Monday, June 15, 2009

I'm A Hack Sparky

I have an obsession with lighting.

Overhead lights make me very upset with their annoying, unflattering, harsh shadows, especially in the morning when I'm not yet awake and trying to make coffee without tripping over the dogs who are impatiently waiting to be fed.

I have slowly replaced almost every lighting fixture in my house with nice, efficient halogen spot lights, although by the time I am finally done, this will likely all be outdated, and I'll have to start all over again. Additionally, my level of skill in the electrical world is probably on par with the reject that wired our house in the first place. It hasn't been pretty.

Lately, I've been getting very jealous when I see nice, new kitchens in the fancy home magazines with built in under-cabinet lighting and all it's pleasant moodiness. Well, that and fancy granite/marble/concrete/copper/stainless/whatever counter tops that lack my 1" 1970's grout lines that soak up every bloody spill my drunk friends/family like to dish out in my kitchen, but we won't go there today.

I was at my favorite hardware store the other day and noticed that they have these xenon under-cabinet light kits and decided to try my hand again at electrical work. It was totally fun actually because they worked on the first try and now I don't have to be blinded in the morning whilst whipping up Hub's morning smoothie. I'm hoping they don't lead to my burning the house down - fingers crossed.

Plus, isn't it fun when you get to see the inside of someone else's house whom you do not know? My other weird obsession is seeing the insides of other people's abodes. Very strange, I know.

Anyway, here's my kitchen with the new-halogen-but-still-overhead-lights lights combined with my new xenon under-cabinet lights:

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And here's with only the xenon lights:

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Much improved for morning coffee and smoothie making.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Happy Peas

The peas are getting fat like they're supposed to.
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I made the mistake of not re-reading the seed packet the other day and excitedly picked off a pea pod and force fed it to my husband because "O, it just tastes so sweet and fresh!", and then realized that this is supposed to be a SHELLING PEA, to be consumed sans shell. Well, it sure tasted good to me, but I will obey Renee's instructions and wait until the pods get fat with their little pea goodness and then shell them like the good gardener I'm trying to be. Gardening is a serious test of my attention span.

I find the pea tendrils totally fascinating and pretty.
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Something stupid has been eating my cut-and-come-again butter lettuce before I got the chance to actually cut it again. I believe my VB1's impenetrable squirrel/bird/cat/whatever proofing has indeed been penetrated by a squirrel.

One by one, a different lettuce head disappeared each morning, but I was too stubborn to reinforce the previously mentioned varmint proofing, and the chives aren't doing so hot anyway, so I pulled out the lettuce and am going to transplant the chives somewhere in the backyard where they'll get more sun.

Sorry, Lettuce, you can't share a bed with the chives anymore. Don't take it personally.
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Not sure what I'm going to replace the chives and lettuce with. Maybe I'll try some root vegetables again.

Monday, June 1, 2009

I Am Able To Grow Something And Eat It, Too!

Amazing!

It's not much, but considering that this is Trial Year Gardening for me, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

O yea, and I almost broke the new/old truck on Saturday. Loaded 1.5 tons of landscaping rock in a 3/4 ton truck. Whoops. She's doing ok after that harrowing experience. I'm doing ok, too, after being yelled at for a good 20 minutes on basic knowledge of payload capacity.

But let's put that all behind us and get back to the Butter Lettuce.

Don't mind my 15-year-old ghetto salad spinner.
first harvest of the spring 2009 season!

I learned that you can cut-and-come-again (bwahahahaha!) the lettuce, which means you can cut it, and it'll grow back a few more times.


Note to self: don't use the leftover chicken pine bedding to mulch the lettuces as it sticks to the leaves like super glue.