Home sweet home

November brought all the things we love about living here - cooler temps for outdoor fun and house projects, festivals, and for me, it was a month of no travel and all the time in the world to revel in being home.  So November felt like a month of catch up for me to remind friends I'm still alive and catch up on their lives.  It's also been a chance to dig into some new hobbies for Wade and me.


Wade and I finally got our raised veggie beds installed in the garden - Wade finished phased one just before Halloween (pictures here), then completed phase two in early November.  We planted a bunch of veggie and herb seedlings to short cut our harvest time, but also followed up with seeds as well.  This is our first time planting down here (in Florida, our growing season is October - May), so it's all a huge experiment and we're learning a lot.  I have also checked out an absurd amount of library books on organic gardening, companion planting, and the square foot gardening method.  We don't have a lot of space, so we're trying to maximize what we do have by using intensive gardening principles for maximizing harvest in small raised beds.  In the last few months we've become a little obsessed with trying to figure out how much organic food we can get our of our "land" (our lot and a half) to feed us, but also sustain wildlife with native plants.  So far we seem to be striking a good balance, but this time of year we don't get quite enough sun, so some of our crops are struggling and we're already learning where we might rotate crops for our spring plantings.  We added two big clay pots in the driveway outback for growing and Wade just wrapped up phase 3 of the raised beds: two more 1.5'x12's along the fence, another small 3'x3' box in the garden, and a larger hexagonal box in the yard.  Wade's been quite the carpenter designing and constructing our cedar raised beds!  They're beautiful and functional and we're thrilled with them. We also finally tore out the evil bougainvillea and have replaced it with two edible moringa trees and some native wildflowers.  Next up... we're researching how we can add two pet chickens to the yard to produce eggs and keep down the bug population!  You may laugh, but it's actually more common here in St Pete than you would think.  We know 3 families who do it and really enjoy it - both for the eggs and how friendly and fun the birds are.  I've been reading up on that too and have asked Wade to build me a chicken coop for my birthday. :)

In mid-November we headed back to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, but this time with Katie and Dustin.  We had a great time and mercifully it wasn't too hot and the lines weren't too long.  We rode every ride, some twice, screamed like little girls on the roller coasters, had a few butter beers, and almost threw up on a few rides.  An excellent day indeed and the perfect cure for a stressful week at work.  We wrapped up the day at Margaritaville with dinner and drinks before heading home.  And you know what?  We'll still be up for going again. :)  It's nice having Orlando only an hour away!

Mmmm.... butterbeer

Gotta love the Hogwarts castle in the background....

Apparently the red neon on a nearby Margaritaville sign threw Katie's iPhone camera for a loop and we all look sunburned!

Mom and Larry came back at the beginning of the month (we left up our Halloween decor an extra week so Mom could see them) and that also meant it's that time of year to start making the to-do list for house and yard projects!  The weekend before Thanksgiving, Mom made a run to the nursery with me to get some more plants (yay strawberries!) while the guys worked in the garden.  Afterwards we picked up Alison and headed to the Craft Art Fair downtown to check out the Floridian artists - so many pretty things... Thanksgiving Day we spent with them and Katie joined us too for another gluten-free vegetarian feast.  This year my goal was to only eat what we could get from the farmer's market, and we came pretty close, but next year I'm going to challenge us to what we can grow or what we get at the market, so we'll have to plant the garden earlier.  We did, however, harvest one lonely strawberry just before we went to bed and shared it amongst us and it was absolutely wonderful.  Over Thanksgiving weekend we added another veggie box, replaced the section of fence where the bougainvilla was (thanks for painting Larry!), and enjoyed some good local food.


Thanksgiving weekend Wade and I also started a new hobby - glass fusing at the same studio where I learned stained glass.  (It's basically cutting, designing, and melting glass together to make plates or bowls, jewelry, windchimes, vases, whatever you can imagine)  We're really enjoying it and are already starting on some projects.  It's going to be a lot of fun and we're excited to be able to make some Christmas gifts for family and friends this year!


I wrapped up the month by hosting the monthly Girls Night Out that the neighborhood women in our 3 block radius put on each month.  Since it was "freezing" that day I had everyone over for a fire in the garden with hot cocoa, sangria, s'mores, and popcorn.  It went over really well and we had a lot of fun.  We're really lucky to have such a connected and friendly network of people in our neighborhood.  Wade was a sweet heart and helped me set up in exchange for a s'more or two. :)


As I am wrapping up this post we're breaking out the Christmas decorations... :)