Religion & spiritually

Religion? Spiritually? These words have been popping up in my life for years now. What’s it all about? Do I need it in my life? How would I do that? *crickets churping*

As a child I was i introduced to church but it wasn’t forced upon me. We would go and I’d go to Sunday school. This continued until I started sports on the weekends at age 6.

I didn’t reconsider having religion in my life again until I was going away to a Catholic boarding school in grade 12. I wasn’t in this school for the church, let me tell you 😬

At this point I was 18 years of age and was surrounded by overly religious people. Quite frankly I thought it was over the top and strange. I prayed, I ate the cracker and juice, confessed a sin or two but it MEANT nothing to me. It wasn’t real. I faked it like any bad 18 year old would. 

Now that I’m a bit more mature(if I do say so myself 😇) I am at a point where I am ready for religion to be part of my life. My partner is Christian and has never pressed me to become Christian as well, however for the past year I’ve been attending church regularly and I’ve come to a place where I’ll pray…a real prayer. 

It’s really quite amazing. I’m proud of myself and interested and excited for this personal growth of mine. My partner is the only person my age that I know of who is openly religious and that makes me a bit hesitant to show my religion publically. So much to learn and so much growth that will happen. 

I wonder about other people…have you gone through a similar journey? Everyone must have their own stories and beliefs. I really want to have an open mind about how my beliefs are changing and I want to hear from YOU! ❤

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A snowy December

Can anyone guess what mountain this is?

It’s December! Where I am in the world isn’t a wintery place- usually it rains all winter long. However, this December is different! As I sit in bed and write this post, it’s snowing outside ❄ my plan for today is to stay home ALL day, reading and eventually making chilli. I haven’t done much reading these days what with school(textbooks have taken over) but I’m currently reading Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin. And this book is BEAUTIFUL. 😚 read about it below!📚

“After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place. She understood the other mothers’ snobbiness at school drop-off when she compared them to olive baboons. Her obsessional quest for a Hermes Birkin handbag made sense when she realized other females wielded them to establish dominance in their troop. And so she analyzed tribal migration patterns, display rituals, physical adornment, mutilation, mating practices, extra-pair copulation, and more. Her conclusions are smart, thought-provoking and hilariously unexpected” -Goodreads

So? What do you think? Is this a book you’d read? Let me know what YOU are reading, eating or doing. Add me on Goodreads too! Happy holidays my blog friends 🎄 

Winter garden failures

Oh boo! This winter I was looking forward to growing a few vegetables including carrots, spinach, radishes and beets. In September I planted seeds, which have germinated but just won’t grow any larger! They are tiny little sprouts and haven’t changed size in months. The seed packages say they grow in winter, and it’s only 10 degrees C° – 15 C° so I don’t understand what’s going on! After my wonderful summer of growing I put some nutrients back into the soil. Winter gardeners, I’m looking to you for some help! Or anyone who has any clue what I can do. My poor seedlets just won’t grow! I live on the West Coast of Canada if anyone is nearby has knows the climate better than I do. I’m loving everyone’s gardens right now, it’s so fun to see what you’re growing. For those book lovers that follow me, I’m in the midst of aceing all my classes so I haven’t been reading many books that aren’t textbooks. The summer should be better for that sort of thing

Anyway, happy Saturday friends:) and let me know ANY winter gardening tips! Happy reading and happy growing ❤🌱

Garden Update – September

Oh blogging friends, I’ve missed you. I’ve been neglectful to my blog but am still here! September has been a very busy month with starting a new program in university among other things.

My garden has been quite pitiful this month I’m afraid. There were many tomatoes in the early month until late BLIGHT(I believe) hit and essentially killed all 7 plants. I was devastated. Here are some photos so you can see what it looked like. It sort of seems like the tomatoes are rotting from the inside out.

Has anyone seen this?

I did however get hundreds of tomatoes, I just felt awful for all the ones that never got to ripen. Food waste is my equivalent to nails on a chalkboard – I just can’t handle it. I ended up ripping out all 7 plants and attempting to save any green fruits. With the non blighted tomatoes I decided to use my dehydrator again and make sundried tomatoes. It was fun to experiment with the different varieties of tomatoes.

In other news, that garden skunk I mentioned turns out to be a family of very busy, very enthusiastic squirrels. I used to enjoy watching squirrels run around and frolic…now I want to spray them with my hose’s jet setting. I made some sort of homemade squirrel deterrent using vinegar chopped garlic and black pepper…it didn’t work unfortunately.

I have just planted some winter seeds including: spinach, carrots, beets and bokchoy. Here’s hoping squirrel doesn’t decide to dig them up and have a nibble.

Does ANYONE know how to avoid this horrible blight? Or is it just part of gardening? I should probably move on and get over it 🍅And has anyone had a squirrel digging up their garden? What has worked for you? I’m excited to hear some tips and certainly excited to hear all about your fall and winter gardens!!🌱🌱

Garden Update – July

Somehow it’s already July! For those fellow Canadians out there, Happy Canada Day! For the rest of you…I hope you’re having a great day. The garden has really grown in the past few weeks, I thought I’d share some photos. I would also really love some advice from you, I’m learning but have had some issues…

The peas are fantastic; about 8 feet tall and producing over a handful every day. I planted both snow peas and snap peas, both of which are doing well.

Snap peas growing rapidly!

I planted about 10 onion bulbs…most of them got rather moldy and limp so I pulled them. I have 3 remaining. This is my largest. I have high hopes but honestly I don’t think it’s doing too well. Have you grown onions? Any tips?

Next are the 8 tomato plants which have taken off. As you can see they were quite small when I planted them. 7 of my tomatoes are doing well, still have yet to produce a tomato…soon! Grow babies, grow!

1 of the stems has an issue…so tomato planting friends I need some help!!! What has happened to my delightful tomato plant? It looks like something has eaten it out…suggestions?

The carrots are HUGE, the stems at least. I dug down to see how big the actual vegetable is and it’s about an inch wide(probably less), so they’re tiny still. I’m getting impatient with those carrots! I have a feeling carrots are one of those veggies that’s just not worth growing – a lot of waiting and not a ton of yield. Thoughts on that?

I’ve just planted some more bokchoy since the last batch was so successful and yielded SO many luscious leaves for us to gobble up. We ate bokchoy at every meal for weeks. I also planted a few beet seeds just to see what happens.

I’ve never planted beets, have you had success? How are your vegetables coming along? Have you ever had success/failures with any of these plants? What should I grow next? Happy growing, garden friends!

PS enjoy my calendula plant that FINALLY grew a flower. Bumble bumble bumble, come to my garden, bees!