July to August

i like mud.

July.....
August....
September...
October........

It's hard to believe I last posted on July 4th. So much has happened! I obviously can't update you on everything, but I'll try.

July

Starting in July, my sweetheart was working a couple hours away during the week & we expected that to continue until January. I was taking another really difficult class, and working from home a couple days a week to keep up with Coco who was just about six months old. I thought I could balance everything well without him there. I was so wrong. 

Unfortunately, it turns out Coco was going through pottying issues. It took me forever to figure out what the problem was, but I hadn't figured it out in July. She was consistently pooping pottying in her crate before I could get home from work. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating to clean the dog, clean the crate, clean the floor six times (I can't wait to replace this porous flooring), clean any other surface, and then clean myself. Then there was the incident where I left her out of her crate once during class...but I won't go into that. 

At the end of July, Coco turned 6 months old. We went to our last day at puppy preschool, and she had a blast! We knew she needed to stay social, and I let her try daycare for a day. She loved it! But of course, she had to get spayed before going to daycare regularly. So, Coco got spayed at the end of July. What a goober, she was HILARIOUS when she came home! 

Thanks to the Coco situation, I wasn't getting much time to study. Summer classes are usually intense for six weeks, but with holidays and my professor teaching in another country, we really only had four weeks. It doesn't help that one of my group members in the class had salmonella poisoning, as did the rest of his family. And my second group member had a hard time communicating, as a new foreign exchange student. Got to love grad school!

August

I finally finished my class, by the skin of my teeth. Thank goodness, I had a week off before starting the Fall semester!!

My parents came to visit during  my week off of school. We had a great time! They got to see our new house, meet Coco, and see the town we used to live in. We visited my sweetheart's new work too. They also helped me a lot with wedding planning. I am so lucky, i found the dress while my parents were visiting. It was only the third dress! It was the perfect moment, where I just knew that if it was that easy, it was meant to be. We also found a wonderful hotel for our visiting family to stay in. Minus a couple issues with the DMV, we had a wonderful trip. No one wanted the week to end, which is exactly how every vacation should end. 

Alas, still no improvements with Coco, although she was going to daycare a couple times a week and loving it! I was still working from home a couple times a week, and so the other days she would "romp with friends" as we say! She would come home exhausted, and I would finally do some school work. 

I also started a new job, which is more like a rotational group. I found out back in May that I'd been selected, when I got back from Brazil. It's very different and eye opening, but made our summer a bit more hectic. 

As you can see, a lot of things changed! Most for the better, and a couple complicated life a little more. It had been months since we did any updating or changes to the house, and I certainly didn't have time to cook!

{sparkling fourth}

Let's sum up what's happened in the last week or so...
 
1. Finished the Brazil class. Hooray!
 
2. Started my next class. Boo.
 
3. We had another dog stay with us for nine days, so its owner could go get married! Coco played ALL DAY. The other dog didn't always want to, since she was three years old and much smaller. So I ended up playing referee. They were so sweet, I miss having something to entertain Coco.
 
4. The garden has done nothing. NOTHING. Time to go get fertilizer. I should probably give up at this point, but I'm too stubborn.
 
5. My sweetheart has started a new job! I'm so proud of him. Even if this makes things a tad more difficult since it's a long commute, it's just something else for us to figure out.

6. We bought a new car. I love it! My sweetheart's truck wasn't too reliable, so he is now using my old car. I am so grateful, I now have a/c. And bless his heart, he thinks my old car still has a/c when it blows out lukewarm air.

I've also finally gotten to do some the deep cleaning I have been dying to do. I know it's gross-but it wasn't our mess, we moved into it!

Ew. Disgusting. You would be amazed what is under your little knobs! With a toothbrush, bleach, and gloves {I forgot to use them...}, you can make everything sparkle like new! Don't let the bleach sit too long, just long enough to get all the grime up. It even whitened the caulk around the rest of the sink.

Just in time for my sweetheart's family to come visit!

I hope you all have a wonderful fourth of July!

Alas, the garden

proud garden puppy

There it is! The garden I have been waiting for. Almost all by myself!
Ok, here is what I planted:

In the picture with Coco above, east is facing us. You can see the tomatoes staked up closer to the fence. The diagram above shows everything I've planted.

You can only see one okra plant, one watermelon, four bell peppers, four eggplants, and six tomatoes. The rest I've mapped out are my leftover seeds I planted. I don't know what plants go together and which don't, but hopefully something grows.

I mean, water and sun and it will all grow right? Probably so very wrong.

I was able to find the bell peppers and eggplants really cheap when visiting New Bern, NC for a wedding. Beautiful place! I even found wedding decorations. Yes, I am slowly, slowly planning..

{raised garden, pt2}

Onto day 2!
I was already sore, but so excited because I have been waiting so long for a real garden.
{not that pots in your apartment aren't a garden, but still.}
 
Now the hard part is making the garden even. I've got my level, but I was never able to get the garden completely flat. I needed to have the lower section {to the left in the picture below} of the garden below the grass level, in case all of the rain and dirt started to push the garden down hill.

But I also needed the top part of the garden to stay above the grass level, so that I didn't have all of the grass and dirt spilling into my garden after a hard rain. Also to prevent slipping, I decided to just create a trench to slide the board into, so that there was compact dirt on each side.

I hope that made sense. If not, just tell me. So, this is what it ended up looking like. It's fairly flat, except maybe a quarter inch off. Good enough!

Instead of using a weed liner, I chose to use cardboard. You can use newspaper too! It sounds like cardboard will last long enough to kill any grass, and then decompose. Also, the worms love it. I found plenty of worms, and definitely kept them in the garden!

Then spread your new dirt around. We purchased way too much dirt, but each bag was about $5.50, and since I lowered the boards into a trench, I didn't need dirt to fill 5x6 exactly. I used about 4 bags, and I am sure I will use another one or two as the dirt settles. Another $22-33.

Coco was a very helpful garden puppy. She was a little too interested though. If you tell her 'no' and are very clear about what she is not supposed to do, she will be good. We had the pots in her way on the deck for a long time, and she left them alone. I expect she will do the same with the garden. Only time will tell!


We spent 42-53 on the garden, not including the plants. To re-pot all of my existing plants, it would easily have cost that much to buy cheap big buckets.

More later-I'm off to play in the dirt!!

{raised garden, pt1}

Finally, time to create the garden I have been waiting for for so long!
& I can say that I was able to do this {mostly} by myself!
I know it is already so late in the season, but that wasn't about to stop me.

I think it turned out really well,
but I could very well be biased.

First, we compromised to a 5x6 garden, and had two large 12' and 10' boards cut in half. {if it was up to me, it would be so much larger, but after all the work...glad we chose this size.} This wasn't very expensive, about $20. Plus, for recently moving into our new wonderful home, we had a 10% off coupon!

 

Second, we marked out where the garden would be. I looked for a spot that most importantly had sun all day! Also, you can tell our new backyard isn't exactly flat. I knew we would need to pull out my handy level, to get it as flat as I could.

The next part is where I needed a little bit of help on the last quarter of shoveling. I chose to remove all the grass, instead of using a weed liner. Based on what I found, the weed liner does prevent weeds from growing up into the garden, but also restricts the roots. No bueno. I'll show you what I did instead.

This part took the longest. We dug up the whole section, and then called it a day.

sleepy puppy

My thoughts:
-when you dig up the grass, go ahead and put it in the trash/transplant it. It is a huge pain to move it later.
-Don't do this in the middle of a hot day, shoot for an early morning or partly cloudy. Or just do this in mid march like most people.

{almost officially summer}

It is hard to believe, we have been living here for officially 2 weeks!

Our home is so perfect for us, Coco is in love with her back yard.
It's more unbelievable that I haven't started a garden yet!

I'm shooting for a raised garden. I have everything I need...I'm more curious to see if my usually well behaved dog is going to behave herself around my precious plants.

This time last year I had basil, and one giant tomato plant.
I eventually tried cucumbers and watermelons.

With all the rain and intense thunderstorms, I haven't really had to time race out there and start planting.

But thankfully my sweetheart and I have some free time on our hands, while I wrap up my first summer class.

I will never have a summer class again in June!!

P.S.-We are less than a year away from our wedding day! So much to plan! 

{rio, brasil}

Olá.
I already feel like I was in Rio a lifetime ago.
It was only a month ago that I arrived in Brazil.
& for the next nine days, so many school lectures, tours, and hilarious moments happened.

Too many to count, but here are my favorite.

 Christ the Redeemer. There is a small church under the feet of Jesus. I said my prayers, got up to leave. A Brazilian woman asked to pray over me (so translated a Brazilian pastor). What an experience, being blessed by two people I would never see again on Mother's Day. After praying for my mother, the lady sang a beautiful song. Can't help but wonder how this sweet, blessed Brazilian lady is doing.

Curious George. Came to see a few of us on our way to Sugar Loaf.

Favelas. Home to many, owned by one. The poor and middle class live here illegally on government land, with conditions that would be looked down on in the U.S. The cable cars are meant to help with transportation. Many children don't go to school; it takes too long to get there. You can see a layer of pollution on the horizon. Very mixed feelings about this picture, but a view to remember forever.

Cannon ball fruit! The inside looks like a coconut mixed with an avocado. I had to research what it was when I got back, not even the Brazilians we asked knew what it was.

If you ever have the chance to visit Brazil, you should! I don't speak spanish, but definitely picked up on important words. Hello, bathroom, please, thank you, goodbye, no nuts (allergies!!), water, and a couple others.

Tchau