A Pretty Penny

I could have sworn that we went to my parents' house for dinner last weekend...

And visited with Kelly, Steve, and the girls...

And had brownies for dessert.

But, we live in the age of "pics or it didn't happen," and I don't have a single picture. So, I can only conclude that it was all just a figment of my imagination.

I do have a picture of my beautiful mechanical engineer tech, elbows deep in an unruly vacuum whose performance has really been sucking as of late... or, not sucking, depending how you want to look at it.

Kitten spent a good half hour waterboarding this guy to find out whom he works for. Then she put in a turbo, some neon lights, and a couple canisters of NOS; and now she lives her life a quarter mile at a time.

It runs much more efficiently again. The neighbors will surely hate it :)

On an entirely unrelated note, I also have a picture of our comically overstocked fridge last week...

Last Tuesday, I went to my parents' to do some gardening work. I had to weed some sneaky little jerks who'd found their way in under the 6x6s along the garage, and now they're compost. (You want to be a part of the garden? You got it!)

Then I planted my seeds for the spring.

And the summer.

And the fall.

I hadn't started growing anything indoors this year, and I don't anticipate us having the time to do so anytime soon either. So, I just raked the mulch back, sprinkled a little bit of everything into the soil, and covered it all over again.

Cucumber, scallions, eggplant, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, peas, carrots, hot peppers, sweet peppers, grape tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, and seeds in a mystery envelope I decided not to bother labeling last summer because I knew for sure that Future Me would remember exactly what they were.

Whoops! (I think they're a giant yellow tomato from my friend Richard. We used them on a lot of burgers last year, and they were awesome.)

If even half of what I planted ends up sprouting, it will definitely be a survival of the fittest situation. Some things might not germinate at all—like the pepper seeds, which require a decent amount of heat. (I put them down in the garlic at the end, since that will be coming out at the end of June.)

Whatever grows, grows.

We've also got some mint coming up again in one of our planters, and the hedgehog guarding the scallions that somehow survived all winter long.

Last Wednesday was my four year Pennyversary: four years since I adopted my wonderful Persephone Jade and brought her home for the first time :)

Meanwhile, Athennia found a screw in her tire when she got home the night before; so, she had to call out of work while she waited for a place around the corner to put a new one on...

We used the time to get some stuff done around the house and run some errands—including popping in for supplies at PetSmart, where we saw this lovely bumper sticker...

And, what better segue than a bloody knife to transition to a few recent updates about our charming neighbors!

First we have Ruth: the dirtball right across from us who leaves rice, vacuum lint, and flossers all over the stairwell when her cheap trash bags break.

She accidentally left her driver-side window down during a rain storm overnight. (We legitimately didn't know until early the next morning when the damage was done: As much as I detest her, I would've given her a heads up if I had noticed it the night before.)

Then Vin Diesel here had to have his batmobile towed back to the bat cave. (Let's hope whatever damage it suffered extended to the obnoxious fart pipe of an exhaust system he and his housemates all have installed...)

And finally, this past Friday night, Athennia tried her hand at spaghetti carbonara; and then on Saturday, we went over for takeout at my parents' house (and brought cinnamon buns for dessert)...

No bonus batch of cat pics to close out the month this time around. How could they compete with Liv and Hannah? ;)