Warm

Today's weather report says it'll be 87. That's craziness, after last weekend's rain. A few nights ago I was still wearing my flannel Christmas jammies, and now 87?? And it's supposed to stay warm, I'm so excited!

Although it was nice to have our rain barrel topped off (and then some), we were all pretty much ready for the rain to be over.

Last week, I went to Vegas for work. I stayed with Cali and Craig, and when I arrived Tuesday evening I found them outside on their patio working on their garden. I noticed their box is Craig-sized. Curious.

Cali was directing, from the patio, while wearing knee-high rubber boots.

I'm so excited for them - I hope they have far more success than I ever did trying to grow things in Vegas!

My meetings all went well, and it was nice to see the family. I had lunch with my dad, and dinner with my mom and Cali. I wish I could have spent more time with Kat, but she's a terribly busy college student so I'm thankful for the half hour I did see her!

Oh, and Cali cut my hair for me. I've been trying to grow out the super short pixie type style since last fall, and it's been awful. Especially recently, I'd been sporting a 'do that made me look more at home at a truck stop or something, which is unacceptable when your sister is a hairstylist. But she assures me the worst is over.

Anyhow, Sparky and I had a good trip, and as always, he was thrilled to see his BFF Ziggy. And eat his face a little.

So, Neil got a new job! Although he really likes the people he works with now, and it's a good company and a good job, it's just not the kind of work he enjoys or gets any satisfaction from. He's going to be working at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA now. He's so excited!

This means he'll have to drive about 15 miles each way, but he has to go over the hill to get out of the San Fernando Valley, and there's only a couple of ways to do that and a whole lot of people. He's expecting about an hour commute each way, but there are other options such as carpool shuttles. In any case, he's SUPER HAPPY and we went to look at the campus last weekend to see his new office, and figure parking out and all that good stuff. UCLA has a beautiful campus, and the surrounding area is nice too. Here he is in front of the building he'll be working in, doing his "I got an awesome job" pose.

So we drove around the campus and surrounding areas so he could get a feel for his new environment. We had an amazing donut from Stan's Donuts, and drove through some neat little neighborhoods. This house looks like it's from a fairytale...

And we passed by the Hammer Museum. Neil told me this is a museum filled with one of every kind of hammer in the world. This turned out to be a lie, which he was so proud of.

We also went to Tomatomania. There were lots of people there, and I was overwhelmed by the number of choices of tomato plants. We managed to come home with several anyway :) The plants all seem really  healthy, but we were also impressed by their friendly, knowledgeable and very busy staff.

Over the weekend we also moved the piano from our garage to Carmen's house, and had an excellent dinner with Carmen, Paul, and Steven at Versailles Cuban Restaurant.

And finally, our garden update! Our sunflowers are growing about three inches a day, it seems! I planted these prior to reading the instructions, where it says to plant them 16" apart.

And the potatoes are all thriving, except the fingerlings.

All our onions and garlic are tall and happy...

We have new lettuces sprouting!

And most exciting of all (I know, terribly exciting... I don't get out much)... the BUSHEL BASKET GOURD finally sprouted! FINALLY! They can grow pretty big, and I'm hoping mine is productive.

We have strawberries...

and two sticks from Home Depot that we bought for $10. They've been in the ground for over two months now, and they're still just sticks. NOT blackberries. I think we got hosed.

And while the garden is quietly growing, the ever-vigilant SCARECROW keeps a close watch on things.

And that's all I've got!