Disappearing Act.

I know have been invisible lately, but I have a good excuse! My garden has gone into overdrive trying to put out as much produce as possible before the first frosts and I have been giving away ridiculous amounts of eggplant to family members. The big thing taking up my time though has been school. My classes started on the first and between the schoolwork and the increasing hours at work (yay for Michaels' holiday season!) I have had zero time for anything. In fact, one night last week my roommate went out to a prayer, came back 3 hours later and I hadn't moved from the corner I was studying in. At that point he told me I looked tired and hungry and he knew I hadn't eaten since noon so he was buying me pizza and forcing me to take a break.

On top of the work, Stacey and I went on our second vacation of the year. We traveled down the Cape to go camping at Nickerson State Park for a few nights. It was definitely worth the stress of trying to do all of my homework before leaving. The park is gorgeous with some great fishing spots and beautiful views. We did some biking, hiking and fishing and Stace caught a nice smallmouth. We also went to Provincetown the first night for a great meal and did some shopping and more eating out our last day. I had been saving for this trip so I could actually shop and was excited to spend some money for once. With all of the time in town we did, I ended up spending most of my money on food, but I did get 2 gorgeous tapestries for the apartment and a nice candle for our roomie.

Also, the best RAOK story I've ever had. Our "neighbors" were leaving after our first night and came over to chat right before they left. They were an older female couple and were asking us about the fishing. They commented that it looked like we had some good gear to have a great time and I mentioned that most of it was actually a 21st birthday present from my dad. We said bye and left to go do stuff and they continued packing. When we got back, Stacey noticed a cooler by our kayaks and commented on it. Turns out they had left us a nice big bottle of champagne! Nicest thing a stranger has ever done for either of us! So, thank you to the couple from Virginia!

Eggplant Madness

Things here have been pretty uneventful of late. My classes started on Wednesday so I've been a homework machine. I'm attempting to get far enough ahead of schedule that I won't have to worry about classes when we take our camping trip down the Cape in a couple weeks.

As far as gardening goes, the outdoor plot is steadily turning out some nice veggies. My eggplant have all decided to start bearing fruit all at once and it now looks like in a week or so I'm going to have way more eggplant than I know what to do with. We're already sick of eggplant parmesan so perhaps some rolled eggplant is on the horizon? Honestly though, most of it will probably end up frozen for winter use in stews and the like. I did not think I would be even thinking about freezing this year since I just started this whole gardening endeavor, but I *really* don't think that Stacey and I will be able to eat the 15-20 eggplants, that will surely be ready to pick all at the same time, before they start rotting on the counter.

A Volunteer!

So I repotted my chives a few months back and about 2 months ago I noticed a small volunteer poking up through the soil. I was unsure of what it was so I left it and just let it grow. Well, I ended up forgetting about it completely and just recently looked at the pot and realized that my little volunteer must be a bell pepper plant that didn't germinate this spring. I also saw that it was quickly taking over the entire space and forcing the chives to one side of the pot. That night I sat down and extracted the pepper plant and moved it into a new home.

Before


After


A few weeks later everyone is much happier!