Tomatoes and Basil and Projects, Oh My

First, the "Great Tomato/Basil Project of '06"

Look! Tomatoes (well at least tomato plants)!


Also, Basil!

It is bordering on ridiculous, how excited I am about these two plants. I can't wait for the tomatoes to grow so I can pick them and make delicious things, like marinara sauce, or fresh bruschetta, or even just tomato salad. And the basil will become part of the marinara and bruschetta, or even pesto. It is all rather exciting.

The reason my excitement is so ridiculous is because if you had told me even five years ago that I would be dying to plant vegetables and herbs and take care of plants I would have laughed, and laughed, and laughed at you. This is because my parents have a fairly large vegetable garden that they used to force me to help them weed and water and other such annoyances, and I hated it. And! And they made me eat vegetables fresh from the garden all summer long, with grilled meat and stuff like that! It was pure torture!

Yeah, then I grew up. I would kill to have a large vegetable garden in the country which filled my table with it's bounty every night. I would even kill to have a grill. Well, not technically kill, but you know what I mean. It would be awesome. And vegetables? Can't eat enough of them. I crave fresh fruit and vegetables constantly. I keep begging Aaron to spend large portions of our weekends (not otherwise occupied by weddings recently) at Upick farms picking up fresh produce. So, yes. I am very excited about the tomatoes (four plants) and basil (also four plants), and you will very likely be hearing about them and seeing pictures of them all summer long. Just thought I'd give you fair warning.

Okay, on to the "Project", otherwise known as the big suprise. I have been taught how to crochet by one of my coworkers, and have gotten pretty far. Here's the two blocks of my lap afghan (read: very tiny blanket) that I have finished:

I am also ridiculously excited about this, but for very different reasons. Mostly because I love the feeling of creating something with my own hands, and this is definitely that. Of course, there will also be pictures of this when it is completed.