Emma’s Fantabulous Blog

"Emma" gardening

First off, I love using photo shop poorly. Next. It’s spring time and I’ve always wanted to have a small garden to grow things to eat. I’ve experimented in previous rental houses with herbs, collards and flowers… I’ve also planted a blueberry bush that I harvested about 6 ripe blueberries off of last year, and we had a patch of wild stawberries that the squirrels harvested the night before each one was ripe.

Now that we have a huge yard, I’ve decided that I will actually have a real garden. We’ve decided to go with a raised bed version, so its not as permanent, if we decide to move its location. Also, hopefully it will make it a bit easier to keep kritters out… Ok, they can share, but they can not eat everything! hehe. My garden staff, aka. Devon, will build/help build a pretty simple one, that will be about 4 ft. by 8 ft, and it should be big enough to hold the few things that I plan on trying to grow this year.

They are: Collard greens, yellow summer squash, carrots, sugar snap peas, nasturtiums and possibly zucchini. I’m also thinking about doing some herbs like basil, cilantro and parsley in some containers. We also have a big apple tree in our back yard. We moved into the house too late last year to see if they were yummy or not. But yeah. I’m feeling a smidge domestic… Although, we’ll see. Devon and I still have to build the raised bed tonight…. and then I have to plant things… Oh yeah.. and then weed, and weed, and weed, and weed. Good times.

Is anyone else trying to growing anything this year?

After being woken up last night at midnight, 5am and 7am by my parent’s dog that we’re babysitting, I was very concerned that today was going to be a rough day. Other than being totally exhausted to begin with (additionally the ruppy had a similar schedule the night before), the day has turned into a mah-valous day of indoor snuggles while peering out at the winter wonderland outside.

I got some house cleaning done earlier, and now I’m curled up on my “diva” lounge chair with the ruppy, warming our toes in front of a nice roaring fire. Outside it’s cold & wet, but there are beautiful big fluffy snowflakes to admire & we have no reason to leave the house today. Man, I love the end result of planning weekly menus! Bundle up & stay warm kids!

Over the years I’ve had lots of needles stuck in my face & body (hence all of my gorgeous piercings), however needles still freak me out. Not a hardcore amount, but they still make me squeamish. But I’m all about donating a pint of my blood every so often. Once I was rejected for an iron deficiency, and most times I’m a “slow bleeder”, but in general it’s not a huge problem for me.

I think if you’re an eligible blood donor, you should definitely make an appointment to do so. I’ve recently signed up for a local blood drive in my town. And if the possibility of saving someone’s life isn’t enough good Ju-ju to motivate you to do the same, you can just look at it like I do: If, for whatever terrible reason, you might ever need a blood transfusion, or whatever, you can just look at your current donation as a deposit. And an added bonus… You usually get juice and cookies!

Check out the American Red Cross site: Give Life to find a blood drive close to you.

So tonight is date night, and our driveway is a 6 inch deep sheet of ice, and it just started dumping snow again. Weak sauce. We have snow tires and 4WD, but i’m growing nervous about not being able to try out Moonstones tonight. And I’m really craving the idea of their fried buffalo calamari with blue cheese. Sounds sooo yummy.

On the upside, we haven’t lost power….. *knocks on wood*.

I am in the process of taking an electric sander to this gigantic Lee Reynolds Burr painting:

It’s 4′x5′ and has been hanging over looking our foyer… And I hate it. Its got a grey-mauve-sea foam color scheme going on with a touch of 80’s abstract-tasticness. It makes me cringe every time I look at it.  However is is hand painted & giganic. But after doing some quick research, the canvas is basically worth more than I could sell the painting for…. If anyone actually would want to buy it. But as an artist, I don’t think that I could, in good faith, sell this to someone who would put it on display. So I’m taking a sander to it & I’m going to do a kinda pop-art splatter paint thing with a bunch of the bright colors that I’ve used to paint some of the rooms. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

We put up some christmas lights acouple of days ago & they look pretty sweet… Although we now have about 1.5 ft of snow on the ground and on our roof…. Here’s what it looked like when we first put them up:

And here’s our front door & our x-mas tree in the library:

I also felt the urge to decorate this little bear lawn ornament that the previous owners left, that D & I have taken a strange liking to.:

So….. It’s its a pretty serious situation here in New England. Last night was a terrible ice storm and we lost power at our house in Chelmsford around 11pm last night. This morning, we (along with 1 million others) woke up to a freezing cold house with no heat or electricity.

We had heard the cracks of breaking branches last night & were somewhat worried, but never thought that such a huge area would be affected. Devon got a great roaring fire going in our fireplace & we put Fifi right in front of it, to warm her up a bit, since none of her heating elements were working. Since we have an electric cooktop, we couldnt even boil water. Also since the fridge was off, we didn’t want to open it up to get anything out. So breakfast consisted of a room temperature apple with the option of some stale dry cereal. Good times. After talking with our electric company, they didn’t really know the extent of the damage yet & told us to call back in a few hours if we still didn’t have power. 4 hours later, we still didn’t have power….. Have I mentioned we have a generator hook up in our new house, but haven’t gotten around to buying & installing one yet…. Doh!

We get ahead of the power company again & basically hear “There is absolute mayhem going on & tons of damage. Hope for the best, but plan for not having any power until at least Sunday.” Eek. So we pack up Fifi & head down to my parent’s house in Boston, where my bro lives, & where they only got a little rain last night. Seth is awesome. We were greeted by him and his lady friend with a huge cooked breakfast of strawberry pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon… AWESOME!!!! Especially considering that I’ve been shivering in a <50 degree house for the past 5 hours, unable to eat or drink anything warm.

Long story short: After calling & driving around to various home stores, we discovered that there are 1 million people in New England without power, none of them had power generators, and all of them beat us to the punch in trying to buy one. You can’t even rent one, or find a busted/used one on craigslist. So basically Fifi, Devon and I are hunkering down here for a little while. Until we either get power, or can figure out how to keep Fifi from turning into a popsicle. Thank goodness that we have family in the area that has power, that we can stay with. I have no idea what we’d do if we couldn’t stay here. We’d have to get a pet-friendly hotel room or something.

But yeah. I’m super glad to be in a cosy home right now. Even if I am being subjected to the Celtics game that Seth is watching.

My tummy is full and round.  I woke up craving Indian food, so I dragged D to a local indian food buffet. (which I think is one of my favorite things ever…. Indian food buffets, that is.) I chowed down on some Saag Paneer, Goat Curry, Naan, and veggie Pakora. Needless to say, I’ve been holding my belly and moaning “I’m sooooooo full!!!!!” all afternoon. Meanwhile, D has been making fun of me for being full of goat. Meh. It was delish.

I havn’t been sleeping much recently. I usually wake up in the middle of the night & then go back to bed, but since we started the whole moving process I’ve been unable to fall back asleep. So here I am.

There’s a huge moving trailer in our driveway & the local movers arrive in under 2 hours to start packing everything we own into it. So shortly, I will have no internet access. Tonight we’ll stay at our friend’s (Russell, Jenny & little Zoe) house tonight, which is so awesome of them to put up with an iguana for the evening.

Then bright and early tomorrow morning, 6amish, Devon, Fifi and I start our homeward bound journey. Day 1 will be a 17 hour drive from the Seattle area to Rapid City, where we’ll spend the night in a pet friendly motel. The next day we’ll do some sight seeing as we drive through South Dakota, including photo ops for Fifi in front of Mount Rushmore & the Corn Palace. 4 days after starting our drive, we should arrive in our new home (have I mentioned that D & I are homeowners?!?!) late Sunday night.

Today is the beginning of that journey. I’m excited & terrifyed. So much to do, and so far to go. Even with all that, I’m so glad to be getting back to Massachusetts. Home. To our home.

Hey Gang. Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted. D & I are in the process of buying a house. We found a really rad looking modern home in Chelmsford, Mass. We placed an offer on it & flew back for 10 hrs to do a home inspection last weekend. As of today we’ve signed the Purchase & Sale agreement & have chosen a mortgage company. I believe we’re set to close September 20th?

It’s a really great house, although there is some 80’s chic-ness going on, but I’m looking forward to doing some fun improvements on it. Also, our new yard has lots of bunnies that like to munch on clover and dandelions greens.

Life’s been totally hectic, what with traveling back & forth & all the buying a home research stuff. Also I gave my 2 weeks notice to my job & my last day of work is this coming Tuesday. I’m excited. It will be nice to not be exhausted and grumpy all the time.

Now I just have a list of about 30 things to do before we can move….. Exciting!

Check out pics of the new house taken during the home inspection if you want…