Stuff and things: Benito, parents, work, gardening.
- Way back last month some time, we had Benito's first birthday party. Before that, we had a cake-smash photo shoot. Both went excellently well; the smash-cake was chocolate with whipped cream; Benito really didn't know what to do with it, but eventually took giant fistfuls into his mouth, tossed pieces to the floor, waved his grubby hands around, got some on his belly - all the usual places. We just had him in a diaper in his portable feeding chair/table on the floor, on top of a large plastic mat for ease of clean-up. It was adorable, pretty much. The birthday party ballooned out of what I expected the attendance to be: I tried to invite only the *closest* friends, and/or the ones who would be most hurt to miss it/the ones who most wanted to show their love for the munchkin. I think it started with 12 people, then another couple, then another, and ended up at 21 people or so? The house was crowded, but it was a lovely night so the smokers hung out in the back yard, some people hung out in the front yard for parts of it, a bunch of people occupied the couches and dining-room table, and it all worked out. Once Benito had his red velvet birthday cake with cream cheese icing, he had a bath, opened presents, had his bottle and went to bed. After that, I had a number of shots of tasty alcohol and was pleasantly buzzed for a while, as people slowly shifted home again.
- Perhaps the most fun presents he got were the 2 inflatable pools and the 2 packs of very light plastic balls. One of the pools is for water; the other is for his own ball pit! We set both of them up in the back yard this weekend; he had no problem in the ball pit, but took a while to warm up to the pool. It's a tiny one that's maybe ft. in diameter, and the bottom inflates so it's kind of a waffle pattern. It's only 1 ring "tall" so if he actually sat in the water it might come up to his belly button, but he's only cruised through it, crawling carefully in, then getting to the other side and crawling out again. He'll splash his hands in it, and if we toss a couple balls into it he'll get them out and throw them back in and make a splash. I think these will be good additions to the summer.
- My parents are coming for a week in the summer! July 12-19 they'll be visiting with us. They requested that we get a queen-size air mattress and set it up in the guest room for them, instead of having them bunk over with my mother-in-law. She's a 10 minute drive or so away, maybe 8-10 minutes depending on who's driving. I can understand them wanting to be WITH US, though: less intrusive on my MIL, less "wasted" time going back and forth, they can stay up until they want to go to bed and be getting quality time, they can start their day with us... I hope my MIL won't be miffed at this arrangement. I'm actually taking the whole week as vacation; Greegan is too new at his job to have any vacation yet, so he'll join us after work each day. They'll be flying in to Seattle and renting a car there, so he can drive himself to work and home again w/o us having to drop him off, which is great. The only real thing I've thought about doing yet is having a backyard BBQ with kosher hot dogs, salad, maybe cole slaw. Everything else is up for grabs. *grin* How amusing is that?
- Work is going really well. I am once again making a difference to students; I am glad to be back for that. I'm making good progress on creating updated Program Planning Guides for the 2015-16 school year; a lot has changed here in the year I was gone, so the form is being updated as well as tiny bits of content for whatever major made a change in their requirements. We're now adding the minor to the form, if that discipline has a minor, and there are a few new programs that need new documents. This is all up my alley, and the other advisor with me (no longer Susie, sad to say) is happy that I like doing it and is happy to let me. He tried his hand at a few to see how it goes but some of the formatting is touchy so I'll fix that up.
- Gardens! I have TWO gardens so far, count them, 2! One is at work: the student association started a community garden type thing in large boxes. They saved one or two for faculty/staff and offered the rest to students, and luckily for me only 1 other staffperson signed up for a box, so we're sharing one. So far I've planted parsnips, 1 tomato plant, and 6 scallions (from the bulbs I kept from purchasing them at the store). I might plant another tomato at home, of a different variety. At home, I have a large garden box and a smaller garden box, both boxes having been taken (with permission) from Greegan's workplace. They ship some of their tools in wooden boxes, because tools are heavy! I ended up helping out some students who had over-planted their gardens and needed to thin it out. I ended up with 2 cucumber plants, 1 butternut squash, and 3 zucchini. I didn't intend to have 3 zucchini; I had intended to have 2 cuke, 2 sqash, and 1 zucc, but I had to leave the unplanting party to meet a student and said "just leave my stuff by my garden and I'll take it home with me" so that's what I got. I planted them that night, actually, in potting soil mixed with "sea soil," a very nice and rich fertilizer layer to mix into the top foot or so. I really hope the person who dug all of those plants gave me enough roots; I'm worried about how well they'll do in the next week. I'll make sure they get watered daily; they're in direct sunlight, on the south side of the house, so I'm doing the best for them I can. I also got a trellis for the cukes, and will be getting one for the squash, too. I might end up removing one of the zucchinis and giving it to a friend; those suckers grow LARGE leaves and I really think 3 is too many for the plot I have. We'll see.
I do have that other small box still to use. I could add the dirt there, move 1 zucchini into it, and put in 1 more tomato. Oh, and I bought a bunch of seeds, but now I'm not sure if I'm going to plant them. Maybe I'll skip the additioanl tomato and plant the spinach? I also bought broccoli... I think I really overestimated my space. Ah well.
This entry was originally posted at http://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/643775.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
- Perhaps the most fun presents he got were the 2 inflatable pools and the 2 packs of very light plastic balls. One of the pools is for water; the other is for his own ball pit! We set both of them up in the back yard this weekend; he had no problem in the ball pit, but took a while to warm up to the pool. It's a tiny one that's maybe ft. in diameter, and the bottom inflates so it's kind of a waffle pattern. It's only 1 ring "tall" so if he actually sat in the water it might come up to his belly button, but he's only cruised through it, crawling carefully in, then getting to the other side and crawling out again. He'll splash his hands in it, and if we toss a couple balls into it he'll get them out and throw them back in and make a splash. I think these will be good additions to the summer.
- My parents are coming for a week in the summer! July 12-19 they'll be visiting with us. They requested that we get a queen-size air mattress and set it up in the guest room for them, instead of having them bunk over with my mother-in-law. She's a 10 minute drive or so away, maybe 8-10 minutes depending on who's driving. I can understand them wanting to be WITH US, though: less intrusive on my MIL, less "wasted" time going back and forth, they can stay up until they want to go to bed and be getting quality time, they can start their day with us... I hope my MIL won't be miffed at this arrangement. I'm actually taking the whole week as vacation; Greegan is too new at his job to have any vacation yet, so he'll join us after work each day. They'll be flying in to Seattle and renting a car there, so he can drive himself to work and home again w/o us having to drop him off, which is great. The only real thing I've thought about doing yet is having a backyard BBQ with kosher hot dogs, salad, maybe cole slaw. Everything else is up for grabs. *grin* How amusing is that?
- Work is going really well. I am once again making a difference to students; I am glad to be back for that. I'm making good progress on creating updated Program Planning Guides for the 2015-16 school year; a lot has changed here in the year I was gone, so the form is being updated as well as tiny bits of content for whatever major made a change in their requirements. We're now adding the minor to the form, if that discipline has a minor, and there are a few new programs that need new documents. This is all up my alley, and the other advisor with me (no longer Susie, sad to say) is happy that I like doing it and is happy to let me. He tried his hand at a few to see how it goes but some of the formatting is touchy so I'll fix that up.
- Gardens! I have TWO gardens so far, count them, 2! One is at work: the student association started a community garden type thing in large boxes. They saved one or two for faculty/staff and offered the rest to students, and luckily for me only 1 other staffperson signed up for a box, so we're sharing one. So far I've planted parsnips, 1 tomato plant, and 6 scallions (from the bulbs I kept from purchasing them at the store). I might plant another tomato at home, of a different variety. At home, I have a large garden box and a smaller garden box, both boxes having been taken (with permission) from Greegan's workplace. They ship some of their tools in wooden boxes, because tools are heavy! I ended up helping out some students who had over-planted their gardens and needed to thin it out. I ended up with 2 cucumber plants, 1 butternut squash, and 3 zucchini. I didn't intend to have 3 zucchini; I had intended to have 2 cuke, 2 sqash, and 1 zucc, but I had to leave the unplanting party to meet a student and said "just leave my stuff by my garden and I'll take it home with me" so that's what I got. I planted them that night, actually, in potting soil mixed with "sea soil," a very nice and rich fertilizer layer to mix into the top foot or so. I really hope the person who dug all of those plants gave me enough roots; I'm worried about how well they'll do in the next week. I'll make sure they get watered daily; they're in direct sunlight, on the south side of the house, so I'm doing the best for them I can. I also got a trellis for the cukes, and will be getting one for the squash, too. I might end up removing one of the zucchinis and giving it to a friend; those suckers grow LARGE leaves and I really think 3 is too many for the plot I have. We'll see.
I do have that other small box still to use. I could add the dirt there, move 1 zucchini into it, and put in 1 more tomato. Oh, and I bought a bunch of seeds, but now I'm not sure if I'm going to plant them. Maybe I'll skip the additioanl tomato and plant the spinach? I also bought broccoli... I think I really overestimated my space. Ah well.
This entry was originally posted at http://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/643775.html. Please comment there using OpenID.