Green thumb

Have I mentioned that Brian and I plant flowers on our balcony every year? For two years now we carefully selected the most brightly colored flowers, planted them and cared for them with love, and encouraged them to grow into all they could be. This year and last year our flowers died before August. I suppose we are missing our green thumb. R.I.P. balcony garden.

This year we planted beautiful cherry colored and white Impatiens.

After our vacation, this is what we returned to. Apparently this is what they meant when they said Impatiens don't do well in direct sun light. I guess the heat wave didn't help either. Oops. 

Last year we planted gorgeous Pansies! While I don't have a graphic picture to show you their demise, let's just say a bunch of determined bugs got to them and destroyed them. 

Looking forward to next year when hopefully our flowers last more than 2 months!

Back to work blues

Brian and I had the past week off from work and enjoyed the opportunity to tour the great Garden State. NJ truly has a lot to offer us and since we're saving for the wedding, spending time off close to home was an attractive option to both of us.

In the past week we...

...gambled at "America's Playground" otherwise known as Atlantic City. I found myself quite addicted to the Sex and the City slot machines. I could find the quickest route in the casino between all the machines which had Brian quite amused. Apparently though Brian and I do not look old enough to gamble since we were asked for ID an absurd amount of times.

...enjoyed the fabulous food and accommodations at the Borgata. I savored each bite of every single meal and could have set up camp in the shower there.

...relaxed on the beaches of Brigantine. Typically, I don't go to any beach but Belmar in NJ, but "Brig" as the locals call it, was very calm and peaceful.

...sweat our buns off on the beaches of Belmar. I had to get to Belmar at one point during our vacation! Mom and I headed there Thursday while Brian and my dad, his future father-in-law (so strange) fished with my uncle. On Friday my dad, Brian and I headed there for about 2 hours before I finally called it quits. The sand actually burned your feet so I decided an ice cold Arnold Palmer and "tropicali" cuisine at Fin's was a better option.

All in all I  had a fabulous week off with Brian by my side. Back to the grind tomorrow, my friend.

An excerpt from Committed

This afternoon on the beach, I read a single paragraph in Elizabeth Gilbert's novel Committed that truly hit me. It was so good it made me stop reading to pass the book on to Brian so he could read it too.


"The poet Jack Gilbert (no relation, sadly for me) wrote that marriage is what happens 'between the memorable.' He said that we often look back on our marriages years later, perhaps after one spouse has died, and all we can recall are 'the vacations, and emergencies' --the high points and the low points. The rest of it blends into a blurry sort of daily sameness. But it is that very blurred sameness, the poet argues, that comprises marriage. Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousand indistinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel. How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody--so utterly well known and so thoroughly ever-present that you become almost an invisible necessity, like air?"