Reviving a Green Thumb

We're back from our vacation in Florida and I just had an itch to build something. I needed to create with my hands. While in Florida I helped my dad build a deck for two days and it just re-enforced to me how much I enjoy building things.

So this week I had to take an emergency vacation day on Wednesday to take care of the kids. Samantha was ill and sleeping so I tried to keep the kids outside and make the most of the midweek Saturday for me. I had enough pressure treated lumber to build this garden box. We ran to Harbor Freight and picked up a soaker hose (had a coupon of course) that we put in it. Combined with the programmable timer and Miracle Grow garden fertilizer attachment, I figure I should have monster tomatoes in no time.

After spending the night last night in the ER at St. Elizabeth with Samantha, I found myself with another early Saturday on Friday. (Samantha is fine by the way, nasty virus, but she is resting and getting through it) Anyhow, when the Caleb got home from school today, it was time to plant the garden. But what is a garden without nice garden stakes to tell you where your plants are? So today the girls and I made these garden stakes out of 1/4" plywood and ripped pressure treated fence slat leftovers for stakes. Unfortunately the urethane didn't dry before we planted the seeds, but tomorrow we will replace the little stick tags with our new garden markers.

We ended up planting three kinds of tomatoes, carrots, jalapeno peppers, yellow onions, green and red peppers, and broccoli. The only plants I'm hoping really take off are the tomatoes (even though I don't care for raw tomato...go figure) and the hot peppers. The others are more for the kids. My last trick will be to figure out how to get the weeds to pull themselves.

My Mind is else where

Choosing something to blog about sometimes can be frustrating. During the week something will happen and I'll think it would be great to post on here. When the time come that I can post, I don't remember much (blame the Aspartame in the Diet Cokes). So here are a couple of shorties:

My Mind is in Florida already. I'm stuck in a two day meeting, but I'm already at Sara Lake Estates visiting my parents, going to the Red Barn flea market and the Bargain barn, building a sand castle with the kids on Siesta Key, playing cards with my Uncles, and fishing in the pond behind my parents place. I hope they don't ask me any thing complicated this week, my head might just implode since my mind is officially gone on vacation.

So...Bailey and I are driving home from some friends home on Friday night. Up until the time we were leaving she was acting pitiful and whiny. Classic Bailey signs that she's tired. She wanted to ride with me in my car (a special treat for the kids since they are normally in the van). I'm not sure what happened but she got her second wind in the car and wanted to play games all the way home. Here is just a part of the conversation:
Bailey: Hey Daddy
Me: Yes Bailey
Bailey: I wanna play a game
Me: (tired because it is 10pm and I've been up since 5am) Bailey, can we just listen to the radio?
Bailey: I wanna play "I Spy"
Me: Bailey, Daddy's tired
Bailey: OK, I'll just play it by my self.

I'm not really sure how the game went, but I think she won.

Speaking of 5am, I've found that it's a great time to get up, get a cup of coffee (we've dug out the coffee pot and are actually using it for ourselves), and spend an hour with God before the day kicks off. It's refreshing to get back to a more consistent daily quiet time instead of the hit or miss action I was giving God when trying to "fit it in." I know God is pleased with a more deliberate and consistent time and I know my perspective on the day is lifted when I spend time with the Creator of the Universe first.

Finally, I'm blessed to have Samantha as my wife and the mother of my children. Just thought I'd mention that.