FREE stuff + photo shoot = a very interesting Sunday evening

Today Drew discovered yet another way to sidestep our boycott, so to speak. It's called FREE stuff! Before you roll your eyes and give me a "duh," I'm not talking about your usual treasures from friends and family. Our neighborhood of Montford is known not only for garbage day Tuesday (I must explain: walk the streets Monday evening and there's the potential of finding all sorts of interesting goodies on the curb, mostly in the furniture department. I once saw a guy toting home one of those wooden Chinese screens), but also for the many garage sales that spring up during the summer.

So...we discovered today that some of our neighbors leave the garage sale leftovers on the curb, free of charge, for anyone to pick through. Madness, you may say. At first, I was hesitant to look. What if someone mistook me for a homeless person? Who knows where this stuff has been? But hey, if I'm willing to buy something from a garage sale (I am), what's wrong with sorting through the leftovers? FREE leftovers? So I lugged home fuzzy Snoopy pajama pants and a pair of Express jeans, both of which are hurtling wildly inside the dryer as I type.

Hearing about Giedre's various photo shoots this past week has made me wild to practice. Drew sweetly agreed to model for me this evening and we discovered yet another day-old garage sale of free items, including a very beautiful, very large cotton blanket. This will replace our current picnic blanket - a dark blue bed sheet sprinkled liberally with moons. Goodbye, Moon.

P.S. The Internet is acting wonky. Pictures to come tomorrow.















We encountered Crookshanks on our way home. He yawned for me three times (he knew I was trying to get the right settings)!

Invasion of the Chinese Products

It has happened. Chinese goods have entered our home. *sigh* Spring is a HUGE birthday month for my family. In three weeks, we celebrated five birthdays (and this year, a college graduation to boot).

Drew and I decided that we wouldn't ask for presents of Chinese descent (that would be totally, 100% Amen cheating), but we also wouldn't bind family members to our boycott either. So without our say-so, a random assortment of objects wormed their way into our apartment, such as a memory card for my camera, a fishing pole, a disk drive, and a wireless card for the XBox (do you notice a recurring theme here with the electronics?). Are we returning these items? Nope. Are we considering ourselves traitors to our cause? Nah.

My explanation is this: it was birthday season. What was I supposed to do? *shrug*

Incidentally, the camera I got for my birthday was NOT made in China!

Oh, my demanding soul!

It's 12:26AM and I should be in bed. But the part of my soul that strings words together believes that a post is in order first.

I went to the Herb Festival this past Saturday and lugged home not only rosemary (which was The Mission for that morning), but pots of thyme, rue, and mint. I was incredibly excited about this last one! You see, this is not just any old mint. Visualize tiny green leaves growing as a carpet and you've got it. Ideally, I would plant the stuff between stones and when stepped upon, it releases the most heavenly fragrance. Since stepping stones are nowhere to be found, I planted my mint in the flower box near the front porch. I'm hoping it will feel the love and spread out between its colorful neighbors. And as I'm walking out the front door, a quick rub of the mint with one finger and ah! Blissful aroma!

My poor basil plant got its wish and was moved to the great outdoors, where I am praying it will flourish next to its more generously endowed sibling. Meanwhile, I carefully dug out a small peppermint plant - this one is your usual, run-of-the-mill peppermint - potted it, and brought it to my kitchen windowsill. I learned from my gardening book that thyme and peppermint don't need a lot of TLC. In other words, if I forget to water them for a month (I HAVE been known to test my plants' patience by forgetfully withholding water for days...), they'll be fine. Perfect! I love having green stuff in the apartment, so while I'm not using an awful lot of peppermint yet, I'm hoping its soothing aroma will begin to permeate my kitchen.

Enough words. My brain is tired.