Growing Gifts

We got a knock on our door yesterday afternoon, interrupting our Season 5 marathon of LOST after working in the yard all day. When we opened the door, we found a beautiful little lemon tree looking back at us! John's Uncle Bill and Aunt Ann had promised us a house-warming present of a lemon tree and found the perfect one yesterday while shopping at Home Depot.

I am absolutely thrilled. I use a lot of lemons for my cooking and baking. It will be so incredible to use our own lemons in the recipes. We even picked a spot for it in the backyard and will work over the next few weeks to landscape it. We want to make a beautiful home for our new little tree.

Bill and Ann gave us a tutorial on how to make this little beauty healthy (they have an incredible orchard in their backyard). We learned that the roots grow laterally, not deep. We only have to water it once a month in the winter! And we need to give it citrus plant food about three times a year. We can trim it if we like once it starts growing, but it won't get much bigger than six feet tall. Perfect! And, thanks to the blazing sun here in Arizona, we should paint the exposed trunk with a white latex paint until the leaves bloom out enough to protect the tree from getting sunburned. They are nursery professionals!

Until it warms up enough each night, we are presently keeping our new little buddy in the house in my ice bucket. It would die if it spent a night outside. I guess we now own something that we need to wrap on the cold nights, eh? What a generous, giving gift! We will have this tree for years to come and will enjoy the fruit it will provide.

I want to name the tree...any ideas?

Lunch with Bears

If I'm not gallivanting all over North America, T'liese and I usually get together on Thursdays for a "Play Day." It doesn't mean our kids gather together at the park while we chat on a bench nearby...probably because I don't have any kids. This playing refers to us adults, and we are just nice enough to let Evan tag along. T'liese thinks he's still too young to leave at home alone, even though he is turning one next week.

Today's Play Day meant we grabbed lunch together. We tried a place that has rave reviews called the Black Bear Diner. It was an old-school wilderness diner complete with log wallpaper and servers dressed up as lumberjacks. As soon as I walked through the door, I felt under dressed and thought about going home to put on more flannel. Goodness knows it was cold enough to warrant such clothing! Cold enough, too, for me to order a hot chocolate. What a total treat, considering I never get anything to drink besides water. I sat at our booth and waited for my play mates to arrive, sipping what ended up being a little hot chocolate and lots of whipped cream (just the way I like it!). Soon, T'liese and Evan also came through the log door. I immediately felt more comfortable because they hadn't worn enough flannel to fit in with the crowd, either.

The menu was displayed on an old newspaper. It was really tough picking what to eat, but I decided to go with my first inclination and got the Chicken Avocado Club. With french fries. Oops! T'liese got a lunch portion of their Hot Turkey Sandwich but wished it would lived up to its name by being more hot. We waited about half an hour for our food, too. When a starving one year-old is present, the situation was just begging to turn ugly.

Just kidding...Evan was the patient one. It was my sister and I who kept craning our necks towards the kitchen in hopes that our plates would be on their way next. My sandwich was great, and I even saved half of it for my husband to munch on later. The fries didn't quite make the trip home.

For dessert, we split a Bear Claw. We decided against a fruit-filled variety and just went with what turned out to be a giant pastry with cinnamon roll guts. It was hot and came with extra butter, which only made the entire thing more heavenly. This was definitely the highlight of lunch. Oh so good! We even shared a few pieces with Evan. He thoroughly enjoyed what little he got into his mouth and not onto the floor.

Soon it was time to pack up, bundle Evan in his coat, and head to T'liese's house. We played a game of cribbage, looked at some funny home videos online, played the "Which One" game from a home furnishings catalog, and enjoyed a nice visit. Have I ever mentioned how nice it is to have my sister so close? It's a treat being able to spend time with my best friend any time I choose.

Even if that cute little Evan tags along from time to time, too.

Happy Groundhog Day!

OK, fine. I know I shouldn't be complaining about the weather. Me of all people. We are not presently being buried under fourteen feet of snow, unlike the northern half of this great nation. But when I say there is no doubt in my mind that winter is not yet done wreaking havoc, I mean it. And that knowledge comes from checking the weather forecast for my local area today. Forty-nine degrees is our high for Groundhog Day.

Hey, quit throwing things! You just have to remember that everything is relative. Forty-nine is freezing in Phoenix. We have thin blood here, after all. Think of the thousands of Canadians who come here to escape the tortuous winters of Canada! Think of all the small children in town who don't even own a coat! Think of the flowers outside that are meant to withstand temperatures above 120 degrees, not below freezing! No one is prepared for temperatures like what we will be experiencing today. I'm going to do everything in my power to avoid going outside.

Had Punxsutawney Phil been able to remove enough snow to make it out of his tree trunk this morning, he would have undoubtedly seen a shadow. As well as a blizzard quickly approaching from the west. Despite his pessimistic views of the future of our country's weather, I couldn't let this day go by without honoring my favorite movie, Groundhog Day. Any movie so full of clean humor and awesome one-liners gets my stamp of approval. And occasionally, I even realize that there is a greater, deeper meaning to what is going on, and that we all have a chance to make ourselves better each day. Bill Murray just happened to have a few years of repeating the same day to perfect himself. What a great show. Definitely my favorite movie (not counting ones where people randomly burst into song and then dance about).

Happy Groundhog Day, Nation. I hope we are out of this "winter" thing soon. It doesn't look much better any time soon. It's going to be a long six weeks...