Desk Flowers Brightening My Day

The grocery store in Elmvale recently had a super deal on mini roses, $2 per plant. We noticed the deal one night and conservatively bought three. The next night we went back and bought eight more, pretty much buying the remainder of their stock. On the weekend we noticed more roses and impulse bought our twelfth one. The cashier said: "They are such a great deal! And you are only getting one?" We told her we already had eleven at home! We planted most of them outdoors, but we kept a few inside and a red one sits on my desk. I love it!

Last week John was out weeding the flowerbeds and cleaning up the backyard and he came back in with a home grown bouquet. Lilacs and Narcissus made my desk smell great all week, and periodically I put my nose right into the lilac. I love that smell.

Do you keep any plants or flowers on your desk? If so, what kind?

ARKYD Space Telescope: I Pledged Money To My First Crowd Funding Campaign!

So in recent months I have amped up my obsession with space. When I was kid we had all the awesome coffee table astronomy books that got us interested in space and science. I can't remember all the titles, but Our Universe is one that stands out in my mind. My dad always made sure we had interesting and educational books to read, something I am forever thankful for.

My renewed interest in space was triggered when the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars last August, and kicked into high gear as I followed all of Commander Hadfield's awesomeness in space. I'm following many NASA and science related Twitter feeds, and while surfing Twitter last week I learned about a Kickstarter campaign to crowd fund a space telescope that can be accessed by the people who fund it. People can also donate their telescope access to schools. How cool is that?

This is the ARKYD Kickstarter campaign video with details about the project:



Check out the Kickstarter Campaign Page here: ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone by Planetary Resources. At time of this posting the campaign had already raised close to $800,000 of their $1,000,000 funding goal.

Bad Astronomer wrote a great description of the telescope and the campaign if you want a more detailed version of what it is all about.

I kicked in $25 which allows me to use the telescope to get a selfie from space. When prompted, I will upload a photo that will be displayed on a screen on the telescope, and then a camera on the telescope will take a picture of my picture with Earth in the background! I think that sounds so cool! I thought $25 sounded pretty cheap to get a photo of myself from space, so I donated! The photos aren't expected to be taken/delivered until August 2015, but I imagine it will be worth the wait. My major dilemma now is picking what photo to send to space. How will I choose?

Here are some examples of what a selfie from space could look like, as featured on the ARKYD Kickstarter page:

Illustrations by PRI

And here is a badly doctored version of what my selfie from space could look like if I submitted a photo of Gary:

Illustration by PRI (featuring Gary selfie)

This was my first time pledging money to a crowd funding campaign. It was really easy to do (Kickstarter just connects to your Amazon account) and I have already gotten three updates about the project so I actually feel involved. It has been a really neat experience so far with much more to come.

Homemade Panzerottos

On our meal plan we have homemade pizza once a week. It is quick, fun to make, and we have perfected our pizza making skills so it is guaranteed to satisfy. I'm not sure how we got to thinking about panzerottos but the idea got into our heads and we knew we had to make them. We didn't really follow a recipe, we just made our usual bread maker pizza dough and hoped it would work out! Wonderfully, panzerottos are as easy to make as pizza (just a few extra steps) so we are definitely adding them to the meal plan rotation.

We made our pizza dough in the bread maker and sectioned it into four equally sized balls.

Next, we pressed each ball out thinly to form a circle.

Then we piled on the toppings! This one was mine and it had sauce, seasonings, spinach, hot peppers, green olives, mushrooms, and a mozzarella/old cheddar blend of cheese.

We folded them over and pressed the edges securely together. The first one was tricky, but by the third one we were pros! They all held together surprisingly well. We put them in the oven at 375°F for 25 minutes.

They looked and tasted amazing! I can't wait to make them again!

30 X 30 Challenge

For the month of May, The David Suzuki Foundation promoted something called the 30x30 challenge: spend 30 minutes in nature for 30 days in a row.



I didn't hear about the challenge until mid-May, and I spent most of the month being cranky about the cold and rain, so I missed out on the formal challenge, but have decided to do it on my own in June. Spending time outdoors is important to me, but I'm sometimes too much of a procrastinator to actually get off the couch and go outside. So I am setting this goal so I will actually do it. After the winter we just had, I want to ensure I make the most of the summer weather.

Yesterday was day one, and even though it rained for much of it, I sat outside for twenty minutes in the morning (driven back inside by showers), and another ten minutes during a sunny break in the afternoon. I didn't do anything crazy while I was out there, I just sat in the backyard reading. It was calm and nice. On days when I'm not fearing a sudden downpour, I plan to spend my 30 minutes (or more) walking around and getting some exercise too. Should be fun. 

The only thing I'm worried about with this challenge is the weather. What if it rains all day? Hopefully I can do what I did yesterday and find the small breaks, even if it is just minutes at a time. 

Better get out there.

June Blogging Goals!

Holy crap it is June! I had been complaining about the prolonged winter so much that June sort of snuck up on me. June means almost half the year is gone, and that fact is forcing me to check in with myself and make sure I'm on track with where I want to be.

Earlier this year I changed my blog around and got more social with it. I am really happy to have new blog followers and new friends on Twitter and Google+; it has been great to meet everyone. Because blogging is what this is all about, I want to motivate myself to do it more, and my plan for June is to blog every single day. Goal set!

I love blogging, but I'm often too much of a procrastinator to sit at the computer and actually write. So I'm setting myself a real live goal! Thirty days in June = thirty blog posts. I got inspired recently by Ivy over at The Happy Whisk, who set herself a goal and awesomely blogged 36 times in May. Holy crap that is a lot of blog posts! Even when she was tired she did it anyway. That is my plan too!!

To help me reach my goal, I printed out a calendar for June and wrote in potential blog ideas for all thirty days. I am so proud of myself for getting organized and am really excited to post some things I have neglected. I even went through my Blogger drafts folder and found twenty posts in there! Some of them were just titles with no content, but some were actually real posts that just didn't get finished or edited or posted for whatever reason. This 30 day blog challenge will encourage me to get writing, get editing, and get posting!

Also, if I reach my blogging goal, at the end of June I will have over 300 posts on this here blog. And June 2013 will mark the most posts that I have ever written in one month. How cool will that be?!

So please join me over the next 30 days as I chew bubblegum and kick ass* through this Blogging Quest of Awesome!


*I'm all out of bubblegum