It went above 40 degrees today!

We are having a warm spell.  When Aidan and I were out shopping it was up to 49 degrees.  Could Spring be around the corner?  Do I dare hope?  What did the warm weather get me in the mood for?  Well, besides shopping....I got some seeds started today.

Look at the score I picked up at Lowes:

2 seed starter kits and a bunch of seeds!  $71 worth of gardening goodies

I came home and immediatly got to planting seeds.  I will post later tonight or tomorrow what I planted.  I'm supposed to be making dinner right now but no one is screaming that they are hungry yet, so I'm getting a quick little blog in.

We also put together a new home for Rhino.  Aidan and Connor both made honor roll for the second nine weeks of school and they got to pick rewards.  When I was little and made the honor roll (didn't happen that often  =) ) my parents always got us a small treat as a reward.  I was thinking that they would want a new video game or a new movie.  Aidan wanted to get Rhino a new home that was roomier and had more fun things for her to do.  So, here is Rhino's new crib.  She loves it.  She usually sleeps all day and is up all night, but since we put her in her new place, she's been running all over the place playing on her wheel and sliding on her slide.  

Rhino's new home thanks to Aidan.

Back to the seeds.  They are all planted in their little cups.  Tim and I dragged our grow light set upstairs from the basement.  I decided that it was too cold on the basement floor to germinate anything and I didn't really like the idea of getting heating pads to put under the trays so we just brought it upstairs.  Our dining room is now devoted to our seeds growing for a couple of months.  There is enough room under the lights to start two more trays if I decide to.  I'm excited to see what comes up.  One tray if veggies and one tray is flowers and then the little one is hot peppers for Tim.  He has already told me that he's ordering his own seeds for his peppers.  I think he's turning into a pepper snob.

lights set up on the dining room table.

So, I'll come back in a little bit to post what I planted and how many days it says it will take to germinate.  

Anticipation.

It was funny.  Yesterday, mid-day, Tim emailed me a message with the subject line of "something useful".  I opened the message up only to find a link to a 23 qt pressure cooker/canner.  Huh?  I wanted one of these last year and he didn't want to spend the money for it.  I jumped on the opportunity and ordered it from amazon and even with free shipping I got it delivered today!  Color me one excited little bee.  

I think we shall name her Queen.  Because when I see it I hear "Under Pressure" by Queen.  Yes, I'm a dork and I name all things. It bugs the heck out of Tim.

here she is...I don't think I put her together properly.  Yikes!

I unpacked it and started flipping through the instruction book and now I'm a bit scared too.  It's a little intimidating.  I'm going to have to really read the book and not just thumb through it.  I think Tim changed his mind about the pressure cooker after we spent an entire day working with a ton of tomatoes only to lose them all.  That was a bummer.  Not this year.

We've been discussing our garden this year.  We know that we want tomatoes, potatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers and beets.  Oh, and I'm sure we'll have boxes of chili peppers all over the place too.    I am thinking that next month we'll be bringing up the grow lights and starting our seeds.  

Oh, there is nothing like thinking about gardening in the middle of the winter.  This has been a long, cold, icy winter.  I look out into the back yard and long to be out there with the sun beating down on me and working in the dirt.  I can't wait.  I think the starting of seeds and taking care of them as they grow will help the winter hurry on out of here.  I'm kicking myself though for not planting any bulbs in the fall.  I was so busy that I completely forgot about it and now I'm going to be sad when everyone else has amazing spring flowers coming up and I'll have nothing. I will plant bulbs next fall.  

Not too much else going on over here.  We are half way through the school year. The boys are doing fabulous.  Connor has discovered that he LOVES geometry.  We've had a lot of fun learning that and playing around with it.  Aidan is writing almost as neatly as I do and is reading small books to himself now.  We got everything done in January that we wanted to do.  We got both of our credit cards PAID OFF.  We are sitting pretty right now planning for summer festivities and gardening. 

I hope everyone is staying warm and happy.