Howdy! Spring is in full swing and so this week, other than one post I have scheduled for Wednesday, I am taking time off. I need to get some work done on my book, finish a drawing and this coming weekend I’m spending time with my college friends. So, as much I have to write up and share here, I need to focus on some other things. Today I am over at Sprout Dispatch and you can subscribe and follow the garden antics of the three of us over there, but I’ll be back here next week. Time to get some work done! And because I’m obsessed with them right…

Is this not the laziest lion you’ve ever seen? I went to the Houston Zoo yesterday with a friend and her two daughters and I have to say, the animals were the most entertaining I’ve ever seen. Aside from the lion lounging on his back, there were two ‘baby’ elephants playing around, pushing each other, swimming together, it was actually fun! I hadn’t been to the Houston Zoo since college and it was similar to how I remembered it. If there a: hadn’t been glass between me and the lion and b: I knew the lion wouldn’t rip me to pieces, I would have given him a belly rub and…

Oh, the air is delightful and despite the lack of daylight in the mornings, I’m loving that the evenings are longer now. I’m loving the dill in the garden right now, tall and fluffy, the mature plants working on flowering. The tiny, airy seeds will be saved to sowing throughout the year. We’ve been drying dill in the oven on the lowest heat it can go, then crackling the leaves into baggies to save for later. I’m trying oregano, too. I’ve been starring items in my feed reader and bookmarking things over the last few weeks and I thought I’d share them with you. +Honey Harvest by Kinfolk Magazine +Creamy…

+Two mile run after work. Loving running again, slow as I may be. I like to be on my own pace, getting it done, slowly but surely. I’m also happier with warmer weather. Thinking I might try running in my Vibram Five-Fingers tomorrow. +The Runty, Leo, is feeling better and acting more like himself after whatever stunt he pulled almost two weeks ago. Tail is working better, he’s happier and running around. The cats love it when I open the doors when I get home so they can get some sunlight. +This water oak has been putting on flowers as are all the other oaks in the area. I’ve been…

So. February. Was a bit better than January but still proved to be hectic. Writing went well, mostly because I also busted out about 4,000 words over the weekend. Honestly, if I just devoted an hour to it at least a few times a week with a larger spurt in the weekend things would be done faster. But I often find so many other things to do, which shouldn’t be the case. Alas, I’m happy with getting that much written. Running. Well, 9 isn’t good either. I have made myself a schedule for the next month though and hopefully that number goes up as does the yoga. I ran 3…

Taken *last* Sunday at our community garden, perched on the flowers of a cabbage, Vanessa atalanta the red admiral butterfly +This week…this week….whew, I am glad it is done. I ended up in the field for a few days, honestly thinking it was going to be two days max, but then it looked like it was going to bleed into the weekend. Chris is in the field full-time right now but the project I was on was nearby so luckily I was able to stay in his hotel with him. When I realized I needed to run home to check on the cats, mostly because I wasn’t sure if I’d…

Things that have caught my eye this last week or last month: +Yoga by Equinox video. I first read about it on Huffington Post in regards to it being potentially offensive or objectifying women. If that were the case why aren’t we talking about the beach volleyball players who wear bikinis to play their games? The beauty of the whole video is not what she is wearing or that she is only in her skivvies, but that she is freakin’ strong and the amazing lines that the body forms as she performs the routine. If only I were that strong! +And then I read about the dangers of yoga because…

January started off with a bang and continued on quickly and seemed to escape from me fast. I was not prolific in the manner I was expecting. I have a small journal I keep with me to jot down to-do’s and ideas as they come to me, and I will just say that I probably gave myself too much to do for this month. Creatively I only accomplished one big thing, which was finishing up a baby blanket…well, really I restarted it and finished it. I cut my time short because the baby it was intended for came about three weeks early! The crochet took a lot out of me…

+Chris pulled all of the beets, roasted them, and then turned them into pickles. Should be an interesting thing to try! +My parents came to visit this last weekend and brought their dogs. Isabelle, here, enjoyed sunning herself in the doorways when the sun came through. I think she enjoyed seeing me but she’s going blind, deaf and is getting old and I think she would have preferred to stay at home. My cats weren’t so keen on having the dogs back, but at least they were familiar with them and weren’t too upset about them. +Been wanting some Vibram Five Fingers for awhile. Found some on clearance at REI…

Over the years Chris and I have experienced a variety of wild places, some remote and others in the frontcountry. While for the most part we encounter lovely places that are in generally good condition, we often come across places that are wretchedly trashed or abused in some manner. For New Years weekend we went to Enchanted Rock, one of the most visited state parks in Texas. To add to the crowdedness we of course went on a holiday weekend. The place was crawling with people, most heading to the summit of Enchanted Rock, but others bouncing around Little Rock and some of the other subsidiary rocks nearby. Several ‘backcountry’…