We have at least semi-green thumbs

I can finally put some weight on my ankle today and took a quick walk around part of our yard to check on the plants. Everything is at least peeking out of the ground and we've got a lot of flowering and budding on the plants. Take a look at all the new leaves on the Asian Pear tree! Yes, I am ridiculously excited about this. I always half expect to kill any plants that come home with me, so if they thrive I'm often really surprised and happy.

The relocated dogwood tree seems to be doing well too, with a bunch of new leaves/buds of its own. Let's hope this keeps up. It'd be nice to show Willy's mom (the lady with the Master's degree in horticulture!) that we can grow some stuff!

And here are some shots of random other things growing around our house, indoors and outdoors. Note that the white orchid grows like it's on steroids. It was a housewarming gift from my cousin a couple of years ago and started out with just one flowering branch and is now up to three flowering branches with a total of about 15-16 open flowers right now. I swear it's not anything special I'm doing but, hey, I'll show it off happily (though I'm not a very good photographer so the pics don't really do it justice). And the seedlings in the terra cotta pot are the start of three little Thai pepper plants. Guess who those are for?

Progress! aka maybe I can stop hopping around like a rabbit now

This morning I can finally put a little weight on my injured ankle. The last couple of days have been pretty pathetic; either I've been crawling on all fours, scooching across the carpeted areas on my bum, having Willy piggyback me, or hopping on my good leg. I know I'm a rabbit per the Chinese zodiac, but come on! Pretty pathetic.

Gotta try to remember not to push it too much today, but it'll be nice to get some mobility back.

Getting old sucks

For any number of reasons, getting old sucks. But when your body starts betraying you it really blows. A couple of weeks ago I tweaked my back doing some simple yard work and had to take two weeks off from volleyball to heal. Of course, I did try going back too early initially and paid for it with sharp pains in my lower back.

Tonight was my first night back at our league after resting and the back felt fine. Then, less than a game and a half later, I rolled my ankle--badly. I've only rolled this bad once before, and that was probably more than five years ago. I walked off the court initially but now it's all swollen and can't really support my weight. Aaaaargh!!! Sooooo frustrating! All I want to do is play volleyball, is that too much to ask?

What color are our thumbs?

This is the question of the season. We decided to try our hand at planting some things this spring, mostly inspired by an Asian Pear tree we bought on a whim last weekend. We were out for a motorcycle ride on this great local stretch of road we found and decided to stop in this cute little nursery along the way. The staff told us that pears are great fruit trees to try; the words "more or less indestructible" were thrown out there, which is perfect for us.

So Friday night we got to work putting this guy in his permanent home. The spot we originally chose for him on one side of the house wasn't going to work since I realized it doesn't get more than a few hours of sun each day. And we didn't really want the fruit tree in the front yard, so we opted to move our existing dogwood tree from its current location and replace it with the Asian Pear tree. The dogwood had a bad winter the first year we were here and Willy's mom lopped off a bunch of the dead branches so it was looking a little sad to be in such a prime spot in the yard. So, we put the Asian Pear tree in that sun-soaked spot. Isn't it purty? Even if we don't get fruit eventually (it's possible we'll get them next year), it's still got pretty flowers.

We're still hoping that the dogwood recovers too, but it will take him a while to fill out again I think. He bloomed last year and he's started blooming this year too, so we'll see. Hopefully he doesn't throw a tantrum for losing his previous spot. He's still got a nice area by the side of the house now. Oh, and we learned that we have A LOT of rocks right under the surface of our soil. That made for some fun digging. I planted some astilbe bulbs earlier in the week too so hopefully I'll be showing off some green thumb pics later in the season and not bare, brown patches.

Happy Birthday, Willy!

It's been a busy but very fun weekend. Friday night I took Willy out for dinner at a nice local restaurant, No. 9 Park. We had some really delicious dishes, like prune-stuffed gnocchi with foie gras, hake (it's like cod), duck, and these two amazing desserts--an apple creme brulee and this liquid chocolate thing that I'm not even going to try to describe in writing. Suffice to say I stuffed myself silly (not that that's anything new). I just wish I had to brought his gift with me because it would have been perfect to give it to him while the table next to us was having their cheese course presented to them (Cheese, Gromit! Cheese!). We did have some laughs over the two really drunk, loud women at that table too. One of them actually almost fell over as they were leaving the restaurant. Klassy.

Saturday afternoon we invited some friends over for a BBQ and had a great time. We totally lucked out with the weather, our first 80+ degree days! It was a little scary inviting a bunch of people over for the first BBQ of the season since it's been kind of wet and rainy the last few weeks, but the weathermen ended up being right this time and we've had a gorgeous couple of days, officially transitioning from winter straight into summer. Typical no-spring New England.

That same night we went out for dinner with my family for our usual family birthday celebration, which is always fun. I couldn't eat though after all those hours of BBQing. Then my family decided to invite themselves over for BBQ leftovers tonight (Sunday) so we did some more socializing. I've got some serious cleaning up to do tomorrow.