Not all about Tomatoes!

So we had a VERY impromptu garage sale this weekend. Our neighbor across the street has a pretty regular garage sale, and since she was having one this weekend we decided to glom on and hold one ourselves. (we put our own signs up to help draw more people to the street. I hope the god of the etiquette of garage sales is placated by that and is merciful with us.) Can I tell you how much we love garage sales? My goodness- the enjoyment I get from offloading STUFF and people watching- love everything about it. We held one with some friends of ours many a year ago and they made fun of the bag of wine corks I put out for sale, some very serious ribbing was put up with I tell you. And then the joy the next day when a lady declared that her daughter had forbidden her from getting anything for her unless it was wine corks- oh the sweet sweet vindication! Said friends didn’t sell their tuba rack- so take that, losers.

Anyway, so we worked late in the night on Friday to unpack and stage three SUV loads of boxes from the storage room and we donated everything we didn’t sell at noon on Saturday. And as a bonus, we made enough money to replace the 6 patio chairs that were getting dangerously rusted through in parts with new ones. I’ve worried about those old chairs for the past year. The metal on the underside of the front was jagged in a couple places- it was some stitches and a tetanus shot waiting to happen.

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…I was two and my parents didn’t replace some rusted patio chairs like they should have

After the garage sale we took back the empty bins to the storage unit and got rid of about 5 more boxes worth of stuff and organized it. I hope to one day very soon be able to get rid of the storage unit entirely. We got it to put things in to stage our last house while selling it… and then ended up buying a house with no garage and less storage… so there it has sat for three years- full of junk. Hopefully soon we’ll get the carport and storage room up at our current house- we have the slab poured… hopefully soon.

Anyway, after sweating through some serious heat and humidity with all of that, we then gardened and barbecued outside yesterday and then took a walk with the girls in the evening downtown for ice-cream because screw you, sense of reason. So… sitting in bed in cold AC to write a long blog post might be in order this morning. Might.

To the house first before tomatoes! So our router is on a corner of our kitchen counter, and that also is where the phone charger and fitbit charger are. (18,116 steps yesterday, 7 hours, 17 minutes of sleep. I love this thing.) So that corner looks like this:

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That’s actually better than it usually looks, honestly…

And I got so tired of looking at it it now looks like this:

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Want to hide something you don’t like? Have you tried hiding it?

You have no idea how happy this has made me. So the containers are these old tin flour and tea containers my mom had forever, and I don’t know why I love them the way I do, but they’re two of my favorite things ever. And you see that top cookbook? My Meemaw’s copy of the Joy of Cooking, complete with her handwritten notes.

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They’re in cursive though so they might as well be hieroglyphics. Add chick baths? Oh wait, broth… I bet it’s broth

So anyway, I’m pleased with it/myself, but I also will be replacing the important stuff with other, more expendable things because I keep moving them farther and farther away due to a fear that this whole set up is a fire risk. Which, the router has 6 inches all the way around it and isn’t covered on the top but still. I worry.

On to the garden and pets!

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DO YOU SEE THIS GOOD BOY? Walking on the path my god dogs do not get better than this one I tell you

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Remember how I mentioned I may have misplanted the purple horse mint on the front right corner… yeah…

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I had an entourage today on the morning stroll. Some of the new patio chairs in view

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She runs between your feet to throw herself down right in front of you… should have named her Future Broken Hip instead of Lacey. But she’s the 9-year-old’s cat, so it wasn’t up to me

And no escaping without the tomatoes!

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Sungold, 5′ 4″ tall and growing. Turns out it’s an orange cherry tomato which I really should have put together from the name but I totally did not

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Sweet 100

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HM 1823

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Bobcat

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HM 1823 with Bobcat in the background- look at that pretty fruit set!

The two-year-old has discovered these plants are tomatoes. None have been lost to toddler predation yet but it’s just a matter of time. I’ve told her she has to at least wait till they turn red… we’ll see how long that rule holds.

Bachelor Lamps, Star Wars, and Night Lights

REALLY stretching on this one, Random Word Generator. Couldn’t be something cool like Spy? Or Rapids? Or Credenza? Because lamp is… wow. This little tool is supposed to make writing easier, isn’t it?

Okay. Lamp. *Cracks Knuckles*

Lamp from Childhood: I used to have a dusty pink colored clip on lamp on my headboard when I was a kid. I used to wake up early, move it so it was inches away from my face and turn it on. Presto: instant “fever” for faking sick and then turn it off right before my Mom came to wake me up. (Also useful to hold a thermometer against to continue to fake said fever. Care must be taken to not have a 140 degree fever or burn your tongue. Is an art.) As a mother I will be checking the lightbulbs of my daughter’s lamps on days they swear they don’t feel good and need to stay home sick.

Head Lamps: we periodically walk the six blocks or so to the restaurant on the edge of our neighborhood for dinner and bring headlamps with us for the walk back in the dark. The older children LOVE it. Out at night? Walking? Headlamps? Joy of Joys! I also give one to the toddler and she just turns it on and off for the entire walk back. Considering she insists (even in the dark) of having the stroller canopy up, it’s like pushing a giant firefly through the neighborhood.

Bachelor Lamp: My husband had a brass lamp with a black pleated lampshade next to the bed when we first got together. We don’t have it anymore. Not much to that, I guess, but I just never could understand the concept of a black lampshade…

Grandma Lamp: After my grandfather died my grandmother was on a mission: get rid of all these dratted earthly possessions. (I think she was signaling to the higher ups just how serious her readiness to get a move on was) She asked her grandkids what we wanted of hers: Rugs? China? Clocks? I said if anyone hadn’t claimed it yet I’d love the lamp in the spare bedroom where we’d all slept for sleepovers. Huge, overly ornate thing. Gilding, sage green, marble and brass base. Massive 3′ shade with gold embroidered flowers and many a grubby paw print acquired over the years. (one of them mine, as I distinctly recall). She said her father had picked it up for her at an outside secondhand store- it had been broken and her father had fixed it for her. (I’d never noticed the crack, in all those years of looking at it) It’s in our storage room now, because I can’t find a spot in our house I deem safe enough for it.

Night Lights: in our house currently we have a ceramic one shaped like a bird that glows at night (ala dead Jedi masters), a pink gummy bear battery powered one, and one that shines green stars on the ceilings. Are like lamps, right?

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The rage I feel from the goddamn replacement of Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen in this scene is pretty much unparalleled to anything else I’ve felt in this life up to this point. Anyway. This is what the bird nightlight looks like.

Bedside Lamps: Matching green glass, quasi bottle looking ones next to our bed. I got both on clearance at different Ross stores and was super proud of myself. They’re too big, and glass lamps at toddler level is probably not the best idea, and they match nothing in the room. I’m pretty sure that checks off all the proper points for having lamps, right? And they’re a constant reminder to read something at night not from a glowing screen but from something that actually requires turning on of said bedside lamp.

Lamps.