I Bet You Thought I Was Never Coming Back...

...Well I have to admit, I wondered that too. Mi vida loca has gotten more loca and less vida and I wondered if I'd ever really have anything to put on this blog that would be worth it. I found a couple of recipes that I thought I might post. One I can probably post soon, but the other is written in a notebook that's packed up cuz we're moving.

We aren't sure yet where we're going. Right now we live near the Grand Canyon but we're considering moving to the other side of AZ. Also, my mother and I were talking today. We've been kinda worried about "where to live," cuz we can't really find anywhere to go. I do own a piece of property (many hours from where we live now) that we are planning on moving to. In fact, we're leaving tomorrow for a three day trip to see about setting things up down there. The problem we're having is mainly that my orthodontist is up here and I still have about another year's worth of braces to go.

But, back to the subject at hand. We were talking about all that and then the thought occurred to me. Who says we have to have "a place to park our bodies" (that's what my mom calls it)? Who says we have to live in a living place? Not that I'm against it as someday I want to have a Forever House -- a place I live for so long as I live...but who says we have to live in a house right now? I graduated last spring and my brother and sister are both registered for homeschool.

So I brought it up. At first we were just talking about doing this in the "oh wouldn't that be interesting to do in an alternate universe" way, but then I thought, why couldn't we do this now? Why couldn't we figure out something to live out of (like a four door truck with a camper shell or a van or another vehicle pulling one of our travel trailers behind) and then spend the next year or more (depending on how we like it) driving across the country visiting everywhere and coming back once a month (to check the mail and for my orthodontist appointments)?

My mother is from the hippie generation and thinks it sounds perfectly reasonable. My sister is all for it; she wants to visit all fifty states and this seems perfect to her. My brother says he doesn't want to be a "hobo." I bet I can talk him into at least trying it, though.

The only thing leftover is for me to think it through and make sure that I really do think it's a good idea. I think it would be best to try it for a limited time first and then decide if we wanted to keep it up, because I don't know if I really would like never having a solid home.

My Garden is Coming Along Nicely

So my mothers camera (aka high megapixel camera) is still "missing." BUT my sister's red one was available. So I took some pictures of the plants in my garden.

This is my melon. I forget what kind of melon it is. I had three or four kinds, planted two, and one survived. But which of the four did I plant and which of the two survived?
These are my onions. Some were red onions and some were walking onions. I just can't tell which are which is all. But hey tasty onions are tasty onions, no?
This is my parsley plant. The picture is blurry because the wind was blowing when I took it and the camera is not good at taking non-blurry pics unless the subject and the camera are held very still before, during, and for a few seconds after you press the button to take the picture. So I took two pictures. Neither is particularly clear, but hey, I tried.
This is the larger of my two Calendulas. I have decided that Calendulas are one of my favorites to grow because they grow fast. When I started the various plants inside, they were the biggest of the baby plants. Of course now the beans are bigger....
These are some of my bush beans. I have a huge amount. I didn't expect them to grow when I threw a bunch of beans out into my garden, but they grew anyways. Only problem? My mother (who gave me the beans to plant) has no idea what kind she gave me. Thus, more mystery plants. :)
There aren't any pictures of the mint because mint like cool and wet and the temporary drought (due to my whole forgetting-to-water-thing) didn't do them any favors. So one of the nine or seven or however many I planted is still alive, but very yellow-and-crinkly-like-to-die

I didn't get any pictures of the cake, either (due to the MIA cameras), so we just ate it. It isn't hard to picture it. A 13x9 inch Devil's Food Cake with thick chocolate frosting all over it and then in green gel frosting, it said "Happy 17th Birthday, Froggy!" He was very pleased we remembered his birthday.

It's really stormy out now (my preferred gardening weather), so I'm thinking I'll go out to weed. I usually only pull up the prickly/thorny weeds (tumbleweed and such) and then any of the others I leave there, so long as they're not crowding out anything I planted.

Oh, and One More Thing...

So my mom came back from town with my tickets. One of my guy friends and I are going to a Lady Antebellum concert on the 22nd, and I'm excited. I'm not sure who else is coming with us. I think one other friend for sure, but that's all I know of.

When I water the garden I half expect the ground to start sizzling like a frying pan does when you flick water on it. It wasn't hot at all until mid-July (about a week ago). We just used the cooler for the first time three or four days ago.

Can I just say that having 75F weather here is incredibly strange? So now that it's getting into the 100F's it's much more normal if incredibly HOT.

I finished the cake. I'll post pictures later when I get some. It's beautiful ha ha. I wanted to draw a frog, but I didn't have enough of the green gel frosting stuff. Not that there was much room for it, but still...

I'll also post pictures of some of what is growing in my little garden later.