Weekend

The past few weeks and even months have been pretty crazy, and I've just felt like things around the house have been out of control. But after this weekend, I actually feel caught up, and I even got some cooking in. A few highlights:

I did some major house cleaning on Saturday. When you don't know the last time your kitchen floor was cleaned, that's a problem. But now I can walk barefoot through the kitchen and not be grossed out. I also attacked my shower/bathtub, which I bring up to share one tip. I found this on pinterest that says to mix up equal parts Dawn and white vinegar in a spray bottle and spray it on the shower/tub. I *almost* wished I had taken before and after picture, but then I would be showing how not yellow (its supposed color) the tub was. It took about three attempts (I said it was bad), but it worked a miracle on my tub. Now I've got to keep it from getting that bad ever again.

Even more exciting than cleaning was getting the garden planted. J did the raking and digging, and I put in the water/Miracle Gro solution and the plants in. He went back on Sunday and put in a fence around it to keep out the critters. I didn't think we had enough plants, but we actually filled all three beds and had some plants left over. Here are some photos:

There are tomatoes in the first bed; okra and green bean seeds and watermelon plants in the middle one; and zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, basil and rosemary in the last bed. 

Hoping the fence will keep the bunnies out. I'm convinced there's a colony of them in my backyard.

Later we went strawberry picking. It was the best kind of strawberry picking because it was free! J's parents have a huge strawberry patch we picked from. And the strawberries are some the best I've ever had. I took this on Sunday after we had eaten some, but this was full when we finished:

On Sunday I decided a good way to use them would be over pound cake. That's a classic dessert at my grandparents' house. I used a recipe for sour cream pound cake out of Better Homes and Gardens. It required a lot of time with the hand mixer, but it turned out really well. Almost as good as my grandmother's. I also made a tomato pie (with tomatoes from the farmer's market) and roasted asparagus (also from the market).

Now that the semester is almost over (just a final exam to give and grade), and the GRE will be behind me in two weeks, I'm looking forward to the summer and spending more time cooking. Hopefully, I'll have vegetables from my own garden to cook with!