Sometimes there is no time...

Today work was ridiculously busy...I could have easily stayed late working another 3 hours and not finished. So I didn't. I'll get on all that tomorrow.

I had a cat hang out with me most of the morning. Ended up being the neighbors cat. I would have fed him something since he seemed hungry, but I have no idea what I could even feed a cat that we actually have.

Sometime you don't blog...

On the weekends, I will most likely be missing posts. They're my time to not be at a computer. And we're either out and about or doing absolutely nothing at home. Neither of which is conducive to blogging. So there it is in advance.

Random pic:

The mexican TARDIS!! w00t! Spotted it at a Superette in Juarez! Pretty awesome really. 

Sometimes you run some errands and it's fun...

I love biking...especially now that I don't have to tow Sophie along. It's way too enjoyable. I feel like I am just gliding, piercing the air, it's great. Anyway, today I had some errands to run, so I biked this:

Not bad for something I enjoy anyway

I have to stop to take this in of course :) 

Much to Geli's dismay, this had to be done! 

I could have taken a shorter route, but biking along the river rules so much that I don't mind biking longer just to enjoy that. Also, I am just getting out of work(48 minutes late), and it's crap. It's Friday and you're not supposed to work extra on a Friday.

Sometimes work correspondence looks like a prayer to me...

I find it funny that when people reply to my emails, in my head, I hear a prayer. I guess I don't consider Jesus to be my name really. An odd thing to say really, because it is! And when I read it in work emails, I also pronounce it in the English way in my head, which doesn't help. Anyway, here's an example from today:

So yeah, every time I read my name in an email, it makes me chuckle. Especially when they're thanking me for something. This all happened today, and because I messed up. Really I was just not aware that when they mean they want an update for one variety of this application, they still wanted all the other flavors of it online(there's like 10 varieties of the same app for this client). Now, I know. 

Sometimes you grow some tomatoes...

I have been trying my hand at gardening this year. I got a bit of a late start, but it's been going rather well. Or better than I expected anyway. Right now, we got some  small cherry tomatoes that are doing pretty well. We got this one small vine with a tomato at every stage of growth:

From fully ripe, to almost not even there yet.

This year, we got tons of raspberries. A handful of strawberries, kale, a red lettuce variety, yellow squash, garlic, and a few plums(not sure why only a few this year, the tree is pretty big). Here are some pics: 

The yellow peppers, our first pickings! 

A yellow squash about to be picked :D 

Hungarian black pepper, not black yet, so not ripe yet. 

Baby watermelon. Much bigger now, but still not big enough. 

First Kale pickings :) 

First Red Lettuce pickings :) 

Chile flower. That little green thing in the center, will grow to be the pepper. 

Squash flowers! you can eat the male ones. 

So we did! 

The strawberry plants get stronger as the years go by, so our baby plants didn't give that many strawberries, but the few we got were amazing! 

Garlic! So mild and sweet! Amazing roasted! 

The entire garlic plant. Bulbs on the left, flowers on the right. 

This was the squash when I first planted it. It's massive now. 

We would get one or two of these a day at peak season! It was awesome! 

Raspberries! 

And squirrels had their share of raspberries of course haha

An unripe raspberry

Cilantro! 

Baby strawberries! 

Baby kale! 

Seedlings! This is how most of it started. 

Growing these few things has helped me realize how fragile everything is. How connected to the earth we are. How badly we depend on it. I know it sounds corny and hippie. But it's true. I've also first hand seen how important bees are. None of this would be without bees. Every raspberry we ate, every squash we get, they all need to be pollinated...by bees. All in all, I really like gardening. It's relaxing. It's work, but it also clears my mind. I don't know why, I find it relaxing. Next year I plan to get an earlier start and get some compost for the soil as well. 

Sometimes Mexico plays...

I find that streaming the game using a mexican VPN(Thanks Sergio!) directly from Televisa or Azteca is the best way to watch it. That's what I am kind of doing. I just have it on in the background while I work really, And look when the comentaristas get loud haha.

This was just a friendly game, doesn't mean much. Nothing really happening.

Also, here is a random pic of the day:

Just an old 1950s car that was at the Rodadora museum in Juarez. Not an exhibit or anything. Just there. It was odd. 

Sometimes you write again...

So it seems that Mari wants to read all our posts again, so let's see how long before we all stop again. Right now I am working second shift Milwaukee time(3-11pm there), so that comes out to 1-9pm here in Portland, M-F. Not my favorite shift, but I am hoping it won't be permanent. I'm at home anyway, so it's not too bad.

 A lot has happened since we were last writing these (November of last year apparently, for me). I figured out a reliable way to get some cool macro pictures, using hollow extension tubes and my manual flash. A very cheap way to do macro, compared to buying a macro lens (which I still would like to do at some point). So Sophie and I have this thing where she finds bugs and I go and take pictures of them. I really like it. And the pictures aren't bad if I may say so myself. I would update on more things that have happened since, but apparently I write too much. So I will do an update of sorts each day or something. This one is about macro pics.

Here are a few shots:

This bee wanted to hang out. It landed on my shirt at Sophie's swim class and just stayed there, even through the bike ride home.

This is Sophie's friend's pet preying mantis. 

Honeybee inside our squash flowers. 

This is a ladybug larvae turning into a pupa. Pupating I think is the term. 

Darkling beetle pupa. 

Darkling beetle waving! 

Moth

Jumping spider! It jumped at my lens shortly after this! 

Okay,that was more than a few. But that's just a fraction of them. It's easy to post pics now, since google auto backs up all my pics, they're ready to post if I need to. Very cool.