Wedding Travels

In the past month, I've had the privilege of attending the weddings of a couple close friends. Luckily for me, they were in Edmonton, Alberta and in London, England, so I just had to travel. I love traveling. It's good for my soul-a time of rest and reflection, and of possibilities.

My friends Bob and Sarah got married in Edmonton at the end of April. I flew in the week before the wedding so that I could spend time with Sarah, and help out as much as I could. It was well worth it because I got to meet so many of Sarah's friends and family, and Bob's family too. It's one of the strange things about living on a boat with people (as I had with Bob and Sarah) is that you get to know them extremely well in a short period of time. Yet they are somewhat out of context-you know all about people's family and friends, but haven't met them. That was certainly remedied the week before Bob and Sarah's wedding.
I had a week before I flew out for the next wedding in England. Bexi and Jarod, also friends from the Next Wave, got married near London on 9 May. Which also happens to be my birthday. There were loads of other people that I knew from the boat at this wedding, so it was a matter of frantically scrambling to try and catch up with friends in one day. I still wish that the day had been just a little bit longer. While seeing friends at a wedding is a cause for celebration, it was still a bit melancholy, knowing that I would have to head home and leave the people that I love on a different continet. Luckily, I still had one more stop before home.
When searching for tickets to London, I managed to find some inexpensive ones that let me fly through Florida. Some more friends from my Youth with a Mission days live there, and I got to spend a couple nights with them. My time with them was full. Precisely what I need to be ready to go home. We went kayaking and sailing and did everything that we could think of for me to get acquainted with Florida. Perfect.
What wasn't quite so perfect was the end of my trip. I was supposed to fly from Tampa through Houston and to Seattle, but it ended up that I got stuck in Houston for a night, due to bad weather. I really didn't like that, but it worked out in the end. I arrived home in Seattle the next afternoon, had a good night's sleep and was back to work the next day!

Garden Friends

On Saturday morning, I finally decided to embrace the inevitable. Back when I was young and foolish (sixteen or seventeen), I decided to plant ivy in my garden. It was pretty, and looked very nice twining around some posts. But now, due to neglect and ivy's natural inclination, it had taken over about 15 square feet of garden space. It really had to go. So I got out the shovel, the pitchfork, clippers and gloves and went to work. An hour and two garbage bags full later, I had removed all that I could find. Some of the roots were three feet long and three quarters of an inch thick! If you're thinking about planting ivy, please, please reconsider! But it's gone, and I've got a lot of empty area. I'm not sure what I'm going to put there. I'd like to find some perennials that will not require too much care, but will still let me see the tulips and crocus that are still there. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Also, I found two welcome additions to my garden-a salamander and a toad! I hadn't seen a salamander in years, and if it's in my garden, it makes me happy to think that such a fragile creature could live there. I was happy to see the toad too, because he'll eat slugs for me! (Not that I normally eat them myself.)

They grew! or so I thought

This afternoon when I got home from work, I had the joy of being greeted by a plethora of leggy, growing seedlings. I thought that my hard work (mixing soil, putting in boxes, shoving seeds in the ground and adding water) had been rewarded! But as I looked a bit closer, I realized that none of the seedlings were where I had planted seeds. I'm guessing that this is the unfortunate result of using compost in my soil mix. But there was one tiny, verdant seedling bravely making its way in a world of strangers-it looks like we have a leek! (Hopefully)