Milwaukee

I went home in the middle of August, spending about a week in Minnesota before heading to Milwaukee for a family reunion.  I expected to go home to heat and humidity, but it was actually breezy and a bit chilly.  I had a good time seeing my family and reuniting with friends at home.  It was also interesting to see how much Rochester has grown since I'd last been home (which actually wasn't too long ago).  I relished the slower pace, fewer cars on the road, and the Minnesota nice.  Everywhere I drove, I could not help marveling the lack of traffic and lack of road rage.  After six years in Southern California, the heavy traffic, gridlock, parking difficulties, and impatient drivers has clearly taken its toll on me.     

After spending a week at home, my parents and I drove to Milwaukee (Drew flew in and met us there).  We were in Milwaukee for only a few days, but the days were jam packed.  On our first day, we went to a Brewers game.  The Brewers won, thanks to a grand slam hit in the 8th inning (I think it was the 8th).   

The next day was dedicated to the family reunion, which took place in a beautiful park.  It was a lot of fun, and the fun continued at our hotel where everyone was staying.  It was great meeting new people and catching up with familiar faces.  

On our final full day, we headed into downtown Milwaukee to explore the area before heading to the Irish Festival. 

I don't have pictures from the Irish Fest, but there was a lot of green, a lot of beer, and lots of Irish dancers.

tomatoes!

Behold!  The first tomatoes of the season.  Our tomatoes are finally turning red. 

I was so eager for our tomatoes to ripen, and now that they are, I am reminded that I should be careful for what I wish for.  I'm not sure what we're going to do with these tomatoes, let alone the other half dozen or so that will probably be ready tomorrow. 

garden envy

I'm experiencing garden envy these days.  Most of the garden plots are beautiful and full of green plants, but there are a couple surrounding our plot that look like they've been using performance enhancing drugs.  Some plots have tomato plants almost as tall as me, and one plot has a jalapeno plant that looks more like a small tree.  I can hardly believe it.  

Anyway, I know our garden isn't looking too bad.  The plants are green, and nothing has died (yet).  Even one of pepper plants, who had all its leaves except one break off, is on the mend and thriving.  I believe that my parents were quite impressed with my green thumb.  While they were visiting, we planted cucumber plants.  I'm pretty sure I will regret this decision when we are swamped with cucumbers in need of pickling come September (while I'm in the midst of the job search and nearing the start of the school year), but planting them seemed like a good idea at the time.       

 Below we have our first bell pepper.  It is difficult to see, but this is a Sweet Purple Beauty.

 Our tomato plants have lots of little green tomatoes.  I can't wait until they turn red.

We did some rearranging, which basically means that we got rid of the containers we had in the middle of the garden.  We couldn't get anything to grow in them, so we thought it best to recycle them and let someone else try their hand.  In their place, we planted cucumbers.   

sewing

I completely forgot to tell you that I got a sewing machine a few months ago.  I learned to sew when I was in high school.  My mom, realizing that I would certainly never be taller than 5 feet, thought it would be a good idea to learn.  She was right.  When I lived in Minnesota, I always had access to her sewing machine and therefore could always alter my pants.  However, living in California and not owning a sewing machine has meant that I'm at the mercy of someone else to alter my pants.  

I began the search (I use this term loosely) for a sewing machine about a year ago.  I thought I got a great deal on a used one off of Craig's List ($20), but the machine didn't actually work (I was naive and didn't think to try it out before purchasing it.  Oh well.  Live and learn.).  After this incident, I temporarily put my "search" on hold.  Then a few months ago, as luck would have it, one of my friends received a new machine for her birthday and sold me her old one.  It couldn't have worked out more perfectly.

I've set modest sewing goals since getting the machine.  In addition to hemming my pants (and my parents' pants), I used to sew skirts, pajama pants, scrunchies (yes, I realize I'm dating myself here.  Cut me some slack, I was on the gymnastics team and sewed them to match my leotards), and other stuff I can't recall.  The first time I went to Joann Fabrics, I tried me best to restrain myself, purchasing patterns for dresses, aprons, and pajamas.  (Never mind that I've yet to make any of these.)  

So far, I've managed to make a couple cloth napkins, reusable produce bags, and reusable sandwich wraps.  They're modest sewing projects and quite simple, but they're projects nonetheless.  And they look super cute.  Check out one of the sandwich wraps:                 

june

By the looks of this blog, it doesn't look like anything happened in June.  This, of course, isn't true.  As always, I was busy with the usual stuff- school, running, gardening, and so on.  But the biggest thing that happened in June was that my parents visited for about a week and a half.  They've been to California twice- San Francisco and Fresno- but never to Southern California. 

It was nice to have my parents visit- showing them around, dining out (Mexican food and seafood!), cooking for them, and doing the usual touristy stuff.  We went to the beach many times, and we took day trips down to San Diego and up to Los Angeles.  We also visited family in Torrance and Oceanside.  It was a busy trip and lots of fun.  

peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant

Last weekend, I turned over the garden, pulling out the last of the beets, kale, and chard.  I also pulled a few carrots, which smelled intoxicatingly sweet and tasted just as good.  The neatest thing is that somehow, I managed to grow this: 

I transplanted the volunteers, 6 Cherokee Purple tomato plants, and planted an Abe Lincoln tomato plant and a San Marzano.

 We also got 2 Sweet Purple Beauty pepper plants, 6 bell peppers, 2 jalapenos, and an eggplant.

 Two aerial views:

the volunteers

The garden is beautiful and green.  Basically, we're just waiting for our winter crops to run their course so we can get tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant in the ground.  I've pulled up quite a few beets, collards, and spinach mustard.  The broccoli is slowly coming in:

 The kale was a late bloomer:

 And so were the carrots:

 And now for a pleasant surprise:

Volunteers!  We had a tomato plant here last summer and now we have 7 volunteers in its place.  Volunteers are plants that you haven't actually planted.  They could be from seeds dropped by birds or a tomato that fell on the ground last summer, the latter is probably the most likely possibility.  This is great; I had no luck starting seedlings indoors, and now we shouldn't have to buy any tomato plants.