the giraffe life

We are slowly easing into summer time temperatures around here. It was 80° (27° C) on Monday, then cooled back off, and only a high of 56° (13°) yesterday. I've started checking the forecast in California too (three more weeks!), and wow, San Diego has some of the most consistent weather I've ever seen: Nothing new to cross off this month, but all's well. We are still working steadily on our savings goal and finding a book to read together ( Beedle the Bard didn't pan out).  This month wasn't anything special in the solo reading department either. I only read 4 books, partially because we started watched Modern Family, and partially because nothing really grabbed me. Everything was just okay.  I'm ready for June!

The title says it all. This is what happens when I sit outside for too long. Thankfully we have a cat-proof pet screen so she didn't mess anything up with her antics. I'm actually impressed by her climbing - it took a few tries, but she can go up and down quite well now. linking up for wordless Wednesday And I promise, no animal pictures in Friday's post!

That's a silly question, right? But I found one in my cereal bowl earlier . . I don't see many spiders inside the house and this is a pretty big one (laugh away if you live in Australia ) so I thought I'd snap a photo. And no worries about the spider's safety. I took it outside after I took its picture. :) Do you see many spiders?

My grandmother did a lot of traveling when she first retired. I was in middle school and high school for her most active travel years and couldn't travel with her, but I always had her postcards to look forward to. It was a little peek into what she was doing and kept us connected. I loved that she sent postcards addressed just to me (it made me feel so special). She also wrote postcards to everyone else in the family - but you could tell who she was writing to because she would pick out cards and write her message specifically for that person.  Mr. G and I travel infrequently compared to my grandma's whirlwind, but I keep up the postcard tradition and send at least one to everyone I'm close with at some point during every trip. I know a text message would be quicker (and cheaper) but there's something cool about receiving actual mail from a faraway land, right? :) In that spirit, I'd like to offer to send you a postcard while I'm in California next mo

My husband wanted to go to Cabela's (a store for camping/hunting/outdoorsy stuff) over the weekend and I didn't really feel like tagging along. I'm not a fan of guns/hunting in general, and while I've been camping plenty of times, day trips or spending the night in a cabin are more fun for me.  But he likes it when I come along so I joined him.  And I had a good time.  There, I said it! :) Things started out on the right foot when we walked in the door and were offered glazed doughnuts (my favorite!). Then we saw the huge fish tanks, which I enjoyed. The women's clothing section had some cute stuff (I bought a new dress ). And the final tipping point was when we found two comfy chairs (they recline!) for our porch:   SOLD. Yes, I was hesitant to go - but it turned out to be a lovely time with my hubby. Glad I went! :)

It's hard to believe that my garden bed looked like this a couple months ago . . But now it's looking pretty good.  We decided to build another bed this year in hopes of growing more plants in general, but also adding some perennials like strawberries. I'm so grateful to Mr. G for building it for me! He bought three 8 foot long boards (2.4 meters), cut one in half, and screwed them together like a giant frame. It's a good size for me because I still have easy access to the middle. He finished right after Easter, so I planted the strawberries and potatoes then, and got around to all the seeds this past weekend since we have officially passed our last frost date! :) (I'm taking pictures from the opposite angle this year so the compost bin won't get in the way.) And somewhat related to gardening, we gave Mr. G's mom a flower pot full of annuals for Mother's Day. Hopefully she enjoys them! Are you planting a garden this year? 

Sometimes I shy away from recipes with unfamiliar ingredients because I don't want to waste time or money on something gross. But this Hello Fresh recipe tempted me because the new ingredient was just a type of cheese. Grilling cheese to be exact. I'm so glad I took a chance on this one because it's delicious.  You cube the cheese and pan fry it, so it has a slight crust on the outside and remains gooey on the inside. Mmm!  It also calls for sprinkling pumpkin seeds over the top (which I never would've thought to add to a pasta dish), and I loved it. Adds a nice crunch :) Hello Fresh says the recipe serves 2, but we each ate this for dinner, plus I got a lunch out of it. If you try it, let me know what you think! :) Do you like to cook with new foods? linking up here and here

I talked about the Pedometer Challenge my work is sponsoring a few weeks ago, and since all I had to share at that time was baseline information - I figured I was due for an update. :) I've been doing well increasing my steps each week (although I still haven't quite made it to the mystical 10,000 steps). Thankfully other activities count as well, like cooking, cleaning, and yoga, which boosts my totals. My work also posts the participants' weekly averages in the break room, and looking those over while my lunch is heating up has encouraged me to walk several times when I didn't feel like it. Mr. G is having a tougher time improving his totals and we've talked about it a few times. He thinks the challenges have been easier for him when they're offered by his work because then there's a group of guys in his division that walk together for the second half of their lunch break and during their shorter breaks as well. I think he's not giving himself e

My mom's birthday was close to Easter this year, so when I set out to make her birthday cake, I thought a duck-shaped one would be cute and festive. The pan was a little difficult to work with, but Mr. G and I didn't have any major issues until he tried to take the cake out of the pan. He whacked the back of the pan and the head flew out! In an effort to attach the head back to the body, I used some of the icing as a glue (I added extra powdered sugar, but it still came out runny). Unfortunately, it just ran down the front and back of the duck's body. So I accepted defeat and poured the rest of the icing on the duck. At least it looks like I did it on purpose, right? Maybe this duck prefers to swim in yellow ponds? haha My mom got a great laugh out of this whole experience. :)  Once the icing hardened, the cake was almost like a doughnut - light and fluffy inside, but with a hard shell of icing outside, so all was well. And tasty!  Click here if you'd like to

My local library saves me a ton of money! Since I stopped buying books in 2012, I've checked out and read 142. So I'd estimate the library has saved me about $1500 (minus 75¢ in late fees :) ) just in the past two years, and who knows how much in my lifetime. In return, a while back I decided to volunteer my time. But I make a terrible volunteer. I was told to move the biographies from one set of shelves to another, which of course meant looking at every volume, carrying it across the library, and then reshelving, making sure all the books were in the proper order. And that led to me studying each spine, wondering who the person was, briefly paging through to see if there were any interesting photographs, filling a piece of scrap paper with names of people to google, and setting aside biographies I wanted to check out immediately.  About an hour later when I had only managed to move about a hundred books (and had reached my checkout limit of 20), the librarian graciously sa

As much as I enjoy the cold, crisp air of winter, and the scenes of snow . . this in between time might just be my favorite time of year. Not too hot and not too cold. Plants waking up but not too many pesky weeds. Just lovely. This month I accomplished two of my 2014 goals so I made this handy dandy list in PowerPoint so I can cross them off as the year goes on.  Now, on to the details!  The mortgage:  I took on a temporary responsibility at work, which at first was only supposed to be one additional hour per week, but morphed into an extra seven hours! Thankfully I'm being paid for my time, and that unexpected money went to the mortgage for May, helping us pass the $2k mark. I still plan on putting extra toward the mortgage, just not as much as we have been.  My degree:   My projects were graded and I passed, so it's official - I'm finished! (Thank goodness because we already celebrated , haha). Reading:  This month I read a good bit . . 6 books! I'