Saturday, May 30, 2009

New Post on LMP Farm

Here's the link!

Friday, May 29, 2009

hAPPY FriDay!!!

Just the raddist video i've seen in ions.



Hope y'all have a great weekend!!!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

a new blog

After a long drive home (20 minutes) I realized I just didn't like how my life on LMP has turned into only talking about dirt. So, what did I do? I created a blog called Little Miss Planner's Farm. Now, I've thought long and hard (okay, only about a minute) about this and decided that I will now only post the garden stuff on that blog. But for those who like reading about it, I will do a post here to say go there. Make sense? Hope so. Also, there now are links on the top of this page to get there as well.

So head on over there and let me know what you think. If you see any links broken or whatnot, email me and I'll fix them right away. Hope y'all enjoy it.

lmp

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Feeding the addiction...

Three ways I did so...

1. Our toilet is not being nice, it's slowing running and wasting water. Once we figured out what was the issue, I talked the hubby to venturing out to Home Depot. Once there, I quickly grabbed the basket and made a bee-line to the garden center for more dirt. Three big bags to be exact. I don't what happened but two more herbs (oregano and rosemary) and a jalapeno pepper plant found it's way into my basket too. When the hubby found me, all crazed and a little high off the smell of dirt, he just rolled his eyes and took the basket away and paid.

2. I found the most amazing books on gardening. As much as I'd like to tote my laptop out to the garden, I don't think the hubby would allow it because of my klutzy nature. So in my search for knowledge, I acquired these bad boys on overstock!




3. My garden/cycling/all-around friend Bob is going to come over and is bringing me a HUGE gift.. a truck load of mulch. I know I know you are all jealous of my well connected friends who can get me tons of mulch and railroad ties for free. We'll finally cover the hill with it to keep the weeds at bay and it'll look a lot prettier than how it looks now too! I'm also going to use him as cheap labor and help move some dirt so we can start building the last tier. If he works fast, I might buy him dinner! :)

How do you feed your addictions?

Little Miss Planner's Farm...update #8.1

Because of the amount of photos I took and the ugly timeouts I'm getting from Nikon Picture Town, I'll have to do this in two posts. Bare with me... lots of photos to follow!!!
I love spring time!



This is the mystery garden section. I am slowly figuring out what is what!



The first portion of the garden we did is sooo big now!



The Herb Garden



Peppers, tomatoes and squash!


The left row is Garlic and the right row is Asparagus



Even the flowers are blooming around the garden








You know how I mentioned we built a second bench? Well, we also stained it and here it is! We are going to make a top for the fire pit to act like a ottoman when not in use. That will be June DIY craft project. I love sitting out here in the evening with the tiki torches lit. It's very calm and serene!

Little Miss Planner's Farm...update #8.2

Getting bigger by the day!


Artichokes on the left, Spaghetti Squash on the right



Asparagus



Grapes



Raspberries



Corn (tallest one is around 4ft)



Corn



In the back Snow Peas, left front is the last of the lettuce (harvested 4lbs so far) and onions are on the verge of being ready



I think these are radishes



Swiss Chard



Things are blooming!!!!


Tons of Cherry Tomatoes



Cucumber blossoms



Strawberries



Squash



Peas! YUM!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Been a bit MIA

PHEW... what a weekend! We were surrounded by family all weekend long because our beautiful niece graduated high school! I can't believe how time has just flown by. We spent last week cleaning and this weekend just plain celebrating! We had a few little rug rats stay with us and we kept them busy working in the garden (child labor?!) as a fun little project. Now that things have died down a bit, we have the last tier to work on and lots of mulch for hill. In the mean time, I finally "drew" up a map of our garden.

From Little Miss Planner's Farm

(click on photo to see the FULL map)

The final construction of the garden should be done by the end of May. Fingers crossed!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

ABC's

I like stealing posts from Linda. :)

A - Age: 30
B - Bed size: california king... we have way too many animals that sleep with us
C - Chore you hate: laundry
D - Dog's name: bruno and ringo (aka, the pet mafia)
E - Essential start your day item: daily meds and a hair band that is constantly around my wrist for those "hair up" moments
F - Favorite color: blue
G - Gold or Silver or Platinum: silver
H - Height: 5'4.5"
I - Instruments you play: None
J - Job title: Analyst
K - Kid(s): None of those either
L - Living arrangements: home in the 'burbs
M - Mom's name: Frances (WITH AN E!!! not and i)
N - Nicknames: curly sue, vigilante, bebe
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: None
P - Pet Peeve: lately its been people who drive slow
Q - Quote from a movie: "well don't play hard to get, you might miss something." (2 cookies for anyone who knows the answer)
R - Right handed or left handed: lefty of course! lefties rule
S - Siblings: 4 older brothers
T - Time you wake up: 630-7am
U- Underwear: what ever i feel like that day
V - Vegetable you dislike: brussel sprouts never appealed to me
W - Ways you run late: i'm rarely late. if i am it's because it took to long to do my hair
X - X-rays you've had: too many to count... knees, feet, back, head, hand, ribs, i could go on too! i'm a klutz!
Y - Yummy food you make: drawing a blank... all i can think of are sandwiches
Z - Zoo favorite: not the biggest fan of zoos. The animals don't move and who ever is with me won't let me chuck pennies at them to see if they are real or just statues of them. (true story) If i HAD to choose, i'll pick elephants because they are nifty!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Things to do before Jun 09 -- Update #2

1. Walk/Run 30 miles (13)
2. Cook 15 meals a week (4... i gotta get on this!!!)
3. Save 60% on our grocery bills (68%... haven't shopped in a while and the cubbards are still full, nice!)
4. Do one craft project (worked on a bouquet for a friend! )
5. Clean my bike and go riding (going to go on saturday! FINALLY)
6. Go to the gym 4 times during the work day (ummm....)
7. Go for a picnic and a hike (maybe Sunday?)
8. Go swimming twice at the gym (....)
9. Do boot camp ONCE (this would require me to go back to the gym...maybe next week...)
10. Work out 4 times a week ALL month (i should really just scrap this one. it sounds great but i never do it)
11. Read a book (will read more this weekend... promise)
12. Build stairs in the garden instead of my "stepping bricks" i have. (Built but am thinking I may need to make them bigger to step on. I almost fell off the other day)
13. Map out rest of the garden and start building it. (working on)

insomnia thoughts

It's 1am and I can't seem to fall asleep. I hear all these random birds chirping away, and making it hard to hear the fountain outside our bedroom. One of our neighbors is listening to the tv WAY too loud, I'm guessing it's a guy. Most guys listen to tv mucher louder than the girls I know. A puppy is also snoring. Ringo always snores. And all this going on, in the dead of night and I'm wide awake.

So, onto my list of random thoughts:
-I just realized I haven't turned the compost pile over in a week. Must do tmw.
-I need to take some new photos of the garden... Lots of new discoveries.
-need to make hair cut appt. I've been putting it off since march!
-I need to go running tmw morning. Must do 5k!!!!!!
-must learn to fall asleep quickly like the hubby. I'm jealous of him right now!
-what am I going to wear tmw? Hmmm....
-shocked at grey's tonight... My heart ached after it ended!


I'm sure there is more but I need to try to drift off to bed...

Ps. This post was written via iPhone. I heart technology!
Pps. I said must quite a bit in the random thoughts. Weird.

Ok, I'm really going to sleep now....

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Random thoughts

  • you know how i gabbed on and on about planting more? well, i forgot to mark what is what. i guess you can say that part of my garden is now a surprise grab bag of sorts

  • my spray hose broke. this is a big deal when you hand water 75% of a garden. it works but it has a crack on the top so it sprays water in the air while i'm spraying straight ahead of me. Either A. buy duck tape to fix it (duck tape fixes EVERYTHING) or 2. buy a new hose.

  • at the moment, all i can think about is the sun on waikiki beach! we were there three years ago and how i miss it dearly!

  • i wish i could take my computer outside and work from the grass. it's 77 outside and it feels like 50 inside. not a good thing

  • i have given up coffee for the billionth time... new obsession: green tea.

  • have to go running tonight to pick up my daily prescription. i wonder if i'll be able to handle the ~~ch ch ch ch~~ sound of the pills while i'm running home.

  • even though i have been out sick for the past two days, this week still feels long.

  • lastly, i need to go to ikea but can't justify driving 30 minutes to pick up 3 small things.


these are the things that keep going through my head today.

why can't today be friday!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Little Miss Planner's Farm...update #7

I think the hubby thinks I've completely lost it. I race home now to water the plants and make sure the puppies didn't do their own gardening. A few days ago I planted the garlic and can't wait for it to pop out. I finally got to the top tier and planted strawberries. On the new section we built a few weeks ago, the seedlings are barely coming up. We ended up just tilling it and planting again with more organic soil.

This past weekend's mini-farm to-do list went as follows:

  • Plant asparagus

  • Finish weeding... for the most part

  • Plant another LONG row of garlic

  • Plant new hydrangea plants and raspberry plant

  • Create irrigation system for asparagus, garlic, hydrangeas, raspberries and grapes (it's further away from the rest of the garden

  • Fertilize! Fertilize! Fertilize!

  • Start drawing up plans on irragation system for the entire area
  • M


This is the new area. We still have some maintenance to do (i.e. build a new gate to hide the spa equipment, buy metal sheets and paint black where the sheets of wood are, do more weeding and clearing) but for the most part, I'm really ecstatic we figured out how to use this area. You see, it's been sectioned off because there is a big dog in our neighbor's yard up there. Our dogs would barked like mad and we figured we'd just section off this side so they couldn't get up there anymore. Because of that, we never cared about this area and it always looked so ratty. Now, nice clean lines and hopefully it will produce garlic and asparagus, raspberries and grapes! (grapes coming soon)

Our final and major project will extend the wall we made. We are waiting on more recycled railroad tiers. Once they comes in, we'll build it and plant like mad!

So has anything produced? YES! We harvested lots of lettuce! It tastes unbelievable! I never thought lettuce had a flavor! In the words of the hubby: "TASTY!" We also measured to get an idea of how much we area we are using. Since we don't go to the top of the hill, we just measured to the top of the strawberries. Right now we are using 462 square ft of land for our garden. Once we put in the new tier, we will add an additional 136 sq ft making our garden 600 sq feet. This is amusing to me since my last apt was 600 sq ft! Glad we figured out how to use this wasted space. Photos will have to wait till we get some better light to show the new area!

On a non garden front, last weekend we built the second bench, this weekend we sanded and stained it. :) I LOVE how it all turned out!!!

Happy Blog day to ME!


Today marks the second anniversary of my first post to this blog. I started it as a way to share ideas with other brides and track all the fun moments of our wedding and it's turned into something more. I remember at my wedding one of my close friends asked: "now that you're married, what are you going to blog about?" The answer was easy, our life. Thank you for following us and letting me ramble on about all the crazy nonsense I come up with. To all the brides I've "met" along the way, it's been a great pleasure to help in any way I have. To all my new blog friends, you've made it mo worthwhile to keep going!

Lots of love to all of you!

little miss planner

Friday, May 8, 2009

Up in flames



Please say a few prayers for everyone that's affected by the Santa Barbara Fires. It's been way to hot lately and it should start cooling off a bit tomorrow. Hopefully the wind will be still and we get some humidity to help out all the hard working firefighters!

source

Things to do before Jun 09 -- Update #1

1. Walk/Run 30 miles (5)
2. Cook 15 meals a week (2)
3. Save 60% on our grocery bills (68%)
4. Do one craft project (does playing with flowers and dirt count?)
5. Clean my bike and go riding (wanted to go tomorrow but the fire is just soo bad.)
6. Go to the gym 4 times during the work day ()
7. Go for a picnic and a hike ()
8. Go swimming twice at the gym ()
9. Do boot camp ONCE ()
10. Work out 4 times a week ALL month ()
11. Read a book (will read more this weekend... promise)
12. Build stairs in the garden instead of my "stepping bricks" i have. (Built but am thinking I may need to make them bigger to step on. I almost fell off the other day)
13. Map out rest of the garden and start building it. (working on)

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Things that make me happy today

  • It's great weather so we're grilling chili lime chicken and corn on the cob. tonight

  • I ran last night... 4.5 miles. Makes me feel optimistic that I can still run after all my talk about running and not doing it. I was scared I would have had to walk but I didn't. Now I know I can so I will.

  • Our neighbors complimented us on our backyard. I guess all the hard work we put in is really paying off.

  • UPS man should be coming today to drop off the asparagus plants and garlic. I'm soo excited!!!! Must plant garlic tonight!

  • Our hydrangea plants are BLOOMING! We have a bright pink (fuchsia almost) one and the other two (multi colored and the other is blue) are really getting ready to just burst with color. It's nice to have some extra color in the backyard.

  • To have the friends I do. D, R, and J have enriched my life more then they'll ever know!


I think I'm still drunk off the endorphins from last night's run. :)

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Little Miss Planner's Farm Update #6

You know how I mentioned before about planting in a new area? Well, this is the area I spoke of:

This tree/schrub/bush overtook the area and I got out my trusty saw and clippers and cleaned up the place. After about a 4 hours worth of cleaning it looked pretty good.

The middle teir has two types of peppers, another tomato bush and two squash vines. The bottom teir is the new home for the herb garden. Yes, I moved it because, it was bothering me having them with the veggies and I like uniform things. :) The top tier, well, not sure what i'll plant there but I'm thinking about that, not to worry, where there is dirt I will plant! :)

The other thing I did was put in a path to walk up without slipping down the dirt. I am terrified of falling so this was a must.

We used recycled brick we bought at Home Depot and rocks from the hill. I think I might have to make them bigger but for now, they work perfectly!

Friday, May 1, 2009

Things to do before Jun 09

1. Walk/Run 30 miles ()
2. Cook 15 meals a week ()
3. Save 60% on our grocery bills ()
4. Do one craft project ()
5. Clean my bike and go riding (i miss riding soo much, i have no clue why i don't anymore)
6. Go to the gym 4 times during the work day ()
7. Go for a picnic and a hike ()
8. Go swimming twice at the gym ()
9. Do boot camp ONCE ()
10. Work out 4 times a week ALL month ()
11. Read a book (seriously, you'd think i was illiterate from this one!)
12. Build stairs in the garden instead of my "stepping bricks" i have.
13. Map out rest of the garden and start building it.

Things to do before May 09 -- final update

1. Walk/Run 60 miles (25 miles)
2. Cook 15 meals a week (16)
3. Save 60% on our grocery bills (58%)
4. Do one craft project (does gardening count? Oh, I stained the bench, that's kinda crafy!)
5. Clean my bike and go riding (never took frank out for a ride... )
6. Go to the gym 4 times during a work day (3 down)
7. Go for a picnic and a hike (didn't have time)
8. Go swimming twice at the gym (...)
9. Do boot camp ONCE (didn't go)
10. Work out 5 times a week ALL month (didn't happen... LOL... ya right!)
11. Read a book (started it but then got caught up gardening...)
12. Take a trip to the flower district (going to go this weekend. close enough)

In need of a redo...

Last fall we went to Costa Rica and while it was beautiful and I had a 1,000 things I loved about it, we also felt we missed out because of some of the snags we hit along the way.

So we are planning a redo vacation! We are using our vouchers we received because of our canceled flight last time and only going to one location on the Pacific Coast. So far, we are eying one of these two locations:

Hilton Papagayo






Flamingo Beach Resort





You see a theme? Lounge Lounge Lounge!!!! We are still keeping our options open so if you know of a great resorty place, send it my way! :)

Is there any place you want to do a redo vacation?