Surprise SNOW!

We woke up this morning to this, the most snow our town has ever seen in March:


6" that quickly added more on top of it. We expected to maybe see a small dusting. This was not a dusting.

This is also clearly not what this originally-homed-in-Los Angeles gnome (Mr. Fritz) and the magic mushroom had signed up for...



Clearly at least someone was pleased as punch:


Bob's car is under there somewhere.... and if you zoom in, the round thing under my neighbors' arbor/pergola is a giant snowman.


Our draped-in-white front yard.


The view from our living room (our neighbor's tree is a tad scary-- it won't hit us if it breaks, but it leans...)


The laurels ont eh side of the hosue draped.... but they'll pop back up. If not, I kinda like the tunnel they make bent over.


Backyard view.


Full of snow.


We even had cross-country skiers on our street.


Our front yard, with LOTS of snow!


Our cute neighbor kid, Watson, posing.


SNOWMAN! (and glove fixing)



And then we went sledding.

Bed ridiculousness

We've lived in our house almost 11 months.

And, in that time, we've moved our bed against 3 of our bedroom's 4 walls.

Ridiculous.

We can't move it against the fourth wall because that's where the closet and door is.

At least we know what our options are! My opinion? I like this last arrangement the best.

Weather

Our peas really want (and need) to go outside. The impatient monsters are now approaching 6" tall, and they are pushing at the top of our already-raised-up greenhouse. Too much longer, and they'll start tangling each other with their little gripper vines.

But it's not supposed to get above 50 degrees until Tuesday.

Now, peas are little hardy suckers, but this has me perplexed. I want to put them outside. I think (based upon my limited internet research) that the frost/snow is more of a danger to flowers and peas, both of which aren't present yet... Hm. Here's hoping.

So this weekend, if there is a rain-free (or almost rain-free) spell? Peas, ya be going in the ground.

In other planty news:

We have a couple of tomato seedlings. I'm surprised, as it's only been 5 days and normally this takes longer. But, the big surprise? I planted onions and leeks on Monday. And now? We have a ton of little happy seedlings.

This is my first time doing both from seed, and I find the action of spilling so many seeds into one small area very daunting. I hate thinning seedlings.

Deck planning

Besides working a lot, we're knee-deep in deck planning. The idea is to transform the bottom terrace in the backyard into 80% deck, 20% pavers (at the far end so we have a space to hose the hounds... though we might choose to make that happen in the side yard instead... see what I mean about planning?). It's a LONG space-- 60' long and 12ish feet deep.

As far as execution? The weather has not been kind. Snow, freezing rain, and regular rain. Oh, an hail. Not much snow, but you get the drift-- it hasn't been deck weather. Plus, maybe we should paint the house first (or at least the back side?).

I think a reasonable goal is for us to have a partial deck by July 4th.

Our poor kiwi plants though! They're growing like mad in our dining room and are rather grumpy at our lack of climbing space...

Peas!

Despite our busy busy schedules recently, we are still doing projects. I just need to post about them!

Today: Peas! I soaked them overnight and sprouted them by putting them in-between two layers of moist paper towels. And voila! SPROUTS! Bob planted them a few days ago. Results? 100% sprouts! Yup, 72 pea seedlings now live on our dining room table.

Soon, they'll go out front where we' hope we can convince them to grow over our rock walls (rather than up a trellis). We'll see how that goes.

Yes, that's a lot of peas... but they are early and so easy to do that it's worth it. I used only half of the $3.10 package and I had enough to give away (easily) this many sprouted beans to my neighbors too (I gave her the leftovers from the plate sprouting). So $0.75 for this many pea plants? Yes, might as well grow 72.

Well that was a semi-failure...

I had purchased a $10 Groupon for a voucher good for $50 at Picaboo. I love Picaboo photo books.

I had another one earlier this week for a higher amount, so I used that for my 2011 photobook. The only other time period of our marriage not yet photobooked was the last half of 2009.

I remembered that the photobook Groupon expired "end of Feb," So, I hopped to it... but tonight and last night, life intervened.

So tonight I get home at 9. I gobble some dinner. I start working on photobook. Stuff happens, it doesn't go as fast as I wanted to... but! I finish at 11:52.

I go to get the Groupon.

It's not there.

It's in my "expired coupons" category. It didn't expire "end of February," it expired on 2/28. Darn Leap Year!!!

The good news? I can always still use the $10 I initially paid toward the album. So, I'm not out any money with no product. AND, the photobook has been created, so now it's just a matter of ordering.

But yes, I am kicking myself. I'm just glad it wasn't my pricier voucher!