Graduation…

My daughter has let me know that I’m being remiss by not blogging about her graduation. Since I blogged about the veggie garden instead, I guess that makes me a bad parent =-).

Anyhow…I did want to tell everyone about the graduation experience.

Bella graduated (kind of) on April 30th. Due to the fact that her major program changed requirements in the middle of her getting her degree and also that Bella was getting a dual major; she was not going to be finished in time to walk in the April graduation. That really wouldn’t have been much of a problem except that Faulkner has gone to one graduation ceremony a year. Bella (and several others in her class) were offered the opportunity to go ahead and walk in the ceremony, and then finish us the few classes left in the summer term.

So, Bella walked!

That morning there was the usual chaos that seems to accompany every family gathering. Bella needed to be there about an hour early so we determined that Bella, Joey, and I would go ahead early: Bella to get placed in line, and Joey and I to save seats.

I couldn’t figure out where to park when we got there so I rolled the dice and took a chance by parking at a meter right across the street from the Renaissance Hotel where the ceremony was to be held.

Joey and I found some great seats and staked them out. Bella went to do her thing. Bud was tasked with picking up his parents and bringing them. Unfortunately, they weren’t ready until 20 minutes before the ceremony. To say Bud was a little stressed would be an understatement.

The music started for the graduates to walk in and, you guessed it, no Bud. Joey was also missing as he had gone to find Bud and the grandparents to show them where we were seated.

The line of graduates walked right by us (including Bella) and she was wondering (of course) where everyone was. They were waiting at the door as they couldn’t come in until all the graduates had walked by.

Finally, everyone was seated and the graduation ceremony begin. It was your usual ceremony with Bobby Bright as the commencement speaker (don’t ask).

Finally it was time for Bella to be called! She was and they even pronounced her whole name correctly (even though they only listed one of her two majors). She even made it across without tripping!

The rest of the day was spent in rivalry and just spending time with the family.

Bella is currently taking two independent studies in Psychology and one class in Constitutional Government and will be awarded her diploma in July or August!

I’m so proud of my college graduate!!!

Still Growing…

For someone who hated even the thought of yardwork or gardening, I’ve now been working on my veggie garden for about 3-4 weeks and I LOVE it. I have also started learning a lot about what to do and NOT to do. All the plants have been growing by leaps and bounds. They especially seem to like this hot weather we have been having lately. I even had to go buy a few more cheap planters and transplant the tomatoes so they could really start to spread out.

I also learned that strawberries like LOTS of light. The topsy-turvey for the strawberries started out on the porch. I finally figured out they were dying one by one because they weren’t getting near enough light. So I moved the remaining ones (3 plants) to hanging off the fence near the rest of the garden and they seem to be doing much better.

We used seeds to plant celery and I’m pretty sure we planted way too much in a small place. They are just now coming out so I might need to cull some out before too long.

The squash is also growing like crazy. I have a bunch of plants at this point and no produce yet, but I think that’s exactly where everything should be at this point.  Several of the plants did start flowering this weekend so I’m taking that as a good sign.