Potentially Inherited the Black Thumb...

....cause it sure ain't green!  I keep blaming the recent drought and crazy heat we have been having, but I am betting that even if it was ideal growing temperature my garden would still be a hot mess.  Some of the fault lies with G and I really concentrating on some interior house work and wedding planning, but I am finding the areas I did try with (our little tomato stash and various herbs and garlic) are not doing so well.  Our scapes were amazing and made phenomenal pesto, but our garlic crop leaves a lot to be desired.  One of the ladies from my work also planted a bunch in the fall and was telling me how huge and plump her garlic is...sadly mine are little midgie garlics that would be a huge pain in the butt to peel and use.  I even managed to kill our crop of chives (not like I was using that a lot anyway)  but I was just so proud of our garden last year!  It seems that this year is not to be.  But I did just read an article about this lady and it makes me wana get out and GARDEN!  Maybe I will get G to build me some raised boxes and I can plant some stuff in the fall so I have a semi successful crop of something (garlic you will be mastered!) for next year.  I think that I have too many things on my "I wana learn how to..." list, perhaps I should pare down and really focus on the things that will make me the happiest? Because it seems I end up not doing any of the things I want to do because I get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of these things.  This is the year of the wedding and getting our house painted, hardwooded and maybe even extentioned (this is totally a word). Next year I will feed our little family from the fruits of our/G's labour...I'll be honest with myself I will definitely be having him do all the digging

Bachelory Things

Last night I had a flash forward to my future...as I watched Garret get packed for his bachelor party I 100% saw my future child getting packed up and ready for camp. He was giddy with excitement and fielding phone calls from the other guys about who was bringing what.  They are only gone for two days but he brought six dress shirts, three pairs of shoes and about nine tee shirts.  We joke that he is like George Costanza   It is frustrating when I am trying to share a suitcase with him, but endearing otherwise.

[caption id="attachment_815" align="aligncenter" width="614"] Packing only essentials[/caption]

Amongst all the "essential' over packing needs, please note  Brutus, our white brass buffalo.  Few people know this but he is sort of the ShWalsh family mascot--he comes with us places like a travelling gnome. Garret makes videos of him getting up to no good, and he along with the other guys decided that he had to make the trip to Montreal as well.  I am wondering if he, along with everyone else will make it home in one piece!

Dance Dance Nation

Garret and I were in a family friend's  wedding this past weekend that called for some dancing down the aisle to the Recessional.  We tried to come up with a cool dance to do last minute but decided to improvise.  We went for a hand swinging gun toting smiling type of thing...Regardless it was fun!  Charlene caught us part way down the aisle.  Man do I love black and white photos!

 

[caption id="attachment_804" align="aligncenter" width="293"] Do the hustle![/caption]

Shower Shuffle

We can't quite pinpoint when this occurred, but sometime in the past month or two something funky has been happening with our shower.  No matter what you set the water temperature to be at it shifts quickly between making ice cubes and shooting lava at you.  G and I are often of the mindset that "hummm....maybe if we ignore this issue it will just remedy itself" Especially when we call our hot water on demand supplier and they inform us that it is a $150 service call which may or may not fix the problem.  (urgh) So in our new found frugalness we have just begun to learn how to do the shower shuffle:

1. Turn shower to temp you want, get naked and be ready to leap in at a moments notice

2. Temp where you want it? Hop in and turn shower head to face the wall--soak yourself as fast as possible

3. As it begins to turn to one crazy extreme or the other,  stand at back of shower so you just get mist of it and lather up hair and body

4. When you sense it heading back to more regular temperature,  hop back in and rinse as if your life depends on it

5. Repeat steps 3-4 as needed...a few too many times if I am shaving my legs.

It has been working nicely except it has been so super hot the past few days that trying to have a cool shower before bed involves a lot of waiting through hot water cycles but it works...for now.  How long can we live like this I wonder?  It sort of reminded me of that early 90's  hot water PSA featuring Tweety Bird "hot water can burn in wess than thwee seconds"  Anyone else remember that?

And it really is all worth it...

...because I came home last night to 3 reply cards in the mail.  And I got all excited and realized I need to stop spazzing out and just enjoy the ride.

[caption id="attachment_794" align="aligncenter" width="300"] I'm envisioning hours of amusement to come[/caption]

Our Wedding website is taunting me

[caption id="attachment_790" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The daily Countdown is giving me hives[/caption]

I feel as if I have been decidedly "UnBridey" for a while.  I have been trying to keep our wedding day in perspective and remember that it is just one day and we shouldn't let it take over our lives.  So because of that, I avoided a lot of the wedding things like wedding shows and websites etc. I didn't want to realize that I "needed" something crazy expensive to make our day perfect...But I think that by doing that I now feel I have managed to forget a ton of stuff that we need to do to get ready.  This didn't seem to be a problem because the wedding is SO far away and We (totally I...not much we in this wedding planning stuff. cough, IloveG cough) have so much time.  However I made a wedding website to send out with the invitations to include information such as accommodations and information about the ceremony and reception.  Over the past two days people have been getting our invites (yay) and checking out our website (also yay) . The down side of this is that I too keep checking out our website and noticing how the date at the top changes. 74 days til the wedding people 74 days.....that isn't really a whole lot of time. Especially since I have been reassuring myself with "we have three months" for the past few weeks. And I start getting minor heart palpitations thinking of crucial things I might be forgetting. Wedding panic dreams that people show up and I forgot to pick up my dress type of thing.  Rational Julia knows, that at the end of the day as long as G and I get married, the day will be a success. But OCD, emotional, planny, Norman Rockwell visionary Julia needs everything to be PERFECT or the world will end.  Those two need to meet in the middle somewhere I think.  So the moral of this story is, remind me to quit looking at the website and someone get me started on a to do list and some Valium (haha)

The couch sleepover

Garret and I have what some of our friends have referred to as "the greatest couch ever" Since it is located under the largest fan in the house, we have been spending quality time underneath it lately. Our bedroom is ovenlike in these temperatures so we have couch sleepovers! We put a sheet on each leg of the L and pick a side. It's cozy and reminds me of sleepover parties when I was younger. I think even if we get a/c we need to still have 'em!

Roomie

So...I found a mega spider living near our barbecue. Two things just happened 1. I named it Charlotte and 2. Informed G he is in charge of all barbecue related activities from now til end of time.