updates from my patio

The great thing about living in Florida? Our early growing season!

Check this post from March 23 for previous pictures so you can see how far it's coming. 

I've already picked and eaten 10 of these:

And two of these (with many more to come in the next few weeks):

I decided tomato cages weren't worth my money, so twine is my new BFF.

I learned that you have to be a plant-murderer if you end up with every single seed sprouting.

These were my 3 "pots of dirt" from the previous post.

The basil is on the upper left of that picture, and is doing awesome.  (I used some for bruschetta tonight.)  I obviously thinned out the tomatoes once they started running amok (top picture; I was apparently supposed to do it once they got to be 6 inches tall...oops).  And the blue pot on the bottom were some wildflowers I planted from seed that I don't think I thinned out in time; the leaves are turning brown and I haven't seen any flowers yet.  Oh well.

It looks like I'll be having tomatoes all summer, since my ones from seed are starting to flower just now:

Other than the wildflowers, I've had some other garden casualties.

My salvia has seen better days.

My pepper plant got some kinda blight?

My one little pepper--it had fallen to the ground the next morning.

And, saddest of all . . .

My "easy-to-care-for" orchid.  Not so easy if you don't have a perfect light level for it.

I moved that orchid around a lot, from this room to that room, trying to get it to live.  Nothing.  I finally chucked it, and I'll be reusing the pot for something else.

I'm pretty happy with the way my first attempt at gardening is turning out, though!  Lots of tomatoes and a steady supply of strawberries and basil.  I'll be planting some different flowers to replace the salvia this week.  I'm hoping that the 3 H's of the Florida summer (heat, humidity, hurricanes) don't kill everything off!

friday fill-in

Link up with Wife of a Sailor

1. Do you think civilians, in general, understand the meaning of Memorial Day?
Well, like any holiday in America, it's been over-commercialized, but I think people sorta get it.  I think a lot of people just don't know how to honor our fallen military.  My family put out our flag, but if you don't live around a military community, there aren't many traditions going on to pick it up from.

2. What are your plans for the Memorial Day Weekend?
Tonight we're going to a friend's house and then tomorrow we're going to the Historic Pensacola Village, I think.  Then I don't know.  I think both of us forgot that he has Monday off.

3. What skill/talent do you wish you had? submitted by The 3 Turners
Playing an instrument (other than my voice), reading music effortlessly.  Or anything I could get good enough at to turn into a part-time career.  I wish I had some type of focused ambition.

4. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? submitted by I Married Into The Army  
I'll go biblical and say the chicken. 

God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. God saw how good it was, and God blessed them, saying, "Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply on the earth." (Gen 1:21-22)

Although in the next chapter it says something about birds of the air being formed out of the ground, so who knows?

5. What is the best thing about your post (base)? The worst? submitted by Randomly, Robyn
NAS Pensacola is beautiful!  If you drive along the main East-West road, you get to see this stunning beach with white sand and usually some sailboats in the water.  The sun is usually shining, and it is just so serene.  There are no nasty steam pipes going over your head like I was used to in Norfolk.  Also, there are a few tourist attractions on base (aviation museum, 'haunted' lighthouse, an old fort, etc.), so you can spend a whole day there and spend very little money.

The worst part is that there are only two ways in and the one we live near closes at 9pm on weekdays (this cost-cutting measure started after we moved here).  This led to me speeding through base last night to make it out in time so I didn't have to drive all the way around, which would've added 20 extra minutes to my trip.  I made it with seconds to spare!.  Another bad thing about our base is that if a bad hurricane hits again, we're totally in the way.  Hurricane Ivan wrecked the place in 2004.  Oh, I suppose I don't have to mention how humid this place is from May through September?  At least we have a beach!

I suck at art

When I was in Georgia the other weekend, my sister and I decided to treat my mom to a late mother's day gift. We took her to one of those "drinking and painting" classes.  My sister had done one about a month earlier and really enjoyed it.  I'd been wanting to do one for a while (I even bought a Groupon to one down here that I still haven't used), so of course I was game.

I was quickly reminded just how much I don't know.  I haven't taken an art class since 5th grade, back when it was a "special."  Okay, I lie.  I actually took a graphic design/layout class my last semester in college.  But we used stock photos and were more concerned with fonts and kerning.

We did this very whimsical "Crazy Daisy" painting.  I changed the colors of my petals no less than ten times because I hadn't made a decision prior to painting (tip for myself next time: be decisive; have a vision).  After we were done painting, we had the option to use puff paint to make our painting even more crazy.  I thought everyone else's puffed paintings looked really cool with the added dimension, so I decided to try my hand at it.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm the most uncoordinated woman alive?  Yeah, that "C" in "C.W." should actually stand for CLUMSY.  That said, once I started doing my puff paint, all hell broke loose on my canvas.  The white paint I was using ran out/malfunctioned, so I picked up another one.  I then promptly DROPPED IT on top of my canvas, right on top of the paint I just put on so it mashed it down (making it not-puffy).  I'm a total perfectionist with my own pursuits, so yes, I started to get emotional about it.  (I also had felt rushed during the entire class, which didn't help.)  This also apparently was a good time for the instructor to take her requisite "class photo," and she made everyone get up on the stage where I was trying to fix my paint, so I was forced to join in.

My mother knows me well, having dealt with (and sometimes been the cause of) my perfectionism for most of my life.  She calmed me down and helped me fix the thing as much as I could.  I liked the way my sister went to town with her paint scribbles, and I thought it might detract from my mess ups but it sorta just made it worse because all the paints were running out at the point, globbing onto my painting.  I guess this one just wasn't in the cards for me.

What's a post about art without some pics though?

I like my sister's the best

 The stem area is where I dropped the tube of paint; it's pretty obvious.

I call my painting: "I got in a fight with puff paint and lost."

 If one good thing came out of this, other than the bonding time with Mom and sis, it's that I now have a pretty sweet artist mark:

If you haven't figured out my full name, here's your rebus.

I'll definitely be trying again at the studio down here, and I'll definitely share that one as well (good or bad).  Too bad I won't have my mommy with me though.

If you want to see some work from an artist with actual talent, check out Aisle to Aloha.  I don't follow a lot of art bloggers, but her stuff is awesome.