Garden

I've always loved gardens. Growing up my mom was always planting things and growing fruits and veggies, and I dreamed of the day when I could have a garden of my own. I wanted be the girl in The Secret Garden and have a hidden place full of plants and flowers to escape to.

When we got our house, the backyard was a horrible mess, and there were weeds everywhere that were three feet tall. It took three days and lots of help to get it all cleaned out, and I was left with a blank canvas. Everything is still a work in progress, but here'a a tiny peek at what I've been up to.

One thing I've always enjoyed growing is food, so one of the first things I bought is a tomato plant, watermelon, and zucchini. The tomato and zucchini plants have been feeding us for a while now, while the watermelon plant has continued to get bigger... and bigger... and bigger. Today I went out to water it and found THIS! Our first watermelon!!



As we move across the yard to the dog run, you'll notice a hideous chain link fence. I cringe every time I see it, so I decided to put it to better use. I grew Morning Glorys and Moon Flowers in small cups in my kitchen, and when they were big enough, I planted them along the bottom of the fence. A couple weeks later, they are three feet tall and growing more each day! I can't wait for them to flower!!!



Another thing I always wanted to grow are Sunflowers. My grandma had read a story once about Sunflowers that came down from outer space and hugged people to death, so we weren't allowed to grow sunflowers when I was a kid. Naturally. So I thought I'd give it a shot. I grew these suckers from seeds and can't believe how big they are! I'm in the process of harvesting the seeds now, so unfortunately they're coming down soon. I don't know why I didn't remember that they like to face the sun or else I wouldn't have planted them where I did, but now when my creepy neighbor peeks over the wall, he'll see these peeking right at him.



In anticipation of the sunflowers coming down, I make a quick trip to the nursery to pick out some plants to replace it, and a plant to cover up more of the hideous chain link fence. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands dirty tomorrow.



I'll post more pictures as things progress, because right now, it's not very impressive. There's still an ugly wall there and I'm doing everything I can to get those plants to grow fast to hide it, but it'll take time. Until then, I'll keep enjoying my breakfast on the back patio and I'll keep you posted as plant life progesses!

Celebrity

This past weekend the husband and I went to the D23 Expo, which is like Comin-Con for Disney Fans. We saw the people who started Pixar, the people who do the voices for different attractions, and the people responsible for creating the new Cars Land for California Adventure. Being completely submersed in Disney, it really got me thinking about my days as a Disneyland Cast Member, and just how awesome it was.

Now I have a ton of Disney stories about working there, but lately one has come to mind that I still can't believe happened. When you're a ride operator (like I was), often times you get to load celebrities on the ride you are working on. I've met everyone from Blink 182, to Kelsey Grammar, Pierce Brosnan, Dakota Fanning, and even some royalty. But there is one who rose above the others.

I was working the Winnie The Pooh ride and it broke down, and it was going to be down for a loooong time, so I was sent to stand by an open part of the queue. An older couple in matching bright yellow Chitty Chitty Bang Bang jackets approached me and asked where the entrance to the line was. I told them the ride was down because there was a "honey spill." "A honey spill?" The man asked. "How did that happen?" So I continued by letting him know that Winnie the Pooh fell asleep while eating some honey and it spilled all over the place and the beehicles got stuck in it. So now we had to gather up Heffalumps and Woozles to steal all the honey so we can clean it up. The guy was more confused than ever and his wife just started laughing and told him it was a joke. He sighed with relief and said, "I was gonna say... I worked on the ride and I don't remember there ever being real honey." "You worked on the ride?" I asked, "What did you do?" "I wrote all the music," he said. Now I was confused. My mind was reeling trying to figure out who this guy was, and the more I looked at him, the more familiar he seemed.

We talked for a while about how their day was going and what was REALLY wrong with the ride. It was a Phase C Disagreement at Zone 1A. Not as fun as a honey spill. At one point the woman introduced them as Richard and Elizabeth Sherman. It still didn't register with me. They joked around about calling Bruce Gordan and when they did, I figured it out. Richard Sherman and his brother Robert wrote all the famous Disney songs that we know today. They wrote all the music for Mary Poppins, It's A Small World, Jungle Book, The Sword in the Stone, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, of course, Winnie the Pooh, and countless others.

As Richard stood there talking the Bruce Gordan (who was the Imagineer who worked on Winnie the Pooh) my heart started racing. My mind flashed back to all the Disney special's I've watched and all the books I've read that feature the Sherman Brothers. And now, there he is on the phone in front of me telling a top guy at Disney how funny I was telling him about a honey spill. When he got off the phone I shook his hand again and told him it was truly an honor meeting him and the ride was open again and he was free to go through the exit and get right on.

It was a moment I had with a Disney Legend that I will never forget.

The Sherman Brothers with Walt Disney, (Richard is sitting at the piano.)


Richard Sherman just days after I met him. He was in town for s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang event.

Fish

It's that time again! It's time for me to give you another list of reasons why you shouldn't swim in the ocean! Many of you know that I have a pretty strong case of Ichthyophobia, which is a fear of fish. When I Googled the word, this picture came up.



Can you imagine swimming in that? I frequently have reoccuring nightmares that involve being trapped in the water surrounded by something like that, and the thought of it gives me chills.

Anyway, lets begin. I'll start off light with this one.

Sea Dragon:


Many of you probably look at this and think, "Awwww how cute! It's like a sea horse!" But to me, it's something I pick out of the water thinking it's seaweed, then to my horror it starts wiggling around and squirming, and the next thing you know it's caught in my hair dying and I have to touch it to get it out but it dies and then I have a dead sea creature stuck in my hair.

My next examples are in honor of shark week.(Even though it was a few weeks ago).

Whale Shark:


LOOK AT THAT THING!!! It could swallow you whole! WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO SWIM WITH SOMETHING THAT CAN SWALLOW YOU WHOLE?!?!? Unless of course... you're at Disneyland.



Megamouth Shark:


This is a rare shark... but there has been one spotted at a beach fairly close to the one I go to. NOOOOOO THANK YOU. It's similar to the Megamouth Shark because it opens up it's mouth really wide and swallows fish whole. It hangs out along the bottom of the ocean during the day, and comes closer to the top at night. Can you imagine swimming around at night and having this thing brush up against you? Terrible.

And last but not least....

Goblin Shark:


This is the rarest of all. It's been spotted near Japan, but I don't care how far away it is. It lives in water, and we swim in water. Enough said.

And there you have it! More reasons not to swim in the Ocean! Time to go ride my bike!

Surprises

I absolutely LOVE surprises. Getting flowers at work, coming home to a clean house, a surprise musical number in the middle of a movie or a surprise ending, and of course the best surprise ever, the night my husband proposed to me.

However, not all surprises are good. Like discovering a gas leak in the attic, a dead bird in your dog's mouth, or finding out that the awesome new nail polish you bought is Justin Beiber nail polish. Yeah... that happened. Today was no exception when it cames to bad surprises. I went on a hike and was VERY surprised when my ankle felt like it was on fire mid step. My first reaction is that I was bit by a snake, but on closer inspection it was a tiny red dot. Man oh man did it hurt. I've never been stung so I was pretty freaked, especially since I was two miles up a hill, and I have family members who are allergic to stings. But I made it down the hill safe and sound and the swelling went down and the pain went away.

When I got home, I was greeted with a good surprise.



It turns out that the tree I've been dying to cut down out front turns a beautiful shade of pink in the summer! It really made my day. Then I spent the rest of the morning in the backyard working in my garden which is coming along GREAT!

Post on that coming soon!

Invaders

When we first moved into the house, something strange happened after the first month. We had an infestation of some unwanted critters in our front planter. Gnomes.



First there was one, and I didn't mention it because I was pretty sure it was the husband playing a trick on me. A couple weeks later, there were two... then there were THREE. For a while they were moving around too, peaking out from behind plants and walls, then they came together as if they were having a meeting. We approached my parents about it because it seems like something they would do, but they swore they didn't do it.

Then one day, they stopped moving. That was a month ago.



I put them together in our planter where I can see their cute little faces each day, but today, something happened. One of them moved again...



Poor little guy... wedged between a rock and the house... so far away from his little buddies. WHO DID THIS?!?! Although it's all still pretty funny to me, it creeps me out that someone was in our planter so close to our window. Maybe it's our crazy neighbor...

But whoever you are, thanks for the laughs. :)

Update

Yesterday I posted about my crazy neighbor(s) (see the post below) and I promised to keep you updated. Are you astounded that I have an update for you already?!?!

Remember the creep who watched me mow the lawn in my short shorts? Well he did some more creeping today. This time I made sure to wear less revealing clothes, and as I was watering the planter, there was that all too familiar, "Hi neighbor." I looked up and there he was. Turns out he's the caretaker for the wheelchair bound man that lives behind us, and he is also in charge of watering the guys plants. So now I feel guilty for calling him creepy. Kinda. He offered again to help me mow the lawn, and I turned him down and went out front where the real action was.

The screams from the crazy girl's house were MUCH louder than the night before, and that's what drew me out front in the first place. There was a car outside her house with a guy behind the wheel, and it looked like he was waiting for someone. From inside her house I hear "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT YOU A**HOLE! YOU'RE GONNA GET ARRESTED! GEEEEET OOOOOOOOOUT!" Then there were some REALLY loud crashes countined by more screams. This went on for quite a while, and by the time I finished spraying for bugs out front, I finally saw a guy come out of the house and get into the waiting car. The girl was still screaming and throwing stuff and the guy laughed and said, "Do you hear her?" to his buddy and they drove off.

Seriously, you can't make stuff like this up. I will continue to keep you posted as more craziness ensues.

But if you're like me and you prefer looking at pictures rather than reading, check out how great my lawn looked after I mowed it!

Neighbors

Our biggest fear when moving into our house is whether or not the neighbors would like us... or even worse... would we like them?

Less than 24 hours of us living there, we got a note complaining about our dogs, so we weren't off to a great start. However, we knew we couldn't avoid meeting them for too long, so we dove right in. Our neighbors who we share a driveway with have turned out to be the most incredible people. They're funny, SUPER nice, and always willing to help us out if we need it. They've even invited us to Angel games! We love them. (And when we asked about the note, they assured us that it wasn't them.)

Our neighbors on the other side brought over some baked goodies as a neighborhood welcome, and it turns out they're pretty nice too. We don't see them very often, but they assured us that they didn't write the note either. In fact, it's been three months and we still have no idea who wrote it.

Anyway... just yesterday I was in the backyard mowing the lawn in shorts that were too short to wear in the front yard. Hey, no one can see me in my backyard right? So I'm huffing and puffing and pushing this damn mower when suddenly our little dog Cherry starts barking like crazy. I look up and the neighbor behind us (who we've never met) is leaning over the wall watching me. He waved, and I waved back awkwardly after adjusting my "too short shorts," and he continued to stand there staring at me. Finally he went away after a few seconds and I continued on my way, but I noticed he kept peeking over the wall every now and then like a creep. When I was finished I put the mower away and went to work on our planter, when suddenly I hear, "Hi neighbor." I screamed and dropped my clippers and the dog started going nuts again. I looked up and there was Mr. Creepy leaning over the wall staring at me again. "I noticed you're mowing your lawn," he said. "Need any help?" I told him I was good, but thank you, and he slithered away. The best part about this story? I am off the hook when it comes to mowing the lawn now. Yay!

So the day continues on, I go to work, and when I get home (around 12:38am), I do my usual check for wild animals and get out of the car. As I'm walking to the front door, I hear a woman screaming. Now we've been warned about the 20-something that lives a couple doors down. Apparently she goes on binges and screams about the floor moving, and people trying to kill her dog, and whenever she gets a car the damage to it gets worse and worse each day. When we moved in, she crashed into her garage door a week later. All in all, she's crazy. So I hear the screaming, and I keep listening to make sure it's not something I should be sure concerned about. I know she has a boyfriend who rides his bike over there late at night (and I know this because I've almost run him over twice), so I was listening to make sure he wasn't beating her or anything. Whatever was going on over there, she was certainly winning the fight, and when it got quiet I went inside and went to bed.

This morning, I go outside to water the plants, and I see that our crazy neighbor has moved her car into the driveway. I don't know how she did it because two of her tires has been slashed. I also noticed that her gas tank was open, and the cap was missing. Someone either sucked all the gas out, or filled the tank with something. The car also looked like someone took a bat to it, but then again, it's looked like that for the past month.

I can't wait to see what shape the car will be in tonight!