Chairs and Gardens

I was too tired and distracted yesterday to post.  So, here's yesterday's "chair" photo.  It was interesting and challenging to try and shoot my work chair.  (And yes, there are some days I want to really shoot it... but it's actually pretty comfortable most days... it should be, I'm usually stuck in it for most of the 8 hours I'm at work.)  The biggest problem was lighting.  If I'd had better, stronger light, I wouldn't have had to use the flash.  Then some of my pictures would have turned out more like I wanted them too.  As is, the flash bounced off the mesh of the seat and back and made it appear much more solid than it is.  Oh well. I've got to work with the tools I have available at the time.

Work has been going fairly well.  Yesterday was as dead as can be in the office.  Between the normal Friday event of having about half the office out on any given week, many people also decided to make a 5-day weekend out of the holiday.  I don't blame them.  I would have loved too, but Gak had to work all day yesterday and Thursday and since it's reporting month... and Bill's out... I don't have that luxury.  We'll see what next year brings.

Today's assignment was garden.  I'm going to go ahead and call this one done, even though there's a good bit of day left that I could get some other pictures.  My little balcony garden is thriving, despite the horrible heat and my sometimes lax watering practices.  There's even one tomato (and several flowers just waiting to turn into tomatoes) ripening on the vine.  I did get a neat picture of the baby tomato (see below), but I like the feel of the one shot down the length of the balcony.  The only thing missing from this shot is the strawberry plants behind me and the sunflowers that are going to seed beside me.  I'm just thrilled that 3 of the four sunflower seeds I planted sprouted, grew and bloomed!  (I'm also thrilled they weren't 6' tall monsters...)

It is way too hot again today.  Thankfully, the heat should begin to break tomorrow and be in the low 80s the rest of the week.  I like that thought.  I love summer weather, but you can take the high humidity with the 100+ temps and shove it.  There's multiple reasons we don't live in the mid-west or south... summer being one of them.  (We both enjoy summer, but neither Gak, nor I enjoy the humidity that can come with it...)

Not sure what's really on the plate for the rest of the weekend.  Tomorrow Gak has an appointment at the Apple store to get his iPhone looked at because its doing weird touch screen things with "pressing" multiple "buttons" at random whenever your finger gets close to it....annoying, frustrating and we've had it less than 30 days so.... we get it looked at now as opposed to later.

I'm going to go curl up for a bit while the boy-o is sleeping.  I'm exhausted again for some reason.  And yes, I've been taking my vitamins.  I've just been wiped out this week.  I think it has to do with the heat, even when I hide in the AC all day.  That, and it's July so work is a high-stress situation right now.

Oh, and before I forget, I want to say congratulations to my friend Bill and Sandy for tying the knot today.  It may be almost 20 years latter than originally planned and with many, many, many bumps in the road, but they're back together and forever now.  I wish them many, many, many years of happiness and love.

Peace to all and may your photos be fun, your seats comfortable, your garden thrive and your friends be happy.

Growing (busy)

Well, it's been two weeks almost since I've written anything here.  Ugh.
This picture from last week should sum up a bit how it's been.  I've been busily trying to get out of the way of moving objects, including my son on his tricycle.
A lot of it has been good, some of it has been average and a bit has been somewhat on the "aargh" scale of things.  Home has been good, work has been a bit aargh and there's been a lot of day-to-day stuff just humming along.
It's April, it's a busy time at work and add a cranky economy and a Congress and EPA that keeps changing their minds on things and you generate a climate where aargh can seem somewhat normal at work.  It's nothing new, it's really not that bad, but it's there.

We have done a few exciting things over the past week or so though.  Two weeks ago at Ethan's birthday party, we were given "wild flower confetti" as a thank you.  So, Monday Amma, Boo and I went to Lowes to pick up a nice planter box and some herbs to start.  We also got a watermelon planter cup and a package of Elmo cherry tomatoes to start with their own starter containers and everything.  Sooo... after dinner Boo and I had fun planting the watermelon and the tomatoes.  We've got one watermelon sprouted and a bunch of tomato plants (which I will most definitely have to thin a bit even before we get to the point of having to transplant them into the ground and/or containers.  We both had a bit of fun playing in the dirt. We didn't start the flowers and herbs until Friday, so we'll see what happens there.

(This is our started garden, the better picture of Boo actually helping plant the flowers is still on the camera, and no pictures of sprouted plants yet....)

Anyhow, Aunt Beverly and Uncle Richard are in town for a conference of some sort, so this meant brunch at Mom and Dad's yesterday with the rest of the family.  It was really awesome to see Ben, Jenny, Ethan and Daniel again after only two weeks.  Daniel and Boo had sooo much fun playing together.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I really wish we lived closer and got to spend more time together.  I'm sure the boys would enjoy it.

Anyhow, that's a quick little update.  I'm sorry I've been too busy with other things to squeeze out a few minutes here.  I'll try and keep the pictures posting at flickr and hopefully more words and pictures here.