Plants, People, Patience.

My plants are still alive! I'm really excited because all of my plants look healthy and have been flowering over the past few weeks. The tomato I showed last post has gotten really fat and I can't wait for it to start turning red. I feel like any day now it's going to start ripening. Having a mini-garden has been really fun and also relaxing. I check my plants twice a day--I'm a little obsessive I guess, but I like to see the changes in the plants.

Flowering zucchini plant.

Look how much it's grown!

Other than that, I've been working and hanging out. Trying to read a bunch and write with Stephen here and there. We came up with an idea for a book--a kid's picture book. I think the idea is really good and I'd like to actually create a book on our own. One of my life goals is to get a kid's book published. We decided that Stephen would do most of the illustrations and I'd assist. I'm going to be the colorist (basically the person who colors in the pictures) and we'd co-write it.

Work has been really fun so far. I am the 4th grade teacher in program and my kids are so cute. They are definitely an active bunch and I'm learning how to manage them (I've got 25 of them!), this experience will be really good for me. Most of my responsibilities include behavior management which is always a challenge. As I was telling my boss yesterday, I've worked with middle and high schoolers and toddlers, but very little with upper elementary--so this is going to be a great opportunity to expand my skills. Overall, I'm so glad to finally have a job and to be working with kids. It helps me put my life into perspective and I feel like I am a part of something greater than myself.

Another good thing happened lately...I got my California teaching license! This is really exciting for me because now I can start working on my classes toward my ESL certificate and get ready to suit up for next year's job hunt! I feel as if everything is starting to come together.

In other news, I found out my brother is going to be deployed in June 2012. I am having mixed emotions about it--he seems ready to go, but I can't help but worry. I'm trying to strong for him and be supportive. My mom's not taking it very well, though. She's going to be a nervous wreck when he's over in Afghanistan and when we aren't able to communicate with him. Regardless, I'm extremely proud of my brother and I love him. I wish he were here in California so we could all hang out and go to the beach and just be stupid together. We are really close--there are things he knows about me and I know about him that we'd never even fathom of telling our parents. That's how we've always been.

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I just don't understand why we are still in the middle east. I understand that we just can't abandon ship and pull out our troops all at once and leave the troops we are training against the Taliban, but again--why do WE need to be doing that? Why do WE need to be over there? Currently, there's a drought in Somalia that's killing thousands of people. Why isn't our military over there helping distribute aid to those dying people. I wish that our military was used for more humanitarian work instead of "defense". Yes, I do agree that we need protection, but how is being over in the middle east protecting our people? Our troops should be HERE protecting us. I feel as if our country feels the need to stick our nose in other nation's business too much and that we don't see what's really going on in the world or even our country. We need to take care of our country first instead of spending billions of dollars on improving the military in other countries because currently, our country isn't looking so hot.

Growing Greens

My green thumb has not really been very supreme over the years. Sure I've had house plants and kept them alive, but they always seemed to just die after a while under my care. I could never really figure out why my house plants would die. Mom and Dad have always grown everything: flowers, vegetables, fruit trees--their green thumb is super muscular and I started to worry that I didn't inherit the growing green gene. When Mom asked me if I wanted to get some vegetable plants and try to set up a mini-garden I was apprehensive, but wanted to give it a try since she would be supporting the growing process. We went and got a honeydew melon, zucchini, eggplant, artichoke and tomato plants.

Planting the plants was easy, but the tending and nurturing part was what I worried about. Not only is my green thumb underdeveloped, but we have three dogs (also known as the wolf pack). During the day the dogs have free roam while everyone is at work and they are notorious for eating flowers off plants, grass, and digging up whatever they please. My dad didn't think that my baby plants would make it past a few days with the dogs, but for some reason I felt that the dogs wouldn't bother the plants since Mom and I planted them in pots.

So far, the plants have been in the ground for the third week and they are doing well! I obsessively check them everyday for new flowers and leaves budding. All of them are going crazy! The garden loves the sun it gets. The tomato is the first to fruit--so far there's one little baby green tomato. I can't wait for the other plants to fruit. Garden grown vegetables are so delicious and it's rewarding to eat food you have grown. Every day that I water, the dogs assist me and I remind them that they are to NOT eat their sister's (my) plants. As long as they get attention and love when I water the mini-garden they seem to act as if my plants are not even there.

Peace and love :)

First fruit! It gets bigger every day!