The weekend and garden

I’ve been slacking, mostly because I’ve been terribly busy/ sick. My allergies are acting up, which is unusual for Utah. And I’ve been trying to get the house cleaned or the Daughters of Promise stuff done (neither of which have been accomplished, at least by me. Alann did clean the house quite well while I was gone, which was a big surprise. I expected him to play his PS2 the whole time.) This last weekend I did a whirlwind visit to Missouri. My very good friend from college got married to another friend from college. It was disgustingly cute. I flew in Saturday morning. I booked a flight with 2 layovers! I spent 6 hours on the same plane. I don’t know why I did that. I think the only nonstop was at like 6 in the morning, which was just too early to convince Alann to get out of bed and take me to the airport. So I got into St Louis at about 3 in the afternoon and my in-laws picked me up. We ran some errands and then went to the house. I was so tired from all that time on the plane. Sunday we went to church. I talked to my new sister in law Sarah a little bit and we had some yummy fudge. (A little birdy tells me that Alann didn’t stay at church the whole time. I can’t trust him alone…..) Then we had lunch and I went to the wedding. I was making good time and was almost there but of course there is an accident on the freeway right at the exit I need. Since I don’t know the area, I can’t take the exit before it. So I almost missed the wedding. I managed to sit down in the back right before April walked in, so I didn’t miss anything important. It was a fun wedding. They are both theater geeks, so it had a theater theme. It was a non-denominational Christian service otherwise. The program had a “playbill” cover which was fun. Andrew borrowed some Source 4s from his work and he and April “made a new brighter color together”. It was overall very sweet. And I got to see my friends. Beth chastised me for being late. Alann says “well of course you were late. You are always late” but I wasn’t really late for theater. Theater and school were always important to me that I be on time. So we hung out in the chapel for a while and I caught up on all the Stephens gossip. Overall, I’m glad I was there when I was there. Then we headed to the reception. It was very pretty. Apparently April’s dad arranged all of the decorations and took care of the whole reception. There was plenty of food and an open bar, though Nunemacher was sweet enough to procure me some sparkling cider for the toasts. For all the issues I had with that kid, he definitely takes care of his friends. I had so much fun just catching up. I haven’t seen most of these people since I graduated. I saw Andrew and April in Feb 07, when I went out for Jaha’s directorial debut, but otherwise, it’s been forever. Beth and I got a chance to talk and patch things up. We didn’t part all that great, which I have especially recently been regretting. So it was good to see her. I spent 4 hours at the wedding. Finally I left around 7 or so because I had an hour drive back to Warrenton and then an early flight. But we ended up playing games as a family, so I didn’t go to bed until late anyway. Luckily my return flight was nonstop. Shannon was kind enough to come pick me up. Alann refused. Something about having a class or something. A lame excuse. I am still exhausted from all the flying. And I have this mysterious bruise on my right calf. It showed up Monday morning. I don’t remember doing anything. Oh well. I bruise easily. That’s life.
Otherwise, life has been good. We went grocery shopping last night. Another exhausting trip. I was going to go Monday night, but I went right to work after I got home from the airport, and when I got home from work, I was just so exhausted that I just sat in front of the TV all night. So we went last night. Which is ok. I would rather go with Alann than by myself. I meant to only do half of my shopping last night, but I got on the road and went on autopilot and missed my turn, so Alann said “let’s just do the whole trip”. Ok.
We harvested all of the main heads of broccoli last week before I left. The things are huge. They are bigger than what you can find in the store right now. And very tasty. And all four plants still have 2-5 side heads which are about to be ready to harvest. I think that in the next few days I need to harvest, blanch, and freeze all the broccoli. We just can’t eat that much broccoli at once. And my peas are coming in quite well. I picked the largest sugar snap and it was very tasty, though not quite done yet. The tomatoes are flowering. This weekend I need to put in the trellises. Don’t worry, they aren’t in the boxes with the tomatoes, so no harm will come. Things are just growing so well, it amazes me. I think this Saturday is going to be a work outside day. I need to get a lot of work done in the garden, and I NEED to finish my rose boxes. Even if I just finish them to the point of being able to plant. The roses cannot take any more time in their little containers. I think I may paint the boxes instead of staining them anyway. I planned to stain them, thinking they could match the barrel fountains. But the barrel fountains are losing their color, and painting is WAY easier. But then there is color to consider. Do I go brown or black or a light color. Maybe I’ll paint one side dark and the other side light. Then we will rotate the boxes for the season. Light in summer and dark in winter. Yeah right. I don’t think Alann will go for that. So I don’t know. Maybe Thursday or Friday I can get the boxes finished so I can paint them on Saturday. There is free dirt in West Jordan, so filling them shouldn’t be a problem.
That’s about all that is going on here for now.