she's a New age girl

So, I am not Irish, but my house has a big shamrock on the door and I am planning to make a split pea centerpiece to celebrate an Irish saint.  I am also not Catholic but I love giving things up for Lent! I always have, it is fun to see what you can live without, an exercise in self discipline, and even more-so since I know no one but me cares if I stick with it.  So this year my new years resolution was a vague "be more healthy" and I started by limiting how much pop I drink and what I eat.  So for Lent I decided NO MORE POP! and  wonderful GF gave up meat.  HMM kinda a two-for there. since she has given it up I am now eating a lot less, since we shop for,  cook and eat dinner together.  This should be interesting!

We normally try to eat at least one vegetarian recipe per week but GF doesn't like pasta very much, especially sans meat, and I don't like beans. so we focus on mushrooms a lot of the time. but 40 days is a lot of mushrooms. lol.

In non Lent related news, We are building a retaining wall around the front garden bed.  We are doing this for many reasons.  1. It will be pretty/increase curb appeal. 2. It will actually retain the dirt and mulch that seem to love to cover the sidewalk and 3. b/c Maya likes to pee right there. GROSS. She doesn't get that my garden is a bad choice.... so hopefully this will stop that!  We went to Home Depot and picked out the pavers but had no clue they weigh so much (20lbs each!) so we only got 22 to start (we need about 100 total) since we drive a regular little four door car.  and are not super tough. I am thinking this project will be bigger than I imagined but seeing how nice the pavers look with just the one layer, sitting there (eventually it will have 4 layers and they will be level.. eventually...) I think it will be well worth it!

I also got (with my tax refund of course, tis the season right?) a cast iron dutch oven (summer campfires look out!), cedar shims (for an awesome DIY Sunburst mirror project I have planned.), and reed fencing    (for potato towers and to cover an ugly chain link fence. ) so I have lots of good things in the works...  if the snow will ever stop.  :(

** bonus points  if you are wondering.... yes the title of today's blog IS a reference to the 90's one hit wonder song..

blog fail, update and reinvention

So I kinda failed at blogging.  Summer took hold, and with the 90+ temps we ended up with  a lot less garden and a lot more pool. lol. We got one of those inflatable rim pools and set it up (note to self: a slanted hill-y back yard and a pool,  do not an easy situation make) and spent the better part of the summer sitting it in (it was only 30inches deep) watching our garden shrivel. We did get some cherry tomatoes, some small onions, some potatoes, a handful of tiny peppers , a cucumber, and some education, so it was not a total failure.  The herb spiral rocked once again. All the herbs did superbly and tasted delicious! I will update later and add some pictures.  I also think I may start adding a few other dimensions to this blog. I will probably always stink at keeping up with it, but maybe it will be easier if I also talk about less seasonal things.    Since Pinterest came into my life I have been doing a lot of crafts and have also been trying lots of new recipes, so maybe I'll blog about those as well. And maybe hiking since we stopped smoking (after the asthma hospital scare, so almost a year ago now!) we started really getting into hiking it is so much fun!  Oooh and the Oscars! lol that is my latest obsession.  Each year we try to see all the nominees for best picture, best actor and actress. We have 3 more to go (plus two more that we will not be able to see, due to them not being shown anymore and not yet available on DVD) So far I really liked Argo, and Beasts of the Southern wild.. I also enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook and The Impossible (though i do not think Naomi Watts is best actress!, she was practically  in a coma for 1/2 the movie!   ok back to the grind! (which reminds me i also got a juicer and started making my own juice.... lol)