A weed less ordinary?

Every few weeks I like to go over to the Adelaide property to walk around and see what's growing. Monday night after dinner the weather was beautiful, so we took the kids outside to play for a bit before bed. I decided to put on my rubber rain boots and walk over and see what was up while Dave pushed Simone on the tricycle and Tate ran around. The rubber rain boots are essential for a walk on the property — in the spring it was always muddy, but now there is so much growth that I need them to protect my legs from thorns, sticks and bugs.

It's very green over there right now. Most of the dirt is covered with weeds and foliage, so when there are flowers they pop out very clearly. As expected the orange daylilies were blooming all over the property – in the front, the back, along the fences – everywhere. A great surprise were the sunflowers that are growing. I counted five of them randomly scattered about. They are going to be gorgeous when they bloom. I missed the irises in the back – they had already flowered and died. But, the peach tree!! Oh… the peach tree!! It looked green and healthy, and its limbs were filled with fruit! Last year there were four scragily-looking peach trees that bore no fruit, but we took down three of them and only left the one for some privacy and shade. Well, whatever we did made this little tree super happy and it's just fruiting like mad. Problem is the limbs are all really high. But I guess I'll figure out how to get the fruit down later when it's ripe.

What really caught my eye was one plant in the middle of the property with bright pink flowers on top. So bright, you couldn't miss this plant. The second I stepped up to it, I stopped dead in my tracks. Looked long and hard at the leaves and thought, "Nooooo!! It couldn't be?!?!?!?!" "Could it?!?!?!" The leaves looked like this…

Yup. Pot leaves. Marijuana. But flowers? Do pot plants flower? How would I know? The only times I've seen pot up close it was already rolled into a joint, and my only experience with pot plants are from watching endless episodes of Weeds on DVD. I really had no idea what I was looking at. But it was not a total surprise to see a plant that might be marijuana on this property. Mr. D was a known recreational pot smoker. One neighbor upon returning home from work would find Mr. D sitting in their backyard staring at their koi pond and smoking away. Yes, he would just wander into the neighbor's yard and light up… he thought it was no big deal. So, could he have been growing it in his backyard? Hell, yeah!!

I grabbed a leaf and walked to my neighbor's who stopped cold when she saw it and yelled, "No way!?!?!? Of course he was growing it!!! Is that really pot?!?!" I didn't know. So I went home and showed it to Dave. His reaction was the same, but he told me to go inside and google until I had an answer.

Well, in just a few minutes it was clear that I would not be the Nancy Botwin of Barrington. But instead I was growing Cleome the number one plant commonly mistaken for marijuana. My dreams of a crazy and wild summer were squashed by google and a shitty weed that was not weed.

But I've got sunflowers and peaches. Just as fun, right?!?!?!

Anniversary

We've owned 6 Adelaide Ave for one year today. It's also been a year that the regal kitty Matisse has been gone. Here's a quiz...

Question: I'm drinking wine tonight because I'm....

A: celebrating!

B: sad Matisse has been gone a year.

C: shocked an entire year has gone by!!

D: all of the above

A special thank you to Dave.... for buying the great wine tonight; for believing in my crazy plan to buy this nutty house and teeny, little lot; and for designing us an absolutely amazing new home!! I love you!!

Many Empty Calories

UPDATE 6/12: Thanks Maya for the "Looking good!" and ass slap - I did the extra loop today after your motivation!!

Wherever I go and whoever I see, the topic of conversation always turns to "the house". How's it going? Where are you at? When are you going to start building? My stock answers are as follows: It's going good! We are done with design and ready to start construction drawings! We hope to start building soon!

This is usually enough of an answer for most people. But those who know me well, know that there is more there. They hear the stress and see the angst I'm feeling because there is not a slew of people pounding nails on our dirt patch right now. I get the much needed sympathetic look and words of encouragement. And lately I've been getting this… "You are being sooooo patient!"

I started thinking about that. Patient. How am I doing this. Being patient. I've decided it's the cupcakes. I'm eating my stress away.

If there are not cupcakes in the house, there are cookies. And if there are not cookies, there are brownies. But there are rarely brownies, because there are almost ALWAYS cupcakes!! I had convinced myself I was doing it for the kids. Kids love cupcakes, they'll be so happy. But I finally realized, it is really for me. Homemade nutella frosted, buttery good sugar topped from Whole Foods, or Shaw's cheap mini-cupcakes. It's cake and frosting and they are all yummy! The problem is I'm eating them all. I'm less stressed, but stuffing my face with sugar, butter and white flour is playing havoc with the numbers on my scale. In retaliation against my ever-growing waistline, I've started walking to combat the negative effects of my stress-reducing-cupcake-stuffing.

So if you see me out walking and sweating with a determined look on my face, don't ask how the house is coming. Just tell me I'm looking thin and you don't notice the cupcakes on my ass at all. Because I'm going to need all the encouragement I can get to make it back into my skinny jeans. And if you see me at Shaw's buying the cheap mini-cupcakes, make me put them down and then tell me where to go to buy even better mini-cupcakes. Because I still really NEED the cupcakes.

Thanks.