hope the weddings don't break so easily.

A trip to Croatia

Or, The most awkward train ride ever

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I like traveling by train. I like gazing out the window to watch the countryside pass. I like the steady rhythm of the train. I like how almost every passenger and employee who passes by smiles at Sharkdog. But I've learned an important lesson on this trip to Croatia. The train ride is only as pleasant as the other passengers around you.

Brian and I make seat reservations when we travel because we don't like having to try to find a seat with Sharkdog. On our trip to Croatia, we had seats in a small compartment that had six seats. When we found our compartment, there were already three people in there. So much for the empty compartment I was hoping for. But I didn't really mind, the other passengers looked nice enough. That is, until two of them started sucking face. I kid you not, these two kissed for the first half hour or so and intermittently through the rest of their journey. I felt bad for the third guy in the compartment -- who was traveling with these two lovebirds -- because at least we only had to watch the make out sessions while we were on the train together. They got off in Graz, maybe two hours into the trip. Three girls joined us in Graz and traveled in our compartment for about half an hour before getting off the train. Then we had the cabin to ourselves the rest of the trip (3.5 to 4 more hours).

On our way home the next day, we were in an open train rather that one with small compartments. That part wasn't bad. But the girls sitting across the aisle from us where awful. They talked (loudly) the whole time. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, they were so pretentious. They went on and on about their future travel plans and when they're going to get married and have kids. One of them talked about how she was looking forward to her babymoon -- you know, like a honeymoon, only right before the baby comes. The other girl talked about her scuba diving team, hiking Mount Machu Picchu as a teenager and her trip to the Galapagos Islands. ("In my defense," she said in reference to her visit to the Galapagos Islands, "it was years ago before there was a waiting list visit the islands.") Finally about two hours before we arrived back in Vienna I realized that I should just turn on my iPod. I had to turn the volume really high, but that did the trick.

Despite not having the best luck in seating arrangements, I still enjoyed the trip. We spent about 13 hours on the train and 15 hours (mostly sleeping) in Croatia. But this wasn't really a pleasure trip and it served it's purpose.

Enough talking, here are a few photos from the trip.


Sharkdog found this nice cozy spot under the train seat. He was under here during one of the passport checks. He was very sneaky. But he came out before the next passport check, so he's not really that sneaky.


There was a festival in the town square and these old folks were really getting after it. They were the only ones dancing, but there were quite a few people sitting around watching them and enjoying the music.


In another part of the town square, there was more music from these Hare Krishna practitioners.


Brian and Sharkdog enjoyed watching the scenery.

And here are some of the lovely sights taken through the train window.

I don't want to brag, but...

You know how some people with blogs spend all their time gushing over their kids and how awesome they are? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Well, I don't have kids, so I'm just going to have tell you how awesome I am. And let me tell you, I rock.

I came to this conclusion yesterday afternoon. Today is a holiday and tomorrow Brian and I are heading off on overnight trip, so I had a ton of things I needed to get done between 2:15 when we got out of class and 6 or 7 when everything closes down until Friday.

First, Brian and I stopped by a train station on our way home from class to purchase our tickets for weekend trip. That's where the awesomeness began. I had a complete conversation with the ticket guy IN GERMAN. I told him I wanted 2 tickets for adults and 1 ticket for our dog, when we wanted to leave (date and time, thankyouverymuch), and when we wanted to return. He asked me questions and not only did I understand him, I was actually able to respond. In German. And I know this guy speaks English because we've bought tickets from him in the past and we only spoke English then. It was truly a triumph and I'm sure I had a silly grin on my face the whole time. Brian was also quite surprised, but he was able to suppress his silly grin until we left the ticket office.

The next stop was the post office where I continued to rock the German. The postman had tried to deliver a package yesterday morning and the slip he left said the package could be picked up the next business day at the post office. But I wanted to try to get the package before the holiday. When I got to the counter, I said something like, "I would like to know whether I am able to pick up the package today." (My German teacher always says that longer sentences sound more elegant and polite.) Fortunately, the package was available and I went on my merry way without having to say much else.

I had one more stop before home -- the pharmacy. Last year we bought some drops for Sharkdog that are supposed to help calm his nerves. We're almost out and we wanted to get some more before our trip on Friday. I showed the pharmacist the bottle and she asked me a few questions and I was able to answer -- all in German. Although, once she had to rephrase a question because I didn't understand it. But then my awesomeness started to wane and I didn't know how to say someone was already helping me when another pharmacist asked whether I needed assistance. However, it was just a short lapse because a few minutes later I was able to ask the pharmacist about the proper way to dispose of needles. (I have tons of sharps from my insulin pump from the past 10 months that I didn't know where to throw away.)

Shortly after getting home, Brian and I took Sharkdog to the vet to get a rabies shot. I tried some more German on the assistant, but it was getting a little late in the day and I was running out of German. So we quickly switched to English. Nevertheless, I'd still say it was a pretty successful afternoon.