trying to find my groove

I want to be back to blogging, but I'm still drawing blanks as to what to blog about. So I'll try, and it may be a bunch of ramblings, but I want to get back into blogging somewhat frequently.

Our garden is going strong. It's small, but it's going strong. 3 whiskey barrels, plus a handful of medium pots, and one spot actually on the ground.

What's growing:

1 yellow bell pepper
1 yellow pear tomato
1 large red tomato
1 unidentified tomato
2 strawberries
1 watermelon hill (with 2 watermelon hills not sprouting at all - arg!)
3 cucumbers
5 green beans
lemon balm
sage
rosemary
dill

And, in recent weeks I've also planted:

2 petunias - sugar daddy petunias that Lauren just calls sugar daddies :-)
1 red geranium
1 lavender (not the herbal variety, just a plant called lavender)
1 jasmine
1 lobelia
1 rose bush
1 pecan tree

I'm having lots of fun in the dirt, and I hope that my thumb is somewhat green - right now it's too early to tell. But there are actual tomatoes growing on the vines now - good sign. :-)

One of our favorite foods here recently has been bean salad. It makes my heart swell when the girls want to take bean salad in their lunches. And, I am a dork. But I've worked really hard to make sure our kids like a variety of healthy foods, so it makes me feel good. Oh, and this batch of bean salad - all made from dried beans. I normally open up cans, but I had the dry beans in the pantry so I went for it. Is it silly that I was feeling intimidated by cooking dry beans?

Oh crap, I keep forgetting to get or do something for Aubrey's teacher for teacher appreciation week. crap crap crap.

But, we did do some crafting for Mother's Day. :-) Two super cute, easy-peasy projects that I'm hoping the grandmas will love. Painted towels and clay thumbprint pendants (only, instead of making pendants, we made window charms). Unfortunately, in my haste to get them mailed off, I forgot to take pictures. For the towels - some were floral, very similar to the example shown, and others had Aubrey's handprints, Lauren's handprints and Sasha's footprints. LOVE those! I need to make some of those for me. :-)