Seed starting

Woohoo! First gardening post of the new year!

I have decided I am going to add one thing to my gardening regimen each year,

and this year it's seed starting!

The nice thing about seed starting is that you just have to by the light and flats once, and then you can use them year after year!

The point of seed starting is to give you a jump start on having produce.  If you wait until the ground is warm enough to plant the seeds, 

You have to wait up to a month just for the seeds to become sprouts.

But, if you start the seeds before the weather is just right, you then have starts to plant, and you have saved yourself almost a month of time, meaning more produce, earlier.

I ordered the seed starter kit and light from Johnny's Selected Seeds,

who are quickly becoming my favorite supply store.

They even sent me strong starter soil to use.

I also order all my seeds from there, because they have an awesome selection of organic seeds.

I'm pretty excited about this.  

I think it's going to be a fun and interesting endeavor.

Also, Jamie has agreed to build this rain barrel this summer,

which I am ecstatic about!

I can't wait to start gardening.

It's so great.

♥

I need sleep...

Haven't been sleeping well again. 

This is becoming a recurring problem. 

I think it's because I've been stressed about school, 

plus I was up until 2AM on Tuesday finishing a paper, and had to get up at 7AM Wednesday morning.

But, i got that one turned in yesterday, and now I just have one paper between myself and student teaching.

I'm so ready to start student teaching, 

Graduation is so close. 

After we turned in our papers yesterday morning, we literally had discussions and presentations for the rest of the day.

Can you tell where my mind was?

This past Saturday we spent 10+ hours driving to Joliet, IL, to get Jamie's new motorcycle!

A lot of people don't know this, 

but he sold his first one to pay for my engagement ring. 

I love that man.

So we have been saving up, and he is more excited about his bike than he's been about anything in a while.

Unfortunately, it has been snowy and rainy and freezing since he bought it.

Which is kind of lame.

But, I just keep telling him he'll have every summer for years to come to ride it, so just be patient a little longer. 

He named it Mila, after Mila Kunis, hahaha.

Jamie and I are celebrating a belated Valentine's day this weekend, with a homemade fondue night!

We normally go to The Melting Pot (If you haven't been there, go, it's amazing)

but this year we just wanted to keep it simple. 

He also left this rose for me Tuesday Morning, which was very sweet. 

I hope everyone had a good Valentine's day!

I'm off to cook some lunch. 

♥

Keeping things moving...

Things are going well, my friends.  

This past few weeks, I've gotten locked into school mode, 

and it has been going really well.

I'm succeeding.

And that feels amazing.

I start my final session of student teaching on the 21st. 

I'm ready to go, ready to get it moving, and be done!

I started my volunteer tutoring on Wednesday,

through School on Wheels.

I love it! 

I feel so good doing it, it's totally worthwhile. 

The only negative is that I am back to seeing Jamie only on Thursday mornings and weekends.

Once I start student teaching, I won't see him Monday through Friday.  

Which is going to be really hard, but we've done it before, 

we can do it again. 

We just need to remember what is important, 

and to put each other first when we are together. 

Another thing that's happened recently is that my beautiful friend Misty gave birth to her beautiful baby Isaiah!! He is so gorgeous, and I cannot wait to meet him! 

It will also be nice to catch up with Misty, whenever that is. =)

I will leave you with my finished Metal and Glass still life, 

which I am incredibly proud of,

and the VERY early beginning of a landscape, which is my current project.

It if goes well, we are going to frame it and put it over our bed. 

Finishing up homework all weekend, 

only two big projects and I'm done with class!

Let's get this show on the road!

♥

Feeling good...

For the first Sunday in a while, I feel really blessed and lifted. 

We tried a new church (again) today.

Trying to find a new home church is so hard.

I started the morning feeling so frustrated and fed up.

We were running late, so we almost didn't go,

but I'm SO glad we did.

We tried "The Blended Church" this morning, 

and for the first time in a long while, I left feeling lifted and happy. 

We were hesitant at first, because it sounded too good to be true, but it turned out great!

For starters, I absolutely love seeing people come together despite different races and cultures, to worship our one God.

It was very inspirational, there were literally people of all ages and races there.

The building was simple, and I found out it is because they do a massive amount of outreach and community and missionary support, which is something I passionately believe in.

The worship was very gospel, with a little rock and even some funk thrown in, which is right up our alley. They have connection groups, and many great programs going on. 

The preaching is a bit more...enthusiastic 

than I'm used to, but it's not a bad thing, just different. And they have 3 pastors on staff, so I'm interested to see if it changes.

We haven't decided yet by any means, but I'm looking forward to going back.

I'm excited and feeling positive about Sunday mornings again, and I think this church has more potential then any others we've been too.

Yay!

♥

My paintings...

I haven't posted any oil painting artwork in a while, so I decided to update with some of my finished works from last semester, and some of my works in progress. 

The final product of my very first still life! It's now at my mom's house. 

A painting of a photo from our vacation to the Indiana Dunes.

Two practice still life setups.

An in progress lighthouse from a postcard from St Augustine, FL. It will go in our bathroom when finished.

The following is a sequence of a reproduction (for technique practice, not for sale or anything, lol.) I chose Le Fille avec un panier (The girl with the basket) by Berthe Morisot. 

This is the original painting by Berthe Morisot.

I took one picture after each class, so each picture equals 2 1/2 hours of work, and it's on an 18x24 canvas.  

And the finished product! I'm pretty proud of it, except I think the face could use some adjusting.  I'm realizing there is no such thing as completely satisfied when it comes to artwork.

This is a quick still life I did that is now hanging in our house.

The following was my final project, that I never got completely finished, but it was pretty complex, so my prof didn't mind.  It's a photo of Jamie and his brothers (Jamie's the little one,) that I'm going to give to my mother in law when I'm done.

Here's the original photo,

I'm kind of burnt out on it, so I'm taking a break for a while. =)

And finally, this is the first still life of Semester 2, and it's still in progress.  It's to practice painting metal and glass, which is really hard. We also have to use only analogous and opposite colors, which is a challenge I am enjoying. 

We are also going to focus more on landscapes this semester, which I'm really excited about. 

More to come later!

♥

Sorry friends!

Wow! It's been a while!

To update everyone, after lots of hard work I passed my class last semester with a B- (I'll take it!) and had a very enjoyable and uplifting Christmas break! I've just been trying to bring myself back to the positive place I was at before all this madness started.  This semester is going well so far, I have a 6th grade student teaching position in an IPS on the southeast side of Indy. I'm excited about it, and just ready to get started.  I'm also retaking painting, because I really loved it.  I also decided that since I'm not working, I want to put my energy into a good cause, so I'm going to be tutoring homeless students in Indianapolis this semester through School on Wheels.  I'm really, really excited about it. 

Other than that, things are going wonderfully, and I'm feeling strong and motivated.

Graduation here I come!!

♥

Bring it on.

I'm taking on the president of my HOA. 

She's finally pushed me over the limit.  

I've had run in's with her in the past, mostly about our mailbox (there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with it, but she's determined to force us to get a new one because it doesn't match) and other silly things like a stray dog in our yard, and our grass being 1/4 of an inch too tall. Yeah, seriously. We had been on vacation for a week, and a citation was waiting in our box. Ridiculous. 

But today, i got one of her monthly emails.

She has been on a serious crime-watch kick, and has lined up self defense classes for the neighborhood for free. All fine.

But, she then added a list of "crime watch information" as she called it that was 10 pages long. 

This document listed every police call for the year of 2011, including what the call was for (domestic disturbance, rape, mental health issues, and attempted suicide were all included) and the ADDRESS where these things happened. Also, she included whether an arrest was made or not.

She also says she is going to start forwarding these documents to us monthly.

I can't even begin to tell you how much this bothers and disgusts me.  

It is an unbelievably blatant violation of all respect and privacy for everyone in our edition.  

I am furious.

I called the property manager, and they seemed pretty shocked as well.

I forwarded the email to them, and they are going to investigate and get back to me.

I can't undo the 10 pages she sent out already, but I'm going to try my darnedest to get future ones STOPPED.

Bring it on, lady, I'm done.

Loving these new tunes...

Been listening to both of these a lot lately. 

They have a very soothing groove, and I need that right now.

Things have been insane, and it's been a hard week.  

I have one last assignment to alter, and then I'm done for the semester. I'll catch everyone up on my life then. 

For now, I'm just going to keep jamming to these songs. 

And staying positive and happy, because things are finally looking up. =)

♥