Plants, Pasta and a Little Q&A...

I thinking this insect poster would be perfect for above Audrey's bed, no?

Audrey is petrified of bugs.

Understandable when it comes to spiders and fire ants and whatnot, but the child is scared of the harmless ones too...the mere sight of a moth or a gnat sends her over the edge. It's really quite something. But her fear is tempered with a sort of fascination. Yesterday Bryan got stung multiple times by a wasp, and after it was dead, she insisted he put it in a jar so she could examine it all day.

They broke the mold with that kid, I'm telling you.

Needless to say, Audrey's bug phobia makes our current efforts to do a little backyard gardening a smidge challenging... One of the things I miss the most from our last house is the little greenhouse we had in the backyard. Our current home is surrounded by rather large trees, which is amazing for all sorts of reasons, but not so good for gardening. There isn't a single perfect (sunny enough) spot for raised beds, so we end up planting a few container "gardens" in strategic bright spots around the yard instead.

This year we have tomatoes, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries, and we're staring to see some progress...the girlies are loving it -- that is when the yard is bug free. So really Millie and Bryan and I are loving it.

Oh and my peonies are getting close to blooming which is awfully fun too!

In other news around the blogosphere, the lovely Jenn asked me to contribute a photo to her "what are you eating" post last week...you can see my orecchiette with sausage, asparagus and spinach* here.

+ the incredibly kind Alisa asked me to contribute my "happy things" over on her fantastic blog a pina colada... in case you want to take a peek ;-)

Thanks for having me ladies!

* p.s. -- orecchiette with sausage, asparagus and spinach recipe here...