A Final Update

For a few weeks at any rate. I know it's been a while but I have a million excuses, life has been quite busy and quite stressed the last few weeks. And to be entirely honest I've been exhausted and my mind quite lacking in topics of interest, and things worthy of the time it would take to write and read them. But we'll be on the ups with lots to share when we get back.

Where are we going?   China.    How long?    Three weeks.    When?    In three days.

So the rest of my week will be quite busy, trying to finish everything, pack everything, clean everything, and hopefully forget nothing! Well here are some garden pictures  as well as a few of my corset for you and if you think of us say a prayer for easy, safe, successful and enjoyable travels.

Back to the Garden and something I learned about Squash

 My spaghetti squash gets bigger every day and I'm so excited about it! This however is not that first one I told you about, that first one and the four after it, all shriveled up and fell off the vine. That of course left me feeling devastated  and curious as to what could be the problem!?  So I did a little research and discovered that squashes will start to produce a fruit but if it isn't pollinated or isn't properly or sufficiently pollinated it will shrivel up and fall off. For whatever reason we don't get many honey bees around here, so with knowledge I decided that the next female flower that opened was going to get properly pollinated and as I guess you can see my paint brush pollinating skills are excellent! This lovely is only about a week old but I can't wait to eat it!

       Speaking of eating (I'm starving) this morning I pulled up some young potatoes and I plan to bake them with our basketful of yellow cherry tomatoes using this recipe that I found this morning. It looks amazing and I can't wait to try it (I'll tell you how it turned out)! Now if only I had bought the white esparagus at the whole foods store yesterday that be lovely with it! And then I could make some bread ... Okay enough talk of dinner I really am getting too hungry.

       In the garden I also have Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, Asian eggplants and cherry tomatoes which are trying to be trees (they're already taller then me and still going). Also because I forgot to show you before here is my little satsuma tree. I got on sale for $15, I wanted a lime, but all they had were Mexican Key Limes and if I ever get a lime I want to buy a kefir lime, so I can use its leaves.

Another Garden topic ... seed saving! These bags are fill with seed pods finishing drying up, I want  leave them out to dry as long as possible but the birds had discovered them, so paper bags is in a cool dry place it is!  I have  radishes (I will never have to buy them again), mustard, cilantro, and arugula or rocket. I also have some that are already finished drying and have been put in little seed pouches.  I also have some tomato seeds fermenting in a baby food jar, which really isn't as hard as it sounds and surprisingly works quite well! When I lived in Harbin I saved a  bunch of tomato seeds, just for something to do and ended up with about 20 tomatoes on my balcony the next summer. I had so many tomato plants I didn't know what to do with them!

Green Dreams

I may have mentioned before, but back when I lived in Harbin I found inspiration and solace in watching the Edible Garden by Alys Fowler. I think in my mind watching her putter away in a garden that could easily be my own helped to ease the blues that come with living in a frozen land of concrete, it transformed the winter blues into green dreams. Even now with opportunity to grow things, I still love the simple inspiration of listening to her talk about everything from flowers and herbs to peas and beans. I use to watch it on Youtube but unfortunately it's been removed and I'm not sure why, the only place I've been able to find it is here.  She also has quite a few amazing books and she writes for a number of blogs. Look her up and get inspired!

ThredUP thoughts

I'm sure you've seen the advertisements, they seem to be everywhere! ThredUP is the new big thing on the block. They claim to have everything you love about thrift shopping and online shopping all in one place, not only can you buy but you can also sell and their prices are supposedly AMAZING!

So my thoughts? I have to check it, right. So I head on over to their sight to see what I can see. Now for any of you who know me, you know I love a good deal! I am all about sharing cloths, hand-me-downs, thrift shopping and consignment. Over the past 5 years I've grown to appreciate this aspect of American culture even more (second hand is not a thing in China). But when I got to thredUP I must admit I was shocked ... almost sickened by the prices on there items $20, $50, $100 or more. Just a few months back I was complaining that the thrift store prices had all gone up to $2 or $3 per shirt. 

As I was fuming and thinking about the outrageousness of it all, a thought occurred to me. I would never buy from thredUP but perhaps I could sell to them. If they are charging $10-$30 or more on every item, they must be buying for a good amount. As I investigated I found that the things they are willing to sell for over $20 they will only pay you about $2 for. Well, that just about did it for me and then I noticed something that was just to much! Wrinkles! A sweater, a J. Crew cardigan for $20.99 covered in wrinkles! If they don't take the time to even make their photos presentable .... All I can say is their advertising seems to be the only thing they have done a good job with.

I don't think I will ever buy from ThredUP, and I don't think I'd sell to them either. Have you tried it? What are your thoughts?

Multicultural Wedding

My husband and I will have been married 3 years this summer, my how the time flies! It seems like just yesterday that we met for the first time and that will be 5 years ago in August. Well, looking back through pictures recently I realized that I never posted any wedding pictures here. I two weddings and four dresses altogether but that's how they do things in China. Perhaps when our aniversary rolls around in June I'll write and tell you the tail of our weird and wonderful wedding. You can watch the Chinese wedding here.