Spring break

It's still weird to me that things like spring break are back in my life. Unfortunately, spring break doesn't actually mean I get the week off work. It actually makes my work schedule crazier. But I don't have to teach class, and I have a few days off.

I decided I wanted to get out of town (without actually spending the night out) and do something fun. So I spent Monday in St. Louis. I think I've mentioned before that friends of mine from Georgia live there. I took their two older kids to a museum. It was really fun, and the kids were great.

 A butterfly and Iron Man with the "pretend" fire truck.

I loved that in a room with huge blocks, a ball pit, a slide and more, he found a book and sat down to read.

The most interesting part of the museum is the huge structure outside. It's hard to tell from this picture, but it is all really high. I think it would be frightening for me if I was by myself.

After the museum and catching up with the grown-ups, I did some shopping and met up with a college roommate for dinner and drove back home.

It was a fun day and a nice day away from everything. I went more than 12 hours without checking work email, which is some kind of record for me. And I was off Twitter all day, another rare thing.

The rest of the week I'll be working odd hours and using off time to catch up on stuff for class.

Spring!

One of the things I love about my life here is getting to walk to work every day. I get to actually notice the change in season. Fall has been my favorite season here, but this spring is starting to overtake fall. I actually pulled out my camera a few days ago and got some pictures. These tulips don't last long, so I'm trying to enjoy them while I can.

A few highlights from my walk to work:

Still alive

I'm still here. I've just been busy with life lately. I've been in and out of town and still have one more weekend trip to go. It's all fun stuff, but the homebody in me is craving some down time at home.

I spent some time with this baby girl:

And was grateful for the chance to spend time with the whole family.

This weekend, I tried to document spring before snow ruined it all on Sunday.

Hopefully, I'll get back to regular posts soon.

Herb garden

First of all, it is spring, and there are beautiful tulips all over town. I am loving seeing everything in bloom and the warm weather is amazing.

Back to the topic of this post. I’ve never had much of a green thumb or even really cared that much about keeping a plant alive to begin with. When I moved into my dorm room, my mom bought me a plant, apparently to make it seem a little less like a freshman dorm room. It was dead a week later, and I let it sit on a shelf for the rest of the year before throwing it out just before I moved out.

But one of my favorite recipes is my mom’s tomato basil soup (I’ll post the recipe soon), which of course requires basil. Buying basil at the grocery store is not cheap, and I never used it all before it went bad, you’ll notice that that is a theme for me. So when I was in Georgia, I decided to grow some basil on my small porch. And it was amazing. It actually grew, and even when it looked dead, I could water it and it would come back to life. Nothing I did or didn’t do killed it.

Not long after I moved I set up my pot with basil on my deck and expected immediate growth. Since it was actually outside I figured the rain would water it for me, and I wouldn’t have to think about it. But my placement was a bit off because I actually had the pot underneath the roof overhang and gutters, so it got little to no water. And it was pretty much in the shade 90% of the time, which didn’t help the situation either. After an incident with the leaf blower, there was no chance of bringing this basil back to life.

This spring I have decided to take a new approach and bought a planter that would hang over the railing of the deck in the sun and be free to get some rain. 

Saturday is market day in my town (add that to the list of reasons why I love living here), and I headed over this weekend to pick up some herbs. 

I expanded my selection from just basil and bought some rosemary, thyme and parsley. Assuming I can keep them alive, I will have a selection of fresh herbs to add to my dishes.

Do you have a herb garden? And is there anything I should know about growing the rosemary, parsley or thyme?