did it take long to find me?

So yesterday was a good day, a real nice end to these 12 days of leave - blueberry day! And some other cool things...

We slept in a little, then ate leftover pizza for a late breakfast/early lunch. After showers we headed out, first to Old Navy. For my military readers, Old Navy offers a military discount (with your ID, obviously) on the 1st of every month. Usually it's 10%, but in checking my receipt on the way out, I realized it was 30% yesterday. Kick ass.

After Old Navy we went next door to Bed, Bath and Beyond to try to find a glass carafe for Tree's lemonade (we've been keeping it in the fridge in a large flower vase that I bought at a yard sale for 50 cents... embarrassing...), but no luck.

Then on to the blueberry farm! I found DiMeo Farms online, in Hammonton, N.J., the Blueberry Capital of the World, and it seemed pretty cool, so there we went. What sweet people, I can't even tell you. Tree and I picked out 7 blueberry plants and I got a really neat rustic wooden hand-tray for carrying vegetables from the garden (so quaint it breaks my heart).


Before we left, the lovely blueberry lady gave us 8 poblano peppers to thank us for our business. Tree turned them into a superdelicious salsa when we got home (onions were store bought, tomatoes and additional peppers from our garden).

(a bit too much flash in that picture)

Got home and managed to get 4 of the plants in the ground before it got dark/we were tired. We still have to clear some more random wild crap away from the fence before we can get the other 3 plants in... tomorrow, hopefully. I also made a stick pile for Tree's eventual fire pit.

Then we made my favorite vegetarian sweet potato/bean burritos (don't hate until you've tried them) and I opened my birthday present early. My birthday is actually on Saturday, but Tree is going away for two weeks of training the very next day, and we wanted to enjoy my new toy a little before he leaves - an old fashioned ice cream maker!! I can't wait to get started. I'm going to at least try to make one batch before he goes back to MA.

And that was pretty much it. All in all a great day!

And now... I'm feeling very nervous about going back to work. It's really sad - the CPT makes me hate the Army a little bit. Words cannot describe what a terrible boss she is - she actually damages my self esteem. I dread going to work mostly because I healed so much over leave, and I don't want to go back to feeling like shit every day.

So I'm going to brainstorm a bit this week about my options, and I'm going to hang on to my Zen for as long as possible.

(crosses fingers)

"and if I ever lose my eyes,
if my colors all run dry
yes, if I ever lose my eyes
I won't have to cry no more."

- Cat Stevens "Moon Shadow" -

off through the new day's mist I run

What's that? you ask?

That. Is a Yard Monster.

Tree and I pulled it from its nest in the pine trees along the side of our back yard with the weird vampire neighbors (the other side has the cool neighbors who invited us to their cookout on the 4th of July). Actually, I'm not 100% sure they are vampires, but since I've yet to see any of them in the 8 months that we've lived here, I can only assume. I do know they own a small dog, though, who is sometimes out on their deck, so I guess they must not be the dog-eating kind. Unless the dog is the only one living there. In that case, bravo on teaching yourself to drive to the store to get dog food. Unless the dog ate the neighbors. Yikes...

Getting off topic. So the Yard Monster was a huge snarly viney grapey thing that was strangling like 4 trees to death. Plus it was a terrible eyesore. Tree brought home some pruning shears and we hacked and yanked and untangled and cursed for the better part of two afternoons - and there's still some left. Unfortunately, the previous occupants of our house (technically still the current owners as we are mere renters) never tried to cut the thing back. And obviously the next-door vampires/dog didn't do it either. In fact, the type of fence that separates that section of our yards (there are two different kinds of fencing on that side... sigh...) is such that I suspect the wild grape debacle was no accident.

But that part of the yard is definately coming along. We're going to pick up some blueberry bushes tomorrow and get them planted hopefully tomorrow afternoon, if the weather is ok. It's been raining something awful lately. One of our tomato plants (we only had 3) was killed in the vicious storm we had the other night. Luckily everything else was unharmed. The squash/zucchini/pepper plants are all doing fine, giving us a pretty decent return. Again, we didn't plant much because it's only the two of us here and this was our first garden, but I'm impressed! And we have so many great ideas for next year. The blueberry bushes we're planting tomorrow won't give us much, if anything, this season, but it will be nice to have berries next year. And they'll be covering up the nakedness created when we took out all the wild grape vines - the vampires' yard is overgrown, filled with junk, and just horrible, and I'd rather not have to look at it.

That was kind of snobby. :P

Well, that's pretty much it for now. Two days left of leave, then back to work. More stuff to do outside before I'm satisfied. We've got the cookout to plan for, and I know it's early, but I'm already gearing up for Halloween. And there are a whole list of recipes I want to try while we can take advantage of these fresh summer vegetables. Busy busy busy.

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Side note: Tree was featured on My Sleeping Husband! (shhhh, he doesn't know) Go on over and take a peek.

"so seek the wolf in thyself..."

- Metallica "Of Wolf and Man" -