Jason’s amazing garden

Yes, I’m going to brag.  But, it’s on Jason’s behalf.

Look at that watering wand; this guy means business.

As you may know from this blog and from facebook, Jason puts a lot of effort into the yard.  You know, cutting things down, pulling weeds, killing those wretched blackberry bushes (his personal opinion, not mine).

But this year, sort of on happenstance, Jason’s put his heart into the gardens. I say it in the plural because he added an extra box and his hedge of raspberry plants has come up nice and bushy this year.

I’m not sure why he’s become so dedicated, since we’ve had such lackluster results in the past.  I think it’s some kind of divine intervention.  Especially because he’s extra zealous about the tomato plants he’s got going and in the past he’s the one who has tried to convince me not to grow (or rather, kill by slow painful, very dry death) tomatoes.

I just know the garden this year is going to be spectacular.  I can feel it.  Also, I can see it–Jason’s out there every day tending to things.  It turns out gardens need that sort of thing.  I guess I was too busy having a baby last year to get to that (why I planted a garden in the first place, I do not know.  Chalk it up to being a crazy pregnant lady).  As for the years before that, I have no good explanation for my failure.

I guess you could say the ongoing factor in piddly Haggard gardens of the past is, well, ME. Good thing I’m not in the equation this year.  Maybe that was all the divine intervention Jason needed.

Anyway, here’s a lovely pictorial of all of Jason’s hard work.  You will see from the last picture, it’s starting to pay off!

Basil, parsley and cilantro starts in the back row; little carrot sprouts coming up in the front row.

Sadly, I totally forgot to take pictures of the prized tomato plants!  I suppose that will have to wait until they are dripping with juicy, ripe fruit.

And of course, who would you guess ate the first strawberry of the season??

A few more pictures are here.

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Loving a man who bakes

It’s really not that hard. Especially when he brings you one of his salted caramels to taste test and it tastes like heaven and well . . .

Alright, I confess, it’s a little bit harder than that.  At least it was for me last weekend when Jason made copious amounts of sugary treats for his co-workers.  There were a few times I tried to avoid helping and there was that time I thought “Do the salted caramels really have to be wrapped that perfectly?!”

But they must.  Everything must be perfect.  And it was.  And I still love this man who bakes.

The lineup was Cherry Chocolate Hazelnut Bars, Molasses Spice Cookies, Fudge, and Salted Caramels.  The first two came out of the The New Best Recipe (aka Jason’s third best friend next to myself and Jordan). The Fudge was Martha’s and well, we’ve decided to keep the caramels a secret because I think we could make some money off of them, they were so amazing.

There were several moments where I heard from the kitchen “This is awful, it’s totally ruined!” only to hear him later say with much satisfaction, “Actually, this is pretty darn good.”  In the process I learned not to become discouraged that yet another bag of chocolate chips was going to be wasted as he poured them into a pot of steaming cream, butter, and marshmallows.  The fudge would indeed turn out fabulous. My taste buds are verifying it this very moment that I write.

Jason’s mom, Becky, worked tirelessly with him as his sous chef, and Bill put his caramel stirring, cutting and wrapping skills to work (as well as his caramel eating skills).  I helped minimally (as was previously mentioned), but did put the finishing touches on each plate.

20 plates of goodies were packaged up and went off to Jason’s co-workers on Tuesday morning, but thankfully there were some leftover for us to enjoy.  Except Jason couldn’t keep from spreading his baking cheer so a couple of neighbors got some and I’m trying to eat up the rest 🙂

Thank you, Jason, for taking us all to greater baking heights.  I know I’m a better person for it.

Oh Those Dreams!

So Elisabeth and Ian came back from a visit to Mother Teresa’s last Monday.  I picked them up from the airport and was really surprised at how much Ian had grown, even in the five days they were gone.  An interesting thing happened that night though.  I am not sure if it was due to their return, but I sort of think so.

It was around 1 o’clock in the morning that first night and I fly out of bed and slam into the wall.  Still in a daze, Elisabeth asked what was wrong.  Still in a daze, I say something about thinking she was a snake, crawl back into bed and return to sleep.

The following morning, I notice a not-so-superficial gash on my left forearm and vaguely remember catching it on the night stand.

Now all of that would be interesting and worth a conversation, but not a blog.  It was the next night that makes this blog worthy.

That night, again around 1 o’clock.  I shoot out of bed and firmly tell Elisabeth to get out of the room.

“Elisabeth, get out of the room!”

“What!”

“Quick, get out of the room!”

“What!”

“Go, go, go!”

“What!”

I shoo her out of the room, push her through the door, and by her accout, “act mean”.  I shut the door behind her and proceed to look for the green King Cobra that I am positive is under the covers of our bed.  Cautiously, I lift up the blanket.  I shake out the sheet, but alas, no King Cobra.

After making absolutely sure that there is no snake in the bed, I go in to the bathroom where Elisabeth is sitting on the toliet and tell her about the snake.  Understandably she is upset, but I don’t really notice, because I’m not really awake.  We both go back to our snake-free bed, but at this point we have woken up Ian (and when I say “we”, I mean me).  I sort of hear him crying, but after only a few moments I am fast asleep.

The next day I find out that after I fell asleep, Elisabeth listened to Ian cry, got back up, feed him, soothed him back to sleep, all the while frustrated that I had put her in this predicament.  I tried to make it up to her.  I said I was really sorry.  I tried really hard to suppress my smiles.

We laugh about it now and I am proud to report there haven’t been any snakes in our bed since.

The Way of the Haggard Man

This photo was taken during our pregnancy photo shoot with Marcy.

To make things clear, Jason has no affiliation with the Pentecostal Church–that is not a prayer flag he’s holding.

Nor is he perfecting his performance for Fremont Summer Solstice Parade.  If he were, he would be sans clothing and practicing in the privacy of our own home.

No, this is just The Way of The Haggard Man.  His father honed his skills in publicly embarrassing his children and as Jason awaits the arrival of his first child, he feels compelled to do so as well.

Good citizen Jason

Although Jason has not showed up on this blog in awhile, he is making appearances elsewhere.

A man with a plan, that’s what he is.