I didn’t really want to take pictures of all my plants this go around, so I just took a single shot of my growing brood.

Last night, Phil and I decided to transplant our babies. They were getting a bit too big for their little cells – at least most of them were. We decided to leave the green peppers, watermelon, and tomatoes until they are a bit bigger. Maybe in about a week or so, we should be able to transplant the rest and put them out on the patio. They need to be out there now because as you see from the picture above, there just isn’t enough room for all of them in front of the window. The weather needs to get steady though. I don’t want to put them outside, and have them die a few hours later.

Well, I can’t think of a whole lot to say about the plants. They don’t do a whole lot – except cause a huge mess in the kitchen. That is where we transplanted them because it was too cold outside. I wish I had a picture of the dirt all over Phil’s kitchen floor. It was a pretty amusing site. Heh.

I’ll try to start blogging more regularly again. Let me get over my sickness first. My Chinese battalion of martial fighters heard about the unrest in Tibet and left me. Jerks. I was just starting to think I was invincible, too. 🙂

I went over to my Aunt’s house to attend our family Easter dinner. When I got done eating, I went outside with my camera and started taking pictures of the pretty flowers blooming in the back yard. Since I am not entirely sure what these plants were called, I haven’t included their names in this post. I’m not a botanist, so shoot me. And since I can’t think of catchy lines to describe each and every flower I have listed below, I’m just gonna let you look at them and go, “Aww.”

I don’t think I ever intended for my office to turn into a Chinese office, but slowly, that is what is happening. Not that that is a bad thing or anything. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of my other Chinese things I have on my wall and what not, but I will later. I’ll take my tripod in one day and take a panorama shot of my office. That should turn out pretty neat, I think.

I don’t have much to say today, but I thought I would at least let you see the two things my Aunt Beverly gave me a week or so ago to help decorate my office.

Bamboo.

I’ve thought about buying a whole lot of these and turning my office into a jungle of sorts.

I thought this little fountain was cool, but the batteries died on me – twice. I think I’m going to have to buy one that plugs into the wall or something if I want the white noise of trickling water calming me as I work. Even though the water is not running right now, it still looks cute on my credenza.

Last night, Phil and I went to a restaurant that one of his co-workers suggested we should try out. It was a Greek/Italian place called Santorini Grill, and since we didn’t have anything else better to do on a Friday night(yeah, we lead boring lives, I know), we decided to go and have a taste.

We had to drive a bit because it was all the way over on Hardscrabble Road. Isn’t that just a weird road name? I didn’t even know it was a real word until just a second ago, but apparently it is. This is what Dictionary.com tells me . . .

hardscrabble \HARD-skrab-uhl\, adjective:
1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty.
2. Marked by poverty.

You learn something every day, I guess.

Well, completely off topic, sorta, I saw a pretty amusing road name out in Eastover when I was looking for that stupid DSS building that Google maps or any other map couldn’t direct me to. That one was named Chain Gang Road. I had a good laugh at that one. I kept expecting to see a row of inmates picking up trash or something with all of their legs attached by a long rusty chain, but I didn’t. I didn’t see anyone on that road. I was out in the middle of BFE.

Ok, back on topic, sorta.

We found the place without too much trouble, which was surprising because Phil only drew a map of the roads, but not which way to turn or which side of the street the restaurant was on. Men. 🙂 When we walked in I knew immediately that it was a fancier, more expensive restaurant than I would have chosen because I am such a penny pincher. The restaurant had a nice atmosphere. We were seated at once at a big booth and the waitress quickly brought us some Italian bread and ordered our drinks.

Phil ended up getting the special, which was an alfredo pasta with scallops, shrimps and an array of vegetables. I got another alfredo pasta dish with chicken and vegetables. We both ordered the 5 onion soup, which was excellent. I wish I knew how to make it. I could eat that everyday for a year.

After the bread and our soup, I started getting full. I have a very small stomach. I keep saying it is the size of one double cheeseburger from McDonald’s and a small drink. I was hoping that their servings would be small, but then I remembered that we were in America, and that that would not be the case. Sure enough, the waitress plopped down our food, and I knew instantly that I would not be able to eat it all. It tasted good, what I got to eat of it before my stomach exploded. We decided to get the rest to go. The waitress took our food and said that she would put it in a box for us. I thought that was a bit strange because usually we are brought the boxes and we have to transfer the food ourselves. “Maybe this is what they do in fancier restaurants,” I thought to myself.

We sat awhile and chatted and then we sat and chatted some more. About the time I started thinking that it was taking a long ass time to put our food in a box, this man came over and stood at our table. He looked like the manager.

“There has been an accident with your food,” he said.

“What kind of accident?” Phil and I asked at the same time.

“Well, your waitress sat it down for a second, turned her head, and when she turned back, it was gone. A bus boy was trying to help out and threw it away.”

“Threw it away?”

“Yes, and because we are so sorry that it happened, we want to give you a $10 gift card to make up for it.”

That was a nice gesture and all but the bill was $40 something and they threw out 3/4 of our food. I think we lost out somewhere. The waitress come over and apologized, and then quickly disappeared.

I’ve eaten at a lot of restaurants in my life, but I don’t think I have ever had the food I wanted to take home thrown away. Phil and I laughed it off, but it did sorta suck. That could have been our dinner tonight. That is how much was left over. Oh, well, I guess. At least we have enough money on that gift card to get some more of that 5 onion soup.

p.s. Phil wanted me to say that he has awesome internet.

About this time last year, I wrote a similar post about my blog visits exploding for no apparent reason. I usually average maybe 20 visits a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. This morning though, when I checked to see how many people had been coming to my blog recently, I was shocked to see my graph. I mean, look at it.

Usually, it is my page views that go crazy(as you can see), and that usually has to do with Phil tinkering with my blog. Phil didn’t tell me that he was tinkering, so I have no freaking idea why, on the 19th of March, my visits went from a normal 25 to a staggering 88. ShinyStat, because it is free, doesn’t give me a lot of information, so I really don’t know who exactly came to my blog and why. I don’t even know if they people that came stayed for point five seconds or if they stayed to see what my blog had to hold. If any one knows of a good, free, and accurate counter out there – I would appreciate it if you pointed me in the right direction.

Key word searches are always high for Fairly Odd Parents. Apparently, I have one of the only pictures of Mr. Crocker, and when any one looks for anything to do with the Fairly Odd Parents, it comes up in the images section. If I started writing about Fairly Odd Parents all the time, I imagine my blog would short circuit due to the amount of traffic I would receive.

Recently though, people have been having a field day looking up information on squatting toilets. It made me laugh when I read one of the key word searches – “what part of china have squat toilets”. I thought it would have been more appropriate if they had asked which part of China didn’t have squat toilets. Heh. 🙂

And I know that people look up weird stuff on the internet, but when I saw this key word search- “pictures of women mowing lawns” – I could only imagine what the person wanted to find. I don’t think the picture I have was what that person had in mind. At least, I don’t think it was.

Phil and I took a trip to Sesquicentennial State Park this past Sunday. The last time we were there, it was freezing outside, and a dog was swimming around in the lake trying to catch the geese minding their own business. He must have swam around for a half an hour trying to catch those geese before he gave up. For a while, I thought we were going to have to call the fire department to swim out and save the dog. It was a rather funny sight. It would have made one of those funny animal TV shows for sure.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures on Sunday. There wasn’t a whole lot to take pictures of really – just a lake, the geese, and the trees. Since I hardly ever put any pictures up anymore,(besides that of my baby plants) I thought I would put up at least the two that I took and liked. I wish the Downy Woodpecker that I saw had been closer to me. He was just too far away for my camera to properly focus on him. Maybe next time.

A lake side view.

A close up.

Another week, another set of pictures of my baby plants. This week, I actually have some pictures of the green pepper plants. I have no idea why it took them three weeks to sprout. It was only supposed to take about 7 days like all of the others. Of the 18 that we planted, about 14 of them are now visible. Phil’s watermelon seeds sprouted, too. I didn’t think that they would for some reason, but they proved me wrong. I can’t wait until the plants grow up and start yielding a crop.

Cucumbers

Week 3

Snow Peas

Week 3

Green Beans

Week 3

Tomatoes

Week 3

Cantaloupe

Week 3

Green Peppers

Week 3

Watermelon

Week 3

One day, while I was walking home from Yong Xing Middle School in Fuyang, China, a student(not mine, I don’t think) stroke up a broken English conversation with me. She asked me a few questions about America, how I liked China and if I spoke any Chinese. I had been practicing my Chinese for a while and was pretty sure that I could at least say that I was a teacher in Chinese.

I cleared my throat and said, “Wo shi laoshi.” (I think that is how you spell everything.)

Well, as soon as I had finished, the girl crinkled her nose, looked at me, and said, “You are a mouse?” I busted out laughing. I apparently hadn’t been practicing hard enough. 🙂

“No,” I said, “a teacher.”

“Oh,” she said, “laoshi.” She said laoshi very clear and slow, as though emphasizing the correct way to pronounce it.

Before long, we reached the Hangzhou bus station, and we said our goodbyes. I was surprised to find out that she lived in Hangzhou, and that she took the bus to school everyday. Hangzhou is about an hour away from Fuyang. I guess Yong Xing Middle School is just a really good school. I can’t think of any other logical reason a middle school student would travel that far.

A Friday or so ago, Phil and I decided not to go to Red Lobster(even though we had a free $25 gift card) and went to Captain D’s instead. I’m sure the service and food would have been better at Red Lobster, but I probably wouldn’t have gotten the laugh that I did. While standing in the rather long line, I read the following sentence on the daily special board and started laughing. You’ll probably only find it funny if you are a pervert like me. I really don’t try to be one – it just happens.

Happy Ending Fried Brownie or Fried Cheese Cake with Strawberry Topping $1.95

If you aren’t laughing, there is no need for me to go into detail about why that particular sentence made me chuckle. I don’t want to be the one to corrupt your mind. I’ll leave that to cable television, rated R movies, and the other perverts of the world. If you are laughing – I’m shaking my finger at you. : )

As you may have read in an earlier post, Phil and I decided to plant a garden. We planted some cucumbers, snow peas, green peppers, green beans, cantaloupes, and cherry tomatoes. All but the green peppers have sprouted and started to grow. I’ve read that green peppers can be hard to germinate. I may have to plant some more and put them on top of the frig until I see them busting through the soil. But for the ones that have done well, I’ve got pictures of their progress over the last two weeks.

Cucumbers

Week 1

Week 2

Snow Peas

Week 1

Week 2

Green Beans

Week 1

Week 2

Tomatoes

Week 1

Week 2

Cantaloupe

Week 2