A Screw Loose

A few Saturdays ago, we decided it was time to buy a grill. Home Depot had some good deals, and we picked out the cheapest of the nice grills ($149 for a four-zone gas grill, with a side burner - not bad...). Given that a grill was not going to fit in the trunk of my car, and was certainly not going to fit anywhere in Steven's car, we decided to rent the Home Depot truck for an hour.

And, since we had the truck, we sprang for the patio set as well. Go ahead and knock it all out at once, right?



Right. We bought this grill and the patio set below at about 3 PM on a Saturday afternoon. Plenty of time to put it together and grill up some dinner, right?



Oh, no chance. Turns out there were approximately 47,000 tiny little nuts and bolts required to put the grill together, then another billion for the patio table and four (count em, F-O-U-R) chairs. By chair #2, it was 9 PM and I was ready to kill someone.

And then I made a discovery. We were short on bolts. They'd given us 8 when we needed 16 to get the job done.



Fury poured from my nostrils. (Also hunger, but I was too set on getting that stinking patio set put together to think about food at the moment.) I snatched up the offending bolts to use as examples and headed back to Home Depot. It was our fifth trip through the doors that day. We were starting to get sidelong glances from the employees, as if to say, "You again? Weren't you here earlier?"



An hour's worth of rummaging through those obnoxious little plastic drawers holding individual bolts of varying sizes, and we (and the 10 orange-apron-wearing folks that had come to assist the "crazy bolt couple") came to the conclusion that there was only one choice left:

We had to open another patio set and take the bolts we needed.



A grumbling, tired man in a forklift managed to get the box down for us, and he grouchily tore the box open and handed us the package of nuts and bolts from the second patio set. He took a big Sharpie and wrote "MISSING ITEMS" on the box. I felt a pang of guilt, because now our problem had become Home Depot's problem, too. Bleary-eyed, we thanked him and trudged home.

It was 10 PM.

We finally finished assembling the patio set and grill around 11 that night.



We woke up early the next morning to clean up the remaining cardboard packaging left on the patio overnight, and Steven made a discovery.

There, taped to the inside of one of the boxes, was a second set of nuts and bolts. It contained exactly the bolts I had thought were missing.

Only now, we have exactly two sets of them.



And I'm too embarrassed to take them back.

Morning Prep

As part of our Cucina Povera thing we've got going on, I've been packing lunches for us in the mornings. (And no, I did not pick up a part-time gig flipping burgers -- although it does kind of sound appealing. Steven got me a t-shirt from his work.)



At first, I was always in a tremendous rush -- throwing around deli meats and sandwich bags in a crazed frenzy to get out the door on time. But now I've settled into a nice little routine that even allows me to eat a bowl of cereal before I leave the house.



And, following in my Mom's footsteps, I write our initials in Sharpie on the outside of the brown lunch bag. A big Sharpie "S" for Steven, and a big Sharpie "H" for Heather.

I set the brown bags on the counter right next to each other one morning, lined up all pretty and neat, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I stepped back to admire my work, and Steven took one look at the bags and said, thoughtfully, "You know, we really shouldn't name our kids Ivan and Thomas, or anything."



It took me nearly a full cup of coffee before I caught the joke. But when I did, it was darned funny.

Harbinger of (Cute & Fuzzy) Doom

I have found the evil garden destroyer.



And he wields his cuteness as his power. (And his enormous teeth.) Steven says he (the rabbit) growled at him (Steven, the grown man). I doubt this. And yet, I hesitate to approach this growling fearmonger. If he can do that kind of damage to my bean plants, imagine how he could gnaw away on my arm.



I will foil you yet, you wascaly little ..... oh, nevermind. Ever heard of Tabasco sauce? Cause those leaves you're chewing are going to be dripping with it, real soon.

By the way, there are people out there who would carry around your amputated paw for luck. You have much to fear, evil bunny. Best stick to the dandelion greens from now on.

Or else.

Can you Identify Me?

I am a skinny, sickly little tree in the backyard.



I started to grow these little flowerbuds recently.



Steven thinks I might be a fruit tree.



And then the flowerbuds opened a few days later to look like little bells.



What the heck am I? (Heather is hoping for lemons maybe?)

Radish Report Card

About 4 weeks ago, I planted some radish seeds. Just for fun, since I'd never really tasted a radish outside of the thinly-sliced and rather bland ones found in the premixed fast-food restaurant salads. But what the hey. Its my dirt, right? I can grow anything I want, which includes foods I could potentially dislike.

Turns out, radishes grow like gangbusters! From the above-ground growth, you would have thought the radishes underneath were fist-sized. The stalks they grew were huge.



I read reports that radishes are supposed to be finished growing in 3-4 weeks, so in the fourth week, I decided to have a Radish Harvest.

And the results were not exactly what I expected. I have assigned grades to this graduating class of radishes, and as you will plainly see in the next few pictures, there is apparently a Radish Bell Curve of some sort going on in the garden.


Radishes, Class of '09

Our first group are the honor roll students, but unfortunately I am still only giving them an A-minus... (The salutatorian is looking a little shrimpy.)



These guys are somewhere in the B range. Not too terrible, but also not quite radish-shaped. More like radish tubes. Radish cylinders.



We start to see them go a little crooked in the C-plus group...



And this guy never showed up to class and gave the teacher lip, so he was kicked out of radish school for insubordinate behavior.



A good scrubdown and some slicing and dicing (and some googling to figure out how people are supposed to eat these things), and I decided to try my first (non-McDonalds) radish with a little goat cheese and some chopped up chives (also from the herb garden because yay, I grew some chives too!).



Pretty to look at, and rather peppery to eat. Overall, though? Not half bad. I planted two more rows of radishes that same day, so hopefully we can harvest them before it gets too hot this summer. We've had a rash of thunderstorms lately which has kept things cool, and that has resulted in a lettuce bounty.



I bought me a nice big container of Kraft Ranch Dressing to slather all over this stuff. Because nothing says classy city girl like a delicate mixed-greens salad drowning in ranch dressing. Pass me them napkins, ya'll.

Food and Family

One of the most fun things about blogging is that you can bend the time/space continuum and nobody knows. For example, I can send you back to Minnesota for this post, making it look like we went twice recently. Rest assured, we aren't in MN now -- I just had some extra stuff to post from our trip in early May.

After spending the first few days in Minnesota purposefully doing nothing more than Lift-Coffee-Mug-To-Face-And-Repeat (as pictured below), I figured I should probably do something a bit more helpful.



So for our Sunday brunch, I was assigned the position of Head Person In Charge Of Chopping Up Stuff. And ergo, I sliced and diced cucumbers and tomatoes to my heart's content.



Yay. Repetitive tasks are so relaxing. I rank them very high on the zen-o-meter.



Also very relaxing? Filling separate bowls with individual salad ingredients. Very Barefoot Contessa. (I so love her. In fact, I aspire to someday be both barefoot and a contessa.)



See? Isn't it pretty? (In the picture below, under the sunglasses, is a Sunday School gift from Jay to Jenny. Its a Precious Moments coloring book picture, which reminded me of my youth. I'd know those teardrop-shaped eyes and enormous foreheads anywhere.)



Steven really enjoyed hanging out with Jay during our trip. They were best buds. I think I may have even seen Steven trying to teach Jay the two-seam fastball grip at one point...



One of my favorite parts of any family get-togethers, with the Steeles and with the Huffs, is time around the dinner table. Its the place where the best conversations always happen. The combination of food and family just seems to elicit great things.



See what I mean?

Oh, and PRESENTS!

Almost forgot to show you what I got for my birthday!

I opened presents on Friday night, because I just couldn't wait any longer. It wasnt even the right month, and yet there I was, tearing through wrapping paper like a five year old hopped up on a secret Christmas Eve stocking dive for Skittles.



First up, from the hubby: A (probably 10-lb.) wooden cutting board!



And to go along with the cutting board? Medieval torture instruments!


Oh wait. These are for gardening? Oh. Right.

And from my Mom: a rotary cheese grater and a "Garden Party" t-shirt!



I was so busy figuring out my new cheese grater that I forgot I was still holding the shirt up after the initial picture. Such a dweeb, I am.



Thanks for a fantastic (O-M-G-I-am-perilously-close-to-being-thirty) birthday, everybody -- I really enjoyed it! (Now, where are my spectacles and my granny shawl?)