How does your garden grow?

I, with my brown thumb, am trying to keep some herbs alive this year. About two weeks ago, I planted everything in the first picture below except for the rosemary. We’ve had that for a while. So far things seem to be growing very well! I planted:

• Spearmint – In its own pot since mint is invasive.
• Basil – 2 plants because we love pesto.
• Sage
• Oregano
• Thyme

Today, I headed out to Home Depot with my dad and bought some arugula and dill that we planted in the pot below. Cross your fingers for me! The top picture has notes on Flickr if you click through.

2010 Goals

Rather than do a separate post for my reading, exercising, etc goals this year, I will do one post to rule them all.  So here goes:

Reading Goals.

1. Do not sign up for any reading challenges.  Reading is for FUN.  Keep it that way.
2. Do not read more than two books in a row by any author.   Variety is the spice of life!

Running/Workout Goals.  These came about due to sloppy training and a slight injury I’ve been dealing with for a week now.  My right IT band (runs from your outer hip to your knee) has been really tight and was causing pain for a few days last week.  I think the problem was due to not enough cross-training, strenth training, or stretching and ramping up my weekly mileage too fast.  Swimming, yoga, and strength training this week have helped it feel a lot better.  I will try to run again next week.  At least I picked a really cold week to be doing indoor workouts.

1. Do IT Band stretches every day so I can keep running without injury.
2. Swim, elliptical, or bike twice a week.
3. Aim to do strength training 2-3 days a week, incoporating core, lower body, and upper body work.
4. Yoga once or twice a week.
5. Write my workout schedule in my calendar every week to make sure I fit everything in.

Other Goals.

1. Make my house feel more like a home by decorating and organizing.
2. Take more pictures.
3. Visit my friends in Raleigh more.  I only went once this year, and that was not enough.

What are your goals?  I’m not calling them resolutions because they are not empty promises that I will give up on by February (like the people crowding my gym right now).

Fall Cleaning

For those of you who did not read my blog when I was over at Vox, my husband and I recently purchased a house.  Here it is:

Now that we have been living there for about three months, I really want to start making it feel more like a home.  My plan is to get things organized and then to start making things feel cozy room by room. 

Yesterday – with the help of the Gleeful Podcast and several episodes of This American Life on my iPod - I finally unpacked the last two boxes in our bedroom and got all of my clothes organized.  They were just put away wherever they would fit after we moved in since I was exhausted from the moving process.

Here is my To Do List for getting the house organized.  I will make a separate page of this list on the blog when I have time to make it look pretty and add pictures of the rooms.  When I’m done with this list (ha ha, if it ever happens) I’ll start on the “making the house pretty” list.

Master Bedroom:

• Finish organizing closets.
• Find a way to organize jewelry and other stuff on vanity.

Craft Room / Office:

• Unpack the last few boxes of stuff.
• Find shelves for fabric and crafty books.
• Organize sewing cabinet.
• Go through plastic drawers and file box and throw junk out.

Second Guest Room (The Pink Room):

• Unpack boxes.

Converted Garage / Family Room:

• Unpack the huge pile of boxes that we pretend are not there.
• Find nice bookshelves to replace the crappy MDF ones.

Kitchen:

• Put the replacement cabinet door on where I broke the old one.

Living Room:

• Put everything away that does not belong in the living room.