On Sunday, we took a drive down to lovely Longmont, CO to visit a tree farm, aptly named "The Tree Farm".  Longmont isn't particularly known as a destination to visit - mostly, I assume, because of its proximity to Boulder, which is beautiful and very expen$$$$ive. 

Personally, I haven't spent much time in Longmont, but Magnum found out about the tree farm, so we took the field trip. On our way, we stopped at a cute coffee shop: Cavegirl Coffeehouse.  It was a trendy little place with a new agey vibe to it.  I thought the surroundings were interesting, so we investigated a bit.

It was located in "Prospect New Town" of Longmont, described as "the coolest neighborhood in America".  It's cool because it's an "urbanist community" (this post is giving my quote marks key a workout).

The goal was "to build a distinctive project which would minimize negative impacts on the land" and is "an antidote to suburban sprawl".  I can get behind that.  Not a fan of sprawl, myself - one of the reasons we left Colorado Springs.  

Anyway, we got all coffeed up - I give Cavegirl 5 stars, although we only had coffee.  They had other things, mostly beverages. They claim to be 100% gluten free, and I could've gone for a bit of gluten with my coffee, but it was all good.

Then, off to the tree farm of no elaborate name. It was moist and muddy as we were there in between rainstorms. The trees and ornamentals seemed quite happy and healthy.  

We brought home this youngling Autumn Blaze Maple, and hopefully the happy healthy will remain. 

Here he is after his first night in our garage.  Violet the bicycle for scale. I use the male pronoun, but I actually have no idea the tree's gender. He could be both male and female because trees sometimes do that.

But I figured, "we will hug him and squeeze him and name him George".

George now stands, looking quite tiny, in his station in our front yard.  

Grow, George, grow.

Welcome to the weekend! Or what's left of it anyway. Time to throw around some thankfulness!

I've been quite busy lately with a full work schedule. A few months ago, I added a policy here that I would include a photo of something good from the week to the silver liningness posts.

I realized as I sat down to post this that I had nothing.

Not wanting to be a policy breaker, I just decided to download whatever was currently on the family camera. So, for your viewing pleasure, today's Thankfulness Photo:

Here we have Chaco's friend Anton on a bike next to a huge Chaco ear.

OKAY, so now that that's out of the way...

Well, actually, I suppose I can find a thankfulness bent here. Anton is a good kid. I' m thankful that he's one of Chaco's friends. He's rather geeky and owns several bicycles that he's scrapped together buying parts off of craigslist and whatnot. What's not to like? I have no idea the story behind this photo.

Oh, and just a side note, that house there in the background? That's the one next door that's for rent. Come on! Move in!

As I mentioned, I've been busy work-wise. Believe me when I say that I am NOT a workaholic, I just seem to be pretending to be one lately. I do like being useful, but I'm thankful that some things are winding down and I'll have more breathing room in my schedule soon.

OH! And I just remembered... I do have a real photo! Last spring at school, all of the third graders (of which Meego was one) received a little cabbage plant in a cup from some seed company. The idea being to encourage kids to garden. They also brought home a little info sheet about growing the cabbage and such, and instructions to take a photo of the kid with said grown cabbage and turn it back into the teacher in September for entry into this big cabbage growing contest thing.

Somehow, I remembered about bringing a photo in. I took a photo of Meego with his now bigger cabbage and he took it to his science teacher. He was the ONLY one! The ONLY one!

So anyway, the teacher submitted his single entry to the national thing. We'll see if anything happens. If nothing else, he gets points for follow-through. And we get cabbage.
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The Debate

No, not that one... Thanks to everyone for the "to dye or not to dye" tips, comments, etc. I still think the color is too pastel for me, but maybe not so bad with jeans. Before, I'd usually worn it with light colored slacks or skirt, but just threw it on over my jeans for that blog pic. Maybe I'll leave it in Pepto Bismol, maybe I'll try Brandy's dye recipe, maybe I'll re-re-gift (to Beej?). Okay, enough of that...


Things That Make Me Go "Ho Hum"

Paris Hilton said something stupid.

Clay Aiken is gay.

Madonna's getting a divorce.


Cheatin'

Yesterday, I had this thing planned. I'd been looking forward to it, actually. After getting Meego's breakfast, I began to make my preparations, but... but... Magnum. He kept hanging around. Why wasn't he leaving for work?

See, I had to make this soup for a potluck. I'd chosen a hearty Vegetable Pasta soup recipe. It calls for a couple of zucchinis. Now, you know that Magnum is the family gardener, and he has nice zucchini, if I do say. I've always been quite satisfied with his zucchini. In fact, it had gotten to the point where it was almost too much zucchini for me to handle.

But lately, things had gone cold. The zucchini just wasn't happening as often. And when it did happen, the zucchini quality just wasn't as it was in earlier days. For the last month or so, we've actually had no zucchini.

So I got a little desperate. I just really wanted this soup. And I wanted it to be goooood soup. I let my own desires come first. I went out looking for zucchini. Yes, I admit it here, I got some store bought stranger zucchini.

I just couldn't bring myself to tell him - Magnum. I figured I could just have my way with the zucchini, then send it off to the potluck, and Magnum would never be the wiser. But why... WHY wasn't he leaving for work?!

Well, actually, he finally did leave. Just in the nick of time - when I just couldn't wait any longer. Just before I whipped out the stranger zucchini and started the full day of slow, slow, sweet 'n' slow cooking. All day long. And it was just right.

That soup.
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Another week gone, time to look at the good stuff:

I was out running this morning, early. I came around a corner and saw this.... this.... this... thing. It was either a big fox or a short coyote. It hightailed it out of there, never to be seen (by me) again. Apparently, it was more afraid of me than I was of it, and for that I'm thankful!

I gave more LSAT tests this morning. The instructor and I have this tag team thing going. I give them painful tests, she helps them learn stuff, I give them more painful tests. I'm thankful that, despite my evil role, the students seem to like me.

Mag's garden is happily producing. He seems to get a greener thumb with each progressive season. He's the gardener. He enjoys it. I'm thankful that I can just sponge the harvest (the zuchinnis can take a break, though).

Speaking of the husband, I sent him an e-mail at work yesterday. Y'know, a sweet-little-nothing-from-the-wifey e-mail. Actually it was just this political joke I figured he'd appreciate. I received this sweet little nothing in return a short time later:

I will be out of the office starting 09/12/2008 and will not return until
09/17/2008.

I will respond to your message when I return.

-----------------------------------------
The information contained in this message is privileged and intended
only for the recipients named. If the reader is not a representative of
the intended recipient, any review, dissemination or copying of this
message or the information it contains is prohibited. If you have received
this message in error, please immediately notify the sender, and delete
the original message and attachments.

I'm a privileged recipient! I'm so thankful. Okay, in all seriousness...

Yes it rained all night Thursday and into Friday thus cancelling Meego's Field Day, but we needed the rain, and once it stopped, the weather was beautiful again - and really, the rain was beautiful too, China and I had a very pleasurable walk in it. That's Colorado and I'm thankful for the variety.

I'm thankful for this weekly thankfulness exercise and, of course, my blog friends. *sniff* enough for now...
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