Back in March I started getting the urge to get a garden going-- of the edible sort. I dug up a little patch for an herb and strawberry garden and put out the strawberries from containers. I had hoped to start some other things from seed, but its been slow going. Today I caved and bought a little basil so it wouldn't look so bare.

I also fashioned a "bean teepee" out of some bamboo sticks. However, nobody but me likes green beans, so I wasn't going to waste my time planting them. Instead I planted some sugar snap peas and nasturtiums with some lettuce in between the poles.

The lettuce went in from a 6 pack, the nasturtiums and peas I started from seeds. The lettuce did well, except for the gopher incident. (I lost three of them, but so far the rest are still hanging in there. Now though, they seem to having issues with earwigs.

And may I say. EWWW.

They've really torn into one of them. I saw it wasn't doing so well, but put it down to the fact that it was like 104 degrees in the sun that day, and lettuce isn't a fan of heat.

Then I got sick and stopped noticing that it wasn't really perking back up when the weather went back to normal spring temps. Today, when I went out to plant the snap pea and nasturtium seedlings (sick or not, eventually you gotta get stuff done) I took a closer look at the lettuce and it was just swarming with earwigs.

Again. EEEEEEEWWWWWWW.

I hate bugs. I also don't want stupid pesticides all over my homegrown veggies either. So, I did the next best thing. I cracked open a beer. Took a swig or two, then used the rest to bait a "beer trap" I put down between the two lettuces that are having the problem. The bugs haven't found the one on the other side of the teepee yet.

Hopefully, in the bug vs. beer match I'll come out the winner.

Beer for the win!!

Just for the record I also have a couple of tomatoes (fruiting but not ripe) a yellow squash (has a couple of tiny squash) a cucumber that's really taking its time growing, and I just put in about 5 corn seedlings. I was going to do a few "three sisters" type plantings-- corn, beans and squash. But the whole nobody likes beans thing was a stumper. Plus, squashes aren't a huge fave either.

Then I found some Edamame seeds! So, once the corn gets a little taller I'll plant the edamame amongst the stalks. I plan on doing 3-4 hills. In the first, the squash is already in place. The second will be pumpkins, the third cantaloupe and the fourth pumpkins again (a second crop of edible only, as the first hill be carving variety).

I don't expect to get a terrible lot of corn, but thought it would be fun. Plus my ground is so full of rocks that tilling up enough to plant a few traditional rows of corn is enough to make me decided not to plant at all.

Again, for the record, I have a few more seedlings coming along-- a currant type tomatoe to add to the slicing and roma varieties already growing, some onions, more corn, a single sunflower seed that Lucas planted at school-- not sprouted as yet. And a few other things in the same unsprouted condition.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get more seeds started as well-- cantaloupe, more corn, more sunflowers, radishes, and who knows what all else. I got so many seeds back in March I can't remember half of them at this point.

Finally, after all these years, I'm an annual pass-holder to Disneyland!

We went yesterday for the Sprouts 6th birthday. It was super busy, but super awesome.

Altogether we went on 21 rides, including multiples of Buzz, Haunted Mansion Holiday and Screamin'.

I went on 16 (skipped the rockets, Dumbo, Pinocchio, Winnie the Pooh and Tuck and Roll's Bumper Cars)
Martin went on 14 (skipped Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, Flick's Fliers, Ladybug Boogie, and 2 rides on Screamin')
The Lass went on 18 (skipped the Rockets, Flicks' Fliers, and Ladybug Boogie)
And the Sprout went on 19 (Skipped the 2 trips on Screamin')

We also managed to see the Aladdin stage show, which is totally awesome and the Christmas parade.

The only thing I'm disappointed in missing was the Small World Holiday. The line for that was outrageously long and by the time we were ready to face it, they had shut it down because apparently it has to close for the firework show, which I was unaware of. We got there right when they stopped letting anyone else in line.  :(

By then we were all pretty exhausted anyhow, so we headed home satisfied, tired and happy.

Next trip we'll get more thrill rides in. We tried to make it all about Lucas since it was his birthday and all. So the focus was on the less intense rides, though he does love Buzz, and now also Haunted Mansion Holiday (I wonder if he will still like it when Jack Skellington and the rest of the Nightmare Before Christmas crew are gone) and Star Tours.

The Lass only managed to ride the roller coaster twice because we had a set of 4 FastPasses, and rode back to back in about the same time it too for Martin and Lucas to wait in line to take pictures with McQueen and Mater.  :)

I wrote a huge, long, whiny rant. I then felt a teensy bit better and deleted it.

To sum up, things kind of suck right now and my stoopid husband gets to be in stoopid Germany where I'm guessing its not sucking even a little bit.

Oh, and the offer on our house fell through, and I hate everything.

Except Kit Kats.

Lots of little Kit Kats

Well, maybe not lots of them anymore...

Stoopid Halloween leftovers right when I start PMS-ing and not going to Germany-- Munich, even. MUNICH. I love Munich. So. Not. Fair.

It's a conspiracy. If I were in Germany I would not just have eaten a metric shitload of chocolate.

Well, that's probably not true. I'd still be PMS-ing and they do have some really good chocolates there.

We got an offer on the house. Finally.

It is not exactly generous, just over 10% below asking PLUS another 10,000 in concessions (closing help plus they want us to pay all of  some sort of tax/fee thing instead of splitting it as it's usually done)

Part of me wants to leap all over it just to be rid of the burden of the mortgage payment, and get on with life as we should be living it. Scraping by from pay check to pay check, giving up things we've taken for granted like having cable and internet or a bedroom for my son (which he doesn't mind at all, as bunking with us seems to be great fun for him. It is NOT fun for us, though.) And forget about taking classes, or buying melodias or going out to dinner.

Another part of me isn't quite so desperate. That's a steep discount, and its cutting close to our bottom line.

We're going to make a counter offer, and I'm trying not to get my hopes up because-- well, maybe they don't take the counter, or maybe there's any number of things that might happen to make it all fall through.

Oh but it will be so nice if it does.

Cross your fingers for us!

Yeah, that's it. Sunday on Labor Day weekend. I don't know who decided we should got to the beach on a holiday weekend, but we all ended up at Torrey Pines-- 11 of us.

Five of us hit the waves body boards in tow-- me, my daugher, my husband, his brother and their dad. Martin's dad didn't last long, the waves are strong and you can take a beating. Then you have to fight against the waves to get back out, and that's exhausting. Sometimes you're getting a good ride and you're all stoked (listen to me sounding all surfer girl) but then you finally pull out and you're practically on the beach and its like, "damn, its going to take me forever to get back out there." Especially when you're not exactly a spry young thing anymore like me.

Anyhow, as the day wore on, the waves got stronger. I had some really killer rides. We were catching the big ones far out and you could ride them all the way in. Anyhow, I was getting tired, and I should have known better... I did know better. I looked at that big ass wave and though, I think this one might be too much for me.

Oh and it was.

Instead of dropping down into the curl, I dropped face first over the top. I went "over the falls" as they say and smashed said face into the bottom. I'm not sure if I hit the board, which hit the sand, or my chin hit the sand itself. I know I had lost the board at some point, but don't remember if it happened before or after the impact.

I know my freakin' mouth hurt and when I managed to finally stop rolling around under water and get my feet under me, I popped back up to see Martin looking at me and his eyes went wide. Crap, I knew it meant there was blood.

Sure enough I had a huge gash about halfway down on the inside of my lower lip, and it was bleeding like crazy. My neck wasn't feelin' so hot either. And we're not going to get into my pride, cause that took a beating too.

The only "good" part was that both Martin and my daughter wiped out too, so I wasn't the only loser, just the biggest one. :)

So, when I got up the courage to probe the wound with my tongue, it felt big enough that I decided a trip to the life guard tower might not be a bad idea. The life guard was young, tan and hot, so yeah totally worth it.

But aside from getting to stare at this guys chest for what seemed like forever... that probably deserves an explanation.

So, I was standing there, and he was on the ladder so his chest was eye level. And I was under instructions not to move my head (they were more concerned with neck injury than my bloody mouth.) So there I was staring at the hotty life guard's chest with my husband standing right there judging me. and I'm not allowed to look away. Awkward, I tell ya, and that's why ti felt like it took forever.

Anyhow, I got some gauze for my lip, and was grilled by some other lifeguard about whether I had any tingling in my hands or feet, did my neck hurt, etc. And he took a peak at my lip and said it was pretty big and might want to get it checked out by a doctor as it might need stitches.

Great.

We didn't leave right away, though. I got some ice on my lip to help with the swelling and wrapped up in a blanket cause I was wet, and it was getting late and the sun disappeared behind the clouds, and I was holding ice on my face.

Eventually we went home and I tried to eat some dinner, which wasn't working very well. I couldn't bit into anything so I had tear a burger up into tiny little pieces and pop them into my mouth one at a time. If I tried to eat a bigger piece I couldn't manage to keep all the bits in the back, so it took forever to finish one little burger and it hurt. Then I went to rinse out my mouth and it started bleeding again.

It also looked disgusting. Just ew. I decided I probably should get it checked out, but it was Sunday night and Monday was a holiday. Chance of getting to see a regular doctor before Tuesday? Zero. We went to the emergency room.

So I sign in and get called to see the triage nurse and they're taking my blood pressure and temperature (with a mouth one, they couldn't break out the ear one for me? Come on people) Then the nurse asks me, "so what happened?"

"Well, I was body boarding, and I took a header into the sand face first and busted up my lip."

The nurse looks at me, there's a pregnant pause then she says, "Nice."

Ok, so now I'm feeling just a tiny bit cocky. That's right 41 years old and I'm in the emergency room because I was body boarding, on the one had, stupid, on the other pretty damn cool for a middle aged housewife.

Long story short, I didn't need stitches, however, when the doctor asked if my tetanus shot was up to date I cringed, "No, its not." I hate tetanus shots. They hurt worse than whatever it is you did to yourself that got you to the hospital in order to find out your tetanus shot isn't up to date and you need a booster.

I know that wherever I get that shot is going to hurt, and hurt bad. I'm talking can't-move-my-arm-bad. And that is exactly what happened. A week later the neck was fine, the lip was only slightly bruised feeling and I was still having trouble lifting my left arm higher than shoulder level. I literally couldn't move it at all without pain for three days. And when I say, I mean PAIN. In fact two weeks later, the shot site is still slightly sore if I press on the area.

So the answer to the question "Who got the tetanus shot?" from our last episode, is of course me.

The answer to the other question, "how many stitches did I get?" well that's about to be answered, because although I didn't need any in my mouth, three days after the big wipe out I went to the dermatologist for a follow up on my biopsy.

Here's the skinny on that: My biopsy came back with Mild to Moderate Atypia. Which means a mild to moderate atypical cell growth was found. Now my doctor explained that when a biopsy comes back "mild" they usually don't doing anything further and you just keep an eye on the location for any further changes. If a biopsy comes back moderate, they like to excise even more surrounding tissue (all the way around and deeper.) Since my biopsy results were right in the middle she said we could go either way.

However, she did point out that keeping a close eye on it wasn't going to be easy since its on my back. I went with further excision. And boy did they excise, but not until the next week. Thank god, cause I was having enough trouble sleeping with the stiff neck and the stupid tetanus shot.

So how many stitches did I get? Twelve total, six internal, six external. So the mole I thought was benign, wasn't technically normal, is now gone and then some. I still haven't got the stitches out (next Tuesday for that), but the new biopsy on the extra chunk of my back they took out was clear (yay). I'll have a nearly 2 inch long scar for a souvenir too.

And that's the story so far...