First Sprouts!!

Yesterday Jason ran inside the house and screamed the word "Beans!" before running back out the door. I hurriedly followed him (in my house slippers no less) to see them! We have 12 little bean sprouts and all 4 of our popcorn sprouts!!

Today Houston is being pinged with an amazing lightning storm and I took a short break in the rain as an opportunity to check the garden again. WOW! I cannot believe how much everything grew in just ONE DAY! I tried to get shots at the same angles and you can see below that the beans jumped significantly higher!

Here are the beans Wed, Sep 28 and Thurs, Sep 29:

Here is the popcorn on Wed, Sep 28 and Thurs, Sep 29:

Here are some other pictures of the beans. (I apologize for the quality...it's dark, rainy, lightning, and the backup camera...)

The bell peppers are not surviving the hard rain... :-(

But the tomatoes seem to be doing okay!

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How to Train for a Marathon

Once again I find myself training. I joke that I need something to do with my time while Jason is in school, but the truth is I love the challenge. The physical challenge of pushing myself and the time I get to spend outdoors I truly cherish and it's worth the work.

Right now I am training for the Houston Marathon in January 2012. I have previously run Houston once before back in 2010 and ran it with a torn meniscus, lateral and medial tears. I had surgery June 2010 to repair it and it's been a long road to recovery since then. I attempted to train for Houston 2011, but my knee was not recovering like it needed and I didn't get into the lottery for the marathon (a neon sign from the Lord maybe?!?). Instead I stoped running and started cycling and rode the MS 150 (read all about my adventures here).

I train for the marathon with Katy Fit (more info here), a running group that I find essential to anyone starting to run. The miles get hard and running alone was not an option for me. It was also a great resource for beginner information during training (aches, pains, tips, tricks, etc.).

Here's my typical running "equipment":

But honestly, the thing I love about running is that really all I need is this (and perhaps some clothes unless you are begging for a trip to the slammer):

Last week while I was out of town, the Houston Marathon Kickoff Party was held in Memorial Park. Jason surprised me by going to the celebration and picking up one of the free "in training" t-shirts for me! I have such an amazing hubby!! (He even got a cowbell to cheer me on in January!) :-)

Last Saturday was our first run in the double digit mileage. Thus far my knee has been doing great, but we are far from the intense training that I know is to come. Cycling and swimming have helped keep my knee healthy and I am grateful and blessed that I am even able to run, that I have the opportunity to train, and that I can help others train through coaching with Katy Fit. I am ready to take on the challenges that I know are to come and I am determined to run another marathon - 26.2 miles of one of the most indescribable, amazing, and rewarding accomplishments in running. Keep me in your prayers!

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Fall Planting

We have finally planted in the garden!! [You can read about our previous garden adventure here (part 1) and here (part 2).] The temperatures in Houston have finally started to drop and we took the opportunity to get our garden started. We went to Wabash Antique and Feed Store (more info here) armed with our gardening book and asked a TON of questions.

We looked over all the herb and vegetable plants as well as the selection of seeds available. We looked over Wabash's condensed version of our heavy reading gardening book planting schedule and we spent a lot of time with Phillip - the friendly employee who told us we were off to a significantly better start than most when we showed him our 3D schematics and explained our automatic drip system. :-)

We perused the selection of plants and seeds that Wabash had available and from that made our selections. We have planted 29 different varieties of vegetables and herbs from a combination of seed and plant.

Here's a list of what all we have planted from plant: -creeping lemon thyme -herb mother of thyme -itlaian oregano -sweet basil -coriander (cilantro) -mojito mint -curled parsley -gorizia rosemary -california wonder green bell pepper -yolo wonder green bell pepper -sweet 100 tomaotes -heirloom tomatoes -beefsteak tomatoes -straight eight cucumbers Here's a list of what all we have planted from seed: -carrots -cauliflower -bunching onion -blue lake bean pole -suger snap peas -tiger's eye bush bean -parris island cos romaine -speckles butterhead -great lakes crisphead -marigold -cherokee wax bush bean -blackcoat runner bean -tepary bean -kale -japanese hull-less popcorn -thessalonki tomatoes -brandy heirloom tomatoes

We started a gardening journal in which we will track the progress of the garden, what was planted, where it was planted, and how it grows or doesn't grow (although hopefully not much of the latter...)

And here's us planting the first vegetables and the end result of the weekend's efforts!

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Car surprise...

I got home on Sunday afternoon after a weekend of being gone and was greeted by this nice surprise...

And this...




And finally this...




Needless to say we are carpooling this week and Jason is lucky that I leave for the field tomorrow so we don't need two cars! :-)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Garden Update!

Jason and I have embarked on the adventure of gardening. Read the first post about our Eden here.

The past two weekends have been consumed with gardening. We spent Labor Day weekend purchasing over three cubic yards of soil and fertilizer (don't worry that was for the lawn). We got the soil added to the garden in just five hours and over 30 wheelbarrow trips!

This weekend we installed a drip system in the garden. We have two sprinkler heads located in the corner of the garden so Jason researched how we could tap into those sprinklers and run lines throughout the garden. This will be key to our success since I am not so good at keeping living things in my house. (Jason has a strong survival instinct that's kept him immune from this talent of mine.) Here are all of the materials for our drip system:

The other addition to the garden that we finished this weekend was a small pond. There was a large circular hole left from our magnolia tree and we decided that in order to attract some good bugs and frogs, we would have a small still pond in the front of the garden. We got the ground levelled, laid the pond liner, and filled the little guy with water, Mexican beach pebbles, and built a rock border around it.

All that's left now is planting!! Hopefully Texas will cool down in the next few weeks for us to get started on that final piece!

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