First Try

Hi everyone!  This is my first try in the blog world so I hope I can post consistently and make for some interesting reading.  

I finally graduated!  In the picture you''ll notice that Anthony is holding the diploma and that is on purpose.  In the eight years that I have been pursuing this 4-year degree (b.s. in psychology), I have always told Anthony that without him I wouldn't have been able to do it so it's really half his.  He maintains that I earned it on my own, but he's just being modest.  Either way, I am very excited and relieved to be done.    

Weather has been warming up so we just planted our first vegetable garden.  We have little pumpkins, watermelon, cucumber, tomatoes, iceberg lettuce and broccoli.  We still need to plant corn, carrots, banana squash and zucchini.  Then we'll attempt to grow celery towards the end of the summer when it's cooler.  Admittedly, I have no idea what I'm doing but Anthony has been kind enough to help me get this project underway anyway.

The gardening idea was inspired by a recent push we've felt to build up our food storage as well as rising gas and grocery prices.  I've been making our own whole wheat bread, which I never thought I'd be able to do, but I must say it's delicious.  Next will be grinding my own wheat for the bread as soon as I get a grinder and use up the whole wheat flour I have.  

I've also been trying to do my part for the environment, which, until recently I hadn't been too concerned about.  I bought recycled tote bags at Whole Foods so I won't have to use plastic bags at the grocery store.  They're only 99 cents ea. and I got six.  I'm also in the process of using up my toxic household cleaning products and substituting with earth-friendly, or even homemade, cleaning products whenever possible.  It's been surprising to me that the non-toxic products clean just as well as or better than the chemical-full products.  Oh, and lets not forget recycling.  I haven't found a curbside recycling program in our area  yet so I just fill a trash can with our recyclables, which I take to a nearby recycling center when it's full.  We have a lot less garbage since we started doing this.

Lachlan is just over two and a half years old now and is such a big boy.  He's so talkative and inquisitive.  We have conversations all the time.  Lach is also very energetic.  He does everything at a run.  We even managed to switch to a big boy bed a couple weeks ago and Lachlan loves it so much that he doesn't try to climb out when it's time to sleep.    

I'll have another update soon and I'll get pictures on here shortly.