Nearing an End

The last fifteen months have been quite the adventure, heartache,  and struggle.  I have never in my life experience such a level of achievement and defeat at the same time.  Not a day has gone by that I have not regretted my decision, bur still believe it will lead me to where I am suppose to be in my life.  This is by far the hard thing I have ever done in my life.  And there was a large price to pay.  Not only monetarily, but personally and professionally as well.  I have sacrificed much over this time; friendship, family, and relationships have suffered, my job and performance has suffered, my peace and creativity have suffered, but most of my health has suffered.  Both mentally and physically I have taken a sharp decline.  I have pain in places that even my doctor does not understand.

What really has not started to set in yet is that in less than 3 weeks I will graduate from nursing school.  I will forever be done with Baker both as a student and as an employee.  Ready or not I will be "thrown from the nest" and on my own to becoming a registered nurse.  I have some mixed feeling about this.  But I do know that I will be more than happy to be done and that my life will no longer on someone else's schedule.

Furthermore, I have learned a lot during this time... in a few sentences...
I never knew:
I could function on so little sleep.
I would see miracles happen right before my eyes.
I would find my breaking point, yet be able to continue on with success
it would be such an uphill climb, and that upon graduation the journey has only just begun
I could change someone's life
that nurses eat their young.

I have gotten myself into this position, it is what I wanted for my life, and I will be focusing on how to make the most of it!

A little time to cook

I have not had extra time in months... So this weekend I took some for myself. Just enough to cook up a few dishes... Which all turned out very well.

Bacon wrapped sea scallops in Hawaiian BBQ sauce infused with sautéed peaches.

Loaded nachos topped with seasoned beef, slow cooked yellow pepper, onion, and tomato, fresh avocado, salsa and sour cream.

California roll sushi.

Watermelon and lime smoothie.

And ... I didn't make it, but i also enjoyed a bottle of my favorite wine!

Inspiration

INSIDE SCOOP!

This is my inspiration for the painting I am working on.

Michigan Gardening - Week 5

Taking container gardening to another level.

This is my garden after 5 weeks. In this time I have learned that it's best for some types of seeds to be planted in containers to start, verses directly in the ground. (Green Beans, Carrots, Green Onion, tomato, pepper, and cilantro are some of those.) The black containers in the picture below are about 6-8 inches deep. I decided to use them to help me better regulate weeds and prevent the ground mole/vole from doing any damage to my young plants. But they needed some holes to allow for proper water drainage.

Thank goodness for my husband's power tools!
I placed about 6 of these holes throughout the bottom of the container. All containers after this I drilled hole with just the drill bit, but placed about 20. These holes seemed just a bit too big for my liking.

Then I dug a hole about 4-5 inches deep and placed the containers in the ground. Not necessary, but they look nicer this way.


There are green beans in the small container, tomato plants in front of them not in containers... Then squash and two containers of onions. The two large containers farthest away are buried in the ground about half way.

I believe this system is going to work well for now. I am not sure once the plants start getting bigger... I guess we'll wait and see.



(Staggered) Growing Green Beans & Carrots

My (round 2) green bean plants on Friday Morning...

And this is what they looked like (Sunday) tonight.

Planted about 10 days ago

Carrots planted about 20 days ago.

Yesterday I had a few flower buds on one of the tomato plants I bought. Of the two I purchase, it is the first and only one to have flowers so far. The plants is about a foot and a half tall.

Also, I now have only one cilantro plant (the other 2 died). It has sprouted one very small 'cilantro leaf'. I am hoping it survives. I love cilantro and use it often... but it might be cheaper just to buy it with the luck I am having trying to grow it.

Carrots have taken of like crazy! (After about 21 days they finally made an appearence in my first container, after about 10 day in the second container.) I am sure I will have to transplant them in the next few weeks.

I am now working on getting some asparagus seeds started. The seeds are soaking for at least 24 house before I start them.

I spent a lot of time in the garden this weekend. I actually meant to start my painting, but did not get to it. May sometime this week I can get it started, after my final exam for school is done, of course.

Plants

My coleus plants (two of about 12), the rest are in the ground. Also, those are tomato plants and a green bean plant in the small container.

My 'planting station'. Where all the magic happens...

My hostas just a few weeks ago ... I dug it up when there were only a few green 'starts' to it and transplanted it here. It is a hardy plant with a good root system. It has a few 'babies' scattered in my flower bed, which I will be moving elsewhere soon.

These are my Viola plants today. They have more than doubled in size from when I bought them about 3 weeks ago. The red and white flowers are snapdragons... kinds sad little things. I will not be buying any more of those. In the very front are some of my dusty millers.

My Babies

Eva

The Love Bug

(She is wet from swimming.)

Rayla

The Diva
(She stole the dogs bed)

Pinkie

The Cranky Pants

(He still like to snuggle on occasion)

Memorial Day Weekend Photos

Some photos I took from Memorial Day Beach Trip.
Elberta, Michigan.

Eva LOVES the beach.