The First Radish! + a Money Tree Update

As I was in the fresh air yesterday to get away from the paint fumes, I checked on my garden. The radishes have begun to look robust and voluptuous, positively pushing themselves out of the ground, so I harvested one of them, perhaps a bit early, since it was about the size of my thumb, but ripe enough to eat. I was tempted to down it right then and there, but I stopped myself because of the dirt. A quick rinse later, I ate the whole thing, stringy little roots to fresh, spiny leaves. It was superb. I'm not kidding -- anything homegrown is always surprisingly delicious.

Remember the dead money tree which stayed dead despite my counterintuitive decapitating of it? Well, guess what I got on my front porch today, all the way from China? (Not literally -- it was grown in Mississippi, but the order was from China!)

A new money tree from my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece! They do live in China. This was so thoughtful and kind of them, and provides evidence that they are tracking my blogposts! I love and miss you guys so much! Grateful!

What do you think of the new paint color I chose for the kitchen/sitting room? I was trying to be more modern, less radical. It's actually close to the old color, but lighter and more grey -- neutral. My daughter says it looks exactly the same as the old color. 

Scattered Odds-n-Ends {Hoarder Edition}

I've been in a "shedding" season of late, which is odd for a "waste-not-want-not" kind of gal (hoarder). Yep, it seems I've inherited a tad of my sweet Mom's hoarding tendency. This likely sounds much worse than it is -- neither Mom and Dad's home nor mine looks anything like the homes on the TLC hoarding show, but recent life events have illustrated all too well that I'll need to make an effort to un-hoard.

What life events? Well there's the water damage for starters. One day I noticed drip marks on the wall of the sitting room off the kitchen, then after days and days of rain, I noticed a big wet spot on the ceiling and wall. This is covered by insurance after we pay a deductible, but it'll be more than just a small corner repair. The paint has to match what's there already, and it doesn't after 13 years, so I got to choose a new paint color (yay!) and the whole kitchen and sitting area will be painted. Where am I going with this? (can you tell shedding season leaves me scattered?) I had to move everything out of these two rooms. The items filled the guest room and the dining room! Yikes -- how and when did this happen? With 13 years in one place, the accumulation was so gradual, I didn't notice.

So I am shedding -- anything we don't need, anything I don't like, anything broken, duplicates. Sorting -- consignment, donation, trash -- it's very unsettling -- hence my "scattered" odds-n-ends today.

After moving the items out of the rooms and before the painters covered everything with plastic, I made  this for breakfast:

Avo-Toast from Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Kitchen. It's one of those "why didn't I thinka' that?" recipes -- so simple. You can use any bread, I used Eziekiel. Kris has a video where she learns to squeeze a ripe avocado -- no cutting or peeling -- just slice it in half and squeeze the darn thing. Again, why didn't I thinka' that? It takes one second. You then squeeze half a lime over it and top with pepper. Kris' recipe calls for pepper flakes, but I am having a love affair with chipotle powder lately (smoky and deep!), so avo-toast became an apt vehicle for it. This was a lovely start to my home-improvement day. I highly recommend Kris' books.

In other news, I'm loving the micro-greens I'm growing in pots around my garden. They are so fresh, tender, delicious and ALIVE! So far the pots have daunted the marauding garden critters.

Following up on the "plant rehab" attempts from my earlier post, I've determined the bamboo "money tree" is truly dead as a doornail and since I don't need that kind of financial karma, it is now with the other detritus being shed. My exciting avocado tree experiment is over. I decided I wasn't quite sure which way was up (is that a root or a sprout?) After trying it both ways, the confused pit stopped doing anything. Who could blame it? So I'm hoping it grows happily in a landfill somewhere, far from me, its clueless tender.

Finally, I'll wrap up this edition of Odds-n-Ends with something unrelated to being vegan or any part of the life of this midlife vegan+.  This just gave me a fit of giggles, and I hope it does the same for you. Laughter is good for you.