Save the date - May 22nd, 2010!

The ceremony and reception will be held at the Rusty Pelican (which is a lot nicer than the name implies) in Tampa, Florida.  Allow me to take you on a guided tour:

The entrance:

To the left:

To the right, walking toward the ceremony area:

Approaching the ceremony area:

Walking down the aisle:

My view:

After the ceremony, we head inside for cocktail hour:

Have a drink and some appetizers: (ignore the decor)

And then we move to the ballroom for dinner/dancing:

It feels so much more real now that we have a date and a venue!  The setup and decorations will be different of course, but the rooms are gorgeous and they have an amazing view of Tampa Bay.  I can’t wait!

I’m sorry for my long absence - school has been a little overwhelming.  I’m three weeks in to summer semester (out of 10), and it is kicking my butt.  Luckily it is going pretty fast, but it feels like I’m already going down the first hill of the roller coaster and I forgot to put on my seat belt!  Clinicals three days a week, piles of paperwork, all while working at the same time = no fun.  I just keep reminding myself that a year from now I’ll be DONE with school.  Adam asked me the other day what I would do with myself when all I had to do was work 40 hours a week, and I honestly can’t even imagine it right now.  I’m definitely getting too old for this.

Not much else to report.  Hardly knitting, veggie garden is dying in the heat (but I have three tomatoes, two bell peppers, and a bunch of hot peppers still holding on), and not much else going on but school and work.  I’m off this weekend, so I’ll try to post a better update then.

Finally, a backyard I want to hang out in!  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:

It’s amazing what a difference a little grass and a few plants makes!  This afternoon I put down soaker hose in the garden beds, and tonight I’m going to get some microdrip irrigation line to run in the back veggie garden.  We’re going to do the front yard as well, but I want to wait for the “rainy season” to get started before planting any more sod.  Now, time to get off the computer and enjoy the yard!

We have rain barrels!  Just in time for the new and improved extra strict watering restrictions.  I bought recycled pepper barrels on craigslist (and was not-so-pleasantly surprised to find they still had pepper juice inside - THAT smelled great), cleaned them out, and today I put in spigots and screens on top.  A little downspout renovation and here you go:

Now all we need is a little rain to test them out!

There has also been raised-garden-bed building, and dirt hauling, and vegetable planting:

It’s a little late in the season here, but I planted beans (pole and bush), lettuce, spinach, and zucchini.  The squirrels ate the zucchini seeds in about 2.3 seconds, so I started peppers inside and I’ll transplant those in a week or two.  The two square planters are tomatoes that I started about a month ago - I’m excited about how big they are, but I’m still not sure I believe they’ll actually produce tomatoes.  I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Other than that, not much going on…school, work, school, work, sleep occasionally, and repeat.  The semester is almost over though, so woohoo!  Only…three more to go.  Still no wedding plans, but hopefully something soon.

So, I just saw the schedule for Nursing II this summer.  I’m going to go quietly over to the corner and have a stroke now.