My First Garden

I have been wanting to grow a garden for the past couple of years now.  This is one of the reasons I wanted to buy a house so bad.  I was hoping for a yard of my own, because I thought it was necessary to have the long rows in the back to be able to have a garden at all.  When I started looking into the gardening process a couple months ago, a found a book about square foot gardening. In this book, Mel Bartholomew (weird that I had a friend in high school named Melanie Bartholomew) talks about a new method where you just plant in a 4ft x 4ft x 6in box. There are a ton of benefits; like little to no weeding, less space and seeds used, and not having to worry about the soil being too rocky or whatever. I am excited that even though we don't have the private yard I was hoping for, I can still have a garden. So we built the box (mine is 4'x2'), put the grid on, and transplanted some veggies.  I have absolutely no experience gardening, so I figured it might be easier to transplant this time instead of trying to start the seedlings.

There is still so much I don't know. I really have no clue what planting time is the best for each plant. We will see what survives. This time I planted a couple of tomatoes, a red, yellow, and orange bell pepper, and a couple of string beans. I am open to advice if anybody has any. 

We are also going to give composting a try. They say it is really easy, but I'm a little nervous about not having a bigger, private yard for this. I don't want it to stink really bad and be so close to us and the neighbors. I'll let you know how it all turns out. 

I almost forgot to add all the links that I have found helpful for my gardening. (mostly for my own benefit, but if you are interested...)

The All New Square Foot Gardening Book (word-for-word) http://books.google.com/books?id=Kvy1DZ6wjIkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=all+new+square+foot+gardening&hl=en#v=onepage&q=all%20new%20square%20foot%20gardening&f=false

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_foot_gardening

The Wealthy Earth (blog by someone who has been square foot gardening for years and years). http://thewealthyearth.com/

My Pinterest Garden Board http://www.pinterest.com/kassyccox/garden/

Migraines

Warning about a grim post.. No fun stories to follow. Mostly me just complaining. :) Read at your own risk.

Sometime in January of this year, I was diagnosed with a migraine. It was more intense than I knew migraines could be. I had always thought that they were just seriously painful headaches, often associated with pain in the temples from light or noise or whatever. I have been lucky enough to have gone through my 21 years without having a real idea of what they can be. Well, in January, my luck must have ran out. I remember laying on my couch watching tv when my arm suddenly went numb like it had fallen asleep. It had no reason to be asleep though; I hadn't been putting any sort of pressure on it. A couple of minutes later, the numb, tingling feeling creeped like a sneaky mouse through each finger, back up my arm and into my face. I could feel it in my nose and tongue, like the little stars you see after you spin around and around. It was very bizarre and quite scary to be honest. I thought I was having a stroke. Tanner called 911 after I tried to say something to him and the words were incomprehensible because of my numb tongue. They sent the ambulance over, but the techs didn't see anything unusual with my vital signs or anything like that, so they left. I was feeling funny, but couldn't really explain why, so we thought we could wait it out. The numbness went away but then I couldn't form the sentences. I couldn't say what I was thinking. I told Tanner that I was going to go lay on the table. I meant couch, but could not say the dang word. I couldn't say anything right. It was really frustrating. Tanner ended up driving me to the hospital that night.  We had our sister-in-law stay at the house with Zoey until we got back.  The pain hit pretty soon after we got to the hospital and my memory is blurry from then on because of the amount of pain I was in. I mostly just remember that it was horrible. I couldn't express myself to tell people what I wanted. They all just looked at me like I was crazy. It was too long ago to go into details anyway.

It was quiet for a couple months after that. I had no other symptoms or pain or anything.  Last week though, I woke up at 5:30 with a tingly tongue. Slowly, the headache followed. It became worse and worse till I was so debilitated that I couldn't focus enough for Tanner to communicate with me. Every teeny light was so excruciating to see. It was very comparable to labor in pain levels. Tanner ended up staying home from work to take care of the baby while I slowly came back out of zombie land. Five hours later, the pain finally subsided to just a regular headache.  By bedtime, I was feeling better.  No fun, but the day was done.

Six days later, I woke up with tingly fingers again. This was yesterday.  Blah Blah Blah, lots of pain for hours on end; Husband missing another day of work; all the stuff I want to complain about, and here we are. I went to the doctor today and he have me some preventative meds and some other migraine relief just in case one happens to sneak past the prevention. I really hope they help.

Sometimes life is grim. I always catch myself wondering what I would do if I didn't live in this day and age where I can easily go to the doctor and get some drugs handed to me to make me feel better.  I am fortunate to have what I have and to live this life that I live.

Zoey's Friends and New Skills

They have a story time/play group at the library near us.  We went for the first time and Zoey was such a little social butterfly. I had so much fun just watching her walking around and checking out all of the different toys and friends.  I expected her to be nervous and cling to me, but that was not the case at all. She didn't even hang around. They had this gigantic dragon puppet that you put your whole arm into. One of the moms had it on her arm and was pretending to get her 3 year old daughter with it as she giggled. Zoey just wandered up to them, put her hand on the mom's back and watched them play. She was laughing right along with them. She was beside herself with joy. I wish I got a picture of it. It was seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen.  We are having so much together, this little munchkin and I. 

Zoey has discovered how to blow raspberries on my tummy. She thinks it is hilarious. Every time I lie down, she immediately comes over and tries to lift up my shirt.  

I can't believe how fast she is growing and learning. We bought a gate to put on the stairs a couple days ago because she kept trying to climb up them. Naturally, we didn't want her to climb up and then fall down. But she has already learned how to climb down safely on her tummy. I took the gate back. As long as I keep an eye on her, I believe she is safe. Here is proof.

Paragliding

 

Merry Christmas! We cashed in our vouchers to go paragliding last week.  Two tandem flights. I went first while Tanner held the baby and then we switched.  Each flight was a half hour.  We went to the Point of the Mountain in Salt Lake (south side).  The flights are usually $125, but we found a deal on Amazon Local for $85 each.  Money well spent in my opinion. Some of you know that I went skydiving for my eighteenth birthday.  I am always up for the adventure! I was expecting paragliding to be very similar.  It was different in the fact that is wasn't a super adrenaline rush.  Jumping out of an airplane is quite the thrill. It was very similar to the post-free-fall part of skydiving though (when the parachute goes up). Makes sense right? It was actually very relaxing. The view, of course, was amazing. We had to stay right above the ridge the whole time so that we didn't lose the updraft that was making us stay in the air. Boy, was it windy! and cold! Note, for the future: remember to where a warm wind breaking coat, even a winter coat. Snow pants would even be a good idea, like the ones you wear skiing. And warm gloves.  Dress the little ones warm too (even though they aren't actually going up). I did not expect it to be so cold with the sun shining and clear skies, but the strong winds on the mountain add a serious chill. 

Tanner loved it and want to take lessons to learn how to do it solo. The cool thing about paragliding is that it is so simple and light. It's just a back pack. You can take it with you on a hike and fly down from the top.  We definitely recommend it! Check out all of our paragliding pictures here.

We've Moved

It's official! The Cox family now has a home that we can call our own. We were able to move in last Saturday, the 15th. Thank you to our parents and to the other Cox brothers (and family) for making the move not only possible, but 100 times easier. In the week that we have lived here, we keep finding things that make us love our new home even more.  Things like the quietness or our dishwasher, microwave, and garage door.  We have noticed that there are a lot of dogs, and a lot of dog poop in our neighbors yards. But we are in the end unit; no one brings their dogs over to our yard, therefore, no poop!  I know that I would have had a huge issue with this if we had moved into another place.  Some of the other great things include parks, hiking trails, basketball courts, splash pads, pools, and fitness centers really close.  We are thrilled that we can start personalizing our house. We can paint if we want to, or mount a tv on the wall, or have a garden. No one will tell us that these things are not allowed and we will not have to worry about changing someone else's property.  We do have some restrictions with the HOA, but nothing I am worried about.  If you are interested, I posted pictures here or you can check out the link to all of our pictures on flickr.