Doing stuff

This weekend I've been waking up after 11 hours. That is much better than last weekend. Last night I made potato soup (potato-ham-cheese chowder) and experimented with red velvet cake, chocolate pudding, and chocolate. I made chocolate dipped mini cupcakes and a layer cake. They were yummy. Dave and Froggi came over and shared it with us.

Today I started some seeds. I put seeds inside coffee filters inside sandwich baggies. I labeled the sandwich baggies with what I put inside and spritzed the inside with water. I put them all up on top of my plant shelf. When the seeds sprout I can move them to more permanent containers. I did cabbage, swiss chard, two kinds of peas, thyme, pansies, and a mix of seeds I collected on my walk last weekend. It is probably too early to do this but I don't care. I have the plant shelf to help me along if I need it. Then I put some seed starting mix in a kitty pan and I'm waiting for it to soak up the water. When it does I'll plant lettuce in it. It is also on top of the shelf for now. Bones was VERY interested in it.

I'm narrowing the list of vegetables I want to grow this year. For cool season I have the veggies I already talked about. I may get some broccoli plants later on. For warm season I want to put sweet potatoes in the big front bed. That has worked well in the past. I'll also put in some annuals like cosmos and zinnias and marigolds for height and color. Oh, and gazanias. The rest of my stuff (cool season too) is going to be in containers. I'm planning to get tomatoes at the SpringFling in April. They'll need to be in the biggest containers I can get my hands on. I'll be on the lookout. Then in smaller containers I want to plant strawberries, pattypan squash, and a couple other random things like an eggplant or two. If I get to feeling consistently better by spring, I may fill my back bed with okra.

My parents want to help me do some more landscape work soon. I'd like to put in a barrier around the front beds. Especially the big one. The soil in the bed is higher than the surrounding area. I want to keep my soil (and my sweet potato vines) in the bed and not in the driveway or the neighbor's yard.

We got rid of our old sliding glass patio door. We're replacing it with french doors, but the factory assumed we wanted the opposite of what we ordered (this happens to me a lot) and so the wrong door is currently pseudo-installed until the factory makes the correct one. We already like it better. Even though it opens on the wrong side and swings the wrong way it is pretty and quiet. It makes the whole house look nicer.

Also, Dave had a good idea last night. We were talking about the hole in the kitchen where we took out the old wall oven. He suggested we just tear the whole structure out instead of trying to make a shelving unit out of it. Then we can put the trash can there and my baking cart when I get one. I like that idea a lot!

The seed starting medium is hydrophobic so I took my hand mixer to it. That worked! So now I have lettuce planted. All I have to do now it water my houseplants and maybe go to WalMart. Oh, and fix the door to the garage so it latches.